PROMOTERS OF the lay Catholic-driven “We Are Church” referendum still hope to get 1 million of America's 60 million Catholics to sign a petition for “reform” and present it to the Vatican.
To move them along, organizers took advantage of 5,000 people attending a mid-November Call to Action conference in Detroit. There, signature referendums found new support, but whether that will translate into 1 million signatures by this May is doubtful.
“We need even more if we are going to reach this crescendo of a million voices from across the United States,” said Sister Maureen Fiedler SL, the referendum's national coordinator, in a speech at Detroit's Cobo Hall. “We're not creating a Church in our own image. We're trying to create a Church of the Gospel.” Other speakers included dismissed French Bishop Jacques Gaillot and German theologian Hans Kung.
The initiative was launched last Pentecost and will come to a close on Pentecost next year. It was started by a host of lay Catholic reform organizations that seek a number of changes in Church policies, including the ordination of women, optional celibacy for priests, married clergy, relaxed rules on birth control and other sexual matters, Church recognition of homosexuality, etc.
NCCB president and Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla last May appealed “to the leaders of this referendum to not create new divisions in our ecclesial family by continued challenges to the teachings and authority of the Church that has nurtured the faith of us all.”
Sister Fiedler said the referendum's promoters, like herself and others who have spent years advocating women's ordination, see the referendum document as “the rough draft of an agenda for the Third Vatican Council.”
“However, it's not a council like Vatican II that we have in mind. What we have in mind is not a meeting of just bishops, but rather a council of the whole people of God, the whole people of the Church. Folks like us are going to be involved.”
Regarding the referendum's call for women priests, Sister Fiedler said, “priesthood includes the office of bishop.” Someone from the audience yelled out, “Pope too.” Sister Fiedler replied: “Right, Pope too. I dare say some of us would probably assume the office long enough to abolish it. Or at least transform it significantly into something that really looks like a democratic mode of operation.”
Referendum supporters cited retired San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn's Oxford University lecture, calling for more dialogue, and Cardinal Bernardin's creation of the Common Ground project as evidence that their efforts are part of a general trend. But neither prelate specifically mentioned the We Are Church referendum. In fact, referendum promoters complained publicly that they were not invited to be on the Common Ground advisory committee.
Some bishops interviewed by the Register at the November meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) seemed unenthused about the signature drive. A Pennsylvania bishop said it seemed so uninteresting that it wasn't worth comment.
Bishop William Houck of Jackson, Miss. said the referendum doesn't promote vocation awareness within current guidelines, “in the context of the present teaching of the Church, in the present Church discipline.”
“We're faithful to the Church,” Bishop Houck said, “No, it's not easy. It has never been easy.” He said the referendum's call for married clergy creates a host of problems, like the remuneration of priests who are married and will have families-large ones if they choose. “But celibacy-the willingness to give up a family life, a wife and children in order to serve God completely and fully,” the bishop said, “that's something the Church holds as a value.”
A referendum movement, said Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn, N.Y., is not a “major threat” and doesn't affect parish volunteers concerned with issues like fostering vocations, keeping the sacristy clean and paying rectory light bills. “I think our people are trying to do their best.”
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., who last spring threatened Call to Action members with excommunication, is not impressed. He cited the 88,000 Catholics in his diocese, their 152 priests as well as the 45 seminarians in his See. “And I'm ordaining eight priests next year,” he said.
Sister Fiedler said:"We cannot be silent in the face of the multiple human rights crises facing our Church; the bitter and unyielding discrimination against women. The closing of parishes because the hierarchy refuses to expand its definition and its vision of priesthood. The guilt that's laid on Catholic couples after they have wrestled in conscience and made difficult decisions about sexuality and reproduction.”
Transcripts of a Call to Action press conference shows Sister Fiedler did not want to disclose the number of names picked up so far.
“We're not releasing numbers at this point,” she told reporters. “We're building our network of coordinators right now.”
In Canada, the independent, Toronto-based Catholic New Times reported the Oct. 31 launch of a Canadian version of the We Are Church referendum, dubbed “Catholics of Vision.” The Canadian signature sheet will read that, to ensure objectivity and confidentiality, “only the totals, not the signatures, will be made public.”
When asked the minimum age required for those signing, Sister Fiedler said, “we're saying the age of reason. Our rule of thumb is that if someone can understand the referendum, then they can sign it. So, someone of high school age probably should be able to sign it…. The referendum is one of the best instruments of religious education that I know.”
The first question Sister Fiedler fielded during one session's question-and-answer portion was: How many signatures? Reiterating what she told reporters earlier, Sister Fiedler also said, “I will tell you this; it's not going as rapidly as I thought it would…. We're noticing signs of pick-up right now, but we need to get still more infrastructure of organizing.”
David Finnigan is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Finnigan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Conversions Aside, Catholics, Mormons Gel DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:WHEN CONSTRUCTION on the 200-foot tall Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in San Diego, Calif., was completed in 1993, the public was invited. More than 720,000 of the curious, including members from an array of Catholic groups—from singles clubs to parish women's groups—got a glimpse inside the usually off-limits massive white structure.
After two months of tours, the temple was dedicated. Now access is reserved to LDS adherents with so-called temple “recommends” (that verify good standing in the faith). Still, though the temple doors closed some three years ago, interaction continues between Catholics and Latter-Day Saints, the name preferred by worshippers also known as Mormons.
Earlier this year, temple members brought valentines and centerpieces decorated with cookies to Brother Benno's Foundation, a San Diego County facility founded by a local Benedictine monk to help the working poor and homeless. “I think such [interfaith outreach] is great,” said Jim Kutler, who helps run the foundation. “The poor and other social causes are everybody's responsibility.”
Indeed, LDS members and Catholics are in accord on a number of social issues, according to representatives from both Churches. There are, however, significant theological differences.
The Catholic Church has no detailed position on Mormonism, except concerning the Mormon baptism, said Msgr. M. Francis Mannion, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah. Msgr. Mannion is theological advisor and ecumenical officer for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, the city that is also home to the headquarters for the Mormon Church. “Mormon converts to Catholicism are baptized conditionally, since there exists doubt about the validity of Mormon baptism. However, in certain cases, Mormons are treated as validly- baptized Christians. There is a certain ambiguity which has not yet been resolved,” he said.
The two Churches have had no formal contact at the national level, said Dr. John Borelli, director of the U.S. Catholic Conference's (USCC) Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. However, he said the Catholic Church is “somewhat cautious” regarding the Mormon's strong missionary tradition.
The Mormon religion was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith in Fayette, N.Y., three years after he claimed to have received golden tablets from an angel that contained the Book of the Prophet Mormon. Today there are some 10 million members world-wide. Of the 4.2 million in the United States, 1.5 million live in Salt Lake City and another 800,000 in California. The Church's growth in the last two decades has been most prominent in Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Union, said Keith Atkinson, Southern California public affairs director for the LDS.
Atkinson attributes the growth to several factors. “There is the focus on moral values, family, education and the health code,” he said. “You help somebody stop smoking and drinking, that's part of our health tenet.” An LDS code known as the “Word of Wisdom” prohibits smoking and the consumption of alcohol and caffeinated coffee and tea.
The LDS's missionary orientation provides a challenge to Catholicism, especially in Latin America, said Father Gregory Coiro OFM, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “There's a shortage of priests and thousands in a parish,” he said. “The [Arch]diocese of Mexico City has 20 million Catholics. It's very hard to carry on the faith. [When] another faith offers a rosy vision, it's easy for people to make the switch.”
Father Coiro said that LDS can't be defined theologically as Christians because of certain beliefs, including polytheism, that run counter to Christianity. But he added that “the truth issues rarely come up” when Mormons evangelize. Mormons don't subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity, though they recognize three separate divine beings. They hold that God had a wife and that believers become gods of their own planets after death.
“That is not to say they don't believe in Jesus,” said Father Coiro. “They have a highly ethical code, [and an] emphasis on family, but when it comes down to it, they are another religion, like Hinduism.”
Mormonism, Msgr. Mannion said, fits the definition of what the Catholic Church calls “a new religious movement.” However, LDS members believe they are Christians. Said Atkinson: “We believe the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus.”
Christians and Mormons are most similar in morality-related concerns, said Msgr. Mannion. That interpretation was echoed by Father Jordan Lenaghan OP, a chaplain at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who has studied Mormonism. “Socially, they are Christians. The religion has a focus on Christ, good works and the new Testament,” he said. Father Lenaghan said the two faiths also share ecclesiastical traits, a historical orientation and a hierarchical leadership.
The LDS Church has ordinances that are similar in some respects to Catholic sacraments. A father's blessing is an ordinance bestowed on a child shortly after birth. After a few weeks, the child is also blessed before the congregation and given a name. At age eight, he or she has the choice to be baptized, said Atkinson.
For Latter-Day Saints, bread and water symbolize Christ. The religion also “confirms” its members and allows a male lay “priesthood,” while women belong to the “Relief Society.” Furthermore, there is a form of reconciliation. Mormons evaluate their worthiness for the temple “recommend” that provides access to the worship site where the highest ordinances of faith are formed. Bishops, who are similar to Catholic pastors, conduct the evaluation at least once annually.
Despite theological differences, Catholics and Mormons interact on some social issues, and relations between the two religions are generally friendly. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, for example, invited Mormons to a Celebration of Life observance earlier this year. Like Catholics, LDS members oppose pornography, same sex marriages and euthanasia. They believe abortion is acceptable in the case of rape, incest or when the child is not expected to live beyond birth. Atkinson said the decision to abort may be made after “serious prayerful consideration,” fasting and consultation with ecclesiastical officials and medical professionals.
Like Catholics, Mormons believe one important purpose of marriage is procreation. While mindful of their duty to multiply, Mormon couples can opt for contraception for health reasons. Ultimately, birth control is a matter between the married couple and God, said Atkinson.
The Mormon Church has worked with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) at the height of Ethiopian and Sudanese droughts in 1986. “CRS had an established field presence in Ethiopia, with access to Sudan,” said Atkinson. Mormons, who tithe, also conduct special collections such as one taken up for Ethiopia. Mormons fasted and donated what they would have spent for meals. The $1.9 million raised through the effort was donated to CRS.
When the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City was undergoing renovation, Mormons chipped in $500,000 toward the effort. Atkinson said donors were guided by the 11th Article of Faith: “We claim the privilege of worshipping almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may.”
But their have been some wrinkles in relations between Catholics and Mormons. “[Through] the years, the relationship has been occasionally difficult, especially in the area of proselytism and perceived dominance of the culture,” Msgr. Mannion said. Tensions are especially pronounced, he added, “in the public school systems, especially in rural areas, where non-Mormon children can feel discrimination or at least some insensitivity.”
But since the early 1980s, he continued, there has been a conscious effort by Catholic and Mormon leaders “to cooperate where possible, to coexist respectfully, yet to do so without any illusions regarding the deep differences that exist between the two Churches.”
Liz Swain is based in San Diego,Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Liz Swain ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Religious Coalition Targets Unfair Labor Practices DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:MICHAEL EISNER, chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation, made $14.78 million in 1995. A lesser member of the Disney family, call him Pierre, makes souvenir clothes in Haiti for the Disney theme stores found in many American shopping malls. Pierre makes 28 cents an hour.
A new coalition of religious leaders, joining with the U.S. labor department, is working to call attention to the plight of scores of sweatshop workers laboring for Disney and other American-based firms.
At an Oct. 22 press conference in Washington, outgoing labor secretary Robert Reich noted that it's the job of his department to enforce fair labor standards. But, he emphasized, churches and synagogues can act as vehicles to spur consciences on the evils of exploiting sweat-shop labor. “We are the enforcers,” he said. “The public and religious groups must be the reinforcers.”
Religious groups have been carrying the banner against sweatshop labor throughout the past decade, often operating in obscurity. Jewish and Protestant leaders were among those represented at the Washington press conference. They were joined by representatives of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Network, the Mercy Sisters, and other Catholic groups.
The religious coalition might still be working in obscurity if not for a controversy that erupted last summer involving television personality Kathie Lee Gifford. Her involvement—which began after a company that produced material for her clothing line was accused of exploiting child labor in Central America—escalated the discussion, David Schilling, director of the New York-based Global Corporate Accountability at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, told the Register.
American celebrity watchers remember Gifford defending her reputation as a defender of children on her morning talk show, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee. Religious people involved in the corporate responsibility movement, however, note that her personal involvement came only after the spurt of negative publicity. Gifford's high-profile efforts to end child labor, combined with the discovery of a California clothing plant in which low-wage workers lived as virtual prisoners, has changed the dynamic of the discussion, said Schilling. “To [Gifford's] credit, she has really helped,” he said. The result has been a renewed effort by consumers to avoid buying products produced by companies that exploit workers.
Maryknoll Father Joseph La Mar has worked for years with Schilling on the sweat-shop issue. Like other religious communities, Maryknoll, a group noted for its work in foreign missions, has invested in companies for its own pension fund and other needs. As a shareholder, Maryknoll representatives such as Father La Mar have raised questions about corporate labor policies. He said that most corporate executives want to do the right thing, but that business pressures often prevent it. “Most of the companies, when we approach them, agree with us. But, they always say, ‘Father, you don't understand.’” The problem, said Father La Mar, is that corporate executives fear that their businesses will lose their competitive edge if they implement reforms. “If they make the move and no one follows, then they can become a laughing stock,” noted Father La Mar.
One solution, he emphasized, could be the implementation of industry-wide agreements. The Gifford flap showed that companies don't want the public relations headaches caused by being targeted as a social justice pariah. Progress has been made in some companies. For example, the priest said, a factory in El Salvador that made clothing for The Gap is now in the middle of negotiations on new working conditions mediated by the Church there. “We were able to bring in a third-party with no ax to grind to follow through on the relationship between management and labor,” he said.
Pressure brought by Reich has also made it easier for religious groups to formally present complaints about companies via shareholder resolutions. While such measures rarely bring quick results, companies are beginning to feel pressed by increased awareness. Companies that produce soccer balls and baseballs in Central America and Haiti have come under pressure—including through Christmas shopping season boycotts. And, in a repeat of the tactics that brought Gifford around, basketball player Michael Jordan has been regularly pressured in the past year to take a stand on sweatshop conditions in Indonesia where Nike sneakers are made. Jordan, Nike's major spokesman, has argued that he has no control over the company's policies.
Nike, like other companies targeted by the anti-sweatshop movement, has stated that its products are made by independent contractors who live by the labor rules in the countries where they operate. And, executives say, while the wages may be low, they are actually relatively good-paying jobs for unskilled laborers in poor countries. While corporations attempt to defuse the pressure, they are finding that organized consumer movements can affect their bottom lines.
A study sponsored by Marymount University in Arlington, Va., shows that consumers would, if they had access to information, be less likely to shop in stores that sell clothes and other items made in sweatshops. The study, done last year, was sponsored by the school's Center for Ethical Concerns and the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising. It was prompted by a California case, in which illegal aliens, smuggled into the country, were forced to produce garments under slave labor conditions. Workers had been confined in a barbed wire enclosed compound and forced to work between 16 and 22 hours a day for less than $1 an hour. They were held captive until they had repaid their passage to the United States, a process that sometimes took years.
In the Marymount survey-based on a telephone poll of 1,008 adults-more than 75 percent of consumers said they would be less likely to shop in stores selling sweat-shop-produced merchandise. And 84 percent said they would be willing to pay an extra dollar on a $20 piece of clothing if they could be assured it was produced in a shop with decent working conditions.
Religious of the Sacred Heart Sister Eymard Gallagher, president of Marymount, noted that the study provided a moral dimension for the school's fashion design and merchandising programs. The study showed, she said, that “despite competitiveness in the industry, we can't close our eyes to these kinds of conditions that we thought had disappeared years ago.” Marymount has become a center for analysis of the issue. Besides the study, the school sponsored a seminar on sweatshop labor in the apparel industry last spring. Sister Gallagher was also present at the labor department press conference to lend her support.
According to Schilling, however, the effort to eradicate sweatshop labor needs to reach the grassroots level of local congregations. He suggested that parish committees write retailers to find out if they are selling merchandise produced in sweatshops. While companies like Nike and Disney contend that products made abroad for them are produced by independent contractors beholden to local fair labor practices, Schilling and other activists don't accept that explanation. Pressure on multinational firms can change labor practices, he asserted. “Start at the store level. The key is to start there and then begin discussions with company headquarters,” he said.
Catholics, in particular, noted Schilling, who is a Methodist minister, can refer to the U.S. bishops' pastoral on the economy issued in 1985 that argued that economic decisions could not be made in a valueless moral vacuum. He also emphasized the role that religious communities like Maryknoll have played in raising the issue with corporations where they have invested funds.
The increased attention on the sweat-shops has even led to the launching of a web-site (http://www.dol.gov) operated by the labor department, which lists both companies that have been known to violate labor standards and those which have made improvements.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Cathedral for the Third Millennium DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:ROME-One person thought it looked like a nuclear reactor. Another guessed a modern art museum; still another said an avant-garde theater. When residents from Rome's Tor Tre Teste neighborhood were asked to identify the structure shown in the photo, no one imagined that it was a house of God, the very church that is to symbolize Rome 2000, the celebration that will usher in the third millennium.
Last spring the diocese of Rome invited six internationally recognized architects to take part in a competition for the design of a new parish church in Tor Tre Teste, a lower-middle-income housing project about 30 miles east of Rome's center. The jury, presided over by Msgr. Luigi Moretti, secretary-general of the Rome vicariate, announced last summer that it had chosen a proposal by Richard Meier, a New York architect known for his elegant and abstract minimalist designs, among them, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the High Museum in Atlanta and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.
Msgr. Moretti said Meier's design, characterized by three curved concrete walls joined by glass walls and glass ceilings, was chosen because it expresses modernity and history at once. “We invited six internationally-renowned architects in order to give the world, as well as the city of Rome, a sign of the Church's openness. This jubilee is for all Catholics and Meier's design will leave a message of universality for posterity,” Msgr. Moretti told the Register.
Respected Italian architect and architectural historian Bruno Zevi credited the vicariate's courage and intelligence in choosing Meier, who is Jewish. In a recent interview, Professor Zevi said: “Finally, for Jews, the accusations of deicide and perfidy have been abandoned. After 2,000 years of often ferocious antiSemitism, the Church has reached a radical turning point which has made it possible for a Jew to design a cathedral for Rome.”
Francesco Garofalo, a Rome architect who was a consultant to the competition, also praised the vicariate's choice: “[T]he Church has made it clear that the competition was based on talent and not on religious beliefs.”
From Early Christian to Baroque times, some of the greatest works of religious architecture in the world were created in and around the center of Rome. Unfortunately, some churches built in the city's suburbs in recent years are simply as bland and uninspired as the fragmented neighborhoods in which they are located. Other parishes are housed in faceless buildings that were never meant to be houses of worship.
Unlike in the United States, the word “suburb” in Rome does not conjure images of single-family homes with freshly-mowed lawns. Many of these areas, built in the 60s and 70s, are characterized by large, anonymous buildings that look as if they could be located anywhere. Gridlock traffic and inadequate public transportation contribute to local residents' sense of alienation from the rest of the city.
The church designed by Richard Meier, which will be named for “God the Merciful Father,” is one of the 50 new churches which the Vatican hopes to build by 2000 to help breathe new life into the suburbs. “My aim is to help reconnect Tor Tre Teste to the city itself,” said Meier in a recent interview in the Italian daily, La Repubblica.
But many Italian and American architects question whether Meier's modernist design will accomplish that. Duncan Stroik, associate professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, believes that nothing about the design of the church is powerful enough to welcome pilgrims or to create a place of refuge within the neighborhood. In a recent issue of Catholic World Report, he wrote: “Meier's church design has no recognizable figure or image; it has no reference to a typology of civic or sacred architecture; it is merely differentiated from surrounding buildings which themselves have no memorable form. It becomes a fragmentary building for a fragmented environment.”
According to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Pope John Paul II's vicar for the city of Rome and president of the Italian episcopal conference, “new churches should express the religious climate of the time.” Perhaps that explains why the Rome vicariate invited only modernist architects to submit designs for the Church of the year 2000. But is modernism, a mid-20th century movement that prefers function over beauty and which exalts pure form and complex abstract elements, appropriate for the Church's needs? Many don't think so, believing instead that the Jubilee Church, which is to symbolize the beginning of the third millennium of Christianity, should echo a more traditional notion of sacred space.
While modernism still has influential adherents, including Meier and others enlisted by the Rome diocese-Tadao Ando from Japan, Gunter Behnisch from Germany, Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman from the United States-others feel that, at best, it can no longer be considered avant-garde, and at worst, that its lack of functionalism and durability has produced devastating social effects. “The legacy of modernism in our cities,” according to Stroik, “has been catastrophic; many cities have been all but ruined by the random distribution of unrelated buildings….”
Humane Urban Environments
At a U.N. conference on the future of cities last June, Pope John Paul II called for a return to more humane urban environments that are sensitive to traditional values. One of the critiques of modernism in architecture is, in fact, that it involves an individual designer's self-expression rather than filling an actual social need or respecting tradition.
Cabriele Tagliaventi, professor of architecture at the University of Bologna, is one of a growing number of European and American architects who have criticized modernism's effects on the urban landscape. “What does Cardinal Ruini mean when he says that new churches should reflect the spirit of the times? Should a religious space really be the physical representation of the evil and decadence that pervade our society? Shouldn't a church, at the very least, provide a message of hope?” asks Tagliaventi, who is currently a visiting professor at the University of Miami.
“Modernism is simply the negation of Christian thought and teaching,” adds Tagliaventi. “It represents the disintegration of values; for this reason, I cannot understand what interest the Church could possibly have in promoting this dangerous idea. The only explanation that I can offer is that the Vatican is a victim of the “emperor's new clothes” syndrome: the head of the Vatican's commission for the new churches is an architect of the modernist school. “Everyone else involved is afraid to say that the emperor is naked, that is, that they don't understand Meier's project, for fear of being ridiculed,” Tagliaventi told the Register.
Tagliaventi believes the Vatican has missed an opportunity to build churches which would really serve neighborhoods. In an article entitled “Churches of Horror” which recently appeared in the daily Il Giornale, he writes: “The construction of new churches which are inspired by Catholic tradition could provide a decisive stimulus for the transformation of peripheral areas into more humane neighborhoods. Why should the Church continue to perpetuate the separation in Italy between those who are fortunate enough to live in the city center and can take advantage of monumental churches and those who are condemned not only to live in horrendously ugly neighborhoods on the outskirts of town but must also worship in second-rate churches?”
Tagliaventi also chastises the Vatican for inviting only modernist architects to take part in the competition, thereby ignoring the current post-modernist trend in architecture which seeks to re-integrate historical elements within a contemporary context. This “new classical movement” in architecture has grown dramatically in recent years, critics charge.
“Why wasn't the competition open to all architects, both modernist and classical? More importantly, why didn't the Vatican ask the residents of Tor Tre Teste what kind of house of worship they would like? I'm sure that most would have preferred a traditional church.”
Silvana Di Sebestiani, a resident of Tor Tre Teste, was shocked to learn that the Church of God the Merciful Father will cost $5 million. “The name Richard Meier doesn't mean much to the people in this neighborhood. We would have settled for a more modest church and put the money to more practical use, like building better schools and improving public transportation,” she said.
Berenice Cocciolillo is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Berenice Cocciolillo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Shepherding Colombia's Capital of Violence DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:Q & A
As ordinary of Apartado, the most violent region in Colombia, Bishop Isaias Duarte Cancino, 57, played a crucial role in bringing peace to the now flourishing diocese. In September 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed him as the archbishop of Cali, which is home to drug cartels and one of the most violent cities in the world. The Register spoke with him during a recent visit to Lima, Peru.
Archbishop Duarte: The figures themselves tell a dramatic story. In 1976, 26,000 Colombians suffered a violent death from drug trafficking, guerrilla warfare and other crimes. In one year, more people were killed in Colombia than in the Balkans or Middle East in recent years. Nevertheless, in cities like Cali there is less violence today than a year and a half ago when the cartel barons were still at large. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of violence, especially among young people in the shanty towns. Political and drug-related crimes have created what the bishops call a “culture of violence,” in which people believe that killing or harming is the most expeditious way to get things done. This is especially true for the youth raised in this environment. They do not realize there are other, peaceful ways to solve differences.
Would you elaborate on the kinds of violence wracking Colombia?
In the first place, guerrilla groups attack not only police and the army, but defenseless peasants as well. Then, paramilitary forces are frequently hired by landlords in response to guerrilla attacks. They are equally brutal. Violence involved in drug trafficking is now receding. However, there is still a lot of criminal violence, such as bloody robberies or kidnappings. Finally, there is excess force used by public officials and killings that result from irrelevant quarrels or crimes of passion.
How serious is Columbia's drug trafficking problem?
It should be reiterated that drug trafficking is not a Colombian problem, but a worldwide one. Colombia has the stigma of being a country run by drug money and drug power, but this isn't quite the case. Some towns are fully linked to drug trafficking, but most of the country is not. Even in areas where drugs are important, that's only the case because there are people and countries that consume drugs. Coca leaf or poppies would not have any significant value if there was not a huge demand, especially in the First World. The bishops, in this regard, believe the United States practices a moral double-stan-dard—it judges the countries that produce the most [drugs] and fights drug traffickers, but it does not show the same concern in combating its own problem of consumption.
What is the Colombian hierarchy's perspective on President Ernesto Samper's government?
From the beginning, the government has shown a special concern for investing in the poorest social sectors. Such a policy was badly needed, since the economic reforms of the previous administration had hugely negative consequences for the people. We have to acknowledge that Samper initiated a project of social reform without precedent in the last 50 years. But all this effort was paralyzed when news broke that his election campaign was financed by drug money. President Samper says that he was personally not involved. As Christians, we have to take him at his word until the contrary is proven.
Some Colombian bishops have said that he should resign.
Indeed. Even if he says he is personally innocent, the argument goes, his campaign was financed by drug money and he is ultimately responsible for that. That not only undermines the legitimacy of his campaign and victory, but the legitimacy of his whole administration. As a result, Colombia has a weak government that is unable to deal with its internal or external problems.
How do the Colombian people look on their government?
There are sharp divisions, which makes for a potentially explosive situation. There are enough conflicts in Colombia; we cannot afford to have any more. Many people support the government because of its successful social policy. However, most officials and opinion-makers know that, like it or not, the government is in a dead-end situation. I am afraid that Samper will stay on and finish his term, inflicting immense damage on the country. Internationally, he will leave the country with a tarnished image; domestically, he will leave us divided.
What role can the Church play?
We are committed to peace and reconciliation in the country. We are bishops, of course, and our message is not purely political or social. Our commitment to each Colombian is to serve him or her integrally, taking into account that a person's ultimate destiny is eternal. But we also have to think of this in worldly terms. We have been placed here by the Lord to do good for all people. The main problem in the country is violence. We have to work for peace and the means that bring it about. For example, we must demand and work for justice, as well as respect for human dignity. All Colombians have to understand that their interests and destiny are somehow woven together. We are not just a society, but also a community in which sharing is a must as the starting point of a dynamic by which everybody wins. The “mine-for me” attitude has been shown to be totally destructive.
What concrete steps have you taken in Cali?
We have created the Commission of Life, Peace and Justice, which has one main goal: to bring representatives from Cali's different sectors together to sit and talk. The best method for achieving justice is to create a culture of dialogue-as opposed to the culture of violence and conflict- so people can discover and learn to respect the other's point of view. People are discovering the wisdom of the Pope's words to us in January 1988: “Peace is everybody's or nobody's.” We are encouraging Colombians to realize that reconciliation today will create peace for their children and the country.
The same commission is also working to engage people in parishes and lay movements to meet the specific needs of the poor—refugees from the violence-ridden countryside and widows and orphans from the guerrilla war. We have also created the country's first faculty of Human Rights at the Catholic University. We believe teachers should get a degree from that department to be able to teach about the Christian meaning of life and human solidarity.
—Alejandro Bermudez
----- EXCERPT: Prelate blames drug consumption, too ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pauline Magazine at Odds with Vatican Congregation DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Italian episcopal conference have issued several warnings to the Pauline editorial group—one of the largest Catholic communication holdings in the world—for what they see as a lack of prudence in handling some moral and doctrinal questions in their magazines. At the center of the quarrel is Famiglia Cristiana, which has a weekly circulation of 1.5 million copies. The influential publication has the largest circulation in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. Other Pauline publications involved in the flap are Famiglia Oggi and Jesus, a monthly on Catholic culture. Among the topics handled in a questionable manner by the magazines: A mother's inquiry about how to handle her son's apparent homosexuality and another about masturbation.
The Italian news agency Adista recently published a letter from Father Pietro Campus, general director of St. Paul, addressed to the editorial committee of the publications. In it he reveals that he received Vatican instructions to review the content of Pauline's magazines more carefully. The director assured the committee that he has no intention of honoring the request.
The letter, dated Oct. 25, explains that last July the superior general of the Society of Saint Paul (the Paulines), Father Silvio Pignotti, met with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and with Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian episcopal conference, to review five articles published in the company's magazines that, officials contend, offered answers contrary to Christian morality.
Meeting with the cardinals, Father Pignotti reportedly defended the editorial autonomy of the magazines'editors. Later that month, Cardinal Ruini wrote another letter in which he made two requests: that the magazines publish the “observations made by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the themes dealt with in the articles cited,” and that “a group of experts in theology would be formed to approve [articles dealing with moral or sexual issues] of publications beforehand.” The Order has rejected the proposal.
This is not the first time differences have arisen between the Paulines and the Holy See. Social communications are the apostolate of the Society of Saint Paul, founded in 1914 by Don Orione (who is now in the process of being beatified).
In 1986, John Paul II urged the company officials “not to let themselves be confused by the ideologies going around the modern world” and urged them to “feel strongly the duty to always enlighten souls, to never instill doubt, and to never spread confusion.”
In 1989, Cardinal Jozef Tomko, the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, criticized a Pauline project to publish the Koran for educational purposes, and make it available on video and in cartoon form.
During the recent synod on religious life, Cardinal Camillo Ruini addressed the problem of Catholic publications that diverge from Church teaching. Although the cardinal did not mention the Paulines by name, observers saw a clear reference in his speech to Pauline publications.
Then just last year, a conflict arose among the Religious of the Society of Saint Paul regarding the direction of the Pauline editorial group. To resolve the conflict, the prefect of the Congregation for Religious, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, had to intervene. He asked Cardinal Vincenzo Fagiolo, former president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, to act as mediator. The mediation effort eased the conflict, but failed to produce a long-term solution. (J. Colina DÍez)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. Colina DÌez ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Sisters from Spain Deflect Appeal of Connecticut Gangs DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:BRIDGEPORT, Conn.—Bringing the Word of God to a teenager in the barrio of this coastal town takes patience, prayer and love. Fortunately, the Missionary Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and Mary Immaculate have an abundance of all three.
At the southwest corner of this city, hard hit by economic decline, in a public housing facility named for famed circus promoter P.T. Barnum, six Sisters consecrated to the Blessed Sacrament and Mary Immaculate run a day-care center and a religious education program to counter the influence of the neighborhood gangs.
In this mostly Hispanic and African-American neighborhood, gangs have become a prevalent part of life. The Sisters are frequently asked to intercede on behalf of children whose frustrated parents see them mixing with the wrong crowd.
“They tell us their boys have gotten into bad company and ask what they should do,” explains Sister Presentación Zabala, the superior at the Convent of Mary Immaculate Formation Center. There aren't any easy answers, she adds. “Usually, we'll go and meet with the boy and see if we can find some way to steer him in another direction.” The nuns work closely with the parish school and Msgr. Frank Wissel, who supervises the Kolbe House of Studies, a home for boys with troubled backgrounds.
“Sometimes it's a long process. We go to their homes, we visit and we pray with them and we talk with them. We make progress little by little,” Sister Presentación says.
This type of mission has been the driving force of the order since its founding 100 years ago in Granada, Spain, by Mother Emilia Riquelme, a member of the upper class who felt drawn to serving the poor. She founded the Order to practice perpetual adoration of the Eucharist and to teach the poor about God's love. Each of the Order's convents has a Blessed Sacrament chapel. In its first century of existence, the order spread from Granada to Barcelona and Madrid, then to Brazil, Portugal, Bolivia, the United States and Columbia.
As Spanish-speakers, the Sisters are naturally suited to minister to Hispanics. Las Madres, as they are called, have homes in three U.S. cities. In addition to their Bridgeport, Conn., house, they are active in Lowell, Mass., and in Newark, N.J.
In Bridgeport, the Sisters operate a day-care center for children of all faiths. Working single parents find it a vital service, since many cannot afford other types of day-care. “We charge them according to what they can pay,” says Sister Presentación.
Besides the day-care center, the Sisters' work with the religious education program at St. Peter's Church brings them into contact with those youths drawn to a life of vandalism and crime. “Many of the children are in the gangs,” Sister Presentación says, adding that it isn't hard to tell which ones. Some wear rosaries around their necks. “They don't know what the rosary is,” she explains. “They think that if they're wearing the rosaries, it will bring them good luck.” Sometimes, she says, a group will come to the convent and ask the Sisters for the rosaries, “but we tell them we can't-it would be sacrilegious.”
It's not just the boys who need the Sisters' help. Las Madres also have special programs for girls from 8- to 20-years-old on weekends, which feature study, discussions, craft work, and prayer. “We try to show them not only how to do things, but also to work on their spiritual formation,” says Sister Presentación. During the summer, the Sisters run a special vocational retreat for 25-30 girls from 17- to 26-years-of-age. Many of the girls have had an abortion and “they come to find some peace for their souls,” Sister Presentación says. Some end up joining the Order.
Sister Presentación says she has no concerns about working in the depressed neighborhoods where the youngsters live, not even at night. “They respect us,” she says. The Hispanics in the neighborhood, particularly those who belong to the nationwide “Latin Kings” gang, have a strong attachment to Las Madres and their convent. “They come here when they need food or clothing and they say, ‘you can be sure, we [will] protect you,’” says Sister Presentación.
Peter Farrelly is based in Bridgeport, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Farrelly ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: An Intimate Side of John Paul II DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:The 30th anniversary of the conciliar decree Presbyterorum Ordinis was celebrated in the Vatican Oct. 27, 1995. Pope John Paul II joined many priests there in sharing some of his experiences of priestly life. His subsequent Letter to Priests on Holy Thursday last year gave further glimpses into the Pope's vocation. Many requests from priests and lay persons from around the world followed those two events proposing that the Pope complete his “confessions.”
When Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe, the secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, asked the Pope to write the story of his vocation he resisted at first. He finally accepted the offer, in the belief that his personal testimony could help the more than 400,000 priests around the world to live their priesthood, a mandate of his Petrine ministry.
In order to stimulate papal memory, Archbishop Sepe asked the Italian journalist Gian Franco Svidercoschi to draw up a series of questions. Fellow journalist Vittorio Messori had used the same technique to get John Paul's insights on the wide range of topics covered in the 1994 bestseller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Svidercoschi, who has covered the Vatican since 1958, did not limit himself to posing questions. Instead, he devised a kind of cinematographic sequence to stir the Pope's memory.
John Paul II began to record his recollections last June about his priestly life on audio cassettes in Polish. In great detail, the Pope recalled the persons and events that marked his life and that would, unbeknownst to him, prepare him to be the Supreme Pontiff. The Pope then edited the recording to produce the recently published, Gift and Mystery.
Svidercoschi is the author of various books, including Letter to a Jewish Friend, an account of the extraordinary friendship between Jerzy Kluger and Karol Wojtyla that first developed when they were children in Wadowice, Poland. Svidercoschi recently spoke with the Register.
Svidercoschi: It is not exactly an autobiography. The Pope responded very freely to the questions I presented to him. It could be called a book-testimony. Probably, throughout history, no Pope has ever spoken in this way about his inner life, by opening his heart so naturally and spontaneously, confiding his most intimate and secret thoughts.
When requests poured in from people asking him to write his testimony, no one expected reflections in such personal, intimate terms about his vocation that, for him, as for any other priest, is a great mystery.
Do you think that by writing his own biography the Pope is running the risk of creating a hagiographic portrait of himself?
No, that has nothing to do with it. In recalling his path toward the priesthood and his years of priestly ministry, the Pope also recalls his human, existential adventure. There is no doubt that in the various periods of his life, throughout the different experiences with his family, in the religious climate in Poland at that time, and later in his studies, the theater, work, the war and later communist dictatorship, there is a leitmotif, a path that would “prepare” him to guide the universal Church at this precise time. The Pope simply reveals God's ways that led him to be Peter's successor.
You're saying that to understand the Pope, we have to understand the man, the priest and the bishop Karol Wojtyla?
That's right. It is not possible to understand this Pope unless we consider his heritage of faith, culture and history. We cannot understand him in depth unless we go back to the origins of his vocation, to his ministry as a priest and bishop. The first and fundamental inspiration of his pontificate ripened there: the encounter, through redemption, between the truth of God and the truth of man, within the unique and unrepeatable singularity of the [human] person. On one occasion, he explained that in order to write his first encyclical, which would mark the direction of his whole pontificate, “I only had to copy"- those are the Pope's exact words- “in a certain sense the experience and the memory of what I had already lived before the pontificate.”
I'll give you an example. In chapter seven of Gift and Mystery, the Pope recalls how he was able to know from the inside the two total-itarian systems of this century. “Therefore,” he writes, “it is easy to understand my sensitivity regarding the dignity of each human person and respect for his or her rights, beginning with the right to life. This sensitivity was forged in me during my youth and reinforced over time. So, it is easy to understand my concern for the family and youth: everything has grown in me in an organic way through those dramatic experiences.”
Could it be said then that John Paul's way of being Pope is no more than the continuation of the style of being a priest and being a bishop that characterized Karol Wojtyla?
Many analogies can be found [between his pontificate] and both [his life] as a priest and as a bishop. His apostolic voyages very much recall the pastoral visits he made in Krakow. His decisive contribution to the fall of the [Berlin] Wall was undoubtedly due to his direct knowledge of Marxism. The same could be said about his attitude with young people, families, women, or his particular concern for the apostolate of the laity, a theme that appears continuously. We can say the same about his dialogue with the world of science and culture, or his openness to the Jewish religion, the problems of peace and justice in the Third World, and so on.
Will Gift and Mystery alter our perception of John Paul II?
The Pope reveals the foundation of his strong personality. He explains how he always felt himself to be a man of today and, at the same time, a man “out of time.” A priest's “today” must be integrated with the “today” of Christ the Redeemer. Therefore, he never felt out of fashion because his knowledge of contemporary man has a transcendent dimension. This shows how fragile and superficial all the political labels are that have been applied to him.
John Paul II has the charisma of a true adorer of God, a mystical dimension. He is not only a perfectly contemporary man but he also bears the stigmas of the suffering and tragedies of humanity. His pontificate is a sign of newness, of change for the Church, and a contradiction of all the false idols of today's world.
—J. Colina DÍez
----- EXCERPT: New book on his priesthood 'tells all' ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. Colina DÌez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The 60/40 Rule DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:It is that time of year when the regular season is coming painfully close to the end for serious football fans, particularly if their team's playoff hopes are fading or gone. Small wonder. For them, fall is a season of deliciously rich weekends, which get underway (conveniently after Mass, on the East Coast) with pregame shows, two or three games on the networks, another on cable, half-time and post-game shows and at least a couple of highlight reports, all culminating on Monday night with the supposed pick of the crop. ABC has a mixed record of being visionary when selections are made before the season starts and the real favorites emerge, but even a disappointing game is carried by the comfortingly familiar banter and expertise of Al, Dan and Frank, the congenial trio that warms up cold and wet evenings, taking the sting out of the start of yet another workaday week. Football draws like a warm fire in winter.
Dealing with non-football reality can be postponed at least until Tuesday morning, its dullness and numbness enlivened by shoptalk with fellow devotees at work and, toward week's end, the office pool rewhets the appetite. Small wonder the prospect of season's end, harder to ignore with each passing weekend of play, and the shortened days of the season give these poor folks chills of dread and pre-withdrawal anxiety.
There's something familial, even intimate, about the seemingly near-constant presence of familiar commentators' faces and voices in our living rooms. These play-by-play and color guys (and gals) don't just inform-they share the love of the game with us. Basically, they're our buddies. There is something positively, grouchily paternal about former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, the expert who speaks his mind. And for those who find Ditka and Joe Gibbs a bit too straight and old-fashioned, hipster Howie Long assures a contemporary look and feel on Fox. Some of these men move on to other sports in the off season, but they just don't have that snug fit anywhere else. Complementing slow-motion replays, players' photographs and game statistics frame the action, giving it more substance. The networks' theme music, soothing faux majestic or rock and roll, make a perfect accompaniment for the endless parade of logos, previews and reminders to watch, watch, watch. “Feel the power,” the National Football League mantra goes, or, in a sly co-opting of this indomitable spirit, “eat football, sleep football, drink Coca-Cola.”
Happily for the sports' marketers-including the supporting cast of brewers and auto-makers-this blind love, fueled by the urge to escape humdrum existence, obscures the dark side of things. ABC's 20/20 recently featured spouses brought to despair by their husbands' obsessions. Unrepentant and clearly in denial, some of the men showed little remorse, even after their wives divorced them. They acknowledged that their behavior brings distress to their environment, but they weren't about to give up the big (or not so big) game.
What lures those of us who are hooked? Is there a golden mean? Scholar Michael Novak wrote of his passion in The Joy of Sports. One a certain level, the love of a game, he suggested, is not altogether incompatible with the experience of faith. Spectator sport can be pure enjoyment, that is, a non-utilitarian experience. We have nothing practical to gain from watching. It's not like indulging in food or sex. The movies or television, which are designed to thrill, titillate or scare, are, no matter how beautifully done, pre-programmed. Football games, on the other hand, do not pretend to teach us about love, sex, relationships, trust, honesty or any of the virtues, except for maybe hard work and good sports-manship (or lack thereof). A football game features raw, spontaneous material-the brains and brawn of flesh-and-blood athletes, the chess game of the coaches, the emotion of the fans in the stands-its “story” played out, created, before our very eyes. What excitement, indeed.
What then of the needs of those around us? One wise psychiatrist counsels couples to stick to the 60/40 rule: Each partner is prepared to give 60 percent, while only expecting 40 percent in return. If both husband and wife come through, each will get his 100 percent fill. Fortunately, there are VCRs. And what the fan may sacrifice in immediacy he more than amply regains in appreciation for postponing his favorite pastime. This formula, applicable in all areas of married life, has a good ring to it: 60/40, it could be a sports stat.
—JK
----- EXCERPT: Editorial ----- EXTENDED BODY: JK ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Demands of Eros and Morality Clash on Screen DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:EROS IS a great mystery. The passions it unleashes sometimes push good people over the brink and destroy otherwise well-ordered lives. When it's over, we may not be able to make sense of what happened. Such is the stuff of which exciting comedy and drama are made. Several of this fall's movie romances bravely tackle this subject. However, by and large, they confuse their characters' good intentions with virtue, glossing over the hard questions.
Rose Morgan (Streisand) is an unmarried professor of literature, also at Columbia, who lives at home with her aging beauty of a mother, Hannah (Lauren Bacall). She feels so unattractive she's scared to go out on a date. Her pretty older sister, Claire (Mimi Rogers), who has a history of stealing her boyfriends, answers Gregory's ad in Rose's name, and soon the two frumpy academics are enjoying each other's company.
After an intellectually satisfying courtship, Rose and Gregory get married. Forty years ago, the movie would have ended here with everyone living happily ever after. But this is the 1990s and fear of sex is almost as grave a sin as infidelity. Gregory wants their relationship to continue to be celibate, but Rose's libido cannot be quieted. So she leaves him.
Up until this point the movie seems to have a pro-ugly-duckling bias. Every good-looking man or woman turns out to be a rat, and those rated unattractive, like Rose and Gregory, all have hearts of gold. But while Gregory is pining away during their separation, Rose becomes one of the enemy. She has a complete physical make-over, emerging as the kind of glamorous beauty no man can resist, including her husband. All she has to do is throw her newly acquired good looks in Gregory's face, and he comes crawling back to her on her terms.
Adapted by Richard La Gravenese (The Fisher King) from a 1958 French film, the story is an uneven hybrid of a 1950s romantic comedy and a contemporary feminist fantasy in which women get even with insensitive males who are out of touch with their feelings.
Leaving aside the fact that neither Streisand nor Bridges are believable as ugly ducklings, the movie also fails to come to grips with the deeper implications of its subject matter. The initial hunger of Rose and Gregory for a celibate relationship suggests a critique of the so-called sexual revolution and its courtship rituals that the filmmakers are unwilling to undertake. Rose's switch from frump to beauty at the end seems more motivated by Streisand's own personal psychodrama than the dramatic development of the character. The actress-director has never made any secret of her own insecurities about her looks, and The Mirror Has Two Faces lays bare her conflicted feelings about her situation. Sometimes the superstar sees herself as an ugly duckling with a pure heart, other times as a killer vamp with men eating out of the palm of her hand. Her acting out of these contradictions in the film is interesting as therapy but flawed as entertainment.
Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier goes Streisand one better. He is obsessed with sex and religion. His latest movie,
Bess (Emily Watson) is an emotionally unstable woman who lives on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. She is a member of a fundamentalist Protestant sect that emphasizes God's judgment and wrath more than his mercy. The Church elders oppose her marriage to Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), an earthy, good-natured outsider who works on an off-shore oil rig nearby. The two tie the knot anyway and enjoy such a healthy sexual relationship on their honeymoon that Bess is devastated when Jan has to leave her to return to work.
The young bride is presented as a simple woman of faith, talking with God freely and often. During these conversations, she plays both parts, asking her questions out loud and then responding in God's voice, a more authoritative and lower-register version of her own. His answers aren't particularly insightful or wise. They seem to emanate more from her own harshly judgmental superego than a truly divine source. In one exchange, Bess laments Jan's absence and begs that he be sent back to her. As if in answer to her prayers, her husband is soon thereafter injured in an accident on the rig and returns to her completely paralyzed. Because of her petition, she believes it's her fault.
Jan's condition looks hopeless. Suicidal and depressed, he asks Bess to take lovers and tell him about the trysts. Those vicarious pleasures, he reasons, will keep him connected to life. Bess, who was a virgin before marriage, initially refuses. But when Jan's health worsens, her guilt button is pressed, and she agrees to act out his fantasies. Of course, she consults the Almighty, who is at first silent and then non-committal. He does, however, compare her to Mary Magdalene.
Bess does not enjoy her sexual escapades. They are masochistic experiences. But after each encounter, Jan gets better. Eventually she realizes she no longer has to recount her adventures to him for their magic to work. It seems her perverse version of self-sacrificing love, in and of itself, is keeping him alive.
Bess's conduct doesn't pass unnoticed. Her mother and the Church elders turn against her, denying her comfort and counsel, in a decidedly un-Christian fashion, when she needs it most. The island youth, also members of the sect, take to stoning her.
Bess finally martyrs herself in a grand gesture of sexual self-debasement, and Jan is miraculously cured. The movie's message seems to be that sexual humiliation can be a path to saintliness, and that organized religions, like the fundamentalist sect at hand, are an obstacle to sanctity.
Von Trier believes in the value of the purely spiritual experience which he means Bess's behavior to exemplify. He realizes that both religious faith and intense sexual desire can induce feelings of ecstasy. But he also resents the fact that Christianity presents us with a moral and ethical framework by which these experiences must be tempered. Rather than explore these issues, Breaking the Waves settles for a few sensationalistic shocks.
Like von Trier's film,
An amnesiac, massive burn victim (Ralph Fiennes), whom no one can identify, is convalescing in an abandoned Italian monastery at the end of World War II. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a Canadian nurse, devotedly tends him. An East Indian bomb disposal expert named Kip (Naveen Andrews) sets up a tent in the courtyard and attaches himself to Hana.
This friendly trio is disrupted by an embittered allied intelligence operative calling himself Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), who had his thumbs cut off by the Nazis. He claims to recognize the bed-ridden patient and moves into the monastery to find a way to get revenge.
As Hana reads to the burn victim from his journal, the dying man remembers the doomed love affair which led to his disfigurement. It seems the patient isn't English at all but a Hungarian count named Laszlo de Almasy who was once part of a pre-World War II band of geographer-explorers who nicknamed themselves “the International Sand Club.”
British writer-director Anthony Minghella (Truly, Madly, Deeply) has adapted the film from Michael Ondaatje's novel, and the action smoothly flashes back and forth between Laszlo's romantic desert adventures and the relationships that are emerging in the monastery.
The young Laszlo falls deeply in love with Catharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of a British colleague. Their secret, forbidden affair blossoms against the desolate background of the Libyan desert, with inter-ludes in Cairo dance halls and British army barracks. Through a convoluted series of circumstances, the two lovers are left stranded on the sand dunes as World War II begins. As she is too sick to travel, he leaves her in a cave covered with prehistoric paintings and searches for help. The British army mistakes him for a Nazi spy and takes him prisoner. He escapes and sells the International Sand Club's maps to the Germans in exchange for the means to rescue Catharine. But by the time he returns, she has died. He is shot down in a plane on his way back to Cairo and burned beyond recognition.
The Nazis used Laszlo's maps to facilitate their capture of Tobruk where Caravaggio was jailed and tortured as a spy. But the ex-POWis moved as he learns about Laszlo's tragic love story and forgives the man he once wanted to murder.
Minghella obviously intends the movie audience to do the same. However, when Hana helps Laszlo kill himself with an overdose of morphine, the flaws in the film's moral vision become apparent. The English Patient assumes that true love justifies almost anything. Laszlo and Catharine's grand passion is used to excuse infidelity, treason and assisted suicide. But it just won't wash.
A great romance can be the defining moment of a person's life. But its seductive fever doesn't exempt those involved from the moral consequence of the actions that follow. It's the conflict between these two forces that makes for great drama. If these three movies can be taken as evidence, today's filmmakers are reluctant to admit this.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:Contraception?
The article on a new natural family planning (NFP) device (“British Church Leaders Hail New NFP Device”) in the Nov. 10–16 issue of the Register leaves the reader under the erroneous impression (by distinguishing it from “other contraceptives”) that either some contraceptives are all right, or that to practice NFP is to practice contraception. “Church leaders” would hardly be welcoming it if this were the case. What is certainly welcome is anything that enables married couples to freely and responsibly align themselves with what they perceive to be God's plan for their family.
A contraceptive device is one which prevents conception. The “Persona” device enables a woman to know when she is fertile and might just as well facilitate conception as prevent it. NFPincludes having children as well as postponing their conception. It is certainly possible to use NFP for contraceptive purposes, just as it is possible to tell the truth for the purpose of ruining someone's reputation. Good things can be abused, but the abuse does not alter their nature.
Contraception as such is always unchristian. It adapts God's plan to the couple's. NFPadapts the couple's plan to God's. There's a world of difference.
Finally, if “Persona” performs as advertised, it is certainly useful, but it is at once more expensive, less effective and less universally applicable than current NFP methods (ovulation or sympto-thermal). These work equally well for women with irregular cycles and in menopause, and have a reliability rate upwards of 97.5 percent.
Father Brian Wilson LC Los Angeles, California
‘Common Ground’
I half-agree with your editorial “Late Night,” in the Nov. 17-23 issue. Yes, it might have helped the late Cardinal Bernardin to have loosened-up when dealing with people. But that does not necessarily mean that we have to applaud his “Common Ground” project.
Unfortunately, both Bob Dole and Cardinal Bernardin were surrounded by “handlers” who were wrong about the views of the general population. Many say that Catholics already have common ground in the Pope, and a moderate center in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A centrist Catholic accepts both Mother Angelica's ornate Masses, said partly in Latin, and a simple guitar Mass—as long they both follow the present edition of the Missal.
The problem with the “Common Ground” project, it seems to me, is that it only seeks to reach out to the left, while dismissing even the right-of-center as beyond the pale. We keep hearing that we have to modify the English translation of prayers, but no one proposes that at least the Ordinary be printed in both English and Latin.
Don Schenk Allentown, Pennsylvania
Bishops'Mandate
It was a pleasure to read David Schindler's discussion of the works of Cardinal Henri de Lubac in his Register article, “America's Dangerous Lack of Religious Drama” (Nov. 17–23). A sidebar article described the cardinal's 1966 entreaty to the Catholic press to provide healing leadership in bringing about “true aggiornamento,” the hoped for reform that was the promise of Vatican II. Thirty years later, neither the religious press nor the American Catholic bishops have done enough to foster genuine renewal of Catholic life in the spirit and the letter of Vatican II.
If the press reports are true, 54 percent of American Catholics voted for a presidential candidate whose only consistency in public policy was his dogged support of the culture of death, especially regarding unlimited abortion rights.
Until our leadership decides to lead us back to Jesus and his Father-rather than to Washington, D.C.- Christians will remain lost in the desert and Pelagius will rule the public square.
Gerald Kerr Fort Scott, Kansas
Buddhism in France
The concern about Buddhism having a following in France (“Buddhism Finds Fertile Soil in France,” Nov. 17-23) reminds me of something Winston Churchill said about the Italians during WWII: “It is only fair, we had them as allies in the last war.” The same can be said for France and its relationship to the Catholic Church. The lukewarm are always with us, be it in war or the next pew.
I was taken with the quote from Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, “Buddhism is nothing but the adoration and fanaticism of the void.” It sounds like Shakespeare's “wonderful nothingness” to me. What does God think of all this?
Edmond Day Watervliet, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edmond Day Watervliet ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: John the Baptist, Joseph & the Blessed Virgin Pave the Way for Image Perfection DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:In his recent apostolic letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, the Holy Father points out the theological significance of the year 2000: “[T]he 2,000 years which have passed since the Birth of Christ (prescinding from the question of its precise chronology) represents an extraordinarily great Jubilee” (15). Pope John Paul had already designated the time leading to the great jubilee as “a new Advent.” His recent exhortation expresses a new urgency, as he motivates us to prepare actively for the “new evangelization.” Advent of the year 1996-1997 is a particular time of grace for us and for the Church. It is a special season to proclaim again a “baptism of repentance” and to announce the forgiveness of sins” (Lk 3, 3). For in order to prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ, we must seek the renewal of life that the incarnation of God eternal introduces into the world. This is the work of image-perfection.
There are three biblical figures who especially help us to achieve this Advent preparation. We have already listened to the first, who is John the Baptist (see Register, Dec. 1-7, p. 5). John helps see how image-perfection works: St. Luke makes it abundantly clear that John's vocation begins at a certain moment in time, in the same way that the Evangelists establish the birth of Christ at a fixed point within our human history. Thus, the reference point for the upcoming great jubilee. John the Baptist announces the great reversal that God initiates in human history. The Baptist heralds change! John's own birth reveals that all things are possible for God, whereas his death at the hands of Herod prefigures the price of our redemption, the slaying of “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1, 29).
The second figure who accompanies us during the Advent season is Joseph, the guardian of the mystery of God. Joseph of Nazareth teaches us about virtuous submission. By his obedience of faith, Joseph welcomed the revelation of God. We know from the Scriptures that nothing in Joseph's cultural experience prepared him for the virginal conception of Jesus. Still, he submits to the plan of divine Providence that always moves gently but effectively. So Joseph is given the privilege of naming the boy-Jesus; and thus exercises a true fatherly authority within the Holy Family. St. Joseph represents the man of faith, one who is a faithful steward of the Providence of God. His witness reminds us that, on this earth, Christian life always unfolds within the darkness of faith. Only the eyes of faith enable us to see our God made flesh in the baby that Joseph protected in a manger. With St. Joseph, “the overseer of the Lord's birth” (Origen, Hom XIII in Lucam, 7), we love the infant Christ, and so are drawn to the love of the God that we cannot see.
During Advent the Church dresses her ministers in purple vestments. Purple is a symbol of penance, but the color also suggests sobriety. Yes, abstinence from food and drink, but above all, sobriety of thought. Advent is a time to guard our thoughts.
From the countless distractions that destroy our recollection, we turn to Joseph the silent. From immoderate thoughts of all kinds, we turn to Joseph, the chaste spouse of Mary. From anxious thoughts, whether about the future or about yesterday, we turn to Joseph the industrious. He teaches us to work steadily, and with full reliance on God's gracious Providence. These are important graces of the Advent season: recollection, chaste love, industriousness. As gifts from God, they dispose us to enter into the mystery of our redemption.
Because the Eternal Word took flesh in her womb, the Virgin Mary was preserved from all stain of sin from the first moment of her conception. This grace belongs only to Mary; as for us, we have only that assurance of which St. Paul speaks: “that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion” (Phil 1, 8). But this assurance grounds a strong hope. Further, this hope has a name, Mary: “… et Spes nostra,salve.” It is a great consolation for us to know that God eternal, whom we are now preparing to meet, will appear as a little Child, one who must be cared for by a mother. But it is still more of a consolation to know that the immaculate Mother of Christ is also our mother. During Advent, we always celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Church recognizes the psychological need that we all experience for repeated assurance that our sins will not spell grief for us. Through her grace, Mary personally provides this assurance for all those who draw near to her as a spiritual mother.
There is a fourth figure: a hidden saint during Advent, St. Ambrose, who was a very busy pastor, and so, unlike his greatest convert and pupil, he did not have the time to write long treatises. But he does give us two important teachings that complement our discussion of why God became man. The first is on Christ:
“We find everything in Christ. Christ is everything for us. If you want to heal a wound, Christ is the medicine; if you are burnt up with fever, he is refreshment; if you are overwhelmed by iniquity, he is justice; if you are in need of help, he is your strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you yearn for heaven, he is the way; if you flee the darkness, he is the light; if you want nourishment, he is the bread. Taste and see, then, that the Lord is good: happy the person who trusts in him” (De virginit. 96).
The second is on Mary: For he did have time to instruct the Church on the importance of virginity, which placed him in the center of a counter-cultural debate: “May she be for you, 0 virgins, the perfect image of virginity. The life of Mary, where, as in a mirror, shine both the image of chastity and the ideal of virtue. It is there that you should seek your model” (De virgin. II, 6). It is there that we see the fruit of image-restoration and image-perfection in a way that manifests God's most gracious providence.
Father Cessario is a professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Romanus Cessario ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Prime Chosen One of the Human Race DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:“IEXULT for joy in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God; for he has clothed me in the garment of salvation and robed me in the cloak of justice, like a bride adorned with her jewels” (Is 61, 10). This entrance antiphon for the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) is the wedding song of the Blessed Virgin.
God made the world as an act of love, so we can enjoy communion with him. This communion is a true marriage, and Mary is the most excellent representative of the power of this union. In her, earth weds heaven. There is not another human person (Jesus is a divine person with a human nature) who is more like God than Mary. And, in her marriage with the Lord, she speaks and acts in the name of us all.
This feast celebrates the unique privilege given our Lady. God chose to make her like him not only during life, but even in birth. Adam and Eve were created in grace because there was no sin. Mary as the New Eve is conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, but without original sin. This does not mean she is not among the redeemed, but God lovingly brought her forth without sin in light of the merits of the Son whom she would conceive.
Mary is the prime chosen one of the human race. The angel calls her “full of grace” (Lk 1, 28). She is the fit vessel in which the Trinity will bring forth the fruit of her womb, Jesus. Her vocation is to be the Mother of God. Hence, soul and body must be wholly pure. No sin of nature nor of person can spoil her life. She cannot even experience the weaknesses that result from original sin.
Eve did not obey God because she loved herself more. Adam affirmed her unloving disobedience in his own sin. Christ comes to earth to redeem us from original sin by reversing this unloving disobedience. Mary begins this process. She is asked to respond to the love shown her, even at her conception, by an act of faith and loving obedience to God. He will not bring the grace of the Incarnation to the world if she is unwilling. Her Immaculate Conception prepares for her assent: “In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 490). Mary answers in our place with the greatest act of affirmation ever made. She combines love and obedience and the process of our redemption finally begins; “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy Word” (Lk 1, 38).
Father Mullady is a professor of moral theology at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Mullady ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spiritual Ramifications Of Mary's Motherhood DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:A WEEK of weeks. Not only is the ever-virgin Mother of God honored this week under the title of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 9), but she is also hailed as our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12).
It is fitting that Mary receives due attention during Advent. After all, her fiat changed the course of human history. The maiden of Nazareth visited Juan Diego (now Blessed) in 1531. As the coming of Christ gave hope to many in Israel (and later, far beyond), so the apparition of the Virgin buoyed many Indians then and millions of disciples of Jesus today.
Pope John Paul II, in summing up the meaning of Mary's appearance at Guadalupe, offers his fervent desire that the spiritual ramifications of her maternity will not be lost on our present generation and that we will ponder often Mary's role in salvation history.
In Prayers and Devotions, John Paul turns to our Lady of Guadalupe with love and anticipation. “O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and Mother of the Church! You who from this place show forth your clemency and your compassion for all those who have recourse to your protection, hear the prayer which we address to you with filial confidence and present it to your Son, Jesus, our sole Redeemer.”
Acknowledging Mary's special intercession, Pope John Paul submits a special request: “Grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples, for we confide all we have and all we are to your care, our Lady and our Mother. We will to be completely yours and to follow with you the road of full fidelity to Jesus Christ in his Church. Hold us always lovingly by the hand.”
In recent years, our Lady of Guadalupe has been invoked as the patroness of the unborn. Her assistance greatly aided the peoples of Mexico in the 16th century who labored under the pain of infant sacrifice. Currently, Mary is asked to intercede for all preborn children, their parents, and all those involved with abortion: “Grant our homes the grace to love and respect life as it begins, with the same love whereby you conceived the life of the Son of God in your womb. Virgin Saint Mary, Mother of Beautiful Love, protect our families so that they may always remain united and bless the education of our children.”
The Virgin of Guadalupe is close to all those who seek her powerful inter-cession. She teaches us how to be gentle, steadfast and courageous. Her vibrant faith, unwavering hope and dauntless charity provide encouragement to all who reflect on her esteemed place near her Son.
Father Mangan is a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, S.D.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Charles Mangan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Context of Christian Proclamation Sets Parameters of Dialogue DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:Father Avery Dulles SJ delivered the ninth annual fall Laurence J. McGinley Lecture at Fordham University in New York, Nov. 19. Excerpted:
… On June 29, 1996 the retired Archbishop of San Francisco, John R. Quinn, speaking at Campion Hall, Oxford University, pointedly asked whether the Holy See had engaged in appropriate dialogue before making decisions regarding a great variety of matters, including contraception, general absolution, the appointment of bishops, the approval of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, clerical celibacy, and the ordination of women. Although the archbishop did not say that he disagreed with any of the decisions he mentioned, he expressed his regret that the decisions had been made with insufficient prior discussion. He called for extensive inner reforms within the Catholic Church to give more autonomy to local Churches and thereby, as he thought, facilitate ecumenical relations with other Christian groups.
Hard on the heels of the Quinn address came the publication on Aug. 12 of a statement drawn up by the National Pastoral Life Center in New York and released by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. Bearing the ominous title: Called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril, this statement lamented the atmosphere of suspicion and acrimony in the Church today and called for a renewed spirit of civility, dialogue, and broad consultation. Candid discussion, it stated, is inhibited by the imposition of a narrow party line. More room needs to be given for legitimate discussion and diversity. A new “common ground” needs to be forged among all who are willing to affirm “basic truths” and pursue the remaining disagreements in a spirit of dialogue. Such dialogue, the authors maintained, could be a welcome alternative to mutual accusations of infidelity and a present remedy for polarization….
My own reflection on the situation is that the difficulty with the statements, especially that of Cardinal Bernardin, is not so much with what they actually said as with what they seemed to imply, and would be understood as implying the current atmosphere….
Dialogue among the religions, according to many prominent experts, could be far more successful if all would agree that the divisive doctrines were classified as fallible human efforts to probe the depths of the divine…. In the context of this relativistic pluralism, the word “dialogue” takes on a new meaning. The supposition is that in dialogue you are not trying to urge your own position, but to reach an accommodation in which both parties can live in peace. Cardinal Ratzinger in a recent address … remarks:
“… the notion of dialogue-which has maintained a position of significant importance in the Platonic and Christian tradition-changes its meaning and becomes both the quintessence of the relativist creed and the antithesis of conversion and the mission. In the relativist meaning, to dialogue means to put one's own position, i.e., one's faith, on the same level as the convictions of others without recognizing in principle more truth in it than that which is attributed to the opinion of the others. Only if I suppose in principle that the other can be as right, or more right than I, can an authentic dialogue take place.
Political Theory
“According to this concept, dialogue must be an exchange between positions which have fundamentally the same rank and therefore are mutually relative. Only in this way will maximum cooperation and integration between the different religions be achieved. The relativist dissolution of Christology, and even more of ecclesiology, thus becomes a central commandment of religion….”
A second series of problems arises within the context of recent American political theory. In the new liberalism a sharp line is drawn between the public and the private. All belief systems, in this framework, are relegated to the private sphere, so that no public authority may adjudicate questions of truth. Political philosophers such as John Rawls, Richard Rorty, and Bruce Ackerman, following in the traces of Immanuel Kant, have made a strict separation between the good and the right. People have rights, it is said, but the rights are purely procedural. In this context, dialogue is recommended, but those who enter the dialogue must abandon any effort to urge their own conception of the good or the true. In civil dialogue the question of truth does not arise, since all substantive moral and religious commitments have been removed from the public agenda.
Michael J. Sandel has summarized the principles of this new political philosophy in his recent book, Democracy's Discontent. He characterizes the dominant public philosophy as that of the “procedural republic.” In this framework we are required to bracket our moral and religious obligations when we enter the public realm. Questions of justice and rights must be decided without affirming one conception of the good over others. One cannot publicly discuss whether an unborn child has human, personal life, because this is viewed as a metaphysical or religious question. The woman's “right to choose” is allowed to prevail, as it were, by default. The purpose of the legislature and the judiciary is to make it possible for people to live together in community, to establish a modus vivendi.
Authors such as Sandel maintain, convincingly I believe, that the procedural republic does not offer adequate foundations for a healthy self-governing society. It creates a moral void. Political association sinks to the level of a mere coalition in which the members are not inspired by any shared vision of the good…. I am concerned with the fallout from this political philosophy in the religious realm. Christians are being drawn to regard questions of truth and morality as essentially private ones, to be settled by each individual in the intimacy of one's own conscience. As Andrew Greeley and others have shown, large numbers of Americans today are “communal Catholics” who adhere to the Church as the home in which they were nurtured and the place to which they are bound by ties of family and friendship, but who do not accept the teaching authority of popes and councils, especially in matters of morality. They turn to the Church for its ritual and sacramental ministry, but they do not expect it to instruct them on questions of truth and moral goodness. Communal Catholics follow their own judgment in many matters of dogma and moral conduct. Presuming that no one can be bound in conscience to accept official teaching, they regard dissent as a right. In a privatized Church, as in the “procedural republic,” no scope is allowed for public adjudication of questions of truth and morality. These attitudes, however, undermine the very essence of Catholic Christianity, which authoritatively proclaims a religion founded on divine revelation and intended for all humankind. The Church has a public faith that is not subject to debate.
Pragmatic Modus Vivemdi
Because of the inroads of privatization, the call for greater dialogue among Catholics on points such as contraception or ordination of women is seen as a readiness to settle for something less than the full doctrine of the Church and to reach a pragmatic modus vivendi among Catholics who continue to disagree about substantive issues. This would lend support for the view, already widespread, that Catholics are free to hold opinions contrary to the official teaching of the Church, at least if they adhere to “basic truths.” Even if Archbishop Quinn and Cardinal Bernardin did not wish to legitimize dissent, their statements could easily be interpreted as favoring the view that the teaching of the Church is not binding in conscience….
As for dialogue within the Church, it is always in order if the purpose is to understand Church teaching better, to present it more persuasively, and to implement it in a pastorally effective way. But the conditions laid down by Paul VI must be kept in mind. He made it clear that obedience to ecclesiastical authority, rather than independence and criticism, must prevail (cf. Ecclesiam suam 118-119). The conditions for intraecclesial dialogue are not easy to realize today, in a society such as our own. Open discussion may be counterproductive if its purpose is to prolong debate on issues that are ripe for decision or to legitimize positions that the teaching authorities have decisively rejected. Far from achieving consensus, such dialogue would serve to build up mutually opposed contingencies and then further polarize the Church. Under present conditions, any proposal for dialogue within the Church must be very carefully formulated if it is not to expand the zone of disagreement within the Church. An imprudent yielding to pleas for tolerance and diversity could easily weaken the Church as a community of faith and witness.
Polarization is not normally the result of clear and confident teaching of the Church's heritage of faith. It is more likely to arise when the true teaching is obscured by the indulgence of contrary opinions. The hierarchical magisterium must be vigilant to prevent and correct error in matters of doctrine. Pastoral authorities who are fully conscious of their responsibilities will not use dialogue as a subterfuge for avoiding the onerous tasks of their office. They will rise to the challenge of Paul's admonition to Timothy to “convince, rebuke, and exhort,” and to be “unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tm 3, 2).
Authentic dialogue, even at its best, has limits. It cannot appropriately replace every other form of communication. Evangelization, as Paul VI and John Paul II have insisted, is a permanent priority of the Church. Dialogue, to be sure, has a legitimate place in all missionary witness, creedal confession, dogmatic teaching, and catechetical instruction, but these proclamatory modes of discourse are not reducible to dialogue pure and simple. Aparamount internal need for the Church today is the faithful transmission of the Catholic patrimony as embodied in works such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Christian proclamation, even when conducted within a context of dialogue, presupposes that there is a divine revelation, embodying the truth that leads to eternal life. All revelation, in the Christian understanding, comes from the divine Word, which is one and eternal. When Christians engage in dialogue, they do so with the hope of making that one Word better known. In a sense, therefore, Christianity is mono-logic. Authentic dialogue would be futile unless it helped us to hear the one divine Word. “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mk 9, 8).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Avery Dulles ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Being Catholic in Utah: A Mixed Blessing DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:MORMONISM IS the religion most often associated with Utah. However, there has been a Catholic presence in the state since shortly after Mormon leader Brigham Young's pioneer company arrived in the Great Salt Lake Basin in 1847. Today, the Diocese of Salt Lake City covers all of Utah. From 1853 until 1868, the Utah Territory was part of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. In 1868, it was annexed to Colorado as a Vicariate Apostolic for two years until being returned to the San Francisco archdiocese at the behest of the Colorado bishops.
The Diocese of Salt Lake City was established in 1891 and today includes 78,475 Catholics, according to 1996 diocese statistics. That's just 4 percent of the total population of 1,964,000. Bishop George Niederauer heads the diocese of 43 parishes and 19 missions which are served by 91 priests. The diocese includes two Catholic high schools and nine Catholic elementary schools.
Catholic leaders see the minority status of Catholics in Utah as a mixed blessing. Despite the obvious hardships, there is at least one benefit. “Whenever, Catholicism finds itself in a minority situation, a certain energy in the practice of the faith tends to become operative,” said Msgr. M. Frank Mannion, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and diocesan ecumenical officer and theological advisor. “This is certainly the case with Catholics in Utah. People here are probably more self-conscious, in a good sense, about their faith than might be the case in highly Catholic populations.”
—Liz Swain
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Liz Swain ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Next Sunday at Mass DATE: 12/08/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 8-14, 1996 ----- BODY:Dec. 15, 1996 Third Sunday of Advent John 1, 6–8, 19–28
THE CHURCH again and again teaches that Christ reveals man to himself and brings to light the human person's exalted vocation. In today's Gospel, the priests and Levites dispatched by the officials in Jerusalem want to know John the Baptizer's real identity. They ask: “Who are you? What do you have to say for yourself?” They have witnessed John's extraordinary ability to draw people out of the city, enabling them to come to terms with their own sins.
The delegates are convinced that anyone who can get the people to recognize the truth about themselves must himself have special access to the Truth. They insist that John must be the Messiah, or Elijah, or at the very least a prophet. They demand a credible explanation of why he accomplishes such exalted feats. They are threatened by his power.
John draws others to the Truth because he himself lives deeply in the Truth, which is the source of his joy and of his unflappable peace in the face of the official's insistent interrogation. John states the truth about himself in three clear statements that may help us live more deeply in the Truth this Advent. John explains his vocation by turning directly to Jesus Christ.
He declares absolutely: “I am not the Messiah.” The one sent by God as a witness to testify to the light has no delusions of grandeur. Even though “through him all people might believe,” John does not mistake his ability with the true light, Jesus. He does not allow his power and status to deceive him about the source of his true identity. Like John, the more we remind ourselves who we are not, the more do we prepare the way to discover our true identity and vocation in Christ.
Moreover, John asserts that he is not worthy to unfasten the sandal strap of Jesus. He possesses no inherent right or privilege to associate himself with the Messiah. But in humbly accepting his own unworthiness, John disposes himself to receive the richness of God's mercy and to understand the fullness of human dignity that Christ manifests to us. Humility is truth. And the humility that begins in prostrated reverence before the feet of Jesus leads us to the glory of eating and drinking his Body and Blood. In that act we discover the true meaning of our life, as we rejoice in the God-given privilege to be Christ's Body.
John's final statement evokes an air of mystery: “There is one among you whom you do not recognize.” The delegates assume John is a man of God because of his remarkable works. But John informs them that their old prejudices and preconceptions are not enough. To recognize the Messiah requires a willingness to look beyond bold words and miraculous actions. Rather, we recognize the Messiah as we submit the entirety of our lives to him to be saved. We discover the truth about the Messiah only as we live that Truth in our own lives. And the Truth who is Jesus Christ fills us with the grace to face the truth about ourselves with confidence.
Father Cameron is a professor of homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: Facing the Truth About Ourselves ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter John Cameron ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Church Eyes Welfare Funds 'Devolution' with Concern DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—While Congress reforms a host of federal programs, many experts predict that a number of programs previously funded and administered by the federal government will soon become the province of state and local governments. The process, dubbed “devolution,” could have a major impact on state Catholic conferences and individual dioceses around the nation, as the focus of activity on many issues shifts from Capitol Hill to state capitals and county courthouses.
Welfare is the most visible example of this trend, and one that worries Catholic groups in particular. In August, Congress passed—and President Clinton signed—a historic welfare bill that shifts funding and responsibility for many anti-poverty and social welfare programs to the states. Funding for various welfare programs (with the notable exception of food stamps) will be pooled and sent to the states in huge annual bloc grants. Washington's goal is clear: Welfare recipients should move off the roles and into paying jobs. States that succeed in placing welfare recipients in jobs will receive bonus payments from Washington. The federal government will set certain basic parameters for the administration of welfare to work programs (setting time limits and certain eligibility requirements, for example), but governors and state legislators will retain a great deal of discretion to design welfare plans for their states.
Devolution may not stop there. It is thought that some programs that will be bloc granted to the states, like job training, might also be sent by the state to counties and cities to administer locally.
This means a greater role for Catholic groups at the state and local level. At least initially, much of the focus will be on the state Catholic conferences. The federal welfare reform legislation reduced the rate of increase in welfare spending by more than $50 billion over five years, and it limits the total time individuals and families can receive assistance. These reductions come at a time when many states have already reduced their state welfare payments (typically called “general assistance”) to poor families. This has some state conference directors worried over the impact of the federal law.
The bill's “impact on the poor is horrific,” said Jane Chiles, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky. Added Doug Delaney, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois: “We feel that people would already have taken jobs if they were there. The problem is the jobs are not there now.”
As they grapple with these changes, state Catholic conferences will need to be vigilant. With the welfare issue, for example, states will have to decide in the coming months how the large bloc grants will be distributed. There is little federal guidance in this regard, so Catholic conferences will be out front working with governors, legislators, and key staffers to be certain that welfare monies are distributed in the fairest way possible.
“We are waiting to see how the bloc grants will be administered,” said Carolyn Perpetua, communications director of the Catholic Conference of Pennsylvania. “So much of the discretion is left up to the state that we need to be sure that funds are divided up equitably. We will make sure that faith-based groups have a say in how these funds are allocated.”
“We are encouraging our dioceses and parishes to work with their local legislators, because they are the ones who will be deciding these issues,” she added.
Executive directors of state Catholic conferences met in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3-7 to discuss many of these issues. An entire session was devoted to assessing the impact of the welfare bill. Officials have questions about how the new federal changes will mesh with changes that many states have already enacted in their state welfare, housing, and medical assistance programs. Pennsylvania, for example, passed a state welfare reform plan last year as well as limits on who can receive state medical assistance—and all that was signed into law before the federal welfare changes were enacted.
“We were so involved in the state changes to welfare and medical assistance last year; now we have to deal with the impact of the federal welfare reform as well,” said Perpetua.
Patricia King of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) Office on Domestic Social Development, added: “The state conference directors will be getting together to discuss ways to work more effectively on the state level. In many ways, the state conferences will be taking the lead role on this issue in the future.”
All of these changes affect a multitude of Catholic organizations. While Catholic Social Services in many states provide a variety of services to low-income Americans of all religions, changes to federal or state government medical assistance will have a major impact on Catholic hospitals and Catholic nursing homes. Any proposed changes to housing aid will directly hit Church-run hospices.
“State conferences will need to work closely with the individual dioceses, because these changes affect such a wide variety of programs and services,” said Perpetua. “We really need to coordinate our efforts. As we provide more services to a greater number of people, we need to be involved in how these services are reimbursed by the government.
Susan Gibbs, communications director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (the nation's sixth largest See), said: “We have already seen an increase in (the number of) people asking for assistance now that the state has acted. We expect an even greater increase now that the federal welfare reform bill has passed.”
Lorraine Knight of Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia, said that “[t]he federal government has told us that they want people to move from welfare to work. Now we need to put our emphasis on enhancing people's employment possibilities. We will try to work with people to make them self-sufficient.”
Knight indicated that the Church will be involved in a whole range of programs, from traditional social services to job training and employment counseling to affordable housing, which is a new area for many Church organizations.
Many state leaders also want closer coordination between state conferences and Catholic Charities, since many of the federal changes could have an impact on government contracts and could result in new funding needs at the local level.
One item that may work in the Church's favor is a provision in the federal bill that makes it easier for states and localities to contract with Church-run facilities for the delivery of welfare and other services. This could prove to be a major help for many recipients of public assistance who otherwise could not be able to choose Church-run day care, job training, drug treatment, or medical care.
“We are glad that provision was added, but there still are not adequate funds for many of these programs to meet the needs of all the people,” said the USCC's King.
Catholic leaders say the Church will do its best to meet the new challenges, but emphasize the need to find creative approaches to fund and implement programs. “Now that the focus has shifted to the states, state conferences will need to be the coordinating group for many issues,” said Perpetua. “But we will need to involve the whole Catholic community, including dioceses and individual churches, to deal with these issues.”
Michael Barbera is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Court to Rule on Clinic Protest Zone DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:APENDING Supreme Court decision on a lower court's order that requires pro-life demonstrators to remain 15 feet away from women entering and leaving abortion clinics is huge: It could shape the future of protests and sidewalk counseling at facilities around the country, say pro-life activists.
The case, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network, will determine how much latitude a judge has in protecting women and clinic staff from protesters whose actions are normally covered under the First Amendment.
While pro-life protesters are anxious about the impending Supreme Court decision, a federal judge's ruling in New York in another case has raised the possibility that the 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act might not bar all religious protests at abortion clinics.
In that case, Lynch v. United States, U.S. District Judge John Sprizzo of New York acquitted a retired bishop and a Franciscan friar of criminal contempt Nov. 15. They were arrested during a peaceful protest at a New York abortion clinic in violation of a permanent injunction Sprizzo had handed down earlier, which had ordered them not to violate the 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
Retired Bishop George Lynch of Raleigh, N.C., and Brother Fidelis Moscinski of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, admitted that on Aug. 24, they sat in the Dobbs Ferry Clinic driveway in New York and prayed, hoping to persuade women coming to the facility for abortions to reconsider.
A. Lawrence Washburn, an attorney working on the case with the Legal Center for Defense of Life, said the Sprizzo ruling could protect pro-life protesters who claim that their religious convictions drive them to protest outside abortion clinics.
Bishop Lynch and Brother Moscinski are now appealing Sprizzo's original injunction to a circuit court of appeals, requesting that it be overturned on the basis of natural law principles. On Dec. 3, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York heard oral arguments in the Lynch v. United States case. “The judges showed great interest in the Natural Law argument,” said Larry Washburn of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life in New York, one of the defendant's attorneys.
According to Washburn, Judge Guido Calabresi, former dean of the Yale University Law School, asked the most questions during oral arguments. “If you look at his life story, there's reason to believe that an appeal to conscience would interest him,” said the lawyer. “His parents had to flee Italy to escape Mussolini's regime, and they later left Spain to escape Franco because they were anti-fascist.”
Washburn expects the appeals court to announce a decision between late December and early March.
Meanwhile, the impact of the Supreme Court's decision on individual clinics will depend on each property's regulations, said Walter Weber, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington, which represents pro-life defendants in civil liberties cases.
Mike Petrozelli, who has been active as a sidewalk counselor outside an abortion facility in Kensington, Md. since 1989, said the Supreme Court ruling won't affect him. “In most cases, I'm 15-feet away from the patients when they get out of their cars,” he said, adding that he's not allowed to step into the parking lot serving the office building that houses the facility.
“The escorts usually lead them away from me, but I can project my voice,” to let them know about birthing and care programs, as well as free hospitalization offered by the Archdiocese of Washington.Petrozelli, a 47-year-old Catholic from Hyattsville, Md., claimed that “the success we've had has been with people who wanted to talk with me and wanted help. They were upset about their decision and wanted us to talk them out of it.”
Being aggressive or shouting at the clinic would be counter productive, said Petrozelli, because patients usually react defensively to male pro-lifers who appear to harass them. “The more conciliatory you are, the more effective you are,” he said. Part of the protesters'success seems to come from two dozen or so people—mostly older Catholic men—who come to pray the Rosary outside the facility each Saturday morning, one of the times when the center performs abortions.
At the Supreme Court hearing in October, an attorney representing the Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, the plaintiff, hammered away at the need for a quiet atmosphere at facilities for patients who are suffering emotional distress. Lucinda Finley referred to persistent “crowding and grabbing” that had occurred in the early 1990s at protests outside the facilities; she also stressed the government interest in protecting women's access to health care as enunciated by the high court in a 1994 ruling.
The justices didn't appear to be swayed by her arguments. They grilled abortion-rights advocates about First Amendment issues that would protect pro-lifers. When Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, speaking in support of abortion facilities on behalf of the Clinton administration, asked, “What's a trial judge supposed to do?” to protect patients and employees from overzealous pro-lifers, Justice Anthony Kennedy replied sharply: “One of the things he's supposed to do is read the First Amendment.”
Eve Paul, general counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York, told the Register, after the Supreme Court hearing, that “our problem is not with the people who peacefully demonstrate at the clinics, but with those who shove, harass and use bullhorns” to intimidate patients. Planned Parenthood operates nearly 1,000 clinics that perform abortions and filed a friend of the court brief in the Schenck case.
“When a woman is trying to get into a clinic, she's entitled to a certain amount of respect,” said Paul, who added that some women come for other services as well, such as contraceptives or help after a miscarriage. She said that “we haven't found any other way of providing protection for our clients,” other than providing a 15-foot buffer zone around them as they come and go from the facilities. In 1994, the Supreme Court upheld a 36-foot buffer zone around an abortion clinic in Melbourne, Fla. The Schenck case defines protected zones differently; they can now include people as well as buildings.
Pro-life advocates emphasize the high stakes of the Schenck case. “It will tell you which direction the Court is going to go,” said Joe Scheidler, director of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago. But Scheidler, who authored a book that describes 101 non-violent ways of closing an abortion facility, said no matter what the Supreme Court decides, pro-life protests will not cease. “As long as we're alive, and they're killing, we'll find a way to protest,” he said.
Nonetheless “if that right's taken away (by the Court), we're all in trouble,” said Scheidler, who's named in a federal racketeering case brought by the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Chicago, which is scheduled for a March 3, 1997 hearing. NOWis charging that Scheidler and other prominent pro-life leaders including former Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry knew of and encouraged plans to blow up abortion clinics and kill employees at the facilities.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Schenck case by June of next year. Weber said the court will probably strike down at least part of the Schenck injunction. “The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect speech that's not popular. Speech that is popular doesn't need protection,” he said.
Meanwhile, one expert observer said that the Supreme Court is “dancing around the edges of the abortion issue,” without ruling on its legality. Mark Chopko, general counsel for the United States Catholic Conference in Washington, D.C., said that local judges and state legislatures need to pass strong regulatory measures that challenge assumptions that abortion is good for society and for women. That is the way to force the Supreme Court's hand on the issue, he said.
William Murray is based in Kensington, Md. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Why Euthanasia Is A Hit on Prime Time DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:
A DESPERATELY ILL woman is brought into the emergency room. As the staff rushes to save her, they find that the woman has taken an overdose because of a terminal illness. Later, after she dies, her husband tearfully admits that he reluctantly gave his wife the overdose at her request. The staff members are moved by his obvious love for his spouse.
This was one of the storylines in a recent episode of the top-rated television drama ER.As anyone who has watched much TVin the past few years knows, euthanasia storylines are becoming commonplace. But how accurate are such stories and how do they affect public opinion?
Unlike dry news reports on Jack Kevorkian's latest victim or talk show debates about legalizing so-called “physician-assisted suicide,” prime time TV dramas combine powerful storylines with compelling continuing characters whom many viewers feel they know personally. This makes for a powerful impact on viewers' emotions, as entertainment and education blend together almost seam-lessly.
Take some other recent examples: ?Ayoung woman doctor is comatose and dying from a fast-growing brain tumor when a handsome neurosurgeon orders a newly graduated nurse to radically turn up the morphine drip to end the patient's life. When the nurse is hesitant, she is chastised by a colleague who tells her she is depriving her patient of a “death with dignity” and that euthanasia is a common practice. (Chicago Hope, 1994)
? An Alzheimer's patient is given a lethal overdose of pills by a loving stepdaughter who remembers her promise not to let him suffer. When this is discovered, the politically ambitious district attorney wants to prosecute the step-daughter for murder, but surviving family members rally around the stepdaughter. (Sisters, 1995)
? An elderly woman in failing health starves herself to death with the help of her devoted granddaughter.When the granddaughter's involvement is discovered, she is willing to go to jail rather than tell how her grandmother wanted to commit suicide by starvation because, the girl fears, her grandmother would not be allowed a Catholic burial. The Catholic prosecutor is touched by the granddaughter's explanation and allows a plea bargain. (Law and Order, 1995)
Prime time TV dramas usually frame the controversy as a conflict between a sad but courageous choice vs. inhumane laws and religious or political intolerance. While points are made on both sides of the issue, the resolution of such stories is almost always the same: The terminally ill person is grateful to “die with dignity,” the surviving family members grow closer, and the person assisting in the euthanasia or assisted suicide becomes wiser, more caring, and usually escapes legal punishment. With such a positive view of euthanasia, it is easy for nondiscerning viewers to conclude that when something as humane and compassionate as euthanasia is against the law, the law should be changed. Indeed, current polls consistently show 50-70 percent public approval for legalizing euthanasia for the terminally ill.
Stereotypes abound on TV: the agonized patient who begs for help, the conflicted but loving relative, the doctor or nurse who finds idealism clashing with the desire to help patients, and the unenlightened or rigidly religious euthanasia opponent.
While such characters make for good drama, these recurring elements don't reflect reality but merely reinforce misinformation about death and euthanasia. Central to most stories is the premise that pain is often unbearable in terminal illness. But, as pain experts testify and as euthanasia leaders have admitted, the reality is that even severe pain can be controlled in terminal patients—and usually without oversedation. Many people suffer unnecessarily because too many doctors and nurses have not been adequately trained in pain management. Efforts are being made in the medical field to educate all health care professionals in effective pain control to solve this problem, but the myth of uncontrollable pain continues to persist in the popular imagination.
Another frequent misconception on TV is that suicide is a rational and immutable choice made by the dying person. Actually, studies show that suicide rarely occurs in the absence of a major psychiatric disorder, even among the terminally ill, who, in fact, constitute only 2-4 percent of all suicides. Depression, for example, is notoriously underdiagnosed in the terminally ill. These patients too often are assumed to have a good reason to want to die, while their depression can be successfully treated as it is in physically healthy people.
A wavering between wanting to die and wanting to live is a universal characteristic found in suicidal people but rarely, if ever, acknowledged in TV dramas. Suicide hot lines are familiar with this ambivalence and their success is based on treating suicide as a cry for help rather than as a logical choice. In TV dramas, however, a terminally ill person's desire to commit suicide is easily accepted as final.
Also omitted or dismissed in these dramas are alternatives such as the hospices, that provide physical and emotional support to the dying and their families. Unfortunately, TV tends to downplay such vital and useful information.
The portrayal of opposition to euthanasia as primarily religious is a main tenet of pro-euthanasia groups, but this too is erroneous. National medical and nursing organizations, suicide prevention groups, disability rights leaders, and many legal and ethics experts also strongly oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, citing both the protection of vulnerable people and the prevention of corruption of medical personnel among their reasons.
The opposition by such groups as the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association is particularly instructive because it is they who will have to complete the death equation. While some polls have shown that a significant number of doctors and nurses say they could support assisted suicide in a hypothetical case, the numbers drop dramatically when they are asked if they would want to personally participate. Ironically, the greatest opposition to euthanasia is found among doctors and nurses who have the most experience with terminal illness, in specialties such as oncology and hospice.
The portrayal of relatives who participate in (or approve of) assisted suicide as always loving and supportive people is particularly problematic. The dysfunctional family, a staple of other TV dramas, apparently does not exist when the subject is euthanasia. Relatives, instead, are portrayed as stable and selfless people whose only regret is that they opposed the suicide in the beginning. These relatives invariably wind up praising the “courage” of the person who has chosen to die.
Ulterior motives, conflicted feelings about caring for a terminally ill person, or even emotional and physical exhaustion in relatives are facts of life that never seem to occur in such dramas. Also, as bereavement counselors report, the grieving process in surviving family members is much more complicated and difficult when a death is from suicide rather than natural causes. How could an assisted suicide be any less painful?
Sex, violence, and the decline of family values on television are often and loudly protested. The pro-euthanasia bias often found in TV dramas may be harder for less discerning viewers to detect, but it's no less important. With the U.S. Supreme Court now considering the legality of assisted suicide, public approval is crucial to euthanasia supporters and is one of their legal arguments. TV is a powerful medium that reaches millions of people daily, a fact not lost on euthanasia supporters who openly court the media.
The success of abortion supporters in framing that debate as the “right to choose” is also not lost on euthanasia supporters who have adopted the same slogan and similar arguments. Disturbing facts such as the tragic situation in the Netherlands, where even euthanasia without consent is openly tolerated, and the expansion of euthanasia arguments to include the elderly and disabled are seldom brought by euthanasia supporters. The “right to choose” arguments are simpler and easier.
Besides the problem of using one-sided arguments to persuade the public, another danger is that the lack of accurate information in such areas as pain control and hospice care can lead to despair in viewers who suffer similar illnesses and who may assume that suicide is the only option. Families may also falsely assume that suicidal relatives only want approval of their proposed action, rather than reassurance that they are not a burden. Help, therefore, may not be offered when it is most needed.
Although euthanasia is often presented as a personal matter of choice, its potential impact on society is incalculable. As the culture of death rapidly gains ground, insisting on accuracy and fairness in TV shows is not just good public policy—it could be life-saving.
Nancy Valko, R.N., is based in St. Louis, Mo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Nancy Guilfoy Valko ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cardinal's Nazi Era Anecdote Brings Home Plight of Mentally Ill DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Up to one-fourth of the world population suffers from mental disorders. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers in the West. Some 80 percent of the homeless in New York (30,000-40,000 people) suffer from mental disturbances. More than a quarter of people sent to prison in the United States are mentally ill.
Experts cited grim statistics at a three-day conference on mental illness here late last month. The Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers sponsored the event, which brought together theologians, doctors, state officials and researchers to discuss how the mentally ill can be better understood, cared for, and, if at all possible, cured.
Among the 60 experts who spoke were German scientist Erwin Neher, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine; Mary Coleman, professor emeritus at the Pediatrics Institute of Georgetown University; Eliot Sorel, president of the World Association for Social Psychiatry, Washington, D.C.; and Professor George Palermo, director of Criminological Psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Mental illness, participants agreed, is not only a social issue but a moral and theological one as well. Among the questions raised: “What happens when man, who has been created in the image and likeness of God, with the capacity to know and love, loses his faculties?” And, “How should society treat the mentally ill?”
Inaugurating the proceedings, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), rather than delivering a formal presentation on the Church's teaching regarding mental illness, recounted a personal story to the 7,000 people from 105 countries gathered in the congress hall. The German-born cardinal revealed that in 1941, when he was just 14 years old, the Nazis deported a younger cousin of his. The boy, who suffered from Down syndrome, had been a source of great joy for his mother who had lost her only other child, the cardinal said. Not long afterward, the family received word that the boy had “died of pneumonia.”
The numbers of those from his village of Marktl am Inn who were arrested or deported and subsequently “died of pneumonia” grew larger. Cardinal Ratzinger recalled that an elderly spinster, whom the village children often visited, was classified as mentally disturbed and taken away by authorities. Soon after, three brothers who, despite suffering from mental illness, had lived next door to the Ratzingers for years were taken away. “Finally,” the cardinal said, “there was no more doubt about what was happening, which was the systematic elimination of all those who were not considered productive.”
Cardinal Ratzinger said that the mentally ill “are images of Christ, whom we must honor, respect, and help as best as possible, but above all, they are images of Christ and bearers of a special message about the truth about man.” That, he added, is “a message which we tend to forget with ever-recurring frequency: our value in God's eyes does not depend on either intelligence or character stability or health. It depends only on the decision we make to love as much as possible in truth.”
Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini, president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, told the Register that “science and technology have made great progress, including in the field of mental illnesses. Therefore, we can only wonder why the number of people suffering from disorders of the mind continues to increase.”
“The truth is,” he continued, “that the [necessary] progress in what Pascal called the ‘reasons of the heart’ has not been [brought about by] the extraordinary progress that has been made in the ‘reasons of the mind.’ We have wonderful means to serve life but at the same time our respect for life, for its sacredness, its inviolability and its dignity, continues to decrease. This is precisely the attitude which casts a shadow on our modern society…. In this regard, modern society is not modern at all.”
Cardinal Angelini, in his presentation to the congress, developed a similar theme. He said one of the most acute problems in therapy and assistance for the mentally ill is the absence of the human touch. “Even the most modern facilities, where there is a lack of ‘heart,’ end up being analogous to the abominable insane asylums,” he said. “All health care workers should be psychologically, professionally, morally and spiritually prepared for this form of assistance.” Father Tony Anatrella, a French psychoanalyst and researcher, said the dissolution of family and community ties means that many individuals lack adequate human support for dealing with anxieties and other mental challenges.
Congress participants urged the scientific community not to underestimate the spiritual dimension in caring for the mentally ill. Carmelite Father Bonifacio Honings, a theologian and adviser to the CDF, cited a study of 120 patients suffering from terrible pain. Sixty from the group were asked to read the passage from the first letter of St. John that says, “God is love,” (1 Jn 4, 8) every day. The result: the test group— including professed unbelievers— reported feeling more able to tolerate the pain than the 60 subjects from the control group, who weren't exposed to the Scripture passage.
Father Honings, in reference to the conference title, “In the Image and Likeness of God,” explained that both those in control of their faculties and the mentally ill are made in the image of God. The difference, he said, was that the first group can prove it, while the second cannot.
Pope John Paul II concluded the congress with a call to defend the rights of the mentally ill. “Man is made in the Creator's image … even when his intellectual powers are strongly limited and also impeded by a pathological process,” the Pope said, reiterating the Church's commitment to the mentally ill. He also reminded the political community of its duty to recognize this by accomplishing “works of leadership and service on behalf of those suffering from serious mental disorders … through an adequate investment of human, scientific and socioeconomic resources.”
Referring to the conference's topic, the Pope recalled “the conviction (of Christian anthropology) that man was created in God's image and likeness…. Philosophical and theological reflection finds in the intellectual powers of man— intelligence and will—a privileged sign of this affinity with God … that enables man to know God and to establish a dialogue with him.”
“However,” John Paul II continued, “it must be specified that man as a whole, not only his spiritual soul and his free will, but also his body, participates in the dignity of the ‘image of God’…. Because it is the whole human person who is intended to be, in the Body of Christ, the shrine of the Spirit.” The Pope affirmed that “the Church recognizes the same dignity in all men, … independent of the fact that such human capacity is not feasible, because it is prevented by a mental disease.”
J. Colina Díez is based in Rome. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. Colina Díez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Running the World's Largest Jesuit Region DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:
Polish visitator faces huge cultural, material odds
Father Stanislaw Opiela, 58, has been Moscow-based Superior of the Independent Russian Region of the Jesuits since August 1992, covering all the former Soviet Union except the Baltic states. Born at Zamosc, Poland, he joined the Jesuits at age 16, and was ordained in 1970 by Cardinal Jean Danielou after studying in Chanteuil and Lyon, France. After obtaining his doctorate a Rome's Gregorian University, he edited the Polish order's re-founded Przeglad Powszechny monthly, as well as ministering to interned opposition activists under martial law. He was appointed Jesuit visitator and superior of the new region four years ago, after serving as Jesuit provincial for central Poland. He spoke with the Register during a visit to Gdynia, Poland.
Father Opiela: Even today, we still have only 35 Jesuits to cover the whole of the former Soviet Union. This number includes 12 currently undergoing formation and four beginning the first stage of initiation. Not all are from abroad; there are some Russian-German Jesuits who recently began acting openly again after many years in hiding. Most are working in parishes, although there are also small communities in Moscow and Novosibirsk. In Novosibirsk, they're helping Bishop Joseph Werth with his apostolic administration of Siberia. Besides the bishop himself, the vicar-general is a Jesuit, while other Jesuits are running the pre-seminary school and assisting with financial matters.
We decided to open a spiritual-cultural center in Novosibirsk deliberately—not only for Catholics, but for other religions too. It's still only at the beginning. In a city of 2 million, where Catholics are thrown over a wide area, our work is physically difficult, but it's gradually becoming more efficient.
We hope to organize a similar center in Moscow. However, there are administrative and financial problems there. Although we have official authorization, we haven't been able to obtain premises yet, since we're being asked to pay $3,000 per square meter of a derelict building.
In 18th century Russia, Jesuit centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg were known for their great erudition, and Jesuits were sought after as teachers and counselors. In 1820 though, the tsar closed the order and expelled its priests. How much of that original Jesuit legacy survives today?
There is a very low opinion of Jesuits in Russia—we are known as the “black devils.” When people see that we're not actually black, they usually change their view. We've needed a lot of time to overcome these bad, negative stereotypes. Those who come to our events and get to know us have a more positive attitude. But at the first meeting, they always look carefully to see if we aren't hiding knives behind our backs.
after as teachers and counselors. In 1820 though, the tsar closed the order and expelled its priests. How much of that original Jesuit legacy survives today?
There is a very low opinion of Jesuits in Russia—we are known as the “black devils.” When people see that we're not actually black, they usually change their view. We've needed a lot of time to overcome these negative stereotypes. Those who come to our events and get to know us have a more positive attitude. But at the first meeting, they always look carefully to see if we aren't hiding knives behind our backs.
You have worked in various countries besides Russia, including Poland, France and Mexico. How do conditions here compare with the Jesuit order's work abroad?
Our tasks are the same in Russia as everywhere. However, the particular circumstances must also be taken into account. Religious awareness isn't very developed here. Most people were taught to see religion in a negative light. Though the need for deeper knowledge and faith is being expressed by both Orthodox and Catholic Christians now, there's only one Catholic seminary in our region—it moved to St. Petersburg this year—so we still face great problems in forming, educating and supporting enough priests.
The fact that most Jesuits are living and working by themselves is one particular feature of life here. The communities in Moscow and Novosibirsk are small— they number two, three and eight respectively, depending on the time of year.
So most order members are unable to experience life in community. This would be exceptional in most countries.
Another special feature is that most priests are foreigners. This makes life more difficult and isn't good for local people. It will continue to be the case for some years though, while we wait for those now training to start work. As foreigners, we have to acculturate ourselves and accept local Church customs. This is by no means an obvious or automatic process. I think the Catholic liturgy needs more local elements in Russia. But these can only be introduced by Russian priests who come to work here.
As visitator in 1992, you also criss-crossed the ex-Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia. In July, Turkmenistan became the last former Soviet republic to open diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Is this a sign that prospects are improving for the scattered Catholic communities there?
Kazakhstan and Georgia were the first to establish diplomatic ties, and there's been a nuncio at Alma Ata in Kazakhstan since 1994, covering all the Central Asian republics. His job is merely a diplomatic one, as representative of the Vatican state, a contact man between two countries rather than between the Church and its capital. So these contacts by themselves won't do much to help the Church. While the presence of a nuncio may provide some added prestige for Catholics, it doesn't mean much as far as facts and figures are concerned, and isn't likely to reinforce the Catholic community's position in real life.
Since becoming independent in 1991, these countries have witnessed the reassertion of pre-Soviet cultural and religious traditions. They've also had to work out their own foreign alignments. How has this process affected Catholics?
Legally, although these are countries with a Muslim tradition, all religious minorities enjoy a good position, since the Soviet law guaranteeing freedom of conscience is still in force. There have been attempts to restrict this freedom, although nothing has formally been done until now. In practice, the situation depends on the particular republic. In Uzbekistan, for example, there's no Islamic fundamentalism, less pressure on Catholics and greater tolerance. In Tajikistan though, the “Whites” are all afraid. There is persecution there, although it's political rather than religious in origin.
In Kazakhstan, attempts were made to intimidate Christian minorities. They ceased when it was realized that the departure of the Christians, including Russians, would damage the national economy. But cases are often reported of better workplaces being offered to Kazakhs than to Christians.
Cases like these are clearly connected with the rise of Muslim feeling. Can the Jesuits help stem the steady hemorrhaging of the Catholic population?
It's difficult to tell how many Catholics there really are even in Russia. So it's even harder to say how many have survived in Central Asia. Most Catholics come from German families deported here after World War II. It's very difficult to estimate how many have kept their faith—particularly since many are now leaving for Germany. In Tajikistan, there were known to be at least 100 Catholics a year ago. There are now only four or five left. Both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have only single Catholic parishes and one priest each—both Russian-German Jesuits.
What effect has Muslim and nationalist pressure against Christians had on Catholic-Orthodox relations?
There are no real clashes between Christians and Muslims, since both groups have such infrequent contacts. By contrast, ties between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are quite positive, since both have minority status. Indeed, inter-Church relations are better in Central Asia than in Russia itself. Joint meetings and gatherings are common, while Catholics and Orthodox often attend each other's services and confess their sins to each other's priests. I remember traveling to say Mass at a remote parish in Central Asia, where there were only a few local Catholics, and finding more than 100 people present. They were almost all Orthodox faithful, who'd come because their own Church's position was particularly bad in that area—as it is in most of Central Asia, where its revival began with perestroika.
Will Boris Yeltsin's re-election as Russian president have an effect on local communities like this, and on the work of the Jesuits?
Russia is an entirely separate country now, so it won't have any direct impact on Christian minorities elsewhere. It's hard to be a prophet in these matters. I foresee that the number of Catholics in these neighboring republics will continue shrinking as Sunni and Shia Islamic traditions are reaffirmed in national life. The Christian “Whites” are all leaving wherever they can.
In Russia itself, the only development that could affect the Jesuits would be a change in current laws. But I don't think this will happen. Perhaps we will have to face administrative obstacles, over such things as visa extensions. It's hard to imagine government attitudes suddenly becoming overtly hostile to Catholicism and the Jesuits.
In Russia too, however, pressure is growing for a greater reassertion of spiritual and cultural traditions. Last August, a senior government adviser, Anatoly Leshchinsky, admitted that many officials were worried by the “aggressive tone” of Orthodox groups. Is there really a place for Catholicism in the Russia of the future?
Of course! There have always been Catholics here, and Catholic milieus exist—even if we will always be a minority Church only. Despite all the stereotypes, there's still great interest in Catholicism—especially in educated circles, who see it as an element of Western culture. So I don't think our situation can worsen dramatically.
There is, however, a lot of talk just now, especially in the media, against sects. The Catholic Church is not a sect, but sometimes people really do see it this way. The atmosphere is bad at the moment for all minorities. The hostility comes from Russian Orthodox hierarchs and ordinary people though, rather than from the governing authorities.
The last man to conduct a formal Jesuit mission to Russia, the French Jesuit Michel d'Herbigny, who arrived in 1925 with Soviet consent, was accused of “coming to pick up the masses from the abandoned field of Russian Orthodoxy.” What personal hopes and plans do you have for your work in the independent region?
It's important to remember that these are all separate countries now. There's a great need for young Jesuits simply to get to know each other, since they'll be working together and taking responsibility for the order's future here. As for myself, all I know is that I've been assigned to work here indefinitely, without any timetable. Even when I stop being the region's superior—as I believe I will two years from now—this does-n't mean I'll leave Russia. I could be moved from Moscow. My future depends on the Jesuit order's general; and for now, there's no change of plan.
—Jonathan Luxmoore
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Their Ranks Thinning, Chaplains Are All That They Can Be In the Army DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:CATHOLIC SEMINARIANS across the United States are being asked to “be all that they can be” by Armed Forces chaplains recruiters who are as likely to be wearing Roman collars as Major's leaves. In an effort to meet serious shortages in the military chaplain's core, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are sending priests in their service to encourage seminarians to consider serving God and country as chaplains.
The vocation crisis affecting nearly every diocese in the United States is taking a toll on the number of priests who serve the military as well. According to Msgr. Aloysius Callaghan, moderator of the curia and chancellor of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, the Armed Forces are short nearly 200 fulltime priests. Currently, 492 priests serve more than 1.1 million Catholic men and women in uniform, their spouses and children on military bases as well as personnel on ships, air craft carriers and submarines all over the world. They also work in veteran's hospitals and in the ranks of the National Guard and Reserve forces.
The shortage of priests is most pronounced in the Army, where only 9 percent (117) of active duty chaplains are Catholic priests, while 25 percent of Army personnel and their dependents are Catholic. Chaplain Major David Kenehan, one of two Catholic recruiters for the Army chief of chaplains office, said that while ideally at least one priest is assigned to every installation, that is simply not possible any longer. “If we are in the continental United States, and if there are civilian priests available to help us out, the senior chaplain, regardless of denomination, puts out information about local parishes,” Father Kenehan said. “We try to make sure that people have access to the sacraments.”
The Army has made it a priority to assign priests to bases outside the United States, making sure that each has at least one Catholic chaplain, civilian English-speaking priests in Europe and Asia who can speak English aren't always available. In addition to recruiting in seminaries, the Army has started a new program to foster vocations from within the ranks. “We are starting to get priestly vocations from other active duty personnel,” Father Kenehan said. “So far, we have about a dozen from various dioceses and religious communities studying for the priesthood.”
That list includes West Point graduates, as well as other former officers and enlisted men with experience in artillery, infantry, and military intelligence. “Because they know what it is to be a soldier, they will really know how to serve the needs of soldiers,” Father Kenehan said.
The difficulty of keeping up the chaplain corps numbers isn't surprising considering the nature of the job: a vocation to the life of a military chaplain is really a call within a call. Chaplains must meet the same physical requirements of others serving in the military. They spend time with combat units, sleeping in tents and eating rations or they endure long months at sea or duty abroad in hot spots like Bosnia. Even when a seminarian believes that that unique calling is his, he still needs the permission of the bishop of his home diocese (or the superior of his religious community) before he can enlist.
The military archdiocese has put together a “co-sponsorship program,” in which it shares the costs of educating a seminarian with their home or “civilian” diocese. Upon ordination, the new priest spends his first three years serving in his civilian diocese, then serves on active duty as a military chaplain for the duration of his career. “When they finish their career in the military,” Msgr. Callaghan explained, “they go back to their home diocese to serve their bishops there. They return so enriched … it adds a new dimension to their pastoral ministries.”
While in the military, Catholic chaplains serve the ordinary of the Archdiocese for Military Services, currently Archbishop Joseph Dimino. However, though it rarely happens, canon law stipulates that the bishop of a chaplain's home diocese retains the right to call a priest back into his service at any time, regardless of the chaplain's remaining military commitment.
Archbishop Dimino and his four auxiliary bishops frequently travel throughout the United States and abroad, visiting the faithful and the chaplains who serve them at their various military installations and veterans' hospitals. The prelates offer spiritual support and celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation. They cover so much territory that Msgr. Callaghan speaks of “the largest missionary diocese in the country.”
Since 1985, the Archdiocese for Military Services has been an independent See with headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area. (Before that, it was part of the Archdiocese of New York.) It is almost completely supported by the tithes of the military personnel it serves. Its work includes keeping records of all sacraments administered by the chaplains; operating a marriage tribunal for all cases involving military personnel; granting sacramental faculties to deacons in the military—and actively fostering vocations and screening chaplain candidates.
Military training in all branches of service begins with “Basic Chaplain's School” where chaplains of all faiths are trained together. “At chaplain school, we talk about peace-time, war-time, crisis, hostility, how to wear the uniform, dealing with commanders, dealing with shipboard living and how to deal with the military system,” said Marine Corps chaplain Capt. George Puccarelli.
Military chaplains of all faiths have a reputation for a strong spirit of cooperation with each other. They often share office space and even chapels. All the chaplains counsel people dealing with similar kinds of problems—separation from loved ones and very stressful jobs in difficult environments.
“We call it ‘cooperation without compromise,’” Father Puccarelli said. “Each chaplain, regardless of denomination, deals with Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic personnel.
We cater to our own, but [even] more, [we] minister to all. We represent God not in a finite level, but at an infinite level for all peoples.”
Adds Msgr. Callaghan: “This (the military) is a great area for evangelization. People serving in the military are ambassadors of peace and guardians of life, and for Catholics, that's what the Gospel of Life is all about.”
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pastor Confronts Ban on Military Personnel's Political Engagement DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:Like other military personnel, chaplains are employees of the federal government, and as such, are subject to some restrictions on their speech and behavior, especially when it comes to political activity. Chaplains are limited as to when, where and how they can speak out on a moral issue with political implications.
On Sept. 10 of this year, a Catholic Air Force Reserve chaplain, Lt. Col. Vincent Rigdon, filed suit against the Air Force in U.S. District Court, claiming that those rules violated his right to free speech and religion. He was joined in the suit by a Jewish Air Force chaplain, a Protestant Navy assistant chaplain, and the Muslim American Military Association.
The Air Force Times reported that their complaint concerns the directive issued by each of the military services last summer prohibiting Catholic chaplains from urging parishioners from the pulpit to join in the postcard campaign urging their legislators to override President Clinton's veto of the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act.
“Military members cannot use their official authority to influence or solicit votes on a political issue,” one publication said; “no one acting in an official capacity may distribute postcards or use government resources to support the Roman Catholic Church's campaign to overturn the President's veto.”
Rigdon is reported by the Air Force Times (Oct. 7, 1996) to have followed the military line of command, consulting with his commanding officer at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and with the Air Force Chief of Chaplains, Maj. Gen. Arthur Thomas, before filing the suit. To date, Rigdon's actions have not adversely effected his military career. Despite the Register's attempt to solicit comments, no one at the various chief of chaplains offices or the military archdiocese was at liberty to discuss the case.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Christendom's Chief Swears by History, Theology, Affordability DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:DR. TIMOTHY OíDONNELL has been president of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., since 1992. In 1985, he had left his post as assistant professor of theology at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles for Christendom. O'Donnell calls the move “the best decision” he's ever made.
When asked by Christendom's board to take over as president, O'Donnell accepted on the condition that he be allowed to continue teaching. Today, the 45-year-old theologian, teaches freshman history, sophomore New Testament and a few upper division courses. He recently spoke with the Register at Christendom.
O'Donnell: We would not exist if everything was fine in the world of higher education. We're very much concerned with contemporary trends in education generally and more specifically in Catholic education. Christendom's founders wanted to get back to the notion of a core curriculum. Almost all secular and Catholic universities used to require a fairly large number of courses in the liberal arts. In the 1960s that was all thrown away. All that was required at the Jesuit school where I was teaching, for example, were two religious studies courses. That was supposedly going to help you to become a good Catholic with an adult knowledge of your faith. That failed miserably. At Christendom, we went back to emphasizing a core curriculum that aims at grounding the student in a traditional offering of Catholic wisdom, where faith and reason are blended.
Were there otherreasons forestablishing yourcurriculum?
The founders were very concerned about the abandonment of theology at other Catholic colleges. It had been replaced in many cases by religious studies. That is a good and a valid discipline but very different from traditional theology, which studied God, his nature and attributes, and, which was concerned with studying the revealed core of doctrine. In addition, many theology departments were run by people who did not support the teaching of the Church. Christendom's founders insisted on a strong attachment and fidelity to the Church in this particular area.
What other problems were the founders looking to address?
They were concerned about the size of universities. Universities had gotten so large that a professor would often be teaching several hundred people at once. Christendom College is committed to never having more than 450 students (total enrollment) and never exceeding the 1 to 15 faculty to student ratio. The school offers an intimate, personal education. It is the more medieval notion of education where you have students and faculty living together, praying together and pursuing truth together.
Are you concerned about the rising costs of education?
Basically we are doing everything we can to keep costs down. Presently, our tuition and board costs are only $13,700 per year, which for a private school committed to 1 to 15 faculty student ratio is quite good. Nevertheless, we realize a number of our students come from larger Catholic families, and so besides traditional financial aid we offer a work study program. This helps students earn money for tuition, while the maintenance costs of the school are kept to a minimum.
Among otherreasons, universities work to achieve a reputation foracademic excellence to give theirgraduates a higher profile in the job market. What motivates Christendom?
Christ, through his three years of public ministry, was a teacher very much concerned that his teaching would be handed down through all generations. The Church has always been very much concerned with educating students about the Catholic faith and catechetics. However, as the Church spread throughout the world and encountered cultures, she saw the need for a broader mission. Hence the rise of the Catholic university.
As the Pope said in his apostolic exhortation, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the notion of the college and university came “out of the heart of the Church.” The idea of the university as a place where faith seeks understanding is fundamentally faithful to the mind of the Church and to the mind of Christ, the greatest teacher that ever. He communicated and united the two orders of faith and reason.
Please explain Christendom's emphasis on studying history?
History is important because Jesus Christ became man in time. The God of the Judeo-Christian tradition acts in history. Since Christ did not leave us orphans—he sent the Holy Spirit—the Church continues as an extension of the Incarnation in time. St. Augustine, in The City of God, stresses the Christian understanding of time as a linear progression, whereas pagan cultures were dominated by a view that we are on an endless wheel. The notion of God's Providence in history—that we can learn about God, man and the Church through what has been revealed—makes the study of history supremely worthwhile.
—John McCormack
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John McCormack ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: EDITORIAL DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:In a rare treat, the International Herald Tribune caught up recently with Brian Eno, the pioneer of electronic music and avant-garde rock. Mentor and collaborator of such heavyweights as David Bowie, John Cale, Talking Heads and U2, the 48-year-old wizard seems to have turned his back on music-making. These days he is finding meaning in work with a charity called War Child, which sends relief supplies to Bosnia. Its worth quoting him in full: “Music,” he said, “is no longer the center of the cultural conversation. … [Once] everybody's metaphors and reference points were very clear and common and they all went through a relatively small cosmology of musicians and pieces of music. Music mediated culture. Music is still nice and young people like it, but its a kind of ad-on. Not essential. So I wondered— where is the cultural conversation now?” According to Eno, “the counterculture has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the establishment. The counterculture is Calvin Klein. The young, by and large, seem to have been suckered” and are buying into “a surrogate counterculture.”
Whatever the blindspots of the generation of the 60s and 70s and the negative fall-out of the eras social experimentation, Eno is the product of a time of high idealism, of risk-taking and belief in change and progress. Music, indeed, for that generation was the medium that carried the pulse of the day. There was a shared sense of reality. And while many abhorred the excesses of the day, some products of the age had universal appeal—most notably, the Beatles, whose music swept up everyone, old and young.
It is hard to disagree with Eno that commercialism rules the day in the 90s, coopting anybody and anything that can serve its purposes.” No matter what you do today,” he says, “there are all these ponytailed admen at the finish line giving you this huge bear hug. And it occurred to me that a noble aspiration for a young artist today would be to try and make art that is too ugly to be used for advertising.” Or too ugly to appear on “anything goes” music television and cable. Or, maybe too much integrity could be a deterrent.
Again, Eno: “A great deal of peoples behavior is mediated culturally rather than rationally. People make decisions about what they think they ought to do on the basis not of rational argument but on what works for them metaphorically; what has been given dignity in their culture, and how they respond to that.” There is a premium today on the autonomy of the individual (the 60s gone overboard?), self-expression and self-realization, more or less regardless of the effect on the common good. That notion, moreover, has degenerated into something like a communal flight from intimacy and the common right to consume the entertainment of the moment. In this regard, young, old and in-between all have their drugs of choice. The cultural conversation, or what passes for it, is a cacophony of voices, a Tower of Babel. In this supposed global village no one is really listening anyway.
Could any single cultural force again unite all of society, as groundbreaking music was once able to or, on a far grander scale, as Christendom did in once bringing social, political and spiritual cohesion to the peoples of Europe (even as minorities fell victim to prejudices and excessive zeal)? That is precisely what John Paul II has in mind when he speaks of the “New Evangelization.” (And this time, he suggested in his letter previewing the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, the Church will do it right and start with a clean slate after acknowledging and making amends for the mistakes of the past.)
To help renew society, the Judeo-Christian tradition must become a participant in the cultural conversation; it cannot afford to just condemn things from the cultural margins, focus exclusively on the political process, or recruit social elites. To put it in today's lingo, it has got to become hip and cool to be a believer; desirable and dignified to be committed to a spiritual life. This does not mean glossing over the difficult side of faith or compromising any essentials; it does mean gaining entrance into the culture, though, because, as Eno made clear, culture mediates meaning. To be successful, the Church has to be clever— and subtle.
If anything can renew the culture, it is love, authentic love. The remedy for the dearth of life-giving relationships, it is the benchmark, says French Dominican Guy Bedouelle , of authentic art (page 7). As a film critic and theologian, he has high hopes for film-making—its capability of celebrating creation and hinting at eternal life—as a conveyor of meaning in the media age. The work of the best directors, he suggests, is “dictated by love.” May all of us respond to the promptings of that Muse.
—JK
----- EXCERPT: All You Need Is Love ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: 'This Administration Today, Here and Now, Declares Unconditional War on Poverty in America' DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, by Irwin Unger (New York: Doubleday, 1996, 400 pp., $27.95)
Bill Clinton won the recent election, in part, because he promised to balance the budget without deep cuts in Medicare, education and the protection of the environment. The Newt Gingrich-led Republican congress was caricatured as mean-spirited because it proposed shrinking and/or eliminating these and many other federal programs to achieve the same goal.
Almost all of the items at risk were enacted into law as part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. So, in a certain sense, this ambitious legislative agenda of 30 years ago was an unacknowledged issue in the recent campaign.
New York University historian Irwin Unger's latest book, The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon,is a fair-minded account of what actually happened during that period of great social change as the author carefully distinguishes between legislative specifics and the myths that have grown up around them.
Separating fact and fiction is important because many people believe the Great Society is a major cause of America's moral and cultural decline. Their case against it goes way beyond the failure of certain programs to deliver promised services. The encouragement of a sense of “entitlement” among the underclass during that era is said to have destroyed self-reliance as a civic virtue, creating a climate that undermines valid social norms.
Even those who don't share this particular ideological perspective remember the 60s as a time of disorder in which the Great Society is somehow mixed in with assassinations, inner-city riots, campus demonstrations and an unpopular war. Unger takes great pains to set the record straight.
The energy behind the Great Society was generated by a small group of left-liberal intellectuals in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was an elitist movement, with reforms designed from above that were intended to help the poor and middle class below. Its thinking “was infused by the sense of affluence achieved,” Unger explains. The next step was therefore “to conceive a new liberalism that would wrestle with the quality of life, now that the quantity of life had been largely attended to.”
The mood was radically different from today. Reformers believed in the power of social engineering and were convinced that any problem could be solved. The middle class was feeling both optimistic and generous, willing to finance extensive federal projects for itself and those less fortunate. “The response was off the trend line of national behavior,” Unger observes, “reflecting an extraordinary convergence of short-lived political and economic circumstance not to be repeated in the next 30 years.” Most of the turmoil and despair popularly associated with the 60s came after the major Great Society programs were in place.
John Kennedy's New Frontier was an attempt to extend the big-government social agenda which FDR and Harry Truman had originated. Unger describes it as “aimed at achieving security against life's vicissitudes through federal intervention.” The Kennedy administration's method of operation was typical of the time. A select group of academics, congressional staffers, business leaders and family loyalists were organized into 29 different task forces, each devoted to a specific issue. They met secretly, without grassroots input.
Faced with a hostile Congress, most of the New Frontier agenda soon stalled. But when Johnson became president after Kennedy's 1963 assassination, he put his own particular spin on the proposals, and after convening his own 42 secret task forces, the Great Society was born. Amazingly enough, combining his legislative skills with a landslide re-election victory in 1964, he got almost all of it enacted.
Many of Johnson's accomplishments—Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to education and urban redevelopment—were a completion of the New Frontier. But the ambitious Texan wanted to break new ground. So, in keeping with the advanced academic thinking of the time, he also designed programs aimed at the middle class and their quality of life. “Clean air and water, new and improved national parks, highway beautification, consumer protection laws, federal subsidies to the arts and humanities, public broadcasting, loans to college students all touched the lives of solvent, well educated and politically literate men and women” as well as the poor.
But unfair as it may be, the Great Society is best remembered for its controversial War on Poverty. Johnson announced the program with a display of hubris unthinkable today. “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America,” he proclaimed. “We shall not rest until the war is won.”
To implement his vision, the president created a new federal agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Two ideas from the newly-fashionable social science disciplines guided OEO's planning: faith in the value of technical education of the disadvantaged and the idea of a unique culture of poverty. Unger points out that this latter notion assumed that “the behavior and values of the poor itself were at least in part responsible for their fate … [and that] the poor's cultural inadequacies could be handled by education rather than redistribution [of income].”
The emphasis was on opportunity rather than handouts. However, in its Job Corps, Community Action and Legal Services programs, OEO introduced another new idea: the relative suspension of class blame. Overturning centuries of conventional wisdom, the OEO refused to distinguish between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor when it doled out money and services. The distribution of government benefits was delinked from good behavior. But it was the spilling over of this attitude into the administration of existing welfare programs that created the much resented sense of “entitlement” among some of the recipients, not any of the Great Society initiatives themselves.
Except for Head Start, which aided preschool children, most OEO programs failed to achieve their goals, and the agency was disbanded in the mid-70s. The rest of the Great Society lives on. How to dispose of its legacy will be a major point of contention between Clinton and the GOP congress for the next four years.
Americans have slowly come to realize that times have changed since the Great Society and that we can't have it all. We are being forced to decide what our public policy priorities should be. Our choices will determine what kind of nation we want to become.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Papal Record on Slavery Stands Tall DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:The Popes and Slavery, by Father Joel Panzer (Alba House, 1996, 124 pp., $7.95)
BETWEEN THE “Christianity of Christ” and the religion that once justified slavery, wrote former slave Frederick Douglas, is the “widest possible distance.” Such strong language naturally leads the thoughtful Catholic to ask, “Where were the Popes in the battle against chattel slavery?” Right in the thick of it, claims Father Joel Panzer. His concise volume, The Popes and Slavery, chronicles papal opposition to slavery, including ample appendices of primary source material, in Latin and English, to substantiate the author's assessment.
Not until 1890, claim critics, did Pope Leo XIII finally repudiate it. But Father Panzer handily demonstrates staunch papal condemnation of African and Indian thralldom three and four centuries earlier.
Sixty years before Columbus came to the New World, writes Father Panzer, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly-colonized Canary Islands. His bull Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that “all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of 15 days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live … restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of [the] Canary Islands … who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money.”
Acentury later, Pope Paul III applied the same principle to the newly encountered Indians of the West and South in the bull Sublimis Deus (1537). This pontiff described the enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify slavery as “null and void.” Accompanying the bull was another document, Pastorale Officium, that attached a latae sententiate excommunication, remittable only by the Pope himself, for those who attempted to enslave the Indians or steal their goods.
According to Father Panzer, papal condemnation of slavery persisted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Pope Gregory XVI's 1839 bull In Supremo, for example, reiterated papal opposition to enslaving “Indians, blacks or other such people” and forbade “any ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this trade in blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse …” In 1888, and again in 1890, Pope Leo XIII forcefully condemned slavery and sought its elimination, where it persisted in parts of South America and Africa.
Despite this evidence, critics still insist the Magisterium did too little too late regarding slavery. Why? One reason was the failure to distinguish between just and unjust forms of servitude. The Magisterium condemned unjust enslavement early on, but it also recognized what is known as “just title slavery.” That included forced servitude of prisoners of war and criminals, and voluntary servitude of indentured servants. But chattel slavery as practiced in the United States and elsewhere, Father Panzer argues, differed in kind, not merely in degree, from “just title slavery.” By focusing on the latter, critics unfairly neglect the vigorous papal denunciations of the former.
The matter is further muddled by certain 19th century American clergymen—including many bishops—who tried to defend the American slave system. They contended that the even-then longstanding papal condemnations of slavery didn't apply to the United States. The slave trade, some argued, but not slavery itself, had been condemned by Pope Gregory XVI.
Historians critical of the papacy on this matter often make that same argument. As Father Panzer cogently demonstrates, however, papal teaching condemned both the slave trade and slavery itself (except, of course, “just title” servitude, which wasn't at issue). It was certain members of the American hierarchy of the time who “explained away” that teaching. Many critics still won't acknowledge the real papal record. They have a vested interest in not doing so, for they mistakenly believe Catholic teaching on such things as contraception and abortion can be reversed by showing how the papacy supposedly changed its teaching on slavery. The Popes and Slavery appears to present an insurmountable obstacle to making that case.
Mark Brumley is based in Napa, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:Father Coughlin
I was happy to see the recent letter defending Father Coughlin (see Letters, Nov. 17-23) after Gabriel Meyer had referred to him in an earlier article as a “pioneer of hate radio.” It is unjust.
Earlier this year, various members of the secular humanist establishment specifically moved against Patrick Buchanan and in general, the Church. They dredged up half-truths and lies concerning Father Coughlin so their campaign against Buchanan and the Church would be credible. It did well; many Catholics, still pursuing assimilation, went for the package.
Father Coughlin was an outstanding pastor and a radio pioneer in teaching catechetics. His role as a commentator on economic issues can certainly be questioned, but only against the background of the Great Depression and the fact that millions of immigrant and first generation Catholics were at the mercy of the power structure.
Can a functioning Catholic be anti-Semitic? Obviously not! Father Coughlin was a Catholic priest, in love with Jesus and the Eucharist. He denied being anti-Semitic, but admitted errors, the printing of the Protocols of Zion being one. Someday, a truthful biography of this good priest will be published, warts and all. Meanwhile, Catholics would do well to concentrate on the mission of Christ and beware of those who would vilify faithful priests.
John Patrick Stanton
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
‘Self-evident’ religion
I disagree with David Schindler's view that Americans exhibit private theism but public atheism (“America's Dangerous Lack of Religious Drama,” Nov. 17-23). His analysis wrongly equates religious conviction with Church affiliation. The low profile of denominational religion in the nation's community life does not mean the absence of religious values.
Our Declaration of Independence speaks of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,” and that it is “self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Were the signers of the declaration committed churchmen? Hardly. Jefferson was a rationalist Unitarian. Washington never declared himself a Christian and seemed to be of a deist mind-set. Franklin died a deist. Ethan Allen avowed that he was no Christian and accepted the appellation of deist.
Unlike these men, other signers undoubtedly had religious perceptions based on faith in divine revelation as taught by their Churches. However, despite theological diversity, these shapers of our national political values shared rational religious principles that were “self-evident” and not dependent on faith in a specific creed, sect, or denomination. Further, to this day, through law and public and private institutions, these principles continue to shape life in America and help curb selfish excesses that sometimes occur in democracy and capitalism. They are also mainstream America's best defense against the atheism and nihilism feared by Schindler.
David Keeney
San Diego, California
Cardinal Bernardin
I do not ordinarily read your newspaper but picked up a copy of the Nov. 24-30 edition because of the cover story about Cardinal Bernardin (“Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and the Art of Reconciliation”). I really appreciated the coverage your paper devoted to his death. Thoughtful and insightful perspectives were articulated by Jay Copp, Father William Stetson and Msgr. Philip Murnion.
I went on to read the editorial, “The Cardinal,” written by Joop Koopman, your editor. I was aghast to realize that he would use the occasion of the cardinal's death as an opportunity to vent his own disagreements with him. I would think it reasonable to express such opinions ordinarily, but not at the occasion of his death, and in particular because the editor acknowledges that such disagreement had frequently been aired in your pages previously.
Even more insulting than the ill-timed and poor decorum of Koopman's remarks was the fact that it was done under the scant veil of tribute. This included quotes of Cardinal Bernardin from a Register interview that were placed without any context whatsoever, and ending with the words: “rest in peace.”
The editorial was in poor taste. I would have expected better.
Robert Moynihan
Chicago, Illinois
I am very sorry to hear of your reaction to the editorial. Attacking the cardinal was farthest from my mind. However, as was noted, many Register readers, past and present, were often at odds with him. I tried to acknowledge that, while at the same time highlighting the cardinal's many accomplishments. It was good to hear you appreciated the rest of the coverage, though.
Joop Koopman
Your correspondence regarding the Register, its features and Catholic issues are welcome. Submissions should be typed double-space, and sent to: Letters to the Editor, National Catholic Register, 33 Rossotto Drive, Hamden, CT 06514; or faxed to: (203) 288-5157; or e-mailed to cmedia@pipeline.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: In the Best of a Century of Cinema, a Foretaste of Heaven DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:WHY IS IT that crowds are so willing to brave the elements and spend hours in line for a chance to visit the major shows of paintings in Paris, London and elsewhere, only to whisper rapturously upon encountering the works, once inside this Holy of Holies? Why is it that during concerts, when you have the misfortune of coughing a bit loudly during the symphony, you meet with so many stares expressing indignation at such sacrilege?
It is because in our era of reversed values, art seems to have replaced the sacred that once filled the churches. These now stand mostly deserted, as secularization has wreaked havoc. Still, whether it's to be fashionable or out of a subconscious search for the supernatural, the public isn't wrong to trace the arts, such as they are, to their sacred origin. Ancient mythology had an intuitive sense about this, as expressed in the nine muses, the daughters of Zeus, the author of Life and Memory, with mythology itself born out of the union of heaven and earth. Theater, dance and music were born with the sacred and for the sacred, while the more recent disciplines, like photography—freezing a moment in a kind of eternity—and the cinema remain true to that origin.
In 1995, the world observed with pomp and circumstance the centenary of the invention of cinema, the celebration driven by the vague notion that film has managed to capture and express the ups and downs of the 20th century. For the Church, the occasion was all the more reason to reflect on the relationship between Christianity and the arts.
We must acknowledge that the Gospels, indeed the entire New Testament, say nothing about art, as if it were a realm left untouched by the Good News. Paradoxically, however, in the history of both Western and Eastern Christendom, no single text has been studied, scrutinized, illustrated, set to music, expressed in sculpture, painting, theatre and film like the Bible. Christianity has never stopped calling on beauty to express itself, its liturgy and its tradition, the efforts of iconoclasts notwithstanding. The Church continues to do so today.
Why is it that the Church finds in art (and not just in works it commissions or which explicitly express its faith) a spiritual dimension, demanding of it a sanctifying function? The sanctification of sound by music; of the body by dance; of space by architecture, sculpture and painting; the sanctification of words, and also of movement—which is the proper meaning of the word “cinema.” Cinematography means the scripting of movement.
Film-making is an unwieldy art; often it's an industry, beholden to commercial interests, rather than a cry hurled into the universe. Often enough, it has difficulty keeping up with the older arts, painting and music, as these soar to spiritual heights. Many films simply stick to amusing the audience, which is fine if the entertainment is honest. Even so, more often than they are given credit for, movies do participate in the spiritual function of art, which, at bottom, can be defined as “the revelation of creation.”
Art reveals the hidden, implied, beauty of ‘creation: It arranges, renews and transcribes the infinite play of sounds, colours and images; it also explores all of humanity's desires and aspirations. Like the mother caring for her children and the worker carrying out his daily tasks, the artist, as co-creator, adds to the world's beauty, order and joy; or brings consolation amidst chaos and sorrow. We are always just witnesses, through suffering endured or shared, through emotion which inspires us to embrace the human condition, and through the search for meaning that characterizes us as the rational and spiritual beings whom God the Creator has generously installed as free stewards of creation.
Hence the Church has to make amends for its deeply-rooted tendency towards kitsch; it is not the job of Churchmen to pronounce on the orthodoxy of this or that work of art—except those that form part of the liturgical space—nor is the Church called to judge artists' aesthetic merit. The Church can, however, based on its experience of grace and its intuitive grasp of the theological virtues, detect the authenticity of love—because there is no true work of art without love.
Filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini, Francois Truffaut or Wim Wenders, who was awarded a doctorate honora causa by the University of Fribourg in recognition of the spiritual value of his work, think of films as dictated by love. Jean-Luc Godard dared to compare the movie screen to the veil of Veronica, who, wiping the disfigured Holy Face, reveals Christ, our Savior, in whom all of creation is reconciled and recapitulated—the visible as well as the invisible world, whose unimaginable beauty we will one day discover, but of which, in art, we already have a presentiment.
Father Bedouelle is based at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Guy Bedouelle OP ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: In Advent, the Hope of Israel Becomes Our Own DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:The liturgy of Advent makes present each year the ancient expectancy of the Messiah. “For God is leading Israel in joy/by the light of his glory, with his mercy and justice for company” (Bar 5,9). The Church invites us to enter into this spirit of expectancy so that we can prepare in a more fruitful way for the birth of Jesus.
In other words, the Church, especially through the Advent readings, warns us not to take Christmas for granted. Rather, we are encouraged to ponder the mysteries that surround the divine infancy. “For you are born for us,” sings Romanus the Melodist, “Little Child, God eternal.” God Advent observance remains fragmentary until we learn to welcome afresh the one who came among us as a little Child.
The Blessed Virgin Mary models this holy expectancy, as the Gospels make clear. First, we hear about the virginal conception at the Annunciation. “And the Word became flesh” (Jn 1, 14). Then the evangelist immediately continues: “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Lk 1, 39-40). At the Visitation, Mary's “haste” demonstrates the urgency that should shape our Advent preparation.
The Visitation inaugurates the history of salvation: a new power at work in the world makes itself felt in the person of Elizabeth, who, although advanced in age, is already six months pregnant with John the Baptist. “And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Lk 1, 41). The Fathers of the Church considered that this “leap” signals the sanctification of John. From such small beginnings, we are encouraged, then, to expect great things of God.
Elizabeth's Example
Elizabeth's contact with Mary begins the deliverance and consolation of Israel. Indeed, Elizabeth's barrenness and old age serve as important reminders of what we are like when left on our own. Apart from God , we are unable to pursue and develop a full and complete life. Our sins cause us to grow old and crabbed— whatever our chronological age. No matter how we rationalize it, sin can lead only to death, which is the woeful termination of all hopefulness, the ultimate numbing of all expectancy.
The mystery of the Visitation urges us to believe that God truly intends the Incarnation for each one of us. For in the person of the aged Elizabeth, Mary carries Jesus to each member of his Mystical Body. Gregory the Great even compares Mary with Eve: “Through the wonderful providence of God's goodness, a woman's lips brought the news of life because in Paradise a woman's lips had dealt death.” Mary is our real mother in the order of salvation. Even the holiness of her Immaculate Conception belongs to each one of us.
The Dominican tradition, it is important to note, has always rejected the view that the grace of the Immaculate Conception embodies a special prerogative for Mary. Why? Because our sinful human race needs both Jesus and the Immaculate Conception for its salvation. We need Jesus because there exists no other source of holiness other than what he provides. But we need Mary in order to overcome the blackmail of the devil that urges us to abandon all hope of ever being ready for the holiness of God. And so Mary gives birth in each of her children to a new expectancy, the hope for a new kind of life that surpasses the boldest human imaginations.
The mystery of the Visitation finds its fulfillment only when we live in the Immaculate Conception. As with Elizabeth of old, Mary hastens to bring us Jesus. Still. since the grace of the Immaculate Conception actually becomes ours only when we ask for it, Mary hastens to each one of us: “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves” (Song 3, 2).
Mary's Maternity
We are the ones whom her soul seeks. And then she waits for our greeting: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus.” Surely the Visitation directs us to invoke the holy name of Mary alongside the name of Jesus. And, what's more, we have to do this over and over again, even in the face of our own apparently hopeless attachment to sin. If the infant John could have spoken in Elizabeth's womb, he would have cried out: “Jesus, Mary!
The Visitation grounds our confidence in Mary's maternal mediation. What does the Gospel tell us about Elizabeth's reaction? “For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy” (Lk 1, 41). Because the Church acknowledges the indispensable role that Mary's maternity plays in our spiritual development, the Church invokes Mary as the “cause of our joy.” We can contemplate the blessed Mother and her maternity. Recall the practice of Eastern iconography to portray our Lady holding the Christ child close to her cheeks. We name these representations the Virgin of Tenderness. That is how God now wants us to image Mary: as a tender mother holding each one of us close to her cheek. Indeed, God has supplied no other remedy for us other than “tainted nature's solitary’ boast.” We take comfort from her presence and warmth.
Mary, then, remains our hope. So when you are sad or depressed, greet Mary as a tender mother. Join her in her concerns and her joys. Again, she provides our sweetness. Tell her as much. So when you find nothing else to sustain you, turn to Mary as a sure strength. That's what the saints have done. Mary even contains our life, the source of her privilege and our dignity. So when you experience yourself as dead on account of your sins, embrace Mary as the sweet refuge of sinners. Enshrine the Virgin of Tenderness in your hearts. Hail! Our life, our sweetness, and our hope. “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”
In Mary, the expectancy of Israel is at last fulfilled. Now, we who are her spiritual children, can rejoice that God has so richly provided for us; and we can urge others who have either not yet heard about or long since forgotten the hope of Israel to join in the expectancy created by the approach of Christmas.
Father Cessario is a professor of systematic theology at St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Romanus Cessario OP ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Beyond Sight: A Liturgical Inquiry DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:IT WAS an interfaith service and after various prayers were said, the leader noted: “The paths followed in our spiritual journeys may be different but all come to the same point: communication with an Almighty Force, greater than ourselves and complex beyond human understanding. There are various routes to the top of every mountain. But we find unity there.”
As a blind Catholic, that image of diverse paths toward a closer union with Christ has remained with me. As I pray alone or with my brothers and sisters, I am struck by the marvel of the sensory routes to the heart and soul of worship.
As one who can no longer follow the words printed on the slips of paper pressed into my hand nor contemplate the images that adorn the sanctuary and direct the thoughts of those about me toward a contemplative frame of mind, what occupies my senses and my mind? Are my unique physiological glitches really that unique? In addition to my blindness, I have lost hearing in my right ear and make use of a wheelchair for mobility. Are not adjustments to physiological limitations becoming more and more common, however?
While there would probably be general agreement that each of us is unique and comforted by differing signs of God's presence in our lives, there seems to be a sense that certain patterns of worship are appropriate for everyone. John Paul II reminded us in his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (On the Coming of the Third Millennium) of the importance of “the grace of Christian unity.” Where does that unity exist though?
Further study of John Paul's text is inspiring to those of us who seek accommodations for the diversity of functions we expect to find within every parish. For he notes that as we prepare for this wonderful jubilee, we need consider, “not just an inner joy but a jubilation which is manifested outwardly, for the coming of God is also an outward, visible, audible and tangible event…. It is thus appropriate that every sign of joy … should have its own outward expression.” He calls upon the Church to confirm its faithfulness by actions that “ensure that the power of salvation may be shared by all.”
The National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities has promoted that variety of “signs of joy,” encouraging the sharing of the Good News in forms and by means that are accessible to those with various limitations. As we seek those methods by which we can foster the spiritual development of our brothers and sisters with physical, sensory or cognitive limitations, we remind all who will contemplate the diverse channels through which the Good News is communicated that the blind will hear; the deaf will see and the cognitively disabled will be witness to the tangible signs of our shared jubilation. For when we make use of all the gateways to human hearts that God provides, each soul can come to ponder the mysteries of our faith in their unique way.
One might reasonably anticipate that some channels of prayer and worship might be less fulfilling for those of us who can not see the objects and movements that convey the non-verbal themes of our communal unity. As a former artist, I once imagined I missed the visual elements of worship more than anyone else could! I was reminded by a friend that the intensity of any loss seems greater to the one who actually experiences it.
While it is surely not wise to dwell upon the gaps in one's experiencing of any given moment, it seems appropriate to acknowledge losses and strategize ways to compensate for such limitations.
It is such an approach that has led to the advances in rehabilitation that have taken place in recent years. Within our spiritual lives, when one channel is closed it may be that those avenues of prayer still available become expanded and compensate for what might otherwise be missed; for God does not allow us to experience vacuums in our connections to Him.
I do not feel deprived as I sit among my fellow Catholics to pray. I sometimes crave the reinforcement that the symbols of our faith bring to our shared worship. The Cross above the altar, the carvings and mosaics; stained glass lessons illuminated by the sun; the candle light and flowers gathered in bouquets, the figures of the Blessed Mother and the saints and the colors of the vestments: these became a part of our tradition because of their pervasive significance. Without feeling sorry for myself, is it not possible to acknowledge that those of us who are not reminded of these time-honored signs of God's presence may long for substitution for the visual paths along which our consciousness may be guided to him?
This does not mean my communication with God, my Father, Christ, my Savior, Mary and those saints to whom I look for guidance and comfort, is in any way incomplete. They are as present to me as the air I breathe and no lack of function can remove them from my perception. For they are with me always.
I so love it when I can hear the Holy Water bubbling in a fountain and I crave the reckless flinging out of its healing reminder of God. There is a dash of disappointment when there is an insufficiency and the droplets do not touch my face or hands.
Recently I heard a liturgist remark: “We'll never have incense or gongs here!” It's hard to explain to those who are dedicated to the post-Vatican II freshness that I miss the wondrous “smells and bells” of the past. I sometimes wonder if the sighted members of my parish family are remotely aware of how blessed is the faint aroma of incense, the sound of the clanging chain upon the censer and the other hints of the presence of the Holy Trinity within our midst. When the Host is placed upon my tongue, there is no doubting of Christ's presence, but I crave the build-up to that climax.
I am convinced God does not allow the fragility of our bodies to destroy our ability to worship him. In fact, study of the saints would tend to confirm that the coming to the realization that the human spirit is more powerful than the container into which is poured the gift of life may assist in discernment of our unity with God. Consciousness of our shared fragility reminds us of our need for him and each other. We gather to share in the Eucharistic feast, not as totally independent or autonomous individuals but as essential members of the Body of Christ. None of us is complete except as we join with God. With that essential knowledge, that we are so intimately intertwined, I sometimes wonder why we do not work harder to explore the various avenues of worship that bring us to that table.
I am filled with joy when the altar server swings the censer with sufficient vigor that the metal chain clatters to tell of preparations to attend to the telling of the Good News. The scent of incense as it wafts upward and outward has carried a message of spiritual ascendance for centuries. When it fills the room and seems almost too strong I am reminded that God's presence in the air I am breathing is almost too powerful for me to incorporate into myself.
When it is time to share the sign of peace I silently pray for evidence of unity with those around me. For I am reminded of a repeated dream from my early blindness in which I wandered in gray clouds with arms outstretched, hopeful, yet fearful of encounters with others lost in that same fog. For it is eye contact that informs us if others are ready to share this moment of fellowship. I miss such visual clues. I must trust my fingers will find the hand of a companion on the journey of faith, reaching out, hopeful that the miracle of wholeness is present in our shared worship.
Upon a visit to a parish in a strange city, tears of joy filled my eyes when the beautiful reverberations of the bell marked that moment of the eucharistic miracle. I joined in prayerful wonder at that moment and this sign of God's love for us all. While I am used to estimating the moment when the Host is raised to be witnessed and worshipped by all present, I miss the brass reverberations that signal the incredible transformation.
That Sunday morning, as the ringing subsided and the prayers had been said, my joy continued as I advanced to join my brothers and sisters in moving forward to receive the Blessed Body of my Lord. I prefer it when I am not marked out for receiving at my place. For although I am also a wheelchair user, I much prefer to join in the procession of the faithful, moving forward in solidarity.
There was a loss when my failing eyesight could no longer follow the words on the song sheet. I love to sing—loudly. In fact, I have sometimes said my greatest disability may be my failure to follow the melody as I range far in search of harmonies that strike my ear as beautiful. Over the years I have grown tired of singing “la-la-de da” as I seek to harmonize my voice in joyful or sorrowful singing.
Then one day I found myself at a service that was audio-described. Up in the balcony, overlooking the visual stimulus below, sat a volunteer who softly whispered through an earphone the details of what others were observing. A short-range FM transmitter was sending her voice to a small receiver in my hand. It was the size of a pack of cards. She told of the movements of the celebrant and the look of the altar. This day I knew the colors of the robes, the details of the cross, the carved symbols on the altar and the shade of the flowers that were clustered at the steps. When the singing began, she was reciting the words to the next phrase of the hymn in that small space between refrains. For the first time in years I was hearing, feeling and singing each inspiring word which others were enjoying.
I'd forgotten how beautiful the words of our hymns can be. They are a part of the prayers of the faithful that I had sorely missed but seldom acknowledged.
What do I seek within liturgical celebrations? I want to be a fully participating member of the worship community. I want to experience the liturgy through means not reliant on vision. The rush of sensations independent of sight mark God's presence in our midst as we gather in unity: I rejoice when the sound of the bell rings out at the moment when Christ becomes present at his table; I long to feel the healing touch of God's living water on my face. Such invisible signs bring him to my consciousness to thrill me; the quiet whisper in my ear of words unread or symbols not glimpsed will be eagerly awaited.
I will rest content with the knowledge that God has made me, as he makes us all, in his image. I am complete and only seek the enrichment that can be provided when we join hands and hearts to promote meaningful inclusion for all.
Mary Jane Owen is executive director of the National Catholic Office for Persons with
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Jane Owen ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Next Sunday at Mass: 'Nothing Is Impossible for God' DATE: 12/15/1996 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 15-21, 1996 ----- BODY:Dec. 22, 1996
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Lk 1, 26-38
ON THE last Sunday before Christmas, the Church focuses on how it all began. One might wonder why this Gospel of the Annunciation wasn't proclaimed the first Sunday of Advent, as a start to the season. We already heard the same Gospel on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, just a few weeks ago. Why bother to repeat it again today?
The reason is very important. God wants us to enter into the mystery of the Incarnation being deeply united to the Blessed Mother. We have waited longingly all Advent for the coming of Jesus. The Blessed Mother is given to us now to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the gift of her Son. United in Mary, at Christmas we can love the Infant Jesus—not just with our own love, but with the very love of the Mother of God.
This Gospel reveals the tender devotion that God shows Mary; and it summons us to join him in giving Mary that same devotion. At the same time, the Gospel invites us into the saving encounter between Mary and the archangel, so that we might share in the powerful graces imparted in that exchange.
Upon arriving in Nazareth, the first thing Gabriel does is to declare God's happiness with Mary. He states it several ways: “Highly favored daughter. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” Before announcing her vocation, the angel wants Mary to be convinced of how much delight God takes in her. And he wants Mary actively to share in that delight: “Rejoice!” Knowledge of the profound delight God takes in us fills us with the faith and fortitude to carry out his will. Our union with the Blessed Mother assures us of just how much God is pleased with us, bolstering us to embrace the graces of Christmas.
Our closeness to the Blessed Mother frees us from fear. Mary could accept the miracle of conceiving the “Son of the Most High” because of the wonder of divine power she experienced at that moment: When the angel commanded her, “Do not fear, Mary,” Mary was fearful no longer. The same God who can liberate us from the most enslaving fears is he who is capable of effecting the greatest wonders in our life, if we let him. God gives us Mary at Christmas so that, through her, we can confide our fears to him. In response, the Lord blesses us with the same confidence and strength that transform Mary. He gives us the name of Jesus.
God gives us the Blessed Mother at Christmas to help us believe in all the impossibility that the Incarnation defies. He does not want us to confront the apparent bleakness and hopelessness of our life alone. Christmas is a time of new beginning; of God breaking through the darkness to come into our lives; of proving that “nothing is impossible for God.” The Lord blesses us with his Mother, that we might espouse her own trust in this great truth.
Father Cameron is a professor of homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter John Cameron OP ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Teachers' Union Fierce Foe of School-Choice DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:THE KEY battlegrounds in the war for school-choice in America are state capitals across the country. In state after state, the key opponent of school-choice is the same—public school teachers' unions, in most cases the state affiliates of the National Education Association (NEA).
Education reform advocates, like the Catholic Church, support school-choice because it allows parents to choose among public, private, or religious schools. Hence, passage of choice proposals would mean a dramatic shift in power away from the public school establishment, which is controlled by the NEA.
In the NEA, school-choice proponents have a fearsome foe. With 2.1 million members, the NEA recently surpassed the Teamsters as the largest union in America. It has members in literally every community, while its “unified” dues structure ensures it a steady flow of cash from teachers across the country. Every NEA member pays a fixed percentage of his or her salary to the national union, which in turn parcels the money out to its 52 state-level affiliates and 13,000 local affiliates around the country. The average teacher pays about $400 each year to the NEA. In 1993, for example, the national union kept $96, and sent the rest to the states and localities. Since dues are set as a fixed percentage of teachers’ salaries, the NEA has a vested interest in agitating for higher teacher salaries.
Much of these funds are put to use in the political arena. NEA giving is overwhelmingly Democratic, in keeping with the union's tradition. The union at the national level has been closely intertwined with the Democratic party since 1976, when it issued its first presidential endorsement, supporting Jimmy Carter, who repaid the NEA by creating the U.S. Department of Education. In 1994, the NEA PAC gave $4.4 million to congressional candidates in 1994, 98.7 percent of it to Democrats.
This spending is supplemented by NEA affiliates at the state and local level. For example, Indiana's state and local associated PACs raised nearly $700,000 from the 41,000 Indiana members in 1992 and spent nearly half a million on state and local candidates. NEA members routinely account for about one quarter of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
“You are looking at the absolute heart and center of the Democratic Party,” a leading Republican and former Education Secretary William Bennett, a frequent NEA sparring partner, told Forbes magazine.
“The teachers union lobbies legislators on a massive scale, they run sophisticated grassroots campaigns,” said Christopher Freind, the executive director of the REACH Alliance, a pro-school-choice grassroots organization based in Harrisburg, Pa. “They have a highly-paid staff here in Pennsylvania who do nothing but worry about how to defeat school-choice. They are a professional political organization."
The NEA also fights against merit pay for teachers, accountability assessments, longer school days and a longer school calendar. The union also agitates against issues not directly related to education—like tax cuts, spending reductions, and efforts to curb illegal immigration. The NEA was even supportive of the failed Clinton health care plan and the 1993 Clinton budget that included nearly $240 billion in tax increases.
The NEA does not mince words when it comes to the voucher issue. “Vouchers are not about choice, freedom, equity, or learning,” says a NEA pamphlet called “Vouchers: What's at Stake?" “Vouchers would subsidize educational elitism, set up a two-tiered school system, divide the nation, and deny the certainty of opportunity for all."
“Vouchers are a thinly-disguised attempt to destroy our country's public schools,” reads a brochure from the NEA's Center for the Preservation of Public Education. “Vouchers would transfer scarce tax dollars from public to private schools. The easiest to educate students, primarily from middle-class and affluent families, would be selected by private schools. Public schools—their funding greatly diminished—would be left with the poorest, most difficult to educate students."
“The NEA supports anything that means more taxes and bigger government,” said U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), himself a former public school teacher. “The NEA is nothing more than an arm of the Democratic Party, and it uses its members’ money to push Democrat issues that have absolutely nothing to do with students or classroom teachers.”
The NEA was formed in 1837 as a trade association, and it existed in that mode for nearly a century. In 1961, however, President Kennedy signed an executive order permitting unions to bargain collectively on behalf of federal employees. Most states soon followed the federal example, and the NEA, along with the smaller American Federation of Teachers, became the national union for America's teachers.
The NEA's vast influence is being put to the test on the school-choice issue in nearly every corner of the United States. Notable school-choice victories have been rare, but momentum has been slowly building. Milwaukee has had a modified school plan— which does not include religious schools—in place since 1991. Arizona enacted a pilot program; and Ohio recently started a program allowing poor residents of Cleveland to choose between public, private and religious schools.
On the other side of the ball, however, the NEA has won some resounding high-profile victories on choice. In 1993, the California Teachers Association spent a whopping $12 million to defeat Proposition 174, a school-choice ballot initiative in California. School-choice efforts have also been beaten back in about 15 other states.
NEA state offices typically bring in all available resources to the choice issue, using their own staff as well as contract lobbyists to work the legislators, while activist teachers lead grassroots efforts in the local community. At key moments, too, the union can be counted on to barrage the state with radio, television, and newspaper ads. Once the fight is over, they have the kind of activist operation that can reward friends and punish enemies. Union members go door-to-door at election time, and they can provide poll-watchers on election day in critical districts
One favored tactic of the union is to set up dummy ad-hoc “coalitions" to fight a certain issue, keeping the NEA and its affiliates out of the public eye. In one high-profile example, the union was by far the largest donor to “Taxpayers Against Proposition 187" a California ballot initiative to limit illegal immigration. In 1992, the Pennsylvania State Education Association set up “Citizens for Real Tax Reform" to fight plans for property tax relief.
“You have to peel back layers and layers before you realize that the union is bankrolling these kinds of coalitions,” said Guy Ciarocchi, public affairs director of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, who has tangled with the union on school-choice.
Pennsylvania is perhaps the best example of the NEA's success. The state would seem ripe for a school-choice victory. Taxpayers have been very generous with public education funding—the state ranks in the top five nationally in per-pupil education spending ($8,000 annually). By any measure, however, public school performance in the state has been poor. Pennsylvania ranks in the bottom five nationally in such bellwether education categories as SAT scores, student literacy, graduation rates, and students going on to college. Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican, has made school-choice a top priority, and Republicans control both Houses of the legislature.
Yet school-choice failed twice in Pennsylvania in 1995, each time by razor-thin margins. School-choice advocates acknowledge NEA and PSEA political and organizational skills, but they also charge that the union engaged in a misinformation campaign. “They have successfully played on people's fears,” said Ciarocchi. “They misinform the public about property taxes and about the separation of church and state,” said Freind. “They do not want to debate the merits of the issue because they cannot win on the merits."
PSEA gave more than $184,600 to Pennsylvania legislators in l995-96. That kind of money translates into clout in the Capitol. “There are many inner-city legislators who will not support school-choice because they are afraid of a primary challenge" bankrolled by PSEA, said Ciarocchi. “Everyone who works on this issue can tell you at least one story about a legislator who tells us privately that they agree with us on the issue, but who will not support us because they worry about being targeted by PSEA."
“The school-choice side is playing catch-up,” he continued. “In many cases, the school-choice advocates are lead by church-related organizations and by loose grassroots coalitions. Well, the archdiocese does not have a PAC, we do not endorse candidates, we do not have precinct workers, we do not have poll-watchers. We are less politically sophisticated."
“It may take us a while, but eventually we will win, and school-choice will become a reality,” said Freind. “Public opinion is turning against the teachers’ unions. People are tired of paying higher and higher property taxes for public schools that are getting worse and worse."
Michael Barbera is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Catholic & Capable,' Some Teenagers Have Edge Avoiding Drugs DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:13-YEAR-OLD Shannon Conway is a solid student at Corpus Christi School in Colorado Springs, Colo. She's a good athlete, is close to her parents, and participates in her parish youth group.
Drugs seem little more than a distant threat to her now, but before long, she will leave safe, familiar settings for the less-protected environs of public high school. She feels ready. “It will be easier for me and the other people coming from Catholic schools,” she said. “The way our teachers have talked to us and treated us … has just given us general good judgment."
In fact, Conway's profile puts her in one of the lowest-risk categories for potential drug use among teens, according to two recent national surveys. A 1996 survey of teens and their parents, conducted for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) by the Luntz Research Companies, concluded that the number of teens expected to sample illegal drugs in the future has doubled since 1995—from 11 percent to 22 percent. Teens and parents who participated in the survey agree that drugs are the single biggest problem facing 12-17 year-olds in this country.
“The issue isn't whether our children are going to be tossed into this sea of drugs; the issue is how well we can teach them to swim,” said Joseph Califano Jr., CASAPresident and former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. “Too many of our parents are not even teaching their kids how to float."
Catholic teens who are active in their faith, according to another survey, are pretty good swimmers. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University this past July released results of a survey called “New Directions in Youth Ministry." More than 6,000 high school students involved in youth ministry in 41 diocese and cultural associations across the county responded. The majority—68 percent—surveyed rated “not using drugs" as the most important value from a list of 15 values in the questionnaire. (See sidebar.)
Admittedly, the teens who participated in the Youth Ministry Survey are operating with advantages many teens in the CASA survey did not have. Sixty-four percent said that they originally joined youth ministry programs because of their “family's urging/support" and 86 percent agreed in some form with the statement “I learned about faith from my family."
Indeed, parents’ attitude is a key factor, said Father Leonard Wenke, executive director of the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministers, a group that cosponsored the Youth Ministry study. “Parental apathy is the critical factor in kids use of drugs or non-use of drugs."
While experts agree that nothing can replace the role played by parents, for Catholic kids who take part in religious education classes at school or in the parish the anti-drug message is reinforced by another authority source. Many religious education textbooks, from early primary grades on, talk about the evils of substance abuse as a breach of the Fifth Commandment. But when working with teens, many dioceses take a less direct approach to the issue of substance abuse, focusing instead on moral decision-making across the board.
As Father Wenke said: “One of the things that young people come to Church activities for is to help them make tough life choices."
In fact, the majority of respondents (52 percent) in the Youth Ministry survey said that participating in youth ministry had helped them most in two ways: “Making serious life choices" and “understanding my Catholic faith better." The Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky. and the Diocese of Stockton, Calif. are fine-tuning new programs for young people that emphasize those two learning areas.
The Archdiocese of Louisville is testing a program called “Catholic and Capable,” designed by Mike Carotta, arch-diocesan director of Youth Ministry. The program focuses on developing three areas: religious faith, emotional awareness, and moral living.
“The only reason we do any of this is for the third one, the moral life,” Carotta said. “If all we do is help kids develop religious faith, but we're not impacting their moral life … we end up with a bunch of Pharisees." The clear emphasis of “Catholic and Capable" is on the skills necessary for moral decision-making. The program is “not meant to replace traditional religious education,” Carotta added.
Carotta has based much of his work on what he calls the “huge myth" regarding kids’ self-esteem. He began researching these ideas more than ten years ago, when he was religious education director at Boys Town. He said that American teen-agers—even those who take drugs and those who are troubled—have high self-esteem according to all of the major surveys.
“Current approaches to self-esteem are based on the assumption that if a kid feels good, they will do well. Too often we end up lowering the hoop and offering superficial affirmation that's not based on real accomplishments,” Carotta said. “This approach reverses that assumption. If a kid does well, he or she will feel good. Or, in our case, if a kid learns how to be ‘Catholic and Capable,’ he or she will feel good."
Carrotta added that it is still vital to affirm and support youngsters as they learn to make good decisions. “Parents must be very present, have high expectations, point out their failings and pick them up when they fall,” he said.
The “Prophets of Hope" program in the Stockton diocese has spent the last two years promoting spiritual formation in small communities of Hispanic young adults, ages 16-24. This program is facilitated by the Instituto Fe y Vida (Faith and Life Institute), whose executive director, Carmen Maria Cervantes, calls the program “a new model for ministry."
Cervantes, who also worked on translation and distribution of the Youth Ministry survey, said that the Instituto Fe y Vida has always tried to promote “decision-making with a background in faith."
Each small community rotates leadership roles among its 12-24 members. They are given materials to help plan reflection, prayer and discussion sessions. Each community participates in service projects. They schedule their own weekly meetings around school and work. The flexibility afforded by small groups makes it possible for many participants to stay active in spiritual formation. Cervantes said that one group meets routinely at 2:00 a.m., when many of its members get off the late shift at work.
There are pastoral ministers available to help the group get started, but after that the communities are very independent, Cervantes said. “We offer advisors in their faith journey only when a community is in need and asks for one,” Cervantes said. “All of the people in the small community are responsible for the life of the community." Cervantes attributes the growing success of these communities to the individual responsibility and accountability possible in a small group.
Both the “Prophets of Hope" and “Catholic and Capable" programs try to keep their participants interested and involved in youth ministry through high school, and beyond. In the conclusion of the Youth Ministry study, senior research associate Dr. Brian Froehle stated that the statistics proved “… youth ministry makes a deeper impression on participants the longer they participate."
And Catholic teens are given a leg up.
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In India, Hindus Wary of Christian Rights DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI—India's opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a campaign early this month to pressure the United Front government to abandon its promise of granting Christians of low caste origin equal status with their Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist counterparts.
“The Scheduled Castes of the country will not tolerate such politics of convenience which has led to an unholy alliance between the Church and the government. BJP, with the support of the dalits (low castes) of the country will oppose the bill tooth and nail and the struggle launched today will continue until the bill is buried for forever,” said a resolution adopted at a rally organized by BJP's Scheduled Caste Morcha (low caste forum).
A host of BJP national leaders addressed the Sept. 2 rally in New Delhi in which more than 6,000 low caste members of the BJP gathered to protest the government's move to respond to the decades-old Christian demand for extension of Scheduled Caste (SC) status to Christians of low caste origin.
Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who assumed office June 1, had assured several Christian delegations, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), that the necessary amendment pass in Parliament during its current session.
Dalit literally means “trampled upon" and refers to low castes (officially called scheduled castes) who were once treated as “untouchables." Except for the Christians among them, scheduled Castes are entitled to free education, as well as a guaranteed quota of jobs reserved in the government and legislatures. A 1950 constitutional amendment made Hindu Dalits eligible for SC benefits; these were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and to Buddhists in 1990. Christian Dalits, who constitute more than 60 percent of India's 22 million Christians (15 million Catholics among them), are denied such benefits because Christianity does not recognize the caste system.
“We will not allow the government to include Christian converts in a list of scheduled castes and extend to them [the accompanying benefits]. If the bill is passed, we will take the struggle to the streets,” declared former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had to resign after 13 days in power as his BJP government failed to garner a majority in Parliament following the general election last spring.
“This is not a question of government jobs only. This move will encourage conversion on a large scale and divide Indian society,” Vajpayee said, expressing high caste Hindu fears that extending constitutional equality to Christian dalits would increase the conversion rate of Hindu Dalits to Christianity. He urged party members to oppose the bill and warned that if it passed, social tension would increase.
Calling the proposed legislation a “black bill,” Bangaru Laxman, organizer of the rally, said that if Christian dalits— who are “better off,” he charged, than non-Christian dalits— are added to the SC list, they will take most of the government jobs reserved for low castes.
BJPnever expressed regrets about the 1956 extension of SC status to Sikh dalits. But in 1990, when the National Front coalition tried to include both Buddhist and Christian dalits under the SC category, the BJP threatened to bring down the government which depended on its support. The government recanted and extended SC status to Buddhist dalits only. The BJP holds that SC status is a prerogative of Hindus and that both Sikhism and Buddhism are offshoots of Hinduism.
“BJP has now stolen the show from us. The sad part of it is that brahmins (high castes) have succeeded in dividing the dalit community to keep intact the upper caste hegemony over dalits." said Father Lourdusamy, secretary of CBCI Commission for dalits.
Father Lourdusamy, himself a dalit, said that low castes are “well aware that, whatever their religion, they live in the same segregated villages and have the same social status. Unfortunately BJP has succeeded in making some Hindu dalits come out openly against [Christian Dalits]."
Saral Chatterji, chairperson of All India Christian People's Forum, which seeks to end what it called the “undeclared apartheid" against Christian dalits, said: “Whatever their [BJP] arguments, the fact remains that dalit Christians are as depressed as Hindu dalits. They are discriminated against in a country with a constitution that guarantees equality and justice."
The United Front government has dropped the dalit Christian bill from the agenda of the current session of Parliament. In an Aug. 28 cabinet meeting, the government decided against introducing the bill during the current session, fearing it would bolster the BJP in the Sept. 30-Oct. 7 elections for the legislature of northern Uttar Pradesh state—which is India's most populous state with more than 140 million people.
Passing the bill now, said Father Lourdusamy, would boost the BJP, who would use it to garner the support of Hindu dalits who constitute more than 17 percent of the local population. The Christian population of Uttar Pradesh is less than 0.5 percent.
“Due to the political insignificance of Christians, especially at the national level, the government is taking [Christians] for a ride—that's what we have experienced for decades,” Chatterji said.
Christians have no plans to abandon their struggle. Activists expressing understanding for the dilemma of the United Front government are now working to dispel BJP's message that the bill would benefit Christian dalits at the expense of other dalits. In a move to appease critics, the Christian campaigners are now planning to demand only “proportional quotas" for Christian dalits.
Anto Akkara is based in New Delhi.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Making the Laity Feel at Home' DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:Archbishop Stafford: The ministry in Rome will be fundamentally the same as my ministry here. It is a ministry that is the same for every priest and every bishop; a ministry of intercession, of mediation, of prayer to God on behalf of all mankind. That is fundamentally what we are called to do through the celebration of the Eucharist and the Liturgy of Hours.
Specifically in Rome, I will be called to serve the primacy of the pope, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. That primacy was defined beautifully by Ignatius of Antioch as the residing hope of the Church in charity.
My personal challenges are basically those of multi-cultural riches of our Church. The task will be to become more familiar with the various languages and cultures in which the Catholic Church has become incarnate.
Pope John Paul II has said that the spiritual movements are one of the great signs of hope forthe Church. What positive contributions are the various renewal movements making? What problems do they present?
The lay movements serve the entire Church by assisting the laity in feeling at home in the Church. To be at home in the Church of Jesus Christ means to be at home with a unique world view that respects the transcendence of the human person. By that the Church means that the laity and the clergy are called to make a personal, solitary commitment within the Church to the mystery of Christ and the mystery of his Church. That entails not simply committing one's thoughts to be in line with the Church, but really that one's actions are to be directly arising from the Church and its life.
The challenge presented by the movements is the specific lay vocation election within the Church. The laity are called to be sacraments which give concrete expression to the reality which they bear, the fundamental reality of life, that we are called to eternal life in Christ. The laity do that by being at the crossroads of where the supernatural structures of the Church, that is the sacraments, meet the world. The challenge of the laity and the clergy is to assist in identifying that unique, peculiar, privileged, place in which the Gospel meets the culture. It is in the heart of the lay man and woman.
In Europe, many Catholics seem to relate to the Church primarily through the various international spiritual movements. In the United States, the focus tends to be on the parish. Is that a cultural difference, or a potential conflict?
First, is the statement true? The Neo-Catechumenal Way is a movement which depends upon a parochial rootedness, and of course, the Neo-Catechumenal is one of the great spiritual fruits of the Second Vatican Council. It is rooted in the rediscovery of the revolution that is called for through baptism.
Secondly, the parish life in the United States and North America has always been the focus of Church life, and the assimilation of the Catholic immigrant to American culture. That role was not appropriate for the European scene.
Whether the parish as we know it in the United States will continue to sustain its traditional pattern and form is problematic. My judgment is that the international spiritual movements will assist the parishes and assist the Catholics of the United States in making the transition in the role of the parishes—now basically assimilative to American culture—to a new and different role. That role is basically the evangelization of culture today. That is a more demanding, aggressive role than the assimilative role of the past.
Some of the charismatic renewal communities have had difficult relationships with local bishops. What's the right balance between the community's integrity as a lay association and the bishop's over-sight?
The charismatic renewal is another fruit of the Second Vatican Council and must be judged as very positive for the Catholic Church. It is especially important from the rediscovery within the Church of Her own book, that is the Bible. Every bishop rejoices in the recovery by the laity of its heritage. Every lay person has a right to that recovery.
The bishops’ oversight is particularly a call to the charismatic communities to live within the tradition of the Church and of its spiritual legacies, the legacies of the great founders of religious orders and congregations. The bishop has the duty and right to intervene when the lay association moves outside of the rich tradition of the Church's spiritual life.
Will the World Youth Day phenomenon be part of your work at the Pontifical Council for the Laity?
World Youth Day in Denver in 1993 was a revolutionary experience for me personally and for many of the Catholic bishops. We rediscovered the beauty of the faith of our youth adults and young people. Our task beyond World Youth Day is to establish a means of welcoming structures within our parishes, calling young people to a deeper joy in their faith in Jesus Christ.
Our future plans after World Youth Day 93 are essentially related to the capacity of the Church to create welcoming communities in our parishes. Of course, the immediate task for the Council of the Laity is to work cooperatively with Cardinal Lustiger, the archbishop of Paris, in implementing World Youth Day 97.
Some commentators feel that the apostolate of the laity as envisioned by Vatican II has yet to be really implemented. Often clergy want to be involved in secular society, while lay people want to do spiritual ministry in the parish. How do we bring about a genuine spiritual renewal of the laity and a clarification of respective roles of laity, clergy and religious?
The role of the laity is to give sincere and truthful witness to the mystery of Jesus Christ in the world; to witness their Catholic faiths without deceit. To do this, they must not be not afraid of the blood of Christ, which means they are not afraid of suffering, because suffering has been transformed by Christ's love. We need more men and women who will give witness that they are not afraid of the blood of Christ.
Is the Pontifical Council getting involved in the celebration of the third millennium?
I can't be very specific at this time. I can project some hopes that are very personal. My hope would be that the council would bring together laity from various cultures, from differing perspectives to speak of the presence of Christ in flesh in those cultures. For example, as we move toward the new millennium, I would personally like to see a convocation of laity from North America in dialogue with the laity of the South America and Central America. The agenda of the dialogue would be on economic and social justice in light of the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II, especially Centesimus Annus and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.
It would also be my personal hope that the Council for the Laity would continue to call laity from Eastern Europe. This experience under communist totalitarian regimes requires a very different response than the laity of Western Europe, whose freedom has been diminished by the capitalist environment that overwhelms people's desire for the transcendent.
What do you feel that you've been able to accomplish in Denver? What developments are you most proud of? Is there anything left undone?
The Gospel has been proclaimed in its purity, and that is the Gospel that Paul defines as the Word of the Cross. The Gospel of the cross is wisdom, the wisdom to those who believe. I sense that there has been an increasing awareness on the part of many of our people, that the glory of God has been revealed in the redemptive love of the crucified one. That is the proclamation that the Holy Father gave in 1993 in Denver, and that is the proclamation that we are attempting to teach though the increased engagement of our young people in Catholic schools.
I'm also pleased to discover that in Denver, over the past year or so, there has been for the first time in a generation an increase in Mass attendance. Many are finding that God's absolute unique love is for them revealed in the sacrifice of Christ which we offer in the Eucharist.
In terms of having left undone, we are always on the move to the fulfillment of the Kingdom. We are always in the process of filling up what is lacking in the response to Christ and His cross. So the new archbishop together with the leadership of our Church will need to continue to proclaim the centrality of the Paschal Mystery for the lives of our people. And thus, we must realize a deeper rootedness of our faith in the culture of the Rocky Mountain area.
What's your take on Cardinal Bernardin's “common ground" proposal? Isn't it unusual for so many bishops to comment publicly—in some cases negatively—on a fellow bishop's initiative?
I've reflected upon Cardinal Bernardin's common ground proposal and prayed over it. At this time, the only comment that I wish to make is that it is singular that he has circumvented the collegial process and the bishops’ conference. I don't recall an initiative on the part of any local ordinary with such national implications, with such implications for each of the dioceses in the United States, that has been undertaken outside of the collegial structures of our conference. I regret that the conference structure was ignored.
— Greg Kail
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Aid Group Helps Local Churches Cope, Rebuild DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:KONIGSTEIN, Germany—Congress late last month passed resolutions condemning “egregious" human rights abuses against Christians around the world. At the same time, across the Atlantic, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), rallied its staff and supporters to help needy Christians in word and deed. While Washington's interest in the issue is relatively recent, the German-based ACN, founded and still headed by 83-year-old Dutch-born Father Werenfried van Straaten, O. Praem, has been championing persecuted Christians for nearly half a century. Last year, it distributed more than $75 million in aid to pastoral projects in more than 115 countries including China, Cuba, Bosnia, Albania, Rwanda and Russia.
The ACN congress brought together some 300 country representatives, academics, theologians, and journalists to address “The Heritage of Communism." Clergy and lay people from Russia, China, Cuba and Ethiopia provided first-hand observations and analyses of the dire situation of the Church in their countries. Two of them—China and Cuba—are still under communist governments, while the others are still emerging from what the organization's president, Benedictine Father Willem de Smet, called the “anthropological catastrophe" of totalitarian rule.
For journalists, the force of the testimonies was tempered by the stipulation that representatives from three of the four countries not be identified. But Father de Smet explained that “[t]he fear of reprisals against the Church and themselves [could result from] their frank words." Nevertheless, their thorough accounts and other available information underscored the complexity of the Church's role in the communist and post-communist societies.
That complexity and the difficulty of determining the appropriate course of action for Western co-religionists and aid groups is no where more difficult than in China. At the root of the quagmire is the co-existence of the state sanctioned “Patriotic" Church—which does not recognize papal authority and appoints its own bishops—and the “Underground" Church, which professes loyalty to Rome. Readily definable in words, the problem of the so-called “two Churches" in China is infinitely more subtle in reality, representatives who reported on the country said.
“One can only warn against painting an over-simplistic black-and-white picture of it,” according to a report prepared by a German-born priest who has worked in Beijing for more than a decade. “However justified the position of the ‘Underground Church,’ one must also understand the conscientious dilemma of those bishops and priests who, while accepting to work under the label of the ‘Patriotic Association,’ are nonetheless personally loyal to the Holy Father and to the Universal Church … For them it is a practical question of to what extent they can accept the facilities offered by the state and so best serve the Church."
In fact, speakers said, sometimes the division between the “Patriotic" and the “Underground" is completely blurred. They noted that it isn't uncommon for the Churches to share pastoral leadership; several underground bishops are also priests in the official Church. “The question [is],” said a Hong Kong research fellow and expert on China: “Are these people underground, official, or somewhere in between?" Part of the problem, she added, lies in the tendency to think of China as a single-minded, centralized government body, which in practice is more “like having 2,000 individual governments in which much depends upon personal relationships."
Added Regis Anouil, ACN's Konigstein-based China projects manager: “Decisions [about belonging to the ‘Underground’ or ‘Official’ Church] are made at a very human, very social level. Whether a young man will enter a ‘Patriotic’ or ‘Underground’ seminary often depends on geography, family contacts, etc."
Some dismiss such explanations that emphasize pragmatic rather than ideological considerations, insisting that the official Church in China is a compromised institution. The Stamford, Conn.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, for one, has been critical of the ACN's attempts to promote reconciliation between the two Chinese Churches. The stance of the foundation, named for Cardinal Ignatius Kung, the exiled bishop of Shanghai who spent 30 years in jail for his steadfast loyalty to the Pope, has hurt ACN's U.S. collections. The foundation's criticisms of the ACN in 1994 have cost the organization at least $250,000 annually in reduced contributions, according to David Budinger, president of ACN's U.S. board.
But a letter last spring from the Vatican's U.S. Apostolic Pro-Nuncio, Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan, made it clear that Rome does not share the Kung Foundation's position. The letter, written in response to a circular signed by Cardinal Kung and sent to all the U.S. bishops in late 1995, quoted a document from the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples: “[T]he [Cardinal Kung] Foundation is a private institution, not involving the responsibility of the Holy See. Its activities and statements on the situation of the Church in China are the sole responsibility of the Foundation." Archbishop Cacciavillan's letter also noted that “the ‘Patriotic Association’ is much more complex than what appears and is presented in [Cardinal Kung's] letter."
On a number of occasions, most notably in a World Youth Day broadcast from Manila to China in January 1995, Pope John Paul II has encouraged reconciliation between the “Patriotic" and “Underground" Churches. As the German priest who has worked for 10 years in China, reported, “again and again one encounters the same problem: the confrontation of these two camps within the Church, the complete lack of collaboration between them and their reciprocal condemnations represent one of the greatest evils in the proclamation and spread of the Gospel."
More easily understood than the relationship between the “Patriotic" and “Underground" Churches is the general struggle faced by Chinese Catholics, including the sporadic crackdowns on “unauthorized Masses,” people being arrested and jailed for their faith, and the destruction of church buildings. This year “the centers of the ‘Underground’ Church in Hebei Province have been shut again and in some villages there are said to have been collective forswearings of the faith,” the German-born priest reported.
Despite the persecutions, priestly and Religious vocations have flourished in the wake of the Cultural Revolution that spanned the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Currently there are about 1,000 priests in the “Underground" Church and 1300 in the “Official" Church. Of the country's
1.2 billion people, only 10 to 12 million are estimated to be Catholics, but about 60,000 converts come into the Church each year.
In China, as elsewhere, the thrust of the ACN's work has always been pastoral. “We have never relinquished this pastoral character of our work,” Father Werenfried said. “Not even when it became fashionable to put social progress above the narrow path to heaven, development aid above missionary work, violent liberation above redemption via the Cross, the material above the spiritual and the temporal above the eternal."
The organization's top priority is formation of seminarians and novices, catechists and other lay leaders of Christian communities. “We know that in the last analysis, everything depends on individual human qualities,” said the ACN's director of projects, Father Florian Kapusciak, C.M. Other projects the organization takes on, selecting from the 9,000-10,000 annual requests, include producing Bibles and liturgical books in local languages; catechetical projects; media projects; the construction of churches; and purchasing vehicles for priests and Religious whose work depends on mobility.
Since Father Werenfried's (Werenfried means “Warrior for Peace,” the name he took upon entering the Norbertine Order at their Abbey of Tongerlo in Belgium) first project collecting bacon from the Flemish peasants for the 14 million Germans displaced in post-Nazi Europe—an endeavor that earned him the name “the Bacon Priest"—he has known the pitfalls of supporting causes that are open to misinterpretation. The China difficulties of recent years have been overshadowed by the ANC's even more controversial decision in 1992 to support the Orthodox Church in Russia. Father Werenfried saw it as a “good faith" opportunity to contribute to the reconciliation of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
“The Orthodox is our sister Church,” he told the Register. “Eighty-five percent of the faithful in Russia are Orthodox, and it's up to the Orthodox to reevangelize after 70 years of militant atheism. That's why we help them." Despite the Vatican's concurrence, some donors—including one who reportedly contributed $3 million a year—withdrew their support in protest.
Apart from such ideological fallings-out, the ANC's focus on the pastoral dimension of rebuilding societies makes securing donors difficult. “[It] appeals less to the human imagination than do relief campaigns for tangible needs and catastrophes, and this makes our fundraising more difficult,” Father Werenfried said.
But for a half-century the affable white-robed priest who now relies on a cane to walk insists that Providence guide the ANC. “[I]t is a lack of faith when, because of economic recession or the death of a few outstanding benefactors, we lack the courage to increase our budget, despite new and yet greater commitments, and instead reduce it,” said Father Werenfried. “Why should He cease to do what He has done for 50 years now, namely matching our income to the promises we have made?"
The faith that ANC works to reweave into the fabric of post-Communist societies and to preserve in those still under Communism is often difficult to elucidate. Paraphrasing Pope John Paul II, a Cuban priest at the conference describe it as “renewing the hearts of man in order that they may renew the systems of society."
But the duplicity and moral collapse in communist and post-Communist societies makes that an elusive goal. Of the myriad factors that hamper the Church's attempts to rebuild in these countries, Father Werenfried pointed to the core of the problem: “All these people who had to adjust to totalitarian rule under Communism have been damaged in their thinking and acting."
ACuban bishop who traveled clandestinely to Konigstein said this corrosion has led to a confused generation grown up under Fidel Castro's rule. “Many have been raised to live a dual life,” he said. “Parents teach their children to remain quiet about their faith” because of the “refined persecution” where the stigma of being Christian can be a setback in school and career.
But the bishop left ANC delegates with a story of hope from that tainted generation. “A teacher in a school asked who believed in God,” he recounted. “Only one in 40, a 10-year-old boy, stood up. When he went home the boy said to his mother, ‘My legs were shaking, but I told them, Yes, I believe in God.’”
Larry Montali is associate editor of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Larry Montali ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pastoral Team to Replace Guadalupe Abbot DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:MEXICO CITY—Archbishop Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City, will officially announce the replacement of Abbot Guillermo Schulemburg, as director of the Guadalupe Basilica on Oct. 30, according to archdiocesean sources.
The abbot, who attracted attention earlier this year for questioning the historical existence of Our Lady of Guadalupe and of Blessed Juan Diego, the Aztec peasant to whom she appeared, will be replaced by a pastoral team headed by the auxiliary bishop emeritus of Mexico City Francisco Maria Aguilera, a highly regarded and popular prelate. The team, whose formation ends the tradition of appointing a life-long abbot, will include Fathers Jesus Guizar Villanueva and Armando Colin, both of the archdiocese.
On Oct. 30, after a Mass at the basilica commemorating the anniversary of Abbot Schulemburg's ordination, Archbishop Rivera will introduce the new pastoral team to the public.
Interviewed by the Mexican daily La Opinion, Father Guizar Villanueva confirmed the future nominations and said Bishop Maria Aguilera “will lead a team which will count renewing devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and making the shrine a point of Christian renewal for all Mexicans as its main goals." (ACI Prensa)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Pope's Week DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:Sept. 29 - Oct. 4
SATURDAY
Pope John Paul celebrated Mass this morning in the private chapel of the papal residence at Castelgandolfo for the repose of the souls of his predecessors Paul VI and John Paul I.
SUNDAY
At today's noon Angelus from Castelgandolfo, the Holy Father spoke of Oriental spirituality, and its contribution, “insisting on the perspective of ‘the heart,’” to man's knowledge.
“A certain drift from humanistic culture has led not a few men and women of our times to separate themselves from God. But with the decline of the great ideologies, it resulted, in all its dramatic clarity, that when man becomes an ‘orphan of God,’ he also loses the sense of his being and in some way becomes an ‘orphan’ of himself."
Faced with the question, “Who is man?" stated the Pope, “Christianity, in its double Oriental and Western tradition" has always answered that the ultimate truth on the human being can be found in the Creator.
“Eastern Christians like to distinguish three types of knowledge. The first is limited to man in is bio-psychic structure. The second is within the sphere of moral life. The highest level, however, of knowledge of one's self is obtained in ‘contemplation.’” He added: “This is knowledge of the heart…. This is what Oriental writers allude to when they invite [one] ‘to come down from the head to the heart..’”
“This is an important message,” the Pope concluded, “which has value not only for the specifically religious experience, but also for life in all its aspects…. We need now more than ever to rediscover the dimensions of ‘the heart,’ we need more heart."
At the conclusion of today's Angelus in Castelgandolfo the Pope made an appeal for peace in the Middle East:
“Unfortunately, once again painful events have occurred which upset the already fragile peace process in the Middle East. Following the bloody episodes of recent days in Jerusalem and other places, all we can do is entrust so much pain to God, beseeching him to transform such sufferings into a loyal commitment in favor of a true, just and lasting peace."
“It is the duty of believers—Jews, Christians and Muslims—to seek every way which favors understanding and reciprocal faith in favor of peace in a land which God willed to be “holy."
This morning at Castelgandolfo the Holy Father received members of the 31st Storm Group of the Italian Air Force, which assists him in his air travel within Italy.
TUESDAY
As is his custom before leaving the summer residence in Castelgandolfo, John Paul II said good-bye to the civil and religious authorities there. Welcoming the mayor and members of the town council this morning in the Consistory Hall, the Pope showed them his gratitude for their collaboration. The Holy Father then greeted in the Hall of the Throne the religious and medical personnel in service during the summer period.
In the Swiss Hall he addressed officials from the Carabinieri, the Vatican's Inspectorate of Public Security and the State Police and said: “I thank you for your precious service and the spirit with which you provide it…."
WEDNESDAY
In today's general audience, the Pope commented on the Visitation of the Virgin to her cousin Elizabeth, in which Mary foretold Christ's mission and “became the model of those in the Church who place themselves on the path to bring the light and joy of Christ to the men of every place and every time."
The Holy Father, who returned to Rome yesterday afternoon, spoke to 20,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, and explained that, “in the episode of the Visitation, St. Luke shows how the grace of the Incarnation, after having filled Mary, brought salvation and joy to Elizabeth's house. The Savior of man, in his mother's womb, poured forth the Holy Spirit, showing himself from the beginning of his coming into the world."
When Mary entered her cousin's house, “the messianic joy filled even Elizabeth who ‘was full of the Holy Spirit’ and exclaimed aloud: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’ … Proclaiming her ‘blessed among women,’ Elizabeth pointed to the faith of Mary as the motive of her blessedness: ‘And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’”
At the end of today's general audience, Pope John Paul greeted numerous groups of pilgrims present in their own languages. He had special words for the students of the Pontifical North American College who will be ordained deacons tomorrow: “You will be configured to Christ and sent forth as ministers of the Gospel and servants of the People of God. May you always be joyful witnesses of the grace and truth which God has bestowed upon us in Jesus his Son."
THURSDAY
Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano sent a telegram in John Paul II's name to Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora, S.J., archbishop of Lima, Peru, and another to Cardinal Carlos Oviedo Cavada, O. of M., archbishop of Santiago, Chile, upon learning of the airplane crash in the ocean near Lima.
FRIDAY
On the occasion of the Oct. 2 funeral for Sister Danka Juscevic of the Daughters of Divine Charity, killed in Kakanj, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano sent a telegram expressing the Holy Father's sorrow to Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo.
The telegram said, in part: “The Holy Father expresses his spiritual closeness to the entire Catholic Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Calling to mind that the future of peoples cannot be built on violence against the innocent and defenseless and by trampling on the elementary human rights of individuals and groups, the Supreme Pontiff raises fervent prayers so that the blood spilled by those who have consecrated their lives to God and to disinterested service of the Church and of their brothers and sisters, along with the blood of so many innocents, may be a pledge of true freedom and lasting peace for all the dear people of those tormented regions." (VIS)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Knights of Malta Makeover Image DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:IT INCLUDES 1,800 of America's most well-connected Catholics, but the American Association of the Order of Malta may be “the best-kept secret in the Church,” says William Flynn, the group's president.
Even where the Knights are known, he admits, they have suffered from an elitist image of being affluent Catholics who don ornate uniforms and love to socialize.
That was never the reality, he insisted.
The Knights of Malta, as they are popularly known, have long been generous contributors to charity, particularly in recent years with its support of Americares, the international relief agency.
“People are not aware of what the Knights of Malta do for the defense of the poor and the defense of the Church,” he says during an interview at his office high above New York's Park Avenue. Speaking with quiet confidence, Flynn added: “We intend to change that."
Flynn, the board chairman of Mutual of America Life Insurance and retired chief executive of that company, is committed to developing a new image for the Knights. He wants to position the organization as a group of Catholic movers-and-shakers dedicated to helping society's most vulnerable, particularly children and the unborn.
The Knights, he says, want to defend “the people who will be under attack" in the near future. They plan to be more active in promoting pregnancy centers and homes for the elderly, as well as “seeing [to it] that young people are being dealt with properly,” he said.
Flynn, who became president of the Knights’ American Association in January, wants the organization to focus on local projects. That was the direction in which J. Peter Grace, the industrialist, had been leading the Knights when he died last year, after serving nearly two decades as the head of the organization. “This is really an extension of what Peter Grace began,” notes Flynn.
The Knights of Malta date from the year 1099, when a monastic community administered a hospice infirmary serving Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land during the first Crusade. It later expanded to include lay people and, at one point in its history, was involved in defending Christians from hostile Muslims.
After European Christians were permanently expelled from the Holy Land, members of the order settled in Cyprus, fighting various battles against Muslim invaders. The Knights got there name after successfully defending Malta against a Turkish invasion in 1523. The international organization is now devoted to aiding victims of natural disasters and wars.
The American Association of the Order was founded in 1927. Membership has recently been opened to women. Each member pays annual dues of about $1,000 and new members are admitted only upon the recommendation of current members.
In recent years, Flynn has worked to mediate peace among factions in Northern Ireland and was recognized for that by being named grand marshal at last year's New York St. Patrick's Day Parade. He has also served as chairman of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and as a board member of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation; Boston University; the Elie Weisel Foundation for Humanity; and at Fordham University, the school from which he graduated after service in the Korean War.
The son of Irish immigrants, Flynn was raised in Queens, N.Y. He was a student at Brooklyn's diocesan seminary before deciding to enter the business world. He has been married for 43 years to Margaret Flynn. They have four children and eight grandchildren and live in Garden City, Long Island.
One of his first actions as head of the Knights was to open up board meetings to collect input from non-members. At its last meeting in June, the Knights’ board met with Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities. As a result of that encounter, the Knights generated $500,000 in support of the educational program of the bishops’pro-life office.
Flynn says he wants the organization to broaden its base. He is especially eager to attract more women—who now constitute 5 percent of the group's members—and to increase membership among minorities. Currently the organization has few Hispanic members and no African-Americans. “We want to change that. It's not right. We want to cater to people of all colors,” he says, promising that ethnic diversity will be a hallmark of the Knights of the future.
He would like to see more geographic diversity as well. Most Knights reside along the eastern corridor, between Boston and Washington, D.C. Flynn hopes to bring in more members from the Midwest, West and South and to work with two independent associations of the order, one based in San Francisco, Calif. and the other in Washington, D.C.
Changes in the organization's bylaws will help revitalize the Knights, Flynn believes. He has proposed that the number of board members be reduced from 30 to 24, while a new rotation plan would elect eight new members each year.
He would like to see his own job of president be limited to six years of service so that the organization can benefit from new, and, he hopes, younger leadership. The end result, he says, should be a Knights group even more committed to serving the poor and defending the Church.
If he succeeds, the organization will no longer be the Church's best kept secret.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Confession: 'Wondrous Reconciliation' Restores Inner Friendship with God DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:THE POPULAR IMAGE of the sacrament of Penance is a rather negative one. Television and movie representations of the “confession box" show everything from espionage to cooperation in murder and mayhem happening there. The confessor often gives only glib responses, like the reincarnation of a very severe Puritan divine or a teen-ager who is simply unable to understand or sympathize with real human problems. Sadly, the popular imagination fails to grasp the true meaning of the sacrament. The private intimacy between God and the soul of the individual through the mediation of the priest has only one purpose: “true 'spiritual resurrection’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1468).
Many would like to reduce confession to a sort of ecclesiastical counseling session. Though counseling can go on in the confessional, this is not its primary purpose, which is to make a soul, spiritually dead because of a loss of the interior presence of God, live again through returning to the life of God. This is true reconciliation. One returns to enjoying inner friendship with God.
This inner friendship is the origin of the true enlivening and order of the inner powers of the human soul: intellect, will, and emotions. One who receives sacramental absolution properly disposed is granted not only moral union with God but an intense psychological experience of inner healing. This inner healing returns the person to the life of the living on many levels.
First, on the level of the life of individual persons themselves, they are returned to communion with God and feel at one with Him. “Reconciliation ‘is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation’” (CCC, 1468). This spiritual revitalization also makes a person a living member of the community of the Church again, returning them to the communion of saints. One can exchange spiritual friendship again with the saints in heaven and with the other members of the Church on spiritual pilgrimage here below, because one has returned to the grace of Christ. “Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland" (CCC, 1469).
The final wondrous reconciliation occurs in the person because he or she is also completely restored to union with the inner life of creation. C.S. Lewis once wrote a novel called Out of the Silent Planet. Earth is the “silent planet" and the reason earth is silent is that only on this planet did the creature rebel against the Creator in Adam. Earth was then not allowed to communicate with the rest of creation—as a sign of the lack of reconciliation of those who dwelled on earth.
Because man is restored to friendship with God and the Church, he is also restored to friendship with the entire created universe. “The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his innermost being, where he regains his innermost truth. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way offended and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with all creation" (John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 31, 5; CCC, 1469).
The new life which the penitent experiences results from the union of his body with his soul. Confession involves both forgiveness and judgment. In the ongoing living out of his conversion by confession of his sins the penitent continually experiences the mercy of God. This experience of the mercy of God in judgment is also his preparation for the last judgment. Deuteronomy tells us to “choose life!" Each time we confess our sins we choose life and the influence of heaven becomes more evident in our daily lives.
Many religious writers today make much of the experience of death. Some have suggested that death is the natural end or purpose of human life. Others have said that death is the great unknown, which each of us transforms into the great possibility through our faith. For these people, faith is merely making the best of a bad situation. In their minds, even Christ did not have any idea what awaited Him after death. As if He threw Himself into the absurdity of death on the cross trusting in faith that God would make the best of a bad situation and was the most surprised person on earth when He arose from the dead.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First, Jesus did not have faith because He saw the vision of God from the moment of His conception. Secondly, the true death of human life is not the death of the body. In Catholicism, we know that the body will rise again. The true human death is the second death of the spirit in sin. This death is sealed in hell where freedom and nature eternally disagree. Christ suffered the death of body to free us from the death of the spirit. Each time we approach the divine tribunal and are forgiven, we prepare our bodies for the Last Judgment, when our bodies will finally rise again. At that point the spiritual resurrection will be completed in the bodily resurrection. “O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory! The sting of death is sin…. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15, 55-57).
Father Brian Mullady, O.P., teaches theology at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Mullady ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Gunfighters Duel for Redemption and Honor DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:AN INNOCENT WOMAN named Felina (Karina Lombard), is held captive by the vicious mobster, Doyle (David Patrick Kelly), in the Texas border town of Jericho. Every day she prays for deliverance. Late one afternoon, as if in answer to her prayers, a lone gunman, who calls himself John Smith (Bruce Willis), drives up at exactly the moment that she's on her knees in an abandoned church, looking into the eyes of the crucified Jesus.
Smith is an unlikely savior. Declaring, “I was born without a conscience,” he's a professional criminal, probably on the run, out to make a buck for himself wherever and however he can. His first instinct is to take advantage of the rivalry between the two Chicago bootlegging gangs who've taken over Jericho, playing one off against the other.
Last Man Standing is the story of this outlaw's moral regeneration as he learns to use his deadly skills to fight evil and protect the weak. Screenwriter-director Walter Hill (The Warriors and 48 HRS.) has based his film on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai classic, Yojimbo, which, in turn, borrowed its premise of cross and doublecross from Dashiell Hammett's 1929 gangster novel, Red Harvest. Sergio Leone used these same plot devices in his 1964 spaghetti western, Fistful of Dollars, which made Clint Eastwood into an international superstar.
Kurosawa and Leone treated the material with a kind of tongue-in-cheek nihilism. Hammett fashioned a radical left political statement in defense of the labor movement. Hill's purposes are different. Each situation is developed to present his characters with the possibility of moral choice. “No matter how low you sink, there's still right and wrong,” Smith observes. “You always wind up choosing."
Hill inventively combines elements from classic gangster films and westerns to create a nightmarish, brooding vision of a town taken over by evil. The rival mobs’ continuous fighting, as they smuggle booze across the border, has driven almost all the decent people out of Jericho. The lawman who remains, Sheriff Galt (Bruce Dern), is completely corrupt, taking money from both sides. At first, Smith has no desire to make waves. But as a man of great pride, he doesn't take kindly to insults. When Doyle's thugs destroy his car after he stares too closely at Felina, he feels he must get even to save face.
Although it's the 1920s during prohibition and differences are usually settled by ambush-like shoot-outs in the manner of Al Capone and Eliot Ness, Smith's method of combat is the classic western duel. In fair-minded fashion, he challenges Doyle's side-kick, Finn (Patrick Kilpatrick), and then beats him to the draw.
Smith's chivalric code of honor sets him apart from the other hired guns. He considers them second-raters, stupid and slow on the draw. Only one man in town seems to be Smith's equal, Doyle's top henchman, Mickey (Christopher Walken).
When we first meet Hickey, he seems to be Smith's double. Both men are good with their weapons and seem to conduct themselves according to a Samurai-like code.
Neither stoops to the level of petty jealousy and emotional name-calling on which both gangs thrive. But then Smith starts to change. While Mickey remains a gun for hire, Smith develops a willingness to risk his life for others without thought of personal gain.
Smith throws in temporarily with Doyle's nemesis, the Italian gangster Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg). But before he can get too rich, Texas Ranger Capt. Pickett (Ken Jenkins) pays him and Sheriff Galt a visit and changes the rules of the game. Like an Old Testament warrior-judge, Pickett challenges Smith. “Do you believe in God?" he asks. “I believe in God."
Smith is exhorted to do the right thing and clean up the town before Pickett returns with a platoon of Texas Rangers in a few weeks. It's understood that Smith's methods are likely to be closer to the violence used by Joshua in conquering the biblical Jericho than the New Testament approach.
But before the righteous bloodbath can begin, Smith wants to help Felina escape to Mexico, having learned that Doyle won her from her husband in payment for a gambling debt. Through a combination of trickery and firepower, Smith sets Felina free without Doyle knowing he's responsible. The blame is placed on Strozzi. As thanks, Felina gives Smith, the man who answered her prayers, the crucifix she wears around her neck.
Hickey is suspicious, and when Felina's crucifix is found among Smith's clothes, Smith is seized and tortured. After a particularly brutal beating, Doyle dips the crucifix in the blood on Smith's face.
This gesture suggests how Jericho will become a kind of violent purgatory for its inhabitants. Those like Smith, who can be purified, are redeemed. Those who can't, perish. Smith perceives his physical suffering during the beatings as penance for the sins of his past, “Everybody's got to pay the price,” he observes.
Smith escapes, and with the help of Sheriff Galt and Joe Monday, owner of the town's deserted hotel, hides out at the same abandoned church where Felina used to pray.
Doyle annihilates Strozzi's gang, burning them to death in an apocalyptic fire. Still obsessed with Felina, the Irish mobster continues to search for Smith, certain that he knows where she is.
Joe is apprehended preparing food to take to Smith, and although cruelly tortured, he refuses to reveal Smith's whereabouts. Sheriff Galt, who's also beginning to develop a conscience, gives Smith his guns. At this point, if Smith were just a gangster like all the rest, he would leave town. But Joe's silence has saved his life. So Smith rescues Joe, and, in a final confrontation with Doyle, turns down his offer to get rich and become a partner. Joe shoots Doyle, and Smith kills Hickey in a final duel.
Smith leaves Jericho with no more money than when he started. But inside, he's a different man. The Last Man Standing is an action film with a higher purpose. It dramatizes how those who walk in the shadows can become soldiers of the Light.
John Prizer lives in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Americans-Children of Immigrants All DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:The Immigration Mystique: America's False Conscience by Chilton Williamson Jr. (Basic Books, 1996, 202 pp., $23)
THE VISION, values and views Chilton Williamson Jr. expresses in The Immigration Mystique: America's False Conscience will certainly play a part in one of most hotly debated issues on the national agenda.
At best, Williamson's work redirects the discussion on immigration away from economic toward moral considerations. At worst, it is a poisonous polemic that denigrates anyone or anything associated with a positive perspective on immigration and immigrants. Few escape the author's critical comments, and his hit list ranges across the political spectrum from Woodrow to Pete Wilson.
Several arguments—the myth, the mystique, and the mistake—are central to Williamson's thesis. The myth: the United States was never and is not a nation of immigrants. The mystique: all justifications favoring or fostering immigration are false. The mistake: all consequences connected with immigration are deleterious.
Williamson, the senior editor for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, argues that “immigrationists" speak from sentiment rather than reason, and that a “new class" of pro-immigrant political, religious and economic policy makers have obscured the anti-immigrant will of the grass-roots “public class."
The author associates “immigrationism" with an array of other “isms,” including American exceptionalism, statist nationalism, universalism, globalism, multi-culturalism, materialism, and humanitarian imperialism. He also contends that chaos, the demise of traditional American culture, a loss of American identity and environmental degradation are the legacy and prospect of generous immigration policies.
Williamson's treatise is populist and elitist at once. It is also anti-Catholic. In his words, “…the old WASP culture remains the only national culture worthy of the name … because it represents today the inherited culture of an elite, an informal aristocracy of talent, learning, and accomplishment incomparably superior to the proletarian and peasant cultures imported by the immigrant waves from the Civil War to the present."
The Church's teachings and actions in defense and service of newcomers are challenged as “heedless of the views of the pewsitters,” “clumsy, wrongheaded, and fundamentally coarse moral discussion, moral blackmail,” and “false religion." Pope John XXIII's Pacem in Terris is equated with the Tower of Babel, while Scripture's admonitions to welcome the stranger are rationalized away.
Echoing Peter Brimelow's Alien Nation, the intent of Williamson's tract is to provide intellectual and moral sustenance to the cause of restricting immigration. For those who share and support his bias, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), his statements will offer succor. Most others, however, will find little fairness amid much bitterness.
Claiming the “high" ground isn't the same as achieving it. Despite his accusation that “immigrationists" lack logic, Williamson is himself guilty of committing multiple errors in logic. Besides ad hominem attacks and appeals to questionable authorities, the author offers contradictory claims to support his perspective. On the one hand, America is not, he says, a nation of immigrants because the principal and primary populations were “… a single German race …" who “… were in truth not immigrants at all, but colonists." On the other hand, he says, “the United States has become ‘a colony of the world’” because of the arrival of immigrants.
A second failing is the author's preference that the anti-immigrant will of the American people should be the guiding light of public policy on immigration. However, if the only true Americans are those who share “… a fundamental character, which is that of British culture …" and if “[i]mmigration is a failure because assimilation … never really occurred,” then who exactly are these Americans whom policy makers should follow? Are the citizen progeny of past migrants part of American public opinion or not?
Third, the moral standards that Williamson advocates lack the idealism characteristic of values that guide pro-immigrant perspectives. Freedom, equality, fairness, family and humanitarianism are to be supplanted by ethnic purity, religious agreement, cultural preservation, ecological carrying capacity and communitarianism. Placing such prudential principles above the altruism that has defined and directed the spirit of America for more than two centuries is way off the mark.
Similarly, Williamson's disdain for the Catholic Church leads him to overlook the depth of its stance on immigrants. Christ was a sojourner Whose humanity brought dignity to all men. While Williamson denigrates indiscriminate benevolence, Christians are challenged to practice it. If America has, in part, false conscience toward immigration, then Williamson's view shows none at all.
Dr. Robert Moser is director of the Department of Refugee and Immigrant Services for Catholic Charities in San Diego, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Moser ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:Root Cause
We generally find something worth cutting out and saving from the Register. Your Sept. 1 editorial (“Dialogue and Common Ground, or Truth and Unity?") is an example. We agree with your thesis wholeheartedly and we submit what, in our humble opinion, is at the root of our demoralization.
Our great fall from grace begins with contraceptive use. When man says in effect: “God, you don't understand our situation. We will assume control over how many, when and if we shall bring children into the world,” our faith is effectively pitched out the window. It takes a constant exercise of faith in married life to trust an all-wise God to give us the number of children according to His plan and give us the means to take care of them.
In summary, until contraceptives have been removed from the marriage “triangle" and our God is enthroned once again in that “triangle,” marriages are sick; they have a malignancy, and no program, no dialogue will be successful.
Conversion begins with repentance. The uncontrite should stop referring to themselves as Catholics and the contrite, guided by the Holy Spirit, should accept an educational program from which unity and missionary zeal will flow naturally.
Virginia and John Lee Port Townsend, Washington
Voter's Choice
In your Sept. 22 issue, the headline, “Catholic Alliance Loosens Ties To Christian Coalition,” introduces a short account containing the following paragraph: “The alliance has drawn criticism from a number of Catholic bishops who believe the Christian Coalition differs from Church teaching on a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration, and other programs aimed at aiding the poor."
Insofar as more than 40 years of theological study have informed me, there is no “Church teaching" which could be remotely described as controlling “a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration, and other programs aimed at aiding the poor." These issues are political, and so require of each voter the prudential decision of an adequately informed conscience. This is primarily a lay responsibility, one not foreclosed by the political preferences of the USCC, of the NCCB or of the editorial offices of whatever Catholic publication.
You would do your readers a service by explaining that it is only inherently evil actions, condemned as such by the Church, which cannot become matters of a moral public policy, and which therefore cannot be moral political options open to the voter's approval. Slavery, understood as involuntary servitude not imposed upon a convicted criminal by due process of law, is an evident example of an insult to human dignity which is not a political option nor can be. Another example, equally obvious to all but the willfully obtuse, is that killing of the innocent which is direct abortion. Other examples of inherently evil actions which can never be matters of public policy for a moral society are not far to seek. Failure to approve the Democratic policies instituting the welfare state, or the Republican rejection of those policies, are not among them. This does not mean that the Catholic voter need not consult his conscience when determining these matters. It does mean his conscience, as informed by Church's prohibition of actions which are always and everywhere morally evil, is not determined by the political preferences of anyone at all.
Donald Keefe, S.J.Yonkers, New York
Party Line
Regarding your news story “Catholic Alliance Loosens Ties to Christian Coalition" (Sept. 22), some bishops criticize the Alliance because it “… differs from Church teaching on a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration and other programs aimed at aiding the poor." I am unaware of any Catholic doctrinal positions on specific political programs in the United States or elsewhere. Too many bishops think they speak for me regarding welfare reform and federal aid to the poor. They evidently equate the political pronouncements of USCC/NCCB with speaking for the Catholic Church. I speak for myself on all political matters.
The slavery we have imposed upon poor people with our welfare programs must end. The scandal of spending $8,000 per pupil in public schools only to produce graduated seniors who can barely read their diplomas must end. Support for the unions which try to destroy our Catholic schools must end. The hierarchy seems out of touch with the difficulties of wage-earning Catholics in America.
If the Alliance is subsumed into the USCC/NCCB, I will join the Christian Coalition directly, independent of the Alliance. There is no contradiction in remaining a faithful Catholic and supporting organizations which promote my political and moral views—decency in public policy and behavior of public officials; school choice for parents; ending abortion; reduced tax burdens on families, and the like.
Social morality, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If the Catholic hierarchy speaks something other than the Democratic party line, there will he no need for a Catholic Alliance of the Christian Coalition.
R. Emmet Harrigan Mundelein, Illinois
Your correspondence regarding the Register, its features and Catholic issues are welcome. Submissions should be typed double-space, and sent to: Letters to the Editor, National Catholic Register, 33 Rossotto Drive, Hamden, CT06514; or fax to: (203) 288-5157; or e-mail to cmedia@pipeline.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Domestic Church: Communion of Persons DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:THERE IS A section in Pope John Paul II's Letter to Families devoted specifically to the Fourth Command-ment—“Honor your father and your mother"—that is both profound and novel in its interpretation. Akey passage reads: “The family is a community of particularly intense interpersonal relationships: between spouses, between parents and children, between generations. It is a community which must be safeguarded in a special way, and God cannot find a better safeguard than this: honor."
The Pope remarks that it is significant that the commandment comes directly after the first three commandments which ordain love and worship of God. This is because parents are in a certain way “representatives of the Lord." They both give life and introduce the child into a specific family heritage and national culture. Their gift participates in God's own goodness so that the honor owed to parents is in a way analogous to worship owed God.
This might seem to place parents on a level beyond human accountability, but as John Paul II writes, “You parents, the divine precepts seems to say, should act in such a way that your life will merit the honor [and the love] of your children!" He links honor to love both of God and neighbor. Who, he asks, is more of a neighbor than members of one's own family? In the Pope's writings, the concept of “neighbor" has a particular meaning. It refers to the fundamental acceptance of another person as a gift. Relations between persons are characterized not by mutual exploitation but by freely giving oneself in love. The mutual self-giving is especially required in the intimate circle of the family and it applies to parents as much as to children. Parents must honor their children from the first moment of conception. This commandment, says the Pope, highlights the basis of the family's inner unity.
Parents as “representatives of the Lord" have great power as well as responsibility. From the human mother and father a child receives its earliest understanding of God as Father.
John Paul II, as the playwright Karol Wojtyla, has given a masterly analysis of the struggle a man has to be a good father in the play, Radiation of Fatherhood. The most striking fact about the main character, Adam, is his loneliness, yet he prefers to remain in his loneliness because fatherhood is too demanding. He complains to God that He could have left him with mere physical fertility instead of placing him “in the depths of a fatherhood to which I am unequal!" Yet Adam is aware that his own fatherhood is associated with the idea of the Father.
It is the child that opens Adam up to love; “You aim at me through a child, through a tiny daughter or son—and my resistance weakens,” he cries out. “The father always revives in the soil of a child's soul." The play is a profound reflection on the struggle to enter father-hood psychologically, the relation between human and divine fatherhood and the role of the mother and the child in breaking through the man's loneliness to form a communion of persons.
Some feminists, to counteract the “oppressive" father, would get rid of fatherhood altogether or so emasculate it as to render it ineffectual in both a religious and a human sense. Yet John Miller in Biblical Faith and Fathering (New York: Paulist Press, 1989) shows how the Judeo-Christian understanding of God as Father has helped human fathers to be more involved in their families. This differs from pagan views of fatherhood, especially in the ancient world. In the New Testament Jesus presented us with a generously merciful and loving Father and stressed the importance of children. When the human father fails, the divine Father remains. In the healing ministry the importance of going beyond the inadequate human father to the Father of all goodness is continually stressed.
It is essential to honor the human father and mother, even if they fail, because parents are the foundation of the family and the family is the foundation of society. Honor, says John Paul II, is linked to justice. The Fourth Commandment is a critical component of the modern emphasis on human rights. If such rights do not command honor and respect, they are ultimately ineffective. Again, as he says in Letter to Families: “It is not an exaggeration to reaffirm that the life of nations, of states and of international organizations ‘passes’ through the family and ‘is based’ on the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue."
Professor Arthur Dyck, who teaches ethics at Harvard Divinity School, argues philosophically that no society can survive unless it values procreation and nurturing and honors those who provide it, namely parents. Without procreation and nurturing, no other rights can exist. Not only does the right to life precede the enjoyment of all other human rights, but without proper nurturing a child can scarcely grow up to be a physically and emotionally mature adult capable of exercising those rights.
Procreation is dishonored in our society both by widespread abortion and a contraceptive (against-life) mentality. Contraception particularly attacks the rights and dignity of the woman as mother. It is sufficient to study the documents of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to see that the word “motherhood" scarcely finds a place. It is a profound dishonoring of motherhood by women themselves. Those who suffer most from this dishonoring are the children and the family itself, which, in John Paul II's words, is in God's plan “the first school of how to be human."
rocreation is dishonored in our society both by widespread abortion and a contraceptive (against-life) mentality.
It is to humanize the family and to honor every member that the Church proclaims its teaching on responsible parenthood and the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual intercourse. The great blessing this teaching brings can be seen in the lives of couples and families who truly form a communion of persons.
The spouses, through their union in one flesh, form the first communion of persons. One couple, asked what one thing they appreciate about Natural Family Planning (NFP)—which conforms to the Church's teaching on responsible parenthood—respond, “the unitive aspect, the love-building potential." A wife comments, “I know that I am deeply loved because of Doug's willingness to endure the challenges and sacrifices required by NFP."
This covenant of love between the couple, that forms the basis of the communion of persons, opens them to love others. The family is its natural fruit. NFP, says one couple, “opened our hearts to children." A husband remarks that it might sound strange but “I rejoice in my fertility." Yet a third couple states that “NFP fulfills the goals we have in marriage: communication, faith, shared commitment and family." (All these comments come from Stepping Stones, the quarterly newsletter of Northwest Family Services, Portland Ore.)
Such an attitude of openness to parenthood, of rejoicing in children, naturally leads to the honoring referred to by John Paul II in the Fourth Commandment. And this, in turn, leads to the “civilization of love,” which to many, the Pope says, seems to be a mere utopia. But Jesus commanded us to love as He loved. Building such a civilization is given to mankind as a “task,” and can only be carried out with the help of divine grace. The family, since the time of St. John Chrysostom, has been called the “domestic Church,” but it is only in our own day that the full significance of that title is fully appreciated. Reflecting on his favorite passage on marriage in Eph 5, 21-33, John Paul II describes the family itself as the great mystery of God. As the domestic Church it is the bride of Christ.
It is only by sharing in Christ's love that the spouses can know what love truly is and that, says the Letter to Families, is both radical and “dangerous for them." The high rate of divorce in our society, one in every two marriages, shows us that even Catholics are not prepared for this teaching. Without an understanding and acceptance of the Cross and the redemptive power of suffering, family life will continue to deteriorate and the weakest members of the family and society, the old and the young, will be at risk.
There's a need not just for preaching on these truths but of witnesses, “living testimonies." This reminds me of something the mother of six children, the youngest under two years old, said to me recently: “I don't have to say anything. When I am with my six children that says it all." This mother does not live in a privileged, secluded environment. She and her family face all the challenges of our secular society, with all the anxieties it presents to the safety and well-being of her children. But she also knows the joys of a loving husband and a warm family circle whose center is Christ. Such parents will truly be honored by their children as they themselves fulfill the Fourth Commandment.
Mary Shivanandan, MA, STD, is a professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage&Family in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Shivanandan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Father, Let This Chalice Pass From Me' DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:GOD USES US in ways we cannot comprehend, and frequently with a purpose beyond ourselves, to teach others. Sorrow and its meaning seem to have a high priority in the pedagogy of God. Few of us escape sorrow; so many need to understand it.
The lucky ones are those whose suffering brings them spiritual insights allowing them to take rank, in a small way, with the mystics of the Church. Suffering without at least some faint light of understanding is an abominable waste.
A man and a woman lose a child. The natural inclination is to shake a fist at heaven, as the taste of sorrow flows into the mouth, salty and bitter. Pity those who defy the fact that God loves them so much as to give them this kind of attention. Pity them their lifelong curse—their abdication of faith and distrust of trust itself.
But raise the choirs of heaven for parents who look on the death of their most precious love as the return to God of what was already His; of its return in pristine purity, never to become sullied in the normal course of living. The mother and father rise ultimately from their knees, turning to each other with the single thought: “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." Thus, death serves man by building a bridge to God.
One must fall to such a depth of pain to gain that sense of intimacy with Him who suffered still far greater pain because it was multiplied by the numbers of those born and yet to be born. No one can even begin to imagine the intensity of such pain—except those who sorrow. And for them it is only the beginning of understanding. They only know—in the non-intellectual way in which God speaks to us—that there was and is meaning in suffering, meaning that is centered on the call to “follow Me,” the call most frequently heard and heeded by the suffering.
Then there is the young person dreaming of conquests in the world of literature, art, or commerce. Every juice of devotion is poured into a career but, for a reason known only to God, the gift is spurned and he or she languishes among the lesser known, a failure by the world's every benchmark. There is just so much that the human spirit can take before it bends and breaks. Every prayer is denied, the person believes, as one failure mounts upon the other. In his misery, he fails to see what he's being forced to do, almost constantly: to pray. This is lesson number one in God's manual, How I Use People.
So He used Louis Evely, for example. A Dutch priest, Evely wrote prolifically in the 60s, becoming a casualty of that tempestuous decade. He left the priest-hood. But even as he abandoned his calling, God has been using him to this day as souls in search of spiritual comfort are drawn by Evely's words, in material written as if coming directly from God:
“Yes, I have shattered your projects; I have annihilated your pride. Nobody needs you; you live without self-contentment; you are before me like a lamp which shines for the satisfaction of nobody—you are ‘without any purpose.’ But you are my love and my glory; I have placed my delight in you, you are the portion reserved to me, and so well preserved that you are wanted by nobody else. You do not even think of being useful. You are my purest reflection because you have become the saint you did not want to become."
The history of Christendom is full of those who have chosen suffering, but one cannot help wondering whether they did not retract once they were first visited by hardship. The point is, suffering is not the natural ambition of men. All the same, one must have pity for those who have gone through life without knowing it. For wisdom begins in suffering, and becomes sanctity for the persistent. Suffering deliberately sought out, for the most part, is pointless. Suffering will come to most of us all by itself, in one form or another.
But whether one has been given the apparent grace of God's full attention or only minor irritations, one thing and one thing alone matters most to God: the immortal soul. And scriptural evidence abounds that for its well-being the Way of the Cross must prevail. Some, like Simone Weil, have learned this lesson well.
Simone Weil, who was Jewish, died in 1943. It is doubtful that she ever actually embraced the Catholic Church, but her letters and essays suggest that she must certainly have been baptized by desire. She wrote: “Affliction makes God appear to be absent for a time, more absent than a dead man, more absent than light in the utter darkness of a cell. Akind of horror submerges the whole soul. During this absence there is nothing to love. What is terrible is that if, in this darkness where there is nothing to love, the soul ceases to love, God's absence becomes final. The soul has to go on loving in the emptiness, or at least to go on wanting to love, though it may only be with an infinitesimal part of itself. Then, one day, God will come to show himself to this soul and to reveal the beauty of the world to it, as is the case of Job. But if the soul stops loving it falls, even in this life, into something almost the equivalent of hell."
Few speak more eloquently on the subject than Louis Evely and Simone Weil—except for Scripture: “Father, let this chalice pass from me, but not my will but Thine be done."
John Vitello is based in Covina, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Vitello ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Pioneer of Hate Radio Moved the Masses DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio, by Donald Warren (New York: Simon&Schuster Free Press, 376 pp., $27.50)
à HE DOMINATED the airwaves for nearly a decade with a volatile mix of populist disaffections, conservative moral values, voodoo economics and virulent antiSemitism.
à He inspired the formation of anti-Communist platoons called “Christian Fronts" who terrorized Jews and blacks in working class neighborhoods.
à He operated through a popular magazine called Social Justice that openly expressed appreciation for the ideas of Adolf Hitler.
Sadly, this is the profile, not of some village crackpot holed up with a few followers on an isolated ranch, but of the Roman Catholic pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Mich.— Father Charles Edward Coughlin (1891-1979). He is the subject of a new and exhaustive study by Donald Warren, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Oakland University.
Father Coughlin's few remaining defenders will have a hard time refuting this body of evidence, and those wishing to persuade us that the priest was either a minor player or badly “misquoted,” after Warren, haven't much to stand on.
An independent operator from the start, Father Coughlin left the Basilian Order in 1924 under a cloud of “informing" on his fellow priests, eventually finding a place for himself under the wing of Detroit's aging Bishop Michael Gallagher. Assigned to establish the Shrine of the Little Flower in 1926, the brash, resourceful Coughlin quickly converted the dying parish into a platform for a burgeoning radio ministry.
The demagogue who would later thrive on his ties to Nazi leaders and the circles around British fascist Oswald Mosley, began his radio career telling Bible stories to children in a weekly radio broadcast popularly known as The Children's Hour.
Financed chiefly by four businessmen cronies, including World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, and George Richards, owner of the CBS affiliate radio station WJR in Detroit, Father Coughlin began to reach a wide audience a year later with his Hour of Power and invited listeners to join his new “radio congregation" called the “Radio League of the Little Flower."
By 1930, two out of five American families had a radio, and in the urban Northeast and the Midwest Father Coughlin's weekly broadcasts, with their blend of stern social justice wrapped in patriotism, struck a deep chord. At the height of his fame in the early 1930s, the Michigan priest received more mail than the President of the United States, an average of 80,000 letters a week, and in 1933 a national poll voted him the “most useful citizen of the United States."
Most commentators believe that, more than any other single event, the stock market crash of 1929 created the conditions for Father Coughlin's rise. As Warren relates: “Such was the social climate in which Charles Coughlin emerged as a grass roots leader: spokesman for those who had grown mistrustful of the establishment's explanations of the overwhelming economic disaster. Even those unaccustomed to relying on the authoritative words of a priest—Protestants and Jews—found themselves turning to Father Coughlin. He was creating an ecumenism of discontent."
Writer Wallace Stegner wrote that Father Coughlin had “a voice of such mellow richness, such manly, heart-warming, confidential intimacy, such emotional and ingratiating charm, that anyone tuning past it almost automatically returned to hear it again. Warmed by the touch of Irish brogue, it lingered over words and enriched their emotional content. It was a voice made for promises."
An increasingly powerful figure in national politics, Father Coughlin allied himself with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, and was widely credited with steering FDR toward the economic philosophy espoused by the papal encyclicals Quadragesimo Anno (Pius XI) and Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum—a middle path between the twin evils of laissez-faire Capitalism and revolutionary Socialism. Aregular White House visitor in the early 30s, Father Coughlin boasted that he had helped the President draft his first and second inaugural addresses
But by 1934, the Coughlin-Roosevelt alliance had soured over the priest's increasingly radical economic views (advocacy of the gold standard, for example) and his growing support of isolationism. By 1935, Father Coughlin had formed his own political party, the National Union for Social Justice, and openly vilified Roosevelt's policies at mass rallies. More seriously, among the priest's growing coterie of wealthy backers were men who had fascist leanings or who were openly sympathetic to the aims of Nazi Germany. (Father Coughlin had personally contacted Italian dictator Mussolini as early as 1933.)
Though anti-Semitism had been a persistent, if secondary element in Father Coughlin's grab-bag of causes, by 1938 it was the priest's chief claim to fame. According to Father Coughlin's radio tirades, “international bankers,” a code phrase for “Jewish economic interests,” ruled the world. The Jews were also to blame for the rise of Communism, for the Depression, and for the growing prospect of global war.
Father Coughlin's anti-Semitic delusions were fed by the works of Professor Dennis Fahey, an Irish integriste philosopher for whom all movements outside the Church were expressions of modernism orchestrated by atheistic Jews.
By the late 30s—and, due in no small measure to Father Coughlin's broad-casts—worrisome fault lines had opened up between Jews and Catholics in America. Under Father Coughlin's prodding, the situation threatened to turn violent. Modeled on fascist youth organizations, Father Coughlin envisioned the formation of militias “as defense mechanisms against Red [Communist] activities and as a protector of Christianity and Americanism." Not surprisingly, the FBI infiltrated the clubs and in January 1940 arrested 18 Brooklyn Christian Fronters armed with a cache of homemade bombs and rifles, and an elaborate plan to provoke anti-Jewish pogroms in the New York area.
While Father Coughlin could not be directly linked to the case of the “Brooklyn boys,” the end of the priest's media career was near. Ordered by the long-suffering Bishop Gallagher to break his ties with Social Justice and its pro-Axis editorial line, Father Coughlin was formally “silenced" in 1942 by Bishop Gallagher's successor, Bishop Edward Mooney, when his ongoing activities threatened to result in a federal sedition trial. The government dropped the charges and Father Coughlin retired to his parish in Royal Oak, Mich., where he lived a mostly uneventful life until his death in 1979.
Even an only mildly inquisitive reader will wonder why Father Coughlin's religious superiors waited so long to discipline him. Warren's sources offer the explanation that Father Coughlin's immediate superior, Bishop Gallagher, may have had much in common with the “radio priest." As early as 1932, Boston's Cardinal William O'Connell assailed the priest's radio sermons as “hysterical … demagogic." And, more importantly, that year saw the first of many Vatican attempts to persuade Bishop Gallagher to corral Father Coughlin. In 1936, with Father Coughlin's third party bid in the air, Pope Pius XI summoned Bishop Gallagher to Rome for a meeting that was widely viewed as a conference about Father Coughlin. A few days after the papal visit, L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican daily, published a highly unusual public rebuke of the orator's “improprieties." More warnings were dispatched to Detroit—to no effect. Finally, none other than Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then-papal secretary of state, and later Pope Pius XII, made an unprecedented visit to FDR to explain, in part, the Church's views on Father Coughlin.
A year later, Bishop Gallagher died and Father Coughlin lost his protector—a development that led to the demise of his public career at the hands of the Detroit bishop's successor five years later. On May 2, 1942, Archbishop Mooney compelled the now discredited Father Coughlin to choose between “silence" and immediate suspension from the priesthood, thus closing one of the most bizarre chapters in American Catholic life.
Gabriel Meyer, a Register contributing editor, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Aid to the Church in Need in Action DATE: 10/13/1996 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Oct 13, 1996 ----- BODY:AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED (ACN) receives 9,000-10,000 requests a year for help. While most international aid organizations are socio-charitable development projects, ACN limits itself to pastoral projects.
In post-Communist Russia, the organization is supporting the Orthodox Church's burgeoning seminaries and theological schools. Eleven of the 30 theological schools in the Russian Federation receive regular support from ACN for teaching materials, text books, heating, building restoration and other needs. The organization contributed $50,000 for running costs to the seminary in St. Petersburg last year. The ACN also subsidizes the studies of male and female novices, in accordance with the priorities set out by Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Moscow.
In the interest of improving ecumenical relations, another ACN project supports publishing books for laymen by Orthodox and Catholic theologians to help eradicate prejudices between the two confessions.
A children's Bible tailored to the Orthodox is another ACN-funded project in Russia. Finally, the organization's support of The Christian Channel in Moscow has allowed the radio-broadcast to be extended to 16 hours a day. The Christian Channel and a number of other media projects received $1.2 million in 1996.
In Cuba, the Church is experiencing phenomenal growth as it did in Eastern Europe in the years immediately following the fall of Communism. Despite restrictions from authorities, ACN is helping defray the cost of repairing dilapidated chapels and retreat centers to accommodate newcomers. Each of the 65 seminarians in Havana's major seminary received $400 in 1996. ACN also is helping with lay formation by supplying a catechetical center with books from Spain and sponsoring guest professors from outside Cuba. Other aid efforts have been obstructed. The attempt to provide photocopiers to the Church to undercut the shortage of available teaching materials has been frowned upon by the government; one international photocopier company was recently banned from doing business in Cuba for selling a machine to the Church. To provide basic necessities such as liturgical books, Mass wine, and vestments to Cuba, the ACN has arranged for them to be sent from Spain. Finally, the organization has distributed 60,000 Children's Bibles in Cuba this year. For children indoctrinated in the youth camps of Castro's regime, the thin illustrated volumes provide what the ACN calls “manna from heaven."
For more information about Aid to the Church in Need or to support the organization, call (800) 628-6333 or write: P.O. Box 576, Deer Park, N.Y., 11729-0576.
—Larry Montali
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: American Synod Builds Momemtum DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:THE LINEAMENTA, or preparatory paper, for the upcoming Synod for the Americas has elicited an unprecedented response from the Latin American prelates, but the agenda for their historic November gathering in Rome with the North American bishops is still up in the air.
On a recent visit to Rio de Janeiro to address a summer course for bishops, Cardinal Jan Pieter Schotte, the Vatican's Secretary General of the Synod for the Bishops, faced a barrage of questions by curious bishops about the first-ever Synod for the Americas.
Leaders of this year's Rio course included, among others, Dominican Father Georges Cottier, the Pope's in-house theologian and Archbishop Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, who served as president of the drafting committee of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
But Cardinal Schotte's conference on the Synod for the Americas sparked the liveliest dialogue. During his talk, the Belgian cardinal said that “the Special Assembly for America is expected to be a key event, not only for the region, but for the whole Church.”
According to the cardinal, the bishops'conferences of the Americas are expected to set a record in the response to the lineamenta. “normally, a great number of bishops'conferences respond to the questions made in the lineamenta,” said Cardinal Schotte, “but the ideal would be to have responses from all episcopates.”
The prelate made his point by citing episcopate response percentages to lineamentas from past synods. The synod on evangelization in 1974 drew a response of 75 percent of the world episcopate; on catechesis (1977), 67 percent; on the family (1980), 50 percent; on penance and reconciliation (1983), 43 percent; on the laity (1987), 60 percent; on priest-ly formation (1990), 64 percent; the special assembly for Europe (1991), 83 percent; the special assembly for Africa (1994), 94 percent; on consecrated life (1994), 68 percent; the special assembly for Lebanon (1995), 83 percent.
Cardinal Schotte said he expected the response for the Special Assembly for America to be the highest ever. By the April cut-off date, Rome expects to have input from at least 95 percent of the American episcopates.
Regional gatherings are nothing new for the bishops of South and Central America. Latin America has been the setting of four general bishops,’conferences,’ meetings, each one leading to the draft of final documents with significant pastoral impact. So why the need for an Americas,’synod?
Cardinal Schotte answered the question at the Rio gathering, first by praising the accomplishments of the bishops,’ collaborative efforts in the region.But, he said, between these experiences and the Special Assembly for America there ,“s a qualitative difference.”
“The former Latin American or Pan American meetings have been addressed to confront problems of the local Churches,” Cardinal Schotte explained, while the Synod of America “has as its objective the exchange of information in search of common pastoral solutions referred to the Universal, which is Church…. It can be said that the synod as an instrument of episcopal collegiality inferior in degree only to an ecumenical council, has universality as its peculiarity.”
In a meeting with Catholic journalists following the Rio course, another key question was addressed to Cardinal Schotte: How did the Pope choose the themes for the Synod for the Americas?
“Let me first correct one thing,” said the cardinal. “The Holy Father based his judgment and his decision on the consultation that we have done with all the bishops' conferences. The results were then examined by the members of my council who come from all different Churches in the Americas, so it's not a decision by the Holy Father to impose a certain theme.”
He then explained that the Pope used the same four criteria he always uses to choose the theme for a synod:
✓ “The first criterion is that it has to be pastoral, because a synod is not a theological conference.
✓ Secondly, it has to be urgent, it must represent a felt need at this moment in the history of the Church.”
✓ The third criterion, according to the cardinal “is sometimes difficult to explain or to understand, but even a synod for a particular continent must treat a theme from the perspective of the universal Church. We don't need a synod to solve a local problem, we don't need a synod of bishops to solve a problem of South America, we don't need a synod of bishops to solve a problem of the United States. There are others structures for that. But the synod of bishops is always the expression of the whole college of bishops, even if the majority of the participants belong to the episcopate of a particular area.”
✓ The fourth criterion, he concluded, is that the synod must reflect the direction in which the Holy Father seeks to guide the universal Church.
Cardinal Schotte believes that the theme chosen by the Pope for the Synod for America—“jesus Christ: Way to Conversion, Communion and Solidarity” corresponds “beautifully” to all this criteria. The cardinal also believes that the theme is central to challenges shared by North and Latin America: “We have to foster communion, communion in society and the communion in the Church between all the people, between the bishops and the priests, between the bishops and the laity and so on.”
But can two regions so culturally different benefit from gathering to reflect on common challenges? “It is true that there are cultural differences from one area to another,” said Cardinal Schotte. “That will always be true. But on the other hand, we should not exaggerate the particularities because at the same time all the people belong to the same human race, and in the Catholic Church we are all members of the universal Church, therefore we have a lot in common.”
Cardinal Schotte said that nowadays it “is very difficult to speak about a monolithic culture that belongs to one particular group and that is totally closed off from all other cultural influences. We live in a time of a total intercultural penetration and there's no culture in Latin America that is immune from influences that come from North America, there is no culture in North America that is not exposed to influences from Latin America.”
According to the cardinal, there are many issues the Synod will have to consider, but the first is “religious ignorance among Catholics and ignorance of Jesus Christ among non-Catholics.” Responding to this challenge, he believes, “will require a tremendous effort of catechesis on all levels of the Church. A task that will be helped very much by the existence and the availability of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“We are beyond the time when every bishop tried to develop his own faith and his own teaching of the faith,” he said. “We now have a common ground and a common tool. The whole doctrine of the Church, the whole message related to Jesus Christ enclosed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is that common ground.”
Alejandro Bermudez is based in Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: John Paul II Takes Italian Catholic Media Giant To Task DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:HOW FAR CAN a Catholic magazine go in the name of freedom of the press? That is the question that lies at the heart of the current struggle between the Vatican and the Society of St. Paul, whose Italian publications have been accused of being too liberal on issues like sexuality, abortion and divorce.
Last month Pope John Paul II appointed an Italian prelate, Bishop Antonio Buoncristiani, as the papal delegate in charge of overseeing the Society of St. Paul's media efforts. In a letter issued by the Vatican Feb. 28, the Pope told the Pauline superior general, Father Silvio Pignotti, that because “a delicate situation has recently occurred within the religious family, disturbing harmony in the community,” he was appointing Bishop Buoncristiani of Porto and Santa Rufina, a diocese just outside Rome, to take over the governance of the order's apostolic works in Italy, including the Pauline publications.
At the center of the controversy is Famiglia Christiana, a glossy magazine founded in 1931 that, with sales of more than 1 million copies a week, is Italy's best-selling weekly. Besides being sold on newsstands and by subscription, it is also sold inside many churches. Several editions published in other languages make it one of the largest circulation magazines in Europe.
One of the magazine's most popular features is a column entitled “conversations with Father,” in which the editor, 69-year-old Father Leonardo Zega, answers readers' questions on a variety of issues. In recent months, Father Zega's replies, considered courageous by his admirers and shocking to his critics, have shown that no problem is taboo for Famiglia Christiana.
For example, a few months ago Father Zega, who has edited the magazine since 1980, told the parents of a homosexual that they should “respect their son's choice.” In another recent issue he responded to a couple concerned about their adolescent son's frequent masturbation. He told them not to worry, because masturbation, he said, is part of the process of maturation toward a more fulfilling sexual life. “I'm not saying that it's not a sin, but it's certainly not the worst sin a teenager can commit,” the priest-editor said.
Just a few weeks ago, the priest received a letter from a young woman who was distraught after having discovered that her fiancé was secretly reading pornographic magazines and renting X-rated videotapes. Although Father Zega affirmed that he “did not want to banalize the damage that pornography does to the dignity of human beings, to the beauty of love and sex and or good taste,” he exhorted women to be tolerant and understanding with men who are immaturely attracted to pornography.
To make matters worse, Italy's mainstream press has gotten into the habit of quoting extracts of the articles under fire, thus fanning the flames of the controversy.
John Paul II's recent action is the latest chapter in the long struggle between the Pauline editorial group, one of the largest Catholic communication holdings in the world, and the Vatican. In 1986 Pope John Paul II had urged the Paulines to “not be confused by the ideologies of the modern world” and to “strongly feel the duty to always enlighten souls, to never instill doubt and to never spread confusion.”
In 1989, the Society of St. Paul was criticized by authorities like Cardinal Jozef Tomko, the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, for plans to publish the Koran for educational purposes and to make it available on video in cartoon form. In the past few years, Vatican authorities, including Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian bishops' conference, have tried, with little success, to steer the Pauline publications toward a more moderate course.
During a meeting with the cardinals last fall, the Paulines' superior general, Father Pignotti, defended the magazines' editorial independence and said that it was his order's duty to guarantee that autonomy. Father Pignotti also dismissed Cardinal Ruini's request that a panel of theologians approve articles dealing with moral or sexual issues before publication.
According to the superior general, the controversial articles “have not at all been in contrast to Catholic doctrine and morals.” As far as the appropriateness of some issues and how the lay press might report on them or distort them, he said that “this danger exists in every type of communication, even in homilies. But by overestimating this objection, one runs the risk of not being able to write or say anything ever again because there will always be ill-disposed individuals who misunderstand our words and twist their meaning.”
In his letter to Father Pignotti announcing the appointment of Bishop Buoncristiani, Pope John Paul did not refer directly to any specific incidents. He did say, however, that “various items published in the Pauline periodicals have brought about not a little perplexity.” In describing the tasks he had entrusted to Bishop Buoncristiani, the pontiff added: “I hope this will contribute to resolving the current difficulty for the good not only of the Society of St. Paul, but also in the interest of the Church, in which the Paulines are called to develop a vast and challenging mission in the specific area of the mass media.”
The Society of St. Paul was founded in 1914 by Don Giacomo Alberione, who is now in the process of being beatified. The Pauline fathers and brothers are active in social communications; the order is known all over the world for its publications and work in mass media.
Bishop Buoncristiani (his name means “good Christians”) told the Corriere della Sera daily that he considers his new position “a very delicate task.” In effect, he will be taking over the duties that normally belong to the superior general. In carrying out his tasks, however, Bishop Buoncristiani will report directly to Pope John Paul II.
A statement signed by both Bishop Buoncristiani and Father Pignotti affirms that the Paulines have “welcomed the Holy Father's letter with deference and intend to adhere to its contents without reservation.” The latest issue of Famiglia Christiana, however, makes no reference to the Vatican intervention.
The controversy between the Holy See and the Paulines is complicated by the internal conflicts and power struggles that have plagued the Society in recent years. On one end of the tug of war there is Famiglia Christiana editor Father Zega, who is supported by Superior General Father Pignotti. On the other end there is Father Paolo Saorin, provincial of the Italian Paulines, who is allied with Father Stefano Andreatta, former editor of the Pauline cultural monthly Jesus. The latter two hold positions closer to the Vatican and the Italian espiscopal conference.
Last year, Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the prefect of the Congregation for Religious and Cardinal Vincenzo Fagiolo, president of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman curia, intervened but did not manage to resolve the conflict. Ultimately Pope John Paul decided to call upon Bishop Buoncristiani to find a long-term solution.
The Vatican's intervention was criticized by some lay and religious commentators as an example of authoritarianism and intolerance. A high-ranking prelate at the Vatican Secretary of State, who spoke on condition of anonymity, replied to critics: “even if this were a decision by the Holy See to call the Paulines to order and to a greater fidelity to Catholic doctrine, I don't see why it should have caused such an uproar: if magazines are sold inside churches, it seems to be more than justified that the ecclesiastical authorities oversee things in order to prevent the publication of material that is in contrast with Catholic doctrine.”
Berenice Cocciolillo is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Berenice Cocciolillo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Out From Under the Communist Yoke DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:CATHOLICOS KAREKIN I of Etchmiadzin, head of the eight-million-strong Armenian Orthodox Church, sees the Catholic Church in his country as an ally. Now free from the yoke of communism, the former Soviet republics, including Armenia, are facing new challenges from religious sects, many of them from the United States. The Catholicos, 65, served as bishop of the Eastern diocese of the Armenian Church in the United States from 1973-77. From 1977-1983, he was Catholicos of Cilicia, Lebanon, the seat of the Church that had split from the Church in the Armenian homeland, which was perceived to be controlled by the communist authorities. Officially, the Churches are still apart, although Karekin's election as Catholicos of Etchmiadzin, in 1995, was a clear signal of reconciliation.
Catholicos Karekin visited John Paul II in December, when the two signed a declaration ending 1,500 years of disagreement over Christ's identity. It was his first meeting with the Pope as leader of the Armenian Orthodox Church.
The Oriental Orthodox are in communion with each other, but have been divided from the rest of Christianity since the Council of Chalcedon in 451, because of the council's Christological teachings.
The Roman Catholic-Oriental Orthodox dialogue as well as dialogue between Catholics and the individual Oriental Orthodox churches have concluded that the disagreements of the fifth century were based on differences in terminology and culture, not on a different understanding of Christ.
According to the Council of Chalcedon, Christ was perfect God and perfect man, one person with two natures that are undivided and unconfused.
In rejecting the formula of Chalcedon, the Oriental Orthodox professed the “the one incarnate nature” of Christ in order to avoid what they saw as compromising the unity of Christ's person or holding that Christ's humanity was absorbed by his divinity.
The new Roman Catholic-Oriental Orthodox declaration highlights the great advance in the Churches'search for unity in Christ, the two leaders said after a 25-minute private meeting.
“perfect God as to his divinity, perfect man as to his humanity, his divinity is united to his humanity in the person of the only-begotten Son of God, a union that is real, perfect, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without any form of separation,” the declaration said.
Catholicos Karekin attended three sessions of Vatican II and has maintained good relations with Rome ever since. The Register spoke with him recently about the challenges facing the Armenian Orthodox Church.
Karekin I: The Orthodox Church in Armenia is passing through an extremely crucial time. Think of it this way: What would the situation of Churches in America be if for 70 years all the churches were closed, some turned into cinemas, theaters and other public buildings, the name of Christ was never mentioned, and if it was, it was only as a caricature in atheistic propaganda? People in the West do not realize that what is most damaging is not the refutation of the truth of the Christian faith, but the aggressive, well-planned, well-devised policy of eradicating all vestiges of Christianity in the public fabric of the life of the people.
We face a vacuum today, an absence of the knowledge of what the Gospel is and the true moral principles of the preaching of Christ. The task of the Church is how to re-educate and to bring back all that we Armenians have believed in for more than 17 centuries. The challenge is to relate the Christian faith to the problems of the daily life of the people. To do this, we need new men and women to serve the Church in this new setting with these new challenges.
How do you go about rebuilding?
Our priority is to give great emphasis to the formation of the new clergy and teachers of religion, opening Sunday schools, and giving religious courses in the public schools that have expressed a wish to include religion in their curriculum.
We also need new church buildings because none were built during the time of the Soviets. Those we have inherited from the past need much repair. It is a heavy burden upon us to have to repair all these churches.
The Church unfortunately does not have any permanent source of income. Its financial well-being depends almost exclusively on the free donations of the people. But with the financial resources of the people at such a low level today, it is unrealistic to expect anything from them. Part of the support for the Church comes from the Armenians in the diaspora and on a very small scale from ecumenical sources.
What is your relationship with the Latin-Rite Armenian Church?
We maintain a good fraternal relationship with them. The Armenian Catholic Church celebrated its 250th anniversary a few years ago and we welcomed the bishop that they appointed for the Armenian Catholics living in Armenia. We welcome their collaboration and we have always talked with them and made it very clear that this is a time to strengthen the local indigenous Church and not to enter into a policy of competition or confrontation. Proselytism is avoided.
Many Americans involved with religious sects are active in your country now. How is your relation with them?
They are a deviation from the main-line Churches and they are very aggressive. They absolutize their own faith. The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, think they have the only true faith and all the rest are false.
The extremism of sects is a distortion of the true spirit of openness and concern for the others that we have in Christ and in the Gospel. It bothers me that they use so many non-religious factors in their propaganda that we have trouble countering, mainly financial and other non-religious incentives. How can we deal with this in the Armenian Church at such a time of extreme social poverty? How can we compete with sects when they come into the country with great resources, distributing goods and money to people in the name of school children, in the name of charity, in the name of help for the sick and so on. It is a misuse of religious freedom.
What do you see for the future?
We should join hands together and ask if we are the salt as Christ wanted us to be. Or have we lost our saltiness? If Christ wanted us to be the water, living water, are we? Or are we so mixed up that we have lost the clarity of our faith? The interchange between secularism and the sacred has to be bridged through theological discussions. We want to cooperate with other Churches and want to have programs that are designed to meet the needs of all Armenians. I think we can benefit from collaboration.
—Cornelius Hulsman
----- EXCERPT: Leader of Armenian Orthodox Sees Anxious Present ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Inclusive Language Scores Poorly in Poll DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:A ROPER POLL conducted for The Catholic World Report magazine has cheered tradition-minded Catholics opposed to inclusive language in the liturgy and in the Church's sacramental readings.
The poll—which also surveyed American Catholics on a wide array of other issues—noted that 73 percent of lay Catholics were unfamiliar with the term “inclusive language,” a phrase linked to attempts by some liturgists and scholars to provide gender-neutral language in the Church's liturgical readings.
A solid majority—69 percent, according to Roper—have no problems with the use of “mankind” in describing both men and women. The numbers are about the same for men and women.
In a survey that in general offered little for tradition-minded Catholics to cheer—strong majorities, for example, backed the use of artificial birth control and ordination of women as priests— Catholic World Report focused on the inclusive language portion of the poll to prove a point often made by opponents of inclusive language.
The magazine, which is published by San Francisco-based Ignatius Press, argues that inclusive language is the pet project of an academic and liturgical elite bent on sacrificing the traditional uses of English in the Scriptures on the altar of politically correct feminism. The poll was released just a few months after the U.S. cardinals met in Rome to discuss liturgical translations and while a March meeting of a U.S. bishops' liturgical commission discussed the issue.
While the argument has been largely unnoticed by the average American Catholic in the pew, the inclusive language issue has sent opponents and advocates scurrying for advantage in what has become an often bitter behind-the-scenes battle, complete with rhetoric including challenges to orthodoxy and complaints about insensitivity to women.
“what conceivable reason could there be for undertaking radical surgery on liturgical texts, when most Catholics apparently find the existing texts preferable to the inclusive-language alternatives?" Philip Lawler, editor of Catholic World Report, wrote in his commentary on the Roper poll in his magazine's March issue.
Lawler pointed out that wide majorities of Catholics, according to the Roper poll, rejected proposed changes in Scripture that were changed to inclusive language terminology. For example, 66 percent of those polled preferred that the Gospel of Matthew text read: “And he said to them, ‘come after me and I will make you fishers of men,‘” the traditional version, over “Jesus said to them, come after me, and I will make you fish for people,” a version favored by some inclusive language proponents.
Another majority preferred the Genesis reading, “God created man in his own image” over “God created humankind in his image.”
Catholic World Report and Lawler himself have long campaigned against inclusive language in the liturgy. Inclusive language advocates have already successfully argued for changes in the Church lectionary for English-speaking Canada. The focus, however, has centered on the United States, which has the largest number of English-speaking Catholics in the world. So far, the Vatican has resisted attempts at language changes, including by blocking approval of biblical translations and lectionaries.
Lawler, writing on the worldwide web page for Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network, argued that> “inclusive language does violence to traditional English prose, in order to serve the (mostly political) purpose of feminism.” He urged Catholics to write Rome and the U.S. bishops to oppose changes in liturgical language promoted by what he described as “powerful forces” within the U.S. Church bureaucracy.
Many American liturgists have landed on the pro-inclusive language side of the debate, but others welcomed the Roper poll's findings.
Msgr. M. Francis Mannion, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City and president of the Society for Catholic Liturgy said that the poll results “are consistent with my own experience as pastor,” adding, “on matters like this, a chasm exists between the average Catholic and those in academic life for whom inclusive language is a burning issue.”
Msgr. Mannion said that liturgical language that incorporates phrases such as “men and women” and “brothers and sisters” is appropriate—but inclusive language that refers to God is not, he argued, a distinction that many liturgists supportive of inclusive language agree with.
The significance of the Roper poll, he argued, is that it is the first effort to discover “what the average Catholic thinks on liturgical matters. The direction of ongoing liturgical reform are being driven primarily by professional liturgists— not by clergy or lay people. This is a very serious problem.”
He noted that the indication of widespread dissent from Church teachings illustrated in the Roper poll provides clues about the lack of interest in inclusive language. “I suspect that those who take an independent line on moral matters also chafe at being told how they must say their prayers or address God.”
But the value of inclusive language does not rely on widespread public support for changes, argued Father Edward Hislop, chairman of the board of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions and pastor of St. Mary's Church in Helena, Mont. “public opinion polls in our country tend to be a measure of truth. But, as Catholics, we don't judge truth by public opinion polls,” he said.
Still, he said, “I am not willing to concede that people are bothered by inclusive language,” noting that inclusive language translations have yet to be approved for widespread use in American parishes. “It's not fair to say that, because they have not experienced them.”
According to Father Hislop, inclusive language is not only politically correct, it is, in many cases, historically and biblically correct. He noted that the use of inclusive language can “put us in touch with the original text of the Scriptures,” that were written for all believers, male and female. He said that careful biblical scholarship will be needed to ascertain the true meaning of Scripture. In some cases, he said, what has become traditionally known as a reference to “men” because of the limitations of traditional English usage may have a wider meaning in the original Greek and Hebrew writings.
The use of inclusive language, he said, also allows for the Church's liturgy to speak in the idiom of contemporary Americans. “It's an issue of the language being accessible, so that what is heard can be truly heard [in the Mass],” said Father Hislop, who argued that words such as “mankind,” to modern American English speakers, refers to just one gender.
“why shouldn't it be inclusive?" he asked, noting that in his experience as a pastor, the issue is a concern to Catholics, particularly in churches where liturgy is viewed as a call to conversion and in places where the congregation listens carefully to the words read at Mass.
Bishop Emil Wcela, auxiliary of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and member of the board of the Catholic Biblical Association, quoted in The Long Island Catholic, has argued that there are “two dialects” in America when it comes to the use of the word “man.” The question for the Church, he said, “Is which of the dialects will we use?"
While using gender-neutral language in reference to Jesus would be wrong, Bishop Wcela has argued that scriptural references to people should be gender-neutral. “It is better to use the dialect that includes everyone,” he said.
The argument is not expected to end. Further polls and studies can be expected, as well as more letter-writing campaigns to the U.S. bishops and the Vatican. What impact it will have on the faith lives of that portion of mankind—or humankind—that worships in English has yet to be determined.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Inventing' Volunteerism DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:“CITIZEN SERVICE BELONGS to no party, no ideology,” President Clinton said earlier this year, announcing plans for this month's summit on community service. The President was correct—American people of good will from all walks of life and all parts of the country give freely of their time and energy to help each other. In fact, they revere the volunteer spirit that has always been so much a part of our national heritage. And, for Catholics, that spirit is part of their theological and spiritual heritage as well.
Former President George Bush championed volunteerism when he spoke of the “thousand points of light.” ABC news anchor Peter Jennings often makes an outstanding volunteer the “person of the week.” The Catholic Church also recognizes extraordinary volunteers, often through canonization—Saints Vincent de Paul, John Bosco, and Frances Cabrini to name but a few.
The importance placed on good works goes back to the very beginning, to Jesus himself. In Matthew 25, 31-46, he promised salvation to those who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit those sick and in prison—the acts are known collectively as the Corporal Works of Mercy—and damnation to those who did not. St. Paul wrote about it several times, as in Romans 2, 6: “[f]or he will render to every man according to his works,” and Galatians 6, 7: “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Perhaps the best known portion of Scripture on this topic comes from James (2, 14-17): “what does it profit … if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?… So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
Many of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church took up the theme of the importance of good works, and made some significant, and often misunderstood, theological distinctions concerning merit, grace and salvation. The Protestant Reformation was based, in part, on one such misunderstanding. Martin Luther, and other 16th-century Reformation theologians, interpreted the Catholic teaching this way: in order to be brought to God and earn salvation, one must do good works. The Church actually teaches the reverse (as reiterated by the Council of Trent in the 1540s), that it is because of God's grace that we are able to do good works—and we merit salvation only because God has promised it to us.
That remains the Church's teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that: “the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful” (2008); and: “[t]he charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God” (2011).
Any discussion of the importance of good works to a life of faith would not be complete without an explanation of what St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century called “the virtue of liberality.”
According to Domincan Father Basil Cole, professor at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome, liberality refers not only to the willingness, but to the need humans feel to be generous with each other.
“Volunteerism has to do with the virtue of generosity. To do not only what our strict duties are, but to go beyond that. And generosity first begins with God,” Father Cole explained. “God freely and without compulsion creates and sustains the universe, and then, after the Fall, he voluntarily saves us. This was a free act on the part of God, most fitting in light of his infinite love.
“Everything we possess is ultimately borrowed from God. We have to develop our talents for the glory of God,” Father Cole said. “we have this richness precisely for others. Every human needs others. Somehow we need to share, to give away our talents for the building up of other people.”
Father Cole said people who do good works with love, faith, hope and charity, merit grace for themselves and others and for the Church. “St. Therese of Lisieux said that you can save a soul by picking up a needle,” Father Cole said. “what counts more in the sight of God is the love you put into the deed. We are all called to do ordinary deeds with great motivation … God doesn't call many of us to great deeds.”
These days however, “nothing counts in society unless there is a paycheck attached to it, and that's killing us,” said Msgr. William Smith, acting rector of St. Joseph Seminary (Dunwoodie) in Yonkers, N.Y. “Do you think Jesus was paid?… The whole of Jesus' life is love,” he said. “Love that doesn't come out of itself shouldn't be called love.”
“During Lent, I ask people to give up an hour and a half each week to go volunteer in a literacy program, or visit someone in a nursing home who doesn't have any visitors,” he explained. “That's very important—what you give up, what you give away.”
There is a healing aspect to the act of giving that has been well documented, especially as a component of the 12-Step Program outlined by Alcoholics Anonymous, and also used by many other groups dealing with addictive behavior.
Dominican Father Emmerich Vogt travels around the country and the world giving retreats and missions, borrowing from his positive experiences with the 12-Step Program. He said that coming from an alcoholic family, the steps have helped him grow in a kind of practical wisdom that he wants to share with others.
“The cause of most of our agony is self-centered, “father Vogt said. “we need to learn to die to self and surrender to God.” The problem is that most people do not die to self until they have a serious personal crisis.
“They say that religion is for people who are afraid of hell,” Father Vogt said, “and spirituality is for people who have been there. The first of the 12 steps is admitting that I am powerless. The second is acknowledging that there is a power greater than me—God. The third is surrendering to God,” he said. “And the 12th step is pledging to bring this spiritual awakening to others.” It is that pledge to help others that keeps many recovering alcoholics sober. The treasure of their hard-won serenity grows to the extent that it is shared.
Americans have long been people who help themselves and help their neighbors. American Catholics see those traits for what they really are—faith in action.
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Peel Away the Hollywood Veneer and Donnie Brasco Reveals Honest Drama DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:FILMGOERS AROUND THE world have had a long-standing romance with the American Mafia. Beginning with Howard Hawks's 1932 classic, Scarface, through the trilogies of Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Parts I-III) and Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets, GoodFellas and Casino), audiences have identified with these stylized, ultra-violent melodramas about honor and betrayal set in colorful, close-knit Italian-American communities. At their best, these sagas have also served as heightened metaphors for the ruthless way power is exercised in this country and the dark side of America dream.
Donnie Brasco was the alias of real-life FBI agent, Joe Pistone, who spent six years undercover with the Mob, beginning in 1976. His masquerade was one of the most successful in American law-enforcement history, resulting in more than 100 organized crime convictions. Pistone/Brasco's achievement depended on his friendship with a low-level Mafia hit man, Lefty Ruggiero, whom he's finally forced to betray.
Brasco (Johnny Depp) has established himself as a small-time jewelry fence in Brooklyn when Ruggiero approaches him with a diamond. The undercover agent correctly appraises it as a fake and goes with the gangster to rough up the bar owner who'd tried to use it as payment for a Mafia debt.
Impressed by the younger man's willingness to use his fists, Ruggiero vouches for Brasco to a local Mob family. The aging enforcer makes it clear he's a dead man if his protégé ever makes a serious mistake or rats to the cops.
On the surface, the story seems familiar enough, resembling other mob movies and TV shows. But British director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and screenwriter Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show) have thrown out most of the action-set pieces usually associated with the genre and concentrated instead on complex character development. The drama unfolds in a low-key, carefully-observed manner, closer in tone to Arthur Miller's realistic play about friendship and betrayal among Italian Americans, A View From the Bridge, than to the brilliant operatic fantasies of Coppola or Scorsese.
Ruggiero is shown to be well past his prime, and despite repeatedly bragging about his 26 hits, he's afraid of being put out to pasture. Clinging desperately to his lower-middle-class lifestyle, he grouses about how hard he works and how little he has to show for it, complaints typical of any passed-over, middle-aged employee in a large organization.
Ruggiero is divorced, and his son has become a junkie. To fill this emotional void, he takes Brasco under his wing, tutoring him in the ways of the Mob. The younger man learns that “wise guys” never grow mustaches or pay for their drinks, and that they should always sport well-tailored slacks and drive Cadillacs. The veteran hit man also believes in showing genuine respect for the Mafia hierarchy, who often treat him like dirt. “This is your family,” he instructs Brasco and counsels the younger man to follow the Mob's orders without question.
The undercover agent is moved by the over-the-hill gangster's affection, but his success in penetrating the Mafia has created problems in his personal life. His wife (Anne Heche) sees him only a few days a month and is worried that their three daughters are growing up without a father. When Brasco is prevented by his work from attending his eldest's first communion, he's threatened with divorce.
Brasco's Mafia masquerade has also begun to warp his personality. His immersion in the gangster lifestyle has become so complete he can no longer step out of character with his family or his law-enforcement superiors. He continues to talk and strut with mobster bravado, slapping his wife around during an argument and telling off his FBI bosses in a profane, abusive manner. “I'm not becoming like them,” he confides to his spouse. “I am them.”
Brasco's double life begins to unravel when the Bureau forces him into a sting operation in Florida. Another undercover agent has taken over a rundown bar in Miami but can do nothing with it. Against his better judgment, Brasco is ordered to persuade Mob boss Sonny Black (Michael Madsen) to move to Florida and set up a gambling operation in the bar. Everything goes forward as the Bureau intends, but the local cops unwisely bust it on opening night. Ruggiero smells a rat. However, Sonny erroneously concludes that a long-time associate, Nicky (Bruno Kirby), is the culprit.
The whole incident triggers a gang war in which Sonny's faction comes out on top. Brasco has so pleased his Mob bosses that he is to be inducted into the Mafia as a “made guy” as soon as he and Ruggiero execute a rival gangster.
But Ruggiero suspects his protégé, not Nicky, is the informer. Brasco skillfully plays upon their friendship to allay his mentor's fears. Then to assuage his conscience of the approaching betrayal, he offers to give Ruggiero $300,000, illegally held back from the Bureau during the sting, if the older man will quit the Mob life. Ever the loyal soldier, the aging enforcer refuses.
In a surprise move, the FBI arrests everyone while the two are stalking their hit. The filmmakers keep it ambiguous as to whether Brasco would have gone through with the assassination if the Bureau hadn't stepped in. He's then revealed to the Mob as an undercover agent, and his mentor, Ruggiero, is eventually killed.
It's during this part of the action that the movie makes its only misstep. Instead of continuing to concentrate on Brasco's conflicted feelings, the filmmakers fall back on the clichés of the genre and go for the violent set pieces.
This movement away from the char-acter's inner struggle at the moment of truth deprives the movie of its moral center, making it unclear as to whether the filmmakers consider the undercover agent's betrayal right or wrong. Nevertheless, despite this significant lapse, Donnie Brasco stands out from most movies of this genre as an emotionally honest drama and one of the more realistic portraits of Mob life in recent years.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: For the Emerald Isle, Long Overdue Homecomings DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:FOR CENTURIES, IRELAND has lost sons and daughters to America. Two of the main reasons for this: eight centuries of English domination and the Great Hunger of the 1840s. Yet even after the famine was over and Ireland had won her freedom from England, the island nation was not able to support all her children.
Tom O'keeffe, a native of County Kerry, the most beautiful in Ireland, left when he was 16 years old. Not for a loss of love for Ireland did he leave, but as the longtime Bronx, N.Y., resident put it: “yu can't eat the scenery.” As beautiful as Ireland is, the unemployment rate hovers around 20 percent. But in the past 20 years, millions of people have been returning to Ireland—even if only for a short time. Tourism has become the backbone of the Irish economy as people from around the world—including some of the more than 40 million Irish-Americans in the United States looking to connect with their roots—come to drink in all the Maine-sized country offers.
The marriage of the old and the new marks Dublin City. One of the leading cities of Europe, the Irish capital is home to Dublin Castle, which was built in 1208. It was the first court of King John and represents the long history of British rule in Ireland. Nearby stand the two grandest cathedrals in Dublin city, Christchurch and St. Patrick's. Both are owned by the (Anglican) Church of Ireland, but since Ireland won her independence and is predominantly Catholic, they are no longer used as places of worship and are opened for public view.
Another symbol of the past in the Irish capital is Trinity College. Founded in 1592 by the English on the site of a suppressed monastery, the college offered free education to any Catholic willing to give up his faith. In fact, Catholics needed a dispensation from the Church in order to attend and did not do so until 1966. Today, more than 70 percent of the student body is Catholic. Among other reasons, Trinity College is worth visiting to see the Book of Kells, a four-volume edition of the Gospels transcribed by Irish Monks in the year 800 and inspiration for much of Irish art.
Another city worth seeing is Cork, on the southwest border of Ireland. Established in 600, when St. Finbarr founded a monastery there, Cork City exemplifies the resilience of the Irish people. The city was attacked by both the Vikings and Normans, was burned down in 1622; had half its citizens expelled by Cromwell in 1640; was destroyed by the Williamite Forces at the Siege of Cork in 1690; and was torched by the British once more in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence.
Today Cork is home to 146,000 people and though unemployment is high, the community's steadfastness throughout history would seem to make it a fair bet that a bad economy won't ultimately defeat it. There is much Gothic architecture along the River Lee in Cork, including St. Finbarr's Cathedral, built on the site of the monastery he founded. It is worth strolling along the quays of Cork and admiring the structures and, if you are like most tourists, you'll feel obliged to travel the six miles out of the city to reach Blarney.
Thousands of people each year stop by Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone in hopes of receiving the gift of persuasion and eloquent speech. But, unless you already possess the virtue of patience, you might skip a visit to the legendary Stone. On a typical day the line begins outside the castle and winds along the stairs to the top of the castle. The line goes still further until finally a man tells you to lay down and lean your head over the edge of the castle and kiss the Stone. In two seconds it's over, and you might wonder if a peck on the stone merits an hour's wait.
Kiss or not, the trip to Blarney is worthwhile if only to see the castle itself, a formidable structure erected in 1446, and the Blarney woolen mills. Ireland's famous wool sweaters are sold by the hundreds here along with the finest Beleek and Waterford Crystal.
From Cork it's a short trip over to Kerry, often considered the most beautiful county in Ireland. The Ring of Kerry, a 110 mile route on the Iveragh Peninsula that runs along the Atlantic Ocean, takes a day to travel. Normally, two hours would suffice to cross such a short distance, but the winding roads that at times seem to be heading straight for the ocean, the occasional sheep in the road, and other pleasant diversions, slow you down. If you stop at any of the towns along the Ring, be forewarned that the sweet sounds of an Irish fiddler may draw you in and throw you off schedule. But don't fight it—twilight along the Ring of Kerry, where the land cuts into the ocean, is breathtaking and partly responsible for Kerry's reputation for beauty.
Keep in mind that the beauty of Kerry, Cork, Dublin and the other 29 counties in Ireland is only a part of what attracts visitors and keeps them coming back. What they remember even more is how strangers spoke to them like old friends, or how many people waved as they passed them on the road, or how the woman who served them breakfast sat down to chat, and reminded them that even if it was raining buckets it was a lovely soft day.
John McCormack is based in Cheshire, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John McCormack ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Parents Go it Alone, Fund School that Offers First-Rate Education, Spiritual Heart DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL in Virginia is striving to produce not only young scholars, but Catholics of deep faith. Annunciation Academy, a K-8 grammar school owned and operated by lay Catholics, opened in the fall of 1993 and has already attracted more than 80 students from the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. Currently leasing space from a Baptist church, the school receives no financial assistance from local parishes or from the Diocese of Arlington, but exists solely on the support of parents and teachers.
Annunciation Academy offers a “classical liberal arts curriculum for the grammar school.” The school takes its educational philosophy from the ancient tradition of the liberal arts and emphasizes introducing students to the best of the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition. The school's curriculum revolves around a conception of educational development that sees the student through phases of learning that are patterned after the liberal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
During the grammatical stage, from the first year of school to the third grade, Annunciation Academy challenges children to begin memorizing facts, figures, songs and poetry, while also asking that they be able to recount the principal events of salvation history and the life of Christ. In the logical stage, the students learn to memorize principles and demonstrate the reasons for things. This emphasis is most clearly seen in language arts where the students must memorize definitions for the parts of speech and rules for the appropriate combination of words into sentences. The mandatory study of Latin begins in the third grade as well.
Starting in the seventh grade, Annunciation Academy trains the students in rhetoric. The students learn which principles they should defend and, more importantly, whether their own desires correspond with the principles by which they should live. To hone their public speaking skills, each student is required to stand in front of his class and recite poetry or give an oral account of something the class has been studying.
The spiritual life takes precedence at the academy. Each day, the student body gathers to pray the Angelus and rosary. Each morning, the school assembles and says the morning offering, while reciting prayers for the Church, state, and family. During this morning assembly, Headmaster Vincent Terreri, a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., introduces a virtue that the students and teachers discuss—and practice— throughout the week. At the end of the day, each teacher leads his class in an examination of conscience, concentrating on the particular virtue under scrutiny during the week.
In a time of increasing disbelief and doubt about the Church's Magisterium, Annunciation Academy equips the students with the rational principles that support the Church's dogmas. Students learn not only what the Church teaches, but why. “the most important subject taught at Annunciation Academy is sacred doctrine,” says Terreri. “Our primary goal is to give the students an opportunity to consider, from the standpoint of faith and reason, the mysteries and truths by which we live and call ourselves Catholic.”
The school is cautious about its selection of textbooks and classroom materials. “every book that we have in our school should contribute to our students drinking from the riches of the Catholic tradition and from the classical culture that allowed the Church to flourish during the Middle Ages,” says Terreri.
As with most new private schools, fund raising is a constant challenge, and donations are greatly appreciated. Annunciation Academy is currently enrolling students for the 1997-98 academic year.
Gerald Dean is based in Reston, Va.
For information or to send tax deductible donations, write to Annunciation Academy, 10237B Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA 22182, or call (703) 757-7828. You may also e-mail the school at annunciationacademy@juno. com.
----- EXCERPT: Gerald Dean ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Higher Ground DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:IN THIS ISSUE, Register coverage of the first Cardinal Bernardin Conference begins with excerpts from the keynote address by Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb. There are bound to be those who resent yet more coverage of an initiative they have little faith in. Moreover, they would add, the Common Ground Project is likely to lose steam anyway, once Cardinal Bernardin's successor is named in Chicago—possibly right after Easter—and the Bernardin legacy and all that it entails is likely to leave center-stage. Nevertheless, there are some noteworthy aspects to the Mobile, Ala., prelate's talk that, no matter one's position on the issue, deserve highlighting.
For one thing, the archbishop made it very clear that the Church ban on abortion, and, one would assume, by extension euthanasia and assisted suicide as well, is not up for discussion. Moreover, as the format didn't allow, as the archbishop acknowledged, for in-depth response to the critics—he insisted that the Common Ground statement, “called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril,” wasn't written to sustain serious theological scrutiny—he promised such would be forthcoming. He singled out two major critics by name, Father Avery Dulles SJ and Professor David Schindler, whose substantial critiques are a real challenge for the Common Ground Project.
Neither theologian, though invited, was able to attend the conference. But chances are they'll be there next time. That opportunity, in any case, to significantly affect the discussion will be hard to turn down. Lipscomb et al. certainly deserve credit for saluting their critics in this fashion. Archbishop Lipscomb closed his talk with a reference to the finding of “truly grace- filled ground” as the object of the Common Ground Project. If that is the goal, he says, “we and our critics will have nothing to fear.” “It is this encounter with Christ's sacrificial love poured out that allows us as sinners to be forgiven in order to be about Gods'work,” the archbishop says.
It is true, of course, that Schindler's critique, in particular, implies that the dialogue process as proposed by the Common Ground Initiative—based, as it appears to be for all intents and purposes, on a neutral meeting ground, where a civil discussion can take place between those holding opposing views—cannot be authentically Christian. AChristian, Schindler reasons, cannot relegate strongly held beliefs to the private sphere to emerge as a public, as it were neutral, persona who calmly engages in debate. It isn't, for Schindler, a matter of strongly held beliefs, in any case, but an anthropological reality: Man's creature-liness implies a certain inalienable, ontological relationship with the Creator.
In a play on Archbishop Lipscomb's words, it can be argued that man is not aboutGod's work: He already and foremost is God's work, and is ultimately utterly dependent on the Creator. Schindler's is a praying, soulful, lived theology. He is concerned about the numbing effect of mere moralizing, leaving man paying lip service to God, but still more or less in charge of his own destiny. What is at stake, he argues is not a call to civility, but a call to sanctity. Father Dulles makes a similar point in more sociological or political terms.
Schindler's critique has huge implications for the Church's relations ad extra as well (about which more will appear in these pages soon). Briefly put, he believes that the so-called neutral public square of contemporary society, sadly devoid of religious values—to cover whose nakedness, argue Father Richard John Neuhaus and others, Christians, Jews and other believers are called to vigorous public proclamation of their cherished beliefs—is the inevitable result of the Founding Father's flawed anthropology, their failure or inability to properly gauge the implications of man's creatureliness.
By contrast, of course, there is also much optimism about the American experiment, which found reflection in the Cardinal Bernardin Conference's theme: “the United States Culture and the Challenge of Discipleship.” A member of the Common Ground Committee, Michael Novak, winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and the godfather of democratic capitialism, made a compelling case that the Declaration of Independence “expresses a ‘way of life,’a ‘life form,’a whole packageof convictions and practices, and a well-articulated and deeply understood system of interlocked ideas: nature, virtue, liberty, equality and the law of God.” (More excerpts of his talk will appear next week.) The United States, Novak holds, “had the blessings of both forms of Providence, divine and human,” the latter defined as “prudence or political wisdom.”
This celebration of the American experiment is for Novak an appropriate subtask of the Common Ground Project, a corrective for the “continental social democratic vocabulary” of the U.S. bishops and many intellectuals. What's needed instead, he says, is a concerted effort to develop “an American vocabulary, steeped in American intellectual traditions.”
More wary though by no means dismissive of the institutions of Western-style capitalism, Father Brian Hehir addressed the Common Ground Committee on the need for Catholic wisdom to complement “secular intelligence, technology [and] courage.” He reflects on the appropriate “public role of religion” and how Catholics are to “state our case in the wider civil society, and how [to] propose a posture for citizenship within the ecclesial community.” He argues that the Church's posture vis-´-vis the world ought to be one of “confident modesty,” which, he says, “was embodied in the Council's affirmation that the best way to illustrate the Church's respect for ‘the world’…was to engage it in dialogue.”
All in all, some definite food for thought at the Common Ground Project's first formal conference. Key issues are being tackled and some of the more compelling material, as presented by Mr. Novak and Father Hehir, for example, is clearly not the stuff that should worry those who fear an assault on Church doctrine—even though, as Dr. Schindler would testify, what's ultimately in play is the living heart of faith, lived out in the Church and in the world.
—JK
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Editorial -------- TITLE: Scholar's Historical Study Does Mary Justice DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:(New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1996, 240 pp., $25)
THOUGH NOT QUITE over, the 20th century has already earned many unique epithets— for example, some have called it history's bloodiest century. But the years stretching from the late 1800s to our own fin de sieclehave also witnessed a happier distinction: a rising tide of literature devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus.
The Marian Library located at the University of Dayton, Ohio, for example boasts some 95,000 volumes on the Virgin, much of it penned in our lifetime. Remarkable when one thinks about it: All this paper and ink (and now cyberspace) devoted to an obscure Jewish woman who lived 2,000 years ago, who never traveled beyond the confines of the Middle East, and for whose life and utterances only a few dozen verses of Scripture will suffice.
After Vatican II, some Catholic scholars, eager to put the exuberant popular Marian piety of the preconciliar era behind them, imagined that the modern “age of Mary” inspired, in part, by 19thand early 20th-century apparitions at LaSalette, Lourdes and Fatima was on the wane. However, by the early 1980s, a major new wave of popular Marian devotion resurfaced, and with it a vast new outpouring of devotional, theological and historical reflection.
One of the hallmarks of the current revival is that public interest in the Virgin Mary has not been restricted to Catholics. The last 20 years has seen an unprecedented number of works by major scholars recognizing and examining the role the Blessed Virgin has played—and continues to play—in the development of culture.
As Marina Warner admitted, with studied reluctance, in her controversial 1976 feminist critique of Marian piety, Alone of All Her Sex: “the Virgin Mary has inspired some of the loftiest architecture, some of the most moving poetry, some of the most beautiful paintings in the world; she has filled men and women with deep joy and fervent trust, she has been an image of the ideal that has entranced and stirred men and women to the noblest emotions of love and pity and awe.”
Warner, of course, was not the first non-Christian to take notice of the Virgin's enormous place in the formation of world culture. That distinction belongs to the late 19th-century American writer Henry Adams who, though an unbeliever, in his Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres (1885), waxed nostalgic about the radiant figure of the Queen of Heaven at the heart of medieval life.
But while academia's growing fascination with the Virgin is welcome, it's safe to say that even the best and most exhaustive of the recent historical surveys— Warner's, Geoffrey Ashe's The Virgin, to mention a few—have> “designs on us,” to use Keats's phrase. There are feminist or neo-pagan polemics on display in many of these works that, however useful or interesting the research is, place them on a “ponder at your own risk” list for most Catholics.
Happily, that's not the case with scholar Jaroslav Pelikan's new large-scale study on the Virgin, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture.
A companion volume to Pelikan's 1985 work Jesus Through the Centuries, this book is the historical overview we've been waiting for. No wading through pages of feminist invective or anthropological “whistling in the dark” here. What Pelikan offers us is a sober, ironic and comprehensive tour of what two millennia of love for the Virgin has produced—in theology, biblical interpretation, philosophy, art and literature—and not only among Catholics, but in the Churches of the Protestant Reformation, and even in Islam.
The author is perhaps uniquely situated to produce such a wise and fulsome guide. Jaroslav Pelikan, a Lutheran, and Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University, is one of America's most honored scholars in the humanities, currently serving as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Pelikan is the author of more than 30 books, among which his five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971-1989) stands as a foremost achievement.
While Pelikan is one of the world's best-known historians of the Protestant Reformation, his writings have always been marked by a freedom from polemics and by the sort of judiciousness and balance that most historians aspire to but few attain. For a Protestant scholar, surely, all those virtues were on call for a study on the Virgin Mary—but Pelikan more than rises to the challenge.
Indeed, for a Catholic reader, perhaps, some of Pelikan's most gripping pages involve those on Mary's place in the thinking of Reformation figures like Luther and Calvin, and, even further afield, in the Mariological speculations of some of the so-called Radical Reformers.
As Pelikan stresses, “It would be a mistake, and one into which many interpretations of the Reformation both friendly and hostile have all too easily fallen, to emphasize these negative and polemical aspects of its Mariology at the expense of the positive place the Protestant Reformers assigned to her in their theology. They repeated—and in many cases … reinforce[d]—the central content of the orthodox confession of the first five centuries of Christian history.”
Luther, for example, firmly asserted the perpetual virginity of Mary, among other Marion doctrines, and even radicals like Zwingli called Mary “the highest of creatures next to her Son.”
This retention of the central tenets of Marian theology in the early Protestant confessions and some surprising survivals of Marian honorifics in later Protestant hymns, Pelikan explains, have inspired some contemporary Protestant thinkers to rediscover the place of Mary in Christian life and provide renewed links with the Catholic world.
Pelikan balances that appreciation of the Mariological interests of Reformation theologians with some vivid, and horrific pages on the early Reformation's “wars against the idols” when “reforming committees” in Switzerland, and elsewhere, systematically hacked-up, hammered and burned centuries of Marian-inspired art.
“the Heroine of the Qu'ranand the Black Madonna” is the provocative TITLE of another unusual chapter in Pelikan's survey. It details not only the surprisingly large role Mary plays in the devotional life of Islam, but, as Pelikan writes, the Virgin's profound and persistent historical function “as a bridge builder to other traditions, other cultures and other religions.”
Western popular writers on Mary have only recently begun to factor Islam's extensive Marion lore into the mix, and wonder, as Pelikan does, what mediating role the Qu'ran-ic Mary may play in building bridges and lessening tensions between Islamic and Christian civilizations.
As Pelikan notes, no woman—not biblical figures like Eve or Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, nor esteemed Islamic “saints” like Fatima, daughter of Mohammed—are honored in the Qu'ran, Islam's Scripture, as is Mary, or Maryam, the mother of Jesus. She has a chapter in the Qu'ran all to herself (Surah 19), one of the longest in Islam's holy book, and not only is she mentioned far more than any other woman in the text, but is a far more significant figure in Islamic popular tradition than her son—for Islam, the prophet Issa, from the Greek Iouses, or Jesus.
An aspect of Pelikan's work for which one is particularly grateful is his thorough and eminently sane treatment of the rise of Marian devotion in the early Church. Whereas many scholars today assume in a facile way that early Marian TITLEs such as Theotokos, or, “Mother of God,” emerged from the simple transference to Mary, of popular devotion to pagan mother goddesses, such as Isis or Rhea, Pelikan situates the discussion firmly in the context of the Christological crises of the early Church. Marian devotion is not the product of some cheap accommodation to second-rate pagan enthusiasm, as 19th-century historian Adolf Harnack maintained, but, Pelikan urges, a phenomenon to be associated with the Church's ongoing reflection on the nature of Christ, its discovery that Mary was the guarantor of the orthodox view of the Incarnation, and Mary's virtually inevitable identification with biblical images like “the daughter of Zion” and “the second Eve.”
One final note: Pelikan's success as an historical guide through the complicated currents of Marian devotion is not due merely to his scholarly skills and vast experience—though that may account for the serene clarity of the book's analysis. What undoubtedly helps steady this particular account of the cultures Marian devotion has built, and warmly recommends it, is the author's quiet Christian faith, and, with that, his capacity not for easy answers but for wonder.
Gabriel Meyer, aRegister contributing editor, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Suicide & Abortion DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:A recent study published in the prestigious British Medical Journal(Dec. 7, 1996, pp. 1431-34) reports that the suicide rate after pregnancy in Finland from 1987 to 1994 was 6.4 times greater in women who had undergone induced abortions (34.7 per 100,000) than for those who had given birth (5.4 per 100,000).
Additionally, the suicide rate for women who had given birth was one-half the rate of the general population of Finland (11.3 per 100,000).
Clearly, induced abortion in Finland poses serious and sometimes fatal risks to the mental health of the women who undergo this procedure, while women who give birth to their children are psychologically strengthened for motherhood.
William Hogan M.D., President
St. Luke's Physicians'Guild
Washington Metropolitan Area
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Dialogue in the Church DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:The teachings of the Church are plain from tradition, the documents of the councils, the papal statements and the Catechism. Thus much of what dialogue might accomplish by way of explanation is not an issue. Distinguished editors of “catholic” publications are too well educated to have gaps in their knowledge. Their positions are held because of personal perspective and they have a constituency, their readership, that must be satisfied. Dialogue amongst authorities does little to correct deeply held personal bias and will rarely lead to an understanding that endangers the positions of those in leadership of certain constituencies.
What then does it accomplish? Your recent editorial (“Among Editors,” Feb. 23-March 1) suggests it fosters love. It is usually better to meet with opponents leading to an appreciation of them as persons rather than things in opposition. As persons they have human traits that lead to sympathy. Certainly when one has little experience with individuals of another race meeting with them dispels caricatures and that helps immensely. But how much this would help in meetings between orthodox versus dissenting Church proponents, at the level of editors and leaders, is less clear. One would hope that there already exists some mutual respect. The danger lies in becoming soft. We all want to be liked and we all wish to avoid hurting others, but in our current world there seems to be a bit too much emphasis upon respect for human opinion at the expense of truth.
The outcome of Americans seeking to coexist, despite their different religious views, has lead to the emergence of the philosophy that no religious views should be allowed to influence the public forum. The ongoing dialogue has failed in American politics.
Henry Ryan
Augusta, Maine
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pro-Choice Thinking DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:I agree with Robert Brennan (“Shields's Abortion Stand,” Letters, Feb. 15-22) that Mark Shields's allegedly pro-life stance is inconsistent and hollow. I also sympathize with his difficulty in understanding “what a person meant who said he or she was ‘pro-choice’ yet hated abortion.” However, we pro-lifers must make the effort to understand it—because, contradictory and schizophrenic as it seems, this is the position of a large number of Americans.
In his excellent book, Making Abortion Rare(Acorn, 1996), David Reardon documents that a large “middle majority” who call themselves “pro-choice” find abortion repugnant. They know it kills babies. (Even Planned Parenthood admitted this, in its 1963 pamphlet on birth control.) But they've been convinced by the radical feminists that the evil of abortion is outweighed by its alleged benefits to women: freedom, equality, health and safety. Because they have unconsciously accepted the pro-choicers'premise that the mother and the unborn child are deadly adversaries competing for rights, they feel that opposing abortion is “anti-woman.”
In order to counter this mindset, we must proclaim what we've learned from listening to the experiences of women who have aborted: that the good of women is so inseparable from the good of their children that abortion hurts the mother as surely as it murders the child.
As pro-life feminist Frederica Mathews-Green says, most women “want” an abortion the way an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. Many a woman who approved of “choice” in the abstract realizes, when a real baby—her baby—is involved, that her maternal instincts can't be switched on and off depending on whether the pregnancy is “planned and wanted” or not. Urged, often by those she loves and trusts, to “get rid of the problem,” she may not even learn that other options exist. Afterwards, she finds that abortion hasn't solved her problems and has damaged her spiritually, emotionally and/or physically.
Dr. Reardon's “pro-woman, pro-life” strategy calls for a law—one might call it the> “Real Freedom of Choice Act” requiring that women be offered a truly free choice. This means counseling by open-minded persons who—unlike abortion clinic staff—will give them all the facts about fetal development, the risks of abortion, and alternatives; won't encourage denials of reality (e.g., “It's only a blob of tissue”); won't benefit financially if they choose abortion; and will help them get the support they need to choose life.
Since Roe v. Wade has decreed that abortion is a medical decision, this legislation would also hold doctors who perform abortions to the same high standards that govern all other forms of medical treatment. When those who fear “a return to the back alley” learn how completely most legal abortion clinics have exempted themselves from ordinary health and safety regulations (parental consent is just the tip of the iceberg), they will strongly support any measure designed to protect women from these unscrupulous profiteers.
While the pro-life movement must retain its long-term goal of legal protection for all human life, I believe that these interim measures would be both popular and helpful. As Dr. Reardon points out, everyone who cares about the health and well-being of women will want to protect them against dangerous and unwanted abortions. And as more people learn the truth about abortion's destructive effects on women, the cultural climate will change. Not only will many lives be saved—as people realize what a terrible price women pay for risking pregnancy when a child cannot be welcomed—society may even rediscover the wisdom of those “old-fashioned” Judeo-Christian ideas on sex and marriage.
If we in the right to life movement want to prevail, we must do more than say: “abortion kills babies.” We must extend Christ's love, mercy, and forgiveness to both the babies and their mothers.
Anne Burns
Cos Cob, Connecticut
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Common Ground Project and the Art of Dialogue DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:The first Cardinal Bernardin Conference was held March 7-9 at the Center for Development in Ministry in Mundelein, Ill. It marked the first formal proceedings of the Catholic Common Ground Project (CGP) under the leadership of Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala., who last fall succeeded the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago in that capacity.
To the surprise of some critics of the initiative, earlier this year Archbishop Lipscomb made it clear that Church teaching on women's ordination and abortion, among other divisive topics, would not be up for discussion. In this excerpt from his keynote address, the archbishop revisits some of the principal criticisms leveled at the CGP and in particular at its founding statement, Called to Be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril. The Mundelein conference, most of which took place behind closed doors, also featured presentations by economic philosopher Michael Novak (excerpts to follow next week) and Father Brian Hehir, a former general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Archbishop Lipscomb responds to concerns raised by the CGP founding document. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was the first of several cardinals to outspokenly criticize the statement for seeming to suggest that Church teaching and dissenting positions would be given equal weight in the proposed dialogue—in short, that the process, as proposed, would do more harm than good.
[I]n preparing for this gathering I spent time reviewing some of what has been written about this Initiative. If success is to be gauged by the quantity of words written, then we have been quite successful. For the sake of conversation I would suggest that there have been three stages to the discussion of the Initiative.
The first stage consisted of the initial comments and statements, including those of some of my brother bishops. As you know, a number of those comments expressed serious reservations. In rereading some of the statements it seems to me that they can be characterized as expressing concerns about what they perceive Called to be Catholic to be saying. The context for these perceptions was a very real concern for the pastoral well-being of the Church. It was simply that Called to be Catholic and the [Initiative] might do more harm than good.
Cardinal Bernardin responded to those concerns on Aug. 29, 1996 by issuing a press statement and a 10-page document that sought to address the questions that had been raised. He continued to engage the questions in his address at the inaugural Common Ground event on Oct. 24 (see “cardinal Bernardin Argues For 'Limited, Occasional'Dissent,” Nov. 3-9, 1996). He reminded us that the common ground we sought, as Called to be Catholic noted, was to be “a common ground centered on faith in Jesus, marked by accountability to the living Catholic tradition, and ruled by a renewed spirit of civility, dialogue, generosity and broad and serious consultation.” Much of his response clarified what had already been said in order that our critics might have a better understanding of the true nature of the Initiative. In effect, he said that there is no reason to fear that the Catholic Common Ground Initiative will do harm to the family of faith. This point was made most passionately when the cardinal challenged us, as perhaps only a dying person could, to “find that unity with the Lord and within the community of faith for which Jesus prayed so fervently on the night before he died.” He went on to say, in his words “quite boldly” that “It is wrong to waste the precious gift of time given to us, as God's chosen servants, on acrimony and division.”
Among the most prominent critics of the Initiative and its founding document, was Jesuit Father Avery Dulles of Fordham University in New York. In 1995, Father Dulles emerged as one of the most forceful and eloquent defenders of the Pope's declaration that the Church is not able to ordain women. Last fall, he delivered an address that now stands as a key critique of the process of dialogue in the setting of American liberal, secularized culture, whose trappings, he suggests, could hamper authentic dialogue within the Church.
Foremost among his concerns is the notion that, by contemporary standards, partners in dialogue are forced to reserve their most deeply-held beliefs in the private sphere for the sake of sitting down with a partner on supposedly neutral ground, just as the public agenda has been shorn of “substantive moral and religious commitments.” In the contemporary Western culture, Dulles argues, many of what he calls “communal Catholics” believe that “no one can be bound in conscience to accept official teaching [and that] dissent is a right.”
The second stage of discussion has been centered, I believe, on what others would suggest the text implies. These critics propose that when the text is read in the current cultural and ecclesial context, it is reasonable that people could come to conclusions that are not part of the formal text. Foremost among those sharing this perspective is the distinguished Jesuit theologian, Father Avery Dulles. In the Ninth Annual Fall Laurence J. McGinley Lecture at Fordham University, Father Dulles noted that his difficulty was not so much with what the statement said as with what it “seemed to imply, and would be understood as implying in the current atmosphere” (see “context of Christian Proclamation Sets Parameters of Dialogue,” Dec. 8-14, 1996). In my reading of Dulles's remarks I certainly resonated with his concerns about a “privatized Church” and the need to have realistic expectations about both the nature of and the results of dialogue. It is important that any proposal for dialogue, as he noted, “be very carefully formulated if it is not to expand the zone of disagreement within the Church.”
Father Robert Imbelli, who is with us today, wrote a quite thoughtful and respectful reply to the McGinley lecture. It was printed in the National Catholic Register (“‘common Ground’ as Communion—A Witness for the Defense,” Dec. 22-28, 1996). He noted that before being a call to dialogue Called to be Catholic is a call to discernment and conversion; to “examine our situation with fresh eyes, open minds, and changed hearts. And the goal of such discernment and of any dialogue it may promote is to understand for ourselves and articulate for our world the meaning of discipleship of Jesus Christ.” He went on to point out one of the statement's most powerful affirmations: “Jesus Christ, present in Scripture and sacrament, is central to all that we do; he must always be the measure and not what is measured.”
While the first stage of reactions was based on perceptions and the second stage focused on implications that could be taken from the text, the third stage is now addressing what its critics believe the text failed to say. To be honest I find this stage to be the most intriguing because in many ways I believe it leads us to some of the most neuralgic issues we face as Church. It also is the most difficult stage to date. This is because what is being discussed is not the absence of necessary foundational principles but how they are to be understood and how they are ordered and integrated into the foundational document, Called to be Catholic. A document that was proposed as an analytic instrument to facilitate an enhancement of the pastoral life of the Church is being subject to a theological scrutiny it was never intended to sustain. That being said, it is important that we acknowledge that we have entered this new stage and respond to it as best we can.
Archbishop Lipscomb digresses, and reflects on a recent statement by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who, in an address to Latin American bishops, argues that in theology relativism has become “the central problem for the faith at the present time.” In this context, the cardinal insists, to engage in dialogue “means to put one's own position, i.e. one's faith, on the same level as the convictions of others without recognizing in principle more truth in it than what is attributed to the opinions of others.”
The archbishop argues that a safeguard to protect against a pernicious form of dialogue is the reaffirmation of what
I do want to take note of a subject that has been present implicitly and explicitly during all three of these stages. A subject that was addressed quite clearly by Cardinal Ratzinger in an address to bishops from mission territories last September. The Origins TITLE of the text was Relativism: The Central Problem of Faith Today.
In his comments the cardinal states quite clearly that: “Relativism has thus become the central problem for the faith at the present time. No doubt it is not presented only with its aspects of resignation before the immensity of the truth. It is also presented as a position defined positively by the concepts of tolerance and knowledge through dialogue and freedom, concepts which would be limited if the existence of one valid truth for all were affirmed” (Origins, [26] 311).
Having identified the problem of relativism the cardinal then discusses its impact on theology in general and Christology in particular. It is in this context that he then speaks of the notion of dialogue. He argues that when relativism becomes a tenet of theology “the notion of dialogue (emphasis in original)—which has maintained a position of significant importance in the Platonic and Christian tradition—changes meaning and becomes both the quintessence of the relativist creed and the antithesis of conversion and mission. In the relativist meaning, to dialogue (emphasis in original) means to put one's own position, i.e., one's faith, on the same level as the convictions of others without recognizing in principle more truth in it than what is attributed to the opinion of others” (312).
I believe it is important that all of us study the cardinal's remarks. His concerns are well-founded and, as I noted above, are shared by many of our critics. It could well explain why our use of the word> “dialogue” has aroused such concern. For our critics the word is a loaded one. In fact one might wonder whether it carries “so much baggage” that its usage is counterproductive. While such wonderment is understandable, I would, suggest that we continue to use the word. Cardinal Ratzinger uses it himself in the same address when he calls for “efforts toward a new dialogue—between faith and philosophy” (316). What is imperative, however, is that we continue to affirm what was said in Called to be Catholic, namely, that in the dialogue of which we speak> “Jesus Christ, present in Scripture and Sacrament, [is] central to all that we do” and that all dialogue is “accountable to Scripture and Catholic tradition, witnessed and conveyed to us by the Spirit-filled, living Church and its magisterium exercised by the bishops and the Chair of Peter.” Ours is not the dialogue of relativism but of fidelity.
Archbishop Lipscomb spends a good part of this reply to critics on the analysis by Professor David Schindler, editor of the North American edition of the journal
[W]e now can consider some of the specifics of this third stage of critique. It is outlined quite well in David Schindler's article in Communio enTITLEd “On the Catholic Common Ground Project: The Christological Foundations of Dialogue.” There is something refreshing about Schindler's text in that he does affirm that Called to be Catholic and the cardinal's subsequent statements reflect orthodox commitments. As he wrote: “the NPLC statement does in fact contain all the elements necessary for an adequate Christology and ecclesiology—Cardinal Bernardin and Father Imbelli are right about this.” What the text fails to do for Schindler is to properly “Integrate these doctrinal assumptions into its conceptions of dialogue precisely at those critical junctures where authentically Catholic and unacceptably liberal conceptions of dialogue are most apt to be confused.” This critique, however, is not meant to demean “the Catholicity of the Cardinal's intention” or the good faith of the cardinal “and those associated with the statement.”
In this environment of good will, Schindler raises a variety of concerns which I cannot adequately represent in these brief remarks. Clearly he shares the concerns expressed by Cardinal Ratzinger and others about the limits and even dangers of what is described as our liberal cultural context. He clearly desires that any true dialogue not just be a subjective experience of process but that it be grounded in an objectivity that is substantial in nature. Similarly an authentic common ground must be substantive and not just a matter of form. The a priori'sthat determine both the content and the process of dialogue must be sacramental, hierarchical and ontological in nature and not contractual, sociological and moral. The existential condition of those who participate in dialogue is not to be understood in an overly optimistic manner. The need for forgiveness is not something extrinsic but intrinsic. Sin and redemption, the need for conversion and the call to sanctity are essential components of authentic dialogue. The peril, the polarization that the Church faces is not just something that is horizontal in nature; it is not just a breakdown in communication between discrete individuals. Rather it is a polarization of individuals “who have already been constituted, in and by Jesus Christ, into a sacramental-ontological unity.” The peril, the polarization of necessity have a vertical dimension.
In the conclusion to his argument Schindler notes that “It is the question regarding the basic nature of our current polarization and of authentic dialogue that is itself the most significant source of polarization and of the absence of authentic dialogue. The fundamental question, the question that has provoked the most attention and the deepest disagreement, concerns precisely the Christological and indeed ecclesiological nature of our polarization—of the critical issues facing the Church—and of the methods deemed most effective in addressing these.” He goes on to say that what is at issue is the meaningto be ascribed to the centrality of Christ. He postulates that “[t]he dispute bears not on whether we should, a priori, assume a unity among us in Christ and his communio (who would deny this?) but how we are to understand this prior, anterior unity.”…
As you no doubt have noted I have chosen not to engage in a detailed refutation of these three stages of critique. Rather, it is my intention to take note of them in a formal manner. I do so not that they might be dismissed but that they might be seen as worthy opportunities to carry forward in the spirit of Cardinal Bernardin. If we are to be faithful to his vision, then we must treat our critics with the utmost respect and respond with an openness that seeks only to find the splendor of the truth.
The archbishop recaps the three stages of insisting that CGP participants want to “the cause of authentic Church unity,” that the CGP may never be used to justify abortion, and that the substantial critiques by Dulles and Schindler will be taken up formally at a later stage.
Now I would like to offer a few observations, more pastoral in nature, to the three levels of critique. As for the first stage of perception, I am confident, as Schindler has noted, that both the foundational document and the Initiative are not at variance with authentic Church teaching and do, in fact, represent a deep fidelity to and love for the communion of faith that is the Church. It is important, however, that we attend to the concerns of bishops and others about how this Initiative might be misused or unwittingly become the source of discord within particular churches. While we are not responsible for the actions of others not associated with us, we must do all that we can to serve the cause of authentic Church unity.
Turning to the second stage, what some might conclude the text implies, I believe we must be more sensitive to our cultural and ecclesial context I am sure that all of us have been amazed at what people have read the text to be saying or justifying. Clearly the “eye of the beholder” has at times found what the authors of the text never intended I believe it is important that all of us, with the same gentle but firm manner of the cardinal, point out that some of the implications taken from the text, quite simply are incorrect. In that vein I find it quite problematic that some public officials have been using the words of Cardinal Bernardin written for the Initiative in the context of their support for abortion. This does a great disservice to the memory of the cardinal—a person whose commitment to the cause of life and most especially the life of the unborn is without question.
As for the third stage which discusses integration and prior-itization, I would suggest that it points out the need for this conference on the relationship between Church and culture. Dulles, Schindler and others clearly have a theological perspective on our Western culture and considered opinions on how best to approach it. It is important that we attend to these perspectives and provide the requested theological analysis. As we engage in this analysis we also must become more explicit about our own Christological and ecclesiological a priori's. This might be one of the most fruitful outcomes of this third stage of discussion….
Archbishop Lipscomb concludes his address with an overview of models and uses of dialogue as found in a variety of Church documents. Ultimately, he says, dialogue is “a graced participation in mystery.”
Perhaps the best theological description of dialogue is to be found in Pope Paul VI's encyclical letter Ecclesiam Suam. In fact, part III of that document is enTITLEd “the Dialogue” and is a sustained reflection on the need for dialogue if the Church is to carry out its mission of evangelization in the modern world. Paul VI speaks of the “transcendent origin of the dialogue. It is found in the very plan of God. Religion of its very nature, is a relationship between God and man. Prayer expresses such a relationship in dialogue…. The history of salvation narrates exactly this long and changing dialogue which begins with God and brings to man a many-splendored conversation” (70).
Later in that document Paul VI says: “In the dialogue one discovers how different are the ways which lead to the light of faith and how it is possible to make them converge on the same goal. Even if these ways are divergent, they can become complimentary by forcing our reasoning process out of the worn paths and by obliging it to deepen its research to find fresh expressions. The dialectic of this exercise of thought and patience will make us discover elements of truth also in the opinions of others, it will force us to express our teachings with great fairness, and it will reward us for the work of having explained it in accordance with the objections of another or despite his slow assimilation of our teaching. The dialogue will make us wise; it will make us teachers” (83)"
The bishops of the Second Vatican Council expressed the same themes when they wrote with enthusiasm in Gaudium et Spes about the importance of dialogue to the mission of the Church: “By virtue of her mission to shed on the whole world the radiance of the Gospel message, and to unify under one Spirit all men of whatever nation, race or culture, the Church stands forth as a sign of that brotherhood which allows honest dialogue and gives it vigor. Such a mission requires in the first place that we foster within the Church herself mutual esteem, reverence and harmony, through the full recognition of lawful diversity. Thus all those who compose the one People of God, both pastors and the general faithful, can engage in dialogue with ever abounding fruitfulness. For the bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything dividing them. Hence, let there be unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any case” (92).
Another significant discussion of dialogue is found in Communio et Progressio. Allow me to digest some of its more salient points: “[C]ommunication and dialogue among Catholics are indispensable…. Those who exercise authority in the Church will take care to ensure that there is reasonable exchange of freely held and expressed opinion among the people of God…. It must be taken that the truths of Faith express the essence of the Church and therefore do not leave room for arbitrary interpretations. Nonetheless the Church moves with the movement of man. She therefore has to adapt herself to the special circumstances that arise out of time and place. She has to consider how the truths of the Faith may be explained in different times and cultures. She has to reach a multitude of decisions while adjusting her actions to the changes around her. While the individual Catholic follows the Magisterium, he can and should engage in free research so that he may better understand revealed truths or explain them to a society subject to incessant change.”
The document moves from this more generic discussion of dialogue with the world to discuss dialogue within the Church: “the free dialogue within the Church does no injury to her unity and solidarity. It nurtures concord and the meeting of minds by permitting the free play of the variations of public opinion. But in order that this dialogue may go in the right direction it is essential that charity is in command even when there are differing views. Everyone in this dialogue should be animated by the desire to serve and to consolidate unity and cooperation. There should be a desire to build and not to destroy. There should be a deep love for the Church and a compelling desire for its unity. Christ made love the sign by which men can recognize his true Church and therefore his true followers” (114-117).
All of us are profoundly aware of the impact of the Enlightenment on First World culture and, eventually on the life of the Church. With the “turn to the subject” the traditional referent point of first world philosophy shifted. While it would be true to say that in many ways the Church rejected this shift, in time, especially since the Second World War, the Church has engaged in its own dialogue with contemporary philosophy and culture. That dialogue, I would suggest, has been guided or informed by numerous givens or non-negotiables which are essential to our ecclesial heritage I will mention but a few.
First, there has been the conviction that there is an “objectivity” an “out-thereness” which is the proper subject of theological reflection: An objectivity that is “received” and not created. Second, dialogue is pursued in the context of community in which the human subject is able to overcome alienation and despair.
A community that is itself an objective reality and not just a functional entity created by human intentionally. In sustaining these convictions this dialogue has refused to accept an eclipse of ultimate mystery and radical transcendence.
This ecclesial dialogue has been about fides quaerens intel-lectum. In a phrase it has been dialogue that is a graced participation in mystery.
It is such a graced participation in mystery of individuals within the communio, the communion of faith, that I would propose is the only authentic foundation for our Catholic Common Ground Initiative….
As we seek something to say, as we seek a source for authentic dialogue, then I think we must attend to Msgr. Velo's eloquent turn of a phrase in his funeral homily. He told us that Cardinal Bernardin had taught us that common ground is holy ground. It is the mysterium tremendumencountered in the transforming experience of the Church's public worship that provides our dialogue with its source and its goal. It is this encounter with Christ's sacrificial love poured out that allows us as sinners to be forgiven in order to be about God's work. It is this liturgical epiclesis that calls forth the Spirit that binds us together as one family and fills us with the fire of love.
If the common ground that we seek in our Initiative is truly grace-filled ground, then we and our critics will have nothing to fear. Ours will not be an experience of mere theological discourse but truly a labor of love in service to God's truth. A labor that, by his blessing and our efforts, is conducted in space made holy.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Blood and Guts of Abortion DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:Victims of Choice
(Akron, Ohio:Brennyman Books, 1996, 196 pp., $19.95)
VICTIMS OF CHOICE is a compilation of accounts of women and girls who died, were maimed or otherwise traumatized by abortion. Author Kevin Sherlock cites court records, civil case records, newspaper clippings, medical journal studies, health department citations and other public documents to build his case against “choice.” Unlike most other books on abortion, Victims of Choice lists real names of the victims, the physicians who performed the abortions, and other people involved.
Chapter one, “On the Altar of Sisterhood,” gives a state by state index of the doctors who performed the abortions. In the introduction, the author explains that he names what he calls the“bottom dwellers of the medical profession” as part of his strategy to dispel the notion that abortion is safe, legal and rare. The book is filled with stories of the victims of abortions: college- aged women dying and housewives leaving several small children behind. In one account a mother holds her daughter’shand while she hemorrhages and dies. “[T]hese women and girls were all loved by someone … they were wives, or mothers, or sisters,or daughters, or sweethearts of people who cared about them,” writes Sherlock. “Their deaths must not be dismissed or forgotten so easily.”
Readers numbed by the sheer numbers—the more than 4,000 preborn babies aborted in the United States every day—will be sharply reminded of the individual lives shattered by the tragic procedure. Sherlock also writes about the complications associated with abortion, including the scientific link to breast cancer.
Victims of Choice is a grueling read. Grueling, because it is full of death; cold, hard statistics; names, places and people. By putting a human face on the tragedy of abortion, the book is bound to move some fence-sitters on the issue.
Raul Acosta is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Sherlock ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Finding New Life in the Resurrection DATE: 04/06/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06, 1997 ----- BODY:THE APPEARANCE OF the Risen Jesus to the disciples today reveals the praxis for living the new life of the Resurrection.
It begins with getting rid of fear. The darkness of the evening and the locked doors of the place both highlight the degree to which the disciples’ lives are enshrouded by fear. But the Lord emerges from the darkness and penetrates the locked room to demonstrate the futility of fear. The same divine force that causes the stone at the tomb to roll away permits the Risen Jesus to pass through human obstacles and defenses. The grace of the Resurrection causes human fear itself to cower. To live in the Resurrection means to embrace that saving truth and not to give in to the tyranny of our feelings.
When Jesus appears, he shows them his hands and his side so that the disciples will derive all their power from the Passion. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross remains the source of identity and strength for every Christian. The wounds of the Risen Jesus reveal, not the shame, but the redemptive power of suffering.
Three times Jesus says: “Peace be with you.” His words invite his disciples to embrace divine Providence. For the peace of the Resurrected Christ is the solace that comes from submitting serenely to God's will at work in our life, no matter how it may unfold from moment to moment. It is a gift of peace that the world cannot give.
The Lord breathes on them the power of the Holy Spirit and sends them forth to be instruments of mercy. Experience of the Resurrection is not a private or exclusive affair. Such personal communion with the Risen Lord compels us to share the same mercy that restores us with others through acts of forgiveness.
The absent Thomas comes to learn of the Lord's Resurrection because the other disciples keep telling the good news: “We have seen the Lord!” The life of every Christian in word, deed and example must proclaim the truth of the Gospel. Our ardent evangelization draws others out of their reluctance, cynicism, and disillusionment and into the presence of Jesus.
The Risen Lord directs Thomas to probe the marks in his hands and side. In the same way, Jesus calls us to touch his woundedness when we encounter it in our neighbor. The fervor and generosity with which we show divine compassion testifies to our own transformation in the Resurrection. Thenew life of Christ commits every disciple to be life-giving and healing to those most hurting and in need.
We are confident that we have put into action all that the Resurrection offers when we live by faith. Like Thomas, every shred of obstinacy and doubt is replaced by the heartfelt confession: “My Lord and my God!” That is what we confess as we behold the eucharistic host in elevation. Our vibrant,energetic faith rooted in the name of Jesus and united in the Church in turn helps the rest of the world to believe and to “have life in his name.”
Father Cameron, a Register contributing editor, teaches homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: This Sunday at Mass: Second Sunday of Easter ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Sherlock ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Death Penalty Foes Gain with Papal Support DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:DEATH PENALTY OPPONENTS and news media affiliated with the Vatican found a new occasion to condemn capital punishment after an electrocution in Florida went awry.
Commentators for Vatican Radio and the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reacted with horror to reports that Pedro Medina, convicted of murder, burst into flames when the electric chair malfunctioned at the prison in Tallahassee, Fla. The accident in late March was later attributed to a malfunction in the hood that covers the head of the condemned.
Late last year, Pope John Paul II sent an appeal for clemency to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles on Medina's behalf. Lawyers, meanwhile, appealed to the state supreme court for a stay of execution because Medina was mentally
ill. The court acknowledged the illness, but did not grant the delay.
Medina, a 39-year-old Cuban who had remained in the United States since seeking refuge in 1980, was convicted of murdering a 52-year-old teacher named Dorothy James, whom he had befriended.
A U.S.-based correspondent for Vatican Radio, Paolo Mastrolilli, said the mishap in Medina's execution had shaken “the indifference with which the majority of Americans normally accept executions.”
Despite widespread political support for the death penalty, abolitionists are making inroads against capital punishment.
At least 35 states have laws that allow juries to hand down life imprisonment sentences without the possibility of parole, according to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Imposing a life sentence without parole on a convicted criminal gives juries the opportunity to punish the person without making him pay the ultimate price.
InVirginia, Republican Gov. George Allen led the efforts to abolish parole for all life sentences, and his state carried out more executions in 1996 than any other state. Nonetheless, juries in the state are handing down life sentences without parole to criminals, rather than death sentences, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.
Last year, when Virginia executed eight convicted murderers, there was only one new death row inmate. In 1995, six people were sentenced to death, and in 1994, the year before the state's law changed, death penalty convictions were handed down ten times, according to Virginia's Corrections Department. Similar declines have also occurred in Georgia and Indiana, two other states that have introduced life without parole in recent years.
Perhaps one of the biggest boosts in recent years for death penalty opponents was Pope John Paul II's teaching in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) that modern states should not exercise the right to capital punishment.
“[T]he nature and extent of the punishment [for a crime] must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society,” the Pope wrote in Evangelium. “Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, in not practically nonexistent.”
Said Professor William May, a moral theologian from the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family in Washington: “The Church does not claim that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral, as is abortion or euthanasia.” But, “in the Pope's judgment, there are ways (other than the death penalty) of protecting society from criminals and other means of achieving justice,” said May. To abide by the Church's teaching, he added, “you'd have to prove that capital punishment must be used to restore justice” in order to justify carrying it out.
Franciscan Father Gino Concetti, a theologian and long-time columnist for L'Osservatore Romano, said that though Medina's responsibility for the crime could not be ignored, the punishment was wrong. Noting that Medina was not born in the United States, the priest said, “In the country of democracy and freedom, he found a barbaric end.”
Father Concetti wrote that the incident should prompt Christian authorities in the U.S. justice system to consider abandoning the death penalty, particularly in the course of commemorating the Easter season and “another who was condemned to death.”
From the Pope to individual bishops, the Church has formed and enunciated a “clearer and clearer position on the death penalty,” according to the DPCI's Dieter, who is Catholic. He cited the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's visit to a death-row prisoner in Illinois, shortly before the prelate died. Dieter also said that New York Cardinal John O'Connor's denunciation of the death penalty during a funeral last year for a slain police officer “took a lot of courage.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., has called pro-death penalty Catholics to rethink their views on capital punishment, in light of Evangelium Vitae.
Illinois State Police Director Terrance Gainer made the connection between abortion and the death penalty in a recent interview. A 28-year veteran of law enforcement, said he thinks life imprisonment, and possibly a term of hard labor, would be a better punishment than the death penalty for murderers. “I'm not against punishment, and I'm not even against revenge. I just do feel that the snuffing out of a life, whether you do it through abortion or the electric chair, is not something I like,” he said during a radio interview.
Gainer has been an official witness to several executions at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, but it was John Gacy's May 1994 execution that made him an anti-capital punishment activist. “I've been trained to keep people from dying, and I thought the atmosphere surrounding those executions was much too joyful,” he said of death penalty proponents who heckled, wore T-shirts and carried banners calling for Gacy's death.
More recently, the American Bar Association (ABA) called for a halt on executions in this country until jurisdictions impose safeguards to ensure that death penalty cases are handled fairly. Meeting in San Antonio in February, the House of Delegates, the ABA's policy-making body, voted by a margin of 280 to 119 to approve the measure.
The $100 million-organization has never taken a stance on the death penalty, other than to call for competent counsel for defendants and to urge abolishment of the death penalty for minors or the mentally handicapped. With 370,000 members, the ABA is the world's largest voluntary professional association.
But the vote took place at the end of the ABA's mid-year meeting, so halting death penalty convictions didn't make it onto the ABA's top-10 list of legislative priorities, according to a representative for the association in Chicago.
Despite their recent successes, death penalty opponents have a long way to go. At present, 38 states allow death penalty sentences, and state legislatures in Alaska, Iowa and Michigan and other holdout states usually introduce bills to re-impose capital punishment each year, according to Dieter.
Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas) regularly introduces a bill on Capitol Hill to abolish the death penalty each year, but he receives limited support, according to Dieter. In the Americas, only Cuba, Jamaica, Barbados and a few other island nations use the death penalty.
In the United States, 3,153 people were on death row as of July 1996, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund. Forty-eight percent were white and 41 percent were African-American, according to the survey. More than 80 percent of victims in death penalty cases are white, even though only half of murder victims are white, according to the NAACP survey.
Sister Helen Prejean CSJ, the Louisiana-based Religious who ministers to death row inmates and their victims and whose book Dead Man Walking inspired the award-winning 1995 film of the same title, said inner city residents—who are more likely to be the victims of violent crime—oppose capital punishment. Meanwhile, more affluent suburban residents call out for the death penalty to redress injustices.
Despite its reputation as the murder capital of the world, District of Columbia voters rejected capital punishment in a vote in the early '90s, with strong opposition to the death penalty coming from Christian clergy. Despite this opposition, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) recently introduced a bill in Congress to legalize the death penalty in Washington.
Opponents of the death penalty also say that innocent people can die as a result of executions. University of Florida Professor Michael Radelet found that 70 inmates have been released from death row during the last 25 years because of doubts about their guilt. Radelet, the head of the university's sociology department, said his study helps strengthen the ABA's recent recommendation to halt executions.
According to a study published in the Stanford Law Review, 350 inmates were mistakenly convicted of potentially capital crimes from 1900 to 1985. Twenty-three of these people were executed for crimes they didn't commit. Unlike O.J. Simpson, they weren't able to hire the best lawyers money can buy. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, more than 75 percent of death row inmates could not afford to hire a defense lawyer.
Beyond moral issues, death penalty opponents say capital punishment does not deter criminals, and it's costly to execute them. A1982 study by the New York Public Defenders Association shows it cost $1.8 million to litigate a model capital case through the first three levels of review in New York. A 40-year life sentence cost the state $602,000. A 1988 Florida study determined that the state pays over $3.1 million per execution.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Crime Reports Division's Crime in the United States showed that states without the death penalty averaged 4.9 murders per 100,000 citizens, while states with capital punishment averaged 7.4 murders.
William Murray is based in Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: As Holy See Fixes Ties with Libya, United States Signals Dismay DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:THE VATICAN's decision in mid-March to establish diplomatic relations with Libya was strongly discouraged by the U.S. government. As late as 1992, the Vatican was at serious odds with Libya over its apparent support for terrorism, including the 1986 bombing of a discotheque in East Berlin and its alleged role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which left 270 people dead.
But in 1993 the Vatican opposed U.S. sanctions against Libya following the bombing of the Pan Am flight. Later reports indicated that there was not sufficient evidence to hold Libya responsible for the act. Libya has said it wants the matter handled by the International Court of Justice, a U.N. body based at The Hague, Netherlands. But U.S. officials want to try the two Libyans identified as possible suspects in the United States.
In any case, the Vatican rarely supports embargoes because of the toll they take on a country's civilian population. In a Vatican Radio interview following the recent establishment of ties, Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, Libya's highest ranking prelate said: “As a pastor, I see mainly the poor, the sick, those who have urgent need of medical care and people who have to make long trips to obtain treatment. This human aspect (of the embargo) is striking.”
Still, critics of the new relationship are perturbed at what they see as the Holy See's dealing with a known international terrorist in the person of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's president. But Church officials view it as an opportunity to bring a country that has long been a pariah back into the community of nations.
The new Vatican nuncio to Libya is Archbishop Sebastian Laboa. Archbishop Laboa was previously the Vatican's diplomatic representative in Panama and as well was responsible for giving shelter to General Manuel Noriega in the embassy compound after the United States invaded Panama in 1989. Archbishop Laboa's action at the time strained diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the United States, but he ultimately convinced Noriega to turn himself over to U.S. military authorities in 1990.
The archbishop later became the apostolic delegate to Libya, and was based in Malta. An apostolic delegate is accredited only to the bishops of a country. Now Archbishop Laboa has been named apostolic nuncio, which also affords him diplomatic status. In an interview with the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, the prelate suggested that U.S. opposition to the Vatican-Libya ties would quickly fade. The prelate also dismissed the notion that the Vatican was dealing with a known terrorist.
“If one wanted to consider only the attacks against life, the Holy See could not have diplomatic relations with the United States either. It would be enough to cite the American investments in family planning in the Third World, where support is given to policies favoring abortion.”
Following the announcement of the formalized relations between the Vatican and Libya, the Registerspoke with Archbishop Paolo Giglio, the apostolic nuncio in Egypt. The archbishop is well positioned to follow the developing relations between the Vatican and Libya because Egypt and Libya are neighbors and maintain good relations. Both Archbishop Laboa and Archbishop Giglio are from Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean which traditionally maintains good relations with Libya.
Archbishop Giglio was not surprised by the Vatican's move to establish ties with Libya. He told the Register that the decision to repair the relationship with Libya goes back to 1994 when Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the second-ranking member in the Vatican's Secretariat of State, visited Libya and agreed to establish a commission with people representing the country's government and the Vatican to study how to improve relations.
Said Archbishop Giglio: “[At the conclusion of the study] the Holy Father decided to establish these diplomatic relations. It means in my opinion that the Holy See is satisfied with the situation of the Church in Libya today. There is no persecution and there are no problems between the Church authorities in Libya and the government.”
The Catholic Church has two apostolic vicariates in Libya. Many members of a large colony of Italian Catholics left after a junta led by Gadhafi wrested control of the country in a coup d'etat in 1969. Today there are some 30,000 Catholics in the vicarate of Tripoli and 10,000 more in Benghazi. Most are expatriates—about 20,000 of them Filipinos—working in Libya.
Diplomatic relations are typically established if a local Church can benefit from it. “We see it as a means of talking with the local authorities,” said Archbishop Giglio. “This is important if, for example, the government wants to close a school, a church, a hospital or something else which belongs to the Church. If the Holy See has a person on the spot who can discuss a situation, it always benefits the local Church. In the second place, the Vatican understands having diplomatic relations with other nations is a means to foster peace. If there is no relationship, there is no dialogue.”
Some observers in the United States believe that a warmer Libya-Vatican relationship will hurt U.S. efforts to isolate Gadhafi. But others say it could give the Vatican a stronger voice in encouraging the leader to be more moderate.
‘If one wanted to consider only the attacks against life, the Holy See could not have diplomatic relations with the United States either. It would be enough to cite the American investments in family planning in the Third World, where support is given to policies favoring abortion.’
Archbishop Giglio said the Vatican's primary motivation is helping the minority Catholic population in Libya. “The Church has always been represented in North Africa,” Archbishop Giglio said. “In the early history of North Africa we had hundreds of bishops and hundreds of dioceses with many Catholics. Now we are few.”
In general, the Church in Libya enjoys religious freedom. In establishing official relations with the country, the Vatican now has ties with all the states in North Africa. It also maintains diplomatic relations with Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. The Vatican ambassador in Iraq is also responsible for Kuwait. Presently, the Vatican has no diplomatic relations with the states in the Arab peninsula. In Saudi Arabia there is currently not even an apostolic delegate.
Despite the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Vatican is not blind to Libya's past transgressions. Voices to the contrary notwithstanding, the Holy See seems to believe reaching out to the country and its erratic leader is the best way to go.
Cornelis Hulsman is based in Cairo. CNS contributed to this report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cornelis Hulsman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: With Churches' Help, Counties Take on Welfare Reform DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:WHILE WELFARE REFORMERS have worked on the federal and state level to try to move welfare recipients from welfare to work, innovative local governments have not waited for dictates from Capitol Hill or the statehouse. Counties like Anne Arundel in Maryland have been working with community groups to help move people off the welfare rolls for good.
In Anne Arundel, a suburban county located south and east of Baltimore and north and east of Washington, D.C., the county government has been working with local Church groups, including several Catholic parishes, to fashion a program to help welfare recipients in the county find gainful employment. The Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services began the Community Directed Assistance Program (CDAP) in 1994, and Catholic churches in the county have been involved with the program almost from its inception.
“The response from the Churches has been tremendous,” said Christine Poulsen, special programs manager for the Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services and the supervisor of the CDAPprogram. “They have really gone out of their way to help us.”
When families apply for welfare benefits in Anne Arundel, they are offered the option of participating in the CDAP program, where a community group works with the family members to get them back on their feet. The family is then asked if they wish to work with a Church group as their sponsor. Participating sponsors are then sent a list of recommended participants; the Church group may wish to interview the prospective participant to see if they can work together. Once a sponsor is chosen, the Church group is sent a year's worth of state and county welfare benefits for that family as a “community assistance grant” from the county.
The sponsor agrees to help the family manage those funds and find a job in the course of a six-month period. Single mothers (who are the most likely to enroll in CDAP) with two children would receive $383 per month from the state and county. That money is held by the sponsor to be distributed as necessary to help the welfare recipient find gainful employment in a six-month period.
“Having that lump sum ($4800 for the year) helps the family feel that they have a little cushion, and it allows the sponsoring group to manage that money with the family for the short-term to get people back on their feet,” Poulsen noted.
When they enroll in the program, welfare recipients agree to waive all rights to federal cash assistance while retaining the right to apply for food stamps and medical assistance. By excluding federal cash assistance, Anne Arundel did not need to go through the cumbersome federal waiver process that was then required when a state or locality desired to use federal welfare dollars in innovative ways. (The new federal welfare law now in effect allows states much greater flexibility in the disbursement of these funds.) Under the CDAP program, the Social Services Department simply receives the approval of the Maryland Department of Human Resources and the Anne Arundel county executive's office.
Each participant has different problems and different barriers to self-sufficiency that must be overcome. Some people may need help finding safe housing, others may need to find day care, and still others may need interviewing and job search help. Many of the Church groups set up committees to work with the families, with each committee member playing a different role in reaching the ultimate goal of getting the family off the welfare rolls.
“We have found that many people are limited in finding jobs because they do not have reliable transportation,” said Mimi Cochrane, the coordinator for the CDAPprogram at St. Mary's Church in Annapolis. “Finding them a way to get to and from a job is just as important as finding them a job in the first place.”
In Anne Arundel County, six Catholic churches are participants in the CDAP program. Our Lady of the Fields in Davidsonville began participating in the program almost from its beginning in 1994, and other parishes quickly followed suit. Other participating Catholic churches include: St. Andrews by the Bay in Cape St. Clair, St. John's in Severna Park, St. Mary's in Annapolis, Holy Family in Davidsonville, and our Lady of Sorrows in Owensville. In all, 24 county churches of different denominations participate in the CDAP program.
The program has had some notable success. Twenty-six participants have completed it so far, and only four are back on conventional welfare.
Many Catholic parishes organize their CDAP participation around the charitable work of the parish chapter of the St. Vincent De Paul Society. At St. Mary's parish, for example, the St. Vincent De Paul Society already helps up to 40 people each week with basic necessities like food, medicine, and clothing, according to Cochrane. The members of the CDAP committee at St. Mary's are also St. Vincent De Paul members.
“Having the St. Vincent De Paul Society already in place at so many parishes has made it very easy for Catholic churches to participate in the CDAP program,” said Poulsen, who is Catholic. “Many churches are organizing their CDAP activities around the efforts of the Society.”
Anne Arundel Catholic parishes have won plaudits from local government leaders for their work on the CDAP program. “The Catholic churches have been extremely supportive of the CDAPprogram,” said John Gary, Anne Arundel county executive. “The Catholic community has taken a leadership role in helping the less fortunate in our county. CDAP would never have been this successful without the efforts of Catholics and people of all different faiths who have done so much to make this program work.”
Patricia King, policy advisor for the Department of Domestic Social Welfare at the U.S. Catholic Conference, also praised the program. “[It] seems to be a wonderful model for how our parishes can refine their charitable work,” she said. “It's a great example of what good church members can do to help their fellow citizens.”
King did note, however, that the welfare changes taking place at the federal and state level should move local parishes to become involved in the public policy arena.
“This kind of charitable activity is essential, but we still need a political voice at the state and federal level,” she said. “Catholics need to speak out about the dramatic changes to these programs. We need both service and advocacy— and ultimately the strength of your advocacy is rooted in the strength of your service.”
Michael Barbera is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Valencia, One of Spanish Church's Brightest Hopes DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:WHEN HE WAS appointed bishop of Cordova, Spain, in March 1996, Xavier Martinez, 49, was already a familiar figure to many Spaniards, even outside the Church. As auxiliary bishop of Madrid the prelate had established a presence on television, radio, and in the print media while handling a range of sensitive issues as spokesman for the Spanish bishops' conference.
Since his appointment to Cordova by John Paul II last year, some Church observers have speculated that Bishop Martinez is a solid candidate for a still higher post in the Spanish Church or in the Vatican.
Xavier Martinez Fernandez was born in Madrid on Dec. 20, 1947 and grew up in a working-class family. His parents, after the Spanish Civil War, came down from Asturias to build their future in the capital. His father was a waiter and a postman, and his mother, who worked as a house-maid, taught the future prelate to face adversity with strong and simple faith. “To her,” Bishop Martinez has written, “faith was something as natural as breathing. I have learned from my mother much more about things that matter in life than at the university.”
But higher education has played a key role in the bishop's life. He earned a degree in biblical theology at Comillas in 1973, one year after becoming a priest. From there he continued his studies, first at the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (1975-77), and afterwards abroad. Martinez spent six months in Germany, and then moved to Israel to study at the French Biblical School of Jerusalem (1978-79). Finally, he went to the United States to study Semitic philology at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington.
Bishop Martinez, who is fluent in French, English and German, specialized in the ancient Syrian language and literature, and has taught at the university level. He has participated in many international meetings related to Oriental Christianity and the Fathers of the Church and is a member of the International Association for Coptic Studies and the Association International d'Etudes Patristiques. After finishing at CUA, Bishop Martinez taught in Toledo and Madrid, and later founded the Instituto San Justino in the capital where he taught classic philology, the study of language and literature.
By various accounts, the bishop of Cordova is still studious, though most of his time now goes to his new pastoral duties. “He sleeps just a few hours, and spends part of the night working on a translation of St. Ephrem the Syrian,” said a former assistant.
But Bishop Martinez doesn't consider himself an intellectual. Ever wary of being estranged from the world of everyday affairs, the prelate has made it a point to stay closely involved with the issues of the day.Along with other young priests, Xavier Martinez, in 1975, established a series of camps for teenagers and summer courses on Christian doctrine in Avila. The experience led to the creation of Nueva Tierra (New Land), a cultural association to teach youngsters how to witness to their Christian faith in an everyday setting.
During his stay in Germany, Bishop Martinez became involved with the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation (CL), founded in Italy in the 1960s by Luigi Giussani, an Italian priest deeply concerned about the lack of Catholic formation among his students. By 1985, the soon-to-be Bishop Martinez and most of the priests and young members of Nueva Tierrawould join that organization. Almost at the same time, the Vatican named him the new auxiliary bishop of Madrid, making him the youngest Spanish bishop and the first to belong to Communion and Liberation.
Communion and Liberation's leaders consider their movement a fruit of the initiatives that blossomed in the Church after Vatican II. They say CL's charism is to establish a strong Christian presence in the world of culture, to inform it with the wisdom of the Gospel. The most well known activities of Communion and Liberation are the “Meetings” in Rome and other world capitals that gather hundreds of thousands of young people and a range of well-known personalities. The Pope is said to be a supporter of the movement, although, by some accounts, CL's influence in the Vatican has waned in recent years.
The idea that faith should inform modern culture led Bishop Martinez to become one of the most combative Spanish bishops during the final years of the country's socialist government. He was a key figure in a number of crucial commissions of the Spanish bishops'conference, including those dedicated to education, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the mass media. In 1989 he became a member of the Pontifical Council for the Dialogue with the Non-Believers, and in 1993, a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which replaced the former.
In April 1991, Bishop Martinez bluntly urged Catholics to vote for the political option that was “closer” to the Church doctrine with regard to the “abominable crime of abortion.” The prelate again angered left-wing political parties when, in November 1992, he spoke out against what he charged was socialist obstruction of the Church's mission. Because of its control of the Spanish state television, the government didn't allow the Church to broadcast spots asking Catholics for financial support. The government argued that those messages—although they were paid for by the bishops—were “ideological.”
Although he often denounced the campaign of secularization launched in the 1980s by the socialist government, Bishop Martinez has also criticized the positions of some prominent right-wing personalities. When the current vice president of the new Spanish conservative government, Francisco Alvarez Cascos, threw Catholic teaching to the wind when he decided last year to divorce his wife and re-marry, the bishop publicly criticized the official.
Bishop Martinez's combative approach contrasts sharply with the strategy of many members of the Spanish hierarchy who prefer to keep a low profile in the public arena. That low-key style, some say, is responsible for the hierarchy's relative lack of public standing. The latest poll on the most influential personalities in Spain finds the head of the Spanish bishops'conference, Archbishop Elias Yanes of Zaragoza, in 23rd place, behind a long list of politicians, bankers and media personalities.
But Bishop Martinez seems determined to do something about that. One successful step was his founding of Alfa y Omega, a publication of the Archdiocese of Madrid that examines social events in the light of faith. It has already reached a vast circulation in Spain because it appears as a supplement to ABC, one of the country's leading dailies.
Francisco de Andrés is based in Madrid, Spain.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Francisco Deandres ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: For the Intellectual Moorings of Polish Faith DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:Anderson: How has the Polish Church, which performed with such heroism during the long struggle against totalitarian rule, responded to the birth of democratic and capitalist institutions in Poland?
Zieba: Before I address what happened after 1989—a year widely recognized as a turning point in the history of the democratic project—it is necessary to briefly recount the modern history of Polish Catholicism. In the 19th century, when Poland was divided, a mainly Catholic society found itself oppressed by the Protestant Prussian Kulturkampf, the Orthodox Russian Czarist regime, and the Austrian ideology of Josephinism. Later on, of course, Poland experienced the full force of the 20th century's twin totalitarianisms, Nazism and Communism. In a 200 year period of our nation's history, then, we have had, prior to 1989, only 17 years of real independence—between 1922 and 1939. Throughout those two centuries, the Church in Poland was the only independent institution, and so, quite naturally, an identification arose between Poland and Catholicism. Let me describe this phenomenon:
The key word here would be “faithfulness,” which meant being faithful to both Poland and the Church. This attitude was appropriate to the concrete, historical circumstances, and it had several dimensions. First, it was passive in nature—that is, opposed to being present in the arena of public life, since such presence was closed off to it and thus impossible.
Secondly, it can be described as uncompromising, since a compromise was understood to be a more subtle form of betrayal. One should not forget about the various efforts which nearly resulted in the biological extinction of the Polish clergy: during the 19th century, an official secularization policy; Nazism (30 percent of Poland's priests were killed); and the dark period of Stalinism (not only the Polish primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski—a hero of the “resistance Church”—but a full seventh of all clergy were at one point or another imprisoned by the communists, accused of being CIAagents, or caught with a few dollars).
What did all that mean for the Church?
The final result of this systematic oppression was a pronounced weakening in the field of theology and in intellectual reflection in general. On the other hand, and more importantly, there was great heroism: Christian witness, and even true sainthood, ending in martyrdom. What must be stressed, however, is that the Catholic Church was quite unprepared for the birth of democracy.
“One cannot be a good Catholic without being a good citizen,” the Polish bishops have said in one of their letters. This new model of the “Catholic citizen” that the former model of identification between Pole and Catholic is being transformed into marks a new challenge: it requires a certain dynamic, a sense of creative cooperation, and an art of prudent compromise.
The other characteristic feature of the Polish Church's current situation is her new role in the realm of politics. In the decade prior to 1989, the weakened communists, the opposition (including many atheists), workers, and students all deeply respected the Church. All of them demanded from the Church an engagement with the political life of the country. After 1989, the Church in Poland discovered (and continues to discover) a new realm in which she should be active: it is public rather than political; to be more precise it is metapolitical rather than directly political.
The changes within the Polish Church are quite dramatic when looked at from the vantage point of history. One symptom of these changes is that the Church now faces aggressive new opponents, including the liberal media which describe the Church as an enemy of the state, society, and modernity. And then there are the post-communists, who play their game in a very cynical way, trying to divide Polish society in order to create a sort of “religious war” surrounding recent negotiations between the Polish government and the Holy See.
Interestingly, though, what we might call the “normal society” in Poland remains Christian: each Sunday more than half of the population attends Mass; 80 percent go to church at least on occasion, and only 4 percent declare themselves to be non-believers. Teaching the Catholic faith in the schools has turned out to be a success. According to a recent survey of graduating students, “religion” is the course where they find themselves listened to by their professors, and where they have complete freedom of expression. The number of vocations to the priesthood has also remained high—1,400 to 1,500 a year since 1989.
Recently you founded the Tertio Millennio Institute, located in Krakow. What is its connection to John Paul II's apostolic exhortation
People in Poland are very religious, but this religiosity is often cut-off from any real intellectual dimension. The same holds true of the popular understanding of this pontificate. John Paul II is widely respected, and loved by the people; there are many streets and squares named after him. But the reception of his teaching is rather insufficient, or even perfunctory. The Pope is recognized more as a symbol than as the shepherd of the Church, an understanding of which would extend our Polish character into Catholic universality.
Thus, growing from the recognition of a need on the part of the Polish Church for serious theological and pastoral reflection, the idea of establishing the Tertio Millennio Institute came into being. Of course it also grows out of John Paul II's teaching concerning the great jubilee of Christianity. This symbolic date is to prepare us for the second coming of Christ, and should not be treated as a mere celebration, even of a religious nature.
This Institute is also closely linked to my friendship with many Americans who have taught me the importance of such small, but concrete undertakings. Besides promoting the Pope's teaching, we are trying to lay the intellectual and theological groundwork for the Pope's coming pilgrimage to Poland. This project is meant to be an incentive to debate, both public (in the leading newspapers and journals) and, more privately, within a small, select group of politicians, scientists, artists, and thinkers. Our intention is to publish a few books before the Pope's arrival, and to prepare a series of TV programs. We cannot waste this great opportunity!
You have written extensively on economics, which seems an unusual area of specialization for a Dominican monk. In fact, the subtitle of your new book is
Christianity has to it a concrete, realistic dimension. In the somewhat provocative subtitle to my book, I point toward the “new things” Poland is experiencing— new particularly in how we put them together. The concrete situation we face in Poland is that of a modern society with a free market economy. Christians act in such a reality, often struggling against all sorts of temptations, but also multiplying their talents through creative cooperation with others. This sphere of reality requires its contemplative dimension, filled with prayer.
There is a misguided notion, circulating across Europe, that capitalism is immoral in its very nature. In Central Europe, communist propaganda has done a great deal over the years to sustain that distorted image. John Paul II in Centesimus Annus shows a new, multidimensional vision of capitalism: more fully human, based on principles of freedom, solidarity, and the creativity of the acting person. Our duty is to give voice to this new articulation of economics, politics, and culture in a theological way.
One of the sources of the enormous strength of the Polish Church throughout modern history has been its ability to describe reality in a theological way, so to speak. But the most important thing about such a description is that it has also been very realistic, so that many people, including those who were outside the Church, could accept it. We have to do the same thing now. Christians must try to be authentic Christians 24-hours-a-day, lest they become schizophrenic. It is therefore the Church's mission to show them how to be a Christian entrepreneur, a Christian worker, a Christian lawyer, and so forth.
In the past 50 years there was in Poland no ethical reflection on economic life; for the sake of our society this situation has to change. This is why the Church is also responsible for changing people's awareness of economic life, along with other realms. There needs to be an awareness that poverty—not in the evangelical sense—bears with it a host of social pathologies, such as weaker families, more abortions, more drugs, more crimes, etc.
Some American liberals including the philosopher Richard Rorty have said that democracy can only work when tinged by relativism. Obviously you would disagree with this, but I wonder how far it has intruded into Polish intellectual life, and how you might respond to those who make such assertions?
You are absolutely right—I do disagree! Unfortunately this way of think-ing—naive, shortsighted, and even dangerous—has been an influential part of the intellectual life of our epoch, and Polish intellectual life hasn't been completely impervious to it. Fortunately, however, we have a great advantage on our side: John Paul II's thought and teaching about democracy, most fully expressed in Centesimus Annus.Democracy must have firm moral foundations, foundations that prevent it from turning into a kind of fundamentalism. Democracy is not the incarnation of the absolute truth, rather, it's best seen as an alternative to anarchy. Many distinguished thinkers, from Plato to John Paul II share an anxiety about the connection between democracy and anarchy. Let me remind you that anarchy derives from an “arche”—a lack of foundations, a lack of principles. Looking at the word “democracy” etymologically, certain dangers are illumined: there are two different meanings of the word “demos”—rule or power; similarly, there are two different meanings of the word “cratos”—people or mob.
The Pope, in Centesimus Annus, describes democracy positively when certain features central to it are in place: a system of checks and balances; the broad participation of each member of society in public life; and the transfer of power without bloodshed (something rare in human history). He also warns us against the most common errors of modern democracies, such as the limitation of democracy to its procedural institutions, and a lack of reflection concerning this problem.
At this point it might be appropriate to mention what I view to be some of the necessary conditions for democracy to function—a Pentalogue of democracy: a common belief that people are equal; a moral and intellectual optimism about the ability of men and women to learn to distinguish good and evil; a principle of the common good (understood in a pluralistic and dynamic way) as a constitutive feature of a community; and finally, a certain magnanimity toward minorities, something I consider to be an important democratic virtue. Without these five factors, democracy falls into increasing conflict, eventually overturning into anarchy, which is, as Plato precisely describes it in the Republic, followed by an authoritarian regime.
But if all of the above are secured, there is a large space for what Jacques Maritain called “civic faith,” which is not only an option for Christians, but can also be shared by people of different views and opinions. This seems to me to be a serious alternative for that dangerous relativism you have mentioned.
Are you optimistic about Poland's future?
I am, given that it is in Polish hands for the first time—with the short exception I mentioned earlier—in more than two centuries. While there are always many difficulties, our current geopolitical situation is a source of legitimate hope, and even a rather non-Slavic optimism. On the other hand, as a Slavic pessimist, I realize how extremely difficult it is to overcome our communist heritage, namely the destruction of the economy, the natural environment, human health, and, above all, the human conscience.
Can you imagine that in 1946, as many as 56 percent of German citizens still believed that Nazism was a good system, and that its collapse was due solely to historical accident? And yet millions of Germans died during the war, cities were burned to the ground, and everyone knew about the death camps by 1946. The people just could not overcome their Nazi-shaped consciences. And then call to mind the fact that, in our part of Europe, communism lasted longer than Nazism.
Finally, who have been the most powerful influences on your thinking?
My generation in the mid-'70s had no great intellectual masters here in Poland. All had by then emigrated. Censorship was ubiquitous. It was for this reason that, initially hesitating as to whether I should study history or physics, I chose the latter. It has taught me (I hope) a certain precision of thinking, given me the ability to construct models, and made me more humble in the face of reality.
Nevertheless, I must mention several authors, whose books were officially proscribed, who deeply shaped my thinking. The most important thing for us was to build an intellectual alternative to all the official textbooks, TV programs, newspapers—which were saturated with lies. Leszek Kolakowski (who has lectured in the past 30 years in Oxford and Chicago) helped me most to unmask Marxism and overcome the burden of socialism. Czeslaw Milosz the Polish poet and Nobel prize winner, showed me the depth of the metaphysical crisis of our time, and the true magnitude of Christian culture. Thanks to Christopher Dawson, I realized how Christianity has shaped culture in human history as a whole. I should also mention the German Ordoliberals (Wilhelm Roepke in particular), F.A. Hayek, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, and Raymond Aron. Among the many theologians I deeply respect, it has been [Cardinal Joseph] Ratzinger, [Romano] Guardini, and [Hans Urs Von] Balthasar who have had the greatest influence on my thinking. Then, in the course of my Dominican studies, I discovered the power and depth of St. Thomas Aquinas' theology. Finally, the most important decision I have made in my intellectual life was to study, in a systematic fashion, the thought of John Paul II. There is for me in this study an unending astonishment: The Pope's ability of being at once general and concrete, multidimensional and integral, pluralistic and universal. Studying his writings and observing his activities I would say that the Pope offers a Summa Theologiae for the turn of the millennium.
—Brian Anderson
Father Maciej Zieba OP
Record: Active member of the Clubs of the Catholic Intelligentsia, which played a key role in the peaceful overthrow of communism in Poland. Served on the editorial board of the Solidarity Weekly in Warsaw. Is the author of several books; many of his articles have been translated in Crisis and First Things. Former director of the publishing house “w drodze” in Poznan.
Current Post: Co-founder of the Center for Political Thought in Krakow, which each summers hosts an institute devoted to the work of, and presided over by, Michael Novak, Father Richard John Neuhaus and George Weigel. Recently launched a think tank dedicated to Catholic social thought, the Tertio Millennio Institute. Contributing editor to the famed Tygodnik Powszechny.
Vision: Drawing on the works of the late Father John Courtney Murray and Michael Novak, he is Poland's leading exponent of their vision of U.S.-style political and religious freedom, and in particular of Novak's theory of democratic capitalism.
----- EXCERPT: Priming country for 'multi-dimensional, more human'vision of capitalism ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Anderson ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: An Invitation to Contemplation on a College Campus DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:CHRISTOPHER DAWSON, the noted social historian, once proposed that Catholic higher education be organized in such a way that students would be immersed in Christian culture. Although Dawson's suggestion was not immediately acted upon in the 1950s, it is “alive and well at Thomas More college,” according to a recent book, Being Right: American Catholic Conservatives (Weaver and Appleby, Indiana University Press, 1995).
Thomas More was founded in 1978 by Catholic lay educators. Located about 45 minutes from Boston in Merrimack, N.H., the tiny college (63 students are enrolled this year) is committed to a four-year liberal arts program that emphasizes the heroic Christian vision. In constructing its liberal arts curriculum, Thomas More received some program-design help from Donald and Louise Cowan (University of Dallas). The approach fosters the transformation of the individual student in such a way as to “evoke new sensibilities and depth.” Such a vision of education, according to Dr. Louise Cowan, “teaches a Catholic outlook— which, at the same time, is liberated from relativism, individualism and competitiveness, the hallmarks of secular modernity.”
At the core of the curriculum is the four-year humanities cycle. Each year a segment of Western culture is examined in an interdisciplinary manner, through the reading of original texts. The entire college community focuses on a period of time: the ancient classical world and its penetration by the early Church; the medieval world of Aquinas, Bonaventure and Dante; modernity, from its origin in the Reformation and Renaissance to the Faustian discontent of Feuerbach and Marx; and our own contemporary period. While humanities is taken for four years, students adopt an area of concentration in the junior year, where three majors are available: literature, politics and philosophy.
Yet what some view as the “jewel” of the Thomas More curriculum exists far and away from the Merrimack campus. This is the sophomore semester in Rome, an integral experience in which all the students participate. Each spring, Thomas More sophomores continue their normal course load as residents in the Eternal City. Each morning, students attend classes in a baroque convent, which dates to the 17th century. They have the afternoons free to study or to explore Rome.
“Rome is in many respects the capstone of all that we do,” says Dr. Peter Sampo, the college's president. “The great ages of the West that we study in humanities are, each one, incarnated in this city.”
Each age records, in stone and paint, the historical encounter with the Church: her ecclesial foundations, her splendid houses of worship and the hub of everything, St. Peter's Basilica. Thomas More college students attend papal Masses and participate in the Holy Week liturgy and Easter celebration in Rome. What many pilgrims wait a lifetime to experience, Thomas More sophomores enjoy as part of their college regimen.
“Seeing the sacred order in Rome made me evaluate and renew my own sense of the sacred,” says senior Kate Purcell. Suzanne Bercier, also a senior, reacted similarly to the profundity of the ecclesiastical imprint. “For me, the Vatican was the center of the action, a glorious presence.”
It is not simply Rome's “antiquities” that enliven the students, says Dr. Paul Connell, director of the program. “Rome reveals and makes visible the goods of the spirit: a capacity for self-renewal, a piety toward things eternal, and the manifestation of the action of grace.” Many of the students who have returned from their semester abroad to complete their studies talk about the great impact that the time in Rome continues to have in their day-today lives. “This is what we want,” says Connell, “the ordinary things taking on an extraordinary value.”
Students come to St. Thomas from a diverse geographical mix including Alaska, California, Minnesota, Louisiana, and the New England area. Most are drawn by the college's curriculum demands. The parcel on which the college is located dates back to a 17th century land grant, and the campus administration building is itself a postcard of that period with a 19th century Greek revival portico added to the original colonial building. The college has added two dormitories and an imposing library. A capital campaign is now underway to add two new dormitories and a new chapel (dedicated to the North American Martyrs).
The college attempts to forge a unique sense of community. Literary and philosophical works are read in common; thus the intellectual life of the campus becomes a cooperative affair, what the poet Alan Tate has called “knowledge carried to the heart.” Dr. Glenn Arbery, professor of English, explains that such an approach “de-emphasizes the spirit of competition” and is at the same time “more conducive to exploring the mystery in things.” The program seems to be having an impact, since many of the Thomas More graduates are pursuing graduate work as well as law, medicine and religious life.
The focus on contemplation within a small college atmosphere naturally raises the question of how the college views itself within the drama of late 20th-century Catholicism. For Sampo, the challenge of Catholic education is “to help transform the mind and heart of each student who appears in the classroom.” According to Cowan: “This kind of education can enable the Thomas More graduate to live redemptively both in the Church and in the world.”
For more information contact: Peter O'Connor, Director of Admissions, Thomas More College, 6 Manchester St., Merrimack, NH 03054; (603) 880-8308.
James Sullivan is based in Bridgeport, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ten Vatican Department Heads Turn 75 this Year DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—No fewer than 10 Vatican department heads are celebrating their 75th year during the coming months. That's normal retirement age in the Roman Curia.
The birthdays give Pope John Paul II an opportunity to carry out a small revolution in his administrative ranks, yet no one expects wholesale personnel replacements in 1997.
The reason is that the 76-year-old Pontiff has increasingly allowed older officials to stay on the job. These members of the Vatican feel appreciated and are in no hurry to clean out their desks.
The Pope once told a group of senior citizens: “You should not stop nor consider yourselves in decline. You still have a mission to accomplish, a contribution to make.”
But the policy has unmistakably led to an aging of the Curia in recent years. Today, of the Vatican's 40 top managerial positions, more than a third are filled by prelates who will be 75 or older in 1997.
The average age of these department heads is more than 71 today, compared to 67 just a decade ago. There are relatively few younger faces, too: none are aged 60 or younger, compared to 10 in 1987.
Even some new appointees have tended to fall into the category of oldster. The head of the Congregation for Sacraments and Divine Worship, appointed a few months ago, just turned 70; the head of the Congregation for Sainthood Causes was 73 when named in 1995.
One factor in the natural aging of papal administrations is that new people nominated early in a pontificate tend to stick around, for one five-year term after another.
“If you bring in a man like Cardinal Ratzinger, where can he go later?” commented one longtime Vatican official. In fact, under Pope John Paul, no head of a curial congregation or council has ever gone back to a diocese.
Others note that Vatican careers are typically very long. Monsignors may spend several decades in the lower echelons, and most are nearing 70 by the time they reach the top of a department.
Some of the Curia bigs celebrating their 75th year in 1997 include Cardinal Pio Laghi, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education; Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Archbishop Alberto Bovone, prefect of the Congregation for Sainthood Causes; and Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
Needing fewer candles on his cake is U.S. Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who will celebrate his 62nd birthday in 1997. When appointed to his position way back in 1984, he was the youngest person in charge of a major
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Two From a Swedish Master: Follies of Faith in Jerusalem DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:VERY FEW WORKS of popular culture make their characters' faith life the driving force of their narrative. The Swedish film Jerusalem has the ingredients of an epic love story set against a background of family conflicts over land. But each of the plot's twists and turns not only advances the melodrama, it also dramatizes its effect on the protagonists' walk with God.
Based on a celebrated, two-volume novel by Swedish writer Selma Lagerlof, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, Jerusalem is adapted for the screen and directed by Swedish director Bille August, (Pelle the Conqueror and Smilla's Sense of Snow). Its story is inspired by the adventures of a real-life group of Swedes who moved to the Holy Land at the turn of the century.
Storm (Bjorn Granath), a school-teacher in the small Swedish mountain town of Ingmargaden in the 1890s, breaks with the pastor (Max von Sydow) of the local Protestant church and erects his own mission hall that he believes will be “a fortress against apostasy.” Influenced by turn-of-the-century apocalyptic fervor and the Book of Revelation, Storm is preparing himself and his small band of followers for the Second Coming.
The rest of the population also believes it's a time of portents and signs. The patriarch of the region's most prominent family, Ingmar, dies while saving a pair of children from a freak river accident. But before breathing his last, he bequeaths to his 10-year-old son, also named Ingmar, enough money to buy back the family farm from his elder daughter Karin (Pernilla August). However, Karin's drunken husband Elias steals the funds and, as if punished by God, dies in another freak accident.
When Karin decides to marry again, young Ingmar (Ulf Friberg) chooses to move in with Storm where he falls in love with the schoolteacher's beautiful daughter Gertrud (Maria Bonnevie). The young couple seem destined for a passionate romance. But while dancing together outdoors to an earthy Swedish folk-dance, a frightening summer storm disrupts the festivities, leading the villagers to believe that God is angry.
When confronted with moral choices, each opted for the way of
sacrifice and forgiveness over ego gratification.
Into this maelstrom of fearful piety walks the fiery, faith-healing preacher Hellgum (Sven Bertil-Taube), a former swindler who's now part of an apocalyptic religious sect headquartered in Chicago. He takes over the mission hall from Storm and, after curing Karin from a temporary paralysis, converts the Ingmarsson farm into a religious commune.
Young Ingmar has been working a family sawmill, hoping to earn enough money to marry Gertrud and buy back the farm. But his true love has also come under the sway of Hellgum so he engineers the preacher's expulsion from the family property.
The clever faith-healer turns this setback to his advantage, announcing that he's moving to Jerusalem where he says the second coming will take place. He asks the other commune members to sell all their possessions and follow him.
Karin auctions the Ingmarsson land to a wealthy farmer, who makes the property part of the dowry of his daughter Barbro (Lena Endre). Ingmar, remembering his father's deathbed wish for him to have the farm, dumps his true love Gertrud to marry Barbro. Gertrud, feeling angry and betrayed, is certain she's seen a vision of Jesus in the forest and takes it as a sign that she's to go with Hellgum to the Holy Land.
Ingmar and Gertrud, the star-crossed lovers, are now separated by marriage, a continent and a cult. The audience wonders: Will they ever get back together?
Jerusalem skillfully plays against these conventional expectations to reveal a deeper understanding of the meaning of love than its protagonists at first possess. Ingmar's marriage seems empty and cold. Barbro believes there's a curse on her family and that all her children will be born retarded and blind. She sees that Ingmar still cares for Gertrud and, in a self-sacrificing manner, encourages him to go to the Holy Land and rescue his true love.
In Jerusalem Hellgum is removed as spiritual leader and replaced by the cult's wealthy benefactor Mrs. Gordon (Olympia Dukakis). When illness strikes, Mrs. Gordon prohibits her followers from consulting a doctor and tries to cure them through faith-healing. She fails and many die.
When Ingmar arrives, Gertrud is reluctant to leave. Once again she believes she's had a vision of Jesus, this time walking the streets of Jerusalem. Ingmar tracks down the apparition, who turns out to be the leader of an ecstatic Sufi sect. The sect members attack the Swede, gravely wounding him.
Gertrud returns with the ailing Ingmar to Sweden. Accompanying them is Gabriel (Jan Mybrand) who's been with the commune since its earliest days and has long loved Gertrud.
Meanwhile Barbro has given birth to a healthy baby who's baptized in the Protestant church that the cult members had originally abandoned. Ingmar chooses to remain with his wife and their child instead of Gertrud, to whom Gabriel offers comfort.
The once star-crossed lovers have suffered in different ways, but when confronted with moral choices, each opted for the way of sacrifice and forgiveness over ego gratification. In the process they moved closer to God and his commandments about love even though it meant giving up each other.
Jerusalem is a rich tapestry of personal passions, religious fervor and attachment to the land that treats the spiritual journey of each character with rare respect.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Freedom From the Bondage of Spiritual Isolation DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:THE MOTION PICTURE adaptation of Peter Hoeg's (Borderliners) best selling novel Smilla's Sense of Snow fashions itself as a dark, psychological thriller. Though the story starts out full of intrigue and atmosphere, by the final reel, Smilla's sense takes us out on some pretty thin ice.
This is no fault of Julia Ormond (Legends of the Fall and First Night). She has shed the cheery ingenue persona from her recent Sabrina remake. Her brooding performance as Smilla is compelling. She is at moments aggressively hostile, yet she always remains sympathetic and vulnerable.
Smilla is more comfortable with the ice and snow of her Greenlandic childhood then with her present society in Copenhagen. She lives in a kind of emotional exile that is shattered by the apparently accidental death of the one person she has allowed into her life—a six-year-old Inuit boy who lived in the apartment below.
She senses the child's fall from the snowy roof was no accident. The tracks lead straight to the roof's edge. Smilla knows that “no child in the world plays like that.” She also knows that the boy had a fear of heights. Something stinks in Denmark!
The plot thickens as she discovers that the boy's death is somehow connected to his father's death and an explosion at the powerful mining company where he had been employed. Like a Hitchcockian paranoiac heroine, Smilla is lead on an adventure back to her Greenlandic homeland to discover the truth.
It's a great set-up and the first half of the film is quite engaging. Unfortunately, Ann Biderman's (Primal Fear) screenplay adaptation fails to provide a pay-off as sophisticated as her set-up. Half way through the film the essence of the boy's mysterious death becomes apparent (or as apparent as it needs to be) and more damaging, Smilla's icy psyche has played itself out.
Like a Hitchcockian paranoiac heroine, Smilla is lead on an adventure back to her Greenlandic homeland to discover the truth.
By the time Smilla beds her stuttering suitor and questionable ally, Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects and Little Woman) viewers might start to question—if not her judgment or morals—her credibility. For whom does this Byrne character really work? Is this the way a smart, angry woman with a fear of intimacy acts? While the relationship is apparently meant to represent her liberation from isolation, it's more like Biderman is trying to thaw her leading woman's heart while adding a little more suspense and romance to the mix.
For the rest of the film, Smilla's psychological development is ignored and the film is reduced to stock action adventure material. That wouldn't be so bad if Smilla's research techniques weren't so incredulous. Whether she is breaking into a basement archive or a video library, the first thing she pulls off the shelf is always her next clue. She suffers from claustrophobia, but apparently forgets this when she needs to stow away in a dumb waiter. She travels six miles on the frozen Antarctic and just happens upon the bad guy's ice-cave hide out.
Still, so much of the film is first rate. Director BilIe August (Pelle the Conqueror) offers an icy visual metaphor to Smilla's sense of isolation. Credit here also goes to cinematographer, Jorgen Persson (My Life as a Dog and House of Spirits) who captures the terrible beauty of Greenland's expansive wasteland. The most memorable is the opening sequence when a falling meteor produces a tidal wave beneath a sheet of ice.
There is a strong supporting cast. Vanessa Redgrave (Camelot, Julia and Mission Impossible) plays a somewhat bizarre “Bride of Jesus” who, as a former employee of the mining company, carries their dirty secrets. Richard Harris (Camelot and The Field) plays Tork, the ruthless scientist who heads the company.
While Smilla's Sense of Snow starts off buoyantly as a first class thriller, it ultimately melts down to action adventure slush. The film's R-rating should be seen as “soft” and is for denoting brief sensuality, violence and some profanity.
Stephen Hopkins is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Hopkins ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In the Footsteps of Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:ASSISI, THAT MEDIEVAL Umbrian hill town of crenelated walls, red tile roofs, narrow cobblestone streets and soaring church domes, can actually lay claim to a second St. Francis.
Francis Possenti was born there on March 1, 1838, 756 years after his namesake, and is better known today by the name he took when he entered the Passionist order: Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin. He died in a monastery founded by St. Francis at Isola Gran Sasso, nestled in a valley in the majestic Apennine Mountains, on Feb. 27, 1862, just two days before his 24th birthday.
The 11th of 13 children of a very pious couple, Sante Possenti and Agnes Frisciotti, Francis was a average boy in many respects and, in fact, one biographer describes him as “not at all a born saint. He was always on the run, forever getting into mischief, fighting, impetuous, head-strong.… He began to smoke, though he knew his father did not approve: he gave up this practice only when it led to his telling a lie.”
When his beloved mother died in 1842, Francis was only four. For a long period he was inconsolable, running throughout the house, calling for her in tears. No one seemed able to give him solace, except the little statue of Our Lady of Sorrows that he kept in his room. Throughout his boyhood years, Francis would turn more and more to Mary.
In his teens Francis was a good student, liked fancy clothes, dressed impeccably and loved sports, especially hunting, and dancing. Indeed, he was known as “the dancer.” He was also very religious and generous to a fault, two qualities instilled in him by his parents. The religious side was further nurtured in his early school years by the Christian Brothers and in high school by the Jesuits.
Slowly, he began to see that it was not what a person had in life, but what a person became, how one used one's life for others. In the midst of earthly pleasures, he somehow felt dissatisfied, and sought something that would give real meaning to his life. In fact, when he entered the Passionist novitiate at Morrovalle in 1856, he wrote: “If I had stayed in the world, I would surely have lost my soul.”
Francis repeatedly heard the Lord's call: “Sell whatever thou hast … and come, follow me.” Two serious illnesses made him promise the Lord he would indeed follow if he was healed. Twice the promise was not kept. The turning point came in August 1856 in Spoleto, where the Possenti family had moved several years earlier. There was a procession on the 22nd, bearing the icon of Our Lady enshrined in that city's cathedral, to thank God for having ended a cholera epidemic. As the image passed, Francis heard Our Lady's voice: “Francis, what are you doing here? This world is not for you. Be quick to enter the religious life.” On Sept. 10, guided by his great love for Our Lord's passion and for Mary, and accompanied by his brother Aloysius, a Dominican priest, he entered the Passionist order and took the name of Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin.
Gabriel would never live to be ordained a priest but in his few short years with the Passionists, he was an example to both young and old, an example of humility, of acceptance of God's will, of joy in suffering, of a total commitment to Mary, to the suffering of Christ and to religious life. Those who lived with him, in particular his spiritual advisor, Father Norbert, saw a young man who personified the beatitudes. Father Norbert described the secret of Gabriel's sanctity: “What that young man did, he did with love.”
After several years of heroic suffering with tuberculosis, he died on Feb. 27, 1862. “And so the last days of St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin,” wrote a biographer, “passed gently over to his first days in heaven.”
Buried in the little church of the Passionists at Isola Gran Sasso, where he spent the last two and a half years of his life, Gabriel was not forgotten by either his fellow Passionists or the townspeople, but it was not until his body was exhumed in 1892 that the first of many miracles attributed to him began to occur.
His fame spread. He was declared Blessed in 1908 by Pope Pius X (Father Norbert and several members of his family were present for the beatification) and proclaimed a saint in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV. In 1926 he was declared Patron of Catholic Youth and, in 1959, John XXIII named him patron of the Abruzzo region.
When St. Francis of Assisi arrived at Isola Gran Sasso, in 1215, he found a chapel dedicated to the Annunciation. Nearby he began construction of a monastery and larger church dedicated to the Annunciation. This church, the church of the Passionists and the youthful Gabriel, was restored in 1590 and enlarged to its present size in 1908 for the beatification.
Today Gabriel's remains are in a magnificent side chapel in the since-enlarged basilica, set in the stupendous scenery of Isola Gran Sasso.
To accommodate the 2 million pilgrims who annually visit St. Gabriel's, work on a new shrine began in 1970. The breathtakingly beautiful shrine, with its stunning mosaics, stained glass windows, and ceilings that soar heavenward, is now near completion. It can accommodate 6,000 for liturgical functions and has, as well, rooms for conferences, exhibits and retreats and a modern chapel for the Sacrament of Reconciliation with 30 confessionals. Starting at Easter, the influx of visitors is such that, even with a priest at every confessional, the average wait is two hours for penitents. The Passionist Fathers point with pride to the fact that people willingly wait two hours to confess.
At the corners of the transept are four bi-directional staircases that lead to the crypt chapel of St. Gabriel. In the months when the number of visitors taxes the capacity of the old basilica, Gabriel's remains are moved to this crypt, which was inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in 1985.
St. Gabriel's is one of the most visited shrines in Italy and, in fact, forced the Italian government to add to the Rome-Adriatic autostrada in order to make the shrine easily accessible to pilgrims. Isola Gran Sasso is very small and has few accommodations for visitors, most of whom come just for the day.
Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin is still very much alive today. The Passionist Fathers have seen to that. As have the millions of visitors throughout the years, especially the great numbers of young people who find an inspiration, an ideal, a model to be followed in this holy man who died so young. They, like Gabriel, have dreams, wants, needs and passions. Yet also like Gabriel, they seek a deeper meaning to their lives.
Gabriel's sanctity did not consist in doing spectacular works for God, but rather in doing the simple works of everyday life out of a spectacular love of God. And that is a love within everyone's reach.
Joan Lewis is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: EDITORIAL DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:“IF THEN YOU were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3, 1-4). Such was the magnificent reading Easter morning. This year, Easter brought with it an extra burst of life and hope in the wake of the horror of the mass suicide in Southern California, news of which began trickling in on the Wednesday of Holy Week and reached a crescendo of coverage that, at press time, had barely peaked.
The Easter morning words of St. Paul gained added poignancy as they were read against the backdrop of what most profoundly was a perversion of belief in the Easter mystery. Marshall Herff Applewhite promised his followers a kind of resurrection; he, too, counseled Heaven's Gate members “to think of what is above,” to fight this-worldly temptations (in what now turns out to be a bizarre twist in the cult leader's failure to come to terms with his homosexuality, an obsession that led to Applewhite's castration and that of several other men in his group).
Applewhite, on one of several videos, calmly set forth the logic of having to leave all worldly distractions, friends, family and eventually even the body behind. His was the voice of reason. And many clearly intelligent individuals, like the pair that appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes— one of whom thought nothing of basically abandoning his two-year-old daughter—found the man convincing.
Television news soon got access to the macabre footage taken by authorities as they explored the rooms were the bodies were found, purple shrouds and all, lifeless alabaster-white hands visible in some cases. The Sheriff's deputies'grim task contrasted with the experience of Mary of Magdala, who, John recounts, “came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.” Soon after, she was able to tell the disciples: “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20, 1;18).
David Gelernter, a Yale professor of computer science, argued in The New York Times that society's gradual marginalization of and “crusade against” traditional religion is the main culprit. Americans, he said, “have never been more confused about good and evil, righteousness and wickedness, God and man.” Like so many of us, Applewhite's disciples felt a spiritual longing and, according to Gelernter, “their souls needed religion but their minds were stocked only with Hollywood junk.” Hence, their ready belief in the imminent arrival of an alien spacecraft dispatched to fetch them.
It is no doubt true that traditional religion has in many respects been virtually outlawed in contemporary society by the courts, the media and other social elites, if you will. But some of the blame must certainly be shouldered by Christian, Jewish and other religious leaders for not doing more to broadcast the riches of their traditions. Much if not most of their energy is spent on maintaining a defensive posture vis-a-vis the evils of the world instead of, pardon the expression, a more proactive approach to responding to people's hunger for meaning.
Christianity for one can bank on a storehouse of mysticism that, properly deployed, would leave the average New Age practitioner and crackpot cultist in the dust. Our heaven is for real. The trick is how to get the word out beyond the flatness, facile optimism or mere moralizing that marks so many of the homilies and other Church-sponsored occasions the average person is exposed to.
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (c. 140-200 AD), spoke of heaven as a place of “communion with the holy angels, and union with spiritual beings.” For Augustine, heaven means that “we shall have eternal leisure to see that He is God. … There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.” Those with a penchant for science would enjoy Cardinal Pierre de Berulle (1575-1629), for whom heaven lay at the heart of a cosmos animated by “the science of salvation.” “Jesus, in his grandness,” the cardinal said, “is the immobile sun which makes all things move.”
This is but a smattering of the enormous riches the Church has to offer. It is a shame to let such great potential go unused. Because in the end there is no doubt that the Christian message in its fullness is a cure for all that ails us and that brought some to follow Applewhite into the abyss. But there is hope for them, and their families, too. “What we proclaim in this Easter season is ‘an empty tomb,’” said Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the bishops'conference. “We proclaim that Christ Jesus cannot be found among the stench and decay of death. He has crushed that under foot and can only be found gloriously and victoriously alive. Can we see this?”
— JK
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jk ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Why Demography Is Destiny DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996, 357 pp., $29.95)
-DON't THESE DESCRIPTIONS sound familiar? Gangs of adolescent and post-adolescent young men roam the streets, armed with handguns and rifles, touchy about their honor and reputation, terrifying respectable citizens. The result: an out-of-control homicide rate 40 times that of most settled, middle-class communities; rampant substance abuse and sexual promiscuity; and ineffective law enforcement in the areas where the young men congregate.
All of the above could be taken from newspaper or TV news coverage of certain poverty-stricken areas of our inner cities today. But, in fact, they are part of a general description of Fort Griffin, Texas, a frontier town frequented by cowboys, buffalo hunters and soldiers in the 1870s as reported in Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City by David Courtwright, a history professor at University of North Florida.
Using both biological and socio-cultural explanations, Violent Land argues that demography is destiny, beginning with a simple syllogism: “Young men are prone to violence and disorder. Whenever and wherever young men have appeared in disproportionate numbers, there has been a disproportionate likelihood of trouble. This is especially true of young American men, who are statistically the most dangerous people on earth.
Throughout our history, the cure to this problem has proven to be two-fold: religion and marriage, which often go together and require a strong female presence. According to Courtwright, the key statistic to watch is gender ratio. For where there are roughly equal numbers of both sexes in a given area, violence and disorder usually disappear.
“The frontier was the principal area of male brutality in American history,” Courtwright observes. “Most women, single or married, wanted nothing to do with the frontier and tried to stay away from it altogether.” They gravitated to the cities.
As a result, the gender ratio in cattle towns like Dodge City during its heyday in the 1870s was seven times as many men as women. Children and old people were also in short supply.
But very few of these young men could be fairly characterized as outlaws. Most were hard-working cowboys or miners. But without the influence of women or religion, they usually wasted their earnings in spending sprees, much of it disappearing in commercialized vices like alcohol, gambling and prostitution. Statistics discovered in Leadville, Colo., a mining town with a population of 20,000—very few of them women—revealed that in 1880 there was a saloon for every 80 persons; a gambling hall for every 170; a brothel for every 200; and a church for every 5,000.
However, the few respectable women in frontier communities were treated with exaggerated deference. The mining town, Yellowstone City, specified death by hanging for serious insults to virtuous women. In certain Wyoming cattle towns, Courtwright reports that ranch hands would yell “Church time!” when a married woman approached and then stop their swearing or fighting until she passed.
This humorous anecdote reflects a certain cultural truth. “Historians of American religion have consistently found that married women were the most faithful churchgoers, young single men the least faithful,” Courtwright points out. However, once the frontier was settled, its gender ratio came into balance, and its high rate of violence and disorder declined.
By contrast, similar problems in our present-day inner cities seem intractable. The homicide rate for black males aged 15 to 24 in New York City is now 247 per 100,000, higher than that of Fort Griffin during its frontier days. Accompanying this breakdown in law and order is a high illegitimacy rate and a huge increase in female-headed households. Currently, more than three out five blacks are born out of wedlock, most of whom grow up in fatherless homes. Recent statistics show that illegitimate children are five times more likely to die by homicide than the general population.
Liberals tend to emphasize economic factors and chronic unemployment as an explanation for this situation, and conservatives talk about welfare dependency. But Courtwright keeps his focus on the gender ratio, which is out of balance in a way directly opposite from frontier conditions.
Global surveys reveal that cultures with too many women relative to the number of men can be just as dangerous as those with too few females. Sociologists find that women in societies with low gender ratios have lower rates of marriage and fertility and higher rates of divorce and illegitimacy. An unnaturally high incidence of violence and disorder inevitably follows.
Violent Land ends on a pessimistic note regarding our inner cities' future. Courtwright doesn't see how its problems can be fixed. But practicing Christians can take another view. The implications of his research are that only a religious revival will be able to change the violent behavior of unmarried, inner city males and restore a sense of basic familial arrangements. One of the most important evangelical challenges of our time is to find ways to preach the Gospel to these men. Neither political nor law enforcement solutions seem to be making much of a difference.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Exiles' Hopeful Sigh: 'Next Year In Cuba' DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:WHEN JOHN PAUL II agreed to meet with Fidel Castro a few months ago, the Cuban exile community was stunned. No one believed that Castro had suddenly converted or that the Pope was unaware of the thousands of political prisoners who have been tortured and executed in Cuba. But before predictions could be made about the results of the meeting, more surprises followed: the Pope accepted Castro's invitation to visit Cuba. In exchange, the Cuban government issued visas for 15 priests and 25 nuns. A small number of visas, perhaps, but nonetheless a dramatic concession for a government that in 1963 expelled 75 percent of the country's 800 priests and allowed only 300 of the 2,500 living there to remain. For 37 years only 250 priests have been allowed to serve a population of 4.5 million Catholic Cubans.
Was this warming of relations between Cuba and the Vatican a foreshadowing of impending change on the island or a mere smoke screen by Castro? Will the Pope's visit trigger a chain of events that will eventually end Castro's 37-year-old dictatorship? Like all things Cuban, these are heated questions.
In recent weeks these issues have been the topic of conversation among Cuban Americans. I must admit that I have great hopes for the papal visit. I started to hope a few years ago when a Polish friend told me that the first time she had participated in a non-Communist demonstration in Poland was for John Paul's visit in the early '80s. She is sure, she told me many times, that the power of that gathering changed things in her country and in Eastern Europe forever. Ever since the papal visit was announced, I've telephoned fellow Cuban Americans and shared the feeling that the future may be a little brighter for Cuba. We all acted a little giddy. “Who knows?” we speculated, “perhaps next year in Cuba.”
Then I vividly remembered that when I was in fourth grade, my father came back from work, uncorked a bottle of champagne and said: “Fidel is dead! We are going back home to Cuba!” My mother spent all evening talking about the state of the house they had left in 1960. But a few hours later it was confirmed that the rumor was simply a mix of hopeful misunderstandings among fellow Cuban exiles.
But year after year, Castro has held fast and left the exile community waiting for their dream to be realized. While Marxism and Leninism have crumbled around the prison island, Castro seems to have become almost untouchable as the last bastion of communism. Amaster at public relations and politics, Castro and his regime have survived the Bay of Pigs, numerous United Nations denunciations, repeated reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, several devastating hurricanes, top level defections, two massive boat lifts, innumerable assassination attempts, and a three-decade-old U.S. embargo. Even while most of Latin America has turned its back on his regime, and while the European Parliament has expressed its disgust at the lack of freedom in Cuba, Castro remains in power. Not even U.S. embargo-fighting legislation, the Helms-Burton Act, has toppled the 70-year-old dictator.
Castro's power and resilience is derived from the society he engineered 30 years ago when he dismantled conventional Cuban society block by block. After expelling most Religious from a basically Catholic country, he made all religious holidays illegal, paganized all holidays and prohibited employment for any believing Cuban. The Revolution thrived on the separation of families sending children to “voluntary” sugar cane-cutting summers and Sunday political rallies. Children were indoctrinated in schools with the legendary question: “Who takes care of you?” The right answer, of course, being “the Revolution.” Atheist families did well and were praised while any child that professed faith in God was marked for life.
Many priests were persecuted, tortured and beaten, But in spite of Castro's cruelty and skill, and the institutional Church's alleged silence—former political prisoners like Armando Valladares have accused some Church leaders of silence in the face of regime abuses—one thing is undeniable. The Church has remained in Cuba as the only vestige of civil society. While families have crumbled and all other societal structures were simply erased, people could still count on the Church. In a moving editorial about her experiences growing up in Cuba and believing in God,
New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito wrote: “Cubans are going to Church as never before because it is one of the few places they feel a measure of freedom and because, in the face of the misery of their lives, the Church, as it always has provides peace and sometimes a meal.”
As a result, there has been a tremendous resurgence of Church attendance in the recent past. Jaime Ordonez, an exiled member of the Catholic Association of Professionals agreed: “There is a renewal in Cuba. We keep in touch with Catholics there who have witnessed a dramatic increase in daily Mass attendance. Blacks and whites, young and old alike are returning to the Church.”
But in spite of the optimism it is obvious that many barriers remain in Cuba. In late February, Cubans around the world attended Mass said for the four pilots that were shot down by the Castro government a year ago. Peaceful demonstrations and prayer vigils were held worldwide in a spirit of unity and mourning.
One of the Masses was held in the Church of Carmen in Havana. During the Mass, Cuban state security broke in and threatened parishioners while arresting a 27-year-old Jewish dissident, Miguel Angel Aldana Ruiz. The police threatened that if the Mass was not stopped, they would make Aldana Ruiz “disappear.” Aldana Ruiz encouraged the parishioners to keep on praying while the police arrested him. As of today, Aldana Ruiz's whereabouts are unknown.
It is unlikely that a papal visit, scheduled to take place Jan. 21-25, 1998, alone will change Cuba. But Church attendance might. The spiritual build up of the Cuban people may be the first step toward rebuilding the society that Castro destroyed. It is always the small changes that trigger the big revolutions. In the meantime, I have chilled the champagne and this New Year's Eve I will toast with my husband and my parents and pray “next year in Cuba.”
Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz is based in Alexandria, Va.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:Moving Words
After reading your March 16-22 edition, I wanted to take a moment to respond to the homily section, “Next Sunday at Mass: Passion Sunday,” by Peter John Cameron OP. Two of Father Cameron's statements touched me more deeply than anything I have read for a long time. The lines are as follows:
“And yet, every moment that we take our eyes off the crucifix, every moment that we make the source and summit of our life something other than the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we make a mockery of the crucified one.”
“Those courageous enough to look upon the crucifixion truthfully in all its horror and magnificence become transformed by its power.”
Normally, I skip over this section. I assure you that after reading this week's article, I will not do so again. Please convey my best wishes to Father Cameron. I will cut out this article and put it in my Bible for safekeeping to refer to often. It is profound and touching in its intensity.
Thank you for your excellent newspaper.
Charleen Luther
Augusta, Georgia
Senator Santorum's Critique
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) should back off from his criticism of Catholic Charities in one aspect and keep the “heat on” in another (“Bishop Asks Senator Santorum to Rescind Critique of Charities,” March 23-29). Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Brooklyn makes a valid point about legitimate help for the poor. The act of charity can be separated from the act of faith and it is not wrong for Catholic Charities to accept federal money in its charitable function.
However, the senator is right on in his criticism of the liberal mentality that prevails in both Catholic Charities and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the social issues. Some consider themselves “pro-life” when they turn a blind eye towards illegitimacy. Any social legislation that is, in effect, tolerant towards illegitimacy is “pro-choice,” like it or not, that is a fact.
Paul Trouve
Montague, New Jersey
It was unfortunate that Robert Kelly, is his article about the long-term “occupation” by the Society of St. Pius X of the Church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet is Paris (“In Paris, A Somber Anniversary,” March 30-April 5), chose to launch a gratuitous attack on the motivations and activities of a group of Catholic activists in full communion with the Holy See, namely, Chrétienté-Solidarité.
Kelly seems to have a particular problem with the links that the leadership of that organization maintain to the National Front Party. In this legend it should be noted that despite the reservations many may have concerning the National Front, it is the only major party in France that defends the natural law, most notably as it pertains to the sanctity of human life. It is also one of the few organizations that seek to inform contemporary political discourse in France with elements drawn from her Catholic cultural heritage, and provides an important alternative voice through such publications as the Paris daily Présent. As to the insinuation of racist motivations in the prudential opposition by some Catholics to massive immigration, mainly by people of Arab, origin, it should be noted that among the many charitable works carried out by Chrétienté-Solidarité is a program of aid to our Christian brothers and sisters in need in Lebanon and other Arab countries.
When I was in Paris it was my privilege to observe large groups of happy and committed young people attending Mass celebrated according to the “traditional” rite, with the full approval of Rome and of the French hierarchy. These young people are involved in a revival of piety and apostolic zeal in France, exemplified by the growing annual Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres (organized in part by Chrétienté-Solidarité) and by the recently-established Benedictine Abbey of Ste. Madeleine in Le Barroux, initiatives that have received blessings and encouragement from the Holy Father himself. It is regrettable that Kelly chose to strike such a divisive note, particularly during Holy Week, when we reflect on the prayer of our Lord at the Last Supper, that all who follow him may be one (Jn 17, 21).
Christopher Zentner
Glen Oaks, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: At Nation's Founding,Did Divine & Human Providence Conspire? DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:ON MARCH 7-9, the Catholic Common Ground Initiative convened the first annual Cardinal Bernardin Conference, coverage of which last week featured excerpts from the keynote address by Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala., who succeeded the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin at the head of the Common Ground Project (CGP). This week, the Register features philosopher Michael Novak, winner of the 1994 Templeton for Progress in Religion and a member of the CGP committee, who addressed participants on the theme of “Catholic faith and American culture.”
He argues that the Founding of the United States benefited from “the gracious guidance of the Almighty … [and] the limited wisdom of his image here on earth, human providence or prudence or political wisdom.” Americans, whom he has called “an almost chosen people,” Novak maintains, inhabit a nation whose founding principles reflect a “cosmic vision” that has “a stunning universal resonance far beyond the shores of America.”
Not only in Catholic circles, but also in Washington and in the law schools, a debate is sweeping like a prairie fire across the land, concerning the nature of the American founding. Some Catholic commentators, such as David Schindler, hold that the “logic” of the American founding is antithetical to Catholic faith, and necessarily on a collision course with it. Judge Robert Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah holds that American liberal culture today—that is, the culture of the journalists, popular television, and the arts; in other words, the culture of the symbolmakers and mythmakers—is rushing headlong toward the destruction of our national experiment in limited government and liberty for persons, Bork holds, in some respects not unlike Schindler, that the “logic” of liberalism begins in the rhetorical excesses of the Declaration of Independence—a document read differently in its own time than today, and now unmoored from the culture that gave it birth.
It seems impossible to make any headway in resolving the question about the relations between Catholic faith and American culture without a clear grasp of the principles of the American Republic. For if we mistake what those principles are, we grapple with a scarecrow.…
Allow me to begin by recalling some crucial phrases from the Declaration of Independence of the United States, July 4, 1776:
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary … the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God … Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown.…
“We, therefore … appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions … with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” (emphasis added).
If I read these snippets correctly, a cosmic vision supports this Declaration. Unless Providence blesses them, ideas do not succeed in history—Providence in two senses: The gracious guidance of the Almighty, the Lord of probabilities and contingencies; and generally, the limited wisdom of his image here on earth, human providence or prudence or political wisdom. In the case of the United States v. George III in 1776, the United States had the blessings of both forms of Providence, divine and human, in a rare conjunction of historic opportunity and historic outcome.…
The six or seven fundamental ideas that undergird the Declaration are intimately interrelated; they form a complex whole. Divine Providence, human political realism (prudence), the laws of nature and nature's God, public and private virtue, freedom of conscience, public gratitude to the Almighty, and the equality of humans as humans—an equality in their nature, and not in any accident or circumstance of their being; in their nature, and not in any exercise of that nature—all these ideas are interrelated. They belong to a family of traditions, ideas, convictions, practices, and institutions that gave to the words of the Declaration of Independence its popular meaning—that made its words ring, that made them fit experience, that gave them good ground in which to grow like an ever-increasing tree (that could one day drive slavery down the road into extinction).…
When a human being faces a new course of action, the outcome of that action is shrouded in mere probabilities and necessarily in doubt. Human action, therefore, cannot proceed under necessary knowledge, but only under probabilistic knowledge—not out of theoretical knowledge, but out of practical knowledge, or prudence, or human providence. This is the law of human nature. And here the laws of nature and nature's God illustrate a radical harmony: the Providence of God and the practical wisdom of humans joined as one. Providence and the provident.
Moreover, in human action, human beings proceed by careful reflection and deliberate commitment.… The human dimension is the habit of thinking first, reflecting, deliberating, and only then making the choices that they will stick to, and on which they can be depended; in other words, the choices by which they will display good character. Only when they exercise that aspect of their nature, their human nature, that “better angel of their nature,” do they follow, in the mode appropriate for humans, the law of nature and nature's God.
The Declaration of Independence does not stand alone. It expresses a ‘way of life,’ a ‘life form,’ a whole package of convictions and practices, and a well-articulated and deeply understood system of interlocked ideas: nature, virtue, liberty, equality, and the law of God.…
But in order to have psychic space in which to think, to reflect, and to choose with deliberation, our children have had to learn a special set of habits or virtues. They have had to learn such “cardinal” (“hinge”) virtues as self-control, temperance, fortitude, and the practice of giving every person and thing the full attention due these objects of their actions. To act as free women and men, in other words, our children need to learn to master, and to appropriate, a basic set of virtues, habits, or dispositions. Liberty without virtue is a form of wishfulness, a mere fantasy.
Yet so powerful are self-interest and self-deception that unless our children learn to look upon their actions as an omniscient observer does—from outside, without prejudice, and in fierce and blazing justice—they are not likely to have the insight or the courage to discover the right course of action, and to follow it. In other words, to paraphrase George Washington's farewell address, we should look with suspicion on the view that in the long and common run of cases moral behavior is to be expected from people of no religion. Far more likely is it that individuals will follow the general convictions, beliefs, and interest of their own groups.
In a word, the Declaration of Independence does not stand alone. It expresses a “way of life,” a “life form,” a whole package of convictions and practices, and a well-articulated and deeply understood system of interlocked ideas: nature, virtue, liberty, equality, and the law of God.…
… How, then, should we interpret the propositions and allusions of the Declaration? One thing I have always wanted to find out for myself is, how did the Americans of the founding generation interpret them? If you search it out, the empirical evidence is not far to seek. The package of ideas that I have summarized above will be found intact, again and again: Both in the inaugural address and in the farewell address of George Washington, for example; in letters about the nation's founding principles written by John Adams, Noah Webster, Samuel Adams, and countless others; and in such legislative acts such as the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Constitutions of the new Commonwealths and States of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and others.
Permit me to set forth [some examples]: “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the united States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage.
‘No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the united States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.’
— George Washington
“[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people” (George Washington, first inaugural address, April 30, 1789).
“That no free Government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
“That Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other” (Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, l776).
“Good morals being necessary to the preservation of civil society; and the knowledge and belief of the being of GOD, His providential government of the world and of a future state of rewards and punishment, being the only true foundation of morality, the legislature hath, therefore, a right, and ought to provide, at the expense of the subject, if necessary, a suitable support for the public worship of GOD and of the teachers of religion and morals …” (Massachusetts Constitution, 1780).
Such texts as these persuade me that much more was acting on the informed consciousness of the first generation of Americans than Lockean philosophy (particularly as interpreted in an atheistic way)— including biblical religion, ancient Greek and Roman teachings about character and virtue, and high medieval views of liberty and conscience as rooted in the practical intellect of individual human persons.… If I am not mistaken, the Declaration of Independence incorporates within itself, on a par with the external checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of the separate branches of government outlined in the Constitution, a set of internal checks and balances—internal, that is, to every human person. The moral psychology behind the Declaration of Independence presupposes a set of checks and balances designated by five terms: the laws of nature; the laws of nature's God; national laws rooted in the consent of the governed; the private and public virtues of citizens; and the self-interest of individuals and groups. No one of these five sets of realities may be discounted. Each places the other in check. The prospects of liberty depend upon their appropriate balance.…
The conclusion I would like to draw from these reflections is this. Such terms as “nature's law,” “Prudence,” “virtues,” “character,” and the type of “liberty” based upon “reflection” and “choice”—terms crucial to the Declaration of Independence—may today thrive nowhere so vitally as in the soil of the living Catholic tradition.…
I would agree with Judge Bork and others that American culture has in recent decades been in rapid free-fall from the heights of moral principle reached at the founding and maintained for many generations thereafter. Catholic traditions on the key terms that undergird the Declaration, such as those delineated above, are now available to help reinvigorate those founding principles. Catholics today ought to defend vigorously the founding principles, and the key terms under-girding them, against those on the right or left urging us to abandon them.
The Bishops of the United States who at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore declared that our framers, under Providence, built “better than they knew” showed discernment it would be wise today to follow.
We ought to recover terms such as “God's law,” “nature's law,” “reflection,” “choice,” “virtue,” “happiness,” and other terms from our tradition, and work these out in the American context. Our corporate Catholic failure to think in an American vocabulary, steeped in American intellectual traditions, is quite striking. Our bishops and most of our writers have preferred a Continental social democratic vocabulary, as well as a Continental vocabulary for the expression of Catholic social thought. We have been remarkably delinquent in learning the vocabulary of American constitutional and American social philosophy (as distinct from social science). These failures are all the more saddening because the ideas of the Declaration have proven to have a stunning universal resonance far beyond the shores of America.
From abroad, this coincidence of the Catholic faith with the tradition—and continuing vocation—of the United States may be more obvious to serious observers than it is to us. Pope John Paul II, for example, on his visit to the United States in 1995 made some remarkable observations…:
“America has always wanted to be a land of the free. Today, the challenge facing America is to find freedom's fulfillment in the truth: the truth that is intrinsic to human life created in God's image and likeness, the truth that is written on the human heart, the truth that can be known by reason and can therefore form the basis of a profound and universal dialogue among people about the direction they must give to their lives and their activities.
“One hundred thirty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln asked whether a nation ‘conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal’ could ‘long endure.’ President Lincoln's question is no less a question for the present generation of Americans. Democracy cannot be sustained without a shared commitment to certain moral truths about the human person and human community The basic question before a democratic society is: ‘how ought we to live together?’ In seeking an answer to this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the very founding of your country be excluded from that debate? Would not doing so mean that America's founding documents no longer have any defining content, but are only the formal dressing of changing opinion? Would not doing so mean that tens of millions of Americans could no longer offer the contribution of their deepest convictions to the formation of public policy? Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought” (Homily at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Md., 1995).
“Today, religious tolerance and cooperation among Americans cannot simply be a pragmatic or utilitarian undertaking, a mere accommodation to the fact of diversity. No, the source of your commitment to religious freedom is itself a deep religious conviction. Religious tolerance is based on the conviction which requires us to respect and honor the inner sanctuary of conscience in which each person meets God. The Catholic Church wholly supports this conviction, as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council proclaimed in the historic Declaration on Religious Freedom.
“The challenge facing you, dear friends, is to increase people's awareness of the importance for society of religious freedom; to defend that freedom against those who would take religion out of the public domain and establish secularism as America's official faith. And it is vitally necessary, for the very survival of the American experience, to transmit to the next generation the precious legacy of religious freedom and the convictions which sustain it” (Greeting in Baltimore Cathedral, 1995).
“I say this, too, to the United States of America: today, in our world as it is, many other nations and peoples look to you as the principal model and pattern for their own advancement in democracy. But democracy needs wisdom. Democracy needs virtue, if it is not to turn against everything that it is meant to defend and encourage. Democracy stands or falls with the truths and values which it embodies and promotes.
“Democracy serves what is true and right when it safeguards the dignity of every human person, when it respects inviolable and inalienable human rights, when it makes the common good the end and criterion regulating all public and social life. But these values themselves must have an objective content. Otherwise they correspond only to the power of the majority or the wishes of the most vocal If an attitude of skepticism were to succeed in calling into question even the fundamental principles of the moral law, the democratic system itself would be shaken in its foundations (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 70).
“The United States possesses a safeguard, a great bulwark, against this happening. I speak of your founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These documents are grounded in and embody unchanging principles of the natural law whose permanent truth and validity can be known by reason; for it is the law written by God in human hearts (cf. Rom 2, 25).
“At the center of the moral vision of your founding documents is the recognition of the rights of the human person, and especially respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life in all conditions and at all stages of development. I say to you again, America, in the light of your own tradition: love life, cherish life. defend life, from conception to natural death.
“At the end of your National Anthem, one finds these words: Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust!’
America: may your trust always be in God and in none other. And then, The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Thank you. and God bless you all” (Departure address, Baltimore-Washington International Airport, 1995).
‘Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.’
‘At the center of the moral vision of your founding documents is the recognition of the rights of the human person, and especially respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life in all conditions and at all stages of development. I say to you again, America, in the light of your own tradition: love life, cherish life. defend life, from conception to natural death.’
— Pope John Paul II
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Novak ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: With Charity the Only Bond, Newman House Demands Maturity DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:A NEW RELIGIOUS order for men, a Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri called “Newman House,” was founded in October 1996, in Mt. Pocono, Pa., by Father Peter Stravinskas.
Father Stravinskas, who is best known for his work as the editor of The Catholic Answer, said that the community is really an “oratory in formation,” because full canonical establishment will take at least three years. Until that time, the priests and brothers in this community technically serve Bishop James Timlin, of Scranton, Pa., who approved and supported the formation of this oratory within the boundaries of his diocese.
In a recent statement, Bishop Timlin said, “The Diocese of Scranton is always welcoming to men and women who seek to advance the life of the Church through a dedicated life of prayer. We welcome the good works that will surely emanate from this community.”
St. Philip Neri founded the Congregation of the Priests of the Oratory in Rome during the 16th century. He saw the oratory as a means for charity, catechesis and evangelization. John Henry Cardinal Newman started a revival of the Oratorian way of life when he brought it to England in the 19th century, at a time when many of the Italian oratories were being suppressed. There are at present about 10 independent oratory communities in the United States.
The oratory approach to religious life is unusual because “it is the only religious congregation in the history of the Church that requires no vows, no promises, no nothing,” said Father Stravinskas.
“St. Philip said that our only bond is charity,” Father Stravinskas explained. “It is a unique approach to communal living. It has all of the pluses of religious life, such as community support and fraternity, but it demands a high level of maturity, because there is no external restraint on you.”
“In many ways, Newman anticipated modernity. He saw the handwriting on the wall,” Father Stravinskas said. “There needs to be some contact between the Church and the world; something between retreating into a world of our own creation, and going out into the world and getting sucked into the spirit of the age. Newman provides the ideal model for that flexible structure.”
Oratory communities are small by design, usually with no more than a dozen or so members. Five men belong to Newman House now, with a sixth joining the community in March. In addition to Father Stravinskas, who is officially the oratory's provost, there is a deacon, two seminarians and two Brothers. Each oratory is financially self-supporting, relying on donations and the shared income of its members
“The strength and weakness of the oratory is that each house is totally autonomous, and sets its own tone,” Father Stravinskas said.
Although oratory members take no vows, the structure of their daily lives resembles that of other religious communities. Every day begins with Mass after which members go off to school or work. At the end of the day, the community gathers to pray parts of the divine office (litugical prayers of the Church; those portions not prayed in common are done privately by each individual), and share a common meal. The members also share the household chores.
“The point of the Oratory is to be the place where everybody lives, not where everybody works,” Father Stravinskas said.
“What we have found initially, that is at the dinner table—some of the fellows have spent the day as students, and some have spent the day as teachers—we have some serious theological discussions. There's that interaction between the academic and the pastoral,” Father Stravinskas said.
That interaction is an important component in the lives of all of the members of Newman House. “One of the greatest problems our priests face today is their sense of being alone,” said Brother Christopher Clay, who has been a member of the Newman House community since it began last October and is finishing his third year of Theology at Seton Hall University. “But that's not the case when your community life is supportive of your understanding of the Church.”
“We haven't come to the oratory by accident of assignment,” Clay said. “But because of the fact that we are of a certain like mind—not that we agree on everything—but we share a common vision and a basic theological and liturgical bottom-line, which is that of the Church.”
Another young member of the Newman House community, Brother Nicholas Gregoris, was ordained a deacon on March 19. He visited several European oratories while studying in Rome, and said that he likes the fact that “individual talent and charism is taken very much into consideration in each oratory.”
“There is a contribution that I can make to this oratory that I might not be able to make in another,” he said. “We take the word “brother” seriously. We always refer to each other as “Brother or “Father,” Deacon Gregoris said. “It is a way to respect the honor and dignity of each person.
“Father Peter has instilled in us a great love for Cardinal Newman and St. Philip Neri, and for the joy of Christian living,” Deacon Gregoris added. “We have a balanced and happy life.”
Newman House welcomes vocational inquiries from men between the ages of 17 and 30. For further information, contact Newman House, 21 Fairview Ave., Mt. Pocono, PA 18344; phone: (717) 839-2185, fax: (717) 839-0405.
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: This Sunday at Mass: Third Sunday of Easter DATE: 04/13/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 13-19,1997 ----- BODY:April 13, 1997 Luke 24, 35-48
THE GOSPEL TODAY presents the disciples disturbed by many mixed emotions at the appearance of the risen Jesus: “panic and fright,” “incredulous for sheer joy and wonder.” Their flustered state serves to emphasize just how incapable human beings are of responding even to the joy of Easter without the grace of Jesus Christ.
But the resurrected Christ generously gives this grace, especially in the gift of peace that subdues our inner turbulence as it restores and perfects all the rich potentialities that a relationship with the Lord promises. The bestowal of peace is a pattern of divine charity that we reenact every time we gather for Mass: “The Lord be with you—and also with you.”
Jesus tempers the disciples'agitation by showing them his wounds, by inviting them to touch him, and by partaking of food in their presence—that is to say, by drawing them once again into the saving actions of the Passion. Because the disciples are truly re-united with the Risen Jesus, the Lord reveals to them the purpose of his visit. Namely, the resurrected Christ stands among his disciples to convince them that there is nothing “ghostly” about Christianity. It is a faith of “flesh and bones,” like the risen Jesus himself. And it relies on the dedication of the body and soul of every disciple for its thriving.
That is why Jesus instructs his disciples: “Recall the words I spoke to you.” Faith flourishes only through active and applied memorializing. We see the fulfillment of God's promises in the Scriptures in our own lives only to the extent that we open our minds to Jesus and welcome the understanding that the Spirit gives.
At the same time, Christ's disciples are called to preach penance for the remission of sins to all the nations in the Name of Jesus. The peace of Easter cannot coexist alongside the tyranny of sin that seeks to sabotage God's peace. The grace of penance puts all disciples in touch with Jesus as it unites them to his saving words and to the healing food of the Eucharist.
Christ commissions his disciples because they “are witnesses of this.” A witness is one who speaks from first-hand knowledge. We who are drawn into these same transforming graces of Easter also become true witnesses of the Resurrection. Our personal struggles with panic, fright, joy, and wonder are divine invitations to place our confidence anew in the peace of Jesus by energetically bringing that peace to others who are alone in their interior turmoils and who remain in need of hearing the Name of Jesus.
Notice that Jesus appears in the life of the disciples “while they were still speaking” about what had happened on the road to Emmaus and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The more we recall to other the words Jesus has spoken to us, the more all will know that Christ is still with us.
Father Cameron, a Register contributing editor, teaches homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: 'Recall the Words I Spoke to You' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter John Cameron Op ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Unity Throughout Americas Is Synod's Take Home Message DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II wants to travel to the Americas to proclaim the results of the Synod of bishops for the region, a top Vatican official said.
Cardinal Jan Schotte, the month-long American Synod's general secretary (see profile, page 6), told participants the Pope has expressed a desire to make such a trip. Before the assembly's conclusion Dec. 12 in the Vatican, full voting members were given ballots to register their recommendations as to where the outcome of the Synod should be officially proclaimed.
The Pope traditionally makes a pastoral visit to preach about the results of Vatican synods concerning a country or region. He visited three cities in Africa to promulgate his document after the African synod, and he visited Lebanon to issue his exhortation after the Lebanese synod.
Officials said an eventual papal visit to the Americas would likely include stops in several countries. Although no date or itinerary has yet been decided, one suggested stop was the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, since the Blessed Virgin Mary, under that title, is honored as the patroness of the Americas.
The task of the Special Synod of Bishops for America has been to examine the challenges facing the Church in the Western hemisphere. Participants represented 485 million Catholics throughout North, Central, and South America plus the Caribbean—nearly half the world's Catholic population.
The Synod marks the most intense series of high-level meetings of bishops since the Second Vatican Council.
Pope John Paul II told the bishops that five centuries after Columbus and at the threshold of the new millennium, it was important “to mentally review the way taken by Christianity throughout the whole extent of those lands.”
Synod participants, with the Pope, spent four weeks in the Vatican listening to more than 250 speeches. They also met in small groups to discuss issues ranging from poverty to parishes.
Unlike a council, synods are consultative, not deliberative assemblies. They meet at the request of the Pope to share information, concerns, and suggestions with him. While a synod may write a public message at the end of its work, the assembly's formal proposals are given to the Pope without publication.
Pope John Paul II traditionally issues a post-synod apostolic exhortation using many of the propositions. A document such as this following the Synod for America would serve as a reference point for policy and initiatives carried out on the local Church level for years to come.
Many participants at this month's Synod said the most important result of the meeting may be stronger ties and greater understanding among the hemisphere's bishops.
“Perhaps the story of the synod is not to be found in a particular project or declaration,” Archbishop Francis George of Chicago told journalists. Rather, he said, it is in “a shift of relationships, where North and South America look to each other first instead of to Europe.”
As members of the Synod began drafting propositions to present to Pope John Paul II, Archbishop George said there was a noticeable change in the way terms were being used and problems were being described.
“Solidarity with the poor is a shared concern for all the bishops and that is, I think, because of the conscience-raising on the part of the bishops of the South,” the archbishop said. And while the Synod has not resolved the differences between North and South, he said it has helped the bishops better understand them.
The bishops were due to release their own Synod “Message to the World” before heading home from Rome. Archbishop George said he expected it would repeat the Pope's call for the reduction or forgiveness of the debt of poor nations and to promise to keep the issue before the conscience of the world.
In his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near), Pope John Paul II urged a resolution of the debt crisis in honor of the Holy Year 2000.
Although dozens of social concerns topped the list of challenges facing the Americas, the bishops agreed the outcome of the Synod must emphasize faith in Jesus Christ.
Reports by the Synod's small working groups unanimously called for a focus on the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus Christ as the starting point for strengthening the Church and for motivating its work in the world. These reports represented a first step in drafting the final document to be given to the Pope.
All agreed on the need to improve religious education programs to lead people to Christ, to strengthen their bonds with the Universal Church and to make them aware of their responsibilities to care for the poor and to work for justice.
Synod participants also called for clear guidance on how the Christian message should be presented today.
“This proclamation must be festive, attractive, and convincing,” especially when addressed to young people, one report said. Another stated: “The pastoral challenge we face across our hemisphere is the sharing of our faith in a way that captures the interest and attention of this generation, living as we do in an increasingly secular and materialistic world.”
The working groups also agreed on the need to underline the importance of the family, both for the Church and for society. One report requested that the specific vocations of fatherhood and motherhood be addressed. Another said modern threats against human life—especially abortion and euthanasia—are so serious that they should be treated separately from a final document's discussion of family life.
All of the groups called for balance in treating the complicated themes of economic globalization and the foreign debt. Recognizing “our limited competency in the technical issues that drive so much of today's economics,” one group said, the Church's role is “to offer pastoral and moral guidance.”
The working groups were also unanimous in stressing the laity's primary mission of bringing Gospel values to the world, particularly through their families, their work, their community activities, and their political involvement.
Most, however, also praised the growing number of lay people who have accepted responsibilities for various Church ministries.
“Since the laity use their gifts and charism in the life of worship, catechesis, pastoral care, and education, we must promote their formation, including specialized theological training,” one report stated.
The Special Synod of Bishops for America is the second of five continent-wide synods called for by Pope John Paul II ahead of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. It's certainly one of the most ambitious of its kind, if only because of its geographical scope and the vast differences in the regions covered.
Yet so keen was the Pope on stressing what joins rather than separates the Church in the Western Hemisphere that he named the synod the “Special Assembly for America,” instead of “for the Americas.” He told Synod fathers to consider the continent as a whole, “from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, without introducing a separation between the north, the center, and the south so as not to risk a contrast between them.”
Pope John Paul II challenged the bishops from throughout the territory to widen their vision and see that, not only are people throughout the Americas more alike than they may realize, their common faith calls them to unity.
“Christians, while loving and honoring their own countries, are men and women ‘without borders,’” he said, “because the Church community does not know any boundaries of race, language, and culture.”
Stephen Banyra is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Differences between North and South remain, but month-long meeting has strengthened ties between bishops 'from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Compassionate' Murder Ruling Shakes Canada's Pro-Life Community DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:TORONTO—A Canadian judge's decision to exempt a father from mandatory minimum sentencing in the killing of his severely disabled daughter has sent a chill through the country's disabled rights community and anti-euthanasia activists.
In a Dec. 1 ruling, Judge Ted Noble of the Court of Queen's Bench said sentencing Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer, 44, to the minimum 10-year prison term in the premeditated killing of his 12-year-old daughter Tracy, would constitute excessive punishment. Latimer was found guilty of second-degree murder.
“It is my judgment,” Noble wrote in his decision, “that even though the offense of murder is the gravest of all crimes in our law, that the circumstances established by the evidence as to why and how [Latimer] committed this compassionate act of homicide, when taken together with his personal characteristics, the caring role he played as Tracy's father, and as an otherwise law-abiding citizen who is respected within the community despite what he did, his conviction does not warrant the imposition of the 10-year minimum sentence because it would be unjust, unfair, and far too excessive.”
Noble's use of the expression “compassionate act of homicide,” coupled with his lenient sentencing of Latimer, has provoked consternation among disabled rights activists and those promoting greater respect for all human life. Many have labeled the sentence a travesty of justice and are calling for an immediate appeal.
Noble invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to grant Latimer a rare constitutional amendment to the mandatory minimum sentence. Canadian judges have authority to bypass mandatory sentences if they believe they are in conflict with the Canadian Charter. He sentenced Latimer to two years less a day. Latimer will spend the first year in a provincial prison and the second year confined to his farm in Wilkie, Saskatchewan. Some believe he will be a free man in just eight months.
Church leaders and pro-life activists fear the sentence has set a dangerous precedent in the justice system's attitude toward the murder of disabled persons. Unlike assisted suicide cases, Tracy Latimer gave no indication of a desire to die. Although she experienced pain and discomfort, there were some suggestions during the trial that she was a happy and mischievous child who responded no differently than others in chronic care centers.
Canada's disabled community is also troubled by Latimer's appeal to compassion as a mitigating factor in murder cases. Throughout the trial, Latimer's defense attorney, Mark Brayford, argued that Latimer acted out of compassion when he killed his daughter. He also said his client acted to put an end to years of physical pain for Tracy.
Latimer admitted to police that, in October 1993, he placed his daughter in the cab of the family pickup truck, and attached a hose from the exhaust pipe to the truck interior. Tracy died of carbon monoxide poisoning within seven minutes.
It was the second murder trial for Latimer. His original conviction for second-degree murder in 1994 was declared invalid when it was learned that the Crown prosecutor had questioned jurors as to their views on mercy killing and abortion. The original prosecutor is awaiting trial on obstruction of justice charges.
Canada's Catholic bishops are among several voices arguing that the Latimer sentence gives the impression of two-tiered justice system.
“By making an exception in this case and not awarding the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, the court has sent a disturbing message that the life of someone with disabilities is worth less than that of others,” said Archbishop Adam Exner of Vancouver, chairman of the bishops’ Catholic Organization for Life and Family.
Archbishop Exner said the country is embarking on “a very dangerous path” when murder is regarded as an act of compassion. The archbishop said Tracy Latimer, and all disabled persons, require special care and protection.
“Without disputing the sincerity of Mr. Latimer's motive, we are most troubled by the notion that murder is a way of exercising compassion,” the prelate said. “There are countless examples of friends and families of people with disabilities showing compassion by affirming the fullness of their human dignity and sharing their suffering, as overwhelming as that may be at times.”
Archbishop Exner said the Latimer case should serve as a reminder for the country's legal, social, and medical systems to exercise compassion and respect for all human life.
Bishop James Weisgerber of the diocese of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, said the case is especially significant because Robert Latimer acted on his own accord to end the life of his daughter.
“Tracy had no way to agree to this decision, it was done for her,” the bishop told The Canadian Press. He said it is inappropriate for the justice system to consider the motive of a person accused of killing another.
The Catholic bishops’ views are seconded by several groups working to promote respect for life and family in Canada.
Cheryl Eckstein, executive director of the Surrey, British Columbia-based Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN), told the Register that the Latimer decision is another step on the “slippery slope” of disposable humanity.
Eckstein, who suffers from a chronic muscle disorder, said the decision has provoked fear among all disabled Canadians. “This is nothing but a derailment of justice,” she said. “The notion of killing the disabled for compassionate reasons is a travesty.”
Eckstein rejected arguments that Latimer acted out of mercy in dealing with his daughter's physical disability.
“Tracy could never have made that decision for herself,” she said. “The idea that she was suffering doesn't justify what was done. Tracy Latimer was simply put out of her father's misery.”
The Latimer sentence should serve as a nationwide incentive for groups representing the disabled to come together with one voice, Eckstein suggested. “We are really one-minded about this. Tracy Latimer had a right to life and justice and she was not served.”
Jim Hughes, president of the Toronto-based Campaign Life Coalition, said the decision is especially frightening for its misplaced use of compassion. “In all these cases, people seem to think the motivation of compassion is a mitigating factor,” he said. “The trouble is, whether a killer's motivation is malice or mercy, his victim is just as dead. The law is supposed to protect individuals and society from those who would play God with other people's lives.”
Officials with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) have called on the province of Saskatchewan to appeal the Latimer sentence. “In reducing the sentence, the court is clearly saying that it has sympathy for the convicted murderer, and to a chilling degree is validating similar actions against people with disabilities,” said Hugh Scher, chairman of the council's human rights committee.
The Latimer decision could not have come at a worse time for those concerned about protection of the disabled.
In Nova Scotia, a physician who killed a 66-year-old cancer patient recently had murder charges reduced to manslaughter. Many believe the reduced charges were the result of a massive outpouring of public sympathy for the accused.
Similarly in Quebec, a woman received a suspended sentence for killing her autistic son. In reducing the charges, the Quebec court recognized that the woman had undergone tremendous emotional distress at the time of her action. The disabled community, however, said emotional distress is no excuse for imposing the death penalty on an innocent person, especially one requiring additional care and protection.
The disabled community is also troubled by favorable reaction to the Latimer sentencing in the mainstream Canadian media. Some commentators have praised Justice Noble for a well-thought-out decision that reflects sympathy for Robert Latimer's dilemma. There have also been calls for the Canadian government to institute a third-degree murder charge that would provide more lenient sentences and permit the use of mercy as a defense in some homicide cases.
Meanwhile, some medical ethics authorities have suggested the Latimer ruling officially sanctions euthanasia for victims of cerebral palsy and other disabled Canadians. Mark Pickup, one of Canada's most prominent disabled rights activists, said the Latimer decision reflects a public policy favoring quick fixes and easy answers.
Pickup, who also suffers from cerebral palsy, called the Latimer decision a dangerous precedent. “Will handicapped children like Tracy be welcome in the 21st century?” he asked. “It's highly reminiscent of Germany 60 years ago when handicapped children and adults were routinely euthanized. It was done for compassionate reasons too—to destroy life unworthy of living.”
Mike Mastromatteo is based in Toronto, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: With Bartholomew at Helm, Constantinople Makes a Comeback DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—If there is a single assessment to be made of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew l's recent month-long visit to the United States, it's this: ready or not, an ancient Eastern Orthodox institution is back on the world stage.
It's also safe to say that, only a few years ago, not many observers would have placed bets on such a career comeback for Constantinople, today's Istanbul, and the 270th occupant of its episcopal throne.
Ecumenical Patriarch sends mixed signals on Catholic-Orthodox relations during his recent U.S. visit
Constantinople, founded by the emperor Constantine in 333 A.D., was Christendom's cultural capital for more than 1,000 years—its incomparable libraries, art-filled churches, and richly endowed monasteries under the spiritual authority of the city's patriarch, the Christian East's senior hierarch, second in honor after Rome, or, as he has been known in Eastern circles since the sixth century, the Ecumenical Patriarch—that is, bishop of the whole Byzantine world.
Until recently, that once vast apostolate was confined to a few crumbling buildings in an Istanbul slum, the former Greek quarter called the Phanar. After 1453, Constantinople's Greek Orthodox Christians and their patriarch found themselves increasingly isolated from the rest of the world by their Ottoman conquerors.
By the late 1970s and ’80s, the Turkish government, fearful of the patriarchate's ties with its arch-rival, Greece, had restricted the hierarch's ability to travel outside the country, placing him and his entourage under virtual house arrest, a victim of perpetual harassments, and, occasionally, violence.
By 1991, when Bartholomew was elected to the ancient office on the death of the former Patriarch Demetrios, things began to change.
New Life for Constantinople
Under pressure from Vatican, European, and American officials to ease up on the patriarchate, Turkey, eager to join the European Union, allowed Bartholomew more freedom of movement than had been enjoyed by his predecessors. But it was the then-52-year-old patriarch himself who seized the window of opportunity provided by the Turkish thaw and the end of the Cold War and began to project a vigorous, activist role for Constantinople in Orthodox affairs and in ecumenical relations, particularly with the Roman Catholic Church.
Examples abound:
l In 1992, the new patriarch oversaw the repair of some of the ecumenical patriarchate's long deteriorating quarters in Istanbul, including a multi-million dollar restoration of the patriarchal Church of St. George.
l Early on, Bartholomew, who had once studied in Rome, launched an unprecedented annual pilgrimage to the Eternal City for the June 29 Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, an initiative that allowed him frequent opportunities for personal contact with Pope John Paul II and Vatican officials.
l And last year, Bartholomew, “first among equals,” or titular head of Orthodoxy's communion of 15 autocephalous (self-governing) Churches took on his powerful ecclesiastical rival, Alexei II of Moscow, patriarch of the world's largest Orthodox body, when he freed the Estonian Orthodox Church from Russian control. (The dispute, which resulted in a temporary suspension of communion between the two patriarchs, has since been reconciled.)
This revival of Constantinople's ecclesiastical profile was the backdrop for Bartholomew's recent 25-day (Oct. 19-Nov. 16) pastoral visit to the United States, a visit that took him to 13 cities and offered him a unique view of America's religious scene and the more than 1 million Greek Orthodox faithful on this side of the Atlantic who are governed directly by Constantinople.
(There are 5.6 million Eastern Orthodox in the United States, and nearly 300 million worldwide. The Patriarchate of Constantinople has charge of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, and jurisdictions in Canada, South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Turkey.)
Bartholomew in the USA
“The visit was a very important event, both for the [ecumenical] patriarch and for American Orthodox,” Father Thomas Fitzgerald, a Greek Orthodox theologian and ecumenist who works with the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, told the Register.
“In many ways, Bartholomew's visit highlights just the sort of role the ecumenical patriarchate is supposed to take, what he is supposed to be among the Churches,” said Father Fitzgerald. “He and his entourage had the opportunity to take the pulse of the Church in America, with its growing pains and anxieties, and to confirm its witness to Orthodoxy.”
For Eastern Orthodox faithful, the priest stressed, the visit was “a once-in-a-lifetime event, a chance to highlight the strength and vigor of Orthodox life nearly two generations after old world immigrants from Greece, the Middle East, and Slavic lands had founded fledgling Eastern Orthodox congregations on American soil. In fact, the ostensible motive for the patriarch's visit was the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America.
But while the patriarchal tour certainly boosted Orthodox pride and visibility, it no less vividly highlighted intra-Orthodox tensions and divisions within the ranks of Bartholomew's own North American flock as well.
“Bartholomew understands himself as attempting to lead a diverse Orthodox Church worldwide to a common purpose,” said Father Leonid Kishkovsky, an American-born Russian cleric and a commentator on ecumenical affairs. “It has not worked very well so far and mistakes have been made.”
Perhaps the most glaring of these “mistakes” have been those attributed to Archbishop Spyridon of New York, Bartholomew's hand-picked candidate to succeed the popular Archbishop Iakovos, Greek Orthodoxy's leader in America for 37 years. Archbishop Spyridon, 57, who was born in Ohio but educated in Europe, was appointed to the post last year.
Even the new archbishop's supporters admit that he has stumbled badly in his first months in office, exhibiting a high-handed management style that has alienated many influential lay and clerical leaders in the Church.
For example, in the months leading up to the Patriarch's visit, the archbishop fired tenured faculty members at the archdiocese's Holy Cross Seminary in Weston, Mass., including the school's president, and several of its leading theologians, after they protested Archbishop Spyridon's refusal to discipline a cleric accused of making sexual advances to a student. The imbroglio made international headlines, and the archbishop subsequently reinstated the fired faculty to new posts at the seminary and authorized the archdiocesan council to investigate the alleged abuse.
Leadership styles aside, significant issues in contemporary Orthodoxy are underlined by the Spyridon controversy.
Unrest in America
Chief among these issues is a nearly three-decade-old discussion among ethnic Orthodox bodies in the United States about whether they should form a self-governing “American” Orthodox Church.
As old world identifications fade with time, many Orthodox in America have urged the abandonment of ethnically based branches (Serbian, Greek, Ukrainian, Russian, etc.) in favor of an indigenous, English-speaking expression of Orthodoxy on an equal footing with the mother Churches of Europe and the Middle East.
Three years ago, at a meeting in Ligonier, Pa., between the ecumenical patriarch and archbishops of the various Orthodox branches in America, Bartholomew reportedly tried to discourage independence moves on the part of American Orthodox leaders, and assert Constantinople's traditional responsibility for the Orthodox diaspora. (That responsibility is based on a fourth-century canon that gives Constantinople control over Orthodox in “barbarian,” or mission lands.)
Most observers believe that Bartholomew's selection of Archbishop Spyridon to succeed Archbishop Iakovos has a lot to do with the fact that the former archbishop of New York was an outspoken champion of the American Orthodoxy movement, and Archbishop Spyridon is more attuned to Constantinople's concerns.
“There are obvious tensions between old world cultures and living in America,” Father Fitzgerald observed, “but everybody wants a more united Orthodox witness in America. The question is, ‘how do we do it?’ We simply don't have all answers now, but what we can say is that Constantinople, the mother Church of Orthodoxy, has an essential role to play in the process. That's what Bartholomew is trying to assert. That was his main mission in coming [to the United States].”
Mixed Signals for Catholics
Outside intra-Orthodox affairs, possibly the most controversial aspect of the ecumenical patriarch's visit to America was his less-than-encouraging words about Eastern Orthodox-Catholic relations during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Oct. 21.
Most observers expected the patriarch to comment on Pope John Paul II's 1995 apostolic letter Orientale Lumen (Light of the East), a call to Christian unity in the context of the millennium, which highlighted the search for reconciliation with the Orthodox. Instead, in his address, Bartholomew tended to highlight Orthodoxy's differences with Roman Catholicism.
“The Orthodox Christian does not live in a place of theoretical and conceptual conversations,” the patriarch told his audience, “but rather in a place of an essential and empirical lifestyle and reality as confirmed by grace in the heart.…”
If the Patriarch's message at Georgetown is examined, Father Ronald Roberson CSP, associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), told the Register, “what he was saying was that the differences between us, Catholics and Orthodox, are real. They're not superficial.”
The Patriarch was indicating that in order to move forward the dialogue needs to be on a deeper, more spiritual level than mere intellectual discussions, Father Roberson said.
Nevertheless, the Catholic ecumenist noted, Bartholomew's sober words were symptomatic of the current impasse in Catholic-Orthodox relations—an impasse mainly focused on the highly charged issue of the Eastern Catholic Churches, ecclesial communities from a historically Orthodox background that are in union with Rome.
“It's mainly the re-emergence of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine in the wake of the fall of communism that has put the issue on the front burner for the Orthodox,” Father Roberson said.
On the other hand, the ecumenist pointed out, the Patriarch's willingness to lead a prayer service in Baltimore's Catholic cathedral in the presence of Cardinal William Keeler two days after his Georgetown speech “puts a happier spin” on the Orthodox leader's assessment of the state of relations between the two Churches.
“It's a rare thing for an Orthodox bishop to preside at a prayer service with non-Orthodox,” Father Roberson said. “It's a sign of recognition, an indication that, despite the difficulties, Bartholomew, personally, and as a representative of Orthodoxy, has a real relationship with the Catholic community. That's certainly a far cry from the nature of our relations only a few decades ago.”
Register contributing editor Gabriel Meyer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: No Place Produces Vocations Like Syro Malabar Church DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India—“What's the secret of so many vocations there?” Pope John Paul II asked bishops of Syro Malabar Church (SMC) while they were in Rome earlier this year for the episcopal ordination of the apostolic administrator of the autonomous Church.
Indeed, even the Holy Father had reason to make the query. According to the latest (1995) Statistical Yearbook of the Church, the 16 million-member Indian Church comprises only 1.6% of the 989 million Catholics worldwide. Yet the SMC accounts for 6% to 9% of the worldwide total of diocesan priests, religious priests, nuns, and seminarians giving India the highest vocation ratio in the world.
The credit for this distinction goes to the indigenous SMC, which traces its faith to St. Thomas the Apostle. “Doubting Thomas” is said to have journeyed as far as Kerala in southern India (known as Malabar to ancient merchants of Middle East). Experts on vocations say the 3.2 million member SMC accounts for 60% of 115,000 vocations in India. In short, there is one priest or nun for every 50 Catholics in the Oriental Church. While North America has only 78 seminarians for every 1 million Catholics—and South America 67 per 1 million—the ratio for the SMC stands at 1,785.
“The prayerful atmosphere in the homes and the deep faith of our people is responsible,” Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil, SMC apostolic administrator, told the Register in explaining the bounty of vocations.
Christian life in the SMC is marked by devout life of the people. Saying the rosary is a norm in Syrian homes, and in parishes, attendance at 90-minute Sunday catechism classes (conducted by volunteer teachers) is compulsory. Catholic schools and colleges, the most sought after in Kerala, require a catechism certificate from those who seek admission under community quota.
The parish church is not just a place to go for Sunday Mass. It is the epicenter of social life in many Kerala villages. Children in nearby Catholic homes attend daily Mass in the company of their parents. In a few hours, they are back at the compound as students of Church-run, government-funded schools. After school, children go home only to return to the church premises for football, badminton, volleyball, and other games—frequently with a parish priest. Parents encourage children to participate in Church-based groups like altar boys, Christian Life Community, Catholic Youth Movement, and the St. Vincent De Paul Society.
This Church-oriented life of the youth, and the society's high esteem for consecrated life, inspires the youth to dedicate themselves to the service of the Church. Aspiring candidates who discern a call to the religious or priestly life seldom find any resistance at home.
“My mother was my inspiration. It was her deep faith and prayer life that inspired me to join the seminary,” recalls 56-year old Father Antony Thottan, rector of St. Mary's Minor Seminary of the Thrissoor archdiocese in central Kerala. Father Thottan was not the only vocation in his family. Four of his five brothers are also priests.
If it was spices such as pepper and cardamom that attracted ancient traders to Kerala—the spice garden of India now produces the SMC's bounty of vocations, which have drawn several shrinking Western religious congregations to the narrow strip of land on the Arabian Coast—home to 80% of SMC members divided into 12 dioceses.
The Conference of Religious in India directory lists 115 congregations, most of them in Kerala. More than two dozen formation houses of foreign religious congregations have cropped up in recent past around St. Joseph's Pontifical Seminary in Aluva in central Kerala. The seminary is one of the largest major seminaries in the world with nearly 600 in-house seminarians in seven sections of philosophy and theology studies. The institution also has more than 100 “day-scholars”.
“The [foreign] congregations struggling to find new recruits at home are flocking to Kerala,” says Vincentian Father George Manalel, professor of moral psychology at the seminary and vocation counselor to several foreign congregations.
The methods used by some of these congregations to recruit new members, the priest said, are sometimes “questionable,” providing monetary incentives to the family of the recruits. But candidates don't seem to see the seminary as an escape from being poor.
“The high number of vocations in Kerala has no link with poverty. The Latin-rite Church (1 million members in Kerala) [is] poorer compared to Syrians, but they have less vocations, whereas most of the Syrian vocations are from middle class families,” Father Manalel said.
Christians recorded the lowest growth rate during the 1991 census with 16% compared to national average of 24%. The growth rate was only 7.4% for Christians in Kerala where SMC accounts for half of the 6 million Christian population. But the alarming decline in the growth rate has so far had little impact on the number of vocations, however.
“Quite a number of [new vocations] are from two-child families,” Father George Manadan, president of SMC's Eastern Theologate at Kottayam in south Kerala told the Register.
Despite the decline in Christian growth rate, SMC seminaries are still in “want of space,” said Father Manadan who has been on the staff of three seminaries for more than two decades. With the spread of family planning initiatives by the government, Father Manadan said, “it could change soon. Very few Christian families have more than two children. Besides, the purely secular values children imbue from [television] will make consecrated life less interesting to the younger generation.”
All the same, the vocation expert predicts SMC “will never go the Western way” of having to close down monasteries and convents for want of candidates.
Anto Akkara is based in New Delhi.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Doing Business the Catholic Way: Information Abounds, but You Won't Learn it in School DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:COLORADO SPRINGS, Co.— When it comes to bringing one's faith to work, many American Catholics are falling down on the job. Not because they don't take their faith seriously, but because many of them in the business world never learned how their Catholic faith figures specifically into their working life.
In spite of the recent popularity of many business ethics books such as Jesus CEO by Laurie Beth Jones, If Aristotle Ran General Motors by Tom Morris, and Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right by Joseph L. Bandaracco, Jr., the Catholic idea of sanctifying work is not being put across to a wide audience.
“These days, business ethics is a big thing,” according to Dr. Robert Kennedy, professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“Forty years ago, business ethics was almost entirely confined to the Catholic universities—Notre Dame, DePaul, Loyola, Boston College—and most of the textbooks were written by Catholic scholars with a Thomistic orientation,” Kennedy said. “There are scores of business ethics textbooks today, and not one seriously reflects the Catholic tradition.”
That Catholic tradition goes back a very long way. According to Kennedy, the explosive growth of trade and commerce in the 17th century in Spain and Italy prompted Catholic entrepreneurs to go to their confessors with a whole new set of ethical questions.
“We sometimes think that business only got complicated in the 20th century, but it was very complicated back then,” Kennedy explained.
Catholic scholars are doing some work in this area, and Pope John Paul II has written several important encyclicals on this topic. But not much of it is making its way into the classroom, and consequently, the boardroom. Even at Catholic universities, the more secular approaches to business ethics are most often the chosen textbooks for students.
“Even though many prominent authors are Catholic and teach at Catholic universities, they rarely use Catholic social teaching,” Kennedy explained. “They are not visibly influenced by Catholic thought, and natural law and virtue traditions play no role in it.”
The Catholic social teaching on this subject is extensive. In the modern era, it all began with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of Workers promulgated in 1891. This has become the seminal Church document on the rights of workers and the duties and responsibilities of employers. Every pope in this century, and countless groups of bishops, have built upon the foundation of Rerum Novarum to call employers and employees alike to base their “actions and omissions…on faith in God and on his law, which commands what is good and forbids evil.” (From John Paul II's On Social Concern, 1987.)
Every year, universities graduate hundreds of students from their schools of business, and send them into the working world. Most of the business ethics training these students receive probably is based on the very popular work of Harvard ethics professor John Rawls, who expanded on the ideas of several philosophers who came before him. Briefly stated, Rawls does encourage certain principles of justice in the workplace, which include consideration for the less fortunate. But Kennedy contends that this does not give students a broad Christian framework to help them make the myriad of business decisions they will face each day.
“Even graduates from Catholic universities have no resources on a mature level to approach these issues from a Catholic perspective,” Kennedy said.
So, Catholics in the working world who want their faith to have a greater impact on their business practices must pursue this knowledge on their own. Depending on where they live, some can join business and professional associations for Catholics which are scattered across the country, like Legatus, a Catholic organization for company presidents and CEOs, and the Antoninus Institute, which promotes Catholic business education. Also, Opus Dei organizations in many major American cities sponsor workshops for people in business outlining Catholic social teaching.
“My experience is that Catholic executives are scared to death to show their faith in the workplace,” said Jean-Francois Orsini, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Antoninus Institute.
In response to that experience, Orsini, a Third Order Dominican, wrote a management textbook from a totally Catholic perspective. In spite of his impressive business credentials and experience—he holds an MBA and PhD from the Wharton School of Business, and has more than ten years as a management consultant—he is still searching for a publisher. He describes the book as “technical, not inspirational, for people who are involved in management.”
“I thought if I just make the connection between philosophical training and technical business training [in the book], it would be a good thing,” Orsini explained. “But it has been an uphill battle.”
Orsini pointed to the popularity of Steven Covey's book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as a step in the right direction.
“His [Covey's] contribution was to show you don't train people in anything until you train the whole person,” Orsini stated.
Although educational support may be lacking for incorporating Catholic faith with business practices, statistics point to a marked increase in the number of people who refuse to compromise their religious beliefs at work. A recent report in USA Today stated that the number of religious discrimination cases brought before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by people of all denominations has grown by 43% over the last six years.
Many of those cases involved workers who have been penalized—or even fired—for doing such things as refusing to work on a religious holiday or having a Bible or other religious symbol prominently displayed in their work space. First Amendment protections of freedom of religion are sometimes tricky to apply in one's place of employment. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act has been proposed in Congress, and if it is passed next year, it would spell out more clearly an employee's rights to religious expression on the job.
Another obstacle faced by some Catholics seeking greater integration of their spiritual and professional lives has been a lack of support from their own parish priests. Some Catholic theologians have interpreted the Catholic social teaching in this area as being hostile to business because it so clearly champions the rights of workers. That attitude has trickled down to the parish level in many dioceses across the country.
“There is an attitude that there is something morally tainted about making money,” said Dr. Gregory Gronbacher, director of Academic Research at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “We are very quick to point out the moral concerns—greed, consumerism, working conditions, etc.—but we also point out the positive things the market economy has made us able to do, such as offer humanitarian assistance, support families, and on and on.”
The Acton Institute's primary work is to reach out to members of the clergy in Christian Churches to inform them about the positive aspects of business activity, so that they can preach to and counsel the members of their congregations who spend every day in the business world, and often seek their guidance.
The Acton Institute, which Gronbacher described as “half-Catholic, half-Evangelical” offers conferences, lectures, and a host of published materials to the ordained and those about-to be-ordained. Their message to these clergy members of all Christian denominations is based in large part on Catholic social thought.
“We are incarnate beings who live in the material world,” Gronbacher said. “Business is a vocation.”
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Refuting the 'Black Legend' of Pius XII DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Jesuit Father Pierre Blet is an expert in the history of relationships between the Catholic Church and secular states. His reputation for careful research combined with his faithfulness to the Church have made him a man of paramount importance to the Vatican. Pope Paul VI chose him, together with three Jesuit confreres, to research and publish 12 volumes entitled Documents from the Vatican. Reference Period: World War II. Father Blet, who recently published a book detailing Pope Pius XII's role in World War II, spoke last month with Register correspondent Antonio Gaspari in Rome.
Gaspari: What led you to write a book about Pius XII, and why now?
Father Blet: Modern historians pass over the papal role in international affairs in silence—especially the period before and during the Second World War. This attitude favors the spread of many illusions. They especially underestimate how much the Holy See did to prevent the outbreak of war, and the role taken by Pius XII to aid the victims of the war.
When Pius XII became pope in 1939 the world was at peace. And he tried as no one else in the world to end the war and re-establish peace—through solemn discourses, calls to governments, and secret diplomacy.
Few remember that in March 1939 he proposed a conference with Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, and Poland to impede the conflict. The negative responses from various governments did not discourage the Pope from trying to prevent the German-Soviet pact.
[He] spoke to the governments of the whole world Aug. 23 at 7:00 p.m. on Vatican radio, warning that, “Nothing is lost with peace. Everything is lost with war.” Unfortunately, a few days later the Wehrmacht troops the Polish border.
Pius XII then tried to keep Italy out of the war. He met with King Vittorio Emanuele and Queen Elena Dec. 21, 1939. Despite the normal protocol, it was he himself who initiated the meeting with the intention of persuading the heads of state to stay out of the conflict.
When Joachin von Ribbentrop came to Rome in 1940, Pius XII sought a meeting to set out reasons for peace. He also tried a double intervention, a letter of his own and one from American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to the head of the Italian government to persuade him not to enter the war. It was in vain.
Some suspect that Pius XII had German sympathies.
This is not true. From a document of the foreign office we know that Pius XII was in contact with the German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler. The Pope sent to London the proposals of the German general who wanted to overthrow the dictator and asked for a guarantee of an honorable peace. The English, however, did not trust him and voted against the proposal.
I found a document in the archives of the French embassy in Rome that Pius XII met secretly with the ambassadors of France and England in March 1940, the exact date of the start of the German offensive of the Adrennes. Pius XII did not hesitate to communicate vital information.
Why didn't Pius XII publicly denounce Nazism?
Pius XII seriously considered the possibility of making a public denunciation, but he did not want to risk more lives by doing so. After the publication of Mit Brennender Sorge (On the Church and the German Reich, encyclical letter of Pope Pius XI, March 14, 1937) he had a chance to see that there was no benefit. On the contrary, it could have worsened the situation.
Pius XII knew that a public declaration would have weighed heavily against the interests of those who were suffering the most. The Red Cross came to the same conclusion. Protests could in fact have brought harm to the very ones we intended to help.
The American Robert M.W. Kempner, deputy chief at the Tribunal of Nuremberg, wrote this about the war crimes: “All the arguments and writings of the Catholic Church against Hitler would have [been suicidal]. The execution of Catholic priests would have been added on to that of the Jews.”
An eventual public declaration by Pius XII portrayed the Holy Father as an enemy of Germany. Pius XII could not hold account of all the German Catholics, but he had no illusions about the intentions of the Third Reich. The persecution against the Church had already started before the war and manifested itself for the duration of the Third Reich. While Pius XII remained in silence, the [Vatican] secretary of state and the apostolic delegations acted to bring help to the Jews and the other victims of the war.
One of the accusations against Pius XII is that he did not do enough for the Jewish refugees.
This is a slander. Volumes eight, nine, and ten [of Actes et Documents] are full of documents in which Jewish communities, rabbis around the world, and other refugees deeply thanked Pius XII and the Catholic Church for their help and for how much was done in their favor. Furthermore, Father Robert Leiber, personal secretary to Pius XII, confirmed for me that the Pope used his personal influence to help Jews persecuted by Nazism. In Croatia, Hungary, and Romania, papal envoys under the direct solicitation of Pius XII succeeded many times in suspending deportations.
In his Christmas address of 1942, Pius XII denounced all the cruelties of the war, the violations of international law that permitted horrible crimes and caused hundreds of thousands of people, without any fault, solely because of their nationality or race, to be destined for death. In a June 2, 1943 address, Pius XII returned again to this theme, speaking about those “who because of their nationality or race are destined for extermination, and I warn that no one will be able to violate the law of God with impudence.”
Pius XII did not preoccupy himself only with the Jews, he extended the charitable action of the Church to all victims of the war without distinction of nationality, race, religion, or creed. The Pope [acted] silently and discreetly, at the risk of appearing passive or indifferent, but he brought aid to the victims of the war.
What about the encyclical sought by Pius XI but never published by Pius XII?
This is hypocrisy from those who attack Pius XII. It's true that Pius XI was preparing an encyclical against racism in general, but it did not make specific reference to anti-Semitism.
Pius XI wrote a draft of the encyclical for Jesuit Father John LaFarge, a specialist on racial issues, who at that time was in Rome. Father LaFarge worked the whole summer and then consigned his text to the Jesuit general who sent it to Civilità Cattolica.
I had a chance to read the text and it's clear that the encyclical wasn't ready for publication. It was just a first draft. There were many interesting themes, but it wasn't yet publishable. At one point Father LaFarge wrote, “[I]t is just to refute the sentiment of anti-Semitism but this does not signify that the Church should not take precautions with regard to the Jews.”
I do not dare imagine that this would have happened today if Pius XII had consented to the publication of the text.
—Antonio Gaspari
----- EXCERPT: A Jesuit historian sets the record straight about the Pope and the Nazis ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pierre Blet ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S.Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Catholics Booby-Trap Chapel to Save It
After “a series of spectacular multi-alarm fires” destroyed Eden Hall Academy in 1969, all that remains of the historic Catholic girls’ school is its chapel, according to the Dec. 2 Philadelphia Daily News.
The chapel has become popular with two groups, for very different reasons.
“For neighborhood vandals, it's like a huge, challenging jungle gym. They have shimmied up the walls, climbed the rain spouts, knocked down the doors, broken locks, and destroyed rare stained-glass windows,” according to the article. “Since the chapel can't be seen from the street, it is ideal for beer-drinking and pot-smoking.”
But local Catholics have come to the rescue, and convinced the city it is a treasure worth spending $850,000 to restore. A group called Friends of Fluehr Park has “trimmed rain spouts” and “greased a couple of walls to discourage intrepid climbers,” according to the article. Next, they hope to hire a security caretaker to watch it at night.
The chapel has a rich history.
“The school for girls from wealthy Catholic families was operated by the French Madames of the Sacred Heart, and the wealthy Drexel and Bouvier families were closely associated with Eden Hall.… The Drexels built a family crypt in the chapel, which is now empty, and Blessed Mother Katharine Drexel … frequently visited the school,” according to the article.
“The 28 stained glass windows were created by top 19th-century artists from England, France, and Germany.”
Catholic Opposes Politicized Union Dues
Business Week magazine, in its Dec. 8 issue, profiles Pat Rooney, chairman emeritus of Golden Rule Financial Corp, “the top seller of individual and small-group health policies,” and argues that the Catholic businessman and activist bucks stereotypes.
“House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) failed to pass federal legislation that would have made it more difficult for unions to contribute members’ money to political campaigns. But he hasn't given up, and he has an able assistant on the case: J. Patrick Rooney, an Indianapolis insurance magnate who has proven himself an effective salesman for hot-button issues such as school choice and medical savings accounts.”
The article continues, “Rooney, a devout Catholic who studied for the priesthood in his youth, seems to relish the fracas. ‘I'm a crusader,’ he says. The courtly patriarch of his family's privately held company, Rooney, 69, can afford to take political risks most CEOs duck.
“Although Rooney has solid conservative credentials, he does not fit any stereotype. A vegetarian and former member of the American Civil Liberties Union, he has worshipped for 17 years at Holy Angels, a black Catholic church in downtown Indianapolis. ‘White people accept integration when they're in charge. I wanted to go and worship with black people in their church,’ he says.”
According to the article Rooney is concerned about the misuse of labor union dues as an issue of justice. “This is a fairness issue,” he is quoted saying. “People who work hard for their money ought to be able to authorize it before it gets used for political purposes.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:The Pope Praises Film
The Los Angeles Times arts and entertainment section Dec. 2 reported John Paul II's words about film, which he delivered the day before at a Vatican conference.
“Pope John Paul II praised the art of movie making as a bearer of ‘sublime, messages’ and called the cinema ‘a particularly suitable means of recounting the inexpressible mystery which surrounds the world and man.’”
“Avoiding past Vatican condemnations of sex and violence in movies, John Paul—a former actor himself—spoke in glowing terms of film's capacity to help spread values that ‘enrich the human spirit.… This new form of art can add much of value to the inexorable … search that man carries out, widening consciousness both of the world that surrounds him and of his interior universe.”
Adman John Paul II?
Does the Pope prefer cars with sunroofs? In a Business Week article about inexpensive and effective ads, published Dec. 8, Tom Amico's work at the agency Meldrum & Fewsmith was featured.
According to the article, he was looking for new work to do when “he got a phone call from a friend. ‘This guy had an auto improvement place that wasn't doing that well,’ recalls Amico. ‘The guy was running ads, but they were very generic, the kind the newspaper would come up with themselves, and it had the name of the place and the store hours.’”
Amico and his partner Jim Proimos began to think of ways to produce ads for his friend that would not include any pictures, which are more expensive. They came up with a plan to concoct celebrity “endorsements” of the friend's auto improvement services.
One successful ad featured the Pope, “pointing out that a sunroof would make it easier to drive while wearing his papal headgear.” To give the ad a deeper, more spiritual dimension—and to offer customers added incentive— the firm added a discount. “[A]nyone who could recite the first 10 words of the ‘Our Father’ got $5 off a $150 sunroof.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: In Guiding Synods, Cardinal Stresses 'Universal Over Local' DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Among the key challenges facing the Special Synod of Bishops for America is how to reach out to Catholics who have fallen away from the Church, said the head of the month-long assembly.
Pope John Paul II's agenda for the Synod reflects what he sees as a “need for new evangelization for the third millennium,” Cardinal Jan Schotte told journalists.
The cardinal's office guided preparation of the working document for the synod entitled Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: the Way to Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity in America. He said they tried to promote unity, and that's one reason the synod title speaks about “America” as a single continent.
“We thought about ‘western hemisphere,’‘Pan-American’or ‘the Americas,’ but these were rejected, because if you say ‘Americas,’ you favor division. This term favors unity,” he said.
While debate at the synod has been lively, Cardinal Schotte stressed that unity in helping the Church carry out its teaching is paramount. A synod “is not a political convention where different parties try to convince the others,” he said. “It's not a democratic parliament.”
“The synod is an exercise in episcopal collegiality, the only such instrument at the level of the Universal Church,” the cardinal said.
He said he hoped Synod participants “won't talk about issues from a local point of view, but from a higher and more universal perspective.”
“I hope the Latin American reality will not dominate the Synod, just as I hope the North American reality will not dominate the Synod,” he said. He said his office had tried to reduce the possibility of creating strong national “blocs” by using a formula that limited the number of representatives from large countries, such as Brazil and the United States.
Three years ago, Cardinal Schotte oversaw the synod of bishops of Africa. Although now in the midst of the American Synod, he is already hard at work on synods right up to the year 2000.
In the spring of 1998 the Asian episcopate will meet, followed next fall by the Oceanic episcopate. Then in the spring of 1999 the European bishops will meet for a second time (their first synod took place in 1991).
The last synod, planned for fall of 1999, will involve the Universal Church in discussing: The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World.
—Stephen Banyra
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Rejuvenating the Catholic Intellectual Tradition DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Dr. James Turner, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, is also director of its fledgling Erasmus Institute, a research-oriented entity which aims to aid secular academic studies by making resources from the Catholic tradition available. “Augustine, Aquinas, even Lonergan ought to be available as sources for anyone doing scholarship in the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences,” said Turner, whose field is intellectual history. The Erasmus Institute is designed to bridge the gap between theological speculation and purely academic research.
“The profound faith of modernity,” Turner noted, “was to ground itself in a non-religious perspective.” Yet many now realize that such a view is “severely strained.” Turner believes this means the way is open for secular thinkers to consult the vast body of Catholic intellectual scholarship unencumbered by the modern prejudice against religion.
“We do not make any credal demands on the part of academics who might consult our Catholic sources,” said Turner. “The Erasmus Institute doesn't depend on personal faith conviction.” He adds: “As a matter of fact, the Catholic tradition says that natural reason gets you a very long way.”
Such a vindication of the Catholic intellectual tradition by Professor Turner seemed to complement the sentiments of Archbishop Francis George, who, in an October address at Georgetown University, had challenged Catholic institutions to recover the tradition of philosophic and theological inquiry. “Reason has become too narrowly focused,” the archbishop noted in his Georgetown lecture.
“I'm not terribly comfortable with a hard dichotomy between faith and reason,” said Professor Turner, adding that it was precisely the Catholic tradition's vindication of human reason that would make the interchange between religious and secular thought a possibility. Giving a concrete historical example, Dr. Turner noted that there was a continuity between “late medieval speculation about creation and the accomplishments of 17th century science.”
Professor James Hitchcock of the history department at St. Louis University called the formation of the Institute “an exciting possibility.” “The notion that our post-modern age may be receptive to a colloquium between religious thinkers and secular academicians is a hopeful one.”
Nevertheless, Hitchcock argued, there still remains in the secular academic mainstream a suspicion of if not hostility to religion. “On the legal front,” said Hitchcock, “writers and intellectuals like Ronald Dworkin and Richard Rorty have effectively excluded religion, in principle; while Harvard's Richard Lewontin feels that religious believers should not bring their dogmatic concerns to the table to discuss the cloning issue.”
Whatever the extent of anti-religious opinion on secular campuses, others are alarmed at the condition of Catholic university departments of theology. They are concerned that a thorough-going pluralism in theology has threatened the unity of belief. However, Turner thinks of the work of the Institute as independent of theology departments, saying its aim “is neither the reform nor the enhancement of Catholic theology.”
Although the Erasmus Institute was not founded as a direct response to the call for clearer Catholic identity—set forth, for example, in the Vatican document Ex Corde Ecclesiae—Turner feels that the Institute will nonetheless contribute to that goal. “Anytime that the university can bring forward the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition for the benefit of scholars, the university has provided a unique service that confirms its own Catholic identity.”
Concerning the outreach of Catholic scholars to the secular world, Peter Casarella, a professor at The Catholic University in Washington, D.C., underscored the desire of Pope John Paul II, expressed in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, “that the Catholic university become more attentive to the cultures of the world of today.” “Even in the preconciliar period we can mark a fruitful interchange between Catholic intellectuals and their secular counterparts,” Casarella said. “We've just been reading in class [Catholic philosopher Jacques] Maritain's Art and Scholasticism, a wonderful effort to bring the riches of medieval thought to bear on issues like artistic creativity.”
Although the Erasmus Institute's Turner seemed to eschew any preoccupation with hot-button issues such as theological dissent or residual anti-Catholicism, he did note a convergence of sorts between the work of the Institute and certain politically charged topics, for example the just-war theory. “There is much work being done in ecumenical circles on a theological approach to war and peace. We would like to facilitate this research, although we are not committed to any specifically political response to the public debate.”
On the practical level, Turner said, “the Institute plans to establish residential fellowships at Notre Dame, but also to conduct conferences and smaller workshops at other institutions, eventually involving itself in publishing efforts.” The Erasmus Institute was founded with an initial grant of $1.5 million from an anonymous benefactor.
While sympathetic with the aims of the Institute—“It will be great if they can pull it off”—James Hitchcock also reflected about another way in which secular academicians have encountered the Catholic intellectual tradition. “Individual scholars such as Alasdair MacIntyre [chairman of the philosophy department at Duke], who operate from within a religious context, often have more influence by the sheer weight of their intellectual contributions than an institute might have. They simply have to be taken seriously by the probative force of their work,” said Hitchcock.
“Eugene Genovese [professor of history at Rutgers] is an interesting case of an individual with bona fide secular credentials who is returning to his Catholic faith and seeing how that faith now affects his work as an historian,” said Hitchcock. In Hitchcock's opinion, the presence of such Catholic intellectual giants who impact secular thinkers has something wholly unpredictable about it. “We can't exactly order them up, they just happen.”
The Institute takes its name from Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) perhaps the foremost humanist and intellectual arbiter of the early sixteenth century. Although he became a priest and doctor of theology, it was as a lover of books, a tireless writer, and companion to his fellow humanists (including St. Thomas More) that he is remembered. The late Carlton Hayes, historian, noted that “more than Petrarch, Erasmus might be called the scholar of Europe.”
Although Erasmus directed much satire toward theologians and churchmen generally, he never questioned the ultimate authority of the Church or the Pope. And while his half-skeptical bent never appealed, for example, to Ignatius Loyola, his last literary sorties were directed against Luther and the breakup of Christendom. The role of intellectual broker between the world of religion and the new classical studies which were focusing on the ancient world makes of Erasmus an apt emblem for the work of the Institute which now bears his name.
James Sullivan is based in Fairfield, Conn. He is Director of Development for Thomas More College.
----- EXCERPT: The Erasmus Institute aims to extend Catholic thought beyond Church circles ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The New Population Problem DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Recently population specialists from around the world met at the United Nations to discuss a new population problem: Has population control gone too far?
Demographers have been watching the decline in population growth rates during the past 20 years. The latest report, World Population Prospects: the 1996 Revision, tells us that during the past decade growth rates fell faster, fertility declines in individual nations were greater and more widespread than expected, and migration was more extensive than previously anticipated.
For practical purposes such evidence has long been known in terms of rates of growth, fertility, and mortality. The new phenomenon has to do with the actual numbers of people. Demographers knew that the peak rate of population growth had declined from 2.1% to 1.48% between the 1960s and 1995. They also knew that actual world population will continue to increase from 5.7 billion today to about 9.4 billion by 2050. The new phenomenon is this: Each year until 2000, world population will increase by 81 million; that figure will steadily decline to about 41 million by 2050.
Population control advocates focus on the overall increase, which seems large. Little attention has been given to the annual decline in births. Yet this decline raises new questions. What happens when the annual number of new births slows down appreciably or even stops entirely? What happens when a highly productive, affluent, powerful, and comfortable nation no longer has enough young people to staff the work force, to produce new goods and continue its economic progress? What happens to a nation's ability to defend itself? Who provides the financial resources for social security, health care, and other necessary services?
To some degree, migration provides a short-range solution for the work force and for commerce. Technology also provides some replacement for workers. But labor unions are concerned about the future for today's workers and sufficient jobs for tomorrow's.
Look at the impact on education. In many U.S. suburban areas there is a present demand for new schools and new teachers. But in 20 to 30 years there will be fewer children. Schools will close, and many of today's young teachers will no longer be necessary.
At the same time that children are declining in number, the number of older people is constantly growing. We are entering an era in which older people will outnumber children 3 to 1. In affluent countries such as the United States this figure could be 8 to 1. The practical effect will be felt most strongly in pension programs, where there will not be enough people putting money away to take care of those taking money out. The result can be bankruptcy of the pension plan.
Until now there has been a well-organized, highly financed crusade to lower fertility and population growth. The United States has been in the forefront of that crusade. Focusing on concern about the global environment, Vice President Al Gore cited the projected increase in world population to 9 billion as reaching “right up to the ceiling.” He claimed that “the developing countries still have very, very large families,” and he recommended fewer children per family, more birth control, and more “empowerment of women” through “reproductive health” services. At the Cairo Population Conference and the Beijing Women's Conference, the United States pushed hard for population control and for inclusion of abortion as a method of family planning.
The vice president has much to learn about population. There is no absolute ceiling for the number of people on earth, and population increase is not the cause of global warming. Demographers now find that population decline is the problem, not population growth—and foreign nations rebel at American efforts to force birth control and abortion on them.
It is a new demographic moment for the world, and a challenge to all of us to create economic, social, public health, and cultural conditions that enable the world to welcome children and ensure longevity and dignity for all people. But basic to this is truth—truth about population growth and decline, truth about environmental problems, and truth about the responsibility of governments to aid one another for the good of all people.
Bishop James McHugh, of Camden, N.J., is a member of the NCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities.
----- EXCERPT: Editorial ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop James McHugh ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Muggeridge's Quest for a Hope that Lasts DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:THE THOROUGHLY fascinating life story of Malcolm Muggeridge has been told several times. In fact, the most interesting biographer of Muggeridge was Muggeridge himself—especially in the two volumes he called Chronicles of Wasted Time. But Muggeridge does not tell the story as thoroughly or in as orderly a fashion as does Gregory Wolfe, in Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography. Muggeridgeís account, though couched in more colorful language, is sketchy by comparison to Wolfe's, with many major events omitted.
It is impossible in this review to recount even the highlights of this remarkable life. I must leave readers to discover them in the book: Muggeridge's socialist upbringing and association with leading political figures of the day; his long list of adulterous affairs lasting until he was almost 60 years old; his many novels and plays; how he raised his wife Kitty's child by another man as if the child were his own; Muggeridge and Kitty's agreement that Kitty have an abortion and their later pro-life work; how Muggeridge as an intelligence officer captured a German U-boat during the war; the public outcry and threats against him in the “Royalty Scandal”; details of his associations with Mother Teresa, Kim Philby (the British double agent who later defected to the Soviet Union), Field Marshall Montgomery, and many others; Muggeridge's five years as editor of the British humor magazine Punch; his radio and TV fame; and on and on.
Here we can only examine the larger trends of Muggeridge's life. One of the most important of these is how the question “to be or not to be” dominated most of his life. For Muggeridge this was not a question focused on suicide, though he did once determine to take his own life. Rather it was a question of a profound “urge to be gone” (his own phrase). This was not simply an urge to be through of embarrassing situations. It was a more fundamental impulse simply to not exist at all. One of Bob Dylan's songs speaks of the times “when you are tired of your self and all of your creations.” That sort of experience was not just a passing one for Muggeridge, but a life-long condition.
The high point of Muggeridge's attempts to be gone came when he was 41 years old and posted in Mozambique as an intelligence officer for England during the World War II. He determined to take his own life by drowning. After driving to an isolated spot along the coast he swam far out to sea to finish the business. But he then experienced a change of heart that he could never explain. It was difficult, but he managed to swim back to land, and he was now ecstatic to be alive.
Though Malcolm later wrote of the experience as a dramatic turning point, it was only so in a limited way. He still thought about suicide later in life, but he was never again really close to actually attempting it.
Yet “to be or not to be” remained Muggeridge's quintessential question. Throughout life his “urge to be gone” led to a remarkable number of moves and travels: to India twice, to Egypt, the Soviet Union, Mozambique, the United States, and Australia. And when a scandal erupted in England about a controversial article he wrote in regard to the British royal family, Muggeridge solved things by leaving—this time to wander the globe for a year.
Underlining this trend, Wolfe reports a striking entry in Muggeridge's diary when he was 43. After he had returned to England following the war, Muggeridge wrote that he still continued to experience “my old longing to cease to be.”
The same unrest about himself was the key motivation when Muggeridge, at the age of 29, decided to go to the Soviet Union. He went as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian but he also went as a great sympathizer for the hope that the Soviet Union claimed it represented. Muggeridge was recalling his own state of mind at the time when he wrote about a character in one of his novels: “he longed to lose himself in the dictatorship of the Proletariat.”
Muggeridge longed to find somewhere where he might at last find a self, and a life, that could be significant in his own eyes. For as he once said, in the West he felt that the decay of civilization made all his individual actions insignificant.
But even while he was still traveling to the Soviet Union the truth about its conditions began to become apparent. After some time of observing what the authorities would allow reporters to see, Muggeridge privately took a journey to Rostov even though this was forbidden by Soviet policy. There he saw the devastation wrought by communism: abandoned villages, empty farms and neglected fields, peasants being rounded up at gun-point. Muggeridge courageously wrote three articles telling the truth about the situation and had them smuggled out in diplomatic bags. But back in England his reports were not well received because they did not fit the picture of the Soviet socialist ideal held by British intellectuals.
Muggeridge was doubly disillusioned. The Soviet Union had dashed his hopes, and the liberal establishment in the West was not interested in the truth. This incident was only the most striking of his many disillusionments with the political and social institutions of this world. But the problem really started in his own heart. He held his illusions to begin with because he had yet to find where true hope lay.
But in later life another trend of grace in Muggeridge's life changed things. He had been fascinated with holiness and spirituality at various times, and he reached his own conversion in 1967 at the age of 64. It happened when he was in the Holy Land to produce a series of programs about the life of Christ. While he was waiting to film in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem he saw that the demeanor of all types of people markedly changed when they approached the holy spot where Christ was born. And through this witness of other people's faith, Muggeridge at last found his own—and he found a hope that would not disappoint.
The final step, his conversion, and Kitty's, to Catholicism came some 15 years later. They had been working with Father Paul Bidone at a home for the retarded in England. After several years of association, Father Bidone wrote the Muggeridges and said, “It is time.” They knew what he meant and they accepted. They were received into the Catholic Church in November 1982.
In the end Gregory Wolfe ranks Muggeridges importance to our times higher than most would. And the portrait of Muggeridge in his book might be more objective if Wolfe had not been so personally close to Muggeridge during his later years. However, this is a valuable book about a life well worth reporting.
Gerry Rauch is an assistant editor of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gerry Rauch ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: A Guide to Hear God More Clearly DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:IF A HANDBOOK is defined as a type of manual or other reference work offering information about a particular subject, then The Collegeville Bible Handbook fulfills that definition in spades. This handy one-volume edition represents a condensed version of The Collegeville Bible Commentary published by Liturgical Press.
The purpose of both works is to fulfill Vatican II's teaching that Scripture and its meaning should be available to all Christians (cf. Dei Verbum, 22). Whereas the Commentary provides popularly written but more extended analysis of biblical texts, the Handbook offers summaries of main theological themes and contents of each biblical book. The order of topics treated in the Handbook follows that of the Commentary to facilitate cross-referencing of covered material.
That the Handbook is a condensation of the Commentary ensures use of the most recent advances in critical Catholic exegetical scholarship. Many highly respected contemporary Catholic exegetes (e.g., Daniel Harrington SJ, Richard Clifford SJ, Alice Laffey, Pheme Perkins, Lawrence Boadt CSP, John Collins, etc.) contributed to the Commentary. Their scholarship, which employs the newest advances in history, archaeology, and literary criticism helps to establish more clearly the Ancient Near Eastern cultural environment out of which the Bible grew. This carries out the dictates of Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, which requires Catholic exegetes to use appropriate ancillary sciences to discern the underlying theological message of Sacred Scripture.
The table of contents provides a multi-color legend that seeks to identify broadly the differing sections (or literary genre) of each book. This same color coded legend is used at the top of each page of the text so that one can recognize—broadly speaking— the type of literature each biblical book represents. Some of the colors are, unfortunately, too similar (e.g., the red of the New Testament historical books and the maroon of the Pauline and Catholic epistles) to make quick identification of literary type.
There are 70 short chapters with a brief (two-page) general index at the end. Each chapter contains an introductory explanation of the biblical book or books (e.g., 1 & 2 Samuel, Kings, Chronicles; Ezra and Nehemiah are treated together, as are Ezekiel and Daniel) and that situates it in historical context, identifies the source or literary genre, and main theological themes. Following the introduction is the commentary section that is subdivided into parts identified by chapter and verse. The specific chapter being addressed is cited at the top of each page which is extremely helpful in skimming the handbook for particular biblical texts. Spread throughout the text are many helpful maps, timelines, artist's renditions (e.g., of Solomon's Temple, etc.), and photographs, all of which bring the biblical text alive. They also underscore the fundamental theological truth that Christianity's foundation is in fact historical; God acts in human history bringing his providential plan of salvation to completion.
The Handbook is written in terms easily understandable by the non-specialist. In this way it educates laypeople about the Bible's historical, religious, and cultural background and combats the errors of fundamentalism, which interprets the text literally.
Prior to the Enlightenment (17th century) the entire Bible was taken as literally and historically true. Given its divine inspiration, the Bible does relate divine truth, but it does so using many human writers (Scripture's secondary authors), who express themselves differently and recount truth in different ways.
Instructing laypeople on these ideas is central to gaining a deeper understanding of the Bible and its theological message, as well as helping to dispel some doubts about faith caused by scholars’ misuse of scientific method. Knowledge, it is said, is power. Educating the laity empowers them to better hear and understand the Word of God.
In that way we might begin to reverse Voltaire's famous expression. “If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated [by making him in our own image].”
Understanding God's word enables us to live as God wants us to, and to let God truly be our God.
Stigmatine Father Pius Murray is a professor of Old Testament and library director at Pope John XXIII National Seminary, Weston, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pius Murray css ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Role of the Laity
The article “Role of Laity Spelled Out By Vatican” on the front page of the Nov. 30—Dec. 6 issue of the Register disappointed me. The document it discusses is an “Instruction” on liturgical norms, but parts of the article imply that the Vatican is placing limits on any sort of ministering by non-ordained faithful.
The document itself is careful to note that misunderstandings are rife around the word “ministry” and defines it in specific terms. The article does not clarify the word, “ministry,” but simply uses and quotes it out of context, advancing the misunderstandings that the document, in part, was issued to correct.
Likewise, the document explicitly states: “This is not the place to develop the theological and pastoral richness of the role of the lay faithful in the Church that has already been amply treated in the apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici,” belying the Register's headline, and the title of the sidebar, “The Limits of Lay Ministry.”
I have come to trust the Register's fair and well-researched articles, but this article was neither and actually misled me as to the purpose and content of the document. The document lays out primarily liturgical norms to avoid confusion as to the role of the ordained priest, and was directed to bishops for implementation.
The document as I understand it is not a teaching on the kind or manner of lay mission outside liturgical celebrations. This and any other official documents are available through the official Vatican website (www.vatican.va) and many are available through the Paulist Press. I encourage readers to look up Christifideles Laici, and the editors and writers of the Register to double-check their research in the future.
Robert King Seattle, Washington
The Bible Code
Father Pius Murray's lengthy review of The Bible Code (“The Bible: A Soothsayer's Stock-in-Trade?”, Nov. 30-Dec. 6) was reasonable and fair in his presentation of the facts but not so reasonable and fair in his conclusions.
When sentences begin with, “He seems to imply,” that's always a red flag—indication that there is going to be more read into the object of criticism than should be read out.
Far from denying any supernatural origin of the Bible, the author, Michael Drosnin, includes the question, “Who could have done this?” addressed to the mathematician who discovered the code. The one-word answer was, “God.”
The code presents predictions of specific events in much the same detailed ways that Scripture has always recounted. The book concludes with mathematical formulas showing that the odds against the code being chance or coincidence are more than, clearly ruling out anything but intention and plan on the part of the Author.
The Bible Code does not in any way deny that the Old Testament spoke to contemporary people or to us in the same ways: challenging us to conform to God's laws. Rather, the book simply presented a new dimension of God's revelation to what we already knew.
Remember how the religious authorities of Jesus' time responded to his new relation. They were so attached to their limited awareness of how God communicated, that they were ready to kill rather than accept a new and more wonderful way that the Lord wanted us to.
Our best bet is to accept all the ways God wishes to communicate to us. Otherwise we will limit God's access to our minds and hearts and lose a significant measure of his blessings.
Father David Altman Huntsville, Utah
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Arbiters of Life and Death: Boldly, Foolishly Playing God DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:“Many of the critical moments in our lives require that we rise to meet responsibilities given to us, not chosen by us.… We are bound to our children, not because we chose them, but because we were given them; simply because they are our children, our very near neighbors.”
So wrote the U.S. Catholic bishops in their October 1995 statement, Faithful for Life. Who could have known that events would overtake it so soon, making the second sentence of this reflection almost a quaint time piece. In particular, the part about “not” choosing our children. For at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, The New York Times recently reported that couples are already doing just that: choosing for implantation in the woman's womb from among embryos whose biological parents have been selected for certain desirable pedigrees. This, in turn, is one very, very short step away from manipulating the basic building blocks of the human person—genes—to more precisely determine the human person created. A technical nicety that experts assure is just around the corner.
Also showing the degree to which we are throwing providence to the wind—the surprising reactions to the news of the McCaughey septuplets. The amount of public sentiment for “selective reduction” (abortion) of some multiple births, even mandatory “reduction” is stunning.
“How else to control outcomes?” goes the argument. How else to have our cake (fertility and assisted reproduction technologies) and eat it too (no excessively multiple births or disabled neonates)?
Bobbi McCaughey's response to the news that she was carrying seven children was the model of acceptance: She expressed reliance on God and then turned the question around to ask her critics which of the seven they would destroy.
On the other extreme, however, the well-known ethicist George Annas opined that: “Women who conceive more than [three or four fetuses] should agree to selectively reduce the additional fetuses.… If people won't agree in principle … they're not ready to protect their child and that should be a pre-condition to having medical assistance to have a baby—that you put your baby's health before your own wishes and ideas.” (Make that some babies’ health. Moral pronouncements purporting to support babies, which endorse killing them, can get bizarre.)
God gave us an inch— co-creation—and we stole a mile, frighteningly unaware that no one could possibly play God with the skill of the very Author of life and death.
Some will argue that we ought not to be surprised by such sentiments—in a country where 1.5 million unborn children are “reduced” from one to zero every year. But unfortunately, there is still room for surprises. Abortion often involves denial of the value of the unborn. With “reduction,” however, there is a simultaneous acceptance and rejection of human life. Human beings at the identical stage of development are chosen for destruction based on their degree of vulnerability, or even location in the womb. A harrowing Wall Street Journal account of one couple's “reduction” surgery put it this way:
“Dr. Evans hovers over the woman's belly with a foot-long needle and examines shadowy uterine images on the ultrasound scanner. He looks for a deformity that would make the selection easier. But finally he says: ‘We don't see anything obviously wrong with any of them, so we're just debating which is easiest to get to.’… [H]e punctures the chest cavity of one fetus. ‘Perfect,’ he whispers. He injects three cubic centimeters of potassium chloride. The fetus flails its arms and legs, then stops.”
This national obsession with control is also observed in another public conversation—that concerning the recent rash of neonaticides by teenage mothers around the country. A New York Times article by Steven Pinker suggested that murderous maternal inclinations are not really aberrant in human history. In fact, it was suggested, they may be a programmed response to the maternal understanding that a child is not favored by circumstance—its mother's age, unmarried state, etc.—to thrive. So out you go.
The mother of the seven sons in the Book of Maccabees cries out: “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you” (2 Mc 7, 22-23). Modern man and woman instead argue that the moral questions raised by human intervention into reproduction are “beside the point.” “It's normal human nature” to want to choose the characteristics of your children, so “don't accuse us of playing God,” says a famous fertility specialist.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information in the office of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen Alvaré ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Good gets a Bad Rap DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:When Catholics think of vocation they usually think of a calling to priest-hood or to the religious life. However, Catholic theology has always held that any calling by God is a vocation, whether it is a calling to marriage, the military, teaching—or even business.
But Catholics often fail to think of entrepreneurship as a vocation. Surely God does not call someone to make money, manage a shop, or work in a corporation. Surely these activities are too mundane to be considered vocational. Such thinking, common in certain quarters of the Church, betrays a faulty theology, traceable to misguided attitudes about the goodness of the created order.
At Odds with the Spiritual World?
When people regard the created order with suspicion they also call into question the fundamental goodness of the material dimension of human existence. This attitude is at the root of conflicts over the morality of the free-market and the entrepreneurial vocation. It stems from the Gnostic-inspired view that sees the material world as evil and unrelated to spirituality.
Those who hold this perspective think that since matter is evil, its possession and use must also be evil. There have been several forms of this position throughout Christian history. For example, the Franciscan Spirituals (an early faction within the Franciscan order which has now disappeared) were radical proponents of apostolic poverty in a dispute over whether the followers of St. Francis could own any property at all. Another example from our own times is the stream of liberation theology inspired by Marx. For these groups, poverty becomes the “narrow gate” of renunciation spoken of by Christ. They do not limit the demand of poverty to those who have a special call. The implication is that wealth is sinful, and that the wealthy must relinquish their money in order to be absolved of worldliness.
An appreciation of the balanced view of man's relation to the material world—held by the majority of Christians throughout the ages—offers a corrective to such an imbalance. Such a view can be found in one of Christ's parables.
Parable of the Talents
In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells the Parable of the Talents. Parables, it must be remembered, contain many layers of meaning. The essence of these teaching stories has to do with how humans manage God's gift of grace. Yet in terms of the material world, the Parable of the Talents is a story about capital, investment, entrepreneurship, and the proper use of scarce economic resources. It issues a challenge to those who see a contradiction between the Christian life and success in business.
The word ‘talent’ has several meanings. But in this context it appears to have two primary meanings. It was a monetary unit. More broadly interpreted, the talents refer to all of the various gifts God has given us for use in his kingdom. This definition embraces all the gifts—natural, spiritual, and material. It includes our natural abilities and resources, our health and education—as well as our possessions, money and opportunities.
The parable also teaches about how we are to use our God-given capacities and resources. In the book of Genesis, God charges Adam with cultivating the earth so that it might bring forth fruit. Similarly in the parable, the master expects his servants to cultivate the wealth he entrusted to them. Rather than passively preserve what they had been given, they were expected to invest the money.
Jesus admonishes us to make good use of our talents. We have little problem understanding talents as helping the poor, creating works of beauty, and so on. However, if that talent is understood as making money—entrepreneurship—many Christians think that an entirely different set of rules applies.
Christians are called to use what we might call human capital. Capital is best defined as anything that can be used as a means of production. There are four primary kinds of capital: physical capital (which includes land and natural resources, as well as machinery and other produced means of production), physical human capital (manual labor), intellectual capital (creativity, intelligence), and inter-personal capital (an individual's relationships which help him produce things he cannot produce by himself).
Capital is instrumental to human action. Nature has ample resources to provide for man's needs, but only after man interacts in some way with his surroundings and utilizes the world in which he finds himself. Capital is a tool, not an end in itself, and the creation or accumulation of capital is always for some other purpose. Every person requires capital in order to exercise his freedom effectively and obtain even the most meager standard of existence. Thus the entire concept of capital and capital formation points back to the centrality of the acting person who is capable of being creative.
Human Creativity
What, exactly, does it mean to “create?” To create means to make something of value that did not exist before. The ability to create is a capacity reserved only to persons. Animals, for example, make things not by choice but by instinct. Thus animals lack the crucial aspect of creativity, namely, choice. While human persons do not exhibit the same degree and type of creativity as God (the ability to create something from nothing), nonetheless they are capable of exercising creative powers.
When we think of human creativity, however, we often think only of people who work in the realm of ideas or the non-physical world. Or we think of someone working in the fine arts such as a sculptor or a musician. But creativity is broader than that. It is a constituent of human action.
Everyday experience shows that we create things in order to fill needs. And the scarcity of goods and services causes us to search for ways, often new ways, of satisfying our needs. Furthermore, we must be creative because every need is related to the subjectivity of a person, and thus every need is unique. In addition, similar needs arise in different circumstances and so require different responses. It follows, then, that creativity is intrinsic to our response to human need—which is another way of saying that creativity is intrinsic to human action.
Moreover, to act creatively—that is, to create something— requires interaction with the external world; it requires action. And far from being only a small segment of people's lives, creativity is a central expression of human personhood. In fact, the primary form of capital is our ability to respond creatively to need as it arises. Therefore, Catholic social teaching asserts that the fundamental economic and social reality is human capital because only when the intelligence, industry, and creativity of the human person is brought to bear on other resources can needs be met productively.
Entrepreneurship: The Universal Vocation
The application of human capital can be described broadly as entrepreneurial. The prudent person finds ways to maximize his potential and thus adequately meet his needs and the needs of others. Since each person possesses human capital and must develop it to some degree, it is fair to speak of entrepreneurship as a universal vocation.
Entrepreneurship is linked specifically to business and market activity—to the creation of wealth. Such a vocation is often disdained, or at least held in moral suspicion. But there is a universal human vocation to creative enterprise.
The total dynamism of the Christian life necessarily encompasses the material order—including the world of business and finance—by virtue of the Creation and the Incarnation, as mentioned previously. The vocation of the business person, the vocation of those who have the talent to produce wealth, to use their abilities to build the kingdom of God in conjunction with their leaders, is nothing new.
What does all this mean to those in the vocation of enterprise? It means that they must strive to be more fully what they are by calling to display more fully the virtue of inventiveness; to act more boldly with the virtue of creativity; to continue to be other-regarding as they anticipate market demands, as they develop and educate others in the virtue of thrift; not merely to share their wealth with those in need, but to tutor others, by their example and their mentorship, how to become wealth producers themselves. An entrepreneurial vocation requires a continued watchfulness in the art of discovery, to create employment opportunities for those who would otherwise go without.
The temptation is to think that the worlds of finance and business have no spiritual dimension or meaning. Or perhaps to be tempted in the opposite direction: to think that all that matters is the bottom line, and that no other values should have any bearing. In those moments, recall the Incarnation, and the price that was paid by the Son of God in that freely chosen act to enter the material world and to sanctify it.
The capacities of each human person for love, creativity, reasoned acquisition, and application of material resources, and for generosity and charity, all bespeak the notion of human capital. The richness of the human person is humanity's greatest resource.
We are all called to apply our human capital for our own sake and the well-being of others. This application will take many different forms. Some will be called to be doctors, others teachers, and still others to go into the marketplace and find ways to serve their neighbor through the production of a specific set of goods or services. This latter vocation, the call to business activity—to entrepreneurship—should not be immediately seen as improper or morally suspect. While any vocation may be motivated by greed or the pursuit of selfish gain, clearly not all entrepreneurs suffer from such corruption.
Christ's Incarnation sanctifies the whole material world and attests to the dignity of man. The call to a life in consonance with our God-given talents brings with it the expectation that we will share in the traits of our Creator and Father. Namely, that we will use our love, intellect, and labor to create for ourselves, others, and the glory of God.
Over the next few months the Register will present examples of Christian entrepreneurs, highlighting men and women who have been successful in business while remaining faithful to God, exemplars of those called to an entrepreneurial vocation.
Gregory Gronbacher, PhD, is Director of the Center for Economic Personalism at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: Does God really call some people to be entrepreneurs and make lots of money? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gregory Gronbacher ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Septuplet Case Offers Teaching Moment on Fertility Drugs DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:No sooner had Bobbi McCaughey of Carlisle, Iowa, given birth to seven babies at once than pundits and public commentators began to pontificate. Some said Bobbi and her husband, Kenny, should have aborted some of the children to lessen the health risks for those remaining. Others asserted it is immoral to bring so many into the world.
Still others criticized McCaughey's statements that allowing all the children to be born was an act that came out of her trust in God. She didn't trust in him, they scolded, when she turned to fertility drugs.
Spectacular events, such as the birth of septuplets, are “teaching moments” and there is no better source to help us understand such events than the teachings of the Catholic Church, which Pope Paul VI called “the expert in humanity.”
McCaughey bore so many children precisely because she was having difficulty having children. She was treated with a “fertility drug” that led to several of her eggs ripening at the same time. (Normally only one egg matures each month.) At least seven of the eggs that matured became fertilized, and she began down the road that would lead to a rush of media attention and also to personal family joy.
The Church is not opposed to attempts to overcome infertility. In 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), a document dealing with the morality of various technologies then being used to correct infertility. It judged some of them, such as in vitro fertilization (“test-tube” babies), to be immoral, but others, it determined, were morally sound.
“Scientists therefore are to be encouraged to continue their research with the aim of preventing the causes of sterility and of being able to remedy them so that sterile couples will be able to procreate in full respect for their own personal dignity and that of the child to be born,” the document said.
McCaughey had been on a fertility drug for more than a year with no success. So her doctor suggested she try the powerful drug Metrodin. It worked. The 29-year-old woman showed no lack of trust in God. Rather she was attempting, with the help of science, to correct a “defect of nature” so that she could achieve one of the purposes of marriage—child-bearing.
The Church has always supported the attempts of science to overcome biological defects. After McCaughey conceived seven children, she continued to trust in God, refusing to allow doctors to destroy any of the gifts that had been entrusted to her.
Not all couples who have multiple pregnancies have the moral fortitude of the McCaugheys. Multiple births are not uncommon when fertility drugs are used. Since the risk of premature birth and abnormalities increases with every additional baby, some parents will choose to abort one or more of their children so that the surviving ones will have a better chance. But this involves a couple in an abominable evil—killing some of their children—for the supposed benefit of the others.
If fertility drugs are used to overcome childlessness, certain common-sense moral rules should be followed. Since the effect of the drug will vary with use and with the patient, doctors should avoid the risk of multiple births by using lower dosages or weaker drugs. These approaches lead to fewer health risks for the mother and for the children in the womb. Further, a fertility drug should not be used in conjunction with an immoral procedure such as in vitro fertilization by which the egg of the woman and the sperm of the man are joined in a petri dish. After fertilization, the embryo is placed in the uterus of the woman.
The moral norm couples should use to evaluate particular technological means of overcoming infertility is whether or not the technology replaces the marital act, rather than simply assisting it. If the medical intervention helps the marital act achieve its natural purpose, which is what happens when fertility drugs are used, then it could be morally permissible. If it replaces the marital act, as is the case with in vitro fertilization, then it is immoral. The reason for this norm is that both the human person and the means by which a human person is engendered are of such value that neither can ever be violated.
We do not “make” babies. Such a notion would mean reducing a human person to the level of a manufactured product. Nor do we turn the marital act into a “manufacturing technique.” It is to be a personal act of love between husband and wife, which God may or may not bless with new life.
As Donum Vitae states, “On the part of the spouses, the desire for a child is natural: it expresses the vocation to fatherhood and motherhood inscribed in conjugal love.… Nevertheless, marriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child, but only the right to perform those natural acts which are per se [by their very nature] ordered to procreation.”
One human being cannot have a “right” to another human being. By virtue of being married husbands and wives do have a “right” to the marriage act. Married couples “make love”; they do not “make babies.” Indeed, as we know from Scripture (and common sense) babies are “begotten, not made.”
John Haas is president of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care in Boston, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Haas ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Media Takes a Beating DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Mad City shows why so many people revile the media. But Billy Wilder said it all—and better—almost half a century ago.
Everyone hates the media. It's the convenient whipping boy for our TV-driven, couch-potato, celebrity culture. Even reporters can score points by publicly flagellating themselves for their journalistic excesses.
A few people attack the press for its knee-jerk, left-liberal bias. But most are sickened by its tabloid tendencies—the sensationalizing of newsworthy personalities and events and the consequent neglect of the larger, more complex issues that really matter. The most recent example was the hyped-up coverage of the British au pair convicted in Massachusetts of manslaughter. Tonya Harding, Hugh Grant, and Marv Albert are others whose media-drenched melodramas have cheapened our culture.
Because anti-press sentiments are so widespread, any movie that tackles the subject better have something original to say. Mad City captures the frenzy generated by one of these national media events with accuracy and wit, and its cast of characters is well drawn. But the filmmakers have little that's new to contribute to the discussion, and the story sags under the weight of its overly contrived plot.
The movie opens in Madeleine, Calif. with local TV newsman, Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman), trying to corner a reluctant bank official accused of swindling thousands of seniors out of their savings. In Brackett's mind, his brash, aggressive manner is justified by the nature of the offense which his quarry is alleged to have committed. His editor, Lou Potts (Robert Prosky), believes he has moved the line that defines acceptable journalistic behavior too far and takes him off the story. This seems to be part of Brackett's career pattern. Once a national network reporter back in New York, he was relocated to the boondocks for similar offenses.
Brackett's new assignment looks dull—the budget cuts at the local National Museum of History. But luck seems to be on his side. Just after he's wrapped up his story, a recently fired $8-an-hour security guard, Sam Baily (John Travolta), shows up with an automatic weapon and a sack full of dynamite. He claims he only wants another chance to plead for his job back. The museum director, the aristocratic Mrs. Banks (Blythe Danner), dismisses him in a condescending manner.
The distraught Baily waves his weapon around to get her attention. By accident, it goes off, seriously wounding the black security guard who hadn't been fired. Events spin out of control, and Baily winds up holding the museum director and a group of visiting school children hostage.
Brackett immediately sees the situation's potential as a national story that could get him back on network news, and he manipulates Baily to make that happen. The sadsack security guard is in way over his head. He's an inept terrorist and a poor media spinmaster.
Brackett sees Baily as a symbol for all the frustrated workers who've been laid off for reasons that aren't their fault, and he influences the security guard's behavior to present that message. He's no longer just reporting the news. He's making it happen. He advises Baily on what to say and when to say it, creating an appealing image and educating him in the nuances of hostage-taking. At the same time Brackett makes sure he retains exclusive coverage of the story.
Acclaimed Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z and Missing) and screenwriters Tom Matthews and Eric Williams also show how the media can take over the national consciousness. Baily doesn't really comprehend the full impact of what's happening until he sees the coverage of his own crime on TV. Likewise, the police who've surrounded him don't understand the meaning of their actions until they watch themselves on the tube inside their squad cars.
Mad City's basic premise was ripped off from director Billy Wilder's 1951 classic, The Big Carnival (also known as Ace in the Hole). Its subject is the print media, not TV, but the moral issues are identical. Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas), once a successful news reporter, has been exiled to Albuquerque, N.M. and is looking for a way to get back on top. He sees his chance in the story of a man named Leo trapped alive in a cave-in.
Although Leo could be rescued in less than 24 hours by shoring up the cave's weakened tunnels, Tatum persuades the authorities to use a lengthy drilling process that takes seven days. This gives the reporter time to turn the story into a national event. Leo dies before the rescuers can get to him, but Tatum has manipulated himself back into the big time.
Wilder pulls no punches, and his cynical vision seems more contemporary than Mad City's point of view. His scumbag reporter, Tatum, single-mindedly pursues his own ambitions regardless of the cost to everyone else.
Mad City's journalist, Brackett, is a marshmallow in comparison. During the course of the drama he undergoes a change of heart and bonds with the hostage-taker, Baily. Brackett comes to believe in the message he's trying to spin and fights the network brass to try and get it out.
But more importantly, The Big Carnival understands that the media aren't the only villains. The public is shown to be equally culpable. The trapped man's wife makes money selling refreshments to the crowd of visiting gawkers. When asked to pose praying in some news photos, she cracks, “I don't pray. Kneeling bags my nylons.”
Next to this, Mad City looks tame. Its ultimate bad guys are the yuppie network execs and the scheming anchor, Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda). The film presents the old story of corporate America exploiting the innocent public.
In the age of breast-beating over the O.J. Simpson trial and the excessive paparazzi coverage of Princess Di, a movie like Mad City must do more than point fingers at the press and big business. Its makers should have studied The Big Carnival more carefully and looked into the sensation-seeking hearts of those of us who consume the news.
John Prizer, the Register's Arts & Culture correspondent, is based in Los Angeles.
The USCC classification of Mad City is A-III, Adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Film Clips DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Following are recent film and VHS home videocassette reviews from the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) Office for Film and Broadcasting:
Historical dramatization of the legal battle over the fate of 53 Africans who massacre the crew of a Spanish slave ship, then are captured by an American naval vessel and put on trial for murder and piracy in a case that ultimately reaches the Supreme Court where former president John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) defends their right to freedom. Director Steven Spielberg's ambitious attempt to re-examine the contradictions of a society that proclaimed the equality of all and yet accepted slavery succeeds in dramatizing the obvious injustices done the enslaved Africans (led by Djimon Hounsou), but the legal and political issues argued in the lengthy case are treated in stiff historical tableaus that fail to touch the human dimension of what is involved. Some gory violence, brutalizing conditions of slavery, and brief frontal nudity. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated R.
Documentary on the life of Catholic convert Day (1897-1980), who joined with Peter Maurin to found the Catholic Worker Movement during the 1930s Depression and how her passion for social justice and commitment to nonviolence has come to be better appreciated today than it was in her own time. Directed by Father George Torok, the 28-minute program features eloquent commentary on Day's work, spirituality, and continuing influence from Catholic social activist Eileen Egan and historian David O’Brien, as well as Day's writings in the Catholic Worker newspaper and evocative period visuals. Part of the “Catholic Life in America” series, the program is appropriate for all. (Hallel Communications; 800-445-7477; $24.95)
Compelling dramatization of the early life of Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day (Moira Kelly) as a young journalist whose agonizing over a failed love affair leads her to reflect on her life. In doing so, she discovers God, then meets Peter Maurin (Martin Sheen) and puts his ideas of social justice into practice during the Depression. Directed by Michael Ray Rhodes, the biographical movie depicts a woman's spiritual journey in convincing dramatic fashion, though it is largely interior, deeply religious and specifically Catholic in its sensibilities. Realistic treatment of love affairs, an abortion and a suicide as well as some coarse language. The USCC classification is A-II— adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture of America rating is PG-13. (Paulist Press; 800-218-1903; $29.95)
Animated story of Christmas Eve in Assisi, Italy, where the talking animal friends of Friar Francesco give the Christmas presents they have made for him to those who need them more, then share in the gifts brought by the townspeople and the friar's surprise for them by making the first Christmas crèche. An episode in the “Francesco's Friendly World” series, the 44-minute video mixes bland new songs with traditional carols. The animated animal characters help make up for the lack of charm in the figure of St. Francis, but the tale is told with sincerity and is simple enough for pre-schoolers to enjoy. (Lyrick Studios; 800-622-5101; $14.95)
This series of eight one-hour videos explores the art treasures housed in the Vatican Museums as well as those in St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and other Vatican locations. Produced by the Vatican Museums and directed by Luca De Matta, the English version is narrated by Bob Sommer with useful commentary on the spiritual, cultural, and historical significance of these artworks, examining each much more closely than one could do in person. The result is a rich resource of art and faith for all members of the family and certainly should be part of any parish or school video library. (Janson Video; Harrington Park, NJ 07640; boxed set of eight videos; $149.95)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Christmas Lights, CrËches, and Confession DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:LIKE THE THREE kings following the star to the Christ Child and his Mother Mary, people arrive in caravans of cars and buses. They come from New England, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and even Canada to the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, Mass., on a pilgrimage to enjoy the largest display of religious Christmas lights in the east.
The shrine was dedicated Dec. 8, 1953, the first day of the Marian Year. The Christmas Festival of Lights began immediately, and the annual display continues to grow. This year, more than 300,000 lights will transform some 15 acres of the shrine's extensive grounds into a sparkling wonderland.
Although workers start preparing the festival in September, four artists work from winter through spring painting dozens of display pieces, such as the many animals for the “peaceable kingdom” referred to in Isaiah 11.
Every year, at least 250,000 people have their spirits lifted by the results. “Slowly but surely it becomes an educational experience,” Father Ernest Corriveau MS, the shrine director says. The purpose is “not just to be dazzled by the lights, but to learn something.”
Through the variety of displays, alternated yearly and joined by new scenes or pieces, the shrine tells the real stories of Christmas.
Whether through this season from Advent to Epiphany, or through daily activities all year, “Our concern is the evangelization of people,” says Father Corriveau.
The lights go on every day at a 5:00 p.m. ceremony that includes an opening prayer, a Gospel account of the birth of Jesus, a procession to the crèche with the Babe, carol singing, and a blessing.
“The crèche is the focal point,” the shrine director says. “It's set up in such a way that people are naturally drawn to it.”
Life-sized figures placed in the pavilion with the formal evergreen gardens glistening in lights before it, fill the crèche. The beds of straw need regular replenishing because people like to take a piece home.
A wide walk like a huge, arched frame around the gardens contains the way of the cross. Integrated with them this year is a display of the “O” antiphons from the Advent liturgies. From these and many other illustrations, Father Corriveau says “people get to learn a lot about Christianity and the Bible.”
He enjoys walking to the nearby Garden of the Apparition to explain the story of Mary's appearance at La Salette in France to the eager children, their parents, and other adult visitors wondering about the three scenes of statues winding up the hillside between brightly lit stone staircases and amid Christmas lights.
The scenes begin with Mary seated and crying, as the visionaries Maximin and Melanie first saw her, then move to Mary standing and saying to them, “Come here, my children, do not be afraid. I am here to tell you great news.” Finally, at the top of the hillside, Mary looks silently toward Rome while the two children gaze at her.
Her words in that 1846 apparition— “My children, make this known to all my people”—certainly apply to the message taught daily at the shrine and also at the Christmas festival. Father Corriveau sees a beautiful learning experience occurring at many of the sites as entire families are involved.
Mothers and fathers often have children take turns reading the lines on the Christmas Alphabet display, from A to Z—“A” is for Angels … and so on— which tells the story of the season. “Youngsters love to be involved this way,” the director notes.
The alphabet display lines the walk circling the rosary pond a few acres from the crèche, and the letters are spaced among the 15 mysteries of the rosary illustrated in mosaics. A large rosary outlines the peninsula stretching into the pond. Each decade's big block beads “floating” in air are sure to delight the children. These are permanent displays.
The rose garden plays host to the story of St. Nicholas as the inspiration for Santa Claus. Tall storyboards painted by Sister Gertrude Gaudette from Fall River, Mass., have adjoining scrolls explaining how these two figures are related. 0n the way to the garden, the walk from the rosary pond passes large bright medallions interpreting crèche scenes from unusual places—even around an igloo.
Near the main buildings, a Native American crèche is set up where the new church, holding 800, will be built starting this spring. For the last 40 years, services have been held in the temporary chapel seating 250, although Masses or special occasions often attracted 3,000 or more.
Nearby there is a small theater where another popular Christmas display draws crowds—175 crèches from around the world, on loan from the collection of Father Timothy Goldrick.
Between chapel and theater is the peaceful Reconciliation Chapel, a serene place warmly rendered in wood, where confessions are heard every day, all day.
“The charism of the La Salettes is reconciliation,” says Father Corriveau, who was head of this province of the Immaculate Conception and, for six years, superior general of the order in Rome. “Confessions are at the heart of the shrine.”
Christmas is a natural time for reconciliation, and he sees many people coming to see the lights decide to go to confession too. Father Corriveau claims 25,000 confessions were heard last year. In fact, many return to the Church through this sacrament here.
The shrine grounds are never closed and half a million people journey here annually for a wide range of daily spiritual activities: Masses, prayer groups, a Christian-perspective counseling center, ethnic pilgrimages, a coffeehouse, outdoor concerts by Christian musicians, retreats, spiritual direction, and adult education. There is also a gift shop and a cafeteria.
Early morning through late night, people pray by the Sacred Heart statue, in the different gardens, at the circular outdoor candle island, and climb the stairs on their knees (or walk up beside them) to the crucifix.
The Christmas Festival of Lights is in full wattage from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., but stays on until 10:00 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through the feast of the Epiphany. Some 50 miles south of Boston and eight miles north of Providence, R.I., the display can be reached from Interstate 95 to Route 123 into Attleboro, where it joins Route 118, and the shrine on the outskirts of town.
About 30 miles east is Plymouth, Mass. with the living history museum, Plymouth Plantation and Mayflower II. The Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence is a national award winner. These are best for an extra day if you really want to squeeze in anything other than the Festival of Lights display of the Christmas story and the season's real meaning.
“We try to educate and have people remember through the beauty of the lights,” says Father Corriveau. “They can learn in a way that will stay because it captures the imagination.”
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: A Massachusetts shrine offers visitors everything necessary to capture the spirit of the season ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Fatima Shrine Boasts World's Largest Rosary DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:More Christmas lights, plus one of the largest outdoor rosaries in the world, grace Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Holliston, Mass. About 25 miles from the La Salette Shrine, it's easily reached by taking Interstate 95 to Interstate 495 north, exiting on Route 109 east, driving 1.5 miles to 126 north and the shrine just more than a mile.
From Nov. 30 to Jan. 4, the season's displays illuminate the whole shrine area with its places of devotion each evening from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The shrine is also open daily all year for private visits and group pilgrimages. In fact, back in the 1950s, the annual Children's Day pilgrimages in September had up to 12,000 participants. When Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston came to impart a solemn blessing on the shrine in 1950, there were 5,000 present. A decade later, the Boston Globe estimated that 2 million people had been there since the opening.
Xaverian Missioners administer the shrine, begun in 1949 by the first Xaverian in the United States, Father J. Henry Frassineti SX. While a missionary to China from his native Italy, he built the first chapel to Our Lady of Fatima in 1932—it was one of the earliest in the world.
As founder, he obtained this Holliston land to train missionaries, then started the shrine as a sign of devotion to Our Lady and a place to make known the messages of Fatima as well as Xaverian mission work.
The grounds are heavily wooded, and paths circle to some surprising spots for prayer and meditation, such as the Hill of Fatima, which marks the original shrine. In front of it is a lawn and stone expanse with a large outdoor altar where many liturgies have been celebrated.
Every 13th of the month, from May to October, candlelight processions wind around the grounds and pass the beautiful wayside stations of the cross, whose walkway is always illuminated.
The Hill of Calvary, or Crucifix Hill, has a grotto with a Pieta within it. Stairs climb to the crucifix, from where a pilgrim can see the monumental rosary stretching out to cover an acre or more. “We believe we have the biggest rosary in the world at the shrine,” says Father Robert Maloney SX, the local superior.
Apaved walk leads around the rosary. Each bead is a boulder with its length and width measured in feet. On each decade's “beads,” the Hail Mary appears on a plaque engraved in different languages, from the familiar Italian, Polish, French, German, to the more exotic including Tamil, Bengali, Old Arabic, and Inuit. This variety echoes the universality of Mary's request.
Heavy anchor chains from a ship join the beads together, while a large anchor linking beads to the crucifix is on loan-lease from the U.S. Navy, given in memory of President John F. Kennedy.
Blessed by Bishop Jeremiah Minihan in 1964, the rosary has indirect connections to the earliest American missions. Father Maloney explains that a Xaverian got the idea while on retreat at the North American Martyrs Shrine in Auriesville, N.Y., where a rosary of rocks recreates one that an Indian maiden convert had to fashion for her use among hostile tribe members.
At the head of the grounds, the permanent chapel was built in 1975 for services that wouldn't be dampened by the cold, snow, or rain. Indoors or out, the peace and the presence of the message of Fatima remain.
—Joseph Pronechen
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dossier from the War Years DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:ROME—When Pius XII died Oct. 9, 1958, letters of affection and admiration arrived in the Vatican from all over the world. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, vice commander of NATO, wrote in the Oct. 12, 1958 Sunday Times: “I had an immense respect and admiration for Pius XII. I am deeply grieved at the death of Pius XII. He was a great and good man, and I loved him.”
Unfortunately, some years later the Pope became the object of a “black legend” according to which he was a coward during the war who, for political reasons, tolerated the crimes against humanity that were being perpetrated.
The issue remains controversial today and events and documents from the war years have been interpreted from many points of view. One useful tool to distinguish between slander and the truth is to reconstruct the actions of the Pope through original documents. Thus, in 1964, Pope Paul VI authorized the publication of documents of the Holy See relative to the period of the war.
The archives of the Vatican secretariate of state preserve the dossiers from which it is possible to recover, hour by hour, the activities of the Pope and of the Holy See during the years in question. Included are all the discourses and messages of the Pope, letters exchanged with envoys and civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries, many with corrections in the Pope's own handwriting. Additionally, there are notes of the secretary of state, the ambassadors of ministry approved by the Holy See, and representatives of the Vatican abroad and apostolic delegations.
All this material was recounted in 12 volumes published between 1965 and 1982 under the title Documents from the Vatican. Reference Period: World War II. Four Jesuit priests were in charge of the work, ordering the documents and writing introductions: Fathers Burkhart Schneider, Angelo Martini, Robert Graham, and Pierre Blet. The contents of the 12,000-page work are, unfortunately, not well known. For this reason Father Blet has just published a volume, Pie XII et la Seconde Guerre Mondiale d’après les archives du Vatican, to give the general public a documented exposition of the historical facts.
—Antonio Gaspari
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Antonio Gaspari ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: With God's Grace, Making it to the Summit of Holiness DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Though they are far more admirable and far more lovable than the ephemeral celebrities who occupy the front pages, the gossip columns, and sports pages of today's papers, the most beautiful men and women living on our planet rarely make headlines.
Many millions of people, the majority perhaps, in our modern societies have an acute sensitivity to bodily beauty. They pursue it with relentless expenditures of time and money—to the tune of several billion dollars per year. Yet very few have a clue about beauty of soul, and fewer still seem to pursue it.
Yet Sacred Scripture repeatedly presents the summit of holiness—heroic virtue and the profound contemplative prayer that brings it about—as the normal goal for all of us. Not only are we to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect, but we are to have “the strength, based on his own glorious power, never to give in, but to bear anything joyfully, thanking the Father …” (Col 1, 11). And bearing anything joyfully is a superhuman accomplishment arising only from divine power.
This remarkable verse invites us to ask what heroic virtue is. The answer to this query is a description of complete human beauty—not simply excellence in music or scholarship or art or sport or bodily attractiveness, but excellence in being a man or a woman.
Heroic virtue is gospel goodness—love, patience, humility, chastity, temperance, for example—lived to a degree that is not humanly possible in our weakness. Classical theology follows Benedict XlV's explanation of the traits that characterize this lofty loveliness so rare in our human family. The Church still follows his norms in investigating whether a candidate for beatification possessed such virtues to this highest degree.
The first condition is that the virtue must have been practiced not only in easy circumstances but also in difficult, highly trying situations. Closely allied with this initial quality is the second: virtue is practiced in an habitual manner, not merely on occasion or by way of exception. For example, one is gentle in the midst of annoyance not only when observers are present but whenever circumstances call for gentleness. Another example: one is habitually gracious even with obnoxious people.
Thirdly, one does what is right in a loving and joyful manner. Christ-like virtues are never stoic, stony, impassive, or robot-like. This is why we read of martyrs undergoing excruciating tortures, who yet are full of love and compassion for their tormentors, full of forgiveness and joy. For example, after being whipped for preaching the gospel, the apostles went away with joy for having had the honor of suffering for Jesus. (Acts 5:41)
Fourthly, their temperance or selfless love is practiced with promptness and ease, for such persons are closely and intimately moved by the Holy Spirit himself. When a saint forgives, the pardon is given immediately. St. Paul expects this perfection of the Colossians: “Forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins” (Col 3:13). There is no delay whatsoever. The same promptness applies to the practice of justice, affability, magnanimity, and the other virtues.
Heroically holy men and women are always the same. They consistently live on the heights even in the lowliest nitty-gritty of daily duties. No deliberate sin occurs, and they do not fail to choose the more perfect course of action called for by their circumstances.
Finally, for virtues to be perfect they must be inwardly connected with one another. Justice without mercy, affability, and gentleness is not perfect justice. Chastity without warmth and humility is not perfect chastity. Love without chastity is not love, let alone perfect love.
Everyone of us is a weak reed. Before their transformation by grace and their cooperation with the Lord, the saints are also weak reeds. As the preface for the Mass of martyrs puts it, God “chooses the weak of this world and makes them strong.” Hence it follows that heroic holiness is a moral miracle. It cannot happen by natural causes or human will alone. Divine intervention alone explains it.
If we reflect for a few moments on these traits of heroic holiness we readily see that the saints are by far the most admirable people on earth. It is endlessly better to be at the pinnacle of human beauty than to rule a huge nation or win several Olympic gold medals. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, those who win athletic glory wear a wreath that fades and crumbles, whereas those who attain holiness win eternal ecstasy. Even more, they do immeasurable good for others while still in this life.
A saint is like a stream of fresh, cool air breaking into a humid, smoky, fetid room. To meet burning goodness even for a few moments is a privileged joy. To know a holy person intimately is an abiding delight. We who unfortunately live in a world replete with dishonesty and avarice and lust—not to mention other capital sins—enter into a whole new universe when we deal with men and women of heroic virtue. They are indeed, to use St. Paul's happy expression, “God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:10)
Marist Father Thomas Dubay is a popular author and lecturer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Dubay ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Gospel in a Flash DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:NOT MANY Catholics are familiar with the Didache (The Teaching of the Apostles), and had Philotheos Bryennios not stumbled upon an 11th-century copy of the manuscript lying in the library of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople in 1873, it perhaps would have faded entirely from our collective historical memory.
Luckily, this simple summary of Christian doctrine, which was probably written around the time St. Paul was drafting his epistles, has survived. No doubt scholars will continue to discuss—as they have already done at length—the various possibilities of authorship (perhaps one of the Twelve Apostles), when it was written (between the first and third century), and where it was written (Antioch or Egypt). However, none of these contentious issues should cloud the lessons than can be learned from this ancient Church tract.
The Didache (pronounced did-a-KEE) can be thought of as a sort of Cliff Notes for the Gospel. Divided into 16 short chapters, the richness of this little gem can be discovered in the span of a coffee break, or in the brief slot of quiet time allotted for morning or evening prayers.
The complete text may be found on various Internet sites or at your public or parish library. In it you will find the ABCs of Christianity—the bare bones of the Gospel message that Christ commanded his followers to preach to all creation.
The first two verses of the opening chapter set the tone for the entire text: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways. Now this is the way of life: first, ‘you shall love God, who made you’; second, ‘your neighbor as yourself’ and ‘whatever you do not wish to happen to you, do not do to another.’” These verses are a perfect echo of Christ's reply when asked about the greatest of the commandments by the scribe in St. Mark's gospel (12, 28-34).
“There are two ways”—no third option here. Either you are a Christian or you are not. Though this may sound overly simplistic to some contemporary ears, perhaps it is because many have complicated their lives unnecessarily. Despite the relativistic theories with which pop psychology has bombarded us during the past few decades, many things in life are indeed black and white. For example, chapter two gives the clear moral teaching “you shall not abort a child or commit infanticide.” This in itself is a message that must reach the hearts and consciences of all contemporary Catholics, especially those who claim to be “pro-choice.”
But rather than focusing our attention on any single issue, let's try to grasp the Didache's larger perspective, which was highly valued in ancient times. It is the perspective already taught in the Gospel: That in the true hierarchy of values in one's life, God must occupy first place; neighbors, the second place; and one's self, a distant third. What a far cry this is from “looking out for number one.”
The message of the Didache is the radical Christian revolution that, when lived to the full, leads us along the arduous path of the cross to the heights of sanctity. It is the same message that one saint took as a motto: “To God all the glory, to my neighbor all the joy, to me all the work.” It is also the message that can be drawn from the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta who worked along those same lines which apply to all Christians.
But how can God and neighbor be accorded the places of honor in a person's life? The Didache, echoing the Lord's teaching, proclaims that this can be achieved by doing good and avoiding evil: “My child, flee from evil of every kind, and from everything resembling it” (3, 1). “You must not forsake the Lord's commandments, but must guard what you have received, neither adding nor subtracting anything” (4, 13).
In the first six chapters, interspersed among a short chain of negative precepts which could disconcert those who regard the Church as a nagging mother seeking to stifle her children's freedom, we find various positive commandments such as: “Be patient and merciful and innocent and quiet and good, and revere always the words which you have heard” (3,8), and “Accept as good the things that happen to you, knowing that nothing transpires apart from God” (3,10).
Chapters 7 through 10 deal with the liturgical life of the early Church, specifying baptismal norms and offering texts to be used during the Eucharistic celebrations. In chapter 8, verse 3 we find the very practical piece of advice to pray the Our Father three times a day. For the modern apostle called to live in a frantically paced world this simple counsel of setting aside some fixed moments in our daily schedule for prayer is a must.
Chapters 11 to 13 discuss how to receive and test apostles and prophets. The opening verse of chapter 14: “On the Lord's own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure” attests to the importance the first Christians attributed to Sunday. The appointment of bishops and deacons is discussed in chapter 15.
The final chapter is explicitly eschatological: “Gather together frequently, seeking the things that benefit your souls, for all the time you have believed will be of no use to you if you are not found perfect in the last time” (16,2).
The instructions of the Apostles are clear. There are two ways and since one does not know the hour when the Lord is coming (cf. 16, 1) serious and prolonged preparation is necessary for the final examination which all will undergo. We already know the question that will be asked: Did you love me, I who am your God and who live hidden in each and every one of your brothers and sisters?
Brother Stephen Fichter is a seminarian studying theology in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: The Didache offers quickly digestible lessons for a hurried world ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Fichter ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Excerpts from Mary Suarez Hamm's Oct. 21 presentation to the United Nations: DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:“As the Beijing document points out, the role of women in the family and especially in the lives of their children makes an indispensable contribution to the good and stability of society. In addition, for most women, the role of wife and mother is central to their identity, happiness and life. Therefore, inherent to motherhood are natural rights which must be recognized and supported.
Obviously, a basic right related to motherhood is the freedom to have children. This freedom may not be denied, especially through either forced sterilization or abortion. That means that parents must be able to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children. Therefore, any policy which seeks to regulate the number of children, either by coercive measures or by other forms of pressure, must be a violation of the rights of women and of parents, and an invasion of the family which is the basic unit of society. And this is especially true for women in situations of exceptional difficulty and vulnerability such as those living in refugee camps.
As a consequence of the vital contribution which it receives from maternity, society must assume various obligations in order to support the women who are mothers. In particular, to fulfill their duty of forming their children, mothers have a right to society's support and protection for the institution of the family itself, based as it is in the marriage of a man and a woman. This support provides assistance in forming the stable union which protects and assists mothers in their work for the family. Further, parents must be helped to exercise their rights, duties and responsibilities in choosing the form and the content of the education of their children, most especially with regard to their religious and moral values as well as to the positive elements which motherhood contributes to women and to society. Indeed, as experience shows when children are given affection and sound role models in their earliest and formative years, they become more confident about themselves and their future, and more able to defend their rights.…
In addition, women who choose to work outside the home should be able to pursue a career without being discriminated against because they are mothers. As Pope John Paul has stated, “the true advancement of women requires that labor should be structured in such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what it specific to them and at the expense of the family, in which women as mothers have an irreplaceable role” (Laborem Exercens, 19). Simply stated, the right to support from society means that the conditions of the work place itself should be structured so that women are able to advance and compete without suffering negative consequences for their roles as mothers. Indeed it must be accepted that many women will be child-bearing during the years when they establish themselves professionally. Necessary accommodations, including social protection for maternity, parental leave, flexible working arrangements, and forms of part-time employment, must be made for women's multiple roles and responsibilities and duties in domestic life, in child rearing, and in education.
Mr. Chairman it is clear that advancement of this aspect of the lives of women as called for in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and at the Beijing Conference is still far from complete.… In short, the strengthening of families and defending the rights of the millions of women who are mothers is one of the surest and most practical ways of bettering the status of women all over the world.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Fetal Reduction: Good Medicine or Atrocity? DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:WHEN BOBBI MCCAUGHEY made history by giving birth to seven living babies, one of the first questions asked was “Why?”.
As the media quickly pointed out, most women facing multiple births of four or more babies opt for a procedure called “fetal reduction,” an abortion procedure that eliminates one or more unborn babies in the hope of giving the other babies a better chance of survival.
Prematurity, the major danger of multiple pregnancies, increases the chances of death or disability in newborns. Before McCaughey, it was thought an impossibility to carry seven babies past 28 weeks, the “magic number” that gives premature infants a good chance of survival.
Multiple births used to be rare, but with the advent of new reproductive technologies, the number of pregnancies involving three or more babies has tripled since 1980. Fertility drugs such as those McCaughey used and in vitro fertilization (“test tube” babies) are primarily responsible for the tremendous increase. In vitro clinics in the United States, unlike those in most other countries, are under no laws regulating the number of embryonic babies that can be placed in a womb. The more embryos placed into a womb, the greater the chance that at least one baby will survive—and the success rate of the clinic be improved.
When multiple babies result either naturally or with technology, however, doctors usually offer or suggest fetal reduction—a procedure that is adding a new wrinkle to the abortion debate. The physical and emotional risks of fetal reduction are little explored though, in contrast to the litany of the potential complications of prematurity that invariably accompany every article on the multiple births.
Although many people had never heard of fetal reduction until the birth of the McCaughey seven, the procedure has been in use for more than a decade. With the development of ultrasound and other prenatal tests, doctors could usually discover the number, positions, and often the health of babies in a multiple pregnancy. However, the mechanics of eliminating one or more unborn babies without endangering the mother, losing all the babies, or causing harm to the remaining baby or babies has been the major stumbling block.
Ironically, one of the first cases to gain media attention had nothing to do with the health of the mother or the number of babies, but rather with the termination of a baby with a disability in a twin pregnancy. In the 1980s, a mother threatened to abort the entire pregnancy if the twin with Down syndrome was not eliminated. This fetal reduction was hailed as a medical breakthrough when the “right” baby was delivered safely.
Several methods of fetal reduction have been used, including exsanguination (bleeding to death), injections of air, and suction abortion. The current method of preference involves using ultrasound to target the most accessible babies and inserting a long needle through the mother's abdomen and into the babies’ hearts. Next, a lethal dose of potassium chloride is injected to stop the heart and end the babies’ lives.
This abortion procedure is usually performed at nine to 13 weeks of gestation. The timing is important to ensure that the dead babies’ bodies dissolve and are reabsorbed. Besides reducing the risk of infection from dead tissue, reabsorption also has the advantage of sparing the mother— and the doctor—from seeing the results of the fetal reduction. A small number of such procedures are still selectively performed at 18 to 24 weeks, to eliminate unborn babies with abnormalities.
Occasionally doctors note an unusual complication: the “reduced” babies were found to be still alive upon later ultrasound. Even at nine weeks, some babies’ hearts are apparently so resilient that they restart on their own. Such occasions usually result in the doctors repeating the lethal injection until the targeted babies die.
Contrary to popular reports, the abortion procedure involves physical risks. Permanent damage to the surviving babies, infection, and premature labor are some of the potential complications that can occur with fetal reduction.
Rather than automatically ensuring the survival of the remaining babies, fetal reduction itself can cause miscarriage or premature birth. Estimates of the loss of all the surviving babies range from 7% to 22%. And, the larger the number of babies in the original pregnancy, the more likely a miscarriage, even after reduction, according to Dr. Mark Evans, a physician at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit, Mich.
Evans, a pioneer in fetal reduction, has analyzed data from physicians performing fetal reductions at six medical centers nationwide. He told the Electronic Times Union that approximately 40% of the mothers undergoing fetal reduction are carrying no more than triplets and that most mothers with multiple pregnancies reduce the number of babies to two.
Additionally, even though carrying twins is not considered risky, obstetricians are seeing a small but growing number of mostly older fertility patients seeking to reduce a twin pregnancy to a single one because of lifestyle or financial concerns. Dr. Evans sees no problems with even this: “If reducing from one to zero is acceptable in this society, then why not from two to one?” he asks.
That attitude, which considers any pregnancy disposable, is not universally shared by the women undergoing fetal reduction. These women and their husbands, who have invested so much emotion, energy, and money in their quest to conceive and finally reach their goal of becoming pregnant, experience great anguish when they feel they have to abort some of their babies.
The Nov. 21, 1997 issue of The Wall Street Journal recounted several poignant stories of women undergoing fetal reduction. A Florida woman who aborted one of her quadruplets said that even after two years she still struggles with her decision.
“There was never a moment when it felt right. My husband and I were bawling our eyes out during the whole thing,” she said.
Another mother agreed to undergo fetal reduction to eliminate one of her triplets with a reporter observing. But, afterwards, she wiped her tear-filled eyes and was unable to speak to the reporter at all. Yet another mother told of aborting two of her quadruplets only to lose the surviving twins in a premature birth—though she continued to defend her decision.
“I don't think it's fair having children that are premature and don't have a chance,” she insisted.
She is not alone. The birth of the McCaughey seven has sparked a national debate with some ethicists, doctors, and other commentators suggesting that, despite status of abortion as a legal right, parents like the McCaugheys are unnecessarily risking the lives of their babies and causing enormous health care costs when they reject fetal reduction.
Others, like Janet Bleyl, a mother of triplets and founder of Triplet Connection, and Dr. Ian MacIsaac of Australia who has spoken on the subject, feel that the dangers of multiple pregnancies are often exaggerated and used to scare patients into fetal reduction. After all, the successful delivery of quintuplets no longer makes national news.
The McCaugheys’ decision to reject fetal reduction because of their faith in God has also rankled some commentators. As columnist Richard Cohen wrote in the Nov. 25 Washington Post, “It has become commonplace in this country to use religion as an all-purpose excuse for not using your head.”
Franciscan Father Germain Kopaczynski, director of education at the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care in Boston, disagrees.
“Choosing some humans to die so others might live is putting into human hands a decision that shouldn't be made. It means you're playing God, but unfortunately, we don't play God as God plays God,” Father Kopaczynski told Catholic News Service.
In the end, McCaughey and the other women who refuse to abort any of their babies, seem to have much to teach doctors and other observers. The bottom line according to McCaughey is that “any child is a gift from God no matter whether it's one at a time or seven at a time.”
Nancy Guilfoy Valko, a registered nurse, is based in St. Louis, Mo.
----- EXCERPT: A procedure for the age of multiple pregnancies gains acceptance and contributes to the mentality that 'inconvenient lives are disposable' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Nancy Guilfoy Valko ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: A Bold Voice for Motherhood DATE: 12/14/1997 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: December 14-20, 1997 ----- BODY:Mary Ann Glendon, Helen Alvaré, and Mary Suarez Hamm.
It's pretty likely you know the names of the first two, but haven't a clue as to the identity of the third.
Called on by the Vatican, Hamm, a 41-year-old mother of 11 children, testified at the United Nations in New York this fall to reiterate the Catholic Church's viewpoint on improving the status of women around the world. She made her presentation before a committee reviewing the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) in Beijing.
Hamm may have risen in the ranks of lay Catholic women leadership through the address, following in the footsteps of Alvaré, who is the U.S. bishops’ leading spokesperson on pro-life issues, and Glendon, the Harvard University law professor who led the Vatican delegation at the conference in Beijing in 1995.
The Vatican has observer status at the United Nations, which allows it to address issues that affect people throughout the world from a uniquely Catholic perspective, without having any vested territorial interest. To assist in this task, the Vatican calls on articulate and accomplished women like Hamm, who are eager to serve the Church.
“Father may have the last word, but every other word comes from women,” said Hamm of the Church's institutions, such as hospitals, schools, and other social service organizations. Priests help to serve in sacramental roles, she said, but women have long formed the leadership in those institutions.
Hamm, who lives in Bethesda, Md., is the administrative director of a crisis pregnancy center in Silver Spring, Md., that was formed by Catholics to meet the needs of Hispanic women in the Washington area. She also helped launch the National Institute of Womanhood (NIW) in 1990, “to promote authentic womanhood.”
She described NIW, also based in Bethesda, Md., as an “evolving organization,” that has a mailing list of 1,500 and has participated in U.N.-sponsored convocations in Beijing, Cairo, Copenhagen, and Istanbul.
Her work at NIW helps her “face larger issues,” of why single women come into the crisis pregnancy center “with broken bodies and broken hearts.” In working for a public policy group, she knows that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
For all her accomplishments outside the home, the Harvard graduate seems most proud of the work that she has done inside her home, raising her children with her husband Peter, a physician. She spent 18 years as a stay-at-home mother and has cut back her work at the crisis pregnancy center in the past year to spend more time with her children.
“We shortchange girls when we tell them you can do it all,” Hamm told the Register. “They're stressed, and the kids suffer.”
She now works 20 hours a week at Centro Tepeyac, named for the hill in Mexico where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. Hamm takes the summers off.
She stressed character education with her own children and found that they performed better in school through watching less television and speaking more with their family members.
“The less TV and the more interaction you have the more you learn,” since television is a passive medium, said the native of Cuba.
Of the three eldest Hamm children, two attend Harvard and the other is at Princeton. Though Hamm is proud of their achievements, she contends that forming children who can dedicate themselves and love one person in the life-long commitment of marriage is the ultimate test of a parent.
“[A mother's] measure of success should be how our kids are doing, emotionally, spiritually, and as citizens of the country,” she said. To do that, it's “critical that the mother be there from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. The after school period is the most common time when teenage pregnancy occurs, she said.
Hamm may be taking center stage at the moment, but she gives a lot of credit to her husband of 21 years. “He takes a day off work each week and instead of playing golf, he spends it with the kids,” coaching sports or helping with Boy Scout activities, she said.
Her U.N. speech from the Vatican desk was “anti-climactic,” in the sense that members were shuffling in and out of the assembly room during her speech. Each nation received a copy of the speech, however, and she said delivering the speech was a memorable experience.
The United Nations needs to pay more attention to the “natural rights,” which come from “motherhood and the role of women within the family,” Hamm said. Moreover, “for most women, the role of wife and mother is central to their identity, happiness, and life.”
Governments should not deny women the freedom to have children, Hamm said, especially through forced sterilization or abortion.
“That means that parents must be able to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children.”
In addition, stay-at-home mothers need to be valued by governments, she said. Leaders also need to “ensure that mothers have the freedom to choose to work at home by striving to guarantee a family income to one wageearner so that mothers are not forced to work outside the home,” she said in her U.N. speech.
Hamm, who also called on governments to ensure that mothers who choose to work outside the home are not discriminated against, said she has not received much feedback on how the speech was received at the United Nations. In the fullness of time, however, is when she seeks her response.
William Murray is based in Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: Harvard-educated Mary Suarez Hamm, mother of eleven, tells the U.N. about 'authentic womanhood' ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Indictment of Courts Has Conservatives Divided DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:IN THE THINK tanks and scholarly magazine offices along the Washington-New York axis a bitter conflagration has erupted, featuring charges of anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism.
It all began, simply enough, with a series of magazine articles that appeared last year in a distinguished conservative journal.
A symposium entitled “The End of Democracy?” published last November in First Things, a journal edited by Father Richard John Neuhaus, challenged the role of the courts in American life. Contributors argued that the judiciary had invaded the democratic process, particularly on issues such as abortion, homosexual rights and euthanasia. One contributor argued that if the courts would not relinquish their power, moral conservatives should seriously consider civil disobedience. (See also page 7.)
In the symposium issue, the editors of First Things, asked whether “we have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime.” In his contribution to the symposium, Robert George, associate professor of politics at Princeton University, relied heavily on John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae, in which the Pontiff argues that “abortion and euthanasia are crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.”
Catholics and others “of good will,” says George, are called to combat and transform what John Paul calls “the culture of death.” As such, he says, they must be “prepared to consider seriously the Pope's teaching in Evangelium Vitae and cannot now avoid asking themselves, soberly and unblinkingly, whether our regime is becoming the democratic ‘tyrant state'dabout which he warns.”
First Things added, citing court-sanctioned legal abortion and euthanasia, which found currency in Hitler's Germany: “America is not and, please God, will never become Nazi Germany, but it is only blind hubris that denies it can happen here and, in peculiarly American ways, may be happening here.”
The symposium incited a rebellion among some conservatives, including members of the First Things board who complained that the magazine was promoting revolution and engaging in excessive rhetoric. Gertrude Himmelfarb, an author and wife of Irving Kristol, a leading conservative thinker, resigned in protest from the journal's editorial board, saying, in part, in a letter to the editor, that the suggestion of civil disobedience “discredits, or at the very least makes suspect, any attempt by conservatives to introduce the moral and religious considerations into ‘the public square’—as if morality and religion necessarily lead to such apocalyptic political conclusions.”
In a response to the First Things symposium, Midge Decter, a senior fellow at the Institute on Religious and Public Life—which publishes First Things—and member of the journal's editorial board, addressing Father Neuhaus, said that the and his colleagues ought not “to be reckless about the legitimacy of this country.” Her husband, author Norman Podhoretz, former Editor of Commentary, denounced Father Neuhaus for the “aid and comfort you for all practical purposes offer the bomb throwers among us.” For Mrs. Decter, “what the court actually follows is the culture.… You threaten that millions of your fellow Americans have come to feel as alienated from this country as you claim to. But there is in fact little or no evidence for that.… The truth is that the issues really driving this symposium, abortion on demand, euthanasia and homosexual marriage, represent the most powerful and terrible of all temptations to people, i.e., the temptation of convenience and slothfulness. How much easier such measures all promise to make things! That is why the cultural battle over these issues will be a long and slogging and often thankless one.… And I beg you: do not be impatient, and for heaven's sake do not be reckless about the legitimacy of this country.… You will only end by strengthening the devil's hand.”
Another writer, John Leo of U.S. News and World Report agreed that the courts have contributed to the breakdown of the moral order in America. But he urged court opponents to cool their rhetoric. He said that talk of Nazi Germany only “changes the subject from the behavior of the courts to the behavior of conservatives. It plays into the hands of people who wish to lump us with cranks and violent extremists.”
The controversy didn't remain within the pages of First Things. It attracted a wide range of writers outside the conservative camp, including The New Republic's Jacob Heilbrunn, who roundly criticized neoconservative Jews for allying themselves with conservative Christians who “embrace explicitly the notion of a Christian nation” based on European, Thomistic Catholic philosophy. Such a position, he wrote, is a threat to Jews in America. The subtle suggestion of anti-Semitism appeared particularly inappropriate to those who know First Things as a journal that has long been noted for its openness and creativity in dealing with the relationship of Catholics and Jews.
Heilbrunn earned an opprobrium from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The group charged that he was expressing the old nativist anti-Catholic argument that followers of the Pope were guilty of dual loyalties and could not be trusted to enter into the American political debate.
The dispute has continued with accusations and charges questioning patriotism and the role of religious faith in public discussions. While it may engender passionate response among a relative handful, the fissures the argument reveals about the conservative movement may very well have an impact on what view will prevail in the Republican party in particular and American politics in general.
As Heilbrunn's article describes it, the debate involves Christian conservatives—including Catholics such as Father Neuhaus and evangelical leaders such as Charles Colson and James Dobson—who argue that America is in a time of great moral peril because of its acceptance of abortion, euthanasia and homosexual rights, all promoted by a judiciary which, to a greater or lesser extent, goes unchecked by the democratic process. The system, they contend, needs to be called into question. Some have called for massive civil disobedience, citing Pope John Paul II's admonition that democracy cannot justify immoral policies such as the legalization of abortion and euthanasia.
On the other side are neoconservatives, many of them Jewish, who embraced the conservative movement in the 70s and 80s in reaction to what they viewed as the anti-Americanism promoted by the Left of the 60s. They tend to uphold the view of the United States as a paragon of personal freedom and responsibility and are uncomfortable with the rhetoric of some in the conservative movement who compare modern-day America with Nazi Germany.
But Father Neuhaus, the former Lutheran pastor and now a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, who like many neoconservatives participated in leftist movements in the 60s, declines to back off that analogy. “It's not only fair, it's necessary,” he told the Register. Is Nazism, he asked, “a unique unrepeatable phenomenon” or is it “an icon of evil we have to constantly have in our minds for our lives and our own society?”
He said that religious people raising central moral issues about society is a long and honored American tradition, from the abolitionists to Martin Luther King. The United States, he said, remains a deeply religious country, with Church participation rates higher than almost all other industrialized nations.
But, he noted, “American intellectuals have assumed that we live in a secular society. That notion has everything going for it but the evidence. ‘One Nation Under God’ is not just rhetorical fluff for most Americans.”
Russell Hittinger, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Tulsa, Okla., and a contributor to the original First Things symposium, told the Register that liberals are trying to divide the conservative movement through this controversy. He noted that of the three scholars who resigned from the First Things board to protest the symposium—Gertrude Himmelfarb, Walter Berns and Peter Berger—only one, Himmelfarb, is Jewish. That, he said, signifies that the Jewish-Christian split in the conservative movement as described In Heilbrunn's article is exaggerated.
The split that Heilbrunn writes about, involving cultural conservatives versus economic conservatives, is an old one, said Hittinger. It is an argument, in fact, that played itself out during the 1996 Republican convention.
In an echo of regular criticisms by moral conservatives about the campaign waged by Bob Dole, he said the Republicans allowed “cultural conservatives to write the platform and then hushed it up.”
It Is an uneasy alliance, said Hittinger, but “The New Republic is trying to help break it down” by exaggerating its differences. The original symposium, he said, was designed as a response to federal court rulings overturning an anti-gay rights referendum in Colorado and a New York ruling that overturned that state's euthanasia laws. The original articles were designed to focus attention on abuses of the courts, and were not intended to serve as an indictment of American culture in general, emphasized Hittinger.
But Heilbrunn said that the extremist rhetoric used in the symposium and in other forums by what he calls the “theocons” are readily available on the record.
“They are indulging in wild and careless language” he told the Register, citing frequent references to Nazi Germany in the call to oppose court rulings in much of the conservative literature. He said he regrets the use of the phrase “anti-American” in his New Republic article, noting instead that it would have been better to describe Thomist philosophy and its European Catholic roots as “non-American.”
“It's not anti-American. They fit into a larger tradition of civil disobedience,” he said. But he argued that accusations that his article was anti-Catholic is part of playing “the victimhood game” that conservatives have long blamed racial minorities and liberal interest groups for playing. He emphasized that his article was only referring to a tiny minority of Catholics who believe in the agenda of the authors of the First Things symposium. Ironically, he said, his article was intended as an attack on Jewish neoconservatives who have largely left the First Things symposium uncriticized.
He expressed surprise about the vehement reaction to the article. But he said that in the cultural conservative camp “the sensitivity radar is up” because of the re-election of Bill Clinton. Unlike moral conservatives, who argue that challenger Dole failed to raise the cultural issues, Heilbrunn argues that the Dole campaign regularly berated voters for not paying attention to what it described as a morally degenerate administration. And it didn't work as Clinton won an electoral college landslide and an eight-point popular vote victory margin. “It's started to dawn on the conservatives that the American people don't share their political program,” said Heilbrunn.
But Father Neuhaus stressed that a conservative Republican Congress was elected and that Clinton's victory occurred because the incumbent “ran as a conservative” and “shamelessly exploited himself as such” against weak opposition.
Heilbrunn and Father Neuhaus agree on one point: The arguments raised in the reaction to the First Things symposium involve more than just the personal need to argue among small cliques of politically-minded intellectuals.
“It's not a dispute that can be wished away,” said Heilbrunn.
“It's a major crisis,” said Father Neuhaus, who compared America's current culture wars with that of the 1850s. “The basic arguments were then joined by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. We're on Lincoln's side,” claimed Father Neuhaus, arguing that the 16th president regularly publicly criticized the morality of Supreme Court ruling that upheld slavery.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: Respected Journal Sparks Controversy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: For Parents, Cyberporn too High a Price for Free Speech DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:AS THE world of high-technology moves from the boardroom to the living room, more and more American families have personal computers at home. Parents and their children use computers for everything from budgeting to term papers, as computer software and compact discs make information available at the push of a button.
As the use of home computers has increased, so has the number of people with access to the so-called “information super-highway,” also called the Internet or the World-Wide Web. Easy access to the largely unregulated Internet concerns many pro-family groups, who worry that children could be exposed to indecent or pornographic material without the knowledge of their parents. The introduction of “Web TV” has made access to the Internet still more convenient.
For this reason, pro-family leaders applauded last year's congressional efforts to regulate indecent material on the Internet. Without hearings and with little fanfare, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act of 1996 as part of a larger telecommunications reform hill. The law makes it a crime to display indecent material on any interactive computer network “in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age.” The bill defines indecent material as anything that “depicts or defines, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.” A violation of the Communications Decency Act carries a penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Pro-family groups pushed hard for such tough provisions. In a letter to congressional leaders, a host of conservative organizations called for strong language in the bill as well as strict penalties for both those who place indecent materials on the Internet as well as so-called on-line services (which provide Internet access to home computers) who allow their services to “search” for these indecent materials on the World-Wide Web. “Thousands of individuals both in this country and abroad are regularly placing obscenity and indecency on the Internet,” the groups wrote. “While there is no perfect solution to the problem of computer pornography, Congress could not hope to solve this problem by holding liable only some who are responsible for the problem.” The letter was signed by former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese as well as the leaders of the Christian Coalition, the American Family Association, the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, Traditional Values Coalition, the American Center for Law and Justice, Free Congress Foundation, Morality in Media, and the National Family Legal Foundation.
“We must have closer regulation of the Internet,” said Kristi Hamrick of the Family Research Council, another group that has been active in the battle for cyberspace. “The pornography people are very clever in the way they set up their Internet sites. They set them up so that very common search words allow a user to pull up pornographic material.” She mentioned that using animal search words will allow a Internet user to access a site for bestiality, as one example. “You can do things on the Internet today that would be completely illegal in any other context,” she continued. “With today's technology, you can literally e-mail pornography to kids.”
Soon after the law passed the Congress and was signed by President Clinton, it was challenged by a host of free-speech groups in court. In June of 1996, a three-judge federal court in Philadelphia handed these groups a tremendous legal victory when it blocked enforcement of the Communications Decency Act. The court ruled that the new law was unconstitutionally vague as well as too broad. While noting that the government has long regulated television and radio, the court found “significant differences between Internet communications and communications received by television and radio.” The judges concluded that “receipt of information on the Internet requires a series of affirmative steps more deliberate and directed than merely turning a dial.”
The U.S. Justice Department defended the new statute, claiming that the law was justified by the government's overriding interest to protect the welfare of children. This is the same reasoning, for example, that the government is using in its efforts to restrict tobacco advertising, another effort that many claim violates First Amendment free speech protections.
On Dec. 6, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and both sides are pleased that the issue will be settled this year conclusively.
“The court will realize that in the Internet, they have a new paradigm,” Jerry Berman, the executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), told The New York Times. “This is the real bridge to the 21st century.”
CDT is one of the leaders in the effort to protect free speech on the Internet, and it is one of the groups that brought the lawsuit in Philadelphia. The others include on-line service providers like America Online, Microsoft, Compuserve and Prodigy, users of on-line information like the American Library Association, trade groups such as the American Publishing Associations as well as free speech and civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union.
For opponents of the Communications Decency Act like CDT's Berman, any restrictions on free speech are potential threats to other freedoms. While such danger does not exist in the United States, foreign governments, he said, might clamp down on the political opposition making use of the Internet to get its message out. It is crucial, said Berman, that the Internet remain accessible to all, not just the rich and powerful. Restrictions on content, however distasteful and reprehensible, as in the case of cyberporn, he added, will set a dangerous precedent.
Pro-family groups are surely in for a tough battle, since the opposition is using the very medium under discussion—the Internet—to rally its troops. In order to organize the millions of Internet Users, CDT has formed the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. Utilizing its web site, CDT has become a virtual clearinghouse for information on legal challenges to the Communications Decency Act. Thus far, more than 33,000 on-line users have joined the coalition, which is dedicated to fighting all efforts to restrict free speech on the Internet. CDT has an entire package of on-line materials available about how citizens can get involved—everything from tips about writing, calling, and meeting with legislators and their staff to a history of the issue to detailed analyses of legislation. The group has also started to cultivate relationships with congressmen and senators who share its views on free speech issues, and have helped form the Congressional Internet Caucus.
Pro-family groups also are looking forward to the Supreme Court hearing the case on the Communications Decency Act. Cathy Cleaver, director of legal studies for the Family Research Council takes a broad view in arguing for stricter scrutiny of the Internet. “We have long embraced the principle that those who peddle harmful material have the obligation to keep the material from children. Outside cyberspace, laws restrain people from displaying sexually explicit images in public places and from selling porn magazines to children. Cyberspace is a work in progress. We should not squander the opportunity to examine and appreciate a world where pornography knows no bounds. It would be like leaving a loaded gun in the playground.”
If the Supreme Court does strike down the Communications Decency Act, the pro-family movement is ready to respond. Small groups of legislators are meeting on Capitol Hill to begin to fashion new Internet regulations that will more closely adhere to the strictures imposed by the courts.
The legal and legislative battle over “cyberporn” has begun, and as more Americans gain access to the to the Internet, the stakes get higher for pro-family and free speech groups alike. Advocates may find that the ruling by the Supreme Court, whichever way it goes, may be only the beginning.
Michael Barbera is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Neo-Catechumenate Runs Afoul of British Critics DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:LONDON—“What has the Neo-Catechumenate done for you and your parish?” That question, posed to parishioners at three English parishes where the Neo-Catechumenal Way has established communities, has led to a report sharply criticizing the 33-year-old lay movement.
Issued late last year by a panel from the Clifton diocese in southwest England, the report concluded that the Neo-Catechumenate's activities should be restricted because the group divides parishioners. The panel, appointed by Clifton's Bishop Mervyn Alexander, has recommended that a temporary ban imposed on Neo-Catechumenate Sunday Masses and Easter vigils remain in place permanently, and that the movement should cease recruiting efforts in the diocese.
The study, friends of the movement say, is flawed. In fact, say supporters, most parishioners are satisfied with the move-ment's activities. They also note that it enjoys papal approval, and that its teachings are in agreement with Catholic doctrine. Opposition to the movement, they say, was orchestrated by a small but vociferous group led by a catechist who objects to the unabashed orthodoxy of the Neo-Catechumenate.
Bishop Alexander has not yet acted on the recommendations of the report. He said that he will study the findings and consult with the diocesan council of priests before taking action. Still, the report's apparent bias has led many to wonder why the diocese gave it at least tacit approval by publishing it at all.
The Neo-Catechumenal Way was born in the slums of Madrid, Spain, in 1964. It was the brainchild of Kiko Arguello, an artist, who wanted to serve local communities through parish-based renewal of baptismal commitments and intensive “re-catechizing” efforts including public confessions. In the past 32 years, the movement has spread to 87 countries and now boasts 200,000 members. Members form communities within parishes, and often hold their own Masses. At the end of a process that can last many years, Arguello can award members a “white tunic” to signify that they have completed “the Way.”
Speaking of the group in 1974, Pope Paul VI said it would “renew in today's Christian communities those effects of maturity and deepening that, in the primitive Church, were realized by the period of preparation for baptism.” Members describe the Neo-Catechumenal Way—often simply referred to as “the Way”—as a charism that manifests itself at the grassroots level rather than as a highly organized structure. Members who have received extensive formation may demonstrate their commitment to the movement by relocating with their family to form the nucleus of a new community.
Lorenzo Lees, a successful advertising photographer from Milan, Italy, told the Register that he moved his family to inner-city London to begin a fledgling Neo-Catechumenal community. The community has brought back a number of people to the Church who had ceased practicing their faith, he said.
Pope John Paul II officially recognized “the Way” in 1990, saying that the movement has an approach to the “new evangelization” that was “valid for our society and for our times.” But last year, a group of 12 individuals from three parishes in the Clifton diocese organized a campaign against the movement. The group, which calls itself Parishioners Against a Secret Church (PASCH), is headed by Ronald Haynes, a coordinator for the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). PASCH contends that “the Way” divides parishes. An open letter by Haynes on the PASCH Internet site sets out to explain this criticism in detail. Criticizing the movement's theology, it says: “I am sure you have heard from many people that there is something a bit extreme about your understanding of sin and nature, and thereby of God.”
Haynes expresses fear that the process of renewal proclaimed by Vatican II “is being held back by reactionary and overly conservative groups;” he targets the Neo-Catechumenate as a key example. Another open letter from a Karen Anderson, of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, one of the three parishes at the center of the controversy, was more specific. Anderson criticized “the Way's” emphasis on personal sin at the alleged expense of highlighting God's capacity for love and forgiveness. The letter failed to provide evidence to back up the assertions.
More than a year ago, the movement's critics approached Bishop Alexander, who subsequently set up a panel to investigate the claims on grounds that the Neo-Catechumenate's activities were adversely affecting parish life. The panel's study said the movement wished to impose a pastoral plan that is at variance with the bishop's. Their conclusions, they said, were based on official Neo-Catechumenate literature, material that read in part: “We don't come to form a movement. We are opening a way of adult Christian initiation in the parish. Have we opened a way? Has a nucleus been constituted here, has this become a community of communities? Has the parish been transformed? Then we have finished our mission and we can go. There you have the communities for your parish and for your bishop; now you can follow the pastoral plan of the bishop, not that of Kiko.”
It was soon revealed, however, that the passage was not taken from the group's official literature, but had been drawn out of context from an unofficial transcript of a talk by the movement's founder.
The use of statistics is another point of contention with critics of the study. The report said that Church attendance at St. Peter's, Gloucester, England, had decreased by 34 percent in 10 years, and implied that Neo-Catechumenal activity was to blame. But census reports for the region—not mentioned in the report—show a 34 percent decrease in population during the same time period.
The panel also reportedly was skeptical about testimony given by Neo-Catechumenate members without stating grounds for their attitude. In contrast, statements from the movement's opponents—including assertions that “adverse effects, in varying degrees” have been “attributed directly to membership in the Neo-Catechumenal Way”—were accepted uncritically.
The accusations made against the Neo-Catechumenal Way by Haynes's group center on a suspicion that teaching about sin and the need for personal conversion may cause distress to the emotionally fragile, according to observers. The contentious doctrinal points are precisely those that RCIA teachers are often accused of soft-pedaling: the need to acknowledge and make contrition for personal sins, the continuing validity of sacramental confession and an unyielding attitude on conjugal morality. Neo-Catechumenal teaching stresses all these points along with teaching that all people—even those in a state of sin—are loved by God.
Even taken out of context, supporters of the Neo-Catechumenal Way say the writings of founder Arguello are orthodox—the panel admits as much at one point—and only by casting doubt on their sincerity was it possible for the panel to put them in an unfavorable light. This story is to be continued.
Ben Kobus is based in London.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ben Kobus ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Confident & Discreet, Peruvian Prelate Plays Key Role in Hostage Crisis DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:LIMA, Peru—The more than 500 international journalists waiting outside the besieged house of Japanese Ambassador Morihisha Aoki here on Christmas Day were surprised when a thin figure in a black cassock and sash walked quickly through security lines. He quickly disappeared into the mansion where, at press time, more than 70 hostages were being held by revolutionaries from the Marxist guerrilla “Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru” (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement), known as MRTA.
During the following days, Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Ayacucho frequently entered and left the Japanese embassy. Journalists became accustomed to either his brusque “no comment” to their questions or his short homilies about the ethics and responsibilities of journalism.
Archbishop Cipriani has become one of the key figures working to resolve the hostage crisis that began Dec. 17 when a group of some 20 MRTA members, including its top leader at large, Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, disguised themselves as waiters and took hostage 480 VIPS who had been attending a holiday cocktail party at Aoki's residence. Those detained included the Peruvian chancellor, the president's brother, the head of the Peruvian judiciary and the chief of the anti-terrorist police known as DINCOTE.
Observers have watched Archbishop Cipriani's role in the crisis with great interest. Raised in a large and devout Catholic family that was among the first to join Opus Dei in the early 1950s, young Juan Luis was an energetic and popular basketball player who played for the national team. While attending college, he became a lay member of Opus Dei, but only decided to study for the priesthood after working as a civil engineer for several years. He was ordained in 1977 as an Opus Dei priest and within a few years had established a reputation for his work with youth. In 1988, while head of Opus Dei in Peru, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Ayacucho.
Located in the southern Peruvian Andes, Ayacucho had a well-deserved reputation as a complex diocese. The poorest in the country, it was also the birthplace and the stronghold of Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path), the bloody Maoist guerrilla movement.
Since 1991, when he became apostolic administrator of Ayacucho—two years later he became archbishop—the prelate was the most outspoken critic of the Shining Path and a supporter of the then controversial anti-terrorist strategy of newly elected president Alberto Fujimori. At that time, the Shining Path considered him a grave enemy, not only because of his fearless homilies attacking them, but because he persuaded several civil authorities not to abandon Ayacucho at a time when Sendero's capture of the Andean city seemed imminent.
The archbishop's firm stand gained him first the admiration, then the friendship of President Alberto Fujimori. It was this closeness to the president, more than the fact that he spent almost seven hours inside the Japanese embassy on Dec. 25, which sparked speculations that he was the official mediator between the government and the rebels. Since that day, Archbishop Cipriani has become the most regular—and probably the most important—visitor to the hostages and their captors inside the embassy.
“I am not an official mediator or anything of the kind,” he said Dec. 27 at an impromptu press conference outside the embassy. “The mediator is (education minister) Domingo Palermo and I am not willing to take his role. My role here is purely pastoral, as it would be expected from a Catholic bishop,” he added.
Michel Minning, a representative of the Red Cross, confirmed that Archbishop Cipriani spent most of the time inside celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, and otherwise attending to pastoral needs. Nevertheless, his regular presence has gained him the trust of the MRTA's Cerpa Cartolini and his followers. In fact, since Dec. 25, the archbishop has played a key role negotiating the release of hostages, transferring communications, advising official mediator Palermo. But some local analysts believe he has helped persuade the MRTA to soften their written statements demanding release of their imprisoned comrades, and to free greater numbers of their hostages.
Archbishop Cipriani is also reported to be, along with Palermo, the closest advisor to Fujimori during the hostage crisis. Ironically, the bishop's reputation as being solidly “anti-terrorist” has not hampered his being accepted by the MRTA as a participant in all conversations with the government. In their recent press releases on the Internet, the MRTA has described Archbishop Cipriani as “not a mediator but a reliable witness.”
According to released hostages, the terrorists treat Archbishop Cipriani both with confidence and respect. They address him as “Most Reverend” and even, sometimes as “Your Excellency.” On Christmas day, they asked him to stay and share the turkey that Fujimori's daughter delivered to hostages and captors.
According to sources close to the government, Archbishop Cipriani has also provided strong spiritual support to government officials. On New Year's eve, the archbishop celebrated a Mass for President Fujimori and his entire cabinet. Observers said that the fact that the Mass was off-limits to the press stripped it of any political significance and underscored its sincerely spiritual intent. That marks a change from the cool relations in recent years between the administration and the Church. Fujimori's strictly pragmatic approach to the country's social and economic problems—including in birth control and sex education programs endorsed by the government—has often put his administration at odds with the Church. Archbishop Cipriani's key role in the hostage crisis seems to have chipped away at the barrier between Church and state.
Analysts in Lima hesitate to speculate on how the ongoing hostage crisis will end. They do agree that Archbishop Cipriani will continue to play a major role. He still insists he is not an official mediator, but as the new year began, he was escorting still more hostages out of the residence.
Alejandro Bermudez is based in Lima.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'The End of Democracy?' DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Responding to their critics, the editors of First Things featured the following statement in the January 1997 issue of the journal (excerpted).
We did not choose this controversy. It was started by a judiciary, and most particularly by a Supreme Court, that has increasingly arrogated to itself the legislative and executive functions of government. In more recent years, the judiciary has disregarded and nullified the democratic deliberations and decisions of the American people on how we ought to order our life together, which is the subject matter of politics. That is what is meant by the judicial usurpation of politics. The Supreme Court itself, notably in the Casey decision of 1992, has raised the question of the legitimacy of its rulings, and called upon the people to ratify that legitimacy by following its lead. We believe the governed have not given their consent to being governed by the courts, unless ignorance and indifference are construed as consent.
At question here is not merely a series of errors, even appalling errors, in particular court decisions. If the judiciary continues on its present course, if it does not restrain itself, and if there is no way to restrain it, we are witnessing the end of democracy. And when we speak of the end of democracy it is not inappropriate to allude to the authoritarian and totalitarian alternatives to democracy, no matter how uncomfortable such allusions may be.…
[W]e note only that a government, such as ours, that makes its claim to legitimacy on the basis of democratic theory and practice raises a question about its legitimacy when it violates democratic theory and practice. The judicial usurpation of politics is a grievous violation of democratic theory and practice.…
Perhaps the most ominous development is the growing explicitness with which the judiciary rejects any moral law superior to the law of the state, as defined by the courts. The Supreme Court decisions analyzed in detail in the November symposium would seem to declare that the Judeo-Christian moral tradition has no standing in our polity. More than that, the court suggests in Romer that citizens whose vote is motivated by “an ethic and morality which transcends human invention” are illegitimately imposing their religion upon others. That claim figures prominently also in circuit court decisions on assisted suicide that are now before the Supreme Court.
Almost all Americans claim adherence to an ethic and morality that transcends human invention, and, for all but a relatively small minority, that adherence is expressed in terms of biblical religion. By the strange doctrine promulgated by the courts, Christians, Jews, and others who adhere to a transcendent morality would, to the extent that their actions as citizens are influenced by that morality, be effectively disenfranchised. It is a doctrine that ends up by casting religious Americans, traditionally the most loyal of citizens, into the role of enemies of the public order. We cannot help but believe that the courts do not intend that consequence. They must be given every possible encouragement to abandon the reckless course they are presently pursuing.…
Some critics claim that the symposium and its reverberations prove once again that religion in the public square is a subversive force. There is a strong element of truth in that. Certainly authentic religion cannot be captive to any political or ideological movement, whether of the right or of the left. The crisis of the judicial usurpation of politics is not created, however, by religion's problem with the judiciary. It is created by the judiciary's problem with religion. Indeed, it is created by the judiciary's problem with being held accountable, in accord with the will of the people, to any judgment other than its own. In Casey the court worried about the legitimacy of the law that it is making. It is right to worry. It should be more worried than it apparently is. If, as we hope, we are not on the way to the end of democracy, the judiciary will restrain itself, or it will be restrained.
Readers can obtain the full text of the First Things November symposium as well as the letters and statements by critics and supporters of the symposium by contacting The Institute on Religion and Public Life, which publishes First Things:
156 Fifth Ave., Ste. 400 New York, N.Y. 10010 (212) 627-1985
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Has Hollywood Gone Soft on Angels? DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:ENCOUNTERS WITH angels are back in fashion. Television's highest rated special this Christmas season was Unlikely Angels, starring Dolly Parton, and People magazine featured the heavenly creatures in its holiday cover story.
Recent motion picture box-office hits also include two comedies about angels, The Preacher's Wife and Michael, and their radically different treatment of the material reveals certain tendencies about the current cultural climate. The mass media seems at long last to have discovered that the country is in the midst of a spiritual revival, and fantastic stories about angels are an easy way to exploit this trend without actually challenging society's prevailing moral and ethical norms. Furthermore, recent polls indicate that 68 percent of the populace already believes in angels: There's a ready-made audience for the product.
The Preacher's Wife is a reworking of the 1947 classic The Bishop's Wife, which featured Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young, and, by preserving the basic plot of Robert Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici's original story, it keeps itself within the parameters of existing Judaeo-Christian traditions. Michael, on the other hand, is a purely contemporary concoction that offers an irreverent, New Age look at the subject.
In The Preacher's Wife, the Rev. Henry Biggs (Courtney Vance), the pastor of an East Coast, inner-city, African-American Baptist parish, is suffering from burnout. The church's programs and his activist personality are the community's strongest weapons in its never-ending fight against poverty and crime, but as Christmas approaches, everything seems to be falling apart.
The parish's youth center is forced to close because of lack of funds, and a young teenage boy whom Biggs had rehabilitated is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. In addition, the best friend of his pre-school-aged son (Justin Pierre Edmund) is being placed in a far-away foster home. The church's old-fashioned boiler explodes two days before Christmas.
“Lord, I'm a little tired,” Biggs pleads. “I sure could use some help.” It's more a complaint than a prayer, but God hears him anyway and sends the dapper angel Dudley (Denzel Washington). But Biggs is a proud, stubborn man, and he refuses to believe that Dudley is a heavenly messenger and spurns the offers of assistance. Like all the angels in the movie's universe, Dudley was once an ordinary mortal who has waited a long time to return. He's guided by the angel's handbook that reminds him he can only perform miracles for people willing to help themselves.
Biggs'wife, Julia (Whitney Houston), is choirmaster and soloist for the parish's rafter-rocking gospel singers. Her late father had been the previous pastor, and Biggs feels that he is in constant competition with his memory.
Dudley points out to Biggs that his marriage is falling apart, and, in his efforts to patch it up, he realizes that Julia is the ideal woman for whom he was constantly searching throughout his earthly existence. She feels the attraction as well, and although nothing happens between them, Biggs becomes wildly jealous. He and Dudley have it out. The angel uses this confrontation to connect with pastor, inspiring the mule-headed cleric with faith and hope. Slowly, Biggs begins to turn things around.
Then events take another turn for the worse. A greedy real-estate developer (Gregory Hines) owns the mortgage on the church building. He intends to tear it down and replace it with a shopping mall. As the parish is the community's social and moral center, its loss would be irreparable.
Dudley skillfully intervenes and through a few small miracles proves his worth as an angel. The movie ends with the requisite upbeat, Frank Capra-like finale, but the overall effect is unconvincing. Director Penny Marshall and screenwriters Nat Mauldin and Allan Scott don't seem to have the belief in the power of goodness that inspired the original's creators 50 years ago. Marshall treats the miracles as cute, quirky plot devices rather than as acts of God. As a consequence, even though The Preacher's Wife is orthodox in its message, its passion is lukewarm—angel-ology by the numbers rather than from the heart.
Unlike The Preacher's Wife, Michael doesn't even try to recreate the magic of Hollywood classics. Instead it reaches for an ironic, hipper-than-thou interpretation of an archetypal tale.
Iowa widow Pansy Milbank (Jean Stapleton), writes the tabloid weekly, the National Mirror, that she's been living for several months with an angel called Michael (John Travolta), who flattened a local bank to help rescue her from a bad financial situation. Editor Vartan Malt (Bob Hoskins) assigns ex-Chicago Tribune star reporter, Frank Quinlan (William Hurt) to locate the alleged angel and bring him back to the paper's Chicago headquarters in time for Christmas.
Malt teams Quinlan with another cynical journalist, Huey Driscoll (Robert Pastorelli), who's always on the verge of being fired. His saving grace is that years ago he rescued Sparky, a feisty mongrel who's become the Mirror's mascot by being photographed with world leaders and authoring his own weekly column. The dog's a big favorite with the Mirror's 4.5 million readers.
Vartan threatens to fire both men if they fail to deliver Michael, and he forces them to take along a so-called angel expert, Dorothy Winters (Andie MacDowell), who's in fact a dog trainer. She's supposed to make friends secretly with Sparky and be prepared to look after him if Quinlan and Driscoll get canned.
This disreputable trio set out with the dog for Iowa believing that the angel-sighting is probably a hoax, and when they first encounter Michael, their doubts seem confirmed. He's paunchy and unshaven with a huge set of wings. He sleeps standing up and smells like cookies. He also chain-smokes, guzzles beer and pigs-out on sugar.
Unconcerned with the journalists' skepticism, Michael agrees to return to Chicago with them. But nothing in his behavior seems to back up his claim that he's the heroic archangel who kicked Lucifer out of heaven. According to tradition, he's supposed to be the commander-in-chief of the celestial army. He's also credited with delivering Daniel from the lion's den and giving Joan of Arc her powers. Pope Pius XII declared him the patron saint of embattled policemen.
But this Michael cutely boasts of smaller accomplishments. He alleges that he invented marriage, pies and, waiting in line (“Before that, everyone just milled around.”) In his universe, angels are only allowed 26 earthly appearances, and this visit is his last.
Michael's mission isn't to change the world. It's to perform “small miracles.” Specifically, his goal is to make Dorothy and Frank lose their cynicism and fall in love. She is suffering from the scars of three failed marriages, and his career in tabloid journalism has made him terminally bitter. Michael's intention is to inspire them by his earthiness and his pleasure in the simple things of life.
To this end, director Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle) and screenwriters Delia Ephron, Pete Dexter and Jim Quinlan have fashioned a creature who's more like Pan or Cupid than the traditional notion of an angel. For example, Michael is made to appear irresistible to women. When he begins dancing to an Aretha Franklin song at a redneck bar, all the females in the place abandon their men to join him. The deserted males get jealous and attack. After the premises are destroyed, Michael and the journalists are unfairly jailed. However, the angel's attractiveness saves them. The female judge (Teri Garr) frees them all after a “private session” with Michael in her chambers. Other one-night stands follow.
In most traditional angel stories, this kind of behavior would provoke a heavenly reprimand or visit. But the filmmakers present it as a virtue to be emulated. Goodness is defined solely as having a warm heart. Other notions of morality are made to appear irrelevant.
The movie also bends over backwards to be “cool.” Michael tosses off jokes about John and Paul (“The apostles?” “No, the Beatles.”) and leads the journalists in a drunken sing-a-long of Beatles' music. The humor is more tasteless and cloyingly cute than blasphemous, but, nonetheless, this movie's angel seems to have little connection to God. In the end, Michael succeeds in getting Dorothy and Frank together, but the smug, self-satisfied way in which he operates works against the natural sense of wonder that angel stories usually possess.
Once upon a time Hollywood routinely hit the bull'seye with movies like The Preacher's Wife and Michael. But nowadays the creative community appears to be disconnected from the mass audience on this subject and to have lost the knack for telling simple stories of sentimental piety.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Tradition
All those involved in selecting the design for the cathedral of the third millennium (“A Cathedral for the Third Millennium,” Dec. 8-14), which scuttles 2,000 years of Catholic tradition and doctrine, should be forced to watch the film Fiddler on the Roof until they can sing the song Tradition by heart. They apparently forgot Jesus Christ who said he would be with his Church all days until the consummation of the world (cf. Mt 28, 20).
Martin Maher
Imogene, Iowa
Mormon Agenda
Perhaps a better title for the Dec. 8-14 front page story on Mormons (“Conversions Aside, Catholics, Mormons Gel”) would have been: “Catholics Aside, Mormons Gel Conversions.” After a partial list of the many Mormon heresies is brushed aside as if they were insignificant “theological issues,” we are offered more than a dozen “similarities” that make Mormonism like Catholicism. This superficial sort of euphemistic ecumenism is precisely what the Pope rejects in his recent encyclical Ut Unum Sint. There, he warns against “accommodating truth” and affirms that a simple “being together” on a social level is not enough.
With this in mind, the challenge to Catholicism in Latin America (8,000 leave the Church every day) is a good indicator of the Mormons' true likenesses—and differences—with the Catholic Church. A case in point is the proposed Mormon Temple in Monterrey, Mexico. Like its projected counterpart in Bedford, Mass., both in size and cost ($30 million), it has been the target of heated opposition from numerous civic groups who collected over 15,000 signatures against its construction. Neighbors have disclosed procedural violations; claiming disregard for multiple zoning restrictions and transit problems in an already highly congested area. What irritates neighbors most is the Mormons'attempt to portray their critics opposition, in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, as “religious intolerance.”
No, we cannot simply put “conversions aside” and “gel” with a Church whose main mission in Mexico, all of Latin America and the world is only to coax conversions by any means.
While some in San Diego are exchanging cookies, others, less fortunate, are exchanging their Catholic faith in not-so-far-away lands. Please, let's not be so naive as to sit back and invoke simplistic “similarities.”
Father James Mulford
Monterrey, Mexico
Anglican Photo-op
I am disappointed by the oppressive contents in “Pope, Anglican Leader Call For Continued Dialogue” (Dec. 15-21), but I am grateful to the Register for calling this to our attention with two photos of Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey standing next to Pope John Paul II.
It never ceases to amaze me how often a major influence, such as a member of clergy, especially certain Church hierarchy, use a major photo opportunity with the Pope, only to annoy us with shallow opinions.
Evidently Archbishop Carey has not contemplated how absolutely necessary it is to maintain an all male priesthood long enough to come to any correct conclusions. Otherwise he may realize how absolutely foolish he appears to be when standing next to those who have.
Valerie Terzi
Manhattan, Kansas
Cardinal Bernardin
Columnist Clarence Page wrote in a Sept. 11 commentary: “You don't have to be Catholic to learn from Joe Bernardin. His optimism is infectious. As he dies, he teaches the rest of us how to live.” The day after his death, Ann Landers titled her column: “Joe taught us how to live—and how to die.”
On Aug. 30, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin announced that his cancer had spread, and that his illness was terminal. The cardinal stated “we can look at death in two ways, as an enemy or as a friend. As a person of faith, I see death as a friend.” In a letter that he dispatched to the United States Supreme Court, he asked the justices to reject arguments that the dying have a right to a physician-assisted suicide. He went on to say, “I will soon experience new life in a different way. Although I do not know what to expect in the afterlife, I do know that just as God has called me to serve him to the best of my ability on earth, he is now calling me home.” In many ways, Cardinal Bernardin died an enviable death. He was given the grace of three months to prepare for the end we all face, and to reconcile himself with God.
We should not let the death of Cardinal Bernardin go unnoticed. The way he handled his death should set an example and give the necessary courage to those contemplating assisted suicide. “Dying with dignity” is the catch-phrase coined by the proponents of euthanasia. Where is the dignity when some so-called doctor mounts a gas mask over your mouth, thereby triggering the end of your life. As God has given you life, isn't God the one that should be entitled to take it back? To disagree with this logic is like playing a wild hunch. To wager your eternal life on this hunch is indeed dealing in high stakes poker. If you are a gambling person, which way will you place your bet? The odds are heavily stacked in favor of Cardinal Bernardin.
Earl Hagen
Grand Blanc, Michigan
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: On Civil Disobedience, Or Giving the Temporal Order a Helping Hand DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:IN NOVEMBER, the ecumenical journal First Things published a symposium entitled “The End of Democracy?” The editor, Father Richard John Neuhaus, with five contributors (Robert Bork, Hadley Arkes, Robert George, Charles Colson, and I), raised the problem of whether the federal courts have usurped democracy. On such crucial moral issues as abortion, euthanasia and the nature of marriage, the courts have not only imposed laws that are contrary to the objective moral order, but have also imposed these laws—usually in direct opposition to democratically passed laws and referenda—without any constitutional authority.
Within the past eight months, courts struck down:
√ a referendum in the state of Washington upholding the ban on doctors killing patients;
√ an amendment in Colorado, denying special rights to gays;
√ a referendum in California, forbidding all racial and sexual discrimination by the state in employment, education and public contracting;
√ the effort by the Hawaiian legislature to retain the traditional legal definition of marriage against gay activists.
If it is a controversial issue of morality affecting the common good, the courts seem to think that this is reason enough to take decision-making power out of the hands of the people. The First Things symposium asked: “Where should citizens draw the line in giving obedience and loyalty to these judicial decrees?”
Not only in the conservative press, but also in The New York Times and The New Republic the symposium ignited intense reaction and debate. The Weekly Standard, edited by television commentator William Kristol, expressed surprise and disappointment that religious conservatives would raise the question of civic loyalty. The Standard characterized such questions as “anti-American.” For its part, The New Republic dubbed the contributors to the symposium “theocons”—at variance with “neocons”—who wish to impose a Catholic concept of “theocracy” on the United States.
As one of only two Catholic contributors to the symposium (along with Robert George, of Princeton University), perhaps I should explain why the First Things manifesto and the reactions to it are of great importance to Catholics.
Legal battle over abortion
In 1992, three Republican nominees to the Supreme Court decided to end, conclusively, the legal battle over abortion. Justices Kennedy, Souter, and O'Connor wrote a joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey upholding Roe v. Wade. What was so unusual about this opinion, however, was that the court staked both its own “legitimacy” and the American “covenant” itself on the judge made abortion law. Even while expressing personal doubts about the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, the justices begged the people to accept their resolution of the problem out of respect for “the rule of law.”
Thus, it was the Supreme Court, not religious conservatives or Catholics, who raised the issues of legitimacy and obedience. Belatedly, the First Things symposium took the court at its word, and investigated the question of obedience raised by the court itself.
Do citizens have either a legal or moral obligation to obey laws that are unjust and are made with no constitutional authority? Are we so eager to be rid of the abortion debate that we are willing to give assent to “laws” that deform the very structure of constitutional authority? This is by no means a novel question. In the infamous Dred Scott opinion (1857), the court also tried to settle the slavery issue through a ruling that had little or no basis in the U.S. Constitution. In effect, the court said, if you want peace on this issue, shut up and obey our ruling. But President Lincoln, in his first inaugural, rejected the idea that the people have “practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
So, the first important point is that the questions raised by the First Things symposium do not reflect a “Catholic” fixation on abortion any more than Lincoln's resistance to Dred Scott exemplified a mere “sectional” fixation on slavery. By the court's own admission, abortion is not just about abortion. The issue reaches to the foundations of how we conceive of individual liberty, the common good and political authority.
In our society there are many opinions about how to deal with the problem of abortion. But the court suppressed debate, and took it out of the hands of the democratic process. What was once prohibited by the criminal law of the states was turned into a fundamental individual right. In the Casey decision, the court defined the right in this way: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.” The court's own case law shows that in order to maintain the abortion right at the level of fundamental law, many other sectors of the states' legal order, at both statutory and common law, must be changed: family law, law of marriage, laws regulating the medical profession, and—as we now see with the recent circuit court decisions on physician-assisted suicide—criminal laws prohibiting private use of lethal force.
Once the court discovered an individual right “to define one's own concept of existence,” the power of the people to be politically self-governing is held hostage to a right that has no limit. Unless the right is rejected, every effort to limit it will be arbitrary and temporary. Indeed, the principle of Casey has not left the other institutions of the polity unaffected. In 1994, the court not only allowed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes to be applied against pro-life demonstrators, putting them in the same category with mobsters, but also allowed to stand a Florida law restricting the speech of pro-life, but not pro-abortion, demonstrators in the vicinity of abortion clinics.
Ominous
Perhaps even more ominous are the court's actions that overturn legislation or referenda that allegedly have religious “motives.” Recently, Justice Kennedy has gone so far as to maintain that the belief that “there is an ethic and a morality that transcend human invention” is itself religious. Thus, almost any effort by citizens to pass laws on the basis of an objective morality are to be struck down. Indeed, in the Romer decision last spring, the Supreme Court asserted that the Colorado amendment prohibiting special rights for homosexuals had no rational basis whatsoever. Again, it was Justice Kennedy who ruled that the people of Colorado were motivated by “animus,” or hatred of gay people.
The five essays in the First Things symposium analyze this deeply troubling judicial pattern: the courts are making morally-suspect laws, ruling out debates and actions in democratic legislatures, closing the doors by which the people might peacefully use the political process to remediate the problem, and ultimately to govern themselves. Citizens whose consciences are formed by objective principles of morality, and by convictions about a transcendent ground of moral truth, are quickly becoming second-class citizens.
So, the final result of this logic should be clear to everyone. Only those citizens who adopt an agnostic relativism can enjoy the prerogatives of citizenship: namely, the privilege and right of passing laws, making policies, and generally conducting public business. Everyone else is asked, in the name of the constitution, to get out of the public square.
People will have to read the First Things symposium, and judge for themselves whether the analysis is unnecessarily alarmist or whether it accurately presents an urgent problem. One thing, however, is clear. The issues being discussed in the symposium are not exclusively “Catholic.” And the fact that media have chosen to represent the debate as an un-American or even anti-American “Catholic” response to the abortion problem only reinforces one of the main points made by the symposium.
Neocon v. Theocon
In The New Republic article, entitled “Neocon v. Theocon” (Dec. 30), Jacob Heilbrunn contends that Catholic “Thomists” embrace explicitly “the notion of a Christian nation: a nation that accepts the idea of a transcendent divine law that carries universal obligations even for nonbelievers.” They are not “theocons” so much as “theocrats.” Never mind the fact that one could count the number of “Thomists” in this country on two hands; never mind the fact that the most prominent “Thomists” of this century (Maritain, Simon, John Courtney Murray) were partisans of constitutional democracy; never mind that virtually all Catholic intellectuals, as well as the Church documents and decrees, distinguish carefully between the natural law and divine positive law. But for Heilbrunn, the conviction that human law is founded on a transcendent moral ground is reason enough for alarmist cries of “theocracy.”
Heilbrunn's piece is an elaborately woven fantasy, reminiscent of the old “Maria Monk” stories. Heilbrunn mentions the fact that Judge Bork's wife is a devout Catholic, and that William F. Buckley's brother-in-law is a Spanish Carlist; even Jerry Falwell gets assigned a cameo role in this “gunpowder” plot, simply because he has made laudatory remarks about the Pope. But the message is clear: To the extent that Catholics really think and act like Catholics, they will try to impose a theocracy.
Heilbrunn's article is really a journalistic footnote to Justice Kennedy's opinion, that the effort by citizens to guide legislation or public business on the basis of an “ethic and a morality which transcend human invention” is the imposition of religious belief. This brings us back to the serious issues raised by the First Things symposium. Will Catholics and other citizens of rightly-formed conscience allow themselves to be exiled from the public square?
Vatican II called for a renewal of the lay apostolate. The council emphasized that the truly unique mission of lay people, “their own special obligation,” is the “renewal of the temporal order.” The task of social justice in the earthly city is not the job of ecclesiastical authority. For that very reason, political justice, and the virtues of citizenship, are to be undertaken in freedom through the rule of law. The council most emphatically rejected theocracy, and the temporal role of the laity is part and parcel of that rejection.
The wisdom of the council's emphasis upon the temporal mission of the laity perhaps was not seen so clearly at first. Thirty years ago, the “temporal order” of the Western countries seemed to be sound, indeed flourishing. The Western European nations had overcome the devastation of World War II. Germany adopted a wise constitution. Organizations like NATO effectively countered totalitarianism. The oldest constitutional democracy, the United States, pledged itself to eradicating racial injustice and poverty.
In the Western democracies, anyway, Catholics had every reason to believe that problems of social injustice were being corrected by the democratic process. Even that old cancer, anti-Catholicism, appeared to be in retreat. By the 1960s, no American Catholic could have reasonably claimed that his or her economic, social, or political life was thwarted by anti-Catholicism.
So, the council's emphasis upon the role of the laity in renewing the temporal order seemed merely to ratify what was already taking place. Especially in the United States, many lay Catholics took the attitude that the political order can take care of itself. Thus, they turned their energies to assuming more prominent positions within the Church and the liturgy.
Yet, in hindsight, we can see that the temporal order does not “take care of itself.” Even the most precious of civil rights—religious liberty—is not guaranteed without the vigilance of citizens. The First Things symposium is a wake-up call to all citizens; the at times bigoted reactions to it in the elite media should be a special wake-up call to Catholics.
Russell Hittinger is a Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and research professor of law at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Russell Hittinger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: When It Comes to Evolution, Church Has Few Worries DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:NEWSPAPERS IGNORANT of history, to paraphrase Santayana, are condemned to reprint it. That maxim could explain a recent headline declaring, “Pope Says Evolution Compatible with Faith.”
Go back half-a-century and Pope Pius XII said the same thing. “The Teaching Authority of the Church,” he declared in his much-maligned encyclical Humani Generis, “does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter.”
Not exactly a call to canonize Darwin. But certainly a tacit acknowledgment that, properly understood, the biological theory of evolution is not, per se, opposed to the Christian faith. Otherwise Pius XII surely would have repudiated it altogether, as he did many other errors. Fifty years later, Pope John Paul II says much the same thing about evolution as Pius XII and makes headlines. What's going on?
For one thing, the media has a penchant for fanning the flames of the alleged conflagration between science and religion. Depending on which side appears ahead at any given moment, we get stories on how the Big Bang proves God's existence (so much for those infallible scientists) or how evolution supposedly undercuts cherished religious views about man's origins (so much for the infallible Popes and theologians).
Then there's John Paul II himself. He's news because he perplexes the media. A narrow-minded, doctrinaire Polish patriarch (they say), on the one hand, a sophisticated philosopher and critic of the zeitgeist on the other. “How,” they ask, “can the same man who nixes women priests endorse Darwin?”
The careful observer will note, however, that John Paul II nowhere endorsed Darwin. What he really said was that evolution, so far as it concerns the origin of the human body, is a theological non-starter. Given certain qualifications, including the direct creation of the human soul by God and man's inherent dignity as a person, evolution isn't necessarily at odds with Christian revelation.
Yes, John Paul II went a tad farther than Pius XII. He seems to accept the view common (though not universal) among biological scientists that the scientific and fossil evidence tends to corroborate evolution. But that's no papal “endorsement”—it's not his job to bless any scientific theory. No doubt John Paul II would be the first to admit that he's a layman when it comes to science. Except where a scientific question impinges on theological matters, he has no special competency and claims none.
Which brings us to the most controversial part of the Pope's talk, the passage that declared that “new knowledge” has led to the recognition that evolution is “more than a hypothesis.” That seems to have sparked the headlines.
Critics of evolution argued that the Pope was mistranslated here. The proper rendering of the text, they insisted, asserts only that “new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution.” The Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, originally published a version of the Pope's talk to that effect. Shortly after, it corrected itself; the Pope had indeed said that evolution is “more than a hypothesis.”
Either way, a careful reading of the text makes clear that John Paul II thinks evolution is supported by the evidence. Speaking of evolution's progressive acceptance by “researchers,” John Paul concluded, “The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”
Does that mean faithful Catholics must accept evolution as fact? No, only that they may accept it without contradicting their faith. Whether man's body actually developed from a non-human species isn't, per se, a theological issue, even if it has some theological implications; it's mainly a matter of scientific evidence. The Pope may well concur, whether strongly or mildly, with those who think the evidence supports evolution. But Catholics, as Catholics, are only obliged to allow for certain forms of evolution; they aren't required to affirm evolution as scientific fact. The truths of the faith are one thing; scientific facts another.
Those who think the theory of evolution not only scientifically unsupported but theologically heterodox may not like that distinction. Fundamentalist Protestants will most certainly reject it. Catholics upset with John Paul II on the matter, however, should recall Pope Pius XII's teaching. In their anti-evolutionary zeal, they shouldn't think themselves more Catholic than the Pope.
Mark Brumley is managing editor of Catholic Dossier and The Catholic Faith.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ever Vigilant, Egypt's Copts Find New Life DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:“THE FIRST responsibility of the Church is teaching,” Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and North Africa, told the Register on the occasion of his silver jubilee late last fall. The 73-year-old Church leader teaches spirituality every Wednesday in the main cathedral in Egypt. “When I teach spirituality [the lecture] may be attended by thousands,” he says. “When I teach theology, hundreds might attend. It all depends on the subject—the spiritual life attracts people.”
Pope Shenouda thinks of the Coptic Orthodox Church as a missionary Church. Coptic Christians have emigrated in large numbers to the West. “Twenty-five years ago there were only seven Coptic Orthodox Churches outside Egypt,” the Patriarch said. “Since then, 150 new Churches have been established.
Pope Shenouda started his religious career in 1939 as a Sunday school teacher. Many other Coptic bishops have their roots in the Egyptian Sunday school movement that started in the 1920s. To this day, the Patriarch emphasizes the role of the educator. “The concern for our youth is very important for us,” he says. “We care for youth. Churches which suffer problems with youth confess that they didn't care for the youth when they were young. We have established Sunday schools. In Cairo alone we have more than 30,000 Sunday school teachers. We have a bishop [who is responsible] for youth. It was the first time in history that a bishop for youth was consecrated.”
The Patriarch reports a spiritual revival in the Coptic Orthodox Church. “Both the re-establishment of theological colleges and the movement of the Sunday schools played a role. Theological colleges prepare priests for pastoral care. Sunday schools provide pastoral care for youth. We started in Cairo, then [went on to] villages, until we had Sunday schools everywhere.”
The schools aimed to provide students with more than the basic tenets of the Christian faith, Pope Shenouda says. They also impart practical experience in the spiritual life. “We do not aim to give them just knowledge, but knowledge to improve their spiritual life.”
Vocations went up, which in turn led to further strengthening of the schools. “We began to get spiritual and very energetic priests and monks, and those spiritual, educated monks became Sunday school teachers and began to form the center of pastoral care in the Church. That was the cause of the revival, to have good pastors and bishops, and priests who can carry on the work of mission,” said Pope Shenouda.
When Pope Shenouda graduated in 1949, there were only five students. Today there are 100 in Cairo alone. The Patriarch has taken other steps to strengthen the Coptic Church. He ordained more than 75 bishops and divided some Sees to bring the local prelate closer to the people. He ordained five bishops in Eritrea, and is considering appointing a patriarch there.
Pope Shenouda was the first Coptic Orthodox Patriarch to visit Rome. The Coptic Orthodox Church has signed an agreement with Rome to end the conflict that began at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 over the nature of Christ. Both Churches now recognize that both communities believe Jesus Christ was both human and divine. They just formulated this understanding in different ways. It is no longer appropriate to denounce the Coptic Orthodox Church as monophysite.
Christians are a small minority in Egypt. “Islamic groups in Egypt are very dangerous,” the patriarch said. “They are aggressive. Not only against Christians but also against Muslims. They have killed many Muslim policemen, including police generals, government ministers, the president of the Parliament and Farag Foda, a well-known author.”
“The fanatics work through aggression, violence, discrimination. They burn churches. We want to overcome this. But we cannot overcome this through complaints or through articles written in [the United States] or elsewhere overseas. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not revolt against the Roman Empire, but he suffered and gave a good example,” the Patriarch said.
“Christianity without the cross is not Christianity.… We try to deepen the faith of our people. Only in that way we can confront the enemy and the difficulties raised by those fanatic groups.”
In the summer of 1981 the late President Anwar Sadat arrested hundreds of Muslims and Christians. Pope Shenouda was put under house arrest in his monastery. Muslim extremists assassinated Sadat at a military parade in Cairo in October 1981. The next president, Hosni Mubarak, allowed the Patriarch to leave his monastery in January 1985.
The four years of relative captivity changed him, however. He insists today more than ever that violence needs to be answered with love and that the behavior of Christians has to show that they are different.
Cornelis Hulsman is based in Cairo, Egypt.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cornelis Hulsman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: At Magdalen, a Mission to Save Youth DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:John Daniel Meehan, 61, has been president of Magdalen College in Warner, N.H., for the past 19 years. An educator and author, Meehan also serves as president of the Pope Paul VI Catechetical Institute. He holds a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. One of Magdalen's founders, he has lectured and written on a wide range of topics including Catholic social teaching, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, lay rights in the Church, and the relationship between the Eucharist and confession. He recently spoke with the Register.
Meehan: The need for a conversion of heart, especially among the young, was made manifestly clear by the Fathers of Vatican II. Consequently, they called for a spiritual renewal, and, therefore, emphasized the apostolate of evangelization, which, by virtue of their baptism, included the laity.
The founders of Magdalen—all laymen—responded to the conciliar call by establishing an institution of higher learning that rests on three pillars: an undergraduate curriculum in liberal studies, an ordered campus environment, and a lived Catholic common life.
Have conditions changed since the college's founding in 1973?
The need for conversion of heart hasn't changed; it has, however, deepened profoundly. A cursory look at contemporary youth and their impoverished souls reveals the depth of the crisis. As early as 1905, Pope Pius X, in his encyclical Acerbo Nimis (On Teaching Christian Doctrine), described the existential condition of the young who have been shaped by modern culture. It is hard to find words to describe the darkness in which they are engulfed and—what's most deplorable of all—how tranquilly they repose there.
This papal statement pointed out a prophetic truth: the family, educational and political institutions, as well as religious and social bonds have ceased to be integrating factors for the young personality. The lack of an integrating center and its consequences are plain to see—spiritual disfiguration, intellectual torpor, social introversion, physical deterioration, and the diminishment of moral perception. Consequently, young people are humanly deficient. In addition, they lack sufficient knowledge of the basic teachings of the Catholic Church, which causes a separation between personal living and the life of faith; and a disconnectedness between freely-chosen acts and the order of divine grace.
Yet, in the face of this profound darkness, the Church proclaims joy and hope. She teaches that Christ “fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling.” Thus, young people, disfigured by sin and modern culture, can be brought back, through divine grace and training in the human virtues, and discover their “most high calling.”
Magdalen College advertises itself as an offspring of Vatican II. How so?
Because it is a lay-founded, lay-governed, and lay-administered institution of higher learning that oversees an integrated system of undergraduate liberal education.
Our program of studies seeks to develop in the student a mature baptismal life and to prepare him or her for the lay vocation, apostolate and spirituality. We do not offer specialized or technical training; our program is not intended to prepare or qualify a student to pursue a specific secular profession.
The Fathers of the Vatican II placed special emphasis on the instruction and training of the laity, especially young people. They declared that each should be educated in and formed by solid doctrinal and moral teachings. They insisted that educational and formational efforts must be suitable to the youth's age, condition and abilities; and that the dignity of each person must always be kept in the foreground while meeting the rigorous demands of education and formation. Thus, the council confirmed that young people, as baptized laity, need to be educated gradually and formed prudently in order that they may see all things in the light of faith.
By insisting that youth receive this kind of Catholic education and formation, the council encouraged young people to immerse themselves deeply into the temporal order and to take their part actively and competently in the work of the world—especially in the work of the family.
Clearly, then, it is not enough for the Mother Church simply to have in her bosom the greatest number of her citizens—the laity. They must be educated and formed so that they can live the lay vocation, apostolate and spirituality.
Why was St. Mary Magdalen chosen as patroness of the college?
St. Mary of Magdala was a lay person who converted to Christ and remained faithful to him. According to Scripture, she was the first to see the Risen Christ and declare him Rabboni, that is, supreme teacher. Sent by Christ himself to bring the Good News of his Resurrection to the apostles, she became apostola apostolorum (the apostle of the apostles).
St. Mary of Magdala is a model of apostleship for a lay-governed Catholic institution of higher learning. Her apostolic mission of bringing the Good News to others orients and animates the school's lay apostolate of instructing and training youth.
—John McCormack
----- EXCERPT: To educate means to empower the laity ----- EXTENDED BODY: John McCormack ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Next Sunday at Mass DATE: 01/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Jan. 19, 1997 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Jn 1, 35-42
THE THEME of “looking” dominates today's Gospel in three distinct ways. We see it first in the actions of John the Baptizer, whose entire life was dedicated to disposing others to receive Jesus. We witness the depths of his devotion and vigilance today as he watches the passing Christ. John is moved to cry out: “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” John has spent his life watching for the coming of Jesus.
John the Baptizer's life is fulfilled once he has directed others to set their sights on the Lord. Even though it means losing the company of two of his own disciples, John rejoices because they now follow Jesus. To engage in this first type of “looking,” we must be willing to look away from past attachments, enticements and comforts. To look authentically at the Lamb of God requires a spirit of sacrifice that prepares us to share in the ultimate sacrifice the Lamb of God makes for us on the cross where he takes away the sins of the world.
Moreover, as John instructs his disciples to look upon and recognize Jesus, the Lord acts to give their lives new direction and meaning. Once the disciples begin to follow the Lamb, Jesus turns around, notices them, and asks: “What are you looking for?” They in turn ask: “Rabbi, where do you stay?” Jesus responds: “Come and see.” Jesus invites all those who regard him with attentiveness, trust and abandonment to look at the intimacy of his life more closely and personally.
This seeing of Jesus' dwelling leads the new disciples to stay with the Lord throughout the day. And as they remained with Jesus in the place “where he was lodged,” the disciples came to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Looking is a form of conversion.
This meeting transforms the disciples, and it propels one of them, Andrew, to rush to tell his brother Simon about their discovery. Andrew personally brings Simon to Jesus. Once in his presence, we are told that Jesus “looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon, son of John; your name shall be Peter.’” Those who have looked away from worldly concerns and have seen Jesus where he lives are in turn “looked at” by the Lord. As with Peter, this gaze of Jesus sets us apart and blesses us with a new identity, a new name and a new purpose.
As the Lord looks upon us, we see in ourselves our truest value and dignity, which are a reflection of Jesus. And as the regard of Jesus claims us for himself, we cannot help but to respond with heartfelt devotion. That is why at Mass, before we receive Communion, the priest holds up the Host and proclaims: “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The more we keep our eyes, our heart and our soul fixed on the Lamb of God, the greater grows our happiness to be called to his supper.
Father Cameron is a professor of homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: Seeing is Believing ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter John Cameron ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In City of Patriarchs, New Hope for Peace DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:HEBRON — The faltering Middle East peace process got a badly-needed boost this month when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reached an agreement on Israeli military redeployment in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The Hebron deal was signed Jan.14.The next day, the Israeli flag was lowered on military outposts in Hebron, and Palestinian police moved in to the city.Hebron, where 400 Jewish settlers live in the middle of 120,000 Palestinians, has long been a flashpoint for violence — and, for the last eight months, the major stumbling block in Palestinian-Israeli talks.
The Hebron protocol, which was brokered in large part by U.S. Special Envoy Dennis Ross, largely resembles the original 1993 agreement on redeployment, which should have taken place last March. It gives the Palestinian Authority (PA) control over 80 percent of the city, while 1,200 Israeli soldiers will continue to guard the settlers.
More significant than the redeployment is agreement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move ahead with the other outstanding issues in the Oslo peace accord, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners and the opening of the Gaza Airport and sea port, all of which had been scheduled to have taken place almost a year ago.
In return, the Palestinians are called upon to extradite terrorism suspects, clamp down on terrorist activities in the territories they control, and permanently remove a call for Israel's destruction from the Palestinian National Charter.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said the peace process “can now move forward, for both our benefits.” Netanyahu was similarly upbeat about the deal, citing as the big Israeli gain the fact that he “made no firm commitments” on the future Israeli redeployments from the 94 percent of the West Bank it still controls.
But not all Israelis share Netanyahu's optimism.He has infuriated the Israeli right wing — his support base — with this first solid indication that he will continue the Oslo process, ultimately returning territory to the PA.The prime minister only narrowly managed to quash a cabinet revolt by ministers who accused him of “selling out” the Jewish homeland.
“This is the center of the Jewish homeland,” settler spokesman Noam Arnon said of Hebron, where Abraham and the other Jewish (and Muslim) Patriarchs are believed to be buried. “Netanyahu has sold us out, imperiled us.We've been betrayed,” said Arnon.
According to Jewish tradition, Hebron is the holiest city after Jerusalem, since it is the burial place of the matriarchs Leah, Rebecca and Sarah and of patriarchs Isaac, Jacob and Abraham, who is considered the father of Jews and Muslims.
“For us it is also a holy city,” noted Jesuit Father Juan Manuel Moreno, a professor of Holy Scripture at the Biblical Institute in Jerusalem. “Abraham is also our father, but it has not been possible for us to pray there. We would love to just have a little corner for us to pray. It is a spiritual thing.” Because of the holiness of the site, all religions should be permitted to pray at the tomb, he said.
Dreading the imminent arrival of the Palestinian police, settler Shani Horowitz, who lives at the edge of the heavily guarded settler compound in the center of the city, said she was terrified for her seven children, saying that there will be “terrorists in uniforms right outside our doors.”
While the settlers have been making dire predictions about the risk to their security when Palestinians take over policing duties, the Hebron redeployment — or, more accurately, partition — isn't going to make much difference to the city's Palestinian residents. Their civil affairs have been handled by the PAfor more than a year.Now, in 80 percent of the city which the PAwill control, there is a sense of relaxation. “There's something to be said for knowing the Israeli army can't just crash through your door and arrest you at any time,” said Khalid Abu Mohammed, a librarian who lives in the area the Palestinians will now start policing.It will be difficult for Israel to send troops back into those areas without risk of provoking a major confrontation like that seen last September.
But as long as Hebron is divided, it is unlikely to see the changes that other autonomous Palestinian cities such as Ramallah and Bethlehem have witnessed in the past year, such as new shops and cafes on every cleaned-up corner, and once-deserted streets thronged with strollers in the evenings.
According to Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Khatib, the Israeli army will “withdraw” only to the edges of the town, “turning Hebron into an isolated canton just like the other West Bank towns.” Indeed, only hours after the redeployment was completed on Friday, Israel had sealed off every road in and out of Hebron, with a checkpoint at the spot where PA rule ended.Palestinians now need an Israeli-issued permit to travel out to Bethlehem or Jerusalem.
But the initial euphoria lingered.Palestinian police were greeted warmly when they drove into the city. “This is just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” said Mohammed Abu Sneineh, 87. “What a long time we waited for this.” Palestinian flags were hoisted above the old Israeli headquarters and prison, and thousands of people poured out into the streets as news spread that the soldiers were really gone.
Life is meant to be “returning to normal” in Hebron now, and indeed, streets long closed under the Israeli army's incredibly complex “security arrangements” are being reopened for the first time in years.But because the settler compound is smack in the middle of Hebron's commercial heart, Jews and Arabs will continue to be unwilling neighbors.
This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. ‘What a long time we waited for this.’
The greater significance of the “Hebron protocol” is the Israeli commitment to begin its redeployment from other areas of the West Bank — while pulling out of Hebron puts 100,00 Palestinians under self-rule, withdrawing from rural villages would give PAgovernance of almost a million more people.
Under the new deal, by early March Israel must begin its pullbacks from rural areas of the West Bank.Eight months later, there should be another Israeli withdrawal, so that by August 1998, a final pull-out leaves the PAin charge of all of the West bank except for Jewish settlements and “military areas.” Final status talks — on the thorny issues that were saved for last: Jerusalem, final borders, Palestinian refugees, settlements and Palestinian sovereignty — are set to start in two months' time.
The chancellor of Jerusalem's Latin-rite Patriarchate said the Israeli-Palestinian agreement on Hebron was a “very big step taken” toward peace.The chancellor, Father Adib Zomoot, said he hoped negotiations would continue in order to reach a full settlement “on all of Palestine.” Zomoot was speaking on behalf of Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah, who was abroad. “We are very happy about the agreement and very happy that Hebron will be free even if the [Jewish] settlements stay, which we see as dangerous and a reason for violence,” Zomoot said Jan.16.
Netanyahu, under heavy American pressure, has gone ahead with the Hebron redeployment. But the greater test is whether he will stick to the timetable for the next Israeli withdrawals.And Arafat, for his part, must live up to the Palestinian part of the bargain.
Stephanie Nolen is based in Jerusalem.CNS contributed to this story.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephanie Nolen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Leaders Condemn Clinic Violence, Reserve Judgment About Perpetrators DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:ABORTION-RIGHTS SUPPORTERS rushed to condemn the Jan.16 bombings outside an Atlanta abortion facility, and three days later, near a facility in Tulsa, Okla., as the handiwork of anti-abortion zealots.Pro-life leaders joined them in condemning the acts, but some warned against jumping to conclusions about the perpetrators and their motives until more facts are known.
Two explosions, separated by about an hour, rocked a five-floor office building that houses the Atlanta Northside Family Planning Services.The second bomb, placed inside a trash container outside the building, appeared to be placed and timed to injure law enforcement officers investigating the first blast.Two cars parked near the container, however, bore the brunt of the second explosion, and only six people were slightly injured.
Joe Scheidler, the executive director of Pro-Life Action League in Chicago, said he doubted an anti-abortion zealot would have planted the Atlanta bombs.He said he's visited anti-abortion fanatics in jail who have bombed abortion facilities, and “none of them wanted to hurt anyone,” unlike the Atlanta bomber.They bombed unoccupied clinics to shut them down and took precautions so that no one would be injured.
But there was little doubt about the aim of two bombs that exploded Jan.19 in Tulsa, Okla.The facility was closed that day and no one was injured.The Tulsa bombing seemed more reminiscent of past anti-abortion bombing incidents.
In the hours following the Atlanta bombing, pro-life and proabortion leaders both condemned the incidents.Perhaps stung by criticism that they had been slow to condemn previous acts of terrorism that targeted abortion facilities, some of the leading pro-life groups issued press releases Jan.16 deploring the bombings. Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, Georgia Right to Life, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and National Right to Life all issued statements. “Violence is not an answer to violence,” said Gary Bauer, the president of Family Research Council in Washington.
Atlanta Archbishop John Donoghue said: “We deplore and condemn the cowardly and pointless act of violence …regardless of who bears the responsibility.”
Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, chairman of the U.S.bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, added that “such violence is the opposite of everything we stand for and everything we hope for our culture today: respect for life of each and every human being from its beginning to its natural end.We pray for those who were injured.”
As the Register went to press, investigators said they knew of no links between the Atlanta and Tulsa bombings.
Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, said the explosions showed “that abortion violence is a problem that is continuing at unacceptable levels.” She spoke at an already-scheduled press conference on the same subject in Washington with Feminist Majority Foundation and Planned Parenthood on the morning of Jan.16.
Buoyed by public approval ratings of more than 60 percent, President Clinton said: “Make no mistake: anyone who brings violence against a woman trying to exercise her constitutional rights is committing an act of terror.”
But with questions unanswered and details unknown in the wake of the bombings, some pro-lifers such as Scheidler stressed the importance of careful fact-gathering before conclusions are drawn.In a press release sent out following the Atlanta bombings, he wrote: “In several incidents of fires or explosions in abortion mills, evidence has indicated a competitor or a disgruntled husband or father whose child or grandchild has been aborted in the clinic,” said Scheidler, who cited four different incidents since 1985 to underscore his point.
“In some incidences, law enforcement authorities have suspected an inside job,” wrote Scheidler, who referred to a study that showed “that between 80 and 85 percent of clinic bombings have been related to someone inside the abortion facility with motives of collecting insurance money, gaining public sympathy and injuring the image of pro-life activists.”
Scheidler also cited recent missteps by law enforcement authorities and related media coverage. He pointed out that “media and city authorities quickly assigned the blame” of the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to terrorists from the Middle East within hours of the deadly blast, a theory that was later dismissed.
Also, in the seven months since President Clinton ordered federal oversight of investigations into 70 suspicious fires at predominantly black churches in the South since 1995, officials have found that racism was just one of many motives of the 54 people arrested.Initial media reports on the fires focused almost exclusively on racial hatred as the motivation for the crimes.
Scheidler told the Register that “any bombing or burning” of an abortion clinic is “an insane act,” and that his organization has succeeded in closing down abortion clinics through filing legal suits and talking doctors out of performing abortions and women from terminating their pregnancies.He credited approaches like his with making abortions harder to obtain and helping to reduce abortions to less than 1.3 million in 1994, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Scheidler said he visited an abortion clinic in Maryland that had been bombed several years ago, and he was upset at seeing the “shards of metal that were shot all over the area.It could have hurt anyone.” Nonetheless, he said he refuses to “categorically condemn any method of closing a clinic until [abortion-rights advocates] condemn what goes on inside.” Cardinal Law and other pro-life leaders have unequivocally decried all violence in the fight to end abortion.
Scheidler's quasi-militant stance has earned him the wrath of pro-choice groups in Chicago and beyond.He faces a racketeering charge in federal court brought by abortion-rights advocates in Chicago. The plaintiffs claim he's part of a national conspiracy to commit violent acts against abortion facilities.
Meanwhile, a pro-life doctor from the Atlanta area worried that the blasts would scare away pro-lifers from the annual March for Life in the city. Dr. Kathleen Raviele, a gynecologist in Tucker, Ga., said the eighth annual Mass for the Unborn, scheduled for Jan.22, is usually a standing room only event at the local Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, with Archbishop Donoghue celebrating.
The silent march to the nearby state capitol and through downtown Atlanta that follow attracts families with small children, with several Catholic schools also participating, she said.The bombing, which took place a week before the march, “makes some pro-life people afraid to march,” mostly because of potential violence, said Dr. Raviele.
While authorities in Atlanta searched for clues about the perpetrators of the bombings, the FBI announced it was taking over the investigation into arson attacks on the abortion facility in Tulsa, Okla.The same facility was the target of two Molotov cocktails on New Year's Eve. No injuries and only minor damage were reported after that incident.
William Murray is based in Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Nuns, Priests Honored for Rescuing Jews Sweeten Bitter Memories DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:Eastern Europe Correspondent
WARSAW, Poland — When Sister Maria Teresa Czerwinska turns 90 in March, the occasion will have a special poignancy.After graduating in history at Warsaw University, Maria was just 24 when she joined the Resurrection order at the start of the troubled decade leading up to World War II.
The order recognized her talents.And when the Germans and Russians invaded Poland in 1939, Sister Maria was already directing its main school in the capital's Mokotowska Street. To outsiders, the school functioned normally through the terrible years of occupation.Few people ever knew that the shy nun who ran it was also risking her life daily hiding Jewish children from the Nazis.
Three years ago, Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute nominated Maria for a prestigious “Righteous among Nations” award, and sent documents about her case to Jerusalem.Friends hope the nun's courageous work will be formally recognized before she dies.If it is, Sister Maria will become the 18th Polish nun to be honored by Israel's Yad Vashem National Memorial Institute for saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
That's only a tiny proportion of the total list of award-holders.But it also confirms, after decades of controversy over the Church's wartime stance, that there were Catholic clergy and Religious who put their lives on the line to rescue Jews.
“Of course, no Christian can expect a reward for merely doing what was right and natural,” said Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, who heads the Polish Church's Commission for Dialogue with Judaism. “But every medal is another step towards knowing the full truth.It reminds us that even under the greatest pressure, in conditions of captivity and pain, people were still able to maintain their humanity.”
By Jan.1, 1995, a total of 12,681 “Righteous among Nations” medals had been handed out by Yad Vashem, which was specially established to commemorate Holocaust victims by the Israeli Knesset in 1953.Of the 33 nationalities listed among recipients, Poles were by far the most common — with 4478 medals, compared to 3774 held by Dutchmen, 1249 by French citizens and 685 by Belgians.Since then, the worldwide list has extended beyond 13,500.In the latest ceremonies, 35 Poles were awarded the medal by Israeli ambassador Gershon Zohar Oct.23, 1996 and a further 13 from the eastern city of Bialystok Dec.18.
Yad Vashem Institute officials stress that these are proven cases only: They don't in any way reflect the actual number who rescued Jews.Six times as many medals, for example, are held in the Netherlands as in neighboring Belgium.But more Jews were actually saved from the Holocaust in the latter country than in the former.
Meanwhile, Norwegians and Danes hold just 18 medals between them.However, resistance movements in both countries played a major role in saving Jews, but requested that no individual names be divulged after World War II.
Some historians believe more Catholic clergy could be honored too, if their wartime efforts were only better known and documented. In February 1996, that hope came a step closer to realization when Father Klemens Sheptycky (1869-1950), a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest, was posthumously awarded the medal at a ceremony in Lviv.
Born into a Polish-Ukrainian aristocratic family, Sheptycky studied law at Krakow's Jagiellonian University before joining the Greek Catholic Studyte order in 1911.In 1947, while acting as the order's superior, he was one of 800 Ukrainian priests deported to Siberia after their Church's forced merger with Russian Orthodoxy.
He died and was buried in the Soviet Union's Vladimir prison in 1950.But Jews who owed their lives to him never forgot Sheptycky.Documents recording his wartime role were collected by a Yad Vashem commission and released in Ukraine a year ago.
Sheptycky's medal is the first bestowed by Israel on a Greek Catholic priest.But Father Jozefat Romanyk, a senior Ukrainian Catholic priest, thinks others deserve acknowledgment as well. Romanyk believes the priest's elder brother, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptycky, who hid Jews in his Lviv residence before his death in 1944, should top the list.
The Metropolitan, who worked closely with his younger brother and spoke Hebrew to local Jews during parish visits, was 80 years old at the time of Ukraine's joint German and Soviet occupation in 1940.But he publicly protested the mistreatment of the Jews and organized a chain of safe houses.Both Sheptyckys are also candidates for beatification by the Catholic Church. Metropolitan Andrei's process began in 1957 and is believed close to completion.
“Under Soviet rule, when all religious activities were rigidly controlled, it was impossible to research cases like this,” Romanyk told the Register. “But thanks to such examples, we now know that, even in those dark times, there were people who were ready to sacrifice their lives for others, rising above national and confessional divisions.”
In neighboring Poland, as many as a dozen Catholic priests have been considered for “Righteous among Nations” medals. They include famous names like Father Marceli Godlewski, who hid Jews at his parish house close to the Warsaw Ghetto, and Father Julian Chroscicki, who died helping Jews obtain Aryan IDs.
Virtually all recommendations have failed because no living witnesses were found — a key Yad Vashem stipulation.But in 1990, the award was given to two priests: Father Adam Stalmark, now living in Austria, and Father Aleksander Osiecki, who was honored posthumously for saving Jews in his Debica parish.
In 1994, the list was extended to include the first Catholic bishop, retired Polish auxiliary Albin Malysiak.In 1943, while serving as chaplain at a home for the disabled run by Ursuline nuns in Nazioccupied Krakow, the then-Father Malysiak obtained fake birth certificates that enabled five fugitive Jews to be admitted.
Their identities were known to patients and staff.But all five survived the war, thanks to the priest and to Sister Bronislawa Wilemska, the home's Ursuline director. “Neither of us believed we were doing anything heroic or courageous.Our only concern was that we should be efficient,” the bishop said. “In hiding the Jews, we were simply following the voice of our consciences.All we wanted was to fulfill Christ's evangelical command to love your neighbor.”
That was also the attitude of the prelate's colleague, Sister Wilemska, who was given the “Righteous among Nations” medal posthumously with 15 other Polish citizens in January 1996.
Though male orders such as the Redemptorists, Salesians, Marians, Capuchins, Franciscans and Dominicans also sheltered Jewish fugitives, the role played by nuns like her has been best remembered.Some historians attribute this to circumstances.Male communities were generally smaller and more closely watched by the Gestapo.Hiding there was more difficult than in convents, which often had schools and children's homes attached to them.
Whatever the truth, the testimony of nuns during the Holocaust has helped transform the Polish Church's image away from the anti-Semitism that was rife in the 1930s, when Poland's 3 millionstrong Jewish minority made up a tenth of its population.
The first survey by the Polish Primate's office in 1962 concluded that virtually every convent in the country had at some time sheltered fugitive Jews, mostly women and children.The cases of at least 189 religious houses have been documented.Besides the Ursulines, particular help was given by Sisters from the Franciscan, Discalced Carmelite and Resurrection orders.But in May 1995, two Sisters from another order, the non-habited Immaculate Heart of Mary, were also posthumously awarded “Righteous among Nations” medals.
Sisters Bronislawa Hryniewicz and Stanislawa Jozwikowska were nominated by Batia and Ester Fakor, two Jewish sisters they saved in the eastern town of Siedlce.In a special message for the occasion, the Pope recalled the unique wartime fate of the Jewish people, and praised those who had the courage to stand alongside them.
Stanislaw Krajewski, a consultant for the American Jewish Congress, who co-chairs Poland's Christian-Jewish Council, doubts whether stories like this can have much impact on inter-faith dialogue.But they should at least be discussed internationally, Krajewski thinks. “Jews are well aware that every kind of attitude was shown towards them,” Krajewski told the Register. “But there are interesting questions to consider where Church assistance for Jews is concerned.Did the priests and nuns who offered shelter do so purely to help the Jews survive, or also with the aim of converting them? What were the motives, and how did they vary from place to place?”
Bishop Gadecki, the Polish Church commission chairman, is more upbeat.Examples of the heroism shown by the few have something to teach today's disillusioned generation, the bishop thinks, since they show that the Christian responsibility to help others can't be set aside by any pretexts.
But they're also important for the Church, which is still grappling with accusations and counter-accusations about its wartime role. “These medals remind us that dialogue doesn't just mean deliberating about doctrines and perceptions,” the bishop told the Register. “Atrue Christian-Jewish dialogue must also concern itself with life, humanity and basic values.”
When the first international conference of “Righteous among Nations” medal holders was staged in Warsaw in July 1993, participants recalled the dangers involved in helping Jews — at a time when German notices expressly warned that anyone doing so would be shot dead.Data on 872 Poles who were executed by the Nazis for sheltering Jews was shown in a Warsaw exhibition four years ago.
But Sister Maria Teresa Czerwinska's fellow Sisters from the Resurrection order say she's rarely talked about her dangerous wartime exploits, and was taken aback when she was nominated for a Yad Vashem award.
In 1993, two Sisters from Poland's St.Vincent de Paul order, Janina Poplawska and Julia Sosnowska, were also put up for medals for hiding Jewish children during the Holocaust. Documentation on a fourth, Kinga Strzelecka, a leading theologian, has also been sent to Israel, suggesting the story of how Catholics helped Jews is still far from over.
“But I didn't do anything special — just what was natural and normal,” the 89-year-old Maria insisted in a faint voice. “I was just working in a school, looking after children.I did what anyone in my position with similar possibilities would probably have done as well.”
Jonathan Luxmoore is based in Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Parish Experts Huddle, Ponder Priestless Sundays DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:National Affairs Correspondent
NEW YORK — The future of the Church in the United States, and sometimes its difficult present, were hinted at in the table discussions and presentations at a symposium in a mid-town Manhattan hotel conference room here Jan.9-11.
Some 30 diocesan planners from across the country gathered under the auspices of the National Pastoral Life Center, a New York-based organization that consults dioceses on parish life.They were sharing nitty-gritty details about how to plan for a Church with fewer priests and increasing numbers of Catholics.Many of the participants had stories to tell about making changes in dioceses — often in places where Catholics are reluctant to let go of historic churches that became underutilized due to population shifts — and bringing American Catholics to the realization that their Church will have to change.
A number of participants at the conference came from dioceses where the there are fewer priests available than there are parishes to staff.Planners have long been struggling with the problem of providing ministry in parishes — many of them rural or in cities largely abandoned by Catholics — that frequently do not have resident priests.
“It has not been done without difficulties.It's been messy,” Mercy Sister Kathleen Turley, chancellor of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., told the conference.The Diocese of Albany has been undergoing a planning process for the past nine years that has resulted in the closing of nine parishes and the consolidation of services in numerous others.
Turley, representing a diocese with 189 parishes and 238 active diocesan priests, echoed the consensus of conference participants that planning for the future involves difficult choices and requires the participation of many. “The constant challenge is how to get more people involved,” she said, noting that some 1,500 parishioners — out of about 400,000 total Catholics in the Diocese of Albany — have participated in the planning process.The results include the hiring of parish administrators, who are not priests, to attend to the business of running a parish.
Jeannine Burch, pastoral planner for the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio, said that planning for the future requires input from parishioners. “They need to know that it's not downtown (the diocesan chancery) coming in and saying ‘do it our way.’” As in many areas of the country, Toledo has experienced an exodus of Catholics from its central city into the suburbs.The diocese has 150 active diocesan priests to serve 163 parishes.The result is that parishes have been called together to discuss ways to share resources.One cluster of four city parishes has been redesigned so that it is served by one pastor with five priest associates.
Burch noted that while parishes have expressed support for sharing religious education and other programs with nearby churches, parishioners are generally not supportive of having parishes run by lay administrators.There is, she said, a preference among much of the laity for clergy, even in areas where there are few priests.
Father David Baldwin, director of the Office of Research & Planning for the Archdiocese of Chicago, said that leadership plays a crucial role in charting the future of any diocese.He said there is a healthy middle ground between “total dictatorship” — in which a bishop alone decides the future of parishes — and offering no guidance at all and “abdicating the responsibility that leadership should have.”
The archdiocese closed some 30 parishes during the tenure of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in an effort to reduce costs and adjust to a Catholic population that has moved in great numbers to the suburbs, leaving behind many underutilized city churches.The archdiocese is now planning the future of its 280 elementary schools and 41 high schools.The process, said Baldwin, is continuing in the archdiosesan offices, with input from local business and educational leaders.A plan will be presented by late summer to Chicago-area pastors and parish leaders.
In informal group discussions, planning leaders indicated that change in any diocese is a difficult process, even when facts indicate that parishes need to close or consolidate.One planner from a Midwestern diocese noted that “there is a denial of reality” among some pastors and parishioners attached to fading parishes. “Parishioners saw a priest in their parish celebrating Mass on each Sunday.So they didn't come to grips with the reality,” she said about a rural parish that the diocese recently closed despite protests from parishioners.
Brian Reynolds, chief administrative officer for the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., commented that closing parishes will meet stiff resistance, no matter how smooth the process. “When the final decision is made, people forget that they were consulted.They look for a scapegoat,” he said about the Louisville experience, in which eight parishes were closed in recent years.
“It's painful when people lose something that is important to them,” he said, adding that when institutions close, people need time to grieve.Reynolds noted that one Louisville parish that closed had dwindled to only a few regular parishioners.But its final Mass attracted a huge crowd, as those who were raised in the parish and had moved to the suburbs returned for the farewell.Ironically, if the parish had received such support when it was still alive, the archdiocese never would have closed it.
Reynolds emphasized that more than just financial criteria must be considered when making decisions about closing parishes. It's important, he said, for diocesan planners “to get ahead of the curve” and explore the total ministry needs of a community, not just looking at bottom line finances.
“We wanted to avoid the survival of the fittest,” he said, noting that some parishes, which were relatively affluent but which generated little active parish life, were closed.At the same time, financially-poorer parishes, such as those in Louisville's housing projects, remain open because they provided an active social ministry outreach.
One Midwestern diocesan planner complained that wealthier suburban parishes are often reluctant to share resources with their poorer urban counterparts.An effort to “twin” more affluent parishes with those that are poor has stagnated in her area, due to the reluctance of wealthier Catholics to support such a program. This is so, she noted, even in cases where the same parishes provide support for missions in Third World countries. “They don't want to accept the poor who live within two miles of them.We have mission needs in our own diocese,” she said.
Pastoral planners agreed, however, that tough decisions can be made if the following criteria are followed:
•Involve priests and laity in the process.Without collaboration, difficult decisions will not garner needed support.
•Get the support of the local bishop for any proposal made.
•Don't allow anyone to circumvent the decision-making process, by, for example, going around a planning committee to a chancery source to protect a fading school or parish.
•Don't “re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic” by simply renaming the status quo, thereby avoiding difficult decisions.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Call to Holiness' Seeks National Status DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:IN THE AFTERMATH of a successful Nov.15-17 conference in Sterling Heights, Mich., Call to Holiness's general chairman, Geno Vitale, now finds himself at the helm of a national organization that has a board of directors, a mission statement in-the-works and a goal: “to be a strong lay voice in defense of the Catholic Church, serving mainly in an educational role.”
Jay McNally, who served as media director for the Call to Holiness (CTH) convention, recalls that initially CTH was organized as a response to a major Call to Action (CTA) conference the same weekend in Detroit.CTAis a national organization demanding extensive change in the Church's approach to sexuality, celibacy, priestly ordination, abortion, birth control, the papacy and episcopal appointments, among other issues.
The CTH conference was scheduled to counteract what its organizers expected would be a very public CTA event — and one that would be favorably received by the media and some local parishes.At first a one-day convention was planned, but when Father Joseph Fessio SJ, who heads San-Francisco-based Ignatius Press, threw his support behind the CTH effort, it was upgraded to a three-day national conference with such high-profile speakers as Mother Angelica, Father John Hardon SJ, Father Richard Welch CSsR, writers E.Michael Jones and Donna Steichen, as well as Fessio himself.The conference drew approximately 2,000 people, mostly from the Detroit area.
Though CTAdrew closer to 5,000 attendees, McNally said the enthusiastic “response” to the Call to Holiness event — despite the precious little lead time to organize it — encouraged the planners to believe that a more permanent initiative could be successful.
Vitale and the other CTH board members have big plans. “We will definitely have another conference next November in the Detroit area and we plan to have members from the Church hierarchy present,” he said. “We also want to organize state conferences.We want to have a presence in every parish in the country.Most Catholics no longer know the truth about their religion, and in many cases they are being taught something different.”
A Call to Holiness manual has been completed, presumably to help parishes organize Call to Holiness chapters. Vitale, however, was reluctant to reveal much about it except to say it has already been completed.
That reticence about discussing the CTH's internal workings seems apparent among those involved with organizing it.Most, for example, declined to reveal the names of priests or Religious who helped organize the CTH event.Their fear: reprisal from local parishes.
When asked why an organization that professes a strong allegiance to the Pope and Magisterium, and which supports Catholic teaching, operates with such caution, Vitale said CTH organizers remain convinced that many in the Archdiocese of Detroit support Call to Action “in a quiet, subversive way.”
“I know of at least three parishes in the archdiocese who openly promoted the Call to Action [conference], and many others who were in support.” Vitale and McNally both cite a report in this month's Catholic World Report magazine that the director of the Office of Catechetics and Religious Education, Sister Betty Flaherty, told directors of religious education they could attend CTA if they didn't wear their name tags.
The director of communications for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Ned McGrath, told the Register that the archdiocese had no reports confirming that allegation, nor was he aware of any tensions within the archdiocese regarding CTH members.
But Vitale said the archdiocese has kept its distance from the CTH. “There were four bishops at CTA, one from our very own archdiocese, and we had none [attending]. Now what impression does that leave? It leaves the impression that [the archdiocese] thought more of Call to Action than they did [of Call to Holiness].”
Sources confirm that four bishops did attend the CTA conference, and that one auxiliary bishop from the archdiocese, Thomas Gumbleton, was a speaker there. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, Bishop Gumbleton addressed “the history of Call to Action,” which presumably refers to the U.S.bishops' original Call to Action conference in 1976.The archdiocese points out that that gathering was in no way related to the current Call to Action.
Officially, Cardinal Adam Maida has tried to distance himself from both Call to Holiness and Call to Action.In an October edition of his diocesan newspaper, The Michigan Catholic, he said, “I do not think it is appropriate for parishes to finance or encourage the sending of Church staff to the Call to Action….What Catholics do not have the right to do is openly dissent from Church teaching …we cannot support a dialogue that publicly contradicts matters of doctrine.And regrettably, Call to Action appears to do just that.”
However, in a more conciliatory tone, he continued, “I've noted that there are modules and speakers [at CTA] covering a variety of topics that appear to be in conformity with Church teaching and discipline. Some could even be helpful.”
In the same article, the cardinal only briefly remarked on Call to Holiness, but his message was unequivocal. “I would also like to make clear that I do not think it is helpful when individuals or groups of individuals organize counter gatherings or protests as a response to Call to Action.Especially lamentable is when some of these individuals or groups criticize — even campaign against — select pastors or other priests accusing them of infidelity to our Holy Father or Church teaching.Confronting one's pastor or other priests is certainly not working for the unity of the Church.If we truly love and respect the Church and its teaching, we will at the same time love and respect the ministers of the Church.”
The cardinal's words were apparently enough to cool even stalwart defenders of Catholic teaching to the CTH's counterconvention idea.Even the Knights of Columbus withdrew their support from the event at the last minute.
The 2,000 who did turn out got pointers about taking the high road, even when confronting the problem of dissent from Catholic teaching in parishes.Father Richard Welch, a speaker at CTH, listed nine rules. “Don't whine; network with others to see how they handled similar situations; get your facts straight; seek documentation; put concerns in writing — don't be emotional; state clearly the sequence of events, problems and concerns; do homework; hand deliver your letter to your pastor or bishop; be patient.”
Mother Angelica, founder of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), put it more bluntly: “The Church has had her birth, her infancy, adolescence, adulthood and now her agony.Be courageous and brave.You have nothing to fear.[The Church] may be wounded, but we can heal her with our zeal, love and compassion.Do not give others a power they don't possess. Be Catholic and be proud of it.”
Gary Griffith is based in Page, Ariz.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gary Griffith ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Pope's Week DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:CHURCH ESTEEMS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Saturday morning Pope John Paul greeted the 100 participants in the International Conference on Space Research, promoted by the Vatican Observatory, which had just concluded at the University of Padua, Italy.
The Pontiff told those present that their “dedication to scientific research constitutes a veritable vocation at the service of the human family, a vocation which the Church greatly honors and esteems.”
“Through you,” he said, “I address an appeal to all your colleagues in the various fields of scientific investigation: Make every effort to respect the primacy of ethics in your work; always be concerned with the moral implications of your methods and discoveries.It is my prayer that scientists will never forget that the cause of humanity is authentically served only if knowledge is joined to conscience.”
A ‘PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE’
The Pope met Monday morning in the Sala Regia with members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See and, in response to their New Year's greetings, delivered his annual address on the state of the Church and of the world (excerpted).
“…In my message for the 1997 World Day of Peace, I invited all people of good will to ‘set out together on a true pilgrimage of peace, starting from the concrete situation in which we find ourselves’…. At the beginning of this year, what is the state of hope and peace? This is the question which, together with you, I would like to answer”.
“[Peace] still seems precarious in more than one place on the earth, and, in any event, it is always at the mercy of the self-interest and the lack of proper foresight on the part of many leaders of international life”.
“All people together, Jews, Christians and Muslims, Israelis and Arabs, believers and non-believers, must create and reinforce peace: the peace of treaties, the peace of trust, the peace in people's hearts! In this part of the world, as elsewhere, peace cannot be just nor can it long endure unless it rests on sincere dialogue between equal partners, with respect for each other's identity and history, unless it rests on the right of peoples to the free determination of their own destiny, upon their independence and security.There can be no exception”.
“Every juridical system, as we know, has as its foundation and end the common good.And this applies to the international community as well: the good of all and the good of the whole….Justice is for all, without injustice being inflicted on anyone. The function of law is to give each person his due, to give him what is owed to him in justice.Law therefore has a strong moral implication.And international law itself is founded on values.The dignity of the person, or guaranteeing the rights of nations, for example, are moral principles before they are juridical norms”.
“For a long time international law has been a law of war and peace.I believe that it is called more and more to become exclusively a law of peace, conceived in justice and solidarity.And in this context morality must inspire law; morality can even assume a preparatory role in the making of law, to the extent that it shows the path of what is right and good.”
“On our pilgrimage of peace, the Christmas star guides us and shows us mankind's true path as it invites us to follow the path of God.”
JESUS LOSTAND FOUND IN THE TEMPLE
At Wednesday morning's general audience, John Paul focused on the Gospel story of Jesus lost and found in the Temple in Jerusalem, in which “Jesus reveals, with his strong personality, his awareness of his mission.”
“Through this episode,” said the Pope, “Jesus prepares his mother for the mystery of the Redemption.Mary and Joseph, during the three dramatic days in which their Son is separated from them to remain in the Temple, experience the anticipation of the triduum of his passion, death and resurrection.”
The finding of Jesus on the third day “constitutes for his parents the discovery of another aspect relative to his person and his mission.” He recalled Mary's question to Jesus: “Son, why have you treated us so?” And he added “here one might hear the echo of the ‘whys’ of so many mothers in the face of the sufferings that their children bring them, and also the questions that arise in the hearts of all men at times of trial.”
John Paul evoked Jesus' answer to his mother: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” With this expression [Jesus], in an unexpected and unforeseen way, uncovers for Mary and Joseph the mystery of his person, inviting them to go beyond appearances and opening for them new perspectives on his future.”
Although “Mary and Joseph perceive neither the content nor the form of his response, which seems to have the appearance of rejection,” the Blessed Virgin, concluded the Pope, “preserving in her heart an event so laden with meaning, reaches a new dimension of her cooperation in salvation.”
(VIS)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gary Griffith ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Porn King Finds New Life as Free Speech Hero DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:Most Catholics may be too put off with this movie's “hero” to consider viewing the film.However, it holds, for the prepared viewer, some important lessons.
Like it or not, Larry Flynt is an American original. No other culture, past or present, could have produced such a creature.His rags-to-riches success as a multi-millionaire pornographer is only possible in an open society like ours where, as Flynt himself comments, “everybody gets their shot, even a pig.”
But The People vs.Larry Flynt has grander ambitions.
Director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus) and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood) contrive to inflate Flynt's significance and mold him into a folk hero.They've reinvented him as a cutting-edge First Amendment warrior, fighting courageously for free speech against censorship.The movie begins in 1952 in the woods of East Kentucky where 10-year-old Larry and his 8-year-old brother Jimmy are scratching to make a buck as moonshiners. With a display of vindictiveness unusual for a child, Larry physically attacks his drunken father for “drinking my profits.”
Two decades later Larry (Woody Harrelson) and Jimmy (real-life brother Brett Harrelson) have graduated to owning a string of strip joints in Southern Ohio.Larry starts a newsletter about his dancers to promote his clubs that he calls Hustler, and its unexpected success inspires him to expand the format into a national magazine to rival Playboy and Penthouse.Its selling points are articles and photo spreads raunchier and more offensive than its competitors
Larry falls in love with underage stripper Althea Leasure (alternative rocker Courtney Love) whose sexual appetites and ambition match his.She proposes to him in a hot tub after extracting a promise that marriage won't mean monogamy.
Meanwhile, the national edition of Hustler is losing money until Larry publishes exclusive photos of a nude Jackie Onassis, generating extensive publicity for himself and the magazine.This catches the eyes of millions of new readers and makes local law enforcement authorities sit up and take notice.
A Cincinnati prosecutor (political consultant James Carville), encouraged by the soon-to-be-discredited savings and loan tycoon Charles Keating (John Cromwell), charges Larry with obscenity, hoping to put him in jail and out of business.Harvard-educated civil liberties lawyer Alan Isaacson (Edward Norton) takes the case and raises Flynt's consciousness about the importance of the Constitution. “I don't particularly like what you stand for,” he tells the porn king, “but you represent something bigger.” According to the filmmakers, it's the beginning of Larry's metamorphosis from a sleazy promoter into an embattled defender of free speech.
To achieve this, the movie stacks the deck in Larry's favor in several ways.First, his personal lifestyle, though depicted as tasteless and gross, is sanitized to make him appear as nothing more than a lovable rogue.There are no references to either his bizarre sexual proclivities or his use of physical intimidation as a business tactic.
Furthermore, the audience is rarely shown the actual contents of Hustler (they're usually only talked about), so it's difficult to understand why anyone would want to ban it.His opponents are all caricatured as hypocritical, right-wing Christian extremists.We're never told that secular women's groups led by radical feminists such as Andrea Dworkin lobbied against Flynt with equal vigor.
The movie portrays Althea as a sympathetic figure, a free spirit who goes too far.In fact, she has an agenda that includes a strong hostility to Christianity.She alleges that she was abused by the nuns who raised her in an orphanage.
The pornographer is shot by an unknown assailant while leaving a Georgia courthouse in 1978.The attack leaves him paralyzed from the waist down.He becomes addicted to painkilling drugs which Althea also consumes.
“We ought to move somewhere perverts are welcome,” Larry proclaims, and the entire Hustler empire re-establishes itself in Los Angeles.Eventually he kicks his drug habit, but Althea remains hooked, contracting AIDS and dying in her bath.
The legal battles continue as Larry's behavior becomes more erratic.He shows up in court wearing a diaper made out of an American flag and throws oranges at the judge.
The porn king's wrestling with religion remains a major issue in his life.He now describes himself as an atheist and refuses to put his hand on the Bible and swear an oath.Furious at the continuing opposition from evangelical Christians, Larry runs a satirical piece that fantasizes about the Rev. Jerry Falwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse. The Moral Majority leader sues for libel and loses.But a Virginia court awards him substantial damages for emotional distress.
Larry resents Falwell because the preacher characterizes AIDS as God's retribution for our sins. Perceiving this perhaps as some kind of judgment on Althea, Larry is motivated to fight the damages award all the way to the Supreme Court where the justices rule 9-0 in his favor.Although a significant First Amendment victory, the high court decision isn't the ground-breaking legal precedent the filmmakers claim it to be except in publicity value.
If Flynt has a place in our cultural history, it should not be as a reluctant champion of free speech.Instead he should be remembered as a high-profile profiteer of America's decay.The success of his magazines represents a lowering of moral standards that have weakened the nation's social fabric to the point of chaos.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Superbowl XXXI - Giving All Glory to God DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:ON MAY 16 of this past year my wife and I were given our greatest challenge to date.A baby boy was put into our care and with him the responsibility of bringing him to heaven.We both believe that no one goes to heaven alone and that in order for us to get there we would have to make sure that our son got there too.
I have to admit that at times that was a disheartening realization.I had read Guadium et Spes and understand that there is a dichotomy in man.Although he may act as if there were no God, on the other hand he has a yearning in his heart for something greater.In the time leading up to my child's birth it was easy to see men and women acting as if there were no God, but the inner yearning was not as evident. Parents rely on positive role models to assist them in their child rearing.I was on a quest to find some.
The scandalous allegations against our president seemed commonplace, and did not deter him from winning re-election.The world watched O.J.Simpson being chased in his white Bronco after the brutal slaying of his wife and her friend.Mike Tyson went to jail for rape.The heroes of the ‘86 Mets, Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry, both had their bouts with cocaine.Michael Irvin, Leon Lett, the list seemed to go on of people we would not want to influence our son.’
So, who was left? As a father, I could not wait to see my son playing sports, yet would he look at these figures and think that this was the proper way to behave?
If this was all there was, my wife and I would be faced with an arduous battle.But in 1996, it seems that God was making a comeback in professional sports. Men were yearning for something greater, something outside themselves, and some of the greatest sports figures were not afraid to say it.
It all started with the N.Y.Yankees winning the World Series under the leadership of Joe Torre.Torre loves to tell of how his mother stressed two things — baseball and religion.She would cheer for her sons with her rosary beads in hand.She raised a daughter who became a nun and a son who became a Catholic manager, one who was not afraid to give credit to his sister who offered her prayers for his team's victory.
Then there was Evander Holyfield, who beat Mike Tyson in the world championship for boxing.No matter what was asked of him after the match, he responded that he gave all thanks to Jesus Christ.
Most recently, there was the AFC and NFC championship games in football.It seemed that every player interviewed took an opportunity to thank God.In particular, Reggie White of the Green Bay Packers, an ordained minister, credited the team's success to Jesus Christ and Willie Clay of the Patriots said his interception was something he had prayed for and that he thanked God for his talent. The Patriots as a team kept the media out of their locker room until they had said a team prayer of thanksgiving.Let's hope they do well in the Superbowl.
There is evidence of hearts burning for Christ, and more and more popular figures are not afraid to proclaim this.St.Peter tells us: “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pt 3, 15).If young people see that their sports hero praises God on national TV, and that he gives credit to the power of prayer, they will be less inclined to be embarrassed by their faith.
With all of the recent positive role models, parents like myself need not be so intimidated by the task ahead. I look forward to seeing my son in his first sports uniform, confident of the examples that are there for him.
John McCormack is based in Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Mccormack ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:Death Culture
On Nov.14, 1996 we lost one of the greatest Catholic leaders in the United States.I am, of course, referring to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, whom I believe is a saint.His life and death are truly an example for everyone.His strength and unshakable faith in Christ in the midst of his ordeal with terminal cancer are truly extraordinary examples for us all.
It is, perhaps, because of the cardinal's courage that I read with diligence the inspiring interview with Richard Thompson (“Taking on Dr. Kevorkian Proved Costly for Prosecuting Attorney; ‘I Enforce the Law,’” Jan.5).I hope that Thompson's story serves as a wake up call to all of your readers.It is truly alarming that someone like Kevorkian and his lawyer, Jeffrey Fieger, could have so much influence on our society. Thank God for leaders like Thompson, who is wise enough to never be misled by this death culture.
As St.Thomas More said: “A man may very well lose his head and yet come to no harm — yea, I say, unspeakable good and everlasting happiness.”
Valerie Terzi Manhattan, Kansas
Obvious Revelations
The headline and article “Poll Reveals Active Catholics Are ‘Highly Committed’”(Dec.29, 1996) was unbelievingly sophomoric.I can't believe anyone funded or spent time working on the “Catholic Pluralism Project” if this is new news to them.Could “inactive” Catholics be “highly committed”? Could “active” Catholics be “uncommitted”? Isn't someone who attends Mass, contributes to the parish and obeys our rules by definition “committed”?
I also question how someone identified as being on the “religious right” could be accused of ignoring the core doctrines of Catholicism.My understanding is that they are quite strict in these very beliefs. Davidson's sociology study sounds quite naive to me.
Fred Holt Englewood, Florida
Right, Left, Center?
The article “Poll Reveals Active Catholics Are ‘Highly Committed,'” (Dec.29, 1996), brought good news that more Catholics follow the teaching of the Church than other polls show.However, one statement of Professor James Davidson, the chief author of the project, causes me concern:
“The Left is Call to Action, the Right is Mother Angelica.By and large these are highly informed, highly motivated groups, representing extreme points of view.And statistically they represent a rather small percentage of all Catholics.Most Catholics tend to fall somewhere in the middle.”
First, the liberal element is so far left that the center appears to be the extreme right.This is a technique for social change introduced by the radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, which was active in the 1960s.The process works like this: Create a stir, make radical statements, upset people, etc.Then, calm them down by presenting a “compromise,” which in reality is still liberal and another step to the left of the original position.Then, repeat this process again and again until major changes occur so gradually that people do not realize what has actually happened.It is a method that has worked well in dismantling family and moral values.It is fast making inroads in the Church as well.
Second, the extreme right rejects the Holy Father and Magisterium as much as the extreme left.
Third, Mother Angelica is not extreme right.She may be slightly right-of-center, but she is not extreme. Her recent return to a more monastic style habit and the Latin Mass is in keeping with Vatican II (Perfectae Caritatis, 17; Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36).The content of the programs on her cable network, EWTN, are solidly in accord with the mainstream of our Catholic faith and theology.She is perhaps the single most effective communicator of the Catholic Church in the country today.Without EWTN, the Church would probably be in much worse shape than it is.Mother Angelica and EWTN are instructing and nourishing millions of Catholics in their faith.
Sister Mary Jeremiah OP Lufkin, Texas
Correction
In the Jan.12-18 issue, readers were advised of the availability of the full text of the First Things symposium entitled “The End of Democracy.” The text is available for $3 from First Things, 156 Fifth Ave., Suite 400, New York, NY 10010; (212) 627-1985.
Your correspondence regarding the Register, its features and Catholic issues is welcome.Submissions should be typed double-space, and sent to: Letters to the Editor, National Catholic Register, 33 Rossotto Drive, Hamden, CT 06514; or faxed to: (203) 288-5157; or e-mailed to cmedia@pipeline.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Mccormack ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Faith Without Works Is Dead DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:ARECENTLY released survey of 250,000 college freshmen showed a heartening growth of students' commitment to community service.Compared to 1989, reported UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, the number of students who had done volunteer work at least once during the previous year is up 10 percent for 1996.Some 38 of the respondents claimed to volunteer once a week.(The study also revealed a significant drop in freshmen's support for abortion rights as well as in their engagement in premarital sexual activity.)
The Church, of course, has always recognized the importance of “putting out” for our neighbor, even as the Reformation took umbrage at the overemphasis on deeds and other strictly-speaking material tokens of faith as guarantees to end up in heaven.
That willingness to help someone in need or the readiness to serve the common good in any other way seems to be characteristic of the American spirit, the hallmark of a people whose identity and self-image were forged as the Founders shook off the yoke of foreign rule and monarchical absolutism. Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress may have been pushing things to an extreme, but that instinct to keep centralized government power in check is nothing new.
Of course, there is an indispensable role for government at the national and state level.However, Americans, beginning with the early settlers — who, their outlook dictated by the conditions they found themselves in, had few other options — but with essentially undiminished fervor today, believe that the responsibility for their material, physical and emotional well-being rests with themselves to a large extent.
Perhaps nowhere else is this aspect of the American genius so evident as in the 12 Step movement, which got its start with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous just over 50 years ago, a founding, moreover, in which besides a brand of evangelical Protestantism, Catholic sensibility played no mean part.Today, there is a perhaps a surfeit of self-help programs that take the AA principles as guidelines to overcome addictive behavior, but there is little doubt that for millions physically, mentally and spiritually struggling with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling, food and sexual obsession these simple steps have brought genuine liberation.
Key to the addict/alcoholic's recovery is, first, the development of trust in a loving God, at least, a leap of faith, a surrender, a making amends for the hubris of thinking that restoring order to a chaotic existence is up to the individual; and, second, the willingness to help fellow sufferers in whatever way necessary.Faith without works is dead.Areflection of Christ's ultimate self-emptying, it is the seeming paradox of the addict's newlyfound peace and serenity that he or she can only keep it by giving it away, that their treasure only grows to the extent that it is shared.
In the United States, volunteerism is evident in myriad ways.Again, some form of state intervention is a must, as Catholic social teaching also holds — and Church leaders are rightly concerned at current cutbacks in welfare and other social entitlements, as well as foreign aid — but Americans have always provided much of the protection for life's rougher edges themselves.They do so by working in soup kitchens; by working for social change; by joining any of countless charitable organizations, lodges and, of course, Church-based organizations; by raising funds to combat diseases and help their victims, etc.The list is virtually endless.
Surely, in the long-term, it is that readiness to help neighbor and self that gives the United States an edge in a global community ever more captive to unforgiving competion.The Europeans, by contrast, both in the east, under communism, and the west, with the welfare state, have had the dubious luxury of having the state basically take care of neighbor and self.Not surprisingly, self-help programs like Alcoholics Anonymous have had a slow start among Europeans, a majority of whom simply aren't accustomed or even willing to help themselves, not if there is some state-funded hospital or doctor to look after them.But as economies tighten, the omnipotent, omnipresent state will surely stop functioning as such.
Europeans, their spiritual regeneration so dear to the heart of John Paul II, too must learn, and experience is bound to teach them, that in helping others the American way, they help themselves — and that faith without works is dead.
— JK
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Editorial ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Did Karol Wojtyla See and Rescue the Good in Marxism? DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:WHEN A NEW film by Poland's award-winning director Krzysztof Zanussi is released this spring, it's likely to raise some eyebrows.The script for Brat Naszego Boga (Brother of Our God) was written by a Catholic priest half-a-century ago.Some viewers may have trouble believing the priest in question was Karol Wojtyla, who finished it in 1949, three years after his ordination.
If they do, it will merely confirm that attitudes toward the Pope are still highly-colored by his role in the struggle against communism — and often neglect the passionate concern for social justice that has been ever-present in his thoughts and actions.
Brother of Our God tells the true story of a Polish painter, Adam Chmielowski (1845-1916) who lost a leg at age 18 while fighting the Russians in Poland's January 1863 uprising.Later, after a religious conversion, he changed his name to Brother Albert and founded a new Franciscan order in Krakow.It also tells a great deal about the young Karol Wojtyla — and about the bitter and prolonged political and ideological struggle of his early years.
When Wojtyla moved to Krakow as a student in 1938, locals still remembered the tall, limping figure of Chmielowski pushing his cart around the cobbled streets begging alms for the poor. Brother Albert's life story embodied two kinds of heroism — revolutionary struggle and self-denying charity.The Polish Pope showed his gratitude on Nov.12 1989 by declaring Adam Chmielowski a saint.In Brother of Our God, Chmielowski rejects the paternalistic philanthropy of the 19th century Church, and is full of venom for those who appease their consciences with charitable donations — who “for a few zloties here and there demand the right to a peaceful isolation.”
He also rejects the notions of his liberal artist friend Maks, who believes the human person exists independently of social and economic factors and can be left to drift uncertainly between competing forces and pressures.Instead, Chmielowski concurs with another character, Nieznajomy, that revolutionary upheavals are inevitable and necessary by-products of social injustice, which can only be avoided through a vigorous solidarity with the poor.
Nieznajomy (his name means “unknown”) personifies Europe's socialist movement.His ideas derive from Polish Romantic literature, echoing the rebel Pankracy in Zygmunt Krasinski's Nieboska Komedia, with accents from the Russian Dostoevsky.But Chmielowski parts company with Nieznajomy when it comes to revolutionary methods.For one thing, Nieznajomy's approach to social justice is anonymous and indiscriminate.For another, he believes in common responsibility — whole classes are branded guilty for contemporary social evils.
Nieznajomy manipulates emotions to harness the destructive anger of the exploited.But he knows little of the real-life hardships of the “street people” for whom he claims to speak.The “revolution” he helps ignite merely brings new injustices and division.In its place, Chmielowski develops his own idea of mercy that recognizes each person's inherent dignity.This does not mean passivity.Poverty and injustice, he readily concedes, should indeed awaken real anger.
“There's a difference between summoning forth this righteous anger; letting it ripen and emerge as a creative force — and exploiting the anger, abusing it as a material tool,” Chmielowski insists. “But I knew about this anger — this great, just anger.I knew it would explode, and continue exploding because it is just.”
Nieznajomy, for his part, is contemptuous of Chmielowski's “mercy,” believing it papers over conflicts and postpones muchneeded changes. “Watch out for those apostles of mercy: they are our enemies,” is the revolutionary's final response.
Clearly, we find Wojtyla retracing his own dilemmas through Chmielowski's personal anguish.Like Chmielowski, he had also given up art and politics for the more interior life of a priest.But like most of his generation, he had also thought through Marxist options at a time when the “new science” was locked in a mortal struggle with Christianity.As a literature student in 1938-9, Wojtyla had known the tense radical atmosphere of pre-war Krakow, when most contemporaries sensed they faced a choice between Soviet-style communism and fasciststyle nationalism.
Dubbed “the Socialist” by fellow students, Wojtyla had had left-wing friends, such as Tadeusz Holuj who survived Auschwitz and became a Communist Party activist.He had known rightwingers too, including members of Poland's extreme nationalist Falanga, with their declared aim of destroying communism through “the power of ideas and the power of fists.” It was the Left's predominance that helped bring about a positive public response to communism after World War II, when many saw in the new Marxist program hope for a world of peace and justice.Forced to choose, Wojtyla rejected the path of Marxist revolution and retreated to the high ground of Christianity.He did so not out of concern for the preservation of social order, which had traditionally motivated Church leaders, but out of reasoned conviction.
He was well aware of the powerful moral and ideological challenge posed by Marxism, and knew the Church's otherworldly response would be found wanting by new societies that no longer accepted the worn-out formulations of the past. Returning from a summer 1947 trip to France and Belgium, Wojtyla was enthused about the “living testimony” provided by “worker priests.”
“This school, as very often happens with new trends in the Church, is making an effort to return to the Gospel's spirit of simplicity and engagement,” he wrote in Krakow's Tygodnik Powszechny Catholic weekly. “The proletariat does not accept new teaching without a struggle.But this should not disappoint the lay and clerical pioneers.They understand that some types of culture are disappearing, that certain once-vibrant traditions are now just empty [husks].”
Wojtyla's article was approved uncut by Poland's communist censors as a view from the “progressive clergy.” Just three years, later Pope Pius XII deplored the “alarming spread of revolutionary ideas” among the priests Wojtyla had lauded.Pope Pius curbed their activities in 1953 by which time adherents of the movement were arguing that the Church needed desembourgeoisement and should learn from Marxist analysis.
That was four years after Wojtyla had finished Brother of Our God.It had taken him five years to write about how to tackle the dilemmas over how to fight for social justice.Even then, he came up with several versions, and decided against publishing the play — perhaps out of fear that the communists could exploit it, but more likely because it was too personal and selfrevealing. Only in 1979, four decades later, was the play finally published in the Tygodnik Powszechny.By then, its tormented reflections had become those of the leader of the Catholic Church.
Was it all just the idealism of youth? As a lecturer at Poland's Catholic University of Lublin in the 1950s, Wojtyla was sparing in his public remarks about Marxism, never portraying himself as an outright anti-communist.
He talked about Marxism in private, and appeared to have read up on it extensively.His notes and articles contain references to dialectical materialism and class warfare.Like other priests, he saw Marxism as a form of atheism — an “atheist utilitarianism” that had emerged from false doctrines.But as a philosophical challenge, it deserved to be understood rather than just condemned, he appeared to believe.
Yet the ethical intentions of Marxists, Wojtyla noted, could be acknowledged too.Their principles and ideals ‘are those of Christian ethics, minus the reference to God which gives Christian ethics a religious character,’ he said.
Christianity's struggle for justice was based on the universal commandment of love, whereas Marxism restricted the struggle to a righteous class against its exploiters.Yet the ethical intentions of Marxists, Wojtyla noted, could be acknowledged too.Their principles and ideals “are those of Christian ethics, minus the reference to God which gives Christian ethics a religious character,” he said.
“Christian ethics cannot be based on class, since it must be universal.But it understands the struggle for justice,” Wojtyla wrote in 1938. “The history of the human spirit cannot be separated from the history of its material bodily existence.Because of this, the struggle the Church undertakes within humanity and for humanity does not occur independently of a struggle in the economic and political sphere.”
Not until 1959, when Wojtyla was a cardinal, did he finally offer a really coherent answer to Marxism with a new book, Osoba i Czyn (The Acting Person), intended as a rebuff to a new work by Adam Schaff, Poland's foremost Marxist scholar. Marxism's fundamental mistake, Wojtyla concluded, was anthropological — its economic and social failures derived from a misunderstanding of human nature.After the cataclysms of the 20th century, it was essential to understand why so many had succumbed to its siren's song.Marxism postulated that the “acting person” could become master of history, but that he was also a product of social forces who needed a correct praxis.Wojtyla's task was to find a counter-proposition to this Marxist vision of man.
Marxists saw activism as a duty, where personal interests were sacrificed for humanity's betterment.Wojtyla set out to rediscover the link between this kind of activism and Christian ethics.The human person fulfills himself by his actions,” he acknowledged; and the actions performed shape the world and mark the course of history.But good and bad actions are determined by free choice, personal effort and responsibility — not the moral determinism found in Marxism.
Thus, The Acting Person presented a positive, systematic rereading of Marxist values, stage by stage.Wojtyla dissected and refuted Marxism's conception of the world.Then, he gradually reassembled it in a Christian form, using concepts — alienation, exploitation, inequality — that Marxism had expropriated.
For all his imperfections, Wojtyla concluded, man is destined to be a participant in events.But what kind of participant? Wojtyla rejected both “individualism” and “totalism.” Instead, he offered a concept that he called “solidarity.”
“Solidarity means corporate integrity — the duties we expect from others and the rights we demand for others.And the attitude of solidarity goes together with the duty of opposition,” the future Pope wrote.Afull 11 years would elapse before a social movement bearing the same name erupted in his native Poland.
That notion of solidarity — of civil opposition as a form of social love — had found expression elsewhere in the world since Vatican II.But in Wojtyla's hands the correcting of injustices became a task to be carried out in common.Involuntary resignation or non-participation — attitudes often resorted to under communism — were no defense.It was wrong to allow oneself to be “carried along with the anonymous majority.” Besides being “sensitive” to social issues, it was also necessary to act.
Of course, deciding how to act required judgment and discernment. Those who were serious about redeeming humanity would not waste time on utopian dreams of structural transformation.
Instead, they would trouble themselves to think out the values and principles most in need of safeguarding — those that would enable the human being to achieve self-realization despite the oppressive structures that stood in his or her way. This was the aim of Catholic social teaching.Catholics believed, as Wojtyla had written in 1957, that “the ideology proclaimed by the Gospel” offered the best means of survival.But they should be just as aggressive and determined when it came to defending the poor and downtrodden.
Re-reading Wojtyla's early works today, the well-known adage that he's “conservative” in ethics and religion, but “radical” on social and economic issues becomes apparent.But that should hardly come as a surprise.After all, it's only through a Catholic combination of both that the age-old stereotype will be corrected — that the Left is tough on social justice but weak on questions of morality, and the Right strong on morals but indifferent to human suffering.
Whoever overcomes this stereotype will set the political agenda for the 21st century.And they&apso;ll owe much to Pope John Paul II, not least the idea that the 20th century's rival reforming currents could be purified by the Christian message that revealed their original humanitarian meaning.
The 80th anniversary of Brother Albert's death was commemorated in Krakow on Christmas Day.Perhaps that's one reason why the Pope, who owns the copyright to his work, agreed belatedly to allow Brother of Our God to be turned into a film by Zanussi.But perhaps, in the twilight of his life, John Paul II also hopes to reveal a side of himself that's hardly known — the passionate yearning for the rights of the poor that dominated his path to Rome.
Jonathan Luxmoore and Jolanta Babiuch are authors of a soon-to-be-published book with the working title of When the Counsellor Comes: Pope John Paul II and the Collapse of Communism.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore and Jolantababiuch ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Israel and the Body of Christ - A Jewish Take on the Incarnation DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:WITHOUT DOUBT, one of the most important Jewish theologians of our time is Michael Wyschogrod, now teaching at the University of Houston.At a theological conference in Germany, where he encountered considerable hostility from some Christian theologians, he read his paper A Jewish Perspective on Incarnation.The great disagreement between Jews and Christians, said Wyschogrod, is over the Christian claim that Jesus is God.Many Jews, following Maimonides, say that claim is decisively precluded because God is pure spirit and cannot be incarnate in space and time.Wyschogrod disagrees.In the Hebrew Scriptures there is no doubt that God “dwells” in Jerusalem in a way that he does not dwell in Berlin; as he dwells also in his elect, albeit sinful, people, and in the Temple of Solomon.
“Judaism is therefore incarnational if by this term we mean the notion that God enters the world of humanity, that he appears at certain places and dwells in them which thereby become holy.Christianity somewhat concretized this tendency, pushing it toward a specific incarnation so that the Jewish tendency toward spatiality takes on a corporeal form.While in Judaism the dialectic between transcendence and immanence is always kept alive rather sharply, in Christianity the aspect of immanence receives perhaps somewhat stronger expression even though it must be remembered that trinitarian thinking complements the incarnate son with a transcendent father.In any case, it must be emphasized that the Jewish objection to an incarnational theology cannot be based on a priori grounds, as if something in the nature of the Jewish concept of God made his appearance in the form of humanity a rational impossibility. Very often, Jewish opposition to the incarnation is based on just such grounds without realization of the implications of such a posture.If we can determine a priori that God could not appear in the form of a man or, to put it in more Docetistic terms, that there could not be a being who is both fully God and fully human, then we are substituting a philosophical scheme for the sovereignty of God.No biblically oriented, responsible Jewish theology can accept such a substitution of an ontological structure for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whose actions humanity cannot predict and whose actions are not subject to an overreaching logical necessity to which they must conform.It is for this reason that I consider clarification of the reason for Jewish opposition to the incarnation so important.”
Wyschogrod is taken with the story, which may or may not be apocryphal, that when Pope John XXIII saw the pictures of bulldozers pushing Jewish corpses into mass graves at the newly liberated Nazi murder camps, he exclaimed: “There is the body of Christ.” Wyschogrod urges Christians and Jews to reflect on the possible implications: “Somehow, in some way which is perhaps still not altogether clear, the Church decided that in Jesus there was God, more so than in other people who are also created in God's image.This man, this Jew, this servant, this despised, crucified Jew, was not just human but in him could be detected the presence of God.The Church held fast to this belief because it held fast to this Jew, to his flesh and not only to his spirit, to his Jewish flesh on the cross, to a flesh in which God was present, incarnated, penetrating the world of humanity, becoming human.The Church found God in this Jewish flesh.Perhaps this was possible because God is in all Jewish flesh, because it is the flesh of the covenant, the flesh of a people to whom God has attached himself, by whose name he is known in the world as the God of Israel.Perhaps for some mysterious reason, the Church, the gathering of Gentiles drawn to the God of Israel, could not see this incarnation in the Jewish people but could see it in this one Jew who stood, without the Church realizing it, for his people. Perhaps the crucifixion of Jesus can only be understood in the context of the crucifixion of the people of Israel, whose physical presence challenges those who hate God because in this people they see the God they hate.Perhaps the bond between Jesus and his people is much closer than has been thought.”
Wyschogrod is not certain that the word “incarnation” is the best way to describe God's relation to the Jewish people, but he is sure of the scriptural witness that God dwells in the Tabernacle, the Temple in Jerusalem, and in the Holy Land.More important, more holy, than these is the people. “The holiness of the land of Israel is not equal to that of the people of Israel who enter it as a holy people and who leave it as such.God's covenant is with the people and when the Temple is destroyed, the rabbis tell us, God goes into exile together with his people. And now, wherever a congregation gathers, wherever there are Jews, the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) gathers.Is this incarnation in a people? It is a movement in that direction.It is not identical with Christian incarnation.It is a less concentrated incarnation, an incarnation into a people spread out in time and place, with its saints and sinners, its moments of obedience and disobedience.But I do think that he who touches this people, touches God, and perhaps not altogether symbolically.”
Father Neuhaus is editor of First Things.
Reprinted with the kind permission of First Things.
For subscription information, contact: The Institute on Religion and Public Life 156 Fifth Ave., Ste.400 New York, NY 10010 (212) 627-1985
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Richard John Neuhaus ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Common Ground Has a Definite Future, Official Says DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:THE COMMON GROUND Project, spurred by the support of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, will move forward with a conference planned March 7-9 in Chicago.
There's been “an avalanche of interest,” Msgr.Philip Murnion, coordinator of the project, which seeks to bring together Catholics with opposing viewpoints, told a meeting of diocesan planners sponsored by the National Pastoral Life Center.
Murnion, director of the Pastoral Life Center has been a prime mover of the Common Ground project, which is now under the direction of Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala.
While the project received criticism last year from some Church leaders including four American cardinals who said it was too open to those opposed to Church teaching, “the signals from the Holy See are not negative,” Murnion, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, told the group.
Hints from top Vatican officials, he said, indicate a cautious wait-and-see attitude about Common Ground.He said that interest in the project has been galvanized through the publicity surrounding the death of Cardinal Bernardin, who made the Common Ground Project a priority in the last year of his life. “His death and this event got tied together,” said Murnion, who traced the history of the initiative from a small group of Church leaders who were upset with what they saw as increasing rancor among Catholics.
He said he expected criticism from a variety of viewpoints after the project issued a statement last year entitled “Called to Be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril.” The statement argued that there is a climate of ideological suspicion in the Church that gets in the way of its mission.It said that “a mood of suspicion and acrimony hangs over many of those most active in the Church's life.”
It called for American Catholics to “reconstitute the conditions for addressing our differences constructively — a common ground centered on faith in Jesus, marked by accountability to the living Catholic tradition, and ruled by a renewed spirit of civility, dialogue, generosity, and broad and serious consultation.” An estimated 300,000 copies of the statement have been distributed, including through Catholic newspapers, such as the Register, which ran the text in full.
Some complained that the statement encouraged dissent from Church teaching.Others, including Father Richard McBrien, a dissenting theologian at the University of Notre Dame, argued that the statement did not deal with what he described as heavy-handed Church leadership.Sociologist and author Father Andrew Greeley responded that the acrimony the statement described largely affects elite professional Church leaders, not the everyday parish life that is experienced by most Catholics.
That kind of criticism was expected by project leaders.But Murnion said that he and other leaders of the project did not expect the negative response from four American cardinals, Bernard Law of Boston, James Hickey of Washington, Adam Maida of Detroit and Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia.The strong reaction to the document, Murnion said, “for some confirmed the problem it was describing.”
The meeting in Chicago has proven problematic in some regards, he noted.The project organizers are interested in a public meeting, but also would like to generate as much honest dialogue as possible, which means that privacy might have to be protected.The group is figuring out ways to receive both public and private comments at the conference.
Murnion said that responses indicate that the project is already having a positive effect.He noted that a moral theology professor at a Catholic university said the document challenged him to ask, “How fairly do I present the teachings of those I disagree with?”
— Peter Feuerherd
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Feminists For Life Give Surprising Spin to Pro-Life Work DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODYBELOWA black and white photo of a rather dour-looking, Victorian-era woman, the stark flyer proclaims in bold print: “Another anti-choice fanatic.”
A hit piece from the pro-abortion crowd? Hardly.It's part of Feminists for Life of America's (FFL) latest education campaign. The woman pictured is Susan B.Anthony, and the flyer also features her words: “Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.”
The flyer concludes, “The woman who fought for the right to vote also fought for the right to life.We proudly continue her legacy.”
Feminism's foremothers were solidly pro-life, and FFL wants people to know it.While the nearly 25-year-old non-sectarian organization opposes all forms of violence, including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and domestic violence, the group recently launched a campaign to let college women know abortion is not their only option.
“Women on college campuses think they have to sacrifice their child for their education,” says FFL's executive director Serrin Foster, explaining that another of the group's new flyers — that can be used as campus newspaper ads — was inspired by a board member's own experience.
“They say I have a free choice,” reads the text next to a photo of a young woman. “But without housing on campus for me and my baby, without on-site daycare, without maternity coverage in my health insurance, it sure doesn't feel like much of a choice.”
The numbers speak for themselves.At one Ivy League college, the campus pro-life group researched the records and found that almost 100 women took pregnancy tests through the college health clinic.One woman left college to have her baby.Obviously, not all the test results were positive, but it's fairly clear that on college campuses, the deck is stacked in favor of abortion.
Foster sees that slowly changing with the launch of FFL's new college outreach program “Send a Kit to Campus.” Make that two kits: a “College Pregnancy Resource Kit” aimed at residential, health and psychological counselors and a “Pro-Life Feminist History Kit” for the library.
Foster notes that while the information is desperately needed, “we're not interested in starting FFL chapters on college campuses.” Rather, FFLseeks to support existing pro-life groups on campus by providing speakers, information and the kits. “The pro-life world has spent 25 years building crisis pregnancy centers that can support women and help them,” Foster says.
The challenge is to let college women know about these centers. “The girl's already made an assumption that abortion is her only choice,” Foster says. “Every day in the school paper, there are ads for abortions ‘up to 24 weeks, free, confidential and friendly.’ We wanted to make sure women are told about the rest of the choices.”
The FFL relies on students like Rachel Conradt, whom they arm with yet another kit instructing them how to visit the campus clinic and put up the posters.
Conradt, co-president of Northwestern University's Alliance for Life, and two other students, along with a crisis pregnancy center director, recently met with counselors at the campus women's health and counseling clinics.After hearing about the services offered by the pregnancy centers, the counselors agreed to start referring pregnant students to the centers along with the standard referrals to abortion clinics.
“Women need to know where they can get support throughout their pregnancy,” Conradt says.Women and men also need education about fetal development, she adds.On campus, she's found that most are “strongly pro-choice.” “They don't agree with the pro-life view,” says the 21-year-old, “but they just don't know the facts about fetal development.” So in addition to volunteering at crisis pregnancy centers, alliance members educate.
“People tell us they didn't realize that in the first trimester, it looks like a baby,” she says, “or that abortion is legal all nine months.They're not bad (people).They just don't know the facts.”
Tracy Moran is based in San Diego, Calif.
Feminists for Life needs help.They're seeking sponsors to help pay to “Send a Kit to Campus.” The pregnancy resource kit is $35; the history kit is $55.For more information about FFL, call (202) 737-3352 or visit their web site: http://www.serve.com/fem4life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tracy Moran ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Saint or Sinner, the Real Evita Remains a Mystery DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODYAS MILLIONS OF moviegoers flock to see Evita, the new musical starring Madonna, they&apso;ll follow the story of Evita the Harlot, a second-rate actress who slept her way into the Argentine presidential palace in the 1940s.
But there's another view of Argentine first lady Eva Peron: Evita the Saint. To her beloved descamisados (shirtless ones), she was a spiritual mother who built schools and hospitals and showered the poor with gifts, from homes to false teeth. In the two years before she died of cancer in 1952, Pope Pius XII received 40,000 letters calling for her canonization.
Who was the real Evita?
Given her talent for self-creation, it's hard to tell. But it's clear that “the Spiderwoman with a whip” stereotype “is a profound distortion,” says Dartmouth College history professor Marysa Navarro, co-author with Nicholas Fraser of Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron (Norton). Argentine oligarchs who resented a poor actress' rise to power only fueled the rumors.
In reality, Eva Peron combined political ambition and spiritual fervor. She saw no contradiction in calling for “total subordination to [and] blind faith in” her husband, Argentine President Juan Peron, a staunch nationalist who supported the fascist and Nazi movements in Italy and Germany, while devoting her own life to serving the poor.
“On one hand she was intolerant, authoritarian, almost fascist,” says Tomas Eloy Martinez, director of the Latin American Program at Rutgers University and author of the novel Santa Evita (Knopf).
“On the other she gave her life for the happiness of the people. She decided towork very hard for the poor people and give them things she had never had.”
The Evita the Harlot image surfaced early in Evita's life. According to a story (set to music on the stage and now in the movie), a 15-year-old Evita seduced a famous tango singer so he would take her to Buenos Aires. Navarro and Fraser say there is no proof for such a story, nor to the tales that she bedded and abandoned numerous men to advance her career.
What is uncontested is that at the age of 24 she met a49-year-old widower, military officer Juan Peron, and began living with him. “Peron, like Eva, had been born out of wedlock,” notes Peron biographer Joseph Page, “and he shared with her a contempt for ‘respectable’ Argentines.”
Still, even as a woman who flaunted convention, she embraced the Catholicism imbued in Argentine culture; when she eventually married her live-in lover, the service was in a church. She continued to honor the institutional Church after he became president in 1946, supporting Catholic education and making sure that priests were present at convocations.
Because the Catholic hierarchy had supported Juan Peron in the election, Evita Peron never criticized clerics in public. Privately, however, she told friends that she resented their ties to Argentina's elites and the indifference some displayed to the poor.
Her own religious life focused more on private prayer and public works than on rituals and worship. Hardly an orthodox Catholic, she admitted in an undated, handwritten letter to having “never kept the benches in churches warm,” according to Page, professor at Georgetown University Law School.
Still, she prayed to the Virgin Mary and sought spiritual counsel from a Jesuitconfessor who understood that she “felt closer to the Lord by aiding the sick and struggling on behalf of workers.”
“She chose to retrieve the social justice message in a Church that had been close to the symbols of power,” says Navarro. “She got closer to the people who were closest to her heart. She was a Catholic in the deeper sense of the word.”
In 1948, shunned by the aristocrats who ran Argentina's Charitable Society, she started her own philanthropic organization for the descamisados, The Maria Eva Duarte De Peron Social Aid Foundation. Relying on voluntary contributions and groups that wanted to win her favor — and later mandatory contributions from salaried workers — the foundation built low-cost housing for families, vacation colonies for workers and homes for orphans, unwed mothers and the elderly.
During the day and late into the evening, she met with men, women and children who lined up to see her with requests for aid. She handed out medicines, tickets for vacations, sewing machines, bridal gowns, bicycles and thousands of pairs of false teeth, a symbol of wealth.
“Evita arrived and with her great wings filled the space of desires,” writes Martinez. She “was the emissary of happiness.”
Her opponents charged that she was training “the people to beg.” But her close friend and confessor, Father Hernan Benitez, a Jesuit priest, said that she treated even her sickest visitors with dignity, according to Navarro and Fraser.
“I saw her kiss the leprous,” the authors quote Father Benitez as saying. “I saw her kiss those who were suffering from tuberculosis or cancer. I saw her distribute love, a love that rescues charity, removing that burden of injury to the poor which the exercise of charity implies. I saw her embrace people who were in rags and cover herself with lice.”
Critics who wonder why Peron focused on palliative measures rather than on changing the systems that perpetuated poverty, says Navarro, fail to understand the limits of her power in a society that prohibited women from voting until 1947. And Page notes Peron was acting within the parameters that her husband had established.
“The space that was open to her was in social welfare activities,” says Page. “Peron didn't want to upset or restructure the social order.”
Evita Peron kept few accounts at the foundation, which led to charges of fiscal abuse. “She couldn't give a hoot about paperwork,” says Navarro. Nor did she care about detractors who made fun of her penchant for wearing expensive dresses and jewelry even when handing out medicine to her descamisados. She didn't dress for the aristocracy, she said, but for the poor who were starved for beauty.
It was the onset of uterine cancer that elevated Peron from spiritual mother of the descamisados to popular saint. “When the public discovered she was sick, the descamisados had no doubt that she would soon be seeing God,” says Martinez. “And they wanted her to think of them personally.” If she thought of them, they believed that they, too, would achieve immortality.
Her followers went to great lengths to capture her attention. “People walked in reverse for many miles in the name of Evita,” says Martinez. “They played the piano for many days and prayed for her health.” A famous performer danced tango for 127 hours with the same number of partners, he wrote, so Peron would hear of his tribute and remember him to God.
She continued working despite her worsening condition, and supporters said that she became a martyr for the people she loved, sacrificing her health and later her life. In newspapers and union calendars, write Fraser and Navarro, she was “shown in the traditional robes of the Virgin,” her head “surrounded by a halo.”
Peron died at the age of 33, and her husband commissionedamasterembalmerto preserve her body. Tens of thousands of mourners contemplated the ruby-lipped corpse with the blond chignon “as if she were a wax Madonna,” writes Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, author of the biography Eva Peron (St. Martin's Press). An antiPeronist writer called the two weeks of funeral ceremonies a “bacchanal of necrophilia” in a country preoccupied with the dead.
In Santa Evita, Martinez follows the corpse's actual 19-year odyssey in which it was hidden, stolen, replicated (twice), buried and dug up and smuggled to Europe by anti-Peronist military leaders who feared the body would be used to foment an uprising. The body was finally laid to rest in 1976 in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, a site that the actress Madonna visited to prepare for her starring role in the film.
“I have never seen such a beautiful, decadent, haunted place,” Madonna wrote in the magazine Vanity Fair.
“There were hundreds of wild cats everywhere and each mausoleum was more grand and exquisite than the last, little tiny mansions with windows to view the caskets, which are surrounded by gargoyles and statues and religious painting and plaques…. The dead live in style.”
Fraser and Navarro play down the cult of Santa Evita that emerged after her death. “All people did was remember her,” they wrote, “and if they called her a saint it was in a familiar and colloquial way.”
Martinez disagrees. “I visited many poor houses in the provinces of my country, and I saw small altars with Eva Peron in the middle, and flowers and candles, and people praying to her. And I was very moved because they think Evita is a saint, very sincerely. Many people think Evita is an instrument for their salvation.”
Savior or not, she remained ambivalent about the Catholic Church. And it would be three more decades before her feelings about the Church hierarchy would be made public in a memoir attributed to her: In my Own Words (The New Press), published for the first time in Argentina in 1987 and in the United States this year.
The text lambastes Catholic clerics for “having betrayed Christ who was compassionate with the masses” by siding with the rich while showing “coldness and indifference” to the poor.
“Religion should be for the liberation of the people,” the purported memoir says, “because when man meets God he reaches the heights of his extraordinary dignity.”
Navarro and Evita's sisters do not believe that Eva Peron was the author of In my Own Words. And historians such as Page, who wrote the introduction to the English translation, say the literary allusions suggest that at the very least the work was embellished by another.
Still, Page and Martinez think that Peron may have dictated the work in her final days. The words, they say, accurately reflect the sentiments of a first lady who was neither saint nor harlot, but a woman who said she saw Christ in the descamisados.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Julia Lieblich ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Next Sunday at Mass God-Centered Patience DATE: 01/26/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Jan 26-Feb. 1, 1997 ----- BODY:Feb. 2,1997 The Presentation of the Lord Lk 2,22-40
ONLY A FEW weeks ago, on the feast of the Holy Family, we heard this same Gospel proclaimed. But we meditate upon it again today to celebrate the new manifestation of Jesus as Messiah, as he is presented in the temple.
Simeon and Anna represent all of us who have been waiting and searching for the Lord in order to find in him the ultimate meaning of our life. They embody the theological virtue of hope, living in confidence with their souls fixed on the promises of God. What enables them to pick this child out of the crowd and acclaim him as the Anointed of the Lord? If we can answer that question then we, too, can share in the transforming graces offered in the mystery of the Presentation.
First of all, we are told that Simeon and Anna were waiting in the temple, which means they were waiting in holiness. So often, when our life lacks focus, purpose, direction or fulfillment we entertain the temptation to dissipation, worldliness, materialism, etc. God has his reasons for not divulging His answer to all our prayers as immediately as we might desire. For one thing, he aims to purify and strengthen our desires so as to conform them more perfectly to what God wants for us.
Simeon and Anna's prolonged period of sanctified waiting prepares them to partake with great joy in all the richness of the Presentation. Their God-centered patience refines their perseverance and perception so that they settle for nothing less than God in their lives. Holiness is their tutor. Simeon and Anna readily welcome God's Son in the temple because they have first nurtured godliness in their own lives.
But something else disposes them to see in the Christ child “a revealing light to the Gentiles.” Simeon and Anna's lives have both been formed by suffering. Simeon is presented to us with all the virtues of a monk. He has lived his life in complete self-donation to God, with unfailing dedication and utter detachment. His life remains focused on his death: the moment when God's anointed would be revealed to him. And this delights him and gives him great peace.
In the same way, Anna's life is marked by constant asceticism. She has lived perhaps 50 or 60 years alone as a widow, fasting, consumed by prayer. And because both of these holy ones value the redemptive power of sacrifice in their relationship with God, they are quick to receive the Holy One of God as he is consecrated in the temple with a sacrifice.
Finally, Simeon's esteem for Mary opens his eyes to the presence of Jesus. In fact, the Presentation is depicted as another version of the Visitation. The Mother of God who once bore Jesus in her womb to Elizabeth now carries her child into the temple where Simeon takes him in his arms. At the prospect of giving birth to her son, Mary sings her Magnificat in Elizabeth's house. Now at the fulfillment of God's Word in the “saving deed displayed for all the peoples to see” — the Incarnation — it is Simeon who sings his canticle in the temple. Anna joins in the glory and the joy by giving thanks to God and talking about the child to all. The Mother of God, who presents her Son to God and to us, also enables us to embrace the graces that continue to flow to us through the Presentation.
Father Cameron, a Register contributing editor, is a professor of homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N. Y.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Julia Lieblich ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Heralding New Generation, Bishop Chaput Comes to Denver DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:THE APPOINTMENT Feb. 18 of Bishop Charles Chaput of Rapid City, S.D., as archbishop of Denver continues a papal trend of appointing theologically conservative, socially conscious prelates to American Sees. But the 52-year-old Kansan—the nation's youngest archbishop—is no cookie-cutter prelate.
Archbishop Chaput, a Capuchin priest, is one of only two Native American bishops in the country. Though Rapid City is a rural diocese with only 35,000 Catholics, he has managed to develop a national reputation largely because of his outspokenness in the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The new Denver archbishop has fought hard against inclusive language and what are viewed as “progressive” liturgical trends.
“One of the things I feel is important to say about myself is I love the Second Vatican Council; I was formed by it,” he told the Register in a telephone interview three days after the announcement.
“People sometimes perceive me as conservative because I' not always going the same way we've been going for the last 10 or 15 years,” he said. “But in some ways, I think that's quite liberal because it's going in another direction. It's trying to be creative.
“If you see that going in one direction doesn't work, why not try some others. I don't think I' so tied to the immediate past…I' willing to try new kinds of strategies to accomplish that same goal. So I don't think I' conservative. I just don't know that we should put all of our eggs in the same basket if something's not working.”
Archbishop Chaput said, for example, that the national decline in vocations should be a more pressing concern to the Church, and not something to be written off as “the will of God.” It's an area he has addressed successfully in Rapid City, where there are only 26 active diocesan priests but 16 seminarians are preparing for ordination.
“I think lay involvement is certainly the will of God and that one of the great fruits of the Second Vatican Council is that lay people know that it's baptism that gives them a call to holiness and a call to service in the Church and in the world,” he said. “That's a great gift, but along with that, I' sure God wills many vocations to religious life and to the ordained ministry, and we've seen a diminishment of that.”
Archbishop Chaput will succeed Archbishop J. Francis Stafford, who last year was appointed president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome. Archbishop Chaput's installation is set for April 7 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver.
According to Bishop James McHugh of Camden, N.J., the new archbishop cannot be neatly categorized and is sensitive to all tendencies in the Church. “He has this enormous friendliness about him and a tremendously engaging smile that gets people to be kind and friendly and diminishes apprehension and concern.”
Bishop McHugh, who continually stressed Archbishop Chaput's warm manner, said that his friend is up to the challenge of the appointment, noting that the new archbishop was a pastor in Denver and also served there as provincial of his Capuchin province. “He has a history in Denver, he understands the area. Denver is going to be a piece of cake for him,” he said.
Bishop McHugh doesn't see the appointment as part of any larger Vatican trend, but as a natural choice based on Archbishop Chaput's experience in the West and in the Archdiocese of Denver. “He was sort of made for it,” Bishop McHugh said. “I don't think there's any agenda to it.”
Archbishop Chaput has been critical of some of the work of the bishops'conference, especially in the area of liturgy and the translation of liturgical texts. His proposed amendments have often been overruled, but his new stature as archbishp are bound to give his opinions more clout…
Bishop McHugh praised the new archbishop's outspokenness and commitment. “He does his homework, speaks to many issues and speaks intelligently,” Bishop McHugh said. “Like anybody, he doesn't win them all, but he's well-liked by the bishops. The bishops strongly respect him and have a fondness for him.”
Archbishop Chaput was born in 1944 in Concordia, Kan., a town of 7,000 people. Though he is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, he did not grow up on a reservation or within the Native American culture. Yet, he still looks to his roots. “There's a great convergence between my Franciscan vocation and Native American spirituality,” Archbishop Chaput said, explaining that both traditions have a great reverence and natural humility before God and creation, a willingness to sacrifice for the community and respect for elders and others.
Native Americans make up 40 percent of the Catholic population of Rapid City. Having a bishop who shares their culture has been a source of pride for many of them, but Archbishop Chaput's popularity has transcended ethnic lines.
“I think there's a greater unity here between the native people and the non-native people than when I arrived, and I think that's as much a function of the fact that I' Indian as anything else, and that's not something everybody can bring to the diocese,” Archbishop Chaput said. “I think native people feel comfortable with me and they feel like they belong to the Church because their bishop is one of them. And I think non-native people have seen that I' not a threat to them, as well. Native people can have leadership in the Church and it can be a good thing for everyone. I just hope that energy continues to grow.”
While the Native American population in Denver is considerably smaller than in Rapid City, other minority groups, particularly Mexican Americans, make up a large percentage of the Catholic population there. A blessing of his Indian roots, Archbishop Chaput said, is that he has never experienced “the temptation of racism.”
“I really can't quite understand why people would be afraid of others because of their race or their culture,” he said. “I've been very proud of who I am and I feel it's also enabled me to be rather free with people of other minority groups. I feel really comfortable with blacks, Hispanics and others who might feel that society does not have room for them.”
As bishop of such a small diocese— and a Franciscan to boot—Archbishop Chaput is known for informality and accessibility which may be hard to duplicate in Denver. He's frequently referred to simply as Bishop Charles.
“One of the great advantages of a diocese this size is it's possible to know a great number of people,” said Father Michael Woster, moderator of the curia for the Rapid City Diocese. “He has a reputation for turning mail around in 24 hours. He knows people by name.”
When he became a Capuchin friar, Archbishop Chaput said, he never dreamed of being a bishop, let alone archbishop of Denver. “St. Francis didn't want his brothers to be bishops, so I hope I haven't made him turn over in his grave,” he said. “He thought it could lead us away from being the Brothers that our vocation calls us to be. So I hope in exercising my ministry as a bishop, I will do it as a Franciscan Brother with a great respect for other people, a great humility and a fraternal spirit.
“At the same time, I have the authority of bishop, and I wouldn't hesitate to exercise it because that's what my vocation calls me to do. But I would tend to do that in the spirit of the founder of my community.”
Dennis Poust is based in Austin, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dennis Poust ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE:Catholic Charities Argues Government Funding Is Vital DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—Catholic Charities accepts government money because it believes there is strength in a partnership with government, and this partnership will benefit people in need, said the president of Catholic Charities USA.
“We have been partners with government to help government do what it wants to do and what we believe it should do,” said Jesuit Father Fred Kammer in a Feb. 28 telephone interview.
He spoke about the issue of government funding in the wake of an attack on Catholic Charities by Rick Santorum, a Catholic who is a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, at a Feb. 20 dinner of the Catholic Campaign for America (CCA).
The senator charged that Catholic Charities opposed welfare changes he and other legislators were seeking because of the organization's dependence on federal money, and said Catholic agencies should give up government funding that prohibited them from talking to people about Christ.
Michael Ferguson, CCAdirector, said in an interview that Senator Santorum raised a valid issue, but that the CCA had a deep respect for the work of Catholic Charities and might not have spoken in the same terms.
A letter from Mr. Ferguson appears on page 6.
Father Kammer said Catholic Charities raises $300–400 million a year privately, and uses some of that to carry out specifically Catholic programs. But grants from the government enable it to provide services that it could not otherwise, he said.
The importance of that partnership in American life, the Jesuit said, became even more evident when he visited countries of Eastern Europe, where the Church had not been allowed to develop comparable programs and is now only beginning this kind of work, he said.
Father Kammer said this collaboration between government and religious agencies had been the country's tradition from colonial days. The Ursuline nuns who began work in 1727 in New Orleans, his home archdiocese, got financial support from the colony for their social ministry, he said.
Some critics, he added, question the acceptance of any such funds out of a desire to “demonize” the government. “We don't buy that argument,” he said. “Catholic social teaching doesn't consider government tainted.”
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is another agency that is heavily dependent on government financing, and has sometimes been accused of serving as an instrument of government policy. But Kenneth Hackett, CRS director, said in an interview that its mission was not determined by what government would fund. “If we did not get one penny from any government, we would do much less, but we would do basically the same thing,” he said.
The government connection does affect the way some people view CRS. When the Sandinistas were ruling Nicaragua, they refused to let CRS distribute a shipment of medicine intended for Nicaraguan children because it was paid for by U.S. government funds. When Indonesia took over East Timor, some critics of the action charged that the U.S. government supported the move, and that CRS served as an instrument of this policy when it carried out food relief and development programs there with U.S. government financing.
Hackett disputed that interpretation, however, and said the result of CRS's involvement was to turn over to the local Catholic bishop the most substantial social development organization in East Timor. “We're very proud of what we do,” he said. Last year, CRS received $80.3 million from the U.S. government for its food aid program and $51.8 million in other grants. It also raised $83.8 million, or about 40 per cent of its total income, from the Church and other private sources.
Raising that much money apart from government enables CRS to strike a balance, the director said, and “speak clearly and directly to the government on any issue.” Catholic agencies find some government requirements acceptable. In 1992, the board of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) voted to change the wording of its charter when it found this was necessary to qualify for a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID). But CNEWA said it had already broadened its mission beyond the goal of furthering the Catholic faith, the purpose stated in the original charter. So a new charter, focusing on humanitarian service only described the mission as it had already developed, the CNEW A said.
But Father Kammer said Catholic Charities was aware that government funding had dangers. The possibility of letting the mission of the Church be determined by what government will support is “always a temptation,” he said. “Local board have to be constantly watchful that they are not chasing the government dollar, and work carefully on their mission statements.”
He also acknowledged that “there are always dangers of government incursions, and sometimes we have to draw a line in the sand.” A recent example, he said, was an attempt in San Francisco to force agencies to accept same-sex marriages.
But Father Kammer said the Catholic identity of an agency was not necessarily eroded by the restraints on speaking explicitly about Catholic beliefs in government funded programs.
Different sectors of the Church have different apostolates, he said. When Catholic Charities is resettling refugees who come from non-Christian religions “it is not our job to preach the Gospel,” he said. But the work of Catholic Charities can be called “pre-evangelism,” and serves to make the message of the Church “credible” when others preach it in more explicit terms, he said.
The pressures that can develop are illustrated in the foster care program of the Archdiocese of New York. The traditional practice in New York was for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish agencies to care for children from their respective communities, with financing by the city. But in 1973 that arrangement was challenged in court by critics who charged it was working to the disadvantage of black Protestant children, because Protestant agencies could not care for their growing numbers.
After lengthy and costly legal battles, the city administration agreed to certain changes in the system, and the courts are still supervising the implementation of that agreement. One of the demands was that adolescents be offered abortion and contraceptive services. Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, chief operating officer of the archdiocesan Catholic Charities, said in an interview that the Catholic agencies refused to do that. But, he said, the children could get those services from the city.
Msgr. Sullivan said Catholic agencies also sometimes faced pressures to remove religious symbols such as crucifixes from their premises. “But we resist the government saying that in order to deliver services we have to give up our Catholic identity,” he said.
It would be discriminatory if the government gave contracts to secular agencies engaging in the same kind of work and refused to make grants to religious agencies, he said.
A recent book dealing with this area, When Sacred and Secular Mix by Stephen Monsma (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), carries an endorsement by Msgr. Sullivan. The book indicates that although some religious agencies taking government funds report undue government pressure, most do not, and government administrators tolerate many practical arrangements that do not accord with the stricter statements of the Supreme Court on Church-state separation.
Monsma argues that the working relationship is for the most part healthy, and in accord with the nature of American society and its reliance on voluntary associations. But from a legal standpoint, he reports, the relationship is “shot full of contradictions, subterfuges, evasions and confusions.” What he calls the current “muddling through” approach leaves religious agencies in a “legally precarious” position when they confront court challenges or hostile administrators.
The author points out, however, that pressures for “toning down” the religious character of an agency come not only from government but also from funding sources such as the United Way and corporations.
Afew years ago, a New York organization called the Council on Religion and International Affairs changed its name to Council on Ethics and International Affairs after business executives said they had difficulty justifying corporate gifts to religion.
Tracy Early us based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tracy Early ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Egypt's Christians Fear Army Role DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:TWICE IN TWO months, Egyptian soldiers of the Second Unit army camp have sacked a100-acre Christian farm—which is also the site for a disabled children's center—owned by the Coptic Orthodox Church. On Jan. 30, hundreds of soldiers destroyed more than 600 yards of stone fence around the farm which lies 15 miles outside of Cairo. Amonth earlier, troops had destroyed three agricultural buildings and damaged the center for the disabled using bulldozers and army trucks without license plates. During the first attack, the soldiers and trucks were led by an officer in a small Fiat, with an army license plate. But on Jan. 30, the soldiers removed the plates from their vehicles, apparently to conceal their identity.
Some farm workers threw stones at the soldiers who responded in kind. Five soldiers were injured in the clashes. Other workers tried to flag down truck drivers on a nearby highway, who stopped and tried to interfere with the military to stop their destruction.
“The attacks cannot be logically explained,” said Atef Mansour Ayoub, an agronomist and one of three brothers who own the farm. “If they think we should not be there they should have brought this before the court. Secondly, it is not the business of the army to check on permits. It's the responsibility of the police.”
Mansour Ayoub also said the farm's permits had been checked and were up to date. The land is being paid for in installments by Mansour Ayoub, and his two brothers, Dr. Ragaie Nasr Mansour Ayoub and Ayoub Mansour Ayoub. All three are Christians.
Ragaie, a civil engineer, had emigrated years ago to the United States but returned to Egypt when its government called on Egyptians abroad to invest in the country of their birth. Ragaie's 19-year-old son, John, is developmentally disabled. Ragaie is a member of St. John the Beloved Organization for helping the mentally handicapped which was registered in Egypt in May 1995.
Ayoub Mansour Ayoub—who is now better known as Coptic Bishop Botros, is president of the St. John the Beloved Organization. In 1993, Bishop Botros established the Cheerful Heart Center (CHC) for mentally disabled children. The CHC had been looking after the needs of more than 50 children, both Muslims and Christians, in apartments in Cairo. But specialists believed a more rural setting would be preferable for the children and thus was born the idea to build a residence for 200 developmentally disabled people on the farm. They would help with the work under the supervision of experienced farm workers and specialists in the care of the developmentally disabled.
Before the Ayoub brothers began paying installments on the land, it had been rented from the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture by the Tiba Society for Land Reclamation, of which the Ayoub brothers are members. In November 1993, the Tiba Society obtained approval from the Department of Roads and Bridges and from the Central Military Zone (to which a nearby army camp belongs) to build the walls around the property. The Tiba Society built the walls before the Ayoub brothers agreed to buy the land. The contract of sale on the land to the brothers is dated April 1995, and since then they've made monthly payments on it. It was to be deemed their property this next April 5.
But in a Feb. 1 letter to the governor of Cairo, the Defense Minister, Major General Hussein Tantawi, wrote that the Department of Agriculture of the Cairo Governorate signed the contracts in 1995 without the permission of the military forces. The Minister wrote that “although these contracts prohibit using this land for other purposes other than cultivation, it has been observed that they have erected buildings and fences, which violates these contracts ….”
The Minister of Defense demanded that the Director of the Department of Agriculture cancel the contracts. On Feb. 16, the Ayoub brothers received an express letter from the Department of Agriculture canceling the contract. “They saw the land [being used] to help the handicapped and … saw that I was frequently visiting the project and thought I was planning to build a monastery which is absolutely not true,” Bishop Botros told the Register. “I was stunned when I read the letter canceling the contract because we got all the necessary approvals from the authorities including the decision of the Ministry of Defense that this is civil land outside the jurisdiction of the military.
“Dr. Yousef Wali, Minister of Agriculture, formed a special committee to investigate the whole matter,” the bishop added. “They visited the land Feb. 20 and did not find any disorder. They saw all the approvals previously given to the project. The committee also saw the destroyed buildings.”
During a visit to the property a few months ago, before the military raids, Bishop Botros explained enthusiastically his plans to farm the land, to bring in cows, goats, rabbits and chickens, and to build the center for the disabled. The bishop said he had received assistance from foreign organizations to fund the project and that representatives from foreign embassies and international organizations had visited the project, including Wendy Walker, spouse of the American Ambassador in Egypt.
But since the soldiers' raids, work on the project has stopped. “Some cows were killed, five-year-old olive trees were destroyed,” said Bishop Botros who estimates that damages come to more than $200,000. The Egyptian press has been mostly silent about the events. The weekly Watany mentioned it only in a one paragraph item on their front page Dec. 22. ADecember editorial entitled “Coptic Farm Being Attacked By Armed Forces” and slated for the Middle East Times was pulled before publication by the government censor, though officials rarely use its censorship prerogative. The paper nevertheless managed to publish a related story in February. “The editor told me that the Middle East Times has to be very cautious about what they publish because of the sensitivity of this subject,” said Usama el-Ahwany, the author of the two pieces.
The censoring underscores the sensitivity of the issue in Egypt. Generally speaking, the army has a very positive reputation among citizens. Engineering units of the army have frequently helped the local population when needed, most recently by rebuilding houses after the November 1994 flood that left thousands homeless. The fact that the damaged farming project is Christian-based increases the likelihood that Christians in Egypt will perceive the events as the government turning against them.
While President Hosni Mubarak has always advocated national unity between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, further aggravation of the Ayoub brothers' farm project could further put that delicate relationship in jeopardy.
Cornelius Hulsman is based in Cairo, Egypt.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cornelius Hulsman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mental Health Advocates Weigh Profit Motive DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:THERE'S A BRAVE new world coming to treatment of the mentally ill as states begin to experiment with commissioning private, for-profit companies to treat conditions that continue to baffle and frighten people even in this sophisticated medical era.
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal noted that companies such as the Atlanta-based Magellan Health Services are seeking increased business as states— who now have greater responsibility as a result of the new federalism revolution in Washington—seek ways to deliver care to the mentally ill.
It is still a neophyte movement, but private firms have already made inroads in states such as Tennessee. State and corporate officials argue that such cooperation can result in better care at lower cost.
But Catholic mental health advocates, wary of previous reforms, which included the large-scale elimination of institutions that were never adequately replaced by community residences, are looking at the effort with jaundiced eyes.
“We, as Church, should not put profit before the dignity of the individual. When you're in a business, it is evaluated for the most part on the profit margin,” said Mary Jane Owen, director of the Washington-based National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities, and a former psychiatric nurse. She expressed fear that a concern for the bottom line in mental health care—a field where results are often painstakingly slow and expensive— will contribute to homelessness as programs put unhealthy people out on the streets.
One such privatization effort in Washington, D.C., resulted in company officials “buying Cadillacs and fur coats, and the people were absolutely forgotten,” said Owen. That scandal could be chalked-up to the problems encountered by the D.C. government on a wide range of concerns. Still, the potential for privatization abuse bothers advocates.
Tom Lambert, a deacon of the Archdiocese of Chicago and vice president for the Illinois Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, said that the new trend could be a boon or a bust. The federal government is currently moving funds to the states to run their own programs for the mentally ill. Many are expected to contract with HMO-type organizations to administer treatment. “It all depends on the HMO they have and the way they administer the services,” Lambert said, adding that states like Illinois are currently doing a poor job of caring for the mentally ill.
Thirty years after the massive trend of deinstitutionalization—when huge hospitals, which were accused of being little more than human warehouses, were emptied—follow-up community care is practically non-existent. The result: Many of the mentally ill wander the streets of Chicago and other large American cities, endangering, to some extent, the general public but, most of all, themselves, said Lambert.
“The fear is that with HMOs we will wind up with the same problems,” he said. And, with horror stories of drive-through mastectomies and other more-defined illnesses administered by HMOs already garnering criticism, there is little optimism that the new approach will be effective in dealing with the more complex treatment of mental illness.
Lambert noted that some advocacy groups have become involved in writing contracts for large HMOs contracting with state governments to assure that treatment standards will be upheld, “so that accounting is on the outcome, not on the cost process.”
Bills currently being discussed in Congress and in state legislatures would create parity between the insurance reimbursement for treatment of mental illness and other ailments. In many insurance contracts, noted Lambert, caps are placed on the reimbursement of mental illness treatment that are far lower than those established for such afflictions as cancer and heart disease.
Advocates for the mentally ill note that treat-ment—whether through drugs or psychotherapy—is a long process. It's generally, they note, a costly condition to treat.
Jennifer Shifrin, director of Pathways to Promise, a St. Louis-based group that promotes Christian and Jewish involvement with the mentally ill, warned that an increased emphasis on the financial bottom-line will threaten the invaluable role of chaplains. She noted that in Georgia, for example, chaplains have been eliminated from institutions operated by the state in a cost-cutting move.
“If a person has a mental health problem and needs spiritual resources, doctors can't do very much,” said Shifrin. Even in the best treatment schemes, she added, “people who have spiritual distress, unless it's worked out, will relapse quickly. It's unlikely that private companies will see the need for spiritual support for mental patients.”
She emphasized that mental illness doesn't fit easily into managed care concepts. “Each person is struck differently,” she said. “We all have different personalities. There is no test that can tell you specifically. You can't take a blood test and say ‘Yes, this person has schizophrenia.’”
Diagnosis of ailments such as depression is even more difficult. What can be perceived as a case of the everyday blues can gradually mushroom into full blown depression. “The definition is the inability to perform. That's pretty subjective,” said Shifrin, who noted that insurance companies and HMOs prefer to deal with more objectively-defined illness.
Whatever the finance mechanism that will evolve for treatment, the Churches should continue to play a role, advocates agree. But it should be a well-defined and limited one, argued Shifrin. The Churches, she said, should not have to shoulder the burden of the mentally ill while the government is freed of all accountability. The resources for such an effort are just not there.
“The government would like that because they could abdicate their responsibility completely,” Shifrin said. Yet Churches, she added, can serve the mentally ill by becoming advocates for people who don't have the strength to get through the system to get what they need. A simple service such as making sure that patients get to their doctors for treatment can be helpful. And, as treatment progresses, patients often need someone who can look at their situation objectively and compassionately.
A successful Church model for helping the mentally ill and their families takes place each week at St. Ignatius Retreat Mouse in Manhasset, N.Y. It is not very complex or costly; it involves simply the gathering together of the mentally ill and their families each Thursday morning for breakfast, Mass, Rosary and discussion.
“I am a great believer in groups,” Jesuit Father Bernard Shannon, the chaplain of the Thursday morning gathering, said. Father Shannon has struggled with mental illness himself. He joined the Jesuits in 1947; six years later he suffered a complete mental breakdown. He spent time in mental hospitals but never let go of his dream of becoming a priest. After already 33 years with the Jesuits, he was ordained in 1980.
Shannon recovered through his involvement with Recovery, Inc., a self-help group for the mentally ill. He believes that self-help organizations, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous, can be a great support for the mentally ill and their families. In such groups, he said, ‘’miracles take place. When people come together I see great healing.”
For Owen, perhaps the most positive role for the Church is to educate people on mental illness. A recent Harris Poll indicated that the disability that generates the highest fear in the public mind is mental illness. Across the country, efforts to establish community residences for the mentally ill in middle-class neighborhoods have been defeated by zoning restrictions and community pressure. The result is that many such residences are clustered in poorer neighborhoods, where crime is high and residents live in fearful circumstances. “This is a justice issue. And we as a Church have not addressed it,” said Lambert who noted that one in four families is affected by mental illness.
Lambert, a member of a commission for the Archdiocese of Chicago on mental illness issues, suggested that the U.S. bishops write a pastoral letter—much as they did on economic justice and the arms race during the Cold War—that would alert Catholics to the need to care for the mentally ill.
While non-profit Church groups should be encouraged to compete for programs to serve the mentally ill, Owen suggested that the specter of for-profit care is a dangerous one. “We as Church should not put profit before the dignity of the individual,” she said. “We as Church must realize that if we put the bottom line before our objective to serve, God is not going to be happy with us.”
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From the Ashes, Bosnian Church Rebounds DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:DIALOGUE
Cardinal Vinko Puljic is the archbishop of Sarajevo, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Consecrated an archbishop in 1991, he was invested into the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in November 1994. At 51, he is the youngest cardinal and the first from Bosnia. As archbishop of Sarajevo, he has ministered to a Catholic community that, like the rest of the population, has been devastated by war.
During the four-year-long Balkan conflict, Cardinal Puljic was outspoken in urging international action to preserve a multi-ethnic, multi-religious BosniaHerzegovina and in calling attention to the threatened extinction of the Catholic community in central Bosnia. Last month, Cardinal Puljic toured the United States to seek aid in rebuilding the Church in Bosnia and to strengthen international support for full implementation of the Dayton Accords. He was invited to the United States by Bishop Thomas Welsh of Allentown, Pa. and the Catholic Medical Foundation, which is spearheading the drive to build a much-needed Catholic hospital in Sarajevo. The Croatian Catholic Union of the U.S.A. and the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) helped to coordinate the visit.
The Register spoke to Cardinal Puljic at the headquarters of the Catholic Medical Foundation in Easton, Pa.
Puljic: Most importantly, the shooting has stopped. But the control that various ethnic groups established over specific territories in Bosnia [during the war] has been cemented in the months since. There have been no significant changes on the ground since the cease fire. [International and U.S.] military forces keep the peace and help maintain the status quo. We need their efforts, we expect them to do what they've agreed to—particularly, to ensure that the roads stay open, that there is free passage of people and supplies on Bosnia's roads.
As for the Archdiocese of Sarajevo's postwar situation, it's pretty grim. Our archdiocese, which once had more than 500,000 Catholics, now has less than half that number. Banja Luka, [another Bosnian diocese], which is now controlled by Serbs, once boasted 70–80,000 Catholics, but now has less than 10,000 left. They've all fled to Croatian-controlled Herzegovina, or to Croatia itself, or even farther afield, to Europe, the United States, and Australia. As with all such migrations, it's the future that's leaving—the young people. The elderly, who have nowhere else to go, remain.
The major part of the civil stipulation [of the Dayton Accords] is not yet implemented—and one that might help to stem the flight of Catholics from the area—has to do with the return of refugees to their homes. As you know, before the war, most areas in Bosnia had a mixed population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats. Now with particular ethnic groups controlling the various areas, it's difficult for Serbs in Croatian-controlled zones, for example, or Muslims in Serbian zones to go back to where they once lived. Only some dozens of such refugees have managed to go back to [United Nations-established] “safe zones” in their area, let alone reclaim their former homes. It's vital for the safe return of refugees to become a reality if there's to be lasting peace in Bosnia. The results of the war's “ethnic cleansing” campaigns cannot be allowed to become a permanent reality. We even have a sad, new phenomenon in Bosnia: “ethnic self-cleansing”—young Catholic families voluntarily moving out of territories controlled by Muslims into Croatian [or Catholic-] controlled zones.
And then there's the problem of the media. Bosnian press and television is almost entirely controlled by ethnic leaders. These local chiefs select news that supports their narrow claims and keep the ideology that fueled the war alive. Establishing freedom of the press is crucial to the future of peace in the region.
Is there any hopeful news at this stage?
On the positive side, our Church tries to light a candle in the darkness. In this sense, we encourage the faithful not to lose hope. How do we do that? Well, one of the means of keeping hope alive is through the establishment of Catholic schools. Even during the war, our diocese opened three new schools. Establishing or reestablishing Catholic institutions is the key to the future of the Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For example, in territories where there's even a slight possibility of the return of Catholic refugees, we are trying to place priests. Catholics will be more likely to return to areas where there's a priest. Through the efforts of Caritas and other aid agencies, we're trying to renovate homes in the former war zones. In this sense, the Church acts as a kind of “meditating” agency for potential donors. We know that what the people need are not handouts, but bricks.
Our archdiocese is also trying to launch a new program: a campaign to build a Catholic hospital in Sarajevo. In fact, this is part of my purpose in coming to the United States now, to raise funds for the new hospital. This, of course, is part of our tradition, isn't it—Catholic schools, Catholic medical facilities? During the communist period, the Church was forbidden to have such public institutions here. Now we have the chance to reclaim part of our essential mission as Catholics—the tradition of Catholic social activity, love made manifest by deeds.
But why a hospital in particular? What do you see a Catholic medical facility doing for the Church and people in Sarajevo that the current hospitals in the city aren't doing?
A number of things. On the psychological level, it would boost the morale of the non-Muslim minorities in Bosnia, which, under the current regime, find themselves facing a kind of second-class citizenship in a Muslim-dominated state. As with other Catholic institutions, a hospital would help Catholics resist the temptation to leave Bosnia. But a Catholic hospital would also serve to break the current Muslim hold on public institutions in the country. With eighty percent of the country's population now Muslim, all public institutions in Bosnia are controlled by Muslims. In a government-dominated state, it's vital, not only for Catholics, but for non-extremist Muslims, Orthodox, and Jews—all of Bosnia's minorities—to be able to turn to a free institution for help. Catholic humanitarian institutions enjoyed the trust of all Sarajevo's citizens before World War II, and they can again. For Catholics and other minorities, who already feel vulnerable, whose very survival often enough depends on humanitarian aid, we want to be to offer them a chance to be decently treated when they're sick.
Are you suggesting that non-Muslims are not always “decently treated” in Bosnia's Muslim-run hospitals?
Let me answer that with an example. Under the communist regime, if a woman had a problem in her pregnancy, the answer was always the same—abortion. In today's climate, Muslim religious leaders urge Muslim women to give birth. But non-Muslims, shall we say, are not always given the same advice. Catholic women don't know whether to trust the advice they're being given in government hospitals. The basic problem is that state policies are being felt even in medical institutions. Non-Muslims feel second-class there, too. They often don't feel they're getting the same level of care. We want to create a situation where pregnant women can get help without resorting to abortion, where all people—Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews—can receive the same care regardless of ethnic or religious background.
In terms of arousing interest in your hospital project, how has your visit to the U.S. gone so far?
This is the third time I've visited here. This time it's at the invitation of the Catholic Medical Foundation, based in Easton, Pennsylvania. I' really here to motivate donors to help this foundation to help us open what we are already calling St. Vincent de Paul Hospital, Sarajevo. We've been warmly received wherever we've gone and some promises have already been made. I've had good visits with Cardinal [James] Hickey [of Washington, D.C.], Cardinal [John] O'Connor [of New York], Archbishop [Theodore] McCarrick [of Newark] and Cardinal [Anthony] Bevilacqua [of Philadelphia]. I also plan to visit with Church leaders in Chicago, Indiana, Cleveland and St. Louis. With Archbishop Renato Martino, [Vatican ambassador to the U.N.], I also met with the new U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Anan, who was very open to listening about the difficulties of the Catholic community in post-Dayton Bosnia. We also spent some time visiting U.S. hospitals, many of which are already giving equipment to Catholic Medical Foundation for St. Vincent's.
Given what you've said about life in Muslim-dominated Sarajevo, how are relations between the Church and the Bosnian government these days? Does your personal reputation for courage during the siege of Sarajevo translate into added respect for the Church's views?
During the war, the political leaders [in Bosnia] expressed public appreciation for my work. It was useful for them to do so then. Now, when it's no longer useful, they despise what I do.
What do you mean?
During the siege, I raised my voice against violence, against the concentration camps. My outcry is not so welcome now when I raise my voice against discriminatory attitudes towards Catholics in Bosnia. Who's changed? I haven't. The same Catholic principles that inspired my outcry during the war about the treatment of Muslims and Croats at the hand of Serbs inspires my outcry now about the treatment of Catholics. But our political leaders do not like criticism of any kind. As for me, it's my work as the archbishop of Sarajevo to protect any citizen, of whatever nationality, whose fundamental dignity or rights might be in jeopardy.
During the war I was in frequent touch with the [Bosnian] political leadership. My door remains open to them. However, now when I submit some requests to the government concerning our diocese's pastoral needs, what I get is delays—“we will see what we can do.” Let me give you an example: For three years now I've been asking for the return of a building in Travnik in order to reopen a Catholic high school there. The building was confiscated from the Church by the communists after World War II. We want it back, we have a use for it. But the government won't return it to the Church. That's just one example.
In light of all this, “whither Bosnia”? Is there any possibility to save it as a multi-ethnic reality?
Well, I' not a prophet. My usual answer to that question is that our future depends on the good will of the local politicians and the international community.
Please explain.
It's a tense situation now at the local level. That's because the various ethnic leaders have their little dreams—each one wants Bosnia for himself. Well, part of the difficulty is that the big brothers—the great powers—have their dreams, too. And let me be slightly cynical for a moment: In light of those “big dreams,” we in Bosnia are political “small change.”
But let me say something more hopeful: Give me the media and I will stop hatred and war in Bosnia. The media played a sinister role in the war—not only locally, but internationally in its support for an embargo that effectively kept Bosnians from having the means to defend themselves. But a free media is the very first means to build up peace. The day that each ethnic group recognizes itself in a media that serves everyone will be the day that there's a chance for peace in Bosnia.
What do you make of the recent highly publicized protests in Belgrade over election irregularities? Some Western observers seem to imagine that this may be the harbinger of political reform in Serbia. How does all this play in Bosnia?
Of course, I look at events from a Bosnian perspective. To us, what's happening in Belgrade does not seem such a big change. Both Milosevic and the opposition leaders want the same thing: that is, the “great Serbian” dream. There's no good news here for Bosnians. There's an old saying: “When you cut an apple in two, it's still the same apple.”
In the post-Vietnam era in this country American youth experienced a profound moral and spiritual disorientation. What's happening to Bosnian youth in the wake of this war?
Sadly, there are enormous negative consequences as a result of the war for all people, including the young. We're finding that people are particularly vulnerable to serious stress-related diseases, like cancer. I can't prove a scientific connection between war-related stress and a rise in postwar cancer rates, but it's a public perception that there's a link between the two. There's been a large increase in the number of suicides of young people from all ethnic communities. The civil authorities don't want to face the problem; they try to pretend it's not there. There are psychic wounds: A rise in cases of mental illness, instances of eccentric behavior. The simple people did not want this war; they were swallowed up by it. And there's the problem of drug-trafficking. A lot of people are involved in importing drugs into the country. There are big profits to be made. And there's a whole population of unhappy, frustrated young people to prey upon. On top of all that, there's the difficulty young people experience being part of ethnic minorities, particularly when it comes to job discrimination. In today's Bosnia, the ethnic majority gets jobs, the minorities wait. For example, a student came to me recently, a Croatian, who'd finished his studies at the University of Sarajevo. Of all his classmates, he alone was without work in his field. “Should I just leave?” he asked me.
For many Catholic families, there are so many obstacles in the way of reestablishing a normal life in Bosnia. For example, Catholics wanting to return to their old prewar apartments in Sarajevo often find that, in the meantime, the government's has given them to soldiers and their families. They can never hope to reclaim them.
What can the Church tell people in such a situation? What do you tell them?
Our people have to see the situation in its historical context. We've just been through a long period of communist rule. During that time, the Church [in the old Yugoslavia] had the “freedom of cult”— the freedom to worship—but religion was fundamentally a private affair. Now the Church has a chance to engage in social activity informed by faith, and Catholics have real opportunities to act in society as believing persons. One of those major tasks has to do with educating people for democracy, and educating our faithful to respect those of other faiths. This, after all, is a special land where East and West meet. The Church here has a special duty, a special mission to be a bridge between East and West. That's our challenge. And this is why we struggle to remain where we are. However, given our status as a minority, we can't perform this great work, or found all the institutions needed to serve it by ourselves. In this, we must depend on the help and fraternal loyalty of Catholics from the outside.
Speaking of outside help, diocesan leaders in Sarajevo complained in October 1995 about the relative lack of help orcollaboration they received from some international Catholic relief agencies during the war.
First of all, we would certainly like to thank the various Catholic charities for help during the war. Without it we couldn't have survived as a community. Now in the post-war period we face a different challenge— not survival, but economic renewal and reconstruction. Now we need to help people work again so that they can feed their own families.
About the problems of the recent past, I would simply say that we know that Caritas, for example, brought in material aid and we—the diocese, that is—were able to control the distribution. Other Catholic aid agencies, however, failed to collaborate with us, and, therefore, we don't know where the help they sent ended up. There was the story of the retired police officer from the U.S. who tried to help us during the war. He brought in tons of goods for Sarajevo's children, but because he didn't coordinate with us in any way, we still don't know where the supplies went.
How did this happen? Why weren't Catholic contributions channeled through the Church?
Muslim countries generously aided their fellow [Bosnian] Muslims all during the war. But they gave nothing to Catholics as such. The aid they provided was an expression of their religious solidarity. And since the Muslims were portrayed as the victims in this war, many Catholic organizations virtually competed with each other to help Muslims, all the while ignoring the needs of their own coreligionists. Some of this lack of cooperation with the local Church may have been due to the particular political “take” the parent organization had on the war, or out of a desire to gain influence with the Muslim authorities. But it made a very bad impression on our people—Catholics ignoring Catholics—and it added to the particular morale problems our community faced during the war. “These westerners,” people said, “seem to think that we [Catholics] are something to be ashamed of.” There were Catholic priests who stayed for months in Muslim houses carrying water for elderly Muslims who didn't so much as ask if there might be elderly Catholics who needed help. Ironically, the Church channeled the aid it received not merely to its own, but to the needy of all ethnic groups. This is as it should be: it's Catholic universality in action.
Of course, we're grateful to the Holy Father who told us over and over again: “You are not alone. Hope for an end to your suffering.” We're also deeply grateful to certain Catholic leaders who saw our suffering firsthand, and shared it: the associates of the Catholic Medical Foundation, Archbishop McCarrick, and others.
It looks as though Pope John Paul II will finally fulfill his long-expressed desire to visit Sarajevo this spring. What can you tell us about the plans for the big event?
Of course, we look forward to the Pope's visit. We accept him as our leader who comes to strengthen us in the true faith. We also gladly receive him as the consoler of a Catholic community in danger of dying out. And we realize that he comes as the messenger of peace for the whole region: through his presence, his speeches and his meetings with the various leaders, he will contribute to the building of peace in Bosnia. Finally, we expect his visit will stir up the international community to continue to help us.
Cardinal Puljic, you were an inspiration to many during the war. What lasting spiritual lessons have you drawn from that harrowing experience?
First of all, I learned to rely more on God. If I may say so, I believe the international political community should learn this same lesson—less confidence in its own plans and projects and more reliance on God's love and compassion for men and women. The war was a life-school which taught me much more than any kind of formal education ever could have. When I now think about certain very difficult moments during the war, what I remember now most vividly is not the suffering, but that God was with us. That remembrance will, I believe, stay with me for the rest of my life. Even in my dreams I believe that I will relive and recall the events I have passed through in the war.
Gabriel Meyer
For more information about Cardinal Puljic's hospital project, contact: Catholic Medical Foundation, 3555 Santee Mill Road, Bethlehem, PA 18017.
----- EXCERPT: Sarajevo's cardinal calls on international community ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: South African Religious Warn Against Syrian Arms DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:EAST LONDON, South Africa—The Conference of Major Religious Superiors of South Africa has warned the South African government of repercussions if it goes ahead with a controversial arms deal with Syria.
In a statement released in Johannesburg and made available to the National Catholic Register March 2, the conference said the former apartheid regime had already sent vast quantities of weapons to neighboring Mozambique as part of its aim to destabilize that country.
“However, we should consider this: that a substantial number of those weapons are now being smuggled back into South Africa and sold to the hijackers, the hitmen, the taxi warriors (involved in bloody taxi wars in various cities) and the rapists who make our lives a misery,” said the statement signed by conference president Father Chris Chatteris, S.J.
The government faced a barrage of criticism when minutes from a cabinet meeting were leaked. The minutes revealed that a plan to sell tank-firing control systems to Syria was being considered. (Noel Bruyns)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sometimes the Greatest Strides Are Made on the Basketball Court DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Mark Gerson had a unique experience teaching at a tough inner-city Catholic school, St. Luke's in Jersey City, N.J., that largely serves Hispanic and African-American students. For one thing, Gerson is Jewish and hails from a privileged background. He found that the Catholic school model succeeds with flying colors in serving the underprivileged. Gerson chronicled his experiences in a book, Dispatches From an Inner-City School That Works, (New York: Free Press, $23). The Register is pleased to present excerpts from it in three installments, beginning this week.
IT IS OBVIOUS that high disciplinary hurdles—fights, drugs, an environment where students can get beaten up for wearing their school uniforms to school—will choke the learning process. And it is only a bit less obvious that students cannot learn in a classroom where talking in class, passing notes, sleeping, and more subtle manifestations of disrespect for the teacher are tolerated. In other words, before learning can begin, there needs to be discipline. And before there can be discipline, there needs to be a capacity for receiving it.
How can this capacity be acquired? At St. Luke, in one of two ways: The first was through fear—fear of being sent to Mr. Murphy, fear of having one's parent called in, fear of being kicked out of school. As soon as the fear is lifted—if students know that they can get away with wrongdoing—discipline is gone. A far more lasting source of effective discipline is trust. When students trust their teachers and administrators and are confident that strictly enforced rules advance a valuable learning process, discipline becomes natural, even the norm.
The acquisition of trust is a gradual process that escapes easy articulation. Trust is a sharp instrument. The students who came to trust me and their other teachers did so one by one, for unique reasons and in different ways. Basketball helped me acquire the trust of several students right at the beginning. Early on I told the students that I would sponsor after-school games of pickup basketball in which I would play. I stressed that everyone was welcome to participate but they had best be aware that my team would win and that I could whip any one of them in one-on-one if so challenged.
I set the first game two weeks in advance so that the students could get psyched about it and brag about how they would destroy me. And boast they did. “You ain't got no game, Mr. Gerson. You be playin'with those white boys in Short Hills who don't run to the hoop when a black man steps on the court; they run home to Mommy and Daddy,” Jamal said.
“All right, tough guy,” I replied. “We'll see next Tuesday.”
Tuesday came, and we all changed in the locker room, which was really a small and narrow hallway with benches. There were no showers; players apparently had to clean up when they got home. After changing, we climbed a few steps to the gym. A few guys had balls they were shooting. When they saw me, the trash talking started: “Mr. Gerson ain't got nothin'!” “White boy can't even shoot!” And so on. It was so merciless that I wondered if my own team would try to show me up as well. After a few minutes I said that we had had enough warming up and should get started. We shot for teams: the first five to hit a foul shot were on one team, the next five were on the other, and whoever missed sat out the first game. My team took the ball out two minutes later.
As soon as the game started, I immediately saw my students playing a style of basketball I detested. I like a controlled, passing team game, but that was not what was being played here. My students would grab a rebound and race the length of the court only to miss on a wild, though sometimes acrobatic, drive to the hoop. I hit a couple of threes early on, but they were unimpressed. Shooting in playground ball is déclassé; one is supposed to beat his man off the dribble and go strong to the hoop for a lay-up on preferably, a slam dunk. Fine. Walt had decided to guard me and took full advantage of this opportunity: ‘Mr. Gerson, you ain't got nothin’. You can't beat me…. You ain't got nothin'. Go back and play with the white boys.”
I was growing rather annoyed at Walt's rudeness, but I could not give him a detention in this circumstance. Instead, I grabbed a defensive rebound and drib-bled down the court, stopping only to tell Walt that I would fake right at the top of the key, cross over, and pass him on my way to the hoop. He grunted an indication that he did not take me seriously. So I approached the top of the key, dribbling with my left. I made a quick move to the right, and Walt went with it. Just as quickly I went back to the left and drove to the hoop for an easy lay-up.
Walt was obviously embarrassed as his teammates began to shout that he had been beaten by a white boy. Walt said that he was going to get me the same way. That would be impossible, I knew. Walt wore the scarlet letter of the undisciplined player: he dribbled too high. Every time the ball bounced off his fingers and onto the floor, it sent the same signal that a slumbering bank guard must have sent to Willie Sutton. After I scored on the layup, Walt took the ball up the floor, meeting me midway between halfcourt and the three-point arc. He was dribbling with his right hand and tried an acceleration move to his left. I stuck out my left hand and knocked the ball loose, recovering it in the next move. Jamal, who was on my team, saw what I was doing a play ahead and took off, streaking down the court. One bounce pass later, Jamal slammed the ball home for an uncontested dunk.
When word circulated that “Mr. Gerson got game,” I had passed the first test necessary to begin earning the trust of many of my students. Having successfully challenged them at their game, I could not be dismissed easily—on the court, in the classroom, or out of school altogether. I continued to use basketball as a way to continually accumulate trust. Throughout the fall, I instituted a game that a well-behaved class could play at the end of the period: stump Mr. Gerson on the NBA. The rules were simple: If any student could stump me on a question relating to the NBAand I could not stump him back, the student would earn an A on the next test. But if any detentions were given during the class, there would be no game. This strategy was effective, for students often told a classmate whose conduct might have canceled the game to behave.
The students came in with obscure questions I could not answer: for example, they would ask me how many points Patrick Ewing scored on a particular game in 1989. But their sense of basketball history was poor; no one knew, for instance, that Oscar Robertson went to the University of Cincinnati or that Wilt Chamberlain played his first professional ball with the Harlem Globetrotters. So no one ever won the contest, but this was not for lack of trying—the students asked fathers and uncles and any other knowledgeable adults about basketball history, hoping to be prepared for my question. But basketball is a broad subject, and I was secure in assuming that I could stump them by asking “Who was selected over Bill Russell in the 1959 NBA draft?” or “Who is the only Jewish player in the NBA?” Sihugo Green and Danny Schayes did not have many fans among the sophomores of St. Luke.
Two of my students, Walt and Jamal, played junior varsity basketball and loved the NBA as much as I do! So before the season started, I lent them my copy of John McPhee's A Sense of Where You Are, the classic book about Bill Bradley's senior season at Princeton. We knew about Sen. Bradley from our discussions of current events, so Walt and Jamal were able to place the subject of the book in perspective. I instructed them to read the book carefully and to study how Bradley—perhaps the greatest college player of all time—developed his game. As McPhee exquisitely demonstrates, Bradley excelled by virtue of being the quintessentially disciplined player; he used an impeccable command of the game's fundamentals to dominate his far more athletic opponents. The test of Walt's and Jamal's understanding of McPhee's point was given on the court.
After school one day during the middle of the season Walt, Jamal, and I went to the gym, and I told them to shoot like Bradley. … We kept practicing until I was convinced they had it right.
By now Walt and Jamal trusted me; they would have let me teach them anything from jump shooting to proper grammar. Though each of them tried to maintain a tough guy attitude in different ways, the process of trust had begun early in the year and was cemented by basketball. But this was not the case with all students. After the Christmas break, a new student from South America, Rosa, entered my freshman homeroom. She spoke not a word of English. I saw her wandering around the third floor after lunch looking lost and terrified. She had her schedule with her but it was in English and she could not make sense of it. This problem was easy enough to solve. I turned to a Spanish-speaking sophomore who was nearby. “Anna, help that girl over there. She is new and does not speak any English. Her name is Rosa and she is lost.” One short conversation in Spanish later, the problem was solved. Later that day I gave a quiz to Anna's class. Anna finished early and came to my desk. “Mr. Gerson, if I get a B, I'll really get an A, right?”
Confused, I responded, “No, Anna, if you earn a B, you'll get a B. What are you talking about?”
“Don't I get extra credit for helping that girl?”
“What girl, Anna?”
“The girl who was lost. You asked me to help her understand her schedule, remember?”
“Anna,” I said, understanding what she was talking about, “Sit down.”
This incident stayed with me all day. Anna and I had not been close; she often slept or talked through class, did little homework, and never came to see me outside of class. I talked with her repeatedly about her school performance and called her home, but nothing could rid her of the notion that the goal of school was to graduate having done as little work as possible. Though I was initially surprised by its apparent callousness, her demand for a reward for performing the simplest human kindness was really not so odd. Anna thought of me as nothing more than a service provider and expected compensation for any expenditure of effort on her part. Without trust, everything had to be accounted for.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Gerson ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Where Mary Came to Comfort the Irish DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:WHY DID Mary come at this particular time in history and why did she choose this particular place? These were my questions as I drove up Ireland's N17, the main highway from Galway to Knock. Why did Our Lady of Knock come to a small, unremarkable town in the West of Ireland on Aug. 21, 1879?
This freeway turns out to be the perfect place to consider these questions. Driving out of County Galway and into Mayo you are quickly surrounded by mile after mile of stone walls enclosing green pastures. This is an ideal spot to stop and capture some of the most beautiful scenes of Ireland. From a historical view, these walls are a testimony of a people forced to survive on land totally inadequate for farming. In order to grow their crops and provide grazing for their animals, farmers in the West of Ireland had to turn rocky ground into green pastures.
Nineteenth-century Knock was a place of abject poverty. More pointedly, there were two major factors that appeared to have paved the way for Mary's alleged apparition.
First there were the Penal Laws set up by Irish Protestants who believed they had to destroy Catholicism in order to preserve the nation. The laws forbade Catholics to buy land and limited the length of time they could lease it. It was also decreed that “no person of the popish religion may publicly teach school or instruct youth and students were forbidden to study abroad. Priests were forbidden to enter Ireland and if the Banishment
Act, which banned all bishops from Ireland, had been strictly enforced, Catholic priests in Ireland would have simply died out.
These Penal Laws remained in force for most of the century, until 1778 when the first of two Relief Acts were passed. In 1782, when the second Relief Act was passed, the Penal Laws were effectively ended.
The potato famine of 1845–1851 also played a role, altering rural Ireland forever. In 1841, the population of Ireland was approximately 8 million. By the end of the famine, 10 years, later it stood at half that, with approximately 3 million people dying of starvation and another million emigrating. The West of Ireland was hit particularly hard.
Thirty years after the famine, on Aug. 21, 1879, Our Lady of Knock, along with St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist and the Lamb of God, allegedly appeared to 15 people in the town of Knock, Co. Mayo.
Unlike many other Marian apparitions, Our Lady of Knock had no verbal message for the faithful. And yet, following the two centuries of persecution and poverty, her reason for coming seemed clear. She had come as a beacon of hope and strength for the suffering faithful.
The shrine at Knock attracts more than a million pilgrims a year and hundreds of cures have been reported by the sick and disabled. The Church has never formally approved the apparition, but in 1979, its centenary year, the shrine received its most famous pilgrim, Pope John Paul II.
The Pope's visit helped raise the status of the Knock Shrine to that of one of the major Marian shrines in the world. In his homily at the time, John Paul II said: “Here I am at the goal of my journey to Ireland: the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock. Since I first learned of the centenary of this Shrine, I have felt a strong desire to come here, the desire to make yet another pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Mother of Christ…Yours is a long spiritual tradition of devotion to Our Lady. Mary can truly say of Ireland what we have just heard in the first reading: So I took root in an honored people. (Sir 24:14)”
The Pope also honored Knock by raising the status of the recently built church at the Knock Shrine to a basilica, calling it the Basilica of Our Lady Queen of Ireland.
The basilica was the first of many additions made to provide for the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who visit Knock each year. The ground floor area of the basilica covers more than one acre and can accommodate some 10,000 visitors. On the Feast of Corpus Christi, 1983, the new Exposition Chapel was opened.
In July 1990, the Chapel of Reconciliation which allows 65 priests to hear confessions at the same time, was opened to accommodate the growing numbers of pilgrims seeking reconciliation.
Finally, there is the Apparition Chapel which houses the statues of the apparition figures. Inside there is room for 150, but since the walls are made of glass, thousands of people can gather at the apparition site for prayer.
Knock is a one-street town with everything in walking distance. Many bed and breakfast establishments in the area are comfortable and charge reasonable rates. Directly across the street from the Shrine is St. Mary's Hostel, run by the Daughters of Charity. Pilgrims can stay for approximately $20 a night, which includes a full Irish breakfast.
A full day at Knock is necessary to experience all there is on the shrine grounds. The Knock Folk Museum offers a complete history of the apparition and a history of the town in the 19th century. Souvenir shops along Knock's main street offer bottles for collecting holy water from several fonts. Nearby restaurants cater to pilgrims and are reasonably priced.
Mass is offered throughout the day and the Sacrament of Reconciliation is offered from 11A.M.-7P.M. There is Anointing of the Sick each day as well as the rosary and the Stations of the Cross. On the First Friday of each month from May to October there is an all night vigil, which begins at Midnight and ends with Mass at 4 A.M.
During the pilgrimage season, from May to October, reservations are recommended. The town is especially busy during the third week of August, which includes the Feast of the Assumption and the Feast of Our Lady of Knock.
For information on arranging pilgrimages contact: Rev. Parish Priest, Knock Shrine, Co. Mayo, Ireland, Phone: 094-88100.
John McCormack is based in Cheshire, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Mccormack ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: 'Families in Difficulty' DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:On Feb. 25, the Pontifical Council for the Family published a document entitled “The Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried.” The translation is from the English edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. (Excerpted)
IN MANY COUNTRIES, divorces have become a true social “plague” (cf. “Gaudium et Spes,” 47). Statistics show a continuous increase in marital failures even between those who have been joined by the sacrament of marriage. This worrying phenomenon leads to a consideration of its many causes, which include: the state's lack of concern for the stability of marriage and the family, permissive divorce laws, the negative influence of the mass media and international organizations, and the inadequate Christian formation of the faithful.
These setbacks are a source of suffering for people today and especially for those who see their plan of married love fade away.
The Church is extremely sensitive to the sorrow of her members: just as she rejoices with those who rejoice, she weeps with those who weep (cf. Rom 12:15).
As the Holy Father clearly stressed in his address to us during our plenary assembly: “Let these men and women know that the Church loves them, that she is not far from them and suffers because of their situation. The divorced and remarried are and remain her members, because they have received baptism and retain their Christian faith” (address to Pontifical Council for the Family, Jan. 24, 1997, No. 2; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, Feb. 5, 1997, p. 4).
Pastors should therefore care for those who suffer the consequences of divorce, especially the children. They should be concerned for everyone, and, in constant harmony with the truth of marriage and the family, they should try to soothe the wound inflicted on this sign of Christ's covenant with the Church. (…)
The whole Christian community should develop ways to support fidelity to the sacrament of marriage by a constant commitment to:
— Providing for the preparation and sacrament of marriage.
— Stressing the importance of catechesis on the value and meaning of conjugal and family love.
— Guiding family members in daily life (pastoral care of the family, recourse to the sacramental life, Christian education of children, family movements, etc.).
— Encouraging and helping separated or divorced couples who are alone to remain faithful to the duties of their marriage.
— Preparing a bishops'directory for the pastoral care of the family (cf. “Familiaris Consortio,” 66) providing for wherever this has not been done.
— The preparation of the clergy, particularly, of confessors, so that they will form consciences according to the laws of God and the Church on marriage and family life.
— Promoting the doctrinal formation of pastoral workers.
— Encouraging liturgical prayer for those who are experiencing difficulty in their marriage.
— Distributing these pastoral guidelines by means of pamphlets on the situation of the divorced and remarried.
Pastors must particularly urge parents, in virtue of the sacrament of marriage they have received, to support their married children; brothers and sisters to surround the couple with their fraternal affection; friends to help their friends.
In addition, the children of the separated and divorced need special attention, especially in the context of catechesis.
Pastoral assistance should also be provided for those who turn to or could turn to the judgment of the ecclesiastical courts. They should be helped to consider the possible nullity of their marriage.
It should not be forgotten that marital difficulties can frequently degenerate into tragedy if the couple does not have the desire or possibility to confide in someone (a priest or a competent layperson) as soon as possible in order to be helped to overcome them.
In any case, everything possible should be done to bring about a reconciliation.
When divorced Christians enter a civil union, the Church, faithful to our Lord's teaching (cf. Mk 10:2–9), cannot give any public or private sign that might seem to legitimize the new union.
It is often observed that the experience of previous failure can give rise to the need to ask God for his mercy and salvation. It is essential for the remarried couple to give priority to the regularization of their situation in the visible ecclesial community and, spurred by the desire to respond to God's love, to prepare themselves for the process of redressing any irregularity. Conversion, however, can and must begin without delay already in the existential state in which they find themselves. (…)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Miracles-but Without the Moorings DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Writer-director Paul Schrader was raised an evangelical Protestant but lost the faith as an adult His works often reflect his conflicted feelings about this experience. Agifted critic, he has analyzed Christian filmmakers like Robert Bresson and Carl Dreyer with sympathy and intelligence. But in his screenplay of The Last Temptation of Christ and his writing and directing of Hardcore, for example, he has satirized organized religion and attacked orthodox beliefs.
Schrader's adaption and direction of best-selling author Elmore Leonard's only non-crime novel, Touch, continues his obsession with these subjects. Bill Hill (Christopher Walken) was once a prosperous evangelist with a rock'em-sock'em church service, complete with baton-twirling altar girls and the world's tallest illuminated cross. But when he moved his operation from Georgia to Los Angeles, his flock deserted him, and he now makes his living selling recreational vehicles.
Eager to get back into the religion-for-profit game, Hill sees his opportunity when he witnesses a shy substance-abuse counselor named Juvenal (Skeet Ulrich) heal his former organist, Virginia (Conchata Ferrell), of her blindness. Aformer Franciscan Brother, the miracle worker first displayed his gifts at a distant Amazon mission. Since leaving the order, he's kept a low profile, performing his acts of healing without publicity while earning a living at an alcohol-rehabilitation center run by a priest
Schrader makes it clear that Juvenal's powers are real and that the young man has no desire to put himself in the spotlight. The rehab center is fiercely protective of the healer, and Hill is unable to spend the time with Juvenal necessary to persuade him to take his act public.
For this purpose Hill enlists one of his former baton-twirlers, Lynn Faulkner (Brigit Fonda), who pretends to be a recovering alcoholic. Juvenal sees through her deception immediately, but he's so attracted to her that he allows her to hang around anyway.
Also itching to exploit the young healer is August Murray (Tom Arnold), founder of the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost and OUTRAGE (Organization Unifying Traditional Rites as God Expects). Schrader delights in using this character to make fun of what he considers the extremist tendencies in the Catholic Church, an institution which he distrusts. When we first see Murray, he's just been arrested for assaulting a priest whose practices were judged too modern.
Murray has organized a traditionalist service with Juvenal as the reluctant main attraction, hoping to spark a nationwide religious revival which would promote his organizations. He invites an ambitious newspaper reporter, Kathy Worthington (Janeane Garofolo) to attend. The young healer lays his hands on a leukemia-stricken boy who immediately goes into remission. The event winds up on the front page of Worthington's paper.
Hill and his protege, Lynn, also witness the healing, and their reactions are very different. The ex-evangelist sees the possibilities for lucrative book and record deals with Juvenal and signs up Artie, a record promoter (Paul Mazursky), who quips that the Pope sold 2.5 million units because “he toured.”
Lynn agrees to persuade the young healer to participate in these schemes, but, unlike Hill, she is sincerely moved by Juvenal's gifts and wants to help him. They go off to an expensive hotel to rest and soon become lovers.
Worthington does a follow-up story-which mentions their romance. Murray is furious. Not only does the article fail to mention him and his organizations, but be also considers it sinful for a healer not to be celibate. However, he blames Lynn for Juvenal's alleged transgressions and determines to execute divine judgment upon her.
Murray breaks into Lynn's apartment and defaces it with grafitti. He waits for the loving couple to return and then threatens to kill her. He and Juvenal scuffle, ending with Murray falling off the balcony and severely injuring himself.
Murray's behavior is meant to represent religious fanaticism in what to Schrader is one of its most dangerous manifestations—fear of sex—and, in dramatizing this, the filmmaker sees nothing wrong with Juvenal's affair. He doesn't seem to realize that many devout people who don't share Murray's extreme views might find this behavior troubling.
The young healer is presented throughout as a humble, misunderstood hero, but his notion of God seems closer to the Force in the Star Wars trilogy than orthodox Christian beliefs. He has a vaguely-defined desire to do good, a position which Schrader applauds. Furthermore, Juvenal, reacting passively to all the attempts to exploit him, offers no particular judgment on the different schemes designed to ensnare him.
Hill cons a tabloid TV talk-show host, Debra Lusanne (Gina Gershon) into devoting an entire show to Juvenal. The ratings-hungry celebrity claims that “controversy is my oxygen,” and she tries to make the young healer look like a fake. When accused of profiting from his gifts, Juvenal responds with wide-eyed innocence. He then gratuituously attacks the Catholic Church, arguing that it's too restrictive in its conception of God. This outburst is Schrader's invention. It was not in Leonard's novel
The talk-show host confronts Juvenal with the injured Murray, arguing that such violence is inappropiate for a man of God. But the young man turns the tables on her and heals Murray in front of millions of viewers. Lusanne, delighted with the theatricality of the moment, rushes over to interview the bewildered Murray. Lynn sneaks onto the set, grabs Juvenal and takes him away.
Schrader believes in miracles and rightfully resents all attempts to exploit them for profit. But where Leonard, in the novel, tickles us with a feather, Schrader hits us over the head with a sledgehammer. The film-maker simply despises organized religion because it links faith and good works to moral and ethical teaching. This attitude leads him to turn Leonard's gentle satire into a heavy-handed, basically unfunny farce.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Some Ecumenical Reciprocity DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:NOT INFREQUENTLYIN the past 20 years as a teacher, lecturer, parish priest and writer, I have been confronted with the following sentiment in one form or another: “Father, all this ecumenism has gotten us absolutely nowhere. We've changed everything; they've changed nothing.” I've generally gone on to note, more anecdotally than empirically, that “we” have changed nothing substantive and that “they” have indeed made significant strides, due largely to our better explanations and improved manner of presenting Catholic truth. I don't think I've changed many minds or hearts with such a response.
And from the other side, what will Protestants, for example, make of “problematic” statements like the following:
“… [T]he ecclesiology just sketched obviously suggests the necessity of a pastor of the one universal Church, a shepherd of its unity.”
“Neither death nor yet the hiddenness of the future can sever the fellowship of the saints, for the koinonia of the Church is participation in the eternal inner koinonia of the triune God, and is constituted in that Spirit who is the very Power of life.”
“… [T]he Mass … is to be celebrated with the greatest reverence.”
“Only if these ritual acts are intact can there be an adequate catechesis or teaching based on them.”
“The image of the Church as our mother underlines the mediating role of the Church in God's work of salvation … [for] Christ and his Church cannot be separated….”
“One thing is more life-threatening to the Church than heresy, and that is the unwillingness or inability to tell the difference between orthodoxy and heresy.”
“According to divine right, therefore, it is the office of the bishop to preach the Gospel, forgive sins, judge doctrine and condemn doctrine that is contrary to the Gospel, and exclude from the Christian community the ungodly whose wicked conduct is manifest…. [C]hurches are bound to be obedient to the bishops.”
“It is the goal of all our ecumenical endeavors that the unity of the Church should find its visible manifestation in the form of a communion of Churches … [which] presupposes and is expressed in agreement in faith, mutual recognition, reconciliation, sharing of ordained ministries and sacraments, forms of common deliberations and decision making, and common witness and service in the world.”
The necessity of the episcopate; a worldwide and organically united Church; human mediation, both in terms of an external ecclesial structure and the intercession of saints; a liturgical life rooted in the Eucharist; a Magisterium with authority to establish the limits of heresy and orthodoxy. Yes, what shall Protestants make of such Catholic demands or notions?
In point of fact, the preceding citations do not come from Catholic sources but from theologians who are heirs to the Reformation. They have found their way into a small but powerful collection of essays, The Catholicity of the Reformation. The editors, Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, assembled this anthology to demonstrate that the Reformers—especially Luther—“did not set out to create what later came to be known as Protestant Christianity. Theirs was a quest for reformation and renewal in continuity with the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church’of ancient times.” The authors rely on authoritative Reformation texts to prove their point, and they challenge their denominational fellow-travelers to discover these facts and to begin to live according to their implications. The editors do not hesitate to warn “against seeing the relation of Protestantism to Catholicism mainly in terms of contrast. By defining itself as anti-Catholic, Protestantism progressively loses essentials of the faith confessed in the Creeds.”
The chapter titles are indicative of the scope of interest in the retrieval of the “Catholic” dimension of the Reformation: “The Church as Communio”; “The Catholic Luther”; “The Reform of the Mass: Evangelical, but Still Catholic”; “The Problem of Authority in the Church”; “The Pastoral Office: A Catholic and Ecumenical Perspective”; “Lutheran Pietism and Catholic Piety”; “The Church Is a Communion of Churches.” Throughout the volume, we find efforts to remind—or teach for the first time— Evangelicals of the roots of their own movement; many Protestant readers will be amazed to discover their heritage to be so “catholic” and “Catholic.”
This type of book would have been inconceivable 40 years ago and probably even 10. But with the Catholic entrance into ecclesiological study and ecumenical dialogue, beginning with Pope Pius XlI's Mystici Corporis Christi and reaching a high-point in Pope John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint, the Holy Spirit has caused old insights to be re-captured, so as to prepare believers for the work of Christian unity. Now, I can offer any future inquirers not merely a “gut” feeling of ecumenical reciprocity; I can hand them tangible proof. And I suspect that Luther who, may we hope, now sees things with greater clarity, should also be rejoicing.
Father Stravinskas, is founding editor of The Catholic Answer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Stravinskas ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letter DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Catholic Campaign for America
I am an avid reader and fan of the Register, as are many members of the Catholic Campaign for America, but I feel compelled to respond to an item in your last issue.
Tracy Early's story (“Speaker Stirs Catholic Campaign for America Gala,” March 9, 1997) took several cynical and unfair shots at the Catholic Campaign for America and those involved with our organization, and the Register is guilty of a journalistic error for printing this item as a news piece rather than as one person's opinion.
First, it is unfortunate that Mr. Early did not focus at all on the reason that the CCAwas honoring Senator Santorum. There was only a passing reference to the fact that Santorum was honored for being a “leader in the fight against partial-birth abortion,” and Early clearly seems to be much more interested in feeding controversy and criticizing a public figure than in reporting the full story. Santorum was an outstanding leader on the partial-birth abortion issue last year and that he was a lonely Catholic voice in the Senate in support of the position of our Church and our bishops. When was the last time the Holy Father and our united American bishops were so active on a particular policy issue? Senator Santorum was there in defense of our Church and our bishops, which is more than can be said for several other Catholic senators.
Early did correctly detail the difference between the positions of Senator Santorum and Father Fred Kammer, President of Catholic Charities USA, with regard to the care of the poor; this debate is a legitimate one and it needs to be heard. But he then departs into a thinly veiled attack on the CCA, suggesting that speakers at CCA events make a habit of criticizing bishops and the Church. This assertion is incorrect at best and malicious at worst.
We have hosted many meetings, conventions, seminars and even a spiritual rally, and we have always supported and encouraged the work of our bishops (who have been similarly supportive of us.) We do not have any interest in maligning or criticizing our bishops. Rather, we make it our business to defend them and, through our chapters, to assist them on various projects. To do otherwise would be opposite to our very mission, which is to encourage Catholics to embrace their faith and to be faithful to the teachings of the Church. We have no other agenda.
Early mentions, correctly, that we are not motivated or concerned with political affiliations, but then cynically states that our events are “likely to raise questions in the minds of Catholics with different political leanings.” Which is it? In fact, as is made perfectly clear in our material and our mission statement, we are concerned only with being authentically and faithfully Catholic. We do not have any hidden political agenda. We clearly define what we stand for (the teachings of the Holy Father, our Church and our Catholic faith) and welcome people of any political affiliation (or none at all) to join us. Thankfully, our membership continues to grow.
Finally, Cardinal O'Connor has been a great supporter and friend to the CCA since its inception, as have numerous bishops and Cardinals. They provide frequent advice and direction to our organization as we seek to complement the work they are doing in dioceses around the country. His Eminence was showing some of his typical self-depreciating humor and humility when he remarked that he could not remember giving us any advice — we know how valuable and important his advice has been, and I suspect he knows it as well. Early's closing line to end the article (“CCAleaders now may feel that they could use some [advice]”) was gratuitous and ill-advised.
There are some very good facts about the dinner and our organization which were included in the story, but unfortunately it more closely resembled an opinion piece that a news article. We do not argue with anyone's right to disagree with us or our work, but the Register editors should have placed this piece in the editorial section as an op-ed, or they should have edited out the cynical and personal material.
Michael A. Ferguson
Executive Director Catholic Campaign for America
Editors' note: It should be pointed out that the Register labeled Tracy Early's story on the CCA a news analysis, a form which allows a reporter more leeway to interpret events than does a straight news report.
Letters to the Editor National Catholic Register 33 Rossotto Drive Hamden, CT 06514
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Bosnia: 'No Peace Without Reconciliation, No Reconciliation Without Forgiveness' DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:On Jan. 25, 1997, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the Bosnian bishops' conference, newly established in the wake of the 1991–95 civil war in Bosnia that ended with the Dayton Peace Accords, published a pastoral letter on their Church's long and often painful history. An English translation was made available by Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Sarajevo and head of Bosnia's four-man episcopate. The following excerpt focuses on the most recent calamities that befell the Bosnian Church and the prospects for the future.
… IN THE LATEST DESTRUCTIVE WAR we have suffered more losses than ever before in the estimation of numerous experts. We do hope that this war is coming to its end, but at the same time we are afraid that once again the serious danger of our total extermination is hanging over our heads like Damocles'sword. The Catholic Church is not yet able to assess all the consequences of aggression on Bosnia-Herzegovina that raged for four years. Two dioceses—Banja Luka and Trebinje Mrkan—have been nearly totally ravaged. In the diocese of Banja Luka, although there were no war activities in this territory, in the region now controlled by the Serbian armed forces, there were once some 80,000 Catholics, but now there are only about 5,000 of them still there. In only five remaining churches liturgical celebrations are taking place, while there were once 75 churches. Out of 42 ecclesiastical buildings (parish pastoral centers, monasteries and convents) only five are still being used. The others have been completely destroyed or usurped. The aggressors did not spare even the cemeteries and other signs of Catholic presence in this region. In the Diocese of TrebinjeMrkan, one parish was totally destroyed, one completely displaced, one made inaccessible and three were partially occupied. About 3,000 believers were driven out of this diocese. In the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, nine parishes were partially or completely destroyed. About 10,000 believers were expelled. In the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna Sarajevo more than two-thirds of Catholics were driven out; out of a pre-war total of 528,000 only some 170,000 still residing in the archdiocese. Only a small number of parish churches, monasteries, cemetery chapels and parish houses were spared. With sorrow we must point out that the Catholic Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina was reduced to one third of its pre-war size in terms of the number of ecclesiastical buildings and faithful.
THESE VISIBLE WOUNDS, in spite of invaluable and irreparable material damages they caused, no matter how deep, cannot be compared to those invisible, spiritual ones. The great number of persons who have been cruelly killed and murdered or wounded and tormented has effected terrible and hardly comprehensible consequences in the souls of surviving relatives and friends, some of whom are still living in their homes while others live in exile. Spiritual and moral values have been driven by the winds of evil and violence from many people's souls. The struggle for mere survival, accompanied by constant uncertainty, has manifested some people's real self but also revealed others'oral fragility, shaken most people's beliefs and convictions. The military units which kept killing human beings in towns and villages, damaging or destroying public and private property, were followed by another more perilous force which was destroying human souls. On one side the law of constraint and greater force drew boundaries and constructed barricades, on the other, the law of propaganda and lies suspended all moral norms by deleting the difference between truth and lies, good and evil, love and hate, licit and illicit matters. In all spheres of social life and human conscience, after both were so devastated, crime, immorality, drugs, humiliations and frustrations are now blooming. An ordinary and simple person, pushed to the verge of his or her existential abyss and extremely-humiliated in his or her dignity, feels that he or she has become a tool in the hands of the powerful ones for the sake of the realization of their objectives in most indecent ways. In many places the bitter effects of hate, intolerance and revenge are corroding the very being of individual persons and of the whole nation. Psychological warfare against human-beings, their dignity and their fundamental values has already produced lethal wounds. An additional threat for the Croatian ethnic community and Catholic Church within Bosnia-Herzegovina are differing political concepts of our ethnic and ecclesiastical future which have already sparked resistance among Croatian Catholics in our country. It looks as if many sons and daughters of our ethnic community question their love for this country, and their willingness to remain in it or to return into it, after they and their loved ones have been submitted to different forms of torture and atrocities.
DURING THIS WAR THE COLLEGE of bishops of ecclesiastical province Vrhbosna-Sarajevo has been transformed by the Holy See into the Episcopal Conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina, because this new independent state has been recognized by the international political community. We, members of the episcopal conference of this country, encouraged by the strong and explicit support of the Holy Father, have been constantly raising our voices against atrocities and crimes, against force and violence, thus protecting the rights of innocent victims and defenseless persons. Unfortunately, our voices did not reach—which wasn't our fault—the minds and hearts of those who usurped the right of drawing the new maps according to their own interests or “entities,” by disregarding human persons and by neglecting their fundamental rights that are based in God's law. We did not come to agreement about any injustice, no matter who the perpetrators or victims were. We simply cannot approve such actions. Faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the fundamental principles of his Gospel, we welcome peace endeavors but we condemn again all agreements which deny people's right to their homes, their native places and their homeland. We cannot close our eyes to hundreds of thousands of tear-stained exiles and refugees. We share their grief for their homes, their places of origin and their country from which they have been driven out without any sure hope for a safe return. Their tears are our tears and their pain is our pain, too. This war has brought great disaster to every decent citizen of Bosnia Herzegovina, especially to Croatian ethnic community and to the Catholic Church. Post-war peace building will request lots of endeavor by all sides and it will take years. Aware of this, we invite all people of good will to join with us in our efforts in our resolute resistance to all kinds of evil….
Human self-deception, which assumed that conflicts between individuals and peoples could be resolved by war and violence, has brought to ruins our country, our ethnic communities and our families. Oppressed by these ruins, in the name of God and of our fellow humans we beseech all our fellow citizens to work together in transforming our present cries of pain into future shouts of hope. We believe that it is God who made us to live next to one another in this region for centuries. If God in his providence has made this country a common homeland for all of us, can we stay and survive in it as citizens and believers without sincere efforts toward mutual understanding and cooperation?… This aggression and the tragic war it caused have shown to all of us where fear of others or those who are different can take individuals and ethnic communities. This is why we invite all our fellow citizens, but primarily our Catholic brothers and sisters who are included into our diocesan communities, to summon the energy and to paint firmly a just picture of peace into this unjust frame.
We know very well that there is no peace without reconciliation, and no reconciliation without mutual forgiveness. Therefore, in this time which—we hope and pray—is bringing the end of war and the beginning of peace we offer a hand of reconciliation as Catholic bishops and in the name of all those who through the sacrament of baptism have become members of Catholic Church. We ask forgiveness from all those who may have been exposed to any kind of injustice caused by sons and daughters of the Catholic Church….
In this pastoral letter we declare again that we remain ready for full ecumenical cooperation with the Serbian Orthodox Church in BosniaHerzegovina. We believe that in this region, where our two sister Churches have been co-existing and meeting for centuries, Christ's prayer for the unity of his Church puts us under a special obligation. In the same way, we stay open for dialogue and cooperation with the Muslim religious community in this country. Our common religious mission is to serve human-beings and no political program nor anybody's politics should prevent us from performing it….
FORALLOF US, SONSAND DAUGHTERS of this country, longing for peace and reconciliation, it is an inalienable right to make demands on the international community, after it has imposed on us this kind of “forced” peace, to help us transform it into a just and equitable peace. This means a peace that respects the dignity and rights of every person. The international community should enable this country to become free and open for all persons who want to live in it as their homeland. By doing so the international community will implement its proclaimed principles about the right of all exiles and refugees to return to their homes and to their respective places of origin. We would like to state once again that a person in his or her home and a people in its homeland can never be a stranger or a minority. Their fundamental right is to live their identity, while their fundamental duty is also to respect other people's identity. As a living part of Christ's Church we insist on our divine and human right to preach the Gospel as well as to live in the spirit of this Gospel and to perform our pastoral activity throughout the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as our Church has been doing in this region from the early centuries of Christianity. We cannot waive this right and, therefore, we cannot and will not accept any political solution which deprives us in any way of this right. With all our strength we wish to contribute towards the recognition of the same right for other religious communities….
…the bitter effects of hate, intolerance and revenge are corroding the very being of individual persons and of the whole nation.
AS BELIEVERS WE CAN RECONCILE with other fellow humans only after we reconcile with ourselves, but there is no reconciliation with oneself without reconciliation with God. This is why we urge our priests, religious men and women as well as the entire Catholic community in this tormented country—that nevertheless remains for us a kind of promised land—to engage in a thorough spiritual renewal. Only with God in our hearts we shall find the strength for the difficult mission which we have been entrusted with as living community of Christ's disciples in this country. Why shouldn't we with all humility admit that we are made of flesh and blood and thus dependent and fragile in our human forces…. Christ is the foundation of our hope. In him we can do even the things which seem impossible. Let us hope in him who is the Master of history and of human lives!…
Renewed in our faith and strengthened in our hope, we shall be able to forgive and to reconcile with our fellow citizens but also to initiate the indispensable material reconstruction. We know very well how enormous the destruction of our settlements and parish communities is. Thousands of family homes have been burned down or destroyed. A large number of churches, rectories, monasteries and convents suffered the same fate. Many refugees and displaced persons are rightly wondering: “Where shall we return?” The perpetrators of aggression and war atrocities have done this purposely in order to make any return impossible for as many people as possible. If we—by refusing to return—agree to their inhumane project, we shall make ourselves strangers and ramblers on the globe. We understand those exiles and refugees who vacillate and hesitate with regard to their return. But those who had the privilege of experiencing even for a moment the pride and joy of former exiles who came back to their destroyed and burnt family hearths know that this difficult task for all of us is possible.
Therefore, in the first place, we invite our brother priests and religious men and women to get wholeheartedly involved in the endeavors of returning to parishes, monasteries and convents from which they were expelled. We are living in a time which is looking for our renewed fidelity to God and our new love for the Church and human beings. The Catholic Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina today needs the missionaries of love. This Church for centuries provided a large number of men and women with spiritual vocations. Many of them worked and are still working zealously and with self-denial in the Lord's vineyard wherever Croatian people lived and is still living. We see our Church's needs for renewal and we wish it to take place as soon as possible. But such a renewal will not be possible without priests as well as religious men and women who are ready to go courageously to all parts of our country where our Church has been actively present for centuries….
BY TAKING PART IN THE GENERALrenewal of our country we are entitled to confirm our belief in life, in the future and in God's providence. Dear brothers and sisters, let us not forget that there are few places in this country where our presence could take its new roots without coming across some ancient foundations of a church, maybe forgotten since a long time ago. There are living roots of our thousand-year-old presence everywhere in this country. Therefore, Bosnia-Herzegovina has been given to us also as a promised land. It is only in this land that we are not aliens and sojourners, no matter how difficult and unpredictable our situation may be. Only in this country is our native soil….
Peace among people is possible if it is built with God. We know and we publicly confess that “Christ is our peace” (Eph 2, 14). Believing firmly in him, we, together with all people of good will want to build up peace and a better future for this country in which God has entrusted us with his gift of life. We know very well that we can build peace only by staying here or by returning here. This is our task because; only in this way we become the peace-makers and God's children. Our hope does not grow from the earth. It grows “from above”! In this common hope, let us all take courage and inspiration.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Gatekeeper of the Vatican's War Records DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:FATHER ROBERT GRAHAM, an American Jesuit and historian, was a man of dignity and wry wit who spent the last three decades of his professional life poring over the archives of the Vatican. He died quietly in California last month at age of 84. A highly competent scholar with a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of his subject, Graham's major accomplishment came as the English language editor of a collection of correspondence between the Holy See's Secretariat of State and its nuncios (ambassadors), mainly in Europe and mainly, therefore, in non-English European languages. There were three other equally competent Jesuits involved in the 11-volume project, each of whom died without much fanfare or notice.
Father Graham wrote no great historical tomes nor did he inspire any new schools of academic inquiry. Indeed, much of what he wrote in his many articles and books never had quite the impact beyond Church circles he probably hoped for. Normally, the end of such a life of quiet scholarly pursuit doesn't lead to much sensation beyond an immediate circle of friends and, if one is fortunate, fellow scholars. Yet both The New York Times and L'Osservatore Romano devoted major, two column obituaries to assessing his life and his work, as did Catholic News Service and The Tablet of London.
What was different about Father Graham's scholarly life was the subject matter. For three decades he was at the center of a storm of raging moral and academic passions. That subject was the Holocaust and what the Catholic Church, in general, and its head during the period, Pope Pius XII, in particular, actually had done, should have done, or could have done to prevent or put and end to it once in progress. These are not minor historical issues, but questions that shape and define what Pius XII's successor Pope John Paul II has aptly called “the Century of the Shoah.” They are questions that have been at the center of highly-publicized controversies among historians of all backgrounds and between Jews and Catholics: the Auschwitz convent, the meeting of John Paul II with Kurt Waldheim, the (false) allegation of a witting Vatican role in spiriting Nazis out of Europe after World War II. Lying just beneath all of these controversies was (and remains) the commonly accepted notion that Pope Pius XII could have ended the Holocaust at any time if only he had spoken out more forcefully, if only the Vatican had acted in timely fashion to save the Jews of Europe.
This was not a notion that prevailed in popular or scholarly historical opinion during the war or for the first two decades after it ended. Rather, it was a notion popularized by a German dramatist, Rolf Hochhuth, in a much celebrated play produced in the mid-1960s, ironically almost simultaneously with the promulgation of Vatican II's historic declaration on the relationship between the Church and the Jewish People, Nostra Aetate (In Our Age). Hochhuth's dramatic premise in The Deputy was that a clearer papal statement would somehow have convinced the Nazi regime to desist from its genocidal policies, but that the Pope, who had been a Vatican ambassador to Germany (and, by implication, a Germanophile) feared communism more than Nazism (and therefore secretly hoped that the Germans would conquer Russia, thus destroying the source of the communist threat).
Neither Hochhuth's play nor its premise were supported by any historical evidence. But they were psychologically appealing in the very simplicity of their logic. If one could accept the premise, one could, in effect, exonerate Germany and, indeed, Europe as a whole, from complicity in the murder of two out of every three Jews who lived within its boundaries in the late 1930s. Guilt would fall on one man alone, one man who, as Pope, could symbolize all the rest. Thus, whether one was “liberal” or “conservative” one could go about one's business in Cold War Europe while closing the chapter on “the War.” Hochhuth's play was as convincing as it was convenient. The Italian Pope had been conscripted to play the role of the ultimate Nazi collaborator, thus letting everyone else in Europe off the hook.
The Holy See's response was not, as one might expect, a barrage of denials and apologetics. Rather, it commissioned the “Acts and Documents of the Holy See Relative to the Second World War,” an unprecedented 11-volume compendium of virtually all Vatican archival material in any way relevant to the historical record of the period. This was a full decade before the U.S. government's own “Freedom of Information” act and almost three decades before the current release of Eastern (and Western, such as the French) “classified” materials from the war years.
As The New York Times reported in its obituary, in the course of Father Graham's meticulous work of editing the raw archives into publishable form, he “found records indicating that Pius XII had operated a vast underground railroad that rescued more than 800,000 European Jews from the Holocaust.” He also found evidence of American spies “planted in the Vatican during the war” and of the disinformation efforts of Soviet spies (designed to blame the Church for the Holocaust) during and after the war. In 1996, Father Graham published a book, The Vatican and Communism During World War II: What Really Happened? (Ignatius Press), detailing these discoveries.
Rather early on, Father Graham became the chief spokesperson for the project, not because of the quantity of material in English (that was relatively a minor portion of the documentation, as noted), but because many of the people interested in it, especially in the Jewish community, spoke English. And also, I think, because he was an extraordinarily good historian with a sense of balance and of the immense complexities facing decision makers—such as the Pope—during World War II. While he always felt that the Hochhuth thesis was dangerous polemical nonsense (a conclusion with which I concur), he was able to acknowledge the perspective of those times, the dilemmas, and the actual failings of representatives of the Holy See during the war and its immediate, chaotic aftermath.
One measure of the objectivity and success of the editing team of Jesuits of “Acts and Documents” can be found in the work of Father John Morley of Seton Hall University and, in the 1960s, a classmate of mine at New York University's Institute of Hebrew Studies. Father Morley wrote a dissertation for N.Y.U. that became a book analyzing the first nine volumes of the “Acts and Documents” (the final two volumes did not appear until 1980–81, too late to be included in his dissertation). Based upon that material and augmented by materials from Jewish sources, Father Morley, who has also lead an exemplary priestly life of service to the Church, came to a less positive, though also nuanced conclusion on the question of whether the Vatican's diplomatic corps had done all that it could in extremis to save Jewish lives during World War II.
Father Graham strongly criticized the Morley study for failing to take into account the many activities of the Holy See toward the end of the war to save Jews that were detailed in those final volumes. Father Morley, for his part, has agreed that a full analysis would have to take them into account, though his reflections on them have yet to he published. It is rather poignant to note that Father Graham will never see the results of Father Morley's analysis of the later material. On the other hand it is pertinent to note that in 1990, when the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews was faced with the prospect of a full-scale, joint inquiry into the issue of the Church and the Holocaust in a meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, it invited the participation of both Fathers Graham and Morley, whose conclusions based on the same material were so disparate. These invitations to the Committee's now famous meeting in Prague, then-still Czechoslovakia, illustrate convincingly, to my mind, that the work of Father Graham and his colleagues in the project was indeed, objective and inclusive, and that there are few if any “skeletons” in the Vatican archives that will be unearthed with reference to World War II once the archives are finally, fully opened to scholarly perusal in the course of time.
In a meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee in Baltimore in 1992, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin suggested that the World War II Vatican archives be opened so that responsible scholars of whatever religious background could study them. When that happens, Father Graham, who should be remembered as one of this century's greatest, wisest, and most knowledgeable Catholic historians, will certainly receive his full measure of vindication and honor for his great service to the Church—not only in editing but also interpreting for the public the Vatican archives.
Eugene Fisher is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eugene Fisher ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Downside of Artificial Contraception-Anthropologically DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:JOHN PAUL II's apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, signed Nov. 22, 1981, discusses the difference—both moral and anthropological—between artificial contraception and periodic continence by recourse to the rhythm of the woman's cycle. The difference, which even some theologians claim to reject, involves, as John Paul says, in the final analysis, “two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.”
Here is how the he puts it: “The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control. To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion, and to live personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality, in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension, and is never ‘used’as an ‘object’that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God's creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person.”
Dr. William May, defining the demonstrable difference between contraceptive intercourse and periodic abstinence as human acts, freely chosen, stresses that there is, in a sense, a double-barreled choice: “one chooses (a) to have sexual relations and (b) to destroy whatever procreative power there may be in those relations. Contraceptive intercourse is not only non-procreative intercourse but anti-procreative intercourse. One element of human choice in contraceptive intercourse is the direct intention to render impotent the procreative power of the human person, to inhibit this human power at least for the time at which intercourse is chosen. It is a choice to reject this aspect of our human personhood.” (Human Existence, Medicine and Ethics: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977).
Persons, May writes, who elect to exercise parental responsibilities by recourse to periodic abstinence decide to do “something quite different” from those who opt for contraceptive sexual relations. Those who use natural family planning, for example, elect first of all, not to have conjugal relations if the probability of conception is verified. They so choose not because they deem such relations as wrong. On the contrary, they recognize “that conjugal relations are goods of the highest order, worthy of human love and respect, for they are meant to be expressions of the love they have for one another.” Rather, they elect to give up this good option, here and now, “because they realize that (a) it would be irresponsible for them to have relations if conception is probable, because of a serious moral obligation to avoid pregnancy, and
(b) were they to choose to have conjugal relations here and now and avoid the possibility of conception-pregnancy by contraceptive, anti-procreative means, they would by repudiating their gift of procreativity and hence responding negatively to a great human good” (Human Existence).
So there is a real difference between periodic abstinence as means or acts of exercising parental responsibility and contraception. The assumption here is of course that recourse to periodic continence is not chosen for reasons of selfishness or unwillingness to share lives and love with future generations.
Father Liptak is pastor of St. Catherine Church, Broad Brook, Conn., and professor of moral and sacramental theology at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, Conn.
To accept the cycle… means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Liptak ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Next Sunday at Mass: Passion Sunday DATE: 03/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:March 23, 1997 Mark 14, 1–15, 47
ON THIS PASSION SUNDAY, as the world focuses on the death of Jesus Christ, the Evangelist Mark's Passion narrative helps focus our meditation. The central question that this Gospel—and this day—asks of every believer is: “How do I respond to the death of Jesus Christ? What does it mean for my life?”
The Gospel deftly illustrates the many different possible responses, both positive and negative, along with their ramifications. The negative responses to the death of Jesus begin with the treachery of Judas Iscariot, who keeps “looking for an opportune way to hand Jesus over.” This “one of the Twelve” not only welcomes Jesus' death—he engineers it. Judas'satisfied anticipation of Jesus'death, along with Peter's heartless denial, poignantly remind us of the depravity of which we are capable when we do not live in the truth.
Asecond negative response to the death of Jesus emerges from the Twelve during the Last Supper. When Jesus gives them his word that one of them is about to betray him, “they began to say to him sorrowfully, one by one, ‘Surely not I!’” It is a response filled with denial, defensiveness, cowardice and callousness. No one asks Jesus to explain such a staggering claim. No one dares to repudiate the very possibility of such a betrayal. Instead, the “sorrow” they feel is only for themselves.
A third negative response is the people's mockery of Jesus as he hangs in crucifixion. Even the men crucified with Jesus “likewise kept taunting him” … taunting the Word with cruel, hateful words. Surely we're beyond such mockery. Which one of us enjoys voicing the jeering words of the crowd when the Passion is read aloud at Mass? And yet, every moment that we take our eyes off the crucifix, every moment that we make the source and summit of our life something other than the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we make a mockery of the crucified one.
To know the positive way to respond to the death of Jesus we must first look to the woman in Simon the leper's house who breaks her perfume jar, sparing no expense in her ardent desire to prepare Jesus for burial. She suffers the criticism of others, she jeopardizes her reputation, she risks rejection, and she exhausts a resource she can never recover. But “she has done what she could.” Likewise, it is essential that we be extravagant in uniting ourselves to the death of Jesus. For only in such self-emptying does the “Good News proclaimed throughout the world” make any sense.
But even those who are not prepared for the death of Jesus can be converted by it—if they confront it honestly and openly. “The centurion who stood guard over him on seeing the manner of his death, declared, ‘Clearly this man was the Son of God!’” Those courageous enough to look upon the crucifixion truthfully in all its horror and magnificence become transformed by its power.
The power of the Jesus' crucifixion doesn't end at death. The death of Jesus is a reality that every Christian must, like Joseph of Arimathea, be “bold enough” to appropriate and possess. The more we own the death of Jesus and identify personally with it, the more we will know the splendor of his New Life. And, like the two Marys who “observed where Jesus had been laid,” we must make constant meditation on the death of Jesus Christ the life-giving center of our lives.
Father Cameron, a Register contributing editor, teaches homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: Toward the Splendor of New Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: PETER JOHN CAMERON OP ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Church Draws Line on Cloning DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:EVER SINCE the days of Adam and Eve, man has been tempted to try to become more like God. This has never been more true than in the 20th century, which has witnessed the unlocking of the secrets of the atom and, in the process, the technology to destroy ourselves and all the earth in the blink of an eye.
Now, at the cusp of a new millennium, Dr. Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, has successfully cloned an adult sheep to produce a genetically identical lamb. This remarkable breakthrough has opened the door to the possibility that human beings, too, can be “created” without benefit of the union of sperm and egg.
Like the scientists who split the atom, Wilmut carried out his research with high hopes that the discovery will benefit humanity. Cloning the most productive milking cows, propagation of endangered species, and producing replacement organs for transplant patients are just a few ways that could happen.
But many people, from ethicists to theologians to plain folks, fear that cloning human beings is the next logical step for the same scientific community that brought us test-tube babies and fetal tissue research. Wilmut himself has been careful to point out that he considers that possibility unethical.
Within days of the report of the sheep cloning, President Clinton imposed a ban on federal funds for human cloning experiments and called for a temporary voluntary moratorium on experiments in the United States.
Vatican officials were also quick to weigh in on the astounding news. Human cloning would violate human dignity, the sacred nature of marriage and the very principle of human equality, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's leading expert on medical ethcis, said in Feb. 26 statement. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and others stressed that while it may be ethical to clone animals in some cases, cloning humans could never be justified.
“It is a short step from cloning animals to cloning humans,” Cardinal Ratzinger said in a March 5 interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica. “The Church has always called with a loud voice for respect for human life in all its forms and at every moment. But it does so particularly in the face of the rising number of disturbing events …” including the cloning of a sheep and a rhesus monkey.
”Certainly,” the cardinal told the newspaper, “if research can help eliminate hunger or certain diseases, that would be welcome. But nothing more. The sacredness of life is not to be touched.”
And, March 2, Pope John Paul condemned “dangerous experiments” that show a lack of respect for human life or that manipulate God's creation for profit or power.
But already, at least one group has formed demanding the right to clone. In New York, homosexual activists calling themselves the Clone Rights Action Center staged a rally in Greenwich Village March 1 protesting a state bill that would make human cloning a felony. The group's leader, Randolfe Wicker, told a gay electronic magazine that “heterosexuality as a route to reproduction is now historically obsolete.”
Ethicists nearly universally disagree with the small group of activists, saying there is no good reason to pursue experiments in human cloning.
Peter Cataldo, director of research for the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center in Braintree, Mass., told the Register that Wilmut's research thus far does not appear to violate Church teaching.
”However,” he cautioned, “that point is true only within very restricted circumstances as they now exist. The research becomes morally unacceptable when it begins to actually affect the very nature of various species, and I'm speaking here of animal species.”
When humans enter the equation it becomes more clear, he said, because it raises the issues of human dignity and respect for the sacredness of human life. “Any human cloning would be absolutely morally unacceptable,” he said.
Jesuit Father Kevin FitzGerald, a medical ethicist and a geneticist, stressed that the Hollywood concept of a clone as a duplicate of another person is inaccurate.
”If this was done with humans you would get an identical twin, and identical twins are not exactly the same,” Father FitzGerald said. “They can be very different personality-wise, even if they look exactly the same.” The cloned child would have his or her own soul in the same way identical twins (natural clones) have individual souls, he said.
Father FitzGerald, a researcher of cancer genetics at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., and a research associate in medical ethics in Loyola's Department of Medical Humanities, is excited about Wilmut's success because of its possible implications for cancer research.
He explained that as early embryonic cells develop into more specialized cells— be they kidney cells, lung cells, whatever— they turn off all of their genes except for the ones needed for their specific function. Wilmut has figured out how to reactivate those genes. This causes the cell—in this case a mammary cell from the adult sheep- to begin acting like an embryonic cell again.
Wilmut's discovery may help cancer researchers understand how cancer cells lose their identity as kidney or lung cells and begin “dividing like crazy,” Father FitzGerald said. “(The cloning research) would be a great model to study how genes which are supposed to be turned off inappropriately get turned back on again,” he said.
That said, Father FitzGerald categorically rejects the cloning of humans “from any perspective—theologically, ethically or even scientifically.”
In a Feb. 24 New York Times story on the ethics of cloning, John Robertson, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the procedure would be understandable in a situation, for example, where a couple wanted to replace a dying child. But Father FitzGerald expressed dismay at the logic, saying it wouldn't do justice to the child who dies or to his clone.
”Scientifically, you can say right away you're not going to replace the child; you get a delayed identical twin,” he said. “It is unfair, in a sense, to the next child to put that burden on them and say you have been created to replace someone.”
Father FitzGerald also rejects the notion of creating clones who could serve as organ or tissue donors. “We don't force anyone now to donate organs or tissue, so why create human beings to donate organs or tissue?” he said. “I mean, these are human beings.”
He conceded, however, that inevitably someone will attempt to clone humans. “We've had gun powder around for a thousand years and we still haven't figured out how to regulate that properly,” he said. “So will this be attempted by somebody in the near or far distant future? Probably. And if it happens, my hope is whoever happens to be born of this technique will still be allowed to live a fulfilling life and not be discriminated against or considered to be some kind of mutant or other species. It will be a human person with his or her own individual relationship with God and unique human spirit.”
Cataldo of the Pope John Center said the moral objections to cloning are the same as those for in-vitro fertilization. “It's the same affront to human dignity and the right of the individual to be borne of the fruit of the conjugal act between a husband and wife,” he said.
With cloning, he added, there is also an added genetic dimension. “So far as I understand it, cloning is not simply a matter of duplication and replication, it's also an issue of genetic manipulation and genetic engineering,” he said. “This process gives science a much more efficient method and process of altering the genetic code of an individual who is the result of cloning. So, in the process of cloning, there is the opportunity to create alterations in the one being cloned, either to take out defects or various other changes, and possibly even make enhancements.”
In a Feb. 24 press release from the Roslin Institute announcing the cloning of the sheep, Wilmut said that “genetic modification of the donor cells in culture before they are used in nuclear transfer will also allow us to introduce very precise changes in their DNA.”
These changes, he said, open up the possibilities for new products to treat cancer and other ailments. Wilmut said he thought it unlikely that the new technology would be used to produce genetically modified animals in the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, Catholic ethicists and Church leaders will continue to keep a close eye on the research, bracing for another battle over human dignity while trying not to discourage advances that can benefit mankind.
”Whenever an issue like this comes up, it needs to be reemphasized that the Catholic Church is not against technological and scientific advances in the area of genetics,” said Cataldo. “It encourages that type of research that truly serves the human person and is at the service of man.”
Dennis Poust is based in Austin, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dennis Poust ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Think Tank Tackles Social Cost of Health Care Efficiency DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:MANAGED HEALTH CARE— with its alphabet soup of HMOS, PPOS and MCOS-has broken the back of medical inflation as Americans get used to concepts such as primary-care physicians and intense financial scrutiny over procedures and surgeries.
Nearly everyone agrees that managed health care has tamed the monster of health care costs which threatened to gobble up American businesses perplexed by huge employee insurance costs in the '80s. But, as stories come out of medical horrors such as drive-by mastectomies and patients who died because they were denied expensive care ruled out by their insurance providers, the question arises: What is the social cost of those savings?
That question will be scrutinized by The Woodstock Theological Center at Jesuit-operated Georgetown University. A $270,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-the nation's largest philanthropy devoted to health care—will enable the center to bring together ethicists, physicians, consumers and health insurance officials to thrash out issues involving American health care in the late 20th century.
”I don't presume to be an answer man on this,” said Jesuit Father James Connor, director of the Woodstock Center, a research institute sponsored by the Jesuits to address business and social ethics. He noted that health care issues are complex and involve balancing a variety of legitimate interests.
The format of the study is a simple one; some 40 leaders in the health care arena will come together for regular, no-holds-barred, confidential discussions on the ethical issues in health care today. After two years, the center plans to bring out a checklist of moral concerns which need to be addressed by all parties in today's complicated health-care universe.
The format is based upon similar studies that the Woodstock Center has conducted on business ethics in the past, including “Ethical Considerations in the Business It's worked in the past and I just hope and pray it will work in the future,”said Connor, who plans to moderate the discussions.
While many of the issues in health care might seem obvious to anyone who reads the papers or goes to a doctor, Connor insisted that the Woodstock Center has no pre-existing agenda for the study. “I have no ax to grind,” he said. “We'll get the people involved to bring the issues to the surface.”
Connor, a theologian and former pastor at Holy Trinity Church in Washington, D.C., said that the format grew out of his own experience at his former parish, a magnet for Washington-area Catholic professionals. There, he said, a major concern was “about what it means to be a Christian in the marketplace.” The result was the establishment of parish-based discussion groups focused on ethical issues in the workplace.
J. Michael Stebbins, a theologian and former nurse now working as a senior fellow at the Woodstock Center, noted that there is widespread concern that managed health care is beginning to resemble rationing of care, the specter of which helped to doom President Bill Clinton's health care plan proposed early in his first term.
Among health-care providers, Stebbins said, “there is a temptation to act like a corporation which wants to limit its financial risk.”
Stebbins, who wrote the proposal which brought in the grant for the project, expects the study to generate widespread interest. “Everyone is a consumer of health care. More and more people are having experiences that aren't so positive,” he said.
Jesuit Father William Byron, an ethicist at Georgetown University and member of the steering committee for the project, noted that while consumers may be grumbling, there is also widespread revolt among doctors, many of whom have retired in recent years rather than face the widespread changes in health care developed during the past decade.
”There is a big issue of who is practicing medicine; the insurance companies or physicians?” Byron, the former president of The Catholic University of America, said. In a recent article on health care issues in the Jesuit magazine America, Byron noted that physicians “complain that they are overworked and underpaid by the so-called successful or cost-effective managed care companies.”
Those complaints transfer to problems faced by consumers, particularly with women patients, noted Connor. “Women will tell me that they want to go to doctors and tell their stories. They want the doctor to spend some time reviewing their situation. They don't want to be treated like a car on an assembly line,” he said.
However, that concern works against the situation faced by many doctors who are told by insurance providers that they will only be paid for 15 minutes per patient, a stipulation which encourages the assembly-line mentality.
Other complaints from doctors that have an impact on patient care include:
• Insurance guidelines that tell physicians what particular treatment will be covered for a condition, even if the doctor's judgment calls for another kind of treatment. “I don't want an accountant 3,000 miles away telling me what I should do,” is a regular complaint of doctors, said Connor.
• Doctors who are paid for each patient, no matter what kind of treatment they might need. The result is that chronically-ill patients are not financially valuable to doctors and health care providers
• “Gag rules” imposed on doctors who are unable to discuss with their patients the impact that insurance regulations will have on treatment decisions. Some arrangements prohibit doctors from telling patients what non-covered procedures could be useful in treating their condition, a prohibition which some see as a violation of the physician's Hippocratic Oath.
• The impact of changes in the delivery system on care for the poor. Previously, physicians and hospitals could subsidize treatment of non-payers through shifting costs. “But you can't do that anymore. The system has cut out all surplus,” noted Connor, who added that the changes come at a time when government is cutting back on medical assistance to poor people. One recent study of New York residents indicates that the number of uninsured-largely people who are working but don't have access to health insurance through their jobs-has increased from 20 percent to nearly 25 percent in the past five years.
While the bogeyman in these complaints appears to be the managed care companies, Connor cautioned that an adjustment in health care was needed. “Costs were going out of sight. Something needed to be done,” he said. He argued that the managed health-care revolution has produced a stronger emphasis on preventive care, including diet, exercise and other low-cost treatments which combine good medical care with financial prudence.
The Woodstock study probably won't result in a giant list of recommendations to revamp the American health care system, Stebbins said. The vision of the study is a much narrower one.
”At the end there will be a concrete checklist which people in the industry can use to think through the critical issues. Not recommendations, but questions,” he said, noting that the study will not provide a blueprint but more of an ethical “pilot's checklist” to assure that the proper questions have been addressed by all concerned.
Peter Feuerherd is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Feuerherd ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: About Face Gives Pro-lifers Hope DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:THE HEAT IS back on President Bill Clinton after the leader of an abortion-rights lobbying group admitted he had lied about the prevalence of the late-term pregnancy procedure known as partial-birth abortion.
Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, a lobbying group in Alexandria, Va., told American Medical News that he “lied though [his] teeth” when he said earlier that doctors performed the “partial birth” procedure no more than 450 times a year. Fitzsimmons's group represents 200 abortion clinics, and his admission cast doubt on the accuracy and sincerity of other abortion-rights groups' claims. He estimated the actual number of partial birth abortions each year at up to 5,000 and said that in the vast majority of cases they were performed on healthy women.
Both Houses of Congress passed a bill last year to ban the procedure at any time except to save a woman's life. But Clinton vetoed the bill, claiming he wanted an exception for a woman's health. He called partial birth abortion “a potentially life-saving, certainly health-saving” operation for a “small but extremely vulnerable group of women,” which he estimated to number “a few hundred” a year.
The House of Representatives voted to override the veto, but the Senate vote was nine votes short of a pro-life victory. While pro-life politicians vowed to reintroduce the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997 months ago, Fitzsimmons's recent remarks have elevated the debate to a new level and put more pressure on Clinton and his pro-abortion allies.
Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.) and 165 co-sponsors introduced the bill March 5 in the House. The bill's sponsors did not change any of the wording from the 1996 bill. The House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution and the Senate Judiciary Committee were scheduled to hold a joint hearing March 11 on “Partial-Birth Abortion: The Truth.”
Helen Alvare, an official at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) will probably testify, along with officials from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Abortion Federation and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. Predictably, pro-choice groups have failed to give up the fight to have partial-birth abortion remain legal.
The joint hearing should “correct false statements and … clarify resulting misconceptions about the procedure,” said a March 4 letter to potential witnesses signed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Henry Hyde (RIll.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
The House was expected to vote on the bill on or about March 20. Because of the loss of some pro-life House seats in the 1996 election, the NRLC expects that it will be very close on whether the bill will get the two-thirds vote necessary to override President Clinton's anticipated veto.
Physicians perform partial-birth abortion on some fetuses after 20 weeks of gestation. The procedure involves dilating the cervix, pulling the baby partially into the birth canal feet-first and then thrusting surgical scissors into the base of the baby's head. After the abortionist sucks the infant's brains out, he collapses the skull and delivers the dead child.
The especially-grisly nature of partial-birth abortion stunned the majority of Americans who found out about it. But many Americans still do not know about the procedure, and Sen. Bob Dole did not make abortion a major issue in the 1996 presidential campaign.
Fitzsimmons said that he had lied about the number of partial-birth abortions, and he added that the vast majority of these abortions are performed in the second trimester on healthy unborn babies and healthy mothers, not in cases of danger to the mother's life or severe fetal abnormalities, as he earlier had claimed.
”The abortion rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else,” said Fitzsimmons, in remarks that appeared in the March 3 issue of American Medical News, published by the American Medical Association. In an unaired interview with ABC's Nightline, Fitzsimmons “just went out there and spouted the party line,” about the procedure, he admitted in a Feb. 28 interview with Knight-Ridder news service.
Fitzsimmons said that he had lied about the number of partial-birth abortions, and he added that the vast majority of these abortions are performed in the second trimester on healthy unborn babies and healthy mothers.
Pro-life advocates responded to Fitzsimmons's admission with their own contention: that Americans should call into question the pro-abortion move-ment's credibility.
In 1996, Dr. Martin Haskell of Ohio, who has performed over 1,000 partial-birth abortions, said that about 80 percent of his patients had no medical reason. His admissions seemed to cast doubt on the abortion proponents'figures.
Nancy Valko, a registered nurse in St. Louis who follows medical ethics issues, wrote in a widely-circulated electronic-mail message that “if any other group was proved to have intentionally lied, the media would then view any of their pronouncements with a jaundiced eye: ‘how can we believe anything they say?’”
The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which normally support abortion rights, parted ways on the partial-birth abortion issue recently. The Times said in an editorial that a great majority of partial-birth abortions are done before 24 weeks of gestation, “before the fetus is viable outside the womb.”
”The less-than-honest quality of the debate has been disheartening. But the squabbling over numbers should not obscure the principal at stake. Aban on the procedure is still an unacceptable political invasion of private medical decisions and an attempt to limit access to abortion.”
The Post, meanwhile, in a March 4 editorial, predicted that Congress will pass the 1997 bill against partial-birth abortions and said that “this time, Mr. Clinton will be hard-pressed to justify the veto on the basis of the misinformation on which he rested his case last time.”
Media Matters, a PBS media-criticism show, said in its January edition that “reporters tended to accept as true the assertions of the abortion-rights side, despite evidence calling into question their claims,” from the time the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act debuted in June 1995, through the time when Congress voted on Clinton's veto in September 1996.
National Right to Life's Johnson warned that Clinton has been ambiguous in recent weeks. Clinton stated in a Dec. 13 press conference that he would sign a bill to ban partial-birth abortions if an exception were added to cover “serious” health-related circumstances. “But on other ‘channels,’ so to speak, President Clinton has firmly communicated a very different position: that he will sign the bill only if it is also drastically changed so that it is limited to the third trimester,” wrote Johnson on his organization's worldwide web site.
If Clinton rejects the second partial-birth abortion bill, it will put pressure on liberal senators to override his veto. Part of this pressure, meanwhile, will depend on the extent to which the media covers the issue and the recent controversy. If the partial-birth abortion ban becomes law, it would be the first limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established abortion as a legal medical practice throughout the country.
William Murray is based in Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Rural Life Watchdog Sounds Alarm DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:WHEN SCOTTISH scientists announced last month that they'd successfully cloned a sheep, Brother David Andrews CSC, was discussing livestock issues with U.S. Department of Agriculture officials in Washington, D.C. News of the first cloned mammal struck a nerve in him.
”I don't want to sound like a Luddite by saying it's all bad, but we must think of the moral and ethical considerations,” said Andrews, executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC), an independent organization that monitors the health of American rural life.
Andrews is monitoring the developments especially closely because of the potential impact on farm life. One purported application of the technology would be cloning the most productive farm animals, to maximize outputs of milk, wool, and other products. “My immediate reaction was to think about what's possible in biotechnology, and the theory that says, ‘If you can do it, let's do it,’ without passing the question through the religious and moral dimension,” he said.
He wondered about the secrecy that surrounded the experiment, from the time the lamb was born to the present, a seven month period. He also suggested that the technology begged economic and moral questions. “There ought to be other levels of consideration beyond simple scientific reasons.”
As science continues making strides, the U.S. bishops, through the NCRLC, are responding to the problems of food production, ownership and distribution problems of farmers in other ways. Bishop Raymond Burke of LaCrosse, president of the NCRLC, for example, aided dairy farmers during a recent strike.
The Green Bay Exchange dropped the price of cheese which forced the price of milk down. In response to the strike, the Diocese of LaCrosse joined forces with the Area Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church of American. Bishop Burke and Lutheran Bishop April Ulring Larson not only issued an ecumenical pastoral statement, they also paid for the farmers'processing of milk and distributed the cheese to local food depositories.
”The number of Wisconsin farms has decreased dramatically in the past decade,” Bishop Burke said, adding that the financial stability of many farming families is at risk. “They're working to try to create a union of farmers so that they can negotiate a new price (for dairy products). I'm convinced that it has to be the farmers working together to negotiate a fair price as opposed to government intervention.
”I'm not accusing anyone of maliciousness, but the production of food is driven by economic considerations,” Bishop Burke said. “Herds are housed in cramped quarters; cows are milked repeatedly; they are medicated so that they can withstand the living conditions; some cows are injected with hormones; and overall, they have a shorter lifespan.
”It's ultimately disrespectful of nature itself. I can't believe that milk production in that way is healthy,” he added.
To rectify the situation, the LaCrosse diocesan Justice and Peace Office has encouraged farmers to attend local meetings, and Bishop Burke has held private meetings with political leaders to discuss implementing the pastoral letter he coauthored.
Bishops in other parts of the country are also taking actions to support smaller farms. In a joint letter to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, Bishop John McRaith of Owensboro, Ky., who chairs the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Food and Agriculture subCommittee of the Domestic Policy Committee, and Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., a past president of the NCRLC, expressed consternation over the situation of minority farmers.
”There is concern about overt racism by the government regarding farm practices,” Brother Andrews said. Farmers of small farms are particularly at risk, he added, because federal legislators are considering redefining the definition of “farmer.”
Some lawmakers propose changing qualifications by increasing the amount a farmer must produce from $1,000 to $10, 000, making the smallest farms ineligible to receive federal aid. According to Andrews, this change would wipe out 90 percent of minority farmers, including 50 percent of all farmers in Texas.
”The small farmer has reverted back to the condition of tenant farmer,” Brother Andrews said. The U.S. bishops have asked the federal government to give priority to farmers of small and moderately-sized farms, he added.
Another ongoing problem is the concentration of food processing. Seventy-five years ago, a few corporations controlled 40 percent of processing. Today that number is up to 80 percent, leaving farmers with only limited access to markets, Brother Andrews said. The NCRLC has joined the Western Organization of Resource Councils in a petition to the Secretary of Agriculture asking him to use the Packers and Stockyard Act of 1921 to break up existing monopolies.
The NCRLC is particularly concerned about the industrialization of agriculture. Andrews compared the raising of livestock by multi-national corporations to the assembly-line method of car production. He used the hog industry as an example. Large producers force hogs to be on the same cycle so that the young are born at the same time, he said. The method, he added, leads to a proliferation of waste from the young hogs which results in pollution and the contamination of streams and lakes.
”They claim that science will solves these problems,” said Brother Andrews, who called this type of production, the “cult of efficiency.”
”We need a ‘culture for the common good.’We need to be aware that there are structures of evil and sin-enterprises with investment capital that are maximizing profit at the expense of people,” he said. “When you make the human person subservient to the economy, you violate the order under which things should operate.
”The most at-risk groups are the small and moderately-sized farm families doing traditional farming,” Brother Andrews added. States from Minnesota to Louisiana have been affected by the failure of traditional farming. According to censuses from 1980 to the present, the population decrease of the Mississippi River Valley directly corresponds with its decrease in food production.
Not only do farmers face “the vast bureaucracy of the federal government but also the bureaucracy of uncontrolled capitalism,” he said. “Industrialization of agriculture has meant the development of a factory model farm. This negatively impacts the quality of life of people who live in these areas,” he added.
Bishop Burke agreed: “It's not primarily a farm crisis, but a crisis of the stewardship of the earth. We are becoming more and more distanced from production of our food. People need to be alert because it's a far different thing to build a car than to care for animals.”
Theresa Carson is based in Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Theresa Carson ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bishop Asks Senator Santorum to Rescind Critique of Charities DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Brooklyn, episcopal liaison to Catholic Charities USA, has asked a U.S. senator to rescind harsh comments of the agency he made in a New York speech.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), said Feb. 20 that Catholic Charities “shouldn't be called Catholic” because its agencies give their clients only food and material assistance but not the teachings and support of Catholic faith.”
Bishop Sullivan, in a March 4 letter to the senator, said, “It came as a shock to many of us to have seen in diocesan papers your ‘blistering attack on Catholic Charities.’”
He was quoting from a Catholic News Service story on the senator's speech, given at a fund-raising dinner sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for America.
Santorum, a Catholic who led the Senate floor battle to pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act last year, received the Catholic American of the Year Award from the campaign during the dinner.
In his letter, Bishop Sullivan told Santorum, he does not believe there is any U.S. organization like Catholic Charities “that provides more services and care for poor and troubled people.”
”It has been possible only because we work in partnership with government,” Bishop Sullivan continued.
One of the senator's major criticisms of Catholic Charities was that it receives 65 percent of its money from the federal government. Because use of government funds makes it impossible to speak directly about the Christian faith, he suggested, the agencies of Catholic Charities “do nothing Catholic.”
But Bishop Sullivan wrote that if “these monies to nonprofit agencies such as Catholic Charities were unavailable, many poor people would suffer from a lack of proper services.”
”Without government assistance,” he added, “the Church would be able to help only a few relative to need. We believe government assistance to nonprofit agencies to meet the needs of the poor is an effective implementation of the principle of subsidiarity.”
Bishop Sullivan recommended the senator re-read Matthew 25 to “discover what Jesus said about feeding people.”
In his Feb. 20 speech, Santorum also complained that Catholic Charities was “the most effective opponent” of the welfare bill he sought to get enacted.
In response, Bishop Sullivan called the welfare measure “morally flawed public policy” that would have “negative consequences for poor children in the near future.”
He said that the reform package was “divisive in structure, if not in its intention,” and that Catholic Charities USA and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops were united
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Finding ëPax et Bonumí in Assisi DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:”O holy town of Assisi, you are known to the whole world for the one fact of having given birth to the Little Poor One, your Saint, so seraphic in his love. May you understand this privilege, and offer to all people the spectacle of such a faithfulness to Christian tradition that it will be to your real and everlasting honor…. Here with St. Francis, here we are truly at the gates of Paradise.”
Pope John XXIII Assisi, Oct. 4, 1962
MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Assisi, after a long absence, was on a mild winter afternoon as I alit from the train at the foot of this medieval village built on layered terraces atop imposing Mount Subasio. Just moments away from sunset, Assisi was awash in a magical glow, as if God himself had slowly ladled molten gold over its rooftops.
Of all the places I had visited while studying abroad in college, two have remained indelibly etched on my mind, stone for stone, building for building, miracle for miracle: Assisi, home to my favorite saint, and Lourdes. This weekend would be a homecoming.
I stayed in a convent in a serene country location with a spectacular view of the Umbrian plain, yet just a brief walk from the center of the city. I wanted to be a true pilgrim and retrace, on foot, the steps of St. Francis and St. Clare, who became his follower and who founded the Order of Poor Clares.
The pilgrimage began early Sunday morning with a walk through the wonderfully quiet, narrow cobblestone streets of Assisi, past buildings, churches, chapels and roadside shrines to the Virgin, many of which date to the time of Francis. My destination was the double basilica dedicated to him where I would attend Mass and visit his tomb. I didn't meet a living soul until I reached the lower basilica, allowing me time and peace to mentally relive Francis'life.
Born in Assisi in 1182 to a wealthy cloth merchant, Pietro di Bernardone, and his French wife, Madonna Pica, Francis was an affable, extroverted young man, gifted with intelligence and a poetic soul, and generous to a fault. Popular with the youth of his day and excelling in all he undertook, Francis first prepared for a life of adventure as a knight.
Following a serious illness, Francis returned to his ordinary life, but found no pleasure in his previous activities. Later, on a trip to Spoleto, he fell ill again and, in a moment of fever, heard the Lord call him: “Go back to your city, there you will be told what to do.”
Returning to Assisi, Francis found himself drawn to prayer and meditation. In 1206, in the crumbling old church of St. Damien, in prayer before the crucifix, he again heard the Lord's voice: “Go, Francis, restore my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruin.” In his youthful exuberance, he took the Lord's words literally and began to look for funds to restore the church!
Soon afterwards, however, he realized that God was calling him to be a builder of souls, and announced this to his family. Disinherited by his father, who had great dreams for him, Francis set forth in 1206 with just a small band of followers, to do as he had been ordered: to restore the Church, to preach the Gospel, to put Christ back in Christians. As his followers grew in number, Francis sensed the need for a rule for their way of life and so, in 1210, went to Rome where Pope Innocent III approved the Franciscan Order.
From 1210 until his death in 1226, Francis and his brothers traveled, preached and converted, living in utter poverty and trusting entirely in Divine Providence. For had it not been God himself who told Francis what to do?
In 1219 Francis went to Egypt where he preached peace and goodness and tried to convert the Moslems. Pax et Bonum- Peace and Goodness. These were the words Francis always spoke in greeting.
On Christmas day 1223 Francis created the world's first living nativity scene in Greccio, a reenactment which takes place there to this day at Christmas time. In 1224 he received the stigmata on Mount LaVerna. He died in abject poverty on Oct. 4, 1226, and was canonized in 1228 by Pope Gregory XIV, the same year that the building of the lower basilica started. With frescoes by Cimabue and Giotto, it was finished in 1230 and houses the crypt where Francis is buried. The double basilica, Romanesque bell tower and adjacent convento are property of the Vatican and are administered by a pontifical delegate.
The frescoes by Giotto, which decorate the entire upper basilica of St. Francis, sing the praises of this beloved son of Assisi better than any words ever could. They tell the story of the Poor One as recounted in the Great Legend by St. Bonaventure (1221–1274). Giotto depicts the short life of Francis with moving intensity, capturing his physical frailty, but spiritual vitality, the poetry in his soul, his unbounded love for the Creator and for all his creatures. Francis wrote the famed Canticle of the Creatures-but Giotto's frescoes are a canticle to Francis. As I retraced the steps of this simple and singular man, this obedient servant of God, I was most touched by Francis'joy, his happy willingness to accept the seemingly impossible and make it possible by his ability to exclude all that was irrelevant to eternal life. His vocation was simplicity itself: God called. Francis answered. A humbling lesson!
One cannot visit Assisi and its environs without visiting those places associated with St. Clare. Clare, born in Assisi in 1194 to wealth and an easy life, heard Francis preach a Lenten sermon in 1212 and, moved by his teachings, renounced her privileged existence to follow the poverello, the poor one. She took her vows on Palm Sunday 1212, and soon afterwards founded the Poor Clares.
The Italian Gothic basilica dedicated to her, and where she is buried, is now home to the Crucifix which spoke to St. Francis in the Church of St. Damien.
To truly savor Francis' great love and faith, you have to visit all the places in and near Assisi which are linked to his life: the Church of St. Damien, an oasis of peace and almost mystical recollection, where the Franciscan Order was founded and where, later, Clare and her sisters lived and prayed; the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, built around the Chapel of the Porziuncola, where Francis spent the first three years with his followers; Rivotorto where he transferred his growing order and built what he simply called “a place,” as the word convento suggested property, ownership and stability, which the Franciscans had renounced.
Pope John XXIII once put it thus: “We ask ourselves: why did God give Assisi this enchantment of nature, this aura of sanctity, almost suspended in the air, which the pilgrim almost tangibly feels? The answer is so simple. So that men, through a common and universal language, will learn to recognize the Creator, and to recognize each others as brothers.”
Assisi is easily reachable in several hours by car or train from Rome. There are numerous hotels as well as conventos for those wishing to spend some time here, especially on retreat. Tourist offices have information in numerous languages and can be contacted by phone: (075) 813599 or 816566; fax 812315 or e-mail: aptas@krenet.it
Joan Lewis is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Values Clarification in Real-World Lab of the Classroom DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:Mark Gerson had a unique experience teaching at a tough inner-city Catholic school, St. Luke's in Jersey City, N.J., that largely serves Hispanic and African-American students. For one thing, Gerson is Jewish and hails from a privileged background. He found that the Catholic school model succeeds with flying colors in serving the underprivileged. Gerson's experiences resulted in a book, Dispatches From an Inner-City School That Works, (New York: Free Press, $23). This week, a third and final excerpt.
BECAUSE THEY WORKED hard and wanted and expected to work hard as adults, my students took an almost instinctive interest in money and economics. One of the parts of the Constitution that captivated them was the interstate commerce clause, because it allowed the government to limit the number of hours they could work. I did not expect to spend much time on this, but the students were fascinated by the idea that the federal government could regulate working conditions in a Jersey City restaurant on the basis of the fact that the tablecloth was made in New York. I was surprised that this point generated significant ire among my students. Carmen reacted first: “No one should tell me how much I should work except my mother. How does Bill Clinton know how much money we need or how many hours I can work and do well in school?”
Walt added, “She be right, yo. And if I ain't workin‘, you think I'm studyin’? No. I am out with my boys.”
Every student who commented on the interstate commerce clause agreed with these assessments. The unanimity was striking, but so was the fact that most students did not allow themselves to become too upset in light of what they considered a grievous violation of their liberty. Why? Because, as Charles told me, no one paid any attention to these laws. He had worked 60 hours a week in a restaurant for several years, and no one had ever threatened to stop him. Moreover, Charles added, it was not just small businesses that do not keep official records; his younger brother had worked similar hours in a branch of a large supermarket chain, and no one had bothered him, either. I would never have thought of it before, but now I would not be surprised if statutes restricting the number of hours teenagers work are the most violated laws in the city, and there is nothing the government can do about it.
The interest generated by the interstate commerce clause spoke to one of my students'great interests-economics. Next to religious history, the kind of history my students liked best was economic history. Not, to be sure, the monetary policy of the Second Bank of the United States, but supply and demand, the invisible hand, and other concepts they could recognize in their daily lives. This interest was apparent from the beginning of the school year, when I planned a lesson on the joint stock companies that financed Columbus. Actually, it was not so much a lesson as a brief explanation, but the top two classes were so fascinated by the concept of stocks that we ended up spending the rest of the week on the stock market and other methods of investment. Several students came to see me every day that week during lunch to learn how to read a stock page, and another group came after school. My brother Rick, an expert on the stock market who was managing one of the nation's largest student-run funds, read, faxed and overnighted to me the material I used. The material was new and fascinating to the students. I decided to take advantage of our proximity to New York and told Rick to organize a trip for my class to the financial district during his Christmas break.
Our first stop was the Stock Exchange. The students took advantage of all of the attractions of the visitors' gallery, which included a variety of computers offering different information, a movie, and a gift shop. Others stood transfixed in the alcove overlooking the trading floor, listening to the market being explained in the language of their choice. The New York Stock Exchange provided a presentation and tour free of charge to the students.
”How much do you think it costs to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange?” the woman leading the tour asked.
I saw Rick whispering something to Shanquilla, and her hand shot up.
”Yes, young lady?”
“Six hundred and thirty thousand dollars.”
”Why,” the tour guide said, taken completely aback, “you are right. How did you know that?”
”'Cause I bought one,” she answered, sporting a huge smile.
From there we visited my cousin Rob Goralnick, who ran a commodities clear-inghouse, and then went to see his brother-in-law, Jon Yeager, who traded oil in the World Trade Center, The students liked watching the commodities floor not only because it is anarchic and exciting but because it was in the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places. Jon came up from the floor, and made excellent sense of the chaotic trading going on below us. And he pleased Maura and Shanquilla greatly by naming some of the traders on the floor they had identified as especially good-looking; he pleased them even more by inviting one of these traders to meet us. (That trader was flattered and shocked; apparently, he was not used to being a sex symbol to adoring teenagers in the visitors gallery of the commodities exchange.)
Finally, we visited two of my friends, Dave Ruder and Adam Scheer, investment bankers at top New York firms. I warned them in advance that my students would ask two kinds of questions: The first would concern things about a teacher that a college buddy would know but a student would not (I told Adam and Dave to use their own discretion on those). The second type of question would be, How much money do you make? Although this is not a question asked much in bourgeois society-it is considered impolite-I knew my students would have no compunction about asking it. I told Adam and Dave to answer honestly. It would, I stressed, be good for my students to know that people fresh out of college can, so long as they work hard in school and are willing to continue doing so after graduating, make upward of $50,000. The fact would have been a bit removed coming from me.
We met Adam and Dave at the fountain in the World Financial Center, which the students proudly identified as the site of the big party in the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang. Dave came down first, and my brother went to greet him. “Mr. Gerson,” Shanquilla said, pulling me aside, “he's cute!”
”He's also as good as engaged.” Adam met us a couple of minutes later at the dock near the World Trade Center, and they both gave a short talk and then took questions. “Dave, what kind of girls does Mr. Gerson like?” Shanquilla asked.
”Good-looking ones.”
“More specifically?” “You'll have to ask him about that.” “Shanquilla,” I asked, “do you have any other questions for Adam and Dave?”
”I do,” Maura said. “How much money do you guys make?”
”More than Mr. Gerson,” Shanquilla offered.
”That's true,” Dave said with a laugh.
“No, really, how much?” Maura persisted.
”Enough to live comfortably,” Adam answered. “And in a condition where we can hope to continue living comfortably.”
”Well, OK how much money do you make?”
”After taxes,” Adam did a quick calculation in his hand, “when you consider how many hours we have to put in here, it comes to about six dollars an hour.”
”What?” Maura looked at me. “Six dollars an hour?”
”Six dollars an hour?” Shanquilla shot back. “That means you got to work over a hundred thousand hours to buy a seat on the stock exchange!”
”Huh?” Adam and Dave did not know where that came from.
”Never mind,” I assured them. Maura was not giving up. “I can't believe you only make six dollars an hour. That's nothing.”
”Well, I have never figured it out precisely, but I think that is basically it,” Adam conceded.
”What's the point of this?” Maura asked. “I make $6.50 an hour at Pathmark!”
”There is more to life than money,” Adam replied. “It is more important to enjoy your job, to get up each morning and look forward to going to the office. It is, after all, where you spend most of your waking hours.”
No answer.
“I am just curious; why do you care so much about money?” Adam asked.
”Because you buy things with money,” Maura responded.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Gerson ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: This Year, Truths About Human Condition May Take All DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:THIS YEAR'S ACADEMY AWARDS are being touted as a potential breakthrough for independent filmmakers, those hardy souls who finance and produce their movies outside the studio system. Of the 163 feature films churned out by the Hollywood majors last year, only one (Jerry Maguire) is considered good enough to he nominated for best picture. The other four contenders (Fargo, Shine, The English Patient and Secrets and Lies) are independents.
One reason the majors fared so badly is that their exorbitant production costs discourage artistic risk-taking. The average studio film is now budgeted at more than $40 million, not including hefty marketing and distribution expenses. This huge investment per picture has led to a committee system of management in which most of the challenging and original ideas are watered down during the script development process.
By contrast, independent films, or indies as they are called in the industry, are made for a fraction of the cost. This allows directors and screenwriters freedom to present their vision in a more uncompromising form. Many of the majors have come to recognize the short comings of their own system and release a small selection of independent movies through subsidiaries.
Although both independent and major studio products usually reflect the same set of morally permissive or indifferent values, the independents' success has created a small space in which Christian-backed films such as The Spitfire Grill and Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story can have access to a potentially large audience. So this new set of opportunities offers hope for the future.
Fargo, Slingblade and Shine are three of the Oscar-nominated independent films that attracted critical and box-office attention last year. They display a highly individual and unconventional view of the human condition not likely to be found in a big-budget studio movie. All three were produced outside the Hollywood mainstream but released through subsidiaries owned by the majors.
Fargo, which received seven Academy Award nominations, is based on a true story. Jerry Lundegaarde (William H. Macy) is a auto agency sales manager who's gotten into financial trouble. To bale himself out, he arranges to have his wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrud), kidnapped by two small-time hoods, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Grimsrud (Peter Stormare). He assumes his wealthy father-in-law and boss, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), will pay the large ransom.
But Jerry and his accomplices are far from being criminal masterminds, and things go wrong almost immediately. The kidnapping itself is nearly botched, and when a highway patrol officer pulls the getaway car over because it lacks the proper plates Carl and Grimsrud panic, and end up killing the cop and two passing motorists.
The murders take place in the jurisdiction of a small-town police chief, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), who's visibly pregnant. At first she seems too friendly and innocent to be an effective sleuth. But behind her compulsively perky exterior, a highly disciplined intellect is at work, carefully piecing together relevant clues from disconnected details and methodically pursuing the leads they generate.
Director Joel Coen and his brother and co-screenwriter Ethan treat their Minnesota-based crime story with a cold, satirical eye. Almost every other line of dialogue contains a “yahhh,” and their characters' sunny midwestern dispositions is shown to mask an emotional coldness and the lack of a sense of humor.
In much of the Coens earlier work (Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing) this kind of condescension towards their material created an atmosphere of casual nihilism: In Fargo, that dark vision has been transformed into an affirmation of life and innocence through the filmmakers' handling of Marge. As the pregnant police chief is sucked deeper and deeper into a vortex of psychopathic criminality, she remains untainted. Unlike many movie and TV series law-enforcement heroes, she isn't tempted to use illegal or unethical means to bring the bad guys to justice.
When she finally captures Grimarud in the act of committing another senseless murder, she wonders: “All for a little money? There's more to life than a little money, you know. And it's a beautiful day. I just don't understand it.”
Marge never becomes cynical. She remains an innocent even after solving the crime, and after all the horror she's encountered. Her moral purity touches us deeply.
Slingblade is nominated for two Academy Awards, and like Fargo, it takes a satiric view of small-town, middle-American life. But writer-director-actor Billy Bob Thornton never condescends to the colorful Arkansas country folk in his drama.
Karl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) killed his mother and her adulterous lover when he was a small child. Since that time, he's been incarcerated in a state-run mental institution. Born with a substandard I.Q., he speaks in a sing-song, gravely voice, punctuated by grunts.
Upon first meeting him, his gruff manner seems threatening, and when it's learned he's about to be released from the institution, we're afraid he'll probably kill again. At this point, the movie seems to be a cautionary tale about the excessive permissiveness of our justice system.
But Thornton skillfully works against our expectations. Upon his release, Karl befriends Frank (Lucas Black), a young boy and is taken in by the youngster's mother, Linda (Natalie Canerday). Out of Christian charity a local churchgoer offers him a job repairing small motors which he performs surprisingly well. Karl's sweet disposition and kindness slowly win everyone over. He seems to be a holy innocent, a kind of Dostoyevskyian figure plunked down in the Ozarks. He read the Bible carefully while inside the asylum and tries to apply its lessons on the outside.
Linda's boyfriend, Doyle (Dwight Yoakum), is mean-spirited and violent. He beats her and Frank when drunk and constantly taunts Karl Vaughn (John Ritter), Linda's supervisor at the convenience store where she works, fears for their lives.
Karl appoints himself Linda and Frank's protector, and finally, after a particularly convoluted piece of nastiness, he kills Doyle with the same weapon he'd used on his mother and her lover-a slingblade from a lawn mower.
Our reactions to this horrible murder are mixed. On the one hand, Karl has acted as a kind of avenging angel by preventing Doyle from bringing further harm to Linda and Frank, with whom he strongly identifies and whose youthful innocence and expectations-already battered by the cruelty of his mother's lover-Karl is determined to protect. But the filmmaker's nuanced treatment of Doyle makes us unable to rejoice completely at his death. The young lout wasn't irredeemably evil. His occasional moments of oafish charm suggested the remote possibility that one day he might have changed.
Karl is returned to the institution from which he came. His fate seems both tragic and ironic. Perhaps if he hadn't been confronted by a tormentor like Doyle, he would have spent the rest of his days contentedly repairing motors in a small Arkansas town.
Shine treats the subject of mental illness from a very different perspective than Slingblade. The young David Helfgott (Noah Taylor) is a child prodigy, competing in classical piano competitions almost as soon as he can walk. His father, Peter (Armin Mueller-Stahl), has made the young boy's ambitions his own, holding him to impossible standards of perfection. Against the advice of experts, David is forced to attempt difficult adult works like Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto which almost guarantee his failure in competition.
Nevertheless, David's talent is spotted by the renowned pianist Isaac Stern who invites him to a music camp in America. His father refuses to let him go and beats him when he argues with the decision. The older man has been damaged by the loss of relatives during the Holocaust and possessively strives to keep his family together at all costs.
Soon thereafter David wins a scholarship to a London music school, and this time he defies parental dictates and goes off by himself. His father disowns him.
In London, David insists upon performing his father's favorite piece, Rachmaninov's Third, in the school competition. He wins but collapses after completing the recital. Director Scott Hicks and screenwriter Jan Sardi carefully dramatize the prodigy's inner conflicts so that we see how the struggle between his ambition and his guilt over leaving his father have paralyzed him.
The adult David (Geoffrey Rush) languishes in an Australian mental institution. A psychological wreck, he carries on quiet conversations with himself, alternately babbling about his difficulties and then encouraging himself to overcome them. His father never visits him.
A female church organist (Googie Withers) arranges for him to live outside and turn pages for her during services. Slowly regaining his confidence, he gets a job playing in a small cafe where his brilliant performances attract the local press.
An astrologer named Gillian (Lynn Redgrave) is attracted to his strange mixture of nervous tics, professional dedication and child-like innocence. She dumps her fiancee and marries him. With her support, David is able to perform in recitals again, and despite the lingering effects of his breakdown, he returns to the concert-stage in triumph.
Shine, which has been nominated for seven Oscars, is based on a true story. But it is not a Rocky-like saga of winning and losing among concert pianists. Instead the filmmakers have fashioned an uplifting drama about the potential of regeneration for even the most damaged human beings-through love. The spiritual healing that takes place within David is more important than any future fame or fortune. When he's finally able to play again on-stage, it's as if he's recaptured his soul, and our hearts go out to him.
So when this year's Oscar winners are announced by chicly dressed movie-stars and celebrities, discerning filmgoers may have something to cheer about. Intelligent, original movies which celebrate the human spirit's complexity are being honored in front of a TV audience of a billion viewers.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Lord, Teach Us to Be Vulnerable DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:IT WASN'T PLANNED, but, in hindsight, the juxtaposition in this issue of coverage of the cloning controversy with the moving testimony of Mary Jane Owen, advocate for the mentally and physically handicapped, makes perfect sense. Surely, were the routine cloning of human beings ever to become a reality, those unlucky souls with mental and/or bodily flaws would never make it past stage one. The “creators,” like assembly-line inspectors at a pastry factory, would simply discard the beginnings of imperfect life and start over.
The world's first and second cloned mammals sparked such a spate of commentary in both the secular and religious press-much of it rather obvious and knee-jerk-that little more can be added without sounding repetitive. In summary, however, it seems fair to say that human cloning would make life a lot less messy: For one thing, we'd all be perfect, at least on the outside; what's more, people wouldn't have to have sex anymore to raise children who are their genetic offspring.
Now, in the appropriate context, sex, in the eyes of the Church, is something of great beauty; a bodily expression of authentic love, a pouring out of self. It is the ultimate act of intimacy. The key disposition required: being vulnerable-literally and figuratively, naked before the beloved, stripped of all our defenses. No technology, however advanced, could ever thus dispose us. Decidedly non-genetically coded intangibles like willingness and courage are required.
In this regard, Ms. Owen is a supreme teacher. Twenty years ago, as she and her fellow activists laid siege to a government building to insist the handicapped be treated fairly, Owen was pressed into service helping a quadriplegic man get dressed and undressed each morning and night for more than three weeks: “At first it seemed odd to touch this stranger in such personal and intimate ways. Then suddenly it became both essential and natural. It reminded me of Jesus washing his friends'feet. It became a privilege to be so trusted.”
”We will create a culture of love when we eliminate the fear of vulnerability,” she says. Astranger got out of his car to come to her aid as she lay helpless in the road. He unburdened himself, speaking of his fears about unemployment and his acute depression. “You see,” says Owen, “he felt he could talk to me because I was vulnerable…. [A] connection was made because of my vulnerability, because of my disability, because he could help me-and that made him feel more human.”
Modeled on Christ's ultimate surrender on Good Friday, our own vulnerability-as well as its embrace in others and especially, most powerfully, in the one we love-is a condition for living life to the fullest, for becoming more authentically human. And that humanness can never be cloned. Of course, letting our guard down is scary; it means risking rejection and abandonment. It breaches the false security of, as Owen put it, thinking of ourselves “as autonomous and independent and self-sufficient.” But the alternative, a kind of living death, a numbness, is far scarier still.
Irving Kristol, writing in The Wall Street Journal recently, described the modern welfare state, guarantor of the tedium of risk-averse “cradle-to-grave” middle-class security, in terms that also capture the typical ‘autonomous’ individual: “The fully developed welfare state is a modern version of the feudal castle, guarded by moats and barriers, and offering security and shelter to the loyal population that gathers around it.” He or she might even be married, the couple living an egoisme a deux, and even have a family, its interests narrowly defined and jealously guarded.
Forget cloning: A truly Orwellian move toward ensuring the ever greater invulnerability of this illusion of comfort and security was reported on by The New York Times earlier this month in a story highlighting the “booming corrections industry”: A Cleveland-based company developed so-called “stun belts.” The devices allow a guard from a distance of up to 300 feet away to deliver an eight-second 50,000 volt jolt to a prisoner attempting to flee a work-site. The belts replace shackles and would require fewer guards to watch inmates. The would-be escapees are stunned for ten minutes and “also lose control of their bladder and bowels.”
The handicapped are blessed in a particular way, though their election comes at a stiff mental or physical price. For them, there is no illusion of security. They cannot help relying on their fellow men and women; and they cannot find comfort and peace until they accept that. Their fundamental dependence on others is concretely made manifest. Most “normal people,” by contrast, looking good on the outside and believing themselves self-sufficient, manage to slide through life without ever making that vital, life-giving connection with others. Youth, wealth, beauty and safety are their obsession-at their peril.
----- EXCERPT: Editorial ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Another Way to Say ëNoí to Mystery and Death DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:CLONING IS headline news these days. But science fiction produced today's headlines yesterday. SF has been grappling with cloning- though not always by that name-for more than fifty years. As the literature of extrapolation, SF has long provided a mental laboratory to explore the implications of cloning and other altered modes of human generation.
Science fictional experiments with reproductive technologies can be traced to the speculations of British biologist J.B.S Haldane. His book Possible Worlds (1927) envisions duplicating “superior” individuals by culturing single cells from their bodies. Haldane inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) where embryonic modification creates biological castes. Haldane also drew criticism from C.S. Lewis for envisioning a false utopia of “scientism” stripped of pity, happiness, and freedom.
At first, genre SF writers picked up Haldane's suggestion without calling it cloning or trying to explain it. Duplicate bodies merely add more mystery to the super-heroics in A.E. Van Vogt's World of Null-A (1945). But the title character of The UN-Man by Poul Anderson (1953) is a whole brood of cloned, exogenetic brothers who provide the government with interchangeable secret agents. More comically, Anderson's Virgin Planet (1959) is occupied by a society of parthenogenetically reproducing women who fail to recognize a male visitor as human.
Most early stories about cloning assume that copies can be imprinted with the personality and memories of the prototype so perfectly that the copy becomes the original. Surrogate selves provide serial lives for the elite in Jack Vance's To Live Forever (1956). Occupying duplicates of another man's body serves as a metaphysical lever for the messianic hero of Necromancer by Gordon Dickson (1962).
After the cloning of plants became a reality in the late 1960s, fictional focus shifted to clone psychology. A unique psychic bond exists within the clone in Nine Lives by Ursula LeGuin (1969) and Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (1976). Complex sexual relationships unfold with clone members in Pamela Sargent's Cloned Lives (1976). A prototype seeks self-knowledge from his copy in The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe (1972).
Life is likely to imitate art. If humans can be cloned, they will be, perhaps as an industry.
Clones may be feared or even enslaved, as in C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen (1988). But cloning is more often a route to power. John F. Kennedy is secretly cloned in Joshua, Son of None by Nancy Freeman (1973) and Hitler dreams of seeding the universe with copies of himself in The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad (1972). On the other hand, Ira Levin's Boys from Brazil (1976) argues that genes alone will not suffice to duplicate Hitler.
When You Care, When You Love by Theodore Sturgeon (1962) reproduces a lost loved one. But motives for duplication may be uglier. Lap dogs are cloned to please their mistress and a dead husband cloned to dominate a son in Juanita Coulson's Children of the Stars series (1981–89). Cosmic boredom drives the protagonist of Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love(1973) to clone “daughters” and sire children on them.
Except for a few examples where it is the only reproductive method available, most fictional cloning is driven by egotism. Perpetuation of self or of a self-chosen instrument promises god-like control and-if repeated-the semblance of immortality. SF's clones are “products” to a degree that children cannot be, whether conceived in vivo or in vitro, singly or otherwise.
Life is likely to imitate art. If humans can be cloned, they will be, perhaps as an industry in countries greedy enough to permit it. Then radical feminists can realize their male-free dreams. The child-hungry rich will no longer need to seek out incubators or inseminators. The ailing can have needed organs produced to order. There will be so many possibilities for saying “no” to the mysteries of life and death.
And who did Goethe say is “the spirit that always negates?”
Sandra Miesel is based in Indianapolis, Ind.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sandra Miesel ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:Election '96 and Beyond
I really enjoyed your Feb. 9–15 issue, especially the ideas expressed by Bishop James McHugh of Camden, N.J., in the news article “Bishop Calls '96 Elections 'Wake Up Call'for Hierarchy.” I was dismayed by the lack of direction and leadership during the '96 elections and wrote my cardinal to tell him so. We had a chance to do away with a lot of abortions and to get school vouchers (something needed since the beginning of Church schools in this country). Catholics should have been dancing in the streets. Instead we did nothing. We should be ashamed that 52 percent of voting Catholics helped put Bill Clinton back in the White House. We really dropped the ball on this one. Also thank God for people like Congressman Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) alerting us to the vote in the House of Representatives (”Congressman Crusades Against Planned Parenthood”) on “population assistance” funding.
Let's spend the money on Right to Life's efforts to aid needy mothers to keep their unborn children and raise them decently!
Joan Linenfelser Trenton, Michigan
Seamless Garment
This letter is in reference to an article in the Jan. 19–25 Register. I take issue with Mark Shields on his pro-life position, and with the Register for a headline which apparently agrees with his position: “Pro-Life Democrat Mark Shields Doesn't Flinch.” His “seamless garment” position on abortion is really not an authentic pro-Catholic, pro-life position. It's merely a way out for those who are not committed to pro-life. The “seamless garment” theory dilutes the moral urgency of abortion and puts it on the same level as a number of other (secondary) issues.
Abortion is connected to and the result of many other evils in our society. It stands out in particular by severing a most intimate human bond-the love of a mother for her child. With more than 33 million American women having destroyed their own unborn babies since the legalization of abortion by our appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices, it's an obvious sign of a society in a “deep” moral crisis. I would never waste my vote on a political “seamless garment” candidate. I would also be skeptical of any bishop, priest or Religious-or any other person-who accepted the flawed “seamless garment” theory. It is a dilution, a watering down of the moral issue of abortion.
John Uhls Alton, Illinois
Sacred Baroque Music
I wish to commend you on the excellent article of Dec. 29-Jan. 4 on Baroque Sacred Music by Sister Maria Agnes Karasig OP (”Musical Joys of the Christmas Season-Bach, Handel, Corelli”). No discussion on the subject would be complete without mention of Antonio Vivaldi and his “Gloria,” a truly wonderful and exuberant work. Vivaldi was a priest, but put music first in his life, which made him an object of controversy in that regard. J.S. Bach much admired Vivaldi's music and transposed and transcribed some of it in his own works. Both Bach and Handel studied the music of the Catholic Church. Handel spent some years in Italy as a young man, studying and performing with the greatest of the Italian masters.
Before Bach, there was Girolamo Frescobaldi, whose toccatas, fugues and sacred music were also studied by Bach. Frescobaldi was a Vatican organist for many years as well. William Byrde, in 16th century England, wrote many great sacred works and was a musical favorite of Elizabeth I, but heroically held on to his Catholic faith.
I think it is a shame that this music is rarely performed anymore in the post-conciliar Catholic Church. These works should be taught in Catholic educational establishments and in home study, but they are not. What a great heritage we are missing.
Patricia De Soto Susanville, California
Happy Baptism
Recently, the Holy Father said that people should celebrate the anniversary of their baptism as they do birthdays. I am compiling a book of suggestions; ways people can celebrate, spiritually, with food and festivity, etc., their baptismday. I've written a couple hundred but need more! I'd be grateful for any suggestions, each one should not be more than two or three sentences. Each person whose suggestion or suggestions are accepted for publication will receive one free copy of the book.
Please send them to The Monks of Adoration, P.O. Box 546, Petersham, MA 10366–0546.
Brother Craig Driscoll
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Day We Joined the Mainstream DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:LITTLE ATTENTION MAY be directed toward the crowd of people who will watch April 5, 1997 as a plaque is placed in front of an old federal building which forms one side of the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, Calif. Some will remember that this was the site of an evolving recognition of the dignity of those of us with disabilities. But to me, that outward sign of a historic event will symbolize the starting point of a journey of faith and an evolving commitment to remind my Church that every precious child of God is a part of a greater whole.
It was at this place that God taught me the very practical lessons about interaction and mutual aid. For my strengths and weaknesses combined with others' weaknesses and strengths brougth a sense of accomplishment and power. In the intervening years tens of thousands of people with disabilities have altered their sense of self. Campaigns to join the mainstream of American life and bring together the diversity of abilities and insights into our communities have not always moved smoothly. But the expectation on the part of our citizens with disabilities of participating in meaningful ways has grown stronger with each passing year.
The events of 1977 still call for serious consideration. For they proved that the intertwining threads of the variations in our abilities and disabilities created a social fabric that bound us together in love and unity. As the years have passed, prayer and meditation have inspired new definitions and fresh views of the relationship between human vulnerability and God's plan for his people.
That building on U.N. Plaza, which used to house the regional offices of the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), never was a terribly impressive location. But 20 years ago, for 28 long days and nights, a determined band of 100 people with various disabilities conducted a sit-in to dramatize their worth, strength and dignity. What happened in its offices, and along the corridors on the fifth floor, was as important to the disability-rights movement as the Montgomery Bus boycott was for African Americans. It was said that this event was celebrated in the Guinness Book of Records, but any general public recognition of the strength of those who endured that challenge is less important than the manner in which it forever altered the way disabled people began to think of themselves, whether they had lived those days inside or outside the walls. That HEW building became a fortress from which we could finally tell our stories and be heard.
New definitions that emerged from those days suggested that disabilities are the normal-and-expected outcome of the risks and stresses associated with the living process itself; and that the architectural, attitudinal, political, economic and social stigmas were much more “handicapping” than any medical diagnosis could possibly be.
We no longer wanted to be treated as victims and second-class citizens. We sought recognition of our basic dignity.
Those lucky few of us who lived through those weeks will never be the same. If it hadn't happened when it did, the mission of replacing the ancient and frightening stereotypes about human vulnerability would have awaited another time and place. My personal commitment, which has strengthened over time, is to bring those new possibilities into our Catholic churches. The year 1977 marked the beginning of reflection on how, within a small and secular setting, each individual's weaknesses and strength could build strong social bonds. It was as if, during those weeks long ago, a voice was faintly whispering a phrase that I now have the responsibility to say aloud: “If we do not find room for all our brothers and sisters as we gather about the eucharistic table, we have not built the Body of Christ on earth.”
It was a very cold night in March 1977 when four of us met as a result of a notice from the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, an early national advocacy office in our nation's capitol. The Washington people were asking various disability self-advocacy groups to plan an April 5 rally of solidarity and protest. So two wheelchair users and two blind people began to organize a movement for social justice.
Why was this happening? President Jimmy Carter received support from the community of handicapped and disabled when he promised that, once elected, he would make sure that the previously-passed Rehabilitation Act of 1973 would finally be implemented through initiation of regulations that would guide compliance. It was section 504 of that law that we saw as guaranteeing the civil protections that had evaded us. This unen-forced federal law stipulated that discrimination against those of us with disabilities should be illegal for all organizations and agencies that received federal funds. The HEW lawyers had been expected to draft the regulations for the law Congress had passed. Then-Secretary of HEW Joseph Califano, Jr. was telling Carter the mandate was too vague; too confused. We had been patient. Now we needed to remind the government that our repeated requests for relief from discrimination had real merit.
The rallying cry: “What do we want?” “504!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” rose to the sky that day in April as hundreds of friends and colleagues listened to the speeches, then formed an enthusiastic crowd led by a blind guitar-playing colleague who called out new words to old civil rights songs, playing the melody on his harmonica. The songs of freedom and justice echoed off the wall and rolled out into the traffic on Market St. Blind, mentally retarded and deaf people pushed those in wheel-chairs in a circling mass of joyful unity-until the call went up: “Let's go on in.”
Reportedly, a memorandum had been circulated suggesting we be treated with courtesy, fed cookies and punch, and sent home. After a number of hours of discussions, a hundred of us decided that minds were still closed to our plight. We prepared for the first of 28 nights of sleeping on the floor and tending to each other's needs.
The logistics were complex. All of us were disabled and some of us needed rather complicated care. That first night, one of the women sleeping in the office where I bedded down had to be moved and repositioned every few hours. But we knew we needed to show that we were strong and stood together in this campaign for justice. There was a phrase: “We'll have to hang in here together or we'll continue to be hanging out alone.” It had a rather familiar ring.
Our individual contacts in congressional and city offices brought assistance at critical moments but we were never sure if we would be arrested or whether the food contributions offered by varied and sometimes unusual sources would continue. We doubted there were sufficient accessible paddy wagons or cells for all of us. Our congressional friends had reprimanded the guards when contributions from Safeway, McDonald's, the Clancy Street drug program and the Black Panthers were originally turned away. The threats to our health, the turning off of the telephones, the unplugging of motorized wheelchairs, the discomforts we all endured, all reminded us that we were under assault.
Food could have been a problem. It seems so right in retrospect that two priests came every day to help us by preparing and serving meals, as well as cleaning up afterward. They rigged-up a cooler of cardboard boxes around the refrigeration units. They brought the Eucharist on Easter morning for those of us who craved to be sustained by the Body of Christ. They moved among us silently and discreetly, because some of us were on a hunger strike and tended to avoid even the smell of food. I never learned their names, but their obvious love for us as fellow children of God still inspires me.
We wanted to give the federal employees a sign that our protest was not directed against them, only the structure which failed to end discrimination against us. The two priests helped us get bunches of daffodils that we handed to the workers as tokens of our common humanity. We hoped that they would understand we were only seeking, as peacefully and with as much dignity as we could exhibit under such trying conditions, to prove to the world that we were strong. We no longer wanted to be treated as victims and second-class citizens. We sought recognition of our basic dignity.
For the culture of death can prevail only when we accept the negative views that some lives are not worthy to be lived
To tell the wonderful stories of our interactions would take pages; and a recounting of our dark moments of fear would have to be interlaced into that account. But the following example reveals one of the lessons learned. I had never been an attendant before but now I slept every night on a pallet, surrounded by stacked desks and four other people, one a black man who was quadriplegic. At the time I did not use a wheelchair; I was only blind. So it made sense that I should assist him. I learned to attend to all the details of getting him ready for a day in his wheelchair-reversing the process each night. At first it seemed odd to touch this stranger in such personal and intimate ways. Then suddenly it became both essential and natural. It reminded me of Jesus washing his friends' feet. It became a privilege to be so trusted, to assist this brother in Christ. There was a faint awakening of awareness of God's presence in each of us, as we were all making incredible sacrifices to confirm our desire to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect. Never again would I look at interdependency as a negative fact of life.
Our colleagues had to abandon their efforts to talk with officials in Washington when they were prevented from bringing in food during their long wait to be heard. And so some of us decided to call a hunger strike to confirm to ourselves and others our commitment to stay at any cost. We who chose that form of commitment were amazed at how much time the others had to spend with food: its preparation, preservation and clean-up. We were free to spend those hours in discussion, strategizing, writing, focusing on the events of the day, clustered together in a relatively-quiet stairwell that become our special place as we sipped our fruit juices.
One evening we decided to play “Wish,” each of us telling what we'd like the most. Some wanted a favorite food; others chose success in seeing our 504 regulations signed. The last to share was a young woman who used crutches: “If I'd been asked before to make a wish, it would have been not to be a cripple anymore. I wanted to be beautiful. But now I know I'm beautiful just the way I am.” She glimpsed a truth that I would later write about. For it took me another decade before I truly realized that each of us, no matter our impairments or limitations, is a tiny reflection of our Lord and Creator. He has a plan for each of us and none of us are to be thrown away.
In 1992, as I sat in my wheelchair upon a platform in Vatican City to address thousands of people who had gathered there at the invitation of Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini, I spoke of the insights that had been offered to me during that 504 sit-in:
√That disabilities result because God places the gift of life in fragile earthen vessels. Our bodies are not meant to last forever.
√That this mutual vulnerability and fragility are a simple fact of living and we need to learn to create environments and programs that are universally-designed so that none need be excluded.
√That we can glimpse the power of the human spirit in every rehabilitation. For such efforts to prevail in spite of the fragility of the human body is a small reflection of the Resurrection and can confirm our desire to unite with Christ.
√That we will create a culture of love when we eliminate the fear of vulnerability. For the culture of death can prevail only when we accept the negative views that some lives are not worthy to be lived or some of us will be too much of a burden to be tolerated.
√And it may be that our interdependency is the only hope in preventing us from growing ever more alienated and separated.
The lessons of the 504 sit-in continue to play out in many ways. At this 20th anniversary I welcome all to join in prayers of thanksgiving. That plaque in U.N. Plaza will mark a historic secular event. It can also remind us of God's presence in the most unlikely of places.
As others gather to remember the events of 20 years ago, I will join in prayer, thanking God that so many miracles of unity and insight, interaction and catalytic influences took place in my lifetime.
Mary Jane Owen is executive director of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities. For more information contact NCPD at: P.O. Box 29113, Washington, DC 20017; (202) 529–2933.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Jane Owen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Inexpensive Hotel Rooms: Thank Americaís DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:CALIFORNIA'S RECENT anti-immigration Proposition 187 and three major pieces of federal legislation introduced last year have sent a clear message: Americans are fed up with illegal aliens taking their jobs and filling the welfare roles to receive taxpayer-funded government handouts without contributing anything in return.
Such sentiments, though they express the view of many if not most Americans, overlook some important facts.
It is true that illegal aliens are here working at jobs that Americans could do. The reality is, however, that, for the most part, illegal aliens do the work that Americans simply won't do. The overwhelming majority of illegal workers are cutting asparagus in the Columbia basin, picking and packing apples in north-central Washington or pruning fruit trees in the Yakima Valley. Illegals in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, and cities throughout California work at jobs like bussing tables in restaurants and making beds at the hotels. Most American citizens would not even consider working at those jobs. The work is hard, the pay is low and the benefits are often non-existent.
The idea that “illegals come here just to get on welfare” is just not borne out by the facts. As an attorney practicing immigration law, it has been my observation in the past 14 years that the latest wave of immigrants who have come to this country are here for the same reason my great-grandparents and yours came to this country: to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families. Rarely do they seek government handouts. Those who choose to believe the myth of illegals coming to go on the public dole are simply misinformed.
In fact, there are many studies that indicate that illegal aliens actually are a net contributor to the economy. Notwithstanding the fact that these newcomers avail themselves of public programs-principally the public school system and health care services-the taxes they pay often exceed the benefits they obtain. Those taxes are the 8 percent paid on every cash register sale, the property taxes paid by apartment owners whose tenants may be undocumented and the Social Security and other taxes that are routinely deducted from every worker's paycheck. The notion that illegals in this country are getting a “free ride” while contributing nothing in return is just not accurate.
The facts are these: For better or worse the current situation benefits the three major groups involved. It is good for the illegal worker because it provides him steady employment and income, both of which are not available in most Third World countries. It is good for farmers, hotel owners and restaurateurs because it provides an abundant supply of reliable, low-skill, low-wage workers. Finally, the current situation is good for the American consumer, too. Whether the average American wants to believe it or not, this steady supply of low-wage labor is a major factor in keeping the cost of lodging, restaurant meals and food at the grocery store affordable for the average consumer. Americans should not forget that the percentage of their family budget which goes for food ranks among the lowest in the world.
It should also be remembered that the rate of unemployment in the United States has been almost as low the past few years as it has been for decades. By and large, people in American society who want jobs have been able to find them. And those American citizens who are still looking for work are not seeking careers as farm-workers, chambermaids or busboys.
So, why all the alien-bashing? Why the cry about the hordes of aliens inundating America? I think the Russians are to blame. For 50 years we had the Russians to fear, to demonize and to hate. But, now they've fallen on hard times. And human nature, it seems, leads us to seek out scapegoats to serve as the target of our anxieties. I believe aliens-both legal and illegal-have replaced the Russians as the new rallying point for the country's anxieties. They are an easy target for our problems.
But when Americans set out to demonize illegal immigrants they should consider this: Those “illegals aliens” are human beings just struggling to survive and to give their kids a better life than they have had themselves. Seen thus, as they are, those “illegal aliens” seem a lot like most other Americans.
Thomas Roach is an attorney based in Pasco, Wash.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Roach ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Eternal Day of Resurrection DATE: 03/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 1997 ----- BODY:March 30, 1997 John 20, 1–9
JESUS CHRIST is risen from the dead! The power of the Resurrection imparts new life to us-life that is new in every way. Easter does not signal a return to business as usual, resuming the life to which we had become accustomed before the penitence of Lent. No, the Resurrection animates us with an utterly new way of living. Resurrection is not resuscitation. The new life we receive in the Risen Christ is not a reprise of old thought patterns, bad habits, sinful behavior, or worldly desires.
Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb “early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark.” The triumph of Resurrection is the vanquishment of darkness, of every impulse of sin and evil in the world. The Resurrection dispatches the tyranny of Satan, whose earthly reign enslaves human beings through the absolute exaltation of self. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone but, at the sight of the rolled-away stone, she runs off to find Peter and John. That is, she rushes off to unite herself to the community of the Church. For the new life that the vision of the empty tomb quickens within her-and within us-is ecclesial.
Why does Mary Magdalene run to experience this event in the company of the Apostles? First of all, she knows that there she will find the meaning behind the mystery she has encountered. She exclaims: “We don't know where they have put him!” That is to say, Mary Magdalene relies on the Apostles' leadership in faith to take charge in this dilemma and to get to the bottom of the problem. she commends herself to these good shepherds to find, not a lost lamb, but the missing body of the Lamb of God.
Moreover, Mary Magdalene's take on the occurrence presumes the worst: “The Lord has been taken from the tomb!” She depends on the teaching authority of the Apostles to clarify confusion and to dispel doubts. She will trust the magisterial judgment of the Apostles more than what she has seen with her own eyes. When John enters the tomb after Simon Peter (out of deference to Peter's primacy), the Evangelist tells us: “H e saw and believed.” Like Mary Magdalene, we entrust ourselves to the Magisterium of the Church to gain the interpretation and illumination that unite us to the saving power behind mysterious events.
The fact that Mary Magdalene runs to the Apostles, and that the Apostles run to the empty tomb emphasizes the missionary essence of the Church. Their running is a sign that they follow the prompting of the Spirit of truth who leads them on the way of salvation. In the same way, all members of the Church to whom this truth has been entrusted must vigorously go out to satisfy the desire for salvation in all people so as to bring them the truth as well.
Mary Magdalene could have kept the experience of the empty tomb to herself. But the maturity of her faith compelled her to unite herself to the leadership, the Magisterium, and the evangelizing mission of the Church. For it is not as solitary individuals but as covenanted persons within the community of the Church that we experience the ultimate power and joy of the Resurrection. In union with the Church, the early morning of Easter become the Eternal Day of Resurrection.
Father Cameron, a Registercontributing editor, teaches homiletics at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: Next Sunday at Mass: Easter ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Johin Cameron Op ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Experts Tag Euthanasia As `A False Mercy' DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—When Dr. Carlos Gomez was treating an elderly woman who was severely ill in a hospital—and Medicare was “breathing down [his] neck”-he suggested transferring her to a nursing home. “It was as if I had taken my foot and stamped out whatever fire was left in her soul,” he recalled. The women “turned her face to the wall and died three days later.”
Gomez, speaking at a March 7–8 conference on doctor-assisted suicide, had other happier outcomes to report from his experience with hospice care at the University of Virginia hospital. One involved an AIDS patient who had said that “when this gets very bad, I want you just to kill me.” But with pain control, physical therapy and volunteer helpers who became his friends, the man had six good months until he died a natural death “with his family surrounding him.”
The conference, held at The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law here, was sponsored by the law school, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Center for Jewish and Christian Values. About 200 people attended; many were Catholic diocesan officials or state Catholic Conference staff.
Pope John Paul II, in Evangelium Vitae, put it thus: “[E]uthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing ‘perversion'of mercy. True ‘compassion’ leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. Moreover, the act of euthanasia appears all the more perverse if it is carried out by those, like relatives, who are supposed to treat a family member with patience and love, or by those, such as doctors, who by virtue of their specific profession are supposed to care for the sick person even in the most painful of terminal stages.”
While the Catholic and Jewish traditions share strong opposition to euthanasia on religious grounds, there was an effort to stress non-religious arguments that can be effective in public-policy debates. There was also great stress on alternatives to assisted suicide, including community support for the dying and their families. No form of assistance was too small for comment: “There's great value in the casserole,” nurse Alicia Super remarked in speaking of neighborhood support.
Some suggested, however, that positive alternatives may not satisfy people who support assisted suicide for economic reasons. Dr. Edmund Pellegrino of Georgetown University noted that “it's certainly a lot cheaper for someone to die sooner.” Pellegrino said a doctor who works in managed care recently asked him what she should do after being asked to “slow down” in caring for elderly patients and handicapped infants. With the cost-cutting enforced by managed care, he asked: “What happens to trust?”
Analyzing current pressures for cost-cutting, law professor Cathleen Kaveny said that legalizing assisted suicide now would be the “moral equivalent of throwing a torch on an oil slick.” Kaveny, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame law school, said that “poor, old women” would be the likeliest victims.
Legalizing assisted suicide, Dr. Gomez declared, “makes sense only if you are an empowered, middle- or upper-class American” who “always can get whatever you want, because you always have.”
The voice of people “at the margin of American society,” he continued, has been “almost completely silenced in this debate. And my fear is that, if we allow assisted suicide, it will be silenced forever.”
Several people with serious disabilities told the conference that they feel threatened. “The more we cost the public, the more likely we are to be eliminated,” said Mary Jane Owen of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities. Lisa Gigliotti, a Michigan lawyer who has rheumatoid arthritis, said she “felt like somebody kicked me in the gut” when she heard that Jack Kevorkian had assisted in the suicide of a woman with arthritis.
Canadian Mark Pickup, who has multiple sclerosis, said the disabled community in Canada has been “staggered by the outpouring of public support” for a man who killed his daughter because she had cerebral palsy. “Imperfect life,” he said, “is as cheap as grass” and “to be mowed down to tidy up a country…. It is a scary time to be disabled.”
Pickup and others spoke frankly about the depression they had when they first experienced severe disability. “Had Christ not been there, and my dear wife Marie not been there,” Pickup recalled, “had instead a Jack Kevorkian offered to assist me in my suicide, I might have taken him up on it.”
“You see,” he added, “people must grieve…. They need to be able to cry out and say the most outrageous things; and it's unfair to hold them to a death wish sought when they were at their lowest point. Civilized societies don't do that.”
Everyone, he said, needs community and nurturing, “and I found that in the Christian community, spanning various denominations…. During my darkest days, if I had not belonged to such a community, I would have wanted to die.”
Rabbi David Novak, an American scholar who teaches at the University of Toronto, also stressed the need for recognizing that we live in a communal order “where no one is abandoned” at any point of life. “I require the assistance of others,” the rabbi declared, “even to fight the demons of death within myself.”
Dr. Ira Byock, author of the recent book Dying Well, said end-of-life care-givers must promise that “you will not die alone.” He also remarked that “Jack Kevorkian is a folk hero in America today” because the medical profession hasn't done enough to control pain. “We have to walk our talk,” Byock declared.
Mary Meehan is based in Rockville, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Meehan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Partial-Birth Revisited DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:IF A CONVICTED murderer were executed the way a child is killed in partial-birth abortion, said Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), “you'd have a candlelight vigil that would light up the whole East Coast.”
Hyde spoke during a March 11 joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Subcommittee on the Constitution. Held soon after abortion-rights leader Ronald Fitzsimmons said he had “lied through [his] teeth” about the abortion procedure, the hearing suggested that neither side had changed its basic strategy.
Hyde, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and other abortion foes stressed the gruesome nature of the procedure, in which a doctor delivers a child except for its head, punctures the base of the skull with a scissors or other sharp instrument, suctions out the brain, and then completes delivery.
Martin Haskell, an Ohio doctor who does partial-birth abortions, has estimated that two-thirds of the children are alive when the procedure starts. Hyde, describing one such case, suggested that the child “felt excruciating pain.”
The Fitzsimmons admission has speeded the schedule of pro-life forces. Following the old adage to strike while the iron is hot, they're pressing for early votes on a bill to ban partial-birth abortion (with a life-of-the-mother exception).
Abortion groups, while damaged by the Fitzsimmons acknowledgment that the procedure isn't used primarily in “hard cases,” did not abandon their use of such cases. Nor did they sound defensive in the March 11 hearing.
Renee Chelian, president of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (where Fitzsimmons serves as executive director) did admit, though, that she wished she had come forward earlier to provide accurate information on partial-birth abortion. Yet she also said she regretted Fitzsimmons's “choice of words.” (He was quoted on the controversy in The New York Times Feb. 26, the American Medical News March 3, and other publications.)
Generally, however, Chelian and leaders of other abortion-rights groups were aggressive in presenting their views. So were their opponents. National Right to Life Committee lobbyist Douglas Johnson had come to the hearing with a model of a fetus and the type of surgical scissors Haskell uses for partial-birth abortions. When Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) had Johnson pass the fetal model to Chelian. Johnson asked: “Do you want the scissors, too?”
“I don't want the scissors,” Chelian responded. When Inglis asked if she felt “comfortable” with a procedure that involves sucking the brains out of a child, Chelian described an illegal abortion she had at age 15. She said she risked her life and was “very willing” to do so “because I did not want to have a baby at that time.” While she said she felt “bad” about partial-birth abortion, she suggested that politicians are to blame for it because they have made it more difficult for women and girls to have earlier abortions.
In her opening statement, Chelian had described herself as “the mother of two young teenage daughters and a wife of 25 years” and “not much different from other women” who “juggle a job, family, volunteer community work, PTA and school activities.” Women who work in abortion clinics, she declared “are your sisters, neighbors and friends.”
Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) said that in juggling jobs and families, “all of us in this room are very similar.” But he added: “I dare say that there is a difference.” He suggested that Chelian and three other witnesses for abortion groups “have become very hardened, very cold and very callous” and have developed “a moral blind spot.”
Chelian's colleagues said abortion decisions should be left to women and their doctors. Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, commented that she was amazed by people who would say, “I'm not your doctor; I'm not your family; but I'm going to tell you what to do.”
Johnson, the National Right to Life lobbyist, and Helen Alvare an official of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Pro-Life Activities, made strong counter-attacks, saying both the abortion-rights groups and reporters had misled the public. Alvare criticized by name a reporter for a Chicago newspaper and the CBS television program 60 Minutes. She also said some defenders of partial-birth abortion “avoid the facts of their deception and attack the Catholic Church.”
Johnson made a preemptive strike against a proposal of Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.)—one he also attributed to President Clinton-to ban third-trimester abortions except when performed to protect a woman's health. Johnson, who said most partial-birth abortions are done in the second trimester, called this a “phony ban” and an “empty shell” designed “to provide political cover for lawmakers … without in any way offending the extreme pro-abortion lobby.” (Daschle has proposed what Johnson described, but White House aides have sent mixed signals on whether Clinton supports it.)
Johnson said his youngest son, Thomas (who was in the hearing audience), was born 13 weeks prematurely and “looked as small and hairless as a skinned squirrel.” The active youngster, Johnson said, now has “insatiable curiosity and relentless enthusiasm” for life. “He is one of a kind,” Johnson added. “But so are they all.”
Alvare said some people argue for partial-birth abortion “on the backs of people with disabilities.” She remarked that Planned Parenthood, using “euphemisms like “pregnancy that has gone tragically wrong,” claims that partial-birth abortions “are a good way of keeping sick children from living brief or long lives.” Alvare also cited an abortion supporter who argued for abortion of “children she called ‘monsters’-twice-meaning very sick or disabled children.”
This point generally has been underplayed by pro-life groups. Even those who mention it seldom attack the system of prenatal testing and genetic counseling that has become a routine part of prenatal “care.” That system leads to-and critics say it was designed for-eugenic abortion.
Testimony of women who have had partial-birth abortions shows they have been caught in this system and convinced that partial-birth abortion is the logical answer to severe fetal handicap. Some of the women are Catholics whose parish priests apparently have not told them about the Church teaching that every direct abortion is wrong.
“[I]n many people's consciences, the perception of [abortion's] gravity has become progressively obscured,” Pope John Paul II, wrote in Evangelium Vitae, his landmark 1995 encyclical. “The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.”
If Congress passes a bill outlawing partial-birth abortions, and President Clinton vetoes it as he did last year, will Congress override his veto? Appearing on John McLaughlin's One on One TV program March 16, Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.) said that the more the public learns “about the procedure, the better our chances for overriding.”
But Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, predicted that the effort to override will “be stopped in the Senate.” One thing seems certain: The fight will be a fierce one, right down to the wire.
Mary Meehan is based in Rockville, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Meehan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Meet the Missionaries' New Chief DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:SIXTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD Sister Nirmala, a Hindu convert of Nepali origin, has taken over as the first Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity (MC). The world famous Mother Teresa, the ailing founder of the congregation, will continue to be called “Mother” by the more than 4,600 MC sisters and is expected to remain their guiding force.
Ending widespread speculation about who would succeed the 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, the 123 senior nuns participating in the MC's extended General Chapter elected Sister Nirmala March 13. Since 1979, the Catholic convert from Hinduism, had headed the contemplative wing of the renowned order.
Founded in 1948, the MC congregation, whose members are known for their blue-striped white cotton saris, has 568 houses in 127 countries including China, Vietnam and Bosnia.
The MC General Chapter, postponed last September due to Mother Teresa's poor health, began with a preparatory retreat for Chapter members from 48 regions and was scheduled to elect her successor Feb. 2. But a Jan. 27 statement from the mother house in Calcutta said the election had been postponed and that the Chapter would continue until delegates elected a successor.
“It is a big responsibility,” the newly elected Sister Nirmala told reporters in mid-March. “Looking at myself, I feel afraid whether I will be able to bear the responsibility. But looking at God and depending on prayer, I think I can.” Asked how she felt filling the shoes of one of the most famous women in the world, Sister Nirmala said: “Mother is our foundress and we are all her children. I am not the head of the order.”
After relinquishing administrative control of the congregation, Mother Teresa told reporters: “I will continue to serve the poor. I have plenty of work to do. There is so much to do and there are so many in need.” The diminutive nun has followed a punishing schedule for decades. But in recent years her age, heart trouble and other ailments have slowed her down.
Reacting to the election of Mother Teresa's successor, Archbishop Henry D‘Souza of Calcutta, who was the media's primary source for the recent closed door Chapter proceedings, told the Register that he is “happy” that the ailing Mother has been relieved of the responsibility of running the day-to-day affairs of the vast congregation.
“Though her election was not unanimous, Sister Nirmala had a massive majority,” added Archbishop D'Souza, who was present during the secret ballot on March 13. “Through prayers and prolonged discussion, [the Chapter members] were spiritually and mentally prepared to elect the first superior in the Congregation's history.”
While Sister Nirmala declined to talk to individual reporters, one MC nun told the Register that “the extended chapter helped us understand each other better and choose the one designated by God.” Describing the chapter as an “enriching experience with [Chapter] members staying together for weeks” the nun said that the discussion helped us “focus on our mission.”
Asked whether the 63-year-old Superior General is “too young,” another MC nun pointed out that “the Holy Spirit does not go by seniority,” adding that Sister Nirmala has “great understanding and concern for others. That is what Mother's successor needs to continue the mission.”
Sister Nirmala, known as Kusum to her Brahmin (Hindu priestly class) family, is the eldest of 10 children. Kusum was born in the northern Indian state of Bihar, where her father was in military service. She was educated by Christian missionaries in the Indian city of Patna and first experienced “God's call” at age 17. She remained a Hindu until age 24, when she became familiar with Mother Teresa's work and converted to Catholicism.
“I am really excited to hear this news [of the election],” Congregation of Apostolic Carmel Sister Marie Therese, a biological sister of the MC's first superior general, told the Register. “Two years after [Kusum's] conversion, I became a Catholic while studying in Delhi. It was painful for us to depart from the family, our faith and culture. We only responded to God's call.”
“Both of us were not aware of each other's encounter with God,” recalled Sister Therese, who was elected provincial of one of the five provinces of her congregation in India recently.
“Our father gave a lot of freedom but always asked us to do good to others,” said Sister Therese. “While our parents educated poor children, we were asked to save from our pocket money to help poor children. Perhaps this honor to Sister Nirmala is a recognition to our parents who also fostered a prayerful atmosphere in the family.”
Yet their father, Mahananda Joshi, did not approve of his daughters “giving up the Hindu faith,” said Sister Therese. “It was only towards the end of his life (he died in 1977) that he made peace with our decisions.”
Sister Nirmala, one of the few MC nuns who has pursued studies after joining the congregation, took her law degree and has supervised the work of MC houses in Europe and the United States. Besides heading the MC contemplative wing since 1979, the nun, who is known for her “disarming smile,” has accompanied Mother Teresa on several trips abroad. Such experiences and Sister Nirmala's sense of humor will help smooth her path as superior general, according to MC watchers.
Archbishop Alan Basil de Lastic of Delhi, the first vice-president of the Indian bishops’ conference, described Mother Teresa's decision to step down as “noble.” “Normally, the founders of congregations continue to be the generals until their death,” he said. “But she has done the right thing by leaving the mantle to her successor who can now count on Mother for advice and guidance. This will ensure smooth transfer of power and continuity in the congregation.”
Had Mother Teresa continued until her death, Archbishop Lastic added, “a sudden change” would certainly have affected the order's work. Now with the new team at her service “the congregation will benefit from the energy of the new leadership and Mother's experience.”
AMarch 15 editorial in The Hindustan Times, a New Delhi English daily with half a million circulation, expressed similar sentiments: “Mother Teresa is indeed irreplaceable as the head of the order [founded] by her in 1950. Over the past 47 years it has grown worldwide as a mission of service and love for the dying and the destitutes … The blessings of Mother Teresa will be the greatest strength of Sister Nirmala as the Missionaries [of Charity] prepare themselves for the post-Mother phase. Happily, Mother Teresa is still here to guide them.”
M.O. Peter, Delhi regional director of the Catholic Hospitals Association of India, said the general public is “mentally prepared for a successor to Mother” following her frequent hospitalizations. But, he added, it will be “tough for the successor to live up to the standards Mother has set” and said he fears the popularity of the congregation will diminish with a relatively unknown nun assuming the reins.
But Archbishop D'Souza said that Mother Teresa's stepping down will not “affect her status or the popularity of the congregation. Mother is known not because she has been the head of the Congregation from its inception. She is called the Mother and will always remain so for her unique service.”
“As long as [the sisters] continue to serve the poor with dedication, the congregation will command the same respect and admiration.”
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II has sent a message to Sister Nirmala promising his prayers and support as she continues the apostolic work begun by Mother Teresa on behalf of “the poorest of the poor.”
Anto Akkara is based in New Delhi.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Defender of Religion in Court, Becket Fund is Buoyant at Three DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:NEWYORK—Fragrant bouquets graced the dinner-tables in the opulent ballroom of the Essex House and high spirits were in evidence everywhere as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty hosted a gala event honoring its benefactors and marking its first annual Canterbury Medal award dinner. But one of the Fund's honorary chairmen put the festivities in perspective: Cardinal John O'Connor, archbishop of New York, saluted the organization's work with a moving reflection on a retreat he made at the Dachau concentration camp, just outside Munich, Germany.
“I knew nothing of the human person, his sacredness and dignity, until I put my hand in the oven” at the death camp, he said, “there touching where once lay the intermingled ashes of Jews and Christians, women and children, rabbis, ministers and priests.” “When God is ignored,” the cardinal said, “humanity is ignored.” And, that, he added, “is what the Becket Fund is all about—helping to ensure that it will never happen again.”
“Truly ecumenical and interfaith,” in the cardinal's words, the Becket Fund is a public interest law firm, founded nearly three years ago by its current president, the 39-year-old Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, who abandoned a lucrative law career to devote himself full-time to the Fund. Its goal: to defend religious liberty in the courtroom whenever the freedom to worship is unduly curtailed. Hasson came well prepared: He had served as an advisor on Church-state affairs in the Reagan Justice Department. Later, in private practice, he was one of the lawyers who successfully defended The Catholic University of America against Father Charles Curran, and, in the Supreme Court, defended the Church's tax-exempt status against a challenge by the Abortion Rights Mobilization.
Some of the cases Hassan cited as evidence of the decline of religion in public life are positively hilarious, belying the seriousness of their mission: A California school board banned Halloween celebrations from school grounds, arguing the holiday is “druidic” and that its observation on public property, therefore, would breach the separation of Church and state; and the City of San Francisco ordered the removal of a concrete parking barrier abandoned in view of the Golden Gate bridge, because New Agers had begun worshipping the object.
The Hasidic-run Monsey Trails bus company that transports public school students prevailed, with the Fund's help, after a public official had objected to the hanging of the mechitzah, a prayer curtain dividing men and women on the bus, which allows the Hasidic students to pray during their commute. In a pending case, the Fund is defending the right of a public school choir to include religious songs in its repertoire. More commonly, cases involve lawsuits brought against public display of religious symbols. The Knights of Columbus Council in Trumbull, Conn., won their case when a suit was brought after the group sponsored a Nativity scene on the town green.
This year's recipient of the Canterbury Medal—named for Canterbury Cathedral, where Thomas a Becket was martyred for his defense of religious freedom in 12th-century England—is Mayor Bret Schundler of Jersey City, N.J. The Becket Fund is currently helping defend Schundler in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over the Mayor's display of religious symbols during Hanukah, Christmas, Ramadan, etc., in public.
Hasson hailed Schundler's refusal to ban religious expression from the public square. “The religious impulse is natural to human beings,” he said. “Therefore, religious expression is natural to human culture.” Unfortunately, in recent decades, the Fund's president charged—blaming in large part the Supreme Court's interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment—”a whole generation has grown up believing that religious expression is an embarrassment, something to be kept private.” It's the Fund's mission, he said, to restore religious expression to “its rightful place in public life.”
In early April, Hasson and his colleagues are scheduled to present oral arguments before the federal district court in the nation's capital in what might turn out to be the Fund's biggest case to-date. They will argue in the defense of a coalition of chaplains to the country's armed forces—a Catholic priest, an Orthodox rabbi and the Muslim American Military Association—who were barred by their military superiors from preaching last fall, in the run-up to the presidential elections, against the Presidents’ support for partial-birth abortions.
Never in his 22 years as chaplain to the Navy, Cardinal O'Connor said, “was I censored in any way.” “Today, I am embarrassed,” he said, that military chaplains were not allowed to condemn partial-birth abortions from their pulpits and to encourage their flock to join in the postcard campaign petitioning Congress to overturn the President's veto on legislation outlawing the procedure.
Orthodox Rabbi David Kaye, an Air Force chaplain and one of the claimants in the lawsuit, delivering the before-dinner prayer, called the decision by military officials “an unprecedented assault on the freedom of religion.” Denouncing the legality of partial-birth abortion, the rabbi said that “when a law is immoral, I must speak out.” Calling the right to speak publicly against the practice a legitimate exercise of his freedom of religion, he also reminded his audience that during the Holocaust “no Jew was killed illegally, only immorally.” The right to religious freedom, the rabbi said, “ is a basic human right, which no one can take away. It is worth fighting for.”
The pending case involves Father Vincent Rigdon, a Catholic priest who serves as chaplain to the Air Force Reserve. Last spring, he responded to the U.S. bishops'call to join the “Project Life Postcard Campaign” that aimed to overturn the presidential veto on the partial-birth abortion ban. Navy officials told Rigdon and other chaplains that they could continue to preach against abortion in general, but that their participation in the postcard campaign would be an inappropriate involvement of military personnel in a political matter. Father Rigdon, along with Rabbi Kaye and Muslim American Military Association, filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit petitions the court to allow military personnel and their families to “receive uncensored homilies and counseling from their clergy members.” Hasson and Father Rigdon believe their case is vital, arguing that the military, should it go unchallenged, could conceivably silence chaplains on other moral issues as well.
The Becket Fund, keynote speaker Jack Kemp told his audience, “is the guardian of the dream of the country's Founding Fathers,” who insisted, he said, that all “could worship God without fear of or favor from the state.” The “often small skirmishes” the Fund is involved in, the former Republican candidate for the vice-presidency said, are “only deceptively small: They reflect a much larger debate.” What's at issue, he stressed, is that “religion is barred from the market-place of ideas,” which flies in the face of what Kemp called the “broad Judeo-Christian consensus at the founding of the United States—that certain laws safeguard the higher view of life.” It's for that reason, Kemp said, that Alexis de Toqueville spoke of “religion as the first institution of American democracy.”
This “moral vision embedded in the U.S. Constitution,” he continued, “is what sparked the anti-slavery and civil rights movements.” These days, he said, moral indignation is aimed at abortion, euthanasia, and, most acutely today, the partial-birth procedure. And the Becket Fund, he concluded, helps make sure that the voice of Christians, followers of other faiths and all people of good will can be heard in the matter-loud and clear.
Joop Koopman is the Register Editor.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joop Koopman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Official: More Parents Insist on Value-Added Education DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:DIALOGUE
A LEADER IN Catholic education for more than two decades, Dr. Leonard DeFiore was named president of the National Catholic Education Association last July. A graduate of West Philadelphia Catholic High School and Columbia University, DeFiore has served as superintendent of schools in the Diocese of Metuchen, N.Y. and the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and has served on the faculty of the Catholic University of America. He spoke with the Register recently at his Washington office.
DeFiore: Definitely. Just look at the demographics. The baby boom generation had children later in life, and the school-age population has been increasing and will continue to increase. But what's happened in Catholic schools is larger than just the demographic trend. Nobody that I know of predicted this, but the “30-something” Catholic parents who are now raising their children are in a sense returning to their roots. They want to send their children to Catholic schools in much larger numbers than their parents did. Looking back to the 1970s, a lot of young, Catholic families were moving to the suburbs and were basically going from urban to suburban, blue-collar to white-collar. They made that transition, and a lot of them decided they would send their children to public school. As we look today, those young, Catholic families moving to the suburbs or moving maybe from the inner-suburbs to the outer-suburbs, are saying: “We want Catholic schools.” For the first time in a long time, we're building Catholic schools again and expanding existing Catholic schools to meet that demand.
Was there a definite low point in enrollment? At what point did the up-swing start?
The high point in Catholic school enrollments was 1965. Nationwide Catholic school enrollment reached around 5 million students and that was mostly blue-collar, ethnic neighborhoods in the cities and close-in suburbs. It was basically an urban, ethnic neighborhood Catholic Church. There were Irish-Catholic, Italian-Catholic, German, Hungarian, Polish. All those nationalities had strong parishes, especially in the northeastern parts of the United States. And, going to Catholic school in many cases wasn't so much a choice as it was a reflex. If you were Catholic from Philadelphia, Boston or New York, it was almost expected in many cases that you enrolled in the local Catholic schools. At that time there was no tuition, so there wasn't a financial decision to be made.
As tuition came to be part of the equation, as Catholics moved to the suburbs, many families were forced to make a choice. There was a financial cost to be considered. Now you had to make a sacrifice, if you will, to go to Catholic school—you had to pay tuition. That priced some families out of the market. In many cases, families that had moved to the suburbs also had to find transportation. You couldn't walk to the school the way it was when you lived in the city. And many of these families lived in suburban communities with public schools with good reputations.
So, from 1965 to 1990 or so, enrollment's declined by about 50 percent in Catholic schools. Now, part of it is demographics because through that period public school enrollments went down as well. The post-war boom had ended and there were fewer children. But that was only one factor in the case of Catholic schools. Tuition and geography also were important factors for many families. But the result is that enrollments dropped sharply, and we basically just stopped building schools in the late ‘60s.
When did enrollments start heading up again?
In the early 1990s-I would say about 1991 and 1992. Some places began to have slow increases in enrollment and the momentum just picked up to a point now where in many suburban areas waiting lists are the norm. In fact, one of the priests in my parish in suburban Maryland told me that several people slept overnight in the school to register their children for the following September's kindergarten. This is the Lady of Mercy in Potomac, which is a pretty wealthy area and where the public schools are well-regarded. That tells me that parents want the kind of instruction that only a good Catholic school can provide.
Is the growth widespread throughout the country, or are some regions growing faster than others?
It's basically been in the suburbs. Urban enrollments have pretty much been the same, and many of those students are increasingly non-Catholic. But enrollments in Catholic schools in the suburbs are on the rise everywhere. And in the suburbs, for the most part, the only major distinction between a Catholic school and a public school is on the social, religious, and moral side. Many of these suburban public school districts are well-endowed on the academic side. So, if I had to speculate, I would have to say that Catholic parents want much more overt, positive, moral and religious training for their children than they can get in public school.
When a parish makes a decision to try to build a school, what kind of a financial burden does that place on them?
Well, building a parochial school is most normally a parish investment. So, one parish or, in some cases, two or three parishes will get together and just raise the money to build the school. Probably, a typical parish school would cost $3 million to $4 million to build. So, it takes an enterprising group of lay people who find themselves in a parish with a pastor who agrees to respond to that entrepreneurial spirit. They work together to raise the money and build the school.
The good news is that Catholics are now among the most affluent groups in American society. So in most reasonably-sized suburban parishes, the capability for raising money to build the schools is there. If a parish in a middle-class community has 1,500 to 2,000 families that parish would certainly have the ability to raise the money internally to build a school for $4 million. In fact, it makes you wonder how the people in the Depression-era, when many of our great urban churches and schools were built were able to put the money together. These were mostly blue-collar people, yet they built some of the greatest Catholic schools that we have in urban America. But today, raising the money to build schools does not seem to be an insurmountable burden for most Catholic parishes. There are probably 200 or 300 grammar schools in various stages of either planning or building or opening as we speak. That doesn't include the existing schools that are being expanded.
Opening secondary schools is a much more difficult venture. It usually has to be done on a regional or diocesan basis, and now you're talking about $10 million to $15 million, sometimes as high as $20 million, depending on the area. That obviously takes a much larger effort. If there is going to be a high school built today, it almost has to be diocesan. You need the bishop to take the lead and energize the pastors of several parishes to help raise the money to do it, and it's a considerable sum of money. That's why it's been slower to happen, because it's just that much harder to do. It is a major effort, and it often takes several years.
If you could wave a wand and change one public policy related to education, what would it be?
Government is interested in having an educated citizenry and the most democratic way to do it would be to have the money follow the child. That is, every child would be educated as the child's parents choose, and the government would fund every parent in that choice. Most of the Western world does it that way in some fashion, whether it's western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada—they all have some mechanism for allowing parents to decide where the child goes to school and then they support that decision. The irony is, in the United States, where individual liberties were born, if you will, we have a government monopoly school system where we will fund parents who choose government schools but not parents who choose non-government schools. It's a real anomaly in American society.
Our school system is structured on the notion that government cares more about the child than the parent. That's contrary to all logic and to the American tradition of individual liberty.
We should have a level playing field for all children. Children should have the best education that their parents’ can provide for them, and the government's role should be to help parents implement that choice.
You mentioned earlier that more and more non-Catholics are choosing Catholic schools, particularly in urban America. Has this led to any problems?
The short answer is no. That was a big concern back in the 1970s when we first discussed allowing non-Catholics to attend Catholic schools. Many people were worried that we would have to dilate the moral and religious teaching to accommodate those who were not Catholic. My experience is that this has not been the case at all. I was a Catholic school superintendent for many years, and I never once had a non-Catholic parent complain about our religious or moral teachings. They might complain about many other things, but never that. That is because they realize that there is a strong religious and moral component to Catholic schools, and they choose Catholic schools at least partly for that reason. They choose us because they like what we do. They do not want us to change very much.
Looking to the 21st century, what is the biggest issue facing Catholic schools?
There are a lot of big issues out there, but one of the biggest will be how we make the transition to a lay-dominated Catholic school system. As you know, about 90 percent of all faculty and staff of Catholic school nationwide are now lay people. The initial transition from the nuns to a lay faculty was tremendously successful. For the most part, the lay teachers have been terrific. The transition was seamless, and Catholic education has not skipped a beat. But as the first generation of lay teachers begin to approach retirement, we need to bring on new lay teachers to take their place. These new teachers will be the first generation of Catholic school teachers to be trained by lay people. And that means a great deal. The current lay teachers were all trained by nuns. We need to be sure that the new crop of teachers receive the same kind of training as all the previous generations.
—Michael Barbera
----- EXCERPT: After a long slump, Catholic schools are rebounding ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Leading Catholic, Protestant Leaders to Meet in Dallas DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:IRVING, Texas—Three of the nation's top Catholic theologians will meet in Dallas next month with three nationally-known Protestant scholars to discuss some of the primary theological issues separating Catholics and Protestants.
Organizers of the Catholic-Protestant Dialogue say the event could be one of the largest ecumenical efforts of its kind in the Dallas area. “Although the event will focus on three critical issues separating Catholics and Protestants, we have intentionally promoted it as a dialogue rather than a debate,” said David Tamisiea, president of the Young Serra Community of Dallas, the Catholic lay group sponsoring the dialogue.
Both sides will he represented by some of the top scholars and theologians in their fields. Scott Hahn, Father Mitch Pacwa SJ; and Father Benedict Groeschel CFR; will present the Catholic view. Robert Bowman Jr., Kenneth Samples and P. George Logan will present the Protestant view.
The Catholic-Protestant Dialogue will be held April 12, in Moody Coliseum on the Southern Methodist University campus.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: To This Little-Known Spot Eager Visitors Come to Petition the Archangel Michael DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:PEOPLE HAVE HEARD church bells ringing from an icon. They've witnessed miraculous cures or experienced them. They've had prayers answered; and they've come with faith for over a half-century to visit and pray at the modest chapel on 113 Hope Street where all these events have happened.
The place is the Shrine of Saint Michael Taxiarchis (Archangel). Located in quaint Tarpon Springs, America's sponge capitol, it's on Florida's Gulf coast just off Alternate Rt. 19. Less than 30 miles from Tampa Airport via Rt. 60 to Alt. 19, and the same distance from St. Petersburg along the same coastal route, the shrine is not far from the usual tourist attractions. Orlando is just about 110 miles or two hours away. Busch Gardens, less than an hour away, is between 35 and 40 miles, depending on choice of routes.
The shrine was built in 1941 by Maria Dim Tsalichis, supposedly at the archangel's request. Her labor of gratitude actually began two years earlier, when her son Steve lay in a coma, dying, while 15 baffled doctors stood by, unable to help or offer any hope.
Suddenly, the comatose boy spoke: St. Michael was requesting a shrine, he said, and then stated that the next morning at 10:00, he'd be cured. Sure enough, precisely at the hour, Steve awoke healed. In three days he went home to Tarpon Springs, where he lives today as a retired teacher and restaurant owner.
Through the years, visitors to the shrine have also been cured of cancer, tumors, and various ailments through the intercession of St. Michael. Although built as a Greek Orthodox shrine, the peaceful chapel also attracts Catholics and some Jewish people. These pilgrims and visitors are an inspiration to Maria's daughter, Goldie Tagarelli, the custodian of the Shrine since Maria died in 1994.
Detailing events, Tagarelli speaks with animation and enthusiasm. She's personally experienced many of them at the shrine that stands near the family home in this Greek community where she grew up and now lives again.
She vividly recalls that, along with others, as a 7-year-old she heard the ringing of church bells from a St. Michael icon on the eve of his feast-the year Maria brought it from their native island of Symi. There on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving, she was given the icon by the abbot prior of the Holy Abbey of Taxiarchis Michael of Panormitis.
On Nov. 6, 1938, Maria and relatives at her house heard the church bells of Symi Abbey ringing for nearly six hours. Early the next day, the Greek feast of St. Michael (Catholics observe it Sept. 29), she brought the icon to nearby St. Nicholas Church, where the priest held the breaking of bread.
The events were repeated for the next two years. After Steve's cure, the yearly eve and feast of St. Michael came to mean a major celebration at the new shrine. It still does. Usually eight or nine priests conduct the liturgy as upwards of 500 people spill out of the tan-brick facade of the small, white-stucco church and onto the grounds.
On the eve of the feast of St. Michael, people fill the 10 diminutive pews and pray all night, waiting for a miracle. Tagarelli recalls a memorable one in 1971.
Expecting her fifth child, Hortense Urso had cancer of the salivary gland. Doctors about to operate believed it had spread. They gave her a slim 25 percent chance of survival, and her unborn child no chance at all.
About 10 p.m., while people were chanting prayers, Urso made the sign of the cross standing before the icon and then touched her cheek to it. “All of a sudden there was a big light in the church,” Tagarelli says, “and nobody could understand it—they were shocked.”
As she looked at the icon, Urso recalls, “I noticed the area on the neck (of St. Michael) was shaded red, and by that time had turned blood-red on the side where my surgery was [to be].” Then an Orthodox priest offered a prayer at the altar.
Doctors removed the gland but found no cancer in the jaw, as had been expected. The top surgeon agreed her prayers were answered. And the baby, named Salvatore, was born healthy-Urso's first by natural childbirth. He now plays for the Seattle Mariners’ Triple A baseball team.
Urso still returns regularly in gratitude, as do others like Mike and Joanne Daskalotoulos. Adecade ago, their son Michael was diagnosed by pediatric specialists as having a severe brain tumor requiring immediate surgery. But this mother sent the scans to St. Jude's Hospital while the family went to St. Michael's Shrine. The diagnosis changed from night and day. St. Jude's recommended no operation, only radiation for, as they explained, “the kind of tumor to have, if you had to have a tumor.”
Today, the son is a healthy 20-year-old whose story back then made national news. His mother continues to thank God as she speaks of St. Michael's intercession.
Visitors often write thank-yous for prayers answered. “We don't see those miracles,” Tagarelli says of the anonymous notes, “but he does perform them. It might take a week, a month, a year-but you have to have faith. You have to believe. You can't give up.”
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Parents Score One in TV Ratings War DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY and America's parents faced off over the new TV ratings system, and it looks as if the industry may have blinked first.
Last month, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, lawmakers from both political parties blasted the industry-devised system that rates programs according to suitability for different age groups. The new code, which went into effect Jan. 1, includes the following categories: TV-G (suitable for general audiences); TV-PG (parental guidance suggested): TV-14 (parents strongly cautioned); and TV-M (specifically designed to be viewed by adults).
Bills were then introduced in both the House and the Senate that would ban violent programming during the hours children were likely to he watching, unless a content-rated system was adopted to replace the age-based one. Outside advocacy groups, such as the Parents Teachers Association. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association also demanded similar changes.
Industry leaders were astonished at the almost universal negative response to their new system. The Fox network, under pressure from owner Rupert Murdoch, and the cable channels are now leaning towards some kind of a content-oriented system. Even Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti, who once opposed any amendments, is singing a different tune: “I've changed my mind,” he now says. “We're not inflexible.”
Only the big three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), with some support from Hollywood's creative community, seem to be holding out for the existing age-rated approach.
This hasty retreat from a previously negotiated position is unusual for broadcasters, who usually scheme and fight until the end. An important catalyst in this seeming industry turnabout was a report issued by the Parents Television Council (PTC), headed by L. Brent Bozell III.
An off-shoot of the Alexandria, Va.-based Media Research Center, PTC reviewed 150 hours of prime-time programming during the first two weeks of January. “The overwhelming majority of prime-time programs on the networks (61 percent) are thrown into the black hole called ‘TV-PG,'whether wholesome family dramas like Promised Land, racy sitcoms filled with double entendres like The Nanny, or dramas with disturbing graphic images like the X-files,” argues PTC executive director Mark Honig. “Ultimately the current rating system is no help to parents wanting to make responsible, informed choices for their children.”
The PTC survey also discovered that 52 percent of PG-rated shows and 68 percent of TV-14 programs contained vulgar or obscene language. TV-M, indicating a show meant for adults, wasn't used at all in prime time, thus declaring that everything during these hours was appropriate for children, an assumption the PTC survey convincingly refutes. In fact, the only network program so far rated TV-M was Steven Spielberg's masterpiece about the holocaust, Schindler's List.
The content-rated system favored by PTC and most lawmakers would feature the designations V, S, and L-for violence, sex and language, each on a sliding scale of 1 to 5. For example, a controversial show like NYPD Blue might be rated something like: V3, S5, L4. These labels would provide parents with the specific information necessary to make informed choices. Under pressure, the industry is now considering this code.
For more than 20 years, prime-time TV has pushed for ever-franker depiction of sexual subject matter. However, up until recently, the networks had preserved a safe zone for wholesomeness-the so-called family hour: between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. (7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday). Within it flourished non-exploitive quality shows like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie.
But as the networks began to lose viewers to some of the racier cable shows, this safe zone was violated. Ironically, it was Fox, who's now lobbying for a content-based system, that broke the rules first.
In 1993, the network moved its spicy soap opera Melrose Place from 9:00 to 8:00 p.m. There seemed to be no public outcry, and soon all the other networks followed suit until the so-called family hour became filled with racy shows like Friends, Ellen and Beverly Hills, 90210.
In 1996, Congress came up with the combination of a carrot and a stick to persuade the industry to respond to pressure from concerned parents. The Telecommunications Act greatly expanded the ability of the networks and cable stations to purchase the more lucrative parts of the emerging information highway. But in return for this license, the industry agreed to come up with a ratings system modeled on the one used by feature films. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would then review the results. The Senate Commerce Hearings were designed, in part, to influence the FCC's pending judgment.
The Telecommunications Act also requires television manufacturers to install a thumbnail-sized device called a V-chip in each new set beginning in 1998. Parents will then be able to program the chip to block out shows whose ratings classify them as objectionable for children, hence, the ratings-systems specifics are important to both families and the industry.
Furthermore, the industry is terrified that if Congress is displeased, it may take away some the goodies bestowed on them by the Telecommunications Act. Thus it appears ready to make a deal.
But parents and their advocacy groups should be cautious. For no matter what kind of ratings system is adopted, there will always be a genuine difference of opinion between Hollywood and most American families as to what constitutes acceptable entertainment for children. The belief system of TV's creative community is far more permissive and morally relativistic than that of much of its audience, particularly in regard to sexual material.
Many in the industry oppose any change in the current system and will sue the government on First Amendment grounds if Congress tries to impose a code they don't like. This would be unfortunate. America's parents deserve truth in labeling for the TV shows their children watch. And that's something the current system just doesn't provide.
John Prizer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Easter Mystery Dispels Spiritual Darkness DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:ATHER GABRIEL OF Saint Mary Magdalen (d. 1953), the Discalced Carmelite spiritual writer, acknowledged in his superb treatise Divine Intimacy, that both Christmas and Easter are joyful liturgical commemorations. But he made a major distinction: “… whereas Christmas vibrates with a characteristic note of sweetness, the Paschal solemnity resounds with an unmistakable note of triumph; it is joy for the triumph of Christ, for his victory.”
We have become accustomed to hearing about “triumph” when reading the daily sports page or hearing the latest stock market report. The Easter triumph, however, is something much more resolute and abiding.
Jesus has permanently severed the suffocating chains that previously held us fast. No longer consigned to the hopeless destiny wrought by the primordial sin of Adam and Eve, we actually have a fighting chance to intimately share in his heroic victory-forever. His lasting triumph-truly the final word in the savage battle between good and evil—will be ours, provided we accompany him through his agonizing passion and ignominious death.
The entire Easter season-all 50 days-puts an unrelenting accent on the once-and-for-all victory of the Messiah. His triumph, like his gentle, persistent love, endures. No follower of Christ needs to worry that tomorrow or the day after will witness a terrifying turning-back that somehow erases the Master's victory. The Lord of the world has decidedly prevailed. Those united to him participate in his triumph; his obvious conquest is meant to be theirs.
Now, the Redeemer gladly confides in us a momentous secret. All those counted among the disciples of Jesus don't have to wait for the next life—we can be victors even now. His triumph is already to be enjoyed and experienced for what it is.
Sanctifying grace is, simply put, God's undying life for the soul. Those who are his legitimate friends here and now genuinely partake in the unending fruits of the Savior's redemptive death. We can know, even in this passing sphere, the timeless merits that accrue to those who sincerely walk in the pathways of the Father's Son.
Yet, there is a painful obstacle that blocks the challenging trail leading to authentic life in Jesus. Father Gabriel adverts to this significant hurdle when he argues that, while we possess a “keen desire,” the key to holiness lies in “giving ourselves entirely to him, thereby ‘letting him triumph in us.’”
To give ourselves completely to Christ signals our fervent longing to permit Jesus to reign in us. His Easter mystery encompasses us when we shed-with his help-all that binds us to spiritual darkness. This process, Father Gabriel contends, is “progressive,” demanding constant attention on our part, lest we allow our erstwhile fervor for Christ to dissipate. Any and all “undue attachments” need to be eradicated; the near occasions of sin must be avoided.
Father Gabriel thus captures the triumph of the Paschal mystery: “Every year Easter marks a time of renewal in our spiritual life, in our search for God; every year we re-ascend the path toward him in novi-tate vitae”(in newness of life; cf. Rom 6, 4). Jesus has overcome the underworld's meanest trap. Now it's time for us-joined to Christ-to do the same.
Father Charles Mangan is a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, S.D.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Charles Mangan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Death May Be Painful, but It Is not Dark and Depressing' DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:JESUS SAID: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by; but not as I will, as you will.” Probably no words in the Gospel have caused more controversy. For some, together with the cry from the cross-“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”- these words suggest a Christ deserted by God and suffering from spiritual abandonment. Modern theologians suggest they represent a sort of existential angst, akin to the anguish of European existentialist philosophers that life has no meaning.
It is as if Christ is truly forsaken interiorly by God and can in no sense experience his presence. The death of Christ, indeed the death of every man, is viewed as “the great possibility.” Karl Rahner even goes so far as to say that the only true choice a man makes is at the moment of death-between physical and spiritual death.
Traditional Catholic theology cannot affirm any of these notions. In his agony, Christ must have known that he would rise from the dead. No man could give himself as Christ did if he had no reasonable basis for hope in a future life. If Christ had really been interiorly moved against obeying God, he could not have perfectly reversed the disobedience that caused our sin. His atonement could not have been accomplished.
This does not mean that, emotionally-speaking, Christ enjoyed obeying God. His obedience could be compared to someone who had life-threatening surgery without anesthetic. The patient would resist the surgery emotionally. He or she would hurt terribly when the surgery was performed. Still, certain that it was the only way to save one's life, the choice would be to proceed with it.
Jesus fled from the whole idea of suffering the passion in his emotions and as life-threatening. This is why he says: “If it is possible let this cup pass me by.” Still, he knew that his passion, in reversing Adam's disobedience, was the most effective way to save the human race. So he embraced his suffering with full freedom. He makes a moral choice: “Though not my will, but thine be done.” His freedom was stimulated because he knew he would rise from the dead. This did not mean he suffered less than other men would have. His body, perfectly formed by the Holy Spirit, would have felt more pain than others because his body was more sensitive.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is not a cry of anguish in darkness. These words are the beginning of Psalm 22, which expresses all the sufferings that the just man must experience. It ends not with a note of despair, but with an expression of praise and trust in God to resolve his sufferings. Presumably, Christ recited the whole psalm on the cross, even though the Scriptures only cite the first verse.
The self-emptying of Christ cannot involve his person as the Word. He has that from all eternity. Jesus cannot empty himself of grace by sin, because this would compromise his perfect obedience to the loving Father. He cannot be emptied of the vision of God or his knowledge of the resurrection- because otherwise he can't suffer the passion freely and would have to merit the possession of the vision of God for himself. This would go against the whole purpose of his atonement. He gains nothing by his suffering but gives all away to us. Christ can only be emptied of the protection of his Father who, on numerous occasions, had saved him from the anger and hatred of his enemies, but now allows them to have their way with him.
The same is true of the holy Christian. Life is not meant for death and anguish. Though we must experience death and experience anguish in life, our union with God through grace and our faith in the resurrection—which is lived in each and every choice, every day and not just in some strange moment of death—are our strong support. C.S. Lewis once said that death was nothing else than falling into the hands of him, whom alone we had loved throughout life. Death may be painful, but if God is our life, it is not dark and depressing.
Father Mullady is a professor of theology at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Mullady OP ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Scandal of the Cross Continues to Disturb DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:“COME DOWN FROM that cross and we will believe,” jeered the mob at Calvary. But what Jesus would not do, many contemporary liturgists are doing for him. From East to West, Christ's body is disappearing from the sanctuary crucifix, leaving behind the trendy new “virgin cross.” Other parishes are satisfied with a cruci-form void in a solid surface.
Some argue that the crucifix is “simply not appropriate” to display outside of Passiontide. But come Good Friday, they offer a plain wooden cross for solemn veneration, not a crucifix. This defies the rubrics of the Roman Rite, for in our liturgy, crux means “crucifix” rather than “cross.” All representations of Christ crucified are under fire, whether mounted or portable, in churches or out. The feeblest excuse for purging the crucifix is that “it will scare the children.” The allegation is fast becoming an anti-Catholic cliché, the sort of wise-crack talk show guests make. Another argument is the multi-cultural one. Women and minorities should not be asked to reverence “a dead white man.” This was the rationale for the infamous sculpture Christ, a crucified female displayed in an Episcopal cathedral some years ago.
As for the racial angle, Africa's ancient Coptic churches and newer Roman ones have had no problem assimilating the crucifix into their distinctive religious art. The suffering Savior appeals to Hispanic Indians and recalls their former pagan universe sustained by sacrificial blood. Filipino Penitenti still re-enact the crucifixion with real thorns and nails.
The oldest surviving image of Our Lord's crucifixion is an ivory plaque in the British Museum dated to the year 420. It was carved before the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon met or Rome fell. In contrast, direct representations of the Resurrection are not seen for another 400 years, first appearing in Byzantine psalters of the ninth century.
The absence of the crucifix from early Christian art is sometimes explained as queasiness about showing as well as telling the shameful manner of the Savior's death. But scenes of Christian martyrdom are equally absent until several generations after the age of martyrs had passed. There was no need to remind the faithful how crucifixion looked before it had been banned by the Emperor Constantine.
Late antique Christians seem to have been much more interested in contemplating Christ and his saints in their heavenly glory than in their earthly suffering. They made the cross an emblem of triumph, decorating it with gold, gems, or a victory wreath. When Christ's figure began to appear on the cross, he was depicted alive, impassive, and fully in control. Sometimes the cross itself was barely sketched, as on the door of Santa Sabina in Rome (ca. 450).
Artists felt free to depict the Jesus as suffering and dead only after the Third Council of Constantinople (680–81) had completed the core of Christological doctrine: One Divine Person with two hypostatically united and complete natures. It was also imperative to challenge newly emerging Islam's teaching that the Prophet Issa had not died on the cross.
The earliest surviving version of the crucifixion showing Christ dead is an icon from Mt. Sinai (700–750). This style became the standard Byzantine formula for the crucifix in cycles of the Twelve Great Feasts (and other applications) from the ninth century onward.
But Dark Age Europe continued to represent Christ alive until the end of the millennium when such works as Cologne's monumental Gero Cross (ca. 975) start appearing. The timeless poignancy of the Gero Cross, “imprinted with all the sorrow and resignation in the world,” would suit the most contemporary church architecture of our day.
Some liturgists deplore the crucifix because Christ is now risen and no longer hangs on his cross. By that logic, we would also have to do away with nativity scenes and any other representation of Jesus' earthly life.
Concealing the dying of Jesus on Good Friday devalues his rising on Easter. The reality of both events must be vigorously proclaimed-but not by hybrid representations that have Christ simultaneously half-nailed and half-glorified. The 16th century artist Matthias Gruenwald paired one of the goriest Crucifixions with one of the most glorious Resurrections.
Sandra Miesel is based in Indianapolis, Ind
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sandra Miesel ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Paris, A Somber Anniversary DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:THE FIRST WEEKEND in March marked one of the modern French Church's saddest anniversaries: the 20th anniversary of the occupation of a Paris church by the so-called “traditionalists.”
The church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet was forcibly occupied in March 1977, but schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had already sowed the seeds of division. The Tridentine Mass was being celebrated in theaters, cinemas, concert halls-anywhere they could. On Feb. 27, 1977, a Mass in Saint Nicholas was interrupted by a group chanting Latin canticles. Having ousted the priest amidst considerable confusion, the traditionalists held Mass according to the Missal of Pius V, more commonly known as the Tridentine Rite.
The traditionalists have been there ever since, refusing all attempts at conciliation-whether ecclesiastical or civil. (The church building is the property of the city of Paris.)
In the early days, the traditionalists occupied the building 24 hours a day, contending that they would stay there “until the French hierarchy recognized the right to celebrate la Messe de toujours.”
The then-Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Francois Marty, warned them that the key issue was not so much a matter of rite, but of faith. The takeover defied Vatican II and the Church's Magisterium. The night of the occupation the cardinal declared: “We cannot accept what you have done, neither morally nor legally.” In the following weeks, he worked hard to find a solution that did not compromise Vatican II or the French bishops.
He extended an invitation to Father Ducaud-Pourget, one of the traditionalists’ leading figures, to concelebrate Mass with him-according to the Missal of Paul VI. That was when the traditionalists’ true colors began to show. Father Ducaud-Pourget felt obliged to decline the invitation, which he considered “tantamount to heresy.” The tolerance the traditionalists demanded for their understanding of the Mass was matched by a virulent intolerance of any other form of liturgy.
Cardinal Marty continued his efforts, convinced of his pastoral duty to those who, though sincere, were in fact dupes of the traditionalist movement. The matter went before the civil court, where the only possible judgment was given: the traditionalists were ordered to leave the building by April 1, 1977.
Twenty years later they are still there, as illegally as ever, as the present Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, recalled on the recent anniversary of the takeover. Not only is their possession of the Church illegal in civil law, but those involved are officially schismatic and excommunicated.
What Cardinal Marty feared so much, and what close friends say pained him until his death, has occurred: Well-meaning, sincere and devout people are being deliberately misled. An example of this occurred on the recent anniversary weekend by the Fraternity of Pius X, which declared: “We are not schismatics. We are not heretics. Any Catholic who wishes can assist at a Mass celebrated by one of our priests.”
But their contention is false. Official documents issued by Rome are quite explicit about the schismatic nature of the Fraternity. In ordaining four bishops, against the Pope's explicit demands-and despite having signed a promise that he would not do so-Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers were excommunicated in 1988 and the schism was consummated.
Excommunication is also incurred by anyone, priest or lay person, who expresses assent to the schismatic act of Lefebvre, such as knowingly taking part in sacramental acts celebrated by “priests” who are themselves excommunicated.
One thing that was less clear 20 years ago, even the secular coverage of the anniversary now recognizes: the close links between the Lefebvrist traditionalists and the political extreme right. Two very obvious examples: the Church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet is frequented by Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme-right French National Front, and it was also site of the funeral of Paul Touvier, the Nazi collaborator and the only Frenchman to have been condemned for crimes against humanity.
“Priests” from Saint Nicholas continue to bless and take part in the various National Front rallies, congresses and parades, including the one commemorating St. Joan of Arc. But the step into schism was a step too far for many of the Catholics who until 1988 sided happily with both the National Front and Archbishop Lefebvre. Today, some “traditionalists” who claim to remain loyal to Rome belong to an organization that calls itself Chrétienté-Solidarité (headed by Bernard Anthony). A key part of their strategy is to play up the alleged “Christian” values of the National Front.
They play on people's sense of nostalgia—as do the Lefebvrists—but subtly distort it and hold it up as “genuine tradition.” Their “traditional” France-though they don't explicitly say it-is something like medieval Catholic France, the France that sent off so many Crusaders to slay the Moors and Saracens. But this is no longer medieval France: At the end of the 20th century, France is home to the descendants of Saracens and of the Moors.
Le Pen has spoken of France's “3 million immigrants, 3 million unemployed.” No conclusion is explicitly drawn, but the implication, as crass as anything the Nazi propagandists ever devised, is clear.
Ironically, the Sunday Gospel for the anniversary weekend was the episode of Jesus expelling the dealers from the Temple. Today, would he go after the crowd in St. Nicholas du Chardonnet?
Robert Kelly is based in Paris.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Kelly ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Popes & the Safeguarding of Genuine Democracy DATE: 03/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 30 - April 5, 1997 ----- BODY:On Feb. 15, in the Union League Club in New York, the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center sponsored an all-day conference on John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. “The Reception of Centesimus Annus On Its Fifth Anniversary” featured presentations by, among others, Father Richard John Neuhaus, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, and Michael Novak, winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. In the coming weeks, the Register will excerpt some of the texts. This week, Dr. Russell Hittinger, Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and research professor of law at the University of Tulsa, Okla., offers an historical analysis of papal encyclicals elaborating the Church's social teaching.
Amazingly, at the dawn of the third millennium, the Church, particularly under the vigorous leadership of John Paul II—who calls on all Catholics and the entire institution to make amends for past errors-is emerging as the sole guarantor of the very values that were supposedly won in defiance of an obscurantist Roman Catholic Church: the gains of the Enlightenment-individual liberty and freedom of conscience foremost. Prof. Hittinger reflects on the evolution in the Church's political and social worldview that earned the Church of Rome this unique distinction.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION destroyed the political solidarity of Christendom. It is true, of course, that the Reformation had already bruised this “solidarity” by dividing Europe, and eventually, its territories in the New World, into opposing religious camps. Even so, the papacy of the Baroque period relied upon a familiar relationship to the temporal authorities (chiefly, the Hapsburgs). The familiar model of political solidarity was one of professedly Catholic princes upholding Catholic order domestically and internationally. Whether the individual was a student in Prague or a mestizo in Mexico, the universal principle of citizenship was given in baptism….
The new political regimes born in the French Revolution changed everything. The fact that the clergy were forced to commit ecclesiastical treason, that kings were murdered, that Popes were kidnapped, bullied, and then forced to cut humiliating deals to protect the few scraps which remained of their temporal estates, traumatized the papacy. But none of these facts really explains the polemical reaction against the new order-a reaction that would persist until the pontificate of Pius XII.
The key point is that the Revolution announced a different universal principle of citizenship-a monistic notion of solidarity that was aggressively secularist. Political citizenship was made the model for everything else. The papacy had no intention of accommodating this new idea of solidarity. When he was still the cardinal archbishop of Imola, Pius VII (1800–1823) had the words “liberty” and “equality” printed on the top of his stationary. But in place of “fraternity” he substituted “And peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.” This vignette summarizes what the 19th century Popes thought was at stake in the contest with the new regimes. Never was this a mere question of politics, but of the ground of human solidarity.
The immediate problems of the French Revolution would eventually dissipate. Popes learned how to deal with the new authorities; by the pontificate of Leo XIII, the annoying problem of the papal temporal estates was resolved. Nevertheless, the central problem posed by the Revolution would not go away. That problem was and is atheism: the rejection of the sacral principles for human fellowship. Whether the atheism is ideological or operational, it is a constant factor in the history of papal prudence. Even after the catastrophic wars of the 20th century, when the papacy and the new temporal authorities had a chance to make a fresh start, leaving behind the mutual suspicions and enmity that marked their relations during the 19th century, the problem of atheism would return.
THE GREAT INDUSTRIALIZATION
The second great event of the modern period was industrialization, which began on foreign shores, but eventually engulfed the continent. it was one thing for the papacy to deal with the new political powers. It was quite another thing, however, to address the problem of the obliteration of the social and cultural forms in which Christian solidarity was embedded. Traditionally, Catholicism knew how to implant itself in the educated, urban classes, as well as in the agrarian classes. Industrialization changed the society underneath the new political institutions. Thus, in the course of only a few decades, the papacy was hit with a double blow. First, the political order changed, and then the socio-cultural order changed, also to the great alarm of the papacy.
In the sermons and lectures of Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel Von Kettler during the 1860s and 1870s, and then in the encyclicals of Leo XIII (1870–1903), the issue of solidarity was reframed as a “social” question. Where the papacy once took the side of the kings against the Jacobins, it now began to take the side of the traditional culture (families, guilds, etc.) against the newly emerging, and seemingly rootless, industrial culture. As Von Kettler asserted: “The associations that modern liberalism sponsors … are mechanical assemblages of people who are thrown together merely for some superficial, utilitarian end. Whatever future it may have, therefore, the cooperative idea belongs to Christendom.” This change in focus, from the political event of the revolutions to the social problems associated with industrialization brought to the foreground the issues, and indeed, the vocabulary, of solidarity and subsidiarity which would become so prominent in subsequent papal teachings….
In a recent essay, the French philosopher, Pierre Manent, writes: “The traditional conception of politics closely linked it to the superior ends of human life; the law of the body politic was an expression or refraction of that ultimate law whose observance defines humanity, the ‘human law'of the ‘divine law.’ Liberalism challenged the sublimity of this law and deliberately lowered its status. Precisely because men disagree on the superior law's content and still must live together, the foundation of political laws must be sought on earth, not in heaven.”
Where can a this-worldly authority be found, once the authority traditionally vested, either by natural right or by divine positive law, in the altar and the crown, has been rejected? The answer to this question required a myth-one that was meant from the outset to be a secular counterpart to Genesis. It is told in different ways by Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Rousseau: We must imagine man in a state of nature; man with no one else commanding: the free agent, under no Pope, no Caesar, no authoritative Scripture….
Rather than kings receiving a plenary authority to govern, the new myth posits a plenary authority, indeed a natural right, on the part of individuals. But whereas in the older myth kings received the authority for the sake of the common good, the new myth envisages such power as independent of, and antecedent to, the common good….
THE LIMITS OF STATE POWER
In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II […] criticizes any system that would “suffocate” the individual “between two poles represented by the state and the marketplace.” In any event, from the late 19th century until the onset of World War II, the papal encyclicals seem rather abruptly to zig and zag: here, pointing out that states exercise too much power, there, criticizing the states for not using sufficient authority to remedy social ills.
In sum, the encyclicals of the modern period found the new regimes wanting. The regimes made public things private, and private things public. Each of these problems was a symptom of a theological error: namely, the effort to create political authority from scratch, without reference to the divine ground of the common good. In the post-World War II period, this accusation of atheism against the states becomes somewhat muted; but the problem of atheism endures.
The contemporary period of papal encyclicals begins with Pius XII's Summi Pontificatus (1939), issued two months after the beginning of World War II….
In the fashion of his predecessors, Pius XII lays the blame for social atomism at the door of the modern state. Having rejected natural and supernatural norms of solidarity, the state makes itself the cure for the atomism which it itself fosters. In Summi we find a powerful statement of the principle of subsidiarity:
“If, in fact, the state lays claim to and directs private enterprises, these, ruled as they are by delicate and complicated internal principles which guarantee and assure the realization of their special aims, may be damaged to the detriment of the public good, by being wrenched from their natural surroundings, that is, from responsible private action. Further, there would be danger lest the primary and essential cell of society, the family, with its well-being and its growth, should come to be considered from the narrow standpoint of national power, and lest it be forgotten that man and the family are by nature anterior to the state, and that the Creator has given to both of them powers and rights and has assigned them a mission and a charge that correspond to undeniable natural requirements.”…
POST-WAR REBUILDING
In the Christmas Message of 1942, Pius offered a list of five criteria for rebuilding the social order; the 1944 allocution would seem to contain many more than five. For the sake of convenience, I shall conflate the two allocutions and construct a single roster of points:
“First, any legitimate social order must respect the dignity of the human person, and the dignity of his labor.
“Second, both the individual and the family are imago dei. Here, we find an important shift: from a sacral principle from above, vested in kings, to the sacral, from below, as it were, vested in persons and families. This can be called the dignitarian position, alluded to so often in contemporary papal encyclicals, as well as in conciliar documents like Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae.
“Third, social unity must be regarded as intrinsic, and not as a merely accidental perfection of human beings. Authentic democracy, therefore, cannot be envisaged as an aggregate or ‘mass'of individuals, activated by the mechanism of majoritarian rule.
“Fourth, the juridical order must purge itself of positivism, and restore the foundation of natural law….
In Centesimus Annus, the human participation in sacral powers is reserved for the individual and the family, invariably in contrast to the powers of the state: “The root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate-no individual, group, class, nation or state. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.” Note that, here, there is no theological mantle draped over the state. The first and most persistent limit upon the state is the “transcendent dignity” of the human person who is the image of God.
DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM
In Centesimus Annus John Paul II treats the modern state as potentially dangerous concentration of coercive power that uproots the “subjectivity of society,” and makes itself coincident with the common good. Significantly, the Pope maintains that the de-centralization of power and responsibility must be sought “even though it may weaken consolidated power structures.” Interestingly, it is precisely in the paragraph where the Pope emphasizes that the power of the state will be weakened that he introduces the notion of the “progressively expanding chain of solidarity.” The state is not the end of human society. The state's main job is to establish a rule of law as a sort of umbrella under which the natural and voluntary societies can achieve their purposes and distinctive forms of communion. Solidarity is not the same thing as the juridical state. Rather, the juridical state is the instrument that serves and protects moral-cultural solidarity. If we take Michael Novak's conception of the three legs of democratic capitalism-political, economic, and moral-cultural-we can interpret the Pope as arguing that the moral-cultural sphere is the end to which the other spheres are subordinate….
I propose that the relocation of the sacral principle (participation in divine, kingly authority) away from the state is the great interpretative matrix for contemporary papal social theory. This relocation presents a host of new difficulties, not the least of which is the problem of persuading secular regimes to recognize sacral principles from below, as it were. The recent historical record would seem to indicate that the temporal authorities are no more prepared today to recognize the sacral principle from below, than their ancestors were prepared to recognize it from above.
At this juncture, we can recall the story told earlier, where Pius VII substituted “And peace in our Lord Jesus Christ” for the Revolution's slogan of “fraternity.” It is fascinating to see how, nearly two centuries later, that problem continues to be a touchstone for papal prudence. What is a civis? The papal answer remains remarkably consistent. A civis is a human person, whose dignity is grounded in imago dei, and whose identity is to be found in modes of solidarity that the political state exemplifies only in an incomplete manner….
The encyclicals and conciliar documents speak of “spiritual unity,” or “interior unity,” or “communion” typically in reference to marriage, eucharistic fellowship, and baptism through which the individual is grafted into the body of Christ. The “civilization of love” includes all of the diverse notions of common good, and not just the theological one. But the theological concept of communion is the main model for what the papacy means by the proposition that man is inherently social. Recall, once again, the vignette about Pius VII substituting “peace in Our Lord Jesus Christ” for the slogan of “fraternity.” I don't believe that the papal Magisterium has ever proposed that the common good can be properly considered or achieved without supernatural charity….
The contemporary period marked real achievements on the part of the papacy. World War II and its aftermath allowed a fresh start. The Popes were able to break the pattern of criticizing modernity simply on the basis of its historical departure from Christendom. The papal Magisterium and the western democracies were able to forge a common (though, of course, not perfectly common) language about political and social problems. The fact that they had a common enemy in the East certainly enhanced their partnership….
VICTORY OVER COMMUNISM
It is not easy to characterize the new period, one that begins after 1989. The ink of Centesimus Annus was hardly dry before it was clear that even though the victory over communism in Eastern Europe was substantial, the celebration was premature. John Paul II tells the story as one of betrayal (incidentally, that word is used six times in Evangelium Vitae). The constitutional democracies refused to live up to their end of the bargain. The modern idea of the juridical state never promised that the state can be an agent that sanctifies men or perfects their moral virtue. It did, however, promise (it was their “boast,” John Paul II says) to protect fundamental human rights, especially life. And it promised to protect life according to a metapolitical principle: one that transcends the political bargaining appropriate to any democratic process. So far as the Pope can estimate the situation, that promise has been broken. In Evangelium Vitae we find criticism of the polities stronger than anything in the documents of the 19th-century Popes, including Pius IX. It is stronger, among other reasons, because the present Pope launches an “internal” criticism.
In Evangelium Vitae (1995), John Paul II speaks ominously of a “conspiracy” against human rights; he refers to the “disintegration” of these governments; and characterizes them as “tyrant states”; he accuses them of poisoning the “culture of rights”; of having reversed the “long historical process leading to the discovery of the idea of human rights”; of violating the “principles of their own constitutions”; and what seems new, when measured against even the vicissitudes of the nineteenth century, he asserts that there is an obligation to disobey constitutionally legitimate authorities….
I do not claim, nor insinuate, that Centesimus Annus gives a sunny picture of human affairs after the collapse of communism. Centesimus Annus abounds with forebodings and admonitions about the very problems which come so starkly into view in Evangelium Vitae. Today, no credible reading of Centesimus Annus can fail to highlight the darker side of the encyclical. In Centesimus Annus John Paul II says that: “the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who is the visible image of the invisible God.” “If we then inquire as to the source of this mistaken concept of the nature of the person and the “subjectivity” of society, we must reply that its first cause is atheism…. The denial of God deprives the person of his foundation, and consequently leads to a reorganization of the social order without reference to the person's dignity and responsibility.” Insofar as democracies fall into the anthropological error, they turn into an “open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”…
So despite deep and sometimes ingenious adaptations to the modern situation, the papacy finds itself confronting the same cycle of problems. At least in human terms, it is difficult to imagine how there will not be endemic conflict between the Catholic conception of social reality and the theories and practices of the gentiles—as the the Church tries to hold the constitutional democracies not only to Catholic standards but to their own standards.
In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II writes: “Alarge part of contemporary society looks sadly like that humanity which Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. It is composed ‘of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth’(Rom 1, 18): having denied God and believing that they can build the earthly city without him, ‘they became futile in their thinking’ so that ‘their senseless minds were darkened’ (Rom 1, 21).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Russell Hittinger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: John Paul II Calls Anti-Semitism an 'Offense Against God' DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Scholars address painful past in search of ‘reconciliation, esteem, and respect’ between Catholics and Jews
VATICAN CITY—“Christians who surrender to anti-Judaism offend God and the Church itself.” This was the central message of the international conference entitled “Roots of Anti-Judaism in Christianity” recently held at the Vatican.
Pope John Paul II invited conference participants to take a “lucid look at the past, in order to arrive at a purification of memory.” He affirmed the Church's absolute condemnation of anti-Semitism, and of every type of genocide, while emphasizing that, for Christians, the genocide ordered by Hitler was particularly deplorable because Jesus, in his human origins, was of Jewish ancestry.
The fact that Jesus was a Jew, John Paul II explained, is not an incidental fact, but a “mystery,” and a part of “God's plan for salvation.” Thus, according to John Paul II, the Shoah was characterized not only by the moral wickedness of every genocide, but by the “abomination of a hatred that was an attack against God's plan for salvation in history. For this hatred, even the Church must respond.”
The Pontiff called together 60 Christian theologians and historians in order to examine the origins of anti-Judaism in Christian history. The conference, which took place Oct. 30-Nov. 1, was held behind closed doors to encourage an honest exchange between scholars, according to Vatican officials.
In a statement, the Vatican said that the conference, sponsored by the Theology-History Commission of the Jubilee 2000 Committee, “aimed to get beyond the misunderstandings and the divisions of the past” to “look to the future with serenity and hope.” Re-examining the past, it added, would offer a “correct orientation to the life of the faithful” and promote “reconciliation, esteem, and respect” between Jews and Catholics.
The Vatican explained that the conference is to be considered “a stage in a long journey” toward a new understanding between Jews and Catholics. It is also meant to be a contribution to the Catholic Church's long-awaited final document on anti-Semitism, which has been in preparation since 1987, and which many Jewish leaders hope will offer a solemn mea culpa.
“In the Christian world,” said Pope John Paul II, “several erroneous interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jews and their alleged guilt have circulated for too long, generating sentiments of hostility. This hostility has contributed to assuage many consciences. Consequently, when the wave of persecutions inspired by a pagan antiSemitism, which was also essentially anti-Christian, spread throughout Europe, there were Christians who did everything in their power to save the persecuted, but the spiritual resistance of many others was not what humanity had the right to expect from the disciples of Christ.”
According to the final conference document issued by the Vatican, “the first step toward conversion is a loyal recognition of the facts.… Knowing how to forgive, as well as how to ask for and accept forgiveness is a condition that contributes to freedom.”
Just before the conference began, the Vatican declared that a re-examination of Church history in a penitential light requires that the end of the 20th century coincide with “the end of anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism, and racial hatred—sins that contributed to creating an atmosphere that made the Holocaust possible.”
The Vatican conference continued Pope John Paul II's emphasis on the Church's examining past episodes of intolerance and violence “perpetrated in the name of faith,” in preparation for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000.
In addressing visiting clergy from England and Wales last month, the Pontiff reaffirmed the goals put forth in his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near) by declaring that the voyage toward the year 2000 “should take the form of a genuine pursuit of conversion and reconciliation by purifying ourselves of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency, and slowness to act.”
In opening remarks to participants, Cardinal Roger Etchagaray, president of the preparatory Committee for the Great Jubilee, said that the conference would be a theological examination of the ageold controversy regarding the relationships between Christians and Jews, which must prepare the Catholic Church to celebrate the Jubilee with a renewed mentality toward its older brothers in the faith of Abraham.
Cardinal Etchagaray explained that the conference would emphasize anti-Judaism rather than anti-Semitism, in order to stress “the study of religious motivations, which, since they touch consciences, are much more meaningful than simple racial or political motivations.”
Father Georges Cottier, president of the conference organizing committee, told participants that anti-Judaism refers to the prejudices and pseudo-theological affirmations that have long circulated among Christian populations and have served as a pretext for unjustifiable oppressions which Jews have suffered in the course of history.
According to Father Cottier, “such prejudices have suffocated in many the capacity for an evangelical reaction when anti-Semitism, which was of a pagan and anti-Christian nature, spread throughout Europe.”
The theologian said only Christian scholars were invited because “this is an internal matter that we as Christians are called to reflect upon.”
The Vatican conference comes at a time when Catholic leaders in France, Germany, and Poland have apologized for their Churches'refusal to more forcefully condemn anti-Semitism and teachings that fostered hatred toward the Jewish people.
An examination of the Church's anti-Judaism is no easy task, since the relationship between Christians and Jews has been fraught with misunderstandings and divisions since the time of the Gospels.
The first Pope to condemn antiSemitism was Pius XI, who was preparing an encyclical against all forms of racism when he died in 1939. The encyclical, however, died with him. His successor, Pius XII, though criticized in recent decades for not more actively condemning Nazism, was actually honored at the end of WWII by the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, and blessed by Jewish refugees “for his lifesaving efforts on behalf of the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy.” Upon his death he was praised for the same reasons by Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir before the United Nations.
Still, it wasn't until Vatican II (1962-1965) that the seminal declaration Nostra Aetate (In Our Age) repudiated the centuries-old doctrine that blamed Jews for the death of Christ, thus marking a turning point in the relationship between Jews and Catholics.
When John Paul II was elected Pope, the fact that he came from Poland, a country of often ferocious antiSemitism, was cause for consternation among Jews. This was a country where, in 1938, Cardinal August Hlond matter-of-factly claimed that “it is a fact that Jews fight against the Church … and that they are swindlers, usurers, and exploiters.”
During those same years, however, the young Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, lost many Jewish friends at the hands of the Nazis. The Pontiff reminded the world of this fact in 1979 when he prayed at Auschwitz.
On April 13, 1986, John Paul II became the first Pope to enter a synagogue. It was at that historic moment in the synagogue of Rome that the Holy Father called Jews “our elder brothers.” Eight years later the Vatican, under John Paul II, established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Rome vicariate's recent decision to choose Jewish-American architect Richard Meier to design the cathedral that will symbolize the Great Jubilee was viewed by many as yet another important overture to Judaism.
Elio Toaff, chief rabbi of Rome, which is home to one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, praised the Pontiff's words at the recent conference as a turning point: “If what the Pope said were to be truly accepted and practiced by all Christians, I believe it would be a giant leap forward in contributing to an understanding between Judaism and Christianity.”
Rabbi David Rosen, Jerusalem-based co-liaison to the Vatican for the Anti-Defamation League, said the Pontiff's words are “very important, but not yet sufficient. The Church must go further in examining its responsibilities for anti-Semitism and its role during the Holocaust.”
Franco Pavoncello, commissioner for culture of the Jewish community of Rome as well as professor of political science at Rome's John Cabot University, believes that the conference took a step in the right direction but that a serious problem still exists.
“Pope John Paul II's efforts toward reconciliation are certainly commendable,” Pavoncello told the Register. “However, the idea that this conference is merely the first stage in a long journey is cause for concern. As Jews, we ask ourselves where this journey will end. Is this theological debate about Judaism being part of God's plan for salvation simply an attempt to bring Judaism into the sphere of Christianity—a type of faith imperialism?”
“A fundamental contradiction exists,” explained Pavoncello. “Christianity is not a theological problem for Jews. On the other hand, the idea that a savior came to the Jews and they did not pay heed continues to be a theological problem for Christians. This is the sore from which the blood of antiSemitism flows. Paradoxically, Christianity's attempt to solve this problem by saying that we are all part of the same plan for salvation might just rekindle rather than abate anti-Semitism.”
According to Pavoncello, a crucial challenge for Catholics is to try to move beyond the theological problem represented by Judaism.
“Instead of continuing to re-elaborate and justify the fundamental difference between Christianity and Judaism,” he explains, “a much better act of contrition would be to simply accept that difference and let it be.”
John Paul II's willingness to address the Church's past transgressions has not been welcomed universally. The most outspoken has been Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, archbishop of Bologna, who has said that “expecting the Church to ask for forgiveness for the past is ridiculous.”
In a recent pastoral letter, the cardinal wrote that “the Church has no sins, because it is the total Christ: the head of the Church is the Son of God and nothing of a morally deplorable nature can be attributed to him. However, the Church can and must share in the sentiments of regret and pain for the personal transgressions of its members.”
If the past is any indicator, John Paul II will continue to chart the best course for the Church as he sees it, despite criticisms that he's gone too far in his over-tures—or not gone far enough.
Berenice Cocciolillo is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Berenice Cocciolillo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Parish to Tribunals - and Maybe to Rome: An Annulment Application Makes the Rounds DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:IN ORDER FOR an annulment to take effect in the Church, it must be declared by a Church court, known as a tribunal, acting in accord with canon law. Annulments are not granted by pastors or diocesan family life offices or as part of pre-Cana classes. Civil annulments, which are sometimes granted on the same or similar grounds as canonical annulments, are insufficient under Church law to establish the canonical invalidity of an impugned marriage because of important differences in the way state law on marriage reads as compared to canon law. Civil divorces, of course, are entirely insufficient to allow parties to contract new marriages in the Church.
Although all annulment cases must be heard by a diocesan tribunal, most cases begin as an informal interview in a parish office. Anyone interested in obtaining a declaration of nullity describes in his or her own words what happened in the marriage and states the present marital status of the involved parties. In almost all cases, the potential petitioner will be given a set of forms, known technically as a libellus but more often called an application, to complete and return, usually to the parish, but occasionally directly to the diocesan tribunal.
In addition to providing basic information such as date and place of wedding, etc., petitioners are asked to describe in as much detail as possible what the youth and upbringing of both parties was like, how the couple met, and how they interacted prior to the wedding. They will be asked to provide information on the wedding itself, what the early period of the marriage was like, how things progressed or deteriorated during the marriage, and eventually how it ended. They will also be asked to propose the names of people who could serve as witnesses in the case.
This information should be as complete and as accurate as possible. It will provide the foundation of the petitioner's case before the tribunal, and he or she will be asked to swear or affirm the truthfulness of the assertions contained therein. In many cases, a tribunal interview will follow upon these original written declarations. Curiously, though, many people still labor under the mis-impression that completing the parish-based paperwork and returning it to the pastor or the tribunal is all that is required to obtain an annulment. They are mistaken. Annulment cases require significantly more work, as will become apparent below.
Upon receiving the libellus at the tribunal, the file is first examined for the presence of necessary supporting documents such as marriage certificates and divorce decrees. One very important issue requiring examination at this early stage of the process is “jurisdiction,” i.e., the canonical authority of the tribunal to hear the particular case submitted to it. Not every tribunal is canonically authorized to hear every annulment case submitted to it.
In general, questions of jurisdiction will be handled by tribunal personnel trained in such matters, but as a rule, any diocese or archdiocese in which the wedding took place, and any diocese or archdiocese in which the respondent (the other spouse) currently has canonical domicile (basically, residence), can accept an annulment petition. Thus there is always at least one, and often two, diocesan tribunals, known respectively as the forum of contract and the forum of respondent, which are eligible to hear an annulment case.
Oftentimes, however, a third tribunal, known as the forum of the petitioner, can hear a case. This is an important procedural change that the Vatican first authorized for the United States in 1970, but which Pope John Paul II made applicable throughout the world as part of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Briefly, it allows a petitioner to file an annulment case in the diocese in which he or she currently lives regardless of where the wedding took place and regardless of where the respondent lives. This obviously makes it much easier for people who have moved, as so many do, to file their cases in a convenient locale.
‘Friendly’Tribunals?
Unlike forum of contract and forum of respondent cases, however, not every request to hear a case in the forum of petitioner must be accepted, and the opinion (though not, strictly speaking, the consent) of respondents in such situations is sought before proceeding. While modern canon law is somewhat more flexible in providing a tribunal with the authority to hear a specific annulment case, the idea that petitioners are free to “shop around” for “friendly” tribunals is nonsense.
Once the libellus is accepted and jurisdiction over a case is established, the tribunal then begins the process of citing the respondent and seeking his or her input via an affidavit or by means of a tribunal interview. The witnesses named by the petitioner and those named by the respondent, if there are any, are also cited and asked to relate what they know about the case. Sometimes, the tribunal might also seek the opinion of medical, psychological, or psychiatric experts regarding the condition of the parties at the time of the wedding.
It is very important, of course, that respondents, Catholic or otherwise, be notified of the annulment petition and be invited to take an active part in the case. Admittedly, the Church's tribunal system does not have the means to compel respondent participation in cases, and many respondents choose to ignore communications from a Church court. Some refuse their cooperation deliberately, thinking thereby to derail the process and prevent the annulment. But canon law, like every other legal system, allows a case to proceed in the face of one's contumacious absence. Respondents who simply don't care what the tribunal does are better advised simply to make that observation in a note to the tribunal, though even here the tribunal must still inform them of their canonical rights and eventually the outcome of the case.
Inside Annulments Part II of V
Under canon law, both petitioners and respondents have the basic right to know upon what grounds their annulment case is being heard and what evidence is being used to verify or reject the petition. That is not quite the same thing, however, as saying that the parties have the right to know everything submitted to the tribunal. Both canon law and common sense recognize the authority of tribunals to withhold certain information from the parties when, for example, such information is irrelevant to the canonical questions being addressed in the case, or where such information threatens harm to the parties or to third persons.
In every situation, of course, one's fundamental right of effective participation in a case must be respected, and in a special way the rights of respondents merit safe-guarding. At the same time, it is easy to see how quickly annulment cases could, without some authority to regulate access to information, degenerate into an arena for rehashing the strife and rancor that mark so many divorces, to no one's benefit.
Tribunals are, moreover, very familiar with the problems sometimes encountered in trying to locate ex-spouses or key witnesses who have been gone for many years. They also deal often with situations in which on-going harassment and sometimes even violence marked a failed marriage. Petitioners should not hesitate to explain these situations to the tribunal when filing their cases in order to get advice on what they and the tribunal can do in particular situations. Finally, although most annulment cases are heard without the need for canonical advocates, both petitioners and respondents have the right to use canon lawyers in their cases.
Canon law prefers, and for a long time required, that cases concerning possible matrimonial nullity be heard by a panel of three degreed judges appointed by the bishop. It now permits, however, annulment cases to be heard by a single qualified judge and many dioceses have made use of this authorization in the face of heavy case loads. All of the regular canons on grounds for nullity, burdens of proof, and various procedural requirements still apply in sole-judge cases. Academically-qualified lay persons can serve as judges on tribunals in association with clerical judges, and all persons who work in any way on annulment cases are bound to confidentiality.
Agent of Accuracy
Interestingly, each annulment case requires the presence of an independent official known as the defender of the bond (DOB). It is the task of the DOB, who must be degreed in canon law, to raise every reasonable argument against declaring nullity in a particular case. The DOB performs his or her task without regard for the preferences of the parties, even when both petitioner and respondent would like to see the marriage declared null. The DOB should be regarded not as an obstacle to hearing of annulment cases, but rather as an agent helping to ensure that the decisions reached in such cases are as accurate as possible.
If following the investigation of the facts and a careful consideration of the law, the diocesan tribunal hearing the case, known as the tribunal of “first instance,” concludes that the marriage in question has been proven null it issues a decision or “sentence” to that effect and notifies both parties of the result. Either party may appeal the results, if they desire.
Even if neither party disagrees with the outcome, however, and even if the DOB, who also has the right of appeal in “affirmative” cases, agrees with the result, all cases in which the nullity of marriage is declared are automatically appealed to an appellate tribunal known as “second instance.” No annulment case is considered effective unless and until it receives two affirmative sentences, that is, until two tribunals agree that a marriage has been proven null.
The tribunal of second instance is usually another diocesan tribunal approved for service by the Vatican. It is the duty of this appellate tribunal to review the original case and, if everything appears to be in order, to confirm the decision of first instance. If the second instance tribunal does not ratify the first decision, however, it can, depending on circumstances, rehear the case itself, return it to first instance for reconsideration, or immediately issue a negative sentence, in which case, the annulment granted by first instance does not become effective.
Of course, even after the second instance tribunal has issued its conclusion, both parties have the right of appeal to Rome, although obviously petitioners tend to appeal cases that have been denied by the local tribunal, and respondents tend to appeal cases that have been granted. Besides the right of appeal, the parties to any canonical case can ask that their case be transferred to Rome prior to a final decision at the local level, but such requests do not interrupt the hearing of the case at the diocesan level unless and until Rome says otherwise.
Dr. Edward Peters is a matrimonial judge with the Tribunal of the Diocese of San Diego. His 100 Answers to Your Questions on Annulments (Basilica Press, and Simon & Schuster; 1997), is available at Catholic books stores or through Canticle Communications, 1-800-859-8415.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Inside the Synod for America: A Play-by-Play Guide DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Economic disparity, inculturation, and liturgical renewal top agenda of the month-long gathering of bishops that begins today
VATICAN CITY—Every effective CEO convokes periodic meetings with his top advisers to analyze company performance and plot a course for the future. In a similar way, in the dawning light of the third Christian Millennium, Pope John Paul II has scheduled a series of synods with bishops from around the world to reflect on the Church's current needs and her continuing work of evangelization.
Three years ago the bishops of Africa came to Rome; now the Eternal City is hosting the Americans. In the spring of 1998 the Asian episcopate will meet to discuss “Jesus Christ the Savior and His Mission of Love and Service in Asia,” followed next fall by the Oceanic episcopate, whose theme will be: “Jesus Christ and the Peoples of Oceania— Walking His Way, Telling His Truth, Living His Life.” Then in the spring of 1999 the European bishops will meet for a second time (their first synod took place in 1991) to speak about “Jesus Christ Alive in His Church, Source of Hope for Europe.” The last synod, planned for fall 1999, will involve the universal Church in discussing: “The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World.”
The more than 240 participants in the Special Assembly for America have prepared comments on the Instrumentum laboris (working document), entitled “Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: the Way to Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity in America,” and Nov. 16 begin their month-long meeting with the present successor of St. Peter.
Drawing from the abundant responses to the lineamenta (a preliminary agenda, complete with questionnaire) to the 24 American episcopal conferences., a pre-synodal committee drew up the Instrumentum laboris, a diagnosis of the problems afflicting the Church in the Americas today.
Cardinal Jan Schotte, the general secretary for the Synod of Bishops, gives a panoramic view of the entire Synod in a preface to the document. In the introduction, attention is focused on the Synod topic and on the three fundamental characteristics that define the religious identity of America: common Christian roots, the vitality of a young Church, and cultural pluralism.
Part I, entitled “Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ,” treats the principles to be followed to ensure the announcement of the complete truth about the mystery of Christ, and discusses the subject of the relation between the gospel and culture (the dominant characteristics of the contemporary culture, the indigenous and Afro-American cultures, the culture of the immigrant people, popular piety, education, and the media).
Part II, on conversion, develops the concept of conversion to Jesus Christ, presenting from the point of view of all America the contrasting elements of both the church and the world.
Part III, focusing on communion, looks to communion in Jesus Christ as the basis and goal of evangelization. It also introduces within the context of Vatican II's ecclesiology of communion the difficulties in living communion in the Church, and evaluates the situation of the Catholic Church in the religious context of the continent.
Part IV treats the subject of solidarity, calling attention to the awareness in conscience of solidarity in all America and the use that the Church makes of her social doctrine to respond to the great challenges of contemporary society on the continent (poverty, international debt, the culture of death, etc.).
The document ends with a brief conclusion which takes up anew the synod topic in the context of the new evangelization on the threshold of the third millennium, invoking the patronage of the Virgin Mary, our Lady of Guadalupe, in the task of announcing the living Jesus Christ, the way to conversion, communion, and solidarity in the hemisphere.
The first and subsequent sessions, to be held in the Paul VI audience hall on the south side of St. Peter's Basilica, will begin with the Synod president announcing the theme of the day and inviting the general rapporteur to explain briefly the session's topic, previously prepared and distributed in written form to those present. The assembly will then divide into smaller discussion groups according to languages. Afterwards, a spokesman from each group will present the conclusions of the discussion to the entire assembly.
Further discussion in the plenary assembly will consist only in voicing objections, and if more analysis is deemed necessary a special commission will be named to carry it out. Once the secretaries have made the appropriate modifications, all the members will vote individually using the Latin placet, non placet option. When the majority has approved each individual point, the final text will be submitted to the Pope. These documents have often served as the basis for the post-synodal exhortations that the Pope offers to the Church and the world.
Topics currently on the agenda include: the coordination of efforts between certain ecclesial movements and the diocesan pastoral structures, liturgical renewal, inculturation, economic poverty, and Latin America's international debt. In his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, Pope John Paul II has already asked for the cancellation of this debt in honor of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000.
Of the many points included in the working document, perhaps the one most likely to receive widespread publicity is the great economic disparity within the Americas. Paragraphs 34-36 describe the current situation, beginning with the recognition that the majority of America's population is Catholic: 63.3%, according to the 1995 Statistical Yearbook of the Church. (In the northern hemisphere the percentage is 23.8%, while in the southern hemisphere it soars to 88.1%.)
Though largely united in the one Catholic faith, American standards of living are worlds apart. For example, dividing the gross national product among all the citizens of the United States yields roughly $23,000 per capita, while Mexican and Brazilian counterparts muster barely a tenth of that. The average life expectancy also varies: most North Americans will outlive Mexicans by five years and Brazilians by 10.
Some members of the Church have responded to this real disparity by promoting what is often referred to as liberation theology, a political ideology disguised as Catholic theology, which actually contradicts the social doctrine of the Church. The issue ultimately transcends mere economics and material well-being and touches the realm of the human spirit, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained in his recently published interview with Peter Seewald entitled Salt of the Earth (not yet available in English).
Disillusioned with the empty promises of liberation theology and stripped of the substantial consolation and warmth proper to true religion, the cardinal points out that many of the Catholic faithful wander unknowingly into any number of anti-Catholic sects, hoping to find what they no longer receive from their politicized pastors. Besides leaving the Church, many of these end up bouncing from sect to sect in a perpetual search for solid spiritual food, a pilgrimage that often leads to their abandoning religion altogether.
In the same interview, Cardinal Ratzinger also commented on the problems specific to North America, claiming that in the midst of so many difficulties he perceives a budding resurgence of the religious spirit. This hope should encourage the Catholic faithful in America to reflect seriously on the Instrumentum laboris, as well as to keep the synod in their prayers, asking the Virgin of Guadalupe, on whose feast day the Synod will end, to guide these shepherds, so that they may lead the American flock (extending all the way from Ellesmere Island in northern Canada to the Island of Horns in southern Chile) towards an ever deeper encounter with the living Jesus Christ.
Brother Stephen Fichter is a seminarian studying theology in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Fichter LC ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Coming to Understand Our Mysterious Elder Brothers DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Father Marcel Dubois deciphers the complex Christian-Jewish relationship
Father Marcel Dubois, an expert on Christian-Jewish relations who makes his home in the Holy Land, recently met with Joop Koopman in Jerusalem. The Dominican priest reflected on political tensions in Israel, as well as the Vatican's efforts to engage the Jewish community in interreligious dialogue.
Koopman: Violence continues to disturb the Holy Land. While terrorist acts are almost universally condemned, Israeli policies under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are also blamed for the continued crisis. How does the political situation affect your work of examining the mystery of the Jewish people and their relationship with the Church?
Father Dubois: There is no doubt that some of the actions of the Israeli government have damaged the beauty of the Jewish image, the Jewish likeness of God. The benevolence toward Jewish suffering throughout history remains. However, there is little doubt that the conservative government is hurting the Jewish cause some.
The crisis goes beyond the political. Jewish consciousness in Israel is broken up; there is no unanimity. The religious dimension of Jewish life here has been falsified as it has been used for strictly political purposes. Paradoxically, the prime minister has availed himself of the country's religious parties, but he himself is not religious. All these contradictions make for an unhealthy situation.
The Israeli government has invited the Pope to visit the Holy Land as soon as possible, in conjunction with the Jubilee Year 2000. Palestinian officials have protested that such a visit would lend legitimacy to the Israeli policies with regard to Jerusalem and their claim of exclusive sovereignty over the city. What is your opinion on this?
I would not want to be in charge of protocol for such a visit. The significance of such a trip would be ambiguous at best. The Pope would have to meet with Israelis, Palestinians, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Muslims, Jews—but which kind of Jews, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform? The only way it could be done, I suppose, is that the Pontiff would arrive by helicopter—without traversing any particular territory—say Mass, and leave again. That would not be useful, though.
Regardless of whether John Paul II will visit Israel or not, he certainly is a friend of the Jews, having made the fostering of Catholic-Jewish relations and mutual understanding a key element in his pontificate. That also has been the heart of your work among the Jewish people. You have often spoken of the “Christic dimension” of Judaism, of the Jewish people. Do you have only faithful, practicing Jews in mind or all Jews?
It is not my job to judge whether someone is faithful or not. For starters, I must pay close attention, which is something many Christian pilgrims coming here don't do. We have to be mindful of the teleology of the Jewish people—no matter what, a Jew is a member of the Jewish people, a member of the people chosen by God to prepare for the coming of the Messiah and to promote his word in the world. Hence, I must consider the existence of the Jews as a sacrament of the presence of God in Israel.
Regardless of whether individual Jews are practicing or not?
Indeed. That requires a great deal of silence and respect on our part, as well as compassion, and sadness—but, of course, those faithful to the Torah have a special place. For Christians, Jesus mediates between God and my heart; the Torah is there for the Jews. I can deplore the fact that when Jews pray, they do not mention Christ or acknowledge his presence. But, in light of my own Christian faith, I can say that they still address the Father through the Son, but without being aware of it.
That would be hard to make explicit in dialogue with the Jews; it would turn them away.
Of course, we have to remain silent, or risk closing their hearts. I am becoming more and more convinced that the most realistic way of being present as Christians among the Jewish people is to remain silent—or to encourage their faithfulness to their tradition. From this point of view, the best witness of the Church in this country are the monastic communities, precisely because they are contemplative.
Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah last spring spoke of the need for authentic dialogue with the Jewish people, calling on his own people and, it seemed, the Muslim community at large, to show a greater willingness in this regard. Though the archbishop is often critical of Israeli policies, his talk appeared to signal a softening of his position.
The patriarch is very open-minded. Don't forget the following: The language of the Palestinian Christian community is Arabic and since Arabic is the language of the Koran, the cultural milieu of the Christian Arab community is Muslim. Hence, Church leaders must tread gingerly in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not appear to be choosing sides.
But is real dialogue possible then?
The true encounter called for at the moment is not dialogue. It requires, first of all, an objective mutual knowledge and respect for the identity and faithfulness of the potential dialogue partners. This process requires a deep silence and in-depth study. Atrue encounter means recognizing that the “other” does not want to be considered as an object. Two kinds of faithfulness—Jewish and Christian—can respect each other.
How does Jewish faithfulness relate to Christian faithfulness?
The monastic vocation is an icon of sanctity within the Church. I would use the same definition for a people called by God to listen to his word, to meditate on it, day and night, and to realize it in daily life. That is the function of the Jewish people in the Bible and still today and that is also the function of monks and nuns in the Church, who, as it were, represent the continuity of the vocation of Israel, as they live out a dimension of Christianity which is a heritage of Israel.
It would seem, then, that even the non-practicing Jew upholds something of this heritage, just by virtue of being?
Faithfulness involves both consciousness of a certain identity and knowledge of the Torah. To admit that one shares the Jewish identity can be a first step, to accept to belong to a mysterious community with a very mysterious vocation that is so important for the world. That already is a kind of faithfulness.
That is clearly different for non-Jews, who, to be elected, too, must be baptized.
That election, indeed, is not inscribed in their nature, if you will. But there is an analogy, as in baptism we, too, join the people of Israel.
What about Muslims? They do not seem to fit this model of “chosen-ness” in the same way at all.
I am not an expert on Islam, but the relationship between Israel and the Church is central and exemplary for all other interreligious relationships. There is a purity in the link between the Jews and the Church. The relationship between Muslims and Jesus involves different sources, a different soil. There is something in the purity of the link between Israel and the Church which is exemplary for the link between Muslims and Jesus, which, nevertheless, can never be seen on the same level. We must think, though, of the calling of the Jewish people and their response to it as a model for all religions.
You have said in the past that a healthy relationship between Jews and Catholics, between Jews and Christians, is vital for the good of the world. Please explain your position.
Consider God's mysterious proposal, his promise of salvation, as revealed in the Bible, in the New Testament, and how it is experienced in the history of Israel and the Church. It is clear that God wants to unite all the world in one people. But here we have two communities, who each pretend to be that people—the people of Israel and the Church, which even has referred to herself as “the new Israel,” which was clearly a mistake. Here we have Israel ordered by law, according to the flesh, and Israel announced by the New Testament, followers of Christ. The two side by side are a mystery, an unfathomable mystery.
Again, it calls for mutual respect.
For Jews it is important to see the Church as a mysterious relative—a Church, like the people of Israel, that is faithful and aware of its vocation— and to consider the sanctity of Christ. For Christians, it is important to consider the Christic dynamism of the Jewish people. Faithfulness itself speaks of Christ. In this faithfulness of the Jews [to their divine calling, to their election] there is something which is already Christian.
And this would not be true for the faithful Buddhist?
There are degrees of proximity [to Christ]. And Judaism is at the center, along with the Church. But all of humanity is drawn to the center. In Christ, God has given divine value to human life, to every authentic—and I underline authentic—human feeling and action, each discovery, art, friendship, love, and suffering. All this has received new value in the beauty of Christ.
In the love of a mother for her child we see an image of God's tenderness for his creatures. But especially every human suffering—through the power of the cross and Christ's victory—has been given a sacramental value. It is not a sacrament like the seven sacraments we know, but we will be amazed when we enter the kingdom of paradise to find huge crowds of people who have never heard of Christ, or met him, but who will recognize that we are all saved by the sacrament of the Cross, and the suffering and death of Jesus.
It depends on how people suffer, whether they accept it.
Indeed, whether they suffer with open-mindedness and without selfishness or bitterness. If we look at the world in this light, everything changes. That is the fruit of the Incarnation—God has visited all dimensions of human feelings.
What about the suffering of the Jews, who appear to be singled out in a particular way.
It is not easy to speak of the sacramental value of suffering before the Jews, who exemplify in many respects the tragedy of human suffering. Still, their suffering, too, receives its mysterious value from the cross of Christ.
Still, that wouldn't justify, for example, the controversial cross at Auschwitz?
No, not at all. All of these truths require an ocean of silence. We must be prepared to recognize Jewish faithfulness. The closest to the mystery of Christ are the people of his people. We are called to look at the Jewish people as Jesus himself looks at his people.
The Vatican is due to publish a document and discuss the Church's role during World War II and the holocaust. How important will that text be?
Very important, of course. Christians must understand the mystery of Jewish suffering. Jews, for their part, must accept other people pondering [and to an extent] participating in this suffering. For the Jews, there is the temptation of self-sufficiency, selfishness, and the notion that this suffering is a purely Jewish affair, a stance made worse, of course, by the fact that Christians were often to blame for Jewish pain.
Just as there must be a contemplation of the mystery of the Jewish people, and justice and kindness toward them, the Jews are challenged to contemplate the mystery of the cross.
—Joop Koopman
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Formation Needed to Combat 'Widespread De-Christianization,' Pope Says DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—“A widely diffused de-Christianization” in today's world makes it “essential for the faithful to … live their baptism, their vocation, and their Christian responsibility,” Pope John Paul II told members and consultants of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in an Oct. 30 audience. The curial office, instituted 30 years ago by Pope Paul VI, was gathered in plenary assembly Oct. 27-31 in Rome.
Opening the week-long meeting, the laity office's head, Archbishop J. Francis Stafford, said the dicastery is “a sign of and a service to the historical movement of the promotion of the laity, fruit of the Church's renewed self-awareness as mystery of communion and fruit of the pressing missionary responsibility of our time.”
The American archbishop explained that the Council assists the Pope's pastoral work of spreading “consciousness of the baptismal dignity of the lay faithful, for their co-responsibility in the edification of the Church, and for their participation in its mission, rendering Christian testimony in every situation, environment, and culture, towards the construction of a more human society.”
For this plenary assembly, the Council's 30 members—including 26 lay people—and another dozen consultants and experts came from all around the world to reflect on the theme “Being Christians on the Threshold of the Third Millennium.” The meeting falls in the year of preparation for the Jubilee consecrated to Jesus Christ by the Pope in the 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near), and to a “rediscovery of baptism as foundation of Christian existence.”
“We are responding to the Holy Father's call to focus upon Christ in this year,” Archbishop Stafford told the Register, “but to focus upon Christ as that mystery of Christ is revealed to us in the foundational sacrament which the Second Vatican Council called the ‘door’ to all the other life of the Church—that is, the mystery of baptism.”
“It is no exaggeration,” says the Pope in his 1988 apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici (The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People), “to say that the entire existence of the lay faithful has as its purpose to lead a person to a knowledge of the radical newness of the Christian life that comes from baptism, the sacrament of faith, so that this knowledge can help that person live the responsibilities which arise from the vocation received from God.”
In the same document, the Pope recalls the admonition of his predecessor, Pope St. Leo the Great: “Acknowledge, O Christian, your dignity!”
“It is a dignity,” John Paul II adds, “which brings demands.… ‘Upon all the lay faithful, then, rests the exalted duty of working to assure that each day the divine plan of salvation is further extended to every person, of every era, in every part of the earth.’”
Repeating his call at the lay assembly, the Pope, himself once a consultant to the curial body, said all Christians must deepen their “consciousness of the gift received in baptism and the responsibilities which are derived from it.”
The Pope highlighted trends that add an urgency to that appeal. Two phenomena that “more than ever” need to be “analyzed attentively,” he said, are the growing number of non-baptized people, even in “regions which for centuries have been of Christian tradition”; and the number of baptized who tend to “forget that they have become, by received grace, ‘new creatures.’”
It is therefore necessary, he said, to “revive the missionary spirit” of the Church in providing programs of “Christian initiation for the numerous youth and adults who are asking for baptism” and to begin a process of “renewal of Christian formation for those who have distanced themselves from the faith they have received.”
The question of education “to the faith and in the faith” is of utmost importance, the Pope said, “in an epoch when the ability to transmit the faith in continuity with tradition seems to have lost its vigor.”
Archbishop Stafford told the Register that “the crisis of our time, which is a very ancient crisis going back centuries, is the break between Sunday and the rest of the week, the break between nature and grace, the break between everyday work and faith. But as some of our members from the East have pointed out, crisis also offers opportunity. The challenge is for us to unfold a theology that makes sense in the life of the everyday layman from Monday through Saturday.”
“It is up to laypeople to help us,” the prelate said. “Is Christ revealed to you, and to your brothers and sisters working in the everyday world…? Does Christ make sense to them? If he doesn't, why doesn't he make sense? And if he does make sense, in what area does he make sense?”
Part of the solution involves identifying people who do “manifest Jesus Christ in their everyday lives,” he said. Following the call of the Vatican II, Pope John Paul has energetically promoted the canonization of lay saints.
“The entire people of God, and the lay faithful in particular, can find at this moment new models for holiness and new witnesses of heroic virtue lived in the ordinary everyday circumstances of human existence,” said the Pope in his landmark document on lay people.
But there are other models as well. “I think that in some ways the pattern or the model of post-modern Catholic laypersons,” Archbishop Stafford told the Register, “would be a person like the [17th-century French] scientist [Blaise] Pascal, who was the father of mathematics, one of the first in understanding the challenge of a non-Copernican world and the loneliness of man in that world. And yet still at bottom he affirmed the God and Father of Jesus Christ as the fire of immense free love. And that was revealed in [Pascal's] everyday life as a mathematician, scientist, and lay theologian.”
Despite evidence of “widespread de-Christianization,” the Pope also indicated “signs of hope.” In the first place, he recalled World Youth Days, especially the most recent one this summer in Paris.
He pointed out the “desire for a more human and true life” and “need for meaning and an ideal” vigorously expressed by youth; sentiments that are “stronger and more vivacious than the nihilistic conformism which seems to invade many spirits.”
The Pope also underlined “the process of affirmation of the true dignity of women,” which “has met the active sympathy of the Church, because the ‘feminine genius’continues to enrich the Christian community and society.”
Lastly, he praised the “admirable commitment of numerous lay people” to various human, social, and charitable activities and who put themselves “at the service of the common good in political, cultural, and economic institutions.”
New lay movements, like World Youth Days and Catholic Action, have sprung up in the Church since the Vatican Council. Archbishop Stafford, who was archbishop of Denver for the World Youth Day there in 1993, said he interpreted this as an answer to Pope John XXIII's prayer that through Vatican II, which he opened, the Church would enjoy a “new Pentecost.”
“I think the manifestation of that is the new ecclesial movements and their various charisms,” said the archbishop.
“The Church, especially the parish and the diocese, has to be more open to the charism of the Spirit,” he told the Register. “Most of these new movements within the Church are basically an out-stocking of the institutional character of the Church and are basically charismatic in their evolution and origin. So we have to help the Western Church, at least, to be open to the charismatic element,” he said.
The Pope has consecrated 1998 in the three-year preparation for the Jubilee to the Holy Spirit. The Laity Council will consequently be taking a closer look next year at the work of the Holy Spirit in lay movements, Archbishop Stafford said.
“The future of our Church,” he told the Register, “is going to be increasingly in need of the insight of the Catholic layperson who is living out, as the Second Vatican Council says, the “secular character” of their Christian vocation. We must listen closely to the unfolding of their experience in the marketplace. It is only by listening to them that we will eventually overcome this chronic, centuries-old division between faith and the everyday life.”
As John Paul II said, “The whole Church is counting on an ever more active commitment on the part of the faithful in every outpost of the world.”
John Norton is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Norton ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Cleveland, School Voucher Proponents Have Proof of Their Promises DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Choice in education philosophy gains support as courts continue examining questions of constitutionality
ONCE AGAIN a large city with a troubled public school system is looking to parental choice through vouchers to help some students attain quality educations. The House of Representatives approved a District of Columbia spending bill Oct. 9 that gives poor children federal subsidies for private school tuition; the bill faces a battle in the Senate and will likely require a compromise. This action comes in the wake of impressive success with voucher programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland.
The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, a pilot in its second year, still faces the question of the constitutionality of its vouchers. The Franklin County Common Pleas Court ruled the Cleveland program constitutional in July, 1996; the decision was reversed in May, 1997, by the 10th District Court of Appeals in Franklin County. The courts decided not to implement the latest decision pending further scrutiny.
While the constitutionality of vouchers continues to be examined in Ohio courts, the number of students whose elementary education is subsidized by vouchers in the second year of Cleveland's program has increased: 1996 saw 53 private schools involved, 34 of which are Catholic. Scholarships were granted to 1,994 children; the parents of 1,073 of them chose Catholic schools. Schools this year opened with 57 of them accepting vouchers and an additional 1,006 students on scholarship.
Paralleling the growth of Cleveland's program, support across the nation for the idea of parental choice also has grown. In a random telephone poll conducted in 1997 by Gallup, 48% of Americans interviewed favored “allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at government expense.” Four years earlier the same question polled in the same fashion garnered just half of the support.
Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), a group known for their progressive stance on public policy, has come out in favor of vouchers. In a statement, the ESA cited the positive results to date in both the Milwaukee and the Cleveland programs as reason to explore the concept as a “matter of justice and equal opportunity.”
Cleveland's voucher program follows specific procedures. Scholarships of $2,250 are granted to students in kindergarten through grade three. There are criteria for residency and financial need; the average income of families currently receiving vouchers is $6,597. Selection is made by lottery of those qualified since desire for the program far exceeds its funding, vouchers are made out to the parents or guardians of the students; parents choose the private school their child will attend. Not all students whose parents place them in Catholic schools are Catholic.
At a hearing held in Cleveland by a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives in September, educators involved in the Cleveland program expressed their strong belief in the effectiveness of that program. Among the many reasons for their faith in the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program given: schools are safe and free from violence and disorder, thus teachers have more teaching time; standardized test scores are rising; classrooms are appropriately disciplined; parents are empowered because of their heightened involvement in a school they chose. Christine Keller, former administrator at one of Cleveland's private schools, said that because parents pay tuition in addition to the voucher, they have a feeling of ownership regarding the school's successes and challenges. She added that there is virtually no bureaucracy; innovations in programs and teaching methods happen in timely fashion.
Those who oppose Cleveland's pilot program cite problems with separation of Church and state, the siphoning of educational dollars away from the public schools, hidden costs for transportation, auxiliary services, and administration. They contend that the increase in academic performance of students in the program is more a function of smaller class sizes and less student diversity than of the program itself.
There are implications for Catholic elementary schools if vouchers clear the courts. Those schools presently doing a good job are likely to fill to capacity. Increase in student numbers brings greater diversity in academic ability and values. If the voucher amount covers the entire cost of educating a pupil, elementary budgets might include more money for teachers' salaries, which are usually far below those of their counterparts in public education, and more money for programs and supplies. Opportunities for the Church to serve the poor will increase. With government money will come some level of regulation.
The convergence of the current crisis in public education with an expansion of voucher programs has the potential to forge a level of cooperation between public and Catholic education unprecedented in the history of both. It will take both systems working effectively to provide a sound education for all God's children.
Edna Dierker is based in Union-town, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edna Dierker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Save the Children DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Following is the text of Archbishop Renato Martino's Oct. 30 presentation before the general assembly of the United Nations in New York on the “Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children.” The archbishop is apostolic nuncio and permanent observer to the United Nations.
Throughout the world, the Catholic Church is one of the major providers of aid and care for children. The Holy See is therefore pleased to be able to participate in this discussion of … the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children.
It is inconceivable that any child would grow up with the dream of becoming a prostitute, a drug addict, or a child soldier. It is just as inconceivable that a child would ever dream of being separated from his or her family, forced to labor in conditions that are harmful or exploitive, being sexually, physically or psychologically abused, or dying as a result of armed conflict. No child would ever hope for such a life, but this is the tragic reality that confronts too many children in the world. For them, life is not a dream but a nightmare. In fact, 650 million of the world's children “are living in conditions of almost unimaginable suffering and want.” An estimated 2 million are involved in prostitution, and over 230 million children throughout the world are working in situations that place them at risk from hazardous and intolerable forms of labor. How many more die each week from malnutrition and disease, from a lack of the basic elements of life such as clean water and sanitation, or from the ravages of drug abuse and life on the street?
Clearly many of the problems facing the world require long-term and difficult solutions. However, it is high time that the problems and difficulties that threaten children be addressed effectively. The international community must demonstrate the resolve not only to seek out the causes of these violations of the rights and dignity of children, but also to bring itself to implement the solutions which we know exist and which will work.
Whenever we confront situations which involve a violation of rights, we are faced with an unjustifiable domination of the strong over the weak, of the “haves” over the “have nots.” It is because children are some of the weakest and most defenseless in our society that they become frequent victims of the abuses of human rights in many forms. For this reason, even before policies to rectify such abuses are considered and proposed, we must first have a clear understanding that children are the bearers of rights precisely because they are human persons. As such they have a claim to our respect and they share fully in human dignity as do all human beings from conception until natural death.
My delegation is convinced that the solutions to abuses against the rights of children must be rooted in the family. That basic unit of society is the natural and primary locus where children develop an understanding of themselves and of the world. It is undeniably clear that where there are strong family ties, the children grow to have greater personal stability, less vulnerability of all kinds, and a more effective enjoyment of the natural rights which are theirs, including the right to life itself and the right to education. Further, it is in the context of the family that children find those who most willingly and effectively afford them protection from the many threats which life can present. For this reason, great care must be taken to assist parents in all circumstances so that they are enabled to exercise their rights, duties, and responsibilities in caring for and rearing their children.
This reality was eloquently captured by Secretary General Kofi Annan in his message issued last May on the Observance of the International Day of Families. He said, “From Bosnia and Herzegovina to Zaire, we have seen how conflicts assault the very foundation of society—families. Whether it is fathers sent off to war never perhaps to return, or mothers left defenseless before advancing armies, or children made orphans by massive dislocations and refugee movements—the ruins of war are the ruins of families.” And he continued, “We must restore the sacredness of the family as a bedrock of humane values everywhere, in peace as well as in war. The future of peace and prosperity that we seek for all the world's people needs a foundation of tolerance, security, equality, and justice. That foundation is the family. It is only by protecting families, from famine as well as from fragmentation, that they can prosper and contribute to the family of nations that is the United Nations.”
The Holy See is convinced that the abuse of the rights of children, including exploitation and neglect of all kinds must be addressed and brought to an end. In the words of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, “There cannot and must not be abandoned children, nor children without families, nor street children. There cannot be and must not be children used by adults for immoral purposes, for drug trafficking, for petty and large crimes, for practicing vices. There cannot be and must not be children in reformatories and correctional institutions where they do not have true upbringing.… [T]here cannot be and must not be children who are assassinated, eliminated under the pretext of crime prevention, marked for death.”
In strengthening and protecting the family and the role of parents, we protect the world's children from many of these threats and evils, and we provide them with a real cause for hope in their future.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Turkish Novelist Faces West DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:In The New Life, Ohran Pamuk addresses the strangeness of writing Western-style novels to explain the non-Western Turks to themselves
“IREAD A book one day and my whole life was changed,” begins The New Life, the postmodern Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk's latest work. “Even on the first page I was so affected by the book's intensity I felt my body sever itself and pull away from the chair where I sat reading the book that lay before me on the table.”
If this awakens echoes of the conversion of St. Augustine—reading the New Testament when a child's voice drifted over his garden wall saying, “Take up and read”—that was intended. Or if the reader remembers Dante's Renaissance account of conversion in La Vita Nuova, that too was intended. Reading and rebirth have been intertwined in Western civilization since the Apostle Paul first wrote to the Thessalonians.
The problem is—as Pamuk well knows—that Turkish culture has never fit comfortably within Western civilization. It did not fit in those late medieval days when the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and made all of Europe tremble. Nor has it fit in more recent times since the young Turk leader Kemal Ataturk, seeking a solution to “the Sick Man of Europe” that was the late Ottoman Empire, imposed in 1923 the radically secularized regime that created modern Turkey and has virtually outlawed any religion ever since.
Even the writing of novels is an essentially European activity, borrowed by other cultures as much as the telephone or the voting booth, and born in Europe from a fundamentally Christian experience of the power of reading a book. With the Koran, Islam has its own written scripture—scripture that recognizes the significance of reading when it identifies Christians and Jews as “People of the Book.” But it was only with the Bible in the West that reading—and by extension, writing— became invested with the kind of spiritual gravity that might lead one to begin “a new life.”
Pamuk is the author of two previous postmodernesque novels, The White Castle and The Black Book. Both of these, upon their translation from Turkish into European languages, led many critics to make extravagant comparisons with such major figures as Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Salman Rushdie. Many even suggested the likelihood of eventual recognition from the Nobel Prize committee that is always on the hunt for major authors from outside the West. But The New Life may be his most telling work, for in it Pamuk at last faces up to the strangeness of his activity of writing Western-style novels to explain the non-Western Turks to themselves.
The narrator of Pamuk's tale is Osman, a 22-year-old Turkish student, whose sudden discovery of an unnamed book tears him away from school into a new life. Searching for the book's meaning, he falls in love with an architectural student, Janan—who, with her lover, Mehmet, has also become a reader of the book. Such readers are in danger, Mehmet warns just before he is apparently shot and disappears together with Janan. Pursuing somehow both his new life and Janan, Osman takes to the road, busing across Turkey, stopping only to take another bus in no particular direction, hoping that buses will lead him to the book's meaning and Janan.
Reading and rebirth have been intertwined in Western civilization since the Apostle Paul first wrote to the Thessalonians.
After he emerges unhurt from a collision, he begins to think bus wrecks may hold the clues he seeks, and it is in fact at a crash site that he finds Janan, who joins him in riding buses across Turkey. And at a third crash site an injured young woman reveals herself as a reader of the book. She asks Osman and Janan to impersonate her and her lover, going to stop a mysterious “Dr. Fine,” the man behind the attacks on readers of the book.
Fine turns out to be an extremely wealthy man whose son, after reading the book, turned against him and subsequently died in yet another bus crash. In revenge Fine has vowed to destroy the book and all its readers. It was one of Fine's agents who shot Mehmet, who is discovered now to have survived. Furthermore, another agent murdered Uncle Rifki, a friend of the narrator's family who is, perhaps, the author of the book.
Leaving Janan behind to rest, Osman sets out to find Mehmet—and discovers him alive and well, living contentedly in a small village under the narrator's own name. In fury at his refusal to come back to Janan, Osman shoots down this impostor and returns to Fine, only to find that Janan has disappeared yet again. Finally stripped of hope, he turns his tired steps back home to school and his mother. Janan, he learns years later, lives in Germany with a doctor who read the book but somehow managed not to suffer from it. Now 35, Osman is left with a quiet, injured, and empty life.
The novel might have ended here, a strange little story about love and the illusions of youth, significant mostly for its close observations of rural Turkish life. But in its final pages, Pamuk puts his novel through a weird kaleidoscope of postmodernesque changes as we discover the impossible fact that the book we have just been reading is itself the book that changed Osman's life, and Pamuk the author is also Osman the participant—somehow magically both inside and outside the novel.
Such postmodern inversions are not to every-one's taste, and they in many ways damage The New Life. But if the reader considers the strangeness of the activity at which Pamuk spends his life—forcing a Western-style novel to explain a non-Western country that has for nearly 75 years forced an exaggerated Western-style secularism on its unwilling and primarily Islamic people—then these postmodern posturing of the author, as both inside and outside his work, emerge as the most profound aspects of the book. For the Catholic reader, they are even more important, revealing what Pamuk himself must recognize: that the very significance of a book—any book—derives ultimately from the experience of conversion-by-reading promised in that one book on which the entire West is founded.
J. Bottum, associate editor of the journal First Things, is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. Bottum ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Case for Rejecting 'Pizza Love' DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:IN HER second book, Real Love: The Ultimate Dating, Marriage & Sex Question Book, Mary Beth Bonacci answers questions on chastity, marriage, and the real meaning of sex. Her humorous style and easy-going manner combined with solid quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church make for an effective presentation.
The author can't say enough good about chastity. To her, it holds the answer to the real meaning of sexual relations. Chastity is not mere abstinence, though. Abstinence means a person will not engage in sex, putting the entire burden on him or her. Chastity is a philosophy for life, which holds that sex is a language best spoken in the bond and bed of marriage. Unlike abstinence, chastity is made possible through prayer and help from God.
The author distinguishes real love from “pizza love.” Pizza love demands instant gratification—as in I want my sex now, period. Whereas chastity looks at what is best for both people in their lives. She also points out that sex isn't love in of itself and makes it clear that having sex won't make someone fall in love.
The format of the book is a compilation of questions answered, and there are many questions concerning feelings of regret over sexual licentiousness. Chastity doesn't depend on virginity, she contends, assuring her readers that Christ forgives all who seek his forgiveness. Accept the forgiveness he offers and move on, she wisely advises. She goes on to say that once chastity is accepted, the virtue grows with practice. Bonacci also makes it clear that chastity does not minimize the natural language of sex that God gave us—it just puts that language in its proper setting.
Real Love covers most aspects of human sexuality, tackling such issues as homosexuality, abortion, infidelity, and living together before marriage. The author also explodes the so-called safe sex myth with facts and humor. For instance, when asked, “Why do you think that wearing a condom is a bad thing?,” she responds, “I don't think wearing a condom is a bad thing. Go ahead—wear a condom if you'd like. Wear two or three. Just don't engage in sex.” She also includes a sexual disease index that lists the symptoms of many sexually transmitted diseases.
As a speaker specializing in youth issues, Bonacci encounters a lot of thoughtful questions from teenagers. So much so that she devotes an entire chapter to teen specific issues. But the book is useful for anyone interested in a sound take on everything from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases to dealing with hardened and hurt hearts from spoiled relationships. Real Love reinforces the Church's view of sexuality and what it means to share the gift of sexuality in a loving marriage.
Raul Acosta is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raulacosta ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:‘Green’ Catholics
I would like to make some comments in reference to your article titled “Despite Growing Environmental Threats, ‘Green’ Catholics Remain Few in Number” (Nov. 2-8). This article measures the activism of Catholics against the “environmental justice” movement only. I find this to be a poor measure of what Catholics are doing in this area.
I am an environmental engineer with a multinational company. I can think of many in San Diego who are also environmental engineers with major corporations that are also Catholic. We work for these companies, and in our work we bring our beliefs and convictions. We sponsor programs in our companies that directly affect the environment. We educate the employees by announcements and training programs through these companies. We have been CCD teachers together and have answered questions from our students. We work with the city, state, and federal governments by providing comments and testimony on legislation.
For example, I spent more than a year on the San Diego mayor's committee for strategic water supply. Some of us have been to other countries on environmental programs. In this category, I was on the Citizens Ambassador Program to Russia, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine in 1993, the first group from this program to go to these countries.
Environmental justice is only one aspect of stew-ardship of the earth. We must start to focus on sustainability of our resources—air, water, and materials—and on sustainability of our economy, employment, culture, and freedom.
Anne Bamford
‘Always Our Children’
With one exception, I think Father Harvey's critique of the bishop's statement on homosexuality (“‘Always Our Children’: A Critique,” Oct. 19-25) clearly carries the day. The one exception would be the question of the orientation itself. I don't think the bishops can be faulted for coming down on the innate or given side with regard to homosexuality. Without clear scientific evidence showing the possibility of orientation change, which does not exist, the logical presumption is that the homosexual condition is something innate.
On every other point and most especially with regard to chastity, Father Harvey is right on. I am especially upset with the bishops'reference to the objective mortal sin of the young in this predicament as “experimentation.” What could pierce the heart of our Savior more than impurity among the young? Nothing!
It is also necessary for the bishops to make clear that there is only one type of sexuality in God's created design and that is heterosexuality. The fact that God allows homosexuality to exist has to do with his permissive will and to the reality of the effects of Original Sin.
Does this mean that the homosexual person is someone less valued in God's eyes? Of course not! Although God does deny to the person with an unchangeable homosexual condition the possibility of sexual love between man and woman in marriage, they are not denied the greatest love of all. A homosexual person who picks up his or her cross and embraces celibacy will experience the love of God a hundredfold.
What other cross can be so completely turned around?
Paul Trouve Montague, New Jersey
Rating USCC Ratings
We would both like to commend you for the excellence and quality both in content and layout of the Register, our favorite newspaper. We have only one complaint, namely your regular printing of “Film Clips” by the U.S. Catholic Conference Office for Film and Broadcasting.
In your Oct. 26-Nov. 1 edition, the USCC office remarks that several of the movies therein rated contain scenes with “brief” or “some” nudity, “numerous sexual situations,” “comic treatment of adultery,” “many perverse sexual references,” and “implied sexual encounters.” The USCC rates all these films as either A-III—adults or A-IV—adults, with reservations.
The Office claims that A-IV rated films are “problematic,” but not “morally offensive in themselves.” This is an insult to our Catholic sensitivities and also to our plain common sense. Our Lord, who warned that even deliberate lustful thoughts are gravely sinful, would surely consider “comic treatment of adultery” as an offense against God.
If only the USCC would have the moral courage to rate such films as 0—morally offensive, maybe today's Catholic youth and young adults would not be so confused in moral matters. But apparently the USCC office itself is confused morally. And to a certain extent we as future Catholic parents feel the failure of the USCC in this matter contributes to the general decline of morality in the Church and in contemporary secular society.
We are not prudish, we are two young university students ages 22 and 32, who enjoy good movies, the theater, and even a lot of modern music. We appreciate tasteful and respectful nudity even in religious art—such as one sees in the Vatican—but “perverse sexual references” and “comic treatment of adultery” are clearly offensive to us.
Two questions we would pose to the USCC office: Would you invite our Lord to watch a film with you that intended the audience to laugh at adultery? What do you believe our Lord would think about such a movie?
Samuel and Melissa Sinner
Lincoln, Nebraska
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Partial-Birth Abortion Debate: ADisturbing Look Behind the Scenes DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:The struggle to ban partial-birth abortions has gone on much longer than it should. So many people have read about so many rounds of congressional voting and presidential action that it's no surprise they're asking: What more do we need to do to pass this bill? And when?
These are good and timely questions as we near the end of the 105th Congress. At the moment, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has passed both House and Senate. In the House, it passed by more than the two-thirds majority necessary to override a presidential veto. The Senate passed it by 64 to 36 votes, three short of the number required to override a veto. The president vetoed the bill Oct. 10, and override votes in the House and Senate will take place likely in 1998.
To understand what's really at stake in the upcoming House and Senate votes, and how to approach them, a little background on the state-of-play is quite useful. It is not, by and large, a pretty story.
Beginning in 1995, one specter haunted the pro-life movement's efforts: Five women who claimed that, but for their partial-birth abortions, they would have either died, or been unable to bear any future children. President Clinton used these women's stories to great effect at a veto ceremony and any time he felt the need to justify his opposition to the ban.
However, hundreds of ob-gyns and specialists in high risk pregnancies came forward to declare that the women's medical scenarios made no sense. None of the conditions they cited, or any other fetal or maternal condition one could name, require a doctor to kill the child in order to remove him or her from the mother, let alone kill them in the gruesome manner of a partial-birth abortion. The doctors even formed a group: The Physicians' Ad hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT). Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop echoed them. But the president wouldn't budge.
The AMA said partial-birth abortion was ‘not good medicine.’
Fast forward to 1997. The PHACT doctors were pressing their case with other doctors and with the American Medical Association (AMA). The latter is officially pro-legal abortion. After suggesting a few clarifying changes in the bill, the AMA endorsed the ban on partial-birth abortions. They said the procedure was “not good medicine” and that they were unable to find any situation in which this procedure would be the “only appropriate alternative.”
Reason triumphed, but only for a moment. In the second round of voting to pass the bill, the Senate fell three short of the votes needed to override a promised presidential veto—and, as promised, the president vetoed it for a second time.
It was a veto with a difference, though. In the inimitable words of The New York Times: “President Clinton waited until a time when few people were watching— late on a recent Friday, at the start of the holiest Jewish holiday—to veto [this] legislation” (Oct. 21).
Skipping over the ugly fact that President Clinton's written veto came immediately after his written commemoration of National Children's Day—another aspect of his veto message stands out. Subtly but surely, the president was sliding off the medical argument into a legal one.
He now claims that Roe v. Wade requires every abortion law to have a “health” of the mother exception, and the partial-birth bill does not. This, of course, ignores that the Supreme Court, in Roe, explicitly did not consider the constitutionality of the Texas law prohibiting killing a child in the process of delivery. That law is still on the Texas books today.
The president's reliance on Roe signals a major sea change in pro-abortion argumentation. Since the AMA's decision to endorse the ban, the women claiming a health necessity for the partial-birth procedure have disappeared from the public relations materials of the major pro-abortion groups. They are no longer found in the company of the Planned Parenthood lobbyist going door to door in Senate office buildings. It is a change that the media has little noticed, though they previously covered these women's stories to the advantage of the pro-abortion position.
In one of the recently released White House tapes, President Clinton makes his case for preserving partial-birth abortion by portraying the entire matter as a cynical political affair cooked up by Republicans to do what they're “very good at, which is to try to find ways to divide the American people.”
The president goes on to misstate the reasons for which partial-birth abortions are performed, by his account, 13,000 times a year on hydrocephalic children. He also portrays Catholics as led by the nose and internally divided on this matter. After all, he claims, three of the women at his veto ceremony were pro-life and Catholic. (Two of the women actually claimed this.)
Finally, he “reasons” that the whole matter must be politically timed since no one had thought about “these kids” during the prior 23 years of legal abortion. (The invention of the partial-birth procedure was publicized beginning in 1992; a bill to ban it was introduced in 1993).
In short, it's not likely that this debate will grow any more pleasant. But if each one of us is willing to put on our tall boots and walk a little further in the mud, and to write just one more letter to our senators, final success is only three votes away.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information in the office of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Awash in the Toxic Sea of Celebrity DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:An examination of society's obsession with celebrity reveals hidden opportunities to further the Church's timeless Gospel of Life
Every culture must choose its cult. As nature abhors a vacuum, so too a culture will not tolerate emptiness at its core. Cult, taken from the Latin cultus, means a system of worship, often religious, or the honoring of persons or institutions. Every culture has at its center a cult that animates its arts, education, entertainment, journalism, and even its philosophy.
Christians take culture seriously. “All human activity takes places within a culture and interacts with culture,” writes Pope John Paul II. “At the heart of every culture lies the attitude man takes to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God” (Centesimus Annus 51,24).
Christians have an obligation to evangelize every culture, to reaffirm in it what is good and to root out what is not. The task of fulfilling the divine mandate of preaching the gospel to all nations—i.e., all cultures—requires Christians to know what the reigning cults of a particular culture are, and how those cults reflect the answer those peoples have given to the mystery of God. The task of re-evangelizing the culture in North America requires that diagnosis to begin at home.
Our Celebrity Culture
This task is particularly difficult today as one particular cult has taken hold of our public life. The cult of celebrity is not the only cult in our culture, but it is a powerful one that makes the gospel more difficult to hear. Our celebrity culture is the enemy of serious thought and enduring truths. It reduces to objects the people it celebrates, and exalts glamour and image over substance. In its promotion of a consumer mentality, it is not unrelated to the culture of death.
A recent story, superficially about religion, reflects that our contemporary popular culture prefers to worship at the altar of celebrity. Brad Pitt stars in the current film Seven Years in Tibet. He did not spend even seven months there, and he is not an expert on Tibetan politics or history. Yet he is often asked to comment upon the China-Tibet issue. “Why ask me? I am just an actor,” he responds.
Brad Pitt's common sense notwithstanding, Time magazine—not always a reliable source of news but an unerring barometer of the fashions of the day—devoted a cover story to the movie, Tibet, and the “rise” of Buddhism in America. Time reports that Buddhism counts among its American converts Tina Turner (a pop singer), Steven Seagal (an actor), Richard Gere (another actor), and Phil Jackson (coach of the Chicago Bulls basketball team).
Were these four chosen because of their philosophical or theological insights, which might shed light on the truths found in Buddhism? Of course not. Time was quite straightforward about why these were found worthy of note: they are celebrities. When religious news is presented according to the standards of celebrity, it is an indication that the celebrity cult is harming our critical judgment.
Time is only a junior player in the celebrity industry; its sister publication, People magazine, sells millions of copies covering celebrities always, everywhere, and exhaustively. The parade of celebrities on television talk shows begins at sunrise and does not end until well after sunset. The desire for celebrities—to see them, to hear them, to touch them—drives a vast news and entertainment culture of which the supermarket tabloids are only a small part. Celebrity biographies and autobiographies about even the most inconsequential figures fill the bookstores. An ever-increasing number of television “news” programs are devoted to the kind of gossip about the rich and famous formerly reserved to pool halls and beauty parlors.
The cult of celebrity treats its celebrated ones not as true heroes but as objects. Heroes are proposed for admiration and emulation. Celebrities are objects offered for our consumption. Respectable magazines would just as soon put Madonna on the cover as the Blessed Virgin Mary. It matters not whether the subject is worthy or unworthy; it is required only that she be famous.
Indeed, it is not a human subject that is being portrayed at all, but an object to be used. It is an injustice to them, but it also damages us, whether as passive participants or even as willing consumers. The cult of celebrity makes us complicit in the reducing of real men and women to objects of amusement. It is very difficult to look upon the celebrities splashed across the checkout-stand news-racks and not think of them as just another thing to be tossed into the shopping cart. Christians who know that it is wrong to treat a person as a mere object—which gives rise to lust in sexual matters and exploitation in economics—face a constant source of temptation in the cultural air we breathe. The culture of celebrity is hostile to Christian virtue.
The late Diana, Princess of Wales, was the queen of the celebrity culture because she was the prettiest object of them all. She was hailed for bringing glamour into a royal family more often thought of as dowdy, stuffy, and rigid. Yet glamour does not coexist easily with the virtues that undergird a monarchy, or any long-standing social institution: stability, discretion, loyalty, and farsightedness. The designs of Providence are inscrutable, but there was a lesson in the image of the 97-year-old Queen Mother coming to mourn the princess 60 years her junior. The celebrity culture still produces posters of James Dean, but it was Jimmy Stewart who lived more than his three score and 10.
Enduring Truth vs. Novelty
Glamour is evanescent and so the appetite for it is insatiable. The resulting hunger is hostile to enduring institutions and truths. The purpose of a family and a Church is not to tantalize with something new, but to reassure with what is always valid. By definition, what families and the Church do cannot be glamorous. A teenager may learn how to dress or speak from his celebrity idols, but the glamorous set will not teach him to be home before curfew or to get up early to go to Mass. The celebrity culture can create an image, but it cannot build character.
Education in enduring truth cannot compete in a culture where the standard of evaluation is novelty. General Motors ran an advertising campaign aimed at young people a few years back with the tag line, “This is not your father's Oldsmobile.” Fair enough; our fathers' cars are inconsequential. The faith of our fathers is not.
In a culture where there is nothing worse than being yesterday's news, Christianity is hard-pressed to compete with the newest idea. To paraphrase Chesterton, most new ideas are just old errors tarted up. Costumes are always alluring, and the frivolity, superficiality, and constant distractions of the celebrity culture ensure that we do not look too closely at the error's new clothes.
The triumph of image over substance in our culture suffocates serious thought and shortens our collective attention span. The license the celebrity culture gives any famous person to hold forth on any topic whatsoever requires of us a willingness to suspend our critical judgment. Elizabeth Taylor, the poster girl for polyandry, becomes a spokeswoman for AIDS, a disease almost wholly preventable by monogamous sexual behavior. To live with such grotesquerie requires us to suspend our reason and to refrain from speaking the truth.
The surest sign that the cult of celebrity prefers to avoid reality is its near total neglect of God. He who is most real is neglected in the pursuit of objects and images that are only pale reflections and imitations. The celebrity culture wallows in every kind of sin, scandal, and crime, but is oblivious to any concept of right and wrong. The ability of so many of our cultural grandees to speak continuously of suffering, tragedy, grief, and death, with nary a mention of God, indicates a culture in full flight from reality.
Celebrity and Death
There is a strange symbiosis between the cult of celebrity and the culture of death. To treat a person as an object for use or consumption is a hallmark of the culture of death. The cult of celebrity consumes its own, and yet it cannot bear death. The death of one its standard-bearers sends it into a frenzy of confusion and denial as it is deprived of its objects of worship.
The celebrity culture fancies itself as celebrating vitality, so it can only deal with death by transforming it into something that it is not, i.e., a celebration of life. And so we hear about “legacies” and “living on” and “lessons to be learned.” Many a contemporary funeral is indistinguishable from a testimonial dinner, except that the recipient of the lifetime achievement award arrives in a box. The culture of celebrity can deliver a fine eulogy, but is inclined to forget the death.
Our culture fools itself about death because death is the great leveler that lays waste to celebrity and tabloid-reader alike, exposing the folly of living vicariously through the exalted. It is high irony that so many want to live through those who so often die young. Elton John sang a song about one beautiful young blonde who lived in the fast lane and met a violent death, and was able to re-use it for another before his copyright expired. Tragic death becomes a hit song, and the cult forgets the former and revels in the latter.
But a culture that cannot face the reality of death is unable to understand the purpose of life. It is salutary for Christians to remind the celebrity culture—and ourselves, who are not immune to its seduction—that neither riches nor fame nor beauty nor youth can delay the most important moment in life: the day of judgment. Sic transit gloria mundi.
The Gospel of Life's Appeal
The great orgy of coverage occasioned by celebrity deaths is perhaps an opportunity for evangelism. Faced with the great mystery of death, it is opportune for Christians to speak of the mystery of God. There can be no better time to proclaim the gospel of life than to the grieving who require reassurance that the loss of life is worth grieving over. The cult of celebrity has nothing to say about death, so it ignores it. At the heart of the Christian story is defeat of death and the triumph of life, and that has not only been known, but lived by Christians for two millennia.
Against the cults of our day, the Church proposes to Christians the cult of the saints. The liturgy never ceases to point to the “celebrities” of the Christian world: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, holy men and women of all kinds. In the early period of Christianity evangelists often appealed to ancestor-worshipping pagans to channel this aspiration into proper veneration of the saints. It was a powerful example of faith illuminating culture, replacing the old corrupt cult with the new. Saints are famous to be sure, but the saints point beyond themselves to what is true and real and permanent. Celebrities obscure all that by standing in front of it all, and pointing to nothing other than themselves.
The Church finds in every culture the semina Verbi, the seeds of the Word. The celebrity culture is so toxic that those seeds find little room to grow, and yet there remains the fundamentally good desire to celebrate those who are worthy of being celebrated. It is a noble Christian service to point out those who are truly worthy, and those who are not.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Hippocratic Oath: Legacy of the Pro-life Patriarch DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:One of the giants of the pro-life movement, Dr. Joseph Stanton of Boston, Mass., died recently. He was a graduate of Yale Medical School, a fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a clinical professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He and his wife Mary had 11 children. Those who knew Dr. Stanton often referred to him as “the patriarch of the pro-life movement.”
Even before the infamous 1973 Supreme Court rulings that struck down all the anti-abortion laws in the states throughout our country, Dr. Stanton saw, and shuddered at, the prospect of physician healers being transformed into killers through growing societal pressures. He was a physician who was shaken to the very core of his professional being at the thought of fellow members of his healing profession advocating the killing of the helpless unborn and the violation of the moral and physical integrity of women in distress. It was incomprehensible to him that those trained in the healing arts would use the skills that they had gained to kill.
In 1970 “Dr. Joe” established the “Value of Life Committee” and for almost 30 years used his medical knowledge and his remarkably eloquent rhetorical skills to defend the defenseless.
I could not possibly add anything of significance to the magnificent tributes that have already been paid to this man. Even while he lived he was honored by presidents, congressmen, prelates, and, most significantly for him, the “common folk” who struggled alongside him in the pro-life trenches. I was privileged to know him personally for only one year, the last of his earthly life. He had long been a cherished friend of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care, a national Catholic bioethics center based in Boston. He was an indefatigable collaborator in its work, regularly sending in articles and clippings that the Center's ethicists found invaluable in their work. As soon as I met him I was enlisted in his army. No questions asked—just put to work!
The doctor spoke often of how sick at heart he was over the moral corruption of much of the medical profession that had occurred in our century. Without a moral compass there is no medical profession, there are only those skilled in the techniques of the curative or the killing arts.
As a young man graduating from Yale Medical School he would have recited the Hippocratic Oath, swearing that he would “give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel, and in like manner … not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.”
Dr. Stanton became convinced that the return of the Hippocratic Oath would be critical to save the medical profession from growing moral corruption. In a great collaborative effort he updated the oath and had its text copyrighted by the Value of Life Committee. It appeared formally in 1995, the same week as the Pope's monumental encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).
Dr. Stanton and his collaborators drew profound encouragement for their project from the Pope's words: “[Life's] deepest inspiration and strongest support lie in the intrinsic and undeniable ethical dimension of the health-care profession, something already recognized by the still relevant Hippocratic Oath, which requires every doctor to commit himself to absolute respect for human life and its sacredness. (EV 89).
Shortly before his death Dr. Stanton transferred to the Pope John Center the copyright to the Restatement of the Hippocratic Oath. He also commissioned a Benedictine monk to render the oath in beautiful handwritten calligraphy.
In September a conference against physician-assisted suicide was held in Portland, Oregon that had been organized and co-sponsored by the Pope John Center, the archdiocese, and the University of Portland. The prolifers in Oregon were struggling mightily to bring about a repeal of the referendum that had legalized physician-assisted suicide, and to do so before it could go into effect. I was also going to be addressing the Catholic Physicians Guild in Portland, and took copies of the Oath to help in the effort against physician-assisted suicide by appealing to a 2,400-year-old medical tradition against killing.
We rejoice in the witness and deeds of such a pro-life warrior as Dr. Joseph Stanton and derive comfort and encouragement knowing that he continues his tireless efforts on behalf of the unborn, the dying, the weak and the vulnerable, now through his all-the-more-efficacious prayers before his Father's throne in heaven. Requiescat in pace.
John Haas is president of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care in Boston, Mass.
Copies of the Restatement of the Hippocratic Oath, suitable for framing, may be purchased through the Pope John Center, 159 Washington St., Boston, MA 02135; 617-787-1900
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'What I Saw that Day Shouldn't Be Allowed in this Country' DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Why ob-gyn nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer changed her mind about ‘a woman's right to choose’
Brenda Pratt Shafer stood in the delivery room as her first grandchild was born last summer, overcome with joy.
But at the baby's birth, “it all came flooding back,” she says of the haunting three days in September 1993 when she assisted at Dr. Martin Haskell's Dayton, Ohio, abortion clinic.
Pratt Shafer, 40, coos lovingly at her granddaughter, then says that “whenever the baby startles, it's that same move-ment”—arms outstretched, tiny fists and toes clenching and unclenching, the movement Pratt Shafer saw the babies make as Haskell plunged scissors into each of their skulls before their brains were extracted, so their collapsed head could be delivered through the birth canal.
She once asked a doctor if he could hypnotize her to make these horrific images disappear.
Haskell and the now-deceased Dr. James Mc-Mann pioneered the notorious procedure known as partial-birth abortion, a procedure Pratt Shafer became alltoo-familiar with. “I watched the abortions,” she says, “because he wanted me to help. He was having trouble keeping nurses.”
When the nursing agency where Pratt Shafer was registered asked her to take the job at Haskell's clinic, she was looking forward to the assignment. She agreed to work there for three days before leaving to get married. If things worked out, she thought, she would return to work there after her honeymoon.
Although she'd never seen an abortion, she “bought into all the lies about how a woman has a right to choose.”
As a single mom raising a son and two daughters, she had always told her girls if they became pregnant, she would make them get an abortion—until she worked at the abortion clinic.
“During that first day, I started seeing things,” she says, “and I thought something's not right here. I was getting mad at the women. I was supposed to be comforting them, but their attitudes—they were laughing and joking, like they were just having a fingernail clipped. Then others were very, very depressed and cried the whole time.”
“I really wanted to grab one of the little feet and say, ‘Look what you just did.’ The biggest lie that I thought myself was the babies were dead (before being aborted). I look back now and think, what would have killed them?”
She recognized the truth her second day on the job. “[Haskell] used the ultrasound during a dilation and extraction (abortion),” she says, explaining that abortion-ists use the sonogram to make certain they only pull out the baby and “not a piece of the uterus.”
Pratt Shafer saw what she thought was the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor. Stunned, she asked Haskell what she was seeing.
“He says, ‘Oh, that's the heartbeat,’” she says, adding, “You could see the baby move around while he ripped off her leg.”
The third day, she witnessed three partial-birth abortions (see sidebar).
After that, Pratt Shafer never returned to the clinic.
“When you look life and death right in the face like that, it does something to you,” she says. “I loved being an ob-gyn nurse, but to see that little baby brought out and murdered before my eyes was too much.”
Shortly thereafter, Pratt Shafer's younger daughter, now 18, and her stepdaughter, now 17, were doing a report on abortion for a school project, so Pratt Shafer stopped by the local crisis pregnancy center to get some pictures for them.
While there, she mentioned that she had worked with Haskell, and the counselors told her there was a bill in congress to outlaw the partial-birth abortion procedure she'd witnessed. With her permission, they passed her name and number to Douglas Johnson at the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, D.C.
“He asked me to come to D.C. to give some interviews, talk to senators,” says Pratt Shafer, who'd never even voted in her life. “Doug told me I was putting myself into the line of fire and to think long and hard about it.”
So she and her husband, who attend the Church of Christ in Centerville, Ohio, talked and prayed.
She knew what she had to do. She went to Washington. And she kept returning, 20 times that first year.
“I was devoted to it,” she says, not realizing what a commitment it would entail.
Initially, former Congresswoman Patricia Shroeder (D-Colo.) and her associates strove to discredit Pratt Shafer, saying she'd never worked for Haskell. Then, they said Pratt Shafer had misrepresented what she saw.
“Alot of people out there say I didn't see what I saw,” Pratt Shafer responds. “Believe me, I saw it and I've had a lot of nightmares. This is one way of healing, of trying to get over this, and teach people the truth about what really does go on. I wish I hadn't seen what I saw, in a way, because it was very terrifying. What I saw that day shouldn't be allowed in this country.”
Pratt Shafer began speaking all over the country, taking extensive time off her job as a home health nurse. Eventually, with bankruptcy looming, she and her husband realized she would have to start charging for her appearances.
She remains in great demand as the battle over partial-birth abortion heats up once again.
Oct. 8, Congress sent Clinton a bill that would make it a crime for doctors to perform the late-term abortion. Two days later, Clinton, as promised, vetoed the bill, which had passed the House with more than the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.
Twice the Senate has passed the bill, most recently on May 20 of this year, when three more votes were needed to override the veto. The bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.), does not expect a vote to override the veto until 1998.
Pratt Shafer urges people to write their senators, thanking the ones who voted to ban the procedure and urging the others to override Clinton's veto.
“I've met almost every single senator and congressman,” she says, “and they say people never thank them for [voting for the ban]. That's important to keep their votes, because they could change their minds.”
She points out that Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York initially voted to keep the procedure, but later changed their vote “because of the pressure people put on them.”
She also asks people to tell others about partial-birth abortion, “because one person can make a difference,” she says.
Spreading the awful truth about partial-birth abortion has not been easy. “Since committing to do this, it's been a spiritual warfare,” she says. In addition to a death threat and verbal attacks, she has faced the tragedy of her brother's suicide, which came the same day she learned her oldest daughter was pregnant. The young woman has since married and given birth to Pratt Shafer's first grandchild, but the experience, she says, showed her that God has a sense of humor.
“People always threw it in my face that I didn't know what I'd do if one of my daughters was pregnant,” she says. “The devil tries to knock me down, I get up, dust the seat of my pants off, and I get [going].”
God, she says, is protecting her. “My kids have told me that if something happens to me, they'll pick up the cross and carry it for me—and they would.”
To order a videotape of Pratt Shafer's story, Inches From Life, call 1-800-296-2336.
Tracy Moran is based in San Diego, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tracy Moran ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Account of a Tragedy DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Following are excerpts of Brenda Pratt Shafer's presentation to National Right to Life Committee's NRLC '96. Before witnessing three “partial-birth” abortions while working at a Dayton, Ohio, abortion facility, Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse, considered herself “pro-choice.” She is now an outspoken pro-life crusader.
Editor's note: The testimony below contains graphic descriptions of the partial-birth abortion procedure.
… This one particular lady didn't want the abortion. She had this Down syndrome baby; she was unmarried; her boyfriend didn't want the baby, and her parents didn't want the baby. She cried the whole [time] she was in there. So we did her first to get her over with. We brought her in, prepped her, started an [intravenous] of Valium to calm her down. We did not use a general anesthesia and knock her out.… We brought the ultrasound machine in and hooked it up to her stomach.…
I could see the baby. I could see the heartbeat. And the doctor wanted me to stand right beside him, because he wanted me to see everything there was about partial-birth abortion. So, I stood there. He went in guided by ultrasound. He took a pair of forceps and went in and turned the baby because it wasn't in this position at the time. He found a foot and he pulled the baby's foot down through the birth canal, bringing it down, and grabbed another foot and literally started pulling the baby out—breech position—feet first. And he kept pulling it down and I'm seeing this baby come, pulled out of the mommy, his butt, his chest, and then he delivered both these arms. And the lady's in stirrups, just like you have a baby or just like you're having an ob-gyn examination. And the baby, the only thing that was supporting the baby was the doctor was holding it in his two fingers, holding the neck in to where the head was just inside the mommy.
And the baby was kicking his feet, hanging there, moving his little fingers and his little arms. I couldn't believe—I don't know what I thought killed it (before the abortion procedure) in those three days, but he was moving, and I kept watching that baby move. And I kept thinking to myself, this isn't happening and I thought I was going to pass out. And I kept telling myself I'm a professional, I can handle this, you know, this is right, this is supposed to be, and I'm supposed to be able to handle this, I'm a nurse. He then took a pair of scissors and jammed them in the back of the baby's head. And the baby jerked out, like a static reflex, like a baby does if you throw him up a little bit and they jump. And then the baby was real rigid. He then opened up the scissors to make a hole. He took a high-powered suction machine with a catheter and stuck it in that hole and suctioned the baby's brains out. And the baby went completely limp.
And I have seen that in my mind a thousand or more times, of that baby, watching the life just drain out of it. And like I said before, I've seen babies die in my hands. I've had people die in my hands. But it wasn't anything like seeing that vision of watching it. And I almost threw up all over the floor. I was literally just breathing and saying “don't throw up, don't throw up, you're gonna be embarrassed if you do this.” So I tried not to.
He pulled the head out, he cut the umbilical cord and threw it in a pan, and delivered the placenta and threw it in the same pan, he covered it up and took it out. Well, this mommy wanted to see her baby. And the doctor told us ahead of time, he said, “Try to discourage her from seeing the baby.” He doesn't like that. But she had the right to see it. So they cleaned it up, and we cleaned her up, and we walked her out of the operating room, and took her to a room and handed her baby.
… She held that baby in her arms and she screamed and prayed to God … to forgive her, and for that baby to forgive her, and she held it and rocked it, and told him that she loved him. And I looked in that baby's face, and he had the most perfect, angelic face I've ever seen, and I just kept thinking he's an angel now, he's in heaven. And I couldn't take it. In all the years I've been a nurse, I lost it. And I pardoned myself and excused myself and I ran to the bathroom and I cried and I prayed.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Season of Celebration DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:THERE IS SOMETHING irresistible about Christmas. It is a holiday that unites and celebrates disparate cultures in a unique way. The birth of Christ brings an epiphany, we are all united as the children of God. This year, the Register previews many of the cultural events taking place around the country, on stage and on television, to mark this special season of joy. (Be sure to check specific program information against local listings.)
The Nutcracker
It is called “America's favorite Christmas fantasy.” Indeed, there is no more popular holiday performance than The Nutcracker. To the great George Balanchine this “is a ballet about Christmas … for children and for adults who are children at heart.”
The story is taken from the classic E.T.A. Hoffman tale in which the young Marie Stahlbaum is given a nutcracker doll on Christmas eve by her mysterious godfather, Herr Drosselmeier. That night, Marie finds herself in a strange world governed by Drosselmeier. As toys, furniture, and the Christmas tree mysteriously grow, mice creep out of the shadows to haunt her.
At Marie's bidding, the nutcracker, who has been transformed into a live soldier, battles the mice and conquers the Mouse King, a creature with seven heads.
After Marie helps the nutcracker defeat the mice, she faints and the nutcracker takes her to a snowy forest. Marie and the prince, guided by a brilliant star, are brought to the Land of Sweets, where an enchanting spectacle awaits them.
Certainly there is a great mythical dimension to The Nutcracker. Indeed some find biblical allusions as well. For Balanchine it is a “serious thing wrapped in a fairy tale.”
The work was the result of a collaboration between Maries Petipa, the French-born choreographer and architect of Russian ballet, and the great composer Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky.
It was originally presented by the Russian Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Incredibly that Dec. 17, 1892 performance was panned by critics, but young George Balanchine, who was cast as the Nutcracker Prince at 15, thought differently. To Balanchine, The Nutcracker was Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.
Many years later, when Balanchine had become known as the world's master of classical ballet, The Nutcracker was the first full-length work he choreographed for the New York City Ballet.
The Nutcracker premiered in New York Feb. 2, 1954 as the most lavish production ever staged by the Ballet. The production became even more elaborate in 1964, when the company moved to its grander and more technically-sophisticated quarters at the new Lincoln Center.
Some of the production's statistics are staggering. The famed Christmas tree weighs more than one-ton and grows from a height of 12 feet to 40 feet. It requires dozens of bushels of paper-confetti to create the on-stage snow storm. From the host of incredible costumes, the most elaborate is Mother Ginger's, which is nine feet wide, weighs almost 85 pounds and requires three handlers to lower it by a pulley over the dancer's head. The grand finale uses more light than any other New York City Ballet production to date, close to a quarter-million watts.
In the early days, the New York City Ballet went on tour to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Today more than 200 communities across the country are performing their own production of The Nutcracker each season.
Handel's Messiah
Certainly there is no grander Choral music for Christmas than George Frideric Handel's Messiah. After hearing this baroque oratorio, you may find it impossible to read a verse like Isaiah 9, 6 and not be swept up by Handel's melodic exuberance: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Handel composed the entire score in an inspired frenzy, completing it in just a few weeks. Yet, despite its venerable age and hasty composition, it possesses a timeless and unparalleled power.
The Messiah made its premiere in Dublin in 1724. Yet various arias went through constant transformations as Handel sought to accommodate them to the talents of available singers. By 1750 The Messiah became an annual feature on the London musical scene. Today we have Martin Josman of the National Choral Council to thank for helping to popularize The Messiah sing-ins.
The Germanic Handel picked up the Romanesque style oratorio during his years in Italy. He brought the form to its zenith with The Messiah and gave the oratorio cachet for all of Europe.
The baroque style was often identified with the Catholic counter-reformation and was soon to be criticized by the more puritanical segments as “distorted by a profusion of unnatural ornamentation.”
Yet the Protestant aristocracy loved it. In fact, King George I of England became Handel's major patron. For the aristocracy, Handel composed regal music to accompany river cruises and private fireworks.
While much of his music evokes the private grandeur of courtly excess, today the popular Messiah sing-in has become a strangely egalitarian event. The opera stars may take the solo arias, but the chorus belongs to the audience. Some come with their own scores, others purchase them at the door. Some community choirs buy blocks of seats, others are filled by the Brooklyn cabby with the booming baritone or the shy librarian who only sings in the shower. But all come, ready for the thrill of “letting it loose” on The Messiah with a full symphony.
In The Messiah, we come before the Lord with one voice. It is easy to accept the secularist dogma that faith should be a private affair. We can forget that we are required to make a public proclamation of that faith. Who would have thought that Symphony Hall could be such a place. The Messiah proves that our prayers need not always be private and silent.
If you want to share in the glory, put down that digitally-enhanced, Dolby surround-sound walkman and be a part of some real surround-sound at a Messiah sing-in. Share the joy of Christ's birth at Symphony Hall.
Other productions
Another seasonal favorite is the performance of the Christmas Oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach. Although they were originally written as a Christmas gift for the Saxon royal family in 1773, these festive cantatas were given to the people of Leipzig the following season in six sections performed between Christmas Day and the Epiphany. This season they can again be heard from Boston to San Francisco.
Many cities are offering far more than just a traditional classical repertoire. Some of the wonderfully eclectic programs include The Black Nativity (Langston Hughes). Cleveland's Jelliffe Theatre combines this presentation of electrifying gospel music with stunning modern dance.
Certainly one is hard pressed to find a more joyful celebration than Fiesta in Mexico-Feliz Navidad in Los Angeles. Through a rich tapestry of song, color, and dance, the Ballet Folklorico del Pacifico explores the rich origins and significance of Mexico's Christmas traditions.
The Rockettes'Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall is one of the most surprising holiday traditions. We all expected the Rockettes' precision high-stepping as toy soldiers, but many are pleasantly surprised to find a very dramatic and indeed, spectacular, nativity scene, appointed with palm trees, live camels, and a flock of real sheep!
Here is a sampling of Christmas programs from cities around the country:
The Sounds of Christmas Coast to Coast
Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols Glenn Memorial Auditorium Atlanta, Ga. Dec. 5
U.S. Air Force Band Christmas Concert Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Baltimore, Md. Dec. 2
Festival Chorus Boston Conservatory Boston, Mass. Dec. 10 (free admission)
Christmas Oratorio (Bach) Boston Conservatory Boston, Mass. Dec. 18, 21
A Procession of Carols Old South Church Boston, Mass. Dec. 19
Christmas Concerto (Bach) Symphony Orchestra Symphony Hall, Detroit, Mich., Dec. 4
Christmas Oratorio (Bach), New England Conservatory Jordan Hall, Boston, Mass, Dec. 18
Vienna Boys Choir, New England Conservatory-Jordan Hall, Boston, Mass., Dec. 13
A Medieval Christmas Celebration, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill., Dec. 10
Legends of St. Nicholas, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Ill., Dec. 12
An Old World Christmas, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Evanston, Chicago, Ill, Dec. 13
Holiday Brass & Choral (baroque), St. Michael's Church Old Town, Chicago, Ill., Dec. 19
Black Nativity-Langston Hughes, Jelliffe Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 28-Jan. 4
Holiday Rainbow Brass Quartet, Severance's Reinberger Chamber Hall, Cleveland, Ohio, Dec. 6
Pops Concert 3: Christmas Pops, Detroit Symphony Hall, Detroit, Mich., Dec. 11–14
Home For The Holidays, Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, Houston, Teaxs, Dec. 11–14
Feliz Navidad-Ballet Folklorico, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Los Angeles, Calif., Dec. 13–14
Bobby Rodriguez Latin Jazz Christmas, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Los Angeles, Calif., Dec. 21
Home For The Holidays, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, Calif., Dec. 14
Holiday Favorites- Moore By Four, Minnesota Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, Minn., Dec. 5
Christmas at Doc's (Severinsen), Minnesota Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, Minn., Dec. 19
Elijah (Mendelssohn), New York Philharmonic, New York City, Dec. 4, 6, 9
The Colors of Christmas, Carnegie Hall, New York City, Dec. 2
New York Pops with the Boys Choir of Harlem, Carnegie Hall, New York City, Dec. 5–6
New York String Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, New York City, Dec. 24
P.D.Q. Bach with Professor Peter Schickele, Carnegie Hall, New York City, Dec. 27 & 29
Vienna Boys Choir Carnegie Hall, New York City, Dec. 14 Holidays with the Boys Choir of Harlem, Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, Dec. 20
Holiday Brass, Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, Dec. 27 Rockefeller Christmas Spectacular, Radio City Music Hall, New York City Nov. 6- Jan. 24
Cathedral Choir and Harp & String Quintet, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Our Lady's Chapel, New York City, Dec. 11
Echo-Flute and Guitar, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Our Lady's Chapel, New York City, Dec. 11
City Singing at Christmas (Choral), St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, Dec. 18
The Tallis Scholars (Bach Festival), Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 7
Mechem: Seven Joys of Christmas, First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 5 & 7
Christmas Concert, Philadelphia Orchestra Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 7–8
AFeast of Carols: Mendelssohn Club, Church of Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 13–14
A Colonial Holiday, Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 19
Puer Natus Est: Piffaro, St. Paul's Episcopal Church Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 19–21
Christmas on Logan Square, St. Clement's Church, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 20
The Other Christmas (Rincon Dance), City College Theater, San Diego, Calif., Dec. 18–21
Deck the Hall (Children), Davis Symphony Hall, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 6
Brass and Organ Christmas, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 7
Christmas at Grace Cathedral, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 13–21
Christmas Cantatas (Bach), First Congregational Church, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 5
The Gift of the Magi:, San Francisco Conservatory, Hellman Hall, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 7
Candlelight Christmas, San Francisco Symphony, Davis Hall, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 7
AChanticleer Christmas, Chanticleer, St. Ignatius Church, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 13
Colors of Christmas, San Francisco Symphony, Davis Hall, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 16–18
Christmas Pipe Dreams, San Francisco Symphony, Davis Hall, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 20
Vienna Boys Choir, First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Wash., Dec. 9
Christmas Concert (Jazz), Georgetown Univ. Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., Dec. 5
Christmas Revels George Washington Univ. Lisner Auditorium, Washington, D.C., Dec. 6
Christmas Oratorio (Bach), City Christian Church, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7
The Joy of Christmas, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., Dec. 13–14
Choral Arts Society of Washington, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., Dec. 14–21
Ballet
Although Tchaikovsky's score to The Nutcracker is 105 years old, its sweeping melodies and lavish stagings offer children a very accessible introduction to classical music and dance. This season, you can once again be enchanted by Marie's fantastic adventure with the Nutcracker prince in almost every major city in the country.
If you find that the ticket prices would deplete your “stocking-stuffer” account, you may want to check out the video. The New York City Ballet version, with George Balanchine's famed choreography, features Macaulay Culkin and narration by Kevin Kline.
A Christmas Carol
Many regional theaters are looking to classic tales for popular new holiday adaptations. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol seems to be a favorite across the country. New York City's production has become so huge that it has to be performed in the cavernous Madison Square Garden. Its 350 feet of Victorian scenery, which surround the audience, is the largest set ever mounted in the city. This year, Hal Linden and Roddy McDowell will alternate playing Ebenezer Scrooge.
Of course, many cinematic versions are lining your video store shelves and will be rebroadcast on the small screen throughout the season. My favorite is still the1938 black and white version from MGM with Reginald Owen and Gene Lockhart.
Regional Theater & Film
This Year, companies like Cleveland's Bolton Theatre and San Diego's Frizt Theatre are offering musical renditions of the cinematic classic It's a Wonderful Life. It is curious that the film It's a Wonderful Life (RKO 1946) wasn't more of a box office success when it was first released. It has in the past two decades, however, become one of the most beloved and most watched films ever made.
It is here that director-screenwriter Frank Cappra's Catholic sensibilities of grace, redemption, and the dynamic presence of the spiritual world are most fully realized. As our world loses a sense of direction, the desperate figure of George Bailey looms all the more poignant and his redemption all the more inspiring.
The full schedule slated for both the regional companies indicates their confidence that they can translate these elements onto the musical stage. Of course, the film version, with Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore, can be found in virtually every self-respecting video store.
In Chicago, The Christmas Schooner is quickly becoming something of a holiday tradition. This musical tells the true story of the sailors who brought the Tannenbaum across the icy waters of Lake Michigan to 19th-century Chicago.
Other typical regional theater offerings include productions in Cleveland and Boston of A Child's Christmas in Wales, which is based on the classic by Dylan Thomas and offers a nostalgic look at Christmas through a child's eyes, and The Skinflint which is a musical comedy adaptation of Moliere's play, The Miser and is making its world premiere in St. Louis.
A Joyful Noise from PBS
Luckily some of the best Christmas cheer is quite close to your own hearth. PBS has the cultural lion's share on TV these days. Here they are:
The majestic Washington (D.C.) National Cathedral is the sight for Denyce Graves-A Cathedral Christmas. The acclaimed mezzo-soprano will be joined by the 100 voice Cathedral Choral Society, The Cathedral Boys Choir and the Cathedral Festival Orchestra. The special will feature traditional music like the Ave Maria as well as contemporary carols like Christmas Once More.
For more of a down-home feel, catch A Nitty Gritty Christmas with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In the past 30 years the group has become one of America's best-loved acoustic pop bands. Guests include three-time country music female vocalist award-winner Kathy Mattea, folk diva Nanci Griffith and the angelic-voiced Aaron Neville. Country-jazz violinist Vassar Clements and John McEuen also join the circle of friends.
Acelebration of Ireland's cultural and religious heritage can be enjoyed on Faith of Our Fathers. Recorded at the Point Theatre in Dublin, this special features the Irish Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, tenor Frank Patterson, soprano Regina Nathan, the voices of the Monks of Glenstal Abby and two exciting young singers, Iarla ÓLionáird and RÓs Ní Dhubháin. The anthems chosen represent the gems of religious music heard in Ireland over many generations.
Dublin's Point Theatre is the sight of yet another Christmas special, Perry Como's Irish Christmas. Special guests include the popular Irish singer “Twink”; Ireland's most famous marching band, the Artane Boys Band; the Chorus of the Glasnevin Musical Society; the boys of the Palestrina Choir; and the RTE Concert Orchestra.
In André Rieu: The Christmas I Love, the famed Dutch conductor and violinist combines holiday storytelling with his own music. Moving from a cozy log-cabin setting to a concert hall with the Johann Stauss Orchestra, Rieu plays holiday favorites including Ave Maria, White Christmas, Sleighride, and Silent Night.
Best-selling author of Care of the Soul and Soulmates returns to PBS in The Soul of Christmas: ACeltic Music Celebration with Thomas Moore. He is joined by Johnny Cunningham and his Celtic Ensemble, country favorite Kathy Mattea and actor Martin Sheen. Moore conceived the special to help viewers redis-cover the heart and soul of the holiday that he describes as “an ancient mystery that evokes an enchanting and haunting truth about the nature of things.”
Classical and gospel audiences join conductor Harvey Feider in Atlanta Symphony Gospel Christmas. The Grammy award-winning Orchestra performs with the 225-voice All-Atlanta Chorus and the Pointer Sisters to create a rafters-rattling toe-tapping night of gospel.
Immediately following, you can catch Carols from Atlanta: The 70th Anniversary Morehouse-Spelman Christmas Carol Concert. Classic carols, spirituals and African folk hymns highlight this one-hour concert special featuring the combined glee clubs of Atlanta's Morehouse College and Spelmen College. This annual event has been a high point of Atlanta's holiday season since 1926.
Cincinnati Pops Holiday with Erich Kunzel and Mel Tormé features an exuberant mix of traditional carols, popular favorites, children's voices, and dancing. Also featured are Indiana University's 120-member Singing Hoosiers Choir and the Children's chorus of the Cincinnati School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
In Christmas at St. Olaf, the world renowned choir of Minnesota's St. Olaf College raise 450 voices with the 100 member orchestra to bring you familiar Yuletide carols and Scandinavian songs sung in their original language. The annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival dates back to 1903 and was named by TheNew York Times“one of the top-10 Christmas events in the United States not to be missed.”
Conductor Dr. Nathan Carter will present Carols from Atlanta: The Morgan Choir: ASilver Celebration. This inspiring program, which has received three regional Emmy awards, offers a diverse musical selection including the choral movement Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ezekiel Saw De Wheel, and more contemporary hymns, including The Lord Be Praised and Precious Lord.
Ringing in more Christmas cheer on New Year's Eve, PBS offers An Ode to Joy: The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Zdenek Macal conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Opus 125, Choral, featuring renowned soloists Gabriela Benackova, soprano; Marietta Simpson, mezzo-soprano; Gary Lakes, tenor; Paul Plishka, bass; and the Westminster Symphonic Choir.
If you miss the Vienna Boys Choir on their U.S. tour this season, you can catch them in their 500th anniversary season from their home town in Great Performances From Vienna: the New Year's Concert 1998. Zubin Mehta will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in the majestic Musikverein Hall performing a selection of beloved Strauss waltzes.
Treasures on the Small Screen
On ABC LeAnn Rimes will star in the drama Holiday in Your Heart. CBS offers The Christmas Box, which is based upon the novel by Richard Paul Evans about a young woman's struggle during one holiday season to regain her father's affection. NBC presents Christmas in Washington, a family variety special to enjoy with the nation's first family.
Unfortunately, the networks seem to be cutting back on much of their Christmas programming. While CBS still holds onto the more secular children's animated specials like Frosty the Snowman, the buzz is that the more spiritual classics like The Grinch that Stole Christmas or the more overtly religious specials like The Little Drummer Boy have seen their last days on the major networks.
These classics can, however, be found in an increasing number of video-stores nationwide. Perhaps these gems are best enjoyed without commercial bombardment anyway. Happily, Charlie Brown will still be directing his nativity pageant on CBS this season.
Your video stores can also provide some surprising holiday treasures like the charming, yet rarely seen, animated classic Madeline's Christmas. This is Ludwig Bemelman's tale of a young girl's holiday adventure in a Parisian convent school.
CCC of America produces some wonderfully entertaining animated specials for kids on the lives of the saints, including Nicholas, the Boy who Became Santa. It is a charming story told in a Christ-centered context. You can't find it in the video stores, however. You have to order directly at 1-800-506-6333. They are now offering a Christmas special for $9.99.
In New York City, the hottest tickets in town are to midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which are gone months in advance. But you don't need a ticket to join Pope John Paul II beneath Michelangelo's vaulting dome for midnight Mass from Vatican City. Each year NBC broadcasts the Mass late on Christmas Eve. One senses the awesome universality of the Church when all the countries of the world who receive this broadcast are listed. The Mass is the world's most widely broadcast event.
Also be sure to check out EWTN listings, as Mother Angelica's network promises to offer an abundance of fine Christmas programs.
Christmas on the Networks
Christmas Miracle, ABC Special, ABC, Dec. (TBA, check local listings)
A Charlie Brown Christmas, CBS Special, CBS Dec. 3, 8:00 p.m.
Holiday in Your Heart, ABC Sunday Night Movie, ABC Dec. 14, 9:00 p.m. EST
Christmas in Washington, NBC Special, NBC, Dec. 19, 10:00 p.m. EST
The Christmas Box, CBS TV movie, CBS, Dec. 25, 9:00 p.m.
Midnight Mass,, St. Peter's Basilica, NBC, Dec. 24 (TBA, check local listings)
Stephen Hopkins is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Hopkins ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Catechism with Lights, Bells, and Whistles DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Divinity Religious Product's computer games make learning the Catholic faith fun
CATHOLIC LEADERS around the world have taken steps in recent years to ensure that a healthy Church ushers in the coming celebration of 2,000 years of Christianity. In 1992, Pope John Paul II released the first universal Catechism in more than 400 years and throughout his pontificate has called for a re-catechizing of Catholics everywhere. The U.S. bishops, for their part, have stressed the importance of finding new ways to engage youth and young adults with the age-old truths of the Catholic faith.
As the Pope and the bishops lay the groundwork, Divinity Religious Products, a small, like-minded company in Southern California, is working hard to make those goals a reality. The company's approach to the challenges mirrors the basic philosophy shared by almost all effective educators: It's crucial to make the material to be learned enjoyable.
Divinity has done just that in the games it has created based on the Catechism and on the Bible. The six-year-old company has also taken the extra step of submitting its products for ecclesiastical review and all have received the Church's imprimatur (let it be printed) and nihil obstat, indicating its freedom from doctrinal or moral error.
“We've taken material from the new Catechism and The New American Bible and made it more reachable and more fun to learn for lay people ages seven and up,” says Michael McKay, a theologian and vice-president of Divinity. “We're helping to build people's religious vocabularies.”
The company has produced two popular board games—the Catholic Family Bible Game and Divinity, the Catholic Catechism Learning System— and the Catholic Quiz series of question and answer flip books for grades one through nine.
It's Divinity's latest game, however, Catholic Challenge, that is attracting the most attention and stands to revolutionize the way people reinforce knowledge of their faith. Catholic Challenge marries questions drawn from the Catechism and Scripture with the latest advances in multi-media to create an exciting game for play on computers.
“It's our answer to the fast-paced video culture,” says McKay. “People are coming to depend on their Macs and PCs for everything from surfing the Web to information on balancing their checkbooks. Now they'll have the chance to use computers to increase knowledge of their faith in an entertaining way.”
Catholic Challenge brings the Catechism to life on the computer screen. Like the four sections of the 800-page document, questions for the game fall into four areas—Believe, Celebrate, Live, and Pray. Bold graphics, a ticking timer, cheers and jeers from a phantom audience, and other effects give it the multi-media feel computer games depend on to engage demanding audiences in the '90s. Game settings can easily be customized, allowing kids to compete against adults and novices against theologians.
“The colors, the tumbling dice, the bells and whistles, all make it really fun to play,” says Darren Hogan.
A 27-year-old New Haven, Conn. area fund-raiser, Hogan says he's not a game player by nature but has nonetheless become a Catholic Challenge aficionado.
“I usually prefer to read or take a walk, but I'm interested in my faith and this is a way to test what you know and to learn more. The game is fast and informative and you have to concentrate if you don't want to get tripped up on the really tricky questions.”
Hogan sees Catholic Challenge not only as a good game, but as a useful tool to further the new evangelization that Pope John Paul II has urged to prepare for the coming Jubilee year of Christianity.
“If you have people over, it's a lot more comfortable to play a game than to just start talking about your faith,” he says. “Besides, it's less intimidating for everybody when you have the questions being posed by a computer.”
And Catholic Challenge really does seem to get friends and families who play examining and talking about their faith.
“I thought the game was a good idea,” says Fritz Heinzen, a 40-year-old father of three, “but when I heard that it was supposed to promote discussion, I was a little skeptical. When you land on a square that presents you with a moral dilemma, before you know it you're talking about these profound ideas in the middle of the game.”
The Heinzens, who are big game players according to Fritz, sometimes play as often as three times a week. But Fritz likes the fact that his eight-year-old daughter, Katie, often plays on her own.
“Any kid who owns a computer can play this game” he says, adding that he's often surprised to see how much his oldest daughter, who attends Holy Spirit School in northern Virginia, knows.
“The game reinforces what she's already learned and prepares her for what she's going to learn,” he says.
By the time Katie hits fifth grade, the second grader might just get a chance to show her chops in competition. In conjunction with William H. Sadlier, Inc., a leader in the Catholic education business for 465 years, Divinity recently launched a “Religion Bee,” based on questions from Catholic Challenge and the Catholic Quiz series.
The pilot contest, held this spring in Orange, Calif., included nearly 400 fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders from across the diocese.
“It was a great teaching moment to have students take the study booklets home to prepare with their parents,” said Ruth Bradley, director of the diocesan Office for Religious Education. “It was an opportunity to get them talking about their faith.”
In a “Family Feud” style contest, four-person teams in two age groups—a fifth-sixth grade team from Serra School and a seventh-eighth grade team from San Francisco Solano Parish, both in Rancho Santa Margarita, Ca.— won top honors and passes to nearby Disneyland for their efforts. Now, with the success of that first “Religion Bee,” Divinity and Sadlier are working with other dioceses to put on contests in the coming school year.
“We plan to take it national and then international,” says Divinity CEO Lee Leichtag, who already has made inroads with the company's games in Mexico and Italy.
“Imagine it—an international ‘Religion Bee.’” Leichtag has the air of a dreamer when speaking of the company's future plans. But the 76-year-old self-made millionaire also has the resources and acumen to pull it off.
Though not particularly religious, Leichtag, who was born Jewish, was driven by the belief that the answer to society's many problems—drug abuse, teen pregnancy, violent crime, etc.—just might be found in religion.
“My dream was to do something for kids and parents, to bring families closer together,” he says. “And what better way than to get them to sit down together and deal with moral questions that prepare you to do good in the world. I hope and believe these games can help do that.”
Leichtag knows the games aren't a cure-all for society's woes. Neither are they a one-stop solution to religious education.
“Faith is obviously more than a cognitive experience and facts are just one part of it,” says the Diocese of Orange's Bradley. “But Catholic Challenge reinforces knowledge of the facts and can bring families together in their faith development.”
It's just that element that led Sadlier, probably the best known supplier of Catholic textbooks and other religious goods, to team-up with Divinity.
“Our products always have a family component and their games are so well done that they're generating excitement and interest everywhere our reps take them across the country,” says Sister Christine Kresho CSJ, Sadlier's director of marketing.
Catholic Challenge is the kind of product that sells itself, she says. “At conventions and conferences where we've shown it, people sit down to play and they don't want to leave until they can purchase it,” she adds.
Later this year Divinity plans to release a second computer game, this one based strictly on the Bible. But getting their games out to the Catholic community at large is the greatest challenge now facing the company.
“As good as our products might be, there's no established retail system,” says Leichtag. “There are no footprints, but we're ready to be pioneers.”
Whatever it takes, Leichtag says, he's ready to go the distance.
Stephen Lorenz is based in New Haven, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Lorenz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'And on This Rock' DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Two books that cover just about everything you want to know about the papacy
TWO BOOKS about the papacy have appeared recently that theologians, catechists, and apologists should have on their shelves. The first is Father J. Michael Miller's The Shepherd and the Rock: Origins, Development and Mission of the Papacy, published by Our Sunday Visitor.
Father Miller's work is a virtual contemporary summa on the Petrine office. It covers the biblical roots of the papacy, the historical development of the Petrine ministry, a systematic exposition of the theology of the papal office, and an overview of administrative aspects of the papacy, such as the Roman curia, papal elections, and papal politics.
Though a faithful priest of the Church, Father Miller is no fundamentalist or ultramontanist. He intelligently grapples with contemporary issues of papal authority, collegiality, and curial reform. He doesn't regard the papacy as a divine monarchy, with other bishops mere agents of the Pope, but he does firmly uphold the hierarchical nature of the Church, as outlined in Vatican II's dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.
An acute problem among Catholics today, with our heightened sense of democracy and collegiality, is the relationship between the papacy and “particular Churches” (dioceses). Often the papal office is regarded by critics as at best a mere external link uniting the various dioceses into a universal federation of sorts. Yet as the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith's document, Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion, makes clear, the papacy is not extrinsic to the essence of the particular Church or in opposition to its legitimate autonomy. Rather, the papacy is a basic element of it. Father Miller makes this same point:
“The universal Church is embodied in particular Churches which are united to one another by bonds of communion. Because of the mutual interiority of the local Church and the universal Church, the ministry of Peter entrusted to the bishop of Rome touches the life of particular Churches as an office interior to them. It is present and active in the local Churches from within. Thus, only those Churches which accept this ministry are in full communion with one another in the Catholic Church. Communion with the successor is a constitutive element of every particular Church in the koinonia. When this relationship is missing in a local Church, even if the episcopacy and Eucharist are present, the bonds of communion with the whole Church are necessarily imperfect.”
The papacy, then, is no mere “also ran.” It is part of the very structure which Christ willed his Church to have. Indeed, the papal office is essential to the unity of the Church; it is “the visible center of the communion of the Churches and the steward of their unity,” as Father Miller writes.
Protestant, Orthodox, and dissident Catholic critics sometimes posit a tension, if not an outright opposition, between the papal office and Christ himself, as head of the Church. In reality, it is precisely by his close identification with Jesus that the Pope is “Vicar of Christ.” This title is not meant to suggest that the Pope “takes the place of Christ” in the sense of taking from Christ what rightly belongs only to him. Rather, the Pope is the “Vicar of Christ” as an icon of Christ to the whole Church and to the world. The papacy has, to use an expression from Pope Paul VI, an almost sacramental function of being the means by which Christ the great shepherd pastors the whole Church. This, then, is not a mere personal exaltation of a man. Father Miller writes:
“The Pope, of course, is not a replacement for an otherwise absent Christ. Like all the baptized, he represents Christ to the world. He does so according to the particular mission he has received as chief shepherd of the universal Church. Far from being a title of pretension, the designation ‘vicar of Christ’ makes great demands on the Pope to bring Christ's presence to others.”
Father Miller's superb overview of the papacy painstakingly demonstrates the divine origins of papal office, its Spirit-guided development throughout Church history, and its contemporary structure and ministry to the unity and fidelity of the universal Church today.
The second “must have” work on the papacy is Jesus, Peter and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy (Queenship Publishing Company), by Scott Butler, Norman Dahlgren, and David Hess. This book is a compilation of arguments and texts supporting Catholic teaching on the papacy. The first half covers the biblical case for the papacy; the second the historical argument for the same.
Jesus, Peter and the Keys tackles both traditional Protestant and Orthodox objections to the papal office. For example, it is often claimed by Protestant and Orthodox scholars that the “rock” referred to by Christ in the famous Petrine passage of Matthew 16, 18-19 is not Peter, as the Catholic Church has held. The argument centers on the transition, in the original Greek text, from petros and petra. Jesus said to Peter, “You are petros [Peter, rock] and upon this petra [rock] I will build my Church.”
The claim is that because of the slight variation between petros and petra, we must conclude that Christ referred to two entirely different things here: on the one hand, to Peter or Petros, on the other to the rock or petra on which the Church will be built. The former is a masculine word; the latter a feminine one. The rock or petra on which the Church is built has been variously interpreted by Protestant and Orthodox scholars as Peter's faith, his act of professing his faith or Christ himself.
Recently, ecumenical dialogue has lead to greater objectivity by some exegetes regarding Matthew 16, 18. The authors of Jesus, Peter and the Keys cite numerous renowned Protestant and Orthodox scholars who acknowledge that the difference between petra and petros is merely one of gender: an otherwise feminine noun, petra (rock) is changed to a masculine form, petros, when it becomes a name for a man, Peter. The play on words is retained in the Aramaic form of kepha (rock), which is probably the language in which Christ originally uttered the words, and which is where we get the name Cephas (a transliterated form of the Aramaic kepha) for Peter.
The bottom-line: many prominent Protestant and Orthodox scholars agree that, contrary to what some anti-Catholics claim, Peter is the rock upon which Christ promised to build his Church. Of course, these scholars don't draw from this that the Pope is the successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ. They reject the papal office on other grounds. Even so, by demonstrating how even non-Catholic Christian scholars agree about Peter's identity as the rock in Matthew 16, 18, Jesus, Peter and the Keys, contributes to the on-going discussion.
The historical section of the book is also potent. The claim is often made that there is scant evidence for the papacy in the early Christian centuries or that the Fathers of the Church, while granting a certain preeminence of honor for the bishop of Rome, denied he exercised any divinely bestowed universal authority in the Church. Even a curious reading of Jesus, Peter and the Keys refutes these claims. The book shows how (1) the early popes claimed a universal authority and (2) how the early Church Fathers recognized this claim. And all of this by direct quotes from the relevant primary sources.
Avaluable element of the book's layout is the list of 234 important questions about the papacy that the authors pose, the answers to which are marked off in the text by number. In that respect, the book resembles a sort of scholarly catechism on the papal office.
The book's only major drawback is with so much material being presented, the reader may hardly know where to begin. A bit more synthesis and summarization would have been helpful. In any event, anyone who claims there is scant or no evidence for the papacy in the Bible or the early centuries of the Church has not read and considered the mass of evidence compiled in this volume.
Mark Brumley is managing editor of The Catholic Faith magazine.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Soul Man's Guide To Living Well DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Thomas Moore offers advice for enriching life: some of it good, some loopy
THE RE-ENCHANTMENT of Everyday Life, by Thomas Moore, falls roughly into the category: “spirituality for self-improvement.” It is third in a trilogy that began with his very successful Care of The Soul (1992), followed by Soul Mates.
In the bookstore Moore's works are found in the pop-psychology section, and though, no doubt, much could be said about his innovative approach and contributions to the self-help genre, it is his attempt to re-introduce and re-vitalize the concept of “soul” that gives his work broader implications for the religion-minded.
To put Moore's notions of “soul” in proper context, we probably have to go back to the 17th century and the philosopher Rene Descartes, who introduced a belief in the separation of mind and body as distinct metaphysical substances, thus overturning the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic view of the soul as the form of the body, where “form” and “matter” were considered as two complementary aspects of one thing.
Descartes' separation, however innocuous it appeared at first, in the course of several centuries of development has grown to an almost unbridgeable chasm, with “mind” on one side creating a radically subjective empire for itself, while “body” on the other is diminished to the slave-status of occupied territory.
“Ideas have consequences,” and Descartes' idea is at root responsible for many of the unhealthy strains—call them “neuroses”—now afflicting the Western mind. (See John Paul II's comments on Descartes in Crossing the Threshold of Hope.) Cut to the present and enter the psycho-professionals, Thomas Moore being one of them, whose study and practice are directly concerned with the unhealthy side of the Western psyche.
At some point an insightful few of them must have realized that mind-body dualism was one major cause of people's psychological problems, but how to go about correcting it? For to use the psychoanalytical tools forged in the tradition of Descartes would amount to asking people to try to think their way out of problems caused by their way of thinking.
The impasse could only be breached by first getting around Descartes, which Thomas Moore has done by looking back even further than the 17th century, back to the 15th century, to the Italian Renaissance and the concept of “soul” expounded in the various writings of Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), who, if I may be forgiven for stating the obvious, was truly a Renaissance man.
Of course, to get around Descartes, Moore could have looked back even further, to the scholastics of the Middle Ages, but there he would have found a concept of soul very precisely defined and integrated into a highly-developed system of dogma and morality, i.e., religion. Reading The Re-Enchantment of Daily Life, one sees that Moore is much more comfortable with the Renaissance, whose humanism embraced the imaginative paganism of classical Greece and whose pre-scientific curiosity brought magic up a notch to alchemy, both of which Moore endorses and both of which have marketing appeal to New Age audiences.
“‘Soul’ is not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance. I do not use the word here as an object of religious belief or as something to do with immortality” (Care of the Soul).
Moore's concept of “soul” comes across better when using the adjective “soulful” as applied to music or poetry. Where his second book, Soul Mates, examined soul in human relationships, his third book, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, attempts to bring it into the realm of culture.
Thomas Moore was raised Catholic and lived in a monastic religious order for 12 years; he now is married and has two children. He has degrees in theology, musicology, philosophy, and has taught religion and psychology, as well as having worked as a psycho-therapist. His prescriptions for bringing soul into daily life, which, again, may be seen as ways of re-integrating mind and body to overcome Cartesian dualism, start with an appreciation for nature: for water, trees, rocks, and material things in general as having qualities and values independent of utilitarian exploitation.
He then looks at the home and other human habitats and offers suggestions for making them more enchanting. Subsequent chapters deal with politics, art, the psyche, stories, the sacred, ritual. His vision pretty much encompasses an entire world-view, as did the Renaissance men he admires.
He has many worthwhile things to say: on resisting the secularization of culture, the need for silence—especially in churches, for having children around, for cultivating a more imaginative way of life and for trying to see the sacred in the things around us. Unfortunately, he also has many loopy things to say: about amulets, astrology, and the “little people.”
He seems to be a sort of syncretist-pantheist and when he speaks of putting “magic” into life, he is using the word in a literal more than figurative sense. But then again, since he advocates an imaginative rather than rational approach, he may intend that magic, earth-spirits, etc., be regarded as real only in the sense of being real objects of the imagination. The reader will, at times, feel he is being taken on a post-modern moon walk.
Without overlooking the heterodoxy of Moore's system, one can sympathize with his overall thrust toward integrating mind and body. At this point in time, Catholicism needs to entail more than just being able to walk around with a mind full of true propositions. The word must become flesh in a consistent culture that recognizes its connections—and responsibilities—to the entirety of creation. The trick to doing this, though, is not with magic, as Moore would have it, but with the sacramentalism embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and expressed in his body the Church.
Brother Clement Kennedy is a Benedictine monk at Prince of Peace Abbey, Oceanside, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Clement Kennedy OSB ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: OLittle Town of Bethlehem DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:Christ's birthplace has changed in 2,000 years, but it isn't hard for pilgrims to imagine its holy past
BETHLEHEM—Nearly 2,000 years after Jesus Christ was born in the sleepy town of Bethlehem, visitors with a sense of adventure and a day or two to spare can get a glimpse of the kind of life Jesus must have lived.
Beyond the tourist shops that line Manger Square, the town of Bethlehem is a living, breathing place with shops, markets, and even a handful of shepherds. Although a great deal has changed during the past two millennia, Bethlehem remains a traditional Middle Eastern town populated by traditional people.
Located just six miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is the point where cultures meet and sometimes collide. It is here, just at the outskirts of the town, where Israel relinquishes control to the Palestinian Authority, which is now in control of virtually all Palestinian towns and cities.
Despite occasional flare-ups between Israelis and Palestinians, who man their respective checkpoints into and out of the town, the journey to Bethelehem is both safe and simple.
Cherished by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem is also revered by Jews and Muslims. Entering Bethlehem, you pass the tomb of Rachel. According to the Bible, Rachel, the wife of the patriarch Jacob, was buried in Bethlehem after she died in childbirth. Each year, thousands of infertile women flock to the tomb to pray.
The Book of Ruth states that Bethlehem, which means “house of bread” in Hebrew, is the place where Ruth and Boaz fell in love. Ruth's great-grandson, King David, was born in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph—and thus Jesus, in his earthly origins—were descendants of David.
Although the population of Bethlehem and its suburbs is today predominantly Muslim—most of its Christians have emigrated—the town still bears testimony to its rich Christian heritage.
Almost 1,700 years old, the Church of the Nativity is the embodiment of Bethlehem's history. More than anywhere else, it was here that generation upon generation of rulers made their lasting mark.
Originally built by Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, in the fourth century, the present church was rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and refurbished by the Crusaders 600 years later. Justinian's square doorway and an arched Crusader doorway constructed to protect the Christian community are preserved in the facade.
The building, which is believed to be the oldest standing church in the Holy Land, has, like Christianity itself, survived many conquests. Tradition has it that the Persians, who invaded Palestine in 614, spared the church because a painting they found depicted the Magi dressed as Persians. The Muslims, who arrived soon after, massacred Christians and destroyed their monasteries, but allowed the Church of the Nativity to stand.
The arrival of the Crusaders in 1099 strengthened the beleaguered Christian community, and on Christmas Day 1100, Baldwin, the first king of the Latin kingdom, was crowned in Bethlehem. The situation deteriorated after 1291, when the Crusaders were driven out by the Muslims. Although Christians were able to retain a foothold in the town, their position remained precarious under the Turks, who invaded in 1517. Under Turkish rule, however, the town began to grow and modernize, a process that continued under the rule of the British, the Israelis, and now the Palestinians.
Today, every altar, stone, and wooden beam bears witness to history: Remnants of a fourth-century mosaic floor are sheltered by two long columns of sixth-century pillars, holding up a sturdy oak roof built with funds from England's Edward IV in the 14th century.
Visited year-round, the church and surrounding sites, such as the Milk Grotto (the cave where Mary nursed the infant Jesus) assume an air of anticipation at Christmastime, when tens of thousands of worshipers flock to Bethlehem.
A few weeks before Christmas, the municipality hangs Christmas lights all around Manger Square, and local merchants place large wooden Nativity scenes in front of their shops. The wooden carvings, which have been produced by Bethlehem's Christian families for generations, are exported all over the world. For a demonstration, visit the Holy Land Arts Museum on Milk Grotto Street.
The town, which is always filled with the smells of fresh pita bread and frying falafel balls (fried chick peas), is filled with the wonderful aroma of mahmoul and kakibjuwa, two types of sweet cakes available only at Christmas.
The day before Christmas, the Latin patriarch (local archbishop) travels from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, stopping first at Rachel's Tomb, and then at Manger Square. Joined by the faithful and local leaders, he enters the Church of the Nativity and then proceeds to the Catholic Church of St. Catherine (a wing of the larger church), and to the Grotto of the Nativity down below. At midnight, the patriarch celebrates Christmas Mass in St. Catherine's.
During that day, visitors and locals are treated to folklore shows and the music of visiting choirs. Those who cannot enter the churches—which can accommodate no more than 2,000 worshippers—assemble in Manger Square for midnight Mass, which is broadcast live via loudspeakers.
Anyone wishing to avoid the crowds should follow the example of Bethlehem's local families: go to Mass at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., when the tour buses have departed.
Christmas Day finds most of the stores closed, enabling the town's large extended families to celebrate the day together. Take the opportunity to stroll through the quiet alleyways and to stare out at the sloping terraced hills that Mary and Joseph once saw.
You may spot “Baba Noel,” the Bethlehem version of Santa Claus, delivering gifts, as is the custom here. And if you are patient, and very lucky, you might even see a shepherd in the distance, herding his flock.
Michele Chabin, the Register's Middle East correspondent, is based in Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Tips for Christmas Visitors to Bethlehem DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:BETHLEHEM—Bring warm clothes and a collapsible umbrella as well as one or two summer outfits. The weather in December can be highly unpredictable, and varies between regions, so layered clothing is your best bet.
Prior to leaving home, make a list of family, community, and church members who would like to be remembered with a special prayer.
Keep some small change in your pocket, to give as a donation at holy sites.
If your bus is stopped at a security checkpoint, don't be alarmed. These security checks are routine, and for your protection.
Report any suspicious object (an unidentified tote bag, for example) to your tour guide or a security guard. Do not attempt to examine or move the object yourself. As Israelis say, “It's probably nothing, but what if it's something?”
—Michele Chabin
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Hollywood Classics Keep Alive True Spirit of Christmas DATE: 11/16/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 16-22, 1997 ----- BODY:EACH YEAR the Christmas lights on West Los Angeles streets are turned on a few days earlier. This gradual expansion of the holiday season isn't driven by spiritual concerns. Merchants are eager to get the public buying as soon as possible since their profit margins increasingly depend on big Christmas spending.
The health of the local economy is judged by how well the various stores are doing in comparison to previous years. Newspapers and TV news shows monitor these developments closely so commercial factors are on everyone's mind while we shop.
As we get closer to Christmas eve, store crowds become larger and traffic jams more frequent. All this brouhaha makes it difficult to remember why we celebrate Christmas. Our Lord's birth and the genuine spirit of giving can be lost in the frantic rushing around.
Once upon a time Hollywood regularly produced movies that concerned themselves with these issues, and a trip to the video store or a viewing of the right classic on light-night TV can help us resist the materialism that has corrupted this holy season.
The original Miracle on 34th Street (1947) tackles the subject head on. Macy's department store in Manhattan hires as Santa Claus an old man from a retirement home who calls himself Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwen). When shoppers can't find what they're looking for on the premises, he recommends other establishments that might carry the merchandise.
At first Macy's officials try to make him change his ways, but the old man is adamant.
“That's what I've been fighting against for years,” he declares. “The way they commercialize Christmas.”
Eventually Mr. Macy himself backs Kris Kringle because his open-minded generosity attracts more customers to the store. The old man isn't satisfied, though. He insists he's really Santa, and this is even more threatening to store executives.
Susie Walker (Natalie Wood), the six-year-old daughter of the woman who hired him, has been brought up not to believe in “superstitions,” like Santa Claus. However, Kris Kringle's sweet nature wins over the little girl, and her mother (Maureen O'Hara) wants him fired.
The store psychologist goes after the old man with a vindictiveness Mrs. Walker never intended, and has him committed to a mental hospital. When steps are taken to make this institutionalization permanent, Walker's lawyer-boyfriend (John Payne) undertakes his defense. At issue in court is whether or not there is a Santa Claus, and if so, is this old man he?
Director George Seaton and coscreenwriter Valentine Davies handle each twist and turn of the plot with skill and charm, and in the end you'll probably find yourself agreeing with Kris Kringle that “Christmas is a frame of mind” and “faith is believing things that common sense tells you not to.”
Miracle on 34th Street has been re-made for television and recently as a feature, but neither has the power of the original. The Bishop's Wife (1947), based on Robert Nathan's novel, was also recently redone as The Preacher's Wife with equally unsuccessful results. In the original, Episcopalian Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The stress of raising money for a new cathedral has done him in, leaving his work and his relationship with his wife seemingly without meaning.
In answer to desperate prayers, a suave angel named Dudley (Cary Grant) appears, but the bishop has trouble believing he's genuine. The prelate's wife, Julia (Loretta Young), is impressed by the angel's kind way of dealing with her friends. She observes how he raises the spirits of the cynical Professor Wuthridge (Monty Woolley) who has lost his faith in God and humanity. Soon Julia's spending time with Dudley that she used to spend with her husband. As an angel, it would never occur to Dudley to get physical, but it's clear the attraction is mutual.
In one of the film's most enjoyable moments, the two go ice-skating, and Dudley's ability to create little miracles enables them to glide around the pond with the free-wheeling skill of accomplished professionals. Predictably, the bishop is jealous and tries to kick the angel out of his household.
The prelate's personal and professional problems all come to a head on Christmas eve, and Dudley must work hard to bail him out. Director Henry Roster and screenwriters Robert Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici alternate between laughter and pathos as the holiday season becomes a time of true celebration for all the movie's characters.
It's A Wonderful Life (1946) is perhaps the most outstanding of all the classics that attempts to dramatize the Christmas spirit. When the movie begins, we hear everyone in the small town of Bedford Falls praying for George Bailey (James Stewart). It's Christmas eve, and the hard-working banker is thinking about killing himself. The supplications of his family and friends are heard, and an angel is sent to rescue him.
In preparation for his mission, the angel is shown all the important events in George's life up until that moment. George's father ran a bank that loaned money to ordinary citizens at affordable rates. His nemesis was the greedy millionaire, Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), who wanted to keep the townsfolk poor and propertyless so he could better exploit them.
Because the needs of the bank's clientele always came before profits, the business was always on the verge of collapse. When George's father dies, he is forced to cancel his plans for college and go to work in the bank to keep the institution afloat.
The young man marries his long-time sweetheart, Mary (Donna Reed), and the two save for a long honeymoon abroad. On the day they're scheduled to leave, however, there's a run on the bank, and George is forced to use the money saved for the trip to bail out the business. Because of his dedication, most of Bedford Falls's working class realize their version of the American dream and acquire their own homes.
One Christmas eve George discovers a shortfall between the bank's assets and cash in hand. When he goes to Potter for help though, the old miser threatens to have him arrested.
Director Frank Capra and screenwriters Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, Jo Sworling, and Phillip Van Doren Stern don't pull their punches as George begins to unravel. He loses his temper frequently, lashing out unfairly at family and coworkers.
In order to prevent George from committing suicide, the angel gives him “a chance to see what the world would have been like” if he had never been born. When this fantasy is presented to him, George observes that most of the towns-folk live in slums owned by Potter instead of owning their own homes.
“Where are the houses?” George asks. “You weren't there to build them,” the angel replies.
The town supports itself as a center of gambling, strip joints, pawn shops, and unsavory bars. The warm community feeling that George experienced has been replaced by a cold, desperate hostility. His wife is an old-maid librarian, and his mother a bitter shrew running a boarding house.
“You see, you had a wonderful life,” the angel tells him.
“Please God, let me live again,” George tearfully asks.
Like the other two movies under discussion, It's A Wonderful Life demonstrates the power of goodness to change lives and the difference each individual can make if he tries. These are suitable Christmas lessons to keep in our hearts as we plunge into the hurly-burly of last-minute shopping.
John Prizer, the Register's art and culture correspondent, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Physician-Assisted Suicide Foes Regroup After Oregon Trouncing DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore.—Stand vigilant and keep morality in the forefront.
That's the call some are making in the aftermath of Oregon's Nov. 4 vote to keep physician-assisted suicide legal. The lopsided balloting— in which Measure 51, the repeal initiative, was defeated 60% vs. 40%— officially gives the state a dark distinction: It is the only place in the country where it is legal to kill yourself—and with your doctor's help.
The law allows doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of oral medication to a terminally ill person who is deemed to have less than six months to live and who requests life-ending drugs. The person must wait 15 days before receiving the drugs.
Now the question becomes where to go from here. The Vatican says the goal is to give the issue of euthanasia “the highest priority,” as those it most directly impacts are the ill and the elderly.
Responding to the Oregon vote in the Nov. 7 edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, father Gino Concetti wrote that “even if it's with the benefit of the law, whoever commits suicide is making a homicidal choice that offends the dignity of the person and the honor of the Creator.”
“To legitimize assisted suicide—or better still, auto-homicide—through law is never a victory for civilization, much less so for humanity,” the moral theologian wrote. “Procured death has always been considered a defeat which reason has never accepted. Only the ideology of the culture of death succeeds in mystifying it with the absurd and aberrant [concept of] right to life with dignity.”
Church leaders in Oregon say they were not surprised by the disheartening vote, yet did find clarity of mission during the ambitious campaign. In the lead-up to the election, Catholics launched a door-to-door effort to discuss the law they believe will imperil those on society's fringe.
Election officials said more than 1 million all-mail ballots were received, representing about half of the state's registered voters.
“While Measure 51 did not pass as we had hoped and prayed, we claim a moral victory in that a state with a small percentage of ‘churched,’ and a much smaller percentage of Catholics, can have such a positive impact on the voters of Oregon, and indirectly around the world,” said Bishop Kenneth Steiner, administrator of the Archdiocese of Portland. “Life is sacred and we take comfort in our right to eternal life.”
Bishop Steiner said the Church will “continue to proclaim the Gospel in word and action” through Catholic schools, a health-care system, social-service agencies, and parishes.
Western Oregon's new spiritual leader, Archbishop John Vlazny, of Winona, Minn., who will be installed Dec. 19, said Catholics will continue defending the dignity of human life at all stages of life.
“We know that the terminally ill need our support, our love, and our prayer in their last days,” Archbishop Vlazny said. “We know that our support can provide them with hope for eternal life.”
Cardinal Bernard Law, chairman of the Bishops'Committee for Pro-Life Activities, said the defeat of Oregon's Measure 51 is a “tragedy for all Americans.” Cardinal Law warns that the so-called “right-to-die” may erode into a “duty-to-die.”
“This is a time for Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs to work together to solve the real problems of terminally ill patients,” the cardinal said. “By ensuring relief of pain, compassionate care, and loving support, we can build a society in which physician-assisted suicide is irrelevant as well as illegal.”
Dr. John Haas, president of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics and Health Care in Boston, Mass., said this is no time to mourn. “We will have to very closely monitor what's going on out there to prevent physicians from getting away with murder—and that's not just a figure of speech,” Haas said. “Any individual needs the help of society to keep from wrongdoing and Oregon physicians have lost that help.”
Now that practical and spiritual support for life has been stripped away by the Oregon legal system, Catholics and others committed to the equal dignity of all human beings must step forward. That's the message from Richard Doerflinger, associate director for policy development at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“The Catholic health care system will become an immensely important haven for patients and families who seek to be cared for in ways that respect the inherent dignity of human life,” Doerflinger said. “We must remind our neighbors that the worst misery, and the worst enslavement, is a judgment by others that your life is not worthwhile. In continuing to point out the injustice of socially sanctioned assisted suicide, and in standing with those it places at risk, Catholics will hasten the day when Oregon turns away from this misguided experiment.”
Carrie Gordon, a bioethics analyst for Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based Christian ministry dedicated to the preservation of family, predicts that other states can expect attempts to legalize assisted suicide.
“In this age of skyrocketing health care costs and desperate cost-cutting attempts, an early death may become a reasonable substitute for treatment and care,” Gordon said. “There is no question that physician-assisted suicide activists will interpret this tragic vote as a clarion call to push their death agenda in the 49 other states. Attempts to legalize physician-assisted suicide in other states must be vigorously opposed so we can assure our sick and weak citizens that they will not be killed in the name of ‘compassion.’”
The suicide law could remain in a legal holding pattern for years, says Indiana attorney James Bopp Jr. A lawyer for the National Right to Life Committee, Bopp has presented appeals through federal courts since 1994. In that year, Oregon voters passed the state's first referendum on assisted suicide, Measure 16, known as the “Death with Dignity Act,” by just two percentage points. Measure 16 legalized assisted suicide via a prescription of lethal drugs for those with less than six months to live. Legal challenges previously kept the law from taking effect until just before the recent vote, however.
In 1995 District Judge Michael Hogan of Eugene, the only magistrate actually to review the merits of the case, said Measure 16 was unconstitutional. He found it placed the rights of terminally ill people at risk.
It was February 1997 when U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wiped out Hogan's ruling, saying plaintiffs lacked legal standing. That decision was upheld in June when the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in without actually discussing Measure 16.
No legal suicides are expected in the next few weeks as a 15-day waiting period is required for receipt of a lethal prescription.
Bopp will likely return to court before that time elapses with new plaintiffs. The challenge is to find people who realistically stand to be harmed by the suicide law, such as families of terminally ill patients or health workers forced to comply with the law against their religious beliefs.
Bob Castagna, executive director of the Oregon Catholic Conference, offered a somber reflection on the ballot outcome: “Today is a tragic day for Oregon, the nation, and the world. A minority of Oregon's registered voters has reaf-firmed its decision to become the first jurisdiction in the world to fully embrace the culture of death. May God have mercy on us.”
Hazel Whitman is based in Portland, Ore
----- EXCERPT: Defeat of repeal initiative by 20% margin leaves pro-lifers no time to lament loss ----- EXTENDED BODY: Hazel Whitman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Will Jiang's U.S. Visit Help the Chinese? DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:FOR CHINA, President Jiang Zemin's whistle-stop tour across the United States earlier this month was a success. Wined and dined and feted by politicians and corporations, Jiang genially established his status as a world leader. He promised not to sell nuclear weapons exports to Iran. For its part, the U.S. government opened the door for American companies to bid on a $60 billion commercial nuclear power plant project for China. In addition, China's purchase of $3 billion of Boeing aircraft was finalized.
It all came, however, without any promise from Jiang to improve Beijing's dismal human rights record, to release a single dissident, or to ease up on the hounding of Chinese Catholics faithful to Rome. But Jiang, followed incessantly by protesters burning Chinese flags and waving placards with slogans like “Communism Kills” and “China: Most Favored Oppressor,” must have taken note of the noises in the street. Also, quite possibly, he walked away with the understanding that direct criticism of a country's government does not lead to political upheaval.
However, as neither the protests nor the congressional grilling Jiang underwent nor President Clinton's strong words about China's human rights were ever reported in the Chinese press, they probably will have no direct effect on Chinese policy, said Thomas Quigley, advisor on East Asian Affairs for the U.S. Catholic Conference.
In fact, all the evidence shows that in the last three years, the Chinese government has increasingly cracked down on the underground Churches, not allowing them to receive foreign clergy, sell Bibles, or conduct religious processions, much less celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments, said Quigley.
Beijing denies that it persecutes Christians, Muslims, and Tibetan Buddhists. In arresting priests saying Mass, fining and jailing faithful Catholics, and destroying shrines, it sees itself as punishing criminals, not hounding believers. The communist government views organized religion as a potential threat to its authority. In particular, the Vatican is seen as a foreign power. Loyalty to the Pope is judged as an allegiance to another country.
According to Chinese law, all members of a religion must register with the government. Those Catholics who choose not to, since registering signifies accepting that Rome has no authority, go underground. Catholics in the country are not allowed any ties with the Vatican and China refuses to permit the Vatican to appoint bishops. Secretly, though, many of the government-appointed bishops have reconciled with Rome, said Quigley.
At least a half-dozen Catholic bishops are in prison as well as several dozen prominent clergy and lay members, and there may be more, said Quigley. Catholics who put the authority of Rome before that of the Chinese government are punished with arrests, fines, beatings, and harassment.
Also, the Chinese government continues to forcibly abort the babies of couples who violate China's one-child, one-family rule and then sterilize the parents, said Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, an advocacy group for the country's underground Catholics.
According to Quigley, state spies have begun to infiltrate the underground Churches to persuade them to ask the government for acceptance. The aboveground, officially sanctioned Church is the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), which operates autonomously from the Pope. About 4 million Chinese are registered members of the CCPA, said Quigley. Another 8 million belong to the underground Churches, which recognize the authority of the Vatican.
In the aftermath of Jiang's visit, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a series of bills paying new attention to human rights and religious persecution in China. Also, later this fall, the Freedom from Religious Persecution bill, which proposes to set up an office to monitor religious persecution world-wide and impose various trade and other sanctions on violators, is expected to be voted on.
Also, three religious leaders—Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., chairman of the International Policy Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops-U.S. Catholic Conference, Rabbi Arthur Schneier of New York's Park East Synagogue and founder-president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, and Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals—are preparing to make a trip to China to explore the issue of religious freedom.
According to Father Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based agency promoting Catholic social teaching, Jiang went home with a deeper awareness of how important human rights and religious freedom is to Americans.
“I think ultimately China will loosen up,” said Father Sirico. “You can't go into a country like the United States that allows robust protest and go back to your country and see it the same way.”
Father Sirico also saw what he considered to be a glimmer of hope when Jiang spoke in conditional sentences. For instance, that he wanted to get the Chinese economic engine going before he turns his attention to other human rights concerns.
“He's tacitly acknowledging that there is an issue to get started,” said the priest. “From his perspective, those were giant strides. This is a country so utterly closed.”
Father Sirico does not believe that the United States should link trade with China's dismal human rights record.
“Missionaries themselves are saying ‘Don't cut off trade,’” he said. “Part of the people who are benefiting from a more prosperous China are the believers. It gives them more disposable income to use for the purpose of the Gospel.”
Mike Jendrzejcyczyk, director of Human Rights Watch, a secular, non-profit watch-dog agency in Washington, D.C., termed the outcome of Jiang's visit “extremely disappointing,” but said that this country has several chances in the near future to press China on its human rights record.
“Across the board, the summit was a real failure,” said Jendrzejcyczyk. “I was not surprised that China was not willing to make some token gesture. Up until the end, the (U.S.) administration hoped that a few dissidents would be released.”
However, he added, Chinese Justice Minister Xiao Yang will be coming in early next month to discuss the rule of law and to set up exchanges for lower level officials. He also said that the president should not set a date for his visit to China until there are signs of improvement on human rights.
“President Clinton should not be the first president to set foot in China since the Tiananmen Square massacre without that,” said Jendrzeyczyk. “He believes strongly in human rights. But that does not take the place of having a strong policy putting human rights on par with economic development.”
Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council a Washington-based evangelical Christian organization promoting Christian family values, called the visit a bad week for American values.
“It's pretty clear that everything else was in the back seat other than the desire to find more commercial agreements and trade with the Chinese government,” said Bauer. “When they call us the ‘money-bags democracy,’ they may be right.”
By strengthening China, Bauer said he feared the United States may be making a serious miscalculation. “They are continuing to oppress their people at the same time they are becoming economically and militarily more powerful,” he said. “At [some] time, the point will be reached that the United States can't back down. We have gotten into a mess in Asia three times this century. We can avoid this by saying that we are serious about our values.”
The Cardinal Kung Foundation's Joseph Kung spoke about the two foreign policies at work in the United States: Washington, and big business.
“I think that is what the Chinese government pays more attention to,” he said. “If I were the Chinese president, I would have no incentive to stop the human rights violations. It's business as usual.”
Kung urged the country to begin linking human rights to trade.
“We have policies of zero tolerance for sexism, racism, and child abuse in this country,” he said. “We should have zero tolerance or minimal tolerance for human rights abuses even when they take place more than 20 hours away.”
Lisa Pevtzow is based in Skokie, Ill.
----- EXCERPT: Catholic and other humans rights leaders express hope and skepticism after president's visit ----- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Pevizow ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Brutal Assaults on Religious in India Worry Church Leaders DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI—“We are groping in the dark. This is beyond words,” said Bishop Charles Soreng of Hazaribag, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI). He was reflecting on the feelings of the Indian Church in the face of several recent brutal assaults on Catholic religious.
Hardly before the Christian community came to terms with the September parading of Father Christudas through the streets of the Dumka diocese, it was stunned by the October beheading of Jesuit Father A.T. Thomas—both in the eastern state of Bihar. A militant group kidnapped Father Thomas Oct. 24 from a village meeting he was conducting. His headless body—with hands tied behind his back and bearing additional injuries from severe torture—was found on the morning of Oct. 27, in the jungle at Sirca nine miles from Hazaribag.
“The people are stunned. Everyone feels helpless,” Bishop Soreng told the Register. The bishop led the Oct. 28 funeral service of the slain priest whose head has not been recovered. The secretary general said it is “difficult” to determine if the Dumka and Hazaribag incidents are “part of an anti-Christian conspiracy.”
Father Edward Mudavassery, Jesuit provincial of Hazaribag, is bewildered about the brutal murder of one of his brother priests. “We have never faced any threats or harassment from any group though we have been working in the area for over 15 years,” he said.
The slain priest was well-known in the villages for setting up several village schools among poor dalits (low castes) before he went to Manila, the Philippines, in 1995 to pursue a masters degree in sociology. However, his tragic end came not long after arriving to Hazaribag in August. The visit, for field studies related to his degree, was meant to be short; he was supposed to return to Manila in January to complete his studies.
His murder and the naked parading of the Dumka diocesan priest have caused fear and anguish among the country's 16 million Catholics. In a memorandum to the federal president, the prime minister, and the home minister (similar to an attorney general), the Indian Church emphasized that “the repeated incidents of violence against Christian priests have deeply shaken confidence in the administration in Bihar.” The Oct. 28 memorandum urged the federal government “to intervene directly” with the Bihar government in order to apprehend and try the guilty in the “heinous crimes” immediately.
But if the past is a good indicator, the Church can expect little justice. Reliable sources say local police already have clear information on Father Thomas's murderers, but have failed to act on it. Villagers present when the militant group believed responsible for the murder were tying up the priest are reluctant to give testimony since the group threatened them with death if they cooperated with authorities. Even the police fear the group and want the Church to identify the culprits.
“Police investigation and court trials never bring justice, but only waste our time. Often the [local] administration is of no help in such cases,” said Father Varkey Perekkat, head of the Jesuit community in South Asia. About 3,500 of the 3,700 Jesuits under his direction serve in India.
In September 1994, two Catholic priests and a brother were murdered in Gumla in Bihar. The culprits still remain untouched by police. Most police investigations into similar cases over the past two decades—nearly 20 Catholic priests and nuns working for social justice in the area murdered— have gone nowhere.
The murder of Sister Rani Maria in Indore in the Madhya Pradesh state in February 1995 reflects the grave danger in being a Catholic religious working for social justice there. The nun was stabbed in a bus in front of 50 fellow travelers by people opposed to her work—liberating poor tribals from the clutches of money lenders. The man who led the fatal assault was the local leader of the pro-Hindu party. Locals were too intimidated to testify against him in court. Even the memorial for the murdered nun, built by local people, was pulled down by her enemies.
Five years earlier, nuns at Our Lady of Grace convent at Gajruala, 65 miles south of Delhi, were raped. Afterwards, Christian educational institutions across the country closed and demanded that the perpetrators of the crime be arrested. Two years later, the federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) announced a reward of 100,000 rupees ($3,000) for “useful clues” about the assault. The CBI inquiry was ordered only after the Indian Church took their complaint with the Uttar Pradesh state police to the Supreme Court.
The police had shown the nuns several lineups and asked them to identify the culprits. But the police never brought in the real offenders. Instead, they used criminals who were in jail at the time of the crime for their lineups. Insiders say the police knew the culprits but were under pressure to protect them. Fed up with the inquiries and the farcical trial, the nuns themselves wanted the investigation stopped.
The judiciary too has been of little help in cases of crimes against Church representatives. In 1995, the Supreme Court ordered the state government to pay compensation of 250,000 rupees ($8,000) each to two nuns who were raped, and 100,000 rupees each to five nuns who were assaulted. However, Church leaders described the compensation as an “eye-wash to divert public attention” from the police's failure to arrest the culprits even after five years. The leaders said compensation could be “no substitute for justice.”
Though the CBI report recommended action against the police and against government hospital doctors for misconduct in the case, the court did not give an ultimatum to the investigating agency to arrest those responsible.
Apparently the only time prompt “justice” came was in 1992 when the men who looted and reportedly raped two nuns from a convent in Punjab state surrendered to the police. That was under pressure from the local people and Sikh militants who did not want to lose the trust of Christian social workers in the troubled state. However, reportedly upon suggestion from the Sikh militants, the arrested men were “executed” by the police.
Another incident occurred at Ghaziabad, nine miles south of downtown New Delhi. The Franciscan Sisters of Mary of the Angels had barely settled into their convent there in April 1995, when assailants broke in at midnight and beat five nuns and their maid with iron rods. The assailants neither ransacked the convent nor asked for money.
Their motive seemed clear-to discourage mission work among the poor slum people as the nuns with their new convent were beginning. The trauma of the assault continues to haunt the nuns. Even after two and half years, Sister Effy, now 47, suffers from memory losses, while another victim of the attack, Sister Angeli, continues to have blackouts. Though Sister Cecil, then local superior, was not seriously injured, she is still haunted by the memory of the battering of the others.
“Vested interests opposed to our work among marginalized tribals and dalits have had a hand in most of the attacks,” said Father Mudavessery. “They also do not want the Church to grow in their areas. So they are trying to use such attacks to divert [us] from our work—keeping us preoccupied with bureaucracy, police, and courts.”
To prevent organized assaults on Church workers in northern and eastern India, some bishops have even started saying it is time for the religious “not to stay in isolated places.” But the real impact is evident in southern Kerala state which accounts for more than 60% of India's 110,000 vocations.
“Some parents are now reluctant to allow their children to join congregations working in remote areas,” said Father Alex Ooken, General Superior of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate and former national secretary of the Conference of Religious in India. The parental concern seems justified—all victims of rape and most of the victims of murder have been Keralites including the recently beheaded Jesuit.
Anto Akkara is based in New Delhi.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: On Gun Control, Bishops Offer Moral Guidance But No Absolute Stand DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:IN STATEMENTS and pastoral messages dating back as far as 1975, the U.S. bishops have strongly endorsed regulating the use and sale of handguns in this country. In a September 1975 document called Handgun Violence: A Threat to Life, issued by the Committee on Social Development and World Peace of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC), the bishops called for a “national firearms policy” that included a cooling-off period between the sale and possession of handguns, a ban on Saturday Night Specials, and registration and licensing of handguns.
The rest of the country is catching up, as the gun control issue, which has had mixed results in Congress, is now being played out in many of the states. And much of what is being asked for by way of regulations on handguns is exactly what was found in the bishops' national firearms policy, drafted more than 20 years ago.
Some of the latest data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga., indicates that in seven states, the number of firearm deaths surpass the number of motor vehicle deaths each year. One of those states is Washington, where a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, known as Initiative 676, called for new requirements that handgun owners obtain a license and pass a safety test, and for trigger locks on every pistol—new or used—sold in the state.
Although polls taken less than a month before the election indicated that the measure would pass, heavy lobbying late in the campaign, especially by the National Rifle Association, helped to defeat it by a 3 to 1 margin.
The measure was supported by the Washington State Catholic Conference. A memo sent to every pastor in the state by the Conference director, Sister Sharon Park OP, on behalf of the bishops of the state of Washington, said that “… As a Church deeply committed to upholding the value of human life, we oppose forces which threaten it. One of these factors is the easy availability of handguns.”
“We have taken a position supporting Initiative 676, and we don't usually take a position,” Sister Park said. “But we have done so because the bishops for such a long period of time have said that reducing the number of handguns is one of the ways to do something about violence, and particularly to protect our children.”
Sister Park pointed out that simply getting the measure on the ballot in the state was a great accomplishment for those in favor of more handgun controls. It is estimated that one in five residents of the state of Washington own a gun. “180,000 signatures were required, and 220,000 were collected,” she said.
The U. S. bishops have followed up their landmark 1975 statement calling for controls on handguns with two other important documents concerning violence in American society: 1990's New Slavery, New Freedom: Pastoral Message on Substance Abuse, and 1994's Confronting a Culture of Violence. Both documents call for Catholics in parish groups and as individual citizens to call on the strength of their convictions as the first step against violence.
“… We can turn away from violence; we can build communities of greater peace. It begins with a clear conviction: respect for life. Respect for life is not just a slogan or a program. It is a fundamental moral principal flowing from our teaching on the dignity of the human person. It is an approach to life that values people over things. Respect for life must guide the choices we make as individuals and as a society; what we do and won't do, what we value and consume, whom we admire and whose example we follow, what we support and what we oppose. Respect for life is the starting point for confronting a culture of violence” (Confronting a Culture of Violence).
In spite of their strong words in favor of controls on handguns, the bishops have never questioned the constitutional right to own firearms, or criticized the use of guns for hunting and recreational purposes.
“Clearly, the bishops have not taken a position on owning handguns, but on their responsible use,” according to Dan Misleh, a policy advisor in the Department of Social Development and World Peace at the USCC.
That rather fine point of distinction sometimes makes it difficult for state Catholic conferences, which are traditionally the policy arm of the bishops in their respective states, and other Catholics in leadership positions, to take a vocal stand on the various gun control proposals that are moving through so many of the states.
For example, earlier this fall, California Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would have outlawed the sale and manufacture of inexpensive handguns known as “junk guns” or Saturday Night Specials. Federal law bans the importation of this type of gun, and the overwhelming majority of this category of firearms—80%—are manufactured in the state of California.
But the California Catholic Conference did not actively lobby for this piece of legislation, although they “basically supported” it, according to David Pollard, associate director for public policy at the Conference.
“It was a legislative attempt to eliminate a class of weapons whose sole purpose is maiming or eliminating life,” Pollard said. “These are not hunting weapons, not skill weapons—none of the legitimate justifications.”
“Our action on gun control has never been a drum-beating kind of thing,” Pollard said. “Basically, our stance over the years has been to take no position on the ownership of guns … but rather, lending moral force or moral support.”
Although this measure failed in California, Maryland banned the sale of the same class of handguns nine years ago. Connecticut has already made laws similar to the set of safety and licensing requirements just voted down in Washington. In a few other states— Massachusetts in particular—gun control advocates have taken to applying consumer product safety regulations already on the books to the sale of guns, requiring certain safety features. And in South Carolina, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Illinois, there are laws prohibiting the sale and manufacture of some handguns made with inferior-quality metal.
At the conclusion of their 1975 document, Handgun Violence: A Threat to Life, the bishops said that they understood the controversial nature of this issue, since the right to bear arms is “grounded in the Constitution.”
“We realize … some people of good faith will find themselves opposed to these measures. We acknowledge that controlling possession of handguns will not eliminate gun violence, but we believe it is an indispensable element for any serious or rational approach to the problem.”
Molly Mulqueen is based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Call for Civility Among Catholics DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Current posts: Ninth bishop of Cleveland, a diocese covering eight counties in north-central Ohio; president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)
Background: Native of Cleveland; ordained as a priest May 23, 1959 and as a bishop Aug. 1, 1979; bachelor's degree in philosophy and masters degree in history from John Carroll University; rector-president of Borromeo College Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio; served in many capacities at all levels of Catholic education; treasurer and vice president of the NCCB before becoming its president
Episcopal motto: “Remain in My Love.”
As of November 1997, Bishop Anthony Pilla completes the second year of a three-year term as president of the bishops' conference. Currently, he is also leading his diocese, Cleveland, Ohio, in a year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary, with the theme “Celebrating God's Blessings.” Events marking the sesquicentennial include a Vatican art exhibit, a performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, a Walk-a-Thon/Pray-a-Thon in the city of Cleveland, an ecumenical concert, an exhibit of the history of the parishes at the Cleveland Historical Museum, and more. Bishop Pilla has overseen the growth of the diocesan schools that now serve almost 69,000 young people; and the diocese's Church in the City initiative engages suburban parishes in supporting the presence of the Church in the center city. At his diocesan offices in Cleveland, Bishop Pilla recently spoke with Register assistant editor Gerry Rauch.
Rauch: What qualities do the bishops look for when they select a president of the bishops' Conference?
Bishop Pilla: I think they look for someone who can facilitate the meetings and bring people together, and who can act as a spokesperson for the Conference; someone who is very aware that it is the conference's agenda and not his own. Most people see this position like a political presidency, where you come in with an agenda. I don't see my role that way. My role is more to facilitate the discussion of the bishops. And, once the bishops make a determination, to carry out that program in their name.
It is so easy to transfer ideas of the political process from the civil arena into the Church arena, and to think of the bishops voting like a legislature. How would you distinguish the two?
Actually, the authority of the Conference is very limited. The authority in dioceses really resides in the local bishop. But many people see the Conference as some kind of super-authority and they want us to make regulations and rules. Our authority to do so is very limited. We can give guidance and we can give expression to the Catholic presence in the United States, but in most matters we have no authority within the local Churches. Many times people write complaint letters, and even expect us to intervene. We have no authority to do that.
Letter writers to Catholic publications are often critical about what the bishops are doing or not doing, whatever the topic. How does that affect the bishops—to be the focus of so many complaints?
I guess none of the bishops are surprised about that because given the position that we are in, we frequently become the target of criticism. In our Church, people's perception is that it is such a monolith and that we have total control over this monolith.
Well, that perception does not reflect the reality. There are levels of authority and our authority is limited. Everyone is not our subject and we cannot just say a word and have it implemented immediately.
There are procedures, there are laws of the Church that give us authority, yes. But they also give other persons their proper authority and rights, and we cannot ignore that. There is due process in law, and we have to observe all of that.
I think criticism is not always a bad thing. We are not above criticism, personally and as a conference. We do make mistakes and we need to be accountable.
Quite frankly, the criticism is not the issue for me. The way in which people express that criticism in this day and age, though, does concern me. There seems to be, more often than I think is appropriate, a mean-spirited criticism by individuals, by the media, that calls into question a person's good will, a person's fidelity to the teachings of the Church, a person's motivation.
Sometimes that is directed toward the bishop. Sometime it is directed toward the Church. That can be quite harmful. I know it is harmful to us personally as bishops. It drains your energy and your emotions. It is really divisive and harmful to the unity of the Church. Criticism needs to be done in a spirit of civility, in a spirit of charity. And this is sometimes not present.
Do you think we are headed toward more polarization in the Catholic Church in America, or toward less?
Well, I don't know if it's more or less. I think it has always been there, but because of the technology today, because of the media, we are much more conscious of the polarization.
People now go to the media, they go to the press, they go to the television, they write, they use e-mail, they get on the Internet, they have a web page. All of that has instant audiences. I think the divisiveness within the Church has much more impact because of the modern context.
Do you think that means we are saddled with it for good?
Oh, I think we are saddled with it. And it's not just the technology. I think the culture in which we live promotes it maybe more than before.
You know, I don't want to use a word simply because it's connected now with a TV show, but there is nothing sacred. Everyone feels, in the context in the United States, you're free to take off on anyone you want—whether it is a priest, bishop, Pope, whatever.
That's the American way. The consumer mentality really prevails. If you don't like the product you are free to say anything you want, in any way you want, and people are supposed to allow you to do that.
Well, I'm not sure about that. I think if you want an answer you should write with some courtesy and some respect.
The other thing, too, in our culture, is that institutions don't fare well. There is such an emphasis on the individual and individual rights that the institution is always the ogre, and the villain. The individual is always the victim.
The government experiences the same thing. Other professions experience the same thing.
Can you think of a criticism that came your way that you did not agree with at first but ended up being helpful?
Yes, many times. With my first presbyteral council, for example: I needed to do things personally with priests more than I was doing. I felt this was constructive criticism.
And when we wrote the pastoral on the economy. As a direct reaction to criticism that we had not listened enough we had hearings throughout the country. We had drafts that people could react to. That was a direct result of constructive criticism.
The same thing with regard to lay participation on the Conference's committees. We are so conscious of the need for that because people have indicated that we don't have all the expertise on a number of issues. But many people within the Church do, and we ought to take advantage of that.
If we are dealing with medical-moral issues, we ought to involve doctors. We ought to involve other professional persons. We as bishops need to consult these people, and that is constructive. Obviously, we are the teachers, but that does not mean we have to possess all the knowledge ourselves. We ought to take advantage of these other experts in various fields.
When we write on the economy, we ought to talk to economists. We ought to talk to corporate people. We ought to talk to labor people.
I think women in the United States have made us much more conscious of the fact that even within the current discipline of the Church we need to be more inclusive and careful in how we speak so that we don't offend people unnecessarily. That is constructive.
You mention lay participation in the bishops' decision-making. It is my impression that there is a move somewhat away from that, with more of the committees being directly guided by the bishops. Is that correct?
I can understand how people perceive that. When we talked about the re-structuring of the conference, part of the consensus was that we do not need two conferences anymore: the NCCB and the USCC. The need for two was clear originally. But the context has changed, so that we don't necessarily need two. The consensus is we can get along with one conference. One conference, then, is a conference of bishops. If it is what it is—a conference of bishops—then bishops need to be on the committees.
But then what is the appropriate role of non-bishops? How do we involve other people? I don't think anyone wants to get away from the appropriate participation of non-bishops, but the task is “How do we incorporate that into a new structure that is a conference of bishops?”
And I think the arrangement will be that the members of the committees will be bishops, but that other persons, men and women, lay, religious, clergy—any non-bishop—will be in those committees in the role of consultants, or whatever role is as meaningful as we can make it.
The whole idea of national bishops' conferences is new since Vatican II. Has it been a good development?
The positive thing—and I see this as very, very positive— is that it allows us to serve the people of the Church together as bishops. While I understand the local bishops and the diocese, and the need for that, we also need to do things on a national level.
If we are really going to address issues of the Church on a national level, if we are going to mobilize the Church on a national level to address issues within our society, I think we need a structure to do that. I think the conference is a good structure to do that. It can bring people together to work together and to deal with issues in an effective way. There are a lot of issues that we have to address beyond the local Church.
It also gives us a perspective other than our local perspective. And it gives us a vehicle to impact policies that affect us locally. Many of those policies are national policies that have enormous impact at the local level, but as a bishop of the diocese of Cleveland you can't have that much impact on national policy. As a member of a national conference you can.
There is a ferment these days on the question of liturgical renewal. What is your own view on where we stand, and where we should be headed?
There is a tremendous diversity within the country. For some, we are not moving fast enough. They are afraid that they're going to be disappointed and disheartened because we are not going where they want us to be. For others we're moving too fast, or inappropriately, and they are afraid that we're going to take them where they don't want to be. That is a struggle.
My own sense is one of healthy development. We are progressing while trying to do so in a way that is pastorally advisable.
Change for the sake of change is not necessarily good. We have to make sure change is appropriate. If we make a change, there needs to be proper catechesis so that people can understand, and the change can be nourishing.
The document for the Synod forAmerica said that some approaches to liturgy do not preserve the sense of the transcendent. And some people want to restore that sense of the transcendent partly through a use of Latin. Is that a good direction?
I am convinced of the value of mystery, symbol, and a sense of the transcendent. It is very difficult to say whether a return to Latin will restore that; but I think that is part of the dialogue we have to have before we make decisions. Would it be appropriate because a group of people feel that way? There is also another large group of people who feel that while you preserve the mystery and the tradition, you should also have full participation, and can you have that full participation in a language other than the vernacular?
That is the diversity I was speaking of, and the difficulty for the conference is how to take all of that diversity and then legislate in a way that is going to preserve the unity of the Church.
Everyone wants us to do what they want done. Everyone wants the Church that they want. But it's Christ's Church so it has to have room for everybody. That is what people have a difficulty with.
You have special interest groups, you have special agendas, and everyone trying to influence the final result. That is what is difficult. That's why I think there is always going to be an amount of diversity within the Church.
Some people will struggle with that. They want to mandate for everyone. Everyone has an itch to reform everybody else and everyone wants to use the crosier on everyone else—immediately. But when it comes to them they want us to be out of the scene. Then we're supposed to leave them alone.
It seems to me that one of the trends of the last twenty years is not just an emergence of the laity, but an explosion of lay activity in the Church. For example, you have right here in your diocese WMIH radio station for Catholics, which is a lay initiative. You have lay people who wanted to continue a Catholic school, and you allowed them to do that. And so on. How is all this lay explosion working for the bishops?
It's wonderful. By Baptism we are all called to share in the mission of the Church. I don't think you can have too much involvement of lay people.
Talking about more laity and less clergy can be offensive and misleading. There is an appropriate role for the clergy. There is an appropriate role for the religious. There is an appropriate role for the laity.
The greater participation of all the members of the Church the healthier it is.
For example, in politics, we need great leaders, informed in the Catholic tradition. That would be of tremendous benefit for the whole country. But as people get active, many times instead of thinking of that kind of thing, they think, “I want to preach the Word like the priest does.”
What we need is Catholic lay persons to understand that they share in the mission of the Church in whatever they do.
We have a terrible need for informed Catholic persons to be elected to political office. We have a terrible need for informed Catholic persons to be doctors and to follow the moral teachings of the Church. We have a terrible need for Catholic lawyers to follow the moral and ethical teachings of the Church. We have a terrible need for Catholics to be CEOs of major corporations who make decisions every day that affect who eats, who doesn't eat; who gets medical care, who doesn't; who lives in decent housing, who doesn't; who gets a fair wage, who doesn't.
Our Catholic tradition has something to contribute to all of those fields. Catholic values need to be part of the public debate. Catholic social teaching can enrich the lives of all the people in our land.
How can the teachings become better known?
Well, that's a challenge we face. I think Catholic education is a critical part of that. We must be well-informed Catholics and we all—individuals and institutions—have to transmit that teaching authentically, which is not always done. We have to preach more effectively, which is not always done. We have to use the media more effectively, which we have not been able to do.
On the question of being involved in public policy in the United States, you were involved with the cardinals in opposing partial-birth abortion. What do you think was achieved through that?
What we succeeded in, I think, is that we put our views on this terrible procedure before the President, the Congress, and the people of the United States. I think we gave it tremendous visibility that without our participation it would not have had.
So I think we had some impact on bringing this to the public's attention—that it is never a legitimate alternative. Congress passed legislation which would have prohibited partial-birth abortion, but the President vetoed it. It is going to come up again, and I hope that we will continue to present the teaching in an effective way and be able to overcome the present situation. But at least we have been a significant part of that public debate. We do plan to continue that.
What do you think are the best things happening in the American Church today?
Well, I think there is a great deal of spiritual renewal going on that I find very, very encouraging. People are looking for spiritual development. And I think we have had significant impact on justice issues in our country as a Church. I find that all very encouraging.
From reading some of the things you have said, it seemed to me that you had a particular interest in scripture. Is that right?
I guess the core of my own personal spirituality is Eucharist, and I think Eucharist necessarily involves the Word of God.
Whenever we gather to celebrate, a central part of that gathering is a reflection on God's word, because we are nourished in order to carry out the mission of the Church. Understanding the mission of the Church you have to understand the word of God, because it's God's Church and not our own.
I, as a bishop, have to make sure I am doing what God wants me to do, and not imposing my personal will on other people. I am not an elected official. I have been sent. I have been called by God and sent to the people of God, so I have to be nourished by the Scriptures because that helps me to understand that call. Scripture also helps me to keep refining my motivation.
I think that's where people get mixed up. It's not sociology, it's not humanitarianism, it's sanctification. That's what the Scriptures are all about. So it is reflecting on that and properly understanding the word of God that helps me to do what I'm supposed to do today.
I don't know how you're about God's business without reflecting on God's word, because that is one of the major ways in which God's will is manifested to me—that and the tradition of the Church. Those are the two sources.
If I am not nourished by those two sources then am I doing what I am supposed to do, as a person and as a leader of the Church? I don't think so.
How did you find your calling to be a priest?
The goodness of my parents was important. And I went to a Catholic high school and a brother who was kind of the moderator of students there just asked me to consider it one day.
What did you think when he asked you?
Not much. I was almost surprised that he even asked me. I never saw myself as particularly pious. I was interested in medicine. My dad was in the electrical business and probably would have loved for me to become an electrical engineer. There were a lot of things that I was interested in, but he did ask me and I did start thinking about it, and the more I thought about it the more it attracted me, to a point that eventually I decided to find out and go to the seminary.
And I heard you played quarterback for Cathedral Latin High.
I was the quarterback on the freshman team. I never played Varsity, because I transferred to a seminary.
Did that experience serve you well in life?
Yes. I thought playing sports, especially at Cathedral Latin, was a great experience for me because it taught me discipline, it taught me the value of team effort, it taught me the value of collaboration, that if you're going to win you need to depend on other people and they need to be able to depend on you. I think I learned something about leadership. I learned that it is tough to lose sometimes. You don't always win and you can't crumble under that.
Someone said to me that you're really strong on seeing yourself as a priest. Can you elaborate on that?
I came into ministry to be a parish priest. I didn't do it very much, but that is still my focus. And basically, that's what I am. I am a parish priest, a diocesan priest, who has been called to act as bishop, but I see my role as a pastor and not as an authority figure or an exerciser of power. I just see the fact that I have been called from among the priests to be their bishop, but I am one of them. I am one of them and I need to always be one of them and I need to keep that focus. Some people want me to be judge, jury, and executioner. Some want me to be an efficient manager. That's their image; that's not my image. I see myself primarily as the pastor of this local Church.
If you had a chance to say one thing to Pope John Paul II that he would really listen to, what would it be?
“Take good care of yourself. We need you.”
I think he has been an outstanding leader and I think the Church and the world have benefited from him. I think he is a man of integrity and a deeply spiritual man. I say this very genuinely. I really feel that strongly. I would urge him to take good care of himself so that the blessing that he has been we can enjoy as long as God wills.
—Gerry Rauch
----- EXCERPT: The president of the U.S. Bishops' Conference assesses the state of the American Church today ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop Anthony Pilla ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S.Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Street-Side Dialogue in Hollywood
A group of North Hollywood Catholics didn't like the idea of a conference called “Ex-Catholics for Christ,” held at the local Grace Community Church—so they went to the Church to protest.
The protest became a heated debate, according to an L.A. Times article printed in the Sunday, Nov. 9 paper. [T]he rhetoric between the opposing Christian groups was anything but mild as Bible-carrying adherents squared off in curbside theological debates.
“You just totally messed up the Bible,” Harout Kouyoumdjian, 19,… [a] Protestant, told Michael Murphy, 26, a Catholic from Huntington Beach who was trying to explain Communion rites.
'‘Catholics do not believe in the Bible. Catholicism is not bringing people to truth,’ said Kouyoumdjian, a Grace Community Church member and conference participant.
“That's not true,” Murphy replied. “We just have a teaching authority.”
"The purpose of the ex-Catholics conference is to encourage Roman Catholics to renounce their Church and to lead them into the Protestant fold, according to attendees.…
“We're here to witness for our Church,” said protest organizer Jim Graves, 32, of Irvine. “They are inaccurately representing our creed. This is a mild protest of the inaccurate information they are offering about the Catholic Church.”
Washington Unites Northern Irish
The Sunday, Nov. 9 Washington Post told the story of a group of Protestant and Catholic men from Northern Ireland who have found unlikely common ground: a crime-ridden DC neighborhood.
“If Eugene Branagan and Ivan McCready crossed paths in Northern Ireland, they would eye each other warily, check [for] … tell-tale signs of [religion] and be ready to bolt at the first hint of trouble.
“Instead, there they were last week at a construction site in Anacostia, hoisting bags of cement together … teasing each other and roughhousing with half a dozen other Irish trainees—some Protestant, some Catholic who are in this country to help build homes for the poor.
“Before, I never would have [kidded] someone like Ivan for fear of offending him, but here we can slag each other about being Protestant or Catholic without expecting the other person to get mad,' said Branagan, 18, a Catholic potato farmer and a participant in Tearing Down Walls, a 10-week program sponsored by Habitat for Humanity and two other non-profit groups.”
The program is meant to help jobless Catholic and Protestant men from Northern Ireland to acquire skills—while becoming more accepting of one another. The program has one unintended effect: its participants long for the safety of Northern Ireland.
“Other than political crime, there is very little crime in Ireland,' Branagan said. ‘People keep asking us if its dangerous back there, but unless you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think you have a far greater chance of getting killed in Washington or New York.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:English Burn Pope in Effigy
Catholic universities often speak of their “Catholic heritage,” and then embrace “diversity.” Critics charge that one English town does the reverse: it embraces its anti-Catholic heritage while giving lip service to diversity.
As the BBC news reported Nov. 5, 1997, the town of Lewes, in Sussex county, England, once again burned Pope Paul V in effigy on Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5 this year.
“Father Eric Flood, the parish priest in Lewes, says the ritual of burning effigies of Pope Paul V in the town centre every year is ‘moral racism.’ His comments come as one of the five Bonfire Societies of Lewes says it will go ahead with plans which include igniting a firework-stuffed effigy of the man who was Pope at the time of the Gunpowder plot.
Keith Austin of the Cliff Bonfire Society defended the event as part of the carnival's tradition.
“That tradition began when Guy Fawkes led a Catholic insurrection to get rid of the Protestant King James the First of England. The plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the king failed and Guy Fawkes along with his co-conspirators was hanged. A relieved king decided to fertilize anti-Catholic feeling by making the event a public holiday. It's no longer a public holiday in Britain but Lewes, where 17 Protestants were [put to death during a Catholic reign] enthusiastically kept up the tradition. Tonight 3,000 people will parade through the town in what has become one of Britain's wildest nights out. For most of the thousands of people who line the streets every year it's a party—with banners, flaming torches, and singing. But for the Catholic Church as long as the Cliff society continues to burn its effigies—which last year included the current Catholic bishop—it's an anti-Catholic ritual that's got to stop.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Israel Antiquities Authority Announces Important Christian Archeological Find DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM-Israeli archeologists have found the remains of a large Byzantine church on the site where Mary is believed to have rested on her way to Bethlehem.
Known as the Kathisma Church, the structure has mosaic and marble floors, as well as a holy stone, “The Seat” (kathisma, in Greek), where Mary rested on her way to Bethlehem from Jerusalem, according to early Christian tradition. The church dates to the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. and is the largest of its type ever discovered in Israel. The excavation was conducted on land belonging to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which gave its blessing to the project.
Archeologists Rina Avner and Yuval Baruch, who directed the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, called the structure “the earliest and largest major church dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus.”
They noted that the church's octagonal plan also served as the basis for a smaller and simpler church on Mt. Gerizim. Its influence can also be seen in the octagonal Dome of the Rock Mosque on the Temple Mount.
The church and nearby monastery are believed to have been built by a donation from Iqilia, a rich widow, in the mid-fifth century A.D. on the spot where Mary rested on her journey to Bethlehem before giving birth to Jesus.
Surrounding the “seat” is an octagonal area with large corner pilasters and two outer octagonal rings: The interior ring served as a walkway (ambulatoria) from which worshippers could view the stone seat. Between the chapels on the east stood a large central apse with a raised prayer platform. A large monastery stood to the south.
Jerusalem Region Archeologist Gideon Avni said that the Antiquities Authority is hoping to raise funds toward continuing the development of the site for visit by tourists and pilgrims. (Michele Chabin)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Null or Not? Canon Law Holds the Key to a Marriage's Validity DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:EVERY ANNULMENT case comes down to a single question: has the marriage in question been proven null under canon law? Annulment cases do not turn upon whether the marriage in question was predominately happy or argumentative, on whether the parties were good Catholics or bad, or on whether there was alcoholism, infidelity, or spouse-abuse in the marriage.
Annulment cases, even when these other issues are relevant, as they frequently are, are concerned only with whether, under the canon law of the Catholic Church, the parties to the impugned marriage entered what the Church understands and proclaims as a true marriage. Further, because marriage enjoys the favor of law, only if it is proven that the parties did not enter such a marriage can it be declared null.
Capacity, Consent, and Form
Canon law has long recognized three fundamental ways in which a marriage might be proven invalid. These three categories concern what are termed capacity for marriage, consent to marriage, and the form of marriage. Briefly, if either (or both) of the parties to the marriage can be proven to have lacked canonical capacity for marriage, or if one or both of the parties can be proven to have failed to consent to true marriage, or if one or both parties can be proven to have violated various requirements regarding the form, or ceremony, of marriage, that marriage can be declared null.
Note, however, that if even one of these three issues can be proven with regard to either spouse, the whole marriage must be declared null. In some cases, multiple grounds for nullity, even relating to both parties, can be investigated and proven, although this is not frequently done for administrative reasons. Lest all of this sound like six big ways to attack the validity of any marriage, recall that canon law presumes that both parties to a marriage had capacity for marriage, that both parties consented to what the Church recognizes as a marriage, and that both parties have observed due form in marrying; it is rather the lack of these qualities that must be proven for nullity to be declared.
Failure of Consent?
Every society requires its members to possess certain basic qualities before being allowed to marry. For example, regardless of how much two people might be in love and regardless of how well they might be able to articulate the various aspects of marriage, we would say that two 13-year-olds cannot marry, that is, that they lack capacity for marriage. Put more technically, their age is an impediment to marriage under, as it happens in this example, both canon and civil law. Therefore, even if such a couple somehow found a minister or civil official to pronounce a wedding ceremony over them (say, they provided false birth certificates), their marriage would be null because of their lack of capacity for marriage at the time of the wedding.
Societies develop different lists of impediments to marriage based in part on the issues that each society feels are important for marriage. In the Roman Catholic Church, the current impediments to marriage are listed in the 1983 Code and include such things as lack of age, being already married to someone else, being a cleric, or being too closely related by blood to an intended spouse.
Many things that the Church considers as impediments to marriage (such as being a cleric or a nun) are not impediments to marriage under civil law. Thus, a priest can enter marriage under civil law even though that would be an invalid marriage under canon law. In any event, because the things which, as impediments, could lead to canonical nullity of a marriage are usually very easy to spot before the ceremony, relatively few marriages with impediments are attempted and hence relatively few annulment cases are heard on the grounds of lack of capacity due to impediments. Far more cases of matrimonial nullity are heard on the possibility of failure of consent.
The ‘Psychological Canons’
Assuming two people have capacity for marriage, they still must freely choose to enter marriage in order to be considered married. People who apparently enter marriage deceived by fraud, or under duress, or out of force and fear, may, upon proving such allegations, be found not to have entered marriage at all. But beyond such relatively clear-cut cases which most people recognize as providing a basis for declaring any kind of contract null, the Catholic Church also expects that people entering marriage possess sufficient emotional stability and psychological maturity to enter what, for most of them, will be the most important thing in their lives.
Thus, under canon law, people who suffer from a grave lack of discretion of judgment about marriage can, in certain cases, be found to have attempted marriage invalidly, even though they were free of any impediments to marriage and even though they followed due form in being married. Such cases, of course, call for the most discerning judgment in tribunals, if only because the Church presumes that people entering marriage freely intend to do so and understand what the Church expects of them. Nevertheless, many putative marriages are found, upon investigation, to have been null according to the so-called “psychological canons.”
One way to appreciate the importance of the “psychological canons” in modern canon law is to stop for a moment and consider the state of the society in which most people (I speak here mainly of Americans) are trying to marry these days. In brief, there has probably never been a more difficult time to enter what the Church has always upheld as true marriage.
Virtually nothing in modern society supports or trains one for traditional, healthy, or normal marriage any more. Most people attempting to enter marriage now have been raised with legalized abortion, an almost complete acceptance of contraception, the collapse of nearly all forms of sexual restraint, and a pervasive no-fault divorce mentality. Almost no major denomination still promotes the permanence of marriage as anything more than a pious goal, and even among Catholics, there has been a stunning drop in practical catechesis on this and related points over the last two generations. In brief, if ever there was a time to look for an increase in the number of cases in which the nullity of marriage is based on serious pre-wedding psychological and emotional distortions of marriage, it is now.
Obviously, of course, ecclesiastical tribunals cannot simply look at the dismal state of modern society and conclude that anyone in such a society is doomed to an invalid marriage. Neither canon law, nor repeated Church teachings on marriage and family life, nor a healthy understanding of the resiliency of human nature and the power of grace permit such facile conclusions. But such factors do suggest the danger of signing on to blanket criticisms of tribunals for “granting too many annulments.”
In Good Form
The final issue upon which an annulment case might be decided applies mostly to Catholics, although in some cases it is relevant to cases involving non-Catholics. According to canon law, Catholics wishing to marry must not only possess basic canonical capacity for marriage and express freely their consent to marriage as the Church understands and proclaims it, but they must also celebrate that wedding ceremony in accord with “canonical form.” Basically, this means that Catholics must “marry in the Church,” that is, before a properly delegated priest or deacon, with proper witnesses, and so on. The requirement of canonical form is what makes the marriages of Catholics before civil magistrates and non-Catholic ministers usually invalid.
The requirement of canonical form was introduced into Church life around the time of the Council of Trent and was originally intended as a way of heading off cases of secret marriage in which spouses, usually wives, were later abandoned and left without any means of proving their matrimonial rights. Over the centuries, it was also noted that certain pastoral goals such as marriage education could be fostered by knowing that couples would have to marry before a Church official.
Civil Factors
To some degree, these pastoral goals are still served by canonical form requirements, although the need for canonical form as a protection against secret marriage has been all but eliminated due to good record keeping by civil governments. In any case, and notwithstanding some recent modifications in the requirement of form, the nullity implications of canonical form require American tribunals to declare null some 15,000 marriages involving Catholics each year.
Canonical form, because it is a requirement of ecclesiastical law binding only Catholics, does not apply to non-Catholic Christians, let alone to the non-baptized. Therefore, the fact that non-Catholics frequently marry in civil-only ceremonies is not grounds for annulment of such marriages, and as indicated above, current canon law even allows some Catholics to marry apart from canonical form. Each case of possible marriage nullity based on lack of form, therefore, requires an examination of the exact facts in order to be sure.
A final, very important point on grounds for annulments: each of the three factors discussed above must be investigated as they existed at the time of the wedding. Canon law on marriage, and the Church teaching it upholds, does not allow post-wedding factors, such as length of marriage or number of children, to make up for fundamental deficiencies in capacity, consent, or form that were present at the time of the wedding. Although many post-wedding factors are studied during annulment cases, these issues are studied for the kind of light, if any, they shed on pre-wedding factors affecting the parties when they were married.
This canonical and theological reality is what lies behind the occasional, but always disturbing annulment of a “marriage” that lasted 20 or 30 years and which produced many children. Such hard cases, far from being evidence that diocesan tribunals regard the permanence of marriage with levity, are proof of the commitment of tribunals to applying Church marriage law faithfully even in the face of stern criticism based on seriously incomplete understandings of the situation.
Conversely, the brevity of a marriage or the absence of children cannot be used as proof of its nullity, since once again, the main question before the tribunal is how the marriage started, not how it ended. Tribunal personnel are just as frequently scored by critics for their failure to recognize the “obvious” invalidity of a brief marriage as they are attacked for “blithely” annulling what look like perfectly good, long-time marriages.
Dr. Edward Peters is a matrimonial judge with the Tribunal of the Diocese of San Diego. His 100 Answers to Your Questions on Annulments (Basilica Press/Simon & Schuster, 1997), is available at Catholic books stores.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Assisted Suicide: A Dark Answer DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:The term “physician-assisted suicide” is really an absurd description, since collaborating in the act of suicide contradicts a physician's vocation and, in effect, represents a throwback to the dark ages of crude and superstitious paganism. Isn't this why the American Medical Association opposes the practice?
That the direct taking of one's own life cannot be justified as reasonable was evident to philosophers of ancient Greece where much of the great adventure of the Western mind commenced.
Socrates, one of the most original thinkers of all times, when asked why he did not try to foil the execution of a manifestly unjust death sentence upon him by suicide, explained that he did not own himself; on the contrary he was God's. Hence he had only limited power over what he might actually do.
Socrates viewed life as a gift. The argument that suicide might be interpreted as giving back the gift, he saw as specious—indeed, without merit—since even the pagans saw the ultimate goal of life as reaching beyond the present life, and that suicide does not lead to nothingness, but rather to judgment.
The very notion of gift, after all, presumes a giver. It doesn't take much thought to realize that life is not a self-gift, or, in an informal way, to come to the conclusion that one cannot give what one does not have. Life is obviously derivative, to anyone who applies his or her intellect to the subject.
Albert Camus, the French existentialist who was awarded the Nobel Prize and who was turning increasingly toward God in his philosophical discussions, once said that the very first philosophical question is: “Should I or should I not commit suicide?” But, as philosopher Ralph McInerny explains, Camus realized that even to discuss this question is to answer it in the negative. Camus was saying that knowing the right answer is more important than taking one's own life. In other words, thinking—the capacity to discover truth and to make judgments—is good and as such is not to be extinguished—which of course is what suicide would do.
To put all this another way: anything that can be perceived by me as a good to be deserved presupposes my existence once it is acquired. McInerny states: “Thus, my ceasing to be cannot be chosen as a good. Ceasing to be cannot be any good.”
Camus's question was phrased in immortal language by Shakespeare, especially in Hamlet's immortal soliloquy: “To be, or not to be: that is the question.”
Regardless of how Hamlet and this speech are interpreted, it cannot be doubted that Shakespeare was speaking about self-destruction. Mark the lines:
“To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coiI
Must give us pause
For who would bear the whips and scorns or time…
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?”
In another speech Hamlet plays on the same theme when he laments:
“[T]hat the Almighty had not fix'd
His cannon 'gainst self-slaughter.”
The direct taking of one's own life is, simply stated, contrary to the moral law written by the Creator in each one's own heart. For a physician to participate (or to collaborate) in self destruction is repugnant to reason by virtue of a physician's role as healer, a role which he has assumed by means of an oath, which, despite “revisionist” theories, remains essentially the same in this regard as it was in the age of the Greek Hippocrates. Physicians are called to safeguard and to save, not to destroy, human life.
Besides, do we not have data to the effect that the terminally ill who request doctor-assisted suicide are struggling with depression or guilt or anger or the search for meaning? Isn't the solution to help them face these challenges, not dispatch them? Moreover, isn't the concept of redemptive suffering a biblical truth? As some of the world's greatest contemporary philosophers have pointed out—including Pope John Paul II—dehumanizing acts toward others only dehumanize those who perform them. Euthanasia in any mode destroys the moral vision of the perpetrator.
Finally, palliative care today has become sophisticated. As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and others have pointed out, there is so much that can be done today in the area of pain control. And hospice care, ensuring natural death with dignity, is becoming available to more and more.
Father David Liptak is censor librorum for the Archdiocese of Hartford, and teaches bioethics at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Liptak ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Elusive 'Authority' Gives Authors the Slip DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Authority: The Most Misunderstood Idea in America
by Eugene Kennedy and Sara Charles
(The Free Press, 1997, 244 pp., $24.50)
ISSUES SURROUNDING authority are not new—either to the governance of nations or to the management of households and the rearing of children. The classical questions, however, concern not so much the definition of authority as the source of its legitimacy and the requirements of exercising it well. Eugene Kennedy and Sara Charles approach the classic questions by redefining the nature of authority, and from there they go on to consider more carefully when it may be legitimate, and how it ought best to be exercised.
The authors advance the thesis, partly based on the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, that society is presently undergoing a dramatic change. The advent of the “Space-Information Age” has made the hierarchical, authoritarian structures that have previously dominated society unworkable. They believe that such structures will eventually be replaced by genuine authority, but that we are now living in an interim period characterized both by the disintegration of the old ways and by the absence of healthy authority. This volume is an attempt to describe what that healthy authority should be in such areas of life as marriage, the family, education, work, government and religion.
Kennedy and Charles never clearly define what they understand authority to be, but they do describe it in various ways. It is “a positive dynamic force ordered to growth,” “leadership,” “a living quality that helps people to become themselves,” “a moral human energy,” and “a function of personality.” They also frequently say that some persons possess a natural authority.
From all of their references, we might be able to infer that they understand authority to be an ability to stimulate human growth and development, in oneself or in another. It is opposed to authoritarianism, commonly manifested through hierarchy, which is merely self-serving power that seeks control and domination.
From this foundation, they proceed to examine the ills to which society has fallen prey, many of which are attributed to authoritarianism and hierarchy.
Two things deserve to be noted here. The first is that Kennedy, a psychologist, and Charles, a psychiatrist, are both trained in fields whose focus is therapy. They are not political scientists or philosophers. The second point is that, perhaps because of their professional training, they seem unaware of the larger context of questions of authority.
Curiously, while maintaining that the modern world, and Americans in particular, have lost sight of the proper meaning of authority, they themselves give little evidence that they are aware of the millennium-old discussion of the topic in philosophy. Instead, they reinvent a wheel—and a wobbly one at that.
Kennedy and Charles make two major mistakes. The first is their failure to recognize adequately that human persons are both individuals and integral members of communities. The second mistake is their failure to differentiate between a nurturing, or parental, authority and a common-good, or political, authority.
A nurturing authority makes choices on behalf of those who are unable to make them well on their own. All of us, at one time or another, benefit from the care of parents, teachers, physicians, and others. They help us to grow, and when we have grown sufficiently, we no longer have need of them to perform that role. On the other hand, a common-good authority resolves disagreements about practical matters in a community, whether it as small as a family or as large as a nation.
The consequence of this is a sort of one-size-fits-all discussion of authority, where the person is almost always considered in her individuality, and properly exercised authority is always nurturing. Not surprisingly, in those contexts in which the proper authority is usually a nurturing sort—marriage, family, education, health care—their remarks can be quite sensible. However, when they turn to other contexts, ones that frequently demand common-good authority—government, law, religion, the workplace—their comments are much less insightful, and can even be quite dreadful.
In their chapters on child rearing and on education, for example, they skewer the common notions that children are “little grown-ups” and that students and teachers are both co-learners in the classroom as failures of authority. Parents cannot nurture their children and assist them to become competent adults unless the parents themselves are willing and able to accept their own adult responsibilities.
They rightly observe that parents and immature children are “never realistically equal,” and that well-exercised, nurturing authority is essential for development. This is obvious enough, but Kennedy and Charles must be commended for saying it forcefully in a society that too often undermines parental authority in favor of adolescent autonomy.
Similarly, they find that healthy authority is frequently absent in educational institutions, from elementary grades through college. Teachers focus on therapeutic goals, such as self-esteem, rather than upon properly educational goals. As a result, instead of drawing the best out of students, which would be the proper ambition of nurturing authority, schools aim at producing a kind of contented mediocrity. They rightly conclude that this is not so much a misuse of authority as an abandonment of it.
By contrast, their treatment of authority in religion is very weak. The Catholic Church is selected for special criticism, but unfairly so. Throughout the book, they insist uncritically and without argument that hierarchical structures are authoritarian and abusive. Their failure to recognize the need for, and legitimacy of, common-good authority compels them to evaluate faith communities simply in terms of nurturing authority.
Furthermore, their reluctance to acknowledge the integral social dimension of human life blinds them to the need for common-good authority in the Church and even in the moral life—where they falsely claim that the primacy of personal conscience is a “perennial Catholic teaching.” They tritely criticize Pope John Paul II as attempting to oppose the Second Vatican Council and “reestablish hierarchy” in place of the Council's preference for collegiality. And sadly, seduced by Joseph Campbell, they even dismiss the virgin birth and other dogmas as metaphors, and predict the demise of a Magisterium that can be so immune to their spiritual significance as to insist that they are realities.
Elements of this book are well done, despite a sound-bite quality to the writing. Nevertheless, its flaws are deep and it falls seriously short of its goal to correct our misunderstanding of authority.
Robert Kennedy heads the department of management at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Kennedy ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Women's Rights in a Traditional Church DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996, 234 pp.)
This book comprises the 1992 Michael J. McGivney Lectures given by Father Benedict Ashley at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington. In addition, there are three appendices and four chapters that seek to address the question of women's rights vis-à-vis the tradition of the Church concerning the ordination of women.
In chapter one, the author examines the nature of equality in society in general. He develops his thesis based on traditional philosophical ideas about authority and participation. Problems with women's ordination and modern notions of freedom can be traced to a theory of human freedom that looks on all hierarchical authority as contrary to the idea of freedom.
This cannot be sustained even from the point of view of philosophy. Nature is not monotonously uniform. Human life and relations cannot be either. Still, hierarchy must first be based on the fundamental equality of the human persons that it serves.
The author then makes a distinction between functional equality and personal equality that will serve as the foundation of his whole thesis. Personal equality is “the radical capacity for truth and freedom” that God has given each of us in creation. This personal capacity does not mean that all are equally intelligent or good, only that they have the capacity to develop intelligence and goodness. Basic human rights, such as the right to life, follow from personal equality.
Functional equality is another matter. It “requires an order or ‘hierarchy’ of functions if these functions are to be coordinated in a unified action.” Some functions demand that a person be not only competent, but also chosen. To maintain that justice demands the complete destruction of all hierarchy is not only naturally destructive, but also socially destructive.
The author maintains that the only way for functional equality to actually promote personal equality is to remember that the function of office must serve the common good and the one exercising it must sacrifice himself or herself to this good. Justice in the Church therefore demands fidelity to the hierarchical nature of the Church as well as the caveat that this hierarchy must be a servant and victim in imitation of Christ.
In chapter two the author examines another key term—participation. He explains that though there is a hierarchy of functions in every society, this hierarchy exists to encourage each of the members to take their full part in society. The state and family have an order of functions, yet the virtue of leadership in both these natural societies consists in promoting the reasoned and moral participation of each member. Justice in the Church can only be viewed as an analogy to justice in secular societies. Though this justice also promotes participation, it does so in a very different way from natural societies.
The third chapter examines six arguments that favor ordination of women and systematically answers each from both Scripture and tradition. The central difficulty turns around an attempt by some to interpret the priest as acting only in persona ecclesiae (in the person of the Church). Since the Church is made up of both sexes, this would permit ordination of women. Father Ashley points out that there are two ways the priest acts representatively that must be viewed as complementary and not contradictory. He acts both in persona Christi capitis (in the person of Christ the Head) and in persona ecclesiae (in the person of the Church). The first representation would exclude women from ordination.
In chapter four, the author examines the relation of women to worship both historically and theoretically. He uses Mary as the model. Though there are parts of this chapter that are very beautiful, it is the least satisfactory in the book. The question of the diaconate for women is treated here as well as some speculation of the reasons for the place women have occupied in worship.
The three appendices that follow are generally excellent, critically examining recent objections to the magisterial teaching on the subject of women's ordination, an important recent book advocating a change in the traditional explanation of the names of God and the Trinity based on feminist ideas, and the question of the infallibility of Pope John Paul II's 1994 apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Only). These appendices are the deepest and most satisfying part of the book.
This book is a highly readable, intelligent contribution to the current debate on all women's issues.
Father Brian Mullady teaches theology at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Mullady ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Educational Deficiencies
The article, “Catholics Get Behind Education Vouchers and Savings Plans” (Nov. 9-16), pointed out the growing support for giving parents an alternative to the failing public school system. While vouchers and savings plans are sorely needed alternatives to public schools, in the near future they can only provide for the education of 10-20% of the children in public schools. So the immediate reform of the public schools is necessary. However, our political and educational leaders are unaware of or refuse to acknowledge what has to be done.
President Clinton's suggested solution is a national test and imposing standards that students must achieve, but another test is superfluous, and the imposition of standards won't motivate undisciplined students.
In Maryland, Gov. Parris Glendening's solution is to provide millions of dollars to counties that comprise his political base. His own state superintendent of schools said his spending plans appeared to be political payoffs. While financial resources are necessary to provide an adequate environment for learning, attempts to buy student performance in Maryland have been total failures.
Washington, D.C. public schools, which have the highest per-pupil spending (about $9,000 per year) in the country, have the lowest test scores. The tuition of elementary parochial schools in D.C. averages $2,100 per year and performance is much better for students in the same socio-economic class.
Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association (NEA), also prescribes more money and opposes vouchers, but he additionally advances the idea of introducing discipline with a moral basis into the classroom, which he says children want and need.
Mr. Chase's advocacy of “rules of behavior” with moral moorings that “promote civil and ethical behavior” sounds like the last seven of the Ten Commandments, which can be summarized as “love your neighbor as yourself.” Mr. Chase is indirectly saying we should return God to our schools because we need God's help to love our neighbors as ourselves.
However, there is a major inconsistency between Mr. Chase's words and the actions of the NEA, which promotes the distribution of contraceptives in schools. Students who are taught they need not restrain their sexual appetites will not restrain their words and actions in the classroom. Students who are taught that abortion is the solution to a girl's pregnancy learn disrespect for preborn life and will not respect their teachers.
Mr. Chase correctly identifies one of the primary causes of student underachievement—lack of a moral foundation in the classroom—but NEA policies are the reason for the absence of morality. The first step in reforming public education is to reform the NEA.
John Naughton
Silver Spring, Maryland
My first sampling of the Register was a mixture of thoughts. In an otherwise excellent publication, in tune with the real issues, how did a movie critique of The Edge appear?
What kind of message does a critique of this type of film send to Catholic readers? Do I need to make a list of what a film needs to contain to qualify for an R rating? Is watching a film with these contents compatible with trying to live the Christian life? As Catholic Christians we are bombarded enough with profanity, violence, and immoral behavior of every kind. We need to scrupulously avoid that which disturbs the senses. Our Lord commanded, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out” (Mk 9, 47). We need to make the necessary sacrifices for the good of the soul.
In the review (“Lost in the Wilderness,” Oct. 26-Nov. 1), John Prizer concludes: “Though the message of The Edge is hardly new, its taut presentation of life-threatening adventures makes for solid entertainment.”
What's the point? To risk purity of mind and body for “solid entertainment”? Isn't this the message of our world today? The world's idea of entertainment is R-rated violence, profanity, and sexual immorality. Let us heed the words of St. Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12, 20).
Let us renew our minds, not pollute them.
Craig Mason
Forest, Virginia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: It Takes An Extended Family: Reflections of a Favorite Aunt DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:When my niece, Michaela, was three-years-old and still learning her place in the world, on occasion she would inform me, solemnly, that I was her aunt.
This I already knew. Although, she was just emerging from her baby-talk stage and had a tendency to pronounce “aunt” as if she were saying “aren't”—which always took me a moment to figure out.
“Kay-Kay, you're my aren't,” she would say, adding the extra “r.”
I would heartily agree.
As she got a bit older, I sometimes corrected her, gently. “Honey, we're Bostonians, so we don't use the r-sound too often.” Then, I would teach her how to say “aunt” with the broad New England vowels I had learned when I was a child.
“Ahhhhhhhh-nt,” she said, as she practiced.
Today, Michaela is seven-years-old. Or, as she would say, she's seven-almost-eight. And, the best part of my week is the Friday afternoons I spend with her and Mary Kate, her two-year-old sister.
It takes resolution to be a good aunt, especially when facing a mountain of deadlines. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter how much I tell my nieces I love them, they are not going to understand what that means unless I give them my time. Words are cheap.
A generation ago, everyone in my family lived within blocks of each other in the working-class Irish neighborhoods of Boston. Aunts and uncles were an integral part of daily life.
After I was born, we moved to the suburbs. I didn't see my extended family every day. But, still, my 10 aunts and uncles were important figures in my childhood world.
I pity the offspring of America's modern-style families who have only one sibling, if any. And I have limitless sympathy for the children of China's one-baby-per-couple policy. They may never know what it's like to have an aunt, and never have the joy of being one.
So, if it's Friday afternoon, you probably won't find me staring at a computer screen, or talking to editors, or reporting on stories.
Instead, I'm usually standing with a baby in my arms at Holy Name School, in the West Roxbury section of Boston, waiting for class to let out.
On a recent Friday, Michaela said she wanted to have a party for her miniature collie, Chase, who was two-years-old. After school we baked a cake, lit the candles, and sang “Happy Birthday” as he pranced around the kitchen barking gleefully.
Later, we walked to the playground with the dog in tow. Michaela played on the slide and I pushed Mary Kate in the toddler swing until dusk fell.
As I gathered the kids and the dog for the five-block walk home, I mentally listed the tasks I had waiting for me in my office.
Michaela interrupted my thoughts.
“Kay-Kay, do you think Chase had fun on his birthday?” she asked me.
Something about the sincerity of her question made me realize that I would rather have spent the afternoon singing “Happy Birthday” to a dog than working on the most important news story.
Michaela informed me last May, as I met her in front of school, that the Sunday after Mother's Day was “Aunt's Day.” She had a gift in her hand that she had made for her mother's celebration, and I think she didn't want me to feel left out.
“Is it really?” I said.
“Yes,” she replied, seriously. “Because mothers are very important, but aunts are important too.”
While my nieces and I walked toward the nearby church to “visit God,” as we call our after-school prayers in front of the Blessed Sacrament, we discussed the best way to observe my special day. I suggested getting ice cream cones and going to the playground. Michaela and Mary Kate agreed.
And, we decided that while the official day would be on Sunday, we would celebrate on the Friday before—an idea I picked up from the moveable Monday holidays.
Certainly, an aunt can't take the place of a mother, but an aunt—or an uncle—can help to shape young minds and create memories that last a lifetime.
When I'm long gone, my then-grown-up nieces might think back to those sunny afternoons at the playground. Or, they might recall the day we visited the Arnold Arboretum and ran from one end of an open field to the other, laughing all the way. Or, they might remember visits to the century-old neighborhood library near their house.
Or, they might think back to the dog's birthday party, and smile.
Kathleen Howley is a Catholic journalist based in Boston, Mass
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathleen Howley ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Shall We Abandon the United Nations? DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Many Catholics of good will believe the .N. has lost its way and that pro-family groups should have nothing more to do with it. Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon—and Pope John Paul II—think there's a better solution.
The more one reflects on the topic “international organizations and the defense of the family” the more puzzles seem to be packed into the one little word and. What connections are there, or should there be, between the oldest groups of society and huge modern organizations that are so remote from everyday life?
The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that the family is entitled to protection from society and the state. But there is no evidence in the historical background of the declaration that the drafters expected the United Nations itself to play much of a role in protecting the family—except insofar as families would benefit from the humanitarian activities of agencies like the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children's Fund.
Now that the United Nations and its specialized agencies have developed into sprawling bureaucracies symbiotically entwined with large international lobbying associations, it is still far from obvious how institutions at that level can best assist families. In fact, the current activities of many international organizations often cause one to wonder whether the family needs to be defended by them or protected against them!
What is beyond question is that, in today's world, more and more families are being affected for good or ill by the operations of various sorts of distant international actors—ranging from multinational corporations to international bodies (worldwide like the United Nations and the World Bank or regional ones like the Organization of American States and the European Union), not to mention a vast array of non-governmental organizations (a term which includes groups as different in their approach to families as the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Catholic Church).…
The Declaration's Vision
The first important manifestation of interest in the family by an international organization took place in 1948 when the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man was issued in Bogota, Colombia. This remarkable document was one of the principal influences on the family-related provisions of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was approved in Paris later that year. Reading those two documents today, one is struck by the pervasiveness of references to the family. Both declarations announce that the family is the fundamental unit of society; they recite that everyone has the right to marry and establish a family; that the home is inviolable; that a worker is entitled to a standard of living suitable for himself and his family; and that the family in general and motherhood and childhood in particular are entitled to the protection of society and the state. The U.N. declaration provides in addition for spousal equality and for the prior right of parents to choose the education of their children.…
The Family as Obstacle
To understand why and how the family-protection principle came under attack in the United Nations, let us consider a remarkable series of events that took place in 1995. Early that year, the U.N. secretariat for the International Year of the Family issued a booklet stating that “the basic principle of social organization is the human rights of individuals, which have been set forth in international instruments of human rights.”
That idea sounds innocent enough until you begin to wonder how it fits with the 1948 declaration, which provides that the family is the basic unit of society. The U.N. secretariat anticipated this question. It is true, they admitted, that “several human rights documents” refer to the family as the basic social unit and that they guarantee protection and assistance to the family, but “the power of the family is and should be limited by the basic human rights of its individual members. The protection and assistance accorded to the family must safeguard these rights.”
No one could reasonably object to that proposition if it simply means that no rights, including the rights of the family, are unlimited. But, together with other U.N. developments, notably the subtle erosion of the moral authority of parents in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 1995 guidelines looked very much like part of a deliberate effort to set individual rights in opposition to family relationships, to insert the state between children and parents, and to undermine the status of the family as a subject of human rights protection. This interpretation gained plausibility in November 1995, when the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child angrily attacked the Holy See for its reservations to these very aspects of the children's rights convention. Since all these documents were issued by the United Nations itself, it appeared that the fox was in the chicken coop.
The current activities of many international organizations often cause one to wonder whether the family needs to be defended by them or protected against them!
All doubts on that score were removed by the U.N. Women's Conference that took place in Beijing in September of that year. When I first read the draft conference document prepared by the U.N. Committee on the Status of Women, I could hardly believe my eyes. How was it possible that the proposed program of action for a women's conference barely mentioned marriage, motherhood, or family life anywhere in its 149 pages? And that when marriage and family life—and even religion— were mentioned, they were presented mainly in a negative light—as sources of oppression or obstacles to women's progress? The explanation is that the U.N. Committee on the Status of Women had become, to a great extent, the tool of special interest groups promoting a brand of feminism that was already passé in the countries where it originated. The Beijing draft thus parroted many of the tired clichés of 1970s feminism—a feminism that had alienated the great majority of women through its inattention to the real life problems of work and family, its hostility to men and its disgraceful indifference to the welfare of children.
In the pre-conference negotiations, these old-line feminist attacks on the family were combined with efforts to promote a notion of more recent vintage—the idea that the family—and sexual identity—are just arbitrary categories, socially constructed and infinitely malleable. At the Beijing conference itself, a coalition led by the European Union continued this two-pronged effort to “deconstruct” the family and to remove every positive reference to marriage, motherhood, the family, parental rights, and religion.…
A stranger to these controversies might well wonder why anyone would want to undermine the principle of family protection, especially at a time when families are undergoing exceptional stress in every part of the world. The standard answers one hears to that question are framed in the language of individual liberty, gender equality, and compassion for victims of spousal and child abuse. We are told that the family cannot be permitted to stand in the way of women's and children's rights. And that, in any event, the family has been too narrowly defined so as to unfairly prefer heterosexual marriage over non-marital cohabitation and same-sex unions.
But it would be a mistake, I believe, to regard the assaults on the family-protection principle as merely misguided efforts to promote freedom and equality. They are also about power and interest, though to what extent it is difficult to say. Much of the leadership and financial support for these initiatives comes largely from persons who are interested not in the rights of women or children or homosexuals, but in preservation of privilege. They are seeking not liberation in general, but social control for themselves.
Their less obvious motives can be discerned in the strange new rights they propose—rights which often turn out to be double-edged “rights for me, duties for thee.” The so-called “reproductive rights,” for example, may represent autonomy for some women, but they also provide a convenient cover story for efforts to control the family size of the poor by any means possible. The proposed “right to die” may satisfy the desire of some affluent people to feel that they are “in control” until the very end, but who can doubt that it portends a duty to die for those who are sick, helpless, and unable to afford medical care? As for “sexual rights,” it does not seem fanciful to regard them as a modern version of bread and circuses, a promise of unlimited sexual liberty as a distraction from the loss of genuine freedom and the denial of economic justice.
The most unpleasant designs of the backers of international anti-family initiatives can be discerned in the iron triangle of exclusion they are constructing in their home countries: They are excluding new life through abortion and sterilization, they are barring the door against the stranger through restrictive immigration policies, and they are turning their backs on the poor through cutbacks in family-assistance programs. Where foreign aid is concerned, they will give millions for “reproductive services” but pennies for maternal and infant nutrition, clean water, or primary health care.…
What Is to Be Done?
Many men and women of good will, offended by these developments and discouraged generally by the failure of the United Nations to live up to its early promise, believe that pro-family groups should have nothing further to do with the United Nations. But there are several theological and prudential reasons why that option is problematic for Catholics.
In the first place, Catholic Christianity requires us to be active in the world. We are called, each of us with our different gifts, to be the salt of the earth, the leaven in the social loaf, workers in the vineyard for the coming of the kingdom.
Second, as the Church has often recognized, the United Nations, despite all its flaws, waste, and failures, has accomplished much good, especially in poor countries, and it offers much hope in a world where the nations are faced with many challenges that cross national boundaries. In Familiaris Consortio, the Holy Father told families that the social and political role of the family has been “extended in a completely new way” because of “the worldwide dimension of various social questions” (No. 48). That role, he said, now involves “cooperating for a new international order,” participating “in the authentically human growth of society and its institutions, and supporting in various ways the associations specifically devoted to international issues” (ibid.).
Third, as the Holy See's activity in the United Nations has shown, even a few voices can make a difference when they speak the truth and call good and evil by name. Much of the best language on social justice in recent U.N. documents is there because the Holy See proposed or defended it. Thanks to the Holy See, the United Nations remains committed to the principle that abortion is never to be promoted as a means of birth control. Even at Beijing, when greatly outnumbered, the Holy See was able to save family-protection language by shining the spotlight into those proceedings.…
[It] seems irresistible that the withdrawal of the Holy See from the United Nations would only serve to give comfort to the agents of the culture of death. The time has come to recognize, however, that the Holy See in the United Nations has too often been like the little Dutch boy who prevented a flood by keeping his finger in the dike. The time has come to heed the Holy Father's urgent call to families themselves to become “‘protagonists’ of what is known as ‘family politics’ and assume responsibility for transforming society.”
The Pontifical Council for the Family recently reiterated this call, reminding us that “the family is not helpless.… Families must associate, organize and build family politics.…[T]hrough the democratic processes of participation, the family should ensure that the state recognizes its autonomy and rights, and its value as the resilient community of the future.”
As a mother and grandmother, I know very well that it is not easy for family members to answer this call. Each of us will have to discern prayerfully what it is that we must contribute. But Pope John Paul II reminds us that there is one thing all families can do, regardless of their situation in life. They can strive to “offer everyone a witness of generous and disinterested dedication to social matters through a ‘preferential option’ for the poor and disadvantaged” (Familiaris Consortio, 47). Beyond this, he exhorts Christian families “to become actively engaged at every level” in associations that work for the common good and the good of the family.”
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, let us resolve therefore to answer the Holy Father's call to become protagonists of family politics. Let us not despise politics—for, as Aristotle and St. Thomas taught, it is the great art of ordering our lives together for the common good. Let us rather retrieve politics from those who would pervert it for evil purposes.
Let us fight for the right to determine democratically the conditions under which we live, work and raise our families.
Let us resist the self-appointed experts who pretend to know better than we ourselves how we should raise our children.
Let us take back our children's education from proselytizing secularists.
Let us rescue our art, music, and literature from the hucksters of hedonism.
Let us not starve the United Nations, but let us put it on a wholesome diet.
Let us pledge ourselves to play whatever role we can in building the civilization of life and resisting the culture of death. Like the Hebrew children of old, we can do so with the confidence that, when we obey the command to “choose life,” the Lord himself “marches before you; he will be with you, and will never fail you or forsake you” (Dt 31, 6).
Excerpted from Mary Ann Glendon's presentation last month to an international theological-pastoral congress on the family in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glendon headed the Vatican's delegation to the 1995 U.N. conference on women in Beijing.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Maryann Glendon ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: In Tearing Down Pius XII, Revisionist Historians Forget the Facts DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Here they go again.
Ever since Rolf Hochhuth's 1962 propaganda play The Deputy indicted Pius XII for complicity in the Nazi genocide, it has been a commonplace of editorial writers that the Vatican was a silent, and therefore guilty, bystander to the murder of 6 million Jews.
The recent Declaration of Repentance by French Catholic bishops, asking forgiveness for “an attitude of conformism, caution, and abstention” among French Catholics under the Vichy regime, was a fitting and noble gesture. But its main effect on editorial writers was to prompt them to pull out their boilerplate phrases about Pius XII's supposed complicity in the Jewish Holocaust.
Thus, James Carroll—formerly a priest, currently an anti-Catholic Catholic—writes in the Boston Globe that it is high time John Paul II follow the example of the French bishops and apologize for the Vatican's “silence” during the Holocaust. The New York Times chimed in with the complaint that John Paul “has not yet apologized for the behavior of the Church during the war. Pope Pius XII kept silent when he was given credible reports of the genocide.”
Before asking the Pope to apologize for the behavior of the Vatican during the Holocaust, these writers ought to consult the historical record. Jewish scholars like Joseph Lichten, Pinchas Lapide, and Leni Yahil have documented the considerable efforts made by the Vatican to save Jewish lives. The Vatican ran an extensive network of hideouts, and even the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gondolfo was used to shelter Jewish refugees. Pius, moreover, took personal responsibility for the children of deported Jews.
Largely as a result of the Church's efforts, the Jews in Italy had a far higher survival rate under Nazi occupation than was the case in other countries. Estimates of the number of Jews saved throughout Europe by the Vatican's efforts range up to 700,000. This was one reason why Chief Rabbi Zolli of Rome converted to Catholicism at the end of the war, taking as his baptismal name Pius's own, Eugenio, in gratitude for what the Pope had done.
In appreciation for Pius's efforts for the Jews, the World Jewish Congress made a large cash gift to the Vatican in 1945. In the same year, Chief Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, who had been deeply involved in efforts to save Jewish refugees, sent a “special blessing” to the Pope “for his lifesaving efforts on behalf of the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy.” And when Pius died in 1958, Israel's Foreign Minister Golda Meir gave him a moving tribute at the United Nations for the same reason.
As for Pius's “silence” about the Holocaust, the editors of the Times might look at their own editorial page on Christmas day, 1942, which applauded Pius as “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.” This was after Pius had publicly decried the fact that hundreds of thousands were being persecuted “solely because of their race or ancestry.”
Ought Pius to have made stronger public statements? His critics fail to address the fact that in 1942 the Catholic hierarchy of Amsterdam did exactly what they fault Pius for not doing: it spoke out vigorously against the Nazi treatment of the Jews. The Nazi response was a redoubling of roundups and deportations. (Blessed Edith Stein was among the victims.)
Like most people on the left, Mr. Carroll seems to view public posturing as an end in itself. But what was to be gained by Pius's getting up on a soap box and lashing out at the Nazis? Both the International Red Cross and the World Council of Churches came to the same conclusion as the Vatican: relief efforts for the Jews would be more effective if the agencies remained relatively quiet.
Fervent public statements by Pius would have amounted to a death warrant for the thousands of Jews hidden in churches and convents. The documents show that he decided that speaking out publicly would not only endanger Jewish lives but would not have the slightest effect on Hitler. Stalin's famous remark that the Pope has no divisions is highly relevant here.
Relatively few during the war made heroic efforts to save the Jews. Those that did— Raoul Wallenberg and Schindler, for example—are rightly celebrated heroes. But the number of Jews they saved from the camps does not compare with what Pius accomplished. The constant editorial harangues about his “acquiescence” (Carroll's word) in the Holocaust are an appalling exercise in historical injustice.
George Sim Johnston is a Catholic writer based in New York City.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: George Sim Johnston ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Beelzebub Takes Manhattan DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:LAWYERS AREN'T very popular these days, and defense attorneys who get the guilty acquitted are considered the lowest of the breed. The Devil's Advocate, based on a novel by Andrew Niederman, exploits these negative stereotypes by making the “evil one” the senior partner of a prestigious Manhattan law firm. Many of his key subordinates are recruited from the best and brightest of those who have proven they can work the justice system for the benefit of the criminal class.
“The law is like my priesthood,” the fallen angel proudly proclaims.
It's as if The Screwtape Letters were rewritten as a handbook for aspiring attorneys.
This is a clever idea executed with a slick, over-the-top style, but it's used only to entertain rather than enlighten. The movie never attempts a serious examination of ethics in the legal profession. It glosses over the complexity of issues involved in a code of justice that emphasizes “reasonable doubt” in determining innocence or guilt. Convoluted plot twists and an over-reliance on explicit sexuality take the place of a thoughtful presentation of moral conflicts.
Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is a Gainesville, Fla., defense attorney with 64 wins and no defeats. It looks as though he is going to finally lose as the evidence against his present client, a math teacher accused of sexual molestation, appears overwhelming. But Lomax cruelly breaks down the nervous adolescent girl (Heather Matarrazo) who brought the charges, and the guilty defendant walks.
Lomax's extraordinary record grabs the attention of a seemingly dignified New York legal factory—Milton, Chadwick, and Waters—with wealthy clients all across the globe. His mother (Judith Ivey), a fundamentalist Christian, warns him not to accept their offer.
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon,” she says of the Big Apple. “It has become a dwelling place of demons.”
Lomax isn't a believer, and he describes his relationship to his moth-er's Church as being “on parole for time served.” He ignores her advice and heads off for the bright lights with his devoted, attractive wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron).
He should have listened to mom.
Head honcho John Milton (Al Pacino) takes Lomax under his wing and offers him and his wife a taste of the high life. A luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a huge salary with plenty of perks, and invitations to chic parties for the rich and famous, all are part of the package. In return, Milton puts Lomax to the test.
The young attorney's first case seems too small for such a big-money firm. A practitioner of voodoo and animal slaughter is indicted on health code violations. Lomax gets his obviously guilty client off by shifting the grounds of the argument with a brilliant appeal to religious liberty and its attendant rights. By the end of the trial, the prosecutor has fallen sick, and it's implied he is suffering from a voodoo curse. Milton's special interest in the case alerts the audience that he is into some dark, satanic stuff, but Lomax and his wife suspect nothing.
The senior partner insists his protégé accompany him to wild parties without his wife. Lomax becomes attracted to one of the firm's partners (Connie Nielson). Almost as a reward, Milton throws him the firm's hottest case although the other partners advise against it.
A Donald Trump-like real-estate tycoon, Andrew Cullen (Craig T. Nelson), is accused of murdering his wife and two others. He's headlined in the tabloid press and assumed to be guilty. But, at the high-profile trial, Lomax gets him off, becoming a media celebrity in the process. However, the young hotshot has developed doubts about his client's innocence.
The long hours on the job and the par-tying with Milton has made him a stranger to his wife, and she is becoming edgy. As Lomax tries to work his way through these moral dilemmas, director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and A Gentleman) and screenwriters Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy (Dolores Claiborne) present the devil primarily as tempter. Despite his occasional dabbling in black magic he is not an all-powerful figure. Those who come under his influence are shown to have free will.
Lomax is always given the opportunity to turn away from the evil one's path. His devout mother comes to New York to visit, and when she observes her son's high-society lifestyle and his neglect of his wife, she begs him to return to their simpler, small-town roots. He refuses.
As his wife reaches the breaking point, the hard-charging lawyer rejects Milton's suggestion to scale back his workload. In both instances Lomax's ambition overrides all other concerns. The evil one posing as the senior partner has found his protégé's weakness and tempts him to give in to it.
God is derided as “a prankster” and “an absentee landlord” who “let us all down.” The devil believes he's on a roll, claiming “the 20th century was entirely mine.” He perceives narcissism as the dominant sentiment of the age.
“Vanity, that's my favorite sin,” he boasts.
Like the movie's earlier jibes at the legal profession, most of these philosophical musings don't lead anywhere. They have little relevance to the dramatic action. The filmmakers always go for maximum theatrical effect instead of intellectual consistency or moral truth, and they borrow heavily from previous blockbusters such as The Firm and Rosemary's Baby in tying up the loose ends.
Even at its worst though, the movie knows how to have fun. When Lomax finally chooses to assert his underdeveloped conscience, the devil tries to divert him by prancing around the room, lip-synching to Frank Sinatra's It Happened in Monterey. The Devil's Advocate may be trashy, but it's never dull.
John Prizer, the Register's arts and culture correspondent, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: In a slam on the legal profession, The Devil's Advocate opts for entertainment over enlightenment ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: FILM clips DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:(New Yorker)
Elaborate historical romp recounts the romantic and political exploits of the rakish 18th-century playwright (Fabrice Luchini) who, in addition to being jailed for ridiculing the French aristocracy, was an inventor, a magistrate, a spy, and gun runner for American revolutionaries. Director Edouard Molinari's giddy approach to the title character's busy life unreels as a series of breathless mis-adventures without revealing much of Beaumarchais's character or motivations. Subtitles. Some sexual innuendo, fleeting nudity, and an instance of rough language. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Poignant drama set in 1962 Louisiana where a precocious 10-year-old (Jurnee Smollett) observes how her family is affected by the womanizing of her prosperous doctor father (Samuel Jackson), which culminates in a violent tragedy. Writer-director Kasi Lemmons's beautifully lyric tale probes human failings, though the results are marred by the action's melodramatic treatment. Mature theme of adultery, fleeting sexual encounter, brief violence, intermittent rough language, and profanity. The USCC classification is AIII. The film is rated R.
(Avalanche)
Wispy portrait of a bookish high school student (Claire Danes) whose emotional insecurities get in the way when she begins dating the school's heartthrob (Jude Law), despite the unconditional moral support of her loving grandmother (Jeanne Moreau), a Holocaust survivor. Director Billy Hopkins tends to sentimentalize the problems of adolescence as well as the student's grappling with her Jewish identity, and the result is disappointingly superficial in its reliance on glossy visuals and slick melodramatics. Stark Holocaust images, sexual innuendo, occasional rough language, and an instance of profanity. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Dreary drama in which a fired museum guard (John Travolta) impulsively takes his boss and visiting children hostage, then unwittingly allows an ambitious TV reporter (Dustin Hoffman) to manipulate the situation to advance his flagging career. Director Costa-Gavras offers nothing new or insightful in this drawn-out tale showing the media's role in shaping breaking news. Brief violence, occasional profanity, and an instance of rough language. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated PG-13.
Lame romantic comedy in which a New York businesswoman (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) tries to make her womanizing boyfriend (John Dossett) jealous by paying a sensitive cabby (James McCaffrey) to masquerade as her lover, with unsurprising results. Writer-director Richard Mauro strings out a weak plot with a collection of odd-ball characters, such as the cabby's rapper roommate (Gedde Watanabe) and transvestite neighbor (Clinton Leupp), but the result is an urban fantasy that delivers a few giggles but lacks any romantic charm. Sexual situations, gay stereotypes, and occasional rough language. The USCC classification is A-IV. The film is rated R.
Switchback (Paramount)
Grim thriller in which a relentless FBI agent (Dennis Quaid) tracks a cunning serial killer (Danny Glover) who has kidnapped the agent's child while on a cross-country killing spree. Glover's chilling portrayal of an unpredictable psychopath helps compensate for the far-fetched plotting in writer-director Jeb Stuart's somewhat gory tale. Intermittent violence, nude pinup photos, and occasional profanity. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated R.
(Columbia)
Charming live-action tale set in an English meadow where timid Mole (Steve Coogan), kindly Rat (Eric Idle) and bold Badger (Nicol Williamson) must save reckless Toad (Terry Jones) from losing his country estate to evil Weasels. Also written and directed by Jones, this adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 children's classic is enhanced by an endearing cast, sprightly songs, lovely visuals, and a delightful sense of whimsy, which despite moments of menace translates into appealing family entertainment. The USCC classification is A-I. The film is rated PG.
USCC Office of Film and Broadcasting classification guide
A-I— general patronage
A-II— adults and adolescents
A-III— adults
A-IV— adults, with reservations (This classification designates problematic films that, while not morally offensive in themselves, require caution and some analysis and explanation as a safeguard against wrong interpretations and false conclusions.)
O— morally offensive.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: False Mercy: The Catechism on Assisted-Suicide DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II, in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), succinctly outlined the Church's long-held teaching on the sanctity of human life in light of current cultural trends. The Pontiff labels the modern notion of “compassionate” aid in dying as “false mercy,” and alludes to the situation in Eden, where man first became self-appointed arbiter of “good and evil.”
SUICIDE IS always as morally objectionable as murder. The Church's tradition has always rejected it as a gravely evil choice. Even though a certain psychological, cultural and social conditioning may induce a person to carry out an action which so radically contradicts the innate inclination to life, thus lessening or removing subjective responsibility, suicide, when viewed objectively, is a gravely immoral act. In fact, it involves the rejection of love of self and the renunciation of the obligation of justice and charity towards one's neighbor, towards the communities to which one belongs, and towards society as a whole. In its deepest reality, suicide represents a rejection of God's absolute sovereignty over life and death, as proclaimed in the prayer of the ancient sage of Israel: “You have power over life and death; you lead men down to the gates of Hades and back again” (Wis 16, 13; cf. Tb 13:2).
To concur with the intention of another person to commit suicide and to help in carrying it out through so-called “assisted suicide” means to cooperate in, and at times to be the actual perpetrator of, an injustice which can never be excused, even if it is requested. In a remarkably relevant passage St. Augustine writes that “it is never licit to kill another: even if he should wish it, indeed if he request it because, hanging between life and death, he begs for help in freeing the soul struggling against the bonds of the body and longing to be released; nor is it licit even when a sick person is no longer able to live.”
Even when not motivated by a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing “perversion” of mercy. True “compassion” leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. Moreover, the act of euthanasia appears all the more perverse if it is carried out by those, like relatives, who are supposed to treat a family member with patience and love, or by those, such as doctors, who by virtue of their specific profession are supposed to care for the sick person even in the most painful terminal stages.
The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die. Once again we find ourselves before the temptation of Eden: to become like God who “knows good and evil” (cf. Gn 3, 5). God alone has the power over life and death: “It is I who bring both death and life” (Dt 32, 39; cf. 2 Kgs 5, 7; 1 Sm 2, 6). But he only exercises this power in accordance with a plan of wisdom and love. When man usurps this power, being enslaved by a foolish and selfish way of thinking, he inevitably uses it for injustice and death. Thus the life of the person who is weak is put into the hands of the one who is strong; in society the sense of justice is lost, and mutual trust, the basis of every authentic interpersonal relationship, is undermined at its root.
—Evangelium Vitae (61)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Evangelium Vitae ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Anti-Catholicism Taints Assisted Suicide Campaing DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore.—There's no denying that the issue of assisted suicide was hotly debated here the past few months.
But, passions ran high about more than just legal concerns. The sting of the campaign's anti-Catholic bias was also plain. Folks like 94-year-old Leo Smith have seen such bigotry before. Smith, born and raised in Portland, is a former district attorney and a practicing Catholic.
“No doubt about it, there was an anti-Catholic attitude during the campaign,” Smith said. “I can also remember in 1924-25 there was an active campaign to make all the children go to public school. That was also a very harsh, bitter fight—so far as name-calling is concerned.”
He recalls people at that time, as they did in the recent assisted suicide campaign, staunchly lining up on either one side or the other.
“When it comes to assisted suicide, I think the Church is basically right,” Smith said. “… Now we need to step back and try and figure out how to work things out.”
Catholic bashing was apparent during a Portland radio show last month hosted by Lars Larsen. The talk show host was discussing the Measure 51 campaign to prevent legalization of suicide, which fell soundly to defeat Nov. 4 in Oregon.
Larsen said the Vatican was a “foreign power” trying to weigh in on an Oregon ballot measure. Some callers to the show agreed—others objected, pointing out that the Vatican as an independent state had not contributed any money to the campaign. In reality, funding came from the people in the pews, those who believe that assisted suicide is a serious life issue. They were Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
“We're faced with prejudice against Catholics all the time,” said John Haas, president of the Pope John Paul Center for Ethics and Health Care in Boston, Mass. “It's the last acceptable prejudice—I think it came out in spades in Oregon.”
Many of those favoring legalization of suicide framed the debate in the context of the Catholic Church trying to impose its morality on others. There was another message, like the one from Judie Brown, president of the American Life League: “Assisted suicide assaults and insults human dignity. Love and comfort, not a greased skid into the abyss, is the humane response to suffering.”
—Hazel Whitman
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Hazel Whitman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Young Catholic Scholars Bring New Energy to Professional Organizatino DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:PROFESSOR Gerry Bradley looks scarcely older than his students at the Notre Dame Law School. And in another scholarly arena, the tall, casually dressed 40-year-old whose memories can't summon up a pre-Vatican II Church, really does represent the “younger generation.” Bradley is president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the 750-member association of Catholic academics which marked its 20th anniversary last summer.
If Bradley's election as president several years ago signaled a generational changing of the Fellowship guard, it does not represent a shift in the group's philosophy or focus. “The people who founded the Fellowship are now senior citizens,” explained Bradley. “They're retiring.”
Msgr. George Kelly of New York, Professor James Hitchcock of St. Louis University, and Father Ronald Lawler OFM Cap. of The Catholic University of America were prominent among those who founded the Fellowship at St. Louis University in the summer of 1977. They wanted to help redirect Catholic scholars to accept the teaching authority of the Church.
In the turbulent aftermath of Vatican II, dissent from Church stands on issues like birth control, women's ordination, and pre-marital sex seemed to characterize the private opinions and classroom lectures of too many Catholic academics, Fellowship founders maintained. They wanted an organization of Catholic scholars who supported, and even championed, the authority of the Magisterium, the Pope, the bishops, and did not reject Vatican II.
Founders were just as quick to point out what the Fellowship was not. It was not to be a political action group—of any sort. The Fellowship does not become involved in campus disputes over Catholic issues. In fact, there are no campus chapters. Only the Board of Directors was given a “voice” to issue statements or communicate with the Bishops Conference. Fellowship members were encouraged to individually support Catholic teachings, such as the opposition to abortion.
In lieu of an advocacy organization, the Fellowship was to develop as an oasis of theological orthodoxy for Catholic scholars. Many were increasingly “lonely,” marginalized by their beliefs. And the Fellowship was designed to welcome all academic disciplines. It was hoped that Catholics from the sciences, the humanities and the arts—as well as those from theology—would feel at home in the organization.
Although the sciences are not yet well represented, the Fellowship has evolved as planned in almost every other way, its members claim. Bradley boasts that the seven original Statements of Purpose hammered out in '77 remain unchanged. Fellowship members must have doctoral degrees or the equivalent, and they must “regularly engage in scholarly work.” Members must also ascribe to the seven Statements of Purpose.
One Statement commits Fellowship scholars to “see their intellectual work as an expression of the service that they owe to God.” In another Statement, scholars express that they “accept as the rule of our life and thought the entire faith of the Catholic Church.” They find this faith, “not merely in the solemn definitions but in the ordinary teaching of the Pope and those bishops in union with him.…”
The intellectual cohesion that such statements imply has been very beneficial in his own life, Bradley says.
“I went to Cornell for undergraduate studies and law school. I was then at the University of Illinois for nine years,” he says. “As a person who strives to be a practicing and believing Catholic, but who was an academic in a professional discipline (law), it wasn't easy for me to pick up a Catholic intellectual infra-structure—even in this Catholic law school. It just doesn't come across my desk easily—the kind of deeper intellectual appreciation of my faith.”
“The Fellowship delivers on its basic promise to identify people of like minds and aspirations, that is, people who wish to live the Catholic intellectual life.” Bradley is very sure about that. At Notre Dame, there are less than ten members of the Fellowship. So, his friends in faith are far flung among the 250 American Catholic colleges and universities. Other members are on secular campuses.
One of Bradley's Fellowship friends is Professor Robert George, a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton. George teaches legal philosophy and Constitutional law. He thinks that he's the only Fellowship member on his campus, though he berates himself for not recruiting several Princeton Catholics who would probably join.
“I've written articles with people I've met through the Fellowship. I've worked on projects motivated by academic interest in which I tried to put my own scholarship at the service of the Church,” reports George. “It's become part of my professional life.” He joined the Fellowship in 1985 and, like Bradley, he sees a new and younger generation of Catholic intellectuals embracing the Fellowship.
“What has become clear,” George maintains, “is that the set of commitments represented by the Fellowship is not dying out.” Young Catholic scholars have not been converted to the “theological liberalism of the mainstream Catholic academy of the '60s and '70s.” George now wonders whether that liberalism—often expressed in challenges to Church authority—will survive.
The Fellowship is even spreading internationally with chapters in Australia, Ireland, and Canada.
Dr. Janet Smith, a member of the philosophy department of the University of Dallas, has been too busy to make any recent assessments about theological liberals. Smith is a 17-year member of the Fellowship. Outside of the classroom, she spends her energies giving talks to support Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), the 1968 encyclical of Pope Paul VI that forbids artificial birth control.
Smith'views on Humanae Vitae and other Church teachings had set her apart from many of her Catholic colleagues. She was isolated, “lonely” in an intellectual sense. She joined the Fellowship in 1980, and now particularly relishes the quarterly journals. “They are very good and getting better,” she says. But she also agrees that the friendships with like-minded Catholic scholars is the greatest fruit of the Fellowship.
Smith hopes that the Fellowship will be increasingly recognized as a Catholic intellectual resource.
“I'd like to see the media and even the U.S. bishops coming to the Fellowship instead of always consulting with members of the Catholic Theological Society,” she says. “This is an organization of people who are academically high powered but who are still totally supportive of the Church.”
Sister Timothea Elliott RSM, a professor of Scripture at St. Joseph's Seminary at Dunwoodie in Yonkers, N.Y., has three or four Fellowship friends on the faculty at Dunwoodie. “We are continuously sharing information,” she says. She relishes that support on her own campus but also enjoys attending the annual Fellowship meetings.
“There's a unanimity of purpose in the Fellowship meetings,” she says. “In many organizations that I belong to, there's such a pole within them. You feel defensive very often.” In the Fellowship, “you don't have hidden agendas and power plays—that sort of thing.”
Bradley believes that some agendas and issues brewing on Catholic campuses will increasingly preoccupy the Fellowship. The organization will continue to support Ex Corde Ecclesia, a document from Pope John Paul II about the mission and identity of Catholic higher education and the norms that should govern Catholic colleges and universities. “We have attempted to put out some position papers which could suggest to the bishops, and anyone, what needs to be done on Catholic campuses to recover a Catholic character and an understanding of a Catholic charism,” Bradley said.
But Bradley also believes that the American Catholic academic establishment—especially theologians—will be on a collision course with the Vatican. “The Holy See remains determined to secure some kind of application of canon 812. That says that theologians must have a mandate (for teaching theology) from the competent ecclesiastical authority (or bishop). I am convinced that the vast majority of Catholic colleges simply will not accept such a role for the local ordinary.”
Professor Bradley is convinced that the healthy and growing Fellowship of Catholic Scholars will be on hand to serve the Church, no matter what flash-points develop on Catholic campuses in the next few years.
Catherine Odell is based in South Bend, Ind
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Catherine Odell ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Made in a Brave New World DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—A bizarre courtroom decision in Orange County, Calif., has left two-year-old Jaycee Buzzanca without legal parents.
Two years ago Jaycee's would be parents, John and Luanne Buzzanca, unable to conceive a child and frustrated with adoption attempts that fell through at the last minute, opted for in vitro fertilization using anonymous donor sperm, donor egg, and a surrogate mother. One month before the baby was born, the couple divorced and Luanne, taking custody of the baby, sued her ex-husband for child support.
Recently, in a story too astonishing to seem true, the trial court upheld the ex-husband's defense that the child was not legally his because a court could not establish that she was a “child of the marriage.”
The case will go before a California appeals court in January, but until then Jaycee is left without legal parents.
She exists today because of contractual agreements made by the Buzzancas. Yet if these agreements don't make John Buzzanca her legal father, who are her legal parents?
The anonymous donors of the initial sperm and egg could perhaps be considered her biological parents. And the surrogate mother in northern California, Pamela Snell, who was paid to carry her to term might have some claim of parenthood too. In fact, Snell initially filed court papers seeking custody of Jaycee, claiming she had agreed to deliver the child to loving parents, not to a couple fighting over child responsibilities. She has since withdrawn her suit.
Meanwhile, Jaycee, innocent of the bizarre circumstances surrounding her birth, continues to live with the woman who wants to retain custody, Luanne Buzzanca.
Luanne's attorney, Santa Ana, Calif. based Robert Walmsley, called the case “very disturbing, in the sense that a child is potentially left without legal parents.”
Attorney Jeffrey Doeringer, who represents the little girl, agrees, writing in his appeal that the legal questions involved in this case will be felt “more heavily by Jaycee and others like her, brought into this world by methods of advanced medical and technical achievements.”
Walmsley believes, as many do, that “until we have legislative guidance in this area [of surrogacy arrangements], the courts are going to be left to flounder and create laws based on each individual case.” He warns that letting courts “write” law is dangerous business, a warning familiar to Catholics and pro-life advocates who still battle with the consequences of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Attorneys such as Walmsley want to see legislative structure, such as counseling, made mandatory prior to confirming a surrogacy agreement.
“It's a commitment—like a marriage,” Walmsley explained. He believes that safeguards such as discussing the significance, ramifications, and consequences of the commitment up front will avoid a lot of problems after a child has been conceived.
The Church however has long provided a much more fundamental response to the increasing ethical complexities engendered by limitless experiments in the creation of human life.
“This case [in Calif.] illustrates the wisdom of the 1987 Vatican document on reproductive technologies called Donum Vitae (Gift of Life),” said Dr. John Haas, a moral theologian and president of the Pope John XXIII Medical Moral Research and Education Center in Boston, Mass.
The Center, in conjunction with the Knights of Columbus, hosts an annual conference on advances in medical ethics for the bishops of the United States, Canada, and Latin America.
“Donum Vitae,” Haas continued, “said that children have a right to come into being by virtue of an act of love of a husband and wife. The child has a right to nurture, love, and support from its parents.
“One of the dreadful things happening in our society is that human beings are reduced to products. We are manufacturing human beings and the Church has always insisted that human beings can't be manufactured. This situation [in Calif.] places the child at the whim of others' decisions. It is ethical relativism carried to its extreme.”
Dr. Janet Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas and an authority on the 1968 papal encyclical Humane Vitae (On Human Life), agrees. “While all of us can be very sympathetic to couples who have problems with infertility and their desire to have a child of their own, we have to see what ludicrous lengths this has gone to. This woman [in Calif.] has adopted a baby, which she has purchased. She and her ex-husband have purchased the sperm and the egg and the uterus, as opposed to reaching out and offering a home to an existing child who needs a home.
“There's a kind of madness here, obviously. In fact, the Church says that if you start to get really bizarre and ludicrous consequences from certain actions, then that's a pretty good sign that the actions themselves are not in accord with God's will. The Church clearly teaches that a man and woman have the moral right to be mother and father biologically only by each other. To do it any other way is to violate the moral law. So, there have been at least three violations of the moral law in this case.”
Added Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life activities at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops: “In vitro is a manufacturing procedure, it treats the embryo like an object. That leads to further abuses down the road. In many in vitro fertilization programs there's a lot of destroying and discarding of human embryos. Many are discarded because they are extra or they are seen as low quality. The very procedure [of artificial insemination] invites these physicians to treat embryos almost cavalierly; you are objectifying the human person in the lab as something to be worked upon.
“Donum Vitae completely excluded any use of donor egg or donor sperm to reproduce. You have a very different situation when you have an infertile couple who choose to adopt a child,” continued Doerflinger, “because in the case of adoption a child's bond with his or her biological parents is already broken. The parents are unable or unwilling to act as parents and the infertile couple can choose to become the parents of this child as their own. That is not the same as planning from the outset the meaning of your parenthood by incorporating third parties into the process.”
Karen Walker is based in Corona Del Mar, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: The strange case of two-year-old Jaycee Buzzanca shows how complicated things can get when human life is treated as a product ----- EXTENDED BODY: karen Walker ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: 'Science Without Conscience' DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:Donum Vitae, a Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document, explores the morality of every currently possible procedure for human procreation. In this carefully crafted instruction the document bases an evaluation of in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and other technical, artificial interventions in human procreation on the nature of man and the purpose of his existence. It applies these principles also to the relationship between moral law and civil law in terms of the respect due to human embryos and fetuses.
Science and technology are valuable resources for man,” reads Donum Vitae, “but they cannot of themselves show the meaning of existence and of human progress.… Science without conscience can only lead to man's ruin.… What is technically possible is not for that very reason morally admissible.”
The document, which draws from prior Church teachings including Vatican II, states that “Life, once conceived, must be protected with the utmost care” and “[h]uman life must be absolutely respected and protected from the moment of conception.” Borrowing from the Declaration on Procured Abortion, the document affirms that “[f]rom the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth.”
While empathizing with the suffering of infertility, Donum Vitae is clear about technological intervention in human procreation: “To use human embryos or fetuses as the object or instrument of experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings having a right to the same respect that is due to the child already born and to every human person. The practice of keeping human embryos alive in vivo or in vitro for experimental or commercial purposes is totally opposed to human dignity.… It is immoral to produce human embryos destined to be exploited as disposable ‘biological material.’… Development of the practice of in vitro fertilization has required innumerable fertilizations and destructions of human embryos.… The connection between in vitro fertilization and the voluntary destruction of human embryos occurs too often.…”
—Karen Walker
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karen Walker ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Canada's Law of the Land: Unborn Children Are Non-Persons DATE: 11/23/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 23-29,1997 ----- BODY:OTTAWA, Canada—The Canadian Supreme Court's most recent decision regarding the legal status of unborn children, handed down late last month, was disappointing to pro-life advocates. But it wasn't surprising—Canadian defenders of the right to life have come to expect disappointments from their Supreme Court.
Over the past decade, the Canadian courts have produced a series of decisions that have not only entrenched an expansive abortion license, but betray a hostility to the rights of the child in utero that has led to some bizarre and grisly rulings. Combined with the unwillingness of the federal Parliament to touch the abortion issue, the Canadian court judgments have produced the most permissive abortion-on-demand policy in the world.
Abortion is legal for any reason at any time, without a restriction or regulation, and is covered by the universal government health insurance plan. The partial-birth abortions banned by the U.S. Congress (but protected by President Clinton's veto) are readily available in Canada, with taxpayers picking up the bill.
The Recent Ruling
The most recent decision will do nothing to change that. It centered on a 21-year-old unwed mother of three, expecting her fourth child in the fall of 1996. Deborah Gregory (a pseudonym used to protect the identity of her other children) was addicted to sniffing glue and other solvents. As a result of her addiction, two of her children, whom she was unable to care for, had been born with permanent disabilities and were eventually made wards of the state.
Now pregnant again and still sniffing solvents, the local child welfare agency, Winnipeg Child Services, obtained a court order to confine Gregory, against her will, in a treatment facility in order to protect the health of the child in her womb. Only two days after the court order was granted, it was overturned on appeal. Winnipeg Child Services then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which was asked to decide whether a court had the power to confine an expectant mother in order to protect her unborn child.
The Supreme Court decision was emphatic. “The only law recognized is that of the born person,” said the court in a 7-2 decision. “Any right or interest the fetus may have remains inchoate and incomplete until the birth of the child.”
An unborn child is a legal non-entity, and so therefore cannot be the object of a court's protection.
“A pregnant woman and her unborn child are one,” wrote Justice Beverly McLachlin for the majority. Her choice of words was illuminating. Her own sentence has two subjects—the woman and the child—so to say that they are one is a logical non sequitur, unless one of the two subjects is simply declared not to exist for the purposes at hand.
The Supreme Court applied the common law “born alive” rule, wherein only a child born alive has standing before the court. The dissenting justices pointed out that the “born alive” rule is a precedent harkening from days when it was not clearly known whether a child in utero was alive or not. The law sought to avoid fixing anyone with the blame of injuring a child in utero if in fact, as a result of some independent cause, the child was not alive at birth. Today, when medical science makes it clear that not only is the child alive, but can be severely injured from the solvent-sniffing of his mother, applying the “born alive” rule seems almost obtuse.
Justice Jack Major, writing for the minority, said, “Someone must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Then, asking the central question asked by right-to-life advocates all along, Major wrote, “Society does not simply sit by and allow a mother to abuse her child after birth. How then should serious abuse be allowed to occur before the child is born?”
The answer is clear. The Court has decided that it will not write any decision that may restrict, however mildly, the abortion license. The Centre for Renewal in Public Policy, an Ottawa-based think tank, blasted the Court in its legal review, LexView, for the Gregory decision: “Our law is in disarray with respect to the unborn. Since every move in the direction of recognition [of the unborn child] further strengthens the arguments against abortion, courts contort the law [to avoid] imposing duties to the fetus in utero because that might cause us to question the unbridled ‘choice’ that can destroy the unborn child that we supposedly value.”
Fiat justitia ruat carlum is an ancient legal maxim: Let justice be done no matter how terrible the consequences— or literally, though the heavens may fail. Fearing neither heaven nor fallibility, the Canadian courts are unsurpassed in their devotion to the principle of the unborn child as a non-person before the law. There have been several cases in which Canadian courts have applied with vicious force the principle that the fetus is a legal non-entity.
More Bizarre Cases
Last year, in the Drummond case, a newborn baby was discovered to have a pellet from a pellet gun lodged in its brain. The mother was subsequently charged with attempted murder, she had inserted the gun into the birth canal and fired upon her own child in utero just days before the birth in the hopes of killing it. The baby was born alive, and an Ontario criminal court cleared the mother of all charges because, at the time of the shooting, the child was a legal non-entity.
In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 9-0 that two midwives whose negligence had caused the death of a baby haIf-born could not be sued for negligence causing death, because the baby, not fully born, was not yet a legal person. They suggested that the mother could sue the midwives for damage to herself, but not for the death of the child.
And perhaps the most bizarre decision of all was handed down by the British Columbia Court of Appeal, when they held that a physician performing an abortion has a duty of care to the fetus—not to leave it injured if the abortion is unsuccessful and the child lives.
Shades of this contorted thinking were reflected even in the minority opinion in Gregory. The dissenting justices wrote that while some interference with the rights of the mother to protect the fetus is legitimate, in practice, “this interference is always subject to the mother's right to end it by deciding to have an abortion.” The dissenting justices in Gregory were prepared to allow for state action to protect the child from harm, but not from being destroyed by abortion.
An Historical Overview
This string of decisions has been occasioned by the legal vacuum left by three key Supreme Court decisions in 1988 and 1989, undoing the abortion law of 1969.
In 1969, Canada liberalized its abortion law. The new law made any abortion a criminal act, unless it was approved by a hospital “therapeutic abortion committee” that judged the abortion to be necessary to protect the life or health of the mother. In practice, the law allowed for ready access to abortion, but reflected in principle that abortion was a criminal act.
In 1988, the Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional in the Morgentaler decision, named for a Canadian abortion provider. One justice discovered at that time a “right to an abortion” in the Constitution, but the majority decision relied upon procedural unfairness in the application of the law to strike it down. While the Court had not declared a right to an abortion as was done in Roe v. Wade in the United States, the upshot was the same: Canada was without an abortion law.
At the time the Morgentaler was decided, the Supreme Court also had the Borowski case on its docket. The plaintiff, a former provincial politician, was asking the Court to decide that the “right to life” guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution included the unborn. But having struck down the abortion law in Morgentaler, the Court, in 1989, dismissed the case as moot, there being no abortion law left to challenge.
Later, in the summer of '89, the Court did not let the mootness of a case stop it from proceeding. Faced with the case of a woman, Chantal Daigle, whose boyfriend had obtained an injunction to prevent her from having an abortion, the Court overturned the injunction, even though Daigle had already had an illegal abortion, and so the case was moot. Not stopping there, the Court went on to decide that the fetus was not a “human being” as the law currently stood. Again, no right to abortion was declared, but if the fetus does not exist in law, then the right to abortion exists de facto.
Invitation to Legislation
In Gregory, as it had done in Morgentaler and Daigle, the Court invited Parliament to legislate. Justice McLachlin wrote that the declaration of the fetus as a person was such a major step that it could only come from Parliament, not the Court. An attempt at an abortion law that would have resurrected the essence of the 1960 law failed in Parliament in 1988, and since then no further attempts have been made. But even if there was a willingness in Parliament to restrict abortion, it would be difficult to see how Parliament could act. If the Supreme Court is willing to rule unanimously that a baby half-born is not a person, what grounds remain for action? Short of amending the Constitution, there are none.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: A recent Supreme Court ruling solidifies the country's ultra-permissive abortion-on-demand policy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond DeSouza ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: Role of Laity Spelled Out By Vatican DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—How much pastoral work can lay people perform before it becomes too much? That's a question the Vatican hopes to clarify with a document outlining the differences between the ministry of priests and that of the laity.
“In recent years we've seen a clericalization of the laity and a secularization of our priests,” Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe, former secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, said in presenting the new text.
While qualified lay men and women may be called to supplement the work of priests in certain emergency situations, he said, “the faithful and the Church will suffer if the lay minister goes beyond his or her auxiliary role.”
The instruction entitled The Collaboration of the Non-ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests was prepared by eight Vatican agencies, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
The main point of the document is to reaffirm the limits of lay involvement in ministry and the indispensable role of the ordained priest.
Pope John Paul II approved the text in forma specifica-a technical phrase meaning the instruction bears the full weight of papal authority. It is intended to be studied, above all, by bishops and other Church leaders to ensure that the lines of responsibility between priests and lay people don't become blurred.
Archbishop Sepe stressed the document breaks no new ground. “It contains nothing that is not already in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the 1983 Code of Canon Law,” he said.
The instruction was issued, he said, in response to many “pressing requests” for clarification of ministerial roles.
The archbishop noted that in some parts of the world, lay people are performing tasks that used to be thought of as the sole province of priests: assisting at marriages and funerals, working with the sick, and leading Sunday celebrations—although not celebrating Mass, which only priests may do.
The 38-page instruction states: “It must be remembered that 'collaboration with' does not, in fact, mean 'substitution for.'” And while the instruction praises the growing involvement of lay people in the liturgical and ministerial life of the Church, it also warns that certain abuses place the faithful at the risk of misunderstanding or ignoring the different vocations, roles, and responsibilities of priests and lay people.
The document restates such rules as the one that reserves preaching of a homily at Mass to an ordained deacon, priest, or bishop. It specifically bars the preaching at Mass by seminarians or non-ordained theology students.
“Indeed, the homily should not be regarded as a training for some future ministry,” the text says.
Archbishop Sepe noted lay ministries that obscure the differences between the ordained priesthood and the laity are harmful to the Church.
“If a nurse, in caring for a patient, performs a task only doctors perform, it is not the doctor's profession which is threatened, but the patient's health.” In the same way, he said, while lay people have helped fill a gap caused by a shortage of priests in many countries, they must not be considered genuine substitutes.
The document reaffirms involvement of lay people in “the pastoral ministry of clerics in parishes, health care centers, charitable and educational institutions, prisons,” and other situations. However, it stresses that this should be done only when necessary because of a lack of sufficient priests “and not for reasons of convenience or ambiguous ‘advancement of the laity.’”
The answer to a shortage of priests cannot be the permanent delegation of ministerial tasks to lay people, the instruction states. Instead, communities must increase their prayers for priestly vocations and their active outreach to potential candidates for ordination.
The text opens with a short chapter on the call of all baptized persons to share actively in building up the body of Christ.
After a second chapter devoted to theological principles governing ministry and distinguishing ordained ministry from the common priesthood of all the baptized, the third and largest part of the document is devoted to “practical provisions.”
Among specific areas dealt with are Church norms governing ministry of the Word, preaching, Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest, ministry to the sick, assisting at marriages, and the use of lay ministers to administer communion.
It notes that care, even in choice of dress, must be taken in parishes to avoid confusing or misleading the faithful. The wearing of liturgical vestments by non-ordained ministers at religious ceremonies is “clearly unlawful,” it says.
An article on the parish priest and the parish, while affirming the effective collaboration of lay ministers in pastoral work, also emphasizes the “extraordinary” character of such collaboration and stresses that competencies of “directing, coordinating, moderating, or governing the parish” belong to the priest alone.
The document states that diocesan or parish pastoral councils and parish financial councils “enjoy a consultative vote only and cannot in any way become deliberative structures” capable of making binding decisions. If a parish council meets without the parish priest presiding or against his wishes, any actions it takes are “invalid, and hence null and void,” it says.
The text also reaffirms the Code of Canon Law's restriction of the title “chaplain” to ordained priests. The title is not to be used to describe a lay minister—not even one appointed by a bishop to carry out such a service in a hospital or prison.
Some bishops in the United States have already voiced concern over practical implications of the Vatican instruction. During their annual fall meeting this month in Washington, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) discussed the new document.
NCCB spokesman David Early said bishops drew attention to limits placed on the titles that lay Catholics may use according to the new instruction. “I think there's some concern among the bishops,” he said, “particularly about the use of the term 'chaplain.'"
Early explained that many states in the country have introduced laws that attach training requirements and affiliation to particular religious denominations to the term “chaplain.”
“Basically, there will be a conflict between state law and this instruction,” he said. Bishops also raised concern over the document's restriction against seminarians preaching at Mass, since this liturgical abuse is common practice in some U.S. dioceses as part of priestly formation.
Archbishop Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the pro-prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, insisted the new instruction is intended to safeguard the specific identities and vocations of the ordained priest and the lay faithful. “If roles exist that do not allow people to clearly see the difference between the common priesthood of the faithful and the ordained ministry, then the whole Church crumbles.”
Archbishop Castrillon underlined the fact that the Church's structure was founded by Christ to be a community in which different members had specific roles. Anything that ignores those differences harms the Church, he said, which is why so many Vatican offices were involved in drawing up the instruction and why papal approval was necessary for its publication.
The document itself calls for the careful protection and promotion of “the particular gift of each of the Church's members ... without confusing roles, functions, or theological and canonical status.”
It says that where there is a shortage of priests, this must be viewed as a transitory situation to be dealt with long-range by giving priority to priestly vocations. Interim solutions provided for under Church law must not “fall into the ambiguity of considering as ordinary and normal, solutions that were meant for extraordinary situations.”
“The object of this document,” it adds, “is to outline specific directives to ensure the effective collaboration of the non-ordained faithful in such circumstances while safeguarding the integrity of the pastoral ministry of priests.”
Stephen Banyra is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Carrying the weight of full papal authority, a new document reaffirms the limits of lay involvement in ministry and the indispensable role of the ordained priest ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bishops Zero in on Life Issues Here and Abroad DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—From the outside, the U.S. bishops'fall meeting Nov. 10–12 was a mostly quiet affair. From the inside? Only the bishops know.
The approximately 260 prelates on hand spent nearly twice as much time as usual in “executive session,” which is closed to the press. Speculation as to what topics occupied their attention behind closed doors included the Church's approach to dealing with clergy sex abuse scandals and lawsuits, the controversial Always Our Children document for parents of homosexually oriented children released last month by the bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family Life, and other sensitive topics.
“We feel freer to talk without the cameras rolling and without copious notes being taken on every word spoken,” one bishop said in reference to the decision to spend the afternoon of Nov. 11 and the morning of Nov. 12 meeting privately.
Though the bishops' agenda was light-they wrapped up business a day early-it was not insignificant. Their decision to consider bringing back “meatless Fridays” was widely reported in the media, but in all the talk about a return to the Pre-Vatican II practice, the reason seemed to get lost. The idea, conceived as a unified protest to “attacks against human life and human dignity” wherever and in whatever form they occur, was proposed by Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
While Fridays that are not solemnities are already “penitential days” according to canon law, that sense has been lost in recent years by most Catholics.
The bishops voiced unanimous support for Cardinal Law's suggestion of bringing back the penitential practice. The idea will now be sent to a bishops' committee to be shaped into concrete recommendations and considered by the full Conference next year, possibly as early as their June meeting.
Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua recommended that the observance not be limited to forgoing meat. “A day without meat is hardly a day of penitence when one can always substitute a good lobster meal,” he said, in urging that the practice include fasting and abstinence.
Whether the observance would be mandatory remained unclear. But in noting that the bishops' 1983 pastoral on peace had called for voluntary fasting and abstinence on Friday without significant results, Archbishop Francis George of Chicago seemed to make the case for stronger direction beyond mere suggestion.
Cardinal Adam Maida, another supporter of the proposed practice, said reviving the practice would offer Catholics a unifying way to express their support for pro-life causes. In past times, he said, fasting was “something that people took seriously, and it identified who you were and what you believed.
“What we would like to do [with the current proposal],” he added, “is focus this in such a way that we are in effect saying: 'Life is sacred; life is good. It comes from God, begins with God and ends with him, and we shouldn't interfere.'"
Cardinal Maida pointed to the advance of the euthanasia movement in Oregon, where citizens voted by a 60% to 40% margin earlier this month to retain the so-called right to assisted-suicide. The prelate warned that Michigan may soon be confronted with a similar measure. His point was underscored a few days after the bishops' meeting when Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of a 74-year-old woman, reportedly in a Catholic church, though that claim was made without proof by Kevorkian's lawyer.
While the general press remained focused on the possibility that “meatless Fridays” would return, the bishops, on the last day of their meeting, focused on another life issue: the upcoming 25th anniversary of legalized abortion in the United States.
In a forceful four-page statement, Light and Shadows: Our Nation 25 Years After Roe vs. Wade, the bishops called the ruling that overturned most state restrictions on abortion “a sign of failure so monumental that to speak of it even as a 'tragedy' is pitifully inadequate.”
“What was once seen as an act of desperation-the killing of one's own child-is now fiercely defended as a good and promoted as a right,” the statement said. “Even worse, a deadly blindness has come over our land, preventing many persons of good will from recognizing the right of innocent human lives to respect, acceptance, and help.”
In the statement, the bishops compared abortion to slavery, criticizing the reasoning that would object to either but strictly at a personal level.
“It was morally absurd then to say, 'I am personally opposed to owning slaves and would never own one myself, but I can't force my moral views on others. It's not the government's task to legislate morality. It's a personal choice,'” the document said. “It is just as morally repugnant to say the same about abortion today. Our nation stands in judgment now, as it did more than a century ago: are we to be a nation that honors its commitments to the right to life, or not?"
Light and Shadows also described the corrosive effects on a society that permits taking the lives of its most innocent and defenseless members. “Among the many threats to human life in our society, the tragedy of abortion plays a central role. The right to exist, the right to be allowed to live, is the basis for every other human right and the necessary condition for their realization.”
Though the bishops struck a grave tone in assessing the fallout from Roe v. Wade, they also sounded some hopeful notes. “We thought it important to note this sad anniversary, [but] we also wanted to take note of the positive elements within the pro-life movement,” said Cardinal Law.
While offering the horrific statistic of 35 million abortions in 25 years, the document also said that more than 3,000 pro-life centers offering counseling services to pregnant women now exist. The bishops noted the presence in the pro-life movement of “teenagers and young adults who have come of age with legal abortion, but who are not seduced by its empty promises.”
The bishops point out in Light and Shadows that abortion has not resulted in a reduction of poverty or child abuse since its legalization, despite such predictions by supporters of Roe v. Wade.
Global Solidarity & Iraq
Turning their attention to world matters, the bishops Nov. 12 approved a call to parishes to heighten their awareness of crises around the globe. In the introduction to Called to Global Solidarity: International Challenges for U.S. Parishes, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., chairman of the bishops' International Policy Committee, encouraged Catholics to “build on the remarkable commitment of the Church in the United States to the Universal Church and the poor of the world.” In sketching out problems to which U.S. parishes should be attuned, the document cites such grim global realities as:
√ 35,000 dying daily of hunger.
√ 26,000 injuries or death yearly by anti-personnel land mines.
√ Religion-related harassment or persecution in China, Indonesia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
The document points to Pope John Paul II's call for solidarity as a response to such problems, and says that U.S. Catholics must respond to them dynamically at the parish level.
“A key of a parish's 'Catholicity'is its willingness to go beyond its own boundaries to preach its Gospel, serve those in need, and work for global justice and peace,” the document says. “This is not a work for a few agencies or one parish committee, but for every believer and every local community of faith.”
As the bishops met, the stand-off between the United Nations and Iraq continued heating up as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein refused to let American members of a U.N. team inspect Iraq's weapons facilities. Although not officially on the agenda, the volatile situation prompted a discussion about what position the bishops' conference should take. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit urged the bishops to condemn the U.N. sanctions that have lead to the devastation of Iraq's economy and widespread deprivation among its citizens.
But Archbishop McCarrick said the bishops have expressed concern and solidarity with the Iraqi people in a number of statements since sanctions were imposed in 1990 and that a new statement “could easily be misunderstood or fail to have any constructive impact on policy.”
In a compromise move, Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the bishops' conference, offered to write a letter to Church leaders in Iraq expressing the solidarity of the American Church with them.
Hispanics and Other Items
In other business, the bishops took two steps to reach out to the growing Hispanic community in the U.S. Church. They voted to hold a fourth Encuentro (Gathering) in the year 2000 for Catholic leaders aimed at facilitating the integration of Hispanics into “the full life” of the U.S. Church. The most recent Encuentro took place in 1985. The bishops also unveiled the first Spanish-language Sacramentary-the text used for Masses-specifically for use in the United States. A vote to approve the new Sacramentary for Hispanics, who are expected to make up more than half the U.S. Church within 25 years, was inconclusive and will have to be decided by mail ballot.
A discussion of the best day to celebrate the solemnity of the Ascension- on the Thursday 40 days after Easter or the following Sunday-also occupied the bishops. The original agenda called for a vote on the issue, but the Committee on Liturgy opted for a general discussion. There appeared to be a general split between bishops on the East and on the West coasts-where for the last four years the feast has been celebrated on Sunday.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said the Ascension should be celebrated on Sunday along with the other central mysteries of the Catholic faith including the Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost. But Cardinal James Hickey of Washington said changing the feast from its Thursday place as a holy day of obligation would be a “grave mistake” that stripped away a practice that has long contributed to a sense of Catholic identity. (See sidebar for a brief look at all business covered by the bishops.)
It wasn't until the final day of business that Always Our Children, the controversial letter addressed to parents of homosexual children and issued Oct. 1 by the bishops'Committee on Marriage and Family Life, was addressed in a public session. Committee chairman Bishop Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix defended the letter saying it “remains loyal to the magisterial teaching of the Church” and that “it recognizes the complexity of homosexuality and the dignity of each person.”
Bishop O'Brien's committee distributed a five-page background paper to the bishops that included responses to Always Our Children from homosexual people, parents, pastoral workers, and others. The background paper said less than 10% of some 500 letters received were critical of the document. While most observers have found positive elements in the document, many take issue with who was (and who was not) consulted in drafting it, its ambiguity on some points, and the way in which it was released.
In a question to Bishop O'Brien, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., seemed to have that last criticism in mind: “This is a statement of the Marriage and Family Life committee, not of the entire body [of bishops], is that correct?”
“Yes, it is,” Bishop O'Brien replied.
For the general public, for the media, and even for many active Catholics, that distinction in identifying the document's issuing party-a committee rather than the entire body of bishops-has been lost, giving the document more weight than some believe it should have.
Presidential Call for Unity
Even as such fine, albeit important, points occupied the conference, Bishop Pilla's presidential address Nov. 10 urged them to always follow the road of unity and reconciliation. He noted that disagreements within the conference are “usually free of bitterness, personal antagonism, or mistrust,” but said that wasn't true within the U.S. Church at large.
He called for an end to Catholic polarization and pointed out four areas where reconciliation is most needed: among those with differing views of the liturgy, in public discussion of Church issues, in response to people who have been hurt in any way by clergy ("I am thinking especially of those who have been victims of sexual abuse"), and regarding matters of doctrine.
But Bishop Pilla made it clear that reconciliation isn't synonymous with compromise.
“[B]eing Catholic is not a personal and subjective matter alone but involves accepting all of Church teaching and practice and, with regard to both doctrine and practice, the right and duty of the Pope and the bishops to teach, to guide, and to ask for, and insist on adherence to both,” he said. “Reconciliation not based on the truth, however difficult the truth may be to accept at the moment, will not be full and lasting reconciliation.”
Larry Montali is editor of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: In Washington, American Prelates issue a grim assessment of Roe v. Wade at 25, consider a return to Friday fasting and abstinence, and call for global solidarity with the Universal Church ----- EXTENDED BODY: Larry Montali ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Embracing the Internet: Dioceses Ponder Best Use of Technology DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:CHICAGO—First the good news: The Catholic Church is quickly increasing its presence on the Internet. Ninety-three of 188 U.S. dioceses have a “home page,” or Web site on the Internet. Several more dioceses are poised to go ahead with their own Web sites, and it seems nearly every diocese will have one within a couple of years.
But while the American Church seems anxious to embrace the new technology, it still needs to develop a greater sense of how best to use it. For the most part, the present Catholic Web sites are graphically dull and full of leaden text-few are interactive.
Most are heavily reliant on information from diocesan newspapers, which, of course, have been suffering circulation losses for years. While there are a number of reasons to which this can be attributed, one commonly heard complaint is that many papers possess all the color and life of a diocesan directory. Too often, the glory of the faith, the vitality of the Church, the wonder of grace, and even the sacredness of life are absent from their pages.For the most part, the diocesan Web sites are startlingly similar. They often are limited to a message from the bishop, articles from the diocesan newspaper, parish addresses and Mass times, and information from key diocesan offices, usually related to vocations, schools, and social services. Many offer links to the much-visited Vatican site, and to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), religious orders, Marian sites, and other Catholic sites.
The Internet is no small potatoes. More than 31 million American adults- almost one in six-regularly use the Internet or commercial on-line services, according to a study released last spring by Find/SVP, a market research group based in New York. Every day thousands more are turning to the Internet for information.
The Vatican has recognized the powerful influence of mass media.
“Much that men and women know and think about life is conditioned by the media; to a considerable extent, human experience is an experience of media,” according to Aetatis Novae (At the Dawn of a New Era), published in 1992 by the Vatican's Council for Social Communications.
Youth especially are formed by mass media.
“An audiovisual generation is now born,” wrote Pierre Babin in The New Era in Religious Communication. “We cannot speak to young people today as we have in the past. Young people understand things not through words alone but through the effects produced ... by visual and [verbal] stimuli.”
Babin insists that communicators of the faith must make the content “beautiful, attractive, and tempting.”
If modern communicators followed Babin's dictum, they would be following a tradition that blossomed in the Middle Ages. The lovely stained glass windows of cathedrals taught the faith to generations of illiterate peasants.
Most diocesan home pages currently take a narrower view of communication, linking parishes and schools with one another and with the chancery and providing local Catholics with current information on diocesan matters. The Internet has increasingly become another routine diocesan tool, a part of a communication mix that includes diocesan newspapers, parish bulletins, publications from diocesan offices, and cable television programs.
To date, dioceses are paying less attention to the catechetical or evangelizing possibilities on the net, to enriching the faith of churchgoers and drawing alienated Catholics and the nonchurched.
While the Web sites of many dioceses do have room for improvement, some already offer distinctive elements:
√ The home page of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati provides a blurb for the new book by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, Bringing Forth Justice. Also available is a detailed events calendar and, for those computer users with audio, a monthly prayer.
√ The Archdiocese of Atlanta features detailed profiles of parishes, including a dozen-chapter tome on St. Joseph Church in Athens written by a history professor at the University of Georgia.
√ The Diocese of Fargo, hit hard by flooding, offers links to a flood page, a flood relief fund, and flood pictures.
√ A spiritual resource page of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis includes Scripture references, pastoral letters of the archbishop, letters of the U.S. bishops, and papal encyclicals.
√ The Diocese of Arlington, Va., has a page for Latinos, written in Spanish.
√ The Diocese of Dallas presents a page on wills and trusts that has two dozen chapters.
The Archdiocese of Denver has been pleased with the effectiveness of its home page despite spending little money for its development. The page debuted in August 1996 after being designed in-house. No funds were allocated for the page in the 1996 budget, and only $15,000 in the 1997 budget. Yet the page proved to be particularly beneficial in at least two instances.
A man concerned about the environment donated 20 acres to the archdiocese after reading a column by then-Archbishop J. Francis Stafford deploring rapid economic development in the mountains that was driving out the local population. Another man decided to study for the priesthood for the archdiocese after coming across information by the vocations office.
The archdiocese's reason for designing the page in-house was more practical than financial, said Francis Maier, vice chancellor.
“The Internet will change dramatically in five years,” said Maier, who was the archdiocese's communications director during the time the Web site was being developed. “[It] is very important to economic, political, and cultural structures. We want to understand the technology.”
With such features as audio interviews on moral and spiritual issues with figures like author Neil Postman, Catholic journalist Greg Erlandson, and theologian David Schindler, Denver's home page is among the most innovative of the diocesan sites.
A home page can be especially fruitful in a diocese like Denver, spread out over a mountainous region, Maier said. Eventually, the Internet can provide long-distance learning, in which prospective lay ministers and others can learn skills and knowledge through the computer. The archdiocese also plans to make diocesan manuals and handbooks available to parish staff through its home page.
At their spring meeting this year, the U.S. bishops approved a national pastoral plan for communication that, among other recommendations, urged dioceses to use the Internet to spread the Gospel. The bishops asked that content be offered on the Internet to serve as an evangelical tool, that current diocesan Web sites be linked to the NCCB and that dioceses without home pages develop one.
The bishops said that mass media should be used to evangelize, influence the values of U.S. society, tell the Church's story, protect the communication environment, teach communication, reflect on the quality of communication and support one another in a ministry of communication.
The Catholic Church, of course, is hardly the only entity struggling to come to terms with the Internet. The Find/SVP study reported that almost half of all users said the technology remains “somewhat” or “very” difficult to use.
Despite the difficulties, the Internet is too important for the Church to ignore, Maier said.
“The printing press was invented by a nice Catholic boy and turned into a tool of the Protestants. The Church did not understand the technology,” he said. “We're sitting on the cusp of significant change. If the Church does not use technology creatively and ethically, the Church will very likely lose out again.”
Jay Copp is based in Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jay Copp ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Slowly and Cautiously, Bosnia Throws Off the Vestiges of War DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina- “People in Sarajevo-they have a lot of money to spend repairing buildings. But no one is doing the most important thing: repairing hearts.”
That was the crisp assessment of a Herzegovinian cafe owner on the Bosnian reconstruction effort two years after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire signed at Dayton, Ohio silenced guns in the Balkans.
It's an apt verdict-on both counts.
Take Mostar. Centerpiece of the plan spearheaded by the Clinton administration and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders to create a Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia, Mostar, Herzegovina's capital, was to showcase efforts at inter-ethnic cooperation and prevent the further splintering of Bosnia along ethnic lines.
Hence, there was a flurry of international media attention focused on the launch in mid-October of a European-financed project to dredge the remnants of Mostar's historic 15th-century bridge from the waters of the Neretva River. (Local Croatian gunners blew up the structure in 1993 to prevent Mostar's Muslims from rearming themselves during the Muslim-Croat phase of the war.)
Stari most (Serbo-Croat for “old bridge”), ascribed to the great Ottoman architect Sinan, has functioned for centuries as the city's symbol (the name Mostar comes from the word for “bridge”).
Officials from the government of Bosnian President Alija Izobetgovic were quick to hail the lifting of the first limestone blocks of the Turkish-style span from the river as an act that would bridge the city's divisions and heal the wounds of the war.
“This is a symbol of peace for the Bosnian people,” declared Izobetgovic. (The government-sponsored Foundation Stari Most, set up in 1994, is spear-heading the project under the supervision of local architect Zijad Demirovic.)
In Croat-dominated west Mostar, however, reactions to the event were less than enthusiastic. “The bridge, it's no symbol for us,” a former Croatian militiaman told the Register. “When it was built 500 years ago, we Catholics were slaves of the Muslims. The bridge means nothing to us, except as a symbol of occupation.”
Although Catholics have formed a clear majority of the population in western Herzegovina for centuries, they were landless peasants serving mostly Muslim landowners during the nearly 500 years of Ottoman rule here. Herzegovina's Croats were allied with local Muslims earlier this century during conflicts in the old Yugoslavia and, again, when the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army and Bosnian Serb units invaded the republic in 1992. But by late 1993, differing political agendas had sundered ties and set off one of the bloodiest phases of the war.
Other historic public buildings in Mostar, like the Hapsburg-period bishop's palace, a burned-out shell since 1992, have also been treated to tasteful reconstructions.
But if the speed with which war damage is being repaired speaks of Bosnians' determination to put the war behind them, many of the conflict's deeper legacies remain untouched.
Weeks before east Mostar divers kissed the stones of the stari most as they were lifted to shore, Muslim workers who had strayed into the wrong part of town had been severely beaten by Croat police.
And just days before this reporter visited the city, a 65-pound car bomb had gone off in front of a busy west Mostar apartment complex, injuring more than a hundred. An Islamic terrorist group took responsibility.
“The problems in Mostar can't be resolved,” Dr. Ben Markin, a surgeon at one of west Mostar's hospitals lamented, “because there's no trust. It's not difficult to understand. How can you work with someone who may have killed your father or your brother or your son?"
In Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina's capital, a city that saw some of the worst fighting of the four-year-old Balkan conflict, tensions are even less visible under the veneer of massive reconstruction.
Much of the historic core of Sarajevo-a veritable image of the horrors of war only two years ago- has been restored. Mosques and churches that recently lay open to the sky today sport brand-new hand-beaten copper roofs. The once-skeletal downtown Holiday Inn, boasting a new colorful postmodern exterior, is now open for business. Even the tragic bullet-riddled ruin of the National Library, once a symbol of the city's suffering, is off-limits now while an Italian architectural firm tries to restore it to its former glory.
More importantly, the edgy cultural life of prewar Sarajevo is taking hold again. Last month, a Sarajevo film festival attracted large crowds, posters advertising a six-day poetry celebration were visible on every downtown store-front, and the city's famous National Theater was back in business with a new production of Moliere's Tartuffe. In September, the Irish rock band U2 staged a multi-media extravaganza in the city's sports arena.
It was a far cry from two years ago, at the time of the cease-fire, when the only operational movie theater in town was showing the American film “Natural-Born Killers” to the city's shell-shocked public.
Still, behind the facade of rapid recovery, the war's legacy of mistrust and ethnic strife remains.
This is a particularly sensitive issue for the leaders of Bosnia's dwindling Catholic community. Prewar census figures (April 1991) indicate that the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna-Sarajevo, one of three dioceses in the republic, served more than 500,000 Catholics. Not counting the many dead, the war displaced more than 200,000 Catholics and 45% of Sarajevo's churches were destroyed.
While some church buildings have been repaired in the past two years, diocesan spokesmen say that the Bosnian government has shown little interest in facilitating the return of Croat refugees to their former homes and villages-a key provision of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords.
More ominously, say Sarajevo Church leaders, a dozen Catholics have been killed in Muslim-controlled areas in the past few months and terrorist bombs have gone off in front of eight church buildings in the diocese since the cease-fire.
“We have the impression that these killings and terrorist acts are organized in order to discourage refugees from returning, or dislodge Croatians still living in Muslim territories,” Sarajevo's Cardinal Vinko Puljic told the Register.
“Without reasonable security,” he said, “Catholic life cannot be reestablished here. And without a vibrant Bosnian Catholic life, what chance will there be to build a true multi-ethnic Bosnia in the future?"
Small signs of rapprochement have been ventured by communal religious leaders in recent months. Last June, Bosnia's bishops joined Serbian Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim clerics in signing The Statement on Shared Moral Commitment, an initiative that is paving the way for the formation of an Interreligious Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And last month, the Bosnian bishops issued a pastoral letter calling for Catholics to forgive and ask forgiveness for war crimes, as Pope John Paul II had urged during his visit to Sarajevo last April.
“[Bosnia's] civil authorities have been quick to remove the war's architectural scars,” Cardinal Puljic declared. “But they are not interested, it seems, in addressing less cosmetic concerns, such as the spiritual and psychic wounds of the war. It's a superficial and short-sighted policy.”
In Stolac, near Herzegovina's border with the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, there is another kind of postwar recovery on display.
Since last Christmas, an unofficial flea market, patronized by Herzegovinian Croats and Muslims and their Bosnian Serb counterparts, has operated in an unpatrolled open space here. No one seems sure about where the border is supposed to be, but since there are no guards or checkpoints in sight, the issue is moot. In fact, the only clue for the traveler that he has ventured into Serbian territory is furnished by the appearance of road signs in Cyrillic script.
Here Croats sell used cars to Serbs and enterprising Serbian merchandisers carry sides of lamb to eager Herzegovinian buyers. “Everybody around here buys meat from the Serbs,” says one Croat restaurant owner. “It's much cheaper than in the local markets.”
Buyers stand around greeting one another and exchanging cigarettes. Croats living in Serbia proper meet up with Herzegovinian relatives at Stolac and catch up on news. After sales are concluded, Serbs and Croats, who only months ago were manning front-line posts against one another here, wander off to Serbian-owned pubs to trade mock insults and war stories.
What is the view of current peace prospects at Stolac?
“Dayton was good because it stopped the fighting,” says one former commander of a Croatian Defense Forces (HVO) unit who makes the journey to Stolac each week. “But it isn't working anymore. The problem is that the Muslim-Croat federation doesn't exist. It doesn't govern, or collect taxes, repair roads, or pay retirement benefits.”
What does it cost the government to secure foreign funding for reconstruction? Nothing, the man explained. “Real reconciliation would be for Muslims who destroyed churches to see to their rebuilding, or for us [Croats] to restore damaged mosques or Serbian villages on the Neretva.”
“That would be the real thing,” he said. “The rest is just window-dressing.”
Gabriel Meyer recently spent two weeks in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
----- EXCERPT: But Sarajevo's Cardinal Vinko Puljic says rebuilding Catholic life remains an uphill struggle ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In the Southwest, a Tension Between Welcoming Immigrants And Protecting Borders DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Juanita Encinas began receiving calls last summer from members of Chandler, Arizona's Hispanic community saying that something strange was going on. For two days Encinas, who runs a community center in Chandler, paid little attention to the calls, but soon they became too numerous to ignore.
What Encinas found as she toured the Hispanic neighborhoods of Chandler, a 45-minute drive from Phoenix, was a joint operation being conducted by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Chandler police. “They were stopping everyone who had brown skin,” Encinas recounted, “They were going door to door.”
In a town where some Hispanic families go back four or five generations, Encinas said, “a lot of people were very offended by what happened. They were targeting the Hispanic community.”
The operation netted more than 400 illegal aliens in four days of sweeps. At least six U.S. citizens were also taken into custody, and an unknown number of legal immigrants and citizens were stopped and checked. A $34 million lawsuit has since been filed on behalf of the U.S. citizens who were detained.
Shortly after the incident, a town meeting was organized by the Office for Hispanic ministries of the Diocese of Phoenix in order to assess the situation.
“The stories we were hearing [at the meeting] were outrageous,” said Michael Hernandez-Nowakowski, director of the Phoenix Hispanic ministries office. “People were going out for milk and being stopped.”
When news of what had happened in Chandler broke across the state, there was comment from every sector, ranging from cries of racism in government agencies, to praise for the use of tactics that were overdue. In the uproar, fault lines, previously hidden, began to show themselves.
Three years after Californians passed Proposition 187, which banned state social services to illegal immigrants, tensions around immigration issues are still running high throughout the Southwest.
Particular tension has centered on a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that was scheduled to expire Sept. 30. The provision, known as 245(i), allowed people who are illegally in the United States to pay a $1,000 fine and remain in the country while their applications for “adjustment” to legal status were reviewed.
Paying the fine did not guarantee permission to remain in the United States would be granted, but it kept those here illegally from having to return to their country of origin and then apply for reentry.
Additionally, Oct. 20, the INS issued guidelines making it more difficult for those in the United States to sponsor immigrants wishing to enter the country legally. Designed to minimize the risk that immigrants will end up on public assistance, the rules mandate a 25% higher income requirement for sponsors, and toughen the financial obligations of sponsors should the immigrant require assistance.
These measures, along with federal laws making it easier to deport immigrants who have committed crimes, including decades old misdemeanors, have fostered an atmosphere that some call “anti-immigrant” and others refer to as “regaining control of our borders.” It is in the differing interpretations of such legislation that the tensions show themselves.
Advocates for an extension of 245(i) contend that the provision has relieved pressure on overburdened U.S. consulates in foreign countries and generated funds for the INS (more that $200 million for the last fiscal year). They also say it prevents the unnecessary separation of families while applications are being processed.
“We have thousands of families that are of mixed immigration status,” said Vanna Slaughter, who handles immigration issues for the Diocese of Dallas. “Usually the father has come over legally and the family illegally,” she pointed out. She felt that failure to extend 245(i), or replace it with similar legislation, will needlessly separate these families, some of whom have both citizen and non-citizen children.
“Its just really horrific,” she lamented.
Slaughter puts much of the responsibility for congressional opposition to 245(i) on one of her state's congressmen, Lamar Smith (R-Texas). He is the chairman of the house immigration subcommittee, and is one of the authors of the law that would put 245(i) to rest.
Smith contends that the provision rewards lawbreaking and slows the process for those trying legal avenues of immigration.
“It's an insult to legal immigrants,” said his spokesman, Allen Kay. “Through this provision, illegal aliens get to jump ahead. It is an incentive for people to break the law.”
Congress voted Sept. 29 to extend the provision until Oct. 23, and voted again Oct. 22 to extend the provision until Nov. 6. During the weeks of uncertainty about which option Washington would ultimately settle on, thousands of illegal immigrants lived with the anxiety of trying to decide what to do.
In a compromise, reached just before Congress adjourned for the year, the Senate, which wanted to extend 245(i) indefinitely, and the House, which was initially unwilling to extend it at all, gave illegal immigrants until Jan. 14 to apply for legal residency under this provision. After that date they will have to leave the United States to apply. It is estimated that the law change will affect more than 4.5 million people.
Many feared applying for legal status and risking deportation. The penalty for failing to apply for adjustment of status, however, could be stiff. When 245(i) fades away permanently, immigrants who failed to take advantage of the provision could face a 10-year ban before being allowed to apply for reentry into the United States.
In another last-minute action, Congress approved a measure allowing Central Americans and Eastern Europeans facing deportation to apply for a suspension while their requests for permanent residency are being processed. Many of these individuals came to the United States during the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Honduran Archbishop Oscar Rodriguez had warned that such a mass deportation would endanger the Central American peace process.
Another source of immigration tensions has been the stepped up efforts of the U.S. Border Patrol to stem the tide of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. This effort has included an increasing militarization of the border. San Diego Border Patrol agents have come under occasional weapons fire from Mexico, and in Texas an American youth was killed when U.S. Marines, deployed to defend the border, shot him.
The Marines contend that they shot the youth, who was carrying a rifle, in self-defense. After an investigation, no charges were brought. The shooting, however, shed new light on the risks involved when the border becomes a military zone.
The primary focus of the Border Patrol's increased efforts has been around the busiest section of the 1,953-mile border, the area that separates San Diego from Tijuana. As recently as 1992, a five-mile section of this border accounted for 25% of all illegal entries into the United States.
Operation Gatekeeper, begun in October 1994, is a massive intensification of Border Patrol efforts that includes the use of steel fences, seismic sensors, night vision scopes, and additional agents along the San Diego border sector.
Few have argued with the success of the program. In 1995, Operation Gatekeeper's first year, there were 524,000 border apprehensions in the San Diego sector. Through October of this year, there had been less than 300,000. The Border Patrol attributes the drop to a decrease in smugglers willing to test the fortified area.
By moving illegal traffic eastward, however, Operation Gatekeeper has had some unwelcome results. As immigrants have attempted to enter the country using desert crossings, more have succumbed to the elements.
“Last year was the worst number of undocumented immigrant deaths we've had,” said Dr. Robert Moser, director of refugee and immigrant services for San Diego's Catholic Charities.
Such statistics are the cause of tension between federal agencies and some Hispanic groups, like San Diego's La Raza Lawyers Association, which has repeatedly questioned INS methods.
Landowners, including Indian tribes, whose land lies to the east of San Diego, have complained about increased immigrant and Border Patrol traffic on their land. And some critics have complained that the Border Patrol has been inhumane in its treatment of illegal aliens, most notably failing to carry water in trucks used to apprehend desert crossing illegals.
“Our mission is in a humane way to get control of our border,” counters Border Patrol spokesman Robert Gilbert. He concedes that there may have been inadequate water in some vehicles but said that was an early oversight. He points out that 54 agents in San Diego have been specially trained as Emergency Medical Technicians since Operation Gatekeeper began, and vehicles are now fully equipped with medical supplies.
With similar operations in Arizona (Operation Safe Guard), and in Texas (Operation Rio Grande), the Border Patrol is following a policy of gaining control of the most unruly border areas first and then fanning out.
Operation Gatekeeper III is now beginning in California's Imperial Valley, which stands between Arizona and San Diego. “Our ultimate goal is to gain control of the entire border,” said Gilbert.
To emphasize the Border Patrol's resolve to control the southwestern border, the agency's headquarters will be moved in January from Washington, D.C., to Laguna Niguel, Calif.
As long as enforcement efforts continue to include safeguards for the welfare of vulnerable illegals, the tight border goals would seem consistent with the policies of U.S. Catholic leaders.
“The bishops are on record that it's important that people abide by the immigration laws,” said Mark Franken, U.S. Catholic Conference executive director of migration and refugee services.
However, in the legislative arena, traditional Catholic concerns for family unity and for providing welcome to strangers continue to strain against strong social pressure for limited immigration. For those immigrants facing the expiration of 245(i), Franken said, “we have a responsibility to treat them as humans.”
Moser said that a distinction should be made between law enforcement efforts at the border, and what he called ex post facto enforcement, which comes into play long after the original “crime” of entering illegally has been committed.
“The Church is very conscious of the unification of families,” said Franken. “If you scratch the surface,” the people who benefit from laws such as 245(i), “are for the most part people who entered legally to be with their families and overstayed their visas.”
It may be that the vast economic difference between the United States and its southern neighbors make consistent and compassionate immigration policy a near impossibility. In some parts of the southwest 20% of the population is Hispanic, many with strong family ties to Mexico. Any policy that lacks sensitivity to these connections is bound to bring tensions to thousands of communities like Chandler. Policies that fail to fully assert the sovereignty of the U.S. border also raise tensions, however, and voters have repeatedly expressed their desire for strict border and immigration controls.
Efforts like Operation Gatekeeper are “what the public has wanted,” admitted San Diego's Moser.
Two months after the incident in Chandler, some Hispanic leaders gathered for a vigil in Phoenix, to pray for “more open hearts in Washington,” according to Hernandez-Nowakowski. They expected 50–100 to come for the 48-hour vigil. When more than 10,000 people came, they realized they had touched a nerve.
It was one of many nerves that remain raw as the nation struggles to find a balance between its tradition of welcoming immigrants and its desire to manage its borders.
Cyril Jones Kellett is based in San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cyril Jones Kellett ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'We No LongerThink With the Mind of Christ' DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:The success of Michael O'Brien's book Father Elijah: An Apocalypse hasn't changed the Canadian author's perspective about his work. “I tend not to dwell on the accolades of the present,” he says. Register correspondent Tracy Moran recently spoke with O'Brien about his writing, his painting, and his struggles as a Christian artist in a secular world:
Moran: Why did you begin painting?
O'Brien: It wasn't a conscious decision. I had never been an artist. I reconverted to Catholicism at age 21, following a period of unbelief during adolescence. I was walking in the woods, praying, wondering what my life was all about. I came upon a heap of stones, and growing out of it was a little sapling. It moved me very much but I didn't know why. Suddenly it struck me that it was a metaphor for my life.
Although I was used to writing down my thoughts about aspects of the faith, I felt unable to express this scene in words. I decided to draw the sapling and the rocks in order to remember it better. I was shocked by how strong the drawing was, and that day and in the ensuing weeks I began to draw many things. The drawing was like a little tap that gradually opened and I began to understand that art could be a language to express the inexpressible.
Is your artistic ability a charism?
I believe it is a gift. I believe God pours out a multitude of talents in human nature. But I believe that when we give our assent to grace and consecrate the talent, it becomes a charism. Equally important, it becomes a vocation.
How does one give that assent?
By living fully the life of the Church. By accepting everything that God desires to give to us. By obedience-a very difficult word in these times.
How would describe that idea of obedience in reference to your calling to be a painter?
In 1976, I was a young newly married husband and father-to-be. We were expecting our first child within two weeks. It suddenly struck me that I was not developing the talent that the Lord had given me. Although I'd had some success in secular art galleries in the years following my conversion, my art at that time was not overtly religious, even though I was a Christian. My wife and I decided to offer my work as a Christian artist to the service of God and his Church.
Does an artist have to paint or write overtly spiritual works to have it imbued with spirituality?
Not necessarily. I believe strongly that a Christian artist, if he is pursuing beauty and truth, is doing a work of the Holy Spirit. That work can be implicitly religious or explicitly religious.
However, I must say that I believe the greatest, the most urgent need right now is for Christian artists to respond to the call to paint explicitly religious work. This is by far the more difficult task. This also applies to writing. The same dynamic is at work there.
It's closer to being an implicitly religious work. There certainly are Catholic themes and Catholic characters. It's about the conversion of the soul, but it examines the interior workings of a woman struggling with alienation and unbelief. It's the story of a life more than the story of theology.
Are you comfortable going back and forth between implicit and explicit books?
Yes. All my books have an explicitly Catholic dimension. Sometimes the emphasis is stronger. I feel a great urgency to help in the rebirth of a genuinely, explicitly Catholic literature.
Do you see that rebirth occurring?
I see a ground swell of gifted writers producing works of fiction in a spirit of great faith. They know full well how difficult it will be to find a response in a culture dominated by materialism and pragmatism. The Lord is inspiring it, but everything waits upon the response of our Catholic people.
How would people support this type of work?
Seek out good Catholic literature at bookstores.
But it's not that simple for painters.
It's a far more difficult thing. Logistically speaking, its more cumbersome. A book may cost $10, but a single picture may take weeks to paint and therefore be more expensive. It's far more difficult to exhibit it and transport it. People of strong faith in these times rarely have the money to pay the laborer his hire. But perhaps people of means could see the sponsoring of religious art as a much-needed apostolate in the restoration of Christian culture.
Are people willing to offerthat kind of help?
For 20 years now, I've jotted down on paper every time someone has given a gift of $5, $10, and it has added up to a considerable sum over the years. Without it we could not have continued. We pray for them. We live very poorly. We rent an old, broken down house in a rural area about two hours west of Ottawa, we drive an old, second-hand car. It has been survival at a simple level.
We have embraced the spirit of poverty, and the Lord has been able to work with us. He has always provided our basic, simplest needs, but we've never had what North Americans think of as the good life. What we have had is great joy and peace in Christ-treasures of a much higher order. My work is bearing fruit, my family is happy. In learning to be content with little we have become wealthy in the things that last.
With the publication of
We work hard at preserving the privacy of our family life. Strangely enough, I feel rather detached from the whole mystique of “success.” The real success is to love the Lord and to do his will.
Because I am deeply involved in completing several more novels and also some painting projects, my mind is always directed toward the future. I tend not to dwell on the accolades of the present. Public images are always false.
In John Saward's book
That was part of the larger phenomenon. The modern world is becoming anti-incarnational. We strip our churches bare and kill our children in the womb. The mystery and majesty of the hierarchical cosmos are reduced to a spiritual flatland. Even Christians reduce the work of God to the lowest level of the meaning of word.
The problem is that we are reading the Scriptures as a dead letter. We need to understand it is living, it is fire, it is life, and that it's also connected to all the other ways in which God speaks to us. We are a word-oriented, image-bombarded culture. However, we rarely see deeper or look up into infinity.
The Word of God made flesh is a multi-dimensional work. It's not just letters on a page. Our God is an incarnational God. For that reason, every aspect of our humanity is to be transfigured in Christ. This is crucial of an understanding of the crisis. John Saward spends a whole book on the problem.
We've reduced the work of God to something linear, sociological. As a result we-Western cultures-have cut off all kinds of avenues of grace. Tragically, the cultures of Western materialism has invaded the particular churches in many places. These are hard words, but I believe this is the crux of the problem.
Do you ever struggle with writer's block?
No, I think writer's block may be a symptom of mental exhaustion. Trying to produce works of art fully from your own resources breeds exhaustion. That exhaustion produces writer's block. When the Christian artist submits himself to grace, many of these problems evaporate.
Is it the same with painting?
Painting is a much more difficult process. I have to pray more when I paint. Art in any form is hard work, but if the artist is living the full sacramental life of the Church and is praying, the work takes wings.
Who are the artists and saints who have influenced your work?
I'm very inspired by Blessed Fra Angelico, the patron saint of artists, as a model of the vocation of artist. Also the great French Catholic painter Georges Rouault and the Canadian Catholic painter William Kurelek. As far as writers, Flannery O'Connor, the American Catholic, and also a wonderful American writer, a devout Christian, the novelist Wendell Berry.
The saints? St. Francis de Sales, the patron of writers, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Joseph. The first day of my consecrating my work to the Lord was May 1, 1976, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Over the years, many blessings have come on his feast day. I've entrusted my work to his care and intercession. He's very quiet; he's hidden as he was in Nazareth, but he's very powerful.
Do you have any particular themes that you feel called to paint?
Although some of my work focuses on resurrection themes and themes that evoke joy, I'm personally called to paint the cross. Christ Jesus' suffering and redemption of man is absolutely essential to our understanding of the whole work of God in salvation history. It's precisely the cross that is in danger of being misunderstood and displaced in a particular Church that has fallen prey to materialism.
Sometimes that displacement is physical as well as spiritual.
When the spirituality of the cross, which is at the heart of the Church's mission, is rejected or neutralized, there are grave consequences. Man soon no longer knows how to deal with his human condition. At the same time, he no longer is able to see the face of God properly or to hear what he is saying to us. This works itself out in bad liturgy. Disobedient liturgy and man-centered liturgy is a symptom of profound spiritual sickness.
How do you hope your books and paintings affect people?
I hope to draw people back to an awareness of the awesome mystery of God's beauty and love. I also want to remind them that until the end of time, we are involved in the spiritual battle between the powers of darkness and the kingdom of God.
Do you ever feel weighed down by that battle?
There are times when I've been discouraged by the conflicts and the spreading sickness in the churches of the affluent West. We're no longer thinking with the mind of Christ. All too often, we are thinking of budgets, programs, public relations, instead of evangelical principles.
Pope John Paul II has addressed that danger.
The Holy Father has said this and many of the great spiritual teachers of our time have said the same thing: The materialistic culture is very, very dangerous. In Centesimus Annus, the Holy Father warns us that, despite the collapse of the Marxist tyranny, materialism takes many faces- and the materialism in the West may, in the long run, bring about a more extensive destruction of souls. I'm paraphrasing here, but he says to us, beware of your great danger. If you stop thinking with the mind of Christ, you will be imbued with the spiritus mundi, the spirit of the world.
How do you deal with your discouragement?
When I see these things happening, I recall the Gospel of Luke, chapter 21, verse 28. In this passage, Jesus has just given the most horrendous description of what will happen at the end of times and he says, “When you see all these things happening, stand erect and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near at hand.”
Things may be dark, they may even get darker. This is an invitation for Christians to grow more deeply in the virtue of evangelical hope. Christ has already conquered the world. We must keep this in mind always.
Do you have any upcoming exhibits?
I've been writing so much, I don't have many paintings. I'm presently completing a series of six novels. Ignatius Press is publishing the next two novels of the series next year: Eclipse of the Sun and Plague Journal. Also next year, they're republishing my Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind in a revised, expanded edition.
What's it about?
It's an analysis of the pagan invasion of children's culture. It will also include a long list of book titles recommended for children. The book critiques the hideous paganization of novels and videos for young people, which is really a major battlefront in the culture war. So many of our Catholic families are being indoctrinated into the pagan worldview through the entertainment industry and do not realize it.
— Tracy Moran
----- EXCERPT: Michael O'Brien, artist and writer, on living and creating in a materialistic culture ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael O'Brien ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Blessing Marriages
One Church in Costa Mesa, Calif. is addressing the problem of Mexican-Americans whose marriages are not normalized within the Church, according an article published in the Los Angeles Times Saturday, Nov. 15.
St. Joachim Catholic Church in Costa Mesa scheduled 13 marriages that day, according to the article.
“We offer them an inexpensive way to get married,” said Sister Elvita, who helped organize the biannual ceremonies. "Some of them have been married by a justice of peace but [today] they will be making their vows to each other in front of Christ.”
“The Church will perform the ceremonies at 10:00 a.m. and noon. Each will include Communion and the joining of each couple by a lazo, facilitated by the best man and maid of honor.”
“The lazo is like a garland of flowers … two circles together,” Sister Elvita said. “It is a rope that binds them together. In the first ceremony, two of the four couples being married will also have their 6- and 8-monthold babies baptized after they exchange vows.”
The Church covers everything involved in the ceremony, but does ask a $50 donation, according one of the participants quoted in the article. Sister Elvita said that the Church asks that the brides not wear white.
“It can be a simple off-white dress or a dress they can wear another day or on another occasion,” she said.
Before the couples are wed, they must meet the criteria set by the Diocese of Orange County, according to the article.
Rescuing Prostitutes
Sister Rosina Conrotto's ministry was sent in a new direction by a providential coincidence recently, according to an article published in the San Francisco Examiner Sunday, Nov. 16.
One afternoon, she is quoted saying, “I'd found some writings of our foundress, Nano Nagle. The Presentation nuns are mostly thought of as a teaching order, but in 1784, Nagle wrote that one of the order's missions was to take care of the prostitutes in her city of Cork, Ireland.”
Moments later, when she received a phone call from the prostitutionoutreach organization PROMISE, she saw an opportunity to renew that aspect of her order's original mission.
“If Nano Nagle were here today, this safe house is exactly what she'd be doing. It's exactly what we're supposed to be doing.”
Now Sister Conrotto is working with an interfaith group to minister to prostitutes in San Francisco.
“The house is the first of its kind in San Francisco and only the fourth that [organizers] have been able to find in existence in the United States. The others are in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Waikiki.”
The home will not be a place to proselytize, though spiritual help will be available on request. It will simply be a home that gives prostitutes—often, girls as young as 14—an alternative, according to the article.
The new home in San Francisco, which has not yet decided on a name, will be modeled after the highly successful 17-year-old Mary Magdalene Project in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Call to Action Numbers Down DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Call to Action held its national conference Nov. 14–16 at Detroit's Cobo Center. About 3,500 attended. Last year's conference drew about 5,000.
Organizers attributed the greater numbers last year to the attraction of the 20th anniversary of the original Call to Action Conference. They said another factor last year was the response to Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb. Bishop Bruskewitz had directed Catholics in his diocese to leave the organization or face excommunication.
Speakers at this year's conference included Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, Father Michael Crosby, OFM Cap., Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Father Charles Curran, and Rosemary Radford Reuther. Sri Lankan Father Tissa Balasuriya, OMI, spoke about his views of Mary and original sin which led to his excommunication.
Apresentation by Sister Maureen Fiedler, SL, focused on the failure of the We Are Church referendum. She said the petition drive calling for changes in the Church, like married priests and women's ordination, garnered only 37,000 signatures-far short of its goal of 1 million.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Television Network Dedicated to Wholesome Programming DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:A new television network, Pax Net, is slated to begin broadcasting in August 1998. Its owner is Lowell Paxson of Florida, cofounder of Home Shopping Network.
Paxson announced that the network will feature family entertainment, avoiding sex and violence. He has scheduled reruns of CBS's Touched by an Angel, Promised Land, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Pax Net is also developing three original programs. The Mike Levey Show will air nightly using a format like the Tonight Show. LiveLink, another nightly program, will be a call-in show on family and society. Celebrities and Charities will feature famous people promoting charitable organizations.
Paxson said the purpose was to present wholesome broadcasting. “We want to try to keep it family-based.”
Pax Net is planned to be available in 80% of the U.S. market.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Conference Emphasizes Roles of Healer and Teacher For Health care Professional DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:TOLEDO, Ohio—The 200 health care professionals and Catholic leaders who gathered here Nov. 13–16 for the 66th annual meeting of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) discovered there is a lot to learn, and even more to teach, about a Catholic approach to giving care.
Sixteen medical experts and theologians gave their perspectives during the weekend. CMA Episcopal advisor Bishop Edwin O'Brien, D.D., S. T. D., spoke about the need for doctors to renew their ability to serve others through rest and prayer. Nationally-known speaker and author Fr. George Rutler talked about why an understanding of morality adds meaning to medical work.
Couple to Couple League President John Kippley gave facts about the abortifacent nature of the most widely used contraceptives. Dr. Dennis Doody spoke about the abortion connection with vaccines widely-used by U.S. doctors to immunize children. Dr. Sidney Fernandes, Judie Brown, and Mary Senander spoke about physician-assisted suicide, which they labeled “physician-imposed death.”
Physicians received copies of the restatement of the Hippocratic Oath, developed by recently deceased Dr. Joseph Stanton. Nurses were given a copy of the Nightingale Pledge.
“When Bishop O'Brien talked about the need for rest and prayer, I was helped right away,” said Dr. Roger Anderberg, a pediatrician from Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Doctors don't usually think along these lines, but we need to take time to stop, rest, recollect, and make contact with the Lord in order to go on serving,” he continued. Anderberg also took warning from sharing by doctors from Oregon, where death by overdose was just approved by voters, who said they are under extreme pressure to compromise their beliefs.
“When I listened to the doctors from Oregon, it opened my eyes. I began to see that I'm like a frog in water, and the water is heating up. I can't feel the heat yet, but I'd better take notice,” said Anderberg.
Michael O'Dea, a health insurance executive who operates crisis pregnancy centers in the Detroit area, noted how each topic discussed was an entry point for those working in the health care fields to learn more about building a culture of life. “The challenge for the Catholic health care professional in addressing the crux of the problem-how to promote life from its beginning to its natural end-is to constantly keep in mind and bear witness to the fact that God creates eternal souls,” said O'Dea.
“The CMA conference is beneficial to Catholic doctors because it supports them in the faith and exposes them to things they don't read in the secular journals,” CCL President John Kippley said. “The great benefit of the CMA conference to the rest of the Church is through the Catholic doctors who attend and who have such great influence upon their patients.”
Kippley, Anderberg, and O'Dea were responding to the conference's message that Catholic doctors need to become teachers of their patients and associates about the Christian approach to preserving life. James Keating, Ph.D., of the Pontifical College Josephinium in Columbus, Ohio, urged doctors to get involved in their parishes both to build a lifestyle of service and active witness.
Next year's CMA conference will be held in New York City, September 10–13. (Kate Ernsting)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kate Ernsting ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Father Abraham Had Many Sons
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian believers have one man in common: Abraham. So said Roman Catholic theologian, Father Karl-Josef Kuschel of the University of Tubingen, Germany, when he addressed the Academy for Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies at its 20th anniversary this month, as reported in the Nov. 15 Los Angeles Times.
Father Kuschel “sees the patriarch Abraham is the linchpin of three religions, because his two sons, Isaac by Sarah and Ishmael by Hagar, are the ancestors of Jews, Christians (Isaac), and Muslims (Ishmael). If the religions recognized the commonality of origin, a different climate could result. This openness, Kuschel said, might influence political leaders. This was certainly true of Anwar Sadat, who spoke of the Abraham connection in his famous speech to the Israeli Knesset in 1977 that launched the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations,” the newspaper reported.
Benjamin Hubbard of Cal-State Fullerton suggested three ways this common ground could be established more firmly: (1) Conduct “an interfaith prayer service on special occasions at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, using a still-to-be written prayer book drawing on the writings of interfaith scholars"-perhaps at the time of Easter, Passover, and ‘Id al-Adha', which coincide, or Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan. (2) Dialogue between the three faiths wherever they are represented in large communities. (3) More emphatic calls to mutual understanding by the leaders of the three monotheistic faiths.
November Important to Vietnamese Catholics
Asian Catholics, particularly the Vietnamese, celebrate November-which the Church devotes to remembering the dead-in a particularly intense way, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer from Sunday, Nov. 16, 1997.
“November devotions … blend naturally with the traditional Buddhist and Confucian practices of honoring ancestors,” writes Mary Beth McCauley. “Catholics call this, ‘the communion of saints,' a union of the living and the dead, those in heaven and those on their way there, all of whom share prayer, good works, communication, and ultimately, the love of Christ.…”
“Vietnamese Sister Cecilia Trung Hieu Tong called the month of the holy souls a time of ‘great honor of our ancestors. We believe that we live in a spiritual world,'” where we are very close to the dead, she said, according to the article.
Common devotions of Vietnamese Catholics are adding the names of deceased loved ones to the prayers of the faithful, bringing flowers to Church, saying the rosary, and arranging to have Mass said in homes.
“Every evening throughout the year … many Vietnamese pray at an altar in the family's living room. Such altars are commonplace among Catholic and non-Catholic Vietnamese, and imitate at home the setting of the Buddhist temple.… Altars of non-Catholics tend to be divided in half, with one side devoted to God and the other to ancestors.… Catholics devote the entire altar to God, but keep pictures of ancestors nearby.”
Some 20% of Vietnamese in America are Catholics, according to an estimate quoted in the article.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Church Commits to War on Drugs as Part of Mission DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—In the Synod's old chamber within the walls of the Vatican, an important meeting called “Ecclesiastical Convention On Drugs” took place last month.
It was not the first time the Holy See had addressed the problem, but this time the proceedings generated a great deal of news. “This meeting has approved a more energetic and resolved commitment from the Holy See to confront the problem of drugs,” Bishop Jean-Marie Musivi Mpendawatu, an official of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Workers and coordinator of the drug convention, told the Register,
In fact, after years of uneasy relations between the Holy See and agencies of the United Nations, Dr. Giorgio Giacomelli, Executive Director of the U.N.'s International Program to Control Drugs, officially asked the Holy See for help from the Church to solve one of the most serious problems facing humanity at the end of the millennium.
In a letter to John Paul II, Giacomelli asserted that police forces and the international system of justice aren't able to adequately address the widespread problem. He then called on the Church to help spread the values which might prevent a new generation of drug users.
What can the Church contribute in a battle against multinational drug rings and organized crime? “We do not intend to involve ourselves with [trying to stop] the production and sale of drugs, but to concentrate on the aid we can give to addicts,” Bishop Javier Lozano Barragàn, President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Workers explained. “It is not just a matter of operating in the field of recovery as different priests have already done. The Holy Father wants the Church to find other means such as education and the formation of young people in the acquisition of strong values as indicated in the Gospel.”
Added Msgr. Mario Zenari, permanent representative of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations in Vienna: “In the struggle against drugs the Church offers all the moral and pedagogical forces to win what has been called the ‘Third World War.'
“Actually, what is being discussed in the United Nations is not just [blocking production and sale] but an awareness that the problem should be confronted. The Church's specific mission is to succeed in renewing its pledge, giving advice to pastors, educators, parishes, and dioceses, and to act for prevention. But it is in young pastors that the Catechism needs to give this religio-spiritual input to give back meaning to life.
“As Paul VI said in his first visit to the United Nations, ‘The Church is expert in humanity,’ and therefore our mission is to reinforce and defend the meaning and the values of the culture of life against the culture of death,” Msgr. Zenari added.
This great pledge of the Church to confront drugs worries some parts of the Catholic community, however, who fear an increase of social preoccupations will take away from the overarching mission of propagating the faith. Some critical voices suggest that the Church should occupy itself less with social issues and more with evangelization and preaching.
Father José Redrado OH, Secretary of the Pontifical Council of Pastors for Health Care responded: “One cannot contrast the propagation of the faith to human promotion and the pledge of the Church for social issues. The Gospel is full of men and women who lived on the earth within a social and human context not always favorable to the harmonious and sane growth of personalities. With regard to drugs, the correlation between psycho-physiological discomfort and social and familial settings is even more evident. “Therefore,” he added, “evangelization and the social pledge are two sides of the same coin for every true believer.” (Antonio Gaspari)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Church Helped During Holocaust
In a letter to The Washington Post printed Tuesday Nov. 11, reader Candace Singer wrote, “I fear that the Post's article ‘Pope Assails Inaction During Holocaust’ does many Catholics and clergy an injustice by giving only part of the story. In 1939, my husband and his 10-year-old sister were among the 15,000 Jewish children spirited out of Austria on the children's transport trains. Eventually they arrived in England and safe haven with relatives, and my husband's parents were able to get out of Austria a year later. Many in his family were not so fortunate, however. Some died in Concentration camps.
“But two relatives survived the war in France, thanks to the efforts of Catholics. An uncle was hidden for years in a convent, where he repaid the kindness by cooking for the nuns. An aunt, who returned home one day to find that her husband and in-laws had been arrested and taken away, found refuge with a family of Catholics who were complete strangers to her. These people arranged false identity papers, taught her every Catholic prayer, saw to it that she never missed Mass and even took her with them on a pilgrimage to Lourdes—not to proselytize but to save her life. At Lourdes, when this aunt went to make confession, she began to cry. She said to the priest, ‘I don't belong here, I am a Jew.’ The priest replied, ‘You are not to worry. No one will give you away.'"
While herself acknowledging that the Church in hindsight did not respond perfectly, Singer wrote that “we should not forget that Vatican radio was the first media source to break the news of the deportation of Europe's Jews. More important, we should not forget the many priests, nuns, and other clergy who were sent to concentration camps for speaking out against the Nazis—more than 1,500 at Dachau alone—nor the many Catholics and Protestants who risked their lives and families by being living examples of their faith.”
Pope Meets Brother of Attempted Assassin
The Philadelphia Daily News wire reported Nov. 14 that “Pope John Paul has held a private meeting with the brother of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to kill the Pontiff in 1981.” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls “said the meeting took place Wednesday (Nov. 12), but gave no further details.”
“Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported yesterday that Adnan Agca had urged the Pontiff to press the Italian authorities to grant a pardon for Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence for shooting the Pontiff in St. Peter's Square. If a pardon was not possible, Adnan asked the Pope to call on Italy to extradite his brother to Turkey, La Repubblica said.
“The daily reported that the Pope told Adnan he would approve of a decision to free the Turk. The Pontiff also said he did not oppose Ali's extradition to Turkey, the daily said.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Annulments Also Impact a Couple's Family and Friends DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:A MARRIAGE is a special kind of union between two people, but the existence of a marriage also has serious implications for other people besides the couple, especially for family and friends of the couple. Fundamentally, an annulment is a determination about the ecclesiastical status of two people, but a declaration of nullity has a serious impact on those around them as well.
Who Testifies?
The first way in which others may be impacted by an annulment arises when the petitioner or the respondent asks the tribunal to contact such persons about serving as witnesses in the case. It is important to realize that in a canonical trial, unlike a civil trial, witnesses are not put in the position of supporting one side in the case against the other. Because canon law follows the inquiry-based approach to trials, instead of the adversary-based approach used in common law, witnesses in canonical trials are called to assist the tribunal-not the individual parties.
Almost anyone can be asked to serve as a witness in an annulment case. However, tribunals tend not to seek testimony from children in a marriage, because they usually were not prior to the wedding-the most relevant time to an annulment case. Similarly, parish priests serve infrequently as witnesses in order to avoid complications related to the seal of confession or general pastoral confidentiality. Additionally, expert witnesses, such as physicians and professional counselors, usually require releases before being able to assist the tribunal.
Witnesses are usually asked to share what they know with the tribunal in their own words. They are encouraged where possible to avoid statements that are conclusions or opinions rather than objective descriptions. This is not as easy as it sounds, for people are prone to evaluate behavior, according to their perspectives, in the same breath with which they describe it.
For example, two witnesses might say, with every intention of being accurate, “Jane had a problem with alcohol.” But the first witness might have in mind that “both times I saw Jane drinking in college, she acted silly and got sick” while the other might mean “Jane spent most of her senior year passed out in the student lounge, and was even drinking the day of her wedding before the ceremony.”
Inside Annulments Part IV of V
Parents of persons in annulment cases, when called to testimony, sometimes feel as if their performance in raising their children is being questioned. Certainly, one's upbringing is important, and there are cases of annulments being declared in part because of the deleterious effects of seriously distorted home life. But Church law and common sense recognize that, eventually, people must stand behind their own decisions or fail because of their own faults. Parents must be careful not to minimize or exaggerate important aspects of the children's history out of misplaced desire to impress the tribunal with their parenting skills. Sibling witnesses, obviously, are less susceptible to these tendencies and are frequently very important in adjudicating an annulment case.
Giving Testimony
Given the high percentage of annulment cases in which neither party was Catholic at the time of the wedding (when one or both parties has come into the Church subsequently), the Church accords the institution of marriage in other faith traditions the same favorable presumptions it does its own. This point is sometimes overlooked by non-Catholic witnesses who, upon receiving questionnaires from a Catholic tribunal, feel that the quality of marriage in their denomination is being questioned, or that the Church is holding their family or friends to standards that did not apply to them at the time of their wedding.
Many witnesses, mistakenly assuming that “Church annulments go to nice people,” present testimony about how decent the parties were, or how important the annulment is to them, or why the parties deserve another chance, and so on. Such witnesses are reluctant to mention the problems they saw in the marriage. At best, this attempt to second guess the tribunal delays cases while the real facts are sought out; at worst, such testimony deprives the tribunal of the information needed to reach an accurate decision in the case.
Witnesses are asked to provide information to the tribunal, but unlike petitioners and respondents, they enjoy no right to know what other information has been provided, or even whether the tribunal accepted or rejected their testimony. In cases making use of indifferent outside observers as witnesses, such a rule raises no complications. But in annulment cases, this one-way flow of information may lead to some unsupported, but seriously mistaken, conclusions on the part of observers.
Problems often arise when people assume they know much more about a person than they actually do. For example, some annulment cases involve histories of spousal abuse, which is frequently unknown even to the victim's family and friends. If this behavior pattern had been confirmed (by confidential medical expert testimony) and helped prove canonical grounds for nullity, the witnesses may conclude that nullity was declared despite the absence of any serious problems until late in the marriage. There is nothing the tribunal, being bound by confidentiality, can do to correct that erroneous conclusion.
This is not to suggest that every hard case in which matrimonial nullity is declared must have hidden smoking-gun “grounds” such as spousal abuse, abortion, drug addiction, or the like. Rather, it simply underscores the importance of witness cooperation that is as frank and as accurate as possible, and recommends some basis for trusting that the tribunal has a better picture of the whole than any one of the individuals involved. Given the importance of witness participation in annulment cases, potential witnesses with questions about their manner of participation should not hesitate to bring these concerns to the tribunal. Generally, tribunals try to be accommodating to witness preferences regarding manners of testifying.
Impact on Children
Besides witnesses, other people are impacted by marriage nullity cases. A common concern is the effect annulment cases have on the status of children who were born to the couple. In a word, none. Annulments do not have, and never did have, any effect on “legitimacy,” as it is called.
The practice of labeling as “illegitimate” children born to parents who were not married has nearly disappeared from Western society. Under modern canon law, so-called illegitimacy no longer has any canonical effects, and the concept is barely mentioned in the 1983 Code. For those who still wonder, however, legitimacy is established from the time of a (presumably) valid wedding ceremony-whether that ceremony precedes or post-dates the birth of a child-or from the time of a putative marriage, that is, a marriage which, even though it is later declared null, was entered into by at least one of the parties in good faith.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of marriages coming before tribunals were, in fact, entered into in good faith by at least one, and usually both parties, and that fact alone establishes the legitimacy of the children born during the marriage.
Interpreting the Decision
When one learns that the marriage of a family member or friend has been declared null, one should not look at it as a victory in the case of those who wanted the annulment, or as a defeat for those who might have been opposed. The Church doesn't. An annulment is not a second chance to do something right; it is a recognition that the first time never satisfied the objective requirements of law.
There is nothing satisfying about declaring marriages null. Every annulment, correctly decided, discloses a failure. It documents the frustration of two people who tried to do what was right and who probably wanted to enter the kind of life-long union the Church calls marriage. But for reasons centered in one or both parties, that attempt was null from the outset. In cases involving Catholics, every annulment represents the failure to identify factors that could threaten the validity of a marriage and address them adequately in advance. Every annulment is another voice calling for higher standards in marriage preparation programs.
What family and friends can perhaps glean from an annulment case is a better appreciation of the factors that can result in matrimonial nullity. Time and again, tribunals receive testimony from family and friends who say that they were privately opposed to the wedding in question, but that they hid their feelings out of some misguided sense of loyalty to the couple. Regrettably, these people did not trust their instincts at a time when it might have made a difference. It is hard not to feel joy at the announcement of an upcoming wedding. But perhaps the hard lessons of annulments will help more people realize that a wedding is not a panacea for the serious problems burdening so many people in modern society.
Dr. Edward Peters is a matrimonial judge with the Tribunal of the Diocese of San Diego. His 100 Answers to Your Questions on Annulments (Basilica Press/Simon & Schuster, 1997) is available at Catholic book stores.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Limits of Lay Ministry DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Following are excerpts from the new Vatican instruction The Collaboration of the Non-ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests:
%On Preaching
“The homily during the celebration of the holy Eucharist must be reserved to the sacred minister, priest, or deacon to the exclusion of the non-ordained faithful, even if these should have responsibilities as 'pastoral assistants'or catechists in whatever type of community or group.”
% On Eucharistic Ministers
“Extraordinary ministers may distribute holy Communion at eucharistic celebrations only when there are no ordained ministers present or when those ordained ministers present at a liturgical celebration are truly unable to distribute holy Communion. They may also exercise this function at eucharistic celebrations where there are particularly large numbers of the faithful and which would be excessively prolonged because of an insufficient number of ordained ministers to distribute holy Communion.”
% On Ministry to the Sick
“Since they are not priests, in no instance may the non-ordained perform anointings either with the Oil of the Sick or any other oil.”
% On Sunday Liturgies in the Absence of a Priest
“It must be clearly understood that such celebrations are temporary solutions and the text used at them must be approved by the competent ecclesiastical authority. The practice of inserting into such celebrations elements proper to the holy Mass is prohibited.”
—Stephen Banyra
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Christianity in America DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Christianity in America
The Special Assembly for America of the Synod of Bishops opened Sunday Nov. 16, with a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica. The Holy Father's homily (excerpted below) was based on the readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time and on the Synod's theme, “Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: the Way to Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity in America.”
Today the Word of God offers us a fitting perspective for the work of discernment we are about to undertake: that precisely of a faith-filled look at history, an “eschatological perspective.”…
The Church prepares for and takes every step of her earthly pilgrimage in the light of the paschal mystery. And today she is celebrating the solemn beginning of an exceptional time of reflection and exchange on the mission she is called to carry out on the American continent. God's word offers her the correct faith vision for reading, as the angel tells Daniel, “what is inscribed in the book of truth” (Dn 10, 21). With this outlook the Church pauses to consider the road traveled thus far, in order to press onward to the new millennium with renewed missionary zeal.
It was only a short while ago, in 1992, that we solemnly recalled the fifth centenary of the evangelization of America. The Synod, which is beginning its work in St. Peter's Basilica today, calls to mind those times when the inhabitants of the so-called “Old World,” thanks to Christopher Columbus's admirable undertaking, learned of the existence of a “New World,” previously unknown to them. The colonizers’ work began on that historic day and so did the evangelizers’ mission of making Christ and his Gospel known to the peoples of that continent.
One fruit of this extraordinary missionary effort was the evangelization of America, or more precisely, of the so-called “three Americas,” which today can be considered largely Christian. It is also very important, 500 years later and at the threshold of the new millennium, that we remember the road traveled by Christianity in all these lands. Moreover, it is appropriate not to separate the Christian history of North America from that of Central and South America. It is essential to consider them together, even while safeguarding the originality of each one, because, in the eyes of those who arrived there more than 500 years ago, they appeared as a single reality, and especially because the communion between the local communities is a living sign of the inborn unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ, of which they are an organic part.
Everyone is aware that on the great American continent the results of the activity of the colonizers are evident today in the political and economic diversity of the continent, with undoubted cultural and religious repercussions. In comparison to other countries, North America has reached a higher level of technological advancement and economic well-being, and in the development of democratic institutions.
Faced with these realities, we cannot but ask about the historical causes which gave rise to such social differences. To what extent are these differences rooted in the history of the last five centuries? To what extent does the heritage of colonization count in them? And what influence did the first evangelization have?
In order to furnish an exhaustive response to these questions, it will be necessary, during the Synod, to consider the continent as a whole, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, without introducing a separation between the North, the Center and the South, so as not to risk a contrast between them. On the contrary, we must look for the deeper reasons which prompt this unitary vision, by appealing to the common religious and Christian traditions.
These few indications enable us to understand the importance of the Synod we are inaugurating today.
“Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
This exhortation that we have just heard in the Gospel acclamation refers to the spiritual atmosphere we are experiencing as the liturgical year draws to a close. It is an atmosphere interwoven with eschatological themes, highlighted in particular by the passage from St. Mark's Gospel in which Christ stresses the transitory nature of heaven and earth: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mk 13, 31).
The form of this world is passing away, but the Word of God will never pass away. How eloquent this comparison is! God does not pass away and neither will anything that comes from him. Christ's sacrifice never passes away, as we read today in the Letter to the Hebrews: Jesus “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” (10, 12); and: “for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (10, 14).
Throughout this Synod Assembly we will pause to reflect on the past, but especially on the present moment of the American continent. We will attempt to identify in each of its regions the signs of Christ's saving presence, of his Word and of his sacrifice, so that we may revive our energies for the service of conversion and evangelization.…
Dear brothers and sisters, this season truly invites us to great watchfulness. We must watch and pray, remembering that one day we will come before the Son of Man as pastors of the Church on the American continent.
We entrust this Synod Assembly to you, Mary, Mother of hope, beloved and venerated in the many shrines across the American continent. Help the Christians of America to be vigilant witnesses of the Gospel, that they may be found watchful and ready on the great and mysterious day when Christ will come as the glorious Lord of the nations to judge the living and the dead.
Amen!
----- EXCERPT: Excepert ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Bible: A Soothsayer's Stock-in-Trade? DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997, 264 pp., $25)
THE BIBLE CODE, an ambiguouslyenough worded title, appears at first glance to have close affinities with the mystery novel literary genre.
What is it? Who did it? Why did someone do it? These were questions that jumped immediately to mind just looking at the book's front dust jacket with its diagram of Hebrew letters highlighting the appearance of the name of Yitzhak Rabin (former Israeli prime minister) and the phrase “assassin that will assassinate.”
Michael Drosnin, a reporter who has worked for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, brings to mind the exciting adventure story of a previous best-seller, The Sign and Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, another reporter's search for the Ark, which contained the original tablets of the Ten Commandments. Drosnin's book begins with one of the more spectacular revelations (Rabin's assassination) that he believes are encoded in the Hebrew Bible. The title's ambiguity is intentional. It concerns both the biblical text in which information may be encoded, and the name of a computer program ("The Bible Code") that decodes information found in the biblical text.
A mathematical sequencing formula in the Hebrew Bible was discovered by Dr. Eliyahu Rips, an expert in group theory and professor of mathematics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Technically, Rips'experiment only applied his equidistant letter sequencing formula to the Book of Genesis. Using the standard Hebrew text of Codex Leningradis (circa 1008 A.D.) Rips entered the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) as one continuous string of 304,805 consecutive letters without breaks between words. The computer program then searches the Hebrew text for certain specific identified names, words, or phrases according to a selected skip sequence, starting from a skip of one letter all the way to several thousand skips between letters.
The original experiment identified 32 names and 64 dates jumbled into a million different combinations, out of which the correct combinations were identified 99.9% of the time. The first 304,805 letters of Crime and Punishment were used as a control group in this experiment and had no statistically meaningful messages encoded in it.
Harold Gans, a U.S. code-breaker working for the National Security Agency, confirmed Rips's original results in an independently-written computer program using city names instead of prominent Jewish individuals. Robert Kass, editor of Statistical Science submitted the paper to three different scholars to triple check the mathematical methodology prior to accepting the paper for publication.
Chapter one, entitled “The Bible Code,” presents some interesting discoveries dealing with current events. For example, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's name appears in Deuteronomy 2, 33–24, 16; “assassin who will assassinate” appears in Deuteronomy 4, 42; “Amir,” the name of Rabin's assassin, is found in Numbers 35, 11. The year in which Rabin was assassinated, 1995, is found encoded in Exodus 39, 34 crossing the phrase “Rabin assassination” seen in Exodus 36, 37-Leviticus 22, 5, and “Tel Aviv,” the city in which Rabin was murdered, which is seen in Exodus 33, 5-Leviticus 4, 9.
The date that the first Iraqi Scud missile was fired at Israel during the Gulf War (Jan. 18, 1991) is found encoded as “Fire on third Shevat” in Genesis 14, 2–12 with Saddam Hussein's last name seen in Genesis 14, 9–14. The phrase “Hussein picks a day” is seen in Genesis 14, 6–17.
The name of the comet to strike Jupiter, “Shoemaker-Levy, is found in Genesis 19, 38–38, 19.
“Hitler,” identified as Nazi and enemy, and evil man, and “slaughter” are found in Genesis 8, 17–21.
The second chapter, “Atomic Holocaust,” predicts the beginning of an atomic war in the Middle East sometime in 1995–96 in Genesis 49, 17 and Deuteronomy 28, 64, with the year appearing in Exodus 17:2. This “next war” is encoded in Genesis 36, 15, Numbers 12, 8 and its beginning after the death of the prime minister is seen in Genesis 25, 11.
Chapter three, “All His People to War,” deals with predictions concerning terrorism in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's name and election are seen in Exodus 19, 12, Deuteronomy 4, 47, and Numbers 7, 83.
The fourth chapter, “The Sealed Book,” deals in part with the existence of “The Bible Code” in the Bible. The existence of Bible Code is seen encoded in Deuteronomy 12, 11–17, as does its seal before God (cf. Dt 12, 12). That the computer was necessary is seen in the appearance of “computer” in Daniel 12, 4–6.
Chapter five, “The Recent Past,” discloses the appearance of a number of historical events from the recent past encoded in the Bible. FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) appears in Genesis 40, 11, Deuteronomy 9, 1; his office as president is seen in Numbers 25, 18. “Atomic holocaust” appears in Numbers 29, 9 and Deuteronomy 8, 19. Japan is found in Numbers 29. 9. The year that Hiroshima was bombed, 1945, is found encoded in Deuteronomy 8, 19. “President Kennedy” is found in Genesis 34, 19–50, 4; “to die” is seen in Genesis 27, 46–31, 51. “Dallas,” the city where he was assassinated, appears in Genesis 10, 7–39, 4. His assassin's name, “Oswald,” appears in Numbers 34, 6-Deuteronomy 7, 11, along with the same phrase that predicts Rabin's assassination “assassin who will assassinate.”
Even the Oklahoma City bombing is encoded. “Oklahoma” is found in Genesis 29, 25–35, 5; “death,” which crosses the state's name is seen in Genesis 30, 20.
The final three chapters, “Armageddon,” “Apocalypse,” and “The Final Days,” deal with possible future disasters pointing to the world's end either by nuclear war or earthquake sometime early in the 21st century.
It should be kept in mind that the book is written in journalistic style by a professional reporter, not a trained theologian. Paragraphs are extremely short; dialogue is brief. It is written in a documentary, I-wasthere style. Information is reported, not analyzed. In good journalistic style, more than one source is consulted and listed.
One wishes, however, for something more profound—especially since this book treats a fundamentally important text in the religious and spiritual lives of hundreds of millions of people the world over.
Having some understanding of the Bible as a religious text, the cultural and historical environment out of which it grew, and its continued use as normative for human conduct today is vitally important. To miss that is to miss the point of the Bible. That the Bible functions normatively for different faith traditions is missed by the author. He implies that the Hebrew Bible (which contains only 24 books and only those originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic) and the Christian Old Testament are identical: they are not. The Catholic Old Testament contains 46 books, based on the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (called the Septuagint) and authored in three languages (Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew).
In addition, the author seems to imply that prophets in the Bible were most concerned with the business of predicting the future rather than on challenging their contemporaries to practice what they, the prophets, preached.
What punishment, if any, the future might bring was described in terms of curses for breaking Israel's covenant with God. In essence, one finds a theological understanding of history in the Bible: this, if anything, is the hidden message of the Bible.
As is customary in this genre, the author claims neither to be religious nor to believe in God so as not to prejudice his account. In this way, he is open not only to treating the Bible like any other piece of purely human literature, but also to using any type of scientifically critical method to interpret it objectively. However, this stance in itself highly prejudices the author's viewpoint and can be considered methodologically suspect. Since Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Providentissimus Deus (1893), there have been a number of documents issued by the Church's Magisterium that point out appropriate scientific exegetical methods useful for interpreting the Bible.
Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943), for example, directs Catholic exegetes to use appropriate ancillary sciences (e.g., philology, history, literary analysis, etc.) to determine the underlying theological scriptural message. Vatican II's Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum, 1965), cautions Catholics from using any scientific method whose underlying philosophical presuppositions deny any supernatural origin to the Bible. The Pontifical Biblical Commission's instruction on The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993) discusses a number of newer critical methods (e.g., canonical criticism, feminist criticism, sociological analysis, structuralism, etc.). Each of these Church documents, however, presumes that the Bible essentially describes human experience of God's interventions in history.
While the Bible's theological message (i.e., God intervenes from time to time in history and offers salvation to the human race) remains valid for all time, the Bible was never intended to serve as a prophecy of specific events, particularly of our own time. This is carrying biblical fundamentalism (or literalism) to an extreme.
Stigmatine Father Pius Murray is library director at Pope John XXIII National Seminary, Waltham, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pius Murray Css ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Holocaust & Ethnic Cleansing
Reference your recent article on the Church's response to the Holocaust ("Anti-Semitism in Christian History Goes Under the Microscope,” Oct. 26-Nov. 1). Antonio Gaspari seems to have created the equivalent of a governmental White Paper: not quite convincing and certainly not scholarly. At most, I detect a grudging admission that “mistakes were made.” That had become rather obvious by VE day 1945.
I have more than a passing interest in the Holocaust and the Christian response (or lack thereof). When an extreme situation calls forth the best and the worst in humanity, and we get the range of behaviors that we did, we should learn from it. We have not yet done that, as witness the world's tacit acceptance of recent “ethnic cleansing” and other genocidal activity. Obviously one of the things we do best is to avert our eyes and forget quickly.
It is of less consequence to establish whether Pius XII was a moral coward, a dupe, or a hero than it is to establish the truth, draw the appropriate conclusions, and work to prevent new catastrophes. We have an abundance of valid material documenting how and why America fought in Vietnam; when and why, the consequences, and at least some lessons appear to have been learned and applied. The same cannot be said for the Church and the Holocaust. None are so blind as those who will not see; and if we never look we will certainly never see.
Thomas Casey Buffalo, Wyoming
Cardinal H on Anti-Semitism
The article by Berenice Cocciolillo on Catholic anti-Semitism ("John Paul II Calls Anti-Semitism an ‘Offense Against God,'” Nov. 16–22) quotes the primate of Poland, Cardinal [August] Hlond describing Jews as “swindlers, usurers, and exploiters” who “fight against the Church.” This is taken out of context.
On the same occasion Cardinal Hlond also spoke of “the very many Jews who are believers, honest, just, kind, and philanthropic … who are ethically outstanding, noble, and upright.” He went on to say “I am against that moral stance, imported from abroad, that is basically and ruthlessly anti-Jewish. It is contrary to Catholic ethics. One may not hate anyone. It is forbidden to assault, beat up, maim, or slander Jews. One should honor Jews as human beings and neighbors.… Beware of those who are inciting anti-Jewish violence. They serve an evil cause.”
Clearly the cardinal was protesting Nazism in the strongest terms. My source is Father Richard Neuhaus in the October 1997 issue of First Things.
It is scandalous that the Register's editors did not check out this long-since refuted calumny that continues to be used by the enemies of the Catholic Church, most recently in James Carroll's article in The New Yorker. The Holy Father's call to examination of our consciences historically is most appropriate. But that does not mean that every accusation of Catholic anti-Semitism is true. We can expect those who dislike Catholics to repeat unsubstantiated, out-of-context accusations but why should Catholic writers carelessly appear to validate such false accusations?
Dennis Martin Chicago, Illinois
Revelation & Millennium
Stephen Jay Gould's examination of millennial thought as recounted in John Prizer's favorable review ("It's Not the End of the World,” Nov. 9–15) of Gould's Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown implicitly divides reality up into the empirically based (like days, months, and years) and the arbitrary and irrational (like weeks and the millennium). Prizer does not seem to notice that the Catholic faith is among the things thereby consigned to the arbitrary and irrational. After all, we Catholics notoriously believe “that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Heb 11, 3): we have weeks because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh; and we accept the account of the millennium in Revelation 20 as God's inspired and inerrant word.
But even on Prizer's laudatory account Gould's performance seems pretty poor. He tries to tie millennial thought to Arabic decimal numeration even though Arabic numbers did not come into common use in Christendom until a millennium after Revelation was written. Furthermore, it is obvious even to my amateur's eye that his account of apocalypticism and speculation on the millennium consists of taking a few names and ideas from one or two secondary sources and faking it the rest of the way. Could it be that the “eminent zoologist” Gould does not consider himself bound by the canons of scientific investigation when debunking the arbitrary irrationalities of religion?
Still more disturbing is Prizer's apparent unawareness that the Catholic understanding of Revelation and the millennium has little to do with when the world will end, or with slicing and dicing history into neat prophetic pieces. In recent years, the Navarre Bible commentary on Revelation has made that understanding readily available, and Catholic former evangelicals have inspired renewed attention to Revelation. These show that far from being an enigma or an embarrassment, Revelation is of the essence in understanding the Catholic Faith. In this connection, I would suggest that it is hard to credit that the Pope's preoccupation with the coming millennium is no more than exploitation of a supposed popular cultural relic—especially since popular Catholicism in fact has been notoriously indifferent to millennial thought. Something more is at work here.
John McFarland Boca Raton, Florida
Letters to the Editor
National Catholic Register
33 Rossotto Drive
Hamden, CT 06514
Fax: (203) 288-5157; e-mail: ncregister@pipeline.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Saving Cockroaches and Other Tales of Reason Gone Awry DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Years ago I used to write a column for a local “alternative” newspaper. My assignment was to cover public lectures, discussions, and demonstrations and to illustrate the illogic of the participants simply by quoting them. Editorializing was forbidden by the editor, but there was no need for it anyway, since the easiest way to make certain people look foolish is to report their words accurately.
Most of the assignments I no longer remember, though I do recall taking notes at a talk given by Jane Fonda. Her topic was Cuba or the Sandinistas or some such thing. She had little to say, but used many words to say it. More interesting than her ideas was her fawning audience. My article ended up focusing not so much on Fonda's remarks as on those of her credulous listeners. I was surprised—but should not have been—that even her most baseless comments received approval from the large contingent of well-dressed people in La Jolla, Calif.
Attending talks like hers was the exception. I preferred local color. Sometimes I found it at the city's largest park, a haven for people with opinions and soapboxes, and invariably I found it at the Unitarian church. Instead of religious ceremonies, the Unitarians held sparsely-attended lectures and small-group discussions. The events never featured big-name speakers, but I found them more instructive—and more amusing—than speeches by fading film stars.
The church seemed to be the last refuge for the socially eccentric. One fellow—who claimed that, as a boy, he survived the firebombing of Dresden—was known as “the U-Boat Captain” because that was the moniker he used when telephoning call-in radio programs, which he apparently spent most of his waking hours doing.
Another regular, an older man with a constantly furrowed brow, prided himself on his anticlericalism and spoke darkly in terms of the looming threat from “priestcraft,” meaning Catholicism. I never figured out what launched him on his crusade.
Perhaps the most entertaining of the bunch was a skinny young man who, a decade later, would come to head a nationally-prominent organization of secular humanists.
To me, such men were living testaments to the futility of rejecting the Christian faith. They illustrated why 19thcentury rationalism, prolonged through the 20th century, has been a dead-end. Like Ayn Rand's Objectivists, they praised reason while hardly being able to wield it.
However rich a mine the sessions at the Unitarian church were, my favorite assignment happened out of doors at the University of California campus, where I covered a demonstration at the medical school. Several dozen people were protesting the use of animals in medical research. After milling around the crowd for a while, I zeroed in on a clean-cut young couple carrying picket signs. Even from a distance they exuded naiveté.
“What are you objecting to?"
“We don't think dogs and monkeys should be made to suffer in laboratories,” the young man replied. “Did you know that rabbits are killed just so cosmetics companies can test whether their new formulas are hypoallergenic?"
“No, I didn't know that,” I said. “Do you oppose all forms of medical research on animals?"
“Yes, all forms. Animals are being killed in there,” he said, pointing toward the laboratories, “and that's cruel. No one deserves to be treated that way.”
“But what if an experiment, performed on a dog, results in a new medicine or a new medical technique that saves the life of a child?"
“That wouldn't make it right to kill the dog. Adog is just as valuable as a child and has the same right to live. There's no essential difference between the two. You can't go around killing one sentient creature for the benefit of another.”
The young couple turned out to be vegetarians, not surprisingly, but not for health reasons. For them, vegetarianism was a matter of ethics. (It didn't occur to me to ask whether they thought it right to uproot plants, which also are sentient creatures.) Since I wasn't making progress in talking about medical experiments, I turned closer to home.
“So you say you don't believe in killing any animal, right?"
“Right.”
“But let's say you discover cockroaches in your kitchen. Wouldn't you kill them?"
“We don't have cockroaches.”
“But let's say you did. Wouldn't you kill them?"
“Definitely not.”
“You mean you'd just let them run around your house?"
“No. We're not slobs.”
“What would you do about them?"
“We'd capture them and let them go at the house next door.”
This was said with a straight face. I marveled at the patience of their neighbors and at the blind alleys people end up in once they deny Christian anthropology. Once you say a child is no more valuable than a dog, you can make no argument against sharing your table with bugs.
Karl Keating is founding director of Catholic Answers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karl Keating ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Our Christ-forgetting, Christ-haunted, Death-dealing Western World DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Walker Percy's fame is a puzzle. Of course his novels are delightful, witty, full of unsuspected gems of language, plot and character. But the culture that feted him was one that he severely if obliquely—for the most part—criticized.
Perhaps any artist feels out of it, something of an alien in his native land. This may even be a condition of creativity. What we all take for granted is suddenly shown to us as fresh and new and almost eerie. But there is more than this generic outsidership with Walker Percy. He was a Catholic writer pursuing his trade in an increasingly secularized, even neo-pagan, environment. Imagine a contemporary of Nero writing a best-seller called Quo Vadis. Percy wrote during the crumbling of another empire of sorts, Christendom, yet thousands of readers who did not share his judgment on the times read him avidly.
From The Moviegoer in 1961—it won a National Book Award when that still meant something—to The Thanatos Syndrome in 1987, Percy's novels seemed to fit into the flow of American fiction. A story about a young man whose life is defined by the movies he sees has been told by many authors and Percy could be thought simply to be putting his personal stamp on an established form. The Italian movie Cinema Paradiso tells a version of this story from a completely inner vantage point; the hero has no outlook apart from the movies he has seen. Their sentimentality is his. But with Percy there was already something deeper. His young man might have been watching reports from elsewhere, figures cast on the wall of a cave, a prisoner awaiting one greater than Plato as his liberator.
There are lots of ways of feeling unanchored in the contemporary world. Evelyn Waugh's Scott-King's Modern Europe expresses this alienation in political and cultural terms. There is that level in Walker Percy as well. But increasingly—as indeed in Waugh—it is the writer's religious faith that provides the lens through which the world is seen.
Southern Sensibilities
It is possible to classify Percy as a Southern writer. Like most Southern writers he was both receptive and wary of the designation. But there is nothing like the residual memory of an enormous defeat to cleanse the eye with which one views the world. However secular his story might seem, the Southern writer conveys the truth that we have here no lasting city, that we should not put our trust in princes, that men are evanescent as grass.
Percy himself invoked the difference between himself and Flannery O'Connor. She held the view that the Catholic writer ought not introduce his Catholicism into his fiction, certainly not thematically. She herself is found in grotesque and often half-mad marginal religiosity intimations of orthodoxy. Walker Percy is no J.F. Powers, although a priest or two show up in his novels. In many ways he is a Catholic novelist in the sense that he lived at a time when the common morality became identified with Catholicism because no one but the Pope defended it. Percy's own defense of natural law takes the form of showing that anyone who honors it must seem mad. A fortiori, the believer is best represented by the holy fool.
Signs of the Times
The mark of the times in which we live is that we are all but forced to think of ourselves in terms of the sciences. This influence, Percy felt, had produced a radically incoherent world view, something that follows from the radical incoherence of science. This incoherence is displayed in his novels and discussed in his non-fiction works. Let's look at its imaginative expression first, concentrating on Love in the Ruins (1971) and its quasi-sequel, Thanatos Syndrome, published 16 years later in 1987.
“Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?”
Thus begins Love in the Ruins, the voice that of the narrator whose name we will learn later on. It is July 4 in an unspecified future year. Things have fallen apart. Part two moves back to July 1, and then the story progresses chronologically to the July 4 where it began. The ending is five years later, at Christmas. Percy tells us in little bursts what happened, what went wrong, but this is not science fiction. Expect no elaborate descriptions of disaster. Tom More is a doctor and he has invented a machine, the More Qualitative-Quantitative Ontological Lapsometer, a stethoscope of the spirit. It is the inner life, the religious life, that is on stage, and the scenery is local, even though the disaster is national, perhaps global. Above all, the novel is funny. Madcap comic, witty, bon mot, and sustained and set-scene funny. It is as if it hurts too much to cry and laughter is the best therapy.
Percy was writing in the often mad days that followed Vatican II. The vignettes that give us what has happened to that Church are hilariously au point.
With consternation—and madcap humor, Southerner Walker Percy chronicled the rise of the Culture of Death before it had a name
Dr. Thomas More is no saint, God knows, but he is a sure and amusing guide through the apocalypse. Well, not quite apocalypse. After all, there is a sequel, and Tom More returns in The Thanatos Syndrome which gives us the spiritual geography of what John Paul II would call the culture of death. Percy, himself a doctor by training, though he never practiced because he fell ill with tuberculosis, links developments in our country to the Nazi doctors of the Third Reich. The humor has not faded, but the response to it altered. Perhaps readers of Love in the Ruins misread Percy as a critic of religion, especially Catholicism. His pro-life stance in The Thanatos Syndrome lost him a lot of his audience.
Novels are first of all stories, imaginative reproductions of people like the reader and writer. They have to engage and hold us on the most elemental level of all—what will happen next?-if they are going to do anything else. Some novelists, like E.M. Forster, lamented the need to provide a story as the carrier of what they want to say, but the story is the main thing that the novel tells. A writer can also write non-fiction if he wants to, but that will be direct communication with the reader, not the oblique plotted symbolic showing, not telling, that a story is. Walker Percy wrote non-fiction as well as novels.
We find there the same whimsical style. In photographs, Percy looks like a carpenter's ruler, not quite folded up. His head tips naturally leftward. The smile is genuine, but closemouthed. It is the man in the photograph that we get in the essays, straight. There are three non-fiction books: The Message in the Bottle (1975), Lost in the Cosmos (1983), and the posthumous Sign Posts in a Strange Land (1991). The first two are sustained connected efforts, one on language, the other called “The Last Self-Help Book,” the funniest book Percy every wrote, deadly serious. The third volume brings together pieces that appeared all over the place. “Why I am a Catholic” is a kind of Percy credo and “If I had Five Minutes with the Pope” a delight. The parish priest is a hero for Percy, in real life, and in the two novels I have been emphasizing.
Percy's Catholicism
What kind of Catholic was he?
One answer would be to point out that he agreed to have his name included on the board of Crisis. He was in many ways an old fashioned Catholic, the kind that innovators and iconoclasts held in contempt. Looking over his books again, I am reminded of Evelyn Waugh. Here are two of the most important Catholic novelists of our century, both converts, who became enamored of the understated worship of the Church, the Latin liturgy, and admired priests who knew what they were doing, and by and large, who did it well. “What else is there?” was Percy's initial answer to the question why he was a Catholic. He meant it. Only the faith enables us to make sense out of ourselves, out of the world, out of obscure and mysterious drama of human life. Theologians began to water down the faith, to “dissent,” liturgists chased decorum from the sanctuary, currying favor with the enemy began. Things might be better now if voices like those of Waugh and Percy had been heeded. Latin spoke even to those who did not understand it; now the language of the liturgy has a bumper sticker resonance.
Novelists, needless to say, are not catechists. But it occurs to me that the almost matter-of-fact way that Cardinal Ratzinger accepts the possibility that the influence of Christianity in the wider society will decline even more, and believers find themselves forming little pockets of resistance to the culture of death, a scandal to some and foolish to the rest—that bleak future is given cheerful imaginative expression in Percy's novels.
His prosaic expression of the idea was given to some seminarians. “There is no more Christendom and it may be just as well. Thus, it may very well come to pass that you, graduates of St. Joseph's, if you should become parish priests, will be practicing your ministry in a world very different from the one we grew up in.”
Railing Against the Times
Percy advised against altering the discipline of the priesthood. And he admonished lay people to provide more support for their priests. He despised Catholic novelists who went on about how awful it had been to grow up Catholic. He suspected that their real problem was the familiar one of human weakness. In general, he was against attempts to tailor the faith to a zeitgeist that seemed to have come howling out of hell. In a letter to The New York Times he likened the theory behind the abortion culture to the one invoked to justify the hideous practices of Nazi doctors. The letter was not printed. He wrote another. That was not printed either. The Good News is not fit to print.
Perhaps Percy finally wore out his welcome with the wider culture, but I don't think so. Get someone laughing and he may come to see the tragic side. There are books about Percy now, a particularly good one by Jay Tolson, Pilgrim in the Ruins. Tolson also edited the letters between Percy and his lifelong friend Shelby Foote. Percy dedicated Love in the Ruins to Foote. The letters show us how much of a Southerner Percy was, yet how unlike Foote, who was as well. Percy must have wished the shoe of faith would fit his friend, but Foote had the skepticism of the age, and three wives, and held himself excused. But one discerns in his letters a grudging and ever growing recognition of Percy's depth. From time to time, he seemed almost to patronize him, but he got over that. In many ways, Shelby Foote was the reader Percy wrote for. Yet Foote's tribute to Percy in St. Ignatius Church in New York Oct. 24, 1990 suggests that he imperfectly understood his old friend. Or maybe he was just kicking against the goad. Aman who thinks Dostoyevski can be understood if his theology becomes a historical curiosity might think that the faith and the philosophy are not essential to Walker Percy's genius.
Or did Foote mean that most readers can respond to Percy the artist even if they cannot go that long mile into the simple faith that was its ultimate source. And of course not every believer will cotton to Percy either. But to share his faith and savor his art is to have the best of two worlds.
Ralph Mclnerny is director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., and editor of Catholic Dossier.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ralph McInerny ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In an Italian Graveyard, Reflections on the Last Things DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:The passing of the seasons has forever been a source of inspiration to poets, painters, and mystics. Especially evocative are the transitional seasons of spring and autumn, which highlight life's transience and invite reflection on the impermanence of all things temporal. In the seasonal scheme of things, November is an eschatological month. The passage from summer's life to winter's death, like a theatrical scene change signaled by a multicolored curtain of leaves closing on summer and, as they fall away, reopening to winter, presents a vivid reminder of the eschata—the “last things.”
This suggestive setting furnishes an ideal mise-en-scène for the back-to-back liturgical feasts of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. The faithful rejoice Nov. 1 with the Church triumphant, and the next day offer special intercession for the members of the Church suffering in purgatory. Meanwhile, as members of the Church militant, we reflect on our own pilgrim condition and the final goal of our earthly journey. In America such reflection doesn't always come easy. A heavily commercialized Halloween often monopolizes popular attention and threatens to subsume the two great feasts, for which Halloween is meant to be but a preparation.
Here in Italy things are a bit different. Halloween receives no special attention, while All Saints Day is celebrated as a national holiday, with its attendant dispensation from school and work. All Souls Day, on the other hand, provides an occasion for Italians to visit the cemetery and pray for the beloved departed. Somehow Italy's progressive secularization-and almost pathological phobia of death—has been unable to dislodge this sacred tradition.
This past Nov. 2 I had the grace of participating in this deeply Catholic ritual for the seventh straight year. Accompanied by several confreres I weaved my way through Rome's labyrinthine boulevards and side streets and eventually arrived at the enormous Campo Verano cemetery. Campo Verano stretches over hundreds of acres of land crisscrossed with paved avenues, and densely adorned with cypresses, immense stone mausoleums, marble statues, and simple gravestones, some of which were already in place when Columbus set sail from Andalucía for the New World. It is a veritable necropolis (a city of the dead) which stands in stark contrast to the adjacent living city of Rome.
Though the novelty of these visits has worn off, their spiritual impact hasn't. There is something about the rivers of people flowing slowly along in prayerful silence, many carrying bundles of flowers to lay at the grave of departed family members, that moves me deeply. The only suitable analogy that comes to mind is the experience of visiting the basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and witnessing the faith of the thousands of people that daily arrive on foot—or on their knees—from all over the Mexican Republic. Here at Campo Verano, instead of the miraculous tilma that recalls Mary's maternal solicitude, it is the graphic reminder of human mortality that summons visitors to lift their gaze to God and implore his mercy.
These visits inevitably provoke thoughts on the brevity of life and the consequent vanity of so many earthly pursuits. Medieval wisdom recommended viewing temporal affairs from the perspective of eternity in order to ensure right judgment. Quid hoc ad Êternitatem? provided the formula for weighing the true importance of secular concerns.
This adage, in turn, merely reflects Jesus’ admonition to avoid amassing earthly treasure and instead to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6, 20). At the Nov. 16 inaugural Mass for the Synod for America at St. Peter's Basilica, Pope John Paul reiterated this teaching in his homily: “The shadow of the world passes away, but the Word of God will not pass away.… God does not pass away and what comes from him does not pass away.”
Besides this eternal perspective, Campo Verano imparts further lessons, such as the singularity of our earthly sojourn. As the popular poem reads, “We shall pass this way but once.” Though life, to be sure, offers many “second chances,” there is no second chance for life itself. Moreover, in this life we are given one task, one mission to fulfill. As I eyed the epitaphs I couldn't help wondering whether each of those souls had fulfilled the mission for which he was created, and more importantly, whether I have fulfilled my own in the years I have lived thus far. If God chose to call me now, would I be able to respond in unison with Christ on the cross, “It is accomplished"?
Now that November draws to a close, we prepare to celebrate the final two eschatological feasts of the month: Christ the King and Thanksgiving. The feast of Christ the King marks the last Sunday in the liturgical year, and reminds us that we are subjects of a kingdom where Christ will reign for all eternity.
Thanksgiving, too, carries eschatological overtones, and not only for the turkey. Along with the opportunity to give thanks for the many blessings received, Thanksgiving signals harvest time, a biblical image of the end of the world and the moment to render an accounting of one's life.
“And some seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. And Jesus said, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear!'” (Mk 4, 8–9).
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Thomas Williams Lc ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sister Wendy Brings the Saints to Life DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:As the millennium approaches some of the world's greatest libraries and museums, including the Vatican Art Museum, are celebrating with an unprecedented display. Many are mounting an exhibit of their most precious illuminated manuscripts, some are on public view for the first time.
PBS will broadcast a sneak preview of this art, featuring some of the holiest men and woman in Christendom. The Saints with Sister Wendy will be seen as part of the PBS seasonal pledge drive in early December (check your local listings).
Who better to introduce these religious treasures than the world's most beloved-if not most peculiar-art critic, Sister Wendy Beckett. The great celebrity of this cloistered nun is a paradox that even she admits is bizarre.
“It's the kind of thing that only God would do,” she informed a slightly dumbfounded Bill Moyers, in a recent interview.
Sister Wendy was seen on PBS this fall with the beautifully produced, five-part series, Sister Wendy's Story of Painting. Her great popularity in England earned her the most coveted of PBS time slots, Masterpiece Theatre's Sunday evening.
It was actually six years ago, however, that she made her television debut after a BBC producer overheard her critiquing a painting at the National Gallery and brought a camera over to give her a screen test. Criticizing art on television is a deceptively difficult trick that has eluded many a fine art critic in recent years. In fact Sister Wendy has become the only successful TV art critic since Kenneth Clark's Civilization in the late 1960s.
Who would have thought that an English nun with a lisp and a severe over-bite would become such a pop star? Ironically, art was far from her mind when she joined the Sisters of Notre Dame at age 16. She was sent to Oxford to study English and graduated with an honorary first, which is given to a single student in any given department only once a year. She taught in South Africa for a number of years and became prioress of her community.
Epilepsy forced her back to England in 1970 here she was granted papal permission to live a cloistered life under the protection of the Carmelite nuns in Norfolk. She obtained a small, leaky trailer for 45 British pounds. In the damp East Anglican winter, Sister Wendy covers up for bed the best she can with three pairs of socks, a chunky sweater, and lots of head gear.
Rising at 3:00 a.m., her day consists of two hours of work and seven hours of prayer-or “basking in the blissful sunshine of God's love,” as she calls it. Her daily requirements are a pint-and-a-half of skim milk, a couple of crackers and, at lunch, exactly two potato chips. She seems to be pulling her weight though. Her BBC salary, which is given directly to her Carmelite hosts, is rumored to be well into the six digits.
In The Saints with Sister Wendy, a one-hour special, she brings her spirituality and insightful criticism together to offer a look into both the art of medieval illuminated manuscripts as well as the lives of their pious subjects.
“Often we don't know who painted them, but we know why,” she twinkles.
Sister Wendy takes us on a journey starting on the Appian Way.
“St. Peter fleeing his persecutors in Rome, encounters Christ carrying his cross.” Standing on the cobbled path, she tells us, “Peter cries out, 'Lord, where are you going? (Quo vadis?). And Jesus says 'I am going to Rome to be crucified.'”
Sister Wendy looks to Rome, and in a dramatic hush, tells us, “And Peter turned and went back.”
In one manuscript, we see the profoundly human Peter faltering on the water as Christ offers a saving hand. With her own, seemingly-detached thin hands darting against the black abyss of her habit, she tells us, “Frailty and commitment are the two qualities shared by all the saints.”
Flanked by a host of saints in St. Peter's Square, she explains, “There is nothing special about the raw material of sainthood. It's not what you are that matters, but that you offer that you, with all its flaws, to God.”
Within the arch of grand, ivy-clad letters, Sister Wendy shows us some of her favorite saints in their most critical moments, including a troubled Mary Magdalene begging Christ not to leave her, St. Paul collapsed upon his fallen horse, and the wayward St. Augustine discovering God in his studies.
“All of these rag-tag band of characters became saints,” Sister Wendy says, “because they took Christ as their center.”
Sister Wendy never shies away from the graphic details, like the roasting of St. Lawrence. With a horrific relish she quotes the martyr's great line, “I think I'm done on this side, why not turn me over.” She calls it his great “encounter with the realities of life.”
While there is perhaps less formal art criticism here, her spiritual reflections are more open and her subjects more personal. Indeed, there is an intimate, family-album feel to the special. In the case of Thomas á Beckett, that is not far of f.
“After all,” Sister Wendy tells us, “This is my cousin Tom. Cold-hearted like all us Becketts, and bossy, and a bit of a show-off, but he tried so hard to love God. And he did. So, I'm one of the lucky ones to have, if in imagination only, a saint in the family.”
Will success spoil Sister Wendy? Well, she has obtained a decadent new trailer.
“I do miss my old caravan,” she pines, “so romantic it was. But in the new one there's a small bath I can kneel in, which means I can go to sleep with warm feet!”
Stephen Hopkins is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: In a new PBS special, a simple and strangely charismatic British nun sheds light on some of the world's finest illuminated manuscripts ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Hopkins ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Universal Thirst for the Infinite DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:EVERY ONE OF US is a ceaseless seeker of infinity. Even the avowed atheist who knows what he is rejecting, and the person full of avarice, arrogance, and lust. The reason is that every man and woman is driven to fill the radical void within.
This is easy to prove because we all experience these endless yearnings in the choices we make every day. Nothing we experience of finite reality fills the endless thirsting of our souls, for by definition nothing material can satisfy us. Only the infinite can fill an immaterial being.
This is why the hedonistic, the avaricious, the lustful are incessantly seeking new thrills, new experiences, something to dull their inner ache due to not having God deep within themselves. The sinner is never filled, never at rest. Always he wants more. In between his diminishing “highs,” he is bored and hurting inside. He is headed for existential boredom-perhaps even worse.
Making idols out of mere things and worldly pleasures always leads to frustration. “Only in God is my soul at rest,” said the psalmist (Ps 62), and so we now ask why is all of this true? Why are mere animals content with material experiences whereas we never are?
Anything less than everything is not enough. For the human spirit, the only enough is the divine Enough. Spirit as such is universal. It can be filled with nothing particular. We do not want simply some happiness, some joy, some love. We assign no limits to our yearnings for happiness, love, and delight.
Because spirit is dynamically orientated to the absolute, it bursts beyond the cosmos. St. Augustine knew this only too well from his early life of sin, and he expressed it in his famous prayer: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Feodor Dostoyevsky, probably the finest novelist of the 19th century, wrestled brilliantly with the question of God. On the lips of one of his characters in The Brothers Karamazov he targeted the heart of the matter:
“To live without God is nothing but torture.... Man cannot live without kneeling.... If he rejects God, he kneels before an idol of wood or of gold or an imaginary one.... They are all idolaters and not atheists. That's what they ought to be called.”
Everyone worships something. If it is not the real God, it will be something relative that has been made into an absolute, into an absorbing concern, the focus of one's aims and loves. Means have been turned into ends. Created realities have been made into idols.
This idea can be encapsulated into an expression often used in the history of philosophy: the one and the many, a formula that can serve a number of purposes. Here, one refers to God, while the many refers to things less than God. Simple reflection on the human situation makes it clear that everyone is either pursuing the real God, the supreme One, or inevitably is chasing after other things.
We humans differ in many ways- age, sex, race, nationality, talent, temperament, skills, political leanings- but the most radical and basic by far is that by which we make and choose our eternal destiny: the choices by which we cling to the real God, the supreme One, or by which we fashion little gods and pursue them. These free choices determine whether we shall have our infinite thirst quenched one day or whether we shall be frustrated for all eternity. Free decisions cannot be more crucial: either eternal ecstasy or eternal disaster. Once we admit human freedom, heaven and hell make complete sense. We need apologize for neither.
The most beautiful presentation of this thirsting and quenching theme is, not surprisingly, found in Scripture. Because the Holy Spirit has written the owner's manual for our race, he fully understands our concerns and he expresses them in most attractive language.
In Isaiah we are invited to come to the Fountain, all of us who are thirsty and seek to be quenched. Why do we spend our resources on what does not satisfy?, we are asked. Come to the fountain “and your soul will live” (55, 1–3).
The psalmist rightly responds: “As the deer long: for running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God. Athirst is my soul for God, the living God” (Ps 42, 1–2).
So what is holiness all about? Being quenched at the divine fountain is one way to describe it. Much more needs to be added, of course, and this we shall do in following articles. For example, we do not reach the summit through lukewarm efforts. Only men and women on fire become saints, a fire in the will if not in the feelings.
It is already clear that to pursue the one with an undivided heart, to avoid dissipating oneself in dead-end idols, is not only to love the Lord as he deserves, but also to do oneself the highest favor. The path to holiness is by no means to be conceived as an impersonal response to a list of dos and don'ts. Given the premise that we are pilgrims on this earth, and that we are on the way to an unspeakable destiny, we should not be surprised that the road is both challenging and magnificent. How else could it be, since Jesus is himself “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14, 6).
Next week-The divinely planned quenching: a contemplative immersion at the fountain.
Marist Father Thomas Dubay is a popular author and lecturer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Dubay Sm ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Catholic Hospital for Sarajevo? DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:SARAJEVO—The Catholic Medical Foundation, headquartered in Easton, Pennsylvania, would figure high on anybody's short list of relief operations that made a real difference during the conflict in the Balkans.
Spearheaded by radiologist Christopher Chapman and his wife Judy, and chaired by Bishop Thomas Welsh of Allentown, Pa., the four-year-old association of American, Croatian, and Bosnian medical personnel has delivered nearly $50 million in pharmaceutical and other medical equipment directly to supply-strapped war hospitals and refugee camps in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina. This year alone the organization delivered more than $7 million in equipment to aid in the rebuilding of the region's damaged medical infrastructure.
Far from taking the merely “institutional” approach to the relief effort, the Chapmans hand-delivered their donated medical supplies to needy hospitals, clinics, and individual patients over the course of more than 45 trips to the war zone since 1992. With the help of a dedicated team of local doctors and Catholic Church officials, CMF continues to outfit dialysis clinics in the region, provide psychiatric medicines to clinics in western and central Bosnia, provide help for war orphans and refugees, and supply equipment and medical expertise for pediatric rehabilitation programs in several Balkan countries.
The organization was also instrumental in saving the lives of a number of Bosnian children during the war by flying them to the U.S. for life-saving medical treatment.
Now that the war is over, CMF has shifted its focus to the longer-range concerns of the people of BosniaHerzegovina. Chief among these is the campaign recently launched by Cardinal Vinko Puljic to open a Catholic hospital, St. Vincent's, in Sarajevo.
In part, the drive to reopen St. Vincent's, a hospital closed by communist authorities more than 50 years ago, is a matter of the restoration of Catholic institutions, such as schools and hospitals, so that the Church can perform her social mission.
But there is much more to it than that. With the increasing Islamicization of society in postwar Bosnia, Catholics in the region feel under increasing threat. A Catholic hospital ensures that Catholic doctors and nurses can find work in the region, and that patients of all ethnic and religious groups can get quality care in a climate of dignity and respect for life.
As Sarajevo's Cardinal Puljic stresses, the possibility of a genuinely multi-cultural Bosnia is guaranteed only if the region's non-Muslim populations remain. St. Vincent's is one small but significant step in creating the necessary infrastructure for a vibrant Catholic witness in postwar Bosnia.
While the Bosnian government has released the property in downtown Sarajevo to the Church, much remains to be done before the facility can open its doors. Cardinal Puljic has asked the assistance of Catholic Medical Foundation in helping to make St. Vincent's a reality.
For further information, contact: Catholic Medical Foundation, 3555 Santee Mill Road, Bethlehem, PA, 18017; tel.: 610-865-5437; fax: 610-865-6324
—Gabriel Meyer
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Revisiting Philadelphia's Saintly Bishop DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Philadelphia is most famous for being the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence, but it is also noteworthy for its historic churches and shrines. Some are within the downtown's old city where tourists take in sights like the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historic Park while others reach into outlying neighborhoods.
From Fifth Street, the entrance to the historic district, the trip up to the shrine of St. John Neumann is only a mile away. The shrine occupies the lower level of St. Peter the Apostle Church, at the corner of Gerard Avenue. (From downtown, it's easier to take Broad Street to Gerard Avenue, and then right to the church.)
When Bishop John Neumann died in 1860, the fourth ordinary of Philadelphia, he was buried in the basement of the church he had dearly loved. The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) had built St. Peter's in 1842 for the German immigrants pouring into the city. Then-Father Neumann, a native of Bohemia and a priest of the Diocese of New York, joined their order Jan. 16 of that year, becoming the first Redemptorist to profess in the New World.
Even after being elevated to bishop, his heart was always at this church, the only local one staffed by his order. He would visit St. Peter's weekly to hear confessions, monthly for a day of recollection, and yearly for a retreat. He celebrated Christmas Midnight Mass there shortly before he died. It seemed only fitting that he was buried in St. Peter the Apostle church.
During the process of his June 19, 1977, canonization as the first American male saint, his body was raised from under the floor of a devotional area that had begun to take shape around his tomb. While the coffin's zinc lining had deteriorated completely, his body remained almost completely uncorrupted.
Dressed in his bishop's vestments, he was put to rest in a glass crypt under the small, elaborately decorated shrine altar. A mosaic, depicting him as a bishop, recalls his works in the diocese. On the low, flat ceiling above the altar there is a large painting of Jesus greeting the saint. The work hung from the facade of St. Peter's in Rome during his canonization.
A small museum on the premises holds many photos, artifacts, and personal belongings that tell the story of the saint and his remarkable reign in the city and diocese.
Bishop Neumann was always concerned about the many new immigrants and how they could be served. He learned to speak eight languages fluently to communicate better with them. In his eight years as bishop, he built more than 90 churches and 40 schools—opening a new church facility on an average of every 25 days. He is remembered as the founder of the diocesan school system in the United States, of the Glen Riddle group of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, and of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi Church—the mother church of all Italian speaking people in the country.
Additionally, he first established 40 Hours eucharistic devotion in the diocese, and he somehow found time to write two catechisms and start Beneficial Bank for immigrants.
Nearly exhausted at age 48, he died while on an errand not far from the downtown cathedral. The stone step on which he collapsed is also in the museum, as is his original, restored coffin.
The shrine is a fully working parish church. There are daily Masses, a perpetual novena to the saint, and blessings of the sick with his relic. The saint has quite a continuing history of intercession and miraculous answers to prayers. His name is often invoked in prayers for children and cancer sufferers.
Although the upper church is used primarily for special occasions and during Christmas and Holy Week, visitors at other times shouldn't miss seeing it. Ask at the gift shop or adjoining offices for tours, which are readily given.
The upper church is nearly in its original (1842) state, except for padded kneelers, carpeting, and electricity replacing gaslights.
St. John Neumann would surely recognize it. As bishop, he could be found in any one of the confessionals too. Above them, along both sides, the imported Viennese stained glass windows with their intricate designs are a rarity since most of this kind were destroyed in World War II. The organ, with nearly 3,000 pipes, is the secondlargest in the state of Pennsylvania.
Carved into the main altar is a marble bas relief of the Last Supper. The high, elaborately painted baroque ceilings were added in 1902, and a side chapel was built in the 1890s in thanksgiving after a plague of yellow fever ravaged the east coast. The parishioners held novenas to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and prayed for the intercession of John Neumann during the plague. No one from the parish died during it.
Under the blue vaulted ceiling of this chapel of our Lady of Perpetual Help, her image is above the marble altar's tabernacle. Stained glass windows focus on Christ the Redeemer, as he is flanked by St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Clement Hofbauer, St. Gerard Magella. Bishop John Neumann, not yet beatified at the time of the shrine's construction is fittingly honored in the lower shrine.
“The most important thing here,” says Rita McGuigan, one of the shrine's managers, about the constant devotion of pilgrims here, “is that we're never finished with the miracles of St. John Neumann.” They keep the shrine in continuous bloom.
After your visit, treat yourself to the varied arrays of flowers at Longwood Gardens, a 30-mile drive west of the city in Kennett Square, Pa. Hundreds of acres, include a conservatory for both lavish outdoor and indoor displays, especially worth seeing during the Christmas season. Nearby, and closer to the city, is King of Prussia with many hotels and motels. Valley Forge is close by too.
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: St. John Neumann's spirit lives on in the city of brotherly love ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: On Campus, Bishops are 'Part of the Solution' DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Archbishop Francis George made the case for the necessary role of the bishop in Catholic higher education last month at Georgetown University's “Centered Pluralism” lecture series.
In his talk, “The Catholic Mission in Higher Education,” the archbishop of Chicago noted that despite his own fond recollections as a member of the teaching faculty of a Jesuit university, he intended his evening's remarks to be those of “a bishop of the Catholic Church.”
In amplifying the role of the bishop in Catholic higher education, Archbishop George maintained that the local ordinary was already “within the Catholic university as teacher of the faith.” And while the university was a setting where faith was expressed through various theological formulations, it remained the responsibility of the Magisterium “to judge theological opinions in the light of the certitude of faith.”
Even as the Magisterium could be the judge of the soundness of theological opinions, Archbishop George maintained that “the bishop is in the Catholic university neither as a watchdog nor an academic lawgiver.” However, a university which calls itself Catholic “cannot separate itself from the community of faith, a community which Vatican II describes as a hierarchical communion.”
“I would respectfully suggest, therefore, that the office of bishop is not a problem in understanding the Catholic mission in higher education; rather, the office of the bishop is part of the solution.”
David O'Brien, professor of history at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., acknowledged the pointed nature of the archbishop's address.
“From what I have gathered from those attending, the reaction has been one of recognizing the somewhat confrontational nature of the talk.” O'Brien said the archbishop's tone was refreshing inasmuch as there is a danger of “too much pabulum.” Bishops of the Church, he added, “are not simply decorative objects for the commencement podium.”
Certain developments in Catholic higher education in the post-conciliar period have had negative consequences, Archbishop George noted.
“The arrangements of the last thirty years are proving to be unstable,” he said. The archbishop referred to the Land O'Lakes Statement of 1967 and similar documents that followed in the '70s as examples of “mitigated secularization.” Although the signers of these statements, presidents of major Catholic universities, sought “to retain their Catholic institutional identity,” nevertheless, universities “that followed the direction given by these documents were separated from their juridic attachment to the Church.”
Parallel to these university declarations, the archbishop said, were various conciliar documents and pastoral letters of the U.S. bishops relating to higher education, which culminated in formal consultation with the Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education and its promulgation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's apostolic exhortation issued in September of 1990. Subsequent conversations between the bishops and university presidents, focused on Ex Corde Ecclesiae, “have vastly improved the level of trust and communication between the U.S. bishops and the university presidents,” said the archbishop.
In “resolving tensions of the present moment,” Archbishop George said, certain “presuppositions of academic culture” need to be examined, especially those presuppositions “which are antiecclesial.” Here, the archbishop referred to an implicit assumption on the part of some in the academy, that “faith is inevitably the enemy of reason.” On the contrary, said Archbishop George, “the medievals were insightful when they declared, Credo ut intelligam, that reason itself can be enlightened by faith.”
“Do university structures themselves,” he queried, “tend to push to the side any integrating vision, especially one based on faith?"
The theme of an integrating vision within the university dominated Archbishop George's remarks.
“A university may have its bureaucratic house in order,” he said, “but it will not become a place where faith becomes culture.”
The archbishop noted that in the past “the study of theology has served to integrate the Catholic university's curriculum…[B]y giving access to knowledge of the highest sort, it integrates thought and speech and life by grounding all of these architectonically in the sources or natures of things.” Yet theology itself seems to have withdrawn from its role of “preserving the truth of things,” and become, merely, “religious studies.”
A lack of a coherent vision, said the archbishop, has ineluctably led many Catholic institutions to become “highclass trade schools.” The traditional vision of the liberal arts has been lost, he argued. The plunge into careerism or professional training has had the effect, paradoxically, of “narrowing” the field of rational inquiry.
“Reason becomes so narrowly conceived that dialogue with faith is difficult and enlightenment by faith nearly impossible,” the archbishop maintained. And while theology and philosophy have traditionally preoccupied themselves with an exploration of the nature of things, current canons, said the archbishop, blanche at the hint of dogmatism, unaware that “pluralism itself can obscure truth.”
On a more promising note, Archbishop George pointed out that “students were changing.” There are groups of students, he said, on Catholic university campuses “who want a much clearer Catholic institutional identity.” That observation seemed to place the archbishop's imprimatur on the ongoing efforts of a Georgetown student group to return crucifixes to the walls of the Georgetown classrooms. Indeed the group has taken to co-opting the title of the lecture series and applying it to their placards which now read: “Center Our Pluralism: Return Crucifixes to the Classroom.”
In terms of faculty and administrators, the archbishop observed that many of those who had orchestrated the “disengagements of the '70s” were now a “diminishing presence in the '90s.” Yet “new faculty replace those who negotiated the ‘mitigated secularization’ of the last generation.” Many of these ask whether “the price of engagement with the world” has not been too high.
In his talk, Archbishop George suggested some ways in which the presence of the bishop on the university campus might be formalized. A regular Mass and sermon by the bishop in the university chapel would have the effect, he said “of bringing the bishop's teaching Magisterium into the heart of the university.” Also, “structured discussions with the students about their beliefs and with the faculty about their sense of mission … would bring about an invigorating addition to both the bishop's and the university's life.”
The archbishop pursued the issue of the relationship between the bishop and the faculty by calling for contact that would go beyond “purely social or ceremonial” exchanges. A type of “structured availability” should be erected wherein the bishop and the faculty could dialogue.
And in what may promise to be a most controversial proposal, the archbishop called for the establishment by the U.S. bishops of “a kind of accrediting association” for the Catholic university. Such an association could be a positive help, the archbishop said, in enabling “the university itself find direction in its sense of mission.” Commenting on this last proposal, Dr. Joseph Hagan, president of Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., was enthusiastic. “I heartily support such an initiative, as well as other suggestions made by Archbishop George. These are things which we have been endeavoring to establish at Assumption College.”
Dr. Peter Sampo, president of Thomas More College in Merrimack, N.H., applauded Archbishop George's defense of the liberal arts tradition.
“The medievals received the tradition of the liberal arts from antiquity. They were able to assimilate this tradition precisely because the Christian philosophical and theological base was thoroughly humanistic and broad, the very opposite of the narrowness that the archbishop decried in his address.”
The archbishop affirmed the existence of objective truth; the need of the university theologates to remain linked to the bishop's teaching office; the dangers in a pluralism detached from the font of religious faith; and the urgent necessity to recover a unified and coherent vision of the university as a laboratory where faith and reason cooperate.
In his concluding remarks, he maintained that this kind of recovery would require of all the participants “a surrender to the eternal logos incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.”
James Sullivan is based in Southport, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: In a pointed speech on the prelate's role in a Catholic university, Chicago's Archbishop Francis George asserts that faith and reason are not inevitable enemies ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: In Death, a Teenager Looks Beyond Her Own Suffering DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:Nineteen-year-old Angela Baird died Nov. 6 after a tragic hiking accident, barely two months into her sophomore year at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif.
On the surface, there might seem to be little extraordinary about her death other than that her family and friends will dearly miss the energetic girl with the long brown hair and bright green eyes. But those who were with Angela as she died tell of a deep inner peace and heroic unselfishness in her last hours. The details surrounding her death offer tremendous insight into the true meaning of life and the inestimable value of suffering.
Angela was with a group of seven other students Nov. 5 on a hiking trail in Los Padres National Forest, located behind the Catholic campus, when she lost her footing on an overhang and fell 70 feet onto the rocks below.
Jon Daly, a junior, who was following her on the trail, quickly headed down after her, calling out for someone to run back to campus for help.
“I found her at the bottom [of the ravine] on her back and conscious,” explained Daly. An experienced rock climber, he knew Baird was hurt, but did not know how badly. “I knew we were going to stay there until the paramedics arrived,” he said, explaining that he checked her pulse and covered her with blankets to keep her warm.
It was three hours before the para-medics could get to the site.
“We prayed the whole time,” said Daly. “I asked her what she wanted to pray for. The first thing she said was to pray for aborted babies, then she said to pray for her dad and to her guardian angel. She was peaceful the whole time. After a little while it was hard for her to speak. I told her we'd pray out loud and she could pray in her heart.”
With her ready permission, Daly put a rosary in her hand that she clutched the entire time.
“The thing that moved me the most as I look back on it now,” said Daly, “is the prayers for the aborted babies and her father-it's so beyond me. It was selfless of her to pray for them as [seriously injured as she was]. That's amazing and beautiful to me.”
Prayers for a Friend
John Finley, also a junior at the college, agreed. Finley was on campus when the news came that a student had been seriously injured on a hike. Aware of the inaccessibility of the trail and that help would be slow in arriving, he and another student grabbed what medical supplies they could and ran the four or five miles to offer their assistance.
“I was amazed that she was alive and conscious after falling from that height,” said Finley. “When we finally heard the helicopter coming, you could see her smile a little, she had definite awareness of her surroundings.”
Paramedics immediately started IVs and examined her injuries before tackling the tough, 20-minute climb back to the helicopter-a climb that could not have been comfortable for Angela in a stretcher, Finley noted.
Meanwhile, on the 217-student campus, about 40 students had gathered in the chapel to pray rosary after rosary for their injured friend. Many others were gathered on the soccer field, praying and anxiously awaiting news from the helicopter's return.
“The college got news that someone was hurt, we didn't know who at the time, at about 8:00 p.m. and immediately the whole college came out,” said Father Bartholomew De La Torre, one of the college chaplains. “The chapel was filled; those who couldn't get in the chapel were outside. It was very impressive, people just poured out to help each other.”
Near 11:30 p.m. Angela arrived at the emergency room of Ventura County Hospital, where dean of students Dr. Paul O'Reilly met her and Father De La Torre administered the Sacrament of Anointing before she went into emergency surgery.
When news that her injuries were life-threatening reached the college, students went door to door inviting any who were not yet in the chapel to join in prayers. The entire student body poured out and continued praying.
When college president Tom Dillon announced that Angela hadn't survived the surgery, “there were streams of students-now in the early hours of the morning-in tears but in prayer, all concerned about her and her family and praying together.”
A Tragic Death
“She touched all of us,” said Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, the ER physician who treated Angela. “She had that sort of gentle spirit that you recognize. [We were struck by] her courage to be down there for two-and-a-half hours, the incredible pain she must have been in, and yet having so much faith in God. She was so calm, so rational, and so understanding of what needed to be done.”
Although she suffered a broken spine, several compound fractures in her legs and arms, a large gash in one leg, another on her head, and injuries to her pelvis, it was massive internal bleeding and injuries to internal organs-common in such a long fall-that caused her to die on the operating table around 1:00 a.m.
“We see tragedy all the time in here,” sighed Dr. Robinson, who broke the news of her death to the dean, chaplain, students, and her brother in the waiting room. “But, I have to say that in 10 years, this is the most devastating thing I've had to go through. She was awake in the helicopter when they were bringing her in, she was awake when she got here and we still couldn't save her.”
Dr. Robinson Attended an on-campus evening prayer service Nov. 6 and three para-medics attended the memorial Mass the following morning.
Dillon and O'Reilly noted that the out-pouring of support for Angela's family has been tremendous, not only from the campus community but also from the extended college community of alumni and benefactors, including spontaneous gifts totaling more than $5,000 to defray funeral costs, a donation of seven airline tickets for students to attend the funeral, more than 1,000 rosaries and Masses from separate alumni and student spiritual bouquets, a memory book with notes and letters from students to her parents, and a $100,000 gift for an Angela Baird Memorial Scholarship Fund from a member of the college's board of governors.
The following week, a procession of 40 students mounted a hand-made, six-foot-high wooden cross with an inscription above the place where she fell. They also diverted the path so that no one else would encounter the same fate.
“The whole community has been wracked by grief,” said Dillon. “When I learned about the details of her last hours, I was very edified and moved, [both by the students who helped her and by her prayers].... She prayed for the unborn and for her father. Her last hours were spent in prayer and in charity. She died a holy death and there's great consolation in this.”
A Modern Apostle
But Angela's strength of character in turning her last hours so completely to God did not happen without preparation. Her mother noted that Angela had been teaching catechism to inmates at a women's prison, two of whom she sponsored for confirmation last year. And, true to the pro-life sidewalk counseling work she started on her own initiative in ninth grade, earlier this year Angela had organized a small group of students to pray in front of a local Ventura abortion clinic every Thursday, a day when abortions were performed. On the afternoon of Angela's death, 80 students prayed in front of the clinic. Most Thursdays now, a group of 20 students pray for mothers and their unborn babies.
Notable was an interior conversion in Angela that seemed to have started last year and intensified during the last two months. Father De La Torre noted that “it seemed that she was learning to use sufferings to get closer to God as a way of rising above it. It seems like habituating herself on how to deal calmly with the little aggravations of everyday life prepared her to deal with this tragic catastrophe so calmly. Last year she was a typical restless teenager and this year she had become a calm, prayerful, peaceful woman; you could tell she was carrying a cross but she was joyful.”
Her brother Joe agreed, saying that God had prepared her for this.
“As her older brother, I felt like I had to be a good example to her, but starting last year and in particular the last few months, I could see her faith deepening. I saw her faith and her devotion to our Lord increase beyond anything I ever imagined possible; she became the example to me.”
Others noticed something interiorly different, saying that this year Angela attended daily Mass, compline and rosary and would often be seen in one of two small campus chapels throughout the day.
“She would sneak away to be in the chapel, but never tell anyone about it,” said Joe.
“Suffering is itself an evil, we don't want to suffer, nor did Christ want to suffer,” said Dillon. “But he came here to suffer for our sins and for our salvation, so the value of suffering comes from uniting it to the suffering of Christ.”
“One of the things we talked about at the hospital after learning of her death,” added O'Reilly, “was that suffering would be meaningless without having the belief that Christ rose from the dead. It would be depressing and something to be avoided. But in her case suffering did have meaning. Angela followed in the footsteps of her Savior, taking him up on his command to take up your cross and follow him.”
The Purpose of Suffering
In spite of the sorrow of her parents and her nine siblings, Angela's mother sums it up well: “You can't help but be happy to see that she really did achieve that Christian ideal every parent hopes for their child. As Catholic parents we want our children to get to heaven, to be saints, to live holy lives, and at 19 she did that in remarkably less time than it will take most of us.”
Angela's father later told a group of survival leaders that “the purpose of suffering is to soften our hearts.”
Indeed, it seems Angela's heroic response to her last agony was the fruit of a developed habit of embracing little daily sufferings and offering them to Christ with joy.
Karen Walker is based in Corona Del Mar, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: As she lay dying after a tragic hiking accident, Angela Baird's ability to draw on her faith left a lasting impression on those around her ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karen Walker ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Inside the Mind of an Abortion Provider DATE: 11/30/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 30-December 6, 1997 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—In a talk that bordered on begging sympathy for the devil, a former abortion nurse Joan Appleton told a gathering of New York City pro-life activists to “adopt” abortionists in an attempt to bring about their conversion through prayer, correspondence, and friendship.
The main reason abortion doctors and clinic employees remain in the business, even after they have become disgusted with the practice, is the fear of being rejected by their pro-abortion friends and reviled by pro-lifers whom they seek to join, said the nurse. She spoke at a “Meet The Abortion Providers” conference, which also featured former abortionists Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Dr. Anthony Levatino. Both doctors told of dramatic events that turned their minds and hearts to the pro-life camp and keep them speaking out and working for the cause.
The conference, held Nov. 15 in Holy Innocents Church in Manhattan's Garment District, was sponsored by the Pro-Life Action League, headed by Joe Scheidler, who organized five previous events with former abortionists in Chicago. The local sponsor was the Legal Center for Defense of Life, directed by Christopher Slattery, who operates two crisis pregnancy centers in New York. The all-day event attracted more than 160 people, most of them active as sidewalk counselors, prayer supporters, or past participants in Operation Rescue.
More than a dozen screaming pro-abortion demonstrators marched in front of the church for two hours in the morning, carrying signs and hurling insults at anyone passing by. It was standard fare though, for savvy New York pro-lifers.
A New Abortion Era
Nathanson predicted that a generic version of the RU-486 abortion pill will be approved for medical use by this time next year and will radically change the nature of the abortion controversy. The site of abortion will move from free-standing clinics to the private offices of doctors, he noted, and the number of abortion providers will skyrocket as doctors who refuse to use invasive methods will readily write a prescription for abortion drugs.
In an effort to make abortion doctors more accountable, Nathanson is lobbying the Federal Drug Administration to classify abortion drugs under Schedule 2 prescriptions, which must be written on a triplicate form and reported to the government. Otherwise, he said, the abortion industry will become even more unregulated than it is and medical data on fetal deaths and side effects on women will be difficult to gather.
Levatino performed some 2,000 abortions in an upstate New York facility but never saw the humanity of the babies until a child he and his wife had adopted was killed in a car accident. Afterward, while reassembling the parts of an aborted baby to be sure the procedure was complete, he imagined the face of his departed daughter and vowed never to perform another late-term abortion. Later, he renounced all abortions on the urging of his wife, Cecelia, a nurse who had always been against abortion.
He said he performed abortions willingly because he saw the procedure as a great service to women and society. He approached abortion as he would any “family planning” operation such as tubal ligations or vasectomies. The “choice” of the person was paramount in his mind, he said. Yet when he and his wife failed to conceive a child after years of marriage, and desired to adopt, his thoughts about unborn babies slowly began to change.
“Here I was, killing the babies of these women by day, and at night I'd rush home to my wife and make phone calls trying frantically to locate a mother who was looking for an adopting couple,” he said. “I began to see the irony of the situation, but even then it didn't get me to stop doing abortions.”
Part of his blindness to the unborn was self interest, he admitted.
“I was afraid of losing the income, and of what my colleagues would say.”
'Adopting'an Abortionist
Joan Appleton plans to start a program for former abortion workers next year. She said that if abortion workers know that they will be helped and accepted by pro-lifers, they will leave the industry. The former abortion nurse gave two presentations. One was a dramatic portrayal of her conversion, in which she and pro-lifer Debra Braun read from letters they had written to each other during a five-year period. Braun had “adopted” and later befriended Appleton, who at the time was head nurse at Commonwealth Clinic outside Washington, D.C.
Readings from the letters showed that Appleton slowly struggled with her radical feminist views and her role in 2,000 abortions a year, and that Braun remained charitable and non-judgmental while condemning abortion in the strongest terms. Their friendship grew so close that on the morning of an Operation Rescue action in 1989, the abortion nurse drove the pro-life activist to the sidewalk in front of the clinic before walking across the parking lot to plan defenses against the rescuers.
During one rescue, Appleton confessed, she shamelessly staged a scene to win the sympathy of the press and the public. Knowing that no abortion-bound women would be able to get through the Operation Rescue lines, Appleton called the local National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter and asked officials to send a group of young women to the clinic in a car. The car was blocked in the clinic parking lot by the rescuers and the women made a loud scene as they got out of the car and fell over the bodies of the peaceful demonstrators. Camera crews eagerly filmed the incident, which was flashed across the nation's TV screens that evening as evidence of dangerous pro-life tactics. The same footage was later used in a court case that created a 15-foot bubble zone around a clinic entrance, Appleton said.
In another talk Appleton challenged pro-life advocates to “adopt” an abortionist and keep after him as Braun had done in her case. Prayer outside an abortion facility can be effective for the unborn baby even if the child in the womb is not saved, she said. By being present, pro-lifers bestow a gift of love upon the children and do them justice by recognizing their value and humanity.
Scheidler touched on the same theme in a brief talk. Calling the abortion facility a modern day Calvary, he said “Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and John the Apostle didn't go to Calvary to save Jesus from Crucifixion. They went as witnesses against the injustice.”
He said that, hard as it is to believe at times, abortionists do have souls and consciences. If pro-lifers think that they do not they dehumanize the abortionists and make their conversion more difficult.
Breaking Ties with the Trade
Appleton left abortion practice in 1989, mainly through the prayers and friendship of Braun. She cut the strings with the radical feminist movement that year when she was keynote speaker at a Washington NOWconvention. She began her talk by announcing that she could no longer assist in abortion because she believed that the procedure actually hurt women, and she could no longer belong to an organization that promoted abortion as a social good. The microphone was promptly taken from her by a NOWofficial and she was asked to leave the meeting. It was then that she realized how unforgiving the pro-abortion movement is.
“I lost all my friends,” she said.
Appleton is a member of the Society of Centurions, for former abortion clinic employees who wish to proclaim the humanity of the unborn. The society is named after the soldier at the foot of the Cross who recognized Jesus as the Son of God. Members go through an intensive period of reflection and remembering and are urged not only to repent of their sin of abortion but to go the extra step and make reparation by speaking about the horror, donating time and money to pregnancy centers, or praying outside clinics.
One exercise Appleton performed requires a participant to imagine himself as a baby in the womb with a sense of euphoria, then imagine that a suction machine enters to destroy the calm world and pull his body limb from limb. The practice sounds harsh, she explained, but it is part of coming to terms with the depth of the destruction involved in abortion.
Appleton's daily exercise is to draw a picture of a child, give the child a name and pray that God will take this child quickly into heaven. It is a way of bestowing humanity on the child and recovering her own humanity. To assist in thousands of abortions, said Appleton, she had to dehumanize the babies, the women seeking abortion, and herself. The process of regaining a sense of humanity and of belonging to the human race can be long and difficult, she explained.
Much is done today for women with post-abortion syndrome, she noted, but the problems of a person who has left the industry are rarely recognized. After giving up abortion she fell into depression, tried alcohol and drugs, and attempted suicide before seeking help. Many former abortionists go through the same cycle, she stated. The Centurions are there to help them make the transition from the vicious world of abortion to normal medical practice.
Dr. Marie Peeters Ney, a Canadian physician who works with the Centurions, gave a presentation on what abortion does to the medical industry and society.
Now that a whole generation has grown up under abortion on demand, the medical profession is beginning to see a version of “survivor's syndrome,” she said. Countless young people have grown up in families in which a brother or sister was aborted and the surviving siblings are struck with a “why-not-me” guilt complex comparable to that experienced by Nazi Holocaust survivors, or those who live through an accident that killed others. Children of a mother who has gone through abortion will feel insecure, unloved, and displaced, she said. They always will be haunted with the feeling that their mothers are willing to kill to get what they want.
The medical industry has been corrupted by the practice and acceptance of abortion, said Ney, and the profession has returned morally to pre-Hippocratic Oath days, when a doctor was as likely to intend harm as healing. The Hippocratic Oath has been rewritten to exclude abortion and the whole language of medicine has been nuanced to hide the slaughter of millions of innocent human beings. Doctors know from a simple study of biology that life begins at conception, she said; efforts to deny this have led to a pattern of denial and dishonesty among physicians, scientists, and researchers. The practice of changing the language to support a desired result has invaded medical research to a frightening degree, she said. Researches think nothing of “cooking” the data to fit their theories-and medical research has become more political than scientific, she concluded
Slattery, the conference's cosponsor, told the Register that with the impending approval of RU-486, pro-life methods must be expanded. The success of the movement must begin to be measured not only in congressional votes and the change of laws, but in the conversion of hearts. The latter will come about through loving, prayerful action, sacrifice, and fasting. Significant legal and political progress will only come about by a widespread conversion, he said.
Brian Caulfield is based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: A New York City conference offers a glance at the thinking-or lack thereof- of doctors and nurses formerly involved in the practice ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: John Paul II Energizes Italian Eucharistic Congress DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Bob Dylan, a new Catholic think tank, and twin killer earthquakes mark an eventful eight-day festival attended by hundreds of thousands
BOLOGNA, Italy—Church bells rang from every steeple in the Archdiocese of Bologna to mark the start of Italy's 23rd national Eucharistic Congress. The week long gathering Sept. 20-28 was aimed at fostering devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and was capped with a visit by Pope John Paul II.
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, archbishop of Bologna, opened the festivities with a ceremony in the city's medieval square. Christ is “the only answer to the constant yearnings deep within the human heart,” he told the thousands of faithful gathered in the noonday sunshine.
“As Catholics, the world's emptiness and illusions must not contaminate us. We must find our strength in Christ Jesus and in the Gospel,” he said.
That evening, a torch-lit eucharistic procession moved through Bologna's cobblestone streets, winding its way to the Cathedral of St. Peter for the start of perpetual adoration that continued for the duration of the nine-day Eucharistic Congress.
Events throughout the week included conferences and conventions, round-table discussion groups, sporting events, and theater presentations. Tens of thousands of people from parishes and associations throughout Italy participated, including delegates representing the Charismatic Renewal, the Focolare movement, the Cursillos program, and the Neocatechumenate.
Each day's schedule had a different focus: youth, sports, education, vocations, missions, suffering, and the family. The atmosphere was decidedly festive, with notable Italian business leaders, sports figures, social activists, and religious leaders testifying to their Catholic faith.
A leading organizer of the event said the Eucharistic Congress tied-in with Church preparations for the year 2000, and was “a first step” toward the third Christian millennium.
The theme of the Eucharistic Congress, “Jesus Christ, our only Savior, Yesterday, Today, and Always” is the same theme the entire Church is meditating upon for 1997, Father Amilcare Zuffi, secretary for the Eucharistic Congress, told the Register.
“This year is dedicated to the rediscovery of Christ the Savior and of evangelization—the profound conviction of the necessity of faith in him for salvation,” he said.
Through the Eucharist believers are “nourished and strengthened,” Father Zuffi said, to accompany others along the journey of faith. “We are all called to be missionaries—to help our brothers and sisters open their minds and hearts to him who has the words of eternal life.”
One memorable event took place early into the Congress, whenaletter addressed to Cardinal Biffi arrived from Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She wrote him the day before her death to thank him for inaugurating a house of the Missionaries of Charity within the Bologna archdiocese. Her letter also contained her prayers for the success of the national Eucharistic Congress.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also took part in the events and made an important appeal for the Catholic missions.
“All Christians must announce the truth revealed by Christ, whether we travel to a far-off land or do so within our own neighborhoods,” he said. “Christ calls us to make him known in the world, so that others may have the possibility to choose the Christian journey of faith.”
Cardinal Ratzinger said that missionary fervor has been declining within the Church due to the influence of modern skepticism. He also noted that other missionary activity—most notably among Islamic creeds—is advancing in the world.
Halfway through the Eucharistic Congress, twin earthquakes rocked central Italy leaving 11 people dead and some 5,000 homeless. Many pilgrims who had traveled to the northern Italian city of Bologna frantically tried to contact relatives and loved ones following the disaster. They offered prayers in city churches for victims of the quakes and collected money to help with relief efforts.
Pope John Paul II arrived in Bologna the following day, and his first appeal was for national solidarity in the face of the tragedy.
“May you be united in this difficult moment of suffering and trial,” he said in his opening address. “I express deep condolences for the victims and I join in the pain of their families.”
The earthquakes struck the central Umbria and Marche regions but were felt as far away as Rome. Dozens of smaller tremors followed for the next two days. The most serious damage to the country's vast religious and cultural treasures happened in the hill town of Assisi. Two large parts of the frescoed ceiling of the Basilica of St. Francis came crashing down, killing 4 people.
Pope John Paul sent a representative to Assisi to preside at a funeral Mass on his behalf.
The Pope's varied weekend schedule at the Eucharistic Congress included a beatification liturgy, a youth rally-rock concert, a private meeting with cloistered nuns, and an open-air Mass for more than a quarter-million people.
During the celebration of Evening Prayer, he beatified an 18th-century Italian priest. The Pope praised Bl. Bartholomew Maria dal Monte for his missionary zeal in spreading the Gospel throughout Italy.
That night at an outdoor concert, folk-rock legend Bob Dylan performed for the Pope and several hundred thousand young people. For many, it was a concert made in heaven, with their spiritual leader and musical idol together on the same stage.
The Pope seemed to enjoy the evening's program, which also featured a roster of Italian pop singers and the Harlem (N.Y.) Gospel Singers. And when he spoke to the sea of young people, the Pontiff used a classic Dylan song, Blowing in the Wind to make his point.
The answer, he said, is indeed blowing in the wind, “the wind that is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says ‘come!’”
“You've asked me: ‘How many roads must a man walk down before he becomes a man,’” he continued, still quoting from the song.
“I answer you: One! There is only one road for man and it is Christ, who said ‘I am the life.’”
Yet the Pope's strongest message came the following morning during Sunday Mass. In his homily, he likened abortion to the killing of millions of people by totalitarian regimes during the 20th century.
“Millions of human lives have been sacrificed this century in the name of totalitarian ideologies and lies,” he said. “In the name of free choice, called ‘freedom,’ innocent human beings who are not yet born continue to be suppressed.”
The Pope, who lived through both the Nazi and communist regimes that ravaged his native Poland, said the century drawing to a close had been marked by numerous “dark shadows.”
Nevertheless, he said the 20th century “has preserved the faith of the Apostles,” and he called on all believers to dedicate themselves “to the defense of human life—the most fundamental of all human rights.”
Organizers of the Eucharistic Congress hailed it as a stunning success, pointing to the huge number of pilgrims who attended and the wide media attention given to the event. They also pointed to the inauguration of a Catholic cultural center in Bologna as a symbol the week-long Eucharistic Congress would have a lasting impact.
The Veritatis Splendor Cultural Center in the heart of the city was named in honor of the 1994 landmark encyclical (The Splendor of Truth) by Pope John Paul II. It will house a Catholic library and study center, and will serve as a leading Catholic think-tank in Italy—specializing in the study of philosophy, bioethics, and social economics.
Stephen Banyra is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In a Brave New World, Priests Need Grounding In Theology and Bioethics DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:ROME—Sterilization, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, family planning, artificial insemination, and cloning are no longer terms that are limited to specialists in the realms of medicine and science.
The rapid advance of biotechnology often leads to public confusion about what is really at stake when science moves forward. With each new discovery, the line between right and wrong seems to become more blurred. Generally, the debate pits two opposing schools of thought against each other: those who, in the name of scientific progress, claim absolute freedom in applying certain technologies, and those, most notably the Catholic Church, who instead, insist on respect for the human person and the sanctity of life as a starting point for the discussion.
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II wrote: “[A]ll that we do as the ‘people of life and for life’ should be interpreted correctly and welcomed with favor. When the Church declares that unconditional respect for the right to life of every innocent person—from conception to natural death—is one of the pillars on which every civil society stands, she ‘wants simply to promote a human state. A state which recognizes the defense of the fundamental rights of the human person, especially of the weakest, as its primary duty’ (101).
A better understanding of ethical issues connected with the development of new biotechnologies was the focus of a recent conference sponsored by two Rome-based institutions. The Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum and the Institute of Bioethics of the Catholic University Sacro Cuore conducted the second annual convention “Bioethics for Priests” Sept. 14 to 19 in Rome. Among the participants were 80 priests and three bishops from five continents—Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The objective of the conference was to overcome the rigidity that has characterized the bioethics debate. Sponsors said the conference was not focused on using teachings as a shield against criticism nor to criticize more libertarian views on the issues. Instead, ways of bringing magisterial teachings to the pastoral level were explored, including developing a fruitful dialogue between the faithful, and doctors and scientists.
Professor Janet Smith, who teaches philosophy at the University of Dallas, in Irving, Texas, treated the theme of new family paradigms. “During the international conferences organized by the United Nations in Cairo, Beijing, and Istanbul,” she explained, “the United States and Western countries sought to convince the other delegates to adopt the sexual mores and family lifestyles of the West. Furthermore, programs of population control were imposed on developing countries. But are we really sure that this is the most advanced model of the family in the world?
“If we examine the results of this lifestyle,” Smith continued, “characterized by maximal sexual liberty, relationships conducted without responsibility, the spread of contraceptives to the extent that the right to procreation is denied, etc., we see that the familial institution is destroyed. There has never been as high an incidence of divorce as there is now. In the United States, an entire generation of children is growing up educated in single-parent families.”
Smith said that according to child-care experts, children who grow up in single-parent families are more likely to experience sexual abuse, to commit crimes, and to become divorced themselves when they get married. From a statistical point of view, 6 percent of children were born into single-parent families in the ‘60s. Today that figure is 31 percent.
Smith quoted Stanford University economist Robert Michael saying that “the increase in the use contraceptives is the principal cause in the increase of divorce.”
“From his studies we see that the percentages of divorces doubled in the decade 1965-1975, in the same period when the spread of contraceptives was the greatest. Professor Michael attributes 45 percent of the increase of divorces to the spread of contraceptives.”
Smith said she believed “that this is due to the fact that the mentality associated with the use of contraceptives in premarital relationships is contrary to the aims and principles of marriage. Having sexual relationships with birth control is a very bad preparation for matrimony. For these reasons I believe that what the Catholic Church maintains with regard to the defense and reinforcement of the family is much better than the United Nations’ position.”
Father Gonzalo Miranda LC, a Spanish professor of bioethics and moral theology at the sponsoring institutions, emphasized the importance of “the study of anthropology about sexuality—especially regarding many of today's problems in bioethics. However, we must deepen the human value of sexuality. Sexuality is not limited to the corporeal sphere. Sexuality pertains to mankind; it belongs to the category of being, not having, and it is a means of existing as a person. When we do not take account of the ethical dimensions of sexuality, we are aiding disorderly behavior. There is news every day about incidents of egoism, tension, litigation, abuse, violence, and even death because of sex.”
Father Miranda then treated the question of chastity. “Unfortunately there is often a reductive and purely negative vision of the virtue of chastity. We should correctly understand chastity as an eminently positive and deeply human virtue. The chaste person knows how to moderate his sexual tendencies for the good of the whole. Seen as such, chastity is nothing other than an expression of the greatness of humanity, the ability to control our tendencies and actions and to live in a full, joyful way, in the midst of a thousand daily difficulties—this is the stupendous and dramatic dimension we call sexuality.”
Regarding technology for artificial procreation that offends human dignity, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, director of the Institute of Bioethics of the Catholic University Sacro Cuore said:
“More than half a century has passed from the first artificial insemination in Italy, and 19 years have passed since the birth of the first test tube baby. Ten years ago the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published Donum Vitae, which in the name of Catholic teaching re-expressed the refutation of artificial procreation technologies. The new technologies for human reproduction constitute a violence against women whose bodies are used as laboratories and as new fields for experimentation.”
Bishop Sgreccia clearly confirmed that the Church “intends to safeguard the full dignity of the human embryo and indeed the dignity of the whole person. It is a matter of avoiding the return of the time of Kronos, (a pagan God—Saturn in Roman mythology—who killed his first five children in reaction to an oracle's warning that one would overthrow his rule) who devoured his own children. Our pledge is to protect the unity of the bonds of parenthood in a society that always lacks such bonds and that seeks to weaken the monogamous family. We want to ensure that the act of procreation is maintained at a level worthy of humanity, rich in spirituality and safeguarded from manipulative and transforming domination.”
Among the participants of the convention, the denunciation by an Italian missionary in Kenya, Father Giovanni Tortalla of the Cottolengo order, surprised those attending the conference when he reported how the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were pressuring local governments to adopt radical plans of population control. Kenya was becoming blackmailed, he contended, by being promised funding for a national sanitation program only if they accept a program of population control.
Those in attendance left the conference with a sense that priests must not only be versed in theology, but should stay abreast of the most recent scientific discoveries.
Antonio Gaspari is based in Rome
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Antonio Gaspari ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Polish Church's Low Key Approach Bears Fruit in Elections DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY: -----WARSAW, Poland—When it comes to spotting talent, the Catholic Church can count on people like Tomasz Welnicki. Though trained as a lawyer, he switched to Catholic journalism under communist rule in the early ‘80s, and within six years had become a full-time Polish correspondent for Vatican Radio.
A year ago, Welnicki helped make the Polish Church the first in Europe to set up a high-tech inter-diocesan computer network. Now 39, he is also a council member of KAI, Eastern Europe's largest Catholic information agency, and is one of a rising generation of articulate lay Catholics whose skills will be much in demand in years to come.
Sept. 21, those skills took on a new complexion when the journalist gained a seat in Poland's fourth post-communist parliamentary election for Solidarity Electoral Action, the opposition coalition known by its Polish initials AWS.
The scale of the AWS's victory—taking 33.8 percent against the 27.1 percent gained by the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)—was unexpected, and suggested a last-minute change of mind by many disillusioned voters.
That was a personal triumph for its leader, Marian Krzaklewski, who took over as leader of the Solidarity union from Lech Walesa in 1990, and succeeded where others failed in rallying an alliance of once-divided groups and factions.
As a coalition, the AWS must tread carefully. Though united by a desire to oust the ex-communists who dominate the SLD, not all its members are sympathetic to the Church, and not all share the same enthusiasm for a traditional Catholic society.
But the AWS's program draws heavily on the Church's social teaching. It declares natural law, including the right to life—from conception to natural death-to be Poland's “basic order,” and pledges to ensure a free state open to “patriotic and Christian values.”
Added to this, its social policy is based on the Vatican's Family Rights Charter: it will include setting up a parliamentary family commission, a “pro-family tax policy,” and more state help for single mothers and large families.
With pledges like that, the AWS has been seen as the Church's natural choice. Many bishops and priests said publicly after the election that they had voted for it. Its decisive victory, after four years of ex-communist rule, has raised great hopes.
In September 1993, when the SLD rode to election victory on a wave of poverty and frustration, the Church's blueprint for Catholic state and society ran up against serious obstacles.
They were reinforced still further in November 1995 when Aleksander Kwasniewski's triumph over Lech Walesa in Poland's presidential election placed state, government, and parliament under SLD control.
Since then, virtually every area of Church life has been subject to bitter dispute—from abortion and sex education, to Catholic media and tax exemptions. Against this background, the country's Catholic bishops have made no secret of their opposition.
In November 1996, they accused the SLD of risking “tensions and social conflicts,” by “persistently resorting to totalitarian state practices in which party membership is more important than honesty and personal competence.”
In a communiqué this August, they again accused SLD politicians of allowing “party alliances” to take precedence over “concern for the common good and respect for elementary democratic principles.”
Yet working out how to confront the ex-communists successfully has taken time.
During Poland's 1993 and 1995 elections, evidence suggested that, far from shying away from disputes with the Church, ex-communist politicians used Church hostility to unify the SLD's 30-odd component groups and portray themselves as Westernizers and modernizers.
Though up to 98 percent of Poland's 38 million citizens identify themselves as Catholics, opinion surveys indicate most prefer Church leaders to keep their distance from party politics.
When a referendum was called on Poland's new constitution last May, Church leaders urged citizens to reject a document they believed lacked clear values.
But only 40 percent of Poles bothered to vote at all, and those who did narrowly supported it—a key setback that deepened Poland's political rifts and brought tensions in the Church to the surface.
This may explain why, with a new election pending, SLD politicians appeared ready to inflame rather than calm tensions with the Church this summer.
On Aug. 1, ex-communist members of Poland's Sejm lower house voted to bar religious teaching from kindergartens and school reports.
The Senate vetoed the decision, and the Sejm subsequently upheld the veto Aug. 28. However, the lower house's legislative commission called on members of parliament the same day to defend the late 1996 liberalization of Poland's abortion law by staging a fresh debate.
Preaching to 200,000 Catholic pilgrims on the Aug. 26 feast of Our Lady of Jasna Gora, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, archbishop of Warsaw, accused parliamentarians of “wasting time, money, and paper,” and charged the SLD-led government of “attempting to instill atheism” as “the only value for a common Europe.”
When it came to hinting at their electoral preferences, however, most Polish bishops backed off. With Church interests certain to be vitally affected, the election's moral parameters were clearly spelled out.
“As pastors faithful to Second Vatican Council teaching, we do not wish to link the Church's mission with any concrete party,” the bishops’ conference noted in its August communiqué.
“However, it is not a matter of indifference that certain groups identify with Catholic social teaching in their programs, whereas others reject its principles and Christian values.”
Some observers think the Church's aloof stance was determined by the Pope's avoidance of political accents during his 10-day May-June pilgrimage.
“John Paul II showed fellow Poles how to speak about important questions without aggressive insults and accusations,” said Polish bishops’ conference secretary-general Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek.
“This seems to have struck a deeper chord than was visible on the surface. It also effected the election result by helping people reflect more deeply about their attitude to public issues.”
Andrzej Celinski, a long-standing independent Polish senator, agrees.
“The Pope's warm, folksy style called in question the confrontational attitudes of the past and showed that values could be presented and defended in other ways too,” Celinski told the Register.
“With the negative experience of previous elections behind them, Church leaders restrained the more militant local priests, and tried, with considerable success, to intensify other forms of influence.”
Luckily for the Church and AWS, the election campaign also brought a chain of political disasters and miscalculations for the SLD.
When epic floods hit southern Poland in early summer, the government was accused of ignoring the needs of the worst affected, and over-centralizing relief efforts at the cost of local charity and council initiatives.
Meanwhile, mid-1997 SLD plans to nominate new state TV and radio controllers, and appoint extra constitutional court judges, were exposed as a crude attempt to institutionalize ex-communist power. Voters also disliked the SLD's election campaign, which was characterized by personal attacks on AWS leaders.
“The SLD lost most of all because it followed the same tactic of aggression as the right in 1993. People don't like this—it isn't the kind of language they want to hear,” Bishop Pieronek said.
“These elections show society is maturing in its attitude to democracy. So is the consciousness that we need to take responsibility.”
Like others, Bishop Pieronek sees signs of evolution in the attitude of Catholic priests and bishops to national politics, towards a sharper grasp of how to influence opinion in a democratic, pluralistic environment, and how to win benefits for the Church and Christian life in ways that don't involve crippling conflicts.
As one immediate prize, the AWS has promised to seek immediate ratification of Poland's stalled My 1993 concordat with the Vatican, whose 29 articles will give treaty-level protection to the Church's domestic rights.
Some AWS politicians have said they'll also seek a new tightening of the country's abortion law, whose 1996 liberalization reintroduced the right to terminations for women citing “burdensome living conditions.”
Just when these steps may be taken remains to be seen.
Election figures indicate AWS support is evenly balanced between age-groups, educational levels, and city and village inhabitants. But it's also heavily concentrated in Poland's more traditional eastern and southern regions—a pattern repeated from previous elections—with both the AWS and SLD taking 26 counties each.
Meanwhile, after an election turnout of less than half of the eligible voters, the AWS's share of votes represents only a sixth of the Polish population. It was separated from the SLD's, furthermore, by just 900,000 votes—not enough to claim a decisive or permanent swing in the public mood.
The Sept. 21 election confirms, however, that Poland is now dominated by center-right and center-left forces, whose practical decisions are likely to be guided increasingly by political rather than ideological considerations. That's a development that can only work to the Church's advantage.
“Having won power, the AWS now faces the challenge of keeping it at a time when tough economic decisions are needed and much of society is restless,” said Andrzej Celinski.
“If this election has shown one thing, it's that Poland is a normal country, capable of maintaining a sensible balance between conflicting interests and priorities.”
Tomasz Welnicki, the Catholic journalist-turned-member of parliament agrees. He thinks the AWS's key task now is to form a strong government, which can act quickly to keep its promises and demonstrate its respect for national interests and traditions.
Above all, though, it must hold together: Polish society won't tolerate a formation that claims to be working for it but can't stay united.
“Poland still has a chance to become a just, secure state, whose citizens don't have to be afraid or ashamed of those holding power,” Welnicki told KAI colleagues after the election.
“I think we've learned now that people must be respected, and have understood that an arrogant state leadership, which lacks their support, lasts only briefly.”
Jonathan Luxmoore, the Register's Eastern Europe correspondent is based in Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmooer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Washington, Activists Cheer Poland's Return to Solidarity DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON-Solidarity is back.
Four years after an almost unimaginable defeat, in which Polish President Lech Walesa lost his job to former communist Aleksander Kwasniewski, a new Christian democratic coalition, mobilized by Walesa's trade union successors, unexpectedly won Poland's parliamentary elections Sept. 21.
Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) won 34.7 percent of the vote, while the governing party's Democratic Left Alliance received 26.8 percent. Pre-election polls had predicted a dead heat.
Although the Catholic Church did not officially endorse AWS, the coalition and its president, 47-year-old Marian Krzaklewski (kuh-zhak-LEV-ski), championed Catholic issues and concerns and was tacitly supported by Church leadership, including the archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Jozef Glemp.
During the campaign, Krzaklewski called a new Polish constitution “godless,” in part because it does not ban abortion. He spoke of protecting the Catholic Church's central role in national life—and his political platform's principal plank is a pro-family policy to help families with young children.
“We're jubilant,” exclaimed Michael Szporer, a Polish-American Solidarity activist based in Washington, D.C., who helped organize Krzaklewski's May 1997 visit to the United States.
“This election proves that Solidarity remains the guarantor of democracy in Poland. Marian Krzaklewski has built a modern Christian democratic political party based in the union but much broader. It's a real [grassroots] coalition,” he explained.
Among the smaller political parties composing AWS is the Party for Catholic Families, according to Tad Meus, spokesman for the Foundation for Free Speech, a pro-Solidarity nonprofit organization based in Chicago.
“The full support of the Catholic Church was behind AWS, so most political parties with Catholic ties are part of AWS too. AWS won big in American cities like Chicago, New York, and Washington where Polish-Americans could vote in the [Polish] election,” said Meus.
“Most Polish-Americans are strong anti-communists and that is what AWS is—a Solidarity party, and a Christian party that opposes the return of communist interests,” he added.
Many credit Krzaklewski as the force behind AWS's unexpected victory. A computer scientist who became president of the Solidarity trade union movement when Walesa was elected president of the nation in 1990, Krzaklewski is known for being extremely organized and for his devout Catholicism. His recent triumph stems from his ability to build unity, overcoming Solidarity's tendency to let internal disputes cripple electoral performance as happened in 1993.
Observed Szporer: “Marian Krzaklewski is part of a new wave of politicians. He reflects the future. While Walesa came out of the shipyards, Krzaklewski's professional union is at the National Academy of Sciences—a union he organized in the 1960s. When he was here in May, he told us that some AWS decisions are computerized. They have some kind of logarithm to weigh, or adjust for, the power each party in the coalition represents.”
Szporer said there was little assistance outside of Poland for the AWS electoral effort. “When Marian Krzaklewski came to the United States this year he was sponsored by the Polish-American Foundation for Free Speech. He spoke to leaders of the Polish-American Congress. Other American groups weren't involved. Pulling together his visit to Washington, D.C. was a real arduous task, because Solidarity was seen as the opposition.”
That was in marked contrast to the 1980s when Americans clamored to hear Walesa speak and American organizations like the AFL-CIO were quick to claim credit for Solidarity's stunning defeat of communism.
In fact, Solidarity—and by extension, AWS—have grown beyond the influence of outside forces like the AFL-ClO as was made clear at a seminar last month on labor unions and social justice at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
Marek Kempski, a young Solidarity leader, presented a review of its current status and Poland's political scene. He was challenged by Paul Somogyi, an AFL-CIO representative, who seemed upset that Solidarity was charting its own future—including the decision to create an electoral coalition with a Christian democratic orientation.
“Solidarity has blindly followed the promise of the market, and followed shock therapy without getting anything back,” declared Somogyi, who also criticized the union for being “sacrificed as a training ground for the political leadership of Poland.”
Kempski reminded his opponent that Solidarity functions as a moral authority in Polish society, meaning that it has responsibility to the nation beyond the average trade union. He also explained that the history of the trade union and its relationship to the Catholic Church are thoroughly intertwined.
“Our activities are based on Christian values,” he explained; “and if we talk about the relationship with the Holy Father, it is Marian Krzaklewski who visits the Pope more often than other Polish politicians. Last year, we had a special pilgrimage of Polish trade unionists to Rome and 10,000 members participated. Our meeting took place in St. Paul's Cathedral. That's who we are.”
An observer of the exchange, who asked not to be named, explained that the AFL-CIO has a strong social democratic orientation and is a leader of the Socialist International. As such, it is ideologically antagonistic to Solidarity's new political manifestation as a Christian democratic party.
Kempski outlined two priorities for a new government led by AWS. First, to continue privatization in a way that minimizes the pain experienced by workers in heavy industry and, second, to promote decentralization of the state.
He also warned that forming a governing coalition might be difficult.
Indeed, the challenge currently at hand for AWS is to create a governing coalition with smaller parties. Possible coalition partners include Freedom Union (UW), dominated by politically active intellectuals with ties to the West, which won 14 percent-although Krzaklewski announced in mid-September that he did not favor allying with UW, which has been known to portray Walesa as a “nationalist”—or the Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland (POP), which received 6 percent.
The composition of the governing coalition should be announced in the next few weeks.
Victor Gaetan is based Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Victor Gaetan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Pizza Mogul Gets His Priorities Straight DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Current post: Founder and president of Domino's Pizza with 5,800 stores in more than 50 countries worldwide; founder and chairman of Legatus, a nationwide organization of Catholic businessmen.
Background: Raised in an orphanage for six and a half years; former U.S. Marine; owned the Detroit Tigers baseball team when they won the World Series in 1984; sponsor of the 1991 Indianapolis 500 winner, team Shierson with driver Arie Luyendyk.
Vision: To achieve excellence in business; to help Catholics be better Catholics.
Domino's Founder Tom Monaghan on the travails of being a good Catholic businessman
From a childhood of poverty, Tom Monaghan rose to the top of the pizza delivery business through a passion for innovation and excellence. At first he thought of becoming a priest, then an architect, but when he could not afford to pay for university studies he joined the Marines. At age 23 he opened a pizza shop in Ypsilanti, Mich., with his brother who soon pulled out of the venture. The business has since grown into a global empire with sales of $2.8 billion in 1996. During the ‘80s and ‘90s Monaghan became a major participant in Catholic works from Latin American missions, to Legatus, an organizationfor Catholic businessmen, to new ventures in Catholic schools and media. He recently spoke with Register assistant editor Gerry Rauch from his office in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Rauch: You are best known as the founder of Domino's Pizza. In fact, you've made Domino's a household word. What's the story behind it all?
Monaghan: I'll try to give you a capsule kind of history. Domino's started in 1960 with one store. We didn't do very well at first. But then it took off after eight, nine months. I took on a partner, but it didn't work out. Then I got on my own in 1965, and changed the name to Domino's, and adopted the symbol with the domino logo.
And we pioneered a lot of innovative things. I was very caught up in all of this. I was excited about it. But then I got into thinking nationally, put together some big plans, took off on a big expansion program, and got into franchising.
And I fell flat on my face, and lost control. I tried to go from an entrepreneurial type of business to a professional type of business overnight by listening to all the experts. I think we had 44 stores when it fell apart.
You mean you went bankrupt?
No, not bankruptcy. The bank talked me into turning over controlling interest to them, and they were going to bring in a so-called expert to run it. After about 10 months of really messing it up, they handed it back to me.
I got it back with a federal class action antitrust suit on my hands, and all the creditors mad because during that 10-month period they just weren't that ethical. They upset the franchisees, they upset the suppliers, and the customers to some degree.
I know you think of the golden rule as the guiding principle for the company. So, it sounds like, during that time, that was not what they were doing.
No, and it confirmed my philosophy of the golden rule.
Over a period of a couple of years of working seven days a week, day and night, we got the debt down, and about May of ‘73, we had about 40 some stores again in a viable situation. Then we got hit with a lawsuit from Domino's sugar. That set us back. We didn't resolve that issue until 1980.
But, by that time, we were still growing. We got up to about 200 stores. When that lawsuit and some other problems were behind us, we took off. We hit 5,000 stores about 1990. In ‘80, we had 300 and some. So, the growth rate was phenomenal.
In ‘83, I bought the [Detroit] Tigers. In ‘85, we moved into our current headquarters.
That was a big growth period.
Yes. Everything seemed to be clicking. I started getting into a lot of trappings of success. The lodge up north took a massive infusion of capital. The airplanes, and the boats, and the Frank Lloyd Wright collection, and the car collection, and additions onto our building, and buying more land around it.
And that's Domino's up to that point. And then there's the spiritual aspect. I was trying to grow my faith life. I had always been a practicing Catholic—going to Mass on Sundays and doing the minimal things you had to do to stay in sanctifying grace and keep it there.
So, up to that point you see yourself as having been a minimal Catholic?
Yes. I would say staying in sanctifying grace would be a minimal Catholic. Some people would interpret it differently. But, that was my definition of minimal.
And then, in 1984, I started going to Mass every day after hearing that [former coach of the Miami Dolphins] Don Shula went to Mass every day. And then not too long after that, one of the ser-monettes by [my pastor] Father Robert Lunsford was on how Mary, in one appearance after another, stressed saying the rosary. That struck me as something that Mary wants. It must be important or she wouldn't be going to all that trouble to get the point across. I figured that the least I could do is spend 15 minutes saying the rosary every day.
Then, I got involved in the Knights of Columbus. I got very active for about a year. And I enjoyed it. I knew I was doing something for the Church.
Then somewhere in there, I got involved in the missions, but that was not until about ‘84 or ‘85 in Honduras. That was certainly very rewarding. I thought I was really doing something that God meant for me to do.
What exactly did you do in Honduras?
I went down there every three months or so and basically funded Father Enrique Silvestre [a village parish priest] and came up with ideas for think I enjoyed the combination of the ideas, and then having a little money to put with it to give it synergy.
Then you started to think that maybe you should be doing something like that full time?
Yes. The thing that changed for me came when I read [C.S. Lewis's] Mere Christianity, the chapter on pride.
Then, I decided that all these airplanes and boats, and the lodge, and the big buildings and everything were a lot of ego. I seemed to remember everything I ever did in my life that was along those lines [of pride], including things up until that time that I thought were virtues—working hard, trying to get somewhere, playing hard in sports.
So, that's when I took my million-aire's vow of poverty. I decided to give up the toys and the things that were meant to impress people, or even would appear to impress people-no airplanes, no yachts, no lodges, no second homes in the resort areas. I gave up the big house I was building which was way more than I needed.
Do you see spiritual fruit from that vow of poverty?
Yes. It was an incredible sense of freedom. Because if there was something out there like a new airplane, or a particular type of car that was greater than any other car, I had to work for it.
All that's gone now. Those are all things that I seemed to be working for that I no longer have to work for. So, it's like a sense of freedom.
What kind of spiritual influence on you were the Felician sisters? You were in their home for boys as a youth.
Everything. That's where I got my faith. In the orphanage, religion was the main part of your life 24 hours a day. The nuns were very religious and close to God, and we prayed a lot, we were in chapel a lot. We didn't do anything without praying.
So, I owe everything to the Felician sisters, everything that's important, mainly my faith.
Where in your history did the NOW (National Organization of Women) conflict come? And how did that play out?
Well, that was about late ‘88, and more than anything that's what led to trying to sell the company. I felt a boycott like they had started could have an impact on a lot of people whose livelihood depended on Domino's. And I felt I could risk my livelihood, and I was willing to do that, but I didn't have the right to risk that of others. So, I decided to sell the company because if there was something I should do, like the thing I did that got me into that boycott, then I wanted to be able to do it.
What was is it you did that got you into that?
That's when the tax-funded abortion issue was on the ballot in Michigan and it was not looking good. And someone asked me if I would get on TV and give $50,000 in a matching contribution, and do a pitch on TV. And I said I would, and I did. And then the roof caved in.
So then a boycott was organized against you for taking that stand publicly?
Yes. And it spread through many, many organizations—the ACLU, etc. Somebody did an editorial exhorting the readers not to buy our pizza. I understand a lot of women's groups on campuses around the country seemed to have every coed on that campus determined not to buy our pizza, and to convince everyone else not to.
I thought there was a segment of America we'd never get back. But I feel, in retrospect, that helped us more than it hurt us. I think about 80 percent of the people don't care. With those people, we just got more awareness because it all hit the wire service. It was on national television at prime time, and the name Domino's, Domino's, Domino's.
Name recognition.
Yes. And I think 10 percent of the people may have turned away from us. I think it probably brought as many people at the other side of the spectrum that supported us because of it.
You were also involved in a project to build a new Cathedral in Nicaragua. What happened with that?
[Bernard] Cardinal Law [of Boston], whom I had gotten to know for some time, called me, and said “I'm calling on behalf of Cardinal Obando [y Bravo] in Nicaragua.” He told me the story about the cathedral being destroyed and how they wanted to build a new cathedral.
And he talked about the significance of it because Nicaragua was a communist country, and it was a toehold for communism in Latin America, which has half the Catholics in the world. So the cathedral was an important symbol.
I said, “Well, I'll go down and talk to them.” So, I did. One thing led to another and I made a commitment. Then, of course, they said, “That's fine, but we have no money.” So, basically I said “if I raise 80 percent of it, you raise the other 20 percent.”
There was a lot of opposition to going ahead with the project?
Up here there was—when we tried to raise money. It was an education for me. I heard about dissension in the Church, but I never experienced it. It came mostly from priests and nuns. And it sounded something like: “The cardinal's building a monument to himself and he's a male authoritative type and the people don't want that. They want medicine. They want food.”
It was pretty impassioned opposition. They wouldn't buy the fact that these were communist atheists. The big deal in the media seemed to be supporting the Sandinistas, and they wouldn't call them communist or Marxist.
Then it also turned out to be very difficult to build a church down there in a country that had been communist for some time. There was no infrastructure. They took one of the better economies, growing faster for many, many years, and just wiped it out. It became the poorest country in the hemisphere.
One of the themes that runs through a lot of your life, in the business, with the Cathedral, is overcoming adversity. It seems almost like a theme song of your life. Is that right?
Yes. It's because I don't start thinking sometimes until I get in trouble.
So, you think some of the adversity is self-created, not just the way the world is.
Yes. I get in trouble then I think a little.
On the success side, how did it feel to win the World Series and the Indianapolis 500?
It felt great to win both of them, but those aren't lasting feelings. And neither one of them do a lot of good for business. You wonder why you do it after you win it. At least, when you're doing it, you're thinking that someone ate pizza because of it.
In the last couple of years, you started
Well, where do I start? I felt there was a need to communicate with Catholics about what's going on in the world. We were interested in apologetics because most of the people weren't going to Church. We wanted to tell them what was going on in the Catholic Church so that they might get involved.
We were interested in exposing any dissension that was going on, such as a lecture series that came to town with the best-known dissenters in the Catholic Church. We felt people were being led astray and wanted to charitably set them straight.
We wanted to attack pornography. We wanted to keep the media honest as far as the way they are biased against the Catholic Church, and the family in general. We wanted to challenge them on the right and the moral standards that people in our country were brought up with, and the Church taught, and things like that.
What do you envision for
My goal is to get it to being weekly. We just can't get on top of current issues, react fast enough, so we hope to get to weekly as soon as possible. It's a matter of filling up the staff.
What about WDEO?
Well, of course the big thing is the Al Kresta Show. We hope that this can be syndicated around the country, potentially live, or delayed. I think he's got to be the most talented Catholic radio personality in the country. He's very bright and very good with words and with radio. He had one of the most popular religious radio shows in the country on a Detroit station.
And on schools—Spiritus Sanctus Academy—what have you done so far and what's your vision for the future?
Well, we have one school with 110 students through the eighth grade. We have Mass and rosary everyday, and confession available every week. We have the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. All our teachers are knowledgeable and devout Catholics. There's discipline. Religion is the number one subject.
We now have Mother Assumpta Long's new religious order running the school. I expect that to be a very rapidly growing order. There is an incredible amount of interest already among young women. We're building a convent for the sisters.
And we've got three new schools on the drawing board and they're approved by the diocese and the bishop.
What about your corporate headquarters? You have a corporate chaplain and a chapel where the Eucharist is reserved for Masses each weekday. Confessions are available.
Yes, and there's a bigger First Friday Mass, and a Tuesday Mass with a men's breakfast.
I'm basically at the service of the bishop and whatever we can do to serve him in any role that he wants us to fill.
We have a lot of land here and we use that land to serve the Church. There are a number of orders, new orders, or orders that want to get started. We let them start here. We have land, and we have houses. If they are orthodox, and if they get welcomed by the bishop, we will provide some support for them and help them get started. So, we're sort of planting seeds and using this property for that purpose.
Do you want to say anything about your Christmas lights?
We've been doing that for about 10 or 11 years. Our light show has close to a million lights. We attract about 250,000 people coming through over a 30-day period during the Christmas season. All of the proceeds go to various charities in the area.
The entire show is spiritual in nature. There's no Santa Claus except the one kneeling down over the crib of the infant Jesus. There are no reindeer—no Rudolphs. There are a lot of angels, and a live nativity scene, and the biblical scenes surrounding Christmas. Some of that came out of the stuff constantly in the news about creches being forbidden from public places.
Among your Catholic works am I correct that Legatus is the one that you, in a sense, feel the strongest about?
Yes. I think that was not my idea, that was the Holy Spirit's. I see my mission as two parts. One is Legatus. Two is being a good Legatus member. And by being a Legatus member, I think I should use what God has given me to serve him.
What exactly is Legatus?
Legatus is an organization for Catholic heads of corporations, CEOs, presidents, chairmen of companies of a certain minimum size. In a nutshell, the purpose is to help them to be better Catholics. And the reason for this ministry is that more than any other category of people they are in the position to do more if they put their efforts to it, and their talents, and their resources. That's what Legatus is about.
How did it start?
It started within hours after I met the Pope for the first time—in Rome in 1987, on May 7.I was a member of YPO [Young Presidents Organization]. But at 50, I was at the age when I had to leave the organization. It occurred to me there ought to be something like YPO for Catholics, without an age limit. And it just struck, it hit.
And that's all I thought of the rest of that trip, all the way home. I put the thing together on the plane: the format, the criteria.
It was very rewarding. I could see how people got turned on. They'd never been in a situation where it was all Catholics, so they could talk about their faith openly-which should be, and often is, the most important thing of their lives.
A lot of them told me that they are now going to Mass every day, and saying the rosary every day, as a result of Legatus. Or they have told me they're operating their business differently today because of Legatus.
If you had a chance to tell the Catholic bishops something that would help them get a picture of the business world for Catholics, what would you say?
Well, I would want to say the media is biased. I would say, “You bishops know how biased the media is against the Church. I'm telling you that it's the same way against business. I've seen so many clergy that feel that businessmen are all crooks. I don't believe that's true. I believe that you don't get to the top of a business by being dishonest and crooked. You're not going to get very far that way. People are not going to trust you. They're not going to do business with you. They're not going to work for you. They're not going to buy from you.
“By and large, successful business people are successful because they're honest and hard working, and give value for the price. Most of the time, they took a lot of risk for many years, oftentimes at minimum wage, just to get something going. And they provide a lot of jobs. So, don't be biased against businessmen.”
The Pope says that when you put together labor and capital, labor is the most important. How do you see that in Domino's?
I would say that labor is the most important thing in business. The book that says the customer is number two is right on. Just from a business standpoint, a selfish standpoint, you take care of the employee first because he is the one that takes care of the customer. But you also do it because it's the right thing to do because he's a human being.
But I don't believe in giving employees more than they are providing in the way of services because that hurts the whole enterprise and the most important thing in a business is to survive. So, sometimes there have to be layoffs, or people have to go for a long time without increases in pay. It's not easy to survive. In fact, it's very difficult.
That's something I've heard various Legatus members say—that almost everybody who hasn't been there overlooks how difficult it is just to survive in business.
That's exactly why a Legatus person is a very special person, because not many people can do that. Not many people get there. A lot of people try. I know in the restaurant business alone—and this is an old statistic but I don't think it's changed or that it's unique to the restaurant business—90 percent of businesses fail within the first year.
—Gerry Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Monaghan ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: For Latecomers To Priesthood, Age Is a Minor Obstacle DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Just because a man doesn't immediately respond to a call to the priesthood doesn't mean that the call won't be reissued and accepted later in life. Just ask William Olivas, who was ordained to the Order of St. Augustine last June at the age of 76.
As a child, William had served as an altar boy with the Augustinians in his hometown of Ojai, Calif. He entered their minor seminary, but World War U intervened. He served in Europe and then wrestled professionally for 25 years under names such as the Wild Man of Borneo and Elephant Boy.
He married a nurse named Martha. After he retired from wrestling, the couple operated Matilija Hot Springs in Ojai. They never missed Mass, and he was ordained a deacon in 1977. After his wife's death, he became an Augustinian brother. The timing of Brother Olivas’ ordination to the priesthood was particularly poignant because it marked the 20th anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate.
“I'm joyful and very happy. I enjoy celebrating Mass. I'm thinking young and looking ahead to the third millennium. God has a lot of plans,” said Father Olivas, the associate pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Ojai.
Like Father Olivas, Father Richard Huston was a deacon who returned to the seminary after his wife died. He had initially attended a seminary high school. He left, married, and embarked on a career as an architect.
Huston and his wife, Gloria, were married 43 years, and the now 71-year-old priest has three children and 14 grandchildren. As a deacon, he officiated at his daughter's marriage and baptized his grandson. Ordination to the priesthood in 1995 delighted his family.
“They're proud, they're happy. I enjoy it all, particularly when I'm in the sacristy to prepare for Mass. I see the longing and yearning of the people. I feel worthwhile,” said the priest who served in San Diego parishes until July 1.
Father Huston then began an assignment at the San Diego diocese's Office for Priestly Vocations. In that role, he will talk with the staff and students at St. Francis Seminary.
A later vocation is not merely a retirement option. It is also known as a second career vocation, reflecting a man's decision to leave a profession for the priesthood. Men have left behind any variety of occupations, from garbage collector, lawyer, psychologist, and doctor to attend Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., said admissions director Father Ray Hal—liwell MSsA, himself a 64-year-old priest ordained in 1993 after a career in education.
Father Halliwell teaches at the seminary, sharing skills from his first career. He had responded to an earlier call and entered a Carmelite seminary. He left religious studies, intending to return. Instead, he worked as an elementary school and junior high school teacher and administrator in New York City.
Father Halliwell said the reasons for second career vocations are as varied as the priests involved. Father Olivas identifies with his order's founder. “St. Augustine walked away from the Lord when he was younger, but then the Lord said, ‘I got you,’” he said.
Father Huston expressed a similar sentiment. “I think [later vocation priests are] coming to an awareness that God has been calling them to the seminary all of their lives,” he said.
Currently, there are more than 49,000 priests in the United States, according to Father Timothy Reker, executive director of the Office for Vocations and Priestly Formation for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Diocesan priests account for around 32,400 priests in this country, with the remaining 16,000 ordained for religious orders such as the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Benedictines.
Ordinations around the world are on the rise, according to the Vatican. In this country, around 500 priests were ordained this year, a figure that has remained constant for the past five years and that includes later vocations.
The majority of second career priests are men in their 30s and 40s. While each vocation is different, some factors contribute to second career ordinations, said Father Reker. “It's difficult for youths to make a commitment,” he said, noting that during the past 20 years people have married later in life.
Furthermore, during the late 1960s, the percentage of priests who invited young men to consider ordination dropped significantly due to changes in the Church. “They were not sure what the future would hold. When people are not invited, they don't respond,” said Father Reker.
Moreover, several societal changes have contributed to the rise in later vocations. Father Reker said that in his father's time, a man made a commitment to one job for life. The shift in attitude about career changes was evident when Father Reker started theological studies in 1978. His seminary classmates included a banker, a teacher, and a lawyer.
Furthermore, people were living longer and society began to recognize that older workers had much to contribute. Those recognizing the potential of these workers included the Church. In fact, when one witnesses the joyous vocations of Father Huston and Father Olivas, it seems incredible that the cut-off age for seminary candidates used to be 28-years-old.
During the 1960s, several seminaries were founded for older candidates. Father Huston graduated from Pope John XXIII National Seminary, the Weston, Mass., institution established in 1964 by the late Cardinal Richard Cushing.
The seminary, modeled after the Beda seminary in Rome, allows second career candidates to bring their life experience and different learning styles to the classroom. “They bring life experiences in business, professions and the responsibility of a mature man in the world. They relate to the world with credibility and believability,” said seminary spokeswoman Jean Boyle. “Probably about 15 percent are widowers, most were never married.”
While life experience is a plus, it also means some adjustments for the second-career seminarian. “Everything is planned, when you eat, sleep and study. I was pretty much used to freedom,” said Father Huston.
He had dreaded the return to studies, but found happily that “all of the classes focused on a closer relationship with Our Lord.”
As a seminarian, Father Huston drew comfort from the advice of the rector on the first day of school: “This is the first day of transformation for becoming a priest.”
Today, Pope John XXIII seminarians range in age from around 30 to 60, with a median age of about 30, said Boyle. By design, enrollment is small and averages 60-65 students. This year, the seminary is near capacity with 73 students. There are close to 350 priest alumni serving in more than 80 dioceses and 20 religious communities in this country, the Virgin Islands, Australia, Ireland, and Jamaica.
Holy Apostles was started as a college seminary for older candidates in the 1960s and became a theologate in 1978. When the seminary opened in this country, there were 120 candidates. Currently, there are 70 candidates who range in age from their late 20s to their 60s, said Father Halliwell. Last month, 23 new candidates began their studies.
“The rewards for later vocation priests are the same as for any priest—serving the Lord, feeling closer to Jesus and growing in fellowship with Jesus,” said Father Halliwell. Still, the mature priest “may know himself better” and have the “sense of satisfaction in having done something.”
Although there is no age limit for admission, age is considered. “If a man is 74, he gets out at 78. We consider age and health. We look at enthusiasm and talent, the older he is, the more compensating talents he has to have. Someone 22 doesn't have to have as many positive points as someone 52,” said Father Halliwell.
That doesn't mean a man who senses a call shouldn't try, as Augustinian Father Olivas discovered. He was content to remain a brother, certain that seminary class work would be overwhelming. However, his superiors obtained permission for him to complete his program by attending St. John Seminary in Camarillo, Ca., for only one year.
His graduation brought a finish to the seminary studies that had been interrupted by World War II. “My mother was elated that I was going to be a priest. My dad was patriotic, he wanted me to be a soldier. I was young, I enlisted,” said the priest.
He went with the Army to England nine months before the 1944 invasion of Normandy, France. His duty included clearing minefields. The way he spent his leisure time would affect his future.
“As a Catholic boy, I did not go to pubs. I would go to the gym. A friend I worked out with invited me to his first wrestling match. [I went] and his opponent didn't show up,” remembers Father Olivas.
His friend's suggestion that he fill in was tempting to the young enlisted man who stood to share in a purse that came close to half his monthly military pay. He wrestled and then continued his military duty which included joining General George Patton in Russia.
He planned to return to the seminary when he went home. However, he discovered that war had taken a toll as he sat in his family home on the Fourth of July.
Anephew came up and said, “Bang.” The future Augustinian jumped.
“It was scary. I was too nervous, I knew I couldn't sit in a classroom,” said Father Olivas. “Then my friend called to see if I was interested in wrestling.”
He wrestled on several continents, in matches that were televised. He was again in the camera's eye last June when he was ordained by his friend, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry of the Los Angeles archdiocese.
“My ordination was covered by three networks. I was embarrassed, but the bishop said, ‘Showing your life shows that God calls from all ages.’ [The coverage led to] two inquiries about the order,” said Father Olivas.
Father Huston also promotes religious vocations during homilies when he celebrates Mass as a supply priest at San Diego parishes.
“I want to spread the word. I keep hoping the Lord will let me live long enough to do something worthwhile,” he said.
Liz Swain is based in San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Liz Swain ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'The Right Stuff' for Seminary Life DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Men aspiring to a second career vocation will find some similarities between one seminary's admissions policy and the job application process. In both situations, the applicant's qualifications are evaluated, as well as how a person will fit in “the workplace.”
At Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., the evaluation process starts with Father Ray Halliwell MSsA, of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles order. As vocations director, Father Halliwell reviews written requests for admission to determine if applicants should be scheduled to meet with a committee. Sometimes those letters are enough to determine who won't fit in for the training for the ultimate “job.”
“We advertise that we're with the Pope, that we're orthodox. Some people don't want to be formed, they want to form us,” said Father Halliwell.
“One man who wrote asked for $65 to get to the admissions interview.” He was not scheduled for an in-person interview.
Father Halliwell may also eliminate prospective applicants on the basis of a work history showing large gaps between employment, or a resume of 10 or more jobs. The prospective candidate must present documents that include four reference letters, a medical history, college credits, and proof of sacraments received.
Applicants participate in individual interviews with five people, including two priests and a psychologist.
Attitude is one of the traits that Father Halliwell will examine during the interview. “I look for someone who is upbeat, enthusiastic. He really believes in the body of Christ and the Church. He follows the Magisterium, and he has been able to hold a job,” he said. “He speaks clearly, is interesting, well-read, and humble enough to be changed.”
—Liz Swain
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Liz Swain ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Father Grandfather
Felix Luis Rivera's grandchildren can now call him “Father” if they wish. He was ordained a priest Sunday, Sept. 21 in Chicago.
As Adrienne Dell explains in the Sept. 22 Chicago Sun Times, Rivera, “has two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren from a long, happy marriage to his late wife, Mary.”
The 59-year-old priest celebrated his first Mass in Spanish at St. Michael's Church in Old Town. A deacon for some time, Father Rivera has lived his adult life both in Chicago and Puerto Rico, according to the article.
“On her deathbed in 1993, Mary made her husband promise to return to the seminary where he had studied before their marriage many years before.
“‘I tookyou from the seminary, and Jesus lost you. But I am going to die first, and you will return and become a priest,’ said Father Rivera, recalling his wife's words. His left hand still bears the wedding band that ‘Mary gave me. I will never take it off. She is always with me.’”
Speaking of his children and his new parish, Father Rivera said “I am twice a father,” according to the article.
Involuntary Charity?
Are hefty government contributions—often amounting from 60 to 80 percent of their budgets—a boon to cash-starved charities—or doom?
At a Washington meeting last week, public policy scholar Joe Loconte shared some of the results of a study he has done that suggests government's involvement in charity has a strong down-side. He surveyed Massachusetts charities, including the local Catholic Charities, and found growing concern among them that government rules “lock them into inefficient practices.”
Larry Witham reported the story in The Washington Times Sept. 26.
“‘These sorts of warnings are coming from some of the most savvy providers in one of the most progressive states,’ Mr. Loconte said, surprised at how candid charity officials were when he requested interviews.
“The head of Catholic Charities in Boston told him the government contract system has expanded to the point where there is the ‘disappearance of a truly voluntary sector.’”
Some maintain that government's involvement is a safeguard against fraud and abuse in charities, according to the article. Others worry that, “‘Government rules paralyze decision-making and force providers to waste resources,’ he said… ‘[allowing] distant politicians rather than front-line workers to set the priorities.’”
The arrangement also tends to separate “public” charity from religious faith.
“Thus a Catholic charity cannot seek to hire Catholic personnel over non-Catholics. ‘That, to me, is a real problem,’” Mr. Loconte said.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Whither Poland?
Marian Krzaklewski (kuh-zak-LEV-ski), today's heir to Lech Walesa as Poland's Solidarity leader, brings great vigor—and pro-Catholic sentiment—to Poland's government, according to a New York Times profile (Sept. 23).
During President Clinton's July visit to the country, Krzaklewski refused to attend a state dinner in his honor.
“He would never, he said, cross the threshold of a presidential palace while afor-mer communist like President Alexander Kwasniewski was the inhabitant,” a Western diplomat recalled his saying.
“Now, Krzaklewski, who rebuilt the Solidarity coalition, which unexpectedly routed the former communists in Poland's [recent] parliamentary elections, has a government to build, a task that will be difficult. …
“He believes that the Roman Catholic Church should be allowed a prominent place in Polish society. The top item in his 21-point agenda for Poland is a ‘pro-family, social policy to help mothers with young children. …’”
The article, by Jane Perlez, also notes that voters from several demographic groups voted for Solidarity in the recent election—including women, who some thought would balk at Solidarity's pro-life stance.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Dylan and the Pope: Parallel Lives?
After Bob Dylan sang for Pope John Paul II the story provided an opportunity for the mainstream media to ruminate on parallels between the life of the popular singer-songwriter and the popular Pope.
Candice Hughes of the Associated Press noted the following in her Sept. 28 story:
√ As Karol Wojtyla (now called John Paul II) was influencing the Second Vatican Council, which transformed Catholic practice, Robert Zimmerman (called Bob Dylan) was influencing the ‘60s music which transformed American culture.
√ Both travelled the world to great popular adulation with evocative “spiritual” messages.
√ John Paul II became Pope in 1978, the year Bob Dylan converted to Christianity (which he announced in song the following year. He no longer speaks of his personal religious convictions.)
√ Both are still trying to translate messages of redemption to modern times: Bob Dylan's new album contains the song Trying to Get to Heaven.
Those reading the Reuters version of the story, filed Sept. 28 by Phillip Pullella, heard the Pope suggest a possible interpretation of Dylan's song Blowin’ in the Wind, which begins “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?”
The Pope's response: “One road—Christ.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Blowin' in the Wind DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Folk-rock icon Bob Dylan's performance for Pope John Paul II and hundreds of thousands of others at the recent Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy, raised the hackles of some Catholic critics. In making their case against Dylan, some dug into the 56-year-old singer-songwriter's past and took issue with his comments and ideas from more than three decades ago. Others were less personal in their objections and said only that rock music performed by anyone is incongruous with a Eucharistic Congress.
As the respected Italian journalist Vittorio Messori noted: Young people today need the “silence of the monastery,” not more rock music. That's a legitimate point, but it doesn't seem to recognize what it means to be young and taken with music that you feel speaks directly to your life. Even at 77, the Pope apparently remembers what that was like, and in his mind, an eight-day Eucharistic Conference had a place for a sprinkling of “quality” rock music.
Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) points out the importance of literature and art to the life of the Church. “They seek to give expression to man's nature, his problems and his experience in an effort to discover and perfect man himself and the world in which he lives; they try to discover his place in history and in the universe, to throw light on his suffering and his joy, his needs and his potentialities, and to outline a happier destiny in store for him.”
That Dylan's music and sometimes prophetic words have illuminated the search for meaning for many—innumerable faithful Catholics among them—can't be disputed. He has attempted and often succeeded in capturing the suffering and joy of existence.
In addressing the crowd at Bologna, the Pope himself borrowed from Dylan's Blowin in the Wind, the singer's simple poetic examination of life's great questions. Dylan's suggestion in the refrain that, the “answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” was expanded upon by the Pope. “It's true,” John Paul II said, “not, however, in the wind that blows everything away into nothingness, but in the wind that is the breath and voice of the Spirit, the voice that calls and says, ‘Come.’”
To the song's question, “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?,” the Pope offered an answer: “One! There is only one road for man, and that is Christ, who said, ‘I am the way.’”
Even as he interpreted it, John Paul II's clear appreciation of the Dylan song seemed a perfect illustration of the Gaudium et Spes passage that notes: “Every effort should be made … to make artists feel that they are understood by the Church in their artistic work and to encourage them, while enjoying a reasonable standard of freedom, to enter into happier relations with the Christian community.”
A spiritual quest has always been detectable in the lyrics of Dylan, who left his Jewish roots to embrace evangelical Christianity before returning to Judaism. While some Catholic critics have noted Dylan's standing as the quintessential anti-authoritarian symbol of the ‘60s, he has also long been a voice for social justice. At the Eucharistic Congress, the Pope chose to emphasize what the iconoclastic singer has in common with the Church and Christ's message. He said Christianity was essentially counter-cultural and that it inspires people to reach for something better than the easy life, which can lead to spiritual suffocation. Sounds like a theme for a Dylan song.
John Paul seems to understand that in a time when there is so much to decry in the arts and entertainment world, opportunities to embrace the good—especially that which has resonated so profoundly for so many—shouldn't be missed. The Pontiff's preference for engaging the culture, rather than retreating from what's bad about it, is a good part of the reason he enjoys such popularity among young people.
Certainly the Pope would like to see more of them embrace the “silence of the monastery.” But for many, he realizes, a richer contemplative life will come later. He noted at the Congress that as a person grows older, music and song often give way to “silence and prayer.” Until then, John Paul doesn't mind meeting people halfway. In the interest of creating a Church that seems welcoming to all ages, he obviously believes there's plenty of room—even at a Eucharistic Congress—for a few good tunes.
—LM
----- EXCERPT: Editorial ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Kennedy's Annulment Under the Microscope DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:by Sheila Rauch Kennedy
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1997, 238 pp. $23)
I WANTED TO like this book. I had seen Sheila Rauch Kennedy on numerous TV talk shows and, while prepared to disagree with her on certain points, I was favorably impressed with her as a person.
I was ready to forgive the inaccuracies that typically appear in any work purporting to deal with a technical field but authored by an amateur. Finally, not having the slightest professional connection with the annulment case, I could indulge my iconoclastic streak and say that anybody arguing with a Kennedy can't be all wrong.
But, try as I might, I could not warm up to Kennedy's book on the Catholic Church's annulment process, and the further I read in it, the more I concluded that Shattered Faith will never amount to more than a diary-like account of one woman's intensely felt, but ultimately skewed, perception about a controversial process which she does not understand.
In order to find the good in Kennedy's book, a fair-minded reader has to overlook alot of things, beginning with Kennedy's almost exclusive use of feminist categories to frame her experiences and comments.
She feels it highly significant, for example, that in her fight against an annulment, she was contacted by and spoke with lots of other women. I ask, what's so special about that? Women tend to talk to other women about similar experiences. My wife can come out of the check-out line at a grocery store with some other woman's life story, just because both of them happen to have squirming babies in front packs. I certainly don't see female communication as evidence of a “conspiracy of silence that had kept us all quiet and powerless,” but rather wholesome human nature asserting itself once again.
I grew tired, and eventually irritated, at Kennedy's frequent assertions that the men who use the Church's annulment process do so to dump on ex-wives. Right now, as a matrimonial judge, I've got 10 open annulment cases in trial, and three more cases on appeal. Six of my petitioners in first instance are women, and two of them in second instance are women.
Those ratios are not unusual. The annulment process attracts roughly equal numbers of male and female petitioners, and Kennedy cannot, and does not, offer substantiation for the implication that most men must be abusing the system, and their ex-wives, by filing for annulments.
Of course, all of the inevitable digs about celibate old men running canon law institutions are repeated in this work. Well, I'm neither old nor celibate, and I had to be careful that my “oh-no-not-that-one-again” groans did not wake the two-year-old who slept on my lap as I read this book.
The second thing which interested readers will have to ignore is the prevalence of straw-men arguments throughout the work. Let's take just one- namely, that the annulment process requires people to lie to God.
That's just total baloney. Canon law (cf. canon 1391) takes a pretty dim view of lying to tribunals, to say nothing of lying to God. But since we're all against lying to God, disagreeing with Kennedy's assessment that annulments require it somehow gives the impression that one is soft on lying in general—just as long as one avoids lying to God. That's what makes straw-men arguments so much fun for authors, and so maddening for readers.
But, granting that there are frequent straw-men arguments, inadequate feminist analysis, the inevitable technical inaccuracies I feared, a monolithic view of the Church, and very few new facts about the case itself, what good can be gleaned from Shattered Faith? There is some.
First, Kennedy's book shows very clearly the need for a return to genuine, independent canonical advocacy. The present system of canon lawyering is inadequate to meet modern needs. There are too few trained canon lawyers to begin with (perhaps 2,500 in all of America, compared with the 50,000-plus civil lawyers who graduate from law school every year) and nearly all canon lawyers work directly for dioceses.
The perception that such canonists cannot offer consistent, vigorous, independent service is reasonably grounded. The relatively few who do try to offer such assistance face numerous practical and professional hurdles for their efforts. And yet their presence can make all the difference in the world, not simply for the delivery of justice—which, thanks be to God, is usually accomplished anyway—but also for the sake of the public's recognition of the delivery of justice. Right now this vital need for healthy Church life is very often missing.
The second thing Kennedy's book shows is that tribunal officials, and the spokesmen the secular media usually put forward to discuss Catholic issues, are generally ill-prepared to present publicly and faithfully the complexities of a controversial process like annulments.
I tread lightly here, having done but little of that work myself, and I am aware that complex issues such as annulments do not fare well in the electronic world of two-minute attention spans. However, I am convinced that the Church's canonical system for assessing marriages is theologically sound, juridically coherent, and pastorally effective. It deserves better than it received in Kennedy's book. But—and this point is crucial—Kennedy herself deserved better than what she got from the process.
Without denying the anti-Catholicism which undergirds many of the secular attacks on the annulment process—and Kennedy, I think, has nothing to do with such attacks—I can't help but think that at least some of the unfair publicity generated by works like Shattered Faith is our own fault.
Dr. Edward Peters has doctoral degrees in canon and civil law. His book, 100 Answers to Your Questions on Annulments, was published this year by Simon & Schuster and Basilica Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Enlightenment's Cultural Revolution Comes Home to Roost DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:by John Ellis
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997, 262 pp., $25)
THE TEACHING of literature at the university level has taken a turn for the worse during the past 15 years. Studying language and writing for beauty and the propagation of values that enrich civilization is long gone from most elite campuses, including some Catholic ones. In its place is a new orthodoxy that reduces all literary scholarship to the search for race, gender, and class oppression. Its opponents label this kind of thinking “political correctness,” or “PC,” for short.
John Ellis, professor emeritus of German literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has often deplored the decline in standards that has accompanied the politicization of his field. In Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities, he subjects these new trends to disinterested scholarly inquiry.
Ellis begins by pointing out that, by and large, PC practitioners are artistic killjoys. “The sad fact is that politically inspired criticism never speaks of the enjoyment or intellectual excitement of literature and certainly not the love of it,” he observes.
Instead political correctness attacks the Western tradition of Great Books, arguing that “studying Shakespeare and Plato can be positively harmful. Shakespeare's plays reflect reactionary attitudes: jingoistic imperialism, racism, sexism, homophobia.” This so-called “high culture” is seen as “part of the ruling elite's apparatus for social control.” The Great Books thus “close our minds and make us conform to the ideas of a privileged class of white upper-class European males.”
Ellis traces this rigid, negative view of literature back to the mid-20th century French neo-Marxist, Michel Foucault, who believed that covert relations of power are the driving force in human situations. This results in the “systematic reduction of all social processes” to the “politics of domination.” Hence literature along with many other academic disciplines must become the study of cultural oppression. Foucault also assumed that all knowledge is socially constructed and therefore has no objective reality. This cultural relativism is at the core of political correctness.
Ellis's most perceptive insight is to link fashionable anti-Western PC attitudes to one of the cornerstones of Western tradition—the Enlightenment. Advanced 18th-century political and philosophical thinkers initiated a dramatic departure from the trib-alist assumptions that preceded them by ascribing a common sense of humanity to all persons. “Words like racism, genocide, and imperialism belong in this new context but would be out of place in an environment not imbued with Enlightenment attitudes,” Ellis argues. “When we denounce racism in absolute terms, we are measuring all cultures and all times by a standard that is distinctively modern and Western.” Those literature professors who exalt cultural relativism and non-Western societies “are in fact the most ruthless and uncompromising enforcers of the Enlightenment's cultural revolution.”
Literature Lost ties PC utopian fantasies about the superior virtue of the Third World to Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his idea about “the noble savage.” Rousseau, in effect, denied Original Sin, assuming that man in his natural state is good and that all corruption is derived from society and its institutions. His quarrel was with modern civilization itself which, he claimed, had ruined the human race.
The PC variation of this sees the classics or Western literature separating ordinary citizens from their natural goodness by brainwashing them with racist, sexist, and homophobic ideas. Thus it's the duty of literature professors to undo all this harm by delegitimizing the Great Books.
Ellis believes that “as Marxism is to the economic sphere, so cultural political correctness is to the cultural sphere,” and he compares the abandonment of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake that goes with political correctness to the economic disasters that befell the nations under the control of the former Soviet Empire. Ellis attributes our campuses’ conquest by race-gender-class scholars to the coming into tenure of ‘60s’ radicals and their need of new fields of inquiry on which to build their careers.
As Catholic educational institutions are now part of the academic mainstream, they may be tempted to adopt some PC norms. But to do so would be to undermine the fundamentals on which they are based. For example, Stanley Fish, one of PC's prime literary theoreticians, complains that his campus adversaries are beguiled by a belief in “absolutes.” And another influential PC thinker, Stephen Greenblatt, attacks “the conception of art as addressed to a timeless, cul-tureless, universal human essence.” These and other race-gender-class scholars also argue that objectivity and truth are naive illusions of Western tradition.
Belief in “absolutes,” a “universal human essence,” and “truth” is embedded in all Church teaching. Catholic universities must separate themselves from the Ivy League institutions with which they are now competitive and be a countercultural sign of the times. While remaining sensitive to issues of racism and sexism, they must turn their backs on political correctness and proudly affirm their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church as the starting point of all knowledge. In so doing they will not only be preserving their own integrity, they will also be showing the secular academic culture a way out of the intellectual dead end in which it is now trapped.
John Prizer, the Register's arts and culture correspondent, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:China Watchers
Your article “China Watchers Divided on Religious Freedom Issue” by Tracy Early (Sept. 7-13) will give many readers a wrong impression that the religious persecution in China as debated by the Congress and reported by the media worldwide is “overdone,” does not “correspond with that coming from China,” and is politicized to serve “other causes.” The article will further mislead many readers into believing that the Chinese government “had changed [its] policy to allow more religious freedom.” These statements are contrary to the fact.
Mr. A.M. Rosenthal has the vision, courage, justice, and compassion to editorialize through his many articles in The New York Times to wake up people to the fact that there are serious, on-going religious persecutions in many nations—including China.
Rosenthal should be commended for his insistence and persistence in commitment to freedom of religion and to the prompt reporting of religious persecutions. If the persecutors of religion have spared one life, or lessened sufferings one degree as the result of Rosenthal's prodding, his articles would be worth millions and he would be rewarded by God manifold. I for one believe that he has already done both, because what the communists fear most is for the truth to be revealed. These governments thought that they could hide from world opinion of their religious persecutions. Rosenthal certainly can claim his share of credit in awakening the world to these atrocities.
Early used about one dozen people to refute or to downplay Rosenthal's many Times articles. None of them could even remotely prove him wrong, however. They are all from similar ideological and religious backgrounds. Furthermore, their opinions on the severity and the effect of religious persecution are all at the opposite end of the spectrum from what have been expressed in Mr. Rosenthal's column. Moreover, most of them are known sympathizers and supporters of the communist government sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic association.
Joseph Kung, president
Cardinal Kung Foundation
Stamford, Connecticut
Kiryas Joel
Michael Scaperlanda's article on the formation of the Kiryas Joel school district “State Religion or Religious Tolerance at its Finest” (Sept. 21-27) needs some comment.
Scaperlanda insists that the school which the Hasidim of Kiryas Joel were (are) running is a secular school. That is simply not true; it is a Hasidic school. All students in the school are Hasidic as are all the teachers. The drawing of the district lines was done specifically to exclude non-Hasidim and especially gentiles from the school.
This is yet another case of Jews demanding separate treatment from the laws which apply to everyone else in this country. Mennonite and Amish communities have been consistently denied any recognition of their desire to remain separate from the surrounding communities. They have actually been legally forced to send their children to public schools where they have subjected to a great deal of ridicule and even contempt because of their distinctive dress. No state legislature—especially New York—has ever attempted to accommodate them.
What should be especially galling to Catholics is that over the last thirty years Jewish groups have been in the forefront of the movement to deny tax support to Catholic schools. But now we are told that the formation of the Kiryas Joel school district should be allowed to accommodate the distinctive culture of a Jewish group. The tactic fools no one. This is nothing more than an attempt to gain tax support for Jewish schools—coming from the same people who have adamantly opposed any tax support for Catholic schools.
If this blatant exercise in Jewish ethnocentrism succeeds, I hope that Scaperlanda will support special school districts for Catholics as well. But somehow I doubt it.
William Gallagher
Clifton, New Jersey
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Sadly, a Quaint Parish Community Leaves a Visitor Cold DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:The Catholic Mass, representing a single faith culture, is celebrated with great diversity in the parishes—sometimes with negative effect. Attending Mass at a church other than your own offers an experience of the varieties of Catholic liturgical culture.
While on a recent vacation in Vermont I attended Mass at a small parish church in a quaint town near Lake Champlain. Located on “Church Street,” the edifice's wooden interior and simple stained glass windows seemed to fit with the picture-postcard quality of the Vermont landscape. Relaxed and rested I was ready to worship with this new community of faith.
Before Mass a woman rose in the pulpit to announce a special collection for a building campaign. For some reason that act seemed to be a throwback to the ‘50s when announcing collections was a regular, if not weekly, event. The congregation of about 150 souls seemed subdued, almost sullen. They filled up the pews from the back of the church forward, a well-known ancient Catholic tradition. As Mass began a choir consisting of three singers and two lanky guitarists sang, slightly off key, a hymn from the early ‘70s. The congregation did not respond. No one joined in—nor did they for most of the liturgical responses.
The priest gave a homily on the epistle of St. James, showing that the section we were reading was a synthesis of Catholic teaching. Twice he mentioned that he had “problems with the Church” but was upbeat about the Gospel message. The liturgy proceeded and after the consecration the congregation stood instead of kneeling until Communion time.
When time for Communion came I sensed a lot of movement in the church. People started to funnel into the main aisle and side aisles from the back of the church. With this arrangement people had to walk all around the church to get back to their seat. To me it seemed like a distraction but the people did not seem to mind.
At the end of Mass, it must have been obvious that I was not a “regular,” but no one greeted me or even acknowledged my presence. Perhaps they just wanted to leave me alone.
A week later I came back convinced that I must have missed something positive in the life of this parish, as expressed in the liturgy. The congregation, quiet and sullen, again, did not sing. The priest spoke of the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa saying they both loved the poor. He made no further distinction between the two women. To a Catholic congregation it would seem he could have said a little more about Mother Teresa, at least to comment on the highlights of her life and accomplishments.
At this Mass during the sign of peace I saw a couple of smiles and felt a sense of relief that there was some life in the community after all. Maybe things were better than they seemed.
Coming back to my own parish I saw it with new eyes. The church is in a large urban community, and is fortunate to have a trained choir, several priests, a pastor who teaches, and a more outgoing spirit than the rural church. Whether large or small, country or urban, parish life as expressed in the community gathering to worship God should have some basic qualities that mark a liturgical experience as Catholic. Active participation should be, as they say, of the essence. Liturgy is not a private function but is offered by the whole community in union with Christ.
The way we celebrate Mass manifests who we are as the Body of Christ, according to the Catechism. Many Catholics think singing is an insignificant part of worship. But singing helps us to lift up our minds and hearts to God. We praise him through our bodies, with the gestures of standing, kneeling, sitting, and speaking in prayer. Singing is the lyrical expression of the faith in our hearts. The indifferent do not sing.
Since we express our communion with one another in Christ at Mass, greeting one another either at the beginning or the end of Mass would seem to be an appropriate, simple expression of fellowship. Usually after Mass people start talking with one another in the aisles and that is the extent of their experience of “Catholic community” until the next Sunday. Occasional coffees and hospitality hours after Mass help to promote and extend in a casual way a sense of community.
We can manifest our faith in Christ by more active participation in two areas, singing with intent and making an effort to greet the clergy and those with whom we have just worshipped. Both actions take us out of ourselves and express the gift of ourselves that we want to offer to God. The lack of these signs of faith impressed this vacationer; their presence will provide a welcome that could draw people back to the Church.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ellen BOrk ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Loss Without Losing DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:The archbishop of San Antonio may not have gotten the ruling he hoped for in City of Boerne vs. Flores, but it was …
(Second of two parts)
Just because the Supreme Court hasn't recognized an expansive interpretation of the Constitution's ‘free exercise’ clause doesn't mean religious liberty or natural law is in peril.
San Antonio's Archbishop Patrick Flores of lost a big one in the Supreme Court last June—but all was not lost.
In last week's Register, the first part of this article addressed the Supreme Court's decision in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997). The city had denied the archbishop's request for a building permit to expand an old church building in order to serve a growing parish. The church was part of an historic landmark district on which the city had imposed special zoning restrictions. The archbishop sued the City of Boerne, Texas, claiming that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed by Congress in 1993, required the city to make an exception to its zoning restrictions in order to accommodate the religious practices of Catholics in the parish.
The Supreme Court ruled that RFRA was unconstitutional under the doctrine of separation of powers. The Court was saying that the Congress could not pass a statute contradicting the Court's previous interpretation of the Constitution's religious “free exercise” clause. In other words, Congress could not require state and other governments (such as the City of Boerne) to make religious accommodations when the Supreme Court had already ruled that the religious “free exercise” clause does not require a state (although a state may choose) to make exceptions from general laws in order to accommodate religious practices.
Those who disagree with the Supreme Court's rulings on RFRA and the religious “free exercise” clause have charged that the decisions erode religious liberty. Part one of this article disputed those claims.
The Natural Law Factor
Part two of this article answers criticisms that these Supreme Court's decisions do not comport with the “natural law,” even if they do adhere strictly to the Constitution. As indicated at the end of part one, we want to ask whether the Supreme Court has violated the natural law either by its general interpretation of the “free exercise” clause or by the result in Flores?
Adults who attended parochial schools or Catholic colleges prior to the 1960s should have at least a passing acquaintance with the term “natural law.” As psychological and behavioral methodologies displaced the philosophical foundations even of Catholic education, teaching about natural law went the way of the Baltimore Catechism. More recently, the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) and Pope John Paul II's encyclicals Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth, 1993) and Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life, 1995), have revived teaching about natural law.
The Catechism quotes the pagan Roman lawyer-orator-philosopher, Cicero, along with St. Augustine and St. Thomas on the meaning of natural law. Variously expressed, natural law refers to “right reason” or “the original moral sense that enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth, and the lie.”
As Pope John Paul II writes in Veritatis Splendor, the negative precepts of the natural law (“thou shalt nots”) differ from the positive precepts in this: violations of the negative precepts can never be justified. On the other hand, the positive precepts of natural law require us to do good and “what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances” (52).
Under that standard, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the “free exercise clause”-as distinguished from the “establishment clause”-not only does not violate the natural law, but it was most famously applied in a way that supports the natural law.
Currently, members of the Supreme Court may not link interpretation of the “free exercise” clause to the natural law. The Court's most significant, recent decision of the clause, Employment Division v. Smith (1990), however, continues the interpretation of the clause given in the first major “free exercise” case, Reynolds v. United States (1878), which certainly does support natural law.
A Ruling for Mormons
Reynolds involved Mormons and polygamy. The Court rejected the claim that the “free exercise” clause entitled Mormons to practice polygamy as part of their religious faith. The Supreme Court said that they could believe whatever they wished, but they could not claim a religious exemption from the laws against bigamy and polygamy.
Had Smith rejected the principle of Reynolds, the “free exercise” clause would have required states to accommodate not only “sacramental drug use”’ but all manner of other” religiously motivated” conduct. Not much would have been left to the Reynolds’ rejection of constitutional protection for a religious ritual of human sacrifice.
Critics have repeatedly said that as a result of Smith a local political majority could outlaw the use of wine necessary to celebrate Mass. Of course, in more than 200 years in this country, Catholics have not been discriminated against in this way—despite fierce anti-Catholicism at different times and places.
Critics place too much significance on one phrase of the Constitution and one institution of government. The fact that the unintended effect of a particular law is to limit religious freedom may be a legitimate criticism of the particular law and the maker of that law; but it is not a valid criticism of the Constitution's “free exercise” clause or the Court, neither of which were responsible for the law. Moreover, it distorts the Constitution to think of the Supreme Court and the “free exercise” clause, or even the Congress, as the primary institutional means of protecting religious liberty.
Under RFRA, or the view taken by critics of Smith, federal judges would have to determine what is and is not legitimate religious practice. Smith and Flores refuse to allow federal judges to get into that business. Keeping federal courts from judging religious practices should be viewed as a victory for religious liberty.
What if a law clearly discriminates against religion? That is a completely different issue. Smith reaffirms that such a law would raise a claim under the “free exercise” clause.
What if the lawmaker quietly and cleverly discriminates in such a way that it cannot be proven the law was intended to have a negative effect on religious practice or group? All is not lost. Under our democratic Constitution, we are a self-governing people. As the Court reminds us in Smith, the principal method of protecting our liberty is political.
Critics say that only works well for majorities or significant minorities. But they forget that the major advances in religious liberty were not brought about by the “free exercise” clause which until the early partof this century didnot apply to the states. In other words, religious liberty in this country came about for a century and a half almost without any involvement of federal courts. By its adoption of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 and then again in 1789, Congress required all newly created states to guarantee religious liberty in their state constitutions. This act did not apply to the original 13 states. Although at the time several of those states had varying forms of established religion, those restrictions all eventually dissolved. Through time, changes in opinion, politics and population brought this about.
The Irish Connection
The battle over religious liberty was most clearly evidenced in Massachusetts after Irish Catholics immigrated. The Irish survived and prospered due to other provisions in the Constitution that have no obvious relationship to religious liberty. As designed by its framers, the Constitution was so structured as to protect liberty without need for a bill of rights.
In the 1840s and ‘50s, the Protestant majority in Massachusetts probably would have—if they could have—kept the immigrant wave of Irish Catholics out of their state. Under the Constitution, the states retain many important powers. But one of the most important powers they have lost is the control over their borders. Thus matters of immigration are determined by the federal government, not the states. Moreover, if one state proves inhospitable, one is free to emigrate to another state. But that may not be necessary because one can change things even while in the minority.
With citizenship comes exactly the same political rights as those who can trace their lineage back to the Mayflower. Not all countries give new citizens the same rights as native-born citizens. With the vote comes the political power to alter legislation even without being in the majority. Exactly that happened in Massachusetts as the Irish became an important voting block in enough state legislative districts to be able to win concessions through the political process.
Thus, an expansive interpretation of the “free exercise” clause is not required for religious liberty to flourish; and, if permitted, such an unnecessary interpretation may, as indicated by Reynolds, produce conflicts with natural law.
Property Rights, the Real Issue
But does not the fact that the archbishop of San Antonio cannot getaper-mit to expand a parish church prove the inadequacy of the political process and the need forafederal court to intervene? After all, Pope John Paul H writes in Veritatis Splendor that consciences should not be coerced, especially in matters of religious faith.
When the Supreme Court ruled, the case was not over for the archbishop of San Antonio. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the district court to address other legal issues raised in the case. Without considering all legal options, and possibly state—as opposed to local—political actions, that might still be available to the archbishop, we should consider one legal issue that shouldbe available, but may not be.
Besides the church and the archdiocese, what about other property owners who cannot get a permit to modify buildings they own? And how would they have felt if only the church property was able to get a building permit for expansion?
The real problem facing the archbishop of San Antonio in his quest to expand the local parish church involves property rights—something about which Catholic clergy rarely speak.
The Catholic Church has always insisted on the preference for the poor. That principle does not negate, however, the fact that private property remains a natural, as well as a constitutional, right. While some members of the Catholic clergy minimize the significance of property ownership, Pope John Paul II gives important recognition to the legitimate use of private property in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus.
Under a provision in the Fifth Amendment known as the “takings clause,” government cannot take private property without “just compensation.” Clearly, that's a constitutional provision based on natural law.
The clause has been interpreted to prevent not only outright condemnation under the government's power of eminent domain, but also government regulation that significantly reduces the value of property. In interpreting the clause, however, the Supreme Court has justifiedat least some “historic landmark” regulation that imposes restrictions on the use of private property that might normally not be constitutional.
Whether or not the archbishop has a viable “takings” claim is not the point. Nor does mention of the “takings” clause indicate that property rights should be given greater weight than religious liberty. Rather, Americans need to understand that ours is a rich and complex constitutional system that affords many means to protect religious and other liberties. The fact that the Supreme Court has not recognized an expansive interpretation for the “free exercise” clause does not mean that such a ruling threatens religious liberty or violates natural law.
John Baker is a professor of Law at Louisiana State University and host of Law and Morality on EWTN.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Baker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Stunned by Shocking Behavior in Church? Just Smile and Show the Facts DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:Letters and phone calls from distraught Catholics regularly decry the local priest, Catholic school teacher, nun, or other Church employee who publicly denies a doctrine or insists on a liturgical abuse.
Callers and writers are shocked at the removal of the Blessed Sacrament from the Church because of the claim that the tabernacle is a distraction during Mass, or the claim that, since humans are on a par with God, we Catholics do not attend Mass to worship God. Faithful Catholics are outraged that such abuses would be allowed in one of the most clearly structured organizations in the world. Why doesn't the Pope, bishop, pastor, or superior do something?
One of the reasons more does not get done is that the offenders can count on certain standard reactions to their behavior, many of which are common among the people who call and write to me. Religion is one of those areas of life in which, traditionally, we expect and desire the stable, solid, and eternal truths of this life and the next. Outlandish actions in the religious sphere accomplish the effect desired by the abuser—namely, shock. Much like the political theater of the 1960s’ radicals, the religious radical seeks a shock reaction to create the environment in which he can attain other goals.
How does this work?
Most people respond to odd behavior with one or both of two reactions. First, they may become immobilized, sputtering, “How can these people do these outrageous things? This is sacrilege!”
Of course, such questions rhetorically ask, “What can I possibly do about this mess?” This question posed to oneself really means, “I cannot do anything about this!” or at least, “I don't know what to do next!” This kind of paralysis serves liturgical and doctrinal abusers well, since it allows them free reign to act while those who object merely splutter without taking concrete action.
The other standard reaction to shock is anger: “How dare they?” Indignation and rage are common expressions of the helplessness felt by those who are shocked when abuses occur within the Church. This reaction equally serves the abusers, since they see it as proof for their contention that “conservative” Catholics are uptight.
As a result, abusers see themselves as “progressives.” And they justify what they are doing as prophetic actions that point out the deep-seated anger and Pharisaism of the other side. Like Jesus, who outraged the ecclesiastical leaders of his day by offering personal freedom from oppressive rules and structures, abusers see themselves as true disciples who are challenging the hypocritical rules and regulations of the institutional Church.
They think this is the only way that the true Church, which is the people, can regain the liberty of the gospel. So their goal is to shock people, making them angry enough to begin to want progress—that is to say, to agree with the abusers.
In conflicts, two factors may determine victory or defeat—predictability and surprise. The general who predicts his enemies’ movements knows where to deploy his resources, and the general who surprises the enemy usually wins the battle. In the present state of the Church, why be predictable, why forsake surprise?
So, when a catechist claims that since Vatican II the Church does not worry about baptism removing Original Sin, or about any sin for that matter, why react with the oh-so-predictable shock? Instead, keep alert to the teachings, liturgical actions, and possible abuses, but stay calm. In fact, smile as you ask to see the paragraph in Vatican II that tells Catholics not to teach about Original Sin. Or in another situation, smile and ask where the “Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy” suggests removing the tabernacle to prevent Jesus Christ from being a distraction at holy Mass.
Instead of being shocked, be confident that the Church does not teach nonsense. Instead of becoming indignant and outraged, chuckle at the silly attempts to deceive the people of God with false claims about Vatican II. Then serenely, peacefully, and cheerfully turn to the Vatican II and post-conciliar documents for evidence that the Church still teaches the same doctrine it always has.
Of course, computers are a big help in finding things; the Bible, Vatican II, the Catechism, the Church Fathers, and many other sources are available on CD-ROM and on the Internet for fast research. Whether in books or in cyberspace, Catholic information is publicly available. After all, the Church is not some secret organization like the Masons.
Peaceful, humorous responses to the shocking ecclesial behavior of the abusers will keep them off guard. They expect stunned silence or outbursts of anger. Surprise them with correct information and with a cheerful, optimistic attitude based on your confidence in Jesus Christ our Lord, the founder of the Catholic Church.
You can find the confidence you need by contemplating Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and in Sacred Scripture. Making the holy hour and inviting other faithful Catholics to do the same has reshaped many parishes, affecting clergy, religious, and ecclesial professionals. Better than shocked paralysis or anger, are prayer, holiness, solid information, and the cleverness of serpents.
Perhaps by the same merciful grace that keeps us faithful, God our Lord will use us for the conversion of the abusers to orthodox Catholicism.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mitch Pacwa ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Hefty Tuition Tab? Nothing a Little Tithing Can't Remedy DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:THE AVERAGE tuition in a Catholic elementary school for the 1996-97 academic year was $1,303, according to the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). NCEA spokeswoman Barbara Keebler explains that the gap in the actual $2,145 average per-pupil cost was bridged by endowments or with proceeds from candy sales, raffles, and the like.
With a per pupil cost of $3,000 for its elementary school, Christ the King parish in Jacksonville, Fla., is slightly higher than average, but that doesn't mean parents are struggling to pay.
The secret: A program championed by recently retired pastor, Msgr. Mortimer Danaher.
“Because of the parishioners tithing 8 percent of their income,” explains Pat Thomas, the parish director of development, “we have a tuition-free school for children who are members of the parish.”
This not only includes the 660 children in the elementary school, but also takes in the fully subsidized 160 teens in the diocesan Bishop Kenny High School, and the 15 special education students, also in the diocesan-run school that's located on the parish grounds.
Put in place in 1989, the stewardship plan absolutely flourishes.
“It's pretty revolutionary,” NCEA's Keebler remarks about the method that makes Christ the King a rare model among more than 8,200 Catholic schools in the country.
Yet there's nothing esoteric going on—just a solid grounding in Scripture, Church teaching, prayer, and love of neighbor, all gathered under the words “tithing” and “stewardship.”
Like many schools, Christ the King had tuition problems for many years. Msgr. Danaher noted that, previously, the parish raised tuition a few dollars every month. Slowly, the school lost students.
The experience was not unusual. In The American Catholic Experience, Church historian Jay Dolan cites finances as “the most serious problem facing Catholic educators,” even back in the 19th century, since operating a school could account for 30-50 percent of parish expenses.
First turning to stopgap measures—such as ads in supermarkets, letters to the editor, and the like—to deal with the problem, the pastor emeritus realized the parish needed a solid program rather than gimmicks.
The solution began as a straightforward challenge.
“I went to ask the families for help,” Msgr. Danaher recalls. “I told them there are 47 different ways God tells us in the Bible to give 10 percent off the top,” and that we're “talking like fools if we follow our plan and not God's.”
Then Francis “Dutch” Scholtz, director of stewardship for the Diocese of St. Augustine, was invited to explain the details to parishioners. Lay people witnessed how stewardship had changed their lives—and collections increased.
The important foundation stone, however, according to Msgr. Danaher, was regular eucharistic adoration carried out on a daily basis.
“I told people we had to start praying for our people, our country, our children,” he says. “Nothing but goodness started in our parish [with that].”
The next step was to get the laypeople actively sharing time and talents with and for each other.
“Prayer is critical and central to the whole program,” explains Scholtz, who opened the stewardship office for the diocese 11 years ago, and who has been actively promoting these programs in talks across the country for more than 35 years.
Accepting such a program “has to do with conversion,” he stresses. “Our needs are simple, but we live in a world that promotes wants as needs,” yet people such as those at Christ the King “were ready for a counter-cultural” response.
The importance of helping youth in the parish obtain a Catholic education struck a chord with parishioners. Supporting the school with their tithing program, whether they were parents of students or not, seemed a worthy pursuit.
The plan was not “a matter of writing off tuition,” says Msgr. Danaher, “but of the parish saying, ‘we're going to take care of our children.’”
The material goods, he added, “are just chattel,” but what “we pass on to the kids—and they pass on to their kids—is the important matter, the stuff of real worth.”
Scholtz says “the key thing is that it's based on the Gospel—this is a Gospel message. … We have a responsibility to fellow human beings to be more generous.”
He also cites the 1992 U.S. bishops’ pastoral, Stewardship: A Disciple's Response, as another key for the program because “it gives a theological underpinning.”
What's happened at Christ the King parish, described as being in one of Jacksonville's poorest areas? The collection now averages more than $50,000 a week from its 2,500 mostly poor and middle-class families. There are very few doctors and other professionals in the parish, according to Msgr. Danaher.
However, as a result of the weekly offertory, the parish picks up the cost for 660 elementary students at $3,000 each year, 160 high school students at $3,333, and 15 special education pupils at $3,780 each. Students whose families don't belong to the parish are responsible for paying tuition for themselves.
Before, “we were pricing ourselves out of business for single moms,” explains Thomas. Now these children stay in the parish school, with the added benefit that “it gives [to others] a sense of helping people in their parish.”
When time and talent come first, Thomas adds, the treasure easily follows because people get a sense of ownership and involvement along with the initial spiritual underpinning. For instance, many ethnic-style dinners, socials, and free breakfasts after Mass draw people together.
As Scholtz says, “The main thing is not the money, but what happens to people's lives.”
Besides tuition, these events and regular parish expenses account for 80 percent of the 10 percent tithe. From the balance, half goes to the annual bishop's appeal, and half to charity. Even the parish as a whole tithes.
“We give approximately $100,000 a year to between 20-25 different ministries,” says Thomas, “like missions in Africa, Jacksonville emergency pregnancy services, unwed mothers, and a house for retarded adults.”
The success at Christ the King, whose program Msgr. Danaher adopted from Father Tom McGread in Wichita, Kan., where it's in place in several parishes, is beginning to catch on. Blessed Trinity in Ocala, Fla., and Holy Name of Jesus in West Palm Beach, have implemented this approach. In the Diocese of St. Augustine, three pastors have teamed together to build Annunciation Catholic School, next to St. Luke's Church in Middleburg, near Jacksonville, to run on the same program.
The “tithing model” is expected to remain in place at Christ the King under the new pastor, Father Robert Baker.
It seems clear that it works, though for Msgr. Danaher, implementing the system was “a leap of faith,” Scholtz says.
Now that others have seen the waters are fine, they're beginning to follow his example and make sure parish kids have no obstacles to receiving a Catholic education.
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: A Florida parish assures its youthful members the privilege of a Catholic education ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A Bit of Rome in Montreal DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:IF A VISIT to the Vatican is out of reach, a dozen blocks from Montreal's Basilica of Notre-Dame you'll find Cathedrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Mary Queen of the World). Built in the 19th century and restored in the mid-20th, this cathedral-basilica of Montreal is a scaled-down replica of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
While the height and diameter of the cupola are about half the size of St. Peter's, the area of the church covers about one-fourth of the original's. Considering the grandeur of the model, this scale version is rather impressive.
Beneath the cupola, there's a faithful copy of Bernini's bronze Baldacchino (altar canopy). This hand-formed reproduction, complete with the famous twisted support columns in red copper and gold leaf was made in Rome in 1900.
Likewise, the stately tomb of Bishop Ignace Bourget, who planned and began this cathedral, also originated in Rome, and rests on full display in an impressive side chapel together with Montreal's other bishops and archbishops.
An exquisite sea of marble, much in pale green and sand shades, flows from the sanctuary to aisles and side chapels, such as the Relic and Marriage Chapels.
Prominent along the aisles are several oversized paintings that commemorate Jesuit Sts. Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lallemant, who were early martyrs, Bl. Mother Marguerite D'You ville, and Bl. Marguerite Bourgeoys who was Montreal's first teacher and foundress of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame.
Mary was named as patroness of the cathedral in 1955 (the earlier titular saint was St. James the Greater), and she is honored with a statue behind the main altar depicting her as Queen of the World.
As queen, she must smile upon the bishop's original intent for this cathedral's duplicated design-to show Montreal's loyalty and attachment to the Roman Pontiff.
—Joseph Pronechen
Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal, Canda, is a replica of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Crooked Cops Find Redemption in the City of Angels DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:IN THE POPULAR imagination Los Angeles has long been the city of the American Dream—a land of openness and opportunity where people can reinvent themselves and realize their highest economic and spiritual potential. The guardians of this earthly paradise, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), once held similar mythic status in TV series like Dragnet and the novels of Joseph Wambaugh (The New Centurions). Unlike their flabby east coast or Midwest counterparts, they were honest, clean-cut, physically fit protectors of law and order. A pro-active, gung ho, elite unit like the Marines or the Green Berets, they drove the Mafia out of town and kept the streets safe from bad guys.
All that changed six years ago with the much-publicized Rodney King incident. Since that time the LAPD's detractors and much of the media have characterized the department as racist, ultra-violent, and out of control—and claimed it had always been so.
LA Confidential, based on James Ellroy's novel, reflects the current ACLU, left-liberal view of the LAPD as influenced by that incident. It's the flip side of Dragnet's idealized knights in blue and just as stylized and false. Every cop in LA Confidential is either venal or corrupt; systematic discrimination against minorities is depicted as part of the department's culture; and the beating and killing of suspects is a regular occurrence. It's a nightmare vision of law-enforcement authority run amok.
The movie is set in 1953 when the city's future looked bright, and a brief prologue presents images of an optimistic boomtown. But writer-director Curtis Hanson (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) and co-screenwriter Brian Helgeland (Conspiracy Theory) soon rub our noses in the dark side. The story revolves around three policemen, each of whom represents a different aspect of LAPD corruption.
Sgt. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) at first glance appears to be a law-enforcement officer in the squeaky-clean New Centurions mode. The college-educated son of a hero cop killed while on duty, he refuses bribes and fights against the department's racism. When the chief (John Mahon) advocates the use of “all available force” to track down some black suspects, Exley cracks, “Why not just put a bounty on them?”
The straight-arrow exterior hides an ambitious, manipulative careerist with few moral scruples. When a gang of his fellow cops brutally stomp some Mexicans in the police station on Christmas Eve, Exley tries to stop them. During the department's internal investigation he agrees to break the code of silence and testify against his brother officers-for a price. Knowing his action will allow the brass to put the best possible face on the incident, he demands a promotion to detective lieutenant in return for his testimony.
Bud White (Russell Crown) is a vigilante cop who believes policemen must “do what they have to do for justice.” Whenever he sees a woman being abused, he punishes the perpetrator regardless of the law. In one incident, he executes a rapist, then plants evidence to make it look as if he acted in self-defense.
Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the slimiest of the lot. Nicknamed “Hollywood Jack” and “the Big V,” he works as an adviser to the Dragnet-like series, Badge of Honor, which presents the LAPD in the best possible light. He makes money on the side by setting up marijuana busts of young stars and starlets so they can be photographed by Sid Hudgeons (Danny Devito), editor of the celebrity-driven tabloid, Hush-Hush, whose material is always “off the record, on the q.t., hush-hush … prime sinuendo.”
Vincennes and White hate Exley because he snitched on their buddies. The three of them are forced to work together though, on the department's biggest case, The Nite Owl Massacre—a coffee-shop killing of six people including an LAPD officer. Exley appears to wrap-up the investigation after a bloody shoot-out for which he is decorated, but none of the three men is satisfied. There are too many loose ends.
White's damsel-in-distress syndrome has gotten him involved with Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a hooker with a heart of gold who has been surgically altered to look like film heroine Veronica Lake. The trio's off-the-books investigation leads to her pimp (Pierce Patchett) who is described as “a powerful, behind-the-scenes strange-o.” This results in Exley's own affair with Bracken, which turns White against him.
A labyrinth of tantalizing clues pulls the trio back together onto the case, and each redeems himself in the pursuit of justice. By conventional standards, they all have enough negative character traits to be the bad guys in most cop films. As we watch them become enmeshed in the LAPD's pervasive culture of corruption, it seems unlikely that any of them will become clean. But each has confronted some example of evil-doing that viscerally disgusts him and turns him against the department.
This drama of redemption is emotionally gripping if you can get past the excessive violence and profanity that the filmmakers use to spice things up. You root for the three police officers to do the right thing even though they're risking their lives. Their commitment to the truth allows the movie to transcend its trendy, anti-cop attitudes and amoral, cynical veneer. Almost in spite of itself, LA Confidential reaffirms the power of individual conscience to make a difference.
The USCC classification of LA Confidential is A-IV-adults, with reservations. The movie is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
John Prizer, the Register's arts and culture correspondent, is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Priesthood Documentary Set to Air DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—It's Ash Wednesday in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood, and Father Mitch Rozanski, pastor of Holy Cross Parish, struggles up the five flights of stairs to the top of his church steeple.
The bells of the 150-year-old church tower need to be fixed. Earlier in the day, Father Rozanski distributed ashes to parishioners and preached on the significance of Lent's journey. In the congregation are longtime residents of this working class neighborhood, business people from the Inner Harbor, and new homeowners with infants. Welcome to the world of a parish priest.
This world will be the topic of an hour-long documentary entitled Answering God's Call: The Experience of Priesthood, which will be distributed by ABC-TV to its affiliates Sunday, Oct. 12 at 12:30 p.m. ET. (Call your ABC-TV affiliate for the local date and time.)
In addition to Father Rozanski, Father Patrick Smith, pastor of St. Peter Claver, an African-American parish in St. Inigoes, Md., is also profiled. As the program interweaves scenes of visits to the sick and parish meetings, Answering God's Call reveals the priests’ faith journey as well as the challenges they face.
“I had an idea that somehow, some way, I would want to serve God,” says Father Smith, a native of Washington. When he realized that his call was to be a priest, he said, “the vocation crisis ended and the crisis of faith began.”
As he contemplated the priesthood, he said, he began to “worry about how I would manage. …”
“[T]hen I came to the realization that I was capable of meeting these new challenges, and that God would guide me in this process,” he said. He realized, he added, that he should “have faith and move on.”
This faith has helped him to develop into a powerful preacher and dynamic organizer who has recharged the parish and community.
Challenges also faced Baltimore native Father Rozanski when he became pastor of two parishes, Holy Cross and St. Mary, Star of the Sea. Inspired by the shamrocks in Holy Cross's stained glass windows and the stations of the cross in German at St. Mary's, Father Rozanski recalls the strong faith roots of the original residents as he ministers to the needs of today's communities.
He also notes the changing times.
“How do we make our faith just as alive and vibrant now as that faith was alive and vibrant and important to [the immigrants] when they came over to these shores?” he asks. “That's the challenge.”
Answering God's Call: The Experience of Priesthood was directed by Academy Award winner Gerardine Wurzburg and produced by State of the Art, Inc., her Washington-based multimedia communications company.
“This film takes you beyond the headlines, and into the reality of a world where the spiritual and mundane must walk hand in hand,” she said. “The decision to become a priest is not an easy one today, and I was impressed by Father Mitch and Father Pat. Each strikes a different balance, but they both see that their basic roles are to offer solace, encourage change, and believe in the essential worth of each parishioner.”
Ellen McCloskey, of the U.S. Catholic Conference's (USCC) Catholic Communication Campaign, served as executive producer.
The documentary is the first program in the annual “Vision & Values” series sponsored by the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, of which the USCC is a member. Videotapes of the program are available after Oct. 12 by calling 800-235-8722.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: A Sampler of the Flicks Now Playing DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:A sampling of capsule reviews of movies from the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) Office for Film and Broadcasting:
Aaron's Magic Village (Avalanche)
Animated version of Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories about a Jewish village in Poland that becomes threatened by a wicked sorcerer's Golem until an orphaned lad helps save the hamlet and its foolish residents. Directed by Albert Hanan Kaminski and narrated by Fyvush Finkel, the humorous tale conveys the distinctive flavor of Jewish culture and tradition, though the story tends to drag between lively musical numbers. The USCC classification is A-I. The film is rated G—general audiences.
Different for Girls (First Look)
British drama in which a man (Rupert Graves) meets a woman (Steven Mackintosh) whom he finally recognizes is an old school chum who has undergone a sex-change operation, and unwittingly proceeds to wreck his friend's new life, then tries to make amends. Directed by Richard Spence, the story's bizarre situation is given some plausibility by the credible performances of the two leads, though what makes it notable is the serious treatment of the human dignity of a person who's attempted to switch genders. Troubling theme of transsexuality, several sexual encounters with brief nudity, and some rough language. The USCC classification is A-IV. The film is rated R—restricted.
The Edge (20th Century Fox)
Stranded in the Alaskan wilderness and trailed by a hungry Kodiak bear, a billionaire (Anthony Hopkins) and a fashion photographer (Alec Baldwin) struggle to survive the elements and their mutual mistrust over the rich man's much younger wife (Elle Macpherson). Directed by Lee Tamahori, the harrowing adventure is well acted, tautly edited, and psychologically suspenseful, despite a few lapses in logic. Some intense, gory violence, intermittent profanity, and recurring rough language. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated R—restricted.
In & Out (Paramount)
Sex farce about the comic confusions of a 40-year-old small-town teacher (Kevin Kline) whose life goes topsy-turvy days before his wedding when an Oscar-winning former student announces to the world that the teacher is gay. Director Frank Oz mixes warmhearted humor with broadly funny performances as the farcical proceedings poke fun at gay and straight stereotypes. Flippant treatment of homosexuality, brief male kissing scene, occasional profanity, and an instance of rough language. The USCC classification is A-IV—adults. The film is rated PG-13.
The Myth of Fingerprints (Sony Classics)
Prickly family relationships and tenuous romantic involvements are at stake when four adult children (including Noah Wyle and Julianne Moore) return to rural Maine for a tense Thanksgiving weekend with their gentle mother (Blythe Danner) and coldly critical father (Roy Scheider). Writer-director Bart Freundlich's keenly observed character study reflects how young adults continue to be affected by parental figures as they struggle to form lasting love relationships. Discreet sexual encounters, brief recreational drug use, some rough language, and much profanity. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated R—restricted.
The Assignment (Triumph)
Sordid thriller in which a callous CIA agent (Donald Sutherland) inveigles a Navy lieutenant (Aidan Quinn) into impersonating an international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal in hopes this will lure the real Carlos (also Quinn) out of hiding. Directed by Christian Duguay, the loosely fact-based story emphasizes hard-edged violence in scenes of terrorism and of the lieutenant killing without hesitation while masquerading as the merciless assassin. Much brutal violence, rationalization of adultery, some seamy sexual encounters with full nudity, occasional profanity, and frequent rough language. The USCC classification is O. The film is rated R.
USCC Office of Film and Broadcasting classification guide
A-I—general patronage
A-II—adults and adolescents
A-III—adults
A-IV—adults, with reservations (This classification designates problematic films that, while not morally offensive in themselves, require caution and some analysis and explanation as a safeguard against wrong interpretations and false conclusions.)
O—morally offensive.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Behind Bars and Pregnant DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:CATHERINE LYTLE and Maria Reyes each discovered they were pregnant shortly before they were incarcerated—not so unusual, given that, nationwide, one in 16 women entering prison is pregnant.
Lytle considered adoption; Reyes sought an abortion. Thanks to Kathy Morrissy and her seven-year-old San Diego, Ca.-based Baby Blessings ministry, though, both women kept their babies and were able to bond with them during regular prison visits.
Lytle, now 24, moved to San Diego from Chicago in 1989. The following year, she had a baby and gave it up for adoption. A year later, hooked on drugs, she entered prison for the first time.
In and out of jail since she was 18, last year Lytle was sent to the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in downtown San Diego for a fraud-related crime and was released after 11 months.
“I made a few bad decisions,” she says of her drug-using days and subsequent imprisonments. Now clean for 18 months, she attends community college and cares for her one-year-old, Jade, who was conceived three months before Lytle's last incarceration.
When she realized she was pregnant, Lytle again considered adoption, while others pressured her to abort.
“I'm pro-life,” says Lytle, who was raised Catholic and now attends Horizon Christian Fellowship near San Diego.
The baby's father, Lytle says, “was not in the picture, and I didn't have a relationship with my mom.”
Behind bars and pregnant, she prayed for help.
Six years earlier, then 26-year-old Reyes had been in the same predicament. Jailed at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in the San Diego suburb of Santee in 1990, she found out she was pregnant just two days before she began serving her sentence. Like Lytle, Reyes had been imprisoned numerous times.
She, too, was trying to pay for a drug habit, when she was caught smuggling illegal aliens into the United States. Once in jail, Reyes tried four times to schedule an abortion. Each time, her plans were foiled: she had a court appearance, she could-n't see a doctor right away, twice she was transferred to another jail.
Then, back at Las Colinas, she met women from the interdenominational Women's Aglow prison ministry.
“They helped me think about it more,” she explains, “and through prayer, I turned it over to God. I finally realized it was out of my hands. I was too far along. I would never have had the baby, but the Lord wanted me to for some reason.”
Morrissy's ministry was conceived the same weekend in 1990 as Reyes's baby, Yolanda.
Morrissy was at a Women's Aglow retreat in San Diego when she heard a speaker discuss prison ministry and the need for people to care for babies whose moms are imprisoned.
“That's when I heard God speak to my heart and heard him say that he had a child for me,” Morrissy says.
That child, Yolanda, was the first of seven that Morrissy has cared for. Lytle's baby, Jade, was Morrissy's most recent charge. She's also helped three women place their babies for adoption.
Morrissy visits jails and prisons throughout San Diego County to make her ministry known. Typically, a chaplain tells a pregnant prisoner about Morrissy, who will then meet with the mom-to-be.
Some inmates are skeptical, says MCC chaplain Father Wilfredo Crespo, an Episcopalian priest who was present at Jade's birth.
“They wonder, ‘Who is she? Why is this free?’” he says. “Then [Morrissy] spends time with the girls so they get to know her. She has the person pray about it. She earns their trust, and then [the inmate] feels secure that it's not a scam. Hers is the expression of love for the inmate.”
Morrissy wants the mothers “to have hope, no matter how desperate their situation is, that a child can be brought to full-term and there can be restoration for families and lives.”
Although each woman and her situation is unique, one thing remains constant—Morrissy's gentle love for the infants and their mothers.
“We're willing to support any woman,” Morrissy says, “because we truly believe what the Bible says—that God has a call on each child's life before the foundation of the earth was laid.”
While a woman is incarcerated, Morrissy brings the baby to visit six times during the first two weeks after birth, then at least twice monthly thereafter. But more than half the women imprisoned in the United States never see their children while serving their sentence, usually because of the geographical distance between the women and their children. When Morrissy visits jails and prisons to speak about Baby Blessings, she hears first-hand the anguish the moms feel over this separation.
“They can't even talk about their kids because it hurts so much,” Morrissy says. Seeing their sorrow confirms for her that her ministry is needed—not just in San Diego, but across the country. As word of her ministry spreads, she's had inquiries from throughout the United States.
After taking legal guardianship of a child through the courts, Morrissy cares for that baby as her own, bringing it to live in her home along with her five children: Luke, 2; Mark, 10; Michael, 14; Christopher, 16; and April, 22. April's one-year-old son also lives with them. Absent is Morrissy's husband, who left to live with another woman when she was pregnant with Luke.
“He chose disobedience,” she says, “but he's still the children's father. We pray for him and care for him.”
Morrissy, who says she's “always had a heart for women and children,” has volunteered at Children's Hospital in San Diego and served on missions in Mexico and Costa Rica through her church, Mission Bay Christian Fellowship. She's also done odd jobs—photography, day care, and tutoring—to bring in extra income, but with her husband gone, money has been tight and she's been unable to care for any babies since Jade.
The state pays the baby's medical costs and about $340 a month to legal guardians, while the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program covers formula. Children's resale shops donate clothes, strollers, and other necessities. But it's not enough to cover expenses, Morrissy says.
“There's diapers,” she says, “and we pay for collect calls from the mother. I take pictures of the baby regularly so the mother can send them to her relatives, which starts healing the family. There's also gas for traveling to and from the jail or prison.”
The visits sustain the mothers as well as Morrissy, who has another family lined up to join her in caring for babies, once the ministry is financially solid again.
“We have to do it,” she says. “That's what encourages me, to see the mother and the child. Even if a child goes to an adopted family, to know that child was given life. …”
When the mothers are released, a critical transition time for them, they move into Grace House, an apartment connected to Morrissy's home.
“When they have support, love, and encouragement,” Morrissy says, “then they're able to place their child first. We teach them how to read the Bible and the basics about what God says about gossip, and telling the truth, how to forgive, and that they can pray for their children and relatives.”
Many women return to their hometowns when released. Those who stay in the area, Morrissy helps—though some, like Reyes, do return to prison.
“But the babies haven't been aborted,” Morrissy says, “so we didn't lose.”
And the blessings come in unlikely places. Reyes's daughter Yolanda, now six, lives with Reyes's mother, who initially wanted nothing to do with Yolanda. But the grandmother had a change of heart when Morrissy took her to the hospital to see the infant.
Morrissy and the grandmother co-parented Yolanda briefly, then Yolanda moved in with her grandmother permanently and says she wants to stay with her always.
“This little girl has turned into the biggest blessing of the grandmother's life,” Morrissy says.
As for Lytle, she says she has “a lot of faith and trust in the Lord.”
“I've quit doing bad things,” Lytle says, “and I have a goal in life now. I live according to God's will. It's hard, but I know God's brought me this far and he's not going to stop there.”
Tracy Moran is based in San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: A San Diego woman helps mothers-to-be serving prison sentences choose life ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tracy Moran ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Two Majestic Churches in French Canada DATE: 10/12/1997 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 12-18, 1997 ----- BODY:The work of an unemployed young sculptor who became one of the country's finest artists marks both Montreal's Basilica of Notre-Dame and Ottawa's Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame
CANADA'S MOST renowned shrines are St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal and St. Anne de Beaupre in Quebec. With these as primary destinations, pilgrims and visitors can also add stops at other inspiring churches.
Two of these are the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Montreal and the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame in Ottawa. Their construction began less than two decades apart, and both bring neo-goth-ic architecture and art to celestial heights.
The first reaction to their majestic interiors might be a jaw-dropping but reverential “Ooh!” The sight is too grand and dazzling to absorb all at once.
Yet the churches are not just awe-inspiring because of their design and religious artistry—and they haven't begun acting like museums. Despite all the artistic grandeur, a spiritual feeling permeates them. You never lose the sense that you're in God's presence because these sights lift the heart heavenward.
Concerning more earthly details, the two churches are 125 miles apart, joined easily by the Queensway (Route 417) and main Autoroute 40. To the west is the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame, prominently situated on Sussex Drive which is called the “Mile of History” in Ottawa. Many who stroll around the government buildings and the museums beginning across the street don't know what they're missing at this oldest church in Canada's capital.
Gothic arches on either side of the nave leap down aisles to the main altar and reredos, nearly 52 feet high. The intricacy and delicacy of this carved wood masterpiece commands one's attention.
Here is Jesus at the center, crowned as king and seated in glory. On a slightly lower level, to his right is his Blessed Mother, Notre Dame, and to his left is St. Joseph, the patron of Canada. Both are represented in life-sized carvings, in seated positions—a pose rarely seen. Each member of the Holy Family is individually surrounded by elaborately decorated gothic arches.
The altar before the ornate golden bronze tabernacle has a triptych of scenes of Jesus teaching and of his resurrection in polychrome low reliefs. These reliefs and the statues above comprise part of more than 60 of Philippe Hébert's sculptures. This sculptor went on to be recognized as one of Canada's finest artists. Yet, incredibly, at the time he was asked to begin this task, he was unemployed, without prospects, and about to leave for the United States.
Some of the 30 life-sized statues he carved for this basilica are the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and evangelists lining both sides of the sanctuary. They stand tall above 52 stalls, which are carved with extraordinarily fine details by a trio of exceptionally gifted cabinetmakers. The sanctuary is filled with a heavenly court, including the nine choirs of angels.
At the left lateral altar, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, the tabernacle is joined on either side to carved reliefs of Jesus at the Passover and at the Last Supper.
Marbleized arches line the aisles and rise to terraced galleries, where pews reach back to the choir loft with its 4,000 pipes of the 19th-century Casavant organ housed within tall gothic cabinets.
The Casavant and sculptor Hébert also play roles in Montreal's Notre-Dame. Before driving there, along miles of rich farm and dairy land with their lines of silos breaking the horizon, ride along the city's postcard Rideau Canal, stroll through the By Ward Market two blocks from the church, and discover the canal locks.
Begun in 1823, the Basilica of Notre-Dame on Rue de la Notre-Dame is part of Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal). Immediately you feel the European influence in this part of the city that dates to its earliest years. The historical wealth is practically undepleted even though modern sections adjoin the area.
By 1843, Notre-Dame's twin towers were in place. The left, called the Persévérance, contains the widely-known Le Gros Bourdon. Cast in Whitechapel Bell Foundry in England, the great bell weighs some 5,000 pounds and can be heard more than 20 miles away. The right tower, the Tempérance, houses a 10-bell chime.
Absolutely breathtaking is an understated description for the painted, gilded gothic interior. All eyes immediately travel down the 3,500-seat nave, with vaulted blue ceilings speckled with gold stars above, to the main altar.
The focal point is Jesus crucified, with Mary, St. John, and Mary Magdelene close to him. Circling out from this scene are polychrome statues of Sts. Peter and Paul, and the four Evangelists.
Exquisite wood sculptures abound. On either side of the wooden tabernacle, carved angels appear to stretch into infinity. The altar itself seems supported by a highly detailed carving of the Last Supper.
Above the high altar is an intensely beautiful depiction of God crowning Mary. At this level, delicate columns, backed by a brightly lit blue firmament, circle around the sanctuary above the ornate wooden stalls.
Down both aisles, seven confessionals on each side, enclosed within replicas of embellished gothic “buildings,” underscore the sacrament's importance.
Angels carved onto the highly decorated arches watch over the worshippers filling the pews and the galleries above. Near the middle of the church, and reaching up past the gallery, stairs spiral to the lofty pulpit that is ornamented with wooden statues carved by Hébert.
Work on the massive pulpit, the high altar, and the pews was carried out in Vieux Montreal, in shops just down the street from the basilica.
The imposing 1891 Casavant organ, with some 7,000 pipes growing from less than half-an-inch to over 33 feet, sounds not only mighty but majestic. You can hear it at all five Sunday Masses.
To the rear of the sanctuary, a door leads to the Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart) Chapel, dazzling because it appears to be all done in tones of gold. This chapel seats 1,000 in its pews and in its loft that's reached by twin spiral staircases.
After fire destroyed the first chapel, this one was rebuilt to recall the old one. The first two levels, made of linden wood, duplicate the original. Yet there's a contemporary look and feel, starting with the sanctuary's 56-foot-high bronze sculpture that depicts humanity journeying upwards to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father.
Surrounding this precious jewel of a basilica, bilingual Montreal (French and English) offers an array of sights and plentiful activities, beginning with Old Montreal at the church's steps. Other nearby beautiful and historic churches beckon, as do Mont-Royal Park, the Botanical Gardens, museums, and on and on.
Restaurants are plentiful. For simplifying hotel, auberge, or bed-and-break-fast arrangements, without prior reservations in or around Montreal, stop by the city's Infotouriste at Dorchester Square. There, besides maps and brochures, you'll find a pleasant, free service that searches and books rooms to your preference.
It's only blocks from the Basilica of Notre-Dame, surely one of the country's most beautiful churches.
Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pope's Letter Settles Key Practical Questions DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—At first glance, Pope John Paul II's recently released motu proprio on bishops' conferences, Apostolos Suos, may seem to address an abstract and bureaucratic subject. In fact, the document may have serious impact on the Church in the United States.
What is an episcopal conference? Canon Law states that it is “a grouping of bishops of a given country or territory whereby, according to the norm of law, they jointly exercise pastoral functions on behalf of the Christian faithful of their territory …” (canon 447). Such conferences are often national, but may also be regional.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the national episcopal conference for the United States. The bishops of America's dioceses, along with their auxiliary bishops, are its members, and the conference has various committees of bishops and related agencies with respective officers, directors, and staffs. Abureaucracy, in other words.
Though episcopal conferences started in the 19th century, Vatican II was the major catalyst for their spread, a process Pope Paul VI accelerated by calling for them in countries or territories where they did not exist.
The rise of episcopal conferences has raised some thorny questions though: What is the relationship between the individual bishop of a diocese and the episcopal conference of which he is a member? Does the episcopal conference act as an intermediary body between a bishop and the college of bishops, headed by the Pope? What is the authority of documents issued by episcopal conferences, whether by a committee or the whole conference? Are such documents binding on the faithful — or on bishops who do not endorse them? What about disagreement among episcopal conferences of different nations?
These questions aren't merely theoretical. Throughout the 1980s and '90s episcopal conferences around the world — as well as their committees and agencies — issued many pastoral statements with varying degrees of endorsement from the bishops themselves. These documents cover everything from war and peace and the economy, to telecommunications and foreign policy, from the Holy Eucharist and human sexuality, to liberation theology and anti-Catholic sects. In fact, the U.S. bishops' pastoral letters alone fill five hefty volumes. Are they all to be accepted as “the Church's teaching”?
Moreover, conferences occasionally take conflicting stances on a particular issue. For example, in 1983, the U.S. bishops prepared their pastoral letter on war and peace at the same time the French and German bishops drafted theirs taking opposing stances from the U.S. bishops on some issues. The Holy See called an international conference to iron things out.
Then there's the problem of documents issued by committees of episcopal conferences. Often these appear to have the full weight of the conference's authority behind them, when in fact they don't. Case in point: the U.S. bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family's Always Our Children, a controversial statement to parents of homosexually oriented children. Approved by the confer-ence's administrative board last October but not by the full body of bishops, the statement was strongly criticized by some bishops, while vigorously praised by others. Yet despite these very public disagreements of bishops, Always Our Children was widely touted in the media as the American bishops' statement. In June, the Committee on Marriage and Family issued a revised version after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sought changes that reflected criticisms some bishops had made.
The problem of committee documents is exacerbated by the fact that while the bishops usually understand such documents' limits, the faithful at large — including catechists, liturgists, and sometimes even pastors — may not. Another case in point: the NCCB liturgy committee's 1977 document Environment and Art in Catholic Worship. Sometimes cited by liturgists and building committees as normative and obligatory, the document is not binding on bishops or their pastors.
Problems such as these explain why the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops asked the Holy See to clarify the nature of episcopal conferences. The result was a draft document circulated among bishops by the Holy See. Reaction was mixed, though several conferences rejected the draft and sought a complete reworking.
Apparently, John Paul II decided to satisfy the Synod's request himself by issuing Apostolos Suos. The apostolic letter answers many important questions posed by episcopal conferences, drawing on Vatican II, recent magisterial documents on the Church, and the Code of Canon Law.
For one, the letter addresses the relationship between the individual bishop in his diocese and the episcopal conference. According to Pope John Paul II, the conference exists to serve the individual bishop, not the other way around.
“The essential fact must be kept in mind that the episcopal conferences with their commissions and offices exist to be of help to the bishops and not to substitute for them,” he writes (No. 18). “The authority of the episcopal conference and its field of action are in strict relation to the authority and action of the diocesan bishop and the bishops equivalent to them in law” (No. 19).
John Paul II's teaching here is based on two divinely established ways bishops carry out their ministry. On the one hand, as individuals, they oversee their respective “particular churches” — dioceses, that is. The bishops, as John Paul II indicates quoting Vatican II, “have succeeded to the Apostles as shepherds of the Church” and “govern the particular churches entrusted to them as the vicars and ambassadors of Christ… “ (No. 19; cf. Lumen Gentium, Nos. 20 and 27).
On the other hand, there is the College of Bishops, of which the bishops throughout the world are members. The College of Bishops, “together with its head, the Roman Pontiff, and never without this head,” exercises “supreme and full power over the universal Church” (No. 9). The College of Bishops succeeds the Apostolic College in its responsibility for the universal Church.
The authority of the individual bishop in his diocese and of the College of Bishops are both of divine origin; episcopal conferences are not. They are created by the bishops of their respective regions who request them, and by the supreme authority of the Church, which alone approves, erects, suppresses, or changes episcopal conferences (cf. canon 449, ß1).
Of course, in some cases and for the good of the Church, the exercise of an individual bishop's authority “can be circumscribed by certain limits,” writes John Paul II (No. 19; cf. Lumen Gentium, No. 27). But this requires “intervention of the supreme authority of the Church which, through universal law or particular mandates, entrusts determined questions to the deliberation of the episcopal conference” (No. 20).
The Pope or the College of Bishops united with him, then, can give responsibility for certain matters over to an episcopal conference — as has been done in the Code of Canon Law, for example. However, neither the individual bishop, nor the bishops united in an episcopal conference, can “autonomously limit their sacred power in favor of the episcopal conference” (No. 20) or, a fortiori, commissions or councils of it.
Consequently, episcopal conferences are intermediate bodies between individual bishops and the Pope or even the College of Bishops only when and to the extent the supreme authority of the Church allows — in specific areas that are entrusted to them (cf. No. 13). Otherwise the individual bishop can't be limited or restricted by an episcopal conference to which he belongs, nor, according to canon 455, can it even act in his name: “neither the conference nor its president may act in the name of all the bishops unless each and every bishop has given his consent” (No. 20).
Furthermore, smaller bodies of a conference such as permanent councils, commissions, or offices “do not have the authority to carry out acts of authentic Magisterium either in their own name or in the name of the conference, and not even as a task assigned to them by the conference” (No. 23). And even when bishops unanimously agree, the confer-ence's teaching still isn't on a par with that of the College of Bishops for the universal Church. As John Paul II writes, such an “exercise of the episcopal ministry never takes on the collegial nature proper to the actions of the order of bishops as such, which alone holds the supreme power over the whole Church” (No. 12).
Which leads to a crucial issue: the authority of documents issued by the conference or its committees. Are they binding on the faithful or even on bishops who might not have approved them?
Only when such documents are unanimously approved by the bishops of a conference, declares Pope John Paul II, may they be issued in the name of the conference; only then are the faithful “obliged to adhere with a sense of religious respect to that authentic Magisterium of their own bishop” (No. 22), not of the conference as such. A mere majority of bishops won't make a statement as that of the conference or bind the faithful of a territory in conscience. That requires a document's recognitio by the Apostolic See (cf. No. 22).
Beyond the issue of binding documents, there's also the question of their usefulness, a matter that extends to the bureaucratic structures of episcopal conferences as well. If conferences are to fulfill their purpose, writes John Paul II, they must avoid “an excessively bureaucratic development of offices and commissions operating between plenary sessions [of bishops]” (No. 18).
Apostolos Suos concludes with four norms regarding episcopal conferences, which includes restatement of items found elsewhere in the motu proprio and a directive that conferences review their statutes in light of the new document and Canon Law. The statutes then must be sent to the Apostolic See for approval.
According to Russell Shaw, former secretary for public affairs for the U.S. bishops, Apostolos Suos provides “a clear standard against which to measure a lot of questions with regard to the structure, programs, and even the budget of the bishops' conference. And the standard is: Is this going to be helpful to the individual bishop trying to do his job in his diocese?”
Shaw warns against “overheated and exaggerated interpretation of the document” as “a heavy-handed crackdown on bishops'conferences.”
“It's not going to seriously inhibit bishops' conferences from doing anything important that they need to do,” he says. “It's a clarifying document, which ought to help them set their priorities in the future. “
What effect will Apostolos Sous have on the quantity and quality of documents from episcopal conferences and their organs?
“It might lead to more thought before the fact about whether and how to release these statements,” says Shaw. “It'll cut down on output of committee statements.”
Veteran Church observer Philip Lawler, editor of Catholic World Report, agrees.
“It will discourage the proliferation of public statements, since one bishop's dissent can vitiate the authority of a document.”
Lawler also believes Apostolos Suos “will encourage bishops to argue their positions boldly, rather than surrender when they find themselves in a minority. Even if a bishop finds himself badly outnumbered, if he considers a document unwise he can make sure it's not binding.”
John Paul II's Apostolos Suos should not be seen as hostile to episcopal conferences. The Pope regards them as important instruments for, among other things, fostering unity among bishops, but, he insists, they must support the bishop's ministry in his diocese, not “hinder it by substituting themselves inappropriately for him,” where the common law of the Church does not allow, or “by acting as a filter or obstacle” to “direct contact between the individual bishops and the Apostolic See” (No. 24).
Mark Brumley writes from San Francisco, California.
----- EXCERPT: DOCUMENT NOT INTENDED AS A REBUKE SAY CHURCH OBSERVERS ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Loss of Capitol Policemen Still Felt Across Nation DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Nearly 1,500 law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty throughout our nation's history, but the deaths of two U.S. Capitol police officers have struck a special emotional chord in America. These officers, killed when an apparently deranged loner burst into the Capitol July 24, have been honored as fallen heroes.
The tragic drama began when Russell Eugene Weston Jr. ran into one of the building's entrances and mortally shot Officer Jacob Chestnut. Weston then fled toward the office of the House majority whip, Rep. Thomas DeLay (R-Texas). Detective John Gibson, who was guarding DeLay's office, was killed in a gun battle with Weston.
Chestnut and Gibson, each of whom had served 18 years on the force, became the first Capitol policemen killed on duty. Weston was shot by Gibson and another officer, and remains hospitalized. A woman visiting from Virginia also was injured in the gunfire.
The 58-year-old Chestnut was a retired Air Force military policeman, who had served in Vietnam. He and his wife had five children and lived in Fort Washington, Md. His community remembered him as a respected family man and neighbor.
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), in a July 28 ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, told Chestnut's family, “He was a man I saw every day, as did most members of the leadership, because that was the door we went in and out of every day.”
“He was always courteous. He was always firm. He was always disciplined. He always did his job. He will be very sadly missed, but your family can be proud that your father is a genuine hero,” Gingrich said.
The sequence of events in the Capitol on that hot Friday afternoon allowed John Gibson to capture the nation's heart with his heroism. For the past three-and-a-half years, he had been assigned to protect DeLay. He died safeguarding the lives of DeLay's staff members.
When Gibson heard the gunfire, he immediately went into DeLay's office and told everyone to remove themselves from danger. He then confronted Weston, directed him to drop his weapon, and exchanged shots when his command was ignored. All accounts acknowledge that he sacrificed his life to save those he was assigned to protect.
DeLay, who had developed a close bond with Gibson, was emotional about the officer's death.
“John Gibson was a member of my security detail, of my staff, and of my family,” he said. “John and I went everywhere together. We had many long talks about life, about family, about duty, and about country.
“John Gibson was a solid man. He was a patriot. He exemplified all that is good about America,” he said.
DeLay's staff, too, had a close relationship with the 42-year-old father of three. Gibson was remembered as a professional, a friend, and a Catholic who lived his faith.
Staff member Frank Maguire proudly said, “I had described John to my wife as my vision of what a Catholic priest would be like who was allowed to marry and to raise a family.”
Another staffer, Pamela Mattox, said, “In church [during the funeral Mass], I looked up at the crucifix — and for the first time truly understood the sacrifice of giving up one's life for others. That is what John Gibson did for all of us in the whip's office. We lived because he cared enough to protect us.”
“But in reflection, every day he did more than that. His way of life exemplified the best of the Golden Rule — at worship, at home, at play, at work. John Gibson was, in a most unassuming way, simply the best,” she said.
Another touching memory was offered by Deana Funderburk, who described how disappointed she was that she couldn't attend the welcoming ceremony for Mother Teresa at the Capitol in 1997. Gibson accompanied DeLay to the event.
“The ceremony commenced and in remembrance of that momentous event, each person in attendance was given a pendant with an engraving of the Virgin Mary on it.
“After the welcoming ceremony was finished, John came to my desk and held out his hand in a fist. He said that since I was not able to attend, he wanted me to have his special pendant.
“I cannot express how much that gesture meant to me and how generous and kind [a] man he was. I still have the pendant which I will always treasure,” she said.
Another DeLay staff member, Autumn Hanna, said, “He gave his life protecting us, and I am still reassured by his presence. Our guardian is now in heaven instead of at the back door, but he will always be with us.”
One other staffer, Tony Rudy, remembers the fun-loving nature of the Massachusetts native, who followed the Boston Red Sox hockey, and who enjoyed country music.
“My fondest memory of John is when we used to rush to get the four o'clock mail and try to get The Boston Herald and the [Boston] Globe. We would talk about UMass hoops and the [Boston] Bruins.”
Gibson's wife, Evelyn, is the cousin of Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-Mass.). Moakley, too, spoke of Gibson's character, dedication, and faith.
“John was a religious man who sought strength and comfort from his Lord,” Moakley said. “As a family man, John excelled. He always made time for his wife and their three children.”
His wife, daughter, and two sons were comforted by an enormous out-pouring of tribute and affection during the viewing of Gibson's casket at a ceremony at the Capitol; a viewing and Mass of Christian burial at their parish church; an unprecedented 35-mile motorcade procession into Washington, D.C.; and burial at Arlington National Ceremony.
The services at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Lake Ridge, Va., attracted enormous crowds representing friends and neighbors, official Washington, and — most prominently — the brotherhood of policemen.
Representatives from police forces came from throughout the east coast, several states in the Midwest, and as far away as California, Washington state, and Canada.
The funeral cortege was unique, even to Washington, which has been the site of many important modern-day ceremonies. More than 1,000 vehicles, including 250 motorcycles, made up a procession that spanned 14 miles. Much of metropolitan Washington, D.C., stopped to pay tribute to Detective Gibson and his family.
During his homily, the Gibsons' pastor, Father Daniel Hamilton, urged mourners to use the tragic event to help build a better, more loving society.
“You and I need to be committed, committed to passing laws, enforcing laws, and living laws that root out violence as much as possible,” the priest said. “We can do that — we can do that — by rooting it out of individual lives and then as a collective society, begin to right the wrongs in our society so that violence is something that we don't resort to and we don't have.
“Oh, there are going to be senseless acts from time to time,” Father Hamilton continued, “but you and I as a committed group today can agree just in our lives to do what is right, to do what is just for everyone that we meet, for everyone that we deal with, for all of our people.”
“And what can happen is a changed and transformed society. And I believe that Officer Jacob Chestnut and Officer John Gibson would be more proud of that than anything else that we could do,” he said.
In the aftermath of the officers' deaths, Congress is reconsidering safety in the Capitol. One proposal receiving renewed attention is the construction of a visitors' center, which would reduce security concerns by removing tourists from the Capitol Building. Such a center might be dedicated to Chestnut and Gibson.
In addition, Congress immediately established a fund for the families of the two officers. A spokesperson for the Capitol Police said contributions began arriving July 27, the first workday after the shooting. (Donations may be made to the U.S. Capitol Police Memorial Fund, Washington, DC 20515.)
Washington, a city associated with weighty political issues and sometimes viewed with skepticism around the country, has been gripped with a profound sense of loss. Perhaps it is because the capitol, the nation's citadel of democracy, was brutally assaulted and two dedicated police officers died. In addition, however, there is a realization that in a time of cynicism and frequent polarization, the country still has heroes — unassuming heroes who love and laugh, live and die, all the while taking strength from their Creator.
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
(See related “Perspective,” page 8)
----- EXCERPT: Faith and family marked lives of two officers who died protecting others ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: National Catechism Under Consideration by U.S. Bishops DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:NEWYORK—Acatechism for the United States based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church may soon be in the works if the nation's bishops approve action on a feasibility study to be presented next month in Washington, D.C.
The study, commissioned by the administrative board of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) almost three years ago, was conducted by the NCCB's Office for the Catechism, whose most public role thus far has been ruling whether catechetical texts submitted for review are in keeping with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel Buechlein OSB, episcopal director of the Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, will present a report on the study.
His report last year to the General Assembly of Bishops that a significant number of catechetical texts reviewed by the committee were deficient in areas of doctrine and moral formation fueled an urgent desire among bishops, pastors, and laypeople for more orthodox guidance in religious education.
The call for national catechisms throughout the Church comes from Pope John Paul II himself in his 1992 apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum, on the promulgation of the Catechism. It states that the Catechism is not intended to replace “local catechisms” approved by episcopal authorities on diocesan or national levels; rather the Catechism is “to encourage and assist in the writing of new local catechisms, which take into account various situations and cultures, while carefully preserving the unity of faith and fidelity to Catholic doctrine.”
This statement has been taken by some educators as meaning that the Catechism should not be studied directly by the laity, who should wait for the “experts” to present it to them. The Pope's other statements discount this interpretation. The Catechism, the Holy Father writes, is offered “to all the faithful who wish to deepen their knowledge of the unfathomable riches of salvation.”
A national catechism could take two basic forms, said Father Michael Pollard, executive director of the Committee for the Catechism, who headed the feasibility study. A single text for adults could be issued, or a catechetical series for elementary and high schools could be published, with textbooks appropriate for each grade level. The latter format is used by catechetical publishers who supply texts to schools and parish religious education programs nationwide.
The bishops also could issue national guidelines to define what doctrines of the faith are to be taught and at what time in a religious education program. There are no such guidelines presently recognized; dioceses and even parishes have been left to draw up their own.
A number of catechetical experts have lobbied for a U.S. catechism in the hope that the bishops would in this way exercise more control over the contents of textbooks put out by these various publishers.
“I have been a great proponent over the years of a national catechism as a way of unifying our efforts in the field of religious education, now that we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a certain guide,” Msgr. Michael Wrenn, author of two books on catechetics, told the Register. “A national catechism will help place catechetics back in the hands of the ones who are divinely charged with handing on the truths of the faith — the bishops.” As a New York pastor, Msgr. Wrenn is special consultant on catechesis to John Cardinal O'Connor. His most recent book by Ignatius Press, Flawed Expectations, critiques the attacks on the universal Catechism by high-profile dissenting Catholics. His other book, Catechisms and Controversies, gives a well-documented, behind-the-scenes look at the persons and secular educational theories that changed religious instruction in the wake of Vatican II.
“In recent years, certain people in the religious education establishment have moved catechetics away from content-based and propositional-statement methods to methods of experiential knowledge,” said Msgr. Wrenn. “There has been a great concern for social-gospel outreach and religious socialization and very little for the great creeds of our faith. The result is a generation that by and large does not know the faith and is unable to pass is on to others.”
The basic catechetical text in the United States for almost a century was the Baltimore Catechism, which in its various editions had greater or lesser episcopal input and oversight. Written in a precise question-and-answer format and used for both adults and children, the Baltimore Catechism defined the faith for many generations of Catholics, and was considered the all-purpose answer book for inquiries and disputes.
Criticism of the question-and-answer format, which required heavy doses of memorization, and claims that too many Catholics were learning but not living the faith, led to the development of new catechetical methods and an almost overnight shelving of the Baltimore Catechism. The method was not perfect, and did tend toward a legalistic understanding of the faith, but the texts that replaced the Baltimore Catechism in American classrooms were deficient in more ways than one, said Msgr. Wrenn.
“What we should be moving toward is an integration of the learning and the living of the faith, not an exclusion of one in favor of the other,” he stressed.
The fact that a number of catechetical texts used today in Catholic schools and parishes are deficient has been no secret to pastors, principals, and parents over the years. Kelly Bowring, a father of four children and chairman of the theology department for the past two years at a Catholic preparatory school in San Antonio, Texas, has written a treatise on the shortcomings of modern catechetical methods and the need for a national catechism.
Proponents of the new catechesis have implemented “a creedless, contentless, non-cognitive, and non-deductive kind of experiential catechesis” that has resulted in a religious illiteracy in countless numbers of Catholics, Bowring writes. “A national catechism would significantly contribute toward the unity of the faith within the Church. It would tend toward guaranteeing universal fidelity” to Catholic doctrine and enable catechists of good will to pass on the faith “whole and entire” to the next generation, he concludes.
Archbishop Buechlein reported on the sad state of some current catechetical texts to the assembly of bishops in June 1997. He cited a number of catechetical series for “a relatively consistent trend of doctrinal incompleteness and imprecisions” in vital areas such the Holy Trinity, man's action in the world in relation to God's initiative, the Incarnation, Original Sin, heaven and hell, the transforming power of grace, the centrality of the sacraments, the ecclesiastical context of Catholic beliefs and teachings, and a “meager exposition of Christian moral life,” to name only a few of the shortfalls.
Recommendations for corrections were made to the pertinent publishers and, the archbishop reported, steps were to be taken in future editions to bring the deficient texts into conformity with the Catechism.
Despite Archbishop Buechlein's upbeat conclusion, he also reported at the meeting that the feasibility study for a national catechism was going forward and a task force of experts had been commissioned to explore the development of a “scope and sequence chart” based on the Catechism, which would outline what matters of the faith would be taught in what grades throughout the nation.
The feasibility study to be presented in September has five basic components, according to Father Pollard:
• a survey of other national episcopal conferences that have national catechetical texts or guidelines;
• an in-depth report on the national catechism effort in Canada, which has had such texts for a number of years;
• results of discussions with representatives of the major catechetical publishers;
• an outline of the basic doctrines and recommendations when they should be taught to school children; and
• a report on the continuing review of catechetical texts, with an eye toward showing how good or poor a job the various American publishers are doing.
Any catechetical series for grade schools will almost certainly involve present catechetical publishers, so an assessment of each one is important, Father Pollard explained. The cost of the NCCB preparing, publishing, reviewing, and updating such materials would likely be prohibitive, he said.
Italy was one of the countries studied closely because it has a four-volume national catechetical series, with each volume written for a different age level. Most national catechisms are written for adults, with grade-level texts based on them, said Father Pollard.
The Pope's call for new local catechisms was reiterated last year by the General Directory for Catechesis issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy. It replaced a similar directory put out by the Vatican in the 1970s.
The General Directory stated that local catechisms “are invaluable instruments for catechesis which are called to bring the power of the Gospel into the very heart of culture and cultures.” The catechisms do this by presenting a synthesis of the faith “with reference to the particular culture in which catechumens and those to be catechized are immersed” by identifying aspects of that culture that conform to the Gospel and using them as a means of conveying the entire message of Christ.
Quoting the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes, the General Directory states that local catechesis must seek out “more efficient ways — provided the meaning and understanding of them are safeguarded — of presenting their teaching to modern man: for the deposit of faith is one thing, the manner of expressing it is quite another.”
Father Pollard, who has been with the Committee on the Use of the Catechism since its formation in 1992, is leaving his post Aug. 15 to return to the Archdiocese of Chicago, where Francis Cardinal George has appointed him vicar for education. Replacing him as executive director is Father Daniel Kutys, director of catechetics for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
The most satisfying development during the past few years, said Father Pollard, has been the bishops' immediate response to the promulgation of the universal Catechism and their efforts to make it a normative text for all religious education efforts.
“The bishops did not miss the defining moment in the history of catechetics that the Catechism presented,” he said. “They have made a significant input on the renewal of the catechetical mission in the United States, and we will see the results of that in the coming years.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Latin Mass Orders Making Pa. Diocese a 'Spiritual Powerhouse' DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:SCRANTON, Pa.—Nestled between rugged mountains and old coal mines, northeastern Pennsylvania seems an unlikely magnet for attracting Latin Mass orders. But in the 1990s the Diocese of Scranton has welcomed two orders, largely as a result of Bishop James Timlin's encouragement.
The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, founded in 1988 in Germany, was invited to establish its American headquarters near Scranton six years ago. Then, in May of this year, Bishop Timlin solemnized an entirely new order, the Society of St. John, at an impressive ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Peter. The bishop said, that with the introduction of these two orders, “We are blessed with a spiritual powerhouse here.”
The antecedents of these developments go back to the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, which Pope John II issued in July 1988. In it, the Holy Father said, “To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition, I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations.”
Within three weeks of the issuance of the letter, the Fraternity of St. Peter was founded. The Fraternity pledges its “fidelity to the Roman Pontiff, the Successor of St. Peter.” In addition to its international headquarters in Bavaria, the Fraternity now maintains apostolates or centers in six European countries and the United States.
The Fraternity celebrates the Mass according to the 1962 liturgical missal. Bishop Timlin noted, “Their charism is to minister to those people who find great spiritual value in the so-called ‘Tridentine Rite.’” In addition, the Fraternity is committed to vocations, parish work, and establishing schools.
When the Fraternity approached Bishop Timlin in 1992 to locate its American headquarters in his diocese, he was most receptive. In an interview with the Register, the bishop said, “If the Holy Father wants us to do this, the discussion is ended. I'll follow the Holy Father. Whatever he says, goes.”
The prelate also spoke about the Latin Mass practitioners as being another example of the heterogeneity of his 10-county diocese. One half of the parishes are ethnic parishes — a practice that goes back to the days when European immigrants flocked to neighborhood churches that retained familiar ties to their homeland.
Bishop Timlin, who has been the ordinary in Scranton since 1984, said, “There probably is no more ethnic diocese in the country. So we are used to living with this kind of diversity. One more doesn't make that much difference.”
The Fraternity opened a seminary and headquarters in a large, old orphanage, owned by the diocese in the town of Elmhurst. The seminary is now scheduled to move elsewhere because of its cramped quarters; the Fraternity is very much alive and thriving.
Bishop Timlin also asked them to run a former Lithuanian parish, St. Michael's, in Scranton. Eight Masses are offered each week at the church, and all except one is in Latin.
“They have the indult to use the old rite,” the bishop noted.
Because the Fraternity of St. Peter supports education, it is not surprising that another contribution is administering St. Gregory's Academy, a boarding school for boys in grades 8-12. The school, which was founded in 1993, now has reached its optimal enrollment of 60 students, drawn mostly from the east coast, but also from the rest of the United States and Canada.
The academy, which is housed in the same building as the Fraternity of St. Peter, is strongly grounded in faith.
“The foundation of the academic and social life of St. Gregory's Academy is Catholic prayer, the heart of which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,” according to its handbook.
Alan Hicks, the headmaster, is a product of the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. He calls the St. Gregory's curriculum a “well-rounded, broad-based liberal” one. Latin and religion are taught throughout all five years. Literature and the arts are emphasized. The only electives offered are French and an advanced tutorial in mathematics.
Hicks notes, “We are trying to form the boys. We are not trying to form them merely on an intellectual plane,” however. “Music has a very formative effect on the soul,” so that is encouraged. Farming on the campus's 200 acres also is emphasized. Extracurricular activities include a juggling troupe.
The curriculum is taught by instructors who are equally versatile. The headmaster said, “I tried to get faculty members who are well rounded with active intellectual and spiritual lives. I want my teachers to teach as wide a variety of subjects as possible.”
There currently are six full-time and four part-time teachers.
Just as the Fraternity of St. Peter offers an alternative to modern liturgical practice, St. Gregory's provides an attractive choice to those Catholics parents who are looking for a different educational option for their boys. Hicks notes interest in the school has grown at the same time that there has been an explosion in home schooling.
“I think modern education in the United States is bankrupt,” he said. “Anything which provides an alternative is a good thing.”
Obviously pleased with the contribution made by the Fraternity of St. Peter and its boys academy, Bishop Timlin was receptive to yet another overture made by those attracted to the Latin Mass. In October 1997 he welcomed a new order, the Priestly Society of St. John. It was quickly approved by the Vatican, and a Solemn Pontifical Mass and Ceremony of Approval and Establishment was held May 24,1998, the feast of Mary, Help of Christians.
Several of those associated with the new Society were part of the Society of St. Pius X. The order was headed by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of France, who was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in 1988. The order's problems related to disobedience and, specifically, to lack of support for changes brought by the Second Vatican Council.
Bishop Timlin said that these priests “wanted to get their situation regularized. They wanted to get themselves back into the Catholic Church in full standing.”
Referring to the Holy Father and Ecclesia Dei, he said the guidance was clear: “Be kind to them, be generous. I don't see why I shouldn't be. It's a pastoral decision to take care of these people.”
Before a large crowd at the diocese's cathedral, Bishop Timlin read his decree of erection of the Society of St. John as a clerical association. He noted that this was done “having fittingly consulted the Holy See, and after studious and most diligent consideration and assiduous prayer to the Father of light.”
With the new order came five priests, two deacons, two acolytes, one lector, and five postulants. These men and those who follow will be governed by a founding document, a combination mission statement and strategic plan, which explains the goals and methods of the Society.
The new association will rely on Church tradition, including the Latin Mass, to inspire piety, evangelization, and Catholic leadership in society. There is a commitment to ideas espoused by several Church traditions, including those of the monastic orders of the Middle Ages, the Order of St. Jerome, the English Oratory of John Henry Cardinal Newman, the Benedictine community of Cluny, the order of St. Martin of Tours, and the Rule of St. Augustine.
The Society of St. John also is housed at the former orphanage in Elmhurst. Not surprisingly, they have been interacting with the Fraternity of St. Peter and, more especially, with St. Gregory's Academy. In fact, one teacher at the academy, Tony Myers, became a postulant of St. John's in May.
Myers, a former military officer, serves as a spokesman for the Society. He told the Register that the Society has ambitious plans, especially concerning its commitment to education and communal living. Many of those associated with the new Society are graduates of Thomas Aquinas College of Santa Paula, Calif. — as is Myers — and they have been studying and planning ways to establish a similar college in the Scranton area.
Dr. Ronald McArthur, founder and former president of Thomas Aquinas College, has been meeting with the Society and developing “in-house” tutorials in expectation of creating a curriculum for a new institution. The order also has discussed the possibility of a girls' boarding school.
Another important goal of the Society is communal living, particularly in the medieval mold. As such, they are searching throughout northeastern Pennsylvania — between Scranton and Binghamton, N.Y. — to find up to 1,000 acres to develop a Catholic community.
Myers says many have expressed interest in moving to this proposed community, which would emphasize agriculture, craft trades, and — above all — a commitment to living the faith. Such a town will be designed and buildings constructed in a way that will glorify the Lord.
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: Scranton bishop looks to papal directive in welcoming two orders ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Critics Cite Downside Of Powerball Fever DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—Thirteen people in Ohio awoke as multi-millionaires July 30. Millions of others woke up to find out that it was all just what they had suspected — a dream.
The frenzy surrounding the largest lottery jackpot in history left many people reconsidering the ethics of state-sponsored games such as Powerball. Forget, for a moment, the possibility that the sudden riches could have a damaging effect at some level on the lives of 13 Ohio assembly-line workers and their families — that's always a danger in lottery bonanzas. There are a dozen other concerns as well when the stakes are so high.
“Shakespeare put it best when he said, ‘A fool and his money are soon parted,’” observed Msgr. Joseph Dunne, president emeritus of the National Council on Compulsive Gambling in New York. “Can you imagine how much people give to the Church and the starving people in the Sudan, and here they are spending millions of dollars on foolishness? When you think of the odds — 80 million to one — these people are crazy.”
Msgr. Dunne, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, continues to advise the National Council from his retirement home in Florida. He lumps state lotteries with other forms of legalized gambling, such as casinos, when he calls them collectively “one of the biggest frauds going, created by the states as ‘painless taxation.’”
“The money is supposed to go to education,” he said of lottery revenues, “but surveys have shown that it only goes partially. What happens is, the state gets greedy: they want more and more money from it.”
He considers Massachusetts, which distributes the revenues to various cities for local educational needs, to have one of the best policies.
The Bay State also limits the amount of money it spends on lottery advertising.
Therein lies another problem. Publicity for state lotteries target not only those who like to take chances but also those who would not otherwise think of gambling, Msgr. Dunne charged. Such ad campaigns seem to focus on poor neighborhoods and hit the airwaves on days when pension checks and other sources of income for the needy arrive in the home.
“The elderly are spending their pensions and CDs on this stuff.”
So, when a lottery that is played from coast to coast and has a jackpot of more than a quarter of a billion dollars comes along, there is that much more impetus for people, especially the poor, to jump in.
Many people did much more than that. Folks found themselves caught up in the frenzy, which got a boost from all the media attention, and discovered that they were subject to behaving in ways they weren't previously aware they were capable of behaving. In the end, 210.8 million tickets were sold nationwide.
The District of Columbia and 20 states participate in Powerball, established 10 years ago so smaller states could offer jackpots competitive with larger ones. But the system's creators say they never envisioned some of the excesses that took place when the jackpot increased by about $100 million after the previous drawing did not produce a winner.
“It is inappropriate for someone to wait in line for three to eight hours for a game,” said Edward Stanek, commissioner of the Iowa Lottery. “It is inappropriate for someone coming home from work to get caught in a traffic jam trying to exit the freeway or for someone to suffer heat exhaustion waiting to buy a $1 ticket.”
The fervor led to pilgrimages from states without the game to states that do — from California and Nevada into Arizona, for example, or Texas to Louisiana and New Mexico.
Connecticut sold the most tickets — 32 million — and the staid, affluent town of Greenwich, the first thruway exit and train stop past the New York border, was one of the hardest hit. Hordes of New Yorkers and Jerseyites clogged Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway along Connecticut's “panhandle” or filled normally empty midday commuter trains from Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. They pushed and shoved on lines, urinated in public, made physical threats when stores closed for the day, and left the region with piles of litter.
“We're on the main road, with three stationery stores nearby, and all had very long lines,” said Msgr. Frank Wissel, pastor of St. Mary's parish in Greenwich. “And there were some altercations. They had police and state troopers at the barricades.”
Those waiting grumbled when some ticket-buyers, including scalpers who then resold them on the streets of New York for five or 10 times their value, bought thousands of dollars worth.
What concerned Msgr. Wissel and other observers was the “intense drive” that led people to make great sacrifices to have a slim chance at winning.
“They believe they can become millionaires, but some of them are spending money they might not have.”
What's more, they were arguably spending time that could have been put to better use. Hopefuls were willing to spend hours in stop-and-go traffic or keep an all-night vigil outside a vendor's shop.
Some felt that with such a large jackpot at stake, spending exorbitant amounts of money was a good idea. One New Yorker reportedly plunked down $10,000, reasoning, “Hey, if I win a quarter of a billion, what's $10,000?”
He lost.
So did Ernie Kovic, a waiter from Bronx, N.Y., who bought 3,000 tickets with money he said he had been saving for tuition.
The Church does not condemn games of chance, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church says they become “morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others.” The passion for gambling, it continues, “risks becoming an enslavement” (2413).
Standing in line 10 hours just might qualify.
Stanek, of the Iowa State lottery, admitted that there are some troubling “philosophical issues.”
“Is there such a thing as having too big of a jackpot?” he wondered.
Msgr. Wissel of Greenwich would suggest capping the jackpot at a certain level and putting un-won monies into education and other charities for which they were intended.
“Winning that much money brings more problems anyway,” he said. Perhaps that's one reason Eleanor Boyer of Somerville, N.J., gave most of her $11.8 million winnings in the New Jersey lottery away last year, half of it to her parish.
Even so, the existence of state-sanctioned gambling, including seemingly innocuous games like the lottery, worry experts on gambling problems.
“Gambling is an unseen addiction,” Msgr. Dunne explained. “That makes it different from drinking. It's present in the schools, in colleges — and Powerball contributes to the delinquency of the youth, when they see their parents playing it.
“It's scandalous for the state to get involved in gambling,” he opined.
Arnie Wexler, a counselor on compulsive gambling in Bradley Beach, N.J., believes that many gamblers in recovery are tempted beyond their strength by Powerball-mania.
“There'll be some relapses, no question about it,” he said.
A study by Harvard Medical School concluded that the spread of casinos and state lotteries, which have especially multiplied in the past 10 years, has been accompanied by sharp increases in the incidence of compulsive gambling among adults and teenagers. The New York State Council on Problem Gambling found a 74% increase in the number of New Yorkers with gambling problems between the years 1986 and 1996.
“There is absolutely no doubt that state lotteries make it worse,” said Laura Letson, the council's executive director.
New York sets aside $1.5 million a year for the treatment of problem gamblers.
“That's still less than 1% of the total realized from the lottery,” Msgr. Dunne said. But it's better than in Florida, which gives nothing to help compulsive gamblers, he added.
The problem has not escaped the notice of the Vatican, which in 1996, because of the spread of state-sponsored gambling worldwide, was reported to be giving the phenomenon a closer look.
Although a few states' Catholic (bishops') Conferences have come out against legalizing casinos in their territories, the U.S. bishops as a body have never issued a pastoral on gambling, and Msgr. Dunne wishes they would produce a statement on how legalized gambling is hurting people.
“They should look at the devastation this is causing in their dioceses. They're hung up on bingo; they think they need it to support the parishes. There's nothing wrong with bingo, any more than there is having a few drinks at the Knights of Columbus hall. You can enjoy it.
But they have no control over the people who play it. Someone who goes to bingo games six nights a week is no longer a social gambler.”
“People don't realize that gambling is addictive, like alcohol or drugs,” he continued. “They borrow money, gamble on credit, then they start stealing.”
Barbara Bush, a clerk at an Amoco Station in Hammond, Ind., for example, said she expected people to start bringing in paychecks, rent, and mortgage payments — and food money — once the jackpot increased.
As for the Lucky 13, each expects to collect about $12.42 million before taxes because they opted to take their winnings in a lump sum of about $161.5 million rather than receive payments totaling $295.7 million over 25 years. Most of the group are trying hard to remain anonymous.
Said their lawyer, Laurence Sturtz, “They're trying to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives.”
John Burger writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: 'Get rich quick'obsession can exact high cost on society ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Into the Millenium And Beyond DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Last week, the Register interviewed Jesuit Father Avery Dulles, the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham University. In a continuation of that interview, Senior Writer Gabriel Meyer elicits the theologian's views on the state of Catholic theology and the three new papal pronouncements by Pope John Paul II.
Personal: Age 79; native of Auburn, N.Y.; entered the Society of Jesus at age 27; ordained at 37; U.S. Navy veteran.
Education: Licentiate degrees in philosophy and sacred theology from Woodstock College (Woodstock, Md.); doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Positions: Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham University (Bronx, N.Y.) since 1988; professor of theology at The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.), 1974-88; visiting professor of theology at Boston College, 1981-82; president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, 1975-76; president of the American Theological Society, 1978-79; consultor for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Doctrine; contributing editor for New Oxford Review.
Achievements: Author of 21 books and some 500 articles; honorary doctoral degrees from 20 institutions.
Meyer: Where do you see Catholic theology going in the near future? Is so-called Catholic liberalism on the decline?
Father Dulles: Many of the liberals developed their theological consciousness in the early 1960s. Vatican II, they believed, required one to look favorably on other Churches and religions, to be critical of one's own tradition, and be prepared to change one's commitments. What's becoming evident now is that this kind of theology engenders no posterity. If faith is just a vague orientation to transcendence or a tentative opinion, constantly bending with the times, it is impossible to generate a strong community of faith.
This generation is graying, though it still thinks of itself as avant-garde. Many of the younger theologians tend to be much more in line with the age-old tradition of the Church. I notice that the younger graduate students I teach here at Fordham University have enormous respect for the Church Fathers and Thomas Aquinas. Few of them are attracted by post-modernism because they do not think it will nourish their faith.
Besides reconnecting with tradition, what do these younger students want? What are they looking for?
The exaggerated relativism and historicism of the past generation has tended to weaken people's faith. Many of the younger students in theology value faith very highly. It's necessary to arrive at some transcendent truth that's not dependent on cultural factors. If we can't do that, Christianity is bankrupt. God has to be able to get his revelation through to us despite our human weakness. We need an epistemology that shows how we can hear the word of God and grasp its real meaning. Much of the recent neo-Kantian epistemology, even as filtered through great intellects such as Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, is weak in this respect. It's not enough to say that God is absolute mystery or that we speak of him only in metaphors.
If not Rahner and Lonergan, which theologians are generating the most interest today?
The stock of [Cardinal Joseph] Ratzinger and [the late Hans Urs] von Balthasar are high. But Ratzinger has been burdened with the responsibilities of his office as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Von Balthasar is hard to get a hold of; he's massive, and hard to classify. He works from a bewildering number of sources — biblical, patristic, and modern.
[The late Henri] De Lubac is also a growing figure, partly because he was a brilliant writer. Communio magazine, which stands in the tradition of de Lubac and von Balthasar, is an excellent influence. In other quarters, Thomism is thriving again. With that, there's a revived interest in the thought of Jacques Maritain, who was prescient about the modern age and the tendencies of the post-conciliar generation. What we lack, though, are contemporary theologians of real speculative talent. Walter Kasper has such talent, but they made a bishop out of him!
You've spoken recently about the Great Jubilee. Do you see the apos part of the Pope's ongoing program to prepare the Church for the new millennium, to clear up ambiguities and unfinished business before the Church enters the new century?
From the beginning of the pontificate, he's conceived his mission as preparing the Church for the year 2000. Many of his encyclicals and letters, beginning as early as 1979, focus on this. The 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente brings the program into view. It's a very interesting program and, if carried out, could be highly beneficial for the renewal of the Church.
He proposes a three-year period of preparation (1997-99) in which the faithful would focus successively on the three divine persons and the three theological virtues — faith, hope, and charity. He also calls for an ecclesial examination of conscience and for acts of repentance for the collective sins of Catholics over the past millennium. Studies are now being made on themes such as the record of the Inquisition and the treatment of Jews by Christians. In calling for all this, the Pope shows great courage and insight.
How will such recognition affect the practical conduct of the Church's mission in the new millennium?
Public manifestations of sorrow for the sinful aspects of our history frees us from defensiveness. We shouldn't feel obliged to defend the whole record of the past. The new evangelization is impeded when people say, “You're his why we should join you.” We have to distinguish between what comes from Christ and the Gospel and what comes from human sinfulness, fully acknowledging the latter.
The Pope acknowledges that the recognition of human rights was weak in earlier centuries; it comes as a result of progress achieved in the past few centuries. He's very strong in insisting on religious freedom and opposing the use of violence in the service of faith. By sharing in his vision for the millennium Catholics can enter the new century with vigor and optimism.
One doesn't get the impression that much of the Catholic rank and file are paying attention to the preparatory program for the Jubilee, though.
Not many people read papal documents, that's for sure. The message has to be mediated to them. I think that many bishops are beginning to put in place programs of preparation for the coming Jubilee, but more needs to be done on the pastoral level. The media, including the Catholic press, can help mediate the message to the faithful.
Surely the indulgences issue will come up in the context of the Jubilee. How will the Church present the Jubilee indulgence theologically?
The Church will handle indulgences the way Paul VI did in [the 1967 apostolic constitution] Indulgentiarum Doctrina. He acknowledged some of the past abuses and renewed the teachings on indulgences in the light of Vatican II. He emphasized the need for personal dispositions such as sincere sorrow for sin in order to benefit from the external actions prescribed for gaining an indulgence. We can't buy our way into heaven with cheap grace.
The teaching on indulgences has its roots in the experience of the early Church, doesn't it?
It started with the martyrs who were asked to offer up their sufferings for the benefit of sinners. Indulgences pertain to the doctrine of the communion of saints: We can effectively pray and intercede for one another. For people undergoing pain and suffering, it's consoling to know that they can put negative experiences to use to help atone for sin.
The true treasury of the Church, according to Paul VI, consists in the Christ's merits have before God.
The Pope wants us to see indulgences in a Christologically centered way. The saints and martyrs are not a substitute for Christ. All that they do has value only in him and in light of his definitive act of atonement and inter-cession.
In a recent article you wrote for
I meant to call attention to the fact that in the United States and other affluent countries, there is a dominant secular culture that creates a psychological undertow, making it difficult to profess Christian faith in an orthodox way. Because the concepts of change and pluralism have been so drummed into us, it's very hard for us to realize that there are truths that hold always and everywhere. Christians have to be made conscious of the tension between the profession of orthodox faith and the dominant mentality of our culture. Unless we are in some way counter-cultural, our faith will be undermined at vital points.
The Pope has alluded to that idea in his recent apostolic letter on the Lord's Day,
Yes, the whole idea of a holy day is difficult for people to grasp any longer. The biblical idea of sacred time permeates many of the Pope's writings, especially those touching on the coming of the Great Jubilee.
Already in the creation story of Genesis and the Ten Commandments, we have the idea that the seventh day — the Sabbath — is a holy day. The secular culture substitutes the notion of the “weekend” for the sacred rest of Sunday. Relaxation has its importance, of course, but it's not the same as the contemplation, worship, and thanksgiving that belong by right to the “Lord's Day.”
Yet you seem fairly sanguine about orthodoxy's prospects long-term. Why?
People have in their hearts a deep and unquenchable aspiration for something divine and eternal, something supremely good that will not slip away. Because of God's revelation in Christ, the Church has this to offer. People are hungry for what we have to give. Once this realization kicks in, there will be a great age of evangelization.
You clearly see orthodoxy as the counter-cultural stance, not so-called progressivism. Is there a danger of sectarianism, though, from the orthodox side?
There is the possibility that some may get so excited about the gap between the faith and secular culture that they develop a blindness toward the good things in the culture, and even a hatred for the secular. The Pope does not fall into such extremes. He sees positive developments in the culture as well as negative ones.
We shouldn't blind ourselves to real progress that has been achieved, even in this century. Many Christian values have seeped into the secular culture. People who don't believe in God often adhere to certain Christian values such as the recognition of human rights, human freedom, and solidarity, and the concept of the unity of the human family.
We need to celebrate those truths wherever we find them. I wouldn't want Catholics to become sectarian, cutting themselves off from the world and hoarding salvation as if it belonged to them alone. We have good news for the whole world.
What do you make of the new apostolic letter on episcopal conferences,
Apostolos Suos goes back to the 1985 extraordinary synod of bishops, which indicated that the theological and juridical character of bishops' conferences needed to be spelled out more clearly. Were they an exercise of episcopal collegiality, and, if so, on what basis? Where do episcopal conferences get their authority from? Can they issue binding decrees, and if so, under what conditions?
You have to remember that episcopal conferences as a worldwide institution are a relatively new phenomenon, a creation of Vatican II. In 1966, the Holy See indicated that bishops' conferences should be established in every country or region, and that every bishop should be part of one, but the Church has been slow in developing general legislation for these bodies.
Wasn't there some controversy 10 years ago when the Holy See floated a proposal on norms for episcopal conferences?
Yes. In 1988, the Vatican put out a draft of the document requested three years earlier by the synod of bishops on the theological and juridical status of episcopal conferences — a very “heavy” document with lots of scholastic terminology that seemed to be rather negatively disposed towards episcopal conferences.
The American bishops were quite critical of the draft when they met in the fall of 1988, and sent it back to Rome with a call for an entirely new document. It seems to me, in Apostolos Suos, that's just what they've received.
What about the high volume of apostolic letters issued in recent weeks by Pope John Paul? An apostolic letter on fidelity to Church teaching, this one on episcopal conferences — is there some strategy at work here?
Maybe they just want to clear the Pope's desk before he goes on vacation. After all, Apostolos Suos is dated May 21. I heard that the document was ready a year ago. So, it's not as if the Pope fired off all these documents in the space of two weeks. The apostolic letter on episcopal conferences has been in the works for 13 years!
That's an old criticism. It was made in the early 1970s by Henri de Lubac with reference to the French bishops' conference — and [Joseph] Cardinal Ratzinger made similar comments about the German bishops' conference. So, I don't see the criticism of episcopal bureaucracy as something especially directed at the United States. As a whole, I think that the American bishops have kept a rein on the conference, the number of committees, and the size of staff. It's my impression that the bishops do set the priorities, and not staffers.
Some Catholic commentators have suggested that the
I don't think it played any role in the apostolic letter, but Cardinal Ratzinger alluded to the controversy in his press conference after the publication of Apostolos Suos. He said that in view of the tentative character of Always Our Children, the bishops may have done well to publish it as a committee statement rather than as a statement of the full conference. He also indicated that if it had been a conference document, Vatican approval would have been required according to the norms of Apostolos Suos in view of the doctrinal sensitivity of the subject matter.
Isn't the heart of the concern about episcopal conferences the Vatican's desire, not only to clarify the role of bishops, but to prevent the rise of national Churches?
Certainly. That's always been a concern, from the very beginning. The Vatican doesn't want to set up autonomous Churches. There is one Church, and Rome exercises the vital office of unity in that Church. Now that our world has a more multi-national — even trans-continental — character, it's more important than ever to emphasize unity with Rome. The present Pope is striking the right balance between unity on the one hand, and encouraging the proper development of episcopal conferences as a practical convenience, on the other.
In that context, the term “the American Church” can be misleading, can't it?
The idea of refashioning Catholicism to suit American culture was labeled a heresy by Pope Leo XIII in the 19th century. Rome's concerns about that danger were justified; the age, after all, was one of extreme nationalism. There still are groups agitating for a reworking of the Church along American lines — for example, the Call to Action and similar movements.
Having said that, it is important to point out that the American experience does have things to say to the whole Church. The American influence on Vatican II's landmark Declaration on Religious Freedom, for example. The contribution of Father John Courtney Murray was crucial in the creation of that document — a document partly shaped by the American experience. John Paul II constantly refers to this declaration in his teaching. There are echoes of American themes in papal encyclicals like Centesimus Annus, on issues raised by free market economies. By keeping in communion with others, each nation and region can both receive what the others have to give and make a distinctive contribution from its own experience to the life and teaching of the universal Church.
— Gabriel Meyer
----- EXCERPT: A noted theologian on the meaning of recent papal letters and the future of the faith ----- EXTENDED BODY: Avery Dulles ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S Note & Quotes DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Latest Fad: Monastery Retreats
“As Christianity became legalized and then haute, the Desert Fathers and Mothers found themselves overrun by hipsters from Alexandria and Rome.”
Time's Tamala Edwards writes that the phenomenon may be repeating itself in America. Monasteries and convents across the country today are often being booked months in advance by “baby-boomers,” many of them non-Catholic.
“There is even a popular guidebook, Sanctuaries, that helps readers choose a great monastery or convent. While organized church retreats are not new, what is startling is that much of the increase is in individual retreatants, including many Protestants and even non-Christians.… Now, say the monks, if only they could keep the growing horde down to the true spiritual seekers, not just vacationers at Club God.”
The religious who run the homes say they are playing the odds, considering their centers a “halfway house” according to one and banking that, if they have to keep silence, retreatants can't hide from God.
ABC Says Church Teachings Hurt the Sick
The ABC Nightly News “A Closer Look” segment July 21 focused on the important moral issues at stake when Catholic and non-Catholic hospital systems merge.
“It appears that there was a predetermined story line predicated on the biased premise that communities in this country are ill served because Catholic hospitals remain faithful to the ethical and religious directives of the Catholic Church,” wrote Catholic Health Care Association President Father Michael Place in a letter to ABC.
In his letter, Father Place outlined several points where viewers were presented with “outright inaccuracies, subjective value judgments presented as fact, or distorted facts.”
He quoted the ABC report as saying: “Medical decisions are increasingly being made by bishops, not doctors”; “Catholic hospitals are ultimately owned by the Vatican”; “Because of the Catholic Church's rules about birth control and abortion, there have been severe consequences for patients.”
Cokie Roberts Remembers Vatican Ambassador as Mom
When her book tour made a stop there, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette asked Roberts about her mother. Her job “puts her in the interesting position of explaining Bill Clinton to the Pope,” Roberts said. But, “If anyone can do this, my mother can.”
She recalled that her capable mother not only took over her husband's congressional seat when he died in an airplane crash years ago but also has done such things as cook for 1,500 wedding guests when Cokie married fellow journalist Steve Roberts.
“Roberts still has this image burned into her brain, she said, acting out the motions: Her mother, balancing a grandchild on one hip, using that hand to stir a bowl of batter on her other hip, cradling the phone in her neck, and dictating a speech to be delivered the next day,” said the report.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Orthodox Agree to Pope's 1999 Visit to Romania DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:WARSAW, Poland—Romania's Orthodox Church has said it will invite the Pope to visit the country, making it the first predominantly Orthodox state to host a papal pilgrimage.
However, an Orthodox spokesman warned that the unprecedented visit should help resolve disputes with minority Catholics, currently estimated at 9.5% of the population.
In a statement, the Orthodox governing synod said it had decided to follow up a government invitation issued by Premier Radu Vasile during a July 7 Vatican audience, by asking John Paul II to visit Romania in May 1999.
A spokesman for Patriarch Teoctist said itinerary details would be discussed when Orthodox and Vatican delegates meet Aug. 30 at an ecumenical symposium in Bucharest.
Orthodox Church leaders had previously ruled out a papal visit until disputes are settled with Romania's 700,000-member Greek Catholic minority, whose five dioceses and 1,188 parishes are loyal to Rome while preserving the Eastern rite.
Despite being re-legalized in 1990, Greek Catholics have regained fewer than 100 of their 2,000 pre-war buildings, which were placed in Orthodox hands when their Church was outlawed by the communist regime in 1948.
Catholic ties with the Orthodox Church, which claims the spiritual loyalty of 87% of Romania's 23 million citizens, deteriorated after a bill ordering the partial return of churches to Greek Catholics was accepted by the country's Senate in June 1997.
In March, violent clashes erupted when Greek Catholics attempted to reclaim Cluj's Transfiguration cathedral in compliance with a court order.
In a May-June exchange of letters with the Greek Catholic Church's leader, Metropolitan Lucjan Muresan, Patriarch Teoctist agreed that a Catholic-Orthodox commission would begin discussing property disputes with a Vatican observer in September.
President Emil Constantinescu, a practicing Orthodox Christian, is sponsoring the two-day Bucharest ecumenical symposium, which is to be attended by seven Catholic cardinals, including Achille Silvestrini and Roger Etchegaray, as well as by six Orthodox patriarchs and a delegation from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Premier Vasile's invitation is the Pope's second from Romania in 1998, following an earlier Vatican visit by Foreign Minister Adrian Severin in April.
However, an Orthodox Synod member, Bishop Nifon Mihaita, stressed that the pilgrimage should follow a “brotherly dialogue” between Churches, and point to the solution of disputes in a “Christian, civilized and law-abiding spirit.”
“In principle, the Romanian Orthodox Church has nothing against a visit by the head of the Roman Catholic Church,” Bishop Mihaita added, in a statement reported by Romania's independent Religious Life bulletin.
“But a visit of such importance must be very well prepared, since we want everyone to enjoy it — the Orthodox majority and Catholic minority.”
Another leading Church member, Liviu Soinea, from Bucharest's Orthodox Theology Institute, cautioned the Libertatea daily that a papal visit to Romania's partly Catholic-inhabited Transylvania region would be “considered a threat by Orthodox faithful.”
However, a Synod spokesman, Tudor Anghel, dismissed claims that his Church could reconsider its invitation as “speculation.”
John Paul II, who is also making an eighth eight-city tour of his native Poland in mid-1999, holds state invitations from predominantly Orthodox Bulgaria and Georgia.
However, local Orthodox hierarchies have consistently opposed plans for a papal visit, pending a solution of Catholic-Orthodox disputes. Vatican officials have stressed that the Pope will not visit countries unless invited by the predominant Church.
(Jonathan Luxmoore)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: WORLD NOTES & Quotes DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Sunday, Busy Sunday In Europe
“We have to go with the times. People who work find it good to shop when they want,” Linda Krappe told AP who opens her train station tea store in Berlin on Sundays.
New Sunday customs seem to have taken quick hold. In France and Switzerland, old laws protecting Sunday are being removed from the books.
“The current rest-day and shop-closing laws just don't fit the attitudes and lifestyles of the population any more,” Zurich's city government is quoted saying in a proposal to allow Sunday store hours.
However, the Third Commandment's call for Sabbath rest is a serious obligation, Pope John Paul II wrote recently. And bishops agree that customers must guard the Sabbath.
“If people did not go shopping on Sunday, the stores would be closed,” said Father Adam Schulz, spokesman for Poland's bishops.
Grandmother of Jesus Draws Thousands to Quebec
St. Anne's lineage in tradition is long: she is the grandmother of Jesus. It was in her womb that the Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived — that is, conceived by her father, St. Joachim, and mother, St. Anne, but shielded from original sin by God.
St. Anne has been venerated as a protectress throughout the history of the Church, though she is not mentioned in any of the canonical books of the Bible. Martin Luther, who later disapproved of her veneration, credited her with saving his life as a young man — and entered a monastery to repay her.
She has always been a favorite in Quebec, where radio broadcasts until recently used to air prayers to her during her novena, said the report.
Scientists Say Darwin's ‘Myth’ Won't Do in 21st Century
Professor Michael Behe of Pennsylvania's Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box says organs such as the human eye could not have evolved through chance mutations weeded out by natural selection: they are far too complex to have evolved step by small step over millennia. In fact, without all of their components in place and functioning together, they would be useless.
His book has been widely criticized by fellow biologists, but also widely read by them since its appearance in 1996. None of the book's international body of reviewers has challenged his central thesis, said the report, which summed it up: “Darwinism has no solid explanation for the complexities unearthed by modern molecular biology.”
Darwin said, “my theory would absolutely break down” if a complex organism were found that could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive small modifications, said the article.
But, says Behe, the eye and many smaller systems are just that. They require an “Intelligent Designer,” he said.
New Zealand geneticist Michael Denton also questions the theory. He challenged the idea that wholly new species can be created by tiny evolutionary steps in his book: Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, saying that “the Darwinian theory of evolution is nothing more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the 20th century.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: VATICAN Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Reporters Bare Their Souls at Vatican Media Conference
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram asked journalists why.
“Too many people in my business simply cannot see, before their very eyes, just how big this story of faith is,” said David Lawrence, publisher of the Miami Herald.
Lynn Neary, religion correspondent for National Public Radio, said that “We still are the only ones covering religion on a national basis.” One reason: it is misunderstood as politics.
The Houston Chronicle's Cecile Holmes demonstrated the misunderstanding, telling the paper: “At the beginning of the millennium we find that religion is both a powerful force of peace and justice, and also a relentless weapon for war, rape, torture, and genocide.”
Lawrence said his paper thinks of politics when it sees religion, too.
“We have one of the best religion writers in the country in April Witt,” he said. “But in our planning and brainstorming about how to cover [the Pope's Cuba visit], her advice simply was not sought. The editors managing the Cuban coverage thought this was a political story, not a religion story. We think obviously it was both.”
Larry Register of CNN, said “We covered the Pope in Cuba extensively, but it was not covered specifically as religion.”
Reporters said that the meeting left issues unresolved, but was the “beginning of a dialogue.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Unfinished Work of Freedom DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The tragic killing of two Capitol Hill police officers is an occasion for reflection. Their willingness to lay down their lives to protect the process of freedom represents the best of humanity.
The response of the American people revealed something far greater. It revealed a deep longing for heroes. A few years back, the refrain to a popular song proclaimed, “We don't need another hero.” The refrain was wrong. Still reeling from the aftershocks precipitated by the loss of our national moral compass we are crying out for true heroes to lead us out of the morass. Judge Robert Bork wrote a book entitled Slouching Toward Gomorrah. I suggest that we've been living in the “Gomorrah” of our own moral relativism, and most of us know that it's time to get out.
These two police officers were faithful to their wives and their children, patriotic, and hard-working. They demonstrated a commitment to higher principles. That was most perfectly proven by the shedding of their blood.
“A man can have no greater love,” says the Bible, “than to lay down his life for his friends.” These men were made from the same stuff this great nation was founded upon.
As their bodies lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, the whole nation paused from its self-induced stupor and cried. The tears we shed were for these men and their families, but I suggest that they were also the tears of mourning for our lost goodness. These were truly good men. The kind of men we want our leaders to be.
Keith Fournier
The attributes demonstrated by Officers Chestnut and Gibson still provide the path to a future of freedom. Though these two men were of different races and religious traditions their blood was red. It was shed to preserve the common ideal of freedom. Their differences reflected the authentic diversity from which is woven this marvelous quilt called America. They held in common the deep core values that characterize the American civilization. Values like a devotion to protecting innocent human life, a love for the family, a respect for good government, and a commitment to authentic freedom.
Some 135 years ago, another great American hero, Abraham Lincoln, dedicated a resting-place for men who gave their lives to a higher cause. At Gettysburg he spoke to a nation reeling from national crisis and longing for stability and sanity. He told our forfathers that the blood shed for freedom must always prompt a response in those left behind.
“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work,” Lincoln proclaimed, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.”
We who mourn the loss of these two heroes must resolve that their lives not be sacrificed in vain. They died protecting visitors, public officials, and staff — but they gave their lives to protect much more: the “unfinished work” of freedom. The rest of the world is only now awakening from the long slumber of enslavement to the ideologies of despair, which gripped the world at the end of this century. They look to us for example. Will we export the best we have to offer or will the unbridled license masquerading as freedom be all we offer?
The families of these slain officers did not know one another prior to this terrible tragedy, yet they joined together in solidarity and grieved for the loss of these good men. Crossing religious and racial lines they came together as Americans and set the example for all of us as we approach a new century. This is the path to peace and the road to national recovery.
For a brief moment the news moved from the salacious details of leadership apparently gone astray to leadership pointing the way to what Lincoln called “our higher angels.” We paused from the shrill rhetoric of those who for too long have attempted to clothe the killing of the most vulnerable in the new-speak of “choice.” Some choices are wrong.
Yet some choices, such as the ones made by these brave men, need no vocabulary to argue for them. They flow directly from the law written on every human heart.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II spoke to all of America during his visit to Camden Yards in Baltimore.
“Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each generation,” said the Pope. “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
Moral leadership is about the oughts of our life as individuals and as a free people constituted in time together as a nation. Authentic freedom is not about some unbounded right to choose to do whatever we want. Lincoln put it well: “You cannot have the right to do what is wrong.” Authentic freedom is choosing to do what is right. It is not only a freedom from unjust restraint, but also a freedom for responsible living. It recognizes that all of us participate in the unfinished work of freedom every day as we make the small choices about how we govern ourselves as individuals, families, communities, and as a nation.
Authentic freedom isn't free. It is purchased and protected by the blood of heroes like these two officers. When such heroes appear in our midst it is time to reflect on our life together. The blood shed for freedom cries out to all of us to remember our obligations to one another, to our children — born and unborn — our elders and “the least among us.”
These two men now join the long list of American heroes. May all those who seek public office this fall, and those preparing to seek the highest office in the land, remember the price of freedom and conduct themselves and their campaigns accordingly. America cries for heroes who will heed the call and lead us in the “unfinished work of freedom.”
Deacon Keith Fournier is president of Catholic Alliance.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinon -------- TITLE: A Secular Humanist Looks at Women Religious DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Nuns seem to be an “in” topic these days, judging from the number of books currently being served up for the inquiring public. As the number of religious women decreases, talk about them proliferates.
In the front ranks, if for no other reason than its impressive size, Jo Ann Kay McNamara's contribution to the pile takes a prominent position. Her 750-page panorama of nuns through the millennia is like a medieval tale portrayed in a series of hanging tapestries, intricate, colorful, rich in detail, and pleasingly accented with bright wit in the telling. Or to update the assessment, perhaps we should speak of the technological precision of an account which includes a near to infinite number of incidents and personalities criss-crossing the centuries at jet speed to leave us breathless on the doorstep of A.D. 2000.
This is a well-crafted treatment of the historical, psychological, and sociological elements which make up the fascinating mix of motivation and praxis to be found in a history of this kind. There is much to be said for the evident scholarship behind such an extended effort, the persevering research that obviously went into such a challenging project, and the bonus of a lively style which keeps the reader turning the pages. Admittedly, the book is proposed as a historical overview, driven by an authentic feminist agenda. A few quotes at random will illustrate this.
“The leaders [of the Jerusalem community, in Acts] “could have been resisting the recruitment of additional women, hoping to restrict the group to the original followers of Jesus … already the outlines of a male priesthood were appearing with the inevitable result of limiting the usefulness of women.”
“Women [of the third century], however admirable or even masculine, were condemned by virtue of their gender to a secondary state from which no degree of sanctity would lift them.”.
“The reformation and regulation of female communities [in the 9th century] was carried out by men who made no discernible effort to consult the women concerned.”
“The substitution of the Mass for the gender inclusive chant [at the time of the Cluniac reform] was but a single step in the redefinition of the Church as a body of professional male clergy encompassing monks but not nuns.”
“The clergy [of the high Middle Ages] accepted the burden of the cura mulierum grudgingly, with the proviso that the women be self-sufficient and not drain resources needed for the Church's more important responsibilities. Men agreed that women needed less material wealth than men and that self-mortification was especially becoming to the vainer sex.”
“Immoral priests [in the Middle Ages] could still deliver good sacraments, but nuns had to be personally holy to keep their patrons [benefactors].”
“Neither do they [Sisters in professional careers] wish to be confined by that separate, complementary feminine nature to which Pope John Paul II clings in his recent efforts to put the female genie back into her bottle.”
“The Church's own monolithic face cracked as various factions debated its role in the late twentieth-century world.”
We have, therefore, in Sisters in Arms a detailed history of nuns as seen through a feminist prism. While such a slant mars the objectivity and credibility of the story, a more serious flaw is the absence of a complete picture. The “truth” thus becomes the enemy of the whole truth. McNamara tells us in her preface that she has become, like Voltaire, a secular humanist. May we pose the possibility that this is not enough? So much has been given: could we not have hoped for more? So many pages on the nuns, but basically there is not a clue as to who they really are. Secular humanism lowers the ceiling to the point where we are left gasping for air.
In recent decades popes and theologians have made serious and responsible efforts to define the evolving concept of consecrated life in contemporary terms. Religious women do well to open themselves to these documents and explore them in depth, even as they retain the valued lessons of the past. In their study, they can indeed profit by the historical background which McNamara offers, with the caveat that it is only a part, and a small part, of the whole picture.
Their venture cannot be pursued on purely natural terms. Nor can it be understood or evaluated by purely natural criteria. To be specific, no man or woman can choose the religious life as a vocation. God does the choosing. The man or woman is chosen. The Lord made this point quite simply to his apostles: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Truth's word remains true through the millennia, and beyond. Avocation is an act of God. It is best understood from his point of view. A study that overlooks this is like a body without a soul.
Sister Mary Thomas Noble is a Dominican nun in Buffalo, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Thomas Noble ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: C.S. Lewis's Delight in Ordinary Life DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The August-September issue of First Things magazine showcases Gilbert Meilaender's thoughts on “The Everyday C.S. Lewis.”
“The ordinary pleasures of life,” writes Meilaender, “— both those simply given to us in nature and those derived from culture — play a large role in Lewis' thinking and account for much of the power of his writing. He can make domesticity seem enticing — as when Peter, Susan, and Lucy [in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe] share a meal with the Beavers.”
“But I think this appreciation for the everyday goes yet a little further than simple delight.… The deeper point is that the ordinary is the stuff of most of our lives most of the time. It is, therefore, where we most often find our callings, our opportunities for faithfulness, and our temptations.”
Meilaender shows Lewis using this insight in The Screwtape Letters, where “[the devil] Wormwood has blundered badly when he permits his ‘patient’to read a book simply because he enjoys it, or to take a walk through country he enjoys. He knows that, when it comes to separating a human being from God, the ordinary can also be Wormwood's greatest ally. The important choices in life seldom present themselves in extraordinary appearance.
“It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one.'”
Meilaender argues that “the theological structure of [Lewis's] religious writings … is more adequately described (to paint in broad strokes) as ‘Catholic’ than as ‘Protestant.’ Faith as trust does not play a large role in his depiction of the Christian life. That life … is conceived as a journey, a process of perfection, and Jesus is the way toward that goal … therefore, Lewis thinks of all the ordinary decisions of life as forming our character, as turning us into people who either do or do not wish to gaze forever upon the face of God.”
That is what makes “the ordinary and the everyday count immensely in our moral and spiritual life.… God calls to us in the pleasures of everyday life, but we can miss the message. We can refuse to let ourselves be called out of the ordinary, we can try to hang on to the everyday.… Then the manna that we have tried to save rots, the pleasures fade, and we are left with something less than the everyday: with only ourselves.”
Because we must not hold tight to our pleasures and attachments, “The Christian life hurts. God hurts.… But we can … avoid future pain only by retreating entirely into the self, by caring about nothing outside the self. But that, of course, would be hell.…”
So there is a tension between our natural loves and love for God, and Meilaender sees this most systematically set out in The Four Loves: “[Lewis] finds in each of the natural loves an image of what divine love itself is in part … with each of the loves he notes also its insufficiency — the way in which, even and especially at its very best, it may go wrong. Affection is prone to jealousy and wants to possess the loved one.… The love of friendship is always tempted to exclusivity.… Therefore, each of the natural loves, beautiful and splendid as they are in themselves, must be transformed by charity, by love of God.…
“But in our sin we do isolate and idolize them.… Because we do so, we can only experience the transformation of our love as painful.… I think there are very few indeed who have managed as well as he to invoke simultaneously in readers both an appreciation for and delight in our created life, and a sense of the pain and anguish that come when that life is fully redirected to the One from whom it comes.”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: Digest of Gilbert Meilaender's article 'The Everyday C.S. Lewis'in the August-September First Things ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Ad Tuendam Fidem
According to a correct understanding of Ad Tuendam Fidem, (“Church's ‘Definitive Teachings’ Defended in Papal Letter,” Register, July 12-19) truths taught by the Magisterium on matters of faith and morals, whether of a revealed (de fide credenda) or of a definitive (de fide tenenda) character, require an irrevocable assent, which means they are infallible.
All definite truths proposed and taught by the Magisterium in the dogmatic and moral area are infallible even if not solemnly defined. These truths, necessarily connected to revealed truth, are based on faith in the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Magisterium to teach with divine authority the truth about the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church by Christ.
Mark Schulzetenbery
St. Paul, Minnesota
Vatican Top 45
I'm just curious as to how a movie like Schindler's List made it to the Vatican Top 45 of 100 years of film. Who composes this list and does it have papal approval? Why would a film with gratuitous nudity make the Top 45 list anyway, despite its “redeeming social value?” Or does political correctness about the Jewish Holocaust take precedence over concerns for Christian morality in today's Church? I think an explanation is in order here. Unfortunately, we have traveled far from the days of the Legion of Decency. Hollywood now has no qualms about throwing gratuitous nudity and sex scenes into generally good movies like Titanic and Schindler's List. The Church should make its protest known and not reward such films with acclaim.
Paul Trouve
Montague, New Jersey
Pope & the Holy Spirit
I am grateful to the Register for printing the Holy Father's address at Pentecost (“A Supreme Counselor on All Things Forever,” June 14-20). Pope John Paul wants each of us to invite the Holy Spirit more fully into our lives and into our world. His encyclical, The Lord and Giver of Life, explains what is contained in that invitation to the Holy Spirit. “And when he comes, he will convince the world about sin and righteousness and judgment.” The Holy Father continues that convincing the world about sin means creating the condition for its salvation. Our nation truly has witnessed the devastation of trying to live without the benefit of the Ten Commandments. Pope John Paul II, so aware of the work of the Holy Spirit, hopes for the redemption of the world.
Also, it is through the action of the Holy Spirit that bread and wine are totally transformed into the life-giving body and blood of Christ. We can hope for total transformation by the action of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Let us invite the Lord and Giver of Life to act in our hearts and in our nation.
Jan Urbanic
Ann Arbor, Michigan
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Saints, Faults and All, Are Worthy Heroes forToday DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:One characteristic of the age of chivalry was its focus on the past golden age of King Arthur as its ideal. The saints of the Bible and the martyrs of the Christian past, especially Sts. George and Sebastian, provided the religious models for the lords and knights. The medieval focus on the past established high ideals of behavior for the code of chivalry. This ideal had a very positive and civilizing effect on a population that had been the barbarian invaders of Europe not too many centuries before.
When I was growing up as a Catholic in the 1950s and '60s we were taught to look to the centuries of saints as our heroes and models. On one hand, we did not really expect to be as good as they or see their miracles and visions, but they still provided role models. We were taught their stories so that we would admire and emulate the saints. This pattern fit in with a general American culture of honoring past national heroes like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other great Americans. Their heroics in battle and wisdom in politics were models to emulate, too.
Today we have two trends that contradict these patterns of looking to past heroes as models. First, the heroes are frequently debunked. The media tell us more about their faults and weaknesses than about their great deeds. The stuff of public discourse today is the number of affairs and illegitimate children they had, or discussions about the less then noble motives that drove them. In other words, we make the heroes of the past into people just like ourselves. Instead of motivating greatness, they justify our lower appetites. We begin to think that everyone is human, i.e., everyone is petty, envious, lustful, and cowardly at the core of their person. Perhaps they may accidentally become heroes, like Forrest Gump, but they would never seek it out because they honestly had virtue.
Second, instead of looking to the real heroes of the past as models, we look to a not yet existent future as the model of our behavior. Of course, the future cannot really be a model for ideal behavior, since the future does not yet exist. However, we project present trends into the future, claim that this is the inevitable future, and proclaim that this projection is the cutting edge of evolution. Portraying the proposed future as evolutionary development means we should start living that future (though non-existent) ideal right now. Of course, this is still just a projection of the present trends.
These two patterns — exposing the human weaknesses of past heroes and the projection of the present as a future, evolutionary ideal — are, in fact, the same thing: a reduction of everyone else to what we already are. Our present state is all there is. Improvement is neither necessary nor desirable. We do not need heroes from the past because we have already arrived at our own ideals of ourselves. Who could ask for anything more?
I believe these two modern trends are faulty. Of course, I do not mean to say that we should be unrealistic about past heroes or fail to take note of how present trends are developing into the future. However, we do need the heroes of the past to offer us role models of how to be greater than we already are. We need the saints, who most readily admitted their own faults, to provide ideals for the future.
We Catholics can respond to the trend of debunking past heroes and projecting ourselves as heroes in two ways. First, we can unabashedly claim the Bible and the lives of the saints as the sources of our heroes. The Old Testament heroes of faith and family — Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, et al. — or those of courage and truth — the prophets and sages — are the models we choose for ourselves and our children. The martyrs for the faith, the holy virgins, the great pastors, the wise widows, and the married couples are the characters we can actively promote without fear of being called past-oriented, Euro-centric, or any other horrible name.
Second, we can take action. We can read books and seek out videos that tell us about the great deeds. If we have the resources, we can seek out-of-print lives of saints and rewrite or republish them for an audience who knows nothing about them. Grandchildren, nieces, and nephews can be given age-appropriate books and videos about the saints and Bible heroes. Oh, and if someone says it is naive to lift up the saints as goody-goody ideals whose holiness lies beyond the experience of the average American, we can turn to the saints for descriptions of their own sins.
Instead of letting modern revisionists dig up the dirt about past heroes, let the Bible tell us about Abraham's and Sarah's lies, David's adultery, or the apostles' cowardice. Let the saints confess that they were the greatest sinners who ever existed. Then let them tell us how God entered their lives and transformed them into the saints they would never be on their own. Let the saints tell about the role of God's grace in leading them to new depths of holiness far beyond their natural abilities. Perhaps we can do more than letting our weaknesses be projected into the future. Perhaps we can let transformed sinners model sanctity for the future instead.
Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa is a professor at the Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies at the University of Dallas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mitch Pacwa ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: At the End Of Mary's Earthly Life DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The Church considers death both a punishment for sin and the means of redemption. Why is it silent about whether the Mother of God died before her Assumption into heaven?
Apious Catholic expression holds that about Mary one can never say too much. Yet on the question of how Mary's life on earth ended, the Church remains silent.
In his apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (issued on the Solemnity of All Saints, 1950) Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but left open the question of her death. Vatican II put it this way:
“The Immaculate Virgin, preserved from all stain of Original Sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death” (Lumen Gentium, 59).
A Deliberate Silence
The Church does not teach how Mary's earthly life ended. This deliberate silence leaves open the question of whether Mary died before she was assumed into heaven. In defining that dogma, the Church explains that she was “preserved free from all stain of Original Sin” and that the Assumption allowed her to be “more fully conformed to her Son.” On the question of death, these two phrases point to different answers. Arguments which emphasize preservation from Original Sin point toward not dying, while an emphasis on conformity to Christ points toward death.
And as both phrases touch upon matters absolutely fundamental to the faith, it is worth examining how they both apply to the Assumption. The arguments also direct attention to how Christians ought to think about the fundamental reality of life in this world, namely, death. The Church thinks very clearly about death, knowing that death is both a punishment for sin and the means of redemption. Perhaps the Church's silence on the particular question of Mary's death is meant to encourage the faithful to meditate on the central question of death in general.
Death is natural for man. As a material thing, his body is subject to death and decay. Nevertheless, he was created with bodily immortality, not as something natural, but as a special preternatural gift of God (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 376). This gift was withdrawn after the sin of Adam. The consequence of this Original Sin is death, inherited by all men as descendants of Adam (cf. Catechism 402, 404). The Church insists that death “cannot be understood apart from [its] connection with Adam's sin” (Catechism 403). The stronger the insistence upon the link between Original Sin and its punishment (death), the stronger the case that a woman without Original Sin should not be liable to death.
Free from Original Sin
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception confirms that Mary was preserved from all stain of Original Sin (Catechism 490). Justice demands then that Mary should not suffer the punishments for that sin. This is consistent with the fact that Mary enjoyed some of the other preternatural gifts that man possessed before the Fall. Her sinlessness throughout life (Catechism 493) would have required the gift of the proper submission of her appetites to her reason, i.e., she did not suffer concupiscence. Her delivery of Christ while remaining a physical virgin (Catechism 499) indicates that she was free of labor pains, another consequence of Original Sin (Gn 3:16). Thus preservation from death would be altogether fitting as the crowning of the other preternatural gifts. Moreover, it would seem unjust for the sinless Mary to suffer death.
Yet it is possible to accept all of the foregoing and still hold that Mary did die. A fortiori, Christ should not have died yet “He humbled himself, obediently accepting even death” (Ph 2:8). Dying on the cross was Christ's mission in the world and, in order to embrace it, he laid aside his bodily immortality. It is unjust for the innocent to be punished for the sins of the guilty, but love can compensate for what justice cannot demand, and so the innocent can offer himself willingly. At the very least then, the example of Christ means that death for Mary cannot be ruled out.
Mary's mission in the world is not different from that of her divine Son. In her fiat Mary gave herself to the “divine will wholeheartedly … to the person and work of her Son” (Catechism 494). It was the eternal will of the Father that his Son would die. And if the Lord humbles himself to accept death, what will the handmaid of the Lord do? It would seem that Mary would choose to imitate Christ in all things, and so to unite her death to the work of redemption. “Do whatever he tells you,” (Jn 2:5) are Mary's last words in the Gospel, and it would be fitting that she would follow him in word and deed.
Saved from Corruption
The Assumption confirms that even if Mary did die, she was preserved from corruption, even as Christ's body did not suffer corruption in the tomb. Corruption of Mary's body — the first tabernacle — would not be fitting. Mary was united to Christ in body and soul and so her body should not be separated from Christ, for the psalmist sings, “What profit would my death be, my going to the grave? Can dust give you praise or proclaim your truth?” (Ps 30:9).
As Mary's soul magnified the Lord so too did her body, and the grave could not be allowed to prevent her body from rejoicing with her spirit in God her Savior. In either case — death or no death — the Assumption testifies to the victory over death expected by all those united to Christ, and also to the resurrection of the body. This testimony is provided sufficiently by the Assumption alone, and does not require preservation from death in addition.
So either position is theologically defensible. Recently, however, during his long catechesis on Mary at his general audiences, the Holy Father did favor the position of the Blessed Mother having died. While certainly not a definitive teaching, it does fit with the balance of the tradition in the Latin Church. Death seems more fitting according to the theological argument that conformity to Christ is more significant than preservation from Original Sin.
The argument that Mary did not die emphasizes justice, wherein death is understood as a punishment first and foremost. Yet the plan of salvation belongs more to the order of love than to the order of justice. Death and suffering are not good in themselves, and indeed remain punishments for sin, but since Christ suffered and died the phenomena of suffering and death have been transformed. Not only has death lost its sting, but it takes on a salvific power for those with the eyes of faith.
The crucified Christ gave to those united with him the ability to embrace suffering and death in union with his passion. Through suffering and death those united to Christ have the power of participating in the redemption of the world. The great good of life — eternal life — can be served by suffering and a good death: “By the Blood of the Lamb, love for life did not deter them from death” (Rv 12:11).
Our Fall & Redemption
Death resulted from the fall of creation. Now through death comes the means of redemption. Redemption is an even greater act than creation, so the very punishment for losing creation's original holiness becomes the door to participating in its redemption. On the holiest of all nights, the Church sings in the Easter Vigil liturgy: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est. O felix culpa! (O most necessary sin of Adam, that was destroyed by the death of Christ. O happy fault!)
It is not a mark against Mary, co-redemptrix by virtue of her singular participation in Christ's saving work (cf. Lumen Gentium 57), to suffer death. Rather, it is her final offering in union with Christ. Christ himself did not spare his mother sufferings during life; rather he pointed her toward them. Mary is not spared suffering in the flight to Egypt, the words of Simeon at the Presentation, the words of Christ after being lost for three days, and at the foot of the cross. At the wedding in Cana (Jn 2:4) Christ is firm with his mother. And when his mother comes to speak to him (Mk 3:33-34) and when she is praised (Lk 11:27-28), Christ does not indulge in filial piety, but is harsh, insisting that union with him and his work is greater than kinship.
Christ could not confer any honor upon his mother greater than the fullest possible participation in his work of salvation. It is proper that Mary, having persevered even unto Calvary, would persevere unto imitating it herself. And the Father, looking with favor upon this final offering of his handmaid, would receive her soon after her death into heaven, body and soul, in imitation of the One whom she imitated in all things.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: America's Moral Fiber May Be Put to Test in Clinton Case DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Few developments in modern times illuminate — and test — the state or American culture and public morality more than the public's reaction to the independent counsel's investigation of President Bill Clinton.
There is more to that investigation than the Monica Lewinsky affair, of course. It began as a probe into the messy financial dealings surrounding the Whitewater realestate development and has ranged through a number of scandals and suspected scandals since. Despite cries about delay and expense, it should not be forgotten that Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, has achieved much — a number of convictions and guilty pleas.
It is perhaps understandable, nonetheless, that the media, estimating their readers'interests, have focused on the salacious stories about sex in the Oval Office. What is not so easily understood is the public reaction to that aspect of the investigation. There has been a slow accumulation of evidence that makes it a likely surmise that the president has in fact done what he has denied under oath. He, or those acting on his behalf and according to his wishes, have sought to have others lie under oath about what they have seen or heard.
Indeed, the polls tell us that a majority of Americans believe that Mr. Clinton had sex with a 21-year-old White House intern.
Amajority also believes that he has sworn falsely that he did not have sex and that others have been asked to lie also. The public understands as well that the White House is stalling, asserting frivolous legal claims, resisting the production of subpoenaed documents, and smearing the prosecutor, witnesses, and critics. In a word, massive stonewalling is taking place and the inference to be drawn from that is not favorable to the president.
Yet the polls also tell us that the public has a very low opinion of Starr and gives a high approval rating to Bill Clinton. Something is wrong with that picture. Not many years ago, those seemingly contradictory results would have been regarded as an anomaly, as a warning that something was wrong with the way the polls were conducted. The polls seem accurate, however, and one has to ask how to explain it.
One strain of the conventional wisdom is that Americans don't much mind what the president does as long as the good times roll, i.e., the Dow Jones Index keeps rising, inflation is tamed, personal incomes are going up, and unemployment remains low. If that is the correct explanation it is a severe indictment of today's culture.
I prefer to believe that the public simply has not focused sufficiently on what such behavior suggests about the character of the man they elected and the seriousness of the attempt to prevent the law from running its course. The president, after all, is charged by the Constitution with the duty of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.
But matters may have reached a decisive turning point when the courts decided that Secret Service agents have no special immunity from testifying; as sworn law enforcement officers they are under a statutory duty to report wrongdoing. Eleven judges — the district judge, nine members of the federal court of appeals, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist — rejected the legally preposterous claim that the Secret Service is the president's Praetorian guard. Their testimony, the Lewinsky tapes, and the talking points Lewinsky gave Linda Tripp in an effort to secure her perjury, will bring the matter into sharp focus. Questions about the president's moral character and the lawfulness of his conduct may then be answered.
If the answer is condemnatory, we will then arrive at the “bloody crossroads” where law and politics clash. That will be the test of our culture's morality. Will we choose law or politics? Will material comforts distract us from necessary moral judgments? Will we as citizens be informed enough to analyze which is the right path? Will we have the courage to consider the decision important? That is the test we may face, and soon. The outcome will either raise the standard of an already divisive culture or lower it even more. The American people have a decision to make.
Mary Ellen Bork, a board member of the Catholic Campaign for America and the Institute for Religion in Democracy, writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ellen Bork ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vouchers Needn't Make Private Schools Subject to Government's Agenda DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The National Education Association and other forces opposing a free market in education continue to attack school choice as though it were a mortal threat to the nation. A key argument they make is one that unfortunately is also embraced by some sincere and ardent conservatives. A good example is found in an article by Ronald Trowbridge in the Sept. 15, 1997 edition of National Review entitled “Devil's Deal.”
Trowbridge states that under “voucher” plans, private schools in which parents expend vouchers will be legally deemed to be “recipient institutions” of governmental funds. Therefore, the schools will be subjected to the full range of oppressive anti-discrimination laws, governmental requirements for multicultural diversity, and prohibitions against religious practices and discipline in religious schools. Those predictions should certainly be noted; happily, they need not be fulfilled.
Trowbridge points to the bad experience of Hillsdale College as the result of the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in Grove City College v. Bell. There the Supreme Court held that the ultimate receipt by the college of grants to students under the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (BEOG) program constituted federal financial assistance to the institution, thus bringing Grove City under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act barring sex discrimination. But his allusion to Hillsdale's experience is completely off the mark insofar as sound state voucher programs are concerned. Well-drafted voucher proposals will be scrupulously devoid of any expression of legislative intent to treat voucher monies as aids to institutions; instead they will carefully express the opposite intention. The school child, via the parents, will be designated as the grant recipient, and the grant monies “shall not constitute financial assistance or appropriations to the educational institution attended by the grant recipient.” Such indeed are the provisions of House Bill 2 (vouchers) now before the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Here we should bear in mind that the Supreme Court, in a series of decisions from 1947 down to its 1993 decision in Zobrest v. Catatina Foothills School District has carefully distinguished governmental assistance programs in which individuals are the primary beneficiaries of the assistance from programs that primarily aim at institutional aid. The Court, in its decision in the Agostini case, June 13, 1997, referred twenty-four times to Zobrest. These decisions each turned on whether particular assistance programs violated the Establishment Clause, but that in turn depended on whether the aid was to religious institutions or to individuals.
Trowbridge states that even pro-school-choice advocate Gary Bauer admits that private schools are already under “some government control”; hence it would be easy “to impose more control on these schools.” True, private schools are subject to several kinds of regulation — for example, building and safety codes, zoning laws, laws on racial discrimination. Private schools (including religious schools) should find regulations unobjectionable where they are narrowly drawn, reasonable in content, and do not transgress constitutional rights. The success of the public-school establishment in some instances to impose broad, unreasonable, or constitutionally intrusive regulations on private schools has been largely due to a “get along by going along” attitude on the part of many private schools. But that success has not been due to vouchers. Indeed, sound voucher programs like that proposed in Pennsylvania expressly limit employing vouchers as a device for imposing regulations beyond those presently in force.
Trowbridge says that protections established in good voucher laws can later be adversely amended. I am afraid he has bought the public-school monopoly's basic principle — namely, that it is inevitable that private schools be further and further marginalized in our society, that education taxes be directed solely to support the monopoly, and that there must be no economically meaningful parental choice in schools. Instead of quailing in the face of such an outrageous principle, we should face about and insist on two realities in the public debate on choice.
The first reality is that government is neither the sole educator (in an arrogated role as supreme standard-setter) nor indeed a superior educator. Public education is simply alternative education — one among diverse choices that should be open to parents.
A second reality is the constitutional right of parents to choose. Seventy years ago, in Meyer v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court warned against the tendency, now vividly seen in public education, to follow the view expressed in Plato's Republic, to force all children into a common mold. In its landmark decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters two years later, the Court denied any power in the state “to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public school teachers only.” The message for Americans today is that by conferring a tax monopoly on public education, we are conferring on it also an intellectual and philosophical monopoly. The only minority able to enjoy diversity in values will be the rich. The children of all others will be forced into the common mold. The Supreme Court has coupled its warnings against state standardization of children with emphasis on parental rights. In its 1972 decision involving Amish parents, the Court called parental rights in education “fundamental,“ concluding: “This primary right of parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American institution.” But the dominant tendency of the public education monopoly is toward the extinction of parental rights,
The “devil's deal” is not to be found in education vouchers for parents. It is found instead in nursing fears of government as an alien force instead of something whose course we must lay hold of and help determine. We dare not treat statists as inevitable victors, but instead as people to be challenged, exposed, and defeated.
William Bentley Ball is a constitutional scholar from Harrisburg, Pennsylivania.
This article is reprinted with permission from Crisis in Education.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Bentley Ball ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: In an Ancient City, Birth of a Living Message DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The Great Theater, the most spectacular building in Ephesus, is a horseshoe-shaped structure that once seated 25,000. It still has near-perfect acoustics and is so well preserved that Sting and Diana Ross held concerts here in recent years. The theater was built by Greeks in the third century before Christ and expanded by the Romans in the first century, but it was a Jew-turned-Christian who was its most significant orator.
Paul preached the Gospel in the theater before throngs of pagans who worshipped fertility gods and other ancient deities. The difficulties he encountered are vividly told in the Acts of the Apostles. A silversmith named Demetrius who sold statues of Artemis, a pagan god, took exception to the foreigner who proclaimed “that gods made by hand are not gods at all” (Ac 19:26). Demetrius provoked his fellow craftsmen to a public outcry against Paul. “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” a crowd chanted against Paul, before the town clerk reasoned with the mob and quieted their fury.
Ephesus, located near Kusadasi, Turkey, a few miles from the Aegean coast, is a sprawling archeological site that covers about three square miles. The city is remarkably intact. It lay undisturbed for centuries, buried by earth and dust until discovered in the 19th century. No modern structures are seen at or near Ephesus. Here is an entire ancient city — a main street where the ruts of cart wheels are visible and traces of a sophisticated drainage system are seen, a library with niches in the wall where the books were kept, a town hall, a market place, public baths, and even latrines.
A key port city in Hellenic times and then a stronghold of the Roman Empire, Ephesus holds great interest for history buffs, but the city also played an important role in the early history of Christianity. Paul spent more than two years here. His writings to the Ephesians are part of the New Testament. The Ephesians heard from Paul about the unity of the Church, the world mission of the Church, and admonitions on Christian conduct. It was the Ephesians who were told “by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast” (Ep 2:8-9). It was the Ephesians who first heard “as the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands” (Ep 5:24).
Ephesus was such a key outpost of the early Church that Mary and St. John the Evangelist are believed to have traveled here. Mary supposedly spent the rest of her life in Ephesus, and a dwelling excavated in the 19th century is revered as Mary's house.
The association of Mary with Ephesus led Church leaders to select the city as the site of two ecclesiastical councils in the fifth century. The Church was split about whether Mary was the mother of God or only of Jesus the man. The Council of Ephesus in 431 declared the “divine motherhood of Mary.”
The city was first formed as an Ionian colony around 1000 B.C. In 334 B.C. it fell to Alexander the Great. The Romans took control in 133 B.C. The city flourished under the Romans, becoming the capital of the province of Asia Minor. The city's protected harbor and the Royal Road out of town built by the Romans contributed to its growth.
The most breathtaking ruin is the Library of Celsus, built at the beginning of the second century in honor of a Roman government official by his son. The intricate two-story facade has three entrances, flanked by niches with statues representing the virtues of Celsus: Sophia (wisdom), Arete (valor), Ennoia (thought), and Episteme (knowledge). Inside are low Ionian pillars that supported the reading tables.
The Marble Road, also known as the Sacred Way, was a main street that stretched from the library to the Artemis Temple. The Odeon, a small amphitheater for 1,500 people, was built into the hillside. The Prytaneion, a town hall alongside the Odeon, dates from the third century. The restored Houses of the Slope feature mosaic floors. The magnificent Baths of Skolasticia contained a clever heating system that fed a swimming pool, a hot bath, and a warm bath. Not to be missed, too, are the Temple of Hadrian and the Fountain of Trajan, both imposing structures that reflect the city's imperial status.
The pagan culture of the city that Paul encountered is a prominent part of Ephesus. The Peripteros Temple was a shrine to Dionysus. The Artemis Temple was one of seven wonders of the ancient world. Artemis was worshipped as a mother goddess and goddess of fertility. The cult of Artemis, extremely popular, brought many pagan pilgrims to Ephesus.
Paul preached both among the Jews and pagans at Ephesus. He “entered the synagogue and for three months debated boldly with persuasive arguments about the kingdom of God. But when some in their obstinacy and disbelief disparaged the Way [of God] before the assembly, he withdrew and took his disciples with him and began to hold daily discussions in the lecture halls of Tyrannus. This continued for two years with the result that all the inhabitants of the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, Jews and Greeks alike” (Ac 19, 8-10).
Mary's House is located amid olive and pine trees outside the tiny village of Selcuk, near Ephesus. Tradition says Mary came here sometime between 37 and 48 A.D. The home's foundation was discovered in 1891 after an invalid German nun who never left her country had a vision. She described in detail the hills of Ephesus and Mary's house. Further evidence of the house's authenticity was that the first basilica in the world dedicated to Mary was built in Ephesus. The houses of worship built by early Christians were dedicated only to those who had lived or died in the region.
Mary's House was validated as a shrine by the Church in 1896. Pope Paul VI visited in 1967 and Pope John Paul II in 1979. A major pilgrimage will be held on Aug. 15, 2000, the day of the Feast of the Assumption.
The present chapel built over the foundation of Mary's home was completed in 1954, though it incorporates the ruins of a chapel that dates from the seventh century. Outside the chapel is a sign erected by the American Society of Ephesus of Lima, Ohio. On the sign is the Gospel passage in which the crucified Jesus told John to take care of Mary: “Here is your mother.” The chapel itself is small and simple. A bronze statue of Mary is in a niche above the altar. Two springs outside the chapel are said to have healing powers.
In Selcuk are the impressive ruins of the Basilica of St. John, a huge structure built in the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian. Under the central dome was the grave of St. John. The basilica replaced a smaller church from the second century.
After the sixth century Ephesus saw its harbor silt over, hastening its decline into oblivion. But Paul's message to the Ephesians to put on Christ — “Put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Ep 4:24) — has endured, even if the city didn't.
Jay Copp writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: Ephesus played a crucial and colorful role in Christianity's early years ----- EXTENDED BODY: JAY COPP ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World WarII Meets the Hollywood Hype Machine DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:The Hollywood hype machine is dangerous. Expectations can be raised so high that even a good movie can seem to fall short if it fails to deliver on much promoted promises. With popcorn blockbusters like Godzilla, Deep Impact, and Armageddon, it doesn't matter. They were always more marketing concepts than well-developed stories. But with the work of a major film-maker like Steven Spielberg, there are difficulties and disappointments.
Seven of the 20 top-grossing movies of all times carry his name as either a producer or director. Since his much acclaimed masterpiece, Schindler's List, his more serious projects have been eagerly awaited, and, unfortunately, with his latest, Saving Private Ryan, he has chosen to become part of the hype.
In a series of print interviews and on the prestigious TV news show, Nightline, the filmmaker has been given a forum to make all kinds of exaggerated claims for his work. Saving Private Ryan is falsely described as being unique in its extensive use of semi-documentary combat footage and as innovative in its emphasis on the horrors of war as opposed to films awash in John Wayne-type, recruiting poster heroics. And because it's Spielberg — and not some slick studio flack — talking, many respectable critics have recycled these assertions in their reviews, forgetting what they know of film history. For, the truth is, war movies have always been one of Hollywood's greatest artistic strengths, beginning with King Vidor's realistic 1925 silent classic, The Big Parade, up to Oliver Stone's gory 1986 Vietnam-War epic, Platoon.
There are at least a dozen other movies (They Were Expendable, Battleground, The Big Red One, etc.) that treat World War II combat with the same skill and intelligence as Saving Private Ryan. But anger at the hype shouldn't blind us to the Spielberg film's considerable merits.
Saving Private Ryan is, in fact, two movies. The first is a 24-minute semi-documentary section on the Omaha Beach landing on D- Day, June 6, 1944. The second is a well-crafted, conventional foot- soldier's yarn about a squad of rangers sent to retrieve an enlisted man whose three other brothers have been killed in combat.
After a brief prologue with a veteran visiting the graves of his fallen comrades, we're plunged straight into the middle of the invasion. Using hand-held cameras, Spielberg successfully replicates the look of period newsreels. The slaughter is instant, terrible, and unceasing. The soldiers begin to die before they hit the beaches, drowning underwater because of the weight of their packs. One man loses an arm and, stumbling around in shock, picks it up with his other. There are no heroics. Survival depends on luck as much as on courage. The camera lingers particularly on the bloodiness of the wounds.
A ranger company led by Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) slowly becomes the focus of our attention as he drives his men forward, and against all odds they knock out a Nazi machine gun nest.
If any other director had produced a long, ultra-violent sequence like this, his movie would have gotten an NC-17 rating, not an R. But because Spielberg is considered the industry's premiere film-maker, the MPAA board must have decided to cut him some slack. However, the violence is never exploitative in the manner of much of the industry's current product. Instead the audience has its nose rubbed in the intense agony and destructiveness of war. But it must be said that other World War II films have achieved similar results with less blood and guts.
One of the final shots of the landing sequence highlights the name “Ryan” on the backpack of one of the dead. Back at headquarters, Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall (Harve Presnell), learns that two other Ryan brothers have died, but one, Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), is a para-trooper who may still be alive in Normandy. A rescue mission is ordered.
Miller is given the assignment which he considers “a public relations gambit.” He has already had 94 of his men killed in combat. “Ryan better be worth it,” he says. “He better go home and cure some disease or invent a new, longer lasting light bulb.”
Miller's squad resembles the kind of multi-ethnic unit we've seen in dozens of Hollywood films. There's the battle-hardened sergeant (Tom Sizemore); the rebel who talks too much (Edward Burns); the Italian (Vic Diesel); the Jew (Adam Goldberg); the misfit intellectual (Jeremy Davies); and the Southern-born sniper who prays “God grant me strength” before squeezing off each shot.
Spielberg and screenwriter Robert Rodat milk this recognizable cast of characters for some familiar big moments. The laconic, James Stewart-like Miller defuses a mutiny when emotions are running high, and the non-violent intellectual must learn to become part of the warrior culture.
But the movie also dramatizes some challenging ideas. Vengeance is depicted as a motive that can overwhelm compassion in the treatment of the enemy; and the soldiers are shown to be fighting mainly for their own and their buddies' survival rather than any grandiose sense of mission.
Unlike so many recent war films, Saving Private Ryan makes us proud to be Americans. When it's over, we're grateful for the sacrifices made at DDay. But it is not the major cultural event Spielberg and his studio would like it to be. The movie is a well-made, emotionally harrowing World War II combat film and that should be good enough — if you can stomach the violence.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
Saving Private Ryan is rated R by the Motion Picture Association America.
----- EXCERPT: The ultra-violent Saving Private Ryan is noteworthy, but it's not all that Spielberg and the media say it is ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Faith and Superstition in the Time of the Plague DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:In times of great social turmoil or natural catastrophe, some people begin to believe they are living in the end times. Orthodox beliefs are set aside, and superstitions and the exploitation of religious fears blossom.
At different periods throughout the Middle Ages, the plague or “black death” wiped out entire communities, giving rise to widespread irrational apocalyptic sentiments. The Seventh Seal, a prize-winner at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, dramatizes the power of these ideas during that era with vivid, symbolic imagery and a series of theological speculations rarely found in the commercial cinema.
Swedish writer-director, Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries and Smiles of a Summer's Night), sets the apocalyptic tone from the very first frame as the narrator recites a biblical quotation that describes the opening of the scroll containing the will of God for history: “The Lamb then broke the seventh seal, and there was silence for about half an hour” (Rv 8:1).
A knight named Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), are crusaders returning home after 10 years in the Holy Land. They are exhausted physically and spiritually. While resting on a rocky, desolate beach, Block believes he has encountered death in the person of a figure dressed in black (Bengt Ekerot) and challenges him to a game of chess.
“If I win, you release me,” he says to the stranger.
Bergman cuts back to the chess game at crucial points during the story. Because of the plague, death is on everyone's mind. The illiterate populace sees strange, mystical omens everywhere suggesting the end times.
Block's crusade experiences have made him lose his faith. “My heart is empty,” he complains. “I am filled with fear and disgust.”
Tortured by despair, he still prays to God for relief. “Why can't I kill God within me,” he wails. “Why does he live on in this painful and humiliating way even though I curse him and want to tear him out of my heart?”
Block is a cerebral personality. “I want knowledge, not faith,” he proclaims.
Typically, he thinks he can save his life through the exercise of his mental skills while playing chess. His squire is more cynical. Issues of faith don't bother him.
“Up above is God Almighty, so very far away,” he sings, “but your brother, the devil, you will meet on every level.”
Both Jons and his master have a well-developed sense of right and wrong and act on it.
Bergman, the son of a Protestant pastor, contrasts their lack of hope with the attitudes of a juggler, Jof (Nils Poppe), and his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson). They have a simpler, more natural spirituality. Jof has visions of the Virgin Mary, which everyone else ridicules. Mia, the devoted mother of a newborn son, tries to root her small family in the everyday joys of living, like eating a bowl of fresh strawberries in the noon-day sun.
Jof and his family have hooked up with a small band of traveling players. One of their impromptu performances is interrupted by a group of flagellants called the Slaves of Sin, who chant in procession about the plague being the wrath of God.
Their leader, Raval (Bertil Abderberg), is a former theology teacher who had persuaded Block to join the crusades. Jons exposes him as a thief and a rapist who manipulates people's fears of death and the end times for his own gain. Block invites Jof and his family to join him on a trek through the forest to his castle to avoid the plague, but the mysterious figure in black follows close behind.
Bergman has gone through times of both faith and doubt himself, and it's hard to know what he believes at any one particular time. However, in a 1960 introduction to a book of four of his screenplays, he states his views on the relationship between art and religion with passion.
“Art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship,” he writes. “It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life. The smallest wound or pain is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. We walk in circles so limited by our anguish we can no longer distinguish true from false.”
Bergman is one of the few major creative figures of our era to wrestle with these issues. The Seventh Seal is a carefully thought out testament to the importance of God in our lives and an incisive analysis of the dangers of fixating on the apocalypse.
Next week: Richard Attenborough's Gandhi
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Ingmar Bergman's classicThe Seventh Seal wrestles with questions of the end times ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Missouri Lawmakers Determined to Cut Off Planned Parenthood Funds DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:JEFFERSON CITY—Missouri lawmakers just won't give up in their attempt to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds. Earlier this year the Missouri legislature voted to deny state family planning funds to the abortion-advocacy organization for the third straight legislative session. Now, both sides of the abortion debate are awaiting results of an appeal on whether states can expressly deny funds to groups such as Planned Parenthood.
Previous legislative attempts to keep taxpayer dollars away from Planned Parenthood have succeeded in the legislature, but failed in the courts. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitain has repeatedly ruled that the legislature's pro-life language denied Planned Parenthood's “constitutional right to equal protection.”
However, some pro-life legislators are optimistic that this year will be different. Although Judge Gaitain ruled once again in July that the legislature could not deny funds to Planned Parenthood, the state has hired an attorney to represent the pro-life legislators in an appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Missouri's legislative strategy to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving any state funds earmarked for “family planning services” has been complex. This year, the state's largest pro-life group, Missouri Right to Life, opposed the bill, which eventually was approved. The group argued that since the language of the bill was essentially the same as past years, it would again be held unconstitutional. However, this year the state agreed to hire a special counsel to represent the pro-life legislators. In past years, Attorney General Jay Nixon had been accused of not defending the law strongly enough because of his pro-choice stance.
The special counsel, Jordan Cherrick, has argued that the legislature is permitted to make “value choices and moral judgments” in favoring childbirth over abortion. He also said it is impossible to separate abortion and non-abortion expenses within an organization such as Planned Parenthood.
“You've got abortion services and family planning being done by the same physicians, in the same buildings, using the same equipment,” Cherrick told Judge Gaitain. When the state pays for family planning services, Planned Parenthood can use other revenues for abortion services, he said.
According to Planned Parenthood, its Missouri clinics receive more than $1 million from the state in direct reimbursements for family planning services.
Whether an attorney who will ardently defend the pro-life language will make a difference or not is the subject of debate. Missouri Right to Life had favored a different approach, which failed in the Missouri Senate. The alternate proposal would have changed the state's current system of offering “family planning services” through private contractors such as Planned Parenthood, instead allowing the state to establish its own family planning programs through county health departments.
Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right to Life, said the group couldn't support a legislative proposal that would end up in the same place as past years. Instead, she said the group looked for alternative means to reach the same result.
“It is our tax money and we don't want abortion to be an option [in state-funded family planning programs],” she said. “Instead, we wanted the money to go to state-run clinics where there will be more accountability.”
Although their approach did not succeed in the legislature, Missouri Right to Life leaders are awaiting the decision from the 8th Circuit. Regardless of the ruling, however, Klein said the group is already looking at legislation for next year to remove Planned Parenthood from the state's pay roll.
“We're always hoping that the legislative process will come down on the right side,” she said. “We are already working on next year's legislation.”
Klein agreed with Cherrick's assertion that state funding of Planned Parenthood indirectly pays for abortion, regardless of Planned Parenthood's claims to the contrary.
“The money still goes in to Planned Parenthood's budget,” she said. “In a round-about way, they are still using the money for abortion.”
Targeting state funding of abortion agencies such as Planned Parenthood isn't just an issue in Missouri. The Colorado House of Representatives also considered a measure this year to deny family planning funds to organizations that perform abortions. In Colorado, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains receives about $300,000 in taxpayer funding through a state contract. The measure failed on a 43-18 vote.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin — the nation's largest Planned Parenthood affiliate — receives more than $2 million in state funds. Pro-Life Wisconsin State Director Mary Matuska said her organization supported an amendment offered to the state budget last year that would have prohibited organizations such as Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds. Instead, those funds would be funneled to government-run health centers. Although she said she would have liked to see the state “get out of the birth control business entirely,” she was still amazed at the lack of courage of some so-called “pro-life” legislators.
“It's one thing for them to stand against partial-birth abortions. That's easy,” said Matuska. “But it's another thing entirely for them to support cutting funds to the clinics where the abortions are actually performed.”
The amendment to stop state funding of Planned Parenthood supported by Pro-Life Wisconsin failed, but Matuska said the organization is watching the Missouri case closely and planning its legislative strategy for next session. She says one of the group's top priorities will be legislation targeting state funding of Planned Parenthood.
“We'll be back, but it certainly is difficult to convince legislators to support something that might be unconstitutional. We'll be awaiting the result of the Missouri appeal,” she said. “But getting the word out about the abortion agenda of Planned Parenthood is worth any legislative setback. Too many people think Planned Parenthood is squeaky clean.”
Missouri Right to Life's Klein agrees that legislative battles to prohibit tax funding of Planned Parenthood can play a crucial part of the pro-life educational process.
“We need to let the general public know how our tax dollars are being used,” she said.
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana
----- EXCERPT: To date, courts have upheld abortion provider's access to state monies ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Study Confirms Creighton Method's Reliability in NFP DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS—The Creighton method of natural family planning (NFP) is roughly as effective as the birth control pill when used to avoid pregnancy, according to a 14-year, five-state study published this summer in a U.S. medical journal.
The study, which appeared in the June issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, distributed to obstetrician-gynecologists, showed the method to have a 99.5% rate for method effectiveness, that is, when it is taught and used precisely, and a 96.8% use effectiveness rate, a “real-life” rate that includes teaching or use errors.
Current research shows oral contraceptives to have a 97.0% user effectiveness rate, according to the report. The study also quotes that among the reversible methods of preventing pregnancy, as opposed to surgical sterilization, the injectable hormonal contraception has the highest use effectiveness rating, of 99.8%, and the intrauterine device has a 98.0% use effectiveness rating. Unlike NFP, such methods are contrary to Church teaching as artificial contraception and because they often function as abortifacients, preventing a fertilized ovum from implanting in the womb.
Another finding in the report was that while the method effectiveness has remained stable through the 14 years of study at between 98.7 and 99.8 out of 100 couple years, the use effectiveness appears to have improved over time. The earliest use effectiveness was 94.6%, which increased to 97.9% in the most recent study.
The report, the latest published analysis of ongoing research by the Pope Paul VI Institute based in Omaha, Neb., evaluated 1,876 couples at five reproductive health centers that teach the Creighton method and included more than 17,000 couple-months of use. The large scope of the study and its statistical protocol, including life-table analysis, qualified it to appear in a peer-review journal, according to co-author Dr. Thomas Hilgers, founder and director of the institute, a national Catholic center of reproductive study and services.
“There has been quite a bit of unevenness in the literature. When it comes to effectiveness measures in general terms, there aren't very many people who understand how [statistical studies are done],” Hilgers said. “It's really a very strong study. [The Creighton method] is as good as birth control pills and better than anything else on the market.”
The Creighton method is a standardized version of the Billings ovulation method that relies on a woman's observation and charting of changes in her cervical mucus to determine her fertility.
The article is the most recent of a number of effectiveness studies of NFP to appear in professional journals since the early '90s, according to Theresa Notare, NFP specialist for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Anytime you get yet another good study in a serious journal, that enhances the prestige of NFP as a viable family planning method,” she said.
However, the key to increasing the use of NFP beyond 2% to 3% of couples of childbearing age using natural methods to avoid pregnancy is not so much medical recognition as good local programs, she said.
“What would make a difference in your Catholic church is really good teachers — that old-fashioned missionary work,” Notare said. “That will make a significant contribution to putting aside the prejudice and putting aside the ignorance [about NFP].”
Dr. Joseph Stanford, assistant professor at the University of Utah medical school, co-wrote the study with Hilgers as part of his association with the Creighton method since 1991.
“I've gradually seen a little more openness [in the medical field toward NFP]. I think that this [study] will help,” he said. “I'm expecting that there will be some discussion and controversy about this study. I'm looking forward to what comes out of that.”
One possible point of contention is the demographics of the study, which skewed to better-educated, middle- to upper-middle-class couples and Catholics, said Stanford.
“I think that's more a function of culture than the method,” and should not detract from its validity, he said, likening it to breast feeding, which skews to a similar group who are more interested and have more access to instruction.
Studies of similar NFP methods have been done in Third World countries with high-effectiveness results, Stanford added.
Another point of controversy, particularly within the NFP movement, is the Creighton model's calculation of “informed choice” pregnancies — those pregnancies that result when a couple spontaneously choose to have intercourse during a time they correctly determined as fertile.
“That particular category is absent from the Creighton model,” therefore the user effectiveness rate appears higher than for other NFP methods, according to Sister Hanna Klaus, a medical doctor and executive director of the Natural Family Planning Center of Washington, D.C.
According to the article, Creighton couples are instructed that the method may be used to avoid or achieve pregnancy, and that when they choose intercourse on a day of fertility they have de facto switched from being “avoiders” to being “achievers.” In this way they are separated from the statistics for pregnancy avoidance.
A separate paper will be published soon on the successes of the “achievers,” Hilgers said.
Despite their difference in approach, Sister Klaus — a promoter of the Billings method who is currently working in teen chastity — said Hilgers has worked “hard and long” on his model and has heightened the professionalism of NFP among family practice physicians.
“That's something to be very much welcomed,” she said.
Dr. Konald Prem, a pioneer of the modern method of NFP who helped develop the Sympto-Thermal Method promoted by the Cincinnati-based Couple to Couple League, cheered the inclusion of the study in the journal, but also found a few gaps.
For example, the report did not mention how many actual pregnancies occurred, he said. Also, he agreed with Sister Klaus that some note has to be made of those couples who take chances with the method because they would not be concerned about a pregnancy if it occurred.
“A lot of these people are ‘spacers.’
If they get pregnant, it's all right anyway,” he said. “They should be talked about.”
Finally, he said, the Creighton study includes some older women of declining fertility and breast feeding women, who can be at a low risk for pregnancy.
Dr. J. Patrick McCarty, a Dallas area ob-gyn with 35 years of practice, does not prescribe artificial contraception for his patients but refers women for education in NFP. He said he found the report interesting and well-done, but is not optimistic about its changing the minds of most in his field.
“I unfortunately don't think it's going to sway any of them,” he said. “We really as a specialty of obstetrician-gynecologists believe women can't know, they can't understand their bodies. That's really pretty demeaning and paternalistic.”
The NCCB's Notare believes it will take leading contraceptive researchers to do a serious study of NFP before it can break into the mainstream, but that acceptance is not necessarily the goal for a family planning approach that includes openness to life as part of a couple's spirituality.
“I don't know how good it would be for NFP to be co-opted by the family planning industry,” she said. “Ours is a holistic vision that these people just don't have.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: Medical journal cites 99.5% effectiveness rate in preventing pregnancy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Ireland TourEnergizes Young Canadian Pro-Lifers DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:TORONTO—Two Canadian women who took part in an extended speaking tour of Ireland have returned to Toronto with a renewed commitment to pro-life activism.
Emma Maan, 21, of Georgetown, northwest of Toronto, and Ada Wong, 19, are members of Ontario Students for Life (OSFL), an organization of secondary and university students working to promote a pro-life attitude among their peers.
The pair toured Ireland between April 1-June 30 to bring a North American view of the pro-life struggle to Irish students and established right-to-life organizations. They also represented Canada at an international youth pro-life conference in Dublin June 20-21. In total, Maan and Wong spoke to about 1,400 people in five Irish counties.
“It was refreshing to visit a country where abortion and contraception have not yet made the inroads that they have made in North America,” Maan told the Register. “In my talks to Canadian students, most are no longer bothered by abortion, but the Irish young people seemed genuinely shocked when they learned its true nature,” Maan said.
In their addresses to Irish pro-life and student groups, Maan and Wong discussed fetal development, abortion's destruction of human life, and the tactics abortion advocates have used to have abortion legalized in North America. They warned their Irish audiences that there are elements now working in Ireland for wider acceptance of abortion and contraception.
The abortion struggle has been especially heated in Ireland since 1992, when the Supreme Court upheld the official prohibition of abortion in the country, but allowed citizens to go abroad to obtain the procedure. Ireland is now preparing a “Green Paper” or discussion document, to determine the public mood on the abortion issue. Part of the Green Paper is devoted to the wording of a proposed referendum on loosening the country's restrictive abortion law. According to Mann, more than 2,500 groups have now offered input into the government document.
Irish pro-life forces, including the Youth Defense organization, have hinted that the government may seek to bypass the referendum plan and introduce new legislation permitting wider access to abortion. This despite polls showing that up to 65% of Irish citizens favor the referendum route.
Irish pro-life groups also believe the wording of the proposed referendum is crucial in determining residents' true feelings on the right to life issue. In its submission to the government Green Paper, Youth Defense called for extreme caution in determining the wording of any proposed referendum on abortion.
“It cannot be stressed too strongly that any wording for the referendum which falls short of a complete prohibition of abortion is one which will be wholeheartedly be opposed by Youth Defense and, indeed, by all pro-life organizations of any standing.”
The group accused pro-abortion elements in Ireland of muddying the waters and creating confusion on the issue in an effort to bring legal abortion to an unwilling nation.
“The great weapon of pro-abortion-ists in this country, as well as in every other country where abortion has been legalized, is confusion,” say officials with Youth Defense. “Confusion in the general public as to the facts of abortion, confusion in government as to the consequences of legalized abortion, and a deliberately fueled confusion as to the best legal method of protecting unborn children.”
Maan and Wong said confusion and deception were key components of pro-abortion groups in bringing legal abortion to North America. The pair agreed that while Ireland is well ahead of the United States and Canada in terms of protecting the unborn child, there are danger signs on the horizon. They spoke of a distinct bias against right to life interests on the part of Ireland's mainstream media.
“I tried to impress the Irish young people with how lucky they are to be in a country that still offers some basic protection to the unborn child,” Maan said, “but it is sad to see the direction they are going.” She cited the growing availability of contraceptive counseling in the country, as well as the govern-ment's tolerance of controversial bioethics practices, including embryo freezing.
For Ada Wong, the lessons learned from the Irish experience center on the need for continued vigilance and activism.
“Seeing Youth Defense and other pro-life groups at work in Ireland helped me to appreciate the importance of a more direct commitment to the struggle,” Wong said.
She hopes to impart that observation to her colleagues in the Ontario Students for Life organization.
Maan and Wong said the Youth Defense organization holds some lessons for North American student pro-life groups. The pair was impressed with the organization's commitment and determination in the face of continued police harassment and scorn from the mainstream Irish media.
Despite these obstacles, the Youth Defense group is making a difference, Maan said. She cited recent media reports that Irish pro-life efforts have persuaded some politicians to back down from their promotion of abortion and contraception.
Justin Barrett, an official with Youth Defense, told The Irish Times that there are fewer pro-abortion politicians in the country today than there were 10 years ago, thanks largely to the Youth Defense efforts to highlight the abortion issue. At the same time, the pro-life outlook in the country continues to deteriorate.
“There will never be an easier time to stop abortion in Ireland than there is to stop it today,” Barrett told The Times. “But it would be foolish to think the situation with regard to abortion in the Republic is anything less than dreadful.”
Barrett echoed Maan's claim that the Irish media is attempting to undermine the work of the country's pro-life forces with insinuations of violence and extremism. Some Irish pro-abortion supporters have also sought to weaken pro-life work by suggesting it is unduly influenced by U.S. based organizations, such as Human Life International.
“The law is quicker now to arrest people who defend the right of the unborn child than it is to pursue those who perform illegal abortion,” Barrett said, adding that despite the sometimes unpleasant aspect of street demonstrations, they are necessary in turning hearts and minds around on the abortion issue.
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Toronto, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:“Despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practiced under the pressure of real-life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfillment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.”
“The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices, and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being” (13).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro-life Walkers Turn Hearts And Minds in St. Louis DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:In the May 10-16 issue, the Register reported on a cross-country pro-life walk sponsored by a student-run nonprofit organization called Crossroads (“Coast-to-Coast Walk Attracts Committed Young Pro-Lifers”). This is the fifth installment in a journal series by Joseph Flipper, a participant in the three-month journey.
The Crossroads walkers entered St. Louis, Mo., in late July, setting up our base of operations at the home of Crossroads member Andrew Daub. Eight of his brothers and sisters live at home, undoubtedly making it the busiest house in the St. Louis metropolitan area. The entire Daub family joined us for the many of activities while in the city.
While in St. Louis, we were joined by Father Peter West of Priests for Life, an organization devoted to helping priests become more active in the pro-life movement (see “Group Focused on ‘Most Fundamental’Moral Issue,” July 19-25). He is the first priest to accompany us this summer, and we were happy to have him along on the journey.
Crossroads members were invited by local pro-lifers to demonstrate and pray before a Planned Parenthood abortion facility. While there, we spoke with many people entering the clinic, security guards, clinic workers, and to passers-by. We also witnessed the most miraculous event of the summer: the conversion of hearts and minds. Though we are often unable to see how our efforts affect those with whom we come into contact, at this abortion clinic we were blessed to witness two women turn towards life.
For an entire morning we were utterly powerless to stop women from entering the clinic. We felt helpless as we watched a woman limp out of the facility, holding her stomach and being escorted to a car driven by her boyfriend. As the car passed by, we saw that she was slumped over in the passenger seat crying. We could do nothing.
Another woman, who entered the clinic with a young boy, was unmoved by pro-lifers who stood praying for her only 30 yards away. About 15 minutes later she exited the clinic, escorted by a security officer who took her to a bus stop a block away. We later learned that she had left the clinic because she forgot her checkbook and had no way to pay for the abortion. Camille Murphy, a Crossroads veteran and another team member walked over to speak with her.
The woman seemed uninterested in speaking with them at first, though she eventually acknowledged that it was a baby she planned to abort, indicating that she was under pressure from her boyfriend to do so. Camille told her of the alternatives to abortion and of the many people who would assist in her needs and those of her child.
She remained unmoved by their pleas until another woman who had just left the clinic, walked past.
“Did you decide to not have an abortion?” the first woman asked.
The other woman smiled, said, “Yes,” and kept walking.
Camille said that tears began welling up in the woman's eyes. She wanted to keep her child, but was afraid of potential repercussions from her boyfriend. She asked our team members' to help her avoid her boyfriend.
Joined by Father West, they went to the Daub's house, where they ate lunch and watched some pro-life videos. As her two-year-old son played with the Daub children she was heard quietly saying, “He will make a good brother.”
Besides witnessing to the dignity of human life at abortion clinics, Crossroads members enjoyed some of the tourist-sites of St. Louis throughout the week. We went to the science museum, the outdoor theater, and the Jefferson Memorial Arch.
We were also privileged to meet Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Naumann of St. Louis who spoke of the pro-life movement from the perspective of the clerical leaders of the Church. Through these encounters, Crossroads members are coming to understand how bishops, priests, and lay people can work together to promote the culture of life.
Crossroads walked into Indiana and enjoyed a short spell of cool weather — a welcome relief from earlier experiences with heat exhaustion and other heat related problems. There we met with local pro-lifers who joined us in a march from Monument Circle to the Catholic Center in Indianapolis. At the Catholic Center, we met Joe Scheidler of Pro-Life Action League. He encouraged us and our vibrant pro-life friends from Indiana to continue to pray and demonstrate at abortion clinics.
“Mary and John the Apostle were among those present at the foot of the cross,” he said. “They didn't save Jesus from his cruel death, but they witnessed to his divinity and to his love of humanity. We can witness to the life of the unborn children and to their dignity as human beings.”
Along the way to our final destination of Washington, D.C., Crossroads will be walking through the cities of Dayton, Columbus, and Steubenville in Ohio, and Frederick in Md. We are willing to speak to parishes, conferences, and especially to youth groups. If you would like more information about Crossroads or if you would like to help our mission in any way, please contact our headquarters at Box 771, Franciscan University, Steubenville, OH, 43952; (tel.) 800-277-9763. And please pray for us.
Idaho native Joseph Flipper is a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
----- EXCERPT: Youth on cross-country journey witness fruit of their efforts ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Flipper ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: LIFE NOTE DATE: 08/09/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 09-15, 1998 ----- BODY:Senator Proposes National Parental-Consent Law
WASHINGTON—Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) introduced legislation July 30 that would require a parental-consent nationwide before teenage girls could obtain abortions or contraceptive services.
Ashcroft's bill would apply to all hospitals, clinics, and other facilities that receive federal funds. It would nationalize the prior consent requirements on abortion that now exist in 20 states, and would for the first time apply in all states the same restrictions regarding access to contraceptives.
The new bill, dubbed “Putting Parents First,” would impose a new federal policy on the 30 states that do not require parental consent in the case of women younger than 18.
Ashcroft said that in the absence of nationwide rules, the efforts to enforce parental consent in states that have such laws would be thwarted by the absence of such laws in neighboring states. Federal action is also justified in this case because the public wants it, Ashcroft asserted. He cited polls suggesting that 74% of Americans favor a requirement of parental consent in the case of teenage girls seeking abortions.
“When you're talking about opportunities for parents to protect the interests of young people, it's always a good time,” he said. “The second point is that even if it weren't, I think that our responsibility for good governance exceeds our responsibility for politics.” (Pro-Life Infonet)
Pro-Life Nurses Granted Right to Sue Over Dismissal
ALBANY, N.Y.—Two nurses who claim they were fired for their religious opposition to abortion have a right to sue the hospital that dismissed them, an appeals court ruled July 30.
A New York state Supreme Court justice dismissed a suit filed by the nurses last July, saying that although health care employees may excuse themselves from participating in abortion procedures under state law, they do not have the right to file a civil suit if they are penalized for doing so. But the mid-level state Appellate Division modified that decision unanimously, saying that the part of their case alleging religious discrimination could go to trial.
The ruling determined that the nurses showed their opposition to abortion was a morally based belief, and they “have also sufficiently demonstrated that they were terminated due to these beliefs.”
Albany Medical Center maintained that the nurses were dismissed in November 1996 for refusing “to render patient care as directed” to a woman who needed an “evacuation procedure” after her unborn child had died.
Michael McDermott, who is representing the two nurses, Deborah Larson and Christine Thornton, said he was “ecstatic” with the ruling. It represents the first time challenge to a 1971 statute granting employees the right to opt out of participating in abortions, but no legal remedy if they are punished.
The New York State Right to Life Committee and the New York State Catholic Conference filed friend-ofthe-court briefs in the case, saying the case “involved is the protection of conscientious objectors to abortion.”
Catholic Conference Executive Director John Kerry said he hopes the case will “establish a precedent for laws that will prevent discrimination for abortion objectors, regardless of religion.” (Pro-Life Infonet)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Conference Highlights Important Divisions Among Anglican Bishops DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ire.—The 13th Lambeth Conference may prove the unluckiest yet for the Anglican Communion, which in the United States includes the Episcopal Church.
For after the last Lambeth Conference before the dawn of the Third Millennium, the Anglican Communion is more divided than ever and now stands even further away from full communion with Rome. Most media coverage has concentrated on the confer-ence's decisive vote in favor of traditional Church teaching on homosexuality, but the conference which ended Aug. 9 also raised more important issues concerning an Anglican magisterium and the sanctity of human life.
Lambeth Conferences, which are held once every decade, are an assembly of archbishops and bishops belonging to the 40 provinces of the Anglican Communion. In theory, resolutions passed at the conferences are not legislative and have no binding effect on the autonomous provinces, but Anglican bishops report back to their dioceses on conference proceedings and, in the words of Cambridge historian Owen Chadwick in his introduction to Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences, the conferences have acquired an influence “so close to authority as hardly to be distinguishable from it.”
Among the hundreds of resolutions discussed on issues including inter-faith relations, Third World debt, and Middle East peace talks, the most divisive involved homosexuality. The conference passed a resolution by 526 votes to 70, with 45 abstentions, stating that homosexual practice were “incompatible with scripture.” In effect, the resolution condemns the practices, common in Britain and the United States, of blessing unions between homosexual couples and of ordaining Anglican priests who are openly homosexual.
A move to recommend homosexual “chastity” which might have allowed long term monogamous homosexual unions was defeated when a further amendment replaced the word “chastity” with “abstinence.”
The vote has exposed the divisions between Anglicanism's liberal and evangelical wings more than ever. In the past, Anglicanism was described as having three equal parts — high Church, low Church, and liberal — which co-existed side by side and gave what was called “Anglican comprehensiveness.” In Anglican circles, it was generally seen as a good thing to appoint a liberal as a bishop, because it was believed they made good intermediaries in the conflict between those of the high Church, also known as Anglo-Catholics, and those of the low Church, now more commonly referred to as “evangelicals.”
Following the decision of many Anglican provinces to ordain women priests, many Anglo-Catholics took “the road to Rome” and became Roman Catholics, thus weakening the influence of those in the high Church. The row over homosexuality has therefore been a contest between the liberal and the evangelical wings.
The evangelicals are particularly strong in Africa and Asia where the Church Missionary Society was aided and abetted by the British Colonial regime in securing converts to Christianity while Catholic missionary activity was suppressed. As a result, the largest bloc at this year's Lambeth Conference were African, with 224 of the 736 archbishops and bishops present coming from the African continent. A further 95 bishops came from Asia.
The liberal wing is strongest in Britain and the United States, with Bishop John Spong of New Jersey seen as its most prominent member. The motion condemning homosexual practice was formulated by African bishops and was a deliberate challenge to Bishop Spong and his followers. Once the resolution was passed, one African churchman, Bishop John Kabango Rucyaghana of the Diocese of Shyira, in Rwanda, called on the head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury, to expel 70 bishops belonging to the Episcopal Church of the United States after they had signed the pro-homosexual Koinonia statement drawn up by Bishop Spong.
However, Archbishop Carey has no such power and Bishop Spong stands by his practice of ordaining homosexual men. He predicted that openly homosexual bishops will attend the next Lambeth Conference in 10 years and said: “Be assured that today's minority will inevitably be tomorrow's majority.”
There was one openly homosexual bishop present at this Year's conference, Otis Charles, the retired Bishop of Utah, who said the “sin and abomination” of his life was not to come out of the closet and declare that he was homosexual. He confessed: “My sin was my unwillingness to listen to God saying ‘Otis, your are beloved. Come out!.’“ Whether or not the liberal pro-homosexual wing does become dominant remains to be seen. Twenty years ago the evangelicals boasted that they had the majority of Anglican seminarians, that would follow through to the parishes and, eventually, to the Anglican hierarchy. The evangelicals' distaste for homosexuality was made especially clear by Bishop Alexander Malik of Pakistan who compared it to bestiality. He asked if liberals would come to the next Lambeth Conference demanding permission to bless relationships between Anglicans “and their pets, dogs, and cats.”
The hullabaloo created by the row over homosexuality diverted attention from other important issues. The conference passed a vote condemning euthanasia, but that particular resolution also included a clause allowing “excessive” medical treatment and intervention to be withdrawn when “consonant with the Christian faith in enabling a person to die with dignity.” The clause continued: “When a person is in a permanent vegetative state, to sustain him or her with artificial nutrition and hydration may be seen as constituting medical treatment. “ This is a significant departure from the teaching of the Catholic Church which sees the provision of food and water to comatose patients as part of “basic nursing care” rather than as medical treatment.
It is the issue of Church teaching in general which may in the future be seen as the most important aspect of the 13th Lambeth Conference. As the conference began, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Vatican's Council for Promoting Christian Unity, warned that new divisions were emerging between the Anglican Communion and the Church of Rome. He was commenting on the “Virginia Report,” drawn up as a discussion document for the Lambeth Conference and which explores authority within the Anglican Church. Cardinal Cassidy warned: “It [unity] is put in question when pluralism in the Church comes to be regarded as a kind of “post-modern” beatitude.” Anticipating the debate on homosexuality, the cardinal also asked: “Are we not experiencing in fact new and deep divisions among Christians as a result of contrasting approaches to human sexuality.”
A major concern to the ecumenical movement is that the “Virginia Report” suggests that the Lambeth Conference become an embryonic Anglican magisterium, which would represent the overwhelming opinion of the majority of bishops on matters of doctrine. If followed through to its logical conclusion, matters of faith and morals in the Anglican Communion would not be decided on the Word of God and the Gospels, but on a democratic vote and societal views of the time. That is the fear of the evangelicals, which is why they voted so strongly, in line with the Gospels, against homosexual practice.
Bishop Spong tried to undermine the evangelicals by describing African Christianity as “superstitious” and was later forced to apologize for his remarks. For those of a superstitious mind, the 13th Lambeth Conference may prove to have been particularly unlucky for Bishop Spong and the liberal wing.
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: VAST MAJORITY VOTE FOR TRADITIONAL VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rebel Uprising in Colombia Shouldn't Derail Church-Brokered Peace Talks DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:BOGOTA, Colombia—Leaders of Colombia's guerrilla factions stepped up their offensives in early August in a bid to show their strength before newly elected President Andrés Pastrana took office Aug. 7.
The country's army said the 1,200 rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest guerrilla group, attacked 120 soldiers and 70 police officers at their base in the southeastern department of Guaviare, scene of the heaviest fighting. Details of the fighting remain sketchy, but the number of confirmed deaths since the offensive began last week stood at 102 soldiers and policemen, three civilians and one guerrilla, officials said. The insurgency was the bloodiest in the country since an uprising in 1964.
The new president vowed to make peace with the insurgents. In recent weeks, Pastrana has met face-to-face with the leaders of FARC.
Last month, the 10-year-old stalemate between the Colombian government and the second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was broken when the parties agreed to peace negotiations with representatives of Colombia's civil society. The negotiations are scheduled for October and, despite the recent FARC offensive, are expected to remain on track.
The enthusiasm sparked by the prospect of peace caused many to overlook the fact that the talks were actually negotiated and signed in Germany with the help of the national government and the German Catholic Church. It was a clear step away from the usual route of seeking the mediation of other Latin American — or at least Spanish-speaking — countries.
So, how did the government and the Catholic Church in Germany broker an agreement for peace talks in a country located almost 10,000 miles away?
The story goes back to 1996 when three German engineers were kidnapped by the ELN. Instead of issuing a clear ransom demand, the guerrillas sent a number of confusing messages. Fearing the possibility that their workers would be killed, the German government and oil companies sent an “informal” representative to negotiate with the guerrillas. That move introduced the first of two people who would play a decisive role in pointing the country toward peace talks. His name was Werner Mauss. Descriptions of Mauss range from “a man of good will” to speculation about him being a member of the German Secret Service. In fact, little is known about him except that he is German and married to a Colombian.
Mauss traveled to Colombia last year and established contact with the ELN. After long negotiations, he returned from the Colombian jungle and proposed that Germany host peace talks between the ELN and the civil society.
Whether the proposal of German mediation was made by Mauss or the ELN is still unknown. What is known is that Mauss played a key role in negotiating the terms of the talks.
“Mauss and his wife played a decisive role in contacting the guerrillas and setting some key terms for the meeting,” German State Minister Bernd Schmidbauer said in a recent interview with the German magazine Semana. One of the problems in arranging a meeting was that the ELN wanted to negotiate only with “representatives of the civil society” and not with the government of outgoing president Ernesto Samper. Samper's credibility has been shattered by accusations of the use of money by his administration. But the German government could not officially host a meeting that would deliberately by-pass the Colombian government.
So, the Catholic Church in Colombia looked for an alternative solution and contacted the German bishops. In general, the German bishops are welcomed in Latin America since the German Church, through institutions like Adveniat, Aid to the Church in Need, and Misereor, is one of the main providers of financial aid to Church initiatives in the region.
The Church in Colombia established a particularly close relationship with the German bishops during the late 1980s and early '90s when the president of the Latin American Bishops' Council (CELAM) was German-speaking Colombian Bishop Dario Castrillon Hoyos. Pope John Paul II elevated him to cardinal earlier this year and the prelate now heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy.
Some Colombian newspapers speculated about Cardinal Castrillon's role in securing the German bishops' involvement, but on a recent visit to Colombia, he said, “I helped the peace talks [only] by praying, praying, … and praying.”
The necessity of having the German bishops as hosts of the peace meeting opened the door to the other crucial person who would play an important role: Bishop Emil Stehle. The German-born bishop is well known in Latin America, at least by name. Having been a former head of Adveniat, he has had contact with every Latin American bishop who's requested grants over the past decade.
Bishop Stehle was also a missionary in Colombia and Ecuador and a candidate for the Nobel Peace Price in the 1980s for his role in negotiating the peace agreement that ended El Salvador's 12-year civil war. He was also the apostolic vicar of Santo Domingo de los Colorados, a missionary diocese in Ecuador.
The bishop seemed to be the ideal link between the German episcopate and the negotiators. In fact, it was Bishop Stehle, together with (German) Father Hans Lagendorfer, who made the arrangements to have the meeting at Himmelspfroten (Heaven's Gate), a retreat house, formerly a Cistercian abbey (dating to 1250), which now belongs to the German Bishops' Conference.
The Colombian Bishops' Conference requested permission to appoint two delegates as part of the civil society's representation at the talks. They sent Bishop Luis Augusto Castro and Father Jorge Martinez. Bishop Castro, who has served for several years as Bishop of Caqueta — one of the most troubled areas in Colombia — is well-acquainted with the ELN, having overseen tense negotiations that lead to the release of more than 70 soldiers who had been held hostage by the ELN earlier this year. Father Martinez, secretary of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission of the Colombian Bishops' Conference, had the combination of sympathy and toughness required to moderate the meeting.
Indeed, some of the participants recall him providing the necessary discipline in the midst of a tense dialogue: “Please, keep that door closed.” “Please sit down.” “Please, speak one at a time.” Father Martinez was helped by Father Lagendorfer and they were described by several Colombian participants as “always nice but German to the bone.”
The details of the conversations in Mainz, Germany, remain secret, but most Colombians agree that the meeting was fruitful. The meeting, although only supposed to have been a preliminary exploration about the chances of formal peace talks, had two concrete results.
One important outcome was that the parties involved agreed to hold a national convention to discuss peace. The first meeting is scheduled for October. The government of newly-elected President Pastrana — a Catholic with credibility among all parties concerned — has promised to support such talks.
The second outcome was that the ELN agreed to stop using kidnapping as a source of financial gain “in the near future.” For now, guerrillas have suspended the kidnapping of children, pregnant women, and the elderly. But undoubtedly the most important fruit of the Mainz meeting is that it created positive momentum for peace in Colombia.
And while the right wing paramilitary has also offered to join the peace process, Archbishop Alberto Giraldo Jaramillo, president of the Colombian Bishops' Conference said, “We have to avoid any over-optimism … Nevertheless, we have to recognize at the same time that, for the first time in 10 years, we have made a commitment to serious peace talks.”
Whether the recent rebel insurgency will dampen long-term peace prospects remains to be seen.
Alejandro Bermudez writes from Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dominican Institute Forms Laity for New Evangelization DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:SEATTLE—In 1994 the Dominican Order, in response to Pope John Paul II's call for a New Evangelization, adopted a resolution requiring “every province to consider its present commitment to parishes and ask if each one represents the best basis for itinerancy in preaching to the unchurched.”
Since that resolution, some very promising work has taken shape in the form of the Catherine of Siena Institute: Center for Co-Responsibility in Ministry, founded in July 1997 by the Western Dominican Province. The Institute has the enthusiastic backing of Father Timothy Radcliffe OP, master of the Dominican order, and has been given a startup grant by the Western Province with the equally enthusiastic support of the provincial, Father Daniel Syverstad OP. The two people sharing responsibility for the Institute are Dominican Father Michael Sweeney and Sherry Weddell, a laywoman and convert to Catholicism from evangelical Protestantism.
“Vatican II,” says Father Sweeney, “called for a new evangelization of the modern world, by means of a renewal of the role of the laity. In the Council documents, and in post-conciliar magisterial documents — especially Evangelii Nuntiandi [On Evangelization, in the Modern World, a 1975 apostolic exhortation of Pope Paul Vl], Redemptoris Missio [the 1990 encyclical of Pope John Paul II on the Permanent Validity of the Church's Missionary Mandate], and Christifideles Laici [the 1988 apostolic exhortation of Pope John Paul II On the Laity] — the laity are recognized to hold an office in the Church by their own right, by virtue of their baptism. They are possessed of a double responsibility: on the one hand, to remain in communion with the Church; on the other hand, to evangelize the world, both by the witness of their own faithfulness and by actively making disciples of others, while working to renew the temporal order in the light of the Gospel. In fulfilling their responsibility in the Church, they hold a real office: theirs is a real priesthood; they participate in the priest-ly, prophetic, and kingly dignity of Christ.”
The Evangelizing Parish
Adds Weddell, “The issue is formation worthy of this mission. For the vast majority of Catholics, the parish is the only really accessible place where they could hope to receive significant formation. To be fully Catholic, evangelism requires not just the evangelizing preacher, but the evangelizing parish.” The fostering of well-formed evangelizing parishes is the goal of the Institute.
The Institute grew out of the distinct vocations of Father Sweeney and Weddell. Weddell, who became Catholic in 1987, was born and raised as an evangelical Protestant and had done graduate-level study with some of the foremost evangelical missionary theologians, strategists, and practitioners in the world. After converting to Catholicism, she did missionary work in Europe and the Middle East. Her concern was to see Catholicism's strong and rich theological basis for evangelization translated into a fuel for the same kind of energetic evangelizing activity that characterized the evangelical tradition.
While Weddell was voicing these ideas, Father Sweeney was pastoring Blessed Sacrament Parish in Seattle and acting as provincial promoter for pastoral ministry for the Western Province. In 1995, he called together a small group of parishioners (including Weddell) to study magisterial teaching on the role of the laity in the mission of the Church. Out of these discussions came a conference for Western Province Dominican pastors to explore how to make their parishes centers of evangelization. Father Sweeney asked Weddell to address the conference.
As a result of the presentations given by Father Sweeney and Weddell, the Province voted unanimously to make lay formation a top priority. This was followed by further work, both theological and pastoral, by Father Sweeney and Weddell, most prominently in the establishment of a pilot lay formation program at Blessed Sacrament in 1996 and, when this succeeded, with the establishment of the Institute.
The Institute aims to create parish-based resources on the lay office and mission reflective of the teaching of the Council; to foster an orthodox and creative understanding of collaboration between the clergy and the laity; to form laity in the Church's Tradition; and to help kindle creative evangelism in the heart of the parish.
Spiritual Gifts Discernment Program
Toward that end, a number of projects have been and still are being created, but the single most important project of the Institute to date has been the Spiritual Gifts Discernment Program, a project that has begun to attract both national and international attention and which has excited the interest of both laypersons and clergy.
The Spiritual Gifts Discernment Program, explains Weddell, “is a program designed to help Catholics discern the charisms of the Holy Spirit they have been given. It helps them begin to learn how to use those charisms to serve God and other people.”
Many people identify the term “charism” exclusively with phenomena like speaking in tongues or prophecy. However, both Weddell and Father Sweeney emphasize this is a very constricted understanding of what the Church means in speaking of charisms.
“According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” says Weddell, “‘Char-isms, or spiritual gifts, are special abilities given to Christians by the Holy Spirit to enable them to be powerful channels of God's love and redeeming presence in the world.’ These charisms, or spiritual gifts, differ from natural talents in that they are not inborn or inherited from our parents, but are given to us by the Holy Spirit, whom we received through baptism and confirmation.”
“There are three primary lists of gifts in the New Testament (cf. Rm 12; 1 Co 12; and Ep 4),” says Weddell. “The Program covers 24 of the most common charisms, including most of those listed in St. Paul's letters, but these are not exhaustive.”
Nor do they belong only to a few. On the contrary, Weddell and Father Sweeney both stress that the New Testament and the Catechism teach that all Christians are given one or more charisms. As such, the Institute regards charisms as essential tools for doing the work of the New Evangelization and has created the Catholic Spiritual Gifts Discernment Program to help all the baptized develop their gifts.
“Charisms should be taken into account when we try to discern our vocation,” says Weddell. “We have found that when people discern their charisms they often discover a new sense of personal purpose and direction as a lay Christian. As such, the discernment of charisms is often a wonderful catalyst of spiritual growth.”
Weddell notes, “Participants regularly comment about how healing an experience it is to discern their gifts. Those who judged themselves for not measuring up to someone else's standard are freed by recognizing that their giftedness and calling may be different. Those who judged other Christians for having different priorities are able to relax and recognize the validity of the many calls within the larger Body of Christ.”
The program is offered in two parts: the shorter Called & Gifted Weekend and the Extended Gifts Discernment Program.
Weddell says, “Participants in the Called & Gifted Weekend take the Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory, learn the characteristics of the most common charisms (and how to begin discerning their own charisms), and learn some of the implications of gift discernment for parish life, lay-clergy collaboration, and the mission of the Church. The Extended Gifts Discernment Program enables those who have taken the Called & Gifted Weekend to spend time discerning a single charism of their choice via a personal interview, personal experience, small group work, and additional presentations on advanced topics.”
Program Transplantable To Any Parish
“The goal of the Institute is to make this program transplantable to any parish,” says Weddell. “So the Institute teachers will be traveling quite a bit as well as taping the Called & Gifted Weekend so that parishes and other groups can readily access the material.”
This is of benefit, not only to laity, but to clergy as well, says Father Sweeney.
“The program has the potential to move parish ministries from being ‘needs-based’ to being ‘charism-driven.’ Our communities are filled with organizational and pastoral ‘needs’ that we usually try to meet by recruiting anyone who shows any interest — or who, perhaps, is just unable to say ‘no.’ Because we seldom look first at the gifts and call of individuals, our communities often contain generous and energetic people who have been burned-out or even traumatized trying to fill ‘vacuums’ for which they were ill-equipped. Discerning the gifts of individuals helps avoid these problems.”
Weddell adds, “Apastor, for instance, with no charism of administration need not face alone the burden of making the organizational machinery of the parish work. If he knows there are laypersons in his parish with such charisms who not only excel at such work but find it spiritually fulfilling, he can tap them and be freed to use his charisms for the body of Christ. Everybody wins.”
The Catherine of Siena Institute can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.siena.org; (e-mail) anthony@siena.org; (tel.) 888-878-6789 or 206-547-1423; or write Catherine of Siena Institute, Center for Co-Responsibility in Ministry, 5050 8th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98105.
Mark Shea writes from Mountlake Terrace, Washington.
----- EXCERPT: Seattle-based center emphasizes discernment of charisms in defining vocation ----- EXTENDED BODY: mark shea ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: High-Profile Converts Pay a Price for Joining Church DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Every convert to the Catholic Church brings with them a unique and personal story of an adventure in faith. And like all adventures, joining the Church involves taking some risks — most often risking the disfavor of loved ones who disapprove of the convert's decision to become a Catholic.
When people in public life convert to Catholicism, the risk is played out on a larger scale. Their decision is often publicly scrutinized and their motives questioned. Some have lost their jobs and their status in the community.
And yet, the Church has witnessed a spate of high-profile conversions in recent years: Father Richard John Neuhaus, the Duchess of Kent, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Norma McCorvey (a.k.a. “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade), Frances Shand Kydd (the mother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales), and Dick Thompson (prosecutor in the Kevorkian assisted-suicide cases), just to name a few. These public people, and many others besides, have been willing to endure public rancor in order to seek the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church.
“There is no question that [a convert] in the public limelight stands to lose public sentiment,” according to Patrick Madrid, editor-in-chief of Envoy magazine and the editor of Surprised by Truth, a book of accounts of conversion experiences. “They comeunder a lot more scrutiny, and often people will offer unflattering hunches as to why the person became Catholic.”
Madrid cited the example of Dr. Tom Howard, a celebrated evangelical thinker and English Professor at Gordon College (affiliated with Gordon-Cromwell Presbyterian seminary) near Boston, who converted to Anglicanism, and later to Catholicism.
“The move immediately cost him his job and his social circle,” Madrid explained.
“I take a lot of personal courage and encouragement from these converts, because I see in them a heroic willingness to follow Christ wherever he leads, and that's a lesson that all of us need to learn,” Madrid said. “I think that the immediate value in seeing the testimony of a convert coming into the Church is that it reminds me that I, too, am an apostle. I am called to lay down my life in whatever form that might take, and that I, like they, have an obligation to follow Christ even when it's difficult or when people jeer at me for doing so.”
Britain's Duchess of Kent left the Anglican Church and became a Catholic in 1994. At the time of her conversion, there was a lot of speculation about it in the press, and so Anglican and Catholic leaders in Britain held a news conference in which they said they thought her conversion might help to bring both Churches “closer together.”
But had the Duchess been a direct heir to the throne, the spin might not have been so positive. A British law written in the early 18th century bars anyone in line for the throne from “communion with the … Church of Rome” or from marrying a Catholic. The Duke of Kent, her husband of seven years, is 18th in line for the throne, but the law will not apply in this case since she was an Anglican at the time of their marriage.
Not every story is so dramatic, but when a high profile person makes public any part of their search for the truth, even before that search leads them to the Church, it is often an occasion for criticism.
Such was the case for Dr. Bernard Nathanson, an ob-gyn who is a leader in the pro-life movement. In the early 1970s, Nathanson chaired a group that lobbied for legalizing abortion, and later directed an abortion clinic. He renounced the abortion industry and his role in it in Aborting America, a book he co-wrote with Richard Ostling in 1979. Nathanson became a Catholic in 1995.
“When I first started talking about it [becoming a Catholic], there were a lot of raised eyebrows and public discussion,” Nathanson recalled. “But when I finally became a Catholic, it had been such a long, gradual incline for me that reaching the peak was an almost indiscernible experience.”
“Publicly, I had identified with the Church in matters political and moral for a long time,” Nathanson said. “People had gotten used to my talking about it. I had the advantage of time.”
Nathanson wrote about his conversion experience in his book, Hand of God.
“Basically, it was a matter of seeking unattainable forgiveness, and finding that it was attainable, through spiritual means,” Nathanson explained.
He said that he thinks many people now are entering the Church in search of a “moral compass.”
“In this upside-down world where good is bad and black is white — it's an Orwellian world, really — people are desperate for a moral compass. And there it is in the Church,” Nathanson said.
“Converting is like suddenly coming into this magnificent inheritance or legacy. Cradle Catholics to me are like people with old money — they can't fully appreciate it,” Nathanson observed.
Dick Thompson is another new Catholic whose principles led him to the Church, and might have cost him his job. He spent four years as a prosecutor, eight of those as the elected prosecutor of Oakland County, Mich.
“My office prosecuted Jack Kevorkian for all those assisted suicides, despite the tremendous public support [60% to 70%] for what he was doing,” Thompson said. “We lost those cases, mainly because the juries were reflecting public opinion.”
Thompson also lost his bid for reelection in 1996.
“My election became a referendum on enforcing the common law on assisted suicide,” Thompson commented. “There was a lot of support for the law being changed, but as a prosecutor, I felt it was my duty to support the law.”
“As I was involved in the issue of assisted suicide, I was led to the Church,” Thompson said. He became a Catholic in March.
In the midst of what he calls a “firestorm of controversy” about the issue of assisted suicide, Thompson started doing more than just legal research. He started reading theology, the writings of some of the saints, and the encyclicals of John Paul II, especially Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) and Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth).
“In [Evangelium Vitae], the Holy Father specifically discussed euthanasia, abortion, and assisted suicide. He said that public officials, as a matter of conscience, could not substitute what the public thinks for what was right. I was not going to sacrifice those issues just to get elected,” Thompson explained.
Thompson is currently trying to establish a public interest law firm, and spends a lot of his time speaking and consulting on the issue of assisted suicide, which will be put before Michigan voters this fall.
“There is a great concern that a lot of Catholics are not supporting the Church on this issue,” he said.
In spite of the professional sacrifices, Thompson feels that his adventure was well worth the risk. “I am happier since I joined the Church,” he said. “I feel at peace.”
Molly Mulqueen writes from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: Pursuit of faith can cost them status or even livelihood ----- EXTENDED BODY: Molly Mulqueen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Wall Street to the Ivy League DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Father John McCloskey, a former banker and stockbroker, is a priest of the Prelature Opus Dei. He recently spoke with Register correspondent Raymond de Souza.
De Souza: You are now a priest of Opus Dei, which seeks to form laypeople to live their Christian vocation in the world. You did that yourself before you were ordained, in the financial world of Wall Street. How did you combine your Christian vocation with working on Wall Street?
Father McCloskey: On Wall Street I think I made the combination the way any Christian would, making a commitment to a deep interior life of prayer and sacrifice, and combining that with professional competence and excellence. It is possible to give oneself — to make a sincere gift of oneself — just as readily on Wall Street as in the seminary or a monastery.
Did you find the world of Wall Street distracting to living the Christian life?
There are particular challenges in the nature of Wall Street. You are at a pace of activity that is much more rapid than most working environments. There are temptations to avarice and sensuality in any profession, but naturally those temptations can be greater when incomes are much higher.
The other challenge is that you are dealing with a good that is completely fungible — it's not like selling a car or a tape recorder.
You are dealing with an asset that is the dearest to most people, not in a bad sense, because money is something people need to provide for their families and their future. There is a more serious obligation on the part of a serious Catholic on Wall Street to realize that you are dealing with people's livelihoods, not merely selling them a product that may or may not work.
Did you find that besides the higher incomes, there are also temptations to look at the world in a non-Christian way?
You can fall into what the Holy Father has referred to as “economism.” There is a greater temptation because you are immersed in a world of rates, income statements, and earnings. It's a question of perspective and a question of detachment. You must realize that if you are a serious Catholic you have to bring your Christian perspective to the world in which you are immersed. It's probably a more dangerous world to be immersed in, so it is all the more important for dedicated Christians to be working in it.
Catholic social teaching quite obviously addresses the world of production. The world of finance is removed somewhat from that world. Does Catholic social teaching suitably address the world of finance?
There is an expression in Wall Street, that we “underwrite” the company. The manufacturing companies and, increasingly, service companies of the world would not be able to reach their consumers to the same extent, whom they are presumably serving and not just enticing to consume, unless they had finance. Those companies would not be able to grow, expand, and raise the standard of living.
So in itself, finance is basically neutral, tending toward good. The only thing that can make it evil is when the motivation is greed or exploitation, which certainly can take place. In other words, there can be great tragedies when the dignity of the human person is not placed at the heart of the financial world. But if that concept is kept in mind, if we are looking to serve our clients, i.e., companies that in turn are serving human persons, then there is certainly nothing the matter with finance, in fact, quite the contrary.
A large and increasing number of people have their savings in the financial markets. Does that open another avenue for serving people?
Yes, and more responsibility. If a person has their goods in real estate or farms, when bad times come then it may be easier to survive, because shelter and food are still the basic necessities. The reality is that those who in our century placed their investments in financial goods have done extremely well. There are ups and downs, but progress has happily continued. A Christian involved in the financial world ought not to feel guilty about encouraging people to invest, as long as that investment is not speculation, but true investment.
Was is it difficult to leave the financial world for the priesthood?
I was already a dedicated member of the Prelature of Opus Dei as a layman, so it was not as difficult as it may have been for others to do so. I was already leading a life dedicated to God, hopefully, of prayer, sacrifice, and apostolic outreach inside my profession. So it was not particularly difficult because I, like all of us, hopefully, should love our work but also be detached from it.
I suppose you could also say that I was dedicating myself in the priest-hood to selling a better product, on which the returns are infinite.
You write a fair number of articles and reviews that appear throughout the Catholic press. Why do you do this?
It's communication and therefore an opportunity to evangelize by reaching a wide readership. Also, I would much rather write than talk. I feel that if you have ideas that are worthwhile, the only way to test them is in the marketplace — to see whether the article is accepted, how it is received, whether it has a shelf life after it is written.
A famous person once said that you write when you cannot not write. That means you have something to say, and that's when I started writing. I thought that I had something to say, and instead of imposing my views on the poor person sitting across from me, I would rather write it down and see if it has any value in the market.
You say that you write when you have something to say. In the last 15 years there has been a rapid growth in Catholic publishing, both books and periodicals. Are Catholics finding something new to say to the culture in North America?
Yes. A lot of that has to do with Pope John Paul II, both as an instrument and as a cause. What we are seeing right now is the true implementation of Vatican II, 30 years after it took place. As a result of that, there is a whole generation of Catholics who are ignorant of their faith and doctrine. Consequently, there is a pent-up hunger for authentic Catholic teaching.
The old instruments, pre-Vatican II, or even recent post-Vatican II, are no longer adequate. So there are people, on their own, and for the most part lay initiatives, coming up with their own ideas. At the same time, I should mention that, unfortunately, a lot of these new publications have cross-subscriber lists, so we cannot be too optimistic. There are 60 million Catholics in the United States and perhaps all these magazines together have 150,000 subscribers. There is an awful lot of room to reach the masses, and over time that might be done more through the media of television, radio, or the Internet, rather than print publications.
You note that much of this work is done by the laity. Do you find though, that often Catholics expect a priest or nun to be on hand to lend some kind of authority?
Happily, less and less so. Unhappily, the reasons why: Catholics who are faithful and knowledgeable about their faith often realize that the priests and nuns presented to them are, at times, not necessarily faithful to the whole teaching of the Church, and in that sense, have a healthy distrust of what they hear. They want to compare what they hear to the gold standard of the magisterial teaching, as opposed to just accepting it on the authority of a priest or religious man or woman. We are moving beyond that, and I think it is very healthy.
In an ideal situation then there would be more lay initiatives?
Absolutely. The true lay initiative is going to be on the level of one-on-one. The ultimate lay apostolate is not initiatives in terms of the media and all those wonderful things, but on the level of friendship, in family life and personal witness and example, as it was with the first Christians.
Recently there was a conference in Denver on the Church and the new communications technologies.
Father C. John McCloskey III
Personal: Age 45; native of Washington, D.C.; ordained Aug. 30, 1981.
Current positions: Chaplain and director of the Catholic Information Center for the Archdiocese of Washington; U.S. representative of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
Education: Bachelor's degree in economics from Columbia University; doctorate in sacred theology from the University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain.
Background: Associate chaplain at Princeton University's Aquinas Institute; adjunct professor at the New York Archdiocesan Catechetical Institute; financial consultant and banker in New York's financial district; author of some 40 articles and book reviews for leading Catholic and secular publications such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.
How important is it that the Church adapt itself to these new modes of communication?
It's reality. It's not important, it's just reality. Whether it was the quill, or the ship, or the printing press, or the computer chip, the Church has used all the available instruments for evangelization.
However, without being in any way apocalyptic or chiliastic, we are in a period when the Gospel will be made accessible to all the human beings on the earth through computer technology. There already are perhaps 1 billion people who have access in one way or another to the worldwide web, and it's growing exponentially. These people are one or two clicks away from hearing Peter, or his Church, and authentic doctrine without all the intermediaries that have always been necessary.
So it's essential, but it's not a question necessarily of planning for it, but of being aware of what is going on and then utilizing it. The Church traditionally does not go ahead of the curve,but remains a little behind it, and that's healthy, because we need to test what is available to see what can be trusted. Remember, the Church is not the Pope and the bishops and the hierarchy, but is it all of us. There are a billion Catholics, and as members of the Church, they will on their own initiative, with the grace that comes from the sacraments of initiation and fed by the Eucharist, see the opportunities to evangelize through these new means of communications.
Cardinal Lustiger commented recently about the danger that these new technologies could be de-personalizing (see “Life in the Virtual Culture,”
It will only be de-personalizing if the persons using it are de-personalized. It is a means, not an end. Ultimately, the Church is incarnational, which means that anyone who is going to be brought to a greater level of intimacy with Christ and the Church is going to have to do that through the sacraments and personal contact with priests and other human beings.
So as long as people are aware of the dignity of the human person, the centrality of the family, and the necessity of the sacraments, then the Internet will be used as an instrument to bring people to each other, rather than as a shield to remain apart or to guard anonymity. Christianity is not about anonymity. It is about the fact that Christ has called you by your name. So this is just a means to reach people who otherwise would not be reached.
This is wonderful moment. A well-known economist at Columbia University, Robert Mundell, says the Church is the ultimate supply-side institution. We have the means of grace and the sacraments. We have a standard and a hierarchy. We are better poised than any institution because we have one truth to communicate to all people. But we are going to continue using donkeys too, because the world is not going to be transformed that quickly.
You are chaplain of a center of Opus Dei in Princeton. Is the university environment a hospitable place for Catholicism?
It all depends on the university. Almost unquestionably, in the elite universities, the environment is generally not hospitable to Catholicism. I refer to it as the most exotic pagan mission territory in the world when I write to my friends in Kenya, Nigeria, or Singapore.
The values of the secular elite university are so radically anti-Christian. They are the culture of death. They are the harbingers of the culture of death. They create the culture of death. This is where the seeds are planted. You can see what is coming down the line by just looking at the atmosphere there now: hedonistic, naturalistic, secularistic.
However, as St. Paul was in Athens, we have to be there. These are where very gifted young men and women are, and we can make a difference. There are conversions, there are vocations, there are reconciliations. It is not a question of being pessimistic but realistic. It's like reading Romans 11 when you look at the state of a normal college campus. We must not be discouraged, but realize that this is raw paganism.
What is it like to be a priest at what you describe as the heart of the culture of death?
It's a lot of fun, and challenging, because the students are at that point in life when they are looking for answers. Many of them are jaded, many of them are materialistic, but a certain percentage of them are looking for some ideals. The opportunity to expose them to Christ and his Church, to Christian orthodoxy, to Maritain or Gilson, Peguy, Claudel, Benson, Knox, Newman, Chesterton, Belloc — it is an absolute joy to do so. To show them what is supernatural; to show them something that, while found in this life, has its end in the next — it is very, very rewarding, as long as you don't have any illusions about great material success in the near term.
Do you sense a desire for spiritual things among students at the university?
No. Unfortunately, I deal with a very rarefied group of people. Many of them come from very small families marked by contraceptive selfishness. Many of their parents have not had more children precisely in order to send them to the Ivy League, so they are programmed from an early age to seek for success. Hedonism, prestige, security, power, and ambition are the standards by which they live. When you are 18, 19, 20, you consider yourself immortal, so you do not have the possibility of near-death experiences to sober you up.
So I would say no, there is not any great spiritual longing on this campus. It's our job, my job and others, to try to awaken it for those who have the capacity to grasp it. We have to preach the Gospel, to present it to them, and then count on the action of the Holy Spirit to open their minds and hearts.
In a practical sense how does a campus chaplain go about that?
Perhaps some of your readers can look at my Web page (http://www.-catholicity.com/cathedral/mccloskey/) and read there several articles in which I write a whole program on how to do a campus ministry.
Campus ministry is about two things: catechetics and evangelization. It is not about community, because you are not dealing with a community, but rather a changing group of people who come in and out. It is necessary to teach college students what the Church teaches, and evangelize in the sense of introducing them to Jesus Christ. The measure, over time, will be participation in the sacraments and liturgical life, and the number of students who, as a result of their contact with the college chaplaincy, have gained a knowledge of their faith which is on the same level as their knowledge of their secular studies.
Has the Church taken up the challenge of evangelization in the elite universities?
It's a difficult time. I don't know if the people in the hierarchy of the Church understand the importance of these institutions. It's easy not to understand, given that most priests come from Catholic school and seminary systems. And given the scarcity of priestly vocations and the other diocesan needs, it is not always easy to spare the most outstanding priests, or even to prepare them by further studies for that function. I believe that, after the seminary, the college chaplaincy is the single most important thing in a diocese. I do not believe that it is given that priority in most dioceses — unfortunately, to my mind.
These people are going to be the leaders in the world, and also, understood correctly, in the Church — not in taking on clerical functions, but in taking leadership roles in the diocese and the parish. These people in the colleges are the best educated and the most ready to take up leadership positions, which is how we transform the culture. So the seminary and college chaplain-cies are right at the top of my list for reevangelization.
The Holy Father has written that the world is “growing tired of ideology and opening itself to the truth” (
Yes, begrudgingly. The universities, because they are so ideologically-oriented, are the last ones to find out. But the reality is that Marx is dead, Freud is on the mat, Darwin is suffering body blows and may have a concussion at some point, or better, brain death.
It is the end of modern ideologies, and we are into a wholly different situation. We are witnessing, as the Holy Father said in 1976 (before becoming Pope), the ultimate battle between good and evil. At the same time as the ideologies are ending, we are getting raw paganism, hedonism, secular humanism — whatever you want to call it. So what is being set up is the culture of death, to be countered with what the Holy Father calls the civilization of love and truth. The universities hide under the mask of ideology, but when you come down to something like deconstructionism, which says that nothing has meaning, that is the last gasp of ideology.
This battle between good and evil can be a great adventure, but it also raises the possibility of heavy casualties, doesn't it?
There is the possibility, like the first Christians, not of martyrdom, which is too strong a word, but certainly of being confessors. For a Catholic, those battle scars and wounds are worn proudly, for they are to our glory in heaven.
Any recent books that you would recommend to our readers?
Yes, two in particular. One is The Rise of Christianity, by Rodney Stark, which is now available in paperback and has become a surprise bestseller. It is a sociologist looking at how we did it the first time around, and is to my mind a very interesting model of how we are going to do it again, in the first century of the next millennium. Another fascinating book is The Clash of Civilizations, by Samuel Huntington, which talks about the fault lines in post-nation-state and post-ideological world politics. Those divisions tend to go along ethnic, cultural, and religious grounds. It can help us understand the Church's foreign policy vis-à-vis China, Islam and the West, having won a triumph over communism. It is important for Catholics to stand back and look at the Church and the world in the broader historical and cultural context.
Which saints do you propose to men and women today?
The great saint to my mind is not one most people point to: St. Thomas More. There is not enough devotion to him, not enough interest in him, not enough reading about him. A man who was a father, who had two wives — having been a widower — and a number of children. He was a writer, a diplomat, a high state official, a top-notch court lawyer, a novelist, and a man of great wit, humor, graciousness, and sophistication. At the same time, he was a man of great devotion, piety, and mortification. He enjoyed and loved the world but was detached from it, and was willing to die for a principle, for his convictions and beliefs. With all due respect to St. Maximilian Kolbe or St. Thérèse of Lisieux or many other wonderful saints, even though he lived 500 years ago, he is much more a saint for our present moment than anyone else I can think of.
—Raymond de Souza
----- EXCERPT: A stockbroker-turned-priest and Princeton chaplain on the challenges facing the Church in the financial world and on elite campuses ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father C. John McCloskey III ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S.Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Priests Extol
In a feature that usually excerpts Sunday's sermons the following morning, one Washington, D.C., daily had to seek out and belatedly print a homily Father William Saunders delivered to his Alexandria, Va., parish about the Catholic faith's opposition to contraception.
Said Father Saunders: “Thirty years later, the Church still upholds the same truths. Today, as we mark the anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I ask you to open your hearts and listen.…”
“The most beautiful expression of marital love is the conjugal, physical love of husband and wife.… Their love in union with God may overflow and they may also conceive a child, a unique precious individual.”
“Think of it! While God himself creates and infuses each person's soul, a couple in union with God may bring life in this world.… Because of this teaching, St. Paul denounced lust, fornication, and perversion as serious sins in the eyes of God. Because of this teaching, contraception is a serious sin in the eyes of God.”
“Humanae Vitae affirmed that marital love must always respect both its love-uniting and life-giving dimensions, and therefore, must be open to the possible transmission of human life. To deny either dimension violates the sanctity of the marital act as designed by God. Contraception purposefully suppresses and denies the love-uniting dimension.”
Church to Receive Gunman Who Shot Youth During Mass
His church had been the scene of an ugly murder, when Israel Rodriguez, 15, was shot to death on the church steps March 22 during an evening Mass. Father Dulek had come outside to give last rites to the victim of a gang dispute. He was probably shot by Bobby Moore, 18, who was killed in April in apparent retaliation, and Frederick Huffman, who is in prison after pleading guilty to second degree reckless homicide and felony possession of a firearm.
Shaken by the crime, Father Dulek had taken to visiting prisoners as a result, said the report. On July 23, Huffman was playing cards in the jail when a fellow inmate pointed out the priest.
Says Huffman, “I walked over to him, and I asked for forgiveness for what happened. He looked shocked. He didn't believe me at first.”
The priest has begun teaching the Catholic faith to Huffman in jail at his request with the intention of baptizing him and receiving him into the Church, said the report.
Governors Have Pro-Life Powers
• The governor has power to shape the state budget, and to prevent it being used to force tax-payers to pay for contraceptives, abortifacients, abortion-related services, anti-abstinence sex education, abortion clinic's business-seeking drives and actual abortions, it said.
• The governor often has decisive legislative influence in controversial fights over laws that strip parents of their consent rights in their teenage children's abortions and laws that allow doctors to end the lives of babies about to be born by using late-term abortion procedures.
• The governor directly oversees the California Department of Health, and its Office of Family Planning and Office of Women's Health, which promotes contraceptive, abortifacient, and abortion-related services to 600,000 women with taxpayer money.
• The governor makes thousands of appointments to state posts and commissions, many of which deal with many contraceptive, abortifacient, and abortion-related issues and services, and decides to what extent the state will promote such services to minors.
• The governor appoints judges, from state Supreme Court justices to court of appeals and trial judges, whose decisions have made contraception, abortion, and anti-abstinence programs prevalent despite the opposition of voters.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Delegates Complain of U.N. Manipulation At International Youth Meeting DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:BRAGA, Portugal—Pro-family lobbyists report an intensive effort by U.N. agencies to direct the outcome of debate at the Third World Youth Forum of the United Nations System, which concluded Aug. 7 in Braga, Portugal. The U.N. personnel seem particularly determined to ensure that references to “reproductive rights” for youth and to “sexual and reproductive health” are included in the official “Braga Youth Action Plan.”
Procedural irregularities long predate the conference, which began on August 2. Cory Leonard, director of the Utah-based NGO Family Voice, said that the U.N. Youth Unit refused for months to explain accreditation procedures to his pro-family organization. And when NGO Family Voice representatives arrived in Braga, they were initially refused accreditation by U.N. Youth Unit official Karin Johanson, and were only allowed to participate after repeated pleas to Portuguese organizers.
Once debates began, the U.N. domination of the supposedly “democratic” and “youth-driven” process became even more blatant. NGO Family Voice delegate Ryan Nelson was twice elected democratically to the Youth Forum's official drafting committee, only to be dismissed by organizers. The second time, he was told he was dumped because the drafting committee had “too many white males.” But when he sat in on the committee's first meeting on Tuesday, he discovered there was not a single white male on it.
The next day, World Health Organization official Paul Bloem overrode a pro-family resolution reached by delegates attending a “working group” on health issues. After the youths voted for the resolution, Bloem requested a new vote in which he would participate. With his opposition to the family-affirming resolution on record, the impressionable youth representatives rejected it in favor of one calling for “creative drama presentations” to highlight health issues.
U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) officials (there are no less than 29 UNFPArepresentatives registered in Braga) have been even more intrusive. During debate over the content of the Preamble to the Youth Action Plan, an adult woman demanded that a reference to “reproductive rights” be included. A Danish youth delegate immediately objected that the “reproductive rights” reference did not belong there, and that there had not been adequate time allowed for debate. The group's coordinator ignored those complaints and promised to include the “reproductive rights” reference.
Later, the woman who had proposed the reference admitted that she was a UNFPA official, not a youth delegate. However, she insisted that she and other U.N. officials were not directing debate, but merely offering “clarifications” about selected issues.
Many youth delegates are unconvinced. Several have complained publicly that proceedings are being manipulated toward a predetermined result, particularly on life and family issues. “You have basically a liberal European minority attitude, and you're imposing it,” commented Altaf Husain of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. (Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Can the Newman Institute Help Ireland's Faith Crisis?
But one sign of hope may be found in the new Newman Institute for religious and catechetical studies whose opening was reported recently in the Irish Times.
Bishop Thomas Finnegan considers the Institute a first step toward a larger project to preserve a Catholic identity at “a small college with its own culture and ethos, gradually establishing links with St. Patrick's College Maynooth, the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, and [other] colleges,” he told the paper.
The report quoted the bishop saying that the Institute would stress theology because, “The relationship between truth and freedom is at the heart of today's moral crisis. The very concept of universally valid principles is called into question.… It is in this environment that a Catholic university must operate at the interface between the Church and the world of thought.”
Is New Millennium to Blame for Tidal Wave?
Said the report, “the tsunami that killed at least 2,000 people is likely to be interpreted as a sign of the end of the world and second coming of Christ.” It quoted an English anthropologist saying, “People will see this as the wrath of God — a punishment or act of cleansing before the millennium.”
Christine Kocher-Schmidt, of Kent University in England, went on to suggest the area's Catholicism makes matters worse.
“The discourse on the millennium is particularly strong in this area as people struggle to get to grips with bits of information trickling in from the outside world. It is a very isolated place where information is only transmitted orally and tends to become very colored by the Catholic mission.”
However, tracing these ideas to Catholicism is a mistake. The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has specifically rejected “millennialism.” Furthermore, Christ has not said that his return will coincide with the Gregorian calendar's switch-over from nines to zeros.
Catholics celebrate the Jubilee Year 2000 as a commemoration of the birth of Christ, not as a new turning point in salvation history.
Turning Family Discussions Into Ecumenical Dialogue
Scotland's Catholic Church is set to publish an aid to Christians involved in mixed marriages. The document, Marriage, Discipline and Pastoral Practice, will be released this autumn, said the newspaper. Produced by Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), it will give couples information about each other's faith.
Fr. John Fitzsimmons, of the Unity, Faith and Order Commission, is the report's author.
He told the newspaper: “This is about marriages between people who are Catholic and people who are fully paid-up members of their own Church. Very often, Catholics get married to someone of no faith, but this report is aimed at Catholics who are marrying someone who takes their own Church seriously.
“It will put side by side the different understandings of each Church. For example, it will tell a Catholic and a Congregationalist how to understand each other's position.”
He added that it is meant to be practical rather than a mere intellectual discussion of differences.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Italian Singer Spoke to the Pope about Music Video
Minghi said he spoke to the Pope about the video, which the report called a “reverent” music video. “He told me it was very good,” the singer is quoted saying.
Minghi praised the subject of his song, A Man Who Came from Afar. “The song and its artistic expression interprets the Pope and his pontificate well because he has written songs and poetry and musical comedies. So he is a man, despite his great spirituality,” he is quoted saying.
He met the Pope at a performance he gave at the Vatican. “When we met, I felt his inner strength, but he's also a great man as well as a great Pope,” he is quoted saying.
“He told me [the song] was very good, but he hadn't understood the words well because there was only a small speaker. So I promised his Holiness that as soon as I made the record I would bring him the lyrics so he could hear it and also read the words.”
St. Louis Counts on Big Turnout for Pope
Reported the St. Louis Business Journal: “The papal visit has touched off a flurry of hotel reservations during a traditionally slow period for hotels. Most are charging their highest rates, and at least one major downtown inn, the Regal Riverfront Hotel, has increased prices [19%.] Hotels near papal activities expect to be fully booked.”
“Retailers … are placing orders for and stocking shelves with religious items in anticipation of the visit, which is projected to generate $8 million to $15 million in direct spending.
“Catholic shops, particularly The Daughters of St. Paul bookstore, expect brisk business. They will stock shelves with Pope-related items.
“T-shirt and memorabilia manufacturers, who supply products for events from rock concerts to sporting events to general celebrity items, eagerly await the Pope, who is one of their best sellers.
“The archdiocese is developing a Web site to keep interested pilgrims nationwide up-to-date on planned events.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: A Different Kind of Summer Novel DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:In the course of his many attempts, all unsuccessful, to convert the poet John Betjeman to Catholicism, Evelyn Waugh once explained the Catholic understanding of sanctity to his quarry in a letter:
“Saints are simply souls in heaven. Some few people have been so sensationally holy in life that we know they went straight to heaven and so put them in the [liturgical] calendar. We all have to become saints before we get to heaven. That is what purgatory is for. And each individual has his own peculiar form of sanctity which he must achieve or perish. It is no good my saying, ‘I wish I were like Joan of Arc or St. John of the Cross.’ I can only be St. Evelyn Waugh after God knows what experiences in purgatory.”
Betjeman's inquiry had been prompted by reading Waugh's new novel, Helena. In thanking him for his compliments, Waugh explained why he found the Emperor Constantine's mother such an attractive figure, taking a nice sideswipe at intellectual agnosticism in the process:
“I like Helena's sanctity because it is in contrast to all that moderns think of as sanctity. She wasn't thrown to the lions, she wasn't a contemplative, she wasn't poor and hungry, she didn't look like an El Greco. She just discovered what it was that God had chosen for her to do and did it. And she snubbed Aldous Huxley with this perennial fog, by going straight to the essential physical historical fact of the redemption.”
Helena was poorly received by most critics when first published in 1930. Some thought it a lightweight confection. Others judged it another exercise in Waugh's snobbery masquerading as religiosity. Still others regretted its lack of satire. Waugh biographer Martin Stannard thinks the novel a fine technical accomplishment, one of the first experiments in literary post-modernism. But even the most friendly critics would rate Helena beneath Waugh's A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited. Critical heretic that I am, I would add Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy to the pantheon, thus pushing Helena even farther down the list.
Yet if you're looking for an unusual read this summer, I warmly recommend Helena. It is, as Stannard suggests, an experimental book. That the Empress Helena is made to sound like a somewhat brassy member of the Grade-B English aristocracy, circa 1950, is the most obvious of its literary peculiarities. Personally, I find the conceit of a fourth-century matron dismissing silly theological opinions as “bosh” and “rubbish” more charming than off-putting, but I admit it takes some getting used to. What I found most attractive about Helena on a recent rereading, though, was the resolute, even relentless, realism of Helena's, and Waugh's, faith.
Fish don't notice water; we don't notice gnosticism. Audiences still find it amazing, even unbelievable, when I tell them that, in the overwhelming majority of American universities today, you can find many members of the philosophy department prepared to defend the idea that the reality we perceive discloses the truth of things. Somehow, the radical skepticism and relativism of the intellectual guilds hasn't penetrated down to the level of the people who sign the checks that allow the guild members to live in style. Or perhaps normal people, who think they do know some things, feel intimidated by the serpentine arguments of the intellectuals.
Helena is a bracing antidote to this contemporary gnosticism — this “bosh” and “rubbish,” as Waugh's Helena would put it. From her childhood, Helena is determined to know whether things are real or unreal, true or false — including the claims of Christianity. For her, Christianity is not one idea in a world supermarket of religious ideas. Christianity is either the truth — the Son of God really became man, really died, and really was raised from the dead for the salvation of the world — or it's more “bosh” and “rubbish.” The true cross of Helena's search is not a magical talisman; it is the unavoidable physical fact that demonstrates the reality of what Christians propose, and about which others must decide.
Read it and enjoy. Better, still, read it and then give it to a young Catholic heading for the gnostic fever swamps of an American campus this autumn.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: George Weigel ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Right Stuff For Speaking DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Everybody is speaking in public today. Talk radio, television talk shows, internet chat-rooms — everyone, it seems, is entitled to an audience. Hence the timeliness of Peggy Noonan's how-to-speak-in-public book, wherein she offers the helpful, obvious, and oft-ignored advice that speakers should have something to say.
Noonan is the speechwriter whose pen produced the soaring words that Ronald Reagan delivered at Normandy, and she worked the magic that briefly turned George Bush's wooden rhetoric into a thousand points of light.
Noonan's advice to would-be public speakers — whether addressing the school board, a shareholders meeting, or a political rally — is not what one might expect from a great wordsmith. She admonishes speakers to say big things, but not necessarily in big words. To the contrary: “Big things are best said, are almost always said, in small words.”
“The most moving thing in a speech is always the logic,” writes Noonan, “It's never the flowery words and flourishes, it's not the sentimental exhortations, it's never the faux poetry we're all subjected to these days.”
Noonan follows her own advice in this book, adopting a breezy style that reads like a conversation, not a lesson. In between specific tips on how to prepare for and deliver a speech, Noonan keeps hammering at her main point that substance, not style, is what makes for great oratory.
“Don't try to write a sound-bite when you write a speech. Don't try to come up with a good line,” advises Noonan. “Try to write well. Which means try to think well. Lose yourself in the work and the words will come.”
While Noonan's advice is solid, her assessments of the great speeches are a little eccentric. She chooses the speech of gangster Hyman Roth in the film Godfather II — “this is the business we have chosen” — as one of great speeches of the twentieth century. Doubtful, but her criteria are worth keeping in mind: “It is simple, unadorned, direct, declarative. It is simplicity that gives a speech its power. Each word means something.”
She also nominates Earl Spencer's eulogy for his sister Princess Diana as the only great speech in the 1990s. Another suspect judgment, but a good example that great oratory can be used for ignoble purposes, as Spencer's venomous attack on the Royal Family demonstrated.
‘Try to write well. Which means try to think well. Lose yourself in the work and the words will come.’
Noonan finishes with a blow-by-blow account of Mother Teresa's 1994 National Prayer Breakfast address, in which she inveighed against abortion and contraception to an audience of Washington movers and shakers, including President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Mother Teresa spoke simply and of simple truths. This last chapter is worth the price of the book.
According to Noonan's criteria, Margaret Thatcher would rank as one of the great speakers of recent times. This latest collection of her speeches exhibits the Thatcher style at its best: direct, substantive, and not rhetorically ostentatious. She knew her argument and believed passionately in it. She was not a great orator, but the strength of her convictions made her oratory great.
This collection has special appeal for Christian readers. While most of the speeches deal with national affairs and international relations, a half-dozen excellent addresses take up the role of religion in the political order. Thatcher had a deep appreciation of the importance of the religious and moral order, and did not hesitate to speak about it.
“A moral order which nourishes and sustains freedom is necessary for a successful democracy,” she said to the Polish Senate in October 1991. “No political or economic system itself makes men good — and democracy is no exception. Some virtues, like tolerance and honesty, are necessary to sustain freedom. Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, some body of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school.”
Reflecting on the Cold War, she understood it as, in part, a spiritual fight. “Communism is the ultimate materialism,” she said, “And it commits the ultimate infraction of the First Commandment because it demands worship of the state.”
Contemporary Christians in politics will find encouragement in Thatcher, but also a warning against sacralizing politics. “I think it is important to avoid confusing moral and political judgments,” she says, “There is always the temptation, not easily resisted, to identify our opponents with the devil, and to attribute base motives to all who disagree with us. These are dangerous and evil tendencies; they embitter politics, and trivialize religion and morality.”
Thatcher is never trivial. Her continuing ability to command attention confirms Noonan's premise: Great speeches must say great things.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian in Ontario, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Why Ob-Gyns Don't Do NFP DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:In the July-August issue of Crisis magazine, Marjorie Dannenfelser fills readers in on why so few Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists are able and willing to support women who practice Natural Family Planning (NFP).
“More than 1.5 million American women practice natural family planning (48% of them Catholic), according to the Natural Family Planning Center. But only 32 obstetrician-gynecologists nationwide serve them, according to Steve Koob, founder of One More Soul. For those women who seek family practice physicians for their ob-gyn needs, the pool of NFP-only physicians increases to around 157 nationwide. As a result, large pockets of faithful Christian women around the nation do not receive the proper medical care they both need and deserve.”
Changing this situation will prove difficult, Dannenfelser writes, because “medical schools, academic journals, health management organizations (HMOs), and pharmaceutical companies, along with the professional and social pressure of peers, control money and respect in the medical world.”
The difficulties start in medical school, where “With very few exceptions, NFP is not taught at all, or only barely and in a dismissive fashion as a ‘religious thing’ not necessary to medical training. Natural Family Planning Center ob-gyn associate professor Dr. Hannah Klaus explains that in medical schools, the female reproductive system, ovulation, and contraception are taught as a unit.… While Klaus praised an exception — Georgetown's inclusion of NFP in its ob-gyn curriculum — even there it is not given exclusive treatment.”
And, Dannenfelser reports, “When really tested, medical authorities do not even tolerate NFP-only obgyn practice. Baltimore's St. Agnes Hospital ob-gyn residency program lost its accreditation because it would not train students in contraception, sterilization, and abortion.”
For those who persist in opposition to contraception past med school, “‘Residency is set up a lot like the military,’ says Dr. [Marie] Anderson.… ‘If you cause problems, they can make your life miserable’… the tough reality is that 50[%] to 60% of most ob-gyn practice involves contraception or sterilization.”
Adding to the pressure on Catholic residents is the fact that “NFP-only residents miss out on some aspects of training. For example, Klaus's own training included only three cesarean section deliveries because so many of these procedures involve tubal ligation [sterilization] surgery immediately following delivery.”
Meanwhile, “the sheer quantity of cash pumped into the development and promotion of artificial contraception as compared with natural means is astounding. Well over $75 billion has been spent by American taxpayers on national and international population activities since 1968 … then consider the billions of dollars spent in the development and promotion of contraceptives by drug companies.… ‘NFP stands for Not For Profit.… You can't sell a woman her own mucus,’ says Klaus.”
And the spread of HMOs “does not bode well for the future for NFP-only ob-gyns: For-profit HMOs are too risk-averse to chance losing their contracepting clients. Dr. Lorna Cvetkovich, an ob-gyn in Wichita, Kan., says that not only is there ‘no place for Catholic physicians to go and be trained as Catholics,’ but ‘our own Catholic HMOs won't accept them.’”
Among the few bright spots for NFP-only physicians “is the supportive network of enterprising organizations like the Pope Paul VI Institute, the U.S. bishops' Human Life Foundation, the Family of the Americas, Human Life International, and several others.”
With such extraordinary pressure to conform, why do some doctors swim against the tide? Dr. John Bruchalski says, “‘This is not just about contraception; it's about children’.… Are they blessings or little self-fulfillment pills?” His own change of heart came after he saw “the destruction contraception inflicts upon women and their marriages.” Now, “he believes.…” God works with the simple.… ‘If you stepout an inch, God gives you back much more.’”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: Digest of Marjorie Dannenfelser's article "Doctors of the Church," in the July-August issue of Crisis magazine ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Cardinal Bernardin on PBS
Perhaps most of the letters you receive are responses to articles. This one is in response to an advertisement you carried in the June 28-July 4 issue (and which also appeared in Our Sunday Visitor and probably other Catholic publications).
The ad was placed by the Catholic Communication Campaign and promoted a television program on the recently departed Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. The program, which I have read about but not seen, appears to be an entirely positive hagiography of the “beloved American Churchman,” produced under the auspices of PBS: the same organization that in recent years produced a documentary debunking the Shroud of Turin (by carbon-dating methods that were later proven unreliable), and other programs that vilify such figures in our Church's history as Pius IX, who has become (along with Pius XII) a favorite “bad-boy” for secular humanist historians and their liberal Catholic followers. They often convey these viewpoints in “documentaries” that appear objective and indisputable, but in reality convey information in ways that are often slanted against the Church.
What the PBS documentary — and indeed, almost all the coverage in the “mainstream” press of the life and death of Cardinal Bernardin — fails to mention is that there was a “dark side” to the life and legacy of this prelate. I used to wonder why the secular press lavished so much fawning attention on him. Then, with further reading and reflecting I realized: he was the model bishop for all those who do not accept the full gamut of the Church's teachings; and they are legion (both within and without the Church).
I do not presume to judge the cardinal's soul; only God can do that, and I would not consider it unreasonable to believe that — after due time in Purgatory — he is now or will eventually be with our Lord in Heaven. He was certainly a nice man. The problem is: he was too nice.
Rather than defending the Church's unpopular and misunderstood teachings, he spent undue time and energy to show compassion and understanding to those who hate and persecute the Church, so much so, that he was criticized by some of his fellow bishops (Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law, among others) for elevating dissent to an equal level with Church teaching.
No wonder outfits such as PBS and Newsweek — which have never been friendly to the whole Catholic faith — would dub him “the consummate churchman,” and such like titles. Somewhat like Cardinal Woolsey under Henry VIII, he was an extraordinarily capable, intelligent, and likable man; but also like Woolsey, when the “chips were down,” his support for the Holy Father and the full teachings of the Church (including the unpopular ones) were something less than firm and unequivocal.
We must question certain aspects of Cardinal Bernardin's legacy which are very unlikely to receive mention in the PBS special, such as the large number of parishes in the Chicago archdiocese which closed during his tenure, as a result of declining numbers of Catholic faithful and a declining supply of new priests (patterns which are not occurring in, for instance, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz's diocese, or, for that matter John Cardinal O'Connor's). We should pay greater attention than PBS does to the large number of critics of the Common Ground Initiative, whose ranks include several of his fellow bishops, theologian Father Avery Dulles, the editor of the New Oxford Review, Dale Vree, and many others. We should heed the voices of the pro-life leaders who felt that his “consistent ethic of life” argument actually undermined the pro-life cause by presenting the perceived immorality of the death penalty as in some way comparable to the far more heinous crime of abortion.
If this were an ideal world, the advertisement for the PBS special that you (and other Catholic publications) carried, would contain a warning: “buyer beware.” The slogan read: “an intimate look … by those who knew him best.” A more honest caption would perhaps read: “an intimate look by those who liked him best;” the two categories are not necessarily one and the same. Bernardin may have been something of a “consummate American churchman,” but the more urgent question for us now (and for him, before Our Lord's judgment seat) is certainly: to what degree was he a “consummate Roman Churchman”? To what degree did he follow and defend the leadership of the Holy Father, who is given by God as Peter among us?
Larry Carstens North Hollywood, California
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Only God Can Sway Those Entrenched In Pro-Abortion Mentality DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Real change is so hard. Witness any one of our daily lives. How hard it is to change even our diet or to change the way we respond to one of our children's most nerve-touching behaviors. How hard it is to keep our oft-repeated promise to pray daily. But real change is possible. Recently, in the abortion arena, there have been a number of nearly breathtaking changes reported. In some cases, the names alone tell the story — Nathanson, and McCorvey. The New York abortion-ist and the poster child of the abortion lobby — now, pro-life and Catholic or soon to be. In other cases, the names are new to us but will soon become familiar. Eric Harrah, abortionist and co-owner of 26 abortion clinics nationwide, has declared himself a Christian, and out of the abortion business. He is about to write an exposè of the abortion industry in which he played such a large part.
The distance these people have traveled is hard to fathom by reason alone. The lives they've lived. The things they've seen. The company they've kept. But less and less is being left to our imaginations. An extraordinary array of details about the day-to-day life of the abortion industry and the abortion lobby is recently appearing in the newspapers.
In Atlanta, Georgia state health authorities are working to close an abortion clinic (one featured as a high quality provider on the web-site of the National Abortion Federation), after two years of investigations turned up health conditions which bring to mind a few levels of Dante's rings of hell. Women prepped for abortion surgery delivering their babies in waiting rooms and dirty bathrooms with no doctors or nurses present. Screaming and sobbing. Surgeries conducted with filthy instruments. Women wearing only flimsy hospital shirts waiting for surgery on cracked, blood soaked vinyl chairs.
And from Arizona comes the news that a doctor with a horrid history of maiming and killing his female abortion patients is finally getting a good hard look from state health authorities for lacerating, then delivering, a six and one-half month baby in the course of what he thought was a partial-birth abortion of a much younger unborn. He had a history of faking ultrasounds to achieve the look of earlier gestational ages.
Also from Arizona, an abortionist who waxed eloquent during a radio interview a few weeks ago about how “esthetically pleasing” it feels to deliver an intact (albeit completely burnt and asphyxiated) baby in the course of a saline abortion. When challenged by a nearly speechless caller, he only repeated himself.
Not only abortionists, but abortion activists also, exist in an environment of belief and pronouncements that is truly amazing. Betty Friedan argued with me in a television debate about abortion that disabled children are “monsters” whom pro-lifers would force upon their unwilling mothers. When I challenged her, she used the “monster” word again.
A Planned Parenthood official justifies sex-selective abortions in a national magazine on the grounds that they are better than the alternative: a baby unwanted on account of her sex.
Jane Fonda at a National Press Club briefing responds to a question about forced abortions in China with an exhortation not to harshly judge a country with such massive population problems.
After living in a world where such is the collective “wisdom” and experience, how does an abortion advocate begin to think and act in favor of life? There is a way. “With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” (Mt. 19:26).
Or in the words of Dr. Harrah: “God changed me -because if it was up to me, and left to my own devices, I can't save myself and I can't change my way of thinking. The old me wouldn't have walked away from thousands upon thousands of dollars a week and millions of dollars in the bank — for what? To go out and get $400- $1000 to speak at a CPC [crisis pregnancy center] banquet when I was making a hundred times that a week? It's not about me, it's about God. And that's what I want people to understand.”
Lest you begin to believe, however, that you and I have no role to play in helping turn abortionists and activists away from the culture of death they inhabit, consider another reflection from Dr. Harrah: Pro-life groups “need to know that their efforts have made a difference.” According to a recent interview with Harrah, the first time he returned to a Christian church “he was extremely nervous, but the congregation made him feel welcome. Hundreds of members of the congregation had been praying for him, and they had held an all-night prayer meeting for him the night he became a Christian.”
Considering what's possible, considering the long, hard road traveled by former abortionists like Eric Harrah, and by Norma McCorvey, it seems only right that we should commit to some changes ourselves. Most important among them: Making sincere prayer a regular part of our pro-life work.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information, Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen AlvarÈ ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Among the Muslim Believers, 1998 DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:In a time when the nation's attention is focused on a resurgence of terrorism at U.S. embassies abroad — and a renegade ex-Saudi financier with ties to militant Islamic groups tops Washington's current list of suspects — it may seem bad timing to be writing an article on moderates and reformers in the Islamic world.
Several hitherto unknown Islamic groups have so far taken “credit” for the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania earlier this month which claimed hundreds of lives, and threatened further actions against U.S. interests in Africa and elsewhere. In each case, they've mentioned the teaching of Saudi dissident and construction tycoon Osama bin Laden, a super-wealthy Islamic radical living under Taliban protection in Afghanistan who is widely considered a major conduit of funds for militant Islamic terrorist activities abroad.
But with the focus, once again, on Islam and terror, it's perhaps even more useful than in more peaceful times to underline a contemporaneous development in the Muslim world — that of the sometimes embattled efforts of Islamic reformers — especially those reform efforts motivated not only by the influence of western ideas, but out of currents of renewal within Islamic religious thought itself.
Political vs. Moral Identity
Take, for example, the work of Dr. Abdul Rahman Wahid, an influential leader of Indonesia's reformist movement, Nahdlatul Ulama (“Renaissance of the Religious Scholars”).
Son of the founder of the pesantren effort — a movement to build religious (Islamic) boarding schools across the country — Wahid has steered his 30 million adherents clear of “political” or revolutionary Islam toward a Muslim identity based on “Islam as a moral force which works through ethics and morality.”
Wahid proved as good as his word in the recent student demonstrations in Jakarta which resulted in the resignation of Indonesia's long-time president. Many commentators credited leaders like Wahid with helping to steady that political impulse and keep it relatively free of the volatile faith and revolution mix that have savaged countries like Algeria in recent years.
That, by the way, is a helpful piece of analysis for aspects of so-called radical or “political” Islam. The sort of “Islam” that blows up buildings and seeks to overthrow governments is a neo-orthodox Islam, a reinvented Islam, a creature, not of tradition, but of modernity — a grab-bag of discredited revolutionary rhetoric mixed with religious ideology. What's really going on is old-fashioned violent revolution with a utopian goal. Marx and Lenin were once the inspiration — now some Islamic preacher is. But the phenomenon, and, indeed, much of the constituency, is the same.
Naipaul on Islam
All this was brought to mind, not only by the recent bombings, but, more provocatively, by reading British author V. S. Naipaul's new book, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (Random House).
After all these years, V. S. Naipaul is far more than one of our greatest living writers — he is a whole sensibility. The novelist, essayist, and world traveler, born in 1932 of Indian migrants living in the Caribbean, is part and parcel of the universe he has so brilliantly evoked in his 22 books: the world of his native West Indies, Argentina, Africa, India, the non-Arab Islamic countries — “half-made Third World societies,” full of postcolonial entrepreneurs, corrupt elites, professional revolutionaries, and dreamers.
Naipaul has made his home in England since the 1950s and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990.
Far from posing as the outside “expert,” Naipaul prefers the wisdom of the innocent eye and a traveler's luck. He describes his method succinctly in Finding the Centre (1984): “To arrive at a place without knowing anyone there, and sometimes without an introduction; to learn how to move among strangers for the short time one could afford to be with them; to hold oneself in constant readiness for adventure or revelation.”
It is, preeminently, a novelist's method, and, more often than not, it has served Naipaul well, enabling him, through precise observation and masterful story-telling, to evoke something of the human “atmosphere” of whole countries — particularly at their “edges,” where the darker, seamier paradoxes are most visible.
Beyond Belief is written as a kind of sequel to Naipaul's earlier Islamic essay, Among the Believers, a hugely influential account of a seven-month journey to four non-Arab Islamic countries: Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, in the immediate aftermath of Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979.
Among the Believers was particularly important for its then-rare look inside post-revolutionary Iran, and for its implacably tragic picture of the effects of “political” or militant Islam.
In Beyond Belief,Naipaul retraces his earlier route to see what's happened to the people and places he encountered nearly 20 years before.
There are brilliant passages in Beyond Belief. The author's evocation of sunset on a hillside from his hotel window in North Teheran which he only slowly comes to realize is the grounds of the notorious Evin Prison where executions are carried out is chilling. Likewise, the sardonically comic profile of Imaduddin, an Indonesian Islamic radical the author met on his way to prison 17 years earlier, who is now an Armani-suited official in then-Vice President Habibie's Foundation for the Development and Management of Human Resources, an organization whose prized project is a midrange commuter jet.
From Revolution to Riches
But if the Islamic world Naipaul drew for Western readers two decades ago, in thrall to Khomeini's revolution, was a civilization at odds with the modern world, fueled only by an implacable determination to believe, in his newest book, Naipaul sees only fiery Islamic revolutionaries become nouveau-riche bureaucrats, and Islamic revolutions which have run out of steam.
When the author interviews the single reformer he meets in his travels — Indonesia's Wahid — he appears stumped. The thoughtful Muslim intellectual doesn't fit into Naipaul's narrative scheme. And, as one commentator noted, the exasperation shows.
Of Wahid, he writes, “I wanted to get a picture, some conversation, a story. It wasn't easy.” As commentator Fuad Ajami recently wrote in,The New Republic, Naipaul “has put his faith” not in knowledge of the region or of its religions, but “in his own inclinations,” and in the case of his analysis of Islam, his impressions fail him.
“It is easy to be taken in by people and places we don't really know,” writes Ajami.
Fortunately, there is something more going on in contemporary Islam than tends to appear in the reports of most western commentators, however perceptive.
There's a saying in Islam that the “gates of innovation” closed centuries ago. According to this view, the Muslim's duty is to obey the dictates of faith, not dialogue with the non-Muslim world. But after a long intellectual sleep, a more outward-looking stream of Islamic thought may be on the move again.
In Jordan, for example, professors at a new Islamic university debate the human rights implications of traditional Islamic law's treatment of women and non-Muslims. In Turkey, Islamic parties like Refah have begun to explore democratic values on the basis of schools of Islamic thought that forbid coercion. Reform-minded Egyptian scholars regard the use of the word jihad (“struggle”) in a military or revolutionary sense (“holy war”) as an anachronism, preferring to emphasize the term's equally traditional meaning as the inner struggle against the passions.
“We are interested in how the tradition can be a motivation for progress,” philosopher Hassan Hanafi, leader of the so-called Islamic enlightenment in Egypt, said in a Wall Street Journal interview several years ago.
Three things tend to characterize the would-be reformers. They are urban, western-educated professionals — lawyers, teachers, engineers — not Muslim clerics. They oppose the view held, for example, by the leading scholars of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, that all Islamic law is of divine origin and, hence, unchangeable. Much of it, they claim, was historically conditioned. And, most importantly, they agree that the goal is the modernization of Islam on the basis of genuine Islamic values.
An Islamic ‘Vatican II’?
In language reminiscent of the aggiornamento, or “updating,” of Pope John XXIII, which launched the Second Vatican Council, Cairo-based Islamic lawyer Khalil Abdel Karim said in a 1995 interview that “we must renew the spirit of Islam by applying it to the conditions of the day. “
The reformers face powerful obstacles in the form of traditional Islamic sheikhs, or scholars, who insist that Islam ceased developing when the corpus of Muslim law was set down in the 10th century, and in the form of anti-modernist Islamic militants who hearken back to a “golden age” when only God and his caliph ruled.
By contrast, the reformers point to the tradition of ijtihad, or “independent reasoning,” a lively process of debate based on Islamic sources that prevailed among scholars until the early Middle Ages — a process not unlike the Talmudic debates of rabbinic Judaism, or the scholastic method associated with Anselm of Canterbury and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Not surprisingly, some reformers have been treated to death threats and a few, Tunisia's Rashid Ghannouchi and Sudan's Abdullahi Ahmed anNa'im, live in exile in the West.
What is helping the reformers, however, is the spread of literacy and communication technology throughout the Muslim world. Whereas religious (and often political) formation was widely controlled by local preachers in the recent past, today, with university enrollments up dramatically in most Near Eastern countries, there is a growing critical mass of educated people who are capable of independent thought and can enter the ongoing debate about the shape of the modern Islamic world.
Malaysia's Mohammed Mahathir put it best in a recent interview in the Wilson Quarterly. The real crisis in Islam, he said, is not between Islamic fundamentalists and western civilization. It is between utopian extremists, not unlike the West's own fascists and communists of the recent past, and the true face of Islam, a tradition which includes within it a commitment to tolerance and civility.
As Dale Eickelman, author of the 1996 study Muslim Politics, has written: “The Koran itself (5:48) appears to give a final answer concerning the role of the Muslim community in a multi-community world: ‘To each among you, we have prescribed a law and a way for acting. If God had so willed, he might have made you a single community, but [he has not done so] that he may test you in what he has given you; so, compete in goodness.’”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: After a long intellectual sleep, a more outward-looking stream of Islamic thought may be on the move again ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Pope's 'Family of Nations'Ideal Should Mark Globalization DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:It's a small, small world.” If that was true back in the 1950s, how much more so in the '90s, especially after quantum advances in telecommunications, data processing and transportation. An unprecedented abundance of information and contact with other cultures and peoples combined with increasing economic interdependence makes for an ever tighter “global community.” The typical geographical frame of reference for millions is fast becoming not one's hometown, city, or even country, but the world.
Globalization, then, is not a theoretical proposal sitting on some drafting table, but an existing reality. Asking whether globalization would be a good idea is like asking the same about motor cars and airplanes. While scratching our heads over the dilemma, globalization steams ahead without waiting for anyone's approval. Thus the question becomes not whether to globalize, but how to ensure that the globalization process benefits almost everyone.
In last fall's Synod for America much was said about this thorny topic. Participating bishops, especially from Latin America, repeatedly voiced concerns for the well-being of their people in the face of a global economy. The implacable advance of a one-world market is often seen as a threat to personal and national sovereignty, and poorer countries would prefer not to be caught under the global steamroller when it comes barreling through. Nor would they like to be left out. The trick seems to be participating without being flattened in the process.
The bishops'fears are not the product of an overactive pastoral imagination or skittishness in the face of rapid technological progress. They reflect very real hazards. The chief dangers of globalization can be summed up in four points.
l Interdependence between two unequal partners generally results in disproportionate dependence of the weaker on the stronger. The stronger party winds up with coercive power that spills over into other sectors of society (witness the heinous population control programs imposed on Third World countries as a condition for economic favors).
l Many countries do not possess the requisite economic, juridical, and political stability to dive headlong into the world market. Economic crises and shifts in investment patterns, easily absorbed by stronger nations, can be fatal to more precarious economies.
l The national identity of less developed countries, with their distinctive cultural and historical characteristics, is at stake. Many of these countries fear that an impersonal global culture, with its consumerist tint, will sweep away the values that are most precious to them.
l Wary investors readily pass over less productive or economically unattractive countries, and such nations risk being left without a seat at the playing table.
Faced with of this scenario, what is to be done? In a recent article in the International Herald Tribune John Sewell and Michael McDowell of the Overseas Development Council proposed a “globalization summit” of two dozen representative heads of state from both the economically powerful and the more vulnerable nations to hash out current difficulties and forestall future problems. “We must ensure that the benefits of globalization reach all,” state the authors, “creating greater wealth for all. If the poorest countries are unable to reap the benefits of globalization, then we are all poorer.”
No newcomer to the issue, Pope John Paul II has repeatedly affirmed that the “solution” to globalization lies in solidarity. In his message for the 1998 World Day of Peace, John Paul wrote that “[t]he challenge, in short, is to ensure a globalization in solidarity, a globalization without marginalization.” His vision of a “family of nations” comprises not only economic interdependence, but especially a mutual striving for the common good, and a particular spirit of responsibility for the weaker among us. The Holy Father provided a comprehensive treatment of the subject of solidarity in his 1987 encyclical on the social question, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. He points out that solidarity is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress” at the plight of other peoples or nations, but rather “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is, to the good of all and of each individual” (38).
“Solidarity,” the Pope continues, “helps us to see the ‘other’— whether a person, people, or nation — not just as some kind of instrument … but as our ‘neighbor,’ a ‘helper,’ to be made a sharer, on par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God” (39). In other words, other peoples and nations are not merely “human resources” or “new markets” to be exploited, but our brothers and sisters for whom we bear responsibility. In making decisions that affect others — whether political, corporate, or individual — we must take into account not only personal gain but also the good of the other.
Globalization, then, is not a demon to be exorcised but a bull to be tamed. Properly harnessed it furnishes an immense force for development, both economic and cultural. We must be vigilant, however, to keep the human person at the center of our concern, lest he be trampled. If human solidarity keep pace with economic globalization, we can be sure that the “family of nations” will one day be a reality.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams Lc ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Ave Maria Institute Joins Growing Group of Small Catholic Colleges DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:There is a new institute of higher learning in the bustling college town of Ypsilanti, Mich. Nestled in the shadow of Eastern Michigan University are a couple of old public school buildings that will open their doors in September as Ave Maria Institute, a new Catholic liberal arts college.
“We will try to fulfill the vision that John Henry Cardinal Newman had in the last century of a very serious, academically rigorous, but wonderfully exciting liberal arts curriculum,” said the institute's provost, Dr. Ronald Muller. “When it's done in the right way, a liberal arts college is the most exciting place to be. It is a dynamic place for ideas to come alive. There is a real adventure about learning.”
Muller, 51, has plenty of experience to back up his enthusiasm. He received his doctorate of philosophy and literature from the University of Dallas and later worked there as dean of students and director of the Rome program. Muller was one of the principal founders of St. Thomas More College in Fort Worth, Texas in 1981 (see “A Tiny World of Big Ideas in Texas,” June 14-20) which he helped develop into a fully accredited four-year liberal arts college. Three years ago he and his wife, Lucy, moved with their seven children to Michigan where he served at St. Mary's College in Orchard Lake as academic dean and chairman of the philosophy department. Muller also has a comprehensive background in Latin, Italian, and Spanish and has directed foreign study programs in Oxford, Rome, Greece, and Spain.
There will initially be a four-semester core curriculum offered at Ave Maria that, with additional training, will qualify students as administrative assistants for offices and schools. Plans are to offer a four-year accredited baccalaureate program. The accreditation process requires three years to complete, but, Muller said, “even if the institution isn't yet fully accredited, the courses are.”
Theology, philosophy, literature, Latin, Greek, and humanities will be among the course requirements. The humanities seminar will include some math and science. Muller pointed out that a liberal arts curriculum also provides a good background for other careers like business, governmental positions, law, and teaching.
He added that the things students will study “have the character of forming imagination, mind, and insight.”
He said reading and discussing ancient literary works and ideas are still relevant to today's world.
“There are recurrent or abiding themes that come up through the generations,” he said. “Human nature is a constant and ideas are perennially relevant.”
Muller said Ave Maria's curriculum and method of instruction will be much like that of other Catholic liberal arts colleges across the country.
“What we are aspiring to be is part of a group of small colleges that were begun about 20 years ago that have seen the importance of drawing Catholic studies and Catholic thought back to the Newman idea of the role of theology in curriculum,” said Muller.
He said colleges such as St. Thomas More (Fort Worth, Texas), Thomas Aquinas (Ojai, Calif.), Christendom College (Front Royal, Va.), Magdalen College, (Warner, N.H.), and St. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (Merrimack, N.H.) were all started with the same inspiration.
“It is a kind of renaissance in Catholic learning,” he noted.
“Those are the things, the core curriculum, that the liberal arts institute argues at some time all of us need to spend a little time pondering,” explained Muller. “And if you do that when you are 18 or 19 or 20, you will fill your heart and your mind and your intellect with those great ideas and images that then serve you well for the rest of your life.”
Dominic Perrotta, 27, a former student at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in California, wholeheartedly attests to that.
‘I only spent a year there, but I think it was a very crucial year in my development as a Catholic and as an adult.’
“I would say it is the best education you can get in this country, to be intellectually well-formed really for anything — whatever you want to go into,” he stressed.
Now a third-year medical student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Perrotta and his wife, Heidi, are the parents of five children.
“I only spent a year there, but I think it was a very crucial year in my development as a Catholic and as an adult,” he said. “Probably one of the greatest regrets of my life was that I wasn't able to finish school there,” he added.
One concern of students at the small liberal arts colleges is the transferability of credits to other private or public colleges and universities. Steps are being taken at Ave Maria to ensure that credits will transfer to nearby Catholic colleges.
Ave Maria was the brainchild of Domino's Pizza founder and CEO Tom Monaghan. He had been named to the board of Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio) last year to help franchise the university's curriculum and philosophy and to foster the development of colleges and institutions of higher learning like Franciscan all over the world.
Franciscan set up the Christus Magister (Christ the Teacher) Foundation to mentor new colleges that wanted to be in association with them.
“I had always planned on starting a college, so now seemed to be the right time. Ave Maria will be the first school to emerge from the Christus Magister program,” said Monaghan, who is financing Ave Maria through his own Mater Christi (Mother of Christ) Foundation.
According to Nicholas Healy Jr., vice president for university relations at Franciscan, an agreement was entered into “whereby we would recognize their credits and guarantee their transferability to Steubenville.”
Negotiations for credit transferability are also ongoing with nearby Madonna University in Livonia, Mich.
At Magdalen College, in Warner, N.H., plans are being made for a silver anniversary celebration which will be marked Aug. 22 this year. There are now 87 students on a new campus built on 135 acres in 1991. The college will accommodate 120 students and offers a two-year associate or four-year bachelor of arts degree in liberal studies. President of Magdalen College, Jeffrey Karls, said Magdalen was empowered to grant the degrees through the New Hampshire Post Secondary Commission since the school's founding 25 years ago. He added that the school began the accreditation process this spring and will embark upon the evaluation process in the fall.
Karls recommended that those wishing to transfer to another college “look ahead” and have a couple different college options available. He said even theology credits can sometimes be transferable.
“It might come under a different name or title in one of the secular programs but they'll usually work with the student.”
Karls highly recommended that a transferring student send the new college a course description from the liberal arts college and, most important, he said, “Get a personal interview with someone from the admission's office of the school being applied to.”
That's just what Perrotta did when he applied to the University of Michigan after a two-year hiatus from college.
“I think they are a little more stringent about transferring credits than most places,” said Perrotta of the U of M. “But it wasn't a big problem.” He said he gave an admissions counselor a course guide from Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) and explained what courses he had taken. “She went through the U of M course guide and correlated it with courses that are offered at the U of M. They looked at the number of hours and gave credit on that basis,” he said.
“As it was, the course load at TAC was so heavy that I got credit for a full year's worth of classes,” recounted Perrotta. “You take a very heavy credit load at TAC. They figure there is an awful lot that you need to learn to qualify to be a fundamentally educated person and they don't waste any time while you are there.”
And Provost Muller plans to waste no time at Ave Maria where they will eventually be able to accommodate some 200 students. In addition to the core curriculum, he will offer some evening classes for older and non-traditional students.
“Ave Maria is a place for everyone to come,” he said. “The Church has always been a wonderful patron of learning.
By making ourselves better, then we return to God the marvelous potential that he has given to us.
“There ought to be more Ave Maria colleges all around the country — in every little town,” Muller said.
For more information about Ave Maria Institute, call 734-482-4519.
Diane Hanson writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: Michigan-based college looks to Cardinal Newman's vision of a proper liberal arts education ----- EXTENDED BODY: Diane Hanson ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Zorro Rides Again DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Opposition to political oppression is often expressed through banditry when legitimate dissent or organized rebellion isn't possible. Through these processes, outlaws can become popular heroes, and their exploits mythologized for succeeding generations.
Since the beginning of recorded history, popular culture has celebrated these archetypes. Robin Hood, who stole from the conquering Normans to help the downtrodden Saxons, is perhaps the most famous example.
In 1919, police reporter Johnston McCulley created the pulp-fiction character of Zorro in the magazine serial, “The Curse of Capistrano,” which was published in the All-Story weekly. The action was set in the early 19th century in Alta California which was at that time a Spanish colony. In imagining his hero, McCulley combined fictional characters like Robin Hood and the Scarlett Pimpernel with real-life Old West persons like Joaquin Murrieta, Jose Maria Avila, and Salomon Simeon Pico.
Zorro had two identities. Most of the time he was the wealthy nobleman, Don Diego de la Vega. But when the authorities behaved cruelly towards the peasants, he put on a mask and became a swashbuckling swordsman in black who defended the poor and fought the oppressor, leaving his famous mark, or Z, after each adventure.
The year after the publication of McCulley's serial, Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon with the silent classic, The Mark of Zorro, which featured Douglas Fairbanks performing some mind-boggling stunts with swords and horses. Since then there have been more than 50 movies and a TV series about the masked avenger, starring everyone from Tyrone Power to Guy Williams and George Hamilton.
He put on a mask and became a swash-buckling swordsman in black who defended the poor and fought the oppressor.
The current version, The Mask of Zorro, is the first to cast a Latino in the lead. Director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye) and screenwriters John Eskow, Ted Elliott, Terry Rosie, and Randall Johnson have invented additional changes to the traditional narrative to make the characters more sympathetic to contemporary audiences.
As in the earlier prototypes, the aristocratic Don Diego (Anthony Hopkins) becomes Zorro whenever the haughty Spanish governor, Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), takes advantage of his people. It's 1821, and the Spanish are turning over the colony to the Mexican government. The governor is scheduled to return to Europe but can't resist beating up on the poor one last time.
“Today is Zorro's last ride,” Don Diego tells his wife and proceeds to rescue three peasants from the gallows right under Don Rafael's nose.
While pulling off this daring raid, he is assisted by two pre-adolecent boys, the Murieta brothers, and as a reward, he gives one of them the medallion from around his neck.
But the wily governor exacts a painful revenge. He surprises the good-hearted nobleman without his mask in his castle, kills his wife and kidnaps his infant daughter. Don Diego is condemned as “a traitor to your class” and left to rot in a dark dungeon.
Twenty years pass, and Don Rafael returns to California with a plan to buy the former colony from Mexico with stolen gold. With him is Don Diego's daughter, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), whom he has raised as his own. The myth of Zorro still lives among the people who've been as exploited by the Mexican authorities as they were by the Spanish. Don Diego escapes from prison to take revenge on the former governor.
The Murieta brothers have grown up and been driven into banditry. They are hunted down, and one of them is killed by an ex-American army officer who allies himself with Don Rafael. The surviving sibling, Alejandro (Antonio Banderas), still wears the medallion Don Diego had given him.
Like Don Diego, Alejandro is motivated by revenge. But despite his inherent strength and courage he doesn't have the skills to best the authorities, a situation he refuses to acknowledge. On the other hand, Don Diego realizes he has become too old to keep Don Rafael's men in check and decides to train Alejandro to replace him and become the next Zorro. After Don Diego easily defeats Alejandro in a sword fight, the younger man reluctantly allows the older one to become his mentor. The design on Alejandro's medallion, in fact, represents the training circle in Don Diego's castle. Like a Zen master, the elder Zorro teaches his successor not only the tricks of superior swordsman-ship but also how to control his emotions and put them at the service of his intellect and will. The younger man is at the same time encouraged to develop manners and a moral sensibility. The filmmakers play Alejandro's initial cockiness and ineptitude for laughs. This allows the young, contemporary audience to distance itself from the old-fashioned heroics of the genre which it might find corny and yet enjoy itself at the climax when Alejandro finally pulls it all together.
During the action-packed finale, Don Diego also reveals to Elena that she is his daughter, and Alejandro, after dueling with her, falls in love.
It's also refreshing that the Church is depicted as a friend of Zorro and the poor instead of as a pillar of an oppressive establishment, the stereotype Hollywood often perpetuates.
The filmmakers explore the link between banditry and political oppression in only enough depth to kick off the convoluted plot. But the movie is mostly a mixture of self-deprecating humor and old-fashioned derring-do that works. The magic of the older Zorro epics has been successfully recreated.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles. Zorro is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: Latest version of screen hero's exploits wins the day with self- deprecating humor and old-fashioned derring-do ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Power of a Holy Man's Words and Deeds DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Throughout history many leaders have tried to fuse politics and spirituality to accomplish their goals. Few have been as successful as India's Mahatma Gandhi, a practicing Hindu. Both his methods and his way of life have become an inspiration to Christian activists. America's civil rights movement, led by Protestant minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., borrowed his tactics of non-violence to overturn segregation in the South.
Gandhi, which won 9 Oscars in 1982, is an epic rendering of his life story. Director Richard Attenborough
(Shadowlands) and screenwriter John Briley focus on the interaction between his public, political acts and his private, spiritual beliefs, dramatizing in broad strokes how one influenced the other.
The movie begins with Gandhi's assassination in 1948 in New Delhi and flashes back to South Africa in 1893 and his initial political activities which were struggles against apartheid on behalf of the Indian community. He begins his career as a lawyer with the look and mannerisms of an English gentleman. But he encounters discrimination in the form of passbook and fingerprinting laws. “It must be fought,” he declares. “We are children of God.”
He builds a coalition which includes Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. One of his closest associates is the Rev. Charles Andrews (Ian Charleson), an Anglican priest, with whom he discusses New Testament ideas as he formulates his guiding principles.
Gandhi and many of his followers live on an ashram, a small agrarian commune which is governed by the same spiritual principles used in his political organizing. It's a quiet, simple life in which the communards grow their own food and weave their own clothes, and everyone, including Gandhi himself, must take turns at the lowliest chores like feeding the goats and cleaning the latrines. These down-to-earth activities give Gandhi an emotional and psychological balance which helps him in his political activism.
Gandhi preaches and practices non-violence, but he is never passive. He believes political demonstrations “must be active and provocative.” He and his followers are willing to break laws and be arrested. When beaten by police, he declares: “We will fight, and we will not comply.”
Favorable press is crucial so journalists are carefully cultivated. The articles of New York Times reporter Mr. Walker (Martin Sheen), place pressure on the South African authorities to back down.
The action moves to Bombay in 1915 where Gandhi is received like a national hero. He's the first person to have successfully defied the British in 200 years. The existing Indian independence movement wants to co-opt him, but he opposes the use of terrorism.
He sets up an ashram similar to his South African experiment. He realizes that economic injustices are as much a part of the problem as colonial role. The non-violent techniques developed in South Africa are used to confront the British landlords who are exploiting Indian workers.
At first the authorities try to ignore him, but when his political movement begins to grow, excessive force is used. Indian troops under the command of British officers fire on non-violent demonstrators at Amristar, resulting in 1,600 casualties. This brings Gandhi's movement favorable international press, and it wins most of its demands. But when his followers begin to respond violently to the British, he stops the demonstrations.
Gandhi next challenges the British salt monopoly, and more than 100,000 are arrested. Out of frustration, police brutally beat non-violent demonstrators. “Whatever moral ascendancy the West once had was lost today,” Walker reports as Gandhi wins another victory through non-violence.
Although often jailed, Gandhi does not oppose the British war effort, and at the conflict's conclusion the British, who've lost the stomach for further confrontations with him, decide to grant India its independence. But the Hindus and Muslims, whom he'd worked hard to keep together, begin slaughtering each other. Gandhi fasts until the two sides stop killing each other. Then he himself is assassinated, and the fighting resumes.
There is much Christian activists can learn from Gandhi's non-violent techniques. But his methods should not be copied in their entirety. He was treated like a Hindu holy man during his lifetime, and Christians need to maintain certain distinctions between the spiritual and the political which he ignored. Nevertheless, the world would be a better place if more leaders adopted his lifestyle of simplicity and humility.
Next Week: Frederico Fellini's 8 1/2.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Richard Attenborough's epic Gandhi explores the private life and public impact of a champion of non-violence ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: An Inspiring Shrine to the Sacred Heart of Jesus DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:The year 1975 marked the 300th anniversary of Jesus' first appearance to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial, France. On June 22 of that year the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Harleigh, Pa., was dedicated on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart. Today, 23 years later, it remains the largest outdoor shrine in America devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Construction began on the shrine less than a year earlier — Aug. 22, 1974 — the memorial of the Queen-ship of Mary. The shrine's founder, Father Girard Angelo, was, at that time, pastor of St. Raphael's Church in Har-leigh, in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains. After the shrine was completed, Bishop J. Carroll McCormick of Scranton, then local ordinary, changed the parish's name to the Church of the Sacred Heart. Throughout the years the shrine's founder has remained its director.
Behind the large outdoor granite altar at the shrine is a white Carrara marble statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Rays of gold radiate from behind the statue, while above it a golden crown surmounted by a cross encircles the area like a canopy.
Rows of stone pews are on either side of the square. A circular fountain is the fifth in a series of pools symbolizing the five wounds of Christ. Along the walk that takes visitors past the pools are several plaques recalling the 12 promises that Jesus made to St. Margaret Mary.
“I will give them all the graces necessary for their state in life,” the first announces. “I will establish peace in their homes,” the second reminds.
As the walk continues, pilgrims take to heart more of the Sacred Heart's promises: (3) “I will bless every place where an image of my heart shall be exposed and honored”; (4) “I will comfort them in all their afflictions”; (5) “I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all in death”; (6) “I will shed abundant blessings on all their undertakings”; (7) “Sinners will find in my heart an infinite ocean of mercy”; (8) “Tepid souls will become fervent”; (9) “Fervent souls will rapidly grow in holiness and perfection”; (10) “I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts”; (11) “The names of those who promote this devotion will be written in my heart, never to be blotted out.”
Visitors become familiar with the specific promises from Jesus' heart, which he told the saint,‘has heaped upon them so many benefits.’
Visitors become familiar with the specific promises from Jesus' heart, which he told the saint, “has heaped upon them so many benefits,” such as in the 12th promise: “I promise you, out of the prodigal pity of my heart, that my all-powerful love will grant to those who receive Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays of the month the grace of final perseverance, so that they shall not die in my disfavor without the sacraments. My divine heart will be their sure refuge at the last.”
Of course, First Fridays are always observed at the shrine — as well as First Saturday devotions.
Because the love of Christ's heart is so connected to his crucifixion and death, the outdoor stations of the cross present another important element. Although they don't cover an extensive area, their setting offers the peace and solitude necessary for quiet prayer and meditation. It is possible to wander through the landscaped area and away from the people on one of the many paths that surround the area. The stations are made of South Carolina granite and were carved in Hazleton, PA.
Also on the grounds are shrines to Our Lady of Fatima, and the Tomb of the Unborn Child. Candlelight processions take place on Good Friday along the path that leads to the Tomb of Christ, another one of the many quiet places for meditation.
The church itself is beautiful and inviting. A statue of the Sacred Heart graces a side altar and under the main altar, encased in glass, there is a display that features a first-class relic of the finger bone of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, better known as “the apostle of the Sacred Heart.” There are also relics from St. Claude de la Colombiére, St. Margaret Mary's confessor and confidant, and from St. Francis de Sales, founder of the Daughters of the Visitation, the order to which she belonged.
Men of the Sacred Heart, whose purpose is to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart and who originated at the shrine, have their headquarters here. The group now numbers 13 chapters throughout the state, with another one in Buffalo, N.Y. There are also the Ladies of the Sacred Heart and all chapters congregate there each year for the solemnity of the Sacred Heart.
More than 100,000 visitors visit the shrine each year. Even the Missionaries of Charity, who live almost 20 miles away, come regularly.
For pilgrims on organized bus tours, the shrine, which is open 24 hours a day, provides breakfast, lunch, or dinner in the dining hall of the Sacred Heart Center. Those wishing to stay overnight can find accommodations in two nearby motels — one of which offers a discount through the shrine.
It's a simple route from Philadelphia (99 miles) or the East to get to the shrine. From Interstate 80 (west), take exit 39 onto Route 309 (south); follow it to state Route 940 (east). The shrine is less than a mile away.
Because coal mining was once of primary importance in the Hazleton area, there is a “living history” museum of 19th-century mining, farther east on route 940 is Eckley Miners' Village. There is also the Pocono resort area, which pilgrims can visit once they have mined the spiritual treasures at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart.
To contact the shrine, telephone 717-455-1162.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: More than 100,000 visitors come annually to Western Pa. to contemplate Christ's 12 promises to St. Margaret Mary ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: New Washington Foundation Works to Promote Culture of Life DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—In the heart of the nation's capital, a new organization is emerging as an important catalyst for the pro-life movement. Appropriately named The Culture of Life Foundation, this nonprofit is quietly, but forcefully, disseminating information on all aspects of pro-life activity.
According to its mission statement, the foundation will “provide leadership, factual research, and financial resources to promote a universal commitment to protect and nurture all human life from conception until natural death.”
Although established last year, the Foundation only began functioning in early 1998. Since then it has collected various studies on life-related issues, cosponsored a conference in Rome, and initiated a well-received internet Web site. Much of the distribution of information will be through one of its projects, The Culture of Life Research and Communications Institute.
The Web site was inaugurated in June, but already it has become one of the most popular on the Alta Vista search engine. Accordingly to Robert Best, the foundation's cofounder and president, the Web page was the 42nd most active site less than two weeks after its launch.
The Web site was inaugurated in June, but already it has become one of the most popular on the Alta Vista search engine.
This type of early success is exactly what Best had hoped to achieve. The Web site, he says, “was established to ‘fill a void’ in the life issues debate” with solid scientific and medical data. He believes that by distributing this information, the foundation can make an important contribution to the pro-life movement.
“We want to be a humble service organization. We want to be a catalyst to bring people the truth about human life. Through collaboration, we hope to be a unifying force,” he said.
At the heart of the effort, he stresses, is this commitment to the truth. Best, a devout Catholic, has taken his guidance from Pope John Paul II's call for a deeper love for human life. The foundation also has placed considerable emphasis on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's landmark 1968 encyclical on human life.
Keith Fournier, president of the Catholic Alliance and one of the foundation's board members, told the Register, “I believe the Culture of Life Foundation is a direct result of the call from the Holy Father for the New Evangelization.
“It's also a great example for all of us who seek to be faithful to the Church and to use fully the resources of the current age to promote the ‘Springtime’ which the Pope has proclaimed,” he added.
Still, the organization is not designed to solely benefit Catholics. The Web site, for instance, contains statements from the Lutherans for Life on abortion, Presbyterians Pro-Life on sexuality, and comments from other religious groups.
The organization works in a Judeo-Christian framework, and Best notes that it “seeks to collaborate with all people who affirm the sacredness of truth.”
These people of faith have the opportunity to read Web site studies, essays, speeches, and books, reviews related to 16 different areas. They are abortion, abortion alternatives, cloning, contraception, culture of death, culture of life, euthanasia, fetal experimentation, homosexuality, infertility, natural family planning, natural law, population, religion and health, sterilization, and sex education.
Most of the categories are preceded by a helpful listing of bullet points, known as “principal findings,” which highlight the issues involved. Other offerings in each category then provide discussions relating to various aspects of the topic.
On fetal experimentation, for example, noted scholar Dr. William May of the John Paul II Institute, Washington, D.C., has two essays. One is a discussion of the 1987 papal document Donum Vitae and its teaching on recent in vitro fertilization. The other is an overview treatment of medical technology, law, and ethics. Also included in this grouping is a lengthy excerpt from a Tennessee court case which deals with when life begins.
The section on sex education includes the “Statement to Youth on School-Based Clinics,” issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in March 1998. Also presented is the July 22 pastoral letter on Humanae Vitae from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver.
Homosexuality is discussed in 17 articles and essays. Another important area, human cloning, is addressed by a statement from Paul Bryne, president of the Catholic Medical Association.
One of the foundation's scientific and medical advisory committee members, Dr. William Hogan, is especially interested in the work disseminated on contraceptives. “I believe the subsoil of abortion is contraception,” he said, and argues that the more people know about the deleterious effects of contraceptives, the more they will help themselves.
Such information includes studies on the link between contraceptives and breast cancer, and the lower divorce rates and stronger families among those who shun contraceptives. One study he cited shows that married couples who do not use artificial contraception have only a 2% divorce rate.
As Hogan's comments indicate, some of the issues tackled by the foundation involve scientific, medical, economic, and sociological issues. One impressive example of a study which is more related to social science themes is “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability” by Patrick Fagan of The Heritage Foundation.
Although not a scientific or medical discussion, this study contains a typical ingredient of these Web site entries. It weaves together solid research and commentary to give readers an opportunity to broaden their knowledge of specific problems.
In his conclusion, Fagan notes, “The available evidence clearly demonstrates that religions practice is both an individual and social good. It is a powerful answer to many of our most significant social problems, some of which, including out of wedlock births, have reached catastrophic proportions. Furthermore, it is available to all, and at no cost.”
Fagan is a member of the foundation's social science advisory board. He told the Register he believed the Culture of Life Foundation was “harnessing the good and bringing it together,” precisely what Best has envisioned. While acting “almost like a broker, pulling information together,” Fagan noted that this growing body of data could be especially valuable to students and university professors.
While the Web site is the current focal point of the foundation, other activities also figure prominently in the organization's ambitious plan. Working with the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Holy Cross, they cosponsored a “Communicating the Culture of Life Conference” in Rome in April. Among the participants were Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, the archbishop of Paris, and representatives from the United States, Poland, Norway, and Italy.
The foundation expects to hold other conferences, including a worldwide gathering of physicians, pro-life activists, and political leaders in Rome in 2000. In addition to expanding the Web site, they also are initiating a newsletter, Horizons, and looking at ways to even more broadly disseminate the information they are gathering.
Best, who is a former staff director of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, hopes to influence public policy makers. By changing the mindset of those who have supported the culture of death — even unwittingly — he hopes that the Pope's call to for a “civilization of love” will he realized.
The Culture of Life Foundation's work continues to involve ways to help reform the entire culture. This means giving the tools — studies, facts, and Church teachings — to leaders as well as ordinary citizens.
One strategy of the foundation targets the role of men and women of faith in overcoming a death-obsessed culture. It states: “We hope to engage the culture; we hope to capture the minds of others and show them the importance of decisions made daily — both in the short term and long term. We hope to show them how to support life through their living.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
(The Cultural of Life Foundation's Web site can be reached at www.culture-of-life.org)
A Personal Call to Holiness
The following is an excerpt on the meaning of the culture of life, given by Mary Cunningham Agee at The Culture of Life Foundation's conference in Rome in April 1998. The title of her speech was “A Personal Call to Holiness.” Agee is executive director and founder of the Nurturing Network and vice chairman of the Culture of Life Foundation.
“What do we mean when we refer to a ‘culture of life’ and what is really entailed when we speak of trying to ‘communicate’ it? The best answer can be found in the writings of the person who first introduced this now common phase.
“Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has expressed in numerous encyclicals both the singular importance and true meaning of the words, ‘culture of life.’ the fact that he refers to a ‘culture of life’ almost interchangeably with a ‘civilization of love’ should point us in the direction of the reality he seeks to convey.”
“Since both ‘life’ and ‘love’ find their fullest meaning and most essential expression in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, this phrase prompts us to evaluate all of the institutions and influences that shape our culture against the ultimate standard of our Lord's example and ministry.”
----- EXCERPT: Founder says multi-faceted Web site 'fills void'in life debate ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Federal Coverage forBirth Control Gives Pro-Abortion Forces a Boost DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Before July, pro-abortion forces could not claim any victories in Congress this year. That changed on July 16 when, after several hours of debate, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to require federal employees' health insurance plans to cover the cost of prescription birth control.
On a 224-198 roll call vote, the House accepted an amendment offered by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-New York) to the Treasury/Postal Appropriations Bill. After Lowey's amendment passed, pro-life stalwart Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) offered an amendment which would have forbidden coverage of prescription drugs designed in to induce abortions, such as RU-486. Smith's amendment was defeated on a 222-198 vote.
An amendment similar to Lowey's, offered by Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), passed the Senate on a voice vote July 29. The different versions of final bill will be worked out in a conference committee.
The passage of the amendment was a blow to pro-life forces and was hailed as “the biggest victory for reproductive rights since the Republicans took over the House” by pro-abortion leaders. The language in the amendments would require almost all of the 374 different health insurance plans used by federal employees to provide coverage for such birth control methods as “the pill,” the IUD, Norplant, and Depo-Provera. All of these birth control devices can act in an abortifacient manner. Currently, only 10% of plans do not cover at least some form of prescription birth control.
The amendments drew an enthusiastic response from pro-abortion leaders who signaled that the effort to require federal health insurance plans to cover prescription birth control was only the first step.
Both the House and Senate versions of the amendment included language exempting religiously-affiliated health plans, but the specific wording was slightly different. This difference will be among those discussed in the conference committee.
Passage of the amendments drew an enthusiastic response from pro-abortion leaders who signaled that the effort to require federal health insurance plans to cover prescription birth control was only the first step.
“This is an important victory in the ongoing battle to provide women with the means to determine when or whether to have a child,” Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a press release. “We applaud the bi-partisan support and hope that this is but a first step in providing contraceptive insurance coverage for all women in the United States.”
Feldt's hope for broader coverage is also pending in Congress. Snowe and Reid have also introduced the Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act (Senate Bill 766) recently received a hearing in the Senate. This legislation would require all health insurance plans, not just those serving federal employees, to cover prescription birth control.
All of the debate on Capitol Hill over government-mandated coverage of birth control chemicals and devices has sparked a proactive response from a group of pro-life physicians. A group of 84 physicians, organized by American Life League, have signed a letter to Congress documenting the abortifacient nature of “the pill” and other forms of so-called “contraception.” The letter claims that one of the pill's effects is prevention of the fertilized egg's implantation in the lining of uterus, ending the life of the newly-formed human being just days after fertilization.
Among the 84 signatories of the letter, called a “Declaration of Life,” were: Dr. Thomas Hilgers, founding director of the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Neb.; Catholic Medical Association President Dr. Paul Byrne; Dr. Anne Marie Manning, diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Karen Dembeck Poehailos of the University of Virginia; Dr. Ronald Prem, professor and chairman emeritus of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and Dr. William Colliton, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University.
Judie Brown, president of American Life League, called the physicians' letter a “milestone in truth.”
“Members of Congress have often argued that there is no scientific proof that the birth control pill actually aborts a child, reason being the inability of the scientist to produce a dead body,” Brown told the Register. “With this Declaration we have collected support for a statement which clearly shows the actions of the pill and many other so-called contraceptives, which should be described as ‘interceptives’ because they intercept and then destroy a new human being.”
Brown said the letter to Congress, and the increasing willingness of physicians to speak out on the facts of chemical abortion, will eventually produce results in the public policy arena.
“We are making progress at every turn and though the Congress may today pass bills in a fog of ethical ignorance, they will not be able to do so with as much ease in coming legislative sessions,” she said.
As the pro-abortion amendments await action by a conference committee, pro-life lobbyists on Capitol Hill are working influence the final outcome. Gail Quinn, executive director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' (NCCB) Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, recently wrote a letter to all members of Congress urging them to oppose the amendments.
“A mandate for contraceptive drugs and devices in this program is unwarranted and unprecedented,” Quinn wrote. “The vast majority of federal health plans provide contraceptive coverage now, and enrollees can choose these plans based on the coverage they desire. The status quo, in other words, is ‘pro-choice’ in contraception.”
She specifically reminded members of the FDA-approved “morning after pill” which causes an early abortion.
“A Congress that respects human life must not mandate coverage of this abortifacient drug in all plans,” she wrote.
While the NCCB, American Life League, and others are actively opposing the birth control mandates, some major pro-life groups have chosen not to make the initiatives a priority, fearing that opposition to birth control mandates could hamper efforts to restrict surgical abortions.
ALL's Brown says fear of political fallout isn't a reason to avoid speaking out on the issue, and she is optimistic about the future. “The lack of passion from some in the pro-life movement on questions such as the abortive nature of birth control methods comes from a conviction — which is dead wrong — that surgical abortion can be attacked and battle won without addressing the root cause, which is the contraceptive mentality,” she said. “But I see more and more ears and eyes opening to the truth.”
Meanwhile, both sides are anticipating an active conference committee where the birth control mandate amendments will be addressed in early September.
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: 'Miracle' Daughter Inspires Stand Against Abortion DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:CONCORD, N.H.—State Rep. Mary Brown's graduation photograph of President Clinton and her daughter at the Coast Guard Academy represents far more than a Kodak moment to the proud mother.
The legislator has been displaying the photo and reliving bittersweet memories of daughter Jessica's premature birth in 1974 to give exposure to her negative stance on partial-birth abortions. Jessica, photographed shaking Clinton's hand after her 1996 Coast Guard Academy graduation, was born in 1974 during her mother's 24th week of pregnancy.
“The next time the partial-birth abortion bill comes to the president, I hope he'll stop and think about what a fetus really is. It's a human being,” she told the state's House of Representatives during a debate on a bill to restrict partial-birth abortions.
She also has provided the full text or portions of the speech to various newspapers and magazines, most recently The American Feminist magazine's summer issue.
Brown, 46, said she feels compelled to share her own experience when she hears debate about the humanity of premature infants and particularly about partial-birth abortions.
“If people see what I've seen, there would be no question in their minds that this is a human being,” she said.
“I remember just standing over her and looking at her at 24 weeks and I just couldn't believe it. She was this tiny little baby and yet she was completely formed. She had fingernails and she was moving around and she cried when something hurt her,” Brown said.
Brown, a Republican who has served two terms representing the town of Chichester, said such vivid images of Jessica spurred her to speak out when other legislators called a second trimester fetus “a blob of tissue.”
She admittedly has become increasingly vocal in recent months, as she points with pride to her now 24-year-old daughter, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Jessica Brown, who currently is serving as a company officer at the Naval Preparatory School in Newport, R.I.
The soft-spoken legislator readily acknowledges that she has come a long way since 1973, when she was juggling roles as a wife to Gary Brown; a homemaker with one baby (son John, then about 9 months old); and again a mother-to-be, only this time having medical problems from the earliest stages of pregnancy.
“Despite the uproar over Roe v. Wade going on at the time, I'd never thought about abortion. I guess I was always too sick and just too busy being a mom and a wife,” she recalled.
Jessica's surprise arrival Jan. 1, 1974, which doctors had predicted to be a stillbirth, brought the issue into focus quickly and momentously for the Browns.
She feels compelled to share her own experience.
“The doctor looked at my husband and me and said, ‘Her chances are slim, and even if she survives, she'll probably be physically and mentally handicapped, blind or worse. Do you want to try and save her or dispose of her?’” she recalled the doctor asking. “I kind of caught my breath because I couldn't imagine such a thing. Both Gary and I said at the same time, ‘Save her!’”
Brown now looks back on a first year of nightmares, confusion, and “dire predictions” from medical authorities during which love and fervent prayers were the sole sustaining forces. A merry-go-round of hospital trips and two near brushes with death for Jessica cemented her faith in the power of prayer.
“When I took her for her one-year check-up with her pediatrician, the doctor looked her over,” Brown recalled. “When I left she looked at me and said, ‘You know, Mary, she [Jessica] really is a miracle.’ And I did know that.”
For her own part, Jessica not only beat the odds but flourished, eventually attending public grade school and then a private Catholic high school, where she distinguished herself in cross country and other track sports. She graduated as class salutatorian before moving on to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., from which her brother John also graduated, and where she again was active in track.
While Jessica was in college her mother was elected to represent Chichester in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. A self-described political neophyte with a fear of pubic speaking four years ago, Brown said it was also then that a debate on late-term abortions set the stage for her current activities.
“These two women were saying, ‘What's the big deal about these [late-term] abortions? At 20 or 24 weeks it's not a human being, anyway.’ But I was so shy, I couldn't get up to the podium and say anything. All the memories came flooding back and I felt shocked, devastated to the point where all I could do was leave the hall and find a corner downstairs where I cried and cried,” she recalled.
“And I thought to myself, if only I could tell these people what I know, some of them, maybe, would understand.”
So began another odyssey of prayer for Brown, who is not affiliated with any particular religious denomination. Last spring, while the House prepared for debate on a bill to restrict partial-birth abortions, Brown rehearsed her speech repeatedly before the family's Beagle Labrador mix dog, Dixie.
Brown's testimony, which she capped by holding up the photograph of Clinton and Jessica, now is part of the legislative body's record of a defeat for the bill. And while admitting to disappointment about the outcome, Brown, who now is running for a Senate seat, said the experience was worth it if it can change even one mind on the issue.
“I think if most people saw what a young, premature baby looks like, you would see a big change in this idea of abortion on demand, and you'd see a big change in the hearts of people,” she said. “And I hope that happens.”
For her own part, Jessica said she is proud of her mother and ever-mindful of the extraordinary difficulties her parents faced through her lifetime.
“I feel that I don't ever want to take life for granted, or to take for granted the wonderful support my parents — especially my mom — has given me from the very start,” she said. “I owe her my life at least three times over and I am very, very grateful.”
Roberta Tuttle writes from Hamden, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Roberta Tuitle ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II, ever encouraging in his focus on a culture of life, lauds the efforts of organizations such as the Culture of Life Foundation that bring hope, help, and truth to those engulfed in a culture of death:
“St. Paul assures us that the present victory over sin is a sign and anticipation of the definitive victory over death, when there ‘shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”’ (1 Co 15:54-55).
In effect, signs which point to this victory are not lacking in our societies and cultures, strongly marked though they are by the ‘culture of death.’ It would therefore be to give a one-sided picture, which could lead to sterile discouragement, if the condemnation of the threats to life were not accompanied by the presentation of the positive signs at work in humanity's present situation.
Unfortunately it is often hard to see and recognize these positive signs, perhaps also because they do not receive sufficient attention in the communications media. Yet, how many initiatives of help and support for people who are weak and defenseless have sprung up and continue to spring up in the Christian community and in civil society, at the local, national, and international level, through the efforts of individuals, groups, movements, and organizations of various kinds. (Evangelium Vitae 25-26).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Utah Bishop and Others Object To Abortion Group's Letter Campaign DATE: 08/16/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 16-22, 1998 ----- BODY:SALT LAKE CITY—The bishop of Salt Lake City has expressed concern that the wording of a letter circulated by a Utah group that backs legal abortion may result in Catholic leaders being listed among its supporters.
Bishop George Niederauer was one of a number of prominent Catholic leaders who received a letter from Utahns For Choice asking for donations.
Pastors of two of Salt Lake City's largest parishes also received the letter sent to 15,000 people in the state.
The letter, in two different places, included a statement saying that if Utahns For Choice didn't hear from the recipient, “We will add your name to our pro-choice voter list.”
The organization promotes more relaxed state restrictions on abortion and broader funding for family planning services.
In response, Bishop Niederauer wrote to the group: “I strongly disagree with your convictions on these matters, I do not support your organization, its goals and its programs, nor do I wish to be associated with it in any way.”
And in an interview with the Intermountain Catholic, his diocesan newspaper, he said he was concerned that letters sent to others who do not agree with Utahns for Choice's agenda may have been simply discarded.
Those who just discard them will end up having their names added to the group's “pro-choice voter list.”
Msgr. John Hedderman, pastor of St. Ambrose Parish in Salt Lake City, said he recalls receiving a mailing from Utahns for Choice that he never even opened.
“I saw who it was from and just threw it away,” he said. “We get so much junk mail.”
He said he would not be happy to find his name on the voting list of any such group, and added that Utahns for Choice should not be depending on a lack of responses to compile their list.
“Junk mail,” is the same term used by Msgr. Sullivan, pastor of St. Ann's in Salt Lake City, to describe the letter, which he did receive and threw away unopened.
“It's a waste of postage for that group to be sending anything to me, and I don't want my name on their mailing list,” he said.
Bev Cooper, executive director of Utahns for Choice, told the Inter-mountain Catholic that the names of Bishop Niederauer and Catholic clergy should not have appeared on the group's mailing list and they should not have received the promotional letter. She urged anyone who is on the mailing list and does-n't want to be to write and ask that his or her name be removed.
“We have about 80 people on our advisory board and all of them were compiling lists,” she said. “Each person submitted names.”
Apparently, she said, the final list was never evaluated for appropriateness.
“I apologize that the names [of Catholic clergy] were on the list,” she said.
Cooper seemed bewildered by the firestorm of protest the letter engendered, saying, “We might be the victims of a slow news time.”
She said the list was confidential and would not be sold or leased to any other entity. “It will be used for the purposes of mailing only,” she said.
But the letter's fifth paragraph seems to dispute her claim, saying, “Your name and membership will help us recruit.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barbara Stinson Lee ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Northern Ireland Bombing May Imperil Peace Process DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Northern Ireland's worst ever terrorist atrocity, a car bomb in Omagh, County Tyrone, which killed at least 28 people and injured over 200 others, has been branded “a totally evil deed” by the Primate of all-Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady of Armagh.
The bomb, planted by a nationalist splinter group calling itself “the Real IRA,” exploded Aug. 15 at 3:10 p.m., 40 minutes after what police call “a totally misleading bomb warning” was given. The warning said the bomb had been placed outside the Courthouse in Main Street and people were evacuated from that area towards where the explosion took place in High Street.
Among the 28 dead were 13 women and nine children. Hundreds were injured by flying glass and shrapnel causing horrific injuries requiring the amputation of limbs or resulting in blindness. As the Register went to press, more than 100 of those remained hospitalized in critical condition.
Three generations of one family were killed in the incident, a 65-year-old woman, her 30-year-old daughter, who was pregnant, and the pensioner's 18-month-old grandchild. Other victims included two Spaniards, a teacher and a pupil, part of a group visiting Omagh to learn about Northern Ireland's history and heritage. Such was the devastation that three packed buses were used to ferry the injured to hospital and local radio was used to appeal to all medical professionals in the province to report for duty.
Omagh town would normally have been packed with Saturday shoppers at the time, but the market was busier than usual because a carnival was taking place there as part of a Peace Festival, the culmination of a series of cross-community events organized in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement which promised a long-term end to “the Troubles” which for 30 years have dogged Northern Ireland.
While Sinn Fein, the political wing of Northern Ireland's largest terror group, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), had backed the agreement, some of its members disagreed. Last November, a group of republican dissidents met in Donegal and formed a splinter group, “the Real IRA,” which vowed to continue “the armed struggle.” This group is estimated to have no more than 100 members, but, because one of its key organizers includes the IRA's former quartermaster, it is wellarmed and knowledgeable in techniques of mass murder.
The group had carried out three previous bomb attacks, but luckily, until Saturday, no one had been injured. Intensive activity by British and Irish security forces had also thwarted other “Real IRA” bomb attacks, but there were fears that they might launch an attack, like that in Omagh, which could destabilize the peace process. Following an attack last month in Bannbridge, David Irvine of the Progressive Unionist Party warned that Loyalist terror groups would have to reconsider their cease-fires if anyone was killed in a “Real IRA” bomb attack. Already, paramilitaries belonging to the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Volunteer Force have met to consider what their response will be to the Omagh bombing.
Following the atrocity, Archbishop Brady said: “We must name it for what it was — a totally evil deed; the callous murder of men, women and children which no cause can justify. At the moment, we are reeling under the shock and sorrow of what has happened. The first task of the Church and of all Christians is to offer consolations.
“We must not lose sight of what has been achieved by the [Good Friday] agreement which has been agreed to by the majority of the people. We must not give way to despair. We were hoping against hope it would not take place. People must resist the temptation to turn back to violence. The prayer of everybody is that the peace process will continue. It was never going to be easy, we knew there would be setbacks.” Sinn Fein's leadership were clearly shocked by the attack. The group's president Gerry Adams has in the past refused to condemn previous IRA bombings and assassinations, saying it was not for him to “indulge in the politics of condemnation,” but following the Omagh bombing he said:
“I am totally horrified by this action. I condemn it without any equivocation whatsoever.” His deputy, Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's MP for Derry, said the atrocity was “indefensible” and called on those responsible to “stop immediately.”
In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, the Catholic Bishop of Derry, Seamus Hegarty, and his auxiliary Francis Lagan, visited the scene offering what comfort they could to the bereaved and injured. Others who visited Omagh included British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish President Mary McAleese.
Blair called the bombing “an appalling act of savagery and evil” and he vowed to pursue “to the utmost” those responsible. His Irish equivalent, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, pledged to “ruthlessly suppress” the “Real IRA.” Blair and Ahern met in Belfast on Sunday night to discuss their governments’ response to the attack — both men had returned from holiday following the bombing.
McAleese, who was born in Northern Ireland and whose own family suffered at the hands of terrorists, described the bombers as “a posse of serial killers.” She said: “Even if the peace process continues and the Good Friday Agreement remains in place, so many will be affected by unbelievable grief and agony. This uncaring and careless act will have thrown their lives out of kilter.”
Speaking from London Aug. 15, Basil Cardinal Hume, the archbishop of Westminster, said: “To bring such sadness and suffering to the people of Omagh is a crime against humanity. I am calling on all Catholics to remember in their prayers at Mass tomorrow all those who have been so cruelly killed, those who were injured and those who are grieving, as well as all those who have been left to sort out the aftermath of such a thoughtless act.”
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: ARCHBISHOP DECRIES 'TOTALLY EVIL DEED' OF IRA SPLINTER GROUP ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Home-Schooling Phenomenon Shows No Sign of Slowing DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:TORONTO—Catholic home schooling efforts are on the upswing on both sides of the U.S-Canada border.
As most students look to the “dog days” of August as a final respite before returning to the classrooms, increasing numbers of home-schooled students will go no farther than their living rooms for academic and faith instruction.
Taking advantage of the Internet as a key way of exchanging ideas, strategies, and support, home-schooling parents are showing renewed confidence in the face of continuing suspicion and resentment from traditional education supporters and some state education officials.
Catherine Moran, president of the River Forest, Illinois-based Catholic Home School Network of America (CHSNA), said home-schooling is one of the fastest growing phenomena in the United States, Canada, and other English-speaking countries.
Moran estimated that as many as 60,000 Catholic families are now involved in home-schooling in the United States, with thousands more taking part through personally-designed educational programs. Canadian figures generally run at about 10% of the U.S. total.
Home-schooling authorities suggest that when other faith groups are taken into account, up to 1.5 million American children participate in some form of home-schooling. Whatever the numbers, there is little doubt that enthusiasm for Catholic home-schooling is on the rise.
Moran told the Register that parents’ disenchantment with sexual education programs, and declining standards in religious instruction are key factors in the interest in Catholic home-schooling.
“Among the reasons heard most often are unhappiness with school sexed programs, which often rob children of their innocence and promote morbid curiosity about such matters before children are able to understand, and without parental approval or knowledge,” Moran said.
She also said many home-schooling parents have expressed disappointment with the poor quality of sacramental preparation in many parochial and public schools. Too often, she added, traditional schools are weak in teaching basic Catholic beliefs, particularly in such areas as the sacraments, the Real Presence of Christ, and the intercessory relationship of the Blessed Mother with Christ and the Trinity.
Moran dismissed criticism that Catholic home-schooling deprives children of opportunities to socialize with their peers in the public school system, and that it is a form of withdrawal from the real world. Even noted advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby), have attacked home-schooling for denying children access to “mainstream” schools and students.
“We hear this all the time, usually from those who have no knowledge or first-hand contact with home-school kids and their families,” Moran said. “In fact, home-schooled children are especially well socialized because in the family they associate not only with their peers, but with their older and younger siblings, with grandparents, neighbors, adults and other children at church, and at the many picnics and outings that are typical of home schooling groups and associations.”
This view was echoed by Miriam Doylend, president of the Ottawa (Ontario) Catholic Home School Association, one of Canada's largest Catholic home-school groups. “We don't see home-schooling as a form of withdrawal at all,” Doylend said. “Admittedly it's not for everyone and there are a number of sacrifices required, but it's a choice many families have made and it has been successful for them.”
Bob Brindle, director of the Bardstown, Kentucky-based Our Lady of the Rosary School, says Catholic home-schooling is a movement that has come of age. In a report distributed on the Our Lady of the Rosary School website, Brindle said declining standards in public education, particularly involving moral and faith issues, is driving more Catholic parents to the home-schooling option.
“Home-schooling's existence is now recognized by many people and their numbers are growing daily, even though the right of parents to educate their own children at home is being contested in many areas, “ Brindle said.
Our Lady of the Rosary School is one of several Catholic home-schooling organizations offering curriculum, resources, and support to families interested in home-schooling. These “schools” have taken advantage of the Internet and electronic mail to reach even more families throughout North America.
A Catholic home-schooling conference recently attracted several hundred supporters to St. Paul University in Ottawa. Issues discussed at the Ottawa conference included avoiding home school burnout, Church teachings on home-schooling, and home-schooling for the large family.
One of the key speakers at the conference was Dr. Mary Kay Clark, director of Seton Home Study School, and author of the popular book, Catholic Home Schooling: A Handbook for Parents. Dr. Clark's Seton Home Study School in Front Royal, Va., provides home-schooling curriculum to nearly 10,000 families in the United States and Canada
The new popularity of Catholic home-schooling has forced participants to defend the movement. Some state education officials have argued that home schooling parents should be officially certified as teachers. They have also demanded home schooling parents adhere to guidelines and other supervisory measures. The conflict has led to a number of legal battles pitting home schoolers against educational authorities. It has also resulted in the creation of home schoolers’ legal defense organizations in both the United States and Canada.
The certification battle rages despite clear evidence that home schooling students perform above national averages. Studies compiled by the Home School Legal Defense Association in the United States suggest that home-schooled students outperform their public school counterparts by up to 37%, when measured by standardized tests.
Catherine Moran of the CHSNA said despite some concerns over catechetical content, many bishops and diocesan officials welcome the new push for Catholic home-schooling.
“There are stories of real support and cooperation from some traditional bishops who are delighted with parental involvement in recent years, and from local pastors who know the attachment of home-school families to their parishes,” Moran said.
The dioceses of Pittsburgh and Chicago have recently established official guidelines for home-schooling. The guidelines recognize the parents’ role as foremost educators of their children, while ensuring some pastoral involvement in catechetical instruction.
Moran suggested that legislation in most U.S. states and Canadian provinces is tolerant of home-schooling. In Connecticut for example, the law calls on parents and those who have care of children to bring them up in “some lawful employment and instruct them or cause them to be instructed in reading, writing, spelling, English grammar … and United States history.” Similarly, the law in Ontario (Canada) with respect to home-schooling simply states that parents are entitled to remove their children from traditional schools so long as they receive “satisfactory education at home or elsewhere.”
While Catholic home-schooling parents welcome the support of bishops and pastors, some are wary of overregulation. Moran said diocesan guidelines on home-schooling range from reasonable to intrusive. Catholic home schooling groups actively monitor all efforts to regulate the practice with an eye to canon law stipulations on parental rights as primary educators.
This notion of parents taking more control over the education of their children has been bolstered by a 1994 Letter to Families by Pope John Paul II. In the letter, the Holy Father called parents the “primary educators” of their children. “Parents are the first and the most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area,” Pope John Paul said. “They are educators because they are parents.”
Home-schooling authorities are not shy about discussing the sacrifices inherent in the home-schooling option. In addition to the time and energy required to prepare adequate lessons, home-schooling parents often forego opportunities for a second income. “The lack of two family incomes requires parents to examine their first principles and priorities for the years when they are raising their children,” Moran said.
The sacrifices involved in home schooling are more than offset by the rewards, says J. Fraser Field, executive director of the Mission, British Columbia-based Catholic Educator's Resource Center. While not formally a home schooling organization, Field's group supports the aims of home schoolers.
Field said home-schooling in British Columbia has increased by 25% since 1996. “What has been impressive is how willing these parents often are to make personal sacrifices in order to educate their children,” Field said. “By and large the families I have encountered are achieving their goals. They are managing to pass on a living faith to their children while at the same time preparing them to relate and succeed in the larger secular world.
“The majority of home educators I have come to know impress me as down to earth, intelligent, and remarkably well-informed,” Field added. “They are some of the strongest and most active Catholics in their respective parishes.”
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Toronto, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: 60,000 U.S. Catholic families favor education at home ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Collegians Finish Three-Month Cross-Country Walk for Life DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—The fourth annual cross-country pro-life walk, sponsored by Crossroads, Inc., ended with a rally on the Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15 at the U.S. Capitol. The walkers, all college students or recent graduates, began their journey in San Francisco May 22.
The adventure began with eight young men and women, but a core group of about 20 participated in much of the 3,400-mile walk. Most of them are affiliated with Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, where Crossroads’ student-run, nonprofit headquarters is located.
The walkers, as they have done in previous years, sought to bring the pro-life message to the nation. They drew attention to the cause along the route, counseled young people, prayed at abortion clinics, and referred women in crisis to appropriate sources. In addition to witnessing against abortion, they promoted chastity.
The group was welcomed in Washington, D.C., by a Mass for Life at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and a rally on the steps of the Capitol. Among those who helped celebrate the walk's successful completion were Father Frank Pavone, international director of Priests for Life; pro-life activist Joseph Scheidler; and Nellie Gray, president and founder of the March for Life.
The Mass, on the eve of the Assumption, was concelebrated by Father Pavone Aug. 14. In his homily, he said that the lesson of the Virgin Mary's life was a valuable one in understanding how we can love both a mother and her child.
“You love one, you love the other. It's not an either-or,” he said, referring to the need for pro-life advocates to remember both victims in an abortion. This can be accomplished by understanding the value of sacrifice.
The priest told the walkers and their supporters, “We fulfill ourselves when we give ourselves away. Only in giving ourselves away, do we grow. That is the message of the Gospel. That is the message of the Cross.”
The rally the following morning at the Capitol continued this theme of sacrifice and commitment, which was exhibited by the students. Scheidler, who had previously met with the group in Indianapolis, told them he had “nothing but praise and admiration” for their efforts.
“You have taken the message out to the people who won't come and get the message. And that's what Jesus said to do: go and teach. Jesus was our first pro-life activist,” he said.
“But,” he added, “remember always that if you are following Christ, you will follow him all the way. We follow a leader who suffered and died and said, ‘If they hate you, remember they hated me first. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.’“
Many, both in and out of the pro-life movement, believe Scheidler himself is being persecuted by the use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to silence him. But he is undeterred in his optimism and commitment. In an interview with the Register, he said, “I really admire these kids. They're taking the message out to a starving nation, which is seeking the truth.”
Father Pavone also praised the Crossroads volunteers for their outreach. He said, “You marchers have just walked across a country that's lost its conscience, for the most part — a country that has in large measure fallen in love with death.”
The way to counteract that morbid preoccupation, the priest said, is to show the kind of activism the walkers demonstrated. He argued, “The message will not reach the American people until and unless we continually and consistently bring it out into the streets.”
“The problem, brothers and sisters, is not that Bill Clinton is sitting in the White House, the problem is that we're sitting in our house. The people who know what is going on have not only the privilege, but have the obligation to bring that message out into the streets,” he added.
Another national figure, Nellie Gray of the March for Life, thanked the walkers for heightening awareness of the horrors of abortion. She said this was vital because we can't begin to change laws — we can't begin to teach — until we open the consciences of the people of America, the minds and hearts of the people.”
During the rally Crossroads presented its Project Michael Award to Gray for her pro-life efforts. The award was named after a child found in a Chicago trash can outside an abortion clinic in 1995. He was later buried at Franciscan University's Tomb of the Unborn Child.
Also speaking was Joan Appleton, a former abortion clinic nurse and administrator. She now works with the Pro-Life Action Ministries in St. Paul, Minn., and is head of the Society of Centurions of America, an outreach group for past and present abortion providers.
Appleton praised the walkers for providing inspiration for her efforts. She said, “It is the hope that you give me in what you're doing that keeps me going.” She added that she will convey the message of Crossroads and the dedication of its people during her upcoming speaking tour of Irish universities.
The speeches extolling the sacrifice of the walkers were uplifting and well received, but perhaps the most memorable comments came from the walkers themselves. In conversations with the Register, several discussed what the journey meant to them.
Jimmy Nolan, this year's walk leader, has spent the past year helping to raise funds and organize the effort. It was all worth it, he said, because the trip turned out to be an inspirational odyssey.
“What I found out,” he said, “is that you really can't have a strong faith without being pro-life. They go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.”
Joseph Flipper, who has kept a journal chronicling the walk for the Register, (see page 16) said, “Being in front of the abortion clinics was the most gratifying experience: seeing lives saved, possibly seeing souls saved.”
Another walker, Jaime Black, spoke of the girl in St. Louis who decided not to have an abortion after talking with Crossroads members outside a clinic. They arranged for her to see a pro-life video tape and connected her with a local Birthright office.
Black believes her participation in the walk, which began in Lincoln, Neb., was spiritually enriching. “It definitely was God's will. It's the best thing I've ever done in my life,” she said.
Outside of Washington, D.C., Lisa Winkelman said, the group encountered two l6-year-old girls, one of whom already had an abortion and had once been raped. The teenagers were originally hostile.
But after talking for some time, during which the walkers “told them of the love of Jesus and his mercy,” Winkelman said, “you could see a transformation. By the end, they were just glowing. You could just see the grace of God working in them.”
Steve Sanborn, who created the annual walk in 1995, told the rally of his commitment to the pro-life movement, “it kind of sticks to you. It's not something you can shake off, it's something you see as a necessity. it's a moral issue.
“But more than that, it's something that becomes a part of your soul, becomes a part of your mind and your heart, when you see what needs to be done, when you understand that you, yourself, could have been a victim of this [abortion].
“And so by acting, we've become more convicted and we've tried to spread that conviction to others that we meet. The results have been pretty good,” he said.
This year's route included stops in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Maryland before ending in the nation's capital. Sanborn hopes to have two walks next year.
For more information about Crossroads and its 1999 walk contact the group's headquarters at (800) 277-9763.
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Va.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Postal Missionaries Plant Seeds Of Faith in the South DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—John Dillon is a Catholic grade school teacher who does not often travel beyond his home in the Bronx, New York. Yet he is a missionary who works quietly each day with hundreds of other people he never sees to make converts in the heavily Protestant South.
As members of the Society of Sts. Francis Xavier and Therese, Dillon and his associates mail a postcard a day to different households in one of the southern states which contains a brief review of the life of Jesus and an invitation to receive information on the Church he founded. The postcards, with a detachable response form, come from the Society, and the names and addresses come from telephone books in the target areas. Dillon and his fellow members simply fold one of the postcards, address it, attach a stamp, say a short prayer, and drop the card in the mailbox to the unknown person whose life may soon be changed forever. In some ways, says Dillon, his act is one of blind faith. If a person in the South responds to the mailing, the request for more information goes to the Catholic Home Study Service in Perryville, Mo., which is funded by the Vincentian Fathers and the Knights of Columbus.
“I never know who I am reaching and exactly how many people respond,” Dillon told the Register. “Yet I still think this is a significant way to evangelize. I'd rather do it this way than any other.”
Dillon is one of 502 members of the Society, which is named after the two patrons of missionaries, who represent very different styles of evangelization. St. Francis Xavier brought the faith to India and Japan and died on a mission to China. St. Therese spent the entirety of her brief religious life in a cloister, yet reached souls everywhere through her prayers and letters. In this way, she is a model for members of the mail evangelization apostolate.
The Society was founded in the early 1950s by Dr. Ambrose Pare, who was at the time a dentistry student at St. Louis University. He was involved in campus evangelization through a school Sodality, handing out pamphlets on the faith. At graduation, he searched for a way to continue spreading the Good News, even to people he would never meet.
“One day, I just got the idea that it would be great to put this on a big scale,” said Pare, now retired and living in the Queens section of New York City. “Then I heard that the Knights of Columbus was sponsoring a course on Catholicism by mail, with the objective being conversion. What could be better?”
He and a handful of Sodality members ordered phone books from southern cities, gathered Catholic literature, and made a slow start over a kitchen table. Over the years, the operation has become larger and more refined, with a nationwide network of mailers headed by group leaders and a newsletter, but Dr. Pare, now 74, still works essentially from a kitchen table. He does not own a computer and keeps member information on index cards.
“I still do everything by hand,” he said. “It's easier that way.”
He estimates that more than 500,000 postcards have been sent out by Society members in the past 45 years. In the past decade, more than 7,000 requests for further information have been received by the Catholic Home Study offices. How many converts have been made is anybody's guess, says Pare. The correspondence course on Catholicism takes the interested person only so far; for Baptism or reception into the Church, the correspondent is told to contact a local priest. Still, letters from people who have entered the Church come occasionally to the home study offices in Perryville, and some of these are reported in the newsletter.
“We have a story in the current issue about a woman who got one of the cards, went all the way to become a Catholic, and then brought a number of other people into the Church,” said Pare. “Once you send out a message, there is no telling what the Lord will do with it.”
Amazingly, Pare has never met a person who started on the road to conversion through the efforts of his Society, and he expresses no great desire to do so. He sees himself as a simple messenger, sending out the truth of the Gospel to whoever will listen.
“We send the cards out and the Lord takes care of the rest. We leave everything in the hands of the Lord,” he stated. “We make the small sacrifice of time and money, and we pray. What else can we do?”
The only feedback Pare and his members receive is a report every four months from the Home Study Service on how many requests for more information have been mailed back from each state. Members can gauge their effectiveness by checking the numbers in the state they are “targeting.”
“Seeing the numbers is the highlight for me,” said Dillon, whose current field of evangelization is North Carolina. “You know that we're reaching people and they're responding.”
For those who respond, the Home Study Service sends a book on the essentials of the faith, a workbook with questions, and a quiz sheet that may be filled out and sent back to the service for grading. After completing the course, a person is sent a letter of congratulations and suggestions on how to enter the Church. The service enrolls more than 9,000 people per year and about 3,000 complete the course annually, said Vincentian Father Oscar Lukefahr, director of the Home Study Service. People who respond as a result of Society mailings to the South make up a significant portion of these numbers. “The organization is responsible for a number of enrollments we would not get otherwise because they reach a part of the country where there are relatively few Catholics,” Father Lukefahr said. “They are a very important part of what we do, and Dr. Pare is certainly very dedicated to the work of evangelization.”
Deacon James Huvane, a member of the Society for more than 10 years, said, “We are going directly into people's homes without having to speak a word and gain somebody's trust, like a door-to-door evangelist. I've always been interested in spreading the faith, and this is a wonderful vehicle.”
Huvane is one of the few clerics in the largely lay organization. When he began mail evangelization, he was a New York City police sergeant. After retirement, he entered the archdiocesan seminary and is scheduled to be ordained a priest in December at age 67.
“I've been doing it for some time now. I think it's a great ideal. I do my little part in plating the seeds and God brings forth whatever fruit will come of it.” The dedication of members is shown by a man who had been sending out cards for years before being diagnosed with cancer. Before going for his first radiation treatment, he told a fellow member, “This is not going to stop me from working for Sts. Francis and Therese.”
The future of the Society depends on another form of evangelization: members recruiting new members. When Deacon Huvane was on the police force, he gathered a cadre of fellow Catholic officers to join the mailing effort. Soon after he entered the seminary, he had a number of students joining him in the once-a-day stop at the mailbox.
“It's such a great work, and something people can get involved in immediately. You don't need any special knowledge of the faith or a degree in theology before you can start reaching others with the faith,” he said.
The organization had a high of 800 mailers in the 1980s. Dr. Pare would like to double the present number of 502.
“All that it takes is a willingness to work for our Lord in a very simple, straightforward way,” he said. “It doesn't take much in terms of time and money to be a missionary from home.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Maronites Contribute Unique Gifts To Church In Lebanon and Abroad DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—In 1596, the papal legate Father Girolamo Dandini, a Jesuit, and one of the first western churchmen to study the life of Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, described the community to Pope Clement VIII as “the vanguard of Catholic missions in the East,” and a worker for rapprochement with the Muslim world.
In the aftermath of Lebanon's tragic 16-year civil war, Maronites in Lebanon, where they remain the country's largest Christian community, and in the diaspora, find that that missionary vocation, forged in suffering, has, once again, come to the fore.
“Lebanon is more than a country,” says Father Abdullah Zaidan, director of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon in Los Angeles, “it's a mission.”
Father Zaidan, back from a visit to his homeland earlier this summer, described today's Lebanon as “the gateway between East and West,” and a special locus of the dialogue between Christianity and the Islamic world — a view of the country long espoused by the Vatican, and reaffirmed in Pope John Paul's visit to Lebanon in May, 1997, and in the documents of last year's landmark Lebanese Synod of Bishops.
Nevertheless, Father Zaidan lamented the presence of Israeli and Syrian troops in the country which, he said, inhibit Lebanon's freedom of movement in rebuilding its shattered civilian infrastructure.
For this rector of the cathedral of one of two Maronite eparchies (or dioceses) in the United States — Our Lady of Lebanon, established in 1994, and the older St. Maron-Brooklyn diocese — the long-cherished dream of Lebanon as a Christian enclave in the Middle East is no longer viable.
Hopes of carving out a Christiandominated state from the far western portion of the former Ottoman province of Syria were realized by French forces following the First World War, and, largely, confirmed by Lebanon's independence bid in 1944. Under the pressure of outside forces as well as internal ones, the fabric of relations between the country's Maronite establishment and Sunni, Shi'a, and Druze communities broke down in the mid-1970s, plunging the once prosperous country into a devastating civil war which ground to a halt only in the early years of this decade.
“We feel that we lost the [civil] war from that point of view,” he told the Register, “and now we Maronites need to adjust and adapt to the new [postwar] situation in which Lebanon is once again a missionary country, in which, through the work of hospitals, schools, and medical facilities, we must bear witness to Christ and work for peace and coexistence between the communities.”
“The [Lebanese] people are looking to the Church [in the postwar period] not only for their spiritual salvation, but what you might call their ‘patriotic’ salvation as well,” said Father Zaidan. It's the Church that has taken the lead in recent years in ensuring that people displaced by war are able to return to their homes, in organizing financial help, and helping to rebuild the country's medical system.
Maronites have long maintained a difficult balancing act in the midst of the volatile politics of the region.
Alone among the region's Christian communities to remain continuously linked to Rome, Maronites take their name from a fifth century hermit, Maron, who lived in northern Syria. As a result of persecution, early Maronites migrated to Lebanon where they settled in the country's high central range of mountains. “The faith of the mountains,” Maronites evocatively call it. There they managed to carve out an identity for themselves as a people and develop a high degree of independence and cohesion. While some scholars date Maronite ties to the Holy See back to the patristic age, the common view is that formal communion was cemented during the period of the Crusades.
But since the early years of this century, Maronites have done more than “keep the faith” in the highlands of the eastern Mediterranean. They've also emigrated in large numbers to the United States, as well as to Australia and Latin America, where they've become a unique and increasingly visible presence in Catholic affairs.
According to eparchial sources, there are more than 75,000 Maronites registered in parishes throughout the United States.
In Los Angeles, where the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, with some 27 parishes and missions in the western states, is based, this coming October will cap a year of celebrations honoring the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon-St. Peter, the cathedral since the western eparchy was set up under Bishop John Chedid, the church's pastor for more than 40 years, in 1994.
That growing visibility was also evident at the 35th convention of the National Apostolate of Maronites, held the first week of August in Pittsburgh.
Sponsored by the Eparchy (or diocese) of St. Maron, which is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., and covers 16 eastern states, including Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, the convention represents the Church's lay apostolates, said Msgr. Ronald Beshara, director of Jubilee 2000 for the Brooklyn eparchy, and a main speaker at the event.
“Preparing for the millennium — that's where Maronites, along with the rest of the Church, are focused now,” he said.
In fact, he said, the Brooklyn eparchy's efforts to link the three-year preparatory program outlined by Pope John Paul in his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente on the Great Jubilee to a broader five-year comprehensive plan for the whole diocese had been singled out by the U.S. bishops’ Jubilee 2000 committee “as a kind of national model.” “We need to take Jubilee preparation seriously,” he said. “We need to see it as an opportunity to find out where we came from as a Church, who we are, and what our destiny is.”
And what would the implications of such a quest be for Maronites?
“Three streams feed the Maronite identity,” said Msgr. Beshara.
One is a particular approach to Scripture linked to the school of Antioch, a prominent center for biblical studies in the early Church — an approach characterized less by “the distancing of philosophical language, but by an attitude that encourages us to experience God in the Scriptures.”
“For Antiochenes, all creation is simply the setting for the revelation of Jesus Christ,” he said.
A use of poetry and music as primary vehicles of theology is a second stream characteristic of Syriac spirituality — a tradition most closely associated with St. Ephrem the Syrian, perhaps Christianity's greatest poet, who wrote nearly 400 catechetical hymns and metrical sermons.
“Finally,” said Msgr. Beshara, “there's the strong monastic influence on Maronite identity.”
The monastic tonality of Maronite piety “encouraged our Church to focus on detachment from the world, and on a certain eschatological point of view, centered on the Second Coming of Christ.”
“The charism of the Maronite Church,” he said, “is this deeply Scriptural, poetic tradition that, while focused on celebrating the presence of the Risen Lord, is always calling us on to parousia” to the Second Coming.
“That's the danger, as I see it, in the western liturgical tradition,” he remarked. “It's all so logical and demonstrative, so ‘here and now.’ The Maronite Liturgy gives this profound witness to ‘the beyond’ in our midst.”
For Father Abdullah Zaidan, the Maronite charism is, above all, the charism of unity.
“We're very proud to have been in communion with the Church of Rome from the very beginning,” he said. “Also, that we, as Maronites, have managed to stay one Church — not to have a Protestant wing and a Catholic wing, or an Orthodox one. This has been a blessing for us in so many ways. Throughout our history, we've had this role of witnessing to the unity of the Church.”
And then there's Our Lady.
“For the Maronite, there's no question about her,” said Father Zaidan, “no discussion, no debate. All that the Church teaches about her is not only believed, but cherished.”
In Lebanon, he said, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin is always celebrated in grand style.
“Every Maronite will go to church that day,” said Father Zaidan. “Our Lady and the faith of the mountains — it's what we Maronites bring.”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Community is known for unity and as continuous link to Rome ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Chance for Peace in Chiapas DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Since Mexican Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de las Casas decided to step down as mediator between the government and the Marxist guerrillas of the Zapatista front, Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, the of Tapachula, a diocese in the zone of conflict of Chiapas, has been playing an increasingly influential role in the region.
Among his fellow bishops, the young prelate is known as an intellectual with a great pastoral sense. He has published 13 books and has developed a successful pastoral plan for reaching his racially mixed population. Recently, Bishop Arizmendi spoke with Register correspondent Alejandro Bermudez.
Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel
Current Position: Bishop of Tapachula.
Personal: Born in Chiltepec just outside Mexico City; entered the Seminary of Toluca in 1952 and studied dogmatic theology and liturgy at the Pontifical Faculty of Salamanca, in Spain.
Background: Ordained in 1963 for the diocese of Toluca; became the first spiritual director of and later, professor at the local seminary; was vocations and seminaries advisor at the Mexican bishops’ conference.
1986-89: Headed the Organization of Latin American Seminaries (OSLAM),
1990: Chosen as peritus for the Synod of the Bishops at the Vatican.
1991: Appointed bishop of Tapachula, one of the three dioceses in the Southern state of Chiapas.
1994: Elected by the Mexican bishops as a member of the Commission for National Reconciliation — a Church organization that is now playing a leading role in trying to bring peace to the region.
Bermudez: Would you provide a brief overview of the situation in Chiapas?
Bishop Felipe Arizmendi: Chiapas is one of the poorest regions in Mexico. It has a large population of native ethnic groups that have been traditionally forgotten and exploited either by politicians or local landowners. Lately, this situation of misery has become the battlefield for two different social and political systems, two ideologies that are fighting against each other. Both of them talk about democracy and justice, but each of them has quite a different understanding of these terms. So on one side you have the government, which has its own reform program inspired by neoliberal principles, and on the other, you have the leaders of the EZLN who claim to defend the poor but actually have a revolutionary agenda not only for Chiapas, but for all Mexico. As you can imagine, these two perspectives are very hard to bring together at a negotiating table, to talk, and to reach an agreement.
How do you see the current state of the situation and the chances for a true dialogue?
We are extremely concerned since the situation is deteriorating inside Chiapas because of the increasing level of confrontation. The confrontation has now gone beyond the Zapatistas and the government. Today almost everybody is taking sides, thus creating divisions and conflicts that are pitting communities against communities, poor against poor, ethnic groups against one another, and even creating division within towns and families. As a consequence, the government can hardly act fairly, and each intervention from the authorities or the Zapatistas designed to apply justice turns into more injustice, repression, and violence.
That is why our present effort is aimed at getting both sides to sit down face-to-face to achieve a first agreement, which is to move the conflict out of the communities, the towns, and the different ethnic groups.
But originally didn't the Catholic Church in Mexico offer itself as a mediator? Why does it now prefer a direct dialogue between the government and the EZLN?
First, it was not the Catholic Church as such that played a mediating role, it was Bishop Samuel Ruiz. The bishops’ conference was confident of that mediation until Bishop Ruiz himself said that it was impossible to mediate. In fact, from one side, the government openly showed distrust toward Bishop Samuel, while the EZLN never responded to the bishop's calls.
Under those circumstances, what sense was there in continuing to mediate? So it was Bishop Samuel who personally decided to quit. We then said, if this is not working, let's try the other way, which is to promote direct conversations between the two sides.
The Mexican Congress has created a Commission for Conciliation and Peace, known as COCOPA. The Commission is now trying to talk to the EZLN and to persuade it to hold a direct conversation with the government. How do you see these efforts?
Our stand is simple. We believe that any consistent, seriously planned effort to bring peace to the region has to be supported. The COCOPA is trying to find the way to meet the Zapatistas and persuade them to talk to the government. The mere possibility of building such a bridge is worth a try. To be realistic, what we wish for and what it seems can actually be achieved could be two very different things… but hope is the last thing to lose.
How does the bishops'conference believe the dialogue should proceed?
We are certainly in favor of a direct dialogue as opposed to formal mediations. Of course, different organizations, including the Catholic Church, can work as “brokers,” or “deal makers,” that could help to bring sides to the table, but we don't think there has to be an organization in the middle. There are two sides here and neither can ignore the other. The Zapatistas are there with their weapons claiming grassroots support and the government is there with the support provided by the democratic vote cast in 1994 (the last Mexican presidential election). Both of them have to sit down and discuss, not ideological or abstract themes, but the concrete problematic issues.
The government cannot ignore the reality of the Zapatista presence, while the EZLN cannot claim to determine the future of the nation. Besides, both sides, who claim to represent the people, should in fact listen to the people and realize that they want peace. In this sense, we encourage any civil forum that can express the people's desires and expectations because they are of great help, not only by showing the people's will, but also by giving an opportunity to civil organizations to discuss and provide creative solutions.
What is the role the Catholic bishops are playing or plan to play in Chiapas?
Our role has always been the same: a fundamentally pastoral mission. We think that all critical situations require that we improve and enhance that mission, but we cannot claim to play a role other persons or institutions can and should play. Of course, the task of evangelization includes being of service to the community. From this perspective, there are many things the Church can do.
For example, acting as a representative of the voiceless, of those who are the most important — the people — but usually those that are forgotten or simply seen as pawns in a game by the most powerful players. Nevertheless, our most important service is to try to make the Gospel enter the minds and hearts of all, but especially of those who have to make the hardest decisions about the future of the region. For us, the only way to achieve peace is by bringing the faith to all communities.
Is the bishops’ Commission for National Reconciliation, of which you are a member, planning to play as specific a role as the one played by the COCOPA?
We don't want to play an official mediating role. Many are asking what sense this Commission has if it is not going to mediate. We believe that the Commission's work must be focused on understanding the problems better, being informed about the changes and the development of the situation in the area. In this context, we have been very actively involved in listening to the communities — their problems, their expectations, their fears — and on several occasions, we have been deeply involved in solving some local conflicts that have not been followed by the press but are certainly important. This month the members of the Commission are making a five-day trip to the most troubled areas in Chiapas to assess the people's need to talk to the authorities, and of course, to preach ways of reconciliation inspired by the Gospel.
How would you describe the pastoral work of the Church in Chiapas?
Chiapas is a very large and geographically complicated state. It is divided into nine regions, and each of the three dioceses includes three regions. The diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, with 1.3 million Catholics, has a 75% native population. In the diocese of Tuxtla Gutierrez that number is 35%, while Tapachula has a more racially mixed population and only 3.6% are natives. Therefore, the pastoral plan has to be very flexible, adapted to each particular situation and community. Nevertheless, I think that despite the different languages used or the different techniques applied, the common thing is that we have a pastoral plan focused on saving all men, body and soul, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to the guidelines proposed by the Second Vatican Council and the pastoral suggestions made by the Latin American bishops.
What particular challenges does the Church find in the evangelization of native communities that do not speak Spanish?
Well, we certainly are not starting from ground zero. The evangelization launched five centuries ago by the first missionaries bore great fruits. And the cultural values of the native communities are in great concordance with the Gospel: the community dimension, the respect for the environment, the sense of the permanent presence of God. Nevertheless, there are also several vices, like the fatalism and the lack of a sense of the connection between faith and morals, linked to some ancient cults and traditions. These are some of the challenges that we face. But it is important to say that the people proclaim themselves Catholics and keep up to Catholic traditions, so we don't think of the area as “mission territory.”
How might the Pope's upcoming visit help solve the situation in Chiapas?
Well, the Pope's visit next January, almost exactly 20 years after his first visit to Mexico, has given some momentum to peace talks, since almost all Mexicans would like to welcome the Holy Father in a peaceful country. But realistically speaking, we have very little chance of seeing it happen. In the worst case scenario, we expect the Holy Father will strongly encourage peace and reconciliation, thus motivating a stronger effort from the sides involved. Moreover, we expect that he will provide words and wisdom to change attitudes and find ways to live peacefully, as we all wish.
With the Pope's visit on the near horizon, the Mexican bishops have been making pleas for peace. What have their major themes been?
They have been calls to humility and realism. We believe that stubbornness and pride close minds and hearts and prevent them from listening to the other side's ideas. And the lack of realism makes each side believe they can achieve what they want without cooperation from the other. So we call on all sides to listen with open minds, trying to concede as much as they can in all that they do not consider fundamental. We are also calling for self-criticism and flexibility. As an example, the government has to realize that some national laws have to be adapted to respect native culture, while the Zapatistas have to realize that their violent actions are only isolating the region more and thus bringing more misery to the poor.
— Alejandro Bermudez
----- EXCERPT: Has the Church's role in the troubled state of Mexico shifted? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Knights Present HLI with Papal Statue DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va.—Human Life International (HLI) dedicated a large bronze statue of the Holy Father at a Mass and ceremony on the Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15. The 5'6” work was created through contributions from the Knights of Columbus’ 105 Virginia councils.
Father Richard Welch, CSsR, president of HLI, told a large crowd at the organization's world headquarters, “Thousands of visitors annually will pass by this statue commemorating the Holy Family, many from other countries. This way we will be able to spread the message of the Gospel of Life globally.”
As well as providing financial support for the statute, which was designed by Don Sheppard and cast in Italy, the Knights presented additional funds to HLI for pro-life programs.
The Knights of Columbus have been very active in pro-life activities. Richard Kurzenknabe, a Past Grand Knight who spoke at the event, said that $8.8 million have been raised for such efforts throughout the country.
HLI is the world's largest pro-life and pro-family educational organization. Now in its 26th year of service, it has 56 chapters in the United States and abroad. It was founded by Father Paul Marx OSB, who still serves as its board chairman. (Joseph Esposito)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Editorial To Politician: Choose Pro-Abortion or Church
“Two of Arizona's representatives belong in the hall of shame on this issue [of partial-birth abortion]: John Kolbe [a Methodist from Tucson] and Ed Pastor both voted against the veto override.
“Pastor, a name which means ‘shepherd,’ ought to be thrice ashamed. The shepherd protects innocent, defenseless sheep from predators. Not Pastor; he has consistently voted pro-abortion and forsaken the defenseless unborn.
“Pastor is a Democrat, the party that for decades has aligned itself with the downtrodden, the oppressed, and those who have no voice; the Democratic Party ought to be the one to protect the voiceless unborn. While there are people of good will in the party, unfortunately it has consistently been the party of death when it comes to abortion.
“Pastor is also a Catholic. He knows the Church's teaching on abortion and refuses to follow it. He could do much to preserve the unborn lives, but does not. He supports the availability of any abortion, every abortion.”
“It is time for Pastor to change his heart — and his voting record — on abortion. If not, he ought to disavow his Catholic faith. He cannot possibly, in good conscience, reconcile his faith and his stance.”
Organ Recipients Likely to Embrace Religion
The paper interviewed three people who had organ transplants. George Cameron received a kidney. Bill Lombardi and Bob Seibold received new hearts. Experts in the field say their responses are typical of a phenomenon that they see in nearly every patient saved by an organ transplant: they have each found religion.
Cameron was a lapsed Catholic before his brush with death and the surgery that saved him. Now he centers his life around confession, Mass, and the Eucharist.
Lombardi is nagged by questions about the meaning of life, and says he feels God's presence. “It's an internal radiance that I feel,” he is quoted saying. “It's a feeling of love, an extreme and deep love. It's also an awareness that … something else is going to come about, but you don't know what it is.”
Seibold told the paper, “There is no plausible explanation for me being alive today other than that it was God's will.”
Woman Converted by Friends and Eucharist
“The year was 1989. I had a respectable job with a respectable salary, an advanced degree from an Ivy League school, good friends. I was buying a condo. Professional success, prestige, power, money, approval from others…I thought that the life I was working for would lead me to happiness and love; instead I was miserable.
“I…had a lot of Roman Catholic friends and through them experienced the strength of their faith. It was my earliest experience of community.
“A friend suggested I read some stories written by others who had converted.… ‘If you feel called by the Catholic Church,’ another said, ‘then go to Mass.’
“I went to Mass in the spring of 1990. It was a Wednesday night… When I got there I discovered that it was Ash Wednesday. It was raining buckets outside, and I was soaked and late. So I had to stand in the back.
“The priest was speaking about reconciling oneself to God. I stood near the door and cried as hard as it rained. I knew then that I had come home.…
“At the center of [my faith] is the Eucharist, which is receiving the body and blood of Christ. When I take Communion with the countless other Catholics in the world, it gives me hope. The hope is that despite all our divisions, our violence, hatred, anger, injustice, and poverty, that someday humanity will be one. This hope is what gets me through each week.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Mexican Cult has Partisan Motives, Catholic Trappings
The reason: the cult runs the town of Nueva Jerusalén, which faithfully votes for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said the article. Village leaders, followers of Nabor Cardenas — “Papa Nabor” — enforce a strict code that jails men for talking with women after the town's daily rosary, or for missing daily Latin Mass, the report said.
Villagers follow what they are told, from faith in the leader's supposed visions, or from fear of the private police force which carries forbidden military-style heavy weaponry and controls the town's substandard but much-used jail, said the report.
Mexican authorities refuse to intervene on the people's behalf, the report said, and in fact have given the town special privileges because it dependably votes for PRI in a Province that the Party might otherwise lose. Exiled villagers said that at each election they would be told that town leaders had been talking with “the Virgin,” who wanted them to vote PRI.
According to the article, the cult believes Pope Paul VI is still alive, held hostage in the Vatican basement by conspiratorial thugs, but that he will emerge before the world ends in the year 2000 in order to save mankind.
Christ's Head is Not in Scotland, Says Church
That's why, when an anthropologist claimed to have found Christ's head, a Scottish Church official considered his theory important enough to disprove, which he did in an August 11 BBC report.
Dr Keith Laidler has written a book, The Head of God - The Lost Treasure of the Templars, explaining that there was a cult of heads in the Middle Ages, and that one chapel in Scotland had a claim to the greatest of all: Jesus Christ's. Theories of its transport to Scotland from Jerusalem involve Mary Magdalene in one version, and a Knights Templar who visited the Holy Land in another. It is still buried beneath the 15th century Rosslyn Chapel, Laidler says.
Father Danny McLoughlin, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, turned to history to address Dr. Laidler's claim: “The Templars disappeared in Scotland in the 13th century and that chapel was not built until 300 years later, so there seems to be a slight problem there, to say nothing of the other problems we would see,” he is quoted saying.
Catholics in Tasmania Protest Explicit TV
A group called the Tasmanian Catholic Schools Parents and Friends Federation is objecting to the authorities about sexually explicit advertisements. The group's president, Ian Dalton, said that while the group was particularly concerned about television ads — which he says are now aired during major sporting events that kids like to watch — the federation also objects to such ads in the print media, said the report.
“It needs to be stringently monitored,” if not banned altogether, Dalton is quoted saying.
The group hopes to be successful in its efforts by showing a broad concern about community issues. The federation also voted to speak to government officials on behalf of the education budget and traffic safety issues, the report said.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Holy See Leads Fight for Life and Family DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:LISBON—Pro-family nations, led by the Holy See and assisted by international pro-family lobbyists, scored a significant victory on the final day of the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in Lisbon. Quite unexpectedly, a paragraph recognizing the family as “the basic unit of society” and affirming the call of young people to marriage was incorporated into the preamble of the official “Lisbon Declaration.”
The Holy See bid to include the reference to family and marriage was thought to have little chance of success when negotiations began on Sunday, according to main negotiation committee chairman Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Canada's Secretary of State for Youth. The prospects darkened even further on Monday when the more liberal western states helped to reject an earlier Holy See bid to recognize the fundamental rights of parents.
But when debate on family and marriage commenced on Tuesday, resistance to the language was overcome by an artful bit of diplomacy by tiny Andorra. In place of the language suggested by the Holy See, Andorra suggested using language approved long ago at the 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit. Muslim and Catholic countries were joined in support by the United States and all resistance to the family-affirming Copenhagen language fell away.
National delegates credited pro-family lobbyists in the eventual successful outcome. Among them, Holy See delegate John Klink noted the presence of many pro-life youth representatives attending their first U.N. gathering. He credited them specifically with ensuring a strong pro-family content in the final report on a “working group” discussion held during the conference.
On the other hand, pro-family forces acknowledge that they suffered a major setback with the rejection of a parentalresponsibility reference in the Lisbon Declaration. The Declaration calls for youth access to “reproductive health care” and “family planning methods of their choice.” The Holy See had campaigned strenuously for a reference to parental rights be inserted. Since both “reproductive health” and “family planning” services — by official U.N. definition — include access to abortion and artificial contraception, the Lisbon Declaration now calls for parent-free access to those anti-life services. Alarmingly, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Paul Bloem stated at an August 10 press conference that U.N. agencies interpret the Lisbon Declaration's health recommendations as being applicable to children as young as 10.
In spite of these hazards, the delegates rejected the Holy See bid to temper the language regarding “reproductive health” and “family planning” with an acknowledgment of parental authority. In so doing, Klink pointed out, the conference had ignored key human-rights documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, that specifically affirm parental responsibilities. (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Vatican's Patrons of the Arts Director Picks Top 5
But that gives him the chance to see select works of art in a different light, “both literally and figuratively,” he told the paper.
The newspaper asked him to name his five favorite works of art in the Vatican collection. His answers follow:
• “St. Matthew and the Angel” (Guido Reni, 1635-40): In the painting, “there is a palpable sense of mutual affection, admiration, and tenderness between the two” subjects.
• “The Vision of Saint Helena” (Veronese, circa 1580): Though it depicts the saint asleep, “Veronese manages to…suggest a surprising amount of action.”
• “The Annunciation” (Virginio Ciminaghi, 1967): Mary and the angel Gabriel “almost seem to be dancing around in a vortex.”
• “The Penitent Magdalen” (Guercino, 1622): “…one of the great painters of the [Baroque] age,” Duston said.
• “Eros of Tespia” (Unknown Roman sculptor, Second Century): This Roman copy of a Greek bronze statue has some oddities — the quiver has been turned upside down — but “that can't take away from the extraordinary beauty.”
Peter's Net
• By 2000, Vatican programmers hope to have “all the teachings” of this century's nine popes available on the Internet, said the article. That includes the 20 thick volumes of John Paul II, who is one of the most prolific popes in recent times, said the report.
• Other plans include direct hookups giving bishops and Vatican nunciatures direct access to the Vatican's computers through private phoneline connections that don't rely on the regular web access. The report said this would provide direct and secure lines of communication about everything from persecution to doctrine.
• The Web site started in 1995 by giving the Pope's Christmas message of that year, according to the report.
• Hackers try to break into the Vatican's computers six or seven times a day, officials there said. So officials no longer reveal the names of the computers in their network. The original three — Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael — take their names from archangels who, unlimited by time or space, bring God's message to the world.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: War Never Again! DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:War is loud. Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's World War II film, is very loud. But the most impressive sound I heard was the silence. The audience remained silent as the credits rolled, silent as they filed out of the theater, silent in the long corridors of the suburban cineplex, silent even as they drifted out into the parking lot.
Piercing volleys of gunfire, exploding mortars, staccato bursts of automatic weaponry, sharp cracks of the sniper's rifle, low rumbles of encroaching tanks, thunderous bombs — all this plus the screams of dying men and then: silence. A haunting silence hangs heavy over a battlefield when the guns have fallen quiet, all words stifled by the suffocating stench of death. It is Spielberg's greatest achievement to reproduce that silence for members of my generation.
We who were still finger-painting when Saigon fell have had no direct experience of war. The 1991 Gulf War started in Super Bowl week and was over before opening day of the new baseball season. Viewer-friendly courtesy of CNN, it was chock-full of bombs so smart and planes so stealthy that charred bodies could only ruin the lovely pictures. It was war thoroughly domesticated for family consumption, not unlike the continuing adventures of Rambo.
My generation has grown up in the shopping-mall cineplexes that Rambo dominated. The sterile places which offer six mindless shoot ‘em-ups and a half-dozen juvenile comedies are ill-suited for material that aims above the frivolous, let alone historical instruction. Many of us owe what we know about the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail to Spielberg's Indiana Jones series. The director of mechanical sharks, robotic extraterrestrials, and computer-animated dinosaurs is an unlikely teacher of historical lessons. But he has filled more theater seats than any other and he knows the power of his art. As we have grown up on his movies, so too has he matured, and is now attempting to teach powerful lessons.
Saving Private Ryan's message is simple and emphatic. It is anti-war. It is antiwar in general, without fretting about the specifics of this or that war. It is anti-war in the same way that General Norman Schwarzkopf is anti-war: to know it, to have lived it, is to loathe it and strive to avoid it. Saving Private Ryan is anti-war simply because it brings the horror — and here even “horror” is too flat a word — of war to those who have not seen it, do not know it, cannot loathe it, and so might too quickly embrace it.
War is the protagonist in this film. We meet a not-so-merry band of soldiers, but the largest screen presence belongs to the war itself. It matters little which war, and Spielberg asks a new generation to do something even more valuable than remembering Mrs. Sullivan's sons, or the Rangers on Omaha Beach. Saving Private Ryan asks us to think about war itself.
Earlier generations thought about war because they lived through it, whether in combat or waiting for news at home. They knew it to be a “godawful mess,” as one of Spielberg's soldiers put it. Spielberg allows us to hear Emerson reflecting on the virtues that warfare brings to the fore, but not without a reminder that such reflections can only be a strained effort “to look on the bright side.”
Twenty years after the liberation of Europe, Pope Paul VI cried out at the United Nations in New York: “War — never again!” Another 25 years later, Pope John Paul II, a man of peace who came of age in a time of war, repeated the cry as the world prepared to liberate Kuwait. After that war the Holy Father wrote, “No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind it a trail of resentment and hatred…” (Centesimus Annus #52).
War teaches how to kill. Spielberg shows us the transformation of the company translator, who slowly, reluctantly, fitfully, but at last decisively discovers that he has it within him to shoot an unarmed man. What war does to the bad guys is awful. What it does to the good guys is tragic.
We tend to focus on what our soldiers do to an evil enemy. Fair enough. But war itself is an enemy that does terrible things to our soldiers, even when they are victorious. An 18-year-old American private gets in a bulldozer and executes his mission. Mission accomplished means that hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have been buried alive in their desert trenches. Necessary perhaps, but not noble.
Which is not to say that Emerson was wrong. Or that St. Thomas Aquinas was wrong about just war theory. Or that the boys of D-Day were not heroes in the cause of justice. All of that still holds, but it loses some of its force when we watch schoolteachers and cartographers learn the art of killing. The justifications for war remain, but their persuasive power is shaky, like sandcastles on the beach. Sandcastles easily overwhelmed by a tide crimson with the blood of the fallen.
War — never again! It is a cry difficult for the young to understand. Our experience provides no referent for the “again.” We need to be instructed about the reality of war. That the lesson might be taught in the suburban shopping-mall-cummovie-theater is surprising, but an occasion for gratitude.
In the face of the reality of war, words fail, as even Abraham Lincoln's words were insufficient to console Bixby, or to hallow the ground at Gettysburg. All that is left is silence. A silence that allows to arise in the heart a prayer, even as Spielberg's soldiers pray in their time of trial. In time that silent prayer forms a cry on the lips of those who have been witnesses. Saving Private Ryan has given rise to, as much as is possible across the decades, a cohort of new witnesses. And we, God willing, will join our voices to the cry of all witnesses, War — never again!
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian in Ontario, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: A Trusty Handbook for People in the Pew DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Mass Confusion: The Do's and Do'nt's of Catholic Worship by James Akin (Catholic Answers, San Diego CA, 1998, 244 pages, paperback, $15.95)
As a rule of thumb, 90% of Catholics receive 90% of their exposure to things Catholic at Mass on Sunday. If Sunday Mass is sound sacramentally, doctrinally, homiletically, even dramatically, then the great majority of what most Catholics will get about their faith will be sound. But if Sunday Mass is flawed in any respect, let alone in many respects, then the great majority of what most Catholics get will be seriously flawed.
It's an open secret, of course, that parish liturgies have, in a little over one generation, dropped precipitously in terms of virtually all measurable factors: average attendance, ministerial compliance with rubrics, doctrinal topics presented in homilies, and so on. Granted, in comparison to most other American Christian denominations, and certainly when compared to European Catholicism, weekly Catholic liturgies in the United States seem relatively well attended and consequently some degree of success in parish liturgical life can be claimed. But the key word here is relatively.
Sunday Mass for most Catholics has become a relative experience. The minister decides, often unaware that he has done so, which rubrics will be followed and which forgotten or violated. Lectors decide (or have decided for them by equally unauthorized persons) which Scripture texts will be edited in proclamation and which ones won't. Musicians decide which musical styles will be followed at which Mass. The people are often encouraged to decide for themselves which parts of the Mass are meaningful for them. Today, parish shopping, with selection based primarily on liturgical styles of celebrants, is common.
Who could be blamed for seeing in all of this, not “the liturgy [which is] the common celebration of the Church itself, that sacrament of unity” (1983 CIC 837) but rather, mass confusion? Fortunately, James Akin's book of that same title does what no other book has even attempted to do: it compiles in a popular format the authoritative documents of the Church on proper liturgical function, and presents them in a manner useful to those most affected by, yet least able to apply, those documents themselves — laity in the pew.
James Akin is a senior apologist with the worldrenowned Catholic Answers, Inc. Only 33-years-old, his gripping personal story is included among a dozen moving narratives about conversion to Catholicism presented in Patrick Madrid's best-seller, Surprised by Truth (Basilica Press, 1996). Akin is a regular columnist with This Rock magazine and a popular guest and co-host on “Catholic Answers Live” daily radio program.
But Akin is not, and makes no pretense of being, a “liturgical expert” in any conventional sense of the term. He takes the liturgists at their word when he writes, “As is so often pointed out, the liturgy is not the exclusive domain of liturgical experts. It belongs to the whole people of God. Even the most humble person has the right to study and inform himself of what constitutes authentic Catholic liturgy and to compare it with the liturgies he experiences.” That's why his book can be so useful to laity. Their questions are his questions and their expectations are his expectations.
Akin examines virtually every aspect of practical interest to laity in the celebration of Mass. After a brief review of post conciliar liturgical history and an overview of the proper roles of the principal ministers of Mass, Akin proceeds chronologically through the liturgy from the introductory rites, through the readings and Eucharistic prayers, to Communion and the concluding rites. He also examines liturgical vestments and furnishing and treats such things as proper posture and actions during Mass. There are even some suggestions on various methods for resolving liturgical disputes locally before lasting damage is done to faith and feelings. Liturgical music, however, being nearly a field of its own, is referenced only occasionally.
Two things in particular commend this book to a wide audience. First is Akin's willingness to quote carefully from original Church documents on liturgy, rather than merely offering his own interpretation of what they say. This bespeaks not only Akin's willingness to present liturgical rules in their proper context, but his recognition of the right of the faithful to read for themselves what Church leadership wants in the way of sound liturgy. Second, Akin offers a table of “Commonly Raised Issues” with clear indications of propriety, along with more detailed references for further study. This is, after all, a handbook which needs to lend itself to more practical applications.
The first step in pursuing the good is knowing what it is. Catholics who wish to know what goods are offered in the liturgy as envisioned and authorized by the highest ecclesiastical authorities can hardly begin their search better than by consulting Akin's excellent reference work.
Dr. Edward Peters is a canon and civil lawyer in San Diego, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Archbishop Chaput's Five Key Themes on Faith DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:The July/August issue of The Catholic Faith carries an article by Charles Chaput, archbishop of Denver, on “The Task of Evangelization in Secular America.” Challenging Catholics to preach the whole message of Christianity, Archbishop Chaput writes: “All of us love Christmas. That is the easy part of the message. There's much less consumer demand for Good Friday… That part of the Gospel is harder to preach.
“It is also harder for each of us to accept personally…I mention this because, in developed countries, when we talk about Jesus Christ — and our lives as Christians — we tend to soften the rough edges… The Good News is not a message of niceness. It is a revolutionary message of new life in Christ through death to the self … and the world usually doesn't want to hear it, and will often resist it with violence.”
“After noting that “our mission territory is right here in our backyard,” the archbishop explains, “So often today, religious affiliation is just a veneer that covers up practical unbelief. And we all know one or two young adults who have just enough formal religion to be vaccinated against real faith. They were educated in the Church, and they think they know everything about her — but they really know nothing at all… So as a culture, we have the memory of faith and a kind of nostalgia for God, but we're losing our moral vocabulary as we pull away from our religious tradition.”
Archbishop Chaput then sets out “five main ideas or themes where we need to focus our special efforts” in teaching children about the faith. “The first is silence. Silence is holy. It's where God talks to the soul… You and I should be interested in what bores or frightens young people about the absence of noise. I have a fear that we've created a huge hole in the universe where the meaning of life used to be, and noise is the only thing now which keeps it from being completely empty.”
Second, “We push [God] completely out of sight…God is almost completely absent from the context of children's T.V. It's such an obvious statement, but we need to re-introduce children to the idea of God, God not as a force or an abstract idea or a science-fiction energy field, but as a Father with a plan for our happiness who is intimately involved with our lives… We can love a Father. We cannot know, much less love, a force. The personhood of God, especially in his Trinitarian reality, implies relationship — not only within the Trinity, but with humanity and all creation. And every relationship implies mutual rights, responsibilities and purpose, which is exactly what's missing from the lives of so many young people.”
“My third concern is the nature of truth. Asense of absolute right and wrong is absent not only from many of today's children — but much more alarmingly, from many of their parents… We're becoming a people of alibis instead of principles. And in doing it, we're even less able to understand the deeper, divine truth which takes on human flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ.”
Next comes the archbishop's fourth point, “the idea of freedom… ‘Choice’ is not necessarily freedom, and the idolatry of choice is just another form of slavery.… Real freedom is rooted in self-sacrifice… Freedom is not choices without purpose. Real freedom is … ‘to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…’ And it's a walk that leads to the cross. We need to take that walk ourselves, and model it…”
“And this leads to my final thought on this point: Whatever her faults, the Church is the only, truly free, community in creation… She is the vessel through which God pours hope and holiness into the world. She is the silence where we can hear God calling our name. She is the path we take to answer Christ's call, ‘Come, follow me…’”
“Spiritual warfare is real… The cost of that war is the blood of martyrs, and the history of this century is written in it. That's what I mean by missionary realism. If you teach the truth, brothers and sisters, you are the friend of God. And if you are the friend of God, you are the enemy of those who revile him.”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Lefebvre's Undoing
I found the article on “New Latin Mass Orders Making Pa. Diocese a ‘Spiritual Powerhouse’” (Register, Aug. 9-15) both informative and inspiring, in that the more traditional movement is creatively inspiring vocations at the same time that the new theology can only propose the non-Catholic notions of priestesses and the suppression of celibacy as solutions to the vocations crisis it itself created.
However, certain statements made about the Society of St. Pius X and its founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, were not entirely accurate. As anyone who has read Pope John Paul's Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei knows, Lefebvre was excommunicated for the “schismatic act” of disobeying a “formal canonical warning” not to consecrate bishops against the Pope's wishes (#3), not at all for a “lack of support for changes brought by the Second Vatican Council.”
Many loyal groups, such as Father Joseph Fessio's Adoremus, point out that the liturgical innovations of our day were not so much as mentioned in any Vatican II documents. Even Lefebvre, in his 1976 book A Bishop Speaks, supported much of the Council's liturgical agenda, saying, “Some reform and renewal was needed.… Let the priest draw near the faithful, communicate with them, pray and sing with them, stand at the lectern to give the readings from the Epistle and Gospel in their tongue.… All these are happy reforms restoring to this part of the Mass its true purpose.”
On the other hand, Pope John Paul has, in his concern for “those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition” and to “facilitate their ecclesial communion” and “rightful aspirations” (Ecclesia Dei #5[c]) provided the indult “for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962” (#6[c]). The article failed to mention that not only the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but all of the sacraments are licitly administered in their traditional, pre-Vatican II form by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. Therefore, it seems inaccurate to say that the schismatic group's problems relate to “lack of support” for Vatican II changes, when the Pope himself has explicitly given the indult for just that: all of the sacraments and minor orders in their 1962 form with no Vatican II changes.
Eugene Mafi Seal Beach, California
Prizer wrong on Ryan
John Prizer's priggish review, “World War II Meets the Hollywood Hype Machine” (Register, Aug. 9-15), totally misses the point of Spielberg's epic Saving Private Ryan. The movie is a study on the theme of redemption via sacrifice: After the movie opens with a man dropping to his knees before a cross, a young “teacher” (which means rabbi in Hebrew and is one of Jesus'titles) gathers his followers, at times telling them to leave behind the familiar tools of their trade (i.e. typewriters)and leads the bickering band of men to “save” every man. He ends up saving Ryan in the midst of the battle between good and evil (i.e. in the arena of a sin-riddled world) by dragging him across the bridge (over the waters of baptism). In doing so, he is betrayed and mortally wounded by a Judas-like German who owes his life to him. Just before dying he is temporarily rescued from on high by a bomber which the soldiers had previously referred to as “an angel.” The last scene finds Ryan asking tearfully if he has led “a good life” in response to Miller's sacrifice.
Does any of this sound familiar? We need more movies like this that employ the Christian mythos. Because of its graphic violence, this film will do much to give people pause before they go rushing off to war. It is easily more powerful than any other film of its genre ever filmed. I totally disagree with Prizer in his statement that this territory has been mapped before by other film makers.
John Hoyle Waynesboro, Virginia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Some Old-Fashioned Dancing Could Do The Culture Good DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:For a microcosm look at what's wrong with male and female relations today, look at the social dancing that grew out of the recent decades of cultural degeneration. Men don't lead, and women dance alone.
Even if a woman is dancing one-on-one with a man, which would be a rarity, she is still dancing alone. He's doing one thing. She's doing another.
Recently, I was at a party with lots of loud music. In the center of the room a few dozen people my age were engaging in free-form gyrations, as a group.
I was happily engaged in a conversation about politics, when someone grabbed my arm and said, “Come on,” motioning in the general direction of the dance floor.
“No thanks,” I said.
“Oh, you don't like to dance,” was the conclusion.
It was a bit unfair. I love to dance. In fact, when I can, I go out dancing once a week. I just prefer dancing in a duo that includes a man, accompanied by music that is not a throwback to a primitive era.
And, I'm not alone. While many people of my generation are stuck in the post-Woodstock era, people in their early 20s have discovered swing dancing.
In fact, swing is cool.
In most large American cities, bars with swing music are mobbed with young couples, who, it seems, have more in common with their grandparents than their parents.
And, swing bands are chic. The musicians, who look barely old enough to vote, sing about romance rather than promiscuity and violence.
That is not good news for the men of the Baby Boom generation. Put them on a dance floor with a girl and play some Glen Miller music — they'll probably feel the same way as their parents felt when they first faced a computer.
“I don't like to dance,” is the response that most men between the ages of 30 and 60 give, when the subject arises. Really, what they are saying is, “I don't know how to dance.”
Could their fathers have been so much more intelligent and physically coordinated than they are?
Or, to put it another way: if dancing according to a prescribed pattern is so difficult, how could it be that almost every man in the World War II generation knew how to do it?
Of course, the older generation had lots of motivation to learn. If a man wanted to be close to a beautiful woman, if he wanted to spend precious moments with her on the dance floor, chatting, laughing, inhaling her perfume, he had to know how to dance.
By doing so, he was catering to her wishes, because what women want more than anything is romance. And, there are few things in life as romantic as real dancing.
“Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek, when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek,” the old song goes.
In real dancing, the man leads. That means he has to plot a path through the crowd, communicate his intentions to the woman, protect her as they glide across the dance floor, and be attentive to what she is doing. In a nutshell, it teaches him to respect her.
The woman is responsible for not leading — it's called “following” — and here the hackles of the feminists rise.
On the dance floor, the man is the boss, a fact that seems to offend modern sentiments. But I would suggest that letting men lead, at least once in a while, could dramatically improve most relationships. After all, now that women run the show, are we really happier?
And, if women find it so offensive to follow, why is it that in any dance studio, or in any community center that offers ballroom dancing lessons, the women have dragged the men there to learn?
Hilary Tucker is one of those Generation-X Americans who, with her husband, has discovered the romance of real dancing.
“Ballroom dancing glorifies true femininity and masculinity. Think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across a parquet floor. Then imagine that degree of romance apart from dancing. It's not possible. Dancing, the old forms and styles, is the perfect metaphor for falling in love,” she wrote in “A Dancer's Manifesto,” an article that ran in Crisis magazine several years ago.
“All able-bodied men can learn to dance properly,” she concluded, “provided they care enough to overcome nature, which has inclined them to boorishness.”
Kathleen Howley is a Boston-based journalist.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathleen Howley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Love Letter for the Ages DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:A mother of eight who has lived according to Humanae Vitae urges Catholics to share the wisdom and beauty of Pope Paul VI's controversial 1968 encyclical.
It's vacation time, and as I sit with our 4-month-old baby and watch our other seven children play, I marvel at our happiness and automatically think about human life. This is what God designed — family life. The model of father, mother, and children. I suspect if more people understood a certain love letter written three decades ago, there might be more happy families living human life as God designed. That love letter, written by Paul VI, was Of Human Life, Humanae Vitae.
Primed for Truth
Indeed, Humanae Vitae had a cold reception in 1968, but I wonder if the message might be better received today. Society has lived these past 30 years in rebellion, open rebellion, to the beautiful truth of human life. Contraceptives are considered socially responsible for a world mired in pre-marital sex. Abortion is claiming millions of preborn innocents, sterilizations are common, test-tube babies ordinary, and the practice of freezing tiny human beings for selfish, and even experimental purposes, is fast becoming old news. Surrogate parenthood gone bad is tearing at the hearts of misled couples who turned to science to fill their empty arms. The numbers of fatherless children and poverty-stricken single mothers swell, while families with a missing parent account for perhaps half of all households.
We've lived with the rebellion, and its foul odor and bitter taste are now being recognized. The complete disregard of divine design and purpose in human life have brought us babies in trash cans, divorce rates that make marriage a 50/50 gamble, skyrocketing teen pregnancy and drug use, suicide where so-called doctors “assist,” pornography, violence, dirty language, and base standards. The list goes on. With these rotten fruits so visible, so certainly a consequence of our total disdain for truth, society is ready. The moment is now to teach and to preach the Gospel of Life again.
The young are our hope. Recent polls surprise me with young people's responses to questions about our society. More teens as an age group are against abortion than adults (Zogby, International Poll, '98). Nearly half of teens believe sex outside of marriage is “always wrong” (New York Times/CBS Poll, Jan. '98). It makes sense. They're growing up in this mess and their gut tells them that things are less than perfect.
A Rocky History
It's the 30th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. Among other things, Pope Paul's wonderful statement taught against contraception, abortion, and limiting the size of one's family without serious reason. Forget that when the document came out it was decried by some, praised by few, and largely ignored by everyone else. Forget about all the Sunday sermons where opportunities to expound this truth were wasted. Forget about the dissident theologians who openly taught against it. Forget about the religious educators, priests, nuns, and bishops who neglected their sacred duty to teach these truths. Forget those who neglected their duty to self in not searching to fully understand why the Church teaches what she teaches, especially if they intellectually disagreed with it. Forget the bitterness a lay person feels for the betrayal shown her by all these people in not honestly passing on the faith in its entirety. Forget, forget, forget!
Humanae Vitae was written specifically to address many trouble spots for the modern faithful. From the start Pope Paul acknowledged the difficulties of married persons in the most serious duty of transmitting human life. He also acknowledged changing times, population fears, economic stress, and the role of working women. He recognized “stupendous progress in the scientific and medical realm of man's control and knowledge of the human body.” Then he bravely asked the tough question of whether the time had not come for man “to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.”(3) Then the Holy Father humbly reminded us of the teaching authority of the Church, who teaches according to God's will.
Understanding Sex
The Church's teaching on contraception is clearly misunderstood by many. On the surface, the practice of artificial birth control would seem almost harmless, except for the aspect of contraceptives as abortifacients. Humanae Vitae lays out a flawless framework explaining the meaning of human sexuality — the divine purpose for designing sex, if you will. Only with a full understanding of human sexuality can contraception be seen for what it is.
Pope Paul explains the purpose of conjugal love, telling us sex is both “pro-creative” and “unitive”(12). The unitive quality, with it's physical and spiritual aspects, unites the man and the woman, helping the two become one. The pro-creative aspect is ordained by God to generate children within the loving embrace of a family. The two aspects of sexual union (unity and begetting children) are meant to be inseparable.
True sexual love is of the spirit and the flesh. It is “intended to endure and to grow by means of the joys and sorrows of daily life, in such a way that husband and wife become one only heart and one only soul.” (9) There is total sharing, holding nothing back, free of selfish motives. So, as Pope Paul concludes, this love is total (or should be).
Spiritually and physically we are created and designed to live in truth and love. Thinking of our spiritual selves as made for living in truth and love is in some ways easy — it seems to make sense. And seeing the physical as being designed for love is easy when we experience, for example, the warmth of hugs and kisses — the feeling of love experienced in the sense of touch. But thinking of the physical as being designed for truth is more difficult because we so often separate our physical self from the spiritual realm. Yet, the physical human aspect of love is indeed made for truth.
It is a lie to have relations with anybody, in or out of marriage (of course out of marriage constitutes a lie on several levels), while using contraceptives, because you are not whole and are not giving completely. You are withholding a precious part of your physical self. You are withholding the capacity, the nature to procreate. (This is different when your body itself lacks this capacity. In that case you are still living truthfully, still abiding by the natural law.) Contraceptives are dishonest because every time you use them and engage in sex you misuse that act which was designed for the purpose of uniting husband and wife in truth and love.
Unselfish Love
We are reminded that conjugal love is by its very nature “ordained toward begetting and educating children” (Gaudium et Spes 50), and that children are a gift, substantially contributing to the welfare of their parents. When you willfully deny God the citizens of heaven he has intended for you and your spouse, you betray God's loving plan. When you do this you actually harm yourself, for these children are for your good, too. Some say having a large family is a ticket to heaven. Maybe for some. Certainly, one virtue, unselfishness, is refined in accepting many children.
One of the most difficult things to change about the contraceptive mentality concerns the Church's condoning a couple's use of the natural rhythmic cycle of a woman's body to avoid conceiving a child, but only for serious reasons. Many people have a hard time understanding why, if it is ok to avoid children the one way, it is not legitimate to achieve the same end with artificial means. Pope Paul addresses this seeming inconsistency, first by telling us that the Church is “the first to recommend the intervention of intelligence in a function which closely associates the rational creature with his Creator.” But he goes on to say that any such intervention must respect the order established by God. (16)
Then after mentioning how a couple has to have “grave motives” to warrant spacing births (health, psychological, economic), he explains how it is justifiable to take advantage of infertile periods to express mutual love, but that artificial means are always illicit even if the reasons for obstructing the natural process of conception are grave. Very simply Pope Paul points out that in one case a couple is taking advantage of a natural state, whereas in the other case a couple is “impeding the natural process.” (16) In both cases the couples are avoiding conception for legitimate reasons (at least in the example), but only one method is honest because the natural order dictates that no children will be conceived during infertile periods. This also explains why couples can continue to have relations even when there is no chance of procreation.
Living the Message
Marriage represents the union of Christ and his bride, the Church, therefore any dishonesty in that union, such as infidelity or contraceptives, is not only a sin against that union, but a blemish even on the union of Christ and his Church. We are one body — one body in Christ. So while teaching against contraception is tough, what we say should be governed by truth and what is right. Allowing a married couple to continue in ignorance of the sin of contraception hurts them and hurts the Church. It is the right time now to roll up our sleeves and teach about human life in full. It's time to relearn and to give full consent of the will to the mind of the Church in humble acceptance of her loving instruction. It is time to teach and to preach the message of human life. It's time to live the message, to try to live up to the ideals, and to move forward with the greatest confidence in the truth of it all. It is time for our beloved bishops and priests to “be not afraid, “ to preach the fullness of Christ's message given through his vicar Paul VI and repeated through his vicar John Paul II. This is and always has been a message of love, of life, of the sacredness of human life according to God's plan.
Carla Coon writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carla Coon ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Honest Inquiry into Creation Inevitabilty Leads to God DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:“Science Finds God,” runs the recent lead story in Newsweek. “Are there other universes?” asks the cover of U.S. News and World Report. Suddenly, the educated public is preoccupied with cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the totality of all things. This intellectual fad is good news for religion, because, as these articles show, once you start asking questions about the nature of the universe, you invariably start to ask questions about God. Modern scientific cosmology began with Einstein, who gave us the sort of universe which Catholic theologians anticipated all along. We live in a cosmos that is finite, highly specific and which seems to have had a beginning. It started (we think) with an “initial singularity”: all matter was packed into an infinitely dense space.
The Big Bang, which may have occurred 12 billion years ago, must not be pictured as the expansion of matter within already existing space. Rather, space, time, and matter came into existence simultaneously, a fact which would not have surprised St. Augustine.
What Stanley Jaki calls the “specificity” of the formation of the universe is breathtaking. If the cosmic expansion had been a fraction less intense, it would have imploded billions of years ago; a fraction more intense, and the galaxies would not have formed.
Picture a wall with thousands of dials; each must be at exactly the right setting — within a toleration of millionths — in order for carbon-based life to eventually emerge in a suburb of the Milky Way. You cannot help but think of a Creator.
Einstein's universe presents an enormous opportunity for the re-articulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. And this is where modern post-Christians with open minds get intrigued and where modern atheists get cagey.
Daniel Dennet, who writes best-selling books and has an ultra-Darwinist explanation for everything, is an example of a thinker who will perform intellectual cartwheels rather than admit the possibility of a Creator.
In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he makes the claim that the universe began with “next to nothing.” What is that again? Either the universe began with something or it began with nothing. Neither alternative is comforting to an atheist like Dennet. So, he presents us with a category of being — “next to nothing” — which Aristotle would have found highly amusing. No scientist can tell us why there is something rather than nothing.
This is worth keeping in mind when reading books by people like Stephen Hawking, who create whole universes out of mathematical formulae or tell us that the universe began as a fluctuation in the quantum void — whatever that means. All they are doing is sidestepping the simple truth that matter cannot create itself and that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. In other words, the universe must have its genesis in a non-material reality, which we call God.
Although the universe points strongly to its contingency on a Creator, Catholics have to be careful not to fall into the trap of “creation science.” Creation is a strictly philosophical concept; it has nothing to do with science, which deals only with quantitative nature. It's difficult to say who turns themselves into the biggest pretzel: creationists trying to fit science into a biblical template, or atheistic scientists trying to avoid the existence of a personal God.
Francis Bacon wrote that while a little science takes one away from God, more science brings one back again. Modern atheism rests its case on the “little science” of 19th century thinkers like Darwin, Marx, and Freud. All three were ideologues masquerading as scientists. They slipped their materialist philosophies in the back door at night and passed it off as science in the daylight. While all three thinkers had valid insights — even the Pope uses the Marxist term “alienation” to describe the predicament of modern consumerist societies — it is now clear that all three got the big picture wrong. There is no way, for example, that Darwinian selection, which simply eliminates what doesn't work, can create from scratch highly complex organisms. (This does not mean there wasn't evolution or that natural selection did not play a secondary role.)
These “science finds God” stories are generally plagued by a confusion about the proper realms of science and faith. Science cannot “find” God. Scientists can supply data; they can describe the inner constitution of things and make educated guesses about the origin of the universe. But non-material reality will forever elude their recording instruments. A good scientist will admit that certain questions are outside the scope of his methods and hand his data over to philosophers and theologians, who may then talk about design and creation.
James Clerk Maxwell, the great British physicist, said that the test of a first-rate scientist is to recognize the limits of the scientific method. Catholic thinkers can do their share by reminding everyone that science and religion are two different orders of knowledge which need to respect one another's turf.
George Sim Johnston is a writer based in New York. His book, Did Darwin Get It Right? will be published in the fall.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: George Sim Johnston ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Education Issues a Priority for Voters in Upcoming Election DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:The emergence of education as a leading issue in the November elections may be a mixed blessing for those who support enabling parents to use their tax money to send their children to the school of theirchoice. A poll by The Washington Post and ABC News showed that improving education was the single most important issue to a randomly selected group of more than 1,500 registered voters, according to a July 14 article in The Post.
Seventy-seven percent of those polled in early July called education a “very important” issue in their voting decisions this November. Protecting the Social Security system and handling the crime problem tied for second place at 68%.
The downside for school choice supporters is that 52% of respondents trust the Democrats to do a better job of improving education, while 33% preferred the Republicans.
At a time of peace and prosperity, Republican strategists want to make school choice a decisive issue in the fall, according to press reports. The poll may have underscored the Republicans’ need to educate Americans at the local and national level about school choice, as a means for expanding their base of support.
Many Americans consider the Democrats as very empathetic and concerned about issues effecting common people, said Quentin Quade, director of the Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
The key polls in education are state-level, rather than national, since educational funding policy is primarily a function of state and local government, Quade said. He noted that many polls do a poor job of explaining what school choice involves.
As framed in many polls, school choice “seems to suggest added ‘public expense,’ over and above other tax expenditures,” wrote Quade in the Blum Center's The Education Freedom Report, Oct. 25, 1996.
School choice “need involve no new ‘public expense’ and whatever expense it does involve, new or reallocated, is not for ‘private schools’ but for parent empowerment,” he wrote in the editorial.
The Democrats promote the status quo on education, said one veteran Catholic educator.
Their concern with improving education is the “hype job the Democrats have pulled off,” said Father Peter Stravinskas, a professor at the Seton Hall University Graduate School of Education in South Orange, N.J.
The National Education Association and local public teachers’ unions are strong supporters of the Democrats. “Tens of thousands of jobs are involved,” in the Democrats opposing what he calls “parental freedom of choice in education,” Father Stravinskas said.
Rather than view the poll results negatively, a leading Catholic education official said they were good because they showed that a new generation of American parents view education as a decisive political issue. Polls such as the one conducted by The Post and ABC News show that the “aging ‘Baby Boomer’ generation is knowledgeable, engaged, and active in their kids’ education,” said Ray Burnell, the executive director of the U.S. Catholic Conference's National Coalition of Catholic Parents Association.
“They understand that equal access to education is closely linked to their child's well-being,” he said. The Catholic Parents Association Coalition is active in 26 states and on Capitol Hill, according to Burnell.
School choice is “about empowering parents to take care of the educational needs of their children,” Burnell told The Register. “It's not choosing a building, but a learning community and educational philosophy,” he said.
Currently, four million parents are choosing Catholic schools, but the vast majority receive no related tax relief. Nearly three million students go to Catholic schools, which employ 153,000 teachers.
The USCC advocates not only school choice, but also legislation that supports tutoring and help for special needs children, professional recruitment of teachers, and curriculum resources, such as technology, Burnell said.
Burnell and Father Stravinskas noted that support for school choice and other education reform is growing.
Four states provide some form of tax relief or incentive for parents with children in private schools: Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana and Minnesota. Two cities — Cleveland and Milwaukee — provide “opportunity scholarships” for eligible parents who send children to private or public schools of their choice. When he wrote his 1982 dissertation on education, “people were having their eyes put open by the inherent flaws in public education,”
Father Stravinskas said. Attitudes changed over time. “In the 1990s, the view is ‘it's not working; let's shut it down,” he said of public education.
Father Stravinskas admitted that his views — that Americans should eliminate government involvement in education — are “radical” in the eyes of some.
In the NEA's strategy, leaders speak about being prepared for when voucher programs occur, not if they occur, Father Stravinskas said. “Competition will put the public schools out of business,” he said.
At the grassroots level, Catholic parents said they have mixed feelings about school choice. The fact that their thoughts about education do not have much to do with school choice says something not only about the failure of school choice proponents to educate a broad audience but also about the role that Catholic education has for the new generation of Catholic parents.
“I would feel more at ease sending my kids to a Catholic school, but I'm not sure if we could afford it,” even with some tax relief, said Michelle Calabia of Silver Spring, Md.
Improving Catholic school teacher pay and making public schools safer are more prominent issues to her, said Calabia, who has three young children and recently quit her job teaching at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Bethesda, Md., after four years working there and winning the “teacher of the year” award in 1998.
Like Calabia, Dan Malloy of Bethesda, Md., thinks it's important that teachers be treated fairly and with respect while receiving a reasonable wage.
Citing a well-publicized problem with a District of Columbia charter school, Malloy said that reform initiatives such as vouchers need to be overseen by responsible authorities.
Establishing national standards for high school students and improving the quality of curriculum, materials and teachers are more important than school choice to Malloy, who sends his two children to public intermediate schools. Expressing concern with parents’ fixation on class size, he said the quality of a school has little to do with how many students attend.
Another Maryland Catholic public school parent expressed concern about safety in schools. “We believe there should be integration (but) it's almost at the point of being dangerous,” said George Fuster.
Fuster has two daughters, and the older would attend a high school in Germantown, Md., next year. He has heard that that some intermediate schools that feed students into the high school have gangs. As a result, he may send his older daughter to a Catholic high school that's a long distance away.
William Murray writes from Kensington, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: But poll demonstrates that 'school choice' advocates still face uphill struggle ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: St. Ann Takes Care of Her Own DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:“Through the intercession of St. Ann may God bless you in every way,” reads the inscription on the sanctuary arch in the Basilica and National Shrine of St. Ann. This prayer has most definitely been answered, ever since the time the Passionists were invited to Scranton, Pa., to build a monastery.
When they first saw this 10-acre site — the highest point in West Scranton — on Sept. 8, the feast of the birth of St. Ann's daughter, Mary, little did they realize that thousands would eventually visit the shrine on a weekly basis, and that one day Masses would be broadcast from St. Ann's and seen by millions. By 1905, when the Passionists moved into their new monastery named in honor of Mary's mother, one of the priests said, “St. Ann will take care of her own.” The words were prophetic.
From the mid-1800s, Scranton's rich anthracite deposits made mining the town's primary industry. But on August 15, 1911, a sudden subsidence of the mines beneath the monastery seriously damaged the building. The Passionists turned to St. Ann; within a week, the slide stopped.
Then on July 28, 1913, an urgent warning to evacuate the area was given. Mining engineers were powerless in the face of the immense slide which threatened to carry away the hill, and with it the monastery. This time it was the mine engineers who joined the Passionists and prayed for St. Ann's intercession.
Two huge boulders rolled beneath the monastery, the slide turned back, and everything locked solidly in place. One expert admitted that it was St. Ann's intercession which miraculously did what engineers could not do. Never again has there been a subsidence. Interestingly, in the Middle Ages, Good St. Ann was known as the patroness of coal miners.
In 1905, lay people asked if they could join the Passionists in the novena the community said privately. By 1924, public devotions were held for the first time in the small chapel. Within six months thousands of visitors began arriving.
“The church is a direct result of the people who came weekly for the devotion to St. Ann,” said Father Richard Burke CP, shrine-basilica director until last month. It was in the springtime of 1929 that the St. Ann Monastery Church was built and dedicated. Within a year, nearly 4,000 letters had poured in expressing gratitude for favors received..
Devotion to the saint has grown through the years. Today, upward of 4,000 people attend the perpetual Monday novena in honor of St. Ann. The weekly novena, now in its 74th year, is as strong as ever. The solemn novena held from July 17-26 regularly sees the faithful come from more than 38 states. Closing day last month had more than 25,000 people in attendance.
Some pilgrims continued the long tradition of making the journey to the shrine on foot. A large group from Pittston, for example, walked eight miles and arrived for confessions, Mass, and devotion of the day at 4:30 a.m. Services continued throughout the day with a pontifical Mass at 7:30 p.m. which closed the solemn novena.
Other family “traditions” are part of the popular devotions to Good St. Ann. Father Burke explained that many men and women have married as a result of having met at the novenas. This summer, one such couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary with a Mass at the shrine.
Then there are the countless “St. Ann Babies.” Many childless couples came to the novenas, some for years, seeking St. Ann's help. Some have returned and introduced their “St. Ann's baby” to the priests and staff. Father Burke agreed that there are many such stories — the son of the contractor who helped renovate the shrine is among the happy parents.
Letters of thanksgiving for all kinds of favors arrive often. There are thanks, too, for the second major ministry of the shrine — St. Ann's Media ministry broadcasts daily and Sunday Mass over stations. An estimated five million of the 30 million subscribers of the Odyssey Channel regularly watch the Mass. Radio stations join TV to broadcast the weekly and solemn novenas.
Named a basilica in 1996, this national shrine has many appealing reminders of St. Ann. One is the three generations painting high in the apse.
Since its renovation, the basilica blends the best of the old and the new. The altar, where daily Mass is broadcast, is high on a circle of stairs, forward of the gleaming marble baldachino, which is the canopy.
The second focal point is the large side shrine that depicts St. Ann instructing the child Mary. This carved, 10-foot wooden statue is a gentle portrayal of the saint.
Off the vestibule, on the way to the lower church, stands another beautiful statue of St. Ann that dates from the Depression years. There is also an inspiring Pieta in color.
Part of the lower church — which honors several Passionist blesseds and saints — remains a spacious chapel joined by a glassed vigil-light chapel. Another statue of St. Ann, carved with her holding a replica of the church, has been in the same spot since the church opened.
Outside, a large stone grotto honors this popular saint with statues in an outer niche and also within the vigillighted interior. Here, as especially inside the church, are constant reminders that at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Ann, as from the start, “St. Ann will take care of her own.”
To reach the basilica-shrine, from Interstate 80, then Route 380 (north) to Scranton, and Interstate 81 (south) to exit 51, Davis St. Go right over Lakawanna River, to South Main Ave. Turn right onto St. Ann St. (Telephone 716-852-3316)
For those who visit the shrine or want to see more of Scranton, there aresites such as Steamtown National Historic Site with a large collection of vintage trains and excursions; the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum; and the nearby Pocono Mountains.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Protests at Britain's Biggest Catholic Newspaper DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:MANCHESTER, England—Journalists at The Universe, Britain's biggest selling religious newspaper, have voted to take strike action over a management plan to cut staff.
Gabriel Communications, publishers of the newspaper, have asked 30 production and editorial staff to apply for 16 newly created posts, otherwise they will be regarded as having made themselves redundant. Gabriel Communications say the measures are needed to “improve efficiency” and to “ensure the future of the company.” Under the proposal, some staff will see their annual salaries fall by £3,000 (more than $4,500).
As well as publishing The Universe, a weekly tabloid newspaper, Gabriel Communications produce the weekly broadsheet The Catholic Times, a bimonthly magazine Catholic Life, the annual Catholic Directory for England and Wales, several monthly diocesan publications, the Catholic Education Service Newsletter, and the reports of the National Conference of Priests.
The Universe is seen as the company's “flagship publication.” It was first published in 1860.
At its peak, during the inter-war years, The Universe was selling over 250,000 copies a week, but sales have been falling dramatically in the last decade and are now below 100,000. Despite this The Universe outsells all other British religious publications, including The Church Times, official publication of the Church of England.
Gabriel Communications and The Universe are 51% owned, via the Catholic Media Trust, by the English and Welsh hierarchy, with the majority of the other shares held by Catholic religious orders. What is surprising is that the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is accusing Gabriel Communications of ignoring Catholic social teaching because the company won't recognize the trade union or its representatives.
Another reason for the NUJ using Catholic social teaching as a weapon against Gabriel Communications’ management is that the NUJ is a union of journalists — the first people to spot “an angle” or a weakness in a line of argument. NUJ organizer John Turner was quick to point out that auxiliary bishop John Jukes of Southwark, chairman of the English and Welsh hierarchy's World of Work Committee, has regularly been quoted in The Universe calling on Catholics to join trade unions and urging employers to negotiate with them.
Turner said: “It is sheer hypocrisy for management of Gabriel to ignore the teaching of their own bishops.”
However, in many ways the NUJ can be considered hypocrites for quoting Catholic teaching. The union is rooted in the guild tradition and as a result its most basic work-place units are known as “chapels.” But for many years, there has been a bitter power struggle at national level between moderates and militant left-wing activists, many of whom belong to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Much to the embarrassment of Irish journalists, thanks to the activities of the SWP, a Trotskyist party, the NUJ has a policy, albeit much ignored by its leadership, of lobbying for the introduction of abortion in Ireland. In 1995, SWP members at the NUJ's annual delegate meeting were successful in passing a motion calling on all journalists to promote information about abortion services. The only delegate to speak against the motion was this journalist. The London-based union's policies on abortion are one reason why some Irish journalists, including this one, are calling for an autonomous Irish union.
Notwithstanding the NUJ's posturing, there are real concerns among the English and Welsh hierarchy about the industrial dispute. Asked about Gabriel Communication management's failure to recognize its workers’ trade union, Bishop Jukes said: “I regret that. The general teaching of the Church is that unions are a good thing.”
The bishop also echoed staff concerns that The Universe, under its current editor Joe Kelly, was becoming increasingly secular in content, saying that it could face problems with distribution via parishes if the trend continued: “If they move away from a Catholic output, the paper will die.”
Following last week's ballot on strike action and the resulting publicity, Gabriel Communications issued a press statement saying “the company does not discourage union membership.” But NUJ organizer John Toner said the company was attempting “to create a smokescreen.”
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin and is former editor of an Irish edition of The Universe. He currently works with The Irish Catholic newspaper and is treasurer of the Irish Executive Committee of the NUJ.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Thief of Hearts and Goods DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:There's a strong tendency in much of the media and the academy to downplay the moral stakes of the Cold War and to assume that the Soviet Union wasn't an “evil empire” after all. The fashionable buzz word is “moral equivalency,” which suggests that both sides were equally at fault and that American excesses like McCarthyism and certain ill-conceived CIA coups were somehow just as bad as the gulag and the Soviet invasion of Eastern and Central Europe.
These views, while popular in our TV newsrooms and elite faculty lounges, have been rejected by that part of the Russian intelligentsia struggling for democracy and economic liberty. Having suffered so much, these cultural freedom fighters are determined to bear witness to those evils unique to the Soviet empire.
The Thief, which was nominated for last year's Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Picture and won five NIKAs (the Russian equivalent of the Oscars), dramatizes this point of view with great passion. But rather than address the issue head on, writer-director, Pavel Chukhrai (Remember Me As I Am), has chosen to use allegory and metaphor to expose the moral rot of Stalin's Russia, a condition which he suggests continued to infect that nation until communism fell.
The movie is narrated by a young man, Sanya (Misha Philipchuk), recalling the circumstances of his childhood. It's 1946, and his mother, a young woman named Katya (Ekaterina Rednikova) whose husband has died from war wounds, gives birth to a son without a doctor on a muddy dirt road.
Six years pass, and she and Sanya are struggling to make their way in a totalitarian society. The young boy misses his dead father, seeing what he imagines to be his face everywhere. While on board a crowded train, Katya and Sanya share their compartment with a handsome, self-confident army officer, Tolyan (Vladimir Mashov). He and the young woman are quickly attracted to each other, and he offers to take care of her and her son.
Pretending to be husband and wife, the couple and the boy move into a crowded apartment building in an unspecified city. Although at first jealous of the soldier's relationship with his mother, Sanya enjoys having a father figure in his life. Tolyan is a tough disciplinarian, teaching him that “might makes right” and that he must beat up his adversaries when picked on. This dog-eat-dog view of the world seems harsh, but Tolyan's distorted masculine virtues fill a void in Sanya's upbringing, and he soon stops thinking about his long-dead father.
Tolyan seems to have a genuine affection for the boy, and their family unit appears headed for better times, but things are never what they seem in such a corrupt culture. Tolyan has a tattoo of Stalin on his chest and brags that the dictator is his father, implying that the Soviet leader's moral code has influenced his life.
This leads to a surprising revelation. Tolyan is, in fact, a professional thief masquerading as an army officer, who uses his disguise to get potential victims to let down their guard. Always a charmer, he invites everyone who lives on the same floor in his apartment building to be his guests at the circus. While they're enjoying the show, he steals all their valuables and leaves town before they return.
Katya and Sanya flee with him, becoming unwilling collaborators. As they move from place to place, Tolyan tries to train the young boy to be his accomplice, with mixed results. But Sanya continues to look up to the older man as an authority figure.
Katya wants to leave Tolyan, but she's still in love. Although she and her son know the evils he's perpetrating, they can't find the strength to break free.
Their conflicted emotions can be interpreted as symbolic of the contradictory, dependent relationship that existed between Stalin and the Russian people. Because the dictator's rule was based on terror, his subjects feared and hated him as a tyrant. But much like Katya and Sanya with Tolyan, they were mesmerized by his hubris and power and always remained loyal.
Chukhrai doesn't force the comparisons, allowing his drama's natural conflicts to make the necessary points. Tolyan often toasts “Comrade Stalin,” but we can't be sure whether it's a calculated attempt to strengthen his disguise as an officer, a heart-felt expression of a bond between kindred spirits, or some crazy combination of both.
A bored doctor's wife (Amalia Mordvinova) is attracted to Tolyan, who encourages the infatuation despite Katya's resentment. He enlists Sanya in a caper to burglarize her apartment, but nosey neighbors get wise, and Tolyan is arrested and sent to prison.
Sanya misses the father figure in his life and hopes that someday they will be re-united. His mother dies from a botched legal abortion, and he's placed in an rundown orphanage where he waits for Tolyan's release. But the prospects for a happy ending in Stalin's Russia aren't good.
Tolyan is a thief both of property and of people's hearts. He gains Sanya's trust and admiration and then betrays them. Because of this, the young boy loses his ability to believe in other people and his own dreams. He has been conditioned to have no hope for the future. The implication is that Stalin, as “the father of all peoples” in the Soviet Union, damaged the collective psyche of his subjects in a similar way and that of every generation that has come after.
The Thief shows us the terrible moral price paid by ordinary citizens for communism's oppression. There is no equivalent in American history.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
The Thief is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: The tragic story of a mother, a child, and a criminal symbolizes the collective ravages of communism on a people ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Seeds of Faith in Surprising Places DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Unfortunately, most 20th-century artists aren't Christian, and their work has little to do with issues of faith. But a small number of creative figures were so touched by religion during their formative years that they can't keep away from the subject even though as adults they're not practicing believers.
The films of Frederico Fellini (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, etc.) are passionate, surreal, and often autobiographical, evoking picturesque memories of his small-town childhood. They rarely address religion directly, but the filmmaker's Catholic upbringing made an indelible imprint on his psyche and creative personality.
8 1/2, which Fellini co-wrote with Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, and Brunello Rondi, reflects these obsessions. It's the story of Guido (Marcello Mastroiani), a film director much like Fellini, who's unable to find the inspiration to complete his latest movie even though it's already in pre-production. Pressured by people from his personal and professional worlds to make decisions, he immerses himself in dreams, fantasies, and recollections from his past in order to sort out the meaning of his life. The title refers to the number of films Fellini had made up until the time of 8 1/2, whoes initial release was in 1963.
The opening images are from a dream. Guido's caught in a traffic jam in a freeway underpass. Trapped inside a small car, he begins to suffocate as the windows steam up. Somehow he climbs out and floats away into the sky like a kite.
Guido awakes and finds himself in a health spa where he's “taking the cure.” The dream sequence is a good indication of the state of his soul. He feels trapped in a lifestyle and set of relationships from which there is no logical way out. The result is a deepseated spiritual malaise which massages, mineral waters, and mudbaths won't be able to cure. As doctors and nurses fuss over him, someone asks if he's “making another film without hope.”
Guido's mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo), arrives. Her flighty concern with clothing and fashion fails to lift his spirits as it usually does. His movie's production staff also shows up, demanding direction. Guido escapes into childhood reveries in which his strong-willed mother kindly nurtures him. The black and white images are so stylized it's often difficult to tell what's real and what's not.
Guido and his associates try to unwind at a fashionable night club attached to the spa. But indirect reminders of his spiritual crisis keep popping up. One of the paparazzi there asks him: “Could you create something meaningful if the Pope commissioned it?”
“Yes,” he replies, much to his own surprise.
Also taking the cure is a Catholic cardinal whom Guido describes as representing something he no longer believes in but which still fascinates him. Guido's screenwriter comments that if the director were to make a film attacking the Church, he would wind up “turning into an accomplice.”
Guido meets with the cardinal in a steam bath. When the film director complains about his life, the prelate declares: “Who said your task on earth is to be happy?”
“There is no salvation outside the Church,” the cardinal continues. “That which is outside the City of God belongs to the City of Man.”
Guido's rambling conversation with the cardinal doesn't lead to a conversion experience. The film director doesn't regain his faith. But he does begin to try to put his spiritual house in order.
Guido's wife, Lucia (Anouk Aimèe), makes a surprise appearance. He wants to rebuild their relationship but refuses to tell the truth about his affair with his mistress, angering Lucia.
Guido's co-workers accuse him of having “nothing to say,” and it looks as if his production will be shut down. But in the kind of magical moment which only Fellini can create, the characters from his dreams, fantasies, and childhood memories materialize and join hands with the people in his present life. Guido's despair starts to melt away. “Life is a holiday,” he exclaims. “Let's do it together.”
The director rediscovers the importance of relationships, community, and love. One of the pivotal points of his spiritual odyssey was his encounter with the cardinal, which set off something deep inside him. 8 1/2 shows how the seeds of faith, once planted, can flourish in unexpected ways.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
Next week: George Cukor's Little Women.
----- EXCERPT: In Fellini's 8 1/2, memories & dreams help a film director through his spiritual crisis ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Post-Abortion Anguish Targeted by Newspaper DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Pro-life advocates have a new tool for reaching out to women after abortion. Thanks to the Elliot Institute, an inexpensive 12-page newspaper supplement is now available to crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life advocates, and those who simply want to offer hope to women suffering the effects of abortion or to educate others on abortion's consequences.
The supplement, entitled Hope and Healing, features a variety of information presented by psychiatrists and physicians documenting the harmful physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of abortion. Complete with modern graphics and type styles, the supplement also includes the testimonies of women and family members who have experienced abortion. One of the testimonies is that of Judith Evans, who describes her childhood marred by incest and her three abortions.
“When finally I stopped crying on the outside, I kept crying on the inside. I felt so dirty and alone,” Evans writes in the supplement. “My abortions were supposed to be a ‘quick fix’ for my problems, but they didn't tell me there is no ‘quick fix’ for regrets.”
Evans, who now uses her story to counsel women facing unplanned pregnancies, believes her experience can save others from making the same mistake.
“Healing doesn't mean forgetting,” she writes. “I will always regret what I did, and I will always miss my babies until the day I am with them in heaven. But I know now that God can use every part of our lives, even the worst parts, to allow us to help others.”
Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, said that after 25 years of legalized abortion many Americans are struggling to deal with the consequences of an abortion decision.
“Since 1973 at least 25 million women have had one or more abortions,” said Reardon. “Millions of fathers, grandparents, and siblings also know about or were involved in an abortion decision. Many of these people carry around a lot of pain.”
Reardon said the Hope and Healing newspaper supplement is designed to reach the woman or other affected individual who feels they are alone in their struggle.
“This publication says to people, ‘You're not alone,’” he said. “It lets them know that there are other people who have gone through the same thing and found healing, forgiveness, and peace. It conveys a sense of hope that they can find healing too.”
Amy Sobie, spokeswoman for the Elliot Institute, told the Register that several thousand of the supplements rolled off the press last month and were mailed to crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life groups across the nation just a few weeks ago. While she said similar pro-life newspaper supplements detail the humanity of the preborn baby and specific facts about abortion (such as the She's a Child, Not a Choice supplement produced by Human Life Alliance of Minnesota), there was a need for something specifically geared to those suffering after an abortion.
“There just isn't anything out there like this to address the millions of people who have already had abortions,” said Sobie, a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville who has served as a sidewalk counselor at abortion clinics. “We've produced something that is low-cost and can reach many people.”
Sobie said one particular target of the Elliott Institute's supplement will be college campuses. The group has launched The College Distribution Project to provide funds to groups interested in placing the Hope and Healing supplement as a paid advertising insert in college and community newspapers.
“You've got a lot of students who have had abortions,” she said. “Women who have abortions as teens are more likely to suffer the emotional and psychological effects of abortion and not know where to turn for help.”
The supplement also includes a list of phone numbers to post-abortion counseling organizations and referral centers across the nation.
Sobie said the often hostile atmosphere on many college campuses makes it difficult for women who have had abortions to come forward and admit how they're feeling. The supplement, she said, will help those women know that they are not alone and hopefully encourage them to contact a postabortion organization for assistance.
“We want them to know it's okay to feel this way,” said Sobie. “You're not alone. Other women have gone through this and there's help available.”
College pro-life leaders are enthusiastic about the Hope and Healing supplement. Kneale Ewing, a recent psychology graduate from Creighton University who now serves as the network director of Collegians Activated to Liberate Life (CALL), said the supplement fills a vital gap in the pro-life educational message.
“There's definitely a need for postabortion literature on college campuses,” said Ewing. “Women in college represent the age group that is most likely to have an abortion. Many times women who have aborted are too afraid to ask for help because they may fear rejection or condemnation from others.”
Ewing said the supplement's tone and style will be effective in reaching college-aged women. He said his organization will be encouraging its college groups to utilize this new educational tool.
“The insert will be effective because it offers helpful information in a non-threatening, loving, and genuine manner,” he said. “The information is well-presented with a good mixture of facts and personal testimonies.”
While the supplement discusses the negative consequences of abortion, it's not necessarily geared toward pro-life readers.
“We invite people to look beyond the politics of abortion,” said Reardon. “You don't have to be against abortion to understand that some people might suffer from it. But hopefully people will also start asking, ‘If abortion is hurting women instead of helping them, why are we doing this?’”
Sobie agrees that discussion of abortion's effects on women will eventually lead to a decrease in the number of abortions, whether laws are changed or not.
“Speaking out about the effects of abortion and holding abortionists to a higher standard of care will in itself eliminate a lot of abortions,” said Sobie.
Education, says Sobie, is the key.
“If people are educated enough, women won't even consider having an abortion because it is such a terrible decision,” she said.
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
The Elliot Institute is offering a discounted rate on the Hope and Healing newspaper supplements to churches, pro-life groups, and other non-profit organizations for distribution in their communities. For more information or to order copies of the supplement, contact the Elliot Institute at 217-525-8202.
----- EXCERPT: Supplement Publication may be especially effective on college campuses ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Oregon Couple Help Ease Hardships for Migrant Workers DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ore.—Carlos's hands belie his 25 years. Stained a deep berry red, they look like those of a man twice his age.
Standing inside the office-cubiclesized wooden structure he shares with six others, he explains through a translator that migrant farming is helping to pull his family out of the dire poverty enveloping most in his home state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.
“No, I don't think I want to do something else,” he answers softly when asked about his goals. “It is a hard life, but it's better than back home.”
Carlos's wife, Elaine, holds their oneyear-old baby, as the smell of tortillas and beans floats amid the nearly wall-to-wall bunk beds, folded clothing, and a small counter. Their three other young children play in the camp's tidy courtyard. This community near Scholls is where 150 people stay after spending their days picking berries.
Stepping into this makeshift home, Martha Dauenhauer's warm smile precedes her German-accented “Hola.” Some call her the Mother Teresa of Washington County. Dauenhauer asks if there is enough food and how the children are doing, as a cool summer evening breeze drifts outside. Dauenhauer smiles again as she glances down at the green apples and other staples delivered by volunteers from St. Francis Parish in Sherwood, about 30 minutes from Portland.
A native of Germany, Dauenhauer, 69, hasn't had much trouble during the past 13 years communicating in her blend of basic Spanish and gestures. She speaks with camp residents a few times a week. She determines what they most need, since many come to the camp with only a small knapsack.
Dauenhauer requests that the camp's exact location and workers’ names not appear in print, to prevent any possible immigration difficulties. And while Carlos and Elaine are not the real names of the parents she visits, their story is real. It sounds much like the stories of several others who step out from the rows of cabins to chat. They say there is no work back home, and at least they can bring money back to build a better life.
Dauenhauer bristles when hearing about how some workers say they are stuck in the fields, “They can go to school; they can improve themselves.”
She's also adamant that immigrants are part of life and the history of this nation.
“It's very hard for some people to accept that this Spanish-speaking population is here to stay to make a life for themselves,” Dauenhauer says. “I feel people should accept them, give them a chance … they'll find there are many, many good people.”
Dauenhauer is one woman who walks her talk. Her life and that of Nick, her husband of 55 years, revolve around meeting the needs of workers who follow the crops. Their caring natures and commitment have made them into a link for food, clothing, immigration counseling, health care, and education of the itinerant workers.
Dauenhauer began assisting the migrant workers in 1986, when the restaurant she was working in started donating leftover brunch food to the camps. She realized there was much more to be done and began bringing workers home to share evening meals.
“I feel it helps them to be self-sufficient if I don't do everything for them,” she says. “We started to cook at the house and they always volunteered to come and help.”
St. Alexander's Parish in Cornelius is located in the area of the approximately 40 migrant camps near the Dauenhauer's home. The pastor there, Father Martin Senko, said the camps are divided into three groups and volunteers help keep food and other supplies available.
“Martha is a good example of what one individual can do if they want to serve these people,” said Father Senko. “She's present and knows their situation, she is close to the people. As Catholic teaching tells us, we serve because we've been served.”
Supporting that idea is Frank Fromherz, director of the Portland Archdiocesan Office of Peace and Justice. Fromherz said it is important to think about service as relationship building.
“People with real names and real lives have gotten to know Martha and Nick,” he said. “Martha and Nick don't see them as ‘needy,’ but as real human beings.”
Fromherz believes the Dauenhauer's approach to service as justice is something we can all duplicate.
“As it says in both the Old and New Testament, justice is a call to right relationship with God, with each other, as human beings and with all around us,” Fromherz said. “We can think about the people we know, family, friends, and neighbors — there's all sorts of already existing relationships, opportunities to enrich a sense of justice. People don't have to go out and find an exotic location.”
Fromherz said it's helpful to keep in mind the spirit of Evangelium Vitae (92.5), which says life is a gift and we must be at the service of life and all its needs. He said the Dauenhauers appear to embody this idea and the message of Evangelium Vitae (79.3): “We have been sent as a people. Everyone has an obligation to be at the service of life. This is a properly ‘ecclesial’ responsibility, which requires concerted and generous action by all the members and by all sectors of the Christian community. This community commitment does not however eliminate or lessen the responsibility of each individual, called by the Lord to ‘become the neighbor’ of everyone: ‘Go and do likewise’ (Lk 10:37).”
The Dauenhauers’ affection for each other shines with nicknames such as “honey” or “schatzie.” Nick, retired from the post office, recalls when Martha first started filling the family station wagon with a dozen or so workers.
“When I'd come home, I'd just know that Martha was at it again,” Nick says grinning. Gonzalo Plancarte, 38, remembers meeting Martha for the first time several years ago.
“I had been here for two months without any work,” Plancarte says. “She went there and said, ‘Who can go with me and work for food?’”
He has developed a strong friendship with the Dauenhauers and returns each year both to work and to share meals with the couple. Plancarte has a wife and seven children, ages 6-18, who stay behind in Mexico during his trips north. He has moved on from picking berries to landscaping and hopes someday to bring his family to the United States.
“I think it is the only way I can help them; there is not enough work,” Plancarte says.
Martha encourages him to go to school, and he is currently studying English at night. Already, he doesn't need a translator for most conversations.
“I always say the most important thing is send your kids to school,” Martha says. “Those kids are the future. Those kids can help the parents.”
A story about the Dauenhauers isn't complete without mention of José, their adopted eight-year-old from Guatemala. They met José when he was just four months old and required surgery because of his spina bifida. José's birth parents were struggling to make a living in the fields while caring for their other children as well, and they couldn't provide the extensive care he needs.
Today José walks with the help of special braces and a walker. He takes Tai Kwon Do — and gladly demonstrates a defensive arm block move — along with attending therapy weekly at Shriners Hospital. He stays in touch with his birth mom and dad and his siblings.
Sounding like a typical eight-yearold, he quips, “The best thing about school is recess,” before adding that he likes to read.
José says he also likes visiting the camps with Nick and Martha because he can play with the children. But his presence can prompt more than just fun. While standing outside some cabins a woman came out and draped a brightly colored beaded necklace, with a cross in its center, around José. She said her son is just like him: “He can't walk, either.”
That gift prompted a discussion about her child, who is two and had just seen a doctor because of his pneumonia. Martha then realized that although she'd helped this family obtain government food aid, they had been too embarrassed to mention they have a special needs child. She immediately began encouraging them to seek help.
“Martha has an incredible amount of energy,” said Holy Name Sister Brigid Baumann, who has known her since 1992. “She shows us how much good one person, who is consistent and passionate, can do. Her passion is to see that people's needs are met.… I can't say enough about her; she's an amazing woman. But it's both Nick and Martha. He provides the stability for her to do what she does.”
The Dauenhauers attend St. Alexander Parish in Cornelius and say it is important to remember that God is all around us.
Martha says, “There is only one God, and he looks out for all of us. I never ask people what they are. I look at the people themselves.” She and Nick have received numerous awards and thank-yous for their involvement. A 1996 plaque made by a family they helped is among their most prized possessions. It reads: “Everyone that knows you has found the only hope to survive in this country. Thank you. God bless you.”
Hazel Whitman writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Hazel Whitman ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: ëWe Have More Than We Needí DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:Reaching out to those most in need is the goal of many parish volunteers and organizations such as Oregon Food Bank. Groups such as these are doing just that as they focus their efforts on Washington County migrant farm worker camps.
“We've donated $14,453 in food this year,” said Bev Boyd, who has worked at the Food Bank since 1983. “This comes from federal and state money as well as private donations — it buys things like tomato sauce, salt, oil, tortillas, and rice.”
Boyd says her office works closely with Martha and Nick Dauenhauer of Scholls to make sure that what is most useful arrives at its destination.
“I don't think Martha ever tires,” Boyd said. “She's out there seven days a week feeding people.”
Joining her in providing food are volunteers from St. Francis Parish in Sherwood. Parishioners sort food and bring boxes of food labeled for individual families in the camps. One parishioner gives five cases of bananas each week; others bring in clothing and shoes, some even donate hand-crafted quilts. Arlene Voelker coordinates the efforts of the approximately three dozen parish volunteers who visit the camps weekly from early May to the end of June.
“We've been doing this for about eight years, and if we weren't here, I don't think there'd be anyone here,” said Ernie Garcia, a 63-year-old parishioner.
“It's important to give back a little to the people — they're in need and we have more than we need.”
Another parishioner, Cecilia Sibelian, 43, agrees.
“The workers just follow the seasonal work,” Sibelian says. “They're like butterflies, monarch butterflies. They're able to make a few bucks doing this, which is more than what they'd make at home.”
— Hazel Whitman
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Hazel Whitman ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: NFP Catching On with More Protestants DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS, Texas—Something about the Protestant ritual bothered Rachel Keen: As various friends announced their wedding engagements, the congratulations were followed immediately by advice to go to the doctor for birth control.
“I think that's a pretty sad commentary that the first response (to marriage plans) is the birth control pill,” she said.
So Keen, a member of a community Bible church in Portland, Ore., and a staff member of Northwest Family Services, which promotes and educates people in natural family planning, took a “whirlwind” course in Natural Family Planning (NFP) prior to her own wedding in July.
“I had thought for a long time I did not want to do any artificial birth control. I didn't like the idea of putting garbage into (my) body to keep it from doing something it's designed to do. They interrupt the value of sex,” said Keen, 27. “But all my life I felt I had no choices.”
The Keens are among a growing number of Protestants who for health or religious reasons are rejecting contraception and, in effect, accepting the arguments of the landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae, which 30 years ago condemned contraception.
The Ohio-based Couple to Couple League, worldwide promoter of the sympto-thermal method of NFP, keeps no ongoing statistics on the denominations of the couples it trains to teach the method, but at one time did a survey that showed 15% are non-Catholic, said director John Kippley.
“Just yesterday I got two letters from Protestants in Africa,” he said. One was from a minister of a 600-member congregation who wanted “the works” — books, charts, and pamphlets — and the other, a couple who, tired of the birth control being “pushed on them,” had come across Kippley's book The Art of Natural Family Planning and had begun using the method on their own.
“(Protestants) are disillusioned with the pill because of the abortifacient properties,” said Kippley. The birth control pill acts to prevent conception, but also to alter the lining of the uterus; if conception does occur, the newly conceived life is unable to implant on the wall of the uterus, and thus ends in an early abortion.
Indeed, the link between abortion and contraception opened the eyes of pro-life crisis pregnancy director Angie Hammond four years ago.
Hammond, who directs a staff of 48 volunteers at Crisis Pregnancy Center Southwest in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville, said Catholic couple Wayne and Kay Nacy brought materials from the Couple to Couple League and other sources to the center, and “we began to educate ourselves.” The materials, now kept in stock at the center, included such books as The Bible and Birth Control by Protestant theologian Charles Provan, who documents anticontraceptive teaching by such noted reformers as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley.
“The more we learned, the more we were just astounded with the information” — both the Biblical and historic foundations opposing artificial birth control and the negative side effects of the various methods, said Hammond. Meanwhile, she and her staff were noting that client after client reported problems from their birth control, from headaches and bloating to bleeding and depression.
Hammond now trains all her volunteer counselors — mostly young mothers — in the concepts behind natural family planning, and she refers married clients to NFP classes given by a local couple or those offered at St. Paul Hospital in Dallas. The volunteers and clients often know little about how contraceptives work and have never heard of NFP, she said.
“Once people are really aware of God's real view on the pro-life issue, they begin to see that contraception is not a good thing,” said Hammond, a member of First Church of God, a Christian congregation in Dallas. “God is the author of life, and he decides when to open and close the womb.”
Hammond, whose newly married son practices NFP with his wife, credits “the Catholic community” for keeping alive the Christian tradition of children as a blessing and the Goddesigned link between mutual love and procreation. That teaching was universal until the landmark Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 1930, after which all Protestant denominations began accepting contraception.
“We (Protestants) have bought into a lie and we don't even know it. I had definitely bought into it. I was raised in the Church and I had never, ever heard a sermon about contraception,” she said. “We remind them that we used to teach against contraception. I say this every time I go out and give a speech. You've got Biblical authority and Church tradition (to prove it).”
Most congregations are “appalled” to learn about the abortion-causing properties of contraceptives, she said. But Hammond's efforts on behalf of natural family planning are not initially welcomed by some Protestants, who see it as a Catholic thing, she said.
“We've had a couple of Protestant churches that just recently have called us and asked why we are against contraception,” she said. “I took the opportunity to educate them.”
Rose Fuller, executive director of Northwest Family Services in Portland, said her organization has presented lectures on NFP at evangelical seminaries and recently a married couples group at a four-square Bible church.
“Definitely there's a change, an openness from the standpoint of not only Scripture but of pro-life issues. It's not millions of people, but there's a definite change,” said Fuller, whose service trains 500 to 600 couples a year in the sympto-thermal method developed by Dr. Josef Roetzer. “I've seen some of the seminarians write papers on the Scriptural basis (for natural family planning).”
While the number of couples using NFP is reported at only 2% to 3%, Fuller said she has noticed more interest among both Catholics and Protestants than compared to 10 or 15 years ago.
“The truth comes out eventually,” she said. “I think (also) sometimes people look at the (pro-choice) opposition and say, ‘We don't want to be like them.’”
Kippley of the Couple to Couple League said some Protestants have trouble finding the “middle ground” of child spacing allowed for in Humanae Vitae and made possible through the modern, effective methods of NFP. Either they endorse contraception, or they believe in a kind of “providentialism” — being completely open to new life in all circumstances and rejecting even NFP as an obstacle to God's will, he said.
“What they keep omitting is, if you're just going to leave it up to God, then you better be darn sure that you're engaging in ecological breastfeeding,” he said, referring to a type of breastfeeding characterized by mother-baby closeness, nighttime nursing, and frequent suckling that can delay a woman's return to fertility for a year or more.
“God built that spacing in,” he said. “Until recent times, people didn't have babies every year. They breastfed their babies and they were spaced two to three years apart.”
For Rachel Keen, the benefits of NFP include more than child spacing, but also the increased communication that necessarily goes along with the charting of fertility signs and periodic abstinence.
“The thing that is a real bonus for me is the relationship I have with my husband,” she said. “I really enjoy telling people about NFP.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: Biblical and health reasons lead more to favor method over pil ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:The story below on migrant workers illustrates commitment to helping our brother and sisters in Christ. In Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II explains why such action is necessary:
The Creator has entrusted man's life to his responsible concern, not to make arbitrary use of it, but to preserve it with wisdom and to care for it with loving fidelity. The God of the Covenant has entrusted the life of every individual to his or her fellow human beings, brothers and sisters, according to the law of reciprocity in giving and receiving, of self-giving and of the acceptance of others. In the fullness of time, by taking flesh and giving his life for us, the Son of God showed what heights and depths this law of reciprocity can reach. With the gift of his Spirit, Christ gives us new content and meaning to the law of reciprocity, to our being entrusted to one another. The Spirit who builds up communion in love creates between us a new fraternity and solidarity, a true reflection of the mystery of mutual self-giving and receiving proper to the Most Holy Trinity. The Spirit becomes the new law which gives strength to believers and awakens in them a responsibility for sharing the gift of self and for accepting others, as a sharing in the boundless love of Jesus Christ himself. (76.2)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Young Pro-Lifers Outlast Hardships Of Coast-to-Coast Walk DATE: 08/23/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 23-29, 1998 ----- BODY:In the May 10-16 issue of the Register, the paper reported on a cross-country pro-life walk sponsored by a student-run non-profit organization called Crossroads (“Coast-to-Coast Walk Attracts Committed Young Pro-Lifers”). This is the final installment in a journal series by Joseph Flipper, a participant in the journey. See front page story about the closing event for Crossroads held in Washington, D.C.
Our Crossroads group has finally entered Washington, D.C. after walking more than 3,000 miles from San Francisco. The journey has taken nearly three months to complete. The last stretch of our pilgrimage for life began in Steubenville, Ohio, the home of Franciscan University, where most Crossroads participants attend school.
As we walked up the hill that leads to school we were greeted by the Franciscan Friars, the other priests at the university, and the students attending summer school. Everyone waited for us and ushered us into noon Mass. Three new people, who decided to walk from Steubenville to the Capital, joined crossroads: Maria Colonna, Martha Nolan, and T. J. Pillion.
Our stay in Steubenville was refreshing. It gave us time to relax a little, through we all wished to move on towards Washington, D. C. Crossroads gave a presentation to students and lay people at St. Peter's Catholic Church where we spoke on the importance of getting personally involved in the Pro-Life movement. Steve Sanborn, the founder of Crossroads, said, “We are doing a small part of what is needed to make people aware of the horrors of abortion. It will take the involvement of everyone to stop the holocaust.”
These last days of our pilgrimage have been the most difficult. All of us have simply wanted to finish the trip and the emotional strain has been heavy. Everyone has had less energy to finish this pilgrimage for life. We've been spiritually attacked more than ever as we've come closer to Washington, D.C. We've been unable to pray or get along well with each other. Many have said that the devil just doesn't want us to complete the walk.
Compounding our difficulties, our RV, which we live out of and use as a base of operations, broke down and lost its brakes. It was in the repair shop for more than a week, making us dependent upon rental vans and borrowed cars. Usually up to ten people can sleep in the RV, so we were forced to pack all of the tents, sleeping bags, and personal gear into our cars. This increased the difficulty of transporting 25 people.
Due to repairs on the RV, we ran short of money, making it necessary to set up last-minute speaking engagements in Washington, D. C. to raise funds. On top of this, the weather has been horrible. It has been raining off and on for more than a week. Suzanne Bergeron, Maria Colonna, Rich Scanlon, and Justin Schnier braved a night of thunderstorms. Everyone else slept in tents, which were wet inside and out by morning. Some Crossroads members used their clothing to block the streams of water running through the tents. Robert Nerney, founder of Catholic Insurgent, a newspaper for Catholic youth, joined us for four days to experience Crossroads and get insights for a feature article about us. He brought zeal that we were lacking, giving us a new enthusiasm and energy. As we walked into Washington, D.C., friendly honks and waves as well as obscenities greeted us. We were expecting great opposition here, so we decided that everyone in Crossroads should walk into the city at the same time. Though there was opposition, the support has greatly outweighed it.
Furthermore, certain events have given us hope to finish the walk with strength. As Chris Sherman and Justin Schnier of Crossroads were walking, they saw two young women pull into a nearby parking lot and get out of their car. Chris said that he felt like the women wanted to talk to them, so Justin and he approached and greeted them. The women asked questions about our cross-country walk and about our motives for undertaking such an endeavor.
These young women weren't antagonistic and were sincerely open to what we had to say. They began to ask “what if” questions about difficult cases, where abortion seems to be the only option. The Crossroads walkers spoke to them about the dignity of the unborn baby and the effects of abortion on women. The walkers spoke of post-abortion syndrome, one of the psychological effects that women experience after having an abortion. One of the girls then said that she had had an abortion, experienced postabortion syndrome, and subsequently tried to kill herself because of the intense pain.
The walkers told them about Project Rachael, a program to help women deal with life after abortion. Mike Gaitley told the young women of the mercy of Jesus, of his forgiveness and love. He also spoke of Mary as our perfect mother and of her healing presence in our lives.
Chris said the appearance of the women had greatly changed by the end of conversation. When they left, both girls were glowing. The walkers gave them rosaries and miraculous medals, then exchanged addresses with them. Those who spoke with the women promised to keep in contact. The experience made us remember that even though we open ourselves to be targets when we are outspoken, we also create a pathway through which God can work to touch and change lives.
Next summer Crossroads hopes to have two groups of students walking from the West Coast to Washington, D.C. The northern route will run from San Francisco to the Capital while the southern route will go from Los Angeles through all of the southern states and to the Capital. Any collegeaged student willing to spend next summer walking and praying for three months is welcome to join our trip.
Throughout the year Crossroads will make students available for speaking at parishes, youth groups, pro-life groups, and conferences.
Joseph Flipper is a student at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Flipper ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Doctor Kevorkian Forces Showdown DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death, may be facing life in prison.
Kevorkian, a suspended medical pathologist, renowned as a media showman and advocate of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), was charged with first-degree murder Nov. 25, in the lethal injection killing of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, a victim of the so-called Lou Gehrig's disease. (See story on page 16.)
The turn of events was no surprise to the 70-year-old Kevorkian, whose actions have long been geared to confrontation. In killing Youk, Kevorkian defied a clear-cut law banning PAS in the state of Michigan, and he allowed the CBS show 60 Minutes to air nearly 15 minutes of a homemade videotape of himself administering a lethal injection to the victim. Now he appears ready for a final showdown with law enforcement and the courts. “The issue's got to be raised to the level where it is finally decided,” Kevorkian stated.
Detroit archdiocesan spokesman Ned McGrath commented: “What I saw on my TV screen is a publicity-hungry unlicensed pathologist kill a visibly troubled, vulnerable man — and make a spectacle of it on national TV.”
The killing of Youk took place shortly after Kevorkian's conviction on charges of assault, following a scuffle with police. This and other factors indicate Kevorkian's apparent determination to bring his campaign for PAS to a spectacular conclusion, even to the point of seeing himself put on trial and convicted of murder.
Kevorkian's modus operandi in the Youk case diverged from his past activities and publicity stunts on behalf of PAS. For one thing, he dispensed with the apparatus he had used until then, which allowed the patient to administer the lethal dose. This time he administered the lethal injection himself. More spectacularly, he offered videotape of the killing to the media; CBS aired significant portions of the tape on the Nov. 22 broadcast of 60 Minutes. Finally, he has waived the right to legal counsel, expressing the preference to defend himself — a decision which significantly increases the likelihood of a conviction.
“It would be lunacy to represent himself and he will get himself convicted, period,” said Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's former lawyer. Fieger, himself an outspoken advocate of euthanasia and a recent Democratic gubenatorial nominee defeated in a run this past November, said that Kevorkian has a “self-destructive” impulse.
“Kevorkian has no sense of loyalty and no sense of honor,” Fieger stated in a separate interview. “He thinks about himself more than he thinks about the issue.”
Fieger's own failure in the governor's race came the same day as the resounding Nov. 3 ballot defeat of Proposal B in Michigan. The proposal, which would have legalized PAS, was trounced by a 71% to 29% margin.
Despite this apparent mandate against PAS, many remain confused about the issue — and many, including Catholics, believe people should have the right to choose assisted death. As Kevorkian still remains unconvicted after more than eight years of assisting in the death of more than 130 victims, is perhaps less than surprising.
“What you have, for instance, in the issue of assisted suicide is where people say, ‘Well, I'm a Catholic and I don't believe that suicide should be legalized, but I am not going to impose my views on the other party,’” said Richard Thompson, former Oakland County prosecutor. “Someone's moral values are going to be imposed on society and the question is not whether they are going to be imposed, but whose values. Is it going to be the values of the ACLU, the moral relativists, or the Christian heritage?”
As Oakland County prosecutor, Thompson tried unsuccessfully to put Kevorkian behind bars from 1990 to 1996 in the Michigan county where he had carried out most of his assisted suicides. Many believe Thompson's persistence in trying to convict Kevorkian ruined his chances for reelection. Thompson entered the Catholic Church earlier this year.
Thompson's successor, David Gorcyca, has chosen to prosecute Kevorkian for this latest offence, stating that Kevorkian's videotaped actions clearly corresponded to the legal definition of premeditated murder. He predicted that the euthanasia advocate's defense would attempt to “rely on the emotions and the sympathy of the jury in an attempt to nullify what is quite clearly the law.” While Gorcyca admitted that a jury might disregard the law and acquit Kevorkian, he stated that “[t]he law is pretty obvious, and the facts are pretty clear.”
The victim, Thomas Youk, suffered from amyotrophic lateral scerlosis (ALS), the progressive and degenerative nerve disorder, widely known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Physicist Stephen Hawking and onetime Major League baseball star James “Catfish” Hunter are other well-known personages who suffer from the disease, which is characterized by degeneration of motor cells in the spinal cord and brain.
The prognosis for survival is varied, with some patients, such as Hawking, living twenty years or more. As the ALS Association writes in its web site: “The life expectancy of an ALS patient averages about two to five years from the time of diagnosis. But with recent advances in research and improved medical care, many patients are living longer, more productive lives. Half of all affected live at least three years after diagnosis.”
“ALS results in progressive incapacitation,” said Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the Oakland County medical examiner involved in most of the autopsies on Kevorkian's victims. “It is a disease with a relentless course but the quality of life is directly proportional to the quality of care that is given.
“If care is delivered (to ALS patients) with the will and desire to make the person comfortable in a very supportive fashion, death can be forestalled for an extended period of time and we are not talking days, we are talking years,” explained Dragovic. “And there are tremendous returns in the way of overall human gratification when you are doing that for your loved one. That is where compassion comes in.”
The web site of the ALS Association concurs: “Present treatment of ALS is aimed at symptomatic relief, prevention of complications and maintenance of maximum optimal function and optimal quality of life.”
Yet as the Association warns, “The financial cost to families of persons with ALS is exceedingly high. In the advanced stages care can cost up to $200,000 a year. Entire savings of relatives of patients are quickly depleted because of the extraordinary cost involved in the care of ALS patients.”
If Kevorkian is convicted and imprisoned, he plans to starve himself to death. Fieger, who had earlier cited Kevorkian's “self-destructive” streak, confirms the likelihood of his carrying out this threat. As Father Robert Sirico, head of the Michigan-based Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, wrote in The New York Times, “It would be a pathetic but not a surprising conclusion to this drama for Dr. Kevorkian to display the same disregard for his own life that he has for the lives of others. It would be a sad epitaph for Dr. Kevorkian to become the first martyr to die for the right to kill.”
Register correspondent Diane Hanson provided information for this report, which was compiled by staff with the use of wire and Internet sources.
----- EXCERPT: 'DR. DEATH'VOWS TO REPRESENT HIMSELF IN HEARINGS ----- EXTENDED BODY: Register Staff ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Indulgences To Help Mark Grand Jubilee DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—The first great event of the new millennium fell on the First Sunday of Advent this year, Nov. 29, as Pope John Paul II officially declared the Grand Jubilee of the Year 2000, with celebrations throughout the world and the granting of special indulgences — remissions of temporal punishment due to sin — for a variety of pilgrimages, prayers, and works of mercy.
Before celebrating Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to begin the year dedicated to God the Father, the third and final year of preparation for the Holy Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II presided over the delivery and reading of the papal bull, Incarnationis Mysterium (The Mystery of the Incarnation), officially proclaiming the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
While the Jubilee has been planned for years, this papal bull — a special type of document used to issue important papal decrees — officially proclaimed the event.
“I therefore decree that the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 will begin on Christmas Eve 1999, with the opening of the holy door in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican [and] will continue until the closing of the Jubilee Year on the day of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, January 6, 2001.”
With those words, the Great Jubilee, which the Holy Father mentioned in his first encyclical in 1979, was definitively proclaimed. Indeed, during his homily the Pope made reference to his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man), illustrating that the Great Jubilee celebrates the central reality of all human history, Jesus Christ, who through the mystery of the Incarnation begins the redemption of the human race.
“Christ is our Redeemer: Redemptor mundi et Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of the world and the Redeemer of man,” he said. “He has come among us to help us to cross the threshold which leads to the door of life, the ‘holy door’ that is Himself.”
The bull was read in front of the holy door of St. Peter's Basilica. Of the five doors on the front of the basilica, one — the holy door — is usually sealed shut and bricked-up, and is only opened during holy years. The opening of the holy door next Christmas Eve will begin the holy year, and the Pope himself will be the first to walk through it.
The three other patriarchal basilicas in Rome also have holy doors which will be opened for the Jubilee. Those responsible for those basilicas — St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran, and St. Paul Outside-the-Walls — were on hand to receive a copy of the bull from the Holy Father, to be likewise read at each basilica.
The bull Incarnationis Mysterium provides directives for the participation of the faithful in the Jubilee, and highlights the importance of pilgrimages, the holy door, and indulgences. (See article on Page 6.)
“I open today, as bishop of Rome,” said the Holy Father in his homily, “the third year of preparation for the Great Jubilee.”
Having proclaimed the Jubilee itself, the Holy Father focused on this last year of “intense preparation” — the last year of the second Christian millennium. It is a year to focus to the mercy of God the Father. Crafting his homily around the responsorial psalm — “Let us go with joy to meet the Lord” — the Holy Father preached on the Son as both the revealer of the Father and the way to the Father.
He spoke of the whole year as marking a special experience of the liturgical formula by which we go “to the Father, by the way that is Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”
Special emphasis was given to the mercy of the Father, experienced most clearly in the forgiveness of sins. At the general intercessions, the Holy Father's prayer for the third year of preparation for the Great Jubilee was offered for the first time; that prayer speaks about the Father first in terms of his mercy.
The theme of the Father “rich in mercy” was underscored throughout the Mass. In the homily the Holy Father made reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son and also to his encyclical on the Father, given on the First Sunday of Advent in 1980, entitled Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy). A special edition of the encyclical, published by the organizing committee for the Jubilee and bearing on its cover an image of Rembrandt's painting of the return of the Prodigal Son, was distributed by the thousands to pilgrims who attended the Mass.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian in the Diocese of Kingston, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: Pope officially declares an event of the millennium ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Attorney Defends Catholic Causes Against 'Goliaths' DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—The day before he was to leave for Portland, Ore., to argue a major pro-life case, New Jersey attorney Christopher Ferrara spent hours with a legal assistant making hundreds of copies at a local shop. He knew that his legal adversaries from a major firm were working with dozens of secretaries and researchers to prepare for the case which opened in federal district court Nov. 3, so he tried to tip the scales in his favor by praying the Rosary silently to himself and invoking the intercession of St. Thomas More, patron of lawyers.
As president of American Catholic Lawyers Association (ACLA), a small group that does all its work pro bono and relies solely on donations and an occasional grant, Ferrara is not slow to compare his position to that of David facing Goliath. But the stakes for the cases he handles are too high for the individuals involved and for the free practice of religion, for him to flinch as he goes into the legal arena.
“We have seen time and time again that if a Catholic is going to practice his faith in any serious and effective way, or do his utmost to defend unborn babies, he will come under fire from the strong interest groups in our society that want to keep Catholics out of public influence and keep abortion on demand legal,” Ferrara said in a recent Register interview. “If he does any damage to the culture of death, it will come down upon him like a ton of bricks.”
In Oregon, he is defending pro-life activists who are being sued under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by the local Planned Parenthood affiliate and a host of others from the abortion lobby. The defendants, Don Treshman, who works for Human Life International in Front Royal, Va., and Monica Miller, are charged with pro-life conspiracy for, among other allegations, making two signs and a bumper sticker that are considered threatening to abortion doctors. The signs list the names and addresses of a number of doctors who perform abortions, charge them with “crimes against humanity” and ask for any information that might lead to their arrest and prosecution in an anticipated Nuremburg-style trial.
Plaintiffs claim that the defendants are stirring up violence against abortion-ists and are asking for punitive damages for revenue lost and extra security costs. Planned Parenthood, following the judge's directive refused comment on the case.
Ferrara argues that his clients have not been involved in violence themselves, and that the information they give about abortionists is an exercise in free speech which they believe to be their obligation as Catholics to make public.
He says that the suit is an attempt to classify all pro-life speech as threatening and to implicate all pro-life advocates in the violence that has taken place against abortion doctors. If Treshman and Miller lose the case, Ferrara stated, anyone making a public pro- life statement could be implicated in a conspiracy. In a fund-raising letter, he writes: “Pope John Paul II himself has condemned abortion as ‘an abominable crime’which Catholics must resist. Is the Pope a racketeer?”
The Portland case is similar to the one that Chicago pro-lifer Joe Scheidler lost last spring after a long jury trial. The head of the Pro-Life Action League, and one of the most popular activists in the movement, Scheidler was found guilty under RICO of running a nationwide ring of pro-life advocates and was hit with more than $60,000 in damages from three abortion clinics. The plaintiffs did not prove any physical violence on Scheidler's part. Rather, he was found guilty of extortion against clinics by leading Operation Rescue actions blocking entrances and harassing women by trying to talk them out of getting an abortion.
The decision drew fire from First Amendment defenders, some of whom favor abortion rights.
Ferrara, who has been on the case since the suit was brought in October 1995, hopes that the Chicago decision will not cast a shadow upon his arguments in Portland.
“We simply cannot afford to lose this case,” he said. The shooting death of the Buffalo abortion doctor, Barnett Slepian, may also cast a shadow on the proceedings, said Christopher Slattery, director of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life in New York City. Lawyers for his organization are representing the non-Catholic defendants in the case.
“It's a bad time for the trial of this case because the Buffalo shooting can be used to inflame the jury,” said Slattery. “Despite the obvious free-speech rights of pro-lifers, we'll have to work hard in the case to make our point in this case.” The case is set to go to trial December 7.
Ferrara's organization is also representing a group of Catholic parents who brought suit against an upstate New York public school board. Parents claim that their children were required to take part in school-sanctioned pagan rituals, occult practices, and Eastern spirituality methods, in violation of their religious beliefs. The suit charges that students were instructed during classroom time to make images of the Hindu god “Lord Ganesha” and the Aztec serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. They also were asked to lie down on top of graves during a class “cemetery walk” to compare their sizes to those of the deceased, and were lectured on the powers of crystals and told to put such objects on their bodies, the parents charge.
The case is scheduled for summary judgment soon in federal district court in White Plains.
Other cases involve a Catholic worker at a Wisconsin public health clinic who was fired for refusing to distribute contraceptives, a Catholic priest who was discharged as a military chaplain for preaching against abortion, and Catholics suing for the right to erect a Nativity scene on pubic property in a New Jersey town that allows a menorah.
Ferrara, 41, founded his Catholic Lawyers association in 1990 after a challenge from a friend. “He said to me that what we need is a law firm and advocacy group to defend the rights of Catholics, because he saw we were beginning to get beat up in the public arena and in the court,” recalled Ferrara. “We started out with a vestigial organization, writing letters, drumming up publicity, just trying to get ourselves known. Eventually, the cases started to come in, one by one. Now, we really have to pick which ones we can devote the time and resources to.”
He acknowledged the work done by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in terms of bringing public pressure against anti-Catholic artistic or media displays, but more is needed on the strictly legal end of the issues, he said.
The well-funded and effective American Center for Law and Justice in Virginia, and the many regional legal centers that defend pro-lifers are Christian in focus but not specifically Catholic.
“There is a great shortage of exclusively Catholic law centers who are out to defend fellow Catholics in an often hostile legal world,” said Ferrara. “A lot of what we do is preventative in nature. There are times when a case will be dropped or settled when people see that our clients have lawyers that will aggressively defend their civil rights.”
He completed his undergraduate work at Fordham University in the Bronx and got his law degree in 1987 from the university's Law School in Manhattan. He practiced law in the secular field for a number of years and kept up his regular practice for a few years after founding ACLA. Now Ferrara is the organization's one full-time lawyer, with an office in Fairfield, New Jersey. He has one full-time legal assistant and a few part-time employees, and relies on other Catholic lawyers to handle cases which he takes in different parts of the country.
He and his wife have five children and consider themselves “ultra-tradition-alists.” They attend Latin Mass in Pequannock, New Jersey, at a church staffed by Fraternity of St. Peter priests who have permission to celebrate all the sacraments according to the 1962 rituals.
He is also an ardent promoter of the message of Fatima and has written extensively on the miracles there and the Blessed Mother's messages.
His religious convictions and professional direction have merged nicely, he said.
“There is nothing better than to litigate for principle instead of money,” Ferrara told the Register. “The amount of work involved in these cases and the size of the legal teams I have to face most times would be intolerable if I were doing this just for money.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Marketing Whizzes Set Stage forAnimated Moses Film DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—The Prince of Egypt, the $60 million-plus animated movie about the life of Moses, won't open in theaters until Dec. 18. But DreamWorks SKG, the film's producer, has already launched an omnipresent marketing blitz using music stores and book stores, mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart and Target, religious leaders, and even churches.
The campaign promises to make it harder to ignore this film than it was for Pharaoh to ignore the various plagues unleashed upon Egypt until he realented and released the Jewish people from more than three centuries of slavery.
Stores have already begun selling movie-related musical albums, including an official soundtrack and other albums targeted to country and Christian listeners. Meanwhile, three separate publishers have created a movie-themed wave of nearly two dozen books related to the film.
And the movie's impressive, multi-language, art-festooned Web site (www.prince-of-egypt.com) features study guides designed to help parents and teachers examine Moses'spiritual and ethical values. Some churches are planning to take groups of children to the film, while others intend to promote it to their members.
An article in the September/-October issue of Children's Ministry magazine, published by Loveland, Colo.-based Group Publishing, Inc., tells readers how to create a “Life of Moses Museum” in their churches, and gives the upcoming movie the kind of earnest endorsement that money can't buy: “This is an unprecedented opportunity for children's ministers to … reveal God's truth to children.”
“Merchandising The Prince of Egypt like a cartoon would be wrong,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former Disney honcho who is now the “K” in SKG. “This is not a fairy tale for toddlers.”
Many people of faith are anxious to support films that take their beliefs seriously. Early reports indicate that The Prince of Egypt does just that, while not offending non-religious viewers who may be attracted to the film's universal themes of “faith, hope, and freedom.”
Rolf Zettersten, publisher at Christian publishing giant Thomas Nelson, which is producing seven Prince-related books, initially passed when DreamWorks asked him to jump aboard the movie's burgeoning bandwagon. But Zettersten changed his tune after an advance screening of the film.
“We're not looking for a movie to animate every jot and tittle of the Bible,” he said. “But we do want it to be at least consistent with Scripture. And Prince of Egypt does that reliably.”
Still, marketing to religious viewers requires sensibilities and sensitivities absent from the typical Hollywood promotional campaign, as well as generous doses of creativity.
In 1956, director Cecil DeMille used unprecedented methods to promote the last major movie about Moses, DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments. Working with a granite quarry, DeMille created hundreds of sets of stone tablets carved with the Ten Commandments and had them installed in parks and public places around the country. (According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which opposes such displays on public property, DeMille's tablets still stand near statehouses in Denver, San Antonio, and elsewhere.)
But early on, the folks at DreamWorks decided not to promote The Prince of Egypt with the sort of marketing campaign typically associated with children's films, namely action toys and fast-food meals.
The concern was hypothetical Holy Moses Happy Meals and Super-sized Red Sea Sodas and Manna Malts would leave a bad taste in consumers' mouths. Ditto for Toys R Us pushing millions of, let's say, battery-powered Burning Bushes or Miracle Magic Sets (“Turns water in your house and in nearby lakes and streams to blood!”). That's why DreamWorks SKG began promoting The Prince of Egypt to religious leaders as long ago as 1995. Katzenberg has been hosting visits by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders. A studio press release says “558 people have paid 756 visits to DreamWorks” to screen the film.
The list of honored guests reads like a who's who of contemporary American religion, and includes the Rev. Billy Graham, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, religious broadcaster James Dobson, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, and others.
“I think (DreamWorks) knew the religious community would either be their greatest ally or their greatest enemy,” said publisher Zettersten, “and they shrewdly courted that community's leaders.”
DreamWorks' public promotional machinery began going into high gear in late October with the release of the movie's non-sectarian theme song, “When You Believe,” delivered by divas Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.
In mid-November, thousands of record stores began selling the sound-track album, which features “When You Believe,” as well as two companion “inspired-by” collections — one featuring country artists, the other boasting performances by top contemporary Christian and gospel artists.
Targeted to adult listeners, the albums are intended to communicate the message that the movie is more than kid stuff.
And while the Bible tells Moses' story in just one book, Exodus, three publishers have released 22 Prince of Egypt-related books, most of them intended for children and utilizing some of the film's impressive computer-generated artwork.
Thomas Nelson recently shipped huge Prince of Egypt floor displays to the country's 2,000 largest Christian bookstores. The displays, which stores must feature in the front one-third of their retail space, will promote more than a dozen of these books, along with movie-related musical recordings.
In addition, the country's 2,399 Wal-Marts and 451 Sam's stores will offer gift packages to their millions of shoppers. The packages include a musical CD, a book, and tickets to the movie which are good at any U.S. theater.
“This is like having thousands of additional box offices out there,” said one DreamWorks exec.
There will also be a mass media onslaught, consisting of TV specials on NBC, TNN and CMT; radio specials on the nation's 100 top Christian stations; and consumer advertising for it all.
While DreamWorks hopes The Prince of Egypt will be a smash box office success, retailers hope the movie-themed merchandise will unleash a flood of holiday shopping.
And for Christian publisher Thomas Nelson, hopes for financial success are mingled with prayers that the Prince of Egypt phenomenon will use one of the Bible's most powerful stories to help promote biblical values. “These books have as much crossover potential as anything we've published in recent years,” said Zettersten.
----- EXCERPT: Early buzz from religious leaders: two thumbs up ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steve Rabey ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.N. Declaration On Rights Is Still Universal Gauge DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—A half-century ago, amid the ruins of World War II, the free nations of the world met in general assembly to begin the task of establishing a post-war order that would secure the peace, advance global prosperity, alleviate poverty, and promote human rights around the globe. The institution created to realize those lofty goals, the United Nations, was, from its founding conference at San Francisco in April 1945, the object of nearly messianic expectations.
“Inexorable tides of history are carrying us toward a golden age of freedom, justice, peace, and social well-being,” one delegate to the San Francisco conference enthused.
“The U.N. charter,” added another 1945 orator, “has grown from the prayers and prophecies of Isaiah and Micah.”
Even the pragmatic Cordell Hull, U.S. secretary of state until 1944, predicted that the new United Nations would render the security arrangements of “the unhappy past” — things like alliances, spheres of influence, and balances of power — obsolete.
“Born … amid such euphoria,” veteran Israeli diplomat Abba Eban wrote in a wry assessment of the organization's beginnings, “a fall from grace was inevitable.”
It was not long in coming. By the late 1940s, when the United Nations was barely up and running, superpower rivalries and the emerging arms race had poured cold water on such utopian hopes.
This Dec. 10, however, marks the 50th anniversary of a signal achievement of the infant organization that has endured the tumultuous decades since the U.N.'s founding and the vagaries of its own mixed record: 1948's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“… [D]isregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,” declares the Declaration's preamble, “and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.”
The fruit of the first U.N. Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the declaration was conceived by its backers as a kind of international Bill of Rights. Far more than a static landmark of international law, the Declaration has been, and continues to be, an agent of political and social change, invoked over the years by nearly all human rights movements, from Vaclav Havel's Civic Forum to Nelson Mandela's campaign to end apartheid in South Africa.
What is not as well appreciated is the fact that the text of the Declaration significantly reflects the social thought of Catholic neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain and was drafted, in part, and shepherded through the U.N. bureaucracy by Lebanese diplomat Charles Malik, a Harvard-trained philosopher and committed Greek Orthodox Christian. (Malik went on to become Lebanon's first ambassador to Washington.)
The historic act was forwarded to the General Assembly where it was unanimously adopted on Dec. 10, 1948.
(There were eight abstentions, however: Saudi Arabia objected to the provision in article 18 that postulated a right to change one's religion; South Africa objected to the racial equality provisions; and the Soviet bloc abstained on the contradictory grounds that the Declaration was merely “toothless” generalities on the one hand, and that it threatened national sovereignty on the other.)
“This is a document born at a very unique moment in history, a window of opportunity,” said Habib Malik, son of Charles Malik, one of the Declaration's architects, and adjunct professor of history and cultural studies at the Lebanese-American University in Byblos, Lebanon. “It came right after the end of history's worst war, and right before the Cold War. There was just enough international outrage to bring about a consensus on human rights, and just enough time to get it voted in before Cold War polarization started.”
Malik pointed out that the Declaration caps a long history of attempts to formulate a common doctrine of rights and freedoms: the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, the French Rights of Man.
“What was missing from all of these previous attempts,” he told the Register, “was the international dimension. That's the important thing about the Universal Declaration — it's truly international.”
‘This document, for better or worse, has become the single most important common reference point for discussions about freedom and dignity in the world today.’
Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard University, whose book Rights From Wrong: The Story of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be out next year, sees the document as a charter for the future as well: “Most Americans are unaware of it. Our attitude is that we have all the rights we want, thank you. That's got to change.”
Glendon stresses that global interdependence is more a factor today than it was when the Declaration was drafted 50 years ago.
“This document, for better or worse, has become the single most important common reference point for discussions about freedom and dignity in the world today,” she said. People need a way to sit down with those who don't share their religious values, culture, or history, Glendon urged.
Reaching some kind of universal consensus on basic human rights was perhaps the greatest single challenge, and the most surprising achievement, of the original drafters of the Declaration.
As early as 1946, Maritain, who worked for the U.N. Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization at the time, and philosopher Richard McKeon, among others, were commissioned to sound out various cultural and religious leaders to determine whether there was a basis on which to establish a common framework for human rights.
To their surprise, they discovered that there was a kind of unwritten consensus among the various world religions and cultures about fundamental human values that could, and should, be guaranteed in international law.
On the basis of this material, the U.N. Human Rights Commission appointed a small drafting party consisting of Malik, Chinese philosopher Peng Chun Chang, Eleanor Roosevelt, and French jurist Rene Cassin to draw up a preliminary draft of the declaration in 1947. This much-revised draft formed the basis of the Universal Declaration approved by the General Assembly a year later.
“Thanks to Malik and Maritain,” said Glendon, “you can find a quite extraordinary degree of correspondence between the Declaration and principles of Catholic social teaching.”
For example, she said, the concept of the person in the Declaration is neither the autonomous individual of modern Western thought, nor the collective being of the Marxist tradition.
For the Declaration's drafters, the human person is uniquely valuable in him or herself, and viewed in the context of relations with others.
The Declaration's first article puts it this way: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” And in Article 29, we read: “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.”
The Declaration is not a “libertarian” document, says Glendon. “It speaks of an ordered liberty, grounded in a concept of the person in community.”
Unlike the American Bill of Rights, she said, the Declaration is not an enumeration of isolated individual rights, but “an integrated whole, where all rights have limits, where all rights are conditioned by duties.”
In that sense, the Declaration stands as a corrective to some tendencies prevalent at the United Nations itself nowadays.
In the so-called Asian values debates of the early 1990s, for example, Chinese delegates, in particular, charged that U.N. human rights provisions constituted an imposition of “Western” cultural norms on non-Western, “collectivist” societies.
“The charge of ‘Westernness,’” said Glendon, “is more often than not the cry of the tyrant and the notorious abuser of human rights.”
In fact, the Declaration is “impressively multicultural,” arguing, in effect, that there can be certain general principles held to be universal that, nevertheless, can be enculturated in a variety of ways. “It's not a top-down, imposed universalism,” she said, “but an invitation to nations and cultures to compete with one another in moral excellence.”
The problem, though, Glendon noted, is that today's United Nations has 25 specialized agencies and thousands of employees.
“Bureaucratic structures attract lobbyists and special interest groups,” she said. “The U.N. is attractive to groups who think they can do an end-run around ordinary domestic political processes by working their ideas into U.N. documents and touting them as international ‘norms’ — radical, ‘anti-people’ environmentalists, outmoded feminists, radical homosexual and lesbian groups, population control advocates.”
What happens, then, she said, is that so-called international standards can be used to place conditions on aid, on loans from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund.
“This is, literally, a form of neo-colonialism,” Glendon said, “and poorer countries resent it deeply.”
The Declaration, on the other hand, she said, was never intended to produce uniformity in the application of its principles.
It's not for nothing that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan remarked recently that the time had come not only to protect human rights, but to protect the Universal Declaration itself. Despite the euphoria that attended its passage half a century ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said Malik, promised no era of heaven on earth.
“It's a unique achievement, but it's not perfect,” he said. “What we have to ask ourselves is what kind of world we'd have without it.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: 1948 document reflects Catholic's social thought ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Belarus, Another Cuba? DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:The Eastern European nation of Belarus has been politically independent for less than 10 years, yet it is a focal point for determining the future status of the Church in the former Soviet Union. As an Orthodox-majority nation with a significant Catholic minority, Belarus presents a particularly thorny situation for the Church. Kazimierz Cardinal Swiatek has been head of the Catholic Church in Belarus since 1991. Born into an ethnic Polish family in Estonia, Cardinal Swiatek settled in Polish-ruled western Belarus, where he was ordained a priest in 1939. He was made metropolitan of the newly revived Minsk-Mogilev archdiocese in 1991, and became the first ever Belarusan cardinal in November 1994. Recently, he spoke with Register Correspondent Jonathan Luxmoore.
Jonathan Luxmoore: Belarus, a former Soviet republic, is widely considered one of Europe's most repressive states, with a human rights record that's drawn repeated expressions of concern from Western governments. Yet on Oct. 18 you invited the Pope to make a pilgrimage. Wasn't this a quixotic gesture?
Kazimierz Cardinal Swiatek: I visit the Vatican quite often. And during my private talks there, I've often been told the Pope is ready and willing to come to Belarus. The ideal occasion for presenting him with this invitation came on the 20th anniversary of his pontificate, when almost 1,000 Belarusans descended on Rome. It was the first time in history that so many Belarusans had stood in St. Peter's Square and been received by the Pope at an exclusive audience.
The Pope said he was receiving many letters inviting him to Belarus. I responded that I was inviting him too. In short, both sides concur that a papal visit would be desirable. But it will be a strictly Church event.
If John Paul II comes to Belarus, it would be his first visit to a former Soviet republic outside the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It would also be his first to a predominantly Orthodox country — one where the Catholic Church makes up just 20% of the population of 10.3 million. Will the government endorse your invitation?
For the moment, I can only say one thing: as leader of the Church in Belarus, I have invited the Pope. This is a Church matter — the leader of the local Church is inviting the head of the universal Church. But it isn't a full invitation. Besides being leader of the worldwide Church, the Pope is also Vatican head of state. So for the visit to become a possibility, there must also be an invitation from the head of state in Belarus.
Will this invitation come? And if so, when? These are matters for the government and president. Here my prerogative ends.
Yet the Minsk government has hinted that it favors a papal visit. On Oct. 29, just 11 days after your Rome audience, Foreign Minister Ivan Antonovic appeared to welcome the idea.
Only the government can explain its reaction, and why it came so quickly. What's most important is that the foreign minister acknowledged publicly that I had invited the Pope to Belarus — and that the possibility of a visit was linked to consultations with Russia and the Orthodox Church.
But the foreign minister's statement has been the only official reaction so far; and it was made at a press conference in reply to a question. In his first sentence, he said a visit was possible; and in the second, he said it was “very likely.” These were his exact words.
In the past, Orthodox leaders in Eastern Europe have effectively vetoed a papal visit like this, arguing that inter-Church disputes must first be settled over the activities of revived Greek Catholic communities and alleged Catholic “proselytism” in traditionally Orthodox areas. Yet there are signs in other countries that the Orthodox stance may be modifying. If called to take part in these consultations, how would you seek to persuade Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk that a Papal visit is desirable?
At this stage, I have nothing more to do. The kind of talks which will take place — with whom, when, where — this is a matter for the Belarusan state. I have done everything necessary, right, and appropriate from the side of the Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church here hasn't proposed talks with me — and I don't expect it to. Nor has there been anything in the media about any Orthodox statement — least of all from Metropolitan Filaret.
A few newspapers have printed commentaries on whether a papal visit would be beneficial. But these were merely the reflections of particular people — everyone has their own opinion.
Since being granted sweeping powers in a 1996 referendum, President Aleksander Lukashenka has curbed press freedoms and harassed opposition parties. In June, the U.S. and European Union governments withdrew their ambassadors. Wouldn't a visit by the Pope confer unfair legitimacy on Lukashenka's regime?
Any papal visit would be a strictly pastoral occasion as far as the Church is concerned — a visit to Catholics by the Church's supreme shepherd. We haven't any other thoughts; and if other consequences and implications are drawn from it, they will not be ours. Some commentators have made this point — it is one possible interpretation. But others have used a different analogy, recalling the Holy Father's visit to Cuba last January.
Looked at meritorically, the prospects for the Church seem mixed. In 1995, a law requiring visiting Catholic clergy to obtain central government approval was widely expected to restrict the work of 150 priests from neighboring Poland, who are making up for a post-communist shortage of native Belarusan pastors. Yet the Church, under your guidance, seems to have forged ahead regardless. A synod to coordinate its revival staged its third session in September. A statue of the Virgin of Fatima was returned to Portugal the same month after touring the Catholic Church's 380 Belarusian parishes.
I have always been an optimist — I still am, and I will be to the end of my life. But there are certain factors in today's situation which provide for a particular optimism — or at least for avoiding pessimism. For one thing, the Church in Belarus is growing — and not only in numbers, but in qualities too. It is emerging as a strong force for spiritual faith and morality. The Belarusan nation needs this spiritual and moral renewal. And just about everyone has underlined this.
When the president sent a congratulatory message to the Holy Father for his 20th anniversary, he stressed that the Catholic Church was playing a great role in the Belarusan nation's rebirth. This came straight from the head of state. And it wasn't just exaggerated or empty praise — it reflects a point of view that is widely held. The Church really is gaining strength and authority here. And it is gaining them not only among its own members, but in Belarusan society as a whole — as well as in the eyes of the highest state authorities.
For several years, you've attempted to open a permanent dialogue with the government on the Church's rights and duties. Last March, when the president visited the republic's only Catholic seminary at Grodno, you predicted agreements would follow. But is this a genuine dialogue, rather than just a polite monologue?
Yes, there are permanent contacts now. And although these reflect current needs and emerging priorities, a steady dialogue now exists — and this is a good development in itself. It doesn't mean both sides are necessarily reaching a consensus or common denominator. But the fact that it's possible to talk and debate, to express one's opinion and listen to the other side's, provides hope for the future.
Yet this isn't the view which predominates about the Lukashenka regime. In its latest October report, the International Helsinki Federation said presidential decrees are increasingly replacing other legislation. It drew attention to arbitrary court rulings, ill treatment of detainees, violations of basic human rights. Until recently, government officials were accusing neighboring Poland of using the Catholic Church as a subversive Fifth Column. Can the Church help repair the country's image?
Our evangelical mission gives us a clear role. The more the Church appeals for justice, peace, love, and goodness, the stronger will be its spiritual contribution. The topics you mention all lie across a certain threshold. They soon acquire political dimensions. By contrast, the Church in Belarus will remain firmly, resolutely non-political. This is what I demand from myself, and from my clergy. And it's this non-political direction which is allowing our work to develop in a steady way. If issues arise which have a bearing on politics, we hold back with our words and actions. We reply that our field is the Church and the Gospel.
—Jonathan Luxmoore
Kazimierz Cardinal Swiatek
Personal: Born 1913 to an ethnic Polish family in Estonia. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1939. Appointed vicargeneral of Pinsk in 1989, metropolitan of the newly revived Minsk-Mogilev archdiocese in 1991, and the first-ever Belarusan cardinal in November 1994.
Background: Exiled to Siberia as a child; returned with his family to settle in Polish-ruled western Belarus. Condemned to death after Belarus' occupation by the Soviet Red Army. Released during the 1940 German invasion, only to be rearrested by the NKVD (Soviet secret police) in 1944, and sent back for a further 10 years in Siberian labor camps. After his release in the 1950s, he worked as a Catholic priest for three decades, more or less secretly or discreetly, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
----- EXCERPT: How a papal visit could impact the former Soviet republic ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kazimierz Cardinal Swiatek ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S NOTES & Quotes DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Goddess Cultists Target Catholics and Jews
LOS ANGELES TIMES, Nov. 20—A radical strain of feminist, New Age religion called the “Goddess movement” has alarmed female — and Jewish — observers as it increasingly infiltrates mainstream religion, said a recent Times report. “The whole Goddess movement is creating a false god in the image of woman,” said Diane Knippers, president of the Institute of Religion and Democracy in Washington.
She told of visiting a conference at which followers lined up to take a bite of an apple — a reference to Eve.
“It horrified me,” Knippers said. “Eve was disobeying God, and that is not something to be copied.”
They follow Eve's example of disobedience as well: Goddess devotees deny the authority of the Bible, the existence of the Trinity, and accept lesbianism.
Rabbi Bradley Artson of the Board of Rabbis in Los Angeles says they preach anti-Semitism as well, blaming the Hebrews for patriarchy. “I find that no less oppressive than old-fashioned sexism,” he was quoted saying.
Helen Hull Hitchcock was quoted deploring Goddess cultists who seek to enforce their beliefs in Catholic parishes.
“I find it ironic that the Catholic Church is charged with reducing the role of women when it most strongly utilizes the gifts of women,” said Hitchcock, of Women for Faith and Family.
“If you don't like this religion, why try to deform it? Why don't you start your own?” she said.
Homiletics: A Lost Art?
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Nov. 21—Catholic homilies, many complain, could use some work. A new program may help address the problem.
Bad homilies may have become more prevalent because of the unique Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, wrote New York Daily News columnist Charles Bell recently.
“Catholics often complain about the poor quality of homilies. … One reason, possibly, is that it is Communion, not the sermon, that is central to Catholic worship. Most homilies run 10 or so minutes, tops, which often does not allow for much in the way of anecdotes, reflections, and so on.”
Nonetheless, Msgr. Timothy Dolan, rector of North American College, a Vatican seminary, took advantage of the many priests and nuns in Washington for the bishops' conference to arrange a meeting to look for someone to head a new homiletics program he is starting, said the columnist.
“I call it a summit meeting on preaching,” Msgr. Dolan told Bell. Several candidates gave their advice to homilists and Bell quoted some of their suggestions.
“Keep to just one point. It's the hardest thing to do,” said one candidate. “Teach seminarians to speak of Jesus and God as if they actually had heard of them, not just read about them,” said another.
Michigan Catholics Unite at the Ballot Box
THE DETROIT NEWS, Nov. 21—Detroit News religion columnist George Bullard has noticed something new in Michigan: Catholic unity on matters of public policy.
“John Kennedy's run for the White House was the last time ‘Catholic vote’ was chatted up seriously as an entity. Kennedy made a point to say he wasn't beholden to the Vatican on political matters, and that set the tone for Catholic politicians since.
“But Catholics are back. They heavily influenced the Nov. 3 defeat of a state ballot proposal to allow assisted suicide. The Michigan Church transformed itself into an instant political organization, with speeches and literature distributed through churches. Many of the faithful prayed at Mass, reading from special cards, for the defeat of assisted suicide.
“It was a throwback to the 1950s when they prayed like that weekly for the conversion of Russia. And even though President Reagan often gets credit for dismantling the evil empire, who knows what really works, and what doesn't?
“That brings up speaker-elect Perricone, Republican from Kalamazoo. He might reopen debate on the death penalty, now banned in Michigan. Capital punishment also concerns Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida, who's against death penalties and is the spiritual leader for 1.5 million Catholics in Metro Detroit. “If he does, expect Catholics to be in the debate as a group. Some in the archdiocese already are keeping a distant eye on Lansing [the state capital] on the matter.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selected publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Indonesian Riots Rage Despite Tolerance Talks
Coincidentally, it said, the violence came shortly after a summit on religious tolerance in the area.
“Only three days ago, religious leaders from all denominations met to appeal for restraint in the face of heightened social tension,” said the report. It quoted Adurrahman Wahid, leader of the country's largest Muslim group, saying, “National reconciliation is needed to calm the escalating situation. There has been a trend that religions are used by certain factions to sow hatred in an attempt to maintain power.”
The rioting started when Muslim gangs heard rumors of attacks on Muslims by Christians.
75-Year-Old Imprisoned for 1950 Priest's Death
The BBC reported that the Czech Republic has sentenced a former Czech secret police officer to five years in prison for torturing a priest to death in 1950.
Ladislav Macha, 75, was convicted of killing the priest while investigating an alleged miracle at a village church.
“In his efforts to make the priest confess to faking the miracle, Macha deprived him of food and sleep and beat him with a stick,” said the report. The priest died of his injuries.
The BBC correspondent in Prague noted that Macha has appealed against his sentence.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selected publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Jubilee 2000: A Time for Repentance and Conversion DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—“The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem is not an event which can be consigned to the past. The whole of human history in fact stands in reference to him: our own time and the future of the world are illumined by his presence.”
So reads the papal bull, Incarnationis Mysterium, promulgated Nov. 29, the First Sunday of Advent. In this bull, Pope John Paul II declares that the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 will begin with the opening of the holy door at St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve 1999, and will continue until the Epiphany of the Lord, Jan. 6, 2001. The bull invites all to focus on the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who “is the true criterion for all that happens in time.”
According to the bull, the Jubilee will be celebrated with “equal dignity Land, the latter site hopefully serving “to advance mutual dialogue until the day that all of us together — Jews, Christians, and Muslims — will exchange the greeting of peace in Jerusalem.”
The Jubilee of 2000 will also be celebrated throughout all the local Churches in the world — a new development that makes the spiritual riches of the Jubilee available to the whole world. Local bishops have been asked to designate pilgrimage sites in each diocese where the faithful may participate in the Jubilee pilgrimages and gain the Jubilee indulgences. And for the millions who will travel to Rome for the Great Jubilee, the Holy Father has recommended to Romans the example of St. Philip Neri, who welcomed pilgrims to the Eternal City for the Jubilee of 1550.
Signs of Jubilee
The bull recognizes three “signs” that mark the celebration of Jubilees: pilgrimages, the holy door, and indulgences.
Pilgrimages are encouraged to the seven major basilicas of Rome, as well as to the principal basilicas of the Holy Land. In addition, diocesan bishops are asked to designate the local cathedral or co-cathedral, local shrines, especially Marian shrines, and other places of devotion, as sites whereby the faithful can go on Jubilee pilgrimages.
“To pass through that door means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” writes the Holy Father of the holy door. The opening of the holy door, principally an event in Rome, also symbolizes the opening of hearts and minds to Christ. Though not mentioned in the bull, the words of the Holy Father's first homily as Pope in 1978 apply here: “Open wide the doors to Christ!”
“When they gain indulgences, the faithful understand that by their own strength they would not be able to make good the evil which by sinning they have done to themselves and to the entire community, and therefore they are stirred to saving deeds of humility,” writes John Paul, quoting Pope Paul VI.
Indulgences
The bull deals at some length with the granting of indulgences — the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin given by the Church to those who perform specified pious actions — which are often misunderstood. A brief and simple catechesis is provided on the validity and need for indulgences, which have marked the Christian life, and in particular, the celebration of holy years, for centuries.
That having been explained, the appendix to the bull makes it clear that the Church is throwing open her treasury of merit for the Great Jubilee, making indulgences readily available to all who “express true conversion of heart” and meet the specified conditions and the usual requirements of sacramental confession, reception of Holy Communion, prayers for the intentions of the Roman pontiff, and the renunciation of all attachments to serious sin. As usual, only one plenary indulgence can be gained per day, and it can be applied either to the person himself, or to the dead.
Indulgences can be gained during the Great Jubilee for making a pious pilgrimage to one of the seven major basilicas of Rome or the catacombs; to the basilicas of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, of the Nativity in Bethlehem, or of the Annunciation in Nazareth; or to the local site designated by the diocesan bishop. Such pilgrimages, in order to meet the conditions for the indulgence, must include devout participation in Mass or another liturgical celebration such as Lauds or Vespers, or some pious exercise (e.g., Stations of the Cross, the rosary); or alternately, the conditions include time spent in Eucharistic adoration, ending with the “Our Father,” the profession of faith (creed) in any approved form, and prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In addition, the indulgence can be gained in any place for visits to “brothers or sisters in need or difficulty (the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly living alone, the handicapped, etc.), as if making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them.”
Lastly, the indulgence can also be gained “through actions which express in a practical and generous way the penitential spirit which is, as it were, the heart of the Jubilee.” Among such “personal sacrifices” are fasting or practicing abstinence according to the general rules of the Church, abstaining for “at least one whole day from unnecessary consumption (e.g., from smoking or alcohol),” donating money to the poor, supporting by a “significant contribution works of a religious or social nature,” or devoting a “suitable portion of personal free time to activities benefiting the community.”
The breadth of the plenary indulgence for the Great Jubilee is an attempt to mark the threshold of the new millennium with special solemnity and with the greatest possible participation of the faithful in every part of the world. Such practices also underscore that the Jubilee is not intended to be a mere anniversary, but an occasion for repentance and conversion.
“The history of the Church is a history of holiness,” writes the Holy Father. Nevertheless, he mentions again the need for a “purification of memory” which “calls everyone to make an act of courage and humility in recognizing the wrongs done by those who bear the name of Christian.
“As the Successor of Peter, I ask that in this year of mercy the Church, strong in the holiness which she receives from her Lord, should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters,” writes the Holy Father, encouraging all to join with him in his project of humbly expressing contrition for the shadows in the Church's history: “Let it be said once more without fear: ‘We have sinned’ (Jeremiah 3:25), but let us keep alive the certainty that ‘where sin increased, grace abounded even more’(Romans 5:20).”
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian for the Diocese of Kingston, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: Papal Bull introduces a year of pilgrimages, special indulgences, and rejoicing for the Church ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Prayer of His Holiness Pope John Paul II for the Third Year of Preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Blessed are you, Lord, Father in heaven, who, in your infinite mercy, stooped down to us in our distress and gave us Jesus, your Son, born of a woman, to be our savior and friend, our brother and Redeemer. We thank you, good Father, for the gift of the Jubilee Year; make it a time of favor for us, the year of a great return to the Father's house, where, full of love, you await your straying children to embrace them in your forgiveness and welcome them to your table, in their festive garments.
We praise you, Father, forever!
Father most merciful, during this Holy Year may our love for you and for our neighbor grow ever stronger: may Christ's disciples promote justice and peace; may they proclaim the Good News to the poor; and may the Church our Mother direct her love especially to the little ones and the neglected.
We praise you, Father, forever!
Father of justice, may the Great Jubilee be the fitting time for all Catholics to rediscover the joy of living by your word and obeying your will; may they know the goodness of fraternal communion, as they break bread together and praise you in hymns and inspired songs.
We praise you, Father, forever!
Father, rich in mercy, may the Holy Jubilee be a time of openness, of dialogue and encounter, among all who believe in Christ and with the followers of other religions: in your immense love, be bountiful in mercy to all.
We praise you, Father, forever!
O God, Almighty Father, as we make our way to you, our ultimate destiny, may all your children experience the gentle company of Mary most holy, image of purest love, whom you chose to be Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.
We praise you, Father, forever!
To you, Father of life, eternal source of all that is, highest good and everlasting light, be honor and glory, praise and thanksgiving, with the Son and with the Spirit, for ages unending. Amen.
Ioannes Paulus pp. II
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Pope's Week DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Audiences
Monday, Nov. 23:
• Two prelates from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands on their ad limina visit.
• Jan Cardinal Schotte, secretary general, Synod of Bishops with prelates from Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, Guam, and Papua New Guinea participating in the synod for Oceania.
Tuesday, Nov. 24:
• Laurent Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, accompanied by his entourage.
• Prelates from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, participating in the special assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops.
Wednesday, Nov. 25:
• Prelates from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands participating in the special assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops.
Thursday, Nov. 26:
• Three prelates from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands on their ad limina visit.
• Edmund Cardinal Szoka, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.
• Prelates from Fiji, Kiribati, Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Somoa, American Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, and Toketau Islands, participating in the Special Assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops.
Friday, Nov. 27:
• Four prelates from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
• Prelates from French Polynesia, Wallis Islands, Marquesas Islands, Mauritius, Vanuatu, Tuvalu Fiji, and New Caledonia, participating in the Special Assembly for Oceania of the Synod of Bishops.
Other Activities
Monday Nov. 23:
• Erected the ecclesiastical province of Coro, Venezuela, raising the diocese of the same name to metropolitan Church, and appointed Bishop Roberto Luckert Leon of Coro as metropolitan archbishop of the new province.
Tuesday, Nov. 24:
• Appointed Fr. Pierre Tran Dinh Tu, of bishop of Phu Cuong, Vietnam.
Thursday. Nov. 26:
• Appointed Professor Carl Anderson, vice president of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family at the branch in the United States of America, as member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:“The Synod of Bishops' Special Assembly for Oceania, inaugurated by John Paul II … is taking place thanks to the Internet,” Jan Cardinal Schotte, the synod's secretary generalwas quoted saying in a recent report.
The report agreed with his assessment, citing these examples:
• The Internet removed the obstacle of the cumbersome time it took in the past for Rome to communicate with the far-flung islands at the bottom of the globe.
• Also, among the numerous proposals made to the secretariat of the Synod, is one from a 100-year-old who stumbled on the preparatory document (Lineamenta) while browsing through the Internet.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selected publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: New Solutions in Iraq DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Following are excerpts from Bishop Anthony Pilla's statement on Iraq, released Nov. 19. Bishop Pilla is outgoing president of the National Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB):
Once again, in the midst of a serious international crisis, we wish to express our deep concern over the human costs and moral consequences of the confrontation with Iraq. These are not new concerns for us. Since 1991, we have repeatedly addressed how best to respond to the threat posed by the Iraqi government. We have urged political solutions rather than military force, and fresh efforts to ease and end the continuing, unmerited suffering of innocent Iraqi civilians under U.N. sanctions.
In doing so, we have sought to heed the Holy Father's exhortation: I, myself, on the occasion of the recent tragic war in the Persian Gulf, repeated the cry, ‘Never again war!’No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war.
We welcome the Iraqi government's long-overdue pledge to accept renewed monitoring and inspections, and we welcome the U.S. government's decision to suspend its planned attacks. This latest crisis, played out with bombers in the air and a last-minute response, is symptomatic of a far more fundamental challenge, with grave implications for Iraq and its people, peace in the region, and respect for international norms and the United Nations.
Bishop Anthony Pilla
While the causes of the conflict in the Middle East are deep and long-standing, it should be clear that the Iraqi government's actions are a primary source of the current crisis. It has repeatedly attacked its neighbors and its own people, has relentlessly pursued — and used — weapons of mass destruction, has consistently defied legitimate U. N. resolutions, and has failed to use available resources to feed the Iraqi people. The Iraqi government has a duty to stop its internal repression, to end its threats to peace, to abandon its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, and to respect the legitimate role of the United Nations in ensuring that it does so.
As the international community seeks to pursue its legitimate goals, it must do so in a way consistent with fundamental human rights and the principles governing the use of military force and other coercive measures. Policy makers and all of us must struggle with serious moral questions and make judgments of conscience about how our nation and the international community can respond justly to the situation in Iraq. These questions reflect traditional just war criteria, especially non-combatant immunity, proportionality, and probability of success.
*How can the international community respond effectively and discriminately, so that the Iraqi people do not bear the brunt of the suffering?
*Can the sustained use of military force meet the test of proportionality in enforcing the cease-fire resolutions?
*Would military action be likely to reduce significantly Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and its capacity to produce them?
*What are the implications for peace in this region, respect for international norms, and the credibility of the UN if effective, peaceful ways are not found to respond to Iraq's failure to comply with the cease-fire resolutions?
The answers to these difficult questions are not easy. It is clear that the international community has not achieved its legitimate objectives by military force or by eight years of the embargo. It is also clear that Iraqi civilians must be protected, so that, as the Holy Father has said, “an already harshly tried population [be] spared further suffering and pain.” The international community should not resort to means which effectively punish the Iraqi people for the actions of an authoritarian regime over which they have no control.
While we are aware of the complex roots of the current crisis, our concern for the widespread suffering of Iraqi civilians leads us to reiterate today with special urgency our long-standing call that the embargo be reshaped, reduced, and ended quickly. Doing so should not be seen as a reward for irresponsible behavior on the part of the Iraqi government, but as necessary to relieve a morally intolerable situation for ordinary Iraqis who are suffering immensely. The plight of the Iraqi people has been greatly intensified by the sustained and widespread damage to the civilian infrastructure as a result of the bombing during the Gulf War. Sanctions, when used, should be directed against those responsible, not entire populations; embargoes denying basic necessities of life are never morally acceptable.
Immediate steps should be taken to reshape and ease the embargo. Restrictions on trade in civilian goods should be lifted, while retaining political sanctions and a strict embargo on military-related items. Whatever the cause, whoever the adversary, we cannot tolerate the suffering and death of countless innocents, especially the very young and very old. It is time for new thinking and new approaches.
There are no quick or easy answers to the complex problems in Iraq and throughout the region. As Pope John Paul II has suggested, at the root of conflict “there are usually real and serious grievances, legitimate aspirations frustrated, poverty and the exploitation of multitudes of desperate people who see no real possibility of improving their lot by peaceful means.” Therefore, progress on this issue must be accompanied by sustained efforts to address the deeper causes of conflict in Iraq and the region.
We hope that the United States, working with the international community, will pursue what will continue to be a painstaking and frustrating process of pressing the Iraqi government to live up to its international obligations through a military embargo, political sanctions, deterrence and much more carefully-focused economic sanctions which do not threaten the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Bishop Anthony Pilla is ordinary of the Diocese of Cleveland.
----- EXCERPT: Perspective ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop Anthony Pilla ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Great Lovers Who Never Met DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Maurice and Thérèse: The Story of a Love by Bishop Patrick Ahern (Doubleday, 1998, 284 pp., $19.95)
The value of the correspondence tracked in Maurice & Thérèse, The Story of a Love is immense; herein lies a great treasure of the Church, of the Carmelite Order, of the theological community — and a treasure which each Christian really ought to claim authoritatively for himself. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997, is singularly revealed, principally in those pages which her letters grace.
The reader will be perhaps surprised to discover so easy a demeanor matched to so illustrious a figure, and maybe uncover, even, an incipient new friendship. This is the treasure of which the truly humble can glean: that this one correspondence is but the template, awaiting an ever-expansive succession of sequels, according to the one variable — N. (poor sinner) & Thérèse, The Story of a Love.
St. Thérèse wrote to, prayed for, and loved a young seminarian — one, incidentally, whom she never saw in this life. Maurice Belliere called on the prioress of Thérèse's community, imploring that “a nun devote herself particularly to the salvation of my soul, and obtain for me the grace to be faithful to the vocation God has given me.” Just as the work of salvation is elapsed in the midst of the quotidian run, Thérèse was elected for this grand enterprise as she was doing the week's wash, in the convent laundry. Thus began a match — yes, made in heaven! — of souls destined never to meet in the world's space and time. The shared love of Maurice and Thérèse, the spirituality and the sacrifice, transformed their dayto-day lives in a new affective purpose, lifted two lives higher aloft into the sweeping vortex of Divine Love, and promises to bear us up in its wake.
The letters exchanged between the two are framed by the supporting explanatory text of retired Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Ahern of the Archdiocese of New York. His introduction serves to place St. Thérèse of Lisieux in the full depth of her relevance to modern society, while the final chapters, together with the epilogue, graciously supply the story of Maurice subsequent to the death of St. Thérèse. Bishop Ahern examines each letter, providing the social and historical cues to have it all make sense, with an emphasis decidedly pastoral. The religious truths which underpin Thérèse's message are recapitulated and then expressed formulaically, addressed positively to the reader. Bishop Ahern's regard for the spiritual welfare of persons is manifest; this is his first call as a pastor of souls, and for this we are grateful.
The saint's candor, laid open in the letters, guards her real person from the persona constructed of long years of “devotion.” If the reader does not expect to find a genuine humanity in our “greatest Saint of modern times,” let him be here forewarned. Bishop Ahern works to dispel notions bred of a false piety, which would liberate the saints from all experience of temptation, from the marks of original sin, from a necessarily “inchoate” nature awaiting the perfection of grace — to dispel notions which obscure reality in a miasma of the nice.
The shared love of Maurice and Thérèse, the spirituality and the sacrifice, transformed their dayto-day lives in a new affective purpose, lifted two lives higher aloft into the sweeping vortex of Divine Love, and promises to bear us up in its wake.
It would seem, however, that sometimes this endeavor tends to imbalance. The author, for example, says of St. Thérèse that “in the last desperate moments of a long illness, she was tempted to suicide,” not making explicit the distinction that such thoughts can be had, without being entertained. Again, in describing Thérèse's “excessive sensitivity,” a neurosis which “can, for instance, focus on sexual images which obsess the imagination against one's will,” is postulated as “almost certainly the form of scruples experienced by Thérèse.” Yet such an analysis, which involves annexing sexual disorder to the person of a sheltered preadolescent of the 19th century French bourgeoisie, might be somewhat anachronistic, or too eager to forge a greater sympathy between Thérèse and the woes of our day. One would not see Thérèse and her contemporaries assaulted with lascivious beckoning at every turn, nor a single Mademoiselle at the local newsstand.
When gazing upon so bright a luminary, it is possible to get caught up in a kind of glare which obtrudes. St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a dazzling personage, no doubt; she is one of the greatest saints, after all. The true splendor of holiness imparts an ennobling clarity, and Maurice must be viewed in this light — even more, Father Maurice as he went on to become, must be viewed in an exceedingly charitable light: He's a man with a tough act to follow. St. Catherine of Siena, Jacinta the Fatima seer, and many of the saints admonish the faithful to speak of priests with the utmost respect, as befits so exalted an office. As for Maurice personally, one called to such intimacy of mind, heart, and soul with the greatest saint of his time could hardly but reflect this glow.
But there is more; Thérèse writes: “In your letter of the 14th you made my heart tremble with joy. I understand better than ever how much your soul is the sister of my own, since it is called to lift itself up to God by the ELEVATOR of love and not to climb the hard stairway of fear” (emphasis as per original). Or again: “When my dear little brother leaves for Africa, I shall follow him not only in thought and in prayer; my soul will be with him forever. …” If Maurice were but a high-minded mediocrity, a spiritual “charity case,” then Thérèse would stand convicted of the very emotionality and perfervid prose which false pieties so surely breed.
Father Maurice Belliere was no failure, though ridden out of the missions by illness, and called to meet death in disgrace. Rather, he was one who explicity claimed the cross which Thérèse had left behind on earth, as their last letters show, and bore it to the end, misunderstood and reviled by all. In this light, the author's dismissal of Maurice as “weak and needful” and “not a great man” — to say nothing of some protracted speculation as to the matter of a serious and secret sin which Father Maurice calls his “worst blunder of all” — appears misguided. One wonders what would St. Catherine recommend regarding the literary criticism of a prelate?
But the letters themselves eclipse all. To read, is to be lifted up in mind, heart, and soul. St. Thérèse prophesied to Maurice that they would speak a conversation to “charm the angels.” One can be assured that the gentle compassion of these two will permit us to eavesdrop, and so to be charmed, no matter how short we fall of her description.
V.J. Tarantino writes from New Haven, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: V.J. Tarantino ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Secret Lessons of Religious Colleges DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:“Liberating Academic Freedom,” by George M. Marsden (First Things, December 1998)
George Marsden writes:
“My interest in the role of religion in American higher education was sparked by twenty years teaching at Calvin College. At the end of that time I taught for a semester at the University of California at Berkeley, and that made me reflect on the difference between the two institutions.
“The conventional wisdom that one has to be in a highly diverse atmosphere in order to have a creative intellectual environment is simply wrong. Calvin has strict religious tests for all its faculty. Most of its students come from the same denomination, Christian Reformed. Nonetheless, such apparent homogeneity produces surprising diversities. Rather than, as in a secular university, where almost every discussion has to go back to irreconcilable first principles, people can debate issues at a much higher level. They might agree on first, second, or third principles, but have strong and creative debates after that. No more subjects are off limits than at other academic institutions, and in fact there is greater opportunity to discuss the religious dimensions of topics.
“What was most striking in the comparison of Calvin with Cal was that the sort of education going on at Calvin was virtually unknown. What was especially unheard of in mainstream academia was what was central to the academic enterprise at Calvin — the integration of faith, learning, and life. … So one question I addressed in [my book] The Soul of the American University was why it is that twentieth-century colleges that retained any substantive religious identity came to be thought of as inherently inferior. … [For w]hile the [American Association of University Professors] has recognized the ‘right’ of religious schools to discriminate on the basis of their religion, the organization has made it clear that it holds in disdain schools that persist in exercising that right.
“[A]n AAUP subcommittee … endorsed … ‘(1) the prerogative of institutions to require doctrinal fidelity; and (2) the necessary consequence of denying to institutions invoking this prerogative the moral right to proclaim themselves as authentic seats of higher learning.’ … These subcommittee reports simply take it as axiomatic that an authentic seat of higher learning must be ‘free’ from any religious or ideological restraints. … My view is that the time has come to question this academic orthodoxy.
“The architects of such educational ideals [in the early years of this century] typically hoped that an inclusivist public moral and religious consensus would emerge that would replace divisive sectarian views. They sought a basis for such a consensus in a combination of science, the ideals of democratic civilization, American nationalism, the liberal Protestant heritage, and the larger Judeo-Christian moral tradition.”
But today, “Most of us recognize that our universities are incapable of providing the kind of coherent moral leadership that our Progressive predecessors hoped they would. Even though universities today contain many moral individuals, they are morally incoherent as institutions.
“Besides, most university students do not even study the humanities — at least not more than they have to. … [M]ost of us would agree that university education today is not notably successful in producing a moral consensus or in forming good citizens, whatever might have been envisioned for it early in the century.
“In light of all this, we should be rethinking the cultural role of religiously based colleges. Given the morally fragmented, technically oriented careerist state of our major universities and their undergraduate colleges, why in the world should we think that they should be setting the standard for the best education…?
“So perhaps the time has come when it is the secular universities that should be thought of as second class and urged to find some way to match in quality what the best of the religious colleges are doing. … Do secular institutions really encourage more wide-ranging inquiry? Or does their inquiry simply range over different areas?
“One of the oldest meanings of ‘academic freedom’ is that educational institutions should be able to set their own standards. Today outside pressures often come from government or other secular agencies which have a different view of what it means to ‘freely engage in higher education.’ ”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Did You Ever Notice.…
So Andy Rooney has passed judgment on the present Pontiff (“Notes and Quotes,” Nov. 15-Nov. 22). The jury is in; he is not a great Pope. If we examine one of Rooney's comments, we can see where he is coming from.
Rooney says, “Even devout Catholics have a problem with this Pope's opposition to abortion.” I have heard of so-called “Catholics for a Free Choice,” but now devout Catholics for a free choice? This is a bit much! I think a devout Catholic is a person who knew that the teaching on contraception (Pius XI) could never change. Such a person would never believe in abortion under any circumstances.
Rooney implies that Catholic opposition to abortion is centered in this Pope's teaching on the issue. On the contrary, the Church has perennially taught that abortion is wrong. Even the Vatican Council II which pre-dates John Paul II taught that both abortion and infanticide (this includes partial-birth abortion) are unspeakable crimes. What this Pope has taught about abortion has reaffirmed the constant teaching on the issue.
Rooney also thinks that Pope John Paul II is not a great thinker. This is ironic since he has centered on the one point of the present papacy where the Pope shines. His teaching is excellent, as so many of his encyclicals attest. As far as his teaching and his personal holiness goes, he is a great Pope.
Paul Trouve Montague, New Jersey
The
I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your newspaper, the National Catholic Register. It is excellent!
My main purpose in writing, however, was to thank you for the article, “Pro-Lifers Strive to Shatter World Population Myths” (Nov. 8-14). I am extremely pleased to see that there are organizations who are trying to fight the myth of overpopulation.
One book I read several years ago stated that if you gave every man, woman, and child on this planet one acre of land, they would populate the state of Texas. So much for overpopulation,
I found your article especially gratifying in view of the October 1998 National Geographic, which was dedicated to [the issue of] population. One article in this issue, “Women and Population,” dealt almost exclusively with the glorification of contraception.
I only glanced through the article, then decided not to try to read any more of the magazine. I called and cancelled my subscription, explaining to the polite woman who answered my call, why I felt it necessary to cancel. She suggested that I write to the editor, explaining my dissatisfaction.
Maybe I will. Anyway, I think I will use the refund check which they will send me to subscribe to the Register. As Austin Ruse stated in his article, “The enemy is out there.” You are a source of the truth.
Charleen Luther Augusta, Georgia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Secular Press Misrepresents The U.S. Bishops On Life Document DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:The Catholic bishops of the United States issued a document two weeks ago, appealing to Catholics and to all citizens of the United States to make the cause of human life a priority. But depending upon the “spin” given the document by your local news organizations, this may be a big surprise to you.
You may have read, rather, that the bishops wrote a document threatening Catholic politicians unless they shape up on their abortion votes. Or that the bishops are trying to form a Catholic voting bloc. Or that they are telling Catholic precisely “how to vote” in any given election. If you read the Washington Post or their syndicated article, you may even believe that the bishops drafted various lists of activities for priests and for bishops, all directed toward putting pressure on Catholic citizens and Catholic politicians in connection with public policy on abortion and euthanasia. (The Washington Post article was so particularly “off,” that a reporter from another magazine who has never particularly liked the pro-life cause called me to offer her sympathy.)
But all of these miss the spirit — not to mention the letter — of the document by a mile. For Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, is essentially a religious document. A pastoral document in the fullest sense of the word: a document in which the pastors of the Church exercise their responsibility as shepherds to teach those entrusted to them. In this case, to teach them about the very fundamental importance of matters of life and death — abortion and euthanasia in particular — in the midst of a culture which denies this truth.
The document was inspired — provoked is a more apt term — by our nation's debate over partial-birth abortion. Surely, this debate was the occasion for many to wake up to the brutal reality of the word “abortion.” But in the end, it proved impossible over two and one-half years to ban this horrible practice of brutally stabbing and suctioning the brains of mostly-born infants. In the end, the same old meaningless jumble of misrepresentations, and protestations about “rights” and “medical necessity” that passes for “pro-choice” argumentation, won the day. It was not lost on the Catholic bishops that the margin of defeat in the Senate — three little votes — could have been reversed and exceeded if certain Catholic senators, famously Catholic senators, had voted the right way.
“The inherent value of human life, at every stage and in every circumstance, is not a sectarian issue any more than the Declaration of Independence is a sectarian creed.”
The document was drafted, therefore, to remind Catholics of the Church's teachings about human life. Also to remind Catholics and all American citizens of our national heritage that comes to us from our founders, a heritage of respect for the fundamental and inalienable rights of all human beings, the first being the right to life. The document says: “The inherent value of human life, at every stage and in every circumstance, is not a sectarian issue any more than the Declaration of Independence is a sectarian creed.” Very importantly, the document was written also to remind Catholic of the enormous theological weight and the priority given to the proscriptions against abortion and euthanasia in the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae: “As John Paul II reminds us, the command never to kill establishes a minimum which we must respect and from which we must start out ‘in order to say “yes”’ over and over again, a “yes” which will gradually embrace the entire horizon of the good.' (EV 75, italics original).”
No doubt, the document speaks strongly to Catholic public officials. Reports missed their mark, however, when they claimed that this was intended to single them out in a unique way. The document also speaks directly and by name to all Catholic citizens, to brother bishops, to priests, religious, catechists, Catholic school teachers, family life ministers, and theologians. One might say, rather, with respect to Catholic politicians, that the document intends to remind them first that they are no different in most respects from Catholics generally. All have the responsibility to live lives of integrity in which private beliefs about life and death are reflected in public behavior.
On the other hand, the document does recognize two qualities setting public officials apart from others: First, they are uniquely empowered to affect matters of life and death, to the point where, should they vote for abortion or euthanasia, they “indirectly cooperate” in the actual killing. Second, some Catholic public officials are responsible for popularizing the argument that they are “personally opposed to abortion, but …” favor its legality. This insidious argument has led many people astray, Catholics and others. As the document says: “We urge those Catholic officials who choose to depart from Church teaching on the inviolability of human life in their public life to consider the consequences for their own spiritual well being, as well as the scandal they risk by leading others into serious sin.”
There is a colloquial expression regularly used in our country: “a matter of life and death.” It refers, of course, to the most important matters there are. But in the marketplace of ideas, enormous efforts have been expended to regularize the practices of abortion and euthanasia. The Catholic bishops have every intention of upsetting this plan with Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen AlvarÈ ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Call to America: 'Live the Gospel of Life' DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Now the word of the Lord came to me saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I consecrated you; a prophet to the nations I appointed you. —Jeremiah 1:5.
“Your country stands upon the world scene as a model of a democratic society at an advanced stage of development. Your power of example carries with it heavy responsibilities. Use it well, America!” — Pope John Paul II, Newark, 1995.
At the conclusion of the 1998 ad limina visits of the bishops of the United States, our Holy Father Pope John Paul II spoke these words: “Today I believe the Lord is saying to us all: do not hesitate, do not be afraid to engage the good fight of the faith.” When we preach the liberating message of Jesus Christ we are offering the words of life to the world. Our prophetic witness is an urgent and essential service not just to the Catholic community but to the whole human family. In this statement we attempt to fulfill our role as teachers and pastors in proclaiming the Gospel of Life. We are confident that the proclamation of the truth in love is an indispensable way for us to exercise our pastoral responsibility.
When Henry Luce published his appeal for an “American century” in 1941, he could not have known how the coming reality would dwarf his dream. Luce hoped that the “engineers, scientists, doctors … builders of roads [and] teachers” of the United States would spread across the globe to promote economic success and American ideals: “a love of freedom, a feeling for the quality of opportunity, a tradition of self-reliance and independence and also cooperation.” Exactly this, and much more, has happened in the decades since. U.S. economic success has reshaped the world.
Mark of America
But the nobility of the American experiment flows from its founding principles, not from its commercial power. In this century alone, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending those principles. Hundreds of thousands more have lived lives of service to those principles — both at home and on other continents — teaching, advising and providing humanitarian assistance to people in need. As Pope John Paul observed [at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, in his Departure Remarks following his last U.S. visit], “At the center of the moral vision of [the American] founding documents is the recognition of the rights of the human person … The greatness of the United States lies “especially [in its] respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life in all conditions and at all stages of development.” This nobility of the American spirit endures today in those who struggle for social justice and equal opportunity for the disadvantaged. The United States has thrived because, at its best, it embodies a commitment to human freedom, human rights, and human dignity. This is why the Holy Father [told] us [in his homily at Giants Stadium in 1995]: “… [As] Americans, you are rightly proud of your country's great achievements.”
Bitter Fruits
But success often bears the seeds of failure. U.S. economic and military power has sometimes led to grave injustices abroad. At home, it has fueled self-absorption, indifference, and consumerist excess. Overconfidence in our power, made even more pronounced by advances in science and technology, has created the illusion of a life without natural boundaries and actions without consequences. The standards of the marketplace, instead of being guided by sound morality, threaten to displace it. We are now witnessing the gradual restructuring of American culture according to ideals of utility, productivity, and cost-effectiveness. It is a culture where moral questions are submerged by a river of goods and services and where the misuse of marketing and public relations subverts public life. The losers in this ethical sea change will be those who are elderly, poor, disabled, and politically marginalized. None of these pass the utility test; and yet, they at least have a presence. They at least have the possibility of organizing to be heard. Those who are unborn, infirm, and terminally ill have no such advantage. They have no “utility,” and worse, they have no voice. As we tinker with the beginning, the end, and even the intimate cell structure of life, we tinker with our own identity as a free nation dedicated to the dignity of the human person. When American political life becomes an experiment on people rather than for and by them, it will no longer be worth conducting. We are arguably moving closer to that day. Today, when the inviolable rights of the human person are proclaimed and the value of life publicly affirmed, the most basic human right, “the right to life, is being denied or trampled upon, especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death” (Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 18).
The nature and urgency of this threat should not be misunderstood. Respect for the dignity of the human person demands a commitment to human rights across a broad spectrum: “Both as Americans and as followers of Christ, American Catholics must be committed to the defense of life in all its stages and in every condition,” [as the Holy Father said at Giants Stadium] The culture of death extends beyond our shores: famine and starvation, denial of health care and development around the world, the deadly violence of armed conflict and the scandalous arms trade that spawns such conflict. Our nation is witness to domestic violence, the spread of drugs, sexual activity which poses a threat to lives, and a reckless tampering with the world's ecological balance.
Protecting the Weak
Respect for human life calls us to defend life from these and other threats. It calls us as well to enhance the conditions for human living by helping to provide food, shelter and meaningful employment, beginning with those who are most in need. We live the Gospel of Life when we live in solidarity with the poor of the world, standing up for their lives and dignity. Yet abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others. They are committed against those who are weakest and most defenseless, those who are genuinely “the poorest of the poor.” They are endorsed increasingly without the veil of euphemism, as supporters of abortion and euthanasia freely concede these are killing even as they promote them. Sadly, they are practiced in those communities which ordinarily provide a safe haven for the weak — the family and the healing professions. Such direct attacks on human life, once crimes, are today legitimized by governments sworn to protect the weak and marginalized.
It needn't be so. God, the Father of all nations, has blessed the American people with a tremendous reservoir of goodness. He has also graced our founders with the wisdom to establish political structures enabling all citizens to participate in promoting the inalienable rights of all. As Americans, as Catholics and as pastors of our people, we write therefore today to call our fellow citizens back to our country's founding principles, and most especially to renew our national respect for the rights of those who are unborn, weak, disabled, and terminally ill. Real freedom rests on the inviolability of every person as a child of God. The inherent value of human life, at every stage and in every circumstance, is not a sectarian issue any more than the Declaration of Independence is a sectarian creed.
Truly Catholic Leaders
In a special way, we call on U.S. Catholics, especially those in positions of leadership — whether cultural, economic or political — to recover their identity as followers of Jesus Christ and to be leaders in the renewal of American respect for the sanctity of life. “Citizenship” in the work of the Gospel is also a sure guarantee of responsible citizenship in American civic affairs. Every Catholic, without exception, should remember that he or she is called by our Lord to proclaim his message. Some proclaim it by word, some by action and all by example. But every believer shares responsibility for the Gospel. Every Catholic is a missionary of the Good News of human dignity redeemed through the cross. While our personal vocation may determine the form and style of our witness, Jesus calls each of us to be a leaven in society, and we will be judged by our actions. No one, least of all someone who exercises leadership in society, can rightfully claim to share fully and practically the Catholic faith and yet act publicly in a way contrary to that faith.
Our attitude toward the sanctity of life in these closing years of the “American century” will say volumes about our true character as a nation. It will also shape the discourse about the sanctity of human life in the next century, because what happens here, in our nation, will have global consequences. It is primarily U.S. technology, U.S. microchips, U.S. fiber-optics, U.S. satellites, U.S. habits of thought and entertainment, which are building the neural network of the new global mentality. What America has indelibly imprinted on the emerging global culture is its spirit. And the ambiguity of that spirit is why the Pope appealed so passionately to the American people in 1995. “It is vital for the human family,” he said, “that in continuing to seek advancement in many different fields — science, business, education and art, and wherever else your creativity leads you — America keeps compassion, generosity and concern for others at the very heart of its efforts.”
----- EXCERPT: Following is an excerpt from a statement issued by the U.S. Catholic Bishops at their annual meeting in Washington Nov. 19. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Cleverness Is No Match for Wisdom DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:“Now the serpent was more clever than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made.” So begins the Genesis account of the fall of Adam and Eve. The Bible portrays the devil as a crafty, wily tempter, intelligent and subtle, a master of deceit. But despite all the devil's artfulness, one attribute is never applied to him: that of being wise. In fact, for all his intelligence, the devil comes across as the consummate fool, since he lost the one thing that really matters: his friendship with God.
In his latest encyclical, Faith and Reason, Pope John Paul speaks much about true wisdom and its opposite. “The fool,” writes the Pope, “thinks that he knows many things, but really he is incapable of fixing his gaze on the things that really matter.” Wisdom, on the other hand, pursues “the full truth of things, their origin and their destiny” and “the ultimate and overarching meaning of life.”
In a generation that seems incapable of “fixing its gaze” on anything other than a television screen, we may well wonder whether foolishness is not becoming the cultural standard, and wisdom the rare exception. It's not that we're lazy, or lacking in important achievements. Like the serpent, we too are clever: we split atoms, clone sheep, catapult men into space, and cram enormous amounts of data onto tiny computer chips. Yet though “we think we know many things,” we seem to have lost our grip on their ultimate meaning and value, and on the hierarchy among them. Thus, we no longer distinguish between the important and the trifling, the transcendent and the mundane, the worthwhile and the useless.
This homogenization of reality has given birth to a veritable crisis of meaning, where “facts” and “data” overshadow life's deeper questions. Young people are especially affected by this crisis. The Pope compares their situation to that of a person “lost on a sea of information, disparate stimuli and data, experiencing a sort of permanent nomadism without concrete guideposts.” The modern segmentation of knowledge, the Pope adds, with its splintered approach to truth and consequent fragmentation of meaning, “keeps people today from coming to an interior unity.”
Being a Trivial Pursuit wizard does not make one wise. Moreover, the truly wise person may not possess the skills required to solve problems of differential calculus, astrophysics, or thermodynamics. But the larger questions on life's meaning are his daily bread and butter. “Why am I here on earth? Where did I come from and where am I going? Why do I work, and study, and play? What is God's plan for my life?” These and other such questions go beyond mere “facts,” to penetrate the substance of human existence. They provide a sturdy framework into which knowledge and experience can be integrated in a meaningful way.
We have undoubtedly received a more extensive technological education than our parents and grandparents, yet humanity's cumulative growth in knowledge has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth in wisdom. Knowledge alone does not make one wise. St. Paul asserts the contrary: “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” Wisdom, after all, consists not so much in knowing many things, as in knowing the right things, and above all in knowing what life is about.
In her characteristically blunt way, St. Teresa of Avila reduces “knowing what life is about” to a binary function, noting that “at the end of life, the one who saves himself knows, the one who doesn't, knows nothing” (“Al final de la vida, el que se salva sabe; y el que no, no sabe nada”). And before we hasten to attenuate Teresa's hard words, we should remember that they merely echo our Lord's equally hard saying: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). In the final analysis, no amount of knowledge can equal the wisdom we receive from faith.
As we begin the blessed season of Advent, we join the company of the first pilgrims who made their way to Bethlehem to worship the newborn King of kings. Among them figured prominently three travelers from the east, whom popular tradition has dubbed “the Wise Men.” They left behind palaces, comforts, and all the securities the world can offer, to seek out the One who gave meaning to their existence. Wise indeed, not only because they knew many things, but because they were able to fix their gaze on a star that led them to the place where the Savior lay.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams Lc ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Love Among Sisters DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:In hard times family is often the only refuge. But sometimes it comes at a price. Blood relatives may lend each other a helping hand, but they can be quicker than outsiders to pass judgment on each other. Deep familial love can also be accompanied by rivalries and jealousies that refuse to die.
Dancing at Lughnasa set in Donegal, Ireland, in 1936, dramatizes the lives of the five unmarried Mundy sisters who struggle together to keep the family farm from going under. Director Pat O'Connor (Circle of Friends) and screenwriter Frank McGuinness have adapted Brian Friel's play so that interpersonal relationships drive the story.
One of the subtexts is the juxta-position of Catholic and pagan spirituality. The movie is neither anti-Church nor anti-clerical, but orthodox faith isn't depicted as being of much use to any of the characters. Human love, in all its tangled mysteries, is upheld as the highest value.
The oldest sister, Kate (Meryl Streep), is a bossy schoolteacher. Nicknamed “the gander” by her students, she makes all the key family decisions and tries to keep her younger siblings in line. A practicing Catholic, she's the most devout of the sisters. But the rules of religion seem more important to her than compassion, and she uses them to judge and manipulate others.
The other sisters seem to need her leadership. The mentally slow Rose (Sophie Thompson) has a married boyfriend whom she often sneaks off to meet despite Kate's strong disapproval. Aggie (Brid Brennan) brings in extra money by knitting sweaters at home and usually takes Rose's side in family quarrels.
Maggie (Kathy Burke) has an earthy sense of humor which contrasts with Kate's primness, and she's the only sibling willing to stand up to her. Christina (Catherine McCormack) is the pretty one. She has an illegitimate eight-year-old son, Michael (Darrell Johnston), whom her sisters are helping raise. He narrates the story from the perspective of an adult several decades later.
Two men enter the sisters' lives, and neither is much help. Gerry Evans (Rhys Ifan) is the father of Christina's child. A dashing Welshman who teaches dancing, he charms all the sisters except Kate. His son, of course, adores him despite his rare visits.
Settling down is far from Gerry's mind. He's decided to go off to Spain to fight Franco and the fascists, and he drops in on the Mundys to say good-bye and briefly rekindle his romance with Christina.
The other man is the sisters' brother, Jack (Michael Gambon), a priest who's worked 30 years in African missions. “To have a priest in the family is a great honor,” Kate observes.
The Mundys and all their neighbors are proud of Father Jack. But he returns a broken man, both physically and mentally. “I think I've come home to die,” he says.
Father Jack is obsessed with African folk religion. He rambles on about witch doctors and ritual sacrifices. His conversation includes almost no references to the Catholic faith. Because of this, the local parish priest, who's presented as a cold, unfeeling figure, refuses to let him celebrate Mass. The filmmakers don't treat Father Jack's pagan sympathies as superior to Christian beliefs. But they don't peg them as inferior either — just different.
Father Jack accompanies Rose to a secret pagan harvest festival held in the nearby woods. Her boyfriend is an enthusiastic participant. Both Mundys are repulsed. All they see is heavy drinking and lascivious behavior. They quickly leave. The filmmakers depict the pagan ceremony as an ecstatic release for the repressed peasantry. But it isn't shown to provide any lasting sustenance.
The movie's most potent scene is the sisters' own moment of release. A lively Irish folk tune is heard on the radio. The five women abandon their chores, join hands, and begin to dance. Unlike the pagan activities at the harvest festival, the music's frenzied rhythms not only help the sisters cut loose but also bring them closer to one another. They naturally anticipate each other's moves and experience a profound collective joy.
Bad fortune strikes. Kate is laid off by the Catholic school where she teaches, and a textile mill opens nearby that may take business away from Aggie's home knitting.
The Mundy sisters are survivors. Our hearts go out to them, and we root for them to prevail. But it's too bad both the movie and the original play ignore the role that faith can play in holding together a close knit family like theirs.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
Dancing at Lughnasa is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
----- EXCERPT: Faith plays only a bit part in a moving story of five Irish sisters ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Videos on Release DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Once Cosette (Claire Daines) becomes older, however, she convinces her father to leave the convent. She meets and falls in love with Marius (Hans Matheson), a young revolutionary wishing to reestablish the Republic. As a revolution on the streets of Paris looms, Javert realizes that the man he's been seeking for so many years is somewhere near. Valjean does what he can to avoid capture while protecting Cosette. Excellent movie despite some violence and sexual content. (MPAA — PG-13)
Despite the best efforts of assigned baby-sitters Timon (voice of Nathan Lane) and Pumba (voice of Ernie Sabella), Kiara ventures off into the Outlands. She meets a scruffy young male cub, Kovu.
But Kovu's mother, Zira (Suzanne Pleshette), and older brother, Nuka (Andy Dick), separate the two young cubs. The leader of the outcast lions, Zira has long wanted revenge on Simba, and upon seeing the bond between her son and Kiara, she dreams up a plan to reclaim the throne in the late Scar's honor — Kovu is to befriend the pride and kill Simba. A good movie that teaches virtue, though it has a New Age sensibility about it, especially at the beginning. Not Rated
Gregory Smith plays a 14-year-old boy who looks after his father's toy store and purchases a batch. But he soon realizes that they are no ordinary toys and that his family's lives are in danger. Children would really enjoy the action-packed film although not suitable for the very young. (MPAA — PG-13)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Ohio's Cathedral of Exquisite Surprises DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:“Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. His observation finds magnificent illustration in Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio.
Its beauty is sublime, its design unique. In all the world, this is the only cathedral built in Plateresque, a romantic style that arose after the Gothic period. it derived directly from the 16th-century Spanish silversmiths (plateros), whose work was characterized by ornamental elaboration. In this cathedral, plateresque embellishments combine with Romanesque and Saracen architecture for a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
Its cornerstone was laid in 1926 — exactly 700 years after the cathedral in sister city Toledo, Spain — Queen of the Most Holy Rosary was built in the manner of 13th century medieval edifices. There's not a sliver of steel used; everything is solid masonry, from Massachusetts granite to Indiana silver limestone. While the Plateresque elements mainly highlight the interior, there are strong hints on the exterior too — chiefly the imperial Spanish tile roof with Plateresque patterns of blue, green, purple, red, orange, and chartreuse. Soaring skyward past this rainbow of colors are twin towers named Peter and Paul. The towers' bells were cast in England. On the grand facade before them, a statue of Our Lady, more than 6 feet tall and carved of a single block of limestone, stands above the main portal. Statues, biblical scenes, and canopy in high detail surround her, beginning with her parents and the Annunciation.
Symbolism abounds. The intricate cornice, for example, circles the exterior with 50 bas-relief panels depicting the history of the Church, starting with Jesus handing Peter the keys, and leading to the completion of Rosary Cathedral.
Through the huge cypress door, the vestibule switches from stone to wood to feature-carved New Testament scenes of the Holy Family that mirror those in the rear nave. A step into the nave immediately awes you with the enormous space and massive sanctuary — vast, yet visually delicate and graceful. Warmth comes from walls and piers of tinted Joan of Arc sandstone, quarried at the saint's birthplace. If the artistry weren't in such perfect balance, the sight might be overwhelming. A harmonizing factor, more noticeable in close-up, comes in the Plateresque stylistic details.
For one, the grooved tracery of arches blends softly into the huge piers; lines effortlessly fade together. For another, Plateresque's extreme use of gold filigree highlights much artwork, and even finds its way on woodwork and marble. Marble itself, in 35 varieties from around the world, adds further arrays of colors, as do murals and mosaics.
A monumental fresco by Viennese artist Felix Lieftuchter begins above the Rose Window and stretches the entire Spanish vaulted ceiling into the apse. It opens with Creatio Mundi, as angels hold medallions illustrating creation. Across the nave are Old Testament prophets, kings, and sibyls highlighted with gold.
The story continues into the sanctuary where the Crucifixion scene is joined by the sacrifices of Melchizedek and Abraham. These striking frescoes are done in the Keim manner, meant to brighten with age.
Between this ceiling and the carved marble main altar, a large crucifix fashioned from European walnut appears to float. The polychromed Corpus is hand-carved from 250-year-old Black Forest oak.
Also elaborately carved are medieval choir stalls circling the apse. Their pin-grained oak has Plateresque gold flourishes, as do the gold illuminated frames of the Stations of the Cross, where carved thorns and passion flowers form a motif.
The former baptistery is now the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Like the sanctuary, it is intricately inlaid with tessellated marble. The elaborate tabernacle at the center of the octagonal chapel symbolizes Mary as the Tower of David and replicates the dome of the cathedral in Spain. Last year during his visit, the mayor of sister-city Toledo in Spain at once recognized the replica as the sight he sees daily from his office window. Another Spanish connection is a remarkable copy of El Greco's Descent of the Holy Spirit. From ceiling frescoes above the tabernacle, the four evange-lists keep watch.
The chapel's perfect aluminum and bronze gates form a garden of Marian roses and fleur-de-lis. When they were displayed at the Smithsonian, experts pronounced them the best examples of handwrought aluminum in the world.
Displayed with them was the equally amazing baptistery hood of hand-formed aluminum embossed with symbols and topped with an image of John the Baptist. Though weighing 130 pounds, it can be raised easily with one hand. With only hand tools, Natale Rossi wrought this superb, jewellike masterpiece in the cathedral basement from one solid block. This hood covers a marble baptistery, carved in the form of a Spanish fountain.
In the apse, 83 feet above, Lieftuchter's mural ends with the 15th mystery of the rosary, the Crowning of Mary, Queen of Heaven. Angels, saints, and the Church Triumphant, Militant, and Suffering, surround her in a breathtaking scene.
Beginning at the St. Joseph Altar, you can pray the rosary visually, as a group does monthly. Each mystery is elaborately illustrated the length of both wide side aisles in seven domes of each formed by piers and arches. These rosary murals correlate Old Testament events with New Testament scenes. The Annunciation, for example, is paired with Tobias; the Crucifixion is joined by Moses with arms held aloft for battle victory.
When Jan de Rosen, who did the mosaics in the papal chapel at Castel Gandolfo painted these murals, he used parishioners' faces, mostly school-children's, for models. One red-haired young lady inspired the Annunciation's archangel, Gabriel.
The rosary progresses past murals of the Battles of Lepanto in 1571 and Temesvar in 1716, victories credited to the power of the rosary, prayed devoutly. The 14th mystery appears before the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapel. The statue here and at the St. Joseph Altar are Trani marble from Florido — the quarry used by Michelangelo for his Pieta. This statue of Mary, Queen of Peace with the Child Jesus, is affectionately called the Smiling Madonna for unmistakable reasons.
The chapel's Venetian mosaics, done as 12th-century frescoes, depict the Annunciation and, in a triptych, Our Lord as King, with Mary and Joseph at his sides. There's a resplendent Nativity mosaic in the St. Joseph Chapel.
Tabernacles and candlesticks for both these altars are stunning vitreous enamel melted on bronze. Two years in the making, they're the largest pieces of cloisonné in the world.
Exquisite surprises such as these are everywhere. The 14 windows, 26-feet tall, have superb Gothic tracery and scenes created from authentic Norman slab glass and English antique cathedral glass imported from York, England, and made exactly as during the Middle Ages. The mammoth Rose Window done in the same manner is a wheel of episodes from Mary's life. It's called the “Children's Rose Window” because boys and girls donated $25,000 in pennies they saved for it.
Below the window is a 24-foot Byzantine iconlike painting of the Dormition of Mary. Saints and angels surround her, while Jesus stands close, holding a small child symbolizing her soul. Renowned liturgical artist Lieftuchter considered this painting the high point of his body of work and of his life.
So much more carving that turns wood and stone into lace, so much stained glass, scenes of Holy Family life, sculpted Church heroes, intricate marble inlay and gold filigree fill this cathedral to praise and glorify God and honor Mary. The cathedral's spiritual and artistic wealth certainly enriches eyes, hearts, and souls — and Toledo's Old West End district.
Guided tours, available regularly, illuminate details of the cathedral's sublime beauty of Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.
For more information and a video, call 419-244-9575, or write the cathedral at 2535 Collingwood Ave., P.O. Box 20100, Toledo, Ohio 43610.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: At the world's only Plateresque cathedral, a feast for the eyes and heart ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Proposed Norms for Catholic Universities Draw Mixed Reaction from Bishops DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—James Cardinal Hickey of Washington, D.C., called the proposed norms for Catholic universities an “immense progress” in the effort to help strengthen Catholic higher education. The cardinal's praise for the norms was part of a discussion on a draft document titled Ex Corde Ecclesiae: An Application to the United States at the mid-November meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in the nation's capital.
Ex Corde Ecclesiae was promulgated in 1990 by Pope John Paul II to assist Catholic colleges and universities in reflecting upon their own missions in the context of modern society and to establish norms for the preservation and renewal of the Catholic identity of institutions of Catholic higher education.
In November 1996, the NCCB approved an application document drafted by a committee headed by Bishop John Leibrecht. However, in April 1997, the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education requested that the bishops draft a new application document that would have a “true juridical character” as intended by Ex Corde Ecclesiae. A subcommittee headed by Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua was formed to produce the new draft, which is now being considered by the entire bishops' conference.
Several incidents have highlighted the fact that many Catholic colleges and universities seem to be following the example of their secular counterparts. Some of the incidents include Notre Dame's recent decision to host a lecture series by the pro-abortion “rights” former Senator, Bill Bradley, and Georgetown's recent decision to establish “Safe Zones,” places where students may discuss homosexuality with sympathetic faculty or administrators. “Safe Zones” do not include the Church's teaching on human sexuality and marriage.
The newly proposed norms address secular trends in Catholic higher education. Among the many notable aspects of the norms is a section on “The Ecclesiological Concept of Communion.” This section explains the basis for norms for Catholic colleges and universities within the “communion of all the faithful.” That is, Catholic colleges and universities, as Catholic, belong to the communion of the faithful and thus ultimately derive their mission from the mission of the Church.
Therefore, because Catholic schools do belong to this larger community and mission, it is reasonable and necessary for them to have an official connection to the Church and to live up to its general standards.
Catholic colleges and universities, as Catholic, belong to the communion of the faithful and thus ultimately derive their mission from the mission of the Church.
The new draft document also requires that professors of theology obtain a mandate from the local bishop as a sign that the professor “carries out his or her task in communion with the Church.” Other provisions for the strengthening and renewal of Catholic identity include:
1) Requiring a publicly documented “commitment to Catholic ideals, principles, and attitudes;”
2) Calling for a majority of Catholic trustees and faculty;
3) Strongly encouraging lectures on Catholic teaching and tradition for administrators and faculty;
4) Affirming the rights of students to receive Catholic teaching “appropriate to the subject matter in the various disciplines.”
Cardinal Bevilacqua explained during the discussion that these provisions are not meant to be seen as a rigid set of juridical requirements, but rather concrete means for the development of an authentic Catholic ethos on campuses.
However, after the draft was circulated among bishops, college presidents, and learned societies for comment and suggestions, some criticized it. America magazine, a monthly published by the Jesuit order, called the document “unworkable and dangerous.” Other officials within Catholic higher education claim the requirements would violate academic freedom and institutional autonomy and hence would marginalize Catholic universities within American higher education.
The irony in this claim lies in the fact that all institutions of higher education, including Catholic colleges and universities, readily comply with guidelines and standards determined by entities external to the institutions. Not only must colleges and universities conform to general standards determined by regional accrediting associations, but their various departments must conform to standards determined by associations and societies for the respective disciplines.
No institution functions with absolute institutional autonomy. But even if there were obstacles, financial or otherwise, standing in the way of Catholic identity, one could ask the question, at what price would we want to sell our religious freedom?
During the discussion at the NCCB, two retired archbishops expressed their misgivings with the proposed norms. Archbishop John Roach, former archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, said that the norms would “be a depressant” to the beneficial dialogue that has been developing among bishops and Catholic universities. Retired Archbishop of San Francisco, John Quinn, said that “if some of the provisions are pushed too far, universities may be forced into the position of calling themselves universities in the Catholic tradition instead of Catholic universities.”
However, there was strong sentiment among several key bishops in favor of the proposed norms. Auxiliary bishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, called the proposed norms a “solid mechanism” for preserving and augmenting the Catholic identity of our institutions of higher education. Bishop Alfred Hughes of Baton Rouge praised Cardinal Bevilacqua and his fellow committee members for focusing the document on the communion of structures within the Church.
Cardinal Hickey also commented on the reasonableness of requiring mandates for theologians. He recalled a parallel example from his own experience as a teacher for a seminary and explained that before he could begin his teaching post he had to obtain a certificate from the state of Michigan. He asked, then, why can't professors of theology obtain a mandate from the Church?
It is expected that the bishops' committee for implementing Ex Corde Ecclesiae will have a final draft ready to be approved by the bishops' conference at next November's meeting of the NCCB. In the meantime the committee will consider comments and suggestions from other bishops as well as from Catholic higher education officials.
For more information on the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae contact the Cardinal Newman Society, 207 Park Ave. B-2, Falls Church, VA 22046; 703-536-9585 (phone); 703-532-3094 (fax): cardnewman@erols.com (e-mail): www.rc.net/cardinalnewman/.
Mo Fung is Executive Director of the Cardinal Newman Society for the Preservation of Catholic Higher Education. He writes from Falls Church, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: Defenders say provisions help tie schools to Church's larger mission ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mo Fung ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Welcome and Justice for Persons with Disabilities DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Twenty years ago we issued a statement calling for inclusion of persons with disabilities in the life of the Church and community. In 1982 the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities was established to promote this ministry. And in 1995 we strengthened our commitment with passage of the following framework.
This moral framework is based upon Catholic documents and serves as a guide for contemplation and action. We hope that the reaffirmation of the following principles will assist the faithful in bringing the principles of justice and inclusion to the many new and evolving challenges confronted by persons with disabilities today.
1. We are a single flock under the care of a single shepherd. There can be no separate Church for persons with disabilities.
2. Each person is created in God's image, yet there are variations in individual abilities. Positive recognition of these differences discourages discrimination and enhances the unity of the Body of Christ.
3. Our defense of life and rejection of the culture of death requires that we acknowledge the dignity and positive contributions of our brothers and sisters with disabilities. We unequivocally oppose negative attitudes toward disability which often lead to abortion, medical rationing, and euthanasia.
4. Defense of the right to life implies the defense of all other rights which enable the individual with the disability to achieve the fullest measure of personal development of which he or she is capable. These include the right to equal opportunity in education, in employment, in housing, and in health care, as well as the right to free access to public accommodations, facilities and services.
5. Parish liturgical celebrations and catechetical programs should be accessible to persons with disabilities and open to their full, active, and conscious participation, according to their capacity.
6. Since the parish is the door to participation in the Christian experience, it is the responsibility of both pastors and laity to assure that those doors are always open. Costs must never be the controlling consideration limiting the welcome offered to those among us with disabilities, since provision of access to religious functions is a pastoral duty.
7. We must recognize and appreciate the contribution persons with disabilities can make to the Church's spiritual life, and encourage them to do the Lord's work in the world according to their God-given talents and capacity.
8. We welcome qualified individuals with disabilities to ordination, to consecrated life, and to full-time, professional service in the Church.
9. Often families are not prepared for the birth of a child with a disability or the development of impairments. Our pastoral response is to become informed about disabilities and to offer ongoing support to the family and welcome to the child.
10. Evangelization efforts are most effective when promoted by diocesan staff and parish committees which include persons with disabilities. Where no such evangelization efforts exist, we urge that they be developed.
We join the Holy Father in calling for actions which “ensure that the power of salvation may be shared by all”
(John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, n. 16).
Furthermore, we encourage all Catholics to study the original U.S. bishops and Vatican documents from which these principles were drawn.
----- EXCERPT: A Statement of the U.S. Bishops ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: LIFE NOTE DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:26th Annual March For Life to Take Place in January
WASHINGTON—The March for Life will once again be held in the nation's capital on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, the 26th annual march will begin at noon on Jan. 22, 1999, according to Nellie Gray, president of National Right to Life.
The theme of the march will be “For What Shall It Profit A Man, if He Gain the Whole World, and Lose His Own Soul.” This topic will be reflected in the convention the day before, and also in the student essay, poem, and poster contests leading up to the march.
Quote of the day:
“To have people watch someone be killed, I think it's a low in journalism.”
—Anthony Cardinal Bevilaqua of Philadelphia, commenting on the Nov. 22 60 Minutes segment showing Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering a lethal dose of drugs to a terminally ill man.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Kevorkian's Euthanasia Stunt Rankles Hospice Chief DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:Victor Skirmants supports the decision of his friend, Thomas Youk, to die at the hands of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Yet one thing still troubles him: “He had to die alone … he had to die all alone.”
Dr. Walter Hunter disagrees.
Hunter, medical director of Hospice of Michigan, said Youk, the man whose assisted death Kevorkian chose to flaunt before millions of television viewers (see front page story), “didn't have to die that way.” There was a great deal hospice could have done for him, Hunter added.
Skirmants said he didn't believe hospice had been involved in Youk's case. “I don't see how hospice could have helped him any,” said Skirmants. “He didn't have any control to do anything at the end. His wife, Melody, took care of him and was very devoted to him. I don't see how any hospice could have done any better.” Melody Youk was not permitted to be with her husband at the moment of death, for fear of being implicated as an accomplice.
Hunter said his staff would have attempted to get at the root of the patients' fears, their concerns, and tell them what can be done and the types of treatment available. “I do not believe that any patient with this condition need have active euthanasia performed,” he said.
Hospice care is made up of physicians, nurses, social workers, and volunteers who provide pain and symptom management for the patient and information for the patient and the care-givers. “Patients facing the end of life should be enrolled in hospice care programs,” said Hunter. “Yet less than 20% of dying patients in this country annually are served by hospice care programs.”
With the medications and new equipment now available, Hunter said that he could guarantee even a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — the so-called Lou Gehrig's disease that Youk suffered from — could be made comfortable at the end of life. And hospice workers will come to the home, assisted-care facility, or even the hospital to provide services. After the patient dies, a 13-month post-death bereavement program is available to family members.
Most pro-lifers believe more needs to be done to educate the public concerning the sanctity of life and the availability of palliative (comfort) care at the end of life. Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae made those points clear.
“I think that is very well outlined in Evangelium Vitae,” said Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the Oakland County medical examiner involved in most of the autopsies on Kevorkian's victims. Dragovic, who is Eastern Orthodox, continued, “And for me, a non-Roman Catholic, viewing that is something that is closest to medicine. I think there are some very, very basic things addressed there, particularly in this business of care. Care is a major function of medicine, not just cure but care.
“A lot of professional people have forgotten that. I think the Pope's encyclical is something that every physician, regardless of their religious denomination or philosophical belief, should read.”
Youk himself was, according to his own dying words, Catholic. Both he and Skirmants were raised Catholic, but were not practicing their faith, according to Skirmants.
The Nov. 19 release of a 26-page letter from the U.S bishops, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, exhorted all 60 million U.S. Catholics, especially those in leadership roles, parents, politicians, and clergy, to uphold the culture of life and combat the culture of death.
“Abortion and euthanasia have become pre-eminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others,” the document stated.
Adam Cardinal Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit, was one of the writers of the letter that was approved by a vote of 217 to 30. Ned McGrath, communications director for the archdiocese, said the cardinal was very pleased with the document. Riding on the wave of success with the defeat of Proposal B which was due, in large part, to the full-scale move to educate the state's Catholics on the dangers of the proposal, Cardinal Maida plans to continue the education in an ongoing process.
“It is a time to stand up and say here is where we are and here is what we teach,” said McGrath. “That is what Cardinal Maida will do as a teacher. As Catholics we need to look to the Gospel of Life, not the culture of death.”
(Al Kresta contributed the interview segments of Dr. Walter Hunter to this report from Al Kresta Live, WDEO/WCAR, Ann Arbor/Detroit.) Diane Hanson writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: Thomas Youk 'didn't have to die that way' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Diane Hanson ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Execution Up Close Underscores The Indignity of Death Penalty DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS—When the State of Texas executed Jonathan Wayne Nobles on Oct. 7 for the 1986 murder of two women, Bishop Edmond Carmody lost a friend and Third Order Dominicans lost a brother.
Nobles, who converted to Catholicism seven years ago, fasted on his final day and took Holy Eucharist as his final meal, according to Bishop Carmody. At Nobles' request, the bishop witnessed his execution by lethal injection.
“It's sad,” said Bishop Carmody of Tyler, Texas, near the state's death row prison in Huntsville. “It's a terrible thing to witness a person being executed.” Bishop Carmody derided the use of euphemisms in executions. “People call it a ‘process’ or ‘event,’ rather than an execution,” he said.
Nobles, 37, developed a devotion to the rosary and prayed the glorious mysteries with a handful of visitors who came to see the him the day he was put to death. Country and Western singer Steve Earle, Bishop Carmody, a Dallas priest, and visitors from England, were among those dropped in on Nobles.
“Isn't it marvelous to say the rosary at your own wake?” Nobles said, without a trace of irony or cynicism, Bishop Carmody recalled. Praying the rosary is central to Dominican spirituality. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary gave the rosary to St. Dominic in a vision.
Bishop Carmody read scripture and counseled Nobles during a face-to-face pastoral visit on his last day. The prelate, who had frequently visited Nobles for years and corresponded with him, hugged the death row inmate.
“It wasn't ‘jailhouse religion,’” Bishop Carmody said of Nobles' conversion. “It was genuine. He came to Mass regularly and participated.” Nobles renounced his former way of living, asked forgiveness from God, and tried to explain the Catholic faith to fellow death row inmates. “He was a blessing to them,” Bishop Carmody testified.
In September 1986, Nobles stabbed to death Kelly Joan Farquhar and Mitzi Johnson Nalley with a hunting knife in their Austin home, and he wounded Nalley's boyfriend, Ronald Ross. Nobles, who claimed to be on drugs, stabbed each woman at least 10 times.
A Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in June 1992 upheld Nobles' conviction. Linda Edwards, a spokeswoman for Gov. George Bush, pointed out that the state constitution gives the governor the right to issue a one-time delay of 30 days for each execution. Otherwise, the governor cannot intercede in a case, unless the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends that a death penalty sentence be commuted, which did not occur in Nobles' case.
“A lot of people think that the governor can step in on any of the cases,” and commute sentences, she said. “That isn't the case.” Nonetheless, “each inmate has an opportunity to pursue remedies in court.” Bush won re-election by a landslide on Nov. 3 and is the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.
Richard Lopez, a permanent deacon, played an important role in Nobles' conversion, Bishop Carmody said.
Speaking into a microphone at 6 p.m. in the death chamber Oct. 7, Nobles expressed his regret to the families of his victims.
A few weeks before his execution, Nobles received a visit from Nalley's mother, who forgave him, Bishop Carmody said. CBS-TV plans to air an episode on its television show 48 Hours in January about the reconciliation, Bishop Carmody said.
Nobles also read from the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. He declared his intention to go to Heaven singing “Silent Night,” which he sang, but did not complete because he died five minutes later. At 6:26 p.m. on the feast of the Holy Rosary, Nobles was declared dead. At 7:30 p.m., St. Thomas Church in Huntsville held a funeral Mass for Nobles, and he was buried in the Dominican habit, with a rosary in his hand.
Capital punishment enjoys heavy support in Texas, and the state's laws do not give juries the option to hand down life sentences without parole for capital offenses, Bishop Carmody said. “It's a huge rock to move,” he said of death penalty's popularity.
In addition to offering juries more sentencing options, Texas should stop executing mentally retarded convicts, Bishop Carmody said.
“We're playing God,” in executing criminals, he added. “We're very religious people in Texas, but we don't realize that only God can give and take life.” Catholics and other Texans need to be united in their convictions that human life is sacred from the moment of conception until death, he said.
Americans should also realize that it's cheaper to maintain prisoners in prison for life sentences without parole, rather than executing them, Bishop Carmody said. “We're not talking about huge numbers,” since there are more than 3,500 people on death row around the country.
“Vengeance doesn't benefit society. It isn't the answer to sadness and grief,” said Bishop Carmody, who oversees an East Texas diocese with 50,000 Catholics, about 4% of the population. He expressed sympathy for the families and victims of violent crime.
During an October 1997 visit to Texas' death row for men, Pierre Sane (accent on the “e” in his last name), the secretary general for Amnesty International, criticized the legal process for death penalty cases in Texas, as well as the prisoners' living conditions. He called their cells “cages,” and urged Texas to slow down its capital punishment process. In 1997, Texas executed 37 convicts, half of the national total. Amnesty International also issued a 24-page report last year, which lambasted the state's practices.
A small group of death penalty protesters gathered outside the Huntsville prison on occasion, but Nobles discouraged such displays. “It's love that will change society,” rather than conflict, he had told his bishop.
For years, Nobles tried to petition prison officials to allow him to become the first executed convict to donate his internal organs, but he failed in his quest, in part because the state would not pay for any surgical costs and would have to kill him through a non-poisonous lethal injection.
The revised Latin version of the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church (2267) reads, “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude … recourse to the death penalty when it is the only practical way to efficiently defend the lives of human beings from the unjust aggressor.” It continues, “Today, in fact, because the means states have to repress crime efficiently and render (criminals) inoffensive … the cases where it is absolutely necessary to suppress the guilty are today very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
Despite this advancement in Church teaching, the number of Americans who support the death penalty has remained steady during the past 10 years at around 70%, said Daniel Misleh, policy advisor on non-violence issues at the Department of Social Development and World Peace at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. A majority of Catholics in this country also back capital punishment.
The bishops in the United States have denounced capital punishment for 30 years in 100 different statements, according to Misleh.
Misleh predicted that the drive to curtail the number of court appeals by death row inmates will lead to more innocent people dying. Thirty-eight states have legalized the death penalty, following a 1976 Supreme Court opinion that gave them that right.
Racial and economic discrimination plays a role in capital punishment, according to Misleh. About 47% of death row inmates around the country are white and 53% are minorities, according to Oct. 1 figures from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples.
Prosecutors and the jury in capital criminal cases are generally white and male, while those who are sentenced to death are usually minorities or those who are poor, Misleh pointed out.
More than half of all U.S. murder victims are ethnic or racial minorities, but 88% of those executed were convicted for the murder of a white person, according to Amnesty International.
U.S. society's acceptance of the death penalty shows our hardness of heart, according to Misleh. “We have to examine the effects on families, prisoners, and victims. There are other ways of protecting society.”
Bishop Carmody, who came to San Antonio from his native Kerry, Ireland, after his 1957 ordination, said Nobles' execution was unlike anything he'd experienced in his priesthood.
William Murray writes from Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Nancy O'brien ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 12/06/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 06-12, 1998 ----- BODY:In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II speaks of the responsibility with which health-care personnel should carry out their duties, in particular their responsibility in upholding life in all circumstances.
A unique responsibility belongs to health-care personnel; doctors, pharmacists, nurses, chaplains, men and women Religious, administrators and volunteers. Their profession calls them to be guardians and servants of human life. In today's cultural and social context, in which science and the practice of medicine risk losing sight of their inherent ethical dimension, healthcare professionals can be strongly tempted at times to become manipulators of life or even agents of death. In the face of this temptation their responsibility today is greatly increased. Its deepest inspiration and strongest support lie in the intrinsic and undeniable ethical dimension of the health-care profession, something already recognized by the accident and still relevant Hippocratic Oath, which requires every doctor to commit himself to absolute respect for human life and its sacredness. (89.2)
Absolute respect for every innocent human life also requires the exercise of conscientious objection in relation to procured abortion and euthanasia. “Causing Death” can never be considered a from of medical treatment, even when the intention is solely to comply with the patient's request. Rather, it runs completely counter tot he health-care profession, which is meant to be an impassioned and unflinching affirmation of life. Biomedical research too, a field which promises great benefits for humanity, must always reject experimentation, research or applications which disregard the inviolable dignity of the human being, and thus cease to be at the service of people and become instead means which, under the guise of helping people, actually harm them. (89.3)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Infinity Of Littleness DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:When we speak of the Incarnation, we mean that the Life, the Truth and the Love of the Perfect God took on a visible human likeness in the Person of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The faith of the humble man tells him: this Child is the Incarnate Word, true God and true man; he is the Creator of the human race become man: he needs milk to nourish him, but it is by his hand that the birds of the heavens are fed; he is born of a Mother, but he is the One who preexisted his own Mother and therefore he made her beautiful and sinless, as we would have done for our own mother if we but had the power; he lies upon straw on earth, and yet sustains the universe and reigns in Heaven; he is born in time, and yet he existed before all time, Maker of the stars under the stars; Ruler of the earth an outcast of earth; filling the world, lying in a manger. The proud man sees only a Babe. But the humble man, illumined by faith, sees two lives in this Babe, in the unity of the Person of God. …
The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange, to say to us, as only the Good God could say: “You give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you my eternity; you give me your weary body, and I will give you Redemption; you give me your broken heart, and will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My All.” …
The world, which is so bent on power, never seems thoroughly to grasp the paradox that as only little children discover the bigness of the universe, so only the humble of heart ever find the greatness of God. The World misses the lesson because it confuses littleness with weakness, childlikeness with childishness, and humility with an inferiority complex. It thinks of power only in terms of physical force, and of wisdom only in terms of the vain knowledge of the spirit of the day. It forgets that great moral strength may be hidden in physical weakness, as Omnipotence was wrapped in swaddling bands, and that great Wisdom may be found in simple faith as the Eternal Mind was found in the form of a Babe. There is strength—strength before which the angels trembled, strength before which the stars prostrated, and strength before which the very throne of Herod shook in fear. It was the strength of that Divine and Awful Love which shrank from nothing to convince us of God's measure of what is really great and high. …
Thus the birthday of the God-Man is the children's day, in which age, like a crab, turns backwards, in which the wrinkles are smoothed by the touch of a recreating hand, in which the proud become children, and the big become little, and all find their God. Hence I speak not in words of learned wisdom, but in the words of a child. We all go stooping into the cave; we put off our worldly wisdom, our pride, our seeming superiority—and we become as little ones before the incalculable mystery of the humiliation of the Son of God. As such, we creep to the knee of the loveliest woman in all the world, the woman who alone of all women wears the red rose of motherhood and the white rose of virginity, the mother who in begetting Our Lord became the Mother of Men, and we ask her to teach us how to serve God, how to love God, how to pray to God.
—This text was excerpted from The Eternal Galilean, by Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Alba House, 1997)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Archbishop Fulton Sheen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Plan to Move Feast of Ascension Is Now in the Vatican's Court DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Ascension Sunday, anyone?
That could become a reality in various parts of the United States, depending on the input that the Catholic faithful give their local bishops.
The possibility of moving the traditional Ascension Thursday celebration to the following Sunday moved one step closer after the National Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a proposal that would allow individual ecclesiastical provinces to transfer the feast day.
The proposal was approved Nov. 16, during the conference's annual meeting, by 181 yes votes among eligible Latin-rite bishops in the United States. The plan will be forwarded to the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments for final approval before it can be implemented, likely in 1999. Vatican approval of the proposal is expected.
The feast of the Ascension celebrates, of course, the return of Christ to the Father in heaven 40 days after his resurrection. Described in two Gospel accounts (Mark 16:19 and Luke 24:50-53) and referenced many times throughout the New Testament (beginning with Acts 1:2), the Ascension is one of the oldest feasts of the Catholic Church, being observed by Christians since well before the fifth century.
Ascension Thursday became one of 10 universal holy days of obligation with the publication of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and until very recently was observed throughout the United States without exception.
Over the last 10 years, however, proposals to transfer the feast of the Ascension to the Sunday after the traditional Thursday observance have enjoyed increasing support among a majority of U.S. bishops, but until this year, the measure failed to win the two-thirds plurality necessary for approval. Throughout these years, moreover, the debate on retention vs. transfer of the Ascension observance has been drawn almost entirely along East-West lines.
Bishops from the Eastern United States have tended to favor retention of the Ascension Thursday tradition. They point to the strong Scriptural arguments for placing the Ascension exactly 40 days after Easter, and to the significance of Pentecost falling exactly 10 days after the Ascension. Noting the Mass attendance on that day in many of their territories approaches that of Sundays, they feel the inconvenience put on priests who must offer the additional Masses midweek is not excessive.
Most Western bishops have disagreed with the demographic arguments. Noting that there is no secular counterpart to Ascension Thursday as there is, say, with the Solemnity of Mary falling on New Year's Day, Mass attendance on Ascension Thursday in western dioceses, they say, is markedly lower than on Sundays.
Moreover, Western bishops reply that the higher concentration of priests on the East Coast allowed the clerical burdens consequent to a midweek holy day of obligation to be more spread out in the East than in the West. They also pointed to confusion among the high numbers of immigrant Catholics living in Western states, most of whom come from countries, such as Mexico, where the Ascension is already observed on a Sunday.
James Akin, a senior apologist at Catholic Answers Inc., in San Diego, expressed the concern of many observers by noting that, without adequate preparation for a transfer of the Ascension Thursday observance, the change could come across as “a piecemeal capitulation to modern standards of convenience.”
He noted that “denominations which expect the most from their members tend also to get the highest levels of participation and commitment from them. If a feast as significant as the Ascension is moved, it will make it harder to maintain other midweek holy days of obligation.”
‘Denominations which expect the most from their members tend also to get the highest levels of participation and commitment from them. If a feast as significant as the Ascension is moved, it will make it harder to maintain other midweek holy days of obligation.’
Although the 1983 Code of Canon Law, much like the 1917 Code, sets forth 10 universal holy days of obligation, it allows episcopal conferences, with prior Vatican approval, to abolish various holy days or to transfer their observance to a Sunday.
Following canon law, the U.S. bishops long ago lifted the obligation of Mass attendance from the feast of St. Joseph (March 19) and from the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29), and transferred the observance of both Corpus Christi (Thursday after Trinity Sunday) and the Epiphany (Jan. 6) to a Sunday.
More recently, they decided, with Vatican approval, to lift the obligation of Mass attendance on the Solemnity of Mary (Jan. 1), the Assumption (Aug. 15), and All Saints' (Nov. 1) whenever those days fell on a Saturday or Monday. Only Christmas (Dec. 25) and the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) remain obligatory throughout the United States.
One factor which might have shifted some votes toward recent endorsement of the optional transfer proposal could have been the fact that, almost immediately following the bishops' conference approval of a national unified policy on the observance of holy days in the United States in the early 1990s, the Vatican granted an indult to five Western U.S. provinces allowing them to transfer the observance of Ascension to the Sunday following the traditional Thursday. This permission was granted on an experimental basis for a period of five years and, although it recently expired, it was in place long enough for Western bishops to assess the impact of a transferred observance in their areas.
Assuming Vatican approval of the proposal, it will then be up to the diocesan bishops in each province to decide, by a majority vote, on the time for observance of the feast of the Ascension in the entire province.
Under this plan, the archbishop of a given province will not make the decision for all of his suffragan dioceses, but rather the vote of the majority of diocesan bishops (though not auxiliary bishops) will bind all dioceses in the province. Moreover, since the vote of the bishops will be entirely discretionary, and since the subject matter of the vote seems clearly to be a matter “which pertains to the good of the Church,” it can be expected that many individual members of the faithful will communicate their preferences to their diocesan bishops in accord with their freedom of expression on such issues protected in Canon 212 of the 1983 Code.
In those provinces which adopt the Sunday transference of Ascension Thursday, the entire liturgy of Ascension, and not just the obligation of Mass attendance, will be transferred. In other words, those faithful who attend Mass on the 40th day following Easter will not, in provinces adopting the transfer option, hear the liturgy of Ascension Thursday on that day. They will hear instead a regular “ferial” day liturgy or perhaps the liturgy of a saint or blessed whose feast day happens to fall on that date. The actual liturgy of the Ascension will have been transferred to the following Sunday.
Catholics who live in provinces which do retain the Ascension Thursday obligation will be bound in conscience to attend Mass on that day, subject only to the usual factors which might excuse Mass attendance on Sundays and other holy days. If such Catholics find themselves outside of their territories, however, and in a place which does not observe Ascension on a Thursday, they are not bound to attend Mass that day.
On the other hand, Catholics who live in provinces that do adopt the transferred observance policy need not attend Mass on what was Ascension Thursday, of course. And even if they find them themselves in a territory which does observe Ascension on a Thursday, they will not be bound to attend Mass that day (Canon 13).
Regardless of the eventual outcome of the Ascension Thursday question, the debate over the place of midweek holy days of obligation is likely to continue for some time.
Edward Peters, a canon and civil lawyer, writes from San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Counselor's Past Helps Him Turn the Hardest of Hearts DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—Ishmael Rodriguez sits talking with three pregnant women at a counseling center in the South Bronx.
In what he calls his “old life,” he would have been sweet-talking these young women into getting an abortion. But now he sits on the other side of the table, as coordinator of the South Bronx Pregnancy Center, and serves as the last guard between these women and the Planned Parenthood facility directly across East 149th Street.
The crisis pregnancy center has logged 2,000 visits from clients this year. Most want the free pregnancy test advertised in the Yellow Pages, others come thinking the center performs abortions, and some come simply to talk or to get information and assistance on how to keep the babies in their wombs. Rodriguez, 43, who grew up in Spanish Harlem and lives in the Bronx, listens intently, talks plainly and works with all his power of prayer and persuasion to save the lives of the mothers and their children. This year, 321 women turned away from abortion after visiting the center and have due dates sometime in 1999.
On Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he witnessed the baptism of a baby girl whose mother had come to the center with her mind set on abortion.
“She was a good Catholic woman who was in a parish prayer group but got involved with one of the guys in the group,” he said. “She was too embarrassed to let anyone know, so she panicked. After talking with her for an hour and showing her a video, she began crying and said she didn't know how she could have thought of killing her child.”
In addition to working six days at the center, Rodriguez organizes regular prayer vigils in which Auxiliary Bishop Francisco Garmendia, New York Archdiocesan vicar of the South Bronx, celebrates Mass at a local church and leads a rosary procession to an abortion facility.
“Ishmael is a hard worker and very interested in helping the people and meeting their needs,” Bishop Garmendia told the Register. “He is a very, very good man, and we have worked together on many different projects.”
The South Bronx center opened three years ago across from Planned Parenthood's Hub Center, in an effort to offer the large number of poor black and Hispanic women in the area the information and referrals they need to keep their babies. Counselors provide free, client-administered pregnancy tests and show pro-life videos such as Silent Scream and Eclipse of Reason. If a woman tests positive, they help her to understand that the same Medicaid money she would use for an abortion can be put toward maternity care and delivery at a hospital. If a pregnant woman is being thrown out of the house by parents or abused by a boyfriend, they are referred to shelters such as Covenant House or Good Counsel Homes.
“We offer whatever help we can,” said Rodriguez. “A lot of times a woman will find she does have the resources. What she really needs is the frame of mind to decide to keep the child.”
The founder and director of the South Bronx Pregnancy Center is Christopher Slattery, who runs two other such facilities in the city under the name Expectant Mother Care.
At a recent fund-raising dinner in Manhattan, Slattery called Rodriguez one of the most effective crisis pregnancy counselors he has seen.
‘He pulled me into the church, knelt me before the tabernacle, and gave me Holy Communion for the first time in a long time. I met Jesus. I've been on the journey since.’
“He has a way of talking with a woman in crisis that can turn even the more hardened ones around,” said Slattery. “He has been absolutely indispensable; no amount of money could buy the type of commitment he has. In my 15 years in running pregnancy centers, I've never seen anybody who can handle the pressure like he can.”
Rodriguez is slow to take the credit. “You can go through hell here, with all the women coming in with their minds set on abortion, and it seems there is just no way they can be made to change their minds,” Rodriguez said in an interview on a recent afternoon, during a lull at the center. “But you realize every changed heart must be a heart that God has touched, from death to life. You are just the instrument God uses to enter her heart.”
Sometimes hearts are very hard. He told of a pregnant woman and her boyfriend who came in thinking the center was an abortion clinic. After Rodriguez convinced them to watch a video on abortion before making any decisions, the man announced that he was against abortion and would not pay for the procedure as promised.
“She started punching him in the face. She was determined to get an abortion,” recalled Rodriguez.
After calming down, both agreed to come back to talk to Rodriguez again about keeping the baby.
“I think there's hope,” he said tentatively. “At least, there's a window for God to work with.”
Rodriguez knows about conversion and opening a window to God. He was reared in a Catholic family and went to Catholic school, but by his 15th birthday he had fathered a child and paid for his girl-friend's abortion. He got into drinking, drugs, and an escalating cycle of womanizing. In all, he holds himself accountable for 15 abortions, the last one of which landed the woman in the hospital with a perforated uterus. It was then Rodriguez began to rethink his life.
“I just hit bottom. I was a total loser and saw my life going nowhere. Something had to happen because as I saw it, my life was not worth living.”
On June 27, 1989, he remembers the date distinctly, he arose from bed and “decided to look for God, if he really existed.”
Rodriguez visited a nearby rectory to find a priest to hear his confession. Three hours later, after an agonizing examination of conscience and a firm purpose of amendment, he received absolution. But the priest was not finished.
“Thank God,” Rodriguez continued, “he pulled me into the church, knelt me before the tabernacle and gave me Holy Communion for the first time in a long time. I met Jesus. I've been on the journey since.”
The priest asked him to make amends by seeking to be a father to the fatherless.
“Little did I know then what that would entail,” Rodriguez recalled. “Now I am being sort of a father for the child in the womb, standing in for the biological father who will not defend the life of his child.”
The road back has not been without bumps. He married, had three children with his wife, but later was divorced and is now applying for an annulment. Still, he attends Mass regularly and strives each day to live according to the moral teachings of the Church.
“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and say, ‘I've really got to work extra hard to be good today.’ There is no other choice for me anymore.”
Although the center is officially non-denominational, and some of the part-timers and volunteers are not Catholic, Rodriguez is not shy about bringing his faith to work.
“I'll explode if I don't talk about Jesus Christ,” he said. “Among the Hispanic and black women, this is accepted. They have faith, even if they're not practicing it. They all know deep down that God has given them this child and they will have to answer to Him for destroying the child.”
He added, “I can tell them firsthand how awful abortion is, how it destroyed my life and the lives of all the women I knew. I figure that if I was able to talk so many women into having abortions in the past, I can use the same talents in talking her into keeping this baby. The key is to get her to accept her child. She has killed the child spiritually in her heart before she gets to us. She has to be persuaded that it's not too late. She can still give life back to this child and accept this child as her own. Then we can help her.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Council of Churches Faces Uncertain Future DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:The World Council of Churches' (WCC) golden anniversary this month seemed less a celebration than a midlife crisis.
At the ecumenical organization's eighth general assembly held in Harare, Zimbabwe, Dec. 3-14, the 1,000 delegates from more than 100 countries, representing the WCC's 339 member-churches, along with more than 3,000 observers, including a 23-member Vatican delegation, got a taste of both the internal strife that continues to beset the WCC, and the changing face of the world Christianity for which it seeks to provide a forum.
The general assembly's theme was “Turn to God—Rejoice in Hope,” but high-risk restructuring, threats of walkouts, and fraying ecclesiastical ties were the substance of this year's landmark event.
“There's no doubt that the WCC is at a major crossroads,” said Paulist Father Ron Roberson, associate director of the secretariat for ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the National Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).
A western Protestant organization by and large, it increasingly runs the risk, Father Roberson told the Register, of “representing only one segment of the Christian world—the ‘liberal’ wing—rather than the overarching one its founders had in mind.”
The WCC has its origins in three early 20th-century Protestant movements—Life and Work, Faith and Order, and the International Missionary Council—two of which merged on Aug. 23, 1948, at the constituting assembly of the WCC in Amsterdam, to be joined by the missionary council at the WCC's general assembly in New Delhi in 1961.
Formed initially to forge unity among Protestant denominations, especially in the foreign mission field, the entry of Eastern Orthodox Churches and, eventually, the Roman Catholic Church into the broader ecumenical movement in the 1960s made the WCC, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, one of the foremost international forums for dialogue and common action among Christians. By the 1970s, though, it had also earned a well-deserved reputation as a promoter of fashionable left-wing political causes, a development that, until very recently, had cost it the support of many evangelical and Pentecostal groups.
Under the leadership of German Protestant theologian Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the organization since 1993, the WCC has embarked on a bold top-to-bottom review of its identity, vision, and structure, including provisions for a new ecumenical forum that would facilitate the participation of Catholics and some conservative Protestant bodies that have declined membership in the past.
Currently, the Catholic Church has observer status in the general assembly, the organization's governing body which meets every seven years, and participates in the WCC's Faith and Order Commission—its main theological arm—and, in conjunction with the Holy See's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, sends representatives to several other WCC working groups.
Raiser's forum idea proposes that the WCC's general assembly be discontinued in favor of a new global forum of churches and ecumenical organizations (which would include the Catholic Church) of which the WCC would be one among many members—an idea that has attracted Catholic support, and growing interest among formerly stand-offish evangelicals as well.
The head of the Vatican delegation in Harare, Bishop Mario Joseph Conti of Aberdeen, Scotland, said in an Ecumenical News International report that the fact that the WCC is considering changing its structures is a sign of the organization's “good intentions to embrace others.”
Raiser has also forwarded two other long-range proposals to the general assembly this year aimed at incorporating decision-making by consensus into the WCC's operational procedures and constitutional changes in electing officers aimed at putting an end to regional and denominational partisanship.
But if the WCC has been working hard to broaden its base, the 50th anniversary general assembly had hardly begun when some of the divisions that have long plagued the organization came to the fore, demonstrating the fragile state of some long-term ecumenical relations at the turn of the century.
On Dec. 4, Catholicos Aram I, of the Armenian Apostolic Church, an outgoing moderator of the WCC's central committee, warned delegates that Eastern Orthodox participation in the WCC “would steadily dwindle” unless the assembly took seriously the frustrations of Eastern Orthodox Christians who have long complained that WCC activities reflect only the preoccupations of its majority Protestant membership.
Some Russian Orthodox delegates were even more forceful. “If changes are not made,” Father Hillarion Alfeyev, leader of the Russian Orthodox delegation (the WCC's largest member church), told the assembly, “Orthodox Churches will leave the WCC. We want the WCC to be radically reformed so it becomes a true home for Orthodoxy in the 21st century.”
The threat of Eastern Orthodox withdrawal is serious, and, many observers say, should it occur, would, perhaps fatally, undermine the WCC's credibility as a forum for interchurch dialogue.
Last year the Georgian Orthodox Church announced that it would withdraw from the organization. Since then, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has also quit, although WCC officials state the organization has yet to receive official notification. Serbian Orthodox are widely thought to be reconsidering their participation. As a sign of their growing disenchantment, many Orthodox Churches have drastically cut the size of their delegations.
In an open letter sent to the assembly, Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, Eastern Orthodoxy's titular head, complained that the organization had adopted in recent years “a series of liberal theological and moral positions” that reflected only the concerns of member Churches of the Northern Hemisphere.
“What about the veneration of Mary, the veneration of icons, the veneration of the saints?” asked Father Alfeyev, an official of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, in his address, the first by a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. “These cannot be discussed because they are divisive.”
“But what about inclusive language and the ordination of women?” he asked, referring to topics long championed by the WCC. “Are these not divisive?”
The problem should not be seen as an Orthodox problem, said Father Thomas Rausch, chair of the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and an expert on the WCC, “but an ecumenical one.”
What Raiser and many liberal Protestants have concluded, said Father Rausch, is that the historic doctrinal conflicts of Christianity are not resolvable. “So, you try to build a consensus around social issues instead. And that can't be well received by Rome and by the Orthodox.”
Father Roberson, the NCCB aide, points out that the deeper issue for the Orthodox is the nature of the WCC itself.
Can it set policy, for example?
“The Orthodox make up a quarter of the membership of the WCC,” he said, “and whenever the WCC decides to issue some sort of policy statement, say, on controversial issues, they lose. It's frustrating. “
In addition, most of the Orthodox bodies joined the WCC during the “bad old days” of communism, said Father Roberson. “A lot of more conservative Orthodox look at the ecumenical movement as something the communists made us do.”
What they're proposing to the WCC, said Father Roberson, is the radical restructuring of the organization along the lines of the Middle East Council of Churches.
That ecumenical organization, based in Cyprus, which spearheaded recent discussions on a common date of Easter (see Register Nov. 29-Dec. 5) is set up on the model of “families” of churches, with Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox bodies having an equal voice in the decision-making process.
The multiple dilemmas of the WCC made themselves felt in the recent gathering in Harare, according to Catholic observers.
Clearly, delegates are pulling the organization in several different directions, observed Father Oskar Wermter, head of the Zimbabwean bishops' office of social communications. “Some people want the WCC to be a platform for dialogue, while others want it seen as a united body, using its strength to [exert] political pressure,” he said in a Dec. 6 interview with Ecumenical News International.
Nevertheless, Catholic observers had particular praise for one measure passed by the forum: the statement on international debt relief. “The WCC [has been] a great moral force” in the question of international debt, said Bishop Conti. Participants in the assembly signed a statement Dec. 12 urging wealthier nations to cancel the foreign debt owed to them by poor countries “staggering under an impossible burden.” Pope John Paul II has called on first-world donor countries and international financial organs to reduce—or cancel outright—in time for the Great Jubilee, the estimated $250 billion in unpayable debt owed by Third World nations.
Delegates called the WCC's 50th anniversary general assembly a “turning point event.” With drastic reforms in the works, and with ever more destabilizing tensions in its ranks, and with the heartland of Christianity moving increasingly from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, it's difficult to predict the future of the world's foremost ecumenical forum.
In his report to the assembly, Secretary General Raiser stated that he “perceives signs of uncertainty in the future of the ecumenical movement as a whole,” and ended by saying, “It would seem we are at a crossroads.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Deep divisions threaten 50-year-old ecumenical organization ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Evangelization in Full Throttle DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Cardinal Bevilacqua was among the first leaders in the Church to recognize the spiritual potential of the year 2000; Philadelphia's preparations for the Jubilee began almost 10 years ago. The cardinal remains one of the American Church's most visible leaders, both in the United States and at the Vatican. He recently spoke with the Register's Washington Bureau Chief Joseph Esposito.
Joseph Esposito: Your Eminence, what led you to become a priest?
Anthony Cardinal Bevilaqua When I was about 5 years old, I met a young priest who greatly inspired me. He took a liking to me and I took a liking to him. He visited my family when we settled in Woodhaven, New York. He welcomed us.
I wanted to be like him, which meant being a priest. I really didn't know, at that point, what it meant to be a priest. But I idolized Father Frank [Father Andrew Klarmann.] He was a kind, saintly, very generous man.
As I got older, I came more fully to understand and appreciate what the priesthood meant. Frank and my family encouraged me and nurtured my desire for the priesthood. Eventually, it was Father Frank who guided me into the preparatory seminary.
Who else had the greatest influence on your life?
My parents, who came to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs. They raised 11 sons and daughters. My father could not read or write, and my mother had the equivalent of a third-grade education, but they were very wise people.
Your Eminence, you've addressed a number of urban issues. You had a town meeting a few months ago to discuss violence, crime, racism, and poverty. You've also spoken out on gun safety.
What are concerns here that Catholics should understand?
We are concerned about violence towards young people and by young people. In September, I was in a march for peace where pictures were presented of the young people who had been killed in the past year. There were about 17 of them—mostly young teen-agers. Many of them were victims of drugs.
We have to realize in Philadelphia, as elsewhere, that the responsibility to address this problem falls on everyone. If we're going to eliminate crime and achieve peace in our cities, we have to reach people who aren't even in crime areas, not living in cities. We must overcome prejudice and racism.
You referred to the town meeting, which was at Norristown, Pa., in a suburban county adjacent to Philadelphia. They have problems there, too, but not as intense as in the city. But we have to let each person there understand that everyone is created in the image and likeness of God.
Violence comes from a dislike, an alienation toward others of all races, all ethnics groups. We're trying to make everyone realize they have a responsibility to face this problem—both in the city and the suburbs.
Another important urban issue is Catholic schools. The Philadelphia Archdiocese runs one of the largest school systems in the country. What do you see as the importance of Catholic education today?
It's very interesting that in the last few years we are getting many, many requests for parishes in the suburbs to build new schools and authorize additions. In the last year and a half, I've received about 15 requests from parishes, and more are coming in. More people are encouraging parishes to have schools.
Why do they want them? Because they realize more and more that education is not just knowledge, it's also about acquiring moral values to direct how we live. It's not just learning what to do in an occupation, but how to be a better human being.
They want their children to have religious and moral values. They also see in Catholic schools a place where they can trust that their children will get the reasonable discipline of learning respect for authority and their peers. They're seeing everything they want their children to be as preserved, maintained, and supported in Catholic schools.
They know there is a greater assurance in Catholic schools that their children will succeed. Our [standardized test] scores are always higher than in other schools, and the parents are seeing the great benefits. So they are willng to sacrifice to pay for these schools.
That's why we're always pushing for vouchers in Pennsylvania to assist parents. There are many parents who just can't afford to send their children to our schools.
You've been a leader on the voucher issue. What will it take to get government leaders on the state and national levels to be more supportive of this concept?
We need to overcome the pressure that leaders feel when they are beholden to many special interests, especially the public school teachers' union. I'm a public school product, and there are many wonderful public schools and teachers. But the teachers' union is very adamant against schools vouchers—they see it as losing a monopoly.
Many legislators are supported in their campaigns by the union. What has to be done is to mobilize our parents. We're doing it more and more.
In addition, we need support from the business community. They see the value of having this competition among schools, especially in the cities.
Between parents seeing their responsibility at the polls to vote for the right candidate and the business community bringing pressure, I think we can get vouchers. And I am positive it will be constitutional. So, I have absolutely no doubt that we'll eventually be successful.
You have spoken forcefully on Philadelphia's domestic partners law, which was adopted in May. Can you restate for our readers what are your concerns and what you expect to do to change the law?
First of all, domestic partnership is a euphemism. There are people who don't know what it means. It means that a political jurisdiction enacts a law in which benefits are given to homosexuals who live together in the same manner as those who are married. This includes tax credits, pension benefits, and real estate tax relief.
To us, this is the beginning of the end of marriage as a sacred institution. The homosexuals aren't interested in the money involved here; they're not getting that much, and they're a very affluent group.
The intent of domestic partner legislation is to gain acceptability, to gain the recognition that homosexual couples are the same as married people. When that happens, we're truly destroying marriage and the family. That's my great fear.
The same thing happened with this legislation as in the partial-birth abortion vote. A number of legislators, claiming to be faithful Catholics, voted for domestic partner benefits. I tell them it is injurious, but they reject it. They don't see the implications.
Are you challenging the law in the courts?
No, but there is a Christian group which is. We keep working and educating our people. We hope that through the ballot box, we can replace City Council members and eventually overturn the law.
Let's turn to a few national issues. Clearly the most contentious has been the Clinton scandal. Rather than rehash the issue itself, perhaps we can discuss a broader concern. What should we expect and demand of our public officials?
I believe the nation is strong when its moral values are strong. That's been true since the very beginning of our country. The Declaration of Independence mentions our Creator. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness exist only because God gave us those inalienable rights.
Washington, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson all believed the nation wouldn't survive without moral values. They mentioned religious values, too.
So a leader—even the leader of the nation—can't get up and say, “I'm just your political leader.” These officials must exemplify moral values, which are the foundation of this nation.
If leaders flout moral values, it weakens the nation. The president must be an exemplar of leadership in all the social and political aspects of the United States. But the president must also exemplify the importance of the moral foundations of the country.
This fall one truly uplifting event was the 20th anniversary of the pontificate of John Paul II. What are your thoughts on his impact on the Church, the world, and history?
Pope John Paul II will certainly go down as one of the greatest Popes of the Church in its 2,000 years. Already some are advocating that he be called John Paul the Great because he has, in so many ways, significantly affected the life of the Church.
He has made the Church again a great moral barometer, a great moral institution. He has been very forthright in determining the things that are right and wrong.
He started his pontificate with those words “Be not afraid,” and he has never shown any fear. While some people may disagree with him, they respect him. He has credibility as a strong, saintly person. This brings great weight to everything he says.
The Holy Father's vision of the Church is going to go on into the next millenium. He has brought to the forefront—probably more than any other Pope—the sacred obligation that every single Catholic has to be an evangelizer, who witnesses the faith and brings the good news of Jesus Christ into every single place in the world.
He has stimulated lay people to see their responsibility in the marketplace, courtrooms, hospitals, politics, and at home. You name the field, he has spoken on it. In every area of life, he has come out and brought the moral values to every issue that affects our lives.
Both you and the Holy Father were ordained in the 1940s. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of your ordination. Obviously, the Church and society have changed a great deal in that time. What do you see as the compelling reasons that attract men to the priesthood today?
First, we are going to see an increase of young men entering seminaries. It's beginning to happen, and the numbers are going to continue to increase. One reason for this is that young people today realize they have an obligation to make this a better world.
They are very much involved in the environment. hey want to ensure that the material aspects of the earth are preserved for future generations. But they've begun to realize that there is more than just the physical environment, there's human life.
They've become disillusioned with the siren calls coming from the media about what's going to make them happy. Sexual permissiveness, the latest fashions, the material aspects of life—the glitter and grandeur—is not fulfilling happiness.
With this disillusionment, some are looking for happiness elsewhere. An increasing number are turning toward the Church, turning toward Jesus Christ.
I see more and more young men interested in giving their lives to help others, and one of the finest ways is through the priesthood.
Some even reach this point later in life. They've tried other things. Now they feel they want to be part of the Church and become leaders in forming better people and a better society.
You're the only Cardinal with a radio call-in program. What have you learned from having such a program and from being able to talk directly to people through this medium?
I hear from people who are hungry for the truth. They want to know more about their faith. They want to know how to become holier people. They want to know more about the Church. And even non-Catholics call in.
The radio is a major instrument of evangelizing. We have to take advantage of it. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would be on the radio and other media. If he would do it, then I should, too.
Christ didn't wait for people to come to him. He went out and sent his apostles to many towns and villages. We have to do so in our ways. And one of those ways we can get out to the people is through radio.
You're obviously involved in so many activities. Do you have any free time to read? I was wondering whether you could recommend a recent book to us.
I've just finished reading all the works of St. John of the Cross. That sounds like a huge work, but it's all in one volume. He didn't write that much, yet what he has written has affected me a great deal.
Especially valuable are his thoughts on how to pray and contemplate, on mystical prayer, and on surrendering oneself to God. You may not understand everything and you have to read him slowly, but it's written rather simply.
St. John of the Cross suffered a great deal, just as we do today. When you read about his life at the beginning of the book, you see that being united with God can bring a great deal of comfort.
----- EXCERPT: A bishop and his diocese face the new millennium ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anthony Cardinal Bevilaqua ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Hope, Work for the Future, Follow Oceania Synod DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Reaching out to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics is likely among the many pastoral proposals the Synod of Bishops for Oceania made to Pope John Paul II as it wrapped up three weeks of work.
The synod's seven-page closing message emphasized that the Church teaches best by witnessing and by bringing the Gospel to bear on the religious and social problems of Oceania. It expressed special concern for the indigenous, the poor, and Catholic communities without priests, while thanking the thousands of people in the Church's pastoral work force.
Archbishop George Pell of Melbourne, Australia, said the synod “has made me more conscious of the real missionary challenge: the need to vigorously and tirelessly proclaim the person of Jesus Christ, his teaching, his sacraments. He is truly the answer to everything that people seek. Our duty is to be the salt of society.”
The Pope closed the synod Dec. 12 with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. Like the opening liturgy Nov. 22, it featured dancing and singing from Samoa and other Pacific areas; the Pope's entrance was heralded by the blowing of a conch shell. In his sermon, the Pope thanked the bishops for bringing to his attention “the spiritual wealth of your peoples as well as the problems they encounter.”
The challenges of the modern world, including the inroads of secularization, require the Church to show pastoral care and charity, he said.
“We give thanks for this great experience of the Church,” the Pope said the next day, in wishing the departing bishops a happy home-coming.
Synod participants echoed the Pope's remarks, describing their meeting as an extremely open discussion of difficult topics.
While there has been some public speculation about the yet-to-be-released 48 final proposals which the synod has submitted to the Holy Father, Archbishop Pell warned against focusing on such hot-button issues as priestly celibacy and instances of sexual abuse among the clergy: “I would say that this is due more to the space given by the media to these questions, than the Synod Fathers. Certainly the issues were raised, but discussion was quite brief.”
Pell continued: “Regarding abuse, I think the worst is over, because the Church is taking very precise measures. Regarding celibacy, in the synod propositions there is no request to ordain married men, but there is a question about allowing the people, in situations where priests are scarce, to participate as much as possible in the Eucharist.”
The Pope will use the proposals to write an apostolic letter on the Church in Oceania.
According to synod sources, the final proposals call for a number of clear pastoral strategies, including the strengthening of Catholic schools, improved formation programs for the laity, and better use of communications and advertising media.
The challenges of the modern world, including the inroads of secularization, require the Church to show pastoral care and charity.
The synod proposals, it appears, also reach out to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, encouraging them to remain in contact with the Mass and with parish life, despite their separation from the sacraments. Other proposals reportedly urge better promotion of Church social teaching and condemned all discrimination, especially against indigenous peoples, while supporting efforts to rectify past injustices.
In separate proposals, the synod called for improved vocations programs and highlighted the value of priestly celibacy. Sources said it also asked the Pope for a special sign of understanding and mercy toward priests who have left the active ministry.
According to sources, another proposal, encouraging the contributions of women in the Church, recommends the use of gender-inclusive language in the liturgy and in all Church statements.
While Archbishop Pell confirmed that “some asked for a more colloquial language, including also feminine terms,” he also stated that “a good translation must be faithful to the original and put across the meaning, while taking into consideration the modern day mind-set.
“For example we can only define God, as Father: This was the definition Jesus himself gave. We cannot substitute terms such as Father, Son, and Spirit with others such as ‘Creator,’ ‘Redeemer,’ and ‘Sanctifier.’”
The synod began with the reading of a thematic report. Following speeches by most of the 154 participants, including 117 voting members, the assembly heard a revised report, then drew up the message and proposals.
While the opening report emphasized society's eroding values and the necessity for a return to the Church's traditional moral teachings, the closing report, message, and proposals apparently focused on the many areas of social action in which the Church and the larger society can cooperate: refugees and migration, environment, unemployment, development funding, health care, economics, and education.
The pastoral focus of the synod's proposals left some wondering whether the “theological” aspects of evangelization had been sufficiently highlighted, while others lauded the emphasis on the pastoral realities in Oceania. Archbishop Pell suggested that the synod was made up of “many bishops and few theologians”—reflecting a chronic deficiency in Oceania, he said.
In that sense, the synod might have been a “heavy cross” for the Pope, who presided over all the general assemblies, said Australian Bishop James Foley.
In the end, several participants said there was no major move for policy changes in the final proposals, as such changes transcended the synod's role. “Synods are not events that are going to change the traditions of the Church, and anyone who comes here thinking they're going to get great concessions is deluding themselves,” said Bishop Kevin M. Manning of Parramatta in Australia.
The synod picked possible sites for the Pope to visit if he decides to present his post-synodal document in Oceania. The bishops' top three selections were Noumea in New Caledonia; Sydney, Australia; and Brisbane, Australia. The apostolic letter is not expected to be ready before the end of 1999. (Staff, CNS, Zenit)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:A Doctor and a Priest Aid DiMaggio
On Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, things looked grim, said Dr. Earl Barron. “We called the family because, frankly, we thought we were getting down to the last road,” he said. “Today [Wednesday], there's a little more hope.”
DiMaggio, 84, was suffering from a fever, pneumonia in his one good lung, and an intestinal infection as he recovered from lung cancer surgery. “He perked up immediately,” Barron said.
But the article also mentions that, at his grimmest point in November, “a Catholic priest was summoned to administer last rites,” the Catholic sacrament whose purpose is to restore spiritual health and, sometimes, physical health as well.
In December, the family refused to sign a controversial “do not resuscitate” order that doctors commonly offer in cases of severe illness, said the report.
Buddhist Devotions Allowed in Public Schools
The equivalent happened in one Utah school district, he said, where “entire student bodies from the district's four public schools were assembled in Moab's Grand High School auditorium to observe [Tibetan] monks conduct prayers, sacred music, and sacred dance rituals in front of an altar, a picture of the Dalai Lama, and a large mural of the monk's monastery, all of which were prominently displayed in the center of the stage.
“Subsequently, at West High School in Salt Lake City, during school hours, the monks conducted a four-day ceremony dedicated to the ‘female deity aspect.’ This particular ceremony consisted of the creation of a sacred mandala sand painting, which was heralded by sacred chants and music offered before an altar.”
If the devotions had been Catholic, he said, “In no time, ACLU attorneys would [intervene]… The media would editorialize its concerns and insist that plans for the Masses be dropped. Indeed, no school district would seriously consider such a request in the first place.”
Advent Has Special Meaning at Vandalized Church
Archbishop Chaput attributed the desecration in part to corporate sin—and thus, saw it as a call for corporate repentance. “All of us, in some way, share some responsibility for what happened,” he said.
Those in attendance saw the day as an opportunity for mercy and hope. “We just need to pray for the people that did this hideous act,” Chuck Crowe, who came from Denver for the ceremony, told the paper. “It's not going to hurt us,” he said. “It's just going to bring us together. I feel sorry for [the vandals], though … very sorry.”
“It's exciting to see people of so many different faiths and backgrounds gathered here tonight to stand together,” said Father Eugene Oates, of a neighboring church.
A 3-month old baby who was scheduled to be baptized the morning the vandalism was discovered was baptized at the ceremony by Archbishop Chaput, as a sign of the church's recovery and “rebirth,” said the report.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selected publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sister Moms Balance Motherhood and Religious Life DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:LOUISVILLE, Ky.—At first glance, the women meeting here last June looked the way you would expect nuns to look. But listening to their conversation, you learned these women had a unique bond. Besides being religious, all 44 women were mothers.
They met for the first time as “Sister Moms,” a voluntary organization offering a connection among women religious who have children. The Sisters, who represented 36 different religious congregations, discussed their lives as mothers and religious, turning “MOM upside down and making WOW—Women of Wisdom,’” said Bea Keller, a Sister of Charity of Nazareth and one of four founders of Sister Moms.
“Becoming a nun at midlife is clearly an option for women today, she said, and is not new in the history of religious life.
“There have been other ‘sister moms’ such as Elizabeth Ann Seton, Jane Frances de Chantal and Louise de Marillac,” she said. Keller is the parish nurse coordinator for Caritas Medical Center in Louisville.
“It is important to dispel the idea that entering religious life is a career change for us,” Keller, a mother of seven, noted. “We are making a change of lifestyle and responding to a call from God. Sister Moms are women who are risk-takers. We live on the margins of our communities, since we enter later in life and lack a community history. We choose to live on the margins of our families, but we think our lifestyle has freed our children to be their own persons and to have the courage to face life, following their mothers example of risk taking.”
Among those attending the meeting was Sister Marty Mulhern from Orange, Calif., a 58-year-old mother and a Sister of St. Joseph of Orange since 1984. “I had never met another sister who was a mom,” she said. “So I was amazed to think that these women, who looked like a whole bunch of nuns, were also mothers. It was fun for me to be with them.”
Sister Marty serves as a chaplain at St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, “a good fit for me now,” she said. As a mother she taught in a Catholic elementary school for 25 years, starting when her four sons reached school age. After her husband died suddenly of cancer in 1982, she began to get “this nagging feeling that I was supposed to go into religious life, but I thought it was ridiculous.” The feeling persisted and she began to check into various orders, sought counsel, and prayed.
When Sister Marty told her sons that she had decided to enter, one said,“Gee, Mom, I was thinking last week that you'd make a good religious.”
Sister Marty is the youngest of 13 children, went to public schools in the East, and has attended daily Mass since seventh grade. Some have asked her if perhaps she had had a vocation that she had ignored when she was younger, but Sister said, “I had never been around nuns until I taught in parochial school. I really feel I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing now, even as I did what I was supposed to as a wife and mother before entering.”
The next meeting of Sister Moms, which currently has a mailing list of more than 100 religious representing 63 religious congregations, will be held Memorial Day Weekend 1999 in Tampa, Fla., followed by one in Sacramento, Calif., in 2001. (Martha Lepore)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Excerpts from selected publications
Protesters Demand Return of the Angelus
The Angelus heralds the Blessed Virgin Mary's acceptance of God's desire to become incarnate in her womb.
The mood of protesters was upbeat, said the report. “We have got protection,” smiled one, showing rosary beads and an image of Mary.
According to the article, the tradition of pausing and praying the Angelus at midday has been acknowledged on Irish television in a special, brief feature each day. That feature has now been altered to be more akin to a moment of silence and fails to show Catholics making the sign of the cross or to include an image of the Blessed Mother.
The protest, it is expected, will have no impact on the decision of the station.
Northern Ireland's Nobel-Winning Accord in Danger
“[I]n the less than two months since the committee announced its decision,” said the report, “the accord has run into trouble….”
The new dispute arose when Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party repeated its demand for the outlawed Irish Republican Army to disarm as a prerequisite for including its political wing, Sinn Fein, in a new governing body in Northern Ireland.
Trimble, a member of the British Parliament, was quoted saying recently in Washington that the IRA's stance “is tending to poison the atmosphere.” But he also stressed that the peace accord was not collapsing, according to AP.
The report did not mention Hume's opinion of the issue, except to point out that the former seminarian is a well-known peace activist in Ireland and is considered the driving force behind the accord.
Crucification May Await Sudanese Priests
Now, those words are being recalled by activists as the Sudanese government is threatening two Catholic priests with crucifixion.
Father Hillary Boma and Father Lina Tujano are charged with terrorism on the day celebrating the current regime's coup in the nation, according to the report. The story added, “If convicted, they and 18 co-defendants could be crucified, under the medieval Islamic code that governs Sudan's legal system.”
The priests became the prime suspects in bombings on Aug. 1, when security police swept into St. Matthew's Cathedral in Khartoum to arrest the chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocese of Khartoum, accusing him of masterminding the plot.
Lawyers were prohibited from speaking to the suspects until after they were questioned—and tortured. All pleaded not guilty.
Now, state television has carried a videotape of the chancellor confessing to a crime. “Clerics here privately say he might have done so after being told it was the only way to spare his junior colleague … from further abuse,” said the report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mother Angelica's EWTN On the Air Across Europe DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the radio and television broadcaster established by Mother Angelica in Alabama, has launched a European wide radio service.
Unlike Vatican Radio which uses short wave and therefore suffers from poor signal quality, EWTN's new European service gives listeners FM quality sound, provided they are connected to a satellite dish. This is because EWTN is using the Astra Satellite for its broadcasts across Europe from Finland in the north to Italy in the south and from the Canary Islands in the west to Moscow in the east.
However, not every European household is connected to a satellite dish. At present, Astra's potential audience is only 73 million—less than the population of Germany alone.
Nevertheless the move is a major development for EWTN which so far has concentrated on North America and Latin America since it was founded in 1981 by Mother Angelica in the garage of her Dominican convent in Alabama.
The European radio service on 10993.75 MHz is in English and broadcasts 24 hours a day, featuring a daily celebration of Mass and a twice daily recitation of the rosary.
Announcing her network's expansion on the other side of the Atlantic, Mother Angelica said: “We have had an outpouring of requests for our service in Europe. In response, we are delighted to offer EWTN on the continent's most popular satellite system. We look forward to working together with those in Europe who desire to produce programming that promotes the teachings of the Church.” (Cian Molloy)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Papal Envoy Finds Faith Stronger Than Hurricane DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Mud slides have destroyed the lives, homes, and work of tens of thousands of Central Americans. Having seen sights he will never be able to erase from his mind, Archbishop Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum returned to Rome after visiting Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. But in this indescribable tragedy, he witnessed the unexpected: faith proved stronger than ‘Mitch.’
Archbishop Cordes shared with ZENIT his experiences during a week which made him feel like papal envoy to the Apocalypse.
ZENIT: Can you tell us about the scenes that made the greatest impression on you in these stricken countries?
Archbishop Cordes: After celebrating Mass in Posoltega, in the diocese of Leon, Nicaragua, a woman came up to me. She was a mother of six children, four of whom perished in the mud slides. She couldn't speak, but only cry. The trauma of the tragedy was a month old, but it was engraved on her face. She will never get over it completely.
Later we went to the south of Leon to visit a refugee camp of homeless survivors. The parents and adults were cleaning the debris. We only saw the children. They were very happy to see us. At the end of our visit, they sang for us and their faces filled with joy. But there was one among them, about thirteen years old, who showed no reaction at all. I took him by the hand and I said: “Have courage!” He didn't look at me, not even once. Will he ever smile again?
You have said publicly that you are amazed at the people's faith after such scourging. What did you see that makes you say this?
In the outskirts of Managua, we were taken to see two camps of victims who had lost everything. One is near the Tipitapa river which joins the lake of Managua with that of Nicaragua. The floods had forced the people to leave the land. They were living in a camp in inhuman conditions.
They took us to a statue of Our Lady where we prayed and sang. At the end someone shouted “Long live the Mother of God!” Everyone answered with a force worthy of a football stadium: “Long live the Mother of God! Long live the Catholic Church!” I had the impression the majority of them, notwithstanding the unbearable experience they lived through, had not lost faith in the protection of heaven.
In the other camp, we saw the same thing. There were at least 70,000 people in the sun that day, but their housing was plastic or tents. When we arrived at the camp, it seemed that not a soul was alive. The first to appear and greet us were children, then youths and adults. Seeing we were clergymen, they crowded around us. Here, too, we were taken to a statue of the Immaculate Conception and, after the prayer, the cry arose, “Long live the Pope!”
During your stay, you said the Holy See and European Catholics will give more donations to these communities. How much has been given and how much more can be expected?
To date, Caritas of Europe and the United States have donated $50 million. Spain alone has contributed $28 million. Other countries of Latin American have made contributions, like Mexico and Argentina. Costa Rica has sent a group of volunteers, an important gesture in a situation of discouragement. But after attending to the most urgent needs, long term reconstruction must begin. Some national Caritas associations are already committed to this end—for example, Spain, Germany, the United States. They held a meeting in Honduras from November 20-21 with this objective in mind. In the end, it is not about plugging holes but about catching up economically. According to some experts, this could take a generation. Consequently, these communities will need help for a long time.
In some of the countries, Nicaragua and Honduras in particular, the Church is in charge of the distribution of international aid. How is this working out? Why has the Church been entrusted with this task?
The Church has the network of the parishes, including some [in] isolated places. Ö With the cooperation of members of the episcopal conference of Honduras, we have seen for ourselves the most urgent needs are being addressed: drinking water, medicines, and basic foods. These goods were transported in trucks and helicopters. The Church was given this responsibility, both an honor and a burden, not just for practical reasons, but because of her credibility and honesty. Sadly, many take advantage of the tragedies of others to enrich themselves.
The countries of Central America lived in extreme poverty before the hurricane struck. You, yourself, saw in El Salvador communities which were unaffected by the hurricane whose ordinary situation is almost as acute as that of the stricken. How can Catholics contribute to national reconstruction? How can they break the vicious circle of social injustice, constantly criticized but never changed?
During the trip, all we heard were complaints about the foreign debt. In Nicaragua the president told us that every year the country paid $18 million in interest for a Russian loan. He did not mention the debt with other countries. Obviously, an economy cannot subsist in such circumstances. This debt puts a stop to the initiative and courage needed to start new projects.
At the same time, a sense of social justice must be developed and reinforced in the population. The Holy Father constantly refers to this, for example, in his talk during the ad limina visit of the bishops of Honduras on September 26, 1983. The Pope's words must be heeded, corruption must be combated, and the poor must be looked after—this is an evangelical obligation.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Indulgence Emphasis a Wise Move by Pope
Katie Grant begins her defense by quoting Pope John Paul II's Incarnationis Mysterium. Wrote the Pope: “I decree that throughout the entire Jubilee [year 2000], all the faithful, properly prepared, be able to make abundant use of the gift of indulgences.”
Noting that even many Catholics find the mere mention of indulgences grating, she wrote, “take heart, not … fright. Let us look a little deeper. Pope John Paul … introduce[d] the subject of the Jubilee indulgence … because he believes that purification and reinvigoration are of a vital importance to believers ‘weighed down by the weariness which the burden of 2,000 years of history brings’ and that indulgences, properly used, have a part to play.
“Before their hefty abuse in the early Reformation … indulgences were initially granted to those awaiting martyrdom. It was considered right that intercessions could be made on behalf of these men and women to shorten the canonical discipline—in other words, to excuse them any penance which had been decreed by the Church as a proper atonement for their sins. From this developed the idea that through the merits of Christ and the Saints, deficiencies in penance could be rectified.”
She continues, “And so it is today. … For those in despair at their own wickedness, it is a lifeline. What the Pope is offering, for receiving the sacraments or praying at holy places—not, note, for money—is hope and a reminder that this world is not the end of the line. … Like St. Peter, he holds the power of binding and loosing. If you are a believing Catholic, you accept this.” She concluded with a rhetorical smile, writing, “I accept the Jubilee indulgence in the spirit in which it is given and hope not to see you in purgatory.”
Opera Prodigy Sings for the Pope
In the United Kingdom, Charlotte Church is a best-selling operatic soprano singer. Her album, Voice of an Angel, has sold 300,000 copies.
Pope John Paul II will be among those in attendance when the singer performs in the Vatican Dec. 19.
The international release of her album is planned for Feb. 8. Sony Classical has yet to set a 1999 release date for the album, which includes Pie Jesu and Amazing Grace. Church's rendition of Ave Maria from the album became a top-five single in the United Kingdom, said the report.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selected publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: C.S. Lewis Falls Prey to Darmouth's PC Police DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:On July 1, 1899, three Christian commercial travelers met at the Janesville, Wisconsin Y.M.C.A. to form an evangelical association. The “Gideons,” as the small band styled itself, soon came up with the bright idea of furnishing Bibles for every hotel room in the country. In this way, they thought to make God's Word available for those who would spend the night away from home. Seeing this as a service to clients, hotel proprietors, by and large, were amenable to the proposal; soon, Bibles could be found in hotel rooms throughout the nation.
That was then, this is now. Flash forward a hundred years, to the world of political correctness. Last week another evangelical band, “Campus Crusade for Christ,” decided to give incoming Dartmouth College freshmen a Christmas present: C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. On Wednesday night, students gift-wrapped 1,100 copies of the book, and signed cards explaining that the book was a free gift. They delivered 40 boxes full of the gift packages to the Dartmouth mailroom—in compliance with the usual campus policies—and prepared to head home. That's when the College administration stepped in to block distribution of the book.
Scott Brown, dean of Dartmouth's department overseeing religious activities, justifies the college's actions on the grounds that “a large number of students” were likely to take offense at the gift. This despite the fact that a year ago Campus Crusade distributed 1,069 copies of the same book to incoming freshmen, and only 6 students registered complaints. Poor C.S. Lewis. He seems to grow more offensive with each passing year.
This is, of course, the same Dartmouth founded in 1769 as a Christian college by the popular preacher of the Great Awakening, the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, and the same Dartmouth that prides itself on its openness to diversity, offering such mind-widening courses as “The Invention of Heterosexuality and How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic.” Yet it is also the same Dartmouth that banned the school glee club from singing at the annual tree-lighting ceremony, because their repertoire included carols such as Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful, which contain explicit and offensive lyrics.
Jennifer Wan, a Dartmouth junior from Brookline, MA, expressed her consternation at the college's actions: “I don't see the book as trying to convert anybody. It's weird to me that it would offend people. It's just a book. You don't have to read it.”
Dean Brown, however, does not agree. Subtle and insidious mind maneuvering is afoot. Unlike flyers (the campus mail service recently distributed leaflets handed out by Buddhist monks), Brown explains, gifts create a “psychological hook,” that elicits a response from those who receive it. Therefore, Brown suggests, Mere Christianity might create a sense of obligation in those who found a copy in their mailbox. Without wishing to impugn the motives behind Brown's paternalism, one questions his low estimation of students’ capacity for independent thinking.
Dartmouth has made some concessions. Scott Brown allowed that all students could receive the book in their mailboxes, provided that the group mailed them through the U.S. Postal Service, rather than the College's own mailing system—effectively committing the college to refraining from tampering with U.S. Mail, which is, in any case, a Federal offense. That way, Brown asserts, the college would not be “subsidizing” the distribution of the book. Some students have found this policy puzzling, especially since their mailboxes are constantly barraged with college-distributed mail of other sorts, ranging from monthly J. Crew catalogs to a computer magazine that showed nude photos on its cover. Amidst a plethora of worldviews and opinions, it seems that Christianity has been singled out as uniquely unworthy of tolerance.
Political correctness as practiced on many American college campuses adheres to an unwritten, two-tiered policy toward diversity. On the one hand deviancy from traditional canons is encouraged, and anything critical of Western civilization, orthodox religion, and especially Christianity enjoys favored status. Anything which upholds objective truth, on the other hand, and especially religious and moral truth, is to be quashed as undermining the tenets of the New Society.
As Edwin Feulner, president of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, has written: “In a ‘PC’ world, you only have a right to one opinion: theirs. If you don't agree, you are immediately labeled ‘insensitive’ and become a fair target, even for physical attack. And the people who revel in this gender-neutral, multi-cultural, lockstep mindset do so in the name of tolerance!”
Let's not be surprised if one day soon we discover a J. Crew catalog in our hotel room where the Gideon Bible once was.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Thomas Williams ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Sister Wendy's Advent for Time-Challenged Catholics DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Even for the most faithful Catholics, today's Advent can be head-spinningly hectic. Ornaments and fruitcakes and tinsel and presents are all very well—but where are the prayerful reflection and heartfelt anticipation we're supposed to be experiencing?
Fortunately, Loyola Press is offering an antidote for the modern-day Advent. Sister Wendy's Nativity is just the kind of spiritual reading that is both possible and desirable during the whirlwind of mid-December. Possible, because its appealing, coffee-table format and relative brevity make the work less daunting to undertake … and desirable, as we can't let ourselves be fooled by this format. There is fuel for deep reflection in these elegantly simple pages.
Most of us know Sister Wendy from her public television specials on the history of religious art. The soft-spoken nun in traditional garb leads her viewers through a series of works on a given topic—works which typical lay people, more used to Bauhaus sensibilities at their churches, are really not in a position to appreciate unassisted. In fact, the symbolism and intricacy of traditional art seems, to many of us, both overwhelming and obscure.
What Sister Wendy does so well on television, she does even better in print. She introduces us to the paintings as she would to old friends, interpreting their expressions with empathy, while nodding indulgently at their idiosyncrasies. The advantage of reading Sister Wendy, as opposed to watching her, is that you can take your time poring over the text and cross-referencing the picture, rather than trying to pick out a few mentioned points, before the work in question disappears from the screen.
When you first pick up Sister Wendy's collection of “images from late antiquity to the late fifteenth century,” some of which “have so far been studied only by scholars in the Vatican and other great Italian libraries,” you may wonder why she chose to entitle the collection Nativity.
Of the book's four sections, only the second deals directly with “The Holy Birth.” Four paintings are of the Nativity itself; two, of the shepherds to whom it is initially announced; and two of the visit of the Magi. Section One, “Preparing the Way,” features Old and New Testament scenes from before the birth of Christ. Section Three examines “Jesus Among Us,” while the last part of the book focuses on his “Death and Resurrection.” So why use the word Nativity in the title at all?
Because Christmas isn't just about the manger and the shepherds, any more than it's about shopping and fruitcake. It is a focal point of salvation history, an event so singular that, as Sister Wendy points out, history is bisected by it, into B.C. and A.D. To understand what went before and what came after, we have to understand the Incarnation.
Yet to understand the Incarnation, we must consider its position in the whole sweep of the human encounter with the Triune God. This is what Sister Wendy recognizes by including the rest of Christ's story with the Christmas story. The book is called Nativity because the other events are, quite properly, viewed with the Incarnation as a lens. As Sister Wendy writes, “The birth of Christ is universally understood as the crucial date in human history. Yet, on the face of it, what exactly happened? In a small town on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, a young mother had given birth to a son, a child of such mystical significance that we still struggle to come to terms with who he was.”
As we struggle to come to terms with this Advent, Sister Wendy helps us to share the viewpoint of earlier Christians—both the profundity of their grasp of the mystery, and the very real limits of human understanding.
You might think: “What do I want with a picture book? Picture books are for kids. Besides, I know the general facts about Christmas and Christianity already.”
Picture books are for kids, because pictures speak so readily to the heart and the imagination. We are called to become like little children that we might enter the Kingdom of God, and Sister Wendy's pictures can help us recapture a childlike appreciation of the holy. “These manuscripts were created solely to help people to pray,” she remarks, “to teach them the truth of their religion, to coax them into thinking more deeply about it and to delight them with their beauty.”
As for knowing all about Christmas already, Sister Wendy has contributions to make on this score as well. She enhances the well-known scenario with allusions to sophisticated theology and tidbits of apocryphal tradition. For example, she says at one point; “No theologian doubts that the world was created ‘for’Christ: He was its fulfillment and gave it its meaning. What remains a matter of reverent speculation, though, was whether the way Christ's life unfolded—his birth and his terrible death, and then the Resurrection—was intended from the beginning, or came about only because of Adam and Eve, our first parents.”
How many Catholics know that, in this sense at least, the Christmas story is still a matter of theological controversy? Yet Sister Wendy introduces us gently and intelligibly to the debate between the “primacy of Christ” position (which holds that Jesus would have become incarnate whether or not Original Sin was ever committed, because this was God the Father's plan from all eternity) and the consequentialist position (which holds that Jesus, so to speak, “had” to become incarnate after Original Sin, to get us all out of this mess in the only way possible).
On the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum, Sister Wendy also alludes to pious little tales of doubtful truth which have cropped up throughout Christian history, like the one about the Holy Family's escape from King Herod and his murderous designs on the Divine Child. Sister Wendy describes how “[i]n the far background, the artist even manages to illustrate one of the Flight into Egypt legends. The Holy Family is said to have passed a farmer sowing corn, and when Herod's men asked him if he had seen any escapees, he answered truthfully that nobody had gone by since he sowed his crop. But miraculously, the crop had sprung up and was ready for reaping, which completely threw the villains off the scent, while preventing the farmer from telling a lie.” How would we have understood the painting, without being familiar with this little legend behind it?
Most of the time, however, Sister Wendy is neither leading us forth into complicated theology nor regaling us with enchanting pieces of religious trivia. She is explaining significant works of art in her signature style, which at the same time draws us deeper into Christianity itself—and isn't this what the Advent season is really for?
Helen Valois writes from Steubenville, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen Valois ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: God's Name: A Many-Layered Mystery DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:“What's in a Name?” by Tim Gray (Lay Witness, December 1998)
Tim Gray writes:
“A voice comes forth from the burning bush telling Moses that sandals are not allowed on [the mountain]; the bush is planted on holy ground. … The voice begins to identify itself, saying, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ (Exodus 3:6). … The Lord then describes how He will lead Israel out of Egypt, through none other than Moses. … Moses interjects some questions concerning the logistics of the operation: ‘If … they ask me, “What is [God's] name?’ what shall I say to them?’ (Exodus 3:13).
“To appreciate the problem as Moses saw it, we must put ourselves into the sandals of the Israelites … we know from Ezekiel that the Israelites had succumbed to the Egyptian religion, for they worshipped the idols of Egypt (cf. Ezekiel 20:7-8). Moses himself had grown up in the royal court of Egypt, and was now living with the Midianites, who had many gods of their own. So for Moses to say that God had revealed Himself in a bush, … the burning question would be which god? What is his name?
“God answers Moses: ‘I AM WHO AM.’And He says, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. … This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations’ (Exodus 3:14-15).
“The Hebrew word for ‘I AM WHO AM’ is Yahweh. In reverence and piety for the sacredness of God's ineffable name, the people of Israel do not pronounce it. Rather … they replace it with the title ‘Lord’ (in Hebrew Adonai, in Greek Kyrios).
“Moses is the first to learn God's name. Jacob had gone so far as to wrestle with God to get a blessing and to find out His name (Genesis 32:24-30). He left the wrestling match with a limp and a blessing, but without knowledge of the name.
“In the ancient world, names held a significance that would be hard for us to overestimate. One's name was not simply something by which you were called; a name represented your very being, your soul. … To have knowledge of someone's name is to have not only an insight into who they are, but access to them as well. … [T]here is a modern analogy that reveals the power … to invoke a presence. One only has to think of a computer. In order to get a file to come up on your screen, all you need to do is type in its file name.
“The Israelites had similar ideas about the power of a name—although they did not think that their God could be manipulated. … But the Israelites did believe that calling upon the name of a God invoked His presence. … Name evokes presence; thus the name is a sacrament of the person.
“At the heart of the Annunciation is the revelation of the Incarnation. Yet not only does the angel announce that God will take on human flesh, but also that He will take on a new name. … Just as God's Holy Spirit appeared in fire within the bush but miraculously did not consume it, now in the Virgin Mary the Spirit of God conceives the Incarnate Son of God, while Mary miraculously remains a Virgin. And as the bush became the place where God was made visible to Moses, even more so Mary manifests the Son of the Father. …
“Anyone vaguely familiar with the New Testament will know that there are a multitude of names for Jesus: Master, Teacher, Savior, Lamb of God, King, Son of David, Son of God, Good Shepherd, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, etc. … Is the name ‘Jesus’ just one name among many others?
“[W]hy do Christians have no problem saying Yahweh? Is it a lack of piety? No. The reason Christians can pronounce the name is because of the Incarnation. The Catechism gives a profound explanation: ‘by assuming our humanity The Word of God hands [the Divine name] over to us and we can invoke it. …’
“The name of Jesus also brings about His presence: ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20) … the very act of speaking the name brings about God's saving presence. … The fact that God's name bears His presence is one of the reasons why His name should be hallowed, that is sacred. Perhaps now we can better understand the second commandment, ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.’”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Graphic Abortion Images
Gregg Cunningham, of the Genocide Awareness Program (GAP), (“Graphic Abortion Images” Nov.29-Dec.5) is to be highly praised for his early retirement from the Air Force in order to defend life full time. It is every prolifer's dream.
While he contrasts the accepted practice of displaying pictures of the Holocaust [to] the reluctance of some pro-lifers to display pictures of aborted babies publicly, Mr. Cunningham raises an important question, “Why is this form of genocide [abortion] different?”
In essence, abortion as genocide is not different from the Holocaust as genocide. (Abortion may even be considered as the worst form of genocide, because the unborn are so utterly defenseless.)
However, exposing the harsh reality of abortion is more complex than exposing the reality of the Holocaust. This is because we need to consider the millions of “walking wounded,” as Vickie Thorne of Project Rachel calls them. These are the men and women among us who have also suffered the trauma of abortion, along with the unborn.
For those who have been traumatized by abortion, photographs of aborted babies may increase their burden of guilt, shame, and hopelessness, and may even lead some to despair. Perhaps, a few of the people who reacted violently to GAP's billboards were actually suffering from post-abortion trauma and, unfortunately, were acting out of their grief and sense of hopelessness.
We must also consider the effect of graphic abortion images on children, especially those who may already suffer an overload of graphically violent images. Do the abortion photos only reinforce the sense of hopelessness, and consequent desensitization, which violence engenders in their minds? What effect do the images have on the siblings of aborted children; i.e. those who may have been told about the abortion or have perceived their loss deep within their psyche? Finally, what effect do they have on the women having abortions who are really children themselves and have not developed the maturity to deal with those images? So, we must also ask: How can we use a method of activism which may cauterize some, while at the same time traumatizing others? Is it compassionate to drive to despair someone who is in need of your mercy?
Those who have been through the abortion experience and have been healed may continue to find that they are highly sensitive to the pictures. Perhaps it is a scar which the Lord allows them to bear and which thus becomes a valuable part of their witness, along with their past experience and their deep knowledge of the mercy of God.
By their Christian vocation, pro-lifers are first and foremost called to be healers of the wound of abortion. There are obviously no simple answers to this complex situation, but unity in Christ's love and a compassionate activism need to be the bottom line. Furthermore, the pro-life movement will not be effective until it includes the vital witness of men and women who have been through the abortion experience. For those who have been healed, their conversion of heart speaks most eloquently of the sanctity of life and the hope to which all Christians have been called.
Maria Clare Blessed by the Cross Association Batavia, New York
Fax: (203) 288-5157; e-mail: editor@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Maria Clare ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Miracle of Birth - at Christmas DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:The new human life began through simple cell division as it floated down the fallopian tube of the mother. At the beginning, the cell division was rather simple. One division, and then another and then another. Two, four, eight, sixteen tiny cells formed. The new human life, called a zygote at this point, made its way for about three days down the tube toward the womb being nourished all the while by secretions from the mucous membrane lining the tube.
When the new life, now called a morula, reached the uterus it looked like a little mulberry composed of 60 or more cells, but it was too tiny to be seen easily with the naked eye. The number of cells kept increasing rapidly, however, and finally the blastocyst, a new name given this little life, collapsed in on itself, resembling a punched-in, deflated soccer ball. The blastocyst floated for a short time in the womb, nurtured now by secretions from the lining of the womb. It finally settled in and implanted itself in the upper portion of the womb.
At the very beginning of the cell divisions of this new life, any one of those cells could have developed into a full human being. Called toti-potential cells, they each had the potential to become any part of the human person—or another human being altogether. After the initial cell division, the cells began to differentiate themselves into the various types of specialized cells in the body. This process was very complex and unfathomably intricate. Each cell type developed in the right place of the mass of cells and at the right time. The early differentiated cells were somehow able to “read” their position in relation to other developing cells. Daughter cells then differentiated further, remembering their position so that they would develop into brain cells, or skin cells, or hair cells, or blood cells. These differentiated cells all came to be ordered into an ever more complex organism until eventually they formed all the cells of the young child.
As the blastocyst, or zygote, drove into the lining of the womb, it divided into two parts. One half attached to the wall of the womb and became the placenta which enabled the child to receive food and liquids from the mother and to pass off waste. After the zygote actually burrowed beneath the lining of the womb, it developed a kind of root system pushing into the uterine lining. These chorionic nuclei secreted a chemical which prevented other eggs in the mother's ovaries from maturing. They also helped to secure the child in the mother's womb. The other half of the division of cells developed into the embryonic disk, an early phase of the child itself. The umbilical cord developed finally, connected to the placental villi which drew nutrients, oxygen, and fluid from the mother.
In the fifth week of its life the embryo was about the size of an apple seed. Already all the major body organs and systems were formed, although they were not yet developed. Two folds of skin, which would become ears, appeared at this time on either side of the head. In the sixth week the neural tube, which connects the brain and the spinal cord, closed.
In the seventh week the embryo was about the size of a small bean. Dark spots appeared where the eyes would be. Openings for the nostrils began to form, and little buds which would become the arms and legs stuck out from the tiny body which looked a bit like a tadpole. It was in this week that the heart divided into two chambers and began to beat about 150 beats a minute—twice as fast as an adult. Muscle fibers began to grow and enough nerve cells developed that the fetus would pull away from stimuli.
In the eighth week tiny fingers and toes began to become distinct. The teeth, palate, and larynx formed, the ears took shape, and tiny veins were visible through the baby's thin skin. At this point some women do not even know they are pregnant. This woman, however, knew she was pregnant.
The baby went through twenty-eight more weeks of spectacular growth as it floated in the amniotic fluid in the uterus. One day the mother felt it stir in her womb. It turned and pulled up its arms and legs. It would punch out its knee. Sometimes he would suck his thumb. As the time of his birth grew near, he settled into a comfortable position in the uterus with the head down. The time came. When the child emerged, he was a marvel to behold. The intricately sculpted ears, the little clenched fist, the tiny toes. And they named him Jesus.
Dr. John Haas is president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Haas ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: A Star for the Rest of the Journey DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:The splendor of truth shines forth in all the work of the Creator and in a special way in man, created in the image and likeness of God. Truth enlightens man's intelligence and shapes his freedom, leading him to know and love the Lord.” (Veritatis Splendor, intro.)
I remember Peter Finch's character in the movie Network, hanging out his Manhattan apartment window, shouting: “I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!”
It's easy to start feeling like that, after years in the trenches of every moral battle, especially the fight for life. We, many of us, find ourselves wishing someone would act faster, more decisively, on behalf of what is right and just. We long for reassurance, for some visible signs of the conviction and courage we need from those God has chosen with power and authority on the side of truth.
Sometimes, the fight for what's right seems such an uphill battle—everything good takes so long and falls apart so easily, while abuses crop up too fast to be stopped. My brother, who lives in
Rochester, New York, has been following the events of a nearby parish where the church has been scandalized by a woman in vestments, “concelebrating” at Mass. Bishop Matthew Clark removed the priest responsible, Father Jim Callan, from Corpus Christi parish in August; the woman, Mary Ramerman, was fired from her position as a pastoral assistant in October. Now Father Callan has been suspended—in December, after the story had already appeared in Time magazine.
The time it takes to end such abuses can seem more than a little frustrating. True, the wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly, and perhaps often they have to. Leaders want to act prudently, cautiously and with perspective. All very understandable. But for those of us in the trenches (or the pews), relief cannot come quickly enough.
Sometimes a leader who makes a tough decision is looked upon as lacking compassion, and is almost never thought of as a peacemaker. It takes a sort of wisdom to see that a strong defense of truth is actually a form of love. There are those of us who are peacemakers, and there are those who know that peace cannot be gained if truth is compromised. A false peace may be comfortable, for a while, but it remains false.
LOVING WHAT IS RIGHT
In the prayer “Come Holy Spirit,” which I like to pray before reading the Bible, the ending I learned goes like this; “Oh God, Who does instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us by that same Spirit, a love and relish for what is right and just, and a constant enjoyment of His comforts, …”
These last words light a fire in my heart, as I have always had a particular hatred of injustice. And those who “hunger and thirst for justice” are certainly blessed, (Matthew 5:6) being specifically mentioned by Jesus in the Beatitudes. Yet being as mad as hell—well, “heck,” anyway—will not in itself do any good. When we feel we have no recourse in these situations, we would do well to remember: prayer and sacrifice conquers all!
And while we pray for good to be served, we have to pray for courage for ourselves and for others, especially our leaders. Standing by the truth takes courage. And sometimes standing by the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, takes heroic courage. Truth gets watered down, squashed and perverted, by false prudence, by false compromise, and by timid silence. And all for fear—fear of alienating a person or group, fear of offending, fear of sounding righteous or rigid, fear of backlash, fear of losing position, friends, or worldly respectability. The problem with all this fear is that it silences truth, causing a downward spiral, pulling with it the good that truth alone can give.
BE NOT AFRAID!
Time and again, our Holy Father exhorts us, “Be not afraid!” What is it he is asking us to do, if not to practice our faith, and defend the truth courageously? The fear that comes upon us is based on worldly concerns. But we need not fear the crosses that will come as a consequence of proclaiming and defending the whole truth. For as Jesus taught us, “In the world you will have affliction, but take courage, I have overcome the world.” We know that “the Lord is our helper, and we should not fear what man can do to us.” (Hebrews 13:6; Joshua 1:9)
Really, Jesus teaches against such fear very strongly, telling us to be more afraid of a just punishment, then of what man can do to us. “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28; also Luke 12:5)
By his example, Our Lord teaches us to speak the truth unwaveringly. Indeed we have the witness of those recorded in the Gospel: “Master we know that thou art truthful, and that thou teachest the way of God in truth, and that thou carest naught for any man, for thou dost not regard the person of men.” (Matthew 22:16; also Mark 12:14)
We understand that Jesus would not alter his speech or action based on human respect, for the thoughts or judgments of men are of no consequence to the truth. In fact, when many walked away from him (John 6), He did not soften his talk of the literal eating of his Body, but became more explicit and used stronger terms, including the Hebrew word for chewing meat.
Jesus, who is himself the Truth, could not be false to himself. Our Lord never worried about winning people over, or whether the harm of maligning tongues would keep good souls from hearing his message. He acted and spoke in truth wherever He went, leaving these other concerns to his Father in prayer.
TRUTH AND FREEDOM
“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)
What comes of diluted truth, half-truth, unspoken truth? Most apparent of all consequences may be the loss of the whole truth—and of innocent souls, of people who otherwise would have been gripped by the force of truth and moved to act in a positive way for good. If Our Lord had worried about the “right thing to say” so as not offend the worldly, to retain his popularity or appease those in power, he never would have been crucified—and we never would have been redeemed.
True compromise involves give and take—on points which can be given and taken honestly. True compromise is not motivated by a dread of confrontation, or a propensity not to rock the boat—for if you don't want your boat rocked, Jesus is not the man for you. Remember Simon Peter? He lent Jesus his boat, to use as a makeshift pulpit—only to have it swamped with fish to the point of sinking, then abandoned by the sea, as he himself went off to a new life, a new name—and, eventually, to a cross. Our Lord rocked the boat, all right—hard enough to wash away our sins and cast us all into the waters of life.
Is there a place for diplomacy, for an effort not to offend? Yes—that place is love. True diplomacy is rooted in love, and true love is rooted in truth. If you love someone you are truthful with them. And we are to “speak the truth in love.” (Ephesians 4:15) Jesus condemns sin, yet has enormous compassion on sinners. “Go and sin no more” are the words which follow forgiveness. We see our Lord condemning those in power—Pharisees, lawyers etc.—yet eating with sinners, touching lepers, and forgiving repentant adulterers.
Our Lord is not out to win popularity, with the great or with sinners. Our Lord is kind. He is sweet in his truthfulness, meek in his way, and perfectly humble in his righteousness. It is his truth and love we are called to imitate, and which we pray for the grace to achieve.
A long time ago, when I read the book Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton, a native of South Africa, I marked a passage in which a character was decrying the cowardice of some whites to speak and act on the many problems and inequities in his country. This passage, with slight adaptation, offers much worth pondering here:
“Therefore I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of [Truth.] I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. I shall do this because I cannot find it in myself to do anything else. I am lost when I balance this against that, I am lost when I ask if this is safe, I am lost when I ask if men [or women,] white or black, English or African, Gentiles or Jews, will approve. Therefore I shall try to do what is right, and to speak what is true. It would not be honest to pretend that it is solely an inverted selfishness that moves me. I am moved by something that is not my own, that moves me to do what is right, at whatever cost it may be. My children are too young to understand. It would be grievous if they grew up to hate me or fear me, or think of me as a betrayer of those things that I call our possessions. It would be a source of unending joy if they grew up to think as we do. It would be exciting, exhilarating, a matter for thanksgiving. But it cannot be bargained for. It must be given or withheld, whether the one or the other, it must not alter the course that is right.”
Carla Coon writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: Speak the truth in love, and it truly will set you free ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carla Coon ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Do-It-Yourself Churches Won't Get You to the Truth DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:As one might surmise from its name, Christian Book Distributors distributes Christian books, which, given the current usage, means it distributes Protestant books. Its extensive catalogue carries, among much else, a new title called The Church Comes Home. The authors are Robert and Julia Banks. The accompanying blurb is unintentionally instructive: “Home churches are as old as the New Testament, and now the Bankses help you carry on the tradition in your community of faith! Discover how to start a home church of your own, determine doctrine, form a network with other home churches, and more!”
“Determine doctrine”? Isn't that the essence of every offshoot from the one Church of Christ?
Martin Luther determined that there is no purgatory (good-bye Maccabees!) and that works play no role in salvation. John Calvin determined that God creates most men precisely to send them to hell. Charles Taze Russell determined that there is no hell and that you won't go to heaven if you don't worship at Kingdom Hall. Joseph Smith determined that any man can become a god and can populate his own universe. Mary Baker Eddy determined that death is a figment of the imagination. Ellen Gould White determined that the Mother Church is really the Whore of Babylon. L. Ron Hubbard determined that we are descended from extra-terrestrials and that Scientology courses help us achieve the state of “clear.” Jim Jones determined that it is proper for Christians to drink, en masse, poisoned Kool-Aid. And so on.
What business did these people have in determining Christian doctrine? None, of course. Not a single one was competent to do so, as they so amply demonstrated. With a few exceptions, each was a sincere believer, sincerely believing some things that just weren't so. Luther and Calvin, at least, were fairly well educated in theology, yet they were unable to determine doctrine accurately, having, like the rest of us, reasoning faculties that were impaired at the Fall. Those in the list who ended their lives holding the oddest opinions had accepted, at one time, most of the basics of Christianity, but they kept reinterpreting those basics until they bore little similarity to what the earliest Christians believed (not a single one of whom, for instance, thought it right to commit ritual suicide).
No one, no matter how bright, no matter how well degreed, no matter how sincere, can expect to determine doctrine accurately on his own. Sure, anyone can get one or two or ten things right, by dumb luck, if nothing else. But to get the whole corpus of religious truth right? No one has done it on his own. Only the Magisterium of the Church—the bishops teaching in union with the Pope—has been able to do it, but not because we've been blessed with bright bishops and popes. (Historically, some bishops and popes have been dim bulbs indeed.) The men who, in their ordained lives, make up the Magisterium are able to teach rightly, not because of any native skills they have and not because they have excelled in their university studies, but because the Holy Spirit prevents them from making a botch of it.
When a pope speaks ex cathedra, or when the Pope and bishops convene in an ecumenical council, what we get is teaching guaranteed to be correct because the deliberations are protected by the Holy Spirit. “He who hears you hears me,” our Lord told the apostles (Luke 10:16). “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32). The Holy Spirit “will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). It is the Church itself, speaking through the Magisterium, that is the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
This last attribution, by the way, is usually a surprise to Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. If you ask them what the “pillar and foundation of the truth” is, as likely as not, they'll say, “The Bible, of course!” At that point you smile broadly, flip to 1 Timothy 3:15, hand them the text, and say, “Here, read this aloud.” Although they've read the verse any number of times, its meaning never made an impression—until now. I have seen any number of “Bible Christian” jaws drop as the verse is pondered. I almost expected to hear, “Where was this hiding?”
What all of these verses are talking about is the infallibility of the Church. Infallibility is the inability to decide wrongly on an issue of faith or morals. It must be distinguished from impeccability, the inability to act wrongly. (Catholics do not claim that popes, for example, are impeccable, and therefore the indisputed fact that popes sin tells us nothing, one way or the other, about whether popes can act infallibly.)
Infallibility is a charism that doesn't belong to a bishop teaching on his own, to a pope teaching other than ex cathedra, or, at any time, to any priest, religious, or layman in the Catholic Church—and definitely not to anyone outside the Catholic Church, including the Reformers, today's religious leaders, or even the well-intentioned folks who establish their own home churches.
Karl Keating is the founding director of Catholic Answers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karl Keating ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Dream Works Does Moses Right DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Moses is one of the great characters of history, whose life holds meaning for believers and non-believers alike. As a national leader, he is a liberator of his people and a lawgiver. As a spiritual figure, he has a personal relationship with God, walking and talking with him, while remaining faithful to his plan. The Bible also shows us Moses’ human side, presenting him as a man of strong impulse and occasional doubt.
Throughout the ages, popular culture has often sought to interpret Moses' story, emphasizing those aspects which render it more accessible for its time. An example is Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. Made when the Cold War was at its height, it depicted Moses’ actions as a victory for democracy over dictatorship, an important theme for that era. Charlton Heston played him as a majestic, slightly distant figure who spoke and carried himself with great authority—qualities admired in leaders in those days.
Hollywood's newest major studio, DreamWorks, run by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, music mogul David Geffen, and former Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg, has chosen to make an animated feature about Moses which includes Broadway-type show tunes. One might wonder if this kind of format, usually deployed for more lightweight fare, is appropriate for such a serious subject. But directors Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells, and Steve Hickner use the genre wisely. They have produced a mass-audience work which is both entertaining and religiously orthodox.
In keeping with the spirit of the 1990s, The Prince of Egypt presents a more accessible figure than found in the DeMille epic. He's a populist, folksy hero whose personal conflicts and relationships help propel the plot, and unlike Heston's Moses, he's a likable guy with whom any of us would feel comfortable spending time.
The filmmakers have also broken new ground in animated-film technique. Employing some 350 animators over a four-year period, they have conjured up an imaginative visual spectacle, inspired by the art of 19th-century biblical illustrator Gustave Dore, impressionist painter Claude Monet, and film director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia). And, following the strategy developed by Disney under Katzenberg, The Prince of Egypt uses the voices of well-known stars for each of the major characters.
The story line adheres more closely to the biblical text than did The Ten Commandments. Egypt has the greatest empire on earth, and the Hebrews are its slaves, involved mainly in the construction of massive building projects.
The action begins with Pharaoh's orders to murder all the innocent Hebrew children. The baby Moses is hidden in the bulrushes of the River Nile to avoid the slaughter. The basket carrying him washes up by Pharaoh's palace and is discovered by the queen (Helen Mirren), who adopts him as her own. This is a change from the Old Testament where the baby was found by Pharaoh's daughter, not the queen.
The Bible doesn't have much material about Moses' life in Pharaoh's court, and it's here that the filmmakers invent the personal relationship that becomes the movie's emotional core. The young Moses (Val Kilmer) is raised as the brother to Rameses (Ralph Fiennes), Pharaoh's eldest son and heir. They're shown to have a friendly rivalry based on athletic competitions such as chariot races. Moses often gets his sibling out of jams for which the stern, domineering Pharaoh (Patrick Stewart) would judge him harshly.
The movie intelligently handles Moses' gradual realization that he's a Hebrew, one of the slave people, not a ruling-class Egyptian. His personality is transformed from that of carefree aristocrat to one of a man of conscience with concern for the oppressed. “All I've ever known to be true is a lie,” he exclaims in a moment of self-realization. As in the original text, Moses kills an Egyptian overlord who's bullying a Hebrew slave and flees into exile. The fugitive makes a new life for himself in Midian, a land of mountains and deserts, as part of the family of Jethro (Danny Glover) and marries his daughter, Tzipporah (Michele Pfeiffer). This idyll is interrupted by the appearance of the Lord in the burning bush where Moses is given his mission to free the Hebrews from Pharaoh. The animators capture the awesomeness of this incident with great skill.
When Moses returns to confront Pharaoh, the drama is heightened when he recognizes the Egyptian ruler as his old friend and former sibling, Rameses. Both liberator and despot have conflicted feelings as they scheme to outwit each other. Aaron (Jeff Goldblum) has a less important role here than in the original, and Hotep (Steve Martin) and Huy (Martin Short) provide comic relief as Pharaoh's sorcerers who try to thwart the Lord's purposes.
In their re-creation of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians and the parting of the Red Sea, the filmmakers give us a sense of the majesty of God's power one would have not thought possible in an animated movie. The dramatic climax is the Hebrews' escape from their oppressors. Moses' descent from the mountain with the Ten Commandments is only referred to briefly in a quick coda.
The Prince of Egypt is a movie for the entire family, although some of the action may be too intense for children under the age of 8. Adults and young people will find its reverent retelling of Moses' story informative and moving. One hopes Hollywood will produce more films like this one.
John Prizer is currently based in Paris.
----- EXCERPT: The much-anticipated Prince of Egypt delivers on its promise ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Videos on Release DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:While rescuing three peasants from the gallows right under Don Rafael's nose, he is assisted by two boys, the Murieta brothers, and as a reward, he gives one of them his medallion.
But the wily governor surprises the good-hearted nobleman in his castle, kills his wife, and kidnaps his infant daughter. Don Diego is left to rot in a dark dungeon.
Twenty years pass, and Don Rafael returns to California with a plan to buy the former colony from Mexico with stolen gold. With him is Don Diego's daughter, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), whom he has raised as his own. The myth of Zorro still lives among the people who've been as exploited by the Mexican authorities as they were by the Spanish. Don Diego escapes from prison to take revenge on the former governor.
By now too, the Murieta brothers have grown up and been driven into banditry. One of them is killed by an American ex-army officer. When Don Diego realizes he himself has become too old to keep Don Rafael's men in check, he decides to train Alejandro (the surviving Murieta brother) to replace him and become the next Zorro. Like a Zen master, the elder Zorro teaches his successor not only the tricks of superior swordsmanship but also how to control his emotions and put them at the service of his intellect and will. The film is intense and action packed and makes for good viewing. (MPAA RATING: PG-13)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Presepi, Prayers, and Panettone DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:There are two distinct types of Italians, according to Neapolitan writer Luciano De Crescenzo: those who put up Christmas trees and those who set up Nativity scenes. Each December, northern Italians do what most people around the world do at Christmas time: they decorate pine trees with colorful glass balls and strings of lights, a tradition which originated in the early 1600s in Germany. Most southern Italians, however, prepare for Christmas with a much older and certainly much more Italian tradition: the presepe or Nativity crèche.
Setting up the presepe, which literally means “manger,” is a painstaking ritual which involves the entire family. Each December, boxes containing figurines are opened and any broken limbs are lovingly glued back on. For not even the most age-worn statue is ever thrown away, and every year children welcome the Holy Family and shepherds, angels and animals, as if they were old friends.
In 1223, a humble monk who was to become known as St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy, returned from a trip to Bethlehem with the inspiration to represent the holy birth using real people. According to St. Bonaventure, himself a Franciscan, St. Francis decided he “would like to portray the Child born in Bethlehem, to see the hardships a newborn babe must endure, how he was placed in a manger and how he lay in the straw between the ox and the ass.”
On Dec. 24, 1223, in a grotto that was part of a monastery in the town of Greccio, about 60 miles from Rome, St. Francis re-enacted the moment of Christ's birth, using actual people, along with animals “borrowed” from the feudal lord. Visitors came from far and wide to pay homage to the Bambin’ Gesu (Baby Jesus), represented by the youngest baby that could be found in town. Though living manger scenes still occur throughout Italy, the presepe eventually became an artistic representation of Christmas that found its way into most people's homes, as well as every church in the country.
In Rome, strolling around the center and visiting churches to admire their Nativity scenes is a favorite Advent pastime. The oldest presepe still in existence, by artist Arnolfo di Cambio, dates back to 1280 and is considered one of the greatest treasures of the Roman Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The most famous Nativity scene in Rome, however, is found in the church of Santa Maria d'Aracoeli, on the Capitoline Hill. The life-size statue of the Santo Bambino, or Holy Child, said to have been carved from an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane, is considered to possess miraculous healing powers. Until recent years, the Santo Bambino was actually taken out of the church periodically to bring comfort to the sick and dying. A few times he was actually stolen, though he was always returned to the church. For this reason he is now kept in a glass case in the sacristy, bedecked with jewels and precious objects donated by the faithful. At Christmas, however, he is lowered into the manger, surrounded by dozens of beautifully crafted shepherds and townspeople, as hosts of angels watch over him from a magnificent star-lit sky.
Fortunately for those who can't get to Rome during the Christmas season, there are several churches with permanent Nativity scenes. The most famous is in the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, whose huge Neapolitan presepe includes hundreds of figures and animals, as well as 50 angels. The church of Santa Maria in Via also boasts a splendid Neapolitan crèche.
The creation of figurines for the presepe developed into an important genre of folk art and craftsmanship, which reached its high point in 17th-century Naples.
Nowhere, in fact, is the passion for the presepe greater than it is in this city. It has been said that when Neapolitans are not busy setting up their Nativity scenes, they are thinking about how to make next year's presepe even more special.
In Naples, all crèche figurines are referred to as “shepherds” and the place to go to purchase them is Via San Gregorio Armeno, a street known as the “shepherds' pathway.” In this huge open-air market, throngs of Neapolitans search for the perfect addition to their family's presepe, whether it be a precious terra-cotta angel, a star-filled papier-maché sky, or a star of Bethlehem crafted by the artisans working in this ancient neighborhood. The dizzying selection is not limited to traditional crèche figures, but also includes statuettes representing the country's best known politicians, writers, and actors.
Enormous outdoor presepi adorn Italy's most important piazzas. Most Romans, as well as Christmas tourists, manage to pay at least one visit to St. Peter's Square in order to see the Nativity scene which features larger-than-life-size statues. Other famous outdoor crèches in Rome are located on the Spanish steps and in the middle of Piazza Navona.
Piazza Navona, considered by many to be Rome's loveliest square, is completely transformed during the Christmas season. Children ride a 19th-century Viennese carousel, as the smell of traditional Christmas foods like torrone (nougat candy) and freshly roasted chestnuts fills the air. Stands and booths sell all sorts of things, from cheap plastic toys and trinkets—and a large selection of presepe items, ranging from inexpensive mass-produced shepherds to fine hand-carved angels.
This is also the place to see the Befana, a magical old crone who brings gifts to Italian children on Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany. Legend has it that the Three Kings stopped during their journey to the Christ child, and asked an old woman for food and shelter. She refused, but later she had a change of heart, so she gathered some toys and sweets in a bag, and set out to join the Magi and pay her respects to the Savior. But she never found the kings or the stable. So each year she wanders the earth looking for the baby Jesus. Since she never finds him, she leaves gifts for good Italian children and lumps of coal for the bad.
Piazza Navona's Befana shares the spotlight with Babbo Natale (Santa Claus), a relative newcomer to the Italian Christmas scene. The first time Santa Claus appeared in Italy was at the end of World War II, when American soldiers sporting long white beards and dressed in red suits distributed toys and candies to Italian children.
A favorite Italian saying is “Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi,” which means, “Christmas with your family and Easter with whomever you please.” Christmas is, in fact, a time for huge family gatherings over traditional holiday meals.
Christmas Eve dinner is always meatless. The first course features a huge variety of pasta with assorted fish-based sauces, while countless types of fish, including eel, salmon, and swordfish show up as main courses.
In Rome, as midnight approaches, church bells start to chime across the city, providing a kind of wake-up call to those still lingering over Christmas Eve dinner.
One of the most beautiful midnight Masses in Rome takes place in the church of Aracoeli. In a uniquely Roman tradition, bagpipers dressed in traditional shepherd's clothing honor the Santo Bambino by playing old pastoral tunes, much like the shepherds who left their flocks around Bethlehem to visit the Christ Child. After the solemn Mass is over, the Santo Bambino is carried around the church in procession, and everyone scrambles to get a closer look, or perhaps even to touch the beloved statue.
On Christmas Day, Italians indulge in an endless feast, where meat is the centerpiece of the menu. After elaborate lasagnas and meat-stuffed pastas like tortellini and ravioli, it's time for roast lamb, turkey, or capon. Typical Christmas sweets include panettone, a type of sweet bread studded with raisins and candied fruit, and the buttery pandoro (“golden bread”).
Like elsewhere in the world, Christmas in Italy has become much more commercialized in recent years. The only reason that Santa Claus hasn't completely replaced the Befana is that Italian children really enjoy the fact that they get to receive presents on both Christmas and Epiphany.
Yet there is much reason for hope concerning the religious observance of the holiday, judging from the crowds of people who attend midnight Mass. Each year, more than 10,000 people hear Mass at St. Peter's Square, and this year, once more, voices raised in prayer from Romans and from all the peoples of the world will be heard in the Eternal City.
Berenice Cocciolillo writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: For Italians, Christmas is a super feast of faith and good food ----- EXTENDED BODY: Berenice Cocciolillo ----- KEYWORDS: Travels -------- TITLE: Climbing the Ladder With So Little Knowledge DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:Not long ago I had a disturbing visit from an Australian colleague. She told me that her brother was a neonatalogist, part of whose responsibilities included training graduate nurses and physicians in his specialty. But over the past several years, he noticed ominous changes in his students. In their previous studies so little had been required of them in the way of computational precision and memory, that he could no longer trust them to mix or administer the solutions and medications on which depended the well-being of his newborn patients. His mood, she reported, lurched between terror and fury. The obvious question is how did these young people get so far with so dangerously little knowledge at their fingertips?
Another vignette redoubled my unease: Comedian Jay Leno routinely ventures outside his California TV studio to ask passersby seemingly obvious questions which invariable receive antically uncertain replies. “Why'd the Pilgrims come to America?” “For dinner?” “Where'd they land?” “Santa Monica?” The studio audience laughs, Leno shakes his head in mock disbelief at the grotesque ignorance on display, implicitly asking how people could reach adulthood with so little general knowledge.
Those two stories popped into mind when I recently heard an avowedly progressivist educator on my campus urge that “100% of the students can get 100% of the material 100% of the time.” Granted, they may choose not to (but not really, since such a choice is merely a defense mechanism against unimaginative instruction); however, the [progressivist] catechism concluded, we are all creative, we are all “limitless learners.”
Other forums made clear how these notions were to apply to the study of history. Insistence on clear narrative, precise geographical and chronological placement of events, vivid biographical sketches, logical causation, line-by-line explication of primary source documents—the staples of my teaching and testing—these were not only retrograde and unfashionable, but positively harmful. They should neither be required nor even striven for. They only inhibited students from “telling their own stories.” from “constructing their own learning.” Such goals were unfair, elitist, bad. We must rather set students free from the tranny of “fact” (the quotation marks were essential to the “argument”). Far more important that the student be made comfortable and have positive feelings toward the subject, that his self-esteem never suffer from a demonstrated inability to produce and deploy “facts.”
By this time I couldn't help wondering whether such doctrines were behind the distress registered by Leno and the Australian doctor. I wondered whether the proponents of such views, should they ever double over in pain, would wish to be taken to a physician trained on such principles. I even wondered whether we hadn't, to paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, defined competency down for fear of finding out that there are some things some of us can't do, or can't do well. Classroom trends seemed to suggest as much: What used to be expected of freshmen in conceptual grasp and spoken and written articulateness gets deferred or forgotten; assignment lists are trimmed; papers shortened or abandoned; monographs are out, simple texts with big print and bigger pictures are in; group evaluations are preferred to individual efforts. If a student fails a test, renorm the test; if a student fails a marking period, renorm the teacher. Just don't upset the children.
On the premise of defining competency down, the questions I annually get from my students before their first quiz make perfect sense: “Does spelling count?” “Do you take off for grammar?” “Do dates matter?” “Do we have to know this?” My routine answer to this barrage, “What possible reason would I have for saying No?” begets more consternation than anger. The same premise explains why students, despite weeks of preliminary work, resist writing thesis-and-evidence essays, much preferring a content-free paper in which proof becomes synonymous with “I really feel.”
Somewhere they got the idea that there are no real “facts” available for public inspection, but only affective states, and how dare anyone presume to judge those?
There is an undeniable surface appeal to defining competency down. Everyone does well, whatever well now means. Grading is far less onerous. There are no invidious comparisons of the dull and the dutiful, a cozy egalitarianism envelops all. The phones don't ring with anxious parental complaints. The elaborate preparation necessary for effective lecture-discussion classes disappears. Above all, students are comfortable. Yet nagging questions remain: Is excellence ever comfortable? Doesn't striving for excellence presuppose mastery of a body of knowledge? Should we be content with feelings?
Guidance about how and what I should teach came from an unexpected source, a senior who spoke to our school about this desire to be a rock star. However, while he wanted to gyrate with 50,000 watts, his teacher had other ideas. He gave the boy a “horribly uncool” acoustic instrument and set him to learning simple songs, scales, and chord fingerings. He insisted upon correct notes, correct rhythms, correct tempi, correct phrasing, unafraid to use words like ugly, lazy, or wrong. The boy pouted, raged, remonstrated: “Hey, man don't you get it? Forget this stuff. I want to jam.” The music teacher nodded and assigned more exercises, more analyses, more simple stuff in a variety of idioms: folk, blues, jazz, classical. The boy howled and squealed: “I hate this stuff. I want to express myself.” “Until this stuff becomes second nature,” came the devastating reply, “what you express won't be worth listening to.”
Finally, he realized that the appearance of musicianship was no substitute for the reality and returned to the teacher ready to face the discipline of music. Today he can play in a way people want to hear. No, he still cannot perform tricky solos written for performers of wholly exceptional, maybe even unique, gifts. But the boy has found that the entire heavy metal songbook has paled in interest before the wide repertoire he now plays along with his own tunes. He has become a competent musician.
He found that music was both delight and work; that esteem was a consequence, not a cause of demonstrable accomplishment; that there were lots of things he simply had to know without excuse. He found, paradoxically, that structure frees, that only tuned instruments and trained fingers are truly free to make music. In returning to the teacher, acknowledging the latter's experience and insight, the boy made what philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand called a “response to value,” the necessary preliminary for genuine learning. Not least, the boy had met someone who took his student and his subject seriously enough not to dumb things down. All in all, not a bad educational outcome.
In teaching history, I hope I have the courage to take my cues from people like the guitarist instead of the educationist. Call me mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but I don't want any of my students making unscheduled appearances on the Tonight Show any time soon.
P.M. Alliazi writes from Cleveland. This article is reprinted from Basic Education with the permission of Dr. Madelyn Holmes of the Council for Basic Education.
----- EXCERPT: A history teacher examines the spread of ignorance—and suggests a solution ----- EXTENDED BODY: P.M. Aliazzi ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Health Plan Puts 'Morality Before Economics' DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:An innovative health plan offered by the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., which excludes coverage for abortion and sterilization and includes such pro-life initiatives as natural family planning, is stirring hopes for a similar project nationwide.
The health plan, which has been in place for six months, may be “the foundation for a national Christian health care delivery system that puts morality and ethics before economics,” according to Michael O'Dea, the health-care consultant who helped put the project together.
Msgr. Robert Vasa, the vicar general of the diocese, said he was looking for health coverage that would not be antithetical to the religious beliefs of the priests, religious, and lay workers.
“Most plans would allow you to exclude abortions or sterilizations, but you still pay for it,” he said. “There was no effective way to tell them you're dissatisfied. So we decided to write our own plan.”
The diocese approached O'Dea, president and chief operating office of ValuSure Corp., a Michigan-based firm. A devout Catholic, O'Dea also founded Mother and Unborn Day Care, a crisis pregnancy center in Detroit and Southfield, Michigan.
“Our primary mission is to put together pro-life health care plans,” he said. “Of course, we have come to realize the key to making this happen is the Catholic Church.
“The Church has very clear thinking on what should be in a Catholic health care plan. They also have the critical mass to develop such plans.”
Most of this Church teaching is contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1994.
In designing a plan, the diocese also sought out other experts. Dr. Paul Byrne, a neonatalist in Toledo, Ohio, and past president of the Catholic Medical Association, was consulted on issues concerning organ transplants.
His guidance here was consistent with the Catechism, which states: “It is morally inadmissible directly to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons.”
The health plan, for instance, covers the donation of one kidney from a living person with two functioning kidneys, and the tissue transplantation of a cornea or heart valve from a dead person.
“The beginning- and end-of-life issues have been extremely important in developing health care plans,” O'Dea noted.
The Lincoln plan clearly spells out what is acceptable and what is not. It excludes abortion, sterilizations, and contraceptives, as well as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination—for several reasons, including the fact that they separate the generation of new human life from the act of sexual union between husband and wife..
Included in the plan is coverage for reversal of sterilization and up to $400 per couple for natural family planning. O'Dea believes that adding natural family planning coverage sends a message: “When you put money into anything, you legitimize it. This is an endorsement of NFP.”
The Ethical and Religious Directives notes that Catholic health facilities “should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction about the Church's teaching on responsible parenthood and in methods of natural family planning.”
Instrumental in the creation of the plan were Midwest Select, a health provider network, and St. Elizabeth Community Health Center, a 208-bed hospital in Lincoln. These two organizations were able to provide the personnel and the facility to match the policy developed by Msgr. Vasa, O'Dea, and others.
The Omaha, Neb.-based Midwest Select began enrolling physicians in its preferred provider plan in February 1997. It has a predominantly Catholic orientation, being partly owned by Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), currently the nation's largest Catholic health system.
Midwest Select attracts physicians and other health care providers to the system and credentials them according to national competency standards. According to its director of marketing, Ann Wozny: “We follow the language of the religious directives in our provider contracts.”
St. Elizabeth also is owned by CHI. As the major Catholic health facility in the diocese, it is important in granting hospital-admitting privileges to physicians. All Midwest Select physicians have privileges at St. Elizabeth.
The hospital is able to determine what is done on its premises, and its director of managed care, Kevin Flores, said, “We will not provide any services which violate any Catholic teaching.”
Being part of the CHI system, St. Elizabeth follows the same guidelines that apply to its other 69 hospitals and 48 long-term care and residential facilities. Joyce Ross, CHI's communications director, explained that the system is committed to the bishops' Ethical and Religious Directives.
According to its mission statement, CHI seeks “to nurture the healing ministry of the Church by bringing it new life, energy, and viability in the 21st century. Fidelity to the Gospel urges us to emphasize human dignity and social justice as we move toward the creation of health communities.”
This confluence of Catholic institutions, no doubt, was important in developing the plan in Lincoln. Currently, about 160 priests and religious sisters and 20 lay people are enrolled; the diocese expects another 50 or 60 now covered by an older plan will soon join.
Msgr. Vasa said the response of participants has been very positive. He noted that the cost savings are important, and the opportunity to direct the health plan with a clear conscience is highly desirable. Still, he is surprised at how much attention the plan has drawn around the country. “For me,” he said, “it seems to be a no-brainer.”
O'Dea hopes that other people of faith will agree. We're “excited about implementing similar programs with Catholic dioceses and religious orders, evangelical employers, associations, and pro-life/pro-family employers throughout the United States,” he said.
In fact, a similar plan has existed in the neighboring Archdiocese of Omaha for the past decade; it will begin to use Midwest Select as its preferred provider network on Jan. 1. Developed through Insurance Consultants Inc., it includes Bergan Mercy Care Center, another Catholic hospital.
For those who envision more such programs and, indeed, someday a national Catholic-based health system, the allure is clear. O'Dea argues this is an opportunity to promote the family and provide procedures that truly constitute health care.
According to Dr. Byrne, the past head of the Catholic Medical Association, a program designed along the lines of Lincoln's is one “which does what a health plan should do: aid and heal, never kill and harm. If you have an insurance plan, it should be based on moral principles.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: A project in the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., could be the beginning of something big ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Can an Unborn Child Sue His Mother? DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:TORONTO—Canada's pro-life community will watch with more than passing interest a Supreme Court decision weighing the right of children to sue their mothers for injuries suffered prior to birth.
The case revolves around 5-year-old Ryan Dobson of Moncton, New Brunswick, who was injured in a March 1993 car accident while his mother, Cynthia Dobson, was 27 weeks pregnant with him. Cynthia Dobson was a passenger in a car that plowed into a pickup truck during a snowstorm near Moncton. Ryan, who was born prematurely as a result of the accident, is permanently handicapped with cerebral palsy and other disabilities.
Ryan's grandfather Gerald Price, initiated a lawsuit in 1995, partly to determine responsibility for Ryan's mounting health care costs. The suit also alleged that Ryan's mother was negligent for engaging in risky behavior while pregnant.
In 1997, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal ruled that Ryan had the right to carry the lawsuit forward. The lower court ruling has been appealed by Dobson's insurance company which has argued that granting unborn children the right to sue their parents infringes severely on a pregnant woman's lifestyle and freedom of mobility.
The Canadian Supreme Court began hearing the appeal Dec. 8. While the court has deferred a decision in the matter, the case focuses renewed attention on the rights of the unborn in Canada. Under section 223(1) of the Criminal Code, an unborn child does not acquire full legal protection “until it has completely proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother.”
Canadian Church and pro-life groups have long argued that this “born alive” law is a legal anachronism. They suggest that advances in ultrasound technology and fetal viability clearly show the need for a new law extending legal protection to the preborn child. Pro-life interveners in the case argue that since children have the right to sue their parents for negligent conduct after birth, preborn children should not be deprived of this right.
Pro-abortion groups meanwhile, are concerned that granting an unborn child the right to sue its parents for injuries suffered before birth could jeopardize the country's abortion law. These groups argue that a court decision upholding Ryan Dobson's right to sue his mother will open a Pandora's box of lawsuits based on a mother's lifestyle choices during a pregnancy. They also suggest that an unborn child and its mother are “one entity” and that this precludes any legal action on the part of an unborn child toward its mother.
The Catholic Group for Health, Justice, and Life—an organization representing Canada's Catholic bishops, the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Health Association of Canada, and the Catholic Women's League—has obtained intervener status in the Dobson v. Dobson case.
In a Dec. 4 statement, the Catholic group said human life deserves equal protection of the law, especially at its most vulnerable stages, including prior to birth. The group pointed out that children can sue third parties for injuries sustained prior to birth, but are denied the right to sue their own negligent mothers.
“Not to allow the child the same right with his own mother sets up an inequality before the law,” the Catholic body said in its statement. “[A] woman who is pregnant and negligently causes harm to a third party who is also pregnant, can be sued by the born child of the third party, but not by her own child.
“The group also disputes the contention that allowing born children to sue their mothers for prenatal injuries will … set the stage for minute investigations by intrusive courts into the lifestyle choices of pregnant women. The same argument could be made with respect to children suing their parents for injuries incurred after birth, but their right to sue is well-established. Why should it be otherwise for injuries incurred before birth?”
The Catholic bishops said a law protecting the rights of the preborn child should reflect only “the necessary elements of a negligence claim,” including causation and damages. “During the pregnancy,” the bishops added, “the mother would not be required to conduct herself perfectly, but only to exercise the same reasonable standard of care expected of pregnant women.”
Other church groups, including the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), also argue that the Dobson case is the latest in a series underscoring the need for a change in the Criminal Code. The EFC, which represents nearly 30 major Protestant denominations, has also won intervener status in the case.
As in similar cases, the EFC will argue that the court must reject the legal fiction that someone must be “born alive” before she or he is worthy of protection. “Medical knowledge and technology make this practice outdated,” the Protestant group added.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), which has also obtained intervener status in the Dobson case, opposes the child's right to sue his mother for injuries incurred prior to birth. “CARAL believes that the final ruling will have broad implications for the equality and autonomy of all Canadian women,” president Kim Luton said in a Dec. 8 statement.
CARAL executive director Marilyn Wilson said: “This case raises many concerns that ought not to be decided in the context of this one case. This case, at first glance, appears to be limited to motor vehicle cases. But the principles upon which the case was decided in the lower courts can extend beyond motor vehicle cases,” Wilson added. “Potentially, all the ordinary activities of daily living that women engage in while pregnant such as working, operating equipment, engaging in sports and recreation, and lifestyle issues could be the subject of a lawsuit.”
Wilson also said a decision in favor of Ryan Dobson could create “an adversarial relationship” between a woman and her child.
However, Jakki Jeffs, executive director of the Alliance for Life (Ontario) organization, believes CARAL's prime interest in the Dobson case is protecting the present abortion law. “CARAL has been quite active in this matter, and to me it indicates they are worried about a possible decision protecting unborn children,” Jeffs told the Register.
She also dismissed CARAL's chief contention that an unborn child and its mother are one entity. “Science has long made the link between the mother and the unborn child as separate beings, and it's untenable to argue that the unborn children should have no legal rights until they are born alive,” Jeffs said. “I'm very interested in what the Supreme Court will rule in this matter. It's about time we had a proper decision in favor of these little ones.”
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: Case before Canada's high court has attention of leaders on both sides of abortion debate ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: THE GOSPEL OF LIFE DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:In Redemptoris Mater Pope John Paul II speaks to us about Mary's openness to God.
The word of the living God, announced to Mary by the angle, referred to her: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son” (Luke 1:31). By accepting this announcement, Mary was to become “Mother of the Lord,” and the divine mystery of the Incarnation was to be accomplished in her: “The Father of mercies willed that the consent of the predestined Mother should precede the Incarnation.” And Mary gives this consent, after she has heard everything the messenger has to say. She says: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). This fiat of Mary—“let it be to me”—was decisive, on the human level, for the accomplishment of the divine mystery. There is a complete harmony with the words of the Son, who, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, says to the Father as he comes into the world: “Sacrifices and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me …. Lo, I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:5-7). The mystery of the Incarnation was accomplished when Mary uttered her fiat: “ Let it be to me according to your word,” which made possible, as far as it depended upon her in the divine plan, the granting of her Son's desire. (13.3)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Poland's Pro-Life Struggles Are Paying Off DATE: 12/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: December 12-20, 1998 ----- BODY:WARSAW, Poland—Few pro-life campaigners could fail to admire Ewa Kowalewska.
Her work began in the early 1970s, when she was a member of Gdansk's Catholic Students Association. But it took off in 1989, with the collapse of communist rule, when she and her husband began issuing a whole newspaper, Voice for Life, on desktop equipment from their own apartment.
It was thanks to persistence from people like Ewa that a new Polish law was passed in 1993, which defied the trend in most democratic countries by tightening curbs on abortion. Today, as European head of the U.S.-based Human Life International, Ewa has taken her campaign further afield to neighboring post-communist countries. But it's with the pro-life cause at home that she's remained most preoccupied.
In November, that campaign received a boost when new government statistics confirmed that abortions were now a comparatively marginal occur-rence in Poland. But Ewa admits she's far from satisfied.
“This is the only country where the International Planned Parenthood Federation was prevented from pursuing its program by public vote,” Kowalewska told the Register. “But public opinion doesn't stand still, and we're under relentless pressure from a one-sided media. We still have to convince society that defending values is necessary and possible.”
Enacted in 1993, Poland's “Law on Family Planning, Defense of the Fetus and Acceptance of Pregnancy Terminations” restricted abortion “rights” to cases where a woman's “life or health” was endangered, when “very serious and irreparable fetal damage” was diagnosed, or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
It threatened two-year jail terms for doctors aborting illegally, but didn't prescribe penalties for mothers. Within a year, it had cut registered abortions to just 777 nationwide in a population of 38 million, compared to 11,640 in 1992 and 30,878 in 1991.
In October 1996, despite 4 million protest letters, the law was amended by ex-communist parliamentarians from Poland's Democratic Left Alliance to allow abortions for women facing “burdensome living conditions or a difficult personal situation.”
However, the move was invalidated in May 1997 by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, which ruled that the right to life, enshrined in the constitution's Article 13, must predominate over “social considerations.”
When the court judgment was voted into law by Poland's Sejm lower house the following December, members of the co-governing Solidarity Election Action (AWS) coalition responded with a standing ovation. Opponents have pledged to re-liberalize the law, while Catholic campaigners have said they'll demand even tighter restrictions on rape-case abortions and prenatal tests. So far, though, neither side has mustered enough support.
“The ruling coalition is too fragile internally to risk new legislation,” explained Bishop Stanislaw Stefanek of Lomza, who chairs the Polish Church's Family Commission. “Until some new consensus emerges in Parliament, our pressure has to be applied socially, through family care and education.”
For now, though, the latest November data suggest the law has had a dramatic impact. The government report said registered abortions had risen to 3,047 in 1997, after the law's short-lived liberalization, of which 2,524 were carried out under the reinstated “social clause.”
A further 407 were conducted to protect the woman's “life or health,” while 107 were authorized because of “very serious and irreparable fetal damage,” and seven in cases of rape or incest.
However, the overall number was expected to fall again in 1998, following the law's re-tightening last December.
Pro-lifers say the Polish situation refutes pro-abortion arguments usually used abroad. They insist the restrictions have encouraged sexual responsibility, and have urged people to form their opinions “on facts rather than emotions.”
In October 1996, despite 4 million protest letters, the law was amended by ex-communist parliamentarians from Poland's Democratic Left Alliance to allow abortions for women facing ‘burdensome living conditions or a difficult personal situation.’
Women's Health Improving
The law hasn't fueled a population explosion. Though higher than in neighboring countries, Poland's birthrate has been falling steadily for more than a decade. There were 413,000 live births in 1997, compared to 546,000 in 1990.
Nor has the law produced a battery of unwanted babies. The population of homes for small children and single mothers has also been falling steadily, and police say there's been no increase in child murders. Though 252 babies were abandoned by their mothers in 1993, there have been no subsequent figures published.
The law hasn't worsened women's health. On the contrary, it's actually improving. The number of miscarriages has dropped yearly, from 60,000 in 1990 to 44,000 in 1997. Pregnancy complications caused three deaths nationwide in 1993; but there weren't any recorded in later years.
The law hasn't caused an upsurge in expensive back-street abortions. Only 40 investigations were launched in 1997 into suspected illegal abortions, of which 28 were discontinued and just one led to a conviction. Pro-lifers concede more abortions are perpetrated than the official figures suggest. But that was true in the early 1990s too, when doctors often kept them secret to avoid taxes and social stigma. Claims that thousands of abortions are being perpetrated on the quiet, pro-lifers say, are just “propaganda.”
The law hasn't flouted public wishes. In 1993, 42% of Poles rejected the idea of abortion on demand. The figure rose to 55% within two years of the law's adoption. And even when the “social clause” was reintroduced in 1996, barely 2,500 women chose to use it. This suggests the law and campaign surrounding it have made abortion socially unacceptable, despite the severe pressures of insolvency and moral relativism.
Birthrate Still Low
“The opinion trends are quite clear—and this is an achievement of our campaign,” said Bishop Stefanek, the family expert. “Of course, arguments are still put forward that the fetus isn't fully developed and we haven't sufficiently tackled our social problems. But not even the law's opponents any longer question our fundamental thesis—that the fetus is a living child.”
Despite this, Bishop Stefanek thinks there's a long way to go. The Polish birthrate decline is deeply worrying, especially since it's been accompanied by a fall in marriages. Young married couples wanting a stable family, Bishop Stefanek points out, must “swim against the current” of self-gratification that's flooded into Poland from the West, and made the child a “competitor in consumption.”
“The liberal thinking that predominates here treats the citizen as no more than an economic unit, and views family obligations as a private matter of no concern to society,” the bishop told the Register. “These loud, mischievous illusions pose the most dangerous threat to Poland's future, since they are determining practical policies.”
Most abortions were conducted in better-off households before the 1993 restrictions, according to research data, suggesting abortion levels, at least in Poland, can't be related directly to poverty and lack of resources.
But with 19% of Polish citizens currently living below the poverty line, according to a mid-October UN survey, measures to encourage family life are clearly needed. Besides restricting abortions, the 1993 law required the Polish authorities to provide “all necessary social, medical, legal and material help” for pregnant women and single mothers.
Later Polish governments failed to meet this obligation. But when the AWS was elected in September 1997, its platform included a “pro-family tax policy” and drew heavily on the Vatican's Family Rights Charter.
Yet even the AWS has fallen short on its promises. In November, AWS parliamentarians urged measures to promote three-child families, and inculcate “family responsibilities” when sex-education courses are launched at Polish schools this January.
However, a “pro-family policy” for 1999 was voted down in favor of a system of family supplements. That leaves Polish citizens paying the same tax rate, however many children they have.
Pro-lifers blame the AWS' liberal coalition partner, the Freedom Union (UW). Its leader, Leszek Balcerowicz, pioneered Poland's post-1989 “shock therapy” market reforms, and is now finance minister again. Though the AWS still insists a “pro-family policy” is key to its program, Balcerowicz has blocked this, citing systemic problems and lack of funds. Despite everything, Bishop Stefanek thinks pro-life campaigners can learn something from the Polish experience.
“For one thing, voices in defense of the human being are now being raised by a broad panorama of social groups,” the bishop said. “For another, the debate has deepened. People are talking about the untouchable value of the person as a principle of democracy. In place of the economic, social, and administrative arguments of the past, they're using ethical, theological, and anthropological reasoning.”
Ewa Kowalewska agrees, but is determined not to be complacent. When her Human Life International office staged a workshop in mid-December, it drew 40 pro-life campaigners from Eastern Europe—including, for the first time, Muslim gynecologists from Russia.
But urgent work is still needed, Kowalewska thinks, to ensure the latest Polish regulations are accepted by society, and to withstand the pressure being exerted against them from international agencies and pharmaceutical companies. After a quarter-century's pro-life campaigning, Ewa admits she's tired.
“We've shown other countries it's possible to do something, by creating a law which protects most children,” the campaigner told the Register. “But this kind of success needs permanent defending. After such a long confrontation, society has clearly had enough. But we have to go on campaigning, as social, economic, and political conditions evolve.”
Jonathan Luxmoore writes from Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: But leaders say fight is far from over ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Without 'Fear Of Past,' Vatican Opens Secret Archives DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—The Vatican has officially opened the last of its secret archives to the scrutiny of scholars. During a “Day of Study” Jan. 22 at Rome's National Academy of the Lincei with researchers from around the world, top Vatican officials explained the opening of the Archives of the Holy Office as another step toward removing the misunderstanding between the Church and the world of modern thought and science.
“The Church does not fear the past,” said Msgr. Alejandro Cifres, director of the Archives. “With the opening of the Holy Office Archives, [the Church] is trying to promote a serious and serene historical study of its mission in defending the faith.”
Though unofficially open to special study requests since 1991, all qualified researchers will now have access to the files dating from 1542 to 1903, covering some of the more controversial periods in Church history including the Roman Inquisition, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. But there are no “‘sizzling’ dossiers on [heresy] trials,” according to a Vatican press statement. Very few trial proceedings remain. Several famous cases have already been made public, including the trials of the astronomer Galileo, whose thesis that the earth revolved around the sun was condemned as heresy in 1616 and who was sentenced to house arrest in 1633 for continuing to promote his views; and of Giordano Bruno, a monk burned at the stake in 1600 for heresy. Pope John Paul proclaimed in 1992 that the Church had been wrong to condemn Galileo, calling the incident a “tragic mutual incomprehension.”
Even if there are few sensational secrets in the secret archives, “they are extremely rich with regard to the history of theology, spirituality, canon law, and for a general knowledge of the general establishment of the Institution and therefore useful for a more precise understanding of its role in civil and Church history in the last centuries,” the press statement said.
The files are not complete but “preserve precious testimony of the life and activity of the most important dicastery of the Church's central government,” said Msgr. Cifres. Instituted as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition by Paul III in 1542 to defend the Church against heresy, it became the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1908. Its current name, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith came in 1965 with Paul VI, who gave it the task of “promoting and safeguarding faith and morals throughout the Catholic world.”
The materials currently amount to some 4,500 volumes, spreading more than 2,000 linear feet and contained in 27 rooms. More than two-thirds of the collection was lost in the beginning of the 19th century when Napoleon I carried it off to Paris, and later in the era of the Roman Republic (1848-49). Most of the remaining documents deal with the major theological controversies that followed the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, including the value of the Petrine ministry, papal infallibility, Jansenism, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, mysticism, Quietism, problems of intercommunion, and inculturation.
The material surrounding one of the debates, concerning the validity of Anglican ordinations, was released at the Jan. 22 meeting as a first volume in a series of archival material. It includes documents from a special theological commission set up by Pope Leo XIII. In 1896, the Pope issued an apostolic letter concluding that priestly ordinations in the Church of England were invalid. The issue is being re-examined in the wake of conversions to Catholicism by Anglican clergy.
The Holy Office Archives are separate from the Vatican Library and Vatican Secret Archives, which Pope Leo XIII opened to scholars in 1881. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), said it should come as no surprise that the Holy Office Archives are the last to be opened. “The nature itself of the dicastery,” he said, means it is involved with “extremely delicate and weighty [doctrinal] matters.” This “administrative and judicial competency throughout the whole Catholic world … imposed obvious reasons for reservation and required extreme prudence in the use of the documents in its custody,” he said.
And unlike the other two collections, in which documents dating to 1922 are open to consultation, the Holy Office Archives remain shut beyond the death of Pope Leo in 1903.
German professor Father Hans Küng criticized the cut-off mark as inadequate. Father Küng, whose permission to teach Catholic theology was revoked by the Vatican in 1980, told a German radio interviewer that it left “important periods of contemporary history covered in secret,” including the anti-modernist campaign of Pope Pius X and dossiers on theologians who were critical of the Vatican in the 1950s.
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the CDF, acknowledged that there were “a great number of delicate dossiers produced” between 1903-22. He said the period was “too recent” to allow an indiscriminate open-door policy. Special requests for access to the files from Pius X's pontificate would be considered on a case-to-case basis, according to the archbishop.
The Vatican has also given scholars access to documents that reveal the inner workings of the now-extinct Congregation of the Index, responsible until 1917 for identifying and prohibiting under pain of excommunication books considered morally or doctrinally dangerous for the faithful to read. After a brief continuation under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, the Index of Forbidden Books was officially abolished in 1966.
The pontificate of Leo XIII was characterized by a unique openness to the needs of the modern world. His 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris (On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy), which aimed at a renewal of ecclesiastical education, was “based on the fundamental principle of the harmony between the truths of reason and the truths of faith,” said Cardinal Ratzinger, who noted that the opening of the archives poses no threat to the Church.
He quoted the English Cardinal John Henry Newman: the Church “has an intimate conviction that the Truth is her ally … and that knowledge and reason are sure ministers to faith.”
A letter from a Jewish-born, self-professed atheist in the United States “provoked the movement of reflection responsible for the immediate events leading to the opening of the Archives,” Cardinal Ratzinger said. University of California-Los Angeles professor Carl Ginzburg wrote to John Paul II shortly after he became Pope, saying “the opening of the Holy Office Archives would be an occasion for the Roman Catholic Church to demonstrate its solicitude and openness towards the world and cultural problems.”
“At the same time,” Ginzburg continued, “the Church would show itself unafraid of a serious scientific and critical examination.”
Cardinal Ratzinger said the American scholar had summarized in a few words that which “effectively constitutes the thought of the Holy See in this regard and which inspires the current attitude of our dicastery [CDF]: on one hand, the sincere and active commitment of the Church toward culture, of which it is also a promoter and advocate; and on the other hand, the trust which it has in the face of every critical and serious investigation which sheds light on the truth regarding man and history.”
The prelate said he was confident that opening the archives would meet the expectations of scholars. But he said any correct interpretation of them requires “respect for historical truth and the specific character of the nature and mission of the Church.” Even if the material in the archives “indirectly regards historical problems, it is mostly of a theological nature,” he said. Thus the researcher must try to see how the Church “understands herself and her mission of carrying the message of salvation.”
What is more, the scholar must take into account, he said, “the nature of the ministry entrusted to Peter of confirming his brothers in the faith, and of the historical circumstances of the times in which the Church had to defend the faith of the littlest ones in contexts frequently polemical if not manifestly aggressive.”
Msgr. Cifres told the scholars that a clue to understanding the uniqueness of the Holy Office Archives is the frequent consultation made of them even today by the CDF. An archive is usually understood to be a static collection of records stored away after the office that produced them no longer has any day-to-day use for them.
But the Holy Office Archives are different. When the curial office is faced with a specific question or problem, the chief archivist said, it always seeks to “re-employ that which was said or done in the past regarding similar questions or cases, with the intention to guarantee, not a servile repetition of the same ideas and decisions, but an organic development of teaching and discipline.”
“This fact furnishes the key to understanding” the Archives’ special character and “to reconstructing it in a scientifically correct way,” he said.
John Norton writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Most documents deal with theological controversies through the centuries ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Norton ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Alabama Clinic Bombing Still Sending Tremors DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:NEWYORK—The shock waves from the fatal bombing of a Birmingham, Ala. abortion clinic were still resounding in the hearts and minds of advocates and opponents of abortion when the facility re-opened on a limited basis Feb. 5, seven days after the blast.
About 30 abortion supporters turned out to “defend” the clinic and a larger number of pro-lifers came to pray and sidewalk counsel. David Lackey, head of the local Operation Rescue group, who has prayed at the site for the past 10 years, was singled out to police by clinic supporters.
“They were screaming that I should be arrested immediately and that all pro-lifers are responsible for acts like this,” he told the Register. “They're using [the bombing] for their own agenda. Their goal is to get us off the streets.”
From media statements given by militant pro-abortionists, Lackey figures that there will soon be efforts to obtain injunctions against all pro-lifers coming near the clinic, even though the bombing was the first violent act against the facility. They will plead the same guilt-by-association argument, he said, that was used to pass the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act after Paul Hill fatally shot an abortionist and his body guard in Pensacola, Fla., in June 1994.
Apart from the specialized opposition of pro-abortion activists, the reaction in Birmingham has been generally positive toward local pro-lifers. Lackey has gotten calls from a few abortion supporters who said they know he was not responsible. He and his cohorts stress they are against all violence, and they consider the blast a setback for their peaceful efforts, which have seen the number of full-time abortion facilities in the city drop from six to two.
Harsh Rhetoric
Away from the blast scene, though, a war of words has heated up. Abortion rights leaders and editorialists point fingers at the whole pro-life movement for inciting violence with their “anti-choice” language. Pro-life and religious leaders denounce the bombing and all acts of violence as totally against the right-to-life ethic. Many abortion supporters dismiss the disclaimers as mere rhetoric. Opponents of abortion accuse their critics of failing to distinguish between those engaged in peaceful protest and prayer, and others prone to violence who are beyond the confines of the pro-life movement.
As is true with the debate about the abortion procedure itself, neither side seems likely to persuade the other—or to join forces—to denounce such violence, which both agree is wrong.
Amid the controversy, the facts remain that an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard at the site is dead, a female clinic worker lies in a hospital bed with her left eye blown out and other severe injuries, and preborn babies are being killed again in the wombs of their mothers at the New Women All Women abortion clinic.
At press time, the bomber is still being sought, and a national search is on for a man, Eric Robert Rudolph, who was seen fleeing the scene of the blast in a pick-up truck, and is considered a material witness by federal investigators.
The pro-life response to the bombing was swift and condemnatory. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, head of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities called the act “murderous violence” and offered prayers for the victims and their families.
Three years ago, the cardinal was at the center of a controversy surrounding another fatal attack, when John Salvi, who later killed himself in prison, opened fire on two Boston-area abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding five other persons. At that time, Cardinal Law called on pro-lifers temporarily to cease all prayer and counseling in front of area clinics. Many pro-lifers thought the cardinal was wrongly encouraging the notion that peaceful pro-life action is closely related to violence.
Birmingham Bishop David Foley has not gone so far as to impose a sidewalk ban, but he did state that the “intentional bombing of the clinic is against our faith and is a reprehensible act. It militates against our prayers and love for all human life.”
Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, a vigorous abortion opponent, said, “No one advances the cause of life by inflicting death.” Years ago, he showed his commitment to those words by persuading a clinic bomber to turn himself in to authorities.
Pro-life groups were also quick to denounce the recent bombing. The National Right-to-Life Committee (NRLC) stated that no one who is truly pro-life could commit such an act of violence to protect unborn children. At the same time, the NRLC took pro—abortion forces to task for lumping peaceful prolifers with violent perpetrators saying, “Such a suggestion is equal to blaming the civil rights movement … for the riots and deaths that were part of that era.”
Joe Scheidler, head of the Chicago based Pro-Life Action League, took an even-handed approach, stating, “We oppose violence both inside and outside the abortion facilities. We never promote the use of violence in our efforts to promote respect for life.”
Scheidler added that in some past fires and blasts, evidence indicates that acts were committed by an abortion clinic competitor or disgruntled husbands or relatives of women who underwent abortion.
A$1000 Reward
The pro-life organization that has perhaps gone the furthest to distance itself from the bombing is Feminists For Life, based in Washington, D.C., which is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the bomber. Executive director Serrin Foster stated, “The use of violence to oppose another form of violence—abortion—is not pro-life and undermines the entire movement. We need to ferret out those who advocate violence by turning them into the police.”
In circumstances and results, there were important differences between the Jan. 29 Birmingham blast and most other such attacks. The death of the police officer, Robert Sanderson, 35, was the first recorded fatality in the United States in 47 abortion clinic bombings since 1982. The bomb, packed with nails, was made to kill and injure people, not destroy property, as has been the case in most other incidents.
A group calling itself the Army of God—known more for anti-government and supremacist sentiments than pro-life ethics—claimed responsibility for the fatal attack. Last year the group took credit for two blasts at an Atlanta abortion clinic. Aletter purportedly from the unknown bomber said then that the first bomb was against the clinic and the second, an hour later, was aimed at the federal officers who would come to investigate the scene. Seven people were hurt in the second blast.
After the Birmingham bombing, a letter addressed to a local newspaper and attributed to the Army of God stated, “Those who work in the murder mill's (sic) around the nation be warned once more—you will be targeted without quarter—you are not immune.”
The letter also threatened additional attacks on manufacturers and distributors of RU-486, the French-engineered chemical abortion method, which is being tested on women at sites through the United States and is expected to be approved by the Federal Drug Administration soon.
Controversial Strategies
Not all pro-life advocates are unqualified in their condemnation of clinic bombing, however. Chris Bell, whose wife Joan Andrews Bell was jailed last month in Pittsburgh, Pa., for refusing probation in an Operation Rescue case dating back to 1985, told the Register that while he strictly opposes violence against people at abortion sites, “there is nothing wrong with destroying a building in which innocent babies are put to death.” As a practical matter, though, he does not advocate such action because of the difficulty in ensuring that no one will be hurt in an attack on an abortion facility.
The preferred form of action, Bell said, is the one for which his wife has been arrested more than 200 times—peacefully blocking the entrances to abortion facilities.
“Christ laid down his life for us to save us. Rescuers lay down their bodies—and suffer whatever pain and consequences come—to save innocent babies,” he said.
Taking an extreme position that is rejected by most pro-lifers is Michael Bray, a Lutheran minister in Bowie, Md., who calls the killing of abortionists justified homicide that defends innocent life when civil laws do not. In a Register interview, he compared abortionists to the executioners at the Nazi death camps, who could be justifiably killed to stop the Holocaust. He said that pro-life advocates who oppose violence are either hypocrites or pragmatists who think that shootings and bombings will destroy the credibility of the movement. Claiming that people such as Paul Hill will one day be recognized as heroes, each year on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision he holds a banquet honoring protesters who resorted to violence.
Such a view is familiar in Alabama. Three years ago Father David Trosch was suspended by the archbishop of Mobile for stating that the killing of abortionists squares with Catholic theology.
A view from both sides of the abortion controversy was offered the Register by Frederica Matthewes-Green, who 20 years ago was a “non-death-penalty, vegetarian, abortion-rights advocate.” She saw abortion as a necessary element in women's quest for equality, yet was brought into the pro-life camp by her “consistent non-violence ethic.” After studying the procedure, she concluded that abortion is terribly violent. She remarked on the irony of the bombing, saying that the culprit “did not save a life, and in fact took a life.…”
“The women who were scheduled at the clinic that day simply went somewhere else for an abortion, and their problems were not solved.”
Jane Scheulke, who works in neighborhood development for Catholic Charities and counsels outside a Planned Parenthood facility in New York City, was “horrified” at the news of the bombing.
“It disturbs me because it gives the pro-abortion side the excuse to use the media to perpetuate the myth that there is a very small number of opponents of abortions and they are a bunch of wackos,” she said. “It completely overshadows the thousands and thousands of people who do peaceful, wonderful work.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: Birmingham abortion facility has reopened, sidewalk counselors are back, but questions remain about fatal blast's long-term effects ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Mutual Fund Managers Keep Corporations On the High Road DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:CHICAGO—A growing number of Catholic stockholders are putting their money where their conscience is. The stockholders are beating their shares into swords, wielding their financial clout like a weapon to prod corporations to be socially responsible. They are determined to make money and to make a difference.
The most prominent mutual fund with a proactive Catholic social conscience is the Dallasbased Catholic Foundation's Aquinas Funds. Aquinas's investment decisions are guided by Church teachings. Investments are made in companies that are involved in objectionable activities — abortion, contraception, and other issues — in order to alter corporate behavior.
Aquinas pressures companies to change their ways by proposing shareholder's resolutions or by quietly exerting pressure behind closed doors. The fund takes advantage of corporations’ fear of negative publicity, declining investment, and divestiture. Frank Rauscher, president, said the fund's activism has helped force many companies to change their policies.
Aquinas follows investment guidelines approved by the U.S. Catholic bishops in the mid-1980s, said Rauscher. The company either avoids investing in companies whose actions violate Church teaching or, more commonly, invests in such companies and then lobbies for change. The top seven issues are abortion, contraception, military weapons of mass destruction or violence, race discrimination, gender discrimination, affordable housing, and credit. Additional issues include tobacco and treatment of Mexican workers in U.S. plants.
Some Catholic groups previously may have managed money poorly, but today some continue to ignore the bishops’ directives on investing, said Rauscher. Some dioceses he won't identify blithely invest in index funds involving companies with policies and practices that are anathema to Catholics.
While Aquinas makes it a point to follow the bishops’ directives, it also invests with an eye on financial returns. Its first step in an investment decision is a standard analysis of a corporation's fiscal health. Aquinas has done well in the marketplace. The Aquinas Equity Income fund posted a 25.9% annualized rate of return during the last three years and recently was given a four-star rating by Morningstar, a Chicago-based fundresearch company. Aquinas's three other funds earned three-star ratings and posted high rates of return.
The fund's performance, as well as its success as an agent of social change, has drawn investors. In four years its assets have nearly doubled, from $90 million to $170 million. Aquinas manages money both of individual investors and non-profit groups, such as religious orders.
Aquinas has found that money does indeed talk. One of its successes involved PNC Bank Corporation, one of the nation's largest banks. The Pittsburghbased company had an all-male board of trustees. Aquinas, a $500,000 investor in the bank, was able to persuade bank officials to add a woman to its board, says Rauscher.
Luby's , a cafeteria chain based in Texas, also was devoid of women in senior management. Alocal group of religious had been trying to no avail to pressure company officials to promote women. Aquinas, though not a shareholder, intervened. The conflict was leaked to the media, embarrassing Luby's , a company reliant on many lower-level female employees and a customer-base, of course, full of families and single women. Last spring the company finally promoted five women to senior management.
Gregory Gronbacher, director of the Center for Economic Personalism in Grand Rapids, Mich., which integrates papal teaching into economic principles, praised the practice of investing with a social conscience. Such investing “resonates with papal teaching on property and wealth,” said Gronbacher, referring to Pope John Paul II's 1991 social encyclical Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Year).
“The Pope challenges people to find creative ways to be good stewards of wealth,” he said. “You can give it away to charity, and that's fine—but there can be more to managing wealth than that.”
The stock market and corporate America are sometimes attacked as antithetical to Christian ideals, but Gronbacher said that the Pope has not criticized capitalism per se but capitalism run amok.
“The market has to be kept in a proper perspective,” he said. “The problem is when market principles are more important than people.”
Yet social investment is sometimes criticized for its lack of effectiveness. U.S. shareholders voted on 103 non-binding social policy resolutions in 1996, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Center in Washington. None was passed.
“I think the success has been limited,” said Bill Droel, a college instructor, campus minister, and board member of the Chicago-based National Center for the Laity. “A second problem for investors is that companies have conflicting goals. The moral concerns are mixed up. A company may be doing great things in the inner-city while making money off cheap labor overseas.”
Droel said that investors who choose funds such as Aquinas deserve credit, but that they are “always obliged to carry their moral compass.”
Aquinas claims many successes. The German chemical and drug giant Hoechst was poised to market RU-486, the abortion drug, in the United States. Aquinas, along with many pro-life groups, took the offensive. The pro-life groups threatened to boycott a new Hoechst allergy drug. Aquinas warned drug companies not to be involved in RU-486. The pressure worked. Last spring Hoechst announced it would stop producing the drug and transferred all rights to another firm.
Aquinas was one of many voices that raised a fuss. That's how it usually works, said Rauscher. “The general rule is that it's hard to effect change by yourself. You have to do it in collaboration with other groups.”
A group Aquinas has partnered with is the New York-based Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which represents nearly 300 Christian and Jewish institutional investors. The two took their concerns to Texaco after the oil giant made headlines when corporate executives were caught on tape making racially offensive statements. Aquinas owns 10,000 shares of Texaco. The oil company was under national pressure to change its stance on race and hiring. Working together, Aquinas and the Interfaith Center were able to meet with company officials and help to steer the changes, said Rauscher.
Aquinas is especially attentive to Planned Parenthood. It screens for companies that donate to the abortion group and invests in some of them. Aquinas continues its investments with the companies that assure them the donation was an isolated incident and divests itself from the corporations whose support of the group is regular policy.
Another successful campaign was mounted against NBC-TV, owned by General Electric. For four years Aquinas, along with other groups, took NBC to task for the violent content of its programming. The pesky protests paid social dividends. A recent study by UCLA showed that NBC had become the least violent network.
Aquinas remains an investor in Disney despite its release of controversial movies such as Priest and Kids. Disney needs an “attitude improvement,” said Rauscher.
An ongoing concern of Aquinas is for companies to clarify their policies on TV advertising. Too few companies have clear standards on what constitutes objectionable material to them, said Rauscher.
Some investors promote social causes by refusing to put their money where their heart isn't. The Catholic Values Investment Trust, based in Connecticut, does not invest in companies that promote principles that violate Church teaching. Rauscher believes that approach is admirable but somewhat short-sighted. “How many companies have changed a policy because you don't invest in them?” he said.
Rauscher noted that Aquinas actually loses many potential investors because of its commitment to Catholic values. Many would-be investors are drawn to Aquinas's social concerns—except for its pro-life stance. Because of that issue—and because it advertises in Catholic markets—Aquinas's investors are nearly all Catholic.
Social investing itself is a growth industry, popular across the religious spectrum. About 10% of all investments in the United States are now based on some sort of social criteria, according to Bloomberg Personal magazine. That percentage was minuscule a decade ago. Droel dates the start of social investments to the mid-1960s when famed community organizer Saul Alinsky led a protest against Kodak for its dearth of black employees. Alinsky persuaded Churches to designate their Kodak proxies and ultimately was able to pressure the film company to change its hiring pattern. The Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility grew out of that effort, said Droel.
The Catholic Foundation began managing money for non-profit groups in 1985 and accepted individual investors several years ago. Prior to investing with Aquinas, many religious orders merely deposited their money in interest-bearing bank accounts or purchased certificates of deposit. When they sign up with Aquinas and other funds, they demonstrate they are more savvy today about making the best use of their money.
An axiom from the '60s claims that money doesn't talk—it swears. Those individuals whose investment choices are divorced from moral concerns may see Wall Street as a ticket to easy street. But those who want to bring Christ to the marketplace are taking stock of their choices.
Jay Copp writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jay Copp ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Despite Dangers, Algeria's Tiny Catholic Community Remains Steadfast DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM—From the outside world, it is next-to-impossible to contact the Catholic Church in Algeria. It takes two dozen phone calls to reach the office of Archbishop Henri Teissier, who greets all callers with extreme caution. When he learned that this journalist was calling from Jerusalem—the Holy Land—he cordially but firmly refused to conduct an interview via telephone, on the grounds that “Algeria and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.”
Such caution is a necessity in Algeria, a Muslim country at war with itself. An estimated 80,000 Algerians have been slaughtered during the past six years—the vast majority of them civilians.
Embroiled in a fight for independence from France from 1954 until 1962, Algeria again plunged into violence in January 1992, after the Islamic Salvation Front (AIS), a militant Islamic party, won a majority of seats in the initial round of the country's first multi-party elections. Fearing an Islamic revolution—and a threat to its own power base—the authorities canceled the second round of elections and imposed a state of emergency, which remains in place.
According to the human-rights organization Amnesty International, the government security forces resorted to “excessive force” to break up demonstrations by Islamic demonstrators, and threw 10,000 into administrative detention. Many were tortured.
In response, the AIS and other Islamic fundamentalist groups launched a bloody reign of terror that has continued, unabated, for six years. As the violence has escalated during the past year, reports filtering out of Algeria suggest that some of the massacres have been perpetrated by the government's own security forces and state-backed militias.
Caught in the crossfire, Algeria's Catholic community has been deeply affected by the carnage. Already decimated by large-scale emigration during the Independence War and its aftermath, the community has dwindled steadily since 1992, with no more than 2,000 Catholics (some put the figure at several hundred) currently residing in the country. Most of those who remain are priests and religious engaged in humanitarian work.
Since 1992, more than 20 Catholics have been murdered, among them seven Trappist monks who were kidnapped and later beheaded by Islamic extremists in May 1996. Three months later, the ordinary of Oran, Bishop Pierre Claverie, was killed when a bomb exploded at his residence.
Emanuel Sivan, a professor of Islamic studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that these acts “were almost certainly perpetrated by some Islamic fringe groups as a symbol against what they call ‘crusader imperialism.’” In the eyes of many Algerians, the Catholic Church—particularly missionaries—“were allies of imperialism.”
As horrific as these murders were, Sivan said, “they are only a sideshow in the conflict. The vast, vast majority of those murdered are Muslims.” He added that armed Islamic groups commit massacres in the countryside “first in order to intimidate the population, and second to settle a score with villages allied with the government. And there are certainly cases where the security services commit violence and blame it on the Islamists, to give the Islamists a bad name.”
Mario Giro, a peace activist associated with the San Egidio Community in Rome, an international lay movement of the Catholic Church, said that “everybody is in danger in Algeria. The Christians have been targeted not only because they are Christians but because they are foreigners. About 100 foreigners have been killed in the past few years.”
Although he could not discuss the matter by telephone, in January 1997 Archbishop Teissier, the country's only metropolitan bishop, told a reporter from the Times of London that there is little or no innate hostility against the Catholic Church as such in Algeria. Rather, he said, Christians have been chosen strategically as targets of violence to draw attention to a conflict that was, until recently, largely ignored by the West.
In the same interview, the archbishop, who was born in France, expressed solidarity with Algeria, his home for more than 50 years.
“As a bishop I am responsible for the community,” he said. “I don't see how I could leave it and go away. There are not many of us. We are dispersed all over the country. But we are with Algerian society and we hope it will be possible to stay with it. We hope to continue this communication between Christians and Muslims. We are here for the people.”
Father Pierre Grech, secretary of the bishops’ conference of the Holy Land, said that Archbishop Teissier displayed the same courage during a recent meeting at the Vatican.
“The [arch]bishop told us that there is a great deal of insecurity for the future of the Catholic Church, but that the Christians in Algeria are not even thinking of leaving. They feel they have a commitment and strong bonds with Algeria and the Church there.”
During the meeting, Father Grech said, Archbishop Teissier described the strict security procedures that have become a routine part of Church life.
“Before leaving the church, before going anywhere, the priests and sisters must call the police station to inform them where they are headed and when they expect to return. The police tell them which roads are safe to travel and which aren't .”
The archbishop stressed, however, that the clergy usually travel without armed guards so as to be more accessible to the people they help—virtually all of them Muslims. There is almost no local Catholic community to which to minister.
“The archbishop said there is still work to be done, despite the fact that it is a broken Church. They help the disabled, run libraries, and the priests and sisters and lay people still do a great deal of teaching. They are actively involved in humanitarian work,” Father Grech said.
Algerian Christians, the priest said, are still hopeful that peace will be restored, and with it the once-vibrant Catholic community.
Yet before this can occur, the world community—as well as the Catholic Church—must do much more to stop the bloodshed, according to Mario Giro of the San Egidio Community.
For the past three years, the Community has been trying to convene a meeting between political leaders from all Algerian parties, a move the government has rejected.
Undeterred, Giro said that his organization will continue its efforts “because without dialogue there can be no peace.”
The Pope, too, has repeatedly decried the atrocities being committed in Algeria, not only against Catholics but against the Muslim community.
During his annual “State of the World” address last month Pope John Paul lamented the Algeria crisis. The African nation, he said, “practically every day is thrown into mourning by deplorable massacres. We see a whole country held hostage to an inhuman violence that no political cause, far less a religious motivation, could legitimate. I insist on repeating clearly to all, once again, that no one may kill in God's name: this is to misuse the divine name and to blaspheme.”
“This is a war without many images because journalists are denied access,” Giro said. “It is our responsibility as Catholics and human beings to heighten the war's profile.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Below the Surface, Religious Tug-of-War Marks Chiapas Conflict DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:SAN JUAN CHAMULA, Mexico—The Acteal tragedy, in which 45 Tzotzil-speaking Indios were massacred late last year by indigenous paramilitary thugs in the Chiapas highlands, has attracted world attention to the historic problems of the indigenous peoples in this southernmost and poorest of Mexico's states.
Much standard reporting on the killings has focused, understandably, on the scourge of armed gangs attached to the state's longdominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that continue to terrorize the villages and refugee camps of the Altos, and on the shock waves that still echo, months later, in the volatile and changing landscape of Mexican politics.
What has not figured very prominently in Acteal coverage, however, is the struggle for religious identity that, along with economic and agricultural issues, lies at the root of many of Chiapas's ongoing problems.
To get a glimpse of the depth, indeed the mystery of that struggle, one has only to spend a morning in the highland town of Chamula. Some seven miles from the state's second city, San Cristobal de las Casas, San Juan Chamula, the largest of the highland's 25 indigenous municipalities, is situated in the center of a long narrow wooded valley that, according to Tzotzil tradition, was chosen centuries ago as a ceremonial center by St. John the Baptist himself.
It's a land marked by visions, messages, and dreams.
The Chamulans, who call themselves “traditional Catholics,” are, like other Altos natives, the descendants of the great Mayan civilization that flourished in this part of the world more than a millennium ago. Even today, most of the highland indigenous speak little more than rudimentary Spanish, preferring to conduct themselves in one of the area's five ancient Mayan languages. (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolobal, Chol, and Soke.)
MAYAN HOLY CITY
Like other indigenous people, their culture preserves ancient forms of Mayan religious practice mixed with the Catholicism brought by the early Spanish missionaries. But in Chamula, a kind of Mayan holy city, that syncretism is practiced with a particular devotion, even defiance.
My traveling companions and I arrived in Chamula on a Sunday morning in January, led by a Tzotzil-speaking driver and translator, a mestizo lawyer from the neighboring municipal center of Chenalho. The plaza was already filled with townspeople, most dressed in indigenous garb, buying produce at the open-air mercado and ambling toward the town's religious center, the blue and white 18th-century Church of San Juan Bautista.
Having paid the requisite fee at the town's tourist center, we were free to enter what looked from the outside like a typical rural Catholic church in this part of the world.
But once inside the vestibule, it was hard not to think, as a colleague remarked, that we had been transported, by some magical means, to “the dawn of religion.” The air was thick with the smoke of incense rising from dozens of small beast-shaped thurifers set before the effigies of Catholic saints. Pine needles carpeted the floor of the nave where worshipers sat in clusters before neat rows of burning candles.
“White candles are for blessing,” our guide whispered. “The black ones to ward off curses.”
Against the bare church walls stood tall cut pine trees flanked by sheer banners that spanned the nave, giving the place the aura, not of a church, but of an improvised sacred grove.
Nearly every seated group was equipped with plastic bottles of pox (pronounced “posh"), the powerful sugar cane alcohol, drunk as an aid to revelation, that forms an essential part of traditional Mayan worship. Pepsi laced with the leaves of a particularly strong form of tobacco could also be seen, a more recent addition.
No organized service appeared to be going on, just small groups praying for individual and group needs, making their way through a host of devotional acts, disposing themselves to the visions and communications with the saints that lay at the heart of indigenous piety.
(Just how important is the visionary element in Mayan culture is suggested by the fact that a sustained indigenous Altos rebellion against Spanish rule in 1712 was sparked when colonial authorities rejected Tzeltal Indian claims that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them and sought to destroy a shrine they had built to honor her.)
WORSHIP INCHAMULA
Significantly, the church's altar was bare, its reredo or altar screen, devoid of religious art, sidelined by the quiet but intense hum of activity that filled the church's nave.
While no Catholic priest was present, stationed around the nave were Chamula's lay religious leaders, shamans wearing white sheep wool vests who moved among the chanting worshipers, sometimes pausing to place their hands on the sick, and keeping a wary eye on the movements of tourists.
On both walls of the narrow nave, glass enclosed statues of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints lined up in a random review: St. Peter the Apostle; St. Sebastian, martyr; the Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother); the humiliated Christ; “The Virgin of St. Lucy”—a few graced with traditional huipiles, the Indian shawls on which local women weave ancient Mayan mythological designs.
Food was being offered before a few of the effigies, to be eaten later by the supplicants as a form of communion—much as the ancient Maya did in relation to their gods. On great feasts, white and black chickens are routinely sacrificed, and the saints borne in procession around the church to the accompaniment of drums and fireworks.
On leaving the church, a young indigenous woman near us began to lift her hands in prayer. We asked our guide for a discreet translation. If we had been expecting to hear some exotic invocation, we were soon disappointed.
“Send us rain for the corn,” she chanted slowly, “healing for our sick. May our children be preserved from all harm.”
They were the universal hopes of all who pray.
Not surprisingly, Chamulan relations with local Catholic authorities in the San Cristobal diocese have long been tense. Indeed, historically, Mayans have often rebelled as much against the Church as against foreign or nonindigenous political rule, often with the goal of ordaining their own clergy and restoring aspects of the “old religion.” At least since the 1917 Mexican Revolution, which disestablished the Church, traditional syncretism has gained the upper hand in Chamula. The controversial indigenous strategies adopted by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, San Cristobal's leader since 1959, further alienated the traditional political establishment, resulting in an open split between the municipality and the diocese.
For one thing, Chamula has been a PRI stronghold in the Altos since the 1930s, a fact that places its tribal leaders at odds with Bishop Ruiz and his diocesan-led movement for indigenous autonomy and democratic reform. Should Bishop Ruiz's aims be realized, their hold on economic and political power would be threatened.
A PRIESTLESS TOWN
In the mid-1960s, Bishop Ruiz sent a priest, Father Leopoldo Hernandez, to live in Chamula. But every initiative he launched met with opposition on the part of the city's traditional caciques (bosses), and by 1973 he had been driven out. For more than a quarter century, the town has had no regular Catholic priest, leaving the cargos, or religious associations, under the rule of municipal authorities.
But Chamula has been the scene of an even more landmark conflict than the one with the diocese—one that has, since the late 1960s, served to destabilize much of the Altos and help create the climate of violence that characterizes the region today: the expulsion of the evangelicos.
The decades-old struggle that has resulted in the displacement of as many as 25,000 highland indigenous began in the early 1950s when Presbyterian missionaries arrived in Chiapas, ostensibly to translate the Bible into Indian languages. Their few indigenous converts soon voiced criticism of religious “superstitions”—both Catholic and traditional—and withdrew from the observances and the fiestas, which are at the heart of Mayan religious life.
In part, the dissenters, particularly by abstaining from alcohol, posed a challenge to the tribal leaders who control the distribution of pox and the apparatus of traditional religion. But, beyond that, they presented an equal challenge to the indigenous communities themselves since their beliefs were at variance with the customs that have sustained Mayan culture through the centuries.
As most Mayan scholars point out, indigenous religion in the Altos is committed to stasis—that is, preserving, through magic and ritual, the balance of forces in a changeless universe. For the Maya, even minor violations of customary practices invite cosmic disaster and harm the delicate balance of spiritual forces upon which the survival of the people is thought to depend.
Such beliefs have made these Mayan descendants highly resistant to the forces of assimilation that have assailed them for five centuries since the Spanish conquerors arrived on the scene. But this religion of stasis also makes them highly resistant to the notions of pluralism and individualism that are part and parcel of the modern world, which has come with such speed and force to the highlands.
Under the circumstances, an explosion was inevitable.
By the 1960s, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses had joined the Presbyterians in converting Indians within the municipal boundaries of Chamula. In 1968, Chamulans began to expel Protestants, forcing them to settle in squatter camps on the outskirts of San Cristobal. The city was not a particularly hospitable place for Indios, largely run, then and now, by coletos, San Cristobal-born mestizos.
By the late 1970s, nearly 20,000 Protestants, along with political dissidents, had been driven out of the Chamula area.
According to many commentators, the expulsions were a major factor in driving the Altos to the brink of civil war. For one thing, the displacement forced many Indios off the land and into either urban poverty or the squalid labor camps run by the owners of the state's large plantations, or fincas. The religious expulsions also created a more-or-less permanent “squatter” class in the highlands that, inevitably, generated conflict as it competed with established power structures for scarce arable land.
A PEACEFUL SEPARATION
Zinancatan is a Tzotzil town a few miles outside San Cristobal de las Casas at the far end of the dreamy valley over which Chamula reigns.
It was nearly dusk by the time we pulled up in front of the Church of San Lorenzo, tired and drained from a journey to Acteal that had begun in Chamula and had finished here in a village at the edge of a lagoon famous for its roses.
The colonial period church was open. Though the spiritual center of a Mayan community, San Lorenzo, unlike Chamula, boasts an altar that is anything but bare. Festooned about the tabernacle were brilliant Mayan banners and the statues of saints clothed in huipiles. At side altars we spied the now-familiar incense burners and brass candle racks—signs that, though a traditional Catholic church, indigenous rituals had their place here, too.
To the right of the main church stood the small chapels of Esquipulas and San Sebastian where the village priest sat with tribal leaders to plan the traditional fiestas.
Even the ritual use of pox had been retained, but without the customary drunkenness that was a requisite feature of indigenous festivals in Chamula and other towns.
In Zinacatan, Chamula's spooky grandeur seemed to have given way to something far more hopeful: a patient attempt to integrate Mayan sensibilities into the real life of the Church.
It was perhaps inevitable that tensions, too, had flared here in recent years between Mayan Catholics and new Protestant converts. But, in contrast to the situation in nearby Chamula, where beatings, arson, and even murder had accompanied the Protestant exodus, Zinacatanecos had managed to negotiate a peaceful separation of the two communities.
Fragile triumphs of dialogue, to be sure, in a region where the cultural, religious, and political complexities have proved nothing if not durable. But, with the Acteal massacre symbolizing just how bad the alternatives might be, gratitude for small triumphs seemed in order.
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Indigenous beliefs, traditional Catholicism, and evangelical Christianity all play a part in the troubled region's history ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Christian Joy Lived in a Land of Oppression DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Father Timothy Radcliffe OP
Vietnam's communist government is considered among the most oppressive regimes in the world. Church workers and humanitarian organizations cite widespread human rights abuses including harsh prison conditions, the use of forced labor, the detention of political prisoners, and limited religious freedoms.
Although predominately Buddhist, Vietnam is also home to 8 million Catholics—about 10% of the total population. The Dominicans are the largest religious order in the country.
Father Timothy Radcliffe, head of the Dominican order, recently returned from a two-month visit to Vietnam and the Philippines. He spoke about the Church in Asia with Register correspondent Stephen Banyra at the Dominican headquarters in Rome.
Father Timothy Radcliffe OP
Current position: 85th successor of Saint Dominic as Master of the Order of Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans (founded in 1216).
Background: Born in London, 1945; made solemn profession to the Dominican order, 1968; ordained a priest, 1971; prior of the Dominican Convent of Blackfriars at Oxford for two periods; elected master of the Dominican order, 1992; actively promoted peace and justice issues in England during term as president of the National Conference of Religious.
Banyra: Pope John Paul II said earlier this year his thoughts were with the Church in Vietnam, “which is still aspiring to better conditions of existence.” What did you find during your visit there?
Father Radcliffe: You can see that for most people in Vietnam, there is a great deal more freedom than there was in the past. But the Church is still very controlled.
It's almost impossible, for example, for people to be ordained. Usually there is a limitation for most dioceses of two ordinations a year. So you have many young people who are ordained deacons but they wait almost interminably for ordination as priests.
Another big restriction is that it's hard to be assigned from one district in Vietnam to another or to leave the country to do further studies. So there is a lot of control.
What is astonishing though, is that despite all the difficulties, there is incredible joy among Christians in Vietnam. They may feel watched at times and under the eye of the government but there is a spontaneity, a vitality, and an enthusiasm that is immensely refreshing.
You say restrictions on the Church have been somewhat eased in recent years. What was it like in the past?
What I could say is that there was a time when, for our brethren to survive at all, [it] was immensely difficult.
Many were imprisoned for years.
Many were tortured—forced to eat uncooked rice, which expanded in their stomachs.
Some were kept in tiny cages for years on end, and when they left, many had to earn their living as rickshaw drivers—doing anything they could. So the whole situation is enormously improved recently.
What prompted your visit to Vietnam?
Part of my role as master of the order is to visit all the priories and all the provinces of the Dominican order and to meet every single brother individually during nine years—and it's quite a challenge to get around to them all!
However, this time, I was doing a visitation of our provinces in Asia. That's because Asia is emerging as an important priority for the order.
More than half of humanity is Asian and when you visit the Churches in Asia you'r e bowled over by their enthusiasm and their creativity.
I believe it's very important for us as Dominicans to think of the future mission of the order in Asia. Vietnam is obviously one of the pillars of the Dominican lifestyle.
Do the Dominicans have vocations there?
Yes. We have about 60 students in formation right now all over Vietnam, and I can honestly say, I don't think I'v e enjoyed anything as much as getting to know these young people who are so dynamic and so vital.
Often in the evening when we had finished all the interviews of the day, my assistant and I would travel with the students into Ho Chi Minh City. We would go and eat noodles with them and try to understand their lives as young people who want to give themselves to the preaching of the Gospel.
Do you think the harsh persecution of the Church in Vietnam has resulted in this flourishing of vocations?
Certainly. There have been persecutions throughout much of the history of Vietnam.
Right from the very beginning, there has been a tradition of martyrs—of brothers and sisters and Dominican laity laying down their lives. Thus, the faithful are formed within a tradition of complete generosity and I think that's one reason why the Church there is so vital.
In addition, Asian people often strike me by their profound sense of God—even in countries where there is no persecution.
After Vietnam, I went to the Philippines. In the nine days leading up to Christmas, they celebrated the dawn Mass at 4:30 in the morning. Each day there were at least 5,000 people coming to the Eucharist and 90% of them were under the age of 30! I think this springs from that deep sense of the mystery of God that you can find in so many places in Asia, which is so enriching for the entire Church.
Would you describe some of the work being done by Dominican sisters in Asia?
In Vietnam, just to start there, they run many schools and colleges. But some of them also work with the poorest people. It is a moving experience to visit the poorest parts of Ho Chi Minh City and find our sisters there.
That would also be true in the Philippines. There the brothers and the sisters run more than 100 schools, colleges, and universities educating some 200,000.
How extensive is the Dominican presence in Asia?
It varies a great deal. Asia is such a fantastically rich and diverse culture. In some countries, we have very large provinces. In others we are just beginning and are very small.
One of the beautiful things about traveling around Asia is to see the growing collaboration among all religious orders.
Sometimes, when I was young, there was a foolish sense of competition between orders. Yet what I find now whenever I travel to Pakistan or India, Korea or Japan, is that we have come to realize how much we have to give each other and to receive from each other. So increasingly, you find religious orders opening their communities to each other in common projects. I think that's wonderful.
Could you name a highlight of your visit to Asia?
One deeply moving experience in the Philippines was to visit one of the six leprosaria that are run by the Dominican family. I went there and met not only the brothers who run it—half of whom are lepers themselves—but also many of the patients.
We sang hymns for Christmas and Epiphany and I was so moved to think we celebrated the birth of the Christ who came and touched the lepers and healed them. And with leprosy still widespread throughout much of Asia, much healing still needs to be done.
I met a woman who must have been about 60 years old. She told me she had been a leper since the age of 14 and only now was she coming out of her shell—daring to appear in public after a lifetime of fear of being rebuffed because of her deformities. Now, late in her life, she has discovered she can be a disciple and an apostle. And she is joining the Dominican mission in a way—going out and talking to people about leprosy and how to join in the fight against it.
For me, it was an immensely moving experience of how love and Christmas joy can triumph over even the worst suffering.
Do you think the Church in Asia has a lesson to offer to the Church in other parts of the world about evangelization and missionary outreach?
The cooperation I so often see between the priests, the sisters, the religious, and the laity in Asia is one very important lesson we can learn. Everywhere you see how we must work together.
A second lesson is the centrality of prayer. Asia is the home of many deep spiritual traditions with a profound sense of the mystery at the heart of reality.
In Buddhism and in a different way in Hinduism, we see traditions that have much to teach us about meditation. If we are to be preachers in the West, there is something to be learned from that contemplative tradition of the East.
Would you agree there currently seems to be a fascination in the West, even if superficial, with Eastern spirituality?
Yes, there certainly is a fascination. I would have two things to say. First, sometimes we forget the deep mystical tradition which is also in the West. We fail to learn from the masters that we have: people in the Dominican tradition such as Meister Eckhart, Johann Tauler, Henry Suso, and people in the Carmelite tradition such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. So let us learn from the East, but let us also value the mystical tradition of the West.
Second, what they often understand in eastern contemplative communities is the hard, persistent discipline needed if a person is to draw near to the mystery that is at the heart of reality. It is not enough to merely be a spiritual tourist.
—Stephen Banyra
----- EXCERPT: The head of the Dominican order reports on his recent travels through Vietnam ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Adultery's Approval Ratings Drop
Leaving high-profile cases aside, adultery is definitely frowned upon in the United States—and new programs are springing up to prevent it and heal its consequences.
In the United States, adultery is more unacceptable than it has been for decades, said a University of Chicago National Opinion Poll quoted in the Detroit News (Jan 31). Those who disapprove of it have grown from 69.8% in 1973 to 78.5% in 1996, according to the poll results released last June.
The Church is responding. The newspaper reported the ministry of Nick and Virginia O'Shea whose 41-year marriage has had to survive two affairs. They credit a program called Retrouvaille (“rediscover” in French), which their Catholic diocese referred them to, with saving their marriage. The two now counsel other married couples on how to avoid adultery—and how to mitigate its consequences.
Described as “Christian-based”, Retrouvaille consists of a weekend retreat followed by six-weekly sessions dealing with topics such as sex, intimacy, listening, and conflict resolution. The program matches troubled couples with “teams” of three presenting couples, according to the article. The presenters explain how they were able to salvage their marriages in the face of grave difficulties, often adultery.
Bud Ozar, director of the Life and Youth Center at the Archdiocese of Detroit explained that Marriage Encounter was designed to help good marriages improve. Retrouvaille is designed to resuscitate marriages that are nearly dead.
Two Women Debate Abortion
On the 25th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, MSNBC featured an on-line debate between two members of the Common Ground Network in support and opposition to abortion on demand.
The organization is envisioned as a place for those who favor and oppose abortion to argue their differences civilly. At one point in their debate, the two described how they first formed their positions on abortion. Susan Kloc's reason for supporting abortion came from her experience of sexuality in a young age, she said.
“When I was in college I thought I might be pregnant. I remember the fear, the panic, the shame. Although I did not have to wait long before I found out I was not, the experience stayed with me because I remember thinking about my options. I visited a Planned Parenthood clinic soon after and was grateful to find someone I could talk to who provided me with meaningful birth control information. (This was around 1972-73 when my family doctor asked some leading questions while implying that I was not supposed to be sexually active.)”
Frederica Mathewes-Green, who had an early pro-abortion sticker on her car, “converted” from supporting abortion to opposing it around the same time. She read “What I saw at the abortion” by Richard Selzer in Esquire magazine.
“Selzer described the patient, 19 weeks pregnant, lying back on the operating table, and the doctor sliding into her abdomen the needle of a syringe to deliver a dose of prostaglandin. Then he says he saw something he never expected: the needle began to bob and jerk against the woman's abdomen ‘like a fishing line nibbled by a sunfish.’ … What shook me up about this essay was realizing that in abortion I had welcomed, even celebrated, violence.”
Abortion ‘Pill’ Delayed Indefinitely
Although one New York group of abortion-advocates has raised enough money to provide a limited supply of RU486 to 11 doctors around the country, widespread distribution of the “chemical abortion pill” is “on indefinite hold,” according to the Detroit News (Feb. 1).
What happened to the drug treatment that President Clinton and the Food and Drug Administration have both supported? According to the article: Hoechst AF of Germany, the drug's original distributor, has been forced to limit its markets to England, France, and Sweden under international pressure from pro-lifers.
After the nonprofit Population Council gained U.S. patent rights to the drug in 1996, it chose Joseph Pike to arrange for the drug's production here. It later discovered that he had resigned from the North Carolina Bar in a forgery scandal. After he refused to sell his controlling interest in the project, he had to be taken to court. Control went to a number of investors.
A privately held company called Advances/Neogen was created to handle the introduction of RU486 into the United States, but the chief executive of that company stepped down and no replacement has been named.
The Hungarian company that had made an agreement with Advances/Neogen to manufacture the drug suddenly stopped and did not produce it. “Nobody knows why,” Lawrence Lader of Abortion Rights Mobilization is quoted saying.
As yet, no U.S. drug company is willing to manufacture the drug.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:TV Star Urges Global Contraception & Abortion
The U.S. television show Dallas has been extremely popular overseas, where some have even credited it with subverting communist regimes by giving people a look at unbridled capitalism. So it is understandable that the U.N. Population Fund would choose a star of the show, Linda Gray, to be its spokeswoman.
The Washington Post (Feb. 2) called Gray the Fund's “glambassador.” “Working with the fund's celeb-heavy Face to Face program,” the account continued, “Gray will star in documentaries to promote greater access for women to health care, birth control, and abortion, and an end to sexual violence.”
The controversial nature of her work—which critics say is designed to change the cultures of Third World nations to conform to some of the worst aspects of first-world culture—seemed lost on Gray in her quoted remarks about her recent trip to Nicaragua.
“There are wonderful health care promoters who explain to the women that their mothers had 10, 12, 14 children but that they don't have to have that many,” she said.
In describing her new work Gray said, “I have been a Hollywood celebrity for many years.… I don't know whether wisdom kicks in or age kicks in, but it's time to share.”
Museum of the Culture of Death?
“This is a disgrace for our century. Human dignity should also be respected after death, and that is not the case here.” Beate Reinecke, of Hanover, Germany, reported her disgust in the guest book at Mannheim's Museum for Technology and Work.
The Museum currently features an exhibition of dead bodies prepared by “anatomical artist” Gunther Von Hagens, according to Newsday (Feb. 3). The exhibits are preserved and “anatomically highlighted” by a process Dr. Von Hagens developed that shows brightly colored organs through transparent or missing skin.
Though ostensibly meant to teach viewers about anatomy, many—the local Catholic Church included—are deeply disturbed by a display of dead bodies. Included in the exhibit:
√ “Totally Expanded Body,” a dismembered corpse with eyes suspended by wires behind a face and in front of a brain.
√ “The Runner”, a corpse in a lifelike running pose, but with certain muscles “peeled back” as if in a strong wind, for viewers to examine.
√ A woman's corpse, spit in half lengthwise, with the woman holding various internal organs in her hands.
√ A simulated pregnant woman's corpse, cut open to reveal an unborn child's corpse within.
Each member of the exhibit (apart from the infants) agreed to donate his body to the project before death, after being given information of about Dr. Von Hagen's plans, according to the article. That did not stop local Church officials from criticizing the exhibit as an affront to human dignity with a commercial rather than a scientific aim.
Pro-Lifers Come to 11-Year-Old's Aid
Little “M” has, temporarily, become one of the most famous people in her native Brazil, but few people know her real name, according to a Miami Herald report (Feb. 2).
M's case has gained great notoriety because it exemplifies the “hard case” scenarios that abortion proponents like to focus the abortion debate on. M was impregnated last August by a rapist, she turned 11 in December, and is due in May.
She is able to have a legal abortion in Brazil—both because she is the victim of a rape and because her small size makes her pregnancy dangerous—but a drama that has been played out in the Brazilian media began when she attempted to do so.
First, pro-life activists intervened. Then local authorities postponed her abortion until after they could speak to her parents. Apriest spoke to her parents, too, showing her father a videotape of The Silent Scream. Finally, pro-lifers offered to pay for sophisticated medical care that could help keep her—and her unborn child—safe.
“I'm happy now” that the birth will proceed, M is quoted saying. “My father wanted me to have the abortion. I didn't want to have it.”
The father, Walter Oliveira, a farmer, summed up his reasons for finally deciding to accept the advice of the pro-life side. “It was hard to know what was right, except that 95 people were saying one thing and only five were saying something else.” The material assistance offered by pro-lifers further helped convince him, he said.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Imprimatur Withdrawn From Religion Text DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:EAST ANGLIA, England—An English bishop has been ordered by the Holy See to remove his approval of a religious education book used in Catholic schools.
Bishop Peter Smith of East Anglia quietly published on his diocesan internet site his decision to conform with Rome's request.
The textbook in question, entitled Roman Catholic Christianity, has been a cause of controversy for some years in England. Written by Clare Richards, until recently head of religious education in Our Lady's Catholic High School in Norwich (the cathedral city of East Anglia diocese) and a member of the committee which advises the bishops on religious education, the book attracted scathing reviews from many catechists when it was published in early 1995.
Apart from glaring inaccuracies, what clergy and laity alike objected to the most was the fact that it had received both an imprimatur and a nihil obstat from the Diocese of East Anglia, granted under the then-ordinary, Bishop Clarke. The current Bishop, Peter Smith, took office in September 1996 to a clamor of complaint about the book and he gave the book and its author his full support.
In a statement issued via internet last week, Bishop Smith said, “At the request of the Sacred Congregation of the Clergy, I am withdrawing the imprimatur accorded to the book Roman Catholic Christianity on October 6th 1994. In the judgement of the Congregation, the expression of some elements in the book are not in full conformity with the Catholic faith.”
This statement, in contrast to the Bishop's earlier defense of the book and its author, was not handled by the National Catholic media office or sent to the major Catholic press in Britain.
When Roman Catholic Christianity was published the letters pages of the Catholic press became clogged with the worries of Catholic parents at their children being exposed to the book. (Jim Gallagher)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Rome's Plastic Statues
In an attempt to prevent vandalism and theft of some of Rome's sculptural treasures, the city has taken unusual measures, according to a report in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald (Feb. 4).
“The truth is out. For six years the Rome city council … has been spiriting away tombs, statues, and busts and replacing them with plastic fakes.
“Those who fear it could be the first step towards the Eternal City becoming a replica of itself will not be reassured to learn that the author of the copies, Romolo Felice, 58, began his trade as a special-effects man on the film Ben Hur. Mr. Felice, his son and three brothers-in-law have turned out a stream of reproductions so good that no one has noticed the absence of the originals.”
“They are responsible for two ersatz sarcophagi near the entrance to the gardens of the Villa Pamphilj, a phony Venus in the grounds of the Villa Celimontana on the Caelian Hill and a host of bogus statues and busts dotted around the 16th-century Villa Aldobrandini.”
“It has also emerged that, when the Museo Borghese was reopened amid much hullabaloo last year, all the sculptures gracing the courtyard had been replaced with reproductions. The elegant neoclassical nudes are made of “concrete with a patina of marble dust,” a council official said. In defending its replacement of statues with plastic replicas—and the city's silence about the practice—a city spokesman explained that some things are better done without fanfare.
“They are so faithful to the original that already thieves have taken them for real, decapitated one to make off with the head and tried to carry away another,” he added.
“Theft is merely one reason the council felt it had to act. Pollution, vandalism, and erosion by rain have all taken their toll.
“Carla Benocci of the council's heritage department told the newspaper La Repubblica, which unveiled the ploy: “There is no alternative to copies if one wants to conserve monuments. Those in the Aldobrandini gardens were in a striking state of decay.”
Cuban Newspaper Reports on Pope's Visit
“Pope John Paul II received with warmth, respect, and admiration by the Cuban people,” read the headline in Granma Internacionale, the on-line version of Cuba's official news organ.
Joaquin Oramas reported what might be considered the official Cuban opinion of the Holy Father's recent visit, in a story that appeared on the Internet version of the paper Feb. 4. It begins:
“Pope John Paul II's five-day visit to Cuba gave the Sovereign Pontiff the opportunity to experience the warmth and profound respect offered by both believers and non-believers among the population as a whole and the country's leaders, particularly President Fidel Castro.
“The head of the Catholic Church and the leader of the Cuban Revolution spoke together on five occasions, in a constructive and friendly atmosphere. Those five encounters took place during the welcoming ceremony, the Pope's courtesy visit to the Palace of the Revolution, the visit to the Aula Magna of the University of Havana, the final Mass in Havana's José Martí Revolution Square, and the farewell ceremony held on the evening of Jan. 25.
“The cordiality of an educated and civilized people accompanied the Pope from the moment the plane bringing him from Rome first entered Cuban airspace, as the people of the province of Pinar del Río waved up to him from the ground below. Minutes later, that welcome became more direct in the capital, and in the cities of Santa Clara, Camagüey, and Santiago, where he officiated Masses.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Killing a Killer DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:“My prayer is that [my case] would make, most especially the body of Christ, realize that God can redeem any life he wants to.… Life is precious, and if we believe life is precious in abortion, or in mercy killing, shouldn't we believe life is precious in the death penalty? Don't all those areas go together?”
—Karla Faye Tucker, in her last interview
Maybe Karla Faye Tucker, who was executed Feb. 3 by the state of Texas, did not die in vain. Not since Gary Gilmore's death by a Utah firing squad in 1977—the first prisoner put to death after the death penalty was reinstated in this country—has a case caused capital punishment to be so hotly debated. Since Gilmore's death, 436 prisoners have been executed in the United States—most of them with little fanfare. But Tucker's case moved even some hard-line death penalty proponents to waver in their insistence on “eye-for-an-eye” justice. Why Tucker? After all, she'd freely admitted to the brutal crime for which she was sentenced: a 1983 double murder she committed with a pickax while high on drugs.
What was it about Tucker's case that caused a change of heart among some capital punishment advocates? Her gender was certainly a factor; only one other woman has been executed since 1977. But being a woman was only part of it, according to David Dow, a University of Houston law professor. Dow, who has represented more than 20 death row prisoners, told The New York Times that Tucker possessed four other key characteristics that elicited sympathy. She was “white, attractive, articulate, and a Christian,” he said. Few death row prisoners are five for five on those counts.
Dow's point was that Tucker didn't match the public's collective image of what a person being put to death in a civilized country should look like. Furthermore, extensive stories and interviews in the media strengthened the case for preserving Tucker's life. The public heard about her ministering to other prisoners and sensed other desirable things about her: she seemed genuine in her conversion, she was charming, and charismatic—even good.
“I couldn't imagine how anybody could have committed such merciless, unthinkable acts and less than four years later, look as she did now,” author Beverly Lowry wrote about Tucker in the Feb. 9 issue of The New Yorker. “There was—I don't know how else to describe it—an old-fashioned sense of goodness about her.”
Tucker converted to Christianity four months after her arrest. Lowry notes that the transformation of this one-time ax murderer moved people not easily taken in by tricksters; the policeman who arrested her, the prosecutor who convicted her, her prison guards, and other unlikely persons became allies. Even televangelist Pat Robertson, one of the highest profile proponents of capital punishment, adopted her cause for clemency.
Not everyone was taken in by Karla Faye Tucker's charm, and not everyone believed in her conversion. Even if they did, politics got in the way of her sentence being commuted. The outpouring of appeals from around the world to state courts and the parole board failed. And pleas to spare her life—including one from Pope John Paul II—were not enough to move Gov. George W. Bush to spare her life.
When prison officials announced Tucker's death to a crowd gathered outside the Huntsville, Texas prison, they cheered and broke into a macabre celebratory chant: “Na na na na, hey, hey, hey, say good-bye.”
It was an eerie illustration of how “capital punishment diminishes all of us,” as Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., wrote in a letter to Bush two weeks before the execution.
Time and again it has been illustrated that the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent to crime. Ardent support for it can only be attributed to a “revenge complex” in American society, as Philadelphia's Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua described it in an interview last year with the Register. The cardinal also said that “some people see it as closure, but you can have closure in other ways.” The higher principle at stake, he stressed, is the inviolability of life—all life.
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II used the story of Cain and Abel to show that that inviolability extends even to murderers. Quoting St. Ambrose, he wrote: “God, who preferred correction rather than the death of the sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide.”
The fact remains that Tucker committed a heinous crime and deserved to live the rest of her days behind bars. But she admitted as much and sought sincere forgiveness for the mistakes of the life she'd left behind.
If a person's consistent actions over a 15-year period offer valid testimony, it hardly can be disputed that Tucker had truly been transformed, as she believed, by God's grace. Her rehabilitation seemed to reflect the fruit, described in Evangelium Vitae, of a humane society that provides “the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.”
Karla Faye Tucker was a changed woman. The rub is that her transformation happened on death row. The woman who was injected with lethal chemicals by the state Feb. 3 was not the same one who'd come from a broken home, shot-up heroin at 10, turned to prostitution at 13, and committed a double murder at 24.
The Pope opposed the death penalty for Tucker not because she was a woman, or white, or attractive, or articulate, or Christian, but simply because, as he wrote in Evangelium Vitae, “not even a murderer loses his personal dignity.…”
But if killing a person with those characteristics has changed the thinking of some who believed capital punishment has a place in a just society, then Karla Faye Tucker's death might, as she hoped, have served a higher purpose.
Larry Montali is editor of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: Perspective ----- EXTENDED BODY: Larry Montali ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Putting to Rest the Holocaust Blame Game DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis by William Rubinstein (New York: Routledge, 1997, 267 pp., $25)
Here's what should be an easy one: Whose fault was the Holocaust? Your choices are (a) the Nazis or (b) the Allies. Most people would choose the Nazis, right? But there is a whole school of revisionist history that—get ready—blames the Allies or at least holds them as unindicted co-conspirators to genocide. The Allies could have rescued the Jews, so the argument goes, but didn't. Therefore, they're responsible for the Holocaust.
The main problem with this scenario, declares Holocaust historian William Rubinstein, is that it isn't true. Hence his highly documented and well-argued book, The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved more Jews from the Nazis.
According to Rubinstein, the larger myth that more Jews could have been saved is composed of several lesser, component myths. There is, for example, the “Myth of Closed Doors,” the idea that restrictive and allegedly anti-Semitic immigration policies of the western democracies from 1933-39 led to the deaths of thousands of Jews who otherwise would have been saved. The trouble here, writes Rubinstein, is that “it is almost the precise opposite of the truth.”
Many German Jews remained in Nazi Germany, not due to Western emigration policies, but because they wrongly assumed Nazi anti-Semitism would eventually dissipate or that Hitler wouldn't last. Others couldn't bring themselves to leave their homeland or to emigrate to what a mere decade and a half earlier were “enemy” countries. By the time such stalwarts were prepared to flee, they couldn't. Moreover, those who did emigrate weren't necessarily exempted from the Holocaust. Tragically, many wound up in countries subsequently conquered by Nazi Germany and were deported to death camps—something no one could have anticipated in the early 1930s.
Rubinstein's careful analysis reveals that western democracies didn't block Jewish emigration and that they generally lowered barriers to German Jews pari passu with heightened Nazi attacks. He also claims that nearly three-quarters of German Jews emigrated prior to the war. It was the outbreak of war, rather than the democracies, that trapped the remaining Jews in Nazi Germany.
Rubinstein also debunks what he calls the “Myth of Plans for Rescue.” This is the claim that various feasible plans for saving Jews were ignored due to anti-Semitism or indifference. His argument is simple and straightforward: “No scheme which could possibly or realistically have rescued any of the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe was actually proposed by anyone or by any group in the democracies during the war.” Of course, in hindsight, one might concoct seemingly workable plans. But these schemes are all armchair operations conceived after the fact by people who know how it all came out. Even so, there is no guarantee they would, in fact, have succeeded, had anyone thought of them at the time.
Virtually all proposed rescue plans, then and now, are rigorously examined by Rubinstein, who conclusively demonstrates their practical futility. Critics often forget, the author insists, that Jews in Nazi-occupied lands in 1939-45 were prisoners, not mere refugees. Thus, the Allies were powerless to prevent the wholesale slaughter, regardless of how they might have tinkered with immigration policies or how many strongly worded denunciations the United Nations might have issued. The only relevant “rescue operation” was to defeat the Axis powers—which, of course, the Allies made every effort to do.
It is sometimes claimed that toward the war's end certain Nazi leaders such as Himmler wanted to ransom Jews in exchange for money or wartime supplies (e.g., the so-called “blood-for-trucks” proposal). Failure of the Allies and mainstream Jewish leadership to take these proposals seriously is frequently used as evidence of their moral indifference to the plight of European Jewry. But Rubinstein contends that such “ransom” offers were largely disingenuous or, in any event, irrelevant since Hitler would never have agreed to them. His non-negotiable objective was the extermination of all Jews.
Another widely made charge: the Allies could have (and therefore should have) bombed Auschwitz, thus ending that death camp's activities and possibly freeing prisoners fortunate to escape in the confusion. Ignoring the fact that, had the Allies done so, critics would now likely denounce them for the deaths of innocent Jews that such an assault would surely have caused, there are other insurmountable problems with the argument. For one thing, before December 1943 it was logistically impossible for the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, which was too far to reach with an air strike some 1,000 miles away. Even afterward, when the Allies had captured Foggia air base in Italy, the mission would have been risky. Rubinstein maintains that the air force “lacked the intelligence base necessary to plan and execute a bombing raid” against Auschwitz. Nor did Allied bombing raids possess the pinpoint accuracy required to avoid killing prisoners and not leave the Nazi extermination apparatus operational.
(Critics have also argued that at least the rail lines carrying prisoners to the death camp could have been destroyed. But there is no evidence that so perilous and improbable an enterprise, even if successful, would have stopped or significantly slowed the death camps, given the Nazis’ effectiveness at rerouting.)
What about the allegation that more Jews could have been saved had Pope Pius XII spoken out?
“In all likelihood—a likelihood probably amounting to a near-certainty,” Rubinstein writes, “Hitler would have paid no heed whatever to any pronouncement on the Jews made by the Vatican (which had denounced Nazi anti-Semitism before the war began). Theoretically, and in hindsight, the Pope might have excommunicated all Catholic members of the SS (or of the Nazi Party) although the only likely effect of such a pronouncement would have been that the Nazis denounce the Pope as an agent of “Judeo-Bolshevism, and an impostor.”
Other charges against the Allies are cogently refuted by Rubinstein, leaving the impression that only hardline ideologues out to malign the democracies at all costs would continue to press them. To be sure, making sense of a vast diabolical wickedness such as the Holocaust is always difficult; that millions of Jews were methodically exterminated remains unimaginable even a half century later. Understandably, one is tempted to embrace some explanation—any explanation—that seemingly accounts for such an all-encompassing blackness, even a counter-intuitive one.
Yet our coming to terms with this dark truth of the 20th century is not well served by scapegoating the innocent, nor by concocting accusations against the very democratic nations that sought to liberate the afflicted from that obsessed mass-murderer hell-bent on their obliteration. From start to finish, responsibility for the Holocaust, as William Rubinstein ably demonstrates, rests with Hitler and his Nazi accomplices, not the Allies.
Mark Brumley writes from Napa, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Perfect Place to Meet Chesterton DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Father Brown of the Church of Rome: Selected Mystery Stories by G.K. Chesterton edited by John Peterson (Ignatius Press, 1996, 265 pp., $17.95)
Too many decently-read Catholics have never read a word of Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936). Decently-read, I say, not wellread, because in my opinion, one is not a well-read Catholic (at least among English-speakers) until one has sampled generously of Chesterton's wares.
After that, if one finds G.K.C.'s arresting alliteration or penchant for paradox not in keeping with one's literary tastes, fine. Go with our blessings unto J.R.R. Tolkien or Dorothy Sayers or Walker Percy or Ralph McInerny (in whose elite company, however, there are many Chesterton fans). But at least one will know what one is missing, something few American Catholics under 50, and almost none under 40, can honestly say these days.
Having regretted the modern's unfamiliarity with the second-most quoted man in English (Shakespeare is first), I admit there might be a good reason for it: knowing where to start. The magnificent Ignatius Press effort to publish the Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton now runs more than 30 hefty volumes, and the end is not yet in sight. So, where to begin? With Chesterton's theology? His politics? Vast social essays? Poetry? Literary criticism? Novels?
Well, short of saying start anywhere, as long as you start, I usually recommend starting with Chesterton's classic short mystery stories featuring the inimitable clerical sleuth, Father Brown. Even this advice, however, leaves one with a choice of several dozen detective stories of various lengths and complexity and, given Chesterton's ability to pack considerable nuance into apparently innocent literary or historical allusions, the stories are still amenable to some informed guidance along the way. Enter John Peterson, the founder, and for the last 10 years, editor of the Midwest Chesterton News (Barrington, Ill.).
Peterson has selected and thoroughly researched 10 Father Brown stories. His selections are not simply those Peterson feels to be among the best (for Peterson's judgments on such points, while weighty, are not necessarily conclusive), but more specifically, they are the stories that most clearly demonstrate Father Brown's ability to apply philosophy and faith to the world around us. In that regard, Peterson has chosen very well.
Father Brown does not solve crimes nor catch the bad guys by some process of divine illumination. He applies human reason to the facts of the case as well as any Doyle or Christie detective. But Father Brown adds that crucial insight into human motives which the Church, that “expert in humanity,” to borrow Pope Paul VI's phrase, possesses in a unique way. I have never reached the end of a Father Brown mystery and felt gypped because a crucial piece of evidence was withheld from me as a reader; but I have reached the end of many of these stories and felt that I, as a Catholic, should have better appreciated the analytical significance of what I was reading from the outset.
Three of Peterson's 10 mystery selections date from early in Chesterton's literary career, and one comes from very near the end of his life. Most, however, date from the mid-1920s, the period in which Chesterton's story-telling powers were at their height. They are all short enough to read during, say, a lunch break, but they are each so different that I would recommend a decent break between stories. Such practice helps a reader keep the clues from running into each other, and more importantly allows the implications of Father Brown's wisdom to sink in a while.
I would, moreover, offer a particular use for Peterson's fine collection, namely, as a gift for young people whereby they could be introduced to the writings of G.K. Chesterton. In my own circle, for example, I know of an 11-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl who have read the 10 stories gathered by Peterson and enjoyed them thoroughly, thereby paving the way for both of them to read more Chesterton down the road. One of these young people particularly noted, by the way, that Peterson's explanatory footnotes made the good stories even more understandable.
If really pressed to find grounds for any criticism of Peterson's collection, I suppose it would be that his own introduction reads too briefly. A man with the kind of command of Chesterton and his world that Peterson possesses has an obligation to show it extensively with those of us less versed. Still, I can well imagine Peterson's reluctance to delay the reader's enjoyment of Chesterton's work one minute longer than necessary.
Edward Peters writes from San Diego, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Praising La Leche
Your Dec. 28-Jan. 3 issue was great! The Culture of Life section had a great article on breastfeeding—the one featuring the Kippleys (“A Baby at Its Mother's Breast”). Then there was the lovely article about the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche (“A Holy Site for Mothers Present and Future”).
The world, especially the Catholic world, needs to read these things. The Kippleys, especially Sheila, have done a super job of encouraging natural child spacing through breastfeeding. I can attest to the fact that it truly works, as we have really “spaced out” children, with 25 years between the oldest and the youngest of our 11 —all due only to breastfeeding.
It's about time the American Academy of Pediatrics came around to recognizing the many benefits of breastfeeding and speaking out about them. But there was one notable omission in these articles! As a co-founder of La Leche League (LLL), I wondered why there was no mention of our organization at all. LLL celebrated its 40th anniversary this past summer and through the years has been the primary influence on the spread of breastfeeding throughout the world. Our organization took its name from the very shrine you wrote of—Our Lady of La Leche.
Dr. Herbert Ratner was in fact the founding father of LLL, having encouraged us right from the beginning. I hope you will see fit to give us just a bit of credit for our part in living and sharing, mother-to-mother, this integral part of God's plan for mothers. Thanks to Dr. Ratner, who was my husband's mentor from medical school on, I nursed our babies and our children have nursed all of theirs (all 47 of them)! Now we have three breastfed great—grand-children for which to be thankful. All this, I am convinced, is due to the influence of La Leche League.
Mary White River Forest, Illinois
Papal ‘Opinion’
Mark Shea's otherwise edifying article, “What is the Official Catholic Teaching on…?” (Jan. 25-31), contains certain imprecisions that may lead readers to erroneous conclusions about the Church's exercise of authority.
First, in his attempt to reduce historical Church teaching on capital punishment to “prudential judgments … which the Church asks the faithful to consider seriously as they form their own consciences,” Shea effectively nullifies the weight of Catholic tradition—grounded in revelation—affirming that the practice is morally licit. Far from silencing those who claim that Evangelium Vitae represents a “change” in the Church's traditional teaching, Shea's superficial summary of John Paul II's words would hearten them by characterizing the Pope's “opinion” as contrary to the tradition, rather than what it really is: an implicit confirmation of capital punishment's moral permissibility, coupled with a call for Catholics to choose mercy over justice as a witness to the Culture of Death.
My point is not to weigh in on the death penalty debate, but to avoid the kind of minimalist approach to the teaching authority of the Church, and especially the Pope, which might follow from Shea's article. Readers would do well to examine Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which states that “loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given … to the specific teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra.…”
Moreover, Shea's characterization of a teaching contained in a papal encyclical as “opinion of the Pope” could very well give heart to dissenters from the teaching of another papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which expressed clearly the Church's teaching on the intrinsic moral evil of the contraceptive act. While every teaching of every encyclical is not automatically considered infallible, those which, as Humanae Vitae does, make a claim to the constant and unchanging teaching of the Church from apostolic times, invoke the authority of sacred tradition, and as such are to be adhered to not as opinions but as the Church's official—and non-negotiable—teaching. No matter what William F. Buckley thinks about it.
Todd Aglialoro Gaming, Austria
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Basking in a Good Economy And the Clinton Escapades DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:I'm a political junkie. I'm always ready to debate the latest Washington debacle. Yet, on a recent Sunday I had to walk away from a discussion of current affairs—or, perhaps I should say, alleged affairs.
Picture this: a group of young conservative men in an after-Mass conversation. They were bursting with self-satisfaction. Euphoric. Tickled pink.
I had never seen them look so happy. The reason? The bad boy of Washington D.C.—Bill Clinton—is in hot water.
Clinton's alleged affair with a White House intern has caused joy all through Mudville. Somehow, though, it has not had the same effect on me.
We all knew that Clinton lacked moral virtue. Can this latest example, if the charges are true, be a surprise to anyone in America?
I assume that we all realized, even before Monica Lewinsky came on the scene, that America has sunk into a moral cesspool. Anyone claiming otherwise need only look at the movies coming out of Hollywood.
I'm guessing that we all realized that the majority of American women treat themselves as sex objects—and allow the men in their lives to do the same. Lewinsky's reported comments to friends about how she planned to succeed in D.C. could only confirm that conclusion.
Almost every person I encounter is shocked by the latest charges—and, almost everyone who voices an opinion also decries the “feeding frenzy” of the press.
Yet, somebody is consuming the enticing dishes the media is serving. CNN ratings nearly doubled during the weeks after the story broke. An ABC prime-time special on the controversy garnered higher ratings than NBC's ER.
Meet the Press ratings shot up by 50% when the story hit. Hillary Clinton's “stand by your man” appearance on the Today show won that program its second-highest ratings in a decade, and her visit to Good Morning America boosted ratings by 20%.
It seems that some people are enjoying every lurid detail coming out of Washington D.C.—no matter how much they claim otherwise.
I'm assuming that Catholic voters are having a more mature response. After all, we know that most people-including politicians—do, on occasion, sin. Some of us may have even committed one or two sins in our own lives, and been absolved by our generous Father.
Of course, Clinton's difficulty in recognizing and speaking the truth could pose a problem if he is seeking forgiveness. Repentance requires an honest admission—public or private—of our actions.
While the public may decry the alleged affair with a young intern, most haven't let it affect their opinion of his job performance—thereby proving themselves to be one-issue-voters. In America, a good economy beats a royal flush. Clinton's approval ratings are at record highs, topping 70%.
Perhaps voters are taking St. Augustine's pre-conversion attitude: “God, help me to be chaste, but not yet.” While they denounce Clinton around the water cooler at the office, they can't condemn him when the pollster calls. Probably their own lives reflect their moral confusion.
What is the best response though, to this real-world soap opera? Marital fidelity, or lack thereof, is a good gauge of a politician's character, but such judgments are best made in the months preceding an election—not in the years following one.
We knew Clinton was “truth-challenged”—he is on record as giving conflicting statements about his draftdodging. We knew he had “caused pain in his marriage,” in his own words. We knew his charm covered a morass of vices. Yet, the American voters twice elected him president.
Some conservatives are hoping, and perhaps praying, that with two years left in his second term, Clinton will be forced to resign in shame.
Don't hold your breath though. If Gennifer Flowers didn't stop him from beating George Bush, Monica Lewinsky isn't going to keep Clinton from the Oval Office, unless it can be proven that he urged her to commit perjury on his behalf.
America is obsessed with sex—no doubt about it, but the biggest danger for our country doesn't come from Clinton's unhappy marriage. It comes from his bungling of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
The drums of war are beating. Russia and France seem to be lining up with a saber-rattling Iraq, while England and America make macho noises on the other side.
It seems a bit more important than Clinton's moral failings—but is anyone listening?
Kathleen Howley is a Boston-based journalist.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathleen Howley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Believe in Extraterrestrials? You'd Be Better Off Moonstruck DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:“Are we alone? …
Statistically, there is every likelihood that life has evolved elsewhere in the universe.” So it was claimed in the “Millennium Notebook” about “questions that stump scientists,” in Newsweek Jan. 19.
If one proposes the probability for the origin of life in the context of the question, “Are we alone?” it is right to shift the issue directly to another question: What is the probability that there are highly developed technological civilizations elsewhere in the universe?
In reality, it is very unlikely. Yet the media takes lightly—or simply ignores—eminent scientists who have expressed scorn for the idea that there are extraterrestrials able to communicate with us.
Ernst Mayr, the dean of American biologists, has said the federal funding of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) was a “deplorable waste of taxpayers’ money.” He had no choice. As a consistent Darwinist he had to regard the emergence and further evolution of life as a chance process. Therefore he had to view it as most improbable that evolution would repeat itself elsewhere and produce intelligent beings similar to us.
On a purely Darwinian basis, the Nobel laureate physicist C.N. Yang hit the nail on the head when, 30 or so years ago, he suggested that we must not try to answer any radio signal from another civilization. No other attitude is reasonable from the viewpoint of Darwinian theory, which offers no exception to a remorseless struggle for life with no quarters given. It is only in Isaiah's eschatological vision that a lamb lies down with a lion and a child plays with a viper.
Lessons from the Moon
One need not be an expert in the life sciences or in nuclear physics to realize that, instead of “every likelihood,” one should talk of a probability well nigh zero. It is enough to ponder the presence of the moon around the earth and be struck by it. This presence is unique in the solar system although there are scores of moons around other planets. The mass of the moon relative to the earth, its chemical composition remarkably similar to the chemistry of the earth's mantle, the moon's apparent size, its daily and monthly influence that produce the tides (all these make the earth-moon system unique in the solar system). It is sheer science to say that we earthlings live not simply on the earth but on the earth-moon system.
Today astronomers dealing with the origin of the moon accept the unlikely scenario of a glancing collision between the earth and a hypothetical celestial body called X. This scenario contains at least five independent factors, all rather unlikely. The body X had to have a mass 10 times the mass of Mars (Factor 1). The direction (Factor 2), the velocity (Factor 3), and the plane (Factor 4) of the motion of X had to be within very narrow margins so that our moon and our earthmoon system might be the result. Moreover, the collision had to occur within a narrow range of time during the formation of the Earth itself (Factor 5)!
If one now takes the probability of each of those factors for one in 10, or 10-1, which is a most conservative estimate, their combined probability is one hundred thousandth, or 10-5. Actually, it would be more accurate to say one in a million, or 10-6, because Factor 5 can hardly be given a greater probability than one in a hundred.
Ten thousand, or 10-4, is the typical figure given by supporters of SETI as the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy. This is the figure that Frank Drake supports in his latest evaluation of the Drake equation, which he first proposed in 1961. This figure is based on first taking the number of stars similar to our sun in our galaxy. Obviously only a fraction of such stars would have a planetary system around them. Only a fraction of such systems would have an earth-like planet. Only on some of these earth-like planets would life evolve and evolve in turn into higher organisms. And only a few types of these would reach high intellectual and technological levels.
So much for the way Drake and others have reduced the figure ten billion (the number of stars in our galaxy) to a mere ten thousand. But they have invariably disregarded the unlikelihood of the earth-moon system. Had they done so, they would have arrived at 10-2, the product of 10-4 and 10-6. This would mean that the likelihood of there being a single technological civilization other than ours in our galaxy is one in a hundred. This in itself would be a far cry from “every likelihood.”
The moon played a role not only in the evolution of purely organic life through producing the tidal basins. The moon also played a crucial part in the development of man's intellectual life. Suffice it to recall Aristarchus's measurement of the relative and absolute distances among the earth, the moon, and the sun. Without this measurement there would not have been a Ptolemaic astronomy. Without Ptolemaic astronomy there would be no Copernican astronomy; and without Copernicus, no Newton.
Yet Aristarchus's feat would not have been possible if the moon's apparent diameter in historic times had not been equal to that of the sun. Without the moon being where it is, as it keeps receding from the Earth, Newton could not have convinced himself that the celestial bodies obeyed the same laws of motion as did freely falling bodies on earth. In view of this the accidental fall of an apple on young Newton's head takes on a new significance.
In other words, before one waxes enthusiastic about extraterrestrials, one should be ready to be a bit struck by what the moon means to the earth. This would have been, of course, the duty of astronomers like Drake and others who are spreading the gospel of “every likelihood.” They assume without further ado that once there is life, there is intelligence, and once there is intelligence, there is science and advanced technology.
The history of science shows exactly the opposite. Science suffered a monumental stillbirth in all great ancient cultures, such as China, India, Egypt, Babylon (and Greece as well). None of them turned out to be the matrix for the formulation of Newton's three laws, the very foundation of exact science and technology.
Of those three laws, Newton formulated only the third, the force law. The second law (action equals reaction) he borrowed from Descartes. The first, the most fundamental, the law of inertial motion, was formulated by John Buridan, more than 300 years before Newton. And he formulated it in the context of his Christian belief of creation out of nothing and in time.
Christian faith, a unique reality on earth, is, of course, inconceivable without the Incarnation, another unique event. Let us, however, consider here improbabilities unrelated to religion. Buridan might have perished in the Black Death of 1349 that claimed one-third of Europe's population and ravaged Paris too. There would be no Kepler's laws, the very foundation of Newtonian physics, if Tycho Brahe (a 16th century Danish astronomer) had lost not only his nose in a duel, but also his eyes. There would be no Newtonian system, if young Horrocks, the author of the first readable account of Kepler's laws, had died not at the age of 21 but at 18. Geniuses, let us not forget, cannot be had on order, like so many take-out lunches.
So much for some very narrow escapes for science, which had many more such escapes that would be listed in any non-triumphalistic account of the its history. Their combined improbability might easily reduce the one-hundredth probability to one-millionth, or perhaps to one-billionth, or even less. In other words, instead of talking blithely of “every likelihood,” one might say that the probability of finding at least one group of technologically accomplished extraterrestrials in our galaxy is utterly minimal on the basis of what we know and not what we may imagine in brazen disregard of the facts.
But this is not yet the whole of the advisability of letting oneself be a bit moonstruck first, before speculating about extraterrestrials. The moon, as anyone can find out with good binoculars, is pockmarked everywhere (even more so on its far side). There one of the largest craters (about 12 miles in diameter) is called Giordano Bruno. It now seems certain that it was caused by the impact of a huge comet or meteor.
Furthermore it is possible to date that event with fair certainty. It is known that the longitudinal free librations of the moon are slowing down (being dampened). Since they could not have a starting magnitude above a certain maximum value, the past history of those librations can be estimated. This work was done by the astronomer J.B. Hartung in 1976, and further refined by O. Calame and J.D. Mulholland, who utilized the data obtained by the Luna 24 mission and by laser range observation. Their conclusion was that those librations could not have started much earlier than about 800 years ago. They also pointed out that the impact of a huge meteor just beyond the edge of the moon must have started those librations and that the fiery explosion produced by the impact might have been seen from the earth.
A Medieval Record
Somehow those two astronomers learned about a strange detail in the famed Chronicles of Gervase of Canterbury, concerning the night of June 18, 1178. They quickly saw that 800 years lead one back, more or less, to that year. On that night, Gervase, the best medieval chronicler of England, and at least five others saw that “the upper horn of the New Moon suddenly split in two and from the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out fire, hot coals, and sparks to a considerable distance. Meanwhile the rest of the moon's body became, so to speak, anxiously twisted, and convulsed as if it were a snake, to use the words of those who reported this to me as something that they saw with their own eyes. After that the moon returned to its normal state. This vicissitude was shown by the moon more than a dozen times, namely, that it sustained, as if drunken, various fiery torments and returned again to its normal shape. After these vicissitudes the moon became sort of blackish from horn to horn. These things, which I am writing, those men, who saw them with their very eyes, were ready to confirm under oath, namely, that they added nothing false to the details given above” (cf. 1879 English edition, vol. 1, p. 276).
But suppose that the comet had arrived a bit later and instead of hitting the moon it had crashed into the earth. Had it hit the earth somewhere in Western Europe, it would have extinguished the nascent university system and would have snuffed out the very medieval beginnings of modern science.
Only those who are able to see the hand of Providence behind the moon's posing as a shield for the earth have nothing to fear. The immensity of outer space opening up in the 17th century frightened, as Pascal well put it, only the libertines, the “free thinkers” of his time. The terribly catastrophic character of cosmic space as it is coming into view today, should seem hopelessly terrifying only for those who have nothing to see beyond those cosmic vistas. Today they dream about extraterrestrials, because they are afraid to be alone. Rather they should be ready to be a bit moonstruck, and do so in the name not so much of religion, but of plain science. They might then even notice that, beyond science, revealed religion looms large as its saving grace.
Father Jaki, an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, writes from Princeton, N.J. He received the Templeton Prize in 1987 for his many writings on faith and science.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stanley Jaki ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Looking to a Spiritual Ally in the Struggle for Life DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Last fall, the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care and the Archdiocese of Portland organized a day-long symposium on physician-assisted suicide in anticipation of Oregon's referendum on whether it should be legalized. The odds were against a prolife victory and, regrettably, they held on that November election day. Oregon thus earned the sad distinction of becoming the only jurisdiction on earth that legally sanctions physicians to help patients kill themselves.
In the Providence of God, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the great champion of all vulnerable life, died just before the symposium. The bishop administrator of the Portland archdiocese at the time, Bishop Kenneth Steiner, aware of the great odds against the pro-life position in the physician-assisted suicide debate, and confident in the power of the prayers of the saintly nun of Calcutta, opened our symposium by asking for her blessing.
Throughout the Church's history the faithful have always turned to those of heroic virtue after their death, to invoke their prayers. Bishop Steiner's eloquent words serve as a moving tribute to a saintly woman who lived a remarkably Christ-like life. Mother Teresa, as did our Lord, poured out her life for others. I also believe the bishop's prayer can serve as an inspiration to those involved in the pro-life struggle.
It seems particularly appropriate to share his words with a wider audience as we mark the 25th anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court rulings that removed the nation's protection of the unborn and laid the groundwork for the euthanasia movement. The struggle for life continues to become ever more intense, and the odds against the pro-life movement seem ever greater. We must use every means at our disposal to restore respect for innocent life in our society; prayer, fasting, publishing, research, political activism, assistance to mothers in distress, and assistance to their babies. We should certainly never forget our allies in heaven who stand before God's throne.
Bishop Kenneth Steiner's invocation of the prayers of Mother Teresa:
“Mother Teresa, saint of the slums, patroness of the dying, lover of God and his people, servant of the poor, healer of bodies and souls, Missionary of Charity, pray for us.
Mother Teresa poured out her life for others.
Mother Teresa, teach us to care for each and every person in the name of God, who created all in his image and likeness, in the name of Jesus, who suffered and died that all might come to eternal life.
Mother Teresa, teach us our true dignity as children of God, that we may bring dignity and grace to all as you have … the dying, the elderly, the suffering, the disabled, the poor, the children, the lepers, the AIDS victim, those without faith or hope, the unwanted and unloved.
Mother Teresa, aid us in offering faith and hope to the sick, not assisted suicide; aid us in offering peace and joy to the dying, not encouraged suicide; aid us in providing true dignity to the weak, not forced suicide; aid us in giving the love of Jesus to all, not the means of death; aid us in offering a loving community to those facing death alone.
Mother Teresa, you said:
‘The fruit of silence is prayer.’ Teach us to pray.
‘The fruit of prayer is faith.’ Help us to believe.
‘The fruit of faith is love.’ Guide us to love.
‘The fruit of love is service.’ Strengthen us to serve.
‘The fruit of service is peace.’ Lead us to peace.”
Dr. John Haas is president of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care in Boston, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Haas ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'In Theology, Objectivity is a Coin with Two Sides' DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:The widespread establishment of theology departments and graduate programs in theology by Catholic universities since the mid-1960s has carried with it some negative consequences, according to a prominent Jesuit theologian.
Jesuit Father Joseph Lienhard, professor of theology at Fordham University in New York City, made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview with the Register on the history of Catholic theology programs in America and the current state of affairs.
According to Father Lienhard, unlike European universities in which theology has historically been one of the four major faculties (the others are philosophy, medicine, and law), the much younger American Catholic universities did not always have such a formal program.
Students were given religious instruction as part of their education, but up until about the time of Vatican II, few American Catholic universities had departments of theology. Religion courses, mainly in catechism and apologetics, were taught primarily by priests and religious who often did not have any particular training in it.
In the years that followed, however, the change was rapid, partly as a result of the postconciliar changes that swept the Church.
“To my knowledge the Council didn't mandate it, but with growing awareness of reflection on things Catholic, I suspect religion teaching was seen as not meeting the intellectual needs of the students or not presenting Catholicism in perhaps as intellectually rigorous a fashion as one might expect,” Father Lienhard said.
As the new departments were founded, and faculty with academic training in theology were hired, “it raised the whole level of teaching of religion,” to that of the other departments in the university, he said. At the same time, graduate programs, especially doctoral programs, were begun at several universities.
Today, five Catholic universities in the United States offer a full range of doctoral studies in theology: Fordham, Boston College, Marquette University, The Catholic University of America, and the University of Notre Dame.
“This meant that for the first time, lay people—including women—could get doctorates in theology,” Father Lienhard said. “Before that, it was restricted to clergy for the most part. It was a very small beginning, they were feeling their way.”
‘Professionalism’: Pros & Cons
However, the rapid development of the theology programs brought changes that were not always completely positive, Father Lienhard said.
“I'm not sure people saw it at the time but certain consequences have followed [the establishment of theology departments and granting of graduate degrees],” he said. “Departments of theology have become ‘professional,’ and I use that term with quotation marks; it has strengths and weaknesses. Faculty sometimes want to insist on the objectivity of their teachings, in a way seeing themselves as teaching as objectively as the faculty in physics or mathematics. Whereas in theology, that objectivity is a coin with two sides. If you define theology as faith seeking understanding, then theology will have an element, namely faith, that physics or mathematics at least on the surface doesn't seem to have.…”
“Moreover, the faculty in theology have now been fitted into the process of tenure and promotion—namely publication, peer review, professional societies, and so on. Again this has resulted in some strengths and other weaknesses. Furthermore, especially with the decline in the number of priests and religious, the faculty is, in most places, a majority of lay people.… This is not to say that every priest and religious are totally committed and every lay person is not. That would be simply wrong. But this is moving away from an ecclesiastical atmosphere into something that is a bit different.”
Another unfortunate, though understandable, development has been that many doctoral programs founded recently in the United States were not immediately strong programs, he added. Protestant and former Protestant universities often had divinity schools with research degree programs that were considered much more prestigious than their Catholic counterparts.
When the Catholic programs were founded, according to Father Lienhard, “The purpose then was to provide the large number of Catholic colleges in this country with a wellqualified faculty. And in general we succeeded, and I think succeeded rather well. But these were not research degrees. We were preparing college teachers, not researchers.
“The reputations of the other programs—Harvard, Yale, Princeton come to mind—saw themselves as preparing researchers. So one result is that prestige still attaches to these degrees that does not attach to degrees from Catholic institutions. We have many Catholic faculty trained in Protestant programs and significant numbers of Protestants hired by Catholic institutions, the criterion being training and research and prestige of the degree. There's surely a risk here that these Catholic programs are going to lose their distinctly Catholic identity and be dissolved into more generic Christian programs.”
The Bronx-born Jesuit points out that Jesuit Father Matthew Lamb of Boston College has warned in his writings that among the faculty at these Catholic institutions, an overwhelming number prepared their dissertations on 19th- and 20th-century figures.
Few dissertations are being written on Aquinas or the early Church, according to Father Lienhard, who specializes in the latter. In addition, knowledge of the ancient languages, namely Latin and Greek, is declining.
“[Father Lamb] is concerned, and I think rightly, that knowledge of the fullness of the Catholic tradition is being lost, sensitivity to Catholic questions is declining,” according to Father Lienhard. “Perhaps on the good side, one fine result has been a much better knowledge of Scripture, and the quality of Scripture courses being taught is, to my knowledge, clearly higher. In this area, Catholics have made a significant contribution; Catholic scholars command attention.”
Theology or Religious Studies?
A current bone of contention in Catholic universities is what to call the department—theology or religious studies. Passions are strong on both sides.
“Those words have real meaning packed behind them,” Father Lienhard said. “At Fordham and Marquette, we still use ‘department of theology.’ Other places have used religious studies, which, again, is in line with this quest for academic objectivity. Many secular and even state universities have departments of religious studies.”
While religious studies is the objective study of religious beliefs, “departments of theology in general by the name, still imply a kind of faith commitment. One reason is that, while it is applied to many different religious traditions, theology as such probably best describes Christian reflection on faith. One can speak of Jewish theology, but it is a different sort of thing.”
Father Lienhard entered the Society of Jesus in 1958 and was ordained in 1971. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Freiburg in Germany. From 1975 until 1990 he served on the faculty of Marquette University. He has been at Fordham ever since.
The same year he began at Fordham, the Vatican released its Ex Corde Ecclesiae document, which is intended to define Catholic universities’ relationship to the Church. The document invokes a canon law that requires theologians teaching at Catholic universities to have the approval of the local bishop.
Though the American bishops are still finalizing their guidelines of compliance with the Vatican document, many theologians have felt threatened by it. Father Lienhard is not among them.
“It seems to me that on a very basic level, we're talking about truth in labeling,” he said. “If we tell parents and alumni that a place is a Catholic university, that word should have some meaning. We shouldn't be able to substitute some other word and have the documents work just as well. If the mission statement contains the word Catholic, as I certainly hope it would, or a confession of the existence of God or our savior Jesus Christ, this should make a difference.…”
“Ex Corde Ecclesiae doesn't disturb me personally. On the contrary, from my priesthood I certainly identify with an institution, namely the Catholic Church. And I would be honored to be recognized by the Catholic Church as a Catholic theologian.”
Dennis Poust, a National Affairs Correspopndent for the Register, writes from Austin, Texas
----- EXCERPT: A prominent Fordham University professor finds positives and pitfalls in the theology programs that proliferated in the United States after Vatican II ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dennis Poust ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: From Hermitage to Magnet For the Multitudes DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:What began as a small hermitage in the forests of Switzerland has since blossomed into one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in all of central Europe. Home to a saint, a beloved Black Madonna statue, and a Benedictine monastery, Our Lady of Einsiedeln shrine welcomes more than 200,000 pilgrims from around the world every year. Situated amidst green pastures, dense forests, and picturesque mountains, the village offers not only a spectacular place of pilgrimage, but also some of the country's most beautiful scenery.
The shrine of Our Lady of Einsiedeln is said to date from the ninth century. According to legend, St. Meinrad, a monk from one of the local Benedictine monasteries, built for himself a hermitage in the wilderness where he could lead a life of prayer, contemplation, and penance. For more than 20 years he persevered in this lifestyle on the slopes of Mount Etzel. During this time, his reputation as a holy hermit became well known by all the villagers who lived near the mountain.
On the night of Jan. 21, 861, tragedy befell the old monk. Two thieves murdered him in hopes of finding jewels or ornaments in his hermitage. When they tried to escape, two raucous ravens—who were known to reside at the saint's hermitage—followed the robbers into town. The commotion led to the apprehension of the two suspects.
Soon after, Meinrad's cell became a place of great pilgrimage as many visitors attested to the spiritual favors received through the Virgin Mary's intercession at the site. In 940, a few Benedictine monks turned St. Meinrad's small hermitage into a chapel—naming it Lady Chapel. Then, less than 80 years after St. Meinrad's death, a new Benedictine monastery was erected enclosing the chapel.
The beginnings of the pilgrimage to Einsiedeln could well be bound up with the spread of the legend of the “Miraculous Consecration.” Christ himself is said to have consecrated the Lady Chapel on Sept. 14, 948. The local bishop who was to perform the traditional ceremony had a vision in which the church was filled with a brilliant light as Christ approached the altar. The next day when the bishop went to perform the consecration, he heard a voice saying that it had already been divinely consecrated. Sixteen years later Pope Leo VIII confirmed the miraculous event in a papal bull. The deposition of the bishop, dated 948, is still intact and preserved at the abbey.
The earliest authentic record of pilgrimage to Einsiedeln's abbey is a letter written in 1337 by a knight. The foundation of the Pilgrim's Hospital in 1353 testifies to the pilgrimage's popularity several years later. The shrine was a thriving center until the time of the Reformation when pilgrimages dropped off sharply. However, in subsequent years this trend was reversed as more than 100,000 pilgrims began arriving at Einsiedeln in 1680. Ever since, the abbey has evolved into one of central Europe's most famous places of pilgrimage.
Today, the monastery remains as active as ever. Along with accommodating visiting pilgrims, the monks continue with their daily duties, including prayer, studies, scholarly research, and raising horses—for which they are famous. Central, however, to the abbey is the celebration of religious services. Through the centuries Einsiedeln has retained its processions, solemn liturgies, and tradition of sacred music. Every morning at 7:30 the monks concelebrate Mass, with the Latin texts sung in Gregorian Chant. At 4:00 p.m., the Latin Vespers are sung, with the inclusion of the famous procession to the Lady Chapel to sing the Salve Regina, a tradition uninterrupted since 1817. At 8:00 p.m., the monks gather again in the upper choir to sing the Latin Compline.
Of great interest to pilgrims inside the abbey church is the much-venerated Black Madonna statue. Once used as an altarpiece by St. Meinrad, today it serves as an object of devotion for the thousands of visiting pilgrims. Through the centuries, thousands of miracles have been attributed to Our Lady of Einsiedeln's intercession at the chapel. It is the focal point of pilgrimage at the shrine today.
Major pilgrimage days at the abbey include the feast of the Miraculous Consecration (Sept. 14), the feast of Our Lady of Einsiedeln (first Sunday after July 16), the feast of Mary's nativity (Sept. 8), the solemnity of the Assumption (Aug. 15), and the solemnity of the Ascension.
Requests for guided tours of the monastery are provided when possible. An impressive narrated slide show on the abbey has also been prepared, and it is shown daily (except between Nov. 1 and April 30, when it is shown on Sundays only). Every summer, organ concerts also take place, making for an unforgettable experience in the atmosphere of the splendid abbey church.
The village of Einsiedeln is also home to several spectacular works of religious art. The Diorama Bethlehem is the world's largest nativity scene with more than 500 carved wooden figures, and the Panorama is a circular painting more than three hundred feet long and thirty feet high of Jerusalem and the Crucifixion scene. Both are within a short walking distance of the abbey.
The city is located 2,700 feet above sea level, and is south of Lake Zurich. Because of an alpine climate, the village has snowy winters and cool summers. Along with visiting the shrine, one can spend some time hiking in the nearby hillsides. It is also noteworthy that every five years in the summer, Einsiedeln holds the formidable production of The Great Theater of the World, a religious drama. More than 600 villagers act in the event. Pilgrims will have to wait five years to see it, as the drama was most recently produced this past summer.
Einsiedeln is easily accessible by road, bus, and train. From Zurich, take A3 motorway eastbound (in the direction of Church) past Wädenswil to the exit indicated for Einsiedeln and Schwyz. Turning south, at about four miles you will reach the Biberbrugg crossroads. Turn left here for Einsiedeln. The town is about three miles off highway 8 between Schwyz and Rapperswil.
By rail, there are direct trains to Einsiedeln from Zurich, St. Gallen, and Lucerne. From Schwyz, you can take the scenic “back route” in the summer. Einsiedeln is also accessible by bus from nearby cities; however, the train service is often much more convenient and efficient. The monastery is a short 10-minute walk from the train station.
For more information on the shrine or accommodations, contact: Einsiedeln Tourist Office, Postfach 542 8840, Einsiedeln, Switzerland; tel. 011-055-41844-88; fax 011-055-418-44-80.
Kevin Wright writes from Bellvue, Wash.
----- EXCERPT: A thousand years ago it was a place where St. Meinrad lived an ascetic life-and was murdered. Today, Switzerland's Our Lady of Einsiedeln is one of Central Europe's most popular pilgrimage sites. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Wright ----- KEYWORDS: Travel ------- TITLE: Washington Goes Hollywood DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Life sometimes imitates art, or in this case, Hollywood. The recently released Wag the Dog depicts a president faced with a sex scandal who manufactures a military crisis abroad to save himself. Sound familiar?
Few people believe, however, that President Clinton has provoked a confrontation with Iraq to divert attention from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and Saddam Hussein has been a bad actor ever since the Gulf War. Moreover, as of press time, the American public seems willing to ignore the moral implications of Clinton's carnal adventures as long as the country remains prosperous. Nevertheless, the parallels between the movie and real life are chilling, particularly the way in which Wag the Dog presents scandal-fueled, media feeding frenzies and their unscrupulous manipulation by spin doctors.
In the movie, a popular president, whom we never see, is 11 days away from a re-election landslide. But rumors surface about his affair with a teenage girl. The Washington Post is planning to run the story, and the opposition is preparing TV ads that feature shots of the White House accompanied by the music of Thank Heaven for Little Girls.
To avert disaster, the president calls in expert dirty trickster, Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro). With his shaggy beard and floppy hat, he is a dead ringer for long-time Reagan operative Lyn Nofziger, but director Barry Levinson (Diner and Bugsy Siegel) and screenwriters Hilary Henkin and David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross) are careful not to peg him as either Republican or Democrat. He is modeled on a certain kind of political consultant found in both parties, for which Clinton adviser Dick Morris and Bush organizer Lee Atwater are equally good models.
Brean's marching orders are to focus the American voters on something other than the mushrooming scandal for the next 11 days. His inventions don't have to have any truth to them, they merely have to seem plausible—until election day. All his work is to be conducted deeply undercover, and any connection to the campaign must be denied. His only link with the White House and the president's other political operatives is high-level media relations staffer, Winifred Ames (Anne Heche), who helps him orchestrate his deceptions.
Brean realizes that the only thing that will keep a presidential sex scandal from being the lead story on every media outlet in the country is the prospect of war. So he concocts a threat to the United States in Albania, branding that tiny nation as “a staging ground for terrorism.” He's counting on the fact that most people don't know anything about the Balkan nation and those who do find its citizens “shifty and stand-offish.” Realizing that most of what Americans remember about wars are dramatic images and slogans, he hires a successful Hollywood producer, Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman), to manufacture a phony crisis that will play on television without any actual shots being fired.
Motss assembles a crack team to produce what he calls the “teaser.” It includes songwriter Johnny Green (Willie Nelson), costume designer Liz Butsky (Andrea Martin), and the Fad King (Dennis Leary), who specializes in creating popular trends. None of them has ever voted in a presidential election—although Motss volunteers that he always cuts his ballot in the Oscar races, and the Fad King once was involved with the selection of Major League Baseball's all-star team. Butsky explains she doesn't participate because she gets claustrophobic inside voting booths.
Using computer animators from the last Arnold Schwarzenegger epic, Motss creates hair-raising war footage on a bare Hollywood sound stage. When the president calls with suggestions, the producer treats him like a studio chief, complaining to Brean: “I hate it when they interfere.”
The media, of course, buys into this make-believe crisis without too many questions, and the sex scandal is forgotten. But the CIA discovers Brean and Motss'c on game and makes the president pull the plug. The election is still a week away, and the public could get wise.
This setback brings out the best in Motss.
“This is a walk in the park,” he reassures Brean.
He compares Hollywood producers to samurai warriors in their ability to overcome difficulties, reminding the political operative that he once completed a remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse even though three of the horsemen died before shooting was complete.
Motss goes on to manufacture a phony war hero (Woody Harrelson) and, when that turns sour, comes up with other imaginative diversions to fool voters and the media. The problem is that the producer doesn't want his successes to remain anonymous, and Brean must prevent him from taking credit publicly.
With his veggie shakes and perpetual tan, Motss is only a slightly over-thetop version of a certain kind of Hollywood producer. Yet despite his narcissism and continual self-promotion, he's a likable personality with a can-do spirit found in many big-time entrepreneurs in other fields.
The continuous use of profanity by the political operatives and tinsel town types in this comedy may be accurate, but it's unpleasant to listen to. Nevertheless, the message of this film is too important to ignore. The Hollywood-Washington connection, which began during the Kennedy era, has become such a prominent feature of our cultural landscape that at times politics seems to be just another branch of show business.
This trend has become particularly pronounced in the Clinton White House. TVsitcom producers are among the president's half-dozen best friends, and many of his top fund-raisers are Hollywood moguls. The entertainment business and the media have become crucial constituencies to him, almost as important as labor or blacks.
This sorry spectacle is not what the founding fathers had in mind. Many might argue that Wag the Dog is a satire and therefore, by definition, larger than life. But as our political leaders behave more like celebrities and less like statesmen, the movie begins to look as if it has the ring of documentary truth.
The USCC classification of Wag the Dog is A-III (adults). The film is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Arts & culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles, Calif.
----- EXCERPT: Wag the Dog is a delectable, biting satire. Or is it a documentary? ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Norton ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: FILM Clips DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:February is Black History Month. In recognition, following are VHS videocassette reviews of movies with black themes from the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) Office for Film and Broadcasting.
Black Orpheus (1959)
Vibrant intercultural feast updating the Greek myth to Rio de Janeiro where trolley driver Orpheus (Breno Mello) accidentally kills his beloved Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) while trying to protect her from a stalker costumed as Death and, after a religious cult fails to revive her, he sets out with her body for burial until another fatal accident intervenes. Directed by Marcel Camus, the appealing leads are supported by a spirited cast who play out the mythic tragedy amid the gaiety of Rio's Carnival with its colorful parades of dancing bands, backed by a haunting music score and spectacular views of Rio's picturesque locales. Subtitles. Stylized violence, sexual situations, and innuendo. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. (Home Vision, $29.95)
Cry, the Beloved Country (1952)
Compelling British production of Alan Paton's story about bridging South Africa's racial divide as a black Anglican minister (Canada Lee) leaves his rural parish to seek his missing son in Johannesburg, finds him condemned to death for murdering the son of a white farmer, and the tragedy brings the two aged fathers together in mutual understanding and respect. Directed by Zoltan Korda, the location photography documents the oppressive conditions in the black slums bordering the city but the story's rich assortment of characters, including Sidney Poitier's pragmatic city curate, puts matters in a human context transcending racial differences. Stylized violence, sexual references, and justice questions. The USCC classification is A-II. The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. (Monterey, $69.95)
Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)
Fine adaptation of Alan Paton's novel set in 1946 South Africa where a black minister (James Earl Jones), whose son has killed a white man, reconciles with the victim's father (Richard Harris) in a story exploring the artificial barriers of racial differences. Director Darrell James Roodt emphasizes the human dignity of the characters, the equality of all in the sight of God and the injustice of a society based on racism. Restrained violence and sexual references in a justice context. The USCC classification is A-II. The film is rated PG-13. (Miramax, $19.99)
Glory (1989)
The story of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first black fighting unit raised during the Civil War, focuses on its enlightened white commander (Matthew Broderick), who molded field hands and runaway slaves into proud, heroic Union soldiers. Director Edward Zwick raises consciousness about the little-known regiment and re-creates some harrowing battle scenes but, unfortunately, gives shallow attention to the themes of racism and the obscenity of war. Stereotyping of key black characters, much grisly wartime violence, and some profanity. The USCC classification is A-III. The film is rated R. (Columbia TriStar, $19.95)
The Joe Louis Story (1953)
Movie biography in which a sportswriter (Paul Stewart) recalls how Louis (Coley Wallace) was guided in his early boxing career by a talented trainer (James Edwards), then became the world heavyweight champion (1937-49) and retired undefeated, until making a sadly futile attempt to regain the title. Directed by Robert Gordon, the dramatization simplifies much, touching on racism chiefly in Louis's two bouts with Germany's Max Schmeling, but by intercutting newsreel footage of Louis in the ring, the result is a convincing tribute to a great prizefighter and a leading African-American of the era. The USCC classification is A-I. The film is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. (Nostalgia, $19.95)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: What Kind of Ban for Human Cloning? DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:With a Chicago physicist's threat to clone a human still fresh in their minds, Republicans and Democrats in Washington are scrambling to introduce legislation restricting or banning human cloning. According to pro-life sources though, only one of the two proposals pending in Congress would really stop human cloning.
Ever since a Scottish scientist introduced “Dolly” to the world, the debate about cloning has raged. Last year's appearance of Dolly, a cloned sheep, precipitated a plethora of ethical questions about the legitimacy and acceptability of cloning in general, but specifically the cloning of human beings.
Now the controversy about human cloning has reached Congress where Republicans and Democrats have introduced two major pieces of legislation aimed at stopping human cloning, at least for the next few years.
Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) and other Republican leaders want human cloning banned permanently and without exception. Armey—flanked by leaders from the Christian Coalition and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops—introduced a bill Jan. 29 that would definitively ban all forms of human cloning.
“Creating multiple copies of God's unique handiwork devalues human dignity and turns children into mere ‘products’ of adult whims,” Armey said at a press conference unveiling his proposal. “That path leads to designed children, organ farms, and a growing disregard for the sanctity of human life.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) doesn't want to go as far as Armey. She and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced their own legislation Feb. 2 that would prohibit human cloning for 10 years. Their bill would allow scientists to engender a new human being, but ban placement of the clone into a woman's womb.
The pro-life response was swift and severe. In a Feb. 5 letter addressed to all members of the Senate, Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, decried the Democratic senators’ overture.
“Under the Kennedy-Feinstein proposal, it would be perfectly legal to create cloned human beings and use them as subjects for harmful experimentation.… [I]f it is learned that a ‘researcher’ plans to actually implant living human embryos into women's wombs, federal authorities must step in to ensure that every embryo dies.”
As the human cloning debate goes forward, pro-life groups and Catholic observers remain concerned. While many elected officials may talk of “banning” human cloning, they say, only the Republican version would accomplish that goal.
“It's very likely a bill will pass and be signed into law,” said John Haas, president of the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care, a 25-year-old medical science research center based in Boston. “I hope and pray it will be the Republican version and not the Kennedy-Feinstein version.”
Haas, who testified last year in front of a Senate committee studying human cloning, was quick to point out that the language in the Democratic bill doesn't permanently ban human cloning and would allow scientists to mass-produce live cloned human embryos—as long as the embryos are not implanted.
“The Kennedy-Feinstein bill simply doesn't prohibit human cloning,” Haas said.
Gary Bauer, president of the pro-life Family Research Council, a Washington-based advocacy organization, agrees. He joined Armey at the press conference supporting the permanent ban on human cloning.
“Cloning threatens the very idea of human individuality,” Bauer said. “Human life begins at conception, and the cloning of human embryos is entirely unacceptable.”
While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have jumped on the issue, some are questioning if a strongly worded bill is necessary or warranted. Fertility doctors with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have publicly expressed concern about any legislation prohibiting human cloning. At a press conference in January, officials with the group called for a temporary ban while the ethical and moral issues of human cloning are “sorted out.”
That reasoning doesn't sit well with Paul Byrne, an Ohio physician who serves as president of the Catholic Medical Association and a member of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission (ABAC). He favors passage of the strongest human cloning prohibition possible.
“A strong message must be sent across our country because human cloning would be an aberration from natural moral law,” Byrne said. “If it occurs, we would no longer be a nation under God.”
After the sheep cloning, President Clinton established the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC). The NBAC, according to pro-life observers, is “stacked” with members who do not respect the sanctity of human life.
To combat any potentially undesirable recommendations from the NBAC, ethicists and physicians such as Byrne, abortionist-turned-pro-life activist Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Franciscan University of Steubenville professor Dr. Rhonda Chervin, University of Arizona College of Medicine embryology professor Dr. C. Ward Kischer, and others were gathered to form the American Bioethics Advisory Commission (ABAC)—offering an opposing ethical and medical view grounded in the sanctity of human life. The ABAC wrote the president last year urging him to “ban human cloning immediately, completely, and permanently.”
Interest groups are quickly lining up behind both proposals. The Kennedy-Feinstein proposal recently received the backing of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Christian and pro-life groups are lobbying hard for the Armey proposal, which is being introduced in the Senate by Sens. Chris Bond (R-Mo.), Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). Action in the Senate was expected as early as mid-February, but pro-abortion Democrats moved quickly to block consideration of the total ban on human cloning.
“We have the opportunity to do some good, but we also have an opportunity to do enormous harm,” Feinstein said Feb. 5 as she joined other Democrats to stop consideration of the GOP bill.
Feinstein and others claimed the outright ban on human cloning could slow the search for a cure to cancer, Alzheimer's , and other diseases. Republicans and pro-life leaders labeled the claim “ludicrous” and said animal cloning and other research would not be affected under the GOP bill.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) promised a February vote on the human cloning ban, which makes it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine to create a live, cloned human embryo.
Observers agree that some sort of bill prohibiting or restricting human cloning will emerge this session. What that bill will look like, and the real-world ramifications of such a law, will be determined in Congress in the coming weeks. Whether the bill is weak or strong, Clinton is expected to sign the measure.
“If the GOP bill passes, it seems unlikely that the president would not sign it,” said Haas. “The American people are overwhelmingly against human cloning and he does not want to appear to support it.”
Until then, pro-life leaders are calling Americans to rally around the legislative effort to ban human cloning completely.
“Public opinion polls in this country show nine out of 10 Americans oppose human cloning,” Bauer said. “It is our responsibility as a nation to pass a meaningful ban on human cloning.”
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Ind.
----- EXCERPT: Two bills are before Congress, but only one will really stop the practice ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel of Life DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:The contemporary scene, moreover, is becoming even more alarming by reason of the proposals, advanced here and there, to justify even infanticide, following the same arguments used to justify the right to abortion. In this way, we revert to a state of barbarism which one hoped had been left behind forever.
(Evangelium Vitae, 14.3)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Embryo Transfer: 'Surrogate Motherhood' DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:The standard embryo transfer procedure involves impregnating a volunteer (or paid) woman by artificial insemination with sperm from an infertile wife's husband. Five day's after conception, the embryo is flushed out (“lavaged”) and transferred to the infertile woman's uterus. The embryo may also be the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
In artificial insemination, the precursor to IVF, only the male gamete is isolated from the body. In the IVF procedure, both male and female gametes are isolated.
Embryo transfer takes this process one step farther: an embryo that is conceived (usually by artificial insemination) is removed and transferred to another woman.
“Surrogate motherhood” usually involves the artificial insemination of a woman with a husband's sperm if his wife is infertile or does not want to carry a pregnancy to term for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the surrogate is implanted with the couple's embryo after IVF. The surrogate receives anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 for carrying the child, and she relinquishes him to the contracting couple immediately after birth. This practice is sometimes called “Rent-a-Womb” or “mercenary motherhood.”
Interestingly most contracts between the surrogate and the husband and wife insist the surrogate abort the child if genetic tests show abnormalities unacceptable to the husband and wife—in direct conflict with the surrogate woman's alleged “right to choose.” Proponents of “surrogate motherhood” deny any infringement of rights, of course, because they say that the baby in question is mere property under contract.
In response to a question about whether “surrogate motherhood” is morally licit, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its 1987 document Donum Vitae (Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day) responded:
“No, for the same reasons which lead one to reject artificial fertilization: For it is contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person. Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity, and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world, and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological, and moral elements which constitute those families.”
Source: The Facts of Life: An Authoritative Guide to Life and Family Issues, by Brian Clowes PhD (Human Life International, Front Royal, Va.). Reprinted with permission.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Profile Looking After the Least of Her Brothers DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Ruthanne Donahue of Osceola, Ind., lives detachment and poverty better than many religious, according to one priest.
“She takes the ones that no one wants,” said Father Eldon Miller, pastor of Queen of Peace Church in Mishawaka, Ind., where Donohue is a parishioner.
Donahue is the biological mother of three grown children, but her motherhood hasn't ended there. She has adopted six special-needs children and is the foster mother of four more, according to her son Jim Donahue of Cambridge, Mass. Two children are blind, three have cerebral palsy, and one has Down syndrome.
When there is no room at the homeless shelter in nearby South Bend, she lets residents stay at her house. She also works with Catholic Charities, a shelter for battered women, a local crisis pregnancy center, the Red Cross, and the Salvation Army to offer shelter to the unfortunate in her 15-room house.
“She never says ‘no’ to anyone,” Jim Donahue, an MIT graduate and a doctoral candidate in chemistry at Harvard told the Register, explaining how that trait is both a strength and a weakness. (“Her three children are brilliant and extremely intelligent. They are probably as religiously committed as she is,” said Father Miller.)
As many as 140 families have lived in the house through the years, and there are usually 25-30 people living there at a time, according to Jim Donohue. Up to 45 people have stayed in the house. During one twoweek period every bed was filled and people slept on the floors in the hallways.
Father Miller, who became a priest in 1954, has known the 54-year-old Donahue since she was in third grade and describes her as “a close friend.” When the priest recently asked her if she was concerned that people might take advantage of her, Donahue told him, “I have 15 rooms. I can take care of that many people.”
“I'v e had a lot of situations where I thought ‘this is too much,’ she said. “But I always said ‘yes,’ because I didn't want to turn anyone away—and the person always found help or didn't come back.” Occasionally though, when someone cannot break out of a pattern of substance abuse, Donahue has had to turn them away.
She first became a foster mother in 1967, when an 8-year-old boy was abandoned by his parents after they left him in her care. Her husband didn't share her passion for helping people in need and the two were divorced early in their marriage.
“She is very prayerful and detached from material things,” said Father Miller, adding that Donahue has a “strong Catholic faith and lives the Gospel.”
Finances have long been touch and go for Donahue. She does not have a checking account, certain that God will provide for her financial needs. In 1992, a boarder stole Donahue's life savings, and since then, she has had to rely on God even more intensely, especially for unexpected needs, such as funerals and medical expenses, or to make charitable contributions, she said. Since she has always worked from her home, she does not qualify for Social Security benefits.
Still, Donahue lives debt-free and has put three additions onto her house. She has had a steady flow of income from the state due to her foster care.
Because Donahue has opened her heart and her home to children, other people have opened themselves to her. Parishioners at Queen of Peace give money to her through the parish, according to Father Miller.
Her boarders are an interesting mix. They include a 74-year-old woman who asked Donahue if she could live in her house after having been in a nursing home.
“She cusses like a sailor,” said Donahue. “She must weigh 60 pounds.”
Another resident, a young woman, is studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church with Father Edward O'C onnor, a Holy Cross priest from the University of Notre Dame, in order to make up for deficient religious formation.
Donahue claims she does nothing to attract Catholics, but said that “95% of the families coming here are fallenaway Catholics.”
Father O'C onnor, who has served as Donahue's spiritual director since her husband left her, often celebrates Mass in the house Saturday afternoons. The celebrations offer an in to those wanting to return to the Church, Donahue said.
She may never say “no” to someone in need, but the State of Indiana does not allow parents of 10 or more children to become foster parents, so Donahue allowed her foster home license to lapse. For the past seven years she has become more involved as a shepherding home for women in crisis pregnancies.
A man who came to Donahue with Father O'C onnor's recommendation, Jeff Swank, has served as a full-time assistant and a father figure in the Donahue house during the past seven years, Father Miller said.
“He helps take care of things,” the priest said, including repairs and homework with the children.
Of the 39-year-old man who has sacrificed his work as a carpenter to help, Donahue said, “He's not too proud to do whatever I ask of him.”
Though it's unlikely that the world would judge her a success, Donahue keeps a proper perspective by reminding herself from time to time of Mother Teresa's motto: “We'r e called to be faithful, not successful.”
William Murray writes from Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: Ruthanne Donahue, foster mother and caretaker of souls, opens her Indiana home to all in need ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Treating Preborn Children Like Property DATE: 02/15/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 15-21, 1998 ----- BODY:Canadian pro-life groups are renewing calls for Parliament to pass legislation protecting the unborn child as the country marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's striking down of the former abortion law.
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled Jan. 28, 1988, that the former abortion law conflicted with security of person guarantees in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under the old law, Canadian women seeking an abortion had to appear before a hospital therapeutic abortion committee. A panel of four doctors would then determine if continuing the pregnancy posed a risk to the woman's life or health.
“The system of therapeutic abortion committees doesn't comply with the principle of fundamental justice,” Justice Brian Dickson said in striking down the old abortion law.
The Canadian court ruling left the country with no restriction on abortion, and Parliament has since lacked the political will to enact new legislation. More than 1 million unborn children have been aborted in Canada since 1988. Approximately 100,000 abortions are performed annually in the country.
The Canadian anniversary comes just days after the 25th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in the United States that legalized abortion on demand.
“We call on Prime Minister Jean Chretien to restore full legal protection of the right to life in Canada immediately,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, Canada's leading pro-life organization. He described the Supreme Court decision of 1988 as “an unprecedented case of Charterbased judicial activism.”
Many pro-life, pro-family groups in Canada believe the Charter of Rights, enacted in 1982, gives the Supreme Court too much power in determining the constitutionality of legislation. Some say the Charter allows justices of the Supreme Court, who are appointed rather than elected, to bypass the will of Parliament.
Ten years ago Canada's Supreme Court opened the door wide for abortion
Hughes also criticized “the abortion industry” for hiding the truth as to the humanity of the unborn, and for its failure to report on the various risks associated with abortion.
The executive director of the Winnipeg-based Alliance for Life Association said the Supreme Court decision has left Canada a legacy of suffering and broken families. Michelle Lavergne called attention to the number of repeat abortions had by Canadian women and to the fact that the majority of abortions are committed for socio-economic rather than medical reasons.
Lavergne, however, expressed hope that the public perception of abortion has changed since the landmark ruling.
“There has been a change of heart because of the negative effects abortion has on women,” she said.
Other Canadian pro-life organizations believe the 1988 ruling has resulted in greater public sympathy for the unborn child in the womb.
“The decision reinforces the fact that children in the womb have no legal protection and are treated like property,” said Barbara LeBow of the Winnipeg-based Alliance Action group. “People never before involved in the pro-life movement are joining it because they recognize there is no genuine alternative to the traditional view that all human beings are persons entitled to full legal protection.”
Officials with the Toronto Right to Life Association took exception to the party-like mood with which the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) greeted the anniversary of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling.
“Abortion supporters intend to mark the anniversary with cake and champagne,” said June Scandiffio, president of Toronto Right to Life. “Rather than celebrating death, Canadians should take this opportunity to address the injustice and recommit ourselves to protecting the youngest members of the human family.”
Pro-abortion groups seized on the anniversary to celebrate what they described as a victory for reproductive choice. They urged the federal government to ensure easier access to abortion services throughout the country. Abortion services are readily available in larger urban centers, but some women in rural areas are required to travel long distances in search of an abortion.
CARAL has urged that training in abortion techniques be stressed at Canadian medical schools. At a Jan. 28 media conference, Canada's leading abortionist, Henry Morgentaler, announced the start of a new $25,000 fund to facilitate training of new abortionists.
Much of the justification for the call for stepped-up training of abortion doctors is based on the declining number of physicians willing to perform the procedure in Canada. Pro-abortionists claim that harassment by pro-lifers is a major factor in this trend. However, a 1997 study by the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Services found that “personal choice” was the number one reason for doctors opting not to commit abortion.
Many pro-life supporters believe doctors are turning away from abortion in droves because they find the procedure distasteful, and because they are more accepting of the humanity of the unborn child.
CARAL backed its demand for greater emphasis on abortion techniques by unveiling the results of a public opinion poll that found that more than 70% of Canadians support abortion as a private matter between a woman and her doctor. The poll was commissioned by the abortion rights group. Church and pro-life groups, however, were quick to dismiss the survey as biased and misleading.
“Abortion advocates are afraid to ask meaningful questions that would give politicians some policy direction,” said Joanne Hatton of the Edmonton, Alberta Pro-Life Alliance Association. “In the last 10 years, Canadians have paid for a million abortions,” Hatton said. “Women can have abortions for any reason and the procedure is legal until the moment of birth. Let's ask Canadians what they think of that.”
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Toronto, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Church's 'Definitive Teachings' Defended in Papal Letter DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:New document aimed at keeping dissenting theologians in check
VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II has issued additions to the code of Church law in a bid to safeguard the faith from dissenting opinion.
In an apostolic letter, Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Defend the Faith), the Pope said he was adding two items to the Code of Canon Law. This was necessary, he explained, “to defend the faith of the Catholic Church,” particularly when dealing with teachings that are “definitive” but have not been solemnly proclaimed as infallible.
The letter, issued June 30 along with a commentary by the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, is particularly aimed at theologians who use the Church's concept of a “hierarchy of truths” to justify selective dissent. The papal document enshrines into Church law an oath obliging theologians to accept teachings such as the Church's positions against women priests, euthanasia, and sex outside of marriage.
A top Vatican official told the Register, the apostolic letter is ultimately meant to protect ordinary Catholics from false ideas about doctrine.
“Some theological debate goes so far as to question definitions of the faith,” said Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). “The Pope reminds the faithful that the authenticity of these truths cannot be undermined.”
The document states the “ordinary Magisterium,” or the Church's teaching authority, can propose definitive teachings that require firm acceptance by Catholics.
According to the accompanying CDF commentary, “on questions of faith and morals, the only subject qualified to fulfill the office of teaching with binding authority for the faithful is the Supreme Pontiff and the college of bishops in communion with him.” Those who reject such teachings, it states, “would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
Archbishop Bertone explained the threat of disciplinary action is intended to bring the dissenter back into the fold.
“The new formulation of the canon presented in the Holy Father's Motu Proprio (done by the Holy Father exclusively) does not establish a specific penalty; it says the person must be admonished with a ‘just ecclesial penalty,’” the archbishop said. “Of course, one must keep in mind that the penalty has as its aim the correction of the error, and thus, a return to full communion within the Church and a full assent to the teachings of the Church.”
On a practical level, the new apostolic letter will bring little change. It can be considered a simple progression of events that began in 1989 with the requirement by the Pope that theologians and others take a solemn oath before they teach in the name of the Church.
Part of that oath is a profession of faith, during which a candidate for Church office such as a bishop, theologian, or papal collaborator reads the Apostles' Creed. Then, the candidate expresses a belief in “divinely revealed truths,” and those “definitively proposed by the Church regarding teachings on faith and morals.”
The candidate also promises to “adhere with religious submission of will and intellect” to teachings as enunciated by the Pope and the college of bishops.
Pope John Paul II's stated reason for now enshrining this oath into canon law was “to defend the faith of the Catholic Church from errors that arise on the part of some faithful, especially those dedicated to the discipline of sacred theology.”
The debate about dissent and how much can be tolerated among Catholics has been closely tied to the related discussion of a three-fold distinction of Church doctrines.
Truths contained in the Word of God and those teachings that the Church holds as divinely and formally revealed are in the first category. Those who “obstinately” doubt or deny the first category of truths fall “under the censure of heresy,” according to the CDF commentary.
Truths in the first category include everything in the Creed, the solemnly defined dogmas regarding Christ, the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the infallibility of the Pope and “the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being,” the doctrinal congregation said.
The second category includes dogmatic and moral teachings, “which are necessary for faithfully keeping and expounding the deposit of faith, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as formally revealed.”
Truths in the second category have a logical or historical connection to the truths in the first category, the CDF said. It gave several examples: Church teaching against euthanasia, the canonization of saints, the legitimacy of the election of the Pope, and the teaching that only men can be ordained.
The third category refers to other teachings of the Pope or of bishops that are not intended to be definitive. The congregation did not provide examples, but said such teaching deserves a “religious submission of will and intellect.”
Pope John Paul II's three-page letter and his changes to canon law deal only with the second category of Church teaching.
The CDF said every believer “is required to give firm and definitive assent to these truths, based on faith in the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Magisterium and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters.”
It said the fact that they have not been proposed as “formally revealed” does not diminish their authority, nor does it rule out the possibility that some day a Pope or a Church council will promulgate them at the higher level.
The question of the different levels of papal teaching authority came to the fore after Pope John Paul II's 1994 declaration that the Church cannot ordain women priests, and that this teaching must be held “definitively” by all Catholics. It marked a new, more authoritative use of the Church's ordinary teaching Magisterium.
In late 1995, Archbishop Bertone used the example of women's ordination to warn that fundamental Church teachings, even when not proclaimed as infallible dogma, must be definitively accepted by the faithful. He said bishops should use their disciplinary authority, including canonical norms, to protect the faithful from false ideas about doctrine.
With this latest papal document, bishops will have recourse to additional canonical norms.
In the commentary that accompanied t h e new apostolic letter, the Vatican said the ban o n women priests is an example of a Church teaching that, although not specifically dogmatic, is a doctrine that has been “set forth infallibly” and “constantly applied in the tradition of the Church.”
It said the same concept applied to euthanasia. Although nothing about euthanasia appears in the Gospels, Scripture “clearly excludes every form of the kind of self-determination of human existence that is presupposed in the theory and practice of euthanasia.”
Pope John Paul II has in the past called to task theologians who deviate from tenets of the faith. Most recently, Sri Lankan theologian Father Tissa Balasuriya OMI was censured for challenging papal authority and essential teachings. The measure was later repealed when he signed a profession of faith.
Other reprimanded theologians include Father Hans K∏ng of Switzerland and Father Charles Curran, barred in 1987 from teaching at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
Stephen Banyra writes from Rome
----- EXCERPT: New document aimed at keeping dissenting theologians in check ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spiritual Renewal and Reconciliation Will Mark Great Millenium Jubilee DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Church jubilees have always been very popular affairs.
In fact, if history is any guide, their genesis as a form of Christian piety arose, not from the deliberations of bishops and popes, but from the spontaneous demand off the Roman street.
Tradition has it that the first in the Church's series of 27 jubilees was inaugurated by a decree of Pope Boniface VIII in February 1300 after Roman crowds clamored beneath his windows for the granting of special indulgences “for the 100th year.”
According to the account of Jacobus Cardinal Cajetanus, an eyewitness, a rumor spread throughout Rome that everyone who visited the Basilica of St. Peter Jan. 1, 1300, would, on the performance of certain pious duties, receive a full pardon for sins. As a result, huge crowds of pilgrims flooded the city on the appointed day.
Boniface VIII's curia, however, could find no record of such a custom in the papal archives until, writes Cardinal Cajetanus, a 107-year-old Roman peasant was located who testified that his father had received such a benefit at the dawn of the previous century. Boniface then issued the bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio, authorizing a solemn jubilee for that year to the great joy of the Eternal City's swelling throngs of pilgrims.
Numbered among the nearly 2 million visitors to Rome that year were such luminaries as the poet Dante Alighieri and the Franciscan painters Giotto and Cimabue.
“Certain of the mercy of Almighty God,” the bull declared, “and founded on the authority of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, upon the advice of our brothers and in fullness of apostolic authority … we grant this year 1300 and all future centuries, not only the full and broadest but the most complete forgiveness of sins.”
Seven hundred years later, plans for jubilee 2000 already outstrip anything medieval Rome possibly could have conceived.
Marking the border between Christ-ianity's second and third millennia, Pope John Paul II has proposed an ambitious spiritual program of renewal and reconciliation in preparation for an occasion he has called “the Great Jubilee,” an event to be crowned with simultaneous celebrations in the Holy Land, Rome, and local churches throughout the world.
As he wrote in his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near): “One thing is certain. Everyone is asked to do as much as possible to ensure that the great challenge of the year 2000 is not overlooked, for this challenge involves a special grace of the Lord for the Church and for the whole of humanity.”
If hotel reservations, tourist agency bookings, and distraught urban planners are any indication, then Jubilee 2000 is already an unprecedented success.
According to Italian officials, about 23.8 million visitors are expected to descend on Rome during the jubilee year. Recent visitors to the Eternal City can attest that its famous fountains not only work, but look as fresh as they did when Bernini and other Renaissance and Baroque architects designed them. Virtually every historic building in sight is being treated to a face lift.
Popular hotels are reporting full bookings for the new millennium's first peak travel season.
In Israel, El Al, the country's national airline, has ordered new planes to accommodate record numbers of pilgrims in the year 2000, the first time that a Pope has designated the Holy Land as a jubilee year destination, and Catholic tourist agencies that cater to Holy Land-bound pilgrims report that year 2000 schedules are already filling up.
Even major European cities such as Paris that are off the usual pilgrimage routes are in the midst of costly spruce-up campaigns in anticipation of record millennial crowds.
But in all the bustle of external preparations for the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ, it would be easy for Pope John Paul's sense of the spiritual “challenge” of the Great Jubilee to be missed altogether.
Decades of Preparation
This despite the fact that the Pope has been articulating his vision of the event for nearly 20 years, since his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man) in 1979 where he called the time leading up to the year 2000 “a new Advent,” and in more detail in his 1986 encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem (On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World).
And despite the three-year program of preparation that the Pope, in consultation with bishops and the college of cardinals, put into place in 1994.
“Frankly, there is limited interest among U.S. Catholics in preparing for the millennium,” Paul Henderson, executive director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops'Secretariat for the Third Millennium in the United States, told the Register. “It really depends a lot on the diocese.”
The key, he said, is whether people “get the Holy Father's vision that it's an opportunity, a moment of evangelization,” or whether they see the millennium as “just another program they are supposed to implement.”
In any case, Henderson said, “we are so focused on the immediate as a society,” that, I'm afraid, many Catholics won't “wake up to the millennium until it's six months away.”
But what is the spiritual “opportunity” that the millennium affords?
Drawing on the biblical custom of the yobel, or jubilee year, named after the Hebrew word for the ram's horn that announced it, the Christian jubilee marks a time of redemption, liberation, and pardon.
According to the Old Testament, the biblical jubilee occurred every 50 years and had enormous religious, social, and economic ramifications for the people of Israel (cf. Lv 25:8-55; 27:16-25). During the holy year, fields were left fallow, slaves and prisoners were freed, land disputes and (according to some ancient sources) debts were settled. But the heart of the jubilee was its religious dimension: the opportunity the holy year provided for repentance, forgiveness, conversion, and renewal—a theme taken up by the prophet Isaiah who turned the jubilee into a symbol for the coming messianic age.
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor…” (Is 61:1-2).
Plans for the Jubilee
All these themes have traditionally been taken up by the Christian jubilee—even echoes of the Bible's social dimension. For example, in June, there were reports in Italian newspapers that Pope John Paul in his papal bull for the Holy Year, to be issued next November, will call on world governments to honor the millennium with “acts of clemency, indulgence, and amnesty.”
In addition, said Henderson, the American bishops are spearheading jubilee-inspired efforts in areas like ecumenism, ecology, world debt, the rediscovery of Vatican II, and year 2000 out-reaches to inactive Catholics.
But, like the Jewish jubilee, pardon and reconciliation stand at the heart of the challenge of the year 2000.
Defining the Great Jubilee as a year of the Lord's favor, the Pope writes that it is, “[A] year of the remission of sins and of the punishments due to them, a year of reconciliation between disputing parties, a year of manifold conversions and of sacramental and extra-sacramental penance.”
Hearkening back to the very first jubilee, he underlines that “the tradition of jubilee years involves the granting of indulgences on a larger scale than at other times.”
It's safe to say that the penance part of the jubilee package tends to be less attractive to the faithful at the end of the 20th century than it was to medieval Catholics whose realism about sin and confidence in the Church's power to pardon them inspired the jubilee tradition in the first place.
The traditional jubilee's focus on gaining indulgences—a practice widely, though wrongly, assumed by some Catholics to have disappeared from Church life along with the Latin missal—doesn't make it any easier.
“One of the key things,” said Henderson, “is to help people understand that the jubilee's call for repentance and reconciliation is linked to the opportunity it provides for making a new start—a new start personally and in the relationships we have, for having a new life. If that's going to happen, the Pope is saying, you'll need to make some changes.”
Indulgences 2000
On the indulgences issue, Henderson was circumspect.
“We're waiting to see what the Holy See does about indulgences,” he said.
Traditionally, before holy years begin, Popes issue a papal bull of indulgences, which gives specific conditions under which Catholics can receive a plenary indulgence—conditions that frequently include going on pilgrimage to designated holy places as well as faithfully receiving the Sacrament of Penance and taking Communion.
Pope Paul VI's 1967 apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina defines an indulgence as “the remission in the sight of God of the temporal punishment due to sins which have already been blotted out as far as guilt is concerned.” Consequences of sin remain to be purified, in other words, even after the sin has been forgiven, either here on earth or in the state called Purgatory. Providing the necessary conditions are met, the plenary indulgence granted during a jubilee year removes all temporal punishment due to sins that have already been forgiven.
With an eye to ecumenical sensitivities, “Rome,” said Henderson, “wants to study how indulgences are going to be presented.” Abuses related to the so-called “sale” of indulgences in 16th century Europe figure as one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation launched by Martin Luther.
Henderson indicated that a “reflection paper on indulgences,” commissioned by the bishops' subcommittee on the jubilee, will be circulated later this summer among the U.S. bishops.
“It's not an official document,” Henderson said, but it will attempt to address “some of the real misconceptions out there about indulgences,” and what they might mean for us today.
But the Pope's vision for the Great Jubilee embraces not only the reality of personal conversion, but the corporate one as well.
Referring to the “holy door,” the opening of which traditionally signals the start of the holy year, Pope John Paul writes: “The holy door of the Jubilee of the Year 2000 should be symbolically wider than those of previous jubilees, because humanity, on reaching this goal, will leave behind not just a century but a millennium.”
Urging that the Church cross the threshold of a new age conscious not only of the achievements of the past 10 centuries, but of its failures, the Pope encourages Catholics “to purify themselves, through repentance, of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency, and slowness to act.”
John Paul II has highlighted this whole dimension of corporate sinfulness, of corporate responsibility for the past, Henderson said. “Needless to say, we have not always been effective transformers of society, and we have to come to terms with that.”
However, said Henderson, “only a strong organization can admit that it has made mistakes and move forward. If we do this right,” if we can properly address historic failures and omissions, “even on the local level, it could be very powerful.”
Henderson indicated that, according to the latest jubilee calendar, Pope John Paul has identified two key days in the year 2000 in which the Church will publicly ask pardon for the sins of its members—Ash Wednesday and Tuesday of Holy Week.
But despite the tough challenges the Pope has set before the Church in the jubilee, Henderson remarked, “there's a wonderful spiritual synergy he's set up, a wonderful movement from repentance to Eucharist, from passion and death to resurrection.”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Tradition of 'broad forgiving of sins' dates to year 1300 ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Controversial Homosexuality Document Reissued with Revisions by U.S. Bishops DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:SAN FRANCISCO—The U.S. bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family has issued a revised version of Always Our Children, its controversial document addressed primarily to parents whose children possess a homosexual orientation, and to “pastoral ministers” who are often approached by parents or their children struggling with the issue. The document encourages parents to love and support their homosexually oriented children and not break off contact.
Critics, while generally agreeing with that objective, attacked the original document as muddled regarding Catholic moral teaching and unsound in some of the advice offered to parents and pastors.
When first released last October, the document generated strongly opposing sentiments. Warmly received by some, including homosexual advocacy groups such as Dignity, which rejects aspects of Catholic teaching on sexuality, Always Our Children was criticized by other groups supportive of Church teaching, such as Courage. Even many American bishops appeared divided. Some bishops praised the statement as a compassionate approach to homosexuality; others criticized it as insufficiently Catholic, with one prominent bishop even asking people to ignore or oppose it.
Though approved by the bishops' administrative board and widely reported in the media as the U.S. bishops' definitive statement on the subject, the document was not voted on by the full body of bishops, nor even discussed by them before its issuance.
U.S. bishops received the revamped version in a June 26 mailing, accompanied by a letter from Bishop Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix, chairman of the Committee on Marriage and Family. In the letter, Bishop O'Brien stated, “The core message, tone, and direction of Always Our Children remain the same as in the first printing. The modifications have been made in order to ensure the completeness and to clarify the intent of this pastoral statement.”
Sources familiar with the process have told the Register that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had communicated concerns about the original document to the bishops' conference and sought revisions of it. Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, consulted with the CDF and changes were made by the Committee on Marriage and Family, in collaboration with Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine. According to Bishop O'Brien, the CDF has “reviewed the textual modifications” and “is satisfied with the result.”
The revisions are modest in number—three substitutions, a deletion, an added paragraph, and two additional footnotes—but nonetheless substantive. Some modifications seem to address critics' concerns, though other criticized sections of the document are unaltered.
The original version told parents, “If your son or daughter is an adolescent, it is possible that he or she may be experimenting with some homosexual behaviors as part of the process of coming to terms with sexual identity. Isolated acts do not make someone homosexual. Adolescence is often accompanied by anxiety or confusion about sexual identity. Sometimes the best approach may be a ‘wait and see’ attitude, while you try to maintain a trusting relationship and provide various kinds of support, information, and encouragement.”
Some critics charged it is irresponsible to tell parents to “wait and see” about the possible homosexual orientation and activities of their adolescent children. They pointed to parental obligations to protect children from immoral and spiritually damaging behavior as well as potential physical threats such as sexually transmitted diseases.
The revised passage seems to reflect these concerns, even speaking of parental intervention regarding their children's behavior, when necessary:
“If your son or daughter is an adolescent, it is possible that he or she may be displaying traits which cause you anxiety such as what the child is choosing to read or view in the media, intense friendships, and other such observable characteristics and tendencies. What is called for on the part of parents is an approach which does not presume that your child has developed a homosexual orientation and which will help you maintain a loving relationship while you provide support, information, encouragement, and moral guidance. Parents must always be vigilant about their children's behavior and exercise responsible interventions when necessary.”
The original document was also criticized as ambiguous regarding the nature of sexual orientation. Some analysts said that homosexuality was presented as an unalterable, God-given aspect of one's personhood. According to the original version, “[I]t seems appropriate to understand sexual orientation (homosexual or heterosexual) as a fundamental dimension of one's personality.” This has been changed to “a deep-seated dimension of one's personality,” avoiding the inference that if homosexuality is a “fundamental dimension of one's personality,” it must be God-given and permanent.
Regarding homosexual orientation vs. homosexual acts, both versions maintain that the homosexual orientation is not itself a sin, but that “homogenital behavior” is “objectively immoral.” Moreover, homosexual orientation is said to be “experienced as a given, not as something freely chosen. By itself, therefore, a homosexual condition cannot be considered sinful, for morality presumes the freedom to choose.”
The amended version adds a footnote, a quotation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church's revised statement on homosexual orientation: “This inclination which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most (persons with the homosexual inclination) a trial” (2358). No explanation is given, however, of how this Catechism passage applies to the section it is cited in reference to.
On the subject of sexual orientation and discrimination, the revision appends a footnote to the following section from the original version: “Nothing in the Bible or in Catholic teaching can be used to justify prejudicial or discriminatory attitudes and behaviors.” The footnote adds, “In matters where sexual orientation has clear relevance, the common good does justify its being taken into account, as noted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Nondiscrimination of Homosexual Persons, 11 (1992).”
Yet the CDF document itself goes further than the footnote suggests, stating that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not always unjust.
“There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account,” it declares, “for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment” (11). It also states, ‘Sexual orientation’ does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect to nondiscrimination” (10) and that, “Including ‘homosexual orientation’ among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices.”
The original version of Always Our Children instructed “Church ministers” to “Use the words ‘homosexual,’ ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian’ in honest and accurate ways, especially from the pulpit. In various and subtle ways you can give people ‘permission’ to talk about homosexual issues among themselves and let them know that you're also willing to talk with them.” The revised version says only, “When speaking publicly, use the words homosexual, gay, and lesbian in honest and accurate ways.”
Interestingly, the revised document eliminates a passage from the Catechism. The original version quoted No. 2333 as, “Everyone … should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.” The quoted material preceded a discussion of God's gift of sexuality. The problem: the words “man and woman” were left out of the quotation, which in its entirety runs, “Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity” (italics added).
The “sexual identity” that everyone “should acknowledge and accept,” according to the Catechism, is being a man or woman. The emphasis of the text, in fact, is on the difference and complementarity of men and women, which are said to be “oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life.” But, critics argued, the abridged quotation left the impression that all forms of “sexual identity,” including homosexual orientation, are supposed to be acknowledged and accepted. Removing the quotation from Catechism No. 2333, as the revision does, eliminates such a misreading.
Finally, the reworked document adds a section on the Sacrament of Penance and conversion, taken from the Vatican's 1986 letter to bishops, On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons: “Furthermore, as homosexual persons ‘dedicate their lives to understanding the nature of God's personal call to them, they will be able to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance more faithfully and receive the Lord's grace so freely offered there in order to convert their lives more fully to his way’” (12).
Whether the changes to Always Our Children will satisfy its detractors remains to be seen. But at least one bishop highly critical of the original document declared, “Clearly, this is an improved text. I'm glad to see it.”
Mark Brumley writes from San Francisco.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Decency Standards for Arts Funding Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court upheld decency standards for federal aid to the arts before ending its 1997-98 term June 25. In an 8-1 decision, the Court appears to have placed certain funding parameters on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). But the agency, which has supported what many consider lewd and sacrilegious works, continues to thwart efforts to abolish it.
The surprisingly lopsided ruling in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley upheld a 1990 law that directed the agency to include decency among its criteria in making awards. Karen Finley, who has performed with chocolate enveloping her nude body, was joined by three other artists and the National Association of Artists' Organizations in challenging the law. The recent Supreme Court decision reversed a 1996 ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had declared the law unconstitutional.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in ruling that the law did not violate the First Amendment, wrote in the majority opinion: “So long as legislation does not infringe on other constitutionally protected rights, Congress has wide latitude to set spending priorities.”
The NEA was established in 1965, and since then has funded about 100,000 projects. Yet, the agency has come under fire for a number of awards in the last decade that have offended Catholics and others of faith.
Among the controversial projects that have been funded are homosexual photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and what many consider a profoundly sacrilegious painting by Andres Serrano.
The Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City, which is producing the notorious play Corpus Christi, also has received NEA funds. The play, although not directly subsidized by federal money, has outraged Catholics. Laced with profanity, the play portrays Jesus and the Apostles as a group of homosexuals. William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says this is “perhaps the most blasphemous play ever to appear on Broadway.”
In a Register interview, Jim Henderson, senior counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), characterized such art: “These things are done to offend and only to offend.” The ACLJ is a public interest legal organization founded by Rev. Pat Robertson.
Support for artists and organizations who favor such offensive work prompted congressional leaders to enact the 1990 law in an effort to curb flagrantly indecent projects. Not surprisingly, conservatives, in and out of Congress, were essentially encouraged by the recent Supreme Court decision.
House majority leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said, “I'm very pleased that the Supreme Court agrees that our government policies should reflect, not undermine, the values that have made America great—faith, family, personal freedom, and responsibility.”
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, said, “The winners here are the American people who are not going to have their tax dollars used to fund offensive projects under the guise of art. This is a major victory for common decency at a time when some groups argue that moral standards are irrelevant.”
The Catholic League's William Donohue added: “The Karen Finleys of this world who are bent on making a spectacle of themselves have every right to find private sources of funding for their depravity, but they have no constitutional lien on the public purse. In short, this is a victory for common sense, as well as decency, and it does absolutely nothing to endanger freedom of speech.”
Yet, concerns about the agency still exist. First, the law and the decision indicate only that decency needs to be considered; it does not require strict adherence to any discrete standards. Second, the subjective nature of art always leaves the issue of good taste potentially unresolved.
Jordan Lorence, a constitutional lawyer in Fairfax County, Va., told the Register, “What the Supreme Court did was not a bold decision. It was much weaker than it could have been.” He suggested that the concurring opinion offered by Justice Antonin Scalia was more on the mark.
Although voting to uphold the law's constitutionality, Scalia wrote: “Those who wish to create indecent and disrespectful art are as unconstrained now as they were before the enactment of this statute.”
For such reasons many NEA critics have been seeking to abolish the agency. “The real issue the Supreme Court should be addressing is not how the government funds the arts but whether it should be involved in that practice at all,” said Rep. Philip Crane (R-Ill.).
Robert Knight, cultural director of the Washington-based Family Research Council, added: “In a time of high taxes and swollen government budgets, when many families are hard-pressed to live on one or even two incomes, it is unconscionable to use tax dollars to fund art.”
Lorence added, “This [funding] is not essential to American life.”
The Heritage Foundation, another public policy organization in Washington, D.C., issued a background study on the NEA last year. In it, Dr. Laurence Jarvik listed 10 reasons to defund the agency. Among these are that the NEA subsidizes cultural elitists; reduces the standard of American art; squanders resources; encourages politically correct themes; shrinks charitable gifts to the arts; and simply cannot be reformed.
In addition, art funding in the aggregate would generally increase if federal support ends; eliminating the NEA would demonstrate that Congress discourages wasteful spending; and defunding would strike a blow for limited government while curbing pornography.
Despite these objections, the agency has proved to have remarkable staying power with Congress. In July 1997 the House of Representatives voted by a 217-216 margin to eliminate the NEA and, in turn, to provide appropriate block grants to the states. Similar legislation was turned back in the Senate.
On the same day the Finley case was decided, five moderate Republicans voted with Democrats in the House Appropriations Committee to fund the NEA at current levels. On a 31-27 vote, the committee reported out an appropriations bill that includes $98 million for the agency. It is expected that when the House reconvenes July 14, that two amendments related to NEA defunding will be offered on the floor.
The NEAhas said that $3.7 billion in federal funds has been provided to the agency during the past 34 years. Many would argue that some of that money has been improperly spent, even if they support the concept of federal support for the arts. The Finley case may help encourage greater restraint at the agency, but the future of the NEAis clearly in the hands of Congress.
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: Some NEA critics still calling for agency's dissolution ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Re-routed Protestant Parade Threatens Tenuous Irish Peace DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Nothing symbolizes the changes that have taken place in Northern Ireland more than the events of July 5. The region has had cease fires, devolved government, and promises of long-term peace before, but never in 150 years has the Orange Order been prevented from marching along their traditional parade route along the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
The order, a Protestant fraternity, stages thousands of marches in Northern Ireland every year. Most take place peacefully, but some are bitterly controversial and none more so than the parade from the Church of Ireland church at Drumcree each year on the first Sunday of July.
Nationalists, who are predominantly Catholic and who seek a united Ireland, see the parades as expressions of Protestant triumphalism, celebrating the privileged position they have enjoyed since the foundation of the Northern Irish state 75 years ago. (In general, Protestants enjoy better housing and employment prospects.) During parades, sectarian songs have been played by Orange bands, who sometimes describe themselves as “Kick the Pope bands.”
The order has moved to disassociate itself from sectarian elements, but memories are long in Northern Ireland and inter-community relations were not helped when, two years ago, the Orange Order's grand master, Robert Saulters, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair had been “disloyal to his religion” when he married Cherie Booth, a Catholic.
There are further signs that the order still has a long way to go to control unruly elements within its ranks. On the way to their prayer service at Drumcree July 5, members caused further tension shouting the name “Robbie Hamill” as they passed the Catholic Church off the Garvaghy Road. Robert Hamill, a Catholic youth, was kicked to death by a Protestant mob in May last year. His murder and similar attacks on Catholics in Portadown have made the Garvaghy Road residents and Catholics across Northern Ireland increasingly anxious about the annual Drumcree parade.
In the last two years, when the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland's police force, used truncheons and plastic bullets to clear Garvaghy Road residents off the parade route, there was widespread civil unrest in Catholic areas across the region.
This year, the parade was banned by the Northern Ireland Parades Commission, which was set up by Britain's new Labor government last year. The Commission's ruling had been postponed until late June, by Blair's order, to prevent it from influencing the outcome of the Northern Ireland referendum on the peace agreement and the elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Commission said the main reason for the ban was the refusal of local Orangemen to engage in any dialogue with the Catholic residents or their representatives. The order said they would not speak to Brendan Mac Cionnaith, chairman of the Garvaghy Coalition, because he is a former member of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which has been responsible for terrorism in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Mac Cionnaith said that in the past the order has also refused to speak to his predecessor, Jesuit Father Eamonn Stack.
In the week leading up to the parade date, hundreds of extra British troops were deployed to the Portadown area. Army engineers sealed off the route: digging trenches, building a steel wall fortified with freight containers lined with concrete, and laying out several miles of razor wire.
The security forces were criticized by Mac Cionnaith, however, for allowing more than 5,000 Orangemen to gather at the Drumcree churchyard. Shortly before 1:00 p.m., they paraded to the roadblock to offer a letter of protest. However, in a bid to avoid confrontation, the RUC remained behind the blockades. As the Register went to press, more than a thousand Orangemen were camped in fields around Drumcree vowing to stay there until the march is allowed to proceed. But the RUC's chief constable Ronnie Flanagan says that under no circumstances will he reverse the Parade Commission's decision.
One reason the RUC remain resolved in upholding the ban is that the force has been threatened with far-reaching reforms—even of being disbanded. At present, only 7% of officers are Catholic, despite the fact that Catholics make up more than 45% of Northern Ireland's population. If the RUC is to survive in its present form, the force must be seen to be upholding the law impartially.
So far, the Orangemen's protests have been peaceful. One reason for this is the widespread revulsion at arson attacks against 10 Catholic churches that followed the Parade Commission's announcement that the parade would be rerouted. Father John McManus, spokesman for the Down and Connor diocese, said that attacks on Catholic churches occurred regularly, “but this is the most concentrated attack to date.”
Bishop Patrick Walsh of Down and Connor said the attacks had been deliberately planned to heighten tension in the run up to the Drumcree parade. The attacks were condemned by Church leaders of all denominations and by the Orange Order's own grand lodge, which said it opposed attacks on all forms of religious freedom, including their right to walk along the Garvaghy Road.
Last year, the Orange Order voluntarily agreed not to hold another controversial parade along the mainly-Catholic Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast July 12. “The Twelfth” is a public holiday in Northern Ireland when Protestants celebrate the victory of King William of Orange over the Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Already, the Parades Commission has hinted it may allow the Lower Ormeau Road parade to take place, claiming that some of their forthcoming rulings would not favor the Nationalists.
The events of Drumcree this year will have long-term implications for David Trimble, the first minister of the new Northern Ireland Assembly. Trimble was involved in the 1996 stand off at Drumcree and when the march was allowed along the route, he led it. His role at that time helped secure his current leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party. Since then, he has become more of a moderate and faces much hostility from hard-line unionists for his role in brokering the peace agreement. Aprominent Protestant leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, has branded him a “traitor to Ulster.”
The Assembly held its first meeting July 1, with its only business to elect the first minister, deputy first minister, and speaker. How it will deal with more sensitive issues of Northern Irish politics remains to be seen.
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: Controversy linked to arson in 10 Catholic churches ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Battle for Normality DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Gerard van den Aardweg PhD
Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg is a Dutch psychologist specializing in the field of homosexual therapy. Van den Aardweg, the author of several books, including two on the topic of homosexuality, has lectured on five continents. He spoke with Register assistant editor Peter Sonski during a recent U.S. visit.
Sonski: Doctor, how did you begin specializing in homosexual treatment?
Van den Aardweg: Many years ago, I had to write something for a professor in my studies about the life of Andre Gide, a French novelist who received the Nobel Prize for literature. He was a homosexual and a pedophile. He was, in fact, the forerunner of all present homosexual emancipation movements. He had the tragic courage to publish books on his trends—memoirs and diaries—and novels with homosexual content and presenting it as a normal thing in the '20s in France. He liked to provoke. It was the little boy in him; he really was a little boy.
The pedophile is the most clear example of the child in the adult. These people never become grown up. As a matter of fact, in one of his diaries, Andre Gide said it of himself, “I will always remain a little boy who wants to play and he is not allowed to play by his Calvinist mother.” This emotional problem had been with him his whole life. He stayed a child.
Why do people want the notion to get across that homosexuality is inborn?
If they say it is inborn then we can more easily propagate the idea that it is normal.
Of course, inborn is not identical with normal, and acceptable, but the public at large would think that if it is innate, then perhaps it is true that there are two kinds of people: heterosexuals and homosexuals. That is an argument for a political goal of equalizing homosexuality and heterosexuality. They want to promote unnatural sex in order to undermine and profoundly alter the traditional idea of marriage and family. That is behind it all.
The homosexuality emancipation movement has always existed, but it has gained a lot of momentum in the last 20 years by being adopted by much more powerful movements—population movements. That is the only reason, because homosexuality, which is only 1.5% to 2% of the population, would not have been that important.
It seems to me that if it is innate, it also would be unchangeable—that it is a genetic quality that can't be undone.
That's the second point. You're absolutely right. Innate would mean another type of person. That's the reason I do not like the expression “the homosexual person.” It is well meant, meaning he is a person—a human person with homosexual preferences, but not a homosexual person.
A person is heterosexual. So the concept of personhood is not linked with sexual deviation but with sexual normalcy. Biologically, there is no homosexual person; there is only a heterosexual person who has a mal-development, whose sexual instincts did not develop into maturity.
Are there specific traits that are characteristic in virtually all homosexuals?
Yes. In the first place, there is the concept of neurosis, which means that homosexuality is not an isolated thing. It is a symptom of an inferiority complex, a male inferiority complex or a female inferiority complex. Neurosis is any emotionality that is not adequate given the circumstances. Typical of neurotic people is a high level of personal insecurity [as well as] inner conflicts, emotional conflicts, depressive traits, psychosomatic problems. Also, in their sexual life, the compulsivity of sex is neurotic. The relationships are not stable, mature.
The second trait is infantilism. In every homosexual you may discover what is called the child in the adult. That is, in part, in his emotional life. People with inferiority complexes remain, emotionally speaking, children. You may distinguish between the normal side of the personality—the adult side—and the immature side. The immature side you see very clearly in homosexuals, in areas that have nothing to do with sexuality. In the '50s, Edmund Bergeler wrote several books on homosexuality. He was a psychoanalyst [with] many, many homosexuals in treatment. He said that homosexuals remained in the teen age. Emotionally they are teenagers. And I think that is correct.
The third part, though connected with the other things, is the trait of augmented self-centeredness in thinking and feeling and acting. Self-centeredness. This is a very important trait that has to do with neurosis. You have to be self-centered, ego-centered, and more than on the average.
But we have a very narcissistic society. Does that contribute to the existence of homosexuality?
Our society is feeding narcissism that is already there, and, on the other hand, many people who influence our society, like some homosexual people, inject it with narcissism, with the narcissistic culture.
If people would realize to what degree we are influenced and to what degree the models of new trends of thinking and doing and behaving and lifestyles, are in fact models made by neurotic people, they would be astonished. So many deviant people determine too much in our culture. They stamp our culture. Committed homosexuals do not want to change themselves, but they want to change society. Therefore they inject a large measure of narcissism and ego-centric kind of thinking and being hard. Self-centeredness leads to being hard on other people. It leads to a diminished capability of loving.
I didn't mean to get you off track. You were talking about the different points. I think we were up to number four.
Yes. The fourth trait [is] the specific homosexual complex of not being able to identify normally with your maleness or femaleness—the so-called identity problem.
And where does that stem from? What is the root of that?
Children compare with other children. A boy may feel in this comparison, or conclude for himself, “I am less boyish”; “I am not so sturdy”; “I'm not a sportsman”; “I'm not popular”; “I am a weakling”; “I have no daring.” These are all shades of masculinity.
Is this always a self analysis? Could it be the way he is treated by other peers that creates these conclusions or these judgments?
Yes.
Then, what about parental influence?
Development is not the same in every case, but in general you see that at home the first layers of development are laid. So the peer group is the second phase, but it is the more decisive phase.
There are a lot of things within the family that may predispose this element. It is not to say that the exact or direct causes would lie in the family. No. The direct causes lie in the boy's inner development—the attitude that, “I am not like other boys. I am not manly and other boys do not like me and do not accept me. Men do not accept me. Men like my father or my brothers do not accept me as a man and I do not feel a man.”
So, he comes to avoid manly things. He feels “I'm a failure in that respect, so I won't participate in certain games.” He won't participate in rough and tumble games, in games of competition, in games of the normal, healthy sex.
What is the fifth trait?
An unconscious self-pity—feeling the loner in the group, not belonging to the world of men. I stress the words “not belonging.” That is central in childhood and teenage experiences of homosexuals. You might describe their inner drama like that—and it is always an inner drama. The child who feels ugly has an inner drama; so does the child who feels himself the outsider, or inferior. He develops self-pity.
Self-pity is the normal emotional reaction to overcome grief. We feel sorry for ourselves, we cry, we complain. The child or teenager does the same things. Every parent knows the tendency of teenagers to feel “dramatic,” to feel “tragic”: “I am the center of the world. When I am rejected or feel inferior, so I am also the tragic one.”
You add that qualification that it is an “unconscious” self pity. Do you mean unconscious in a sense that it is not chosen or that it is not recognized?
Both. In the first place it is not chosen. If we stumble on the street and perhaps break a leg, we will have the tendency to cry. There is some self-pity in it, but it is more physiological.
However, it is automatic that this crying comes out as a reaction. What is happening when we cry? Why has nature given this phenomenon of crying or complaining? It is to give yourself warmth; to comfort yourself. It is a kind of self-comfort. This is automatic so, as you said, you do not choose it.
But in the second place, it becomes a habit. Self pity—“poor me”—becomes a habit within the homosexual and then he does not recognize it. If you know homosexuals more personally you will discover that behind some—not in all—this is going on. They are always feeling slighted, rejected, not justly treated, wronged—“poor me.”
This self-pitying attitude may be generalized throughout many fields of life: “I caught a cold. I'm suffering so much. Oh, please do this for me, do that for me.” Also, in the context of “You didn't understand me.” “You left me alone.” And, as a consequence, there is much jealousy in the partnerships of homosexuals and also much more violence than in heterosexual relationships.
Are there any other traits that are common among homosexuals?
Homosexual men have in common the feeling that they are not manly, not identifying with manhood. And lesbians have the feeling of not being feminine enough.
How do these traits manifest themselves, or how is homosexuality manifested through these traits?
Homosexual sex itself, the sexual longing in itself, is [the response] of a boy who does not feel accepted and recognized by the males he adores. He is always seeking masculinity because he himself does not feel masculine enough. This is an idealization of the maleness of other boys and men, and going after it as a kind of self-comfort, and it is eroticized in puberty.
Everyone passes, in puberty, a phase of this kind of homosexuality. A boy may be attracted in some way or admire the boyishness, roughness, or already-mature manliness of other boys that he still doesn't have. If he feels inferior this will have great momentum; if not, it is a transitory thing.
Girls may gush over other girls in puberty, have a relationship with other girls, perhaps a close relationship with another friend in puberty. This is typical. When she feels accepted as a girl and confident as a little woman, a woman in the making, these close friendships will perhaps lead to some eroticization, but not very much and it is transitory. After a while they discover the far more interesting possibilities of being loved by a boy.
So this eroticizing of the longing for a manly friend—“who loves me”—is characteristic of the boy who develops a homosexual complex.
If a young man or a young woman is beginning to feel these types of homosexual tendencies and the culture sanctions it, effectively saying, “You're homosexual, but that's OK,” does that person now feel it's normal to be involved in that homosexual lifestyle?
It's a very plausible option to identify with homosexuality in that case, but he does not really feel it's normal. There is always some self-doubt. There is always the voice of his common sense or his conscience that tells him, “This is not normal.” But it is an option of what you might call laziness. You do not feel at home with people [you admire or desire to emulate]. So you have a tendency to avoid them and to seek comfort with people who are more kind to you. So, if I identify with my so-called homosexuality, I do not feel the necessity of having to cope with the kind of people who have to assume a role that is difficult, because I feel a failure in that role. So courage would be the solution in puberty. Real courage. It would be and it could be and I have seen cases where it has been the therapeutic thing.
How do other sexual deviancies compare to homosexuality? There are transvestites. There are people who seem excessively erotic, who have heterosexual tendencies but can't control them. And, there are the pedophiles, and those who seek sexual gratification in other abnormal ways. Are they at all comparable to homosexuality?
Yes. All of these people are sexually neurotic, like homosexuals, and they belong essentially in the same category. All of them had a problem with their masculinity. If a boy in puberty, for instance, is teased by his comrades [or] treated as a girl because he is not so courageous, then you can understand he feels excluded from the boyhood community.
When a boy feels humiliated by girls in puberty, especially by beautiful girls, or the girls he thinks are very feminine, maybe he starts with a longing for being accepted especially by beautiful girls. So his fantasies and longings will be of the boy who wants to be recognized in his masculinity by girls. He, also, has an inferiority feeling and wants his masculinity to be reinforced by the recognition of girls.
In his fantasies and masturbation practices—we did not talk about that yet, but it is highly important in puberty and is a subject that is a non-subject in our culture—but in masturbation you can feed childish fantasies, and, after feeding them many years they become a drive in themselves, so there is much to the so-called “old-fashioned” idea that you should avoid masturbation in puberty as a habit. I think some people would never have become homosexuals if they had not, as teenagers, had these fantasies and masturbation practices.
The boy, longing for acceptance by these beautiful girls with attractive figures, is becoming in his mind, and later on perhaps, in practice, a woman chaser who is never satisfied and who is never coming to mature love but only to this teenage or adolescent pattern of “Please recognize me.” This is completely self-centered.
The transvestite is in this same vein. We have not analyzed transvestites, but I have had them in treatment and it is exactly the same. The pedophile is the boy who, in his puberty and childhood, didn't so much idolize masculine boys, but who felt excluded from the boyhood society. I mean that age before puberty when a boy does not yet have masculine traits. These kinds of boys may not have been adventurous. So he starts admiring other boys and wants to play with them. That's all there is to the pedophile neurosis.
The culture, or at least homosexual activists, have come to use the term “gay” for male homosexuality. But in many respects it sounds like the reality is just the opposite of the classic meaning of joyfulness. Any thoughts on that?
In his contacts with other men, a homosexual sometimes wants to play out what he never could in his childhood. This gives this picture of gayness. “Now I'm living,” a homosexual told me—a 35-year-old man, with a normal position in society. He found it very interesting, in the middle of the night after drinking with his homosexual friends, to roam the streets and to kick the garbage cans on the ground, and to push door bells and things like that, and have fun. As a child, this man had been very much restricted and never playful.
This “gayness” is a game and is what you see in many committed homosexuals, that they play roles. They are artificial. They're not themselves. If they would be themselves you would know them how they really are. They are a different person. So my contention is that, inwardly, a homosexual is never a happy, stable person. There is always some chagrin, some inner chagrin that he takes with him.
Personal: Native and resident of the Netherlands; studied psychology at Leiden University and received a doctorate at Amsterdam University; psychologist in private practice since 1962. Background: Has conducted exhaustive research and lectured extensively on neurosis and homosexuality; teaches courses to parents, pastors, and physicians throughout Europe; holds weekends of therapy for homosexuals in Germany; member of the (U.S.) National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuals; author of several books, including Homosexuality and Hope: On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality, and The Battle for Normality: A Guide for Self-Therapy of Homosexuality.
—Peter Sonski
----- EXCERPT: A Dutch psychologist addresses the mystery behind homosexuality ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Sonski ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:The Homosexual Parade That Wasn't on TV
In a June New York Post column, Ray Kerrison noticed an odd phenomenon in local television coverage of the recent parade of homosexuals in New York. Every network had stories and pictures of the parade, but none of them reported what really happened.
He wrote that the yearly parade is vulgar, violent, and anti-Catholic and yet every year, the city's TV stations send out their cameras, producers, and reporters—and they all come back with glowing accounts. With almost conspiratorial censorship, all six stations automatically delete the lewdness, nudity, profanity, and blasphemy that are the intrinsic ingredients of the parade.
“They block out the dirty placards, the insulting banners, the violent, anti-religious themes. Instead, they present the parade as a fun festival, rich in color, pageantry, and pride. The distortion is a criminal abuse of truth.”
“The TV propagandists were at it again Sunday night after the 29th parade down Fifth Avenue.” He quoted WNBC (Channel 4): “They're celebrating with pride and parades, a rainbow of flags, floats, and festivities… They kicked off in high style … and remained spectacular to its end.”
The WABC (Channel 7) reporter announced excitedly: “It was a wild and fun afternoon … a fun affair.”
Kerrison continued: “None of them told of the reported half-dozen men who were stark naked except for their green condoms. None told of the bare-breasted women prancing down the avenue. None showed the lurid excesses of the drag queens and cross-dressers.” Or the ridiculing of the Pope, religious sisters, priests, and saints.
“None find it offensive that this essentially obscene promenade starts at 52nd Street so it will pass the front doors of St. Patrick's Cathedral and dishonor the religion it represents.”
Of Marriage and Movie Stars
Why do movies seem so antagonistic to marriage at times? Perhaps it's because the denizens of Hollywood have such awful marriages—despite a few notable exceptions.
That is one conclusion a June 26 Philadelphia Daily News article, “On Hollywood's sea of matrimony, 10 years is one long cruise,” might suggest.
Calling 10 and a half years “a pretty good run for a Hollywood marriage,” the report said it is the extended length—not the recent end—of the marriage of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore that should draw attention.
The report pointed out that, recently, Drew Barrymore ended her marriage after seven weeks, Christie Brinkley ended her third marriage after seven months, and Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett ended theirs after 21 months.
“But there are star pairings who have stuck it out even longer. What do you think were the secrets of their success?” The report lists these exceptions to the Hollywood rule:
• Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have been together 40 years.
• Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft have been married 34 years.
• Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews have been married 29 years.
• Ronald and Nancy Reagan have been married for 45 years.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:South Africa: No Funding for Catholic Hospitals?
In South Africa, Archbishop Wilfrid Napier OFM of Durban was shocked by the deep cuts being made by the South African government to Church-run hospitals and clinics. The 11% cut will have a dramatic effect on service, said a report in Melbourne's daily newspaper, The Age.
Asked the archbishop: “Is the severity of the cuts related to the religious affiliation and policies of the Catholic clinics or hospitals?” He said it is “possible to believe” that St. Mary's Hospital is out of favor because of its fidelity to Church doctrine, particularly its strong stance against abortion.
“Before the cuts were effected, we had a meeting with the health department asking them for extra funding. We were told that our clinics were not offering a holistic approach because they did not offer birth-control programs. It makes one wonder whether the cuts were done because of our attitude towards abortion. Is there something more than just financial constraints involved?” the prelate told the paper.
No other hospital of comparable size is being cut nearly as much, he added. While not disputing the archbishop's account of his meeting there, a spokesman at the health department disagreed.
“Everyone knows we are hamstrung by financial constraints. The cuts were made simply because of this. It's unfortunate that the Church believes they have been targeted because of religious policies. This is outrageous,” he said.
Did William Shakespeare Study to Be a Jesuit ‘Martyr’?
“But for a twist of fate, William Shakespeare might have been a Roman Catholic priest and spy in danger of being hanged, rather than applauded, by Protestant England's Queen Elizabeth I,” begins The Washington Post account of research by Richard Wilson, who with other donors is creating a $32 million Shakespeare museum in Hoghton Tower, England.
“Wilson, professor of Renaissance studies at Lancaster University, believes Hoghton Tower was once used as a ‘Jesuit clearinghouse’ from which young men would travel abroad to become priests, and that 16-year-old Shakespeare went there after being recruited by missionary (St.) Edmund Campion.
“For de Hoghton, owner of the hilltop manor and holder of England's second-oldest baronetcy, this theory builds on a family legend that a young man called Shakeshafte, who in 1580 worked for one of his ancestors as a tutor cum player, was in fact the Bard.
“If Shakespeare was Shakeshafte, he was a member of a household which was for six months, it seems, nothing less than the secret college and headquarters of the English Counter Reformation,” Wilson said.
Other strong evidence points to the connection between St. Edmund and Shakespeare (who, like any other Englishman of his time, spelled his name and many other words in no single, fixed manner throughout his life). In fact, if Wilson's analysis of dates is correct, it may have been Campion's capture and imprisonment in the Tower of London that prevented Shakespeare from traveling with him to the Douai school in France.
Douai (along with Rheims) is known for its translation of the Bible by expatriate Catholic Englishmen—but during Shakespeare's lifetime, in the years immediately following the Church of England's break with Rome, it served as a “school of martyrdom.” The seminarians there were trained to be shipped back into England, where they would minister the sacraments to as many people as possible until they were captured and killed, according to historians.
Scholars have debated for years—and perhaps always will—about Shakespeare's possible religious sympathies. While his plays do nothing to oppose the ruling Protestants of his time, they contain many Catholic themes and reference-points, according to Wilson and others.
Sisters Must Abandon Hospital After a Century of Service
In today's health care climate, where Health Maintenance Organizations and other health care profit-businesses dominate, patients can feel that their doctors' offices are crowded with unseen interlopers: insurance company overseers, lawyers threatening malpractice or product liability suits, and government regulators.
It is easy to forget that Catholic religious sisters invented hospitals, and had a monopoly on the industry for most of medical history. The Toronto Star remembered the not-so-distant better days in a June 28 report:
“The names are legendary at St. Michael's Hospital—Sister Vincentia, Sister Maura, Sister de Sales. In the old days, you never knew the nuns' last names, but you knew their reputation—they ran the hospital and they were strong, smart, and formidable.”
“Up until the more casual '60s, nurses stood when doctors and nuns entered a room. You knew the nuns were coming by the rattle of wooden rosary beads or the rustle of starched white habits.
“When there was chaos in the operating rooms, with surgeons competing for space, sisters were sent for to restore order and keep the peace.
“Their pockets were deep. Sister Maura McGuire could pull out a sandwich for a hungry man or a wad of cash for an impoverished intern's honeymoon.
“But in this new world of hospital restructuring and corporate rearrangements, the last of the Sisters of St. Joseph are leaving St. Michael's Hospital, which the order built and founded 106 years ago.”
“Chuckie Shevlen, a St. Mike's nurse for 33 years, appreciates the training [the nuns] gave her. ‘[They] made us feel it was magnificent, something as simple as giving someone a bath,’ she says.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Vatican Meeting Challenges Contemporary Human Rights Record DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II said the right to freedom of religion has become even more vital in today's economically oriented society. Addressing the Vatican's first global meeting on human rights July 4, he noted that religious liberty is linked to the “spiritual and transcendent dimension” of the person.
“This takes on greater importance in our modern world,” the Pope said, “which often reduces people to merely their economic dimension, and which tends to consider their development, above all, in economic terms.”
Pope John Paul II met with participants of a World Congress on the Pastoral Promotion of Human Rights. The July 1-4 congress brought together 230 clergy and lay authorities to find solutions to human rights concerns they had in common, such as religious freedom, child labor, and political asylum.
The Pope expressed his “solidarity and prayerful support” for all those whose rights are “cruelly violated.” He mentioned in particular victims of torture, violence and exploitation, war, discrimination, the unemployed, and all those “who suffer disastrous economic hardships.”
He also called the international community to task, saying the “persistence of extreme poverty” in many developing countries represents “a genuine scandal” for today's world.
As rich nations rush to forge a global marketplace, the Pope said, the “architecture of the global economy must be built upon the foundation of the dignity and rights of the person.”
The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace organized the gathering. The council's secretary, Msgr. Diarmuid Martin, said the congress highlighted the Church's role in promoting a “culture of human rights.”
“Pope John Paul II has very much been a Pope of human rights,” Msgr. Martin told the Register. “He has placed the theme of human rights—especially the respect for human dignity—as central to his pontificate.”
Msgr. Martin said the Vatican congress was timed to draw attention to the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet 50 years on, he said, there is still a “long way to go” concerning human rights.
“We have many good documents by the international community but it's clear that human rights are violated in many parts of the world,” Msgr. Martin said. “There are people who do not have the right to freedom of expression, those who cannot worship freely, and people whose dire economic situation prevents them from participating in life in a way that fully respects their own dignity.”
Among the speakers at the gathering were a number of delegates to a five-week U.N. conference in Rome to create an international criminal court. They included Pierre Sane, secretary general of Amnesty International, and human rights representatives for various international agencies. (Stephen Banyra)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Inquisition Targets May Be Added to Reconciliation List
Ever since it took a central place in the Holy Father's 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Draws Near), reconciliation has been important in the plans for the Jubilee Year 2000. The Church hopes to acknowledge and seek forgiveness for sins Catholics have committed throughout Church history.
Two groups may be added to the list of those who need apologies: people mistaken for heretics and witches who may have been the target of the Spanish Inquisition, according to a report that appeared June 30 in London's The Guardian.
Much will depend on the results of an October conference of historians who will search through the files of the Inquisition to determine what really went on—and expose which of the stories about the process are true and which have been invented or embellished in the years since.
Father Georges Cottier, the Pope's personal theologian and chairman of the historical-theological commission preparing for the Jubilee, said that delegates at the conference have been chosen for their historical expertise and professionalism, not their faith.
However, he told the paper, “It's not the task of the conference to rehabilitate victims of the Inquisition. If there are to be any rehabilitations, that is the responsibility of the relevant authorities of the Holy See and, in the final analysis, of the Pope.”
Papal Envoy Speaks Out in Cuba
Pio Cardinal Laghi, speaking at Mass in Cuba on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, had bold things to say about the need to provide religious education in the communist dictatorship, according to a June 29 Reuters story.
“Religious formation, in schools and in other areas of civil society, in no way contradicts the lay nature of the modern state,” he told the 600-member congregation.
Cardinal Laghi heads the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education and is the highest ranking churchman to visit Cuba since Pope John Paul II's visit in January.
Cardinal Laghi also referred to a papal speech that “reminded Cuba's Christian families that they have the duty to demand of the state the right to choose for their children the teaching style, the ethical and civic contents, and the religious inspiration in which they want to form them.”
In both instances, the congregation, which included some representatives of Castro's regime, responded to the statements with sustained applause.
Cardinal Laghi is not counting on the country lifting its ban on religious education any time soon, however. Earlier in the week, he told 200 teachers and school administrators, “We should not be paralyzed by the restrictions of the current moment…. While you still do not have access to schools and universities, choose other paths.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: CDF Official Notes Differences Between Abortion and Euthanasia DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Believing that abortion is legitimate and permissible is heresy because it directly contradicts natural and biblical law and the constant teaching of the Church, said Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone.
The archbishop, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke about the differences between Church teaching on abortion and on euthanasia in a July 2 interview with Vatican Radio.
Unlike advocating abortion, he said, advocating euthanasia is not heresy because, although it is “absolutely illicit,” euthanasia is a “human act of our times” and therefore was not condemned by the Church from its very beginning.
Questions arose about the different levels of Church teaching following the June 30 publication of Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter, Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Defend the Faith).
Canon law defines heresy as the refusal to believe and affirm the divinely revealed truths taught by the Church, such as the statements in the Creed. Those teachings of the Church, which either have been constantly taught or solemnly declared to be divinely revealed, are referred to as belonging to the “first level” of truths which Catholics must believe.
The papal letter amended canon law to establish penalties for those who do not hold the truths of the “second level.” These include “truths founded on faith in the Holy Spirit's assistance to the magisterium and on the doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium,” Archbishop Bertone said.
Euthanasia belongs to the second level and abortion belongs to the first, he said.
While both abortion and euthanasia involve killing an innocent human being, the archbishop said, the teaching on abortion “has the confirmation of Church tradition from the very beginning, an explicit condemnation by the apostolic community, while euthanasia is a problem which is a crime and a human act of our times” without an explicit biblical condemnation.
However, Pope John Paul's condemnation of euthanasia in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) must be accepted by Catholics, Archbishop Bertone said.
The Pope's position flows from “the commandment to safeguard human life not only from the moment of its conception, but until its natural end,” he said.
One who understands the Church's teaching on euthanasia, yet contradicts it, is denying “a doctrine, a truth proposed as definitive and unchangeable,” the archbishop said.
“Knowingly opposing” the Church teaching, he said, “places one outside the communion of the Church.”
The Pope's recent addition to canon law does not establish a specific penalty for denying truths of the second level, he said.
“It says that he or she must be punished with a just ecclesiastical penalty, naturally always remembering that penalties are aimed at correction of the offender and, therefore, at the return to full communion with the Church and a full adherence to the teaching of the Church,” Archbishop Bertone said.
—Cindy Wooden
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cindy Wooden ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Perspective DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:John Paul's Defense of the Faith
On May 18, Pope John Paul II signed an apostolic letter entitled Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Defend the Faith). The letter, a complete surprise to many people, became public June 30, and was called a Motu Proprio, which means that it enjoys the prerogative of being entirely a work of the Supreme Pontiff himself.
The Pope stated that he undertook its writing as a very necessary aspect of his office, since he is the legitimate successor of the Apostle Peter, in order to defend the faith of the Catholic religion, and to confirm his brothers in that faith which cannot fail because of the promise made by the divine founder of the Catholic Church (cf. Lk 22:32).
The four-page letter, written in Latin, added several words to The Code of Canon Law. It was accompanied at its release by an interesting and important commentary (dated June 29) from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. This official commentary is a key to a correct understanding of the letter. Although it involves some theological subtlety and qualifications, it deserves reading and study by all Catholics.
The letter and its accompanying commentary were welcomed by many orthodox and sincere Catholics, all the more pleased because of the unexpected timing of the publication. The “usual suspects,” some of whom make a career of publicly dissenting from the truths of the Catholic Faith, were obviously displeased and publicly upset, not in the least because their decades-long efforts to trade on doctrinal confusion and moral ambiguity were dealt another and perhaps fatal blow by the Holy See. It is unfortunately true that much of the secular and some of the religious media coddle and foster this dissent, but genuine Catholics almost instinctively recognize its total lack of merit and authenticity.
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz
In adding some words to The Code of Canon Law, the Holy Father made it clear that not only those matters proposed by the Church as directly revealed by God had to be assented to, internally and externally, by faithful Catholics. Also, those matters which are officially and definitively proposed by the Church regarding faith and morals, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium (the teaching authority) of the Church as formally revealed, must receive from all Catholics “firm and definitive assent, based on the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Church's Magisterium and the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters. Whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
The Pope's changes in Canon Law specify that persons in such denial are to be punished with “appropriate penalties.”
As Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary notes, sometimes matters in this category of belief and assent later pass, in the historic consciousness of the Church, into matters proposed as formally revealed. He cites as an example the doctrine of papal infallibility prior to the dogmatic definition of the First Vatican Council. The primacy and infallibility of the Bishop of Rome were “recognized as definitive in the period before the Council.” However, until then, it was licitly disputed as to whether that infallibility was a logical consequence of divine revelation or was a part of that revelation itself. The point of the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger is that the inerrant and irreformable character of the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church in both categories is basically the same. While one who rejects what is formally proposed as directly revealed also incurs the grave sin of formal heresy, dissent from either category of faith and morals places the dissenter in the state of mortal sin, outside of the Church's full communion, and worthy of ecclesiastical censure.
Examples of infallible truths to which all Catholics must assent, in this second category, which are not (yet?) declared as formally revealed but are, at least, derived from and logically connected with divine revelation, are mentioned in the commentary. These are such things as the illicitness of prostitution, fornication, and euthanasia, and the doctrine that priestly ordination by God's will is reserved only to males. Archbishop Bertone notes that “this [latter] truth could later pass into the first level.” But even now it is among the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church.
As the commentary observes, there is a third category of matters to which all Catholics are required also to give their full assent of mind and will. It would be seriously sinful for Catholics to dissent even from these teachings. They are things which are connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but they are not able to be declared as divinely revealed. Examples would be “the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonization of saints (or other dogmatic facts) the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the apostolic letter, Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations, etc.” The matters in this third category are not directly affected by Ad Tuendam Fidem and remain unchanged by the Pope's latest additions to The Code of Canon Law. Archbishop Bertone notes that sinful Catholics who would dissent from this third category of truths, even if they would not immediately suffer from an esslesiastical penalty, would incur the stigma of an undisciplined attitude.”
St. Ambrose remarked: “Where Peter is, there is the Church…” Peter today continues to reside in the See of Rome and in its bishop.
There one finds the keys, the power to bind and loose, and the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail (cf. Mt 16:16-19). From there our Holy Father continues to feed the lambs and sheep (cf. Jn 21:15-17) and to protect Christ's flock from the poison pastures of religious falsehood and error, as well as from the wild beasts who would lead them astray toward eternal destruction. May God preserve this remarkable Pontiff, a divine and special gift to our time and place. Ad multos annos.
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz STD is ordinary of Lincoln, Nebraska.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pat Buchanan's SOS for America DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Nearly everyone has taken notice of America's great economic miracle. The Dow Jones index has skyrocketed past the 9,000 mark, the Gross National Product (GNP) has reached record levels, and both unemployment and inflation have all but disappeared. The entire scenario would seem to suggest that the free market advocates have settled the economic debate in their favor. But one quixotic conservative believes that the apparent prosperity might be just grand illusion. Indeed Patrick Buchanan is warning the American people that we might be sailing along like those ill-fated Titanic passengers, oblivious to the iceberg that lies submerged in the path just ahead.
Buchanan's provocative new book, called The Great Betrayal, aims to shatter many of the media's claims about America's current prosperity and to jump-start a discussion of critical economic and strategic questions. The subtitle of the book reads, How American Sovereignty and Social Justice are being sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy, a theme that harks back to Buchanan's controversial bid to become president in 1996.
Buchanan maintains that current U.S. economic policy primarily serves an elite of super rich corporations and investment bankers. Surprising as it may seem, Buchanan's figures show that one result of the economic boom is that Americans are becoming more and more impoverished. Real wages of American workers dropped 19% from 1973 to 1994. Such a sustained period of declining real wages has never occurred before in our nation's history—even including the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Although there have been millions of big winners in the great economic lottery, there are just as many big losers. These are the “victims” of the recovery: a growing number of the middle-class and other working people who were downsized due to the drive for corporate efficiency and profitability.
“In order to stay above water,” Buchanan writes, “American men are working 140 hours longer every year than in 1982 in addition, while only 20% of women with children under six were in the workforce in 1960, now two-thirds of such women are employed.” These conditions were made necessary by the erosion of workers'real wages and are a recipe for domestic turmoil and increased social breakdown.
Buchanan points out that global trade deals such as NAFTAand GATThave added “hundreds of millions of Latin Americans and Asians to the labor pool of industrial democracies.” These new workers in the global hiring hall have one trait in common: “all are willing to work for a fraction of the wages that an American needs to feed, clothe, house, and educate his or her family.” For many leaders of corporate America this is an ideal situation. In the words of Stanley Mihelick, executive vice president at Goodyear, “Until we get real wage levels down much closer to those of the Brazils and the Koreas we cannot pass along productivity gains to wages and still be competitive.” In the knowledge industry, which includes people like authors, economists, lawyers, bankers, and computer technicians, wages continue to rise. It is workers in America who are paying the price for free trade.
The Great Betrayal quotes social critic Christopher Lasch about the immense fortunes of the modern elites. They are “more concerned with the smooth functioning of the system as a whole than with any of its parts. Their loyalties—if the term is not itself anachronistic in this context—are international rather than regional, national, or local…. The privileged classes in Los Angeles feel more kinship with their counterparts in Japan, Singapore, and Korea than with most of their countrymen.”
According to Buchanan, many aspects of the globalized economy are at odds with America's Judeo-Christian heritage and violate the spirit of the papal encyclicals such as Centesimus Annus. In the same vein the most recent 25 years of free trade reforms and market deregulation have many serious drawbacks that have not been considered by the two major political parties. He says the example of Great Britain should serve as a warning to America. Once the world's foremost industrial powerhouse, she has been reduced to an impoverished and third-rate nation after adopting pure free trade in the early 1900s. The author points out several ominous crises that have yet to be addressed. These include:
• America's trade deficit has ballooned to a record of almost $200 billion in 1996 and totals $2 trillion since 1980.
• Our manufacturing and heavy industrial capacity is vanishing.
• America now has the highest income inequality among all the Western nations.
To be certain, the scenario Buchanan presents is designed to shock people into action. His analysis may be too pessimistic and he may be overlooking the beneficial aspects of the technologies and innovations that are being introduced. Various features of the communications and computer age would appear to put this country in an ideal position in the emerging global marketplace.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Albert Hunt tells us that “It took over half a century for electricity to produce maximum efficiency, thus only recently is America's $2 trillion investment in computer technology starting to produce real productivity improvements.” This gives the United States a tremendous head start over everyone else. Hunt contends “The global economy is a great boon to the ingenuity, skill and mobility of Americans.”
Whether Buchanan's dire warnings will prove prophetic, only time will tell. However, it seems undeniable that for America to make the most of our extraordinary resources and capabilities, we must be prepared to negotiate sensible trade treaties with our allies in Europe and with the countries of the developing sector. The Great Betrayal maintains that any such treaties must preserve our sovereignty; that is they must employ market forces as a tool and not a panacea.
To make this clear, Buchanan points to the voluntary import quota that Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Japanese during the 1980s. The policy was an intelligent intervention that gave the big three U.S. companies time to improve their product without throwing millions of hard-working Americans on the scrap heap. Such a nationalist approach as is used in Germany and Japan could be applied today to promote and protect the nation's vital interests.
Buchanan should be commended for his courage in daring to challenge the media elite and the powerful financial oligarchy. We need to reassess many aspects of what the Federal Government and the business community mean by global development and economic progress. The author believes we must apply a standard of justice, fairness, and common sense. Our policies should emphasize ordinary American workers and their families as opposed to the wealthiest 5% of the population who have reaped virtually all the income gains of the past 25 years. Whether or not you like Buchanan's abrasive style this is an unusually candid and illuminating volume.
David Peterson writes from Chicago. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Peterson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Growing Protestant Opposition To Contraception DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:
The summer 1998 issue of Sursum Corda magazine carries an article by Elizabeth Altham on Protestants who reject birth control because “God is the best population planner.”
“Children are God's blessing,’ says [father of five] Scott Wiest. ‘Why would anyone want to stop God from blessing him? When I become a full-time pastor,’ Wiest says, ‘I plan to talk about birth control to all my premarital counselees. I will encourage them to trust God in all areas of their lives, including family planning. God creates life, and he chooses who will have children. Thwarting his blessing is a failure to trust his sovereignty and his love.’”
The Rev. Mr. Benjamin Sheldon, a Presbyterian pastor who has seven grown children, explained the connection he sees between pro-life and anti-contraceptive convictions: “‘Those who are pro-life, and in many instances are also opposed to contraception, are the conservatives who held to the inerrancy of scripture. They also take scriptural prohibitions on divorce and remarriage seriously. I personally will not officiate at the remarriage of divorced persons.’”
Though a large majority of Protestants still contracept without a second thought, author Altham uncovers a growing boomlet in opposition. Pastor Matt Trewhella of Mercy Seat Christian Church in Milwaukee, for example, is “founder of Missionaries to the Preborn, an organization which alerts Protestants to the errors and dangers of the contraceptive mentality, as well as to its links to abortion…. ‘We must understand the Church, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, spoke consistently for 1900 years against birth control.’”
Rob Sheldon, one of Pastor Sheldon's adult children, tells Altham: “‘I spent three years in Switzerland, and experienced the emotionally starved grandparents, the end-of-the-millennium feeling…. I find it hard to explain to 95% of my colleagues and friends that my children are my pride and joy, my hope and consolation—even that I need not worry about 401(k) and Keogh plans because I am depending on my children to provide for me if necessary.’”
Allan Carlson, a Lutheran who is “president of the Howard Center, a new policy research organization that has taken over from the Rockford Institute,” traces “the collapse of Protestant resistance to birth control” in Europe to the aftermath of World War II. “‘Traditional views of marriage were inextricably linked to conservative social and political views—to the old order. When the old order collapsed, it took those views down with it. That war shattered orthodoxy of every kind.’”
Lutheran graduate student Christopher Brown expands on this history by telling Altham, “‘The churches that had grown used to occupying culturally prestigious positions tended to try to retain those positions even as secular culture developed in amoral and anti-Christian directions.'”
In a backlash against contraception, some people have fallen into what Altham describes as “a numbers game … wherein 12 children indicate more holiness than eight.” Christopher Brown's view is that “‘To treat the number of children as a sign of our own moral accomplishment is to deny that they are in fact God's gift to give or to withhold as it seems good to him. Unfortunately, I think the very opposition of our culture to the begetting of children has created a terrible temptation to self-righteousness on the part of those who reject that position.’”
Altham asks Methodist obstetrician-gynecolo-gist James Long, who does not prescribe birth control or perform sterilizations (or abortions), “What [do you] tell patients who are frightened at the prospect of many children?…. ‘Imagine that you come down Christmas morning, and you have 12 presents for your children. They open up seven and say, “Gosh, Mom and Dad, we've had a wonderful Christmas and we appreciate the gifts that you've given us … but these seven are enough. Why don't you take the other five back?…” We do that to God about children—probably about a lot of other things, too.’”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidson, Maryland.
The Definite Article samples the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Eye-opening & Innovative
Thank you for your interview with Paul Swope (“Awakening the Voice of Conscience,” July 5-11). His approach to the pro-life message is refreshing and eye-opening.
The wonderful pro-life apostolates that have fought so many years for the right to life have had many tangible and intangible successes. More people are against abortion, and many moving personal conversions have come from their efforts.
Yet it is heart-warming to see a new and exciting approach like Swope's television commercials. Instead of confronting an indifferent public audience or a hardened political one, he has tailored commercials to the people who, in the short term, most need the pro-life message: pregnant women in difficult circumstances. And, instead of relying on the smart slogans that have been like mottos to pro-lifers over the years, his innovative research, I hope, will find the right words to say to those women and save lives.
I wanted to write because that story is inspiring, and to thank you for bringing such stories to our attention. We need to hear as many stories as we can about people like Swopes who refuse to spend their time complaining about their friends or worrying about their enemies, but rather spend it smiling, serving those in need, and quietly winning battles for the culture of life.
April Hoopes Falls Church, Virginia
Truly Catholic Colleges
A word of thanks for the enlightening series you ran on Catholic colleges and universities in the past months.
Hopefully this will help tear down the ramparts separating Church and education in America and the Church will reclaim the right to its own identity.
Too long has the “American Church” chafed under the very notion of an external authority that would validate truth. It once claimed that such ecclesiastical norms for Catholic institutions would mean the loss of governing autonomy, accreditation, government and corporate funding, academic freedom and above all, the end of respectability in the eyes of secular universities.
Please God! May the day soon come that a Catholic college's or university's faculties present the Church's perspective on a daily basis as part of its essential, functioning definition.
Aubert Lemise
Peru, Illinois
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Aubert Lemise ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Greener Pastures On the Horizon For True Catholics DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Ireceived a report of what a recent and devout “revert” (a one-time Catholic who has returned to the faith) suffered through when assisting at Mass in a large Midwestern diocese she was visiting.
To me the most annoying thing wasn't that none of the parishioners she spoke with knew where the tabernacle was located (hint: not in full view within the church, which is what the regulations insist on). And it wasn't that the priest skipped the introductory rites and ad-libbed his way through much of the liturgy (a violation of rubrics). And it wasn't even that there were liturgical dancers (forbidden without exception). No, the most annoying thing to me was that the parishioners simply accepted it all—partly, no doubt, out of ignorance (“Father says this is the way it's supposed to be, and he's the priest, after all”), but largely out of apathy too.
Why don't Catholics stand up (or should I say, “kneel down”) for their liturgical rights? Is their religion so inconsequential to them that they'll accept anything rather than put up a fuss? Often the answer seems to be “Yes.”
When Henry VIII and his successors began supplanting the ancient faith, some Catholics rebelled, many paying the ultimate price. But most Catholics just went along, and in a few years they weren't Catholic any longer. They were willing to put up with just about anything, and they weren't willing to oppose the innovators—a story that has been replicated throughout Church history. We see it reenacted all around us today.
In most American dioceses—but not all, thank God—there are a few especially flaky parishes in which the liturgical Mafia has had its way. Like shopkeepers who are afraid not to pay “protection,” parishioners who sense that something is wrong are afraid to speak up. They are isolated from one another in the anonymity that passes for community in most parishes. If they do speak up, the parish establishment shoots them down, labeling them “divisive” and isolating them still further. Especially in rural areas, there may not be another church these parishioners can attend, so they look for ways to maneuver within the interstices of parish life.
Let's ask Lenin's famous question, “What is to be done?” Ultimately, I suppose, it comes down to episcopal backbone. Bishops are not only the chief teachers in their dioceses, but also the chief rulers, but some of them seem to choose not to rule—or at least they choose not to crack down on rank liturgical disobedience. Not many bishops can claim they are ignorant of what goes on in the parishes in their charge—in many dioceses orthodox Catholics have been complaining for years, sending fat dossiers to the chancery, but to no (visible) avail. I put “visible” in parentheses to allow for situations in which abuses indeed are being handled, very slowly, behind the scenes. We should be fair to dioceses that are trying to deal with entrenched problems.
On the other hand, in some places the faithful have been told, for years now, that the situation is being addressed behind the scenes, but, when no visible progress can be measured, lay folk can't be blamed for concluding that this assurance is little more than window-dressing—which, alas, it so often probably is.
I don't want to leave the impression that I'm pessimistic about the state of most dioceses. I'm not. So far as I can gather from visits around the country, things are improving in most places. On the other hand, I don't want to be mistaken for someone who thinks everything is hunky-dory. (It's been many years since I last fell off a turnip truck.)
There are good signs. One is that some dioceses seem to have no problem at all with vocations. Arlington, Peoria, and Lincoln, for example, not only turn out plenty of priests, but they seem to be turning out priests who know the faith and the rubrics and who understand that the liturgy is the public prayer of the Church, not the private prayer of those in the sanctuary. The success of such dioceses gives the lie to the notion that there is a shortage of vocations.
There never was a shortage, of course. As Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha wrote a few years ago, wherever there is a perceived shortage, you can be sure to discover that orthodox seminarians are weeded out before ordination. I know of several cases, fine young men who, some years ago, would have been considered prize catches for any diocese; now they're told that they “don't have a vocation—at least not for this diocese.”
Archbishop Curtiss sees manifest injustice here, and he's right, but I still see a big positive in the situation. (Call it my weird way of looking at things.) I take a long-range view. The pool of priestly candidates is becoming more and more orthodox. In a few years the orthodox will control the seminaries because there won't be enough heterodox priests to go around; no longer will good candidates be turned away on spurious grounds. Then will come the renaissance. I can hardly wait.
Karl Keating is the founding director of Catholic Answers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karl Keating ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: A Building To Communicate Beauty & Truth DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Architecture, as its name implies—architectura, a Latin word derived from the Greek for “master builder”—is not merely a matter of efficient design, but of the deepest human values.
In the classical past, in the works of first-century Roman architect Vitruvius Pollio, for example, those values were beauty and harmony—a reflection of the universe of order and balance taught by the ancient Greeks. Modern architects have tended to convey the values of a different “universe”: a world deeply alienated from the past, fixated on an uncertain future, devoted to discontinuity.
(There is a reason why a contemporary architect, faced with a lot to fill in a street of Georgian-period houses, thinks that a steel-belted high-rise will fit the bill.)
Not surprisingly, houses of worship were, perhaps, the very first places to evince the architect's, as distinct from the builder's, hand. As Thomas Gordon Smith wrote 10 years ago in his Classical Architecture: Rule and Invention: “Synagogues, temples, mosques, and churches [do] not merely function for the service; they … inspire a sense of the life-giving qualities that religion conveys through revealing the relationship between God and humankind.”
This sense of religious architecture as a means by which essential truths are communicated—architecture as a paradigm or model of a type of divine-human interaction—is far more than an issue for professionals to puzzle over.
An Interior Conversion
In fact, church architecture played a vital role in this writer's conversion to Christianity.
Raised in a liberal Protestant home, I was a spiritual free-lancer by my late teens. One day, attracted by the flickering candles I could spy through an open door, I walked into an Eastern Catholic church in my hometown. Once inside, I looked around at the iconostasis, the icon-screen that divided the church nave from the largely hidden sanctuary, with its rows of saints' images; I scanned the side aisles and chapels with their numerous candle-illumined icons.
Before then I had dismissed Christianity as an individualistic religion, a “Jesus and me” sort of thing, a “security blanket” that had little relevance, so I supposed, to the larger issues of life.
Suddenly a modern version of an ancient architectural model, datable to the late Antique age, was telling me something very different—truly a “catechism” in lath and plaster. The architecture revealed in a matter of minutes:
• that Christians “situate” their lives in the court of heaven where Jesus reigns with the Father;
• that Christians are surrounded by a “cloud of witnesses” (that's the icons of the saints) with whom they pray, and who pray for them;
• that they are part of a vast project the Holy Spirit has been leading since Abraham, the father of faith, made a fateful decision to put his trust in God;
• that Christians stand, therefore, both in and “outside” history simultaneously: living real lives in this world but linked to all the faithful who have gone before and, most importantly, to the victory over death, sin, and history won by the victorious Christ.
Quite a lesson to learn from a church interior. One, I might add, which says little about my powers of perception, and a great deal about the powers of architecture. I had managed to pick up in my own muddled way what the architect, and the Byzantine model of church architecture, intended to impart.
In a similar way, pagan emissaries of the Kievan Rus were converted to Christianity in the 10th century when they visited Christendom's “Great Church,” Hagia Sophia, the “Church of Holy Wisdom” in Constantinople. On seeing the shrine's architectural splendors, they related, “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth.”
By the way, this is not to say that my parish church, of which 32 years later I am still happily a member, is a paragon of every architectural virtue. The icon screen, while giving the right general impression was crafted decades ago by pious parishioners who were scene painters at Paramount studios. The Myrna Loy look-alikes among the women saints are still an occasional distraction. Much of the art in our church is not in the best iconographical style. But, design-wise, it does succeed in underscoring the fundamental theme of Byzantine religious architecture: that the church is a representation of the court of heaven.
As a member of our parish once related, “Every time I walk into church I remember who and where I am.”
Mission of a Young Architect
The power of architecture to communicate such ideas has been brought home to me in recent days by Steven Schloeder's new book, Architecture in Communion, recently published by Ignatius Press.
Schloeder is a young, Phoenix, Ariz.-based church architect and founder of Liturgical Environs, a firm specializing in Catholic Church projects in the United States. He received a bachelor's degree in architecture from Arizona State University and his master's from the University of Bath, England, where his academic work attracted notice for its bold attempts at a theology of architecture. He is currently doing his doctoral work at Berkeley.
Schloeder's study is an attempt to articulate what he calls “an architectural response to Vatican II.” Far from yet another defense of the zeitgeist disguised as a “bold new vision,” complete with diatribes against altar rails and sanctuaries, Architecture in Communion is a work on the short shelf of recent books in various areas of Church life which, after decades of postconciliar confusion, tries to get the discussion back on track.
Happily, the author is neither a “traditionalist” who opposes the liturgical changes of Vatican II, nor a modernist eager to get the Church to adapt to yet another fading secular intellectual trend. A student of both architecture and liturgy, Schloeder seeks a renewal of a centuries-old “language of symbols,” rooted in Catholic thought, that is capable of expressing “Catholic values.”
One of the more refreshing aspects of Schloeder's work is that he doesn't mince words.
“I have undertaken this work,” he writes, “because I find many—or rather most—recent Catholic churches to be banal, uninspiring, and frequently even liturgically bizarre.” Compared to some previous periods in ecclesiastical architecture, he opines, “the 20th century is … architecturally impoverished.”
In this regard, I recall another “architectural experience” that has impressed itself on my memory.
A Truly Empty Place Some years ago, I had the opportunity to visit one of the leading centers of the American liturgical movement. In the wake of the Council, many church buildings in the United States had to “make do” as best they could, adapting older architectural styles with the new postconciliar liturgical requirements. But the particular church I was about to visit had long represented something of what experts there assured me was the contemporary liturgical ideal.
With its glossy white walls and vast, militant simplicity, it had all the charm of an airport waiting room. There was, quite simply, nothing to see. The only single element in the complex that had some kind of visual power was the hard-to-find chapel, out of the congregation's sight lines, where the tabernacle was located.
Now, one understands that there is a profound psychological difference between Eastern and Western Christian architecture, and that at least some forms of Western spirituality, in contrast to the “oriental” luxuriance of the East, express themselves in a love of clean, unornamented lines and clear-paned interiors. I also understand that there is a kind of “genius” in a monastic simplicity that, far from symbolizing the splendor of the court of heaven, tells the Christian worshiper in the stark purity of a kind of “architecture of longing” that “here [on earth] we have no lasting home.”
Some early Gothic churches—like the 12th century St. Anne's in Jerusalem—come to mind in this regard.
But this “ideal contemporary church,” frankly, had little of the “emptiness” of ascetical vision which, by its very nature, is “full” of something else. It was just empty—the so-called “universal space” of architectural modernism. As a facility for a public event, it had been cleverly arranged. But, as Schloeder points out, it's not enough that a building “works as a place for liturgy”; it must also “look like a church” … [daring to] “communicate the idea of ‘Church.’”
In this sense, Schloeder's determination to reconnect with the formal “languages” of the past is of a piece with other neo-traditional currents beginning to manifest themselves on the brink of the new millennium.
“New Formalist” poets are resurrecting traditional English metrics after nearly a century of vers libre experimentation. Representational schools of painting have resurfaced in recent decades. Younger architects are abandoning the worn-out pieties of Bauhaus for the rigors of Classicism. After decades of avant-garde dominance, traditional musical forms and “languages” are once more attracting the attention of serious composers.
Even more significantly, some younger Catholic theologians, after generations glued to American Process Theology and the speculations of Bernard Lonergan, evince renewed interest in Thomism and Patristics, and in early modern figures like neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain, French scholar Father Henri de Lubac, and the theologian Father Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Having said this, Schloeder is aware of the dangers of a facile anti-modernism. Neither, like some of his intellectual confreres, does he espouse a return to a chimerical “golden age” as if the 20th century (or the past half-millennium, for that matter) had never occurred.
Like the Fathers of the Council whose genuine reforms he seeks to foster, Schloeder wishes to “retain sound tradition” on the one hand, and “leave the way open to legitimate progress” on the other.
While the young architect is eager to learn from classic “historical precedents in Church building,” he's also aware that there are structural and biblical metaphors—the “holy mountain” of the Psalms, the womb of the Virgin, the cruciform body of the Lord, for example—that carry the potential for new developments in ecclesiastical design.
“The church architect,” writes Schloeder, “must simultaneously translate between two languages—one, the modern language of architecture, and, the other, a traditional language of historical forms that are often imbued with ancient symbolic meanings—to let them both profit from the architectural dialogue.”
As we said earlier, the reality of such a dialogue is hardly a matter of importance only for liturgists, priests, and architects. Issues of church architecture touch on the very mission of the Body of Christ itself, stretching, as it does, from earth to heaven.
“As the Old Testament speaks of the Temple, the Church is to be the place of ‘glory,’” writes Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in The Feast of Faith, a quotation with which Schloeder closes his study, “and as such, too, the place where mankind's cry of distress is brought to the ear of God. The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level; she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable, and beloved.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: More than mere functional structures, churches should elicit the glory of the cosmos itself ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: If the Truth Falls on Deaf Ears, Speak It Anyway DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:One of the blessings of having been a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in the 1980s was the frequency of guest lectures by Eli Wiesel.
He survived the horrors of Auschwitz and over the past decades has shared his reflections and wisdom learned there.
One of Mr. Wiesel's more memorable points was a story about Lot from the Midrash Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic stories about the Pentateuch. The Midrash offers untold stories about Old Testament characters to give a sense of life not explicit in the biblical text.
The Midrash tells about the years Lot spent in Sodom and Gomorrah preaching repentance to the wicked inhabitants of those cities. After 20 years of such preaching, a young boy approached Lot, asking, “Father Lot, why do you go on preaching? No one listens to you and they are not going to become as good as you.”
Lot answered, “Do you think that I am preaching to make them become like me? I am preaching to make sure I do not become like them!”
Lot's point is well taken for our own time. The increased violence, materialism, pornography, family breakdown, etc. are well-known problems. Some people suggest that the changes in our culture are part of human evolution. They develop apologetics to justify the new values, not as license but as a liberation from the strictures of traditional family. Personal freedom from all demands and limits is exalted as the highest value possible. The radically independent individual in pursuit of the self has become the exalted hero.
In the context of that apologetic, critics who decry the dangers and evils of these modern trends are ridiculed for their conservatism.
Vice President Dan Quayle was roundly mocked for criticizing “Murphy Brown” becoming a single mother, though an April 1993 article in The Atlantic Monthly was entitled, “Dan Quayle Was Right.” The article showed that there is a direct connection between family breakup and moral breakdown. However he and other proponents of traditional values are satirized by the proponents of radical individualism.
A colleague once told me that a Catholic discouraged him from making moral criticisms on the grounds that if he ended up doing the very thing he criticized, people would judge him more severely. After all, no one wants to be a hypocrite, so why preach about sin when one might end up committing the very sin he condemned? Of course, whether an individual publicly proposes a moral position or not, a judgment based on sound moral doctrine lies in store, since God our Lord will determine the norms for judgment.
Imagine a sinner defending himself before God's judgment seat by saying, “Well, I never criticized others for stealing, murder, or adultery. Should not I be let off for doing these things?”
Too many Catholics take the position of the young man in Sodom who questioned Lot about the futility of preaching, and subsequently do not criticize immoral behavior. I hear parents say, “They are going to do it anyway, so why bother telling them not to?”
The Midrash about Lot offers one very good reason to keep preaching about morality. If we hear ourselves praise virtue and criticize immorality we may motivate ourselves to live up to God's norms for holiness, truth, and goodness. Even if no one else listens, we ourselves may be improved. Even if (and probably when) we do fail at living the moral ideal, we still have the moral ideal to challenge us to do what is right. If we fail to talk about right and wrong we may accept our feelings and desires as the norms for right and wrong. If we fail to learn and meditate on the commandments of God so as to teach a morality based on those commandments, we may settle for the fluid and presently declining values of the culture. In other words, teaching and proclaiming the laws and holiness of God will help us as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Ph 2:12).
Furthermore, our teaching of the law of God to others will remind us of our failures to keep them. Such a salutary reminder of our need for God's grace and mercy leads us to put our trust and confidence in “God who works in us both to will and to work according to his good pleasure” (Ph 2:13).
Dependence on God's mercy to forgive us our sins and his grace to enable us to do what is right is a most wonderful benefit from preaching God's law to others, and of course, to ourselves. Like Lot, let us not cease preaching what is right. Let us do so simply because it is right and true, both for us and for our society.
Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa is a professor at the Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies at the University of Dallas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mitch Pacwa SJ ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Ten Commandments' Case Reignites Church-State Debate DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives has reopened the debate about the separation of Church and state. Responding to political controversy at the state level across the country, Rep. Robert Aderholt (RAla.) has proposed a bill to protect religious observance in the public square.
The Ten Commandments Defense Act, introduced in the House June 25 purports to “protect the authority of states under the 10th Amendment to display the Ten Commandments in public places.” According to the sponsor, the right to display religious symbols in public is guaranteed by the freedom of religious expression guaranteed under the First and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group, is fighting Aderholt's bill, alleging that it favors particular religions and undermines the power of courts to determine the constitutionality of such matters.
“The judiciary is not some sort of congressional lapdog,” said Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the group. Americans United also argues that judicial precedent is on their side. In Harvey and Cunningham v. Cobb County, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Alabama) ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in 1994. In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case filed by Alabama's Republican Gov. Fob James arguing that issues of Church-state relations are constitutionally vested in the state governments.
The purpose of Aderholt's legislation is to counter the national judicial trend banning religious symbols and prayers in schools, office buildings, and courthouses. Republican leaders held a Capitol Hill press conference June 25 to call attention to Mildred Rosario, a Bronx, N.Y., public school teacher who was fired for talking about God in response to students' questions about whether a recently deceased classmate was in heaven.
“Where are we going as a nation when a teacher who answers questions about God is fired within days?” asked Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Rep. Bob Riley (R-Ala.) added that “we need to let parents and educators know that ‘God’ is not a dirty word.”
In Alabama, the high-profile public fight about the Ten Commandments has embroiled the governor, the state's court system, Congress, and the federal judiciary in the controversy. Etowah County Circuit Court Judge Roy Moore has refused an order by Judge Charles Price of the same circuit and Federal District Judge Ira DeMent to remove a self-made depiction of “God's Law” from the wall behind his bench.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought suit against Moore nearly four years ago, arguing that “this is a matter of whether a state official can impose his religious attitudes on those who appear before him.” Moore contends that no party has ever complained about his display and noted that the Ten Commandments are also depicted on the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
In response to Moore's battle, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 295-125 in support of a concurrent resolution to permit him to display the religious tenents in his courtroom. Passed last March 5, the resolution stated that “the Ten Commandments are a declaration of fundamental principles that are the cornerstones of a fair and just society … [they] set forth a code of moral conduct, observance of which is universally acknowledged to promote respect for our system of laws and the good of society.”
Gov. James, in a more militant approach, threatened to call on the Alabama National Guard to prevent federal agents from removing the Ten Commandments from Moore's courtroom.
“I will resist this by every legal and political means, with every ounce of strength I possess,” declared James.
The outspoken governor's stance sparked protests from civil liberties groups and drew fire from his primary challenger in the race for the Republican nomination in November's gubernatorial election. Despite allegations from his opponent, Winton Blount III, that James's support of religion is “backward” and making Alabama a “laughingstock,” the governor won June 30, garnering 56% of the vote to Blount's 44%.
The decisive victory underscores the statewide popularity of the governor's socially conservative policies. James has banned partial-birth abortions, outlawed homosexual marriages, supports school prayer, and attacks the scientific basis for evolution.
Lynn, of American's United, suggests James and other conservative legislators are simply using the religious devotion of Alabama voters for their own reelection bids.
“Thou shalt not play politics with religion,” demanded Lynn, claiming that “the Church-state separation protects religious diversity and equality by ensuring that government remain neutral on religious matters.”
Many experts disagree with this view of the original intent of the Constitution, however. Balint Vazsonyi, a famed concert pianist and Washington, D.C. historian who fled communist Hungary for the freedom of America in the 1950s, told the Register that “America's founders would be astonished to find that a nativity scene exhibited in the village square was viewed as ‘unconstitutional.’ They regarded their Christian religion as a given. The Bible was the common denominator among all those who came together to frame the supreme secular law of the land.”
“In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails.” This proposition, concerning the relationship between Church and state, and its condemnation by Pope Pius IX are contained in the Syllabus of Errors of 1867. One hundred thirty years later, the law of the land and its relationship to the law of God is still being hotly debated in all branches of American government.
Brett Decker writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brett Decker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Significant Supreme Court Rulings DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:The 1997-98 term of the U.S. Supreme Court ended June 27. In addition to the Finley decision, among the most important decisions announced the last week of the term dealt with these issues:
• Sexual Harassment: Employers are liable for sexual harassment by their employees even if they were unaware of such conduct. Victims of such misconduct can litigate whether or not their careers were damaged. Employers, however, can reasonably defend themselves by establishing an anti-harassment program and making a grievance procedure available (two cases: Farragher v. City of Boca Raton; Burlington Industries v. Ellerth).
• AIDS Discrimination: People with HIV-infection are covered by anti-discrimination provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is the first Supreme Court ruling on an AIDS issue (Bragdon v. Abbott).
• Line-Item veto: The line-item veto, which allows the president to veto parts of appropriations bills passed by Congress, was declared unconstitutional. This authority has been enthusiastically endorsed by both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who were able to use similar power during their terms as governor (Clinton v. New York).
—Joseph Esposito
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Seduced by The South and by Scarlett DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:The continuing hold of the pre-Civil War South on our collective unconscious is puzzling. That society's prosperity was created by a great evil—slave labor—which President Abraham Lincoln, among others, described as a curse upon our land.
Yet, the legend persists that it was a culture based upon honor. Its upper-class men are idealized as the 19th-century equivalents of chivalrous knights and its upper-class women admired as super-feminine fair maidens, skillful at flirting and at holding a family together as well. The other social classes, including the slaves, are falsely depicted as happy within this rigid hierarchy.
Margaret Mitchell's 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling novel, Gone With the Wind, has perpetuated these myths for several generations. A new version of the 1939 movie of her romance is currently in release. It restores the original frame size and renews the color. The film, which won eight Oscars, is the biggest box-office hit in history if its grosses are adjusted to reflect the difference between the value of the dollar then and now.
Gone With the Wind was voted best film of all time in a recent Gallup poll of ordinary moviegoers and placed among the top five in last month's more industry-oriented American Film Institute survey. The movie's guiding genius was producer David Selznick (A Duel in the Sun), who hired and fired 11 writers (Sidney Howard received sole screen credit) and four directors (Victor Fleming got the final nod).
Katie Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) is the most beautiful daughter of an ante-bellum Georgia plantation owner. At parties all the unmarried men in the county hover around her. But she is in love with a neighboring landholder, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), a serious, sensitive aristocrat who is engaged to his “goodie- goodie” cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland).
Despite Scarlett's carefully calculated flirtations, Ashley refuses to dump Melanie. Observing her unsuccessful machinations is Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), an earthy, maverick blockade-runner who claims to understand Scarlett perfectly.
“You'll never be anything but misery to any man,” he declares while recognizing she is the only woman who has ever really excited him. The destinies of these four characters are closely intertwined as we follow them through several decades of changing fortunes during the Civil War period.
The film's popularity springs as much from its passionate on-again, off-again love story as from its favorable portrait of the old South. Scarlett and Rhett are often in love with each other but rarely at the same time. To the audience's sadness and delight, they never seem to be able to synchronize their emotions together. This is because, as Rhett puts it, Scarlett is always “throwing away happiness with both hands.”
At the end, when she is finally willing to give herself to him completely, it's too late, and Rhett utters the movie's most memorable line, “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.”
The Scarlett-Rhett romance allows the film to have it both ways in its treatment of the old South. On the one hand, there are scenes of grand balls and contented slaves working in the fields. But on the other, one of the things that brings the two together is their contempt for its genteel way of life. They hate the emphasis on good manners and social ritual.
Rhett is proud that society matrons often say that he is “not a gentleman,” and Scarlett revels in the fact that she is considered “no lady.” They are both hard-headed predators who despise the plantation culture's inability to face reality. The movie opens at the time of firing on Fort Sumter, and neither shares all the other characters' enthusiasm for the coming conflict nor their belief in easy victory. Yet, they never criticize slavery.
When the movie was first released, the NAACP organized a boycott because of its racial caricatures. Scarlett's mammy (Hattie McDaniel) may be honest about her owners' mis-behavior when everyone keeps silent, but she is essentially an Aunt Jemima stereotype—fat, happy, and loyal, with no life of her own apart from her mistress. Even worse is Prissy (Butterfly McQueen), whose comic flightiness and incompetence suggests black folk are excessively emotional and not as smart as white people.
Scarlett is in many ways not a likable character. At the movie's beginning she is a manipulative flirt, tossing out compliments and batting her eyes with awesome intensity. When the South is conquered and she and her class become impoverished, her female life force becomes a primal will to survive.
“If I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill,” she declares, “I'll never be hungry again.”
Scarlett succeeds not through virtue, but through persistence and will power. She is a bad wife in all three of her marriages and a disinterested mother who dislikes childbirth because it ruins her waistline. Her conduct is contrasted with the ever-generous Melanie, who is a model of Christian charity and compassion.
Buried deep inside Scarlett is a conscience, but she doesn't listen to it very often. Her mother was a Catholic who held prayers every afternoon for the entire family.
“I always wanted to be like her,” Scarlett says. “I'm afraid I'm going to hell.”
Providence punishes Scarlett for her sins. She loses her only daughter and is never re-united with Rhett. Yet her energy and inventiveness fascinate. She seems to represent the dark side of a certain kind of female survival instinct. It's only because of that her the family plantation, Tara, isn't sold to carpetbaggers and that her friends and relatives prosper. Seen from her complex and contradictory point of view, the legendary old South still appears seductive, even though we know about the evil on which it was based, and is still struggling with its difficult legacy.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
Gone With the Wind is rated G by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: The most successful movie of all time is re-released on the silver screen ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: An Unusual Look Behind Enemy Lines DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Throughout history, warriors have usually been part of the ruling class. Most of Europe's pre-World War I nobility held their positions through blood descent from medieval war-lords. Their primary virtues were honor and courage. But centuries of wealth and privilege led them to confuse morality with manners and breeding so that at times social snobbery seemed to be their most prominent characteristic.
These aristocrats often had more in common with their equivalents from other countries than with less well born citizens from their native lands. To postmodern eyes, this insular class has come to symbolize the kind of repressive, heavy-handed, old-guard establishment that right-thinking people want to make sure never achieves power again.
Yet, much good was mixed in with the bad. La Grande Illusion explores the relationship of two aristocratic warriors from this class who wind up on opposite sides of the trenches during World War I. They have differing views on the importance of social status over nationality, but each shows himself to be a person of superior virtue.
A pair of French aviators, the upper-class Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and the middle-class Lt.
Marechal (Jean Gabin), are shot down on a reconnaissance mission. The German officer in charge, Capt. Von Raffenstein (Eric Von Stroheim), invites them to join him at dinner before they're shipped off to a prison camp.
It's not what you'd expect in a combat situation. Fine wines and German waltzes on the phonograph accompany the meal as de Boeldieu and Von Raffenstein, both members of the European nobility, talk about friends and relatives they knew before the war. They converse in English, which means that no one else can understand them. Although enemies, they seem to get along better with each other than with lower-ranking officers who wear the same uniform as they do.
Prisoners are separated by nationality, and de Boeldien and Marechal share living quarters with the son of a wealthy Jewish banker, Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), and a half dozen others. Their German guards treat them well, and food packages from Rosenthal's parents mean they eat better than their captors.
Nevertheless, a plan to escape is already well on the way to completion. The other prisoners have doubts about including the cold, haughty de Boeldieu, who seems more interested in discussing Paris luxury restaurants than in digging a tunnel out of camp. Always elegant with his monocle and fur coat, de Boeldieu treats their plans the same way he looks at the rest of the war—as a kind of sporting event. “A tennis court is meant to be played on,” he says. “And a prison camp is meant to be escaped from.”
By a quirk of fate, the day of their escape, all the French prisoners are shipped to other camps. De Boeldieu, Marechal, and Rosenthal are placed in a mountain-top medieval fortress that has been converted to a maximum security facility. The commandant is Von Raffenstein, whose injuries from aerial combat would have incapacitated a lesser man. He now has a neck and body brace to strengthen his damaged spine and wears white gloves to cover the burns on his hands and arms.
The prisoners organize another escape, but this time it's only possible for two to get away. De Boeldieu offers to risk his life and create a diversion so that Marechal and Rosenthal can make a run for it. This puts him into direct conflict with his aristocratic pal, Von Raffenstein.
La Grande Illusion is a remarkable film in that both the French and the Germans are equally sympathetic. French writer-director, Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game) and coscreenwriter Charles Spaak skillfully mix moments of comedy and tragedy with scenes of social commentary and suspense.
The movie is often described as an anti-war statement that discredits the idea of battle as an aristocratic sport. But the filmmakers also dramatize what was truly noble about that now vanished upper-class way of life. The moral choices made by de Boeldieu and Von Raffenstein at times of crisis show us the real meaning of honor, comradeship, and self-sacrifice. There are no heroes or villains, only a few brave souls trying to do the right thing against all odds.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: La Grande Illusion sizes up war and the virtue of great men ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Proliferation of The 'School of Resentment' DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:For centuries, universities flourished throughout the civilized world, their work grounded in a view of learning as a disciplined habit of mind brought to perfection through the reading of great, enduring texts.
A classical, realistic, and hierarchically ordered model of learning prevailed, rooted in philosophy, especially metaphysics, and illumined by faith. So it was that higher learning based on the liberal arts was handed down to the Middle Ages and then on to modern times, from St. Augustine, through thinkers like Boethius, Cassiodorus, and lsidore of Seville. This tree of knowledge stood as the foundation of common thought and communication across the earth.
American universities have fecklessly abandoned this ancient model of learning. Deformed teachings, especially in the humanities, are springing up in its place, like a spongiform blight, feeding on once-healthy branches. The great works of Western civilization, long held up to students as paradigms of human achievement, are rapidly being replaced by trivia, and by multi-cultural and poststructural studies.
Stemming from political radicalism, this “postmodern” curriculum is often hostile to Western civilization and, especially, to American democratic capitalism.
The new model of the university took hold in the 1960s, when craven faculty, administrators, and trustees at trend-setting campuses capitulated to the demands of radical students, the latter sometimes armed with guns. A besieged Cornell, for instance, adopted a black studies program, to be taught only by black professors to black students. Every major university now has similar “identitarian” programs, programs fixated on group identity, grievance, and advocacy—forming what erstwhile anti-traditionalist Harold Bloom has called the “School of Resentment.”
During this same period, deconstruction and other chic poststructural theories came to dominate the intellectual life of humanities departments in almost all American universities. Like their relativist forerunners, the Sophists of ancient Greece, poststructuralists maintain that nothing can be known or even understood objectively. In their view, our minds cannot grasp truth, including moral truth, because we are hopelessly mired in prejudices determined by race, class, and gender. Language and thought exist to be “decoded” in such a way as to reveal their contradiction, paradox, and bigotry.
Steeped in the new orthodoxy of disbelief, what are students to conclude? That knowledge is nothing but a bramble of power-driven “perspectives” competing among themselves, and that no behavior is better or worse than any other.
What really drives post-structuralism and multiculturalism is not serious concern about what the mind can or cannot know—but rather politics. Both fads grew out of Marxist egalitarianism, notwithstanding the disastrous results of Marxism wherever it has been tried, multiculturalists teach that all cultures—their art, inventions, rituals, etc.—are equally valuable; post-structuralists teach that all ways of thinking are equally valid—but at the same time they press left-wing causes and they denigrate the beliefs and ways of thinking of mainstream America.
Multicultural and poststructural studies—Marxist, Afrocentrist, Women, Womanist (“feminist-of-color”), Latino, Cross-Cultural, Gender, Gay-Lesbian, Environmental, and even “White” men's studies—continue to proliferate in ever new hybrid forms. Typical course titles and titles of conference papers and other writings on major campuses include: Black Marxism, The Illness of Global Capitalism: A Study of Female Employees on ‘Sick Leave’ and the Social Meaning of Pain, Eco-Feminism, Cultural Imperialism or Hyper-Americanization—the Swedish Raggare and Chicano Lowriders, How to have Promiscuity in an Epidemic, Fetishisms, Queer Acts (a course that “encourages drag”), Chicana Lesbian Literature, White Guys: Studies in Postmodern Domination and Difference, Postmodern Pulp and the Desire/Need for Skin, Our Common Future: Environmentalism as a New Meta-Narrative, and TechnoImperiums: Utopian and Dystopian Relationships between Hi-Tech, the Public Sphere, and Corporate Colonization. And so it multiplies, a luxuriant crop of arrant nonsense.
With the growth of postmodern studies has come a decline in broad-based core requirements. A 1996 report by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) documents a near “purging … of courses that used to familiarize students with the … foundations of their society.” For example, a mere 4% of the elite colleges and universities surveyed require a philosophy course, and only 2% require a history course. While most of our institutions of higher learning have abandoned these academic staples, increasingly they encourage courses and scholarship obsessed with low culture and, the latest rage, alternative sexual “lifestyles.” They have also willingly lowered their entrance and grading standards, and accommodated themselves to the failure of K-12 schools by offering remedial catch-up courses.
The spread of postmodern studies no doubt in part accounts for the strife and intolerance on many campuses in recent years. Divisiveness has been reinforced by the adoption of discriminatory admissions practices, often in zealous conformity to government-mandated affirmative action. Many of the race- and gender-based “disciplines” derive from attempts by administrators to fulfill “diversity” hiring requirements. Many institutions have begun to toy with coercive, nascent totalitarian practices, such as racism awareness training (“RAT”) and behavioral training workshops on sexual harassment and on attitudes toward homosexuality. A Catholic student reported being obliged to attend one such session, which entailed watching “triple X” gay sex films.
There are rays of hope. A few brave and sensible faculty members are resisting postmodern radicalism. In response, campus ideologues, aided by pliant administrators, have most recently begun to advance their agenda by bypassing traditional academic disciplines and the rigors of departmental oversight—for instance, by substituting politically correct, pseudo-interdisciplinary “themes” for core subjects like English and mathematics. At Brooklyn College, an initiative called Brooklyn Connections would have guided almost all students into environmental and community theme majors. Distinguished faculty and alumni defeated the initiative, warning that it would kill the much-respected Brooklyn core by “passive euthanasia.”
The yield of an education based on trivia and ideology has, predictably, been meager. Arecent study at Stanford revealed that two-thirds of upperclassmen polled could not identify the name of the author of The Wealth of Nations and that one-third believed the Enlightenment preceded the Renaissance. A 1993 survey of college seniors and recent graduates, conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics, found that only 8% of those questioned could identify Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, while fully one-half could not understand a bus schedule. A 1992 study conducted by the Educational Testing Service concluded that as many as 15% of college graduates have only marginal language skills. Moreover, two recent articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education indicate that some students cannot bring themselves to condemn even horrific moral evil, such as genocidal ethnic cleansing or slavery.
The postmodernist university is surely helping to erode the intellectual and cultural cohesion of the nation and, ultimately, its powers to defend itself. This erosion must be reversed. The university must reestablish its metaphysical and moral foundations. Such is the fecundity of the tree of knowledge that, when the defenders of truth and reason rise up in its behalf, it will flower anew. Already organizations dedicated to the revival of the university are gaining in strength, and experiments in how to revive it are under way. One reformer, Professor Peter Redpath of St. John's University, has shown how the close reading of classical texts can strengthen the minds of students and sustain them in their lives also outside the university.
Redpath and other reformers deserve our support. Let us root out postmodernism in the university. The time for tolerating its absurd spongi-form outgrowths is at an end.
Candace de Russy PhD. is a trustee of the State University of New York. This article is reprinted with permission from Crisis in Education.
----- EXCERPT: Can American universities be rescued from the poststructuralists and multiculturalists? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Candace de Russy ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Three-Day Getaway to Purgatory DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:St. Patrick's Purgatory was a principal Irish landmark on a world map of 1492. Today, it remains the only penitential pilgrimage site in the modern Christian world. Situated on a small remote island in northwestern Ireland, the Purgatory has a continuous and unbroken tradition of pilgrimage since the time of St. Patrick. For centuries the shrine has conducted three-day pilgrimages of prayer, fasting, and penance. Even today, the site draws more than 30,000 people a year from all walks of life.
The first writings of St. Patrick's Purgatory, or Lough Derg, go back to 784 A.D. Annals of Ireland. In the Middle Ages, the island was so famous that Shane Leslie once wrote, “St. Patrick's Purgatory was the medieval rumor which terrified travelers, awed the greatest of criminals, attracted the boldest of knight-errantry, puzzled the theologian, englamored Ireland, haunted Europe, influenced current views and doctrines of purgatory, and not least inspired Dante.” Throughout the years, especially since the 16th century, the penitential activities, prayers, and focus of the island have changed little. Prayer, conversion, and reparation remain the major themes of St. Patrick's Purgatory.
During a typical three-day pilgrimage to the isolated island, pilgrims fast from all foods and liquids, except water. The fasting begins from the midnight before the pilgrim's arrival on the island. Once at Lough Derg, pilgrims continue to fast for the remainder of the three-day period, except for one light meal daily consisting of bread and oat biscuits, water, tea, and coffee. Once on the island, pilgrims remove all footwear and remain barefoot during their entire stay. The first night consists of a “sleep fast”—pilgrims spend the night performing various stations in or near the basilica. These stations consist of prayers, meditations, and spiritual exercises. At dawn, Mass is celebrated, along with communal morning prayers. After evening Benediction on the second day, pilgrims are allowed to retire to bed—the first moment of sleep for the visitors in 24 hours.
The three days are spent mostly in quiet prayer (silence is not mandatory), with continuous walking, standing, and kneeling at various assigned stations or penitential “beds.” One station, for example, would include visiting the Blessed Sacrament in St. Patrick's Basilica, then going to St. Brigid's Cross near the outer part of the basilica, walking over rough stones around the “beds” while reciting the rosary, then repeating the process on one's knees, and then with arms outstretched saying three times, “I renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Pilgrims perform nine stations similar to this one. Morning prayer, Mass, confession, the way of the cross, the rosary, a renewal of baptismal promises, evening Mass, night prayer, and benediction make-up the remaining part of the scheduled spiritual exercises.
Given all the comforts of the modern world, why would one go to St. Patrick's Purgatory? Several reasons emerge from the testimonies of the thousands of people who go on pilgrimage there yearly. For some, it is a place of solitude; for others, a place of thanksgiving for a favor receive; for others, it is a place of reparation for past sins. Most, however, come here to be face to face with God without the cozy chairs, padded kneelers, full stomachs, and soft beds encountered elsewhere. The three-day immersion in prayer and penance gives pilgrims the chance to attempt to imitate Jesus' experience of fasting and praying in the desert.
For those who are up to the challenge of St. Patrick's Purgatory, the pilgrimage season lasts from May 1-Sept. 20. Three-day pilgrimages take place between June 1-Aug. 15, and one-day retreats on specific dates during the months of May, August, and September. For the three-day retreats, pilgrims must be at least fifteen years of age and in good health. The one-day retreats, which are much less demanding than the traditional three-day retreats, do not require fasting or walking barefoot. Private and silent retreats are also available by arrangement during the months of March, April, October, and November.
Advance booking is not necessary for the three-day retreats and pilgrims may arrive on any day of the week. Boats run from 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. each day. Those who would like to do one-day retreats should make reservations beforehand. The one-day retreats begin at 10 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m., and boats will be waiting to bring you to the island. As the weather is often wet and cold, it is advisable to bring warm and waterproof clothing.
Lough Derg is located in a secluded area of northwestern Ireland—the nearest village being Pettigo, four miles away. In traveling to St. Patrick's Purgatory from Dublin, take N3 to Cavan Town and Butler's Bridge, and then follow N54 (Monaghan) for approximately seven miles. Then pick up A34 to Newtown, Butler, Lisnaskea, and Maguiresbridge. From there take A4 to Enniskillen, A32 and B82 to Kesh, and finally A35 to Pettigo. The trip from Dublin to Pettigo takes about two and a half hours.
The nearest train station is approximately 50 miles west of Lough Derg in a town called Sligo. The daily coach service from Sligo connects with the train and also with coaches from Galway, Knock, and Westport direct to Lough Derg during the three-day pilgrimage season (June 1-Aug. 15).
From Dublin, there is daily coach service during the three-day pilgrimage season direct to Lough Derg from the Central Bus Station. The bus departs each morning at 10:00 a.m. Connections are also available from Shannon Airport and Galway city. Although bus service is not available outside the three-day pilgrimage season, individuals and parish groups may arrange private coach trips from different areas of the country during the oneday retreats. St. Patrick's Purgatory, however, is not open to the public for pilgrimages or retreats from November until April.
For more information on making a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory, contact one of the many Catholic travel organizations or contact the shrine's pilgrimage office at: The Prior, St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg, Pettigo, County Donegal, Ireland; tel. & fax 011-353-72-615.18; e-mail: lochderg@iol.ie.
Kevin Wright writes from Bellevue, Washington.
----- EXCERPT: A little island offers the perfect place to temporarily renounce the world ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Wright ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: House Vote Bans Funding for Abortion PillO RFU-486OF DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Pro-life forces scored a major congressional victory in the fight against the abortion pill RU-486 June 24. The House of Representatives adopted an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill that would prevent the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from proceeding with activities related to the drug.
The amendment, offered by Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), stipulates that no federal money would be made available to the FDA “for testing, development, or approval (including approval of production, manufacturing, or distribution) of any drug for the chemical inducement of abortion.” The initiative passed by a 223-202 vote.
Coburn, a practicing physician, said, “The federal government has no right to use taxpayer dollars to develop abortion drugs. We should be seeking alternatives to abortion rather than making abortion more accessible. This amendment helps this Administration keep one of its promises to make abortion rare.”
“The business of the FDA is to protect lives, not to facilitate death. Preserving consumer safety is the proper mission of the FDA. However, the FDA's practice of developing and approving abortion drugs helps kill unborn children and threatens the health of women,” he added.
According to Michael Schwartz, an aide to Coburn, the legislative strategy is to bypass the introduction of a similar amendment in the Senate. After conflicting versions of the appropriations bill are passed, it is then hoped that the House-Senate conference committee would approve a bill containing the Coburn language. If the resulting conference report is passed by both houses, it would then go to President Clinton for action.
Such efforts are likely to take place in September, after the summer congressional recess. The 1998-99 fiscal year for the federal government begins Oct. 1, so action needs to be taken before then. It is possible that the president, who has consistently supported pro-abortion measures, could veto a bill banning RU-486. A veto, should it occur, would come directly before the congressional elections and might be a political issue in some districts.
For now, however, pro-life supporters are enjoying what is an unexpected victory.
Helen AlvarÈ, director of planning and information for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Secretariat, told the Register: “We're absolutely delighted and somewhat surprised. We knew only a day or so in advance that [Coburn] was going to introduce it. It went through pretty easily. It was a sign of hope to us that this drug, which is being sold as having the ability to make abortion even easier to get than it is now, could possibly be stopped.”
Philip Gray of Catholics United for the Faith, a Steubenville, Ohio-based lay apostolate organization, said, “We are encouraged by the efforts of the members of the House in their passing a bill prohibiting the use of the drug. Their efforts reflect support for married love, families, and the right to life. We pray the Senate and President Clinton will have the grace and courage to support these principles in their review of the bill.”
Although RU-486 (also known as mifepri-stone) is not now available in the United States, it has been used in France, Great Britain, and Sweden during the past decade. The drug, which was developed by French Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu, has been used to abort 200,000 children in Europe.
The drug traces its pharmaceutical company lineage to the infamous Zyklon B (cyanide) used in the gas chambers of Nazi concentration camps. Zyklon's manufacturer, the German firm I.G. Farben, was taken over by Hoechst AG, a large Swiss drug maker that has been the driving force behind RU-486.
The French drug company Roussel Uclaf, now allied with Hoescht, introduced RU-486 in France in 1988. Various U.S. pro-life organizations, including the National Right to Life Committee, launched boycotts of various products of Roussel Uclaf, Hoescht and, later, the merged firm of Hoechst Marion Roussel. The intent was to encourage the company to cease manufacturing the drug and to discourage entry into the large U.S. market.
The boycott began in 1994 and has included antihistamines Seldane and Allegra and a number of other drugs such as Topicort and Claforan. The boycott accounted for an 8% decline in U.S. sales for the portion of the year it was in effect in 1994 and a 16% decline for the full year of 1995.
To stem the negative publicity and the boycott, Hoescht Marion Roussel sought to disassociate itself from RU-486. Certain rights were given to a former Roussel official, Dr. Edouard Sakiz, and U.S. rights were “donated” to the Population Council, a pro-abortion organization based in New York City.
On Jan. 22, 1993, two days after taking office, Clinton directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to begin testing and evaluating the use of RU-486 in the United States. This action, taking place on the 20th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, was referred to in an HHS news release—apparently with pride—as “one of [Clinton's] first official acts” as president.
Donna Shalala, secretary of Heath and Human Services, announced in May 1994 that U.S. rights were being transferred to the Population Council. At this point, Hoescht Marion Roussel tried publicly to wash its hands of the controversy. The company stated, “The transfer of Roussel Uclaf's rights to mifepristone [RU 486] is final and legally binding. Hoescht and its subsidiaries no longer own these rights.”
Exactly one year ago, in July 1997, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee recommended that RU-486 be approved in the United States. The process was relatively swift. Dr. Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said at the time, “The FDAapproval process is moving at an unheard of pace to approve this deadly drug combination, leaving many concerns about safety unresolved.”
Dr. John Willke, president of Life Issues Institute and a leading expert on RU-486, contends that the FDA's endorsement is based on political, not medical considerations.
“Under normal circumstances,” he said, “it wouldn't have a ghost of a chance for approval.”
Americans United for Life (AUL), headquartered in Chicago, agreed. They told their membership in 1995, “Don't let the FDA put pro-abortion politics over science and medical safety.”
AULfiled a voluminous citizens petition with the FDA, detailing the medical consequences of the use of RU-486 and urging its disapproval.
The petition identified such side effects as cramping, pelvic pain, heart problems, extensive bleeding, and other problems.
U.S. tests seem to have affirmed the AUL's position and suggest the prudence of banning the chemical. In September 1996 the Family Research Council reported the following: “During the U.S. clinical trials earlier this year, four women required blood transfusions because they lost so much blood, 15 women required surgery, 21 required hospitalization, 13% required treatment for bleeding, and 5% of all women in the study required narcotics for the pain.”
The report continued: “All of these side effects happened in spite of the fact that the women who participated in the clinical trials were highly motivated, closely monitored, and underwent follow-up. We can expect that women will suffer results far worse that these when RU-486 becomes available to all U.S. women without the ideal conditions associated with clinical trials.”
Another serious concern associated with the RU-486 and a second chemical abortion pill, misoprostol, is the need to have a number of clinical visits to accomplish the objective of abortion. RU-486, for example, is the first step. It is taken between the fourth and seventh week of pregnancy.
To enhance—though not ensure—the likelihood of abortion, prostaglandin injections then are needed to expel the fetus. Sometimes several injections are required and ultrasounds are used to check the status of the pregnancy. Without proper follow-up procedures, which often don't take place, women are at considerable risk. In addition, the abortion may be unsuccessful, and pregnancies may continue with severely malformed children.
The May 30, 1998 issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal, published results of a study on the use of the prostaglandin drug misoprostol in unsuccessful RU-486 abortions. The research examined 42 children who were subjected to the drug during 1992-1997. The extent of deformities is significant: 27-30 of them had a clubfoot; 21 had cranial nerve defects with some degree of facial paralysis; 13 had deformed fingers or toes; eight had hydrocephalus or “water on the brain”; five had unusually small heads; and others had stunted muscle or bone development.
Dr. Claudette Gonzalez, who conducted the study, was quoted in a May 29 Reuters wire service story: “We hope that greater awareness of the widespread use of misoprostol to induce abortions will lead to new public-health measures to prevent these tragic consequences.”
The action taken by the House of Representatives is an effort in the direction of ending such tragedies. Pro-life advocates pledge to urge lawmakers to render judgments on such abortifacients based on rationality, not politics.
Gracie Hsu, a policy analyst on pro-life issues for the Family Research Council, said, “Indeed, we would all be outraged if the federal government ever issued an approval of Dr. Kevorkian's killing machine simply because he claims there are ‘therapeutic’ effects for his patient.
“We know otherwise. In the same way, the federal government should not give its imprimatur to RU-486 because no government should ever be responsible for the killing of innocent human beings or an accomplice to the mothers who would take the lives of their own children.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: Legislator-physician's last-minute amendment blocks FDA ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Portugal's Voters Reject Attempt to Liberalize Abortion Law DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:LISBON, Portugal—The pro-abortion victory party planned in Portugal for the end of June never happened. Abortion advocates and the media had predicted the nation's first-ever referendum would result in the liberalization of the country's abortion laws. When the votes were counted though, pro-lifers were the ones claiming victory.
Backed by Portugal's ruling Socialist Party, abortion advocates have been seeking to change Portugal's abortion law for the past 14 years. In February, lawmakers approved a bill relaxing the current restrictions on abortion, but pro-life forces successfully pushed for a national referendum of the issue. On June 28, Portuguese voters were asked whether the law should be changed to allow abortion on demand through the 10th week of pregnancy: 51% said “No.”
Abortion in Portugal is not illegal in all cases, however. Under existing law, abortion is allowed for certain medical situations and in cases of rape. The proposed change in the law would have removed those current restrictions.
Joao Araujo, a leader of the pro-life efforts in Portugal, told the Register that pro-life forces had expected to lose the vote.
“Nobody was expecting this,” said Araujo. “Every poll said we were going to lose. We never achieved more than 35% in a poll, and the day of the vote the main Portuguese television station predicted 59% yes and 41% no.”
The pro-life victory shocked political observers who had claimed for weeks that the referendum would pass. Immediately after the vote though, news reports attempted to discredit the vote by focusing on the high rate of abstentions. Of the nation's 8.5 million votes, only 32% braved the blazing-hot summer day to vote in the referendum. The turnout was below the 50% threshold necessary to make the vote legally binding on the Parliament.
However within a day of the vote, the leader of the Socialist party said he would not pursue a new abortion law for the rest of the session. Francisco Assis told reporters the “political conditions are not there for the process to continue.” The pro-abortion law's death after the referendum was yet another surprise for pro-life leaders.
“The Parliament was free to reject the result of the referendum since only 32% of the electors voted,” Araujo said, “but the Socialist Party decided to forget the law, thus it was a second victory inside the first one.”
For weeks before the national vote, pro-abortion and pro-life forces sponsored mass marches and nationwide media blitzes attempting to reach Portuguese citizens. With the vast majority of Portuguese claiming to be Catholics, the media spent much time focusing on the perceived division among Catholics on abortion.
According to Araujo, the Catholic Church's leadership in opposing the referendum led to some not so subtle attacks on the Church.
“In the United States there are many different religions, and many of them are against abortion, but Portugal is 99.1% Catholic. So here pro-life equals the Catholic Church,” he said. “The media were always looking for Catholics that were going to vote yes [pro-abortion]. They were interviewed everywhere—in Fatima and in the churches.”
Araujo said grassroots mobilization by pro-lifers achieved results. He said the pro-abortion “Yes for Tolerance” campaign was strongly supported by political parties, while the pro-life “No” campaign was led by what he called “anonymous people.” He said no national group formed to fight the referendum, but groups like Araujo's “Together for Life” formed in large cities such as Lisbon.
“We became known only because of this campaign and tomorrow nobody will remember us,” he said.
While the socialists have carried the pro-abortion banner in Portugal, the issue has been difficult even within their ranks. Prime Minister Antonio Gueterres, a practicing Catholic, publicly opposed the effort to liberalize abortion.
Father Frank Pavone, international director of Priests for Life and a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said the Portuguese abortion battle is evidence of the global nature of the abortion controversy. He blamed the worldwide division about abortion on the efforts of groups like the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which seek to establish full access for various “reproductive health services”—including abortion.
“Many speak about the harm done by illegal abortion, and the myth is perpetuated that we can make abortion safe by legalizing it,” Father Pavone said. “I have said at international meetings here in Rome that we in the United States have plenty of evidence that legalizing abortion does not make it safe, and that evidence needs to be brought into the pro-life campaigns in various countries.”
The illegal abortion myth was a major focus of the Portuguese referendum debate. In the weeks before the vote, a group called the Portuguese Movement for the Social Emancipation of Women published a book documenting what they claimed were 200 “gruesome” stories of botched illegal abortions. The book received extensive media attention both in Portugal and abroad.
Father Pavone said the argument can be defused by focusing on the harm abortion does to women.
“In the consultation I had with the Portuguese pro-life efforts, I recommended a strategy of focusing on women's rights as a key reason not to legalize abortion,” he said. “Authentic feminism is pro-life and makes room for both mother and child.”
Pro-life leader Araujo said that the abortion law might be dead for now, he expects the battle to continue. Though the pro-abortion forces may not focus on liberalizing the nation's abortion laws soon, he expects a renewed battle regarding other life issues.
“I think that for the next few years they will forget the abortion question,” he said, “but the Parliament certainly will push the sex education and contraception [issues].”
The Portuguese victory, according to Araujo, became a reality due to the hard work of pro-lifers around the country. In the weeks before the vote, activists distributed brochures with photographs of a 10-week unborn baby to 4 million of Portugal's 10 million citizens. However, he credits the power of prayer with securing a miracle in Portugal.
“There was an enormous chain of prayer in more than 800 places around the country,” he said. “Everyone who worked in the campaign acknowledges that this is a real miracle.”
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: Pro-Life efforts lead to upset despite media predictions on referendum ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Spin-Doctoring Turns Sound Economic Policy into 'Anti-Abortion' Legislation DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—This spring the U.S. Senate passed, by a margin of 51-49, one of the congressional session's most contested articles of legislation: the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (HR 1757). The vote will send President Clinton a bill authorizing the payment of nearly $1 billion to the United Nations, an itemized mandate for U.N. reform, the reorganization of several government departments, and foreign policy directives regarding Iraq and Israel.
The legislation also includes conditions for spending on foreign assistance for population programs and family planning. Under the bill, U.S. dollars could not be distributed to organizations that perform abortions as a means of family planning, that implement coercive programs of family planning, or that work actively to undermine existing laws on abortion. Known as the “Mexico City Policy,” these provisions echo the agreements of the U.N. conferences on population in Mexico City and Cairo, and reflect part of the social policy that directed Reagan-era foreign aid.
The bill also reintroduces a practice Clinton had hoped to put to rest five years ago, when he rescinded a Reagan Administration policy in his first days of office. The president instructed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Jan. 22, 1993, that they were no longer to implement the “unwarranted” and “excessively broad” conditions that restricted U.S. funding not only of abortion, but of “abortion-related activities.” The policy was abandoned, in the words of the president, because it adversely affected the provision of family planning services, and therefore efforts to stabilize world population. The White House has indicated that the president intends to veto HR 1757.
The Administration characterizes the measure as an “anti-family planning” and “anti-abortion” document. When drafted and implemented in the Reagan era, however, the Mexico City Policy was a sophisticated, many-faceted approach to population policy. Family planning formed only one component of a larger program, which sought economic development and social and human progress as a means to approach contemporary population dynamics.
According to the original Mexico City Policy, population growth becomes a crisis for two reasons: “counterproductive economic policies in poor and struggling nations, and a pessimism among the more advanced.” Such pessimism refuses to believe unstable economic conditions can be improved, and denies what demographic science has confirmed often: that “sound economic policies … create the rise in living standards historically associated with decline in fertility rates.” Recognizing this, the original policy concluded that “population control programs alone cannot substitute for the economic reforms that put a society on the road toward growth and, as an after-effect, toward a slower population increase as well.”
Building upon this principle, the original policy declared that the “primary objective [of U.S. foreign aid] will be to encourage developing countries to adopt sound economic policies and, where appropriate, population policies consistent with respect for human dignity and family values.” The criteria for acceptable programs of population assistance were based on the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), on universal human rights, and the obligation to respect religious and cultural beliefs of societies and individuals. At no point did the policy reject the idea of “family planning.”
The Mexico City approach to foreign aid defined population policies as an “ingredient of a comprehensive program that focuses on the root causes of development failures.” To reflect its priorities, the policy stated that population assistance was to amount to about 10% of total development assistance. When Clinton rejected this approach, he did so based on family planning and access to abortion. His action of January 1993, more than the Mexico City Policy itself, made family planning and abortion an issue.
Clinton's executive order initiated a foreign aid philosophy that subordinates economic development to family planning. USAID spending priorities now clearly reflect this philosophy. Funding figures for 1997, for example, indicate a bias in favor of population spending, with such allocations reaching 31% in Indonesia, 36% in the Philippines, 60% in Tanzania, and 73% in Mexico.
Imbalances between population and economic development spending are not as significant as the imbalance between health and population categories, since economic development only occasionally receives zero spending. Presently, many countries do not receive money dedicated specifically to health activities. In their assistance profiles, health activities are subsumed as a category of population assistance. These countries include Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
The current approach to foreign aid features the types of family planning abuses the Mexico City Policy attempted to prevent. The same act that ended the Mexico City Policy renewed U.S. funding of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Both of these organizations are and have been directly involved in the Chinese National Family Planning Program, and its practices of coerced abortion, sterilization, and contraception. Even if U.S. dollars do not directly pay for these practices, they free up other funds for that use.
In Mexico, which in 1997 received $12.9 million in U.S. population assistance, women are routinely fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs) during delivery without their prior consent, and are refused assistance in removing the devices afterwards. In Peru, thousands of women have been sterilized in the past two years in response to government-established sterilization quotas. Many of these women were sterilized against their will, or under economic or social pressure.
The USAID logo appears on a billboard advocating the family planning program a few miles from where one Peruvian woman died of a botched sterilization. USAID funds go to at least one organization that has trained Peruvian doctors in sterilization techniques.
This is the situation the “new” Mexico City Policy attempts to reverse. HR 1757 and what is called its Mexico City component are primarily an attempt to regain ground not in the area of family planning, but in human rights and U.S. image and integrity abroad.
The measure forbids making U.S. population assistance funds available to organizations that perform abortions as a means of family planning in any foreign countries. This resolution has been reiterated often at U.N. summits and accords, and would reinforce commitment to a policy the international community has repeatedly pledged to support.
Second, the bill prohibits the use of U.S. funds to organizations that “violate the laws of any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated, or prohibited, or engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or governmental policies of any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated, or prohibited.” From an international relations perspective, this is no less a restriction than the prohibition on foreign government contributions to influence national political campaigns.
Third, the bill calls for a halt on funding the UNFPA if it continues its involvement in the Chinese Family Planning program.
The proposed Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, with its Mexico City component, is an attempt to ensure that U.S. commitment to population assistance will not further human rights abuses documented as occurring within family planning and reproductive health programs abroad. It is also an attempt to bring the foreign assistance program back to its original priorities: the provision of basic health services, economic development, and the promotion of goodwill between the United States and the international community.
Kateryna Fedoryka is population programs coordinator for the Population Research Institute in Falls Church, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: White House says Clinton will veto foreign affairs reform bill ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kateryna Fedoryka ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:Regarding the RU486 story, Pope John Paul II addressed how the contraceptive mentality leads to such practices. In Evangelium Vitae he said:
“The close connection which exists in mentality between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being” (13.4).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Even in Dark Moments, Pro-Life Walkers Feel God's Presence DATE: 07/12/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 12, 1998 ----- BODY:In the May 10-16 issue, the Register reported on a cross-country pro-life walk sponsored by a student-run nonprofit organization called Crossroads (“Coast-to-Coast Walk Attracts Committed Young Pro-Lifers”). This is the third installment of a journal series by Joseph Flipper, a participant in the three-month journey.
We have been walking across the country for six weeks now and have logged more than 1,000 miles, from San Francisco to Denver, Colo.
The Crossroads delegation has 16 college students and graduates who are in the process of walking to Washington, D.C. as witnesses to the sanctity of human life. Along the way we pray and protest in front of abortion clinics, meet with local pro-life leaders, and speak with youth groups and with parishes.
We left Salt Lake City June 19 after speaking at many parishes about the mission we all have to protect human life, from conception to natural death. Among the many parishes where we spoke was St. Vincent de Paul, where Father Thomas Kaiser inspired us with his great love for Christ—a love that seemed to emanate from every pore.
From there we walked day and night, each of us taking a shift in order to reach Denver within a week. Crossroads hiked about 75 miles each day through the Rocky Mountains and over mountain passes reaching up to 11,000 feet into the atmosphere.
Upon reaching Denver we were blessed to stay at Christ the King parish in Evergreen, Colo. We spoke about chastity and human dignity issues to the youth group. They responded enthusiastically, and the group discussion was followed by a water fight.
We also had the opportunity to speak to youth that had accompanied their parents to homeschooling and Natural Family Planning (NFP) conferences. At the conference we joined an organization called Radix in evangelizing the youth and informing them of the importance of chastity. Many of the youth clearly see the present decadence of our society and realize that the only hope we have is found in Christ. They also realize that the practice of chastity forms the basis of a happy marriage.
We also met with John Kippley of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Couple to Couple League, a leading organization in promoting NFP and natural child rearing methods.
Nothing is more enjoyable or profitable than speaking with youth, since they will soon walk in our footsteps. We have come to understand what those who have worked in the pro-life movement see when they look at Crossroads. We have been put into contact with Catholics who are both older and younger than we are, with those who have worked decades for the sake of human life, and with those whose lives may have been saved by the efforts of the former.
Young people walked in the footsteps of Crossroads when the Life Teen youth group of Brighton, Colo., joined us for a day. We met them at Mother Cabrini Shrine near Denver, where the region's pro-life community held a picnic for us. They are a group of teenagers who are on fire for the Lord, devoted to the Eucharist, committed to Mary, and united in faith.
In addition to speaking with youth, we spend a lot of time in front of abortion clinics. At a Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver, we joined our Protestant brothers and sisters in prayer and protest. Two young women at the site carried babies. Both babies had been spared from abortion due to pro-lifers' efforts.
Crossroads also went to the Colorado Springs Abortion Clinic, run by Warren Hearn, the author of a textbook detailing many abortion procedures. As we prayed before the clinic doors, we were maligned by some passers-by who jeered, “Don't you have anything better to do?” or “Get a job!” Others yelled expletives at us or honked angrily as they drove by.
The power to change the world is in the hands of God, a fact that is at the heart of the Crossroads's mission. Our purpose to change hearts is realized in our weakness, when we find our strength in God.
This is why we are joyful while enduring such minor persecutions. Because the power of our activism is found in God, even when we feel weak and ineffective we know that our prayers will change hearts. This is why there is so much to be admired in those Christians who have fought tirelessly against abortion for decades, even when the answer to their prayers could not immediately be seen.
Everywhere Crossroads has gone, we have found much to be sorrowful about, but we have seen much that is a cause for hope. When speaking to youth, we have met many that not only abhor abortion, but who also desire to live chaste and holy lives. We have witnessed the perseverance of Catholics involved in pro-life activities, in clinic outreach, in praying daily, and in raising good children. The witness of Catholics united in their faith is one that can change the world.
Our travel plans now include walking to Lincoln, Neb., where we will meet with Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. From there, we will be trekking through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia on our way to Washington.
If you would like more information about where and when Crossroads will be this summer, please call 1-800-277-9763. We are willing to speak to parishes, conferences, and especially youth groups. If you would like to help us financially, our mailing address is Box 771, Franciscan University, Steubenville, OH 43952. And please pray for us.
Joseph Flipper, a native of Idaho, is a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
----- EXCERPT: Cross-country journeyers have logged more than 1,000 miles ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Flipper ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: China's Forced Abortions Draw Washington Scrutiny DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—A woman who for 14 years helped arrange government-forced abortions and sterilizations in China gave gripping and emotional testimony before a subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee June 10. The testimony of Gao Xia Duan, as well as that of a victim of the population-control program and a prominent human rights activist, was the latest in a series of public condemnations of China's human rights policies.
In response to President Bill Clinton's trip to China, scheduled to begin June 25, congressional leaders of both parties have attacked the communist regime's actions in several areas. The most forceful criticism has come regarding the stifling of political dissent, as evidenced by the Tiananmen Square massacre. As the world commemorated the ninth anniversary of the massacre earlier this month, the White House indicated Clinton would be received in a ceremony at Tiananmen Square, where hundreds — possibly thousands — of Chinese were killed.
Congress has also raised questions about China providing nuclear technology to Pakistan, the possible involvement by the People's Liberation Army in the 1996 Democratic election campaigns, and the continued granting of Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status to China. In addition, organizations such as Freedom House and the Cardinal Kung Foundation have criticized China for its religious persecution of people of all faiths, including Catholics (see “Clinton's China Trip Stirs Discord in U.S.,” Register, June 14-20).
This latest hearing, chaired by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) perhaps placed the human rights violations in its most personal context. The witnesses presented a riveting story of a pervasive, unbending program of population control, which relies on strict monitoring of women, paid informants, and even imprisonment for those unwilling to undergo sterilizations or abortions. On the day of the hearing, the White House announced the president will raise the issue of forced abortions with Chinese leaders.
Harry Wu, an activist who was imprisoned for nearly two decades in China, explained to the subcommittee the history and mechanics of the planned birth policy. He criticized the basic premise of the program, that China's economic shortcomings are due to overpopulation.
“Such a point of view is preposterous, and therefore unacceptable,” he argued.
Nevertheless, Wu said China has implemented a “thoroughly barbaric” policy that promotes a one-child policy through forced use of intrauterine devices, sterilizations, and abortions. The entire weight of the government is used to ensure that the dictates of the policy are followed. For instance, in Fujian Province, which is located on China's southeast coast, reprisals are specified by 28 different government departments, and include denying fertilizer and seeds, driver's licenses, and bank loans to violators.
One political subdivision in Fujian Province is Jinjiang City, where nearly 200,000 married women reside. Of those women with no children or one child, 82% have been forced to have intrauterine devices surgically implanted and 10% were sterilized. Among women with two children, 94% were sterilized, and those with more than two children suffered a 99.94% sterilization rate. These figures are from an official 1997 government report.
Yonghe Town, a city of 60,000 within Jinjiang City, issued detailed regulations on population control for its residents in 1996.
For example, every woman with one child must be fitted with an intrauterine device and be examined four times a year; any deviation results in mandatory sterilization. Women with two children or those with one boy are automatically sterilized.
Equally shocking to most Americans are the night-time raids of “planned-birth supervision teams,” composed of officials from various local government offices. Wu said, “Supervision teams conduct raids at lightning speed. They usually set out at night, conducting either routine door-to-door checking or they focus on local suspects.”
“Apprehended women who violate PBP [planned birth policy] are escorted to be incarcerated in detention facilities attached to town planned-birth offices. Should it be impossible to apprehend the women themselves, their family members are taken. They are released only after they clear all monetary penalty payments, undergo device-insertion, sterilization, or abortion surgeries,” he added.
The harshest conditions exist in the countryside, where three-fourths of all Chinese live, but the situation is pervasive throughout the country.
The policy, Wu said, “extends its tentacles into the life of every woman and every family in the nation.” In so doing, he added, “The determination of the Chinese communist authorities to alter human nature, like that of any totalitarian regime, is impervious to reason, even frenzied.”
The implementation of this policy was eloquently and emotionally described by Gao Xiao Duan, who left her position as administrator of the Planned Birth Office (PBO) in Yonghe Town earlier this year. Since 1984 she worked at a comprehensive population control center that stores data on local women, performs sterilizations and other gynecological procedures, and jails women who resist. The center was documented in a video she smuggled out of China, and which was shown at the hearing and on ABC's Nightline program the previous evening.
Breaking down several times during her testimony, Gao said, “All of those 14 years, I was a monster in the daytime, injuring others by the Chinese communist authorities' barbaric planned-birth policy, but in the evening, I was like all other women and mothers, enjoying my life with my children.
“I could not live such a dual life anymore. Here, to all those injured women, to all those children who were killed, I want to repent and say sincerely that I'm sorry,” she said.
The story she presented did, indeed, portray a monstrous situation. A computer data bank stored detailed information on more than 10,000 women in the city. This information includes virtually every bit of information on a woman's reproductive history and capability, including recording menstrual cycles.
The government issues “birth-allowed certificates” or “birth-not-allowed certificates” according to various criteria. A woman who becomes pregnant and does not have a certificate allowing her to do so, is immediately made to undergo an abortion. Those violating specific policy might find their house dismantled. To better police the system, informants are used. And to further ensure compliance, “go-to-the-countryside cadres” are sent to villages to inspect and ensure that local officials have not become lax.
When such measures fail and women became pregnant without approval, the situation could become horrendous. Gao spoke with regret about one incident in which she played a lead role.
“I vividly remember how I once led my subordinates to Yinglin Town Hospital to check on births,” she said. “I found that two women in Zhoukeng Town had ‘extra-plan’ births.
“In a move approved by the town head,” she continued, “I led a planned-birth supervision team composed of a dozen cadres and public security agents. Sledge hammers and heavy crowbars in hand, we went to Zhoukeng Town, and dismantled their houses. Unable to apprehend the women in the case, we took their mothers in lieu of them, and detained them in the PBO's detention facility.
“It was not until a month-and-a-half later that the women surrendered themselves to the PBO, where they were sterilized and monetary penalties were imposed. I myself did so many brutal things, but I thought I was conscientiously implementing the policy of our ‘dear Party,’ and that I was an exemplary citizen, a good cadre,” she said.
Perhaps the most moving part of her testimony was when she described a partial-birth abortion being done on a pregnant woman, in her ninth month, who did not hold a birth-allowed certificate. Gao wept as she described the gruesome procedure she witnessed.
“To help a tyrant do evils was not what I wanted,” she said. “I could not bear seeing all those mothers grief-stricken by induced delivery and sterilization. I could not live with this on my conscience. I, too, after all, am a mother.”
The third panel member wanted to be a mother, but government policy prevented her from doing so. Zhou Shiu Yon, who fled from Fujian Province in 1993, is a victim who resisted an abortion, but miscarried her child after escaping. She described how thugs raided her house and then handcuffed and jailed her after it was discovered she became pregnant without having a birth-allowed certificate.
She jumped out a window, escaped China by ship, and then was forced to deal with an unsympathetic U.S. State Department that thwarted her efforts to secure political asylum because she was considered a lawbreaker: she violated the Chinese government's population-control policy. Congressmen Smith and Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) succeeded in reversing Clinton Administration policy by passing an amendment in 1996 in which being pressured to undergo an abortion or sterilization is grounds for political asylum.
Smith roundly criticized the coercive “one-child-per-couple” policy that was discussed at the hearing.
“The testimony revealed today includes details about the depravity of the People's Republic of China's program that not even the harshest critics of the program ever suspected.”
His comments were reinforced by several other committee members: Hyde, who called forced abortion “a double insult to humanity,” and Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.).
“We have completely put our head in the sand regarding human rights in China,” Smith told the Register after the hearing.
Smith, a Catholic and leading pro-life congressman, is not deterred though. Just as he believes pressure was, and still can be, exerted on Peru because of its forced sterilization program, Smith says there are several measures the United States government can take regarding China.
These measures include to “totally cease funding” the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, which has failed to see wrongdoing in China's population program; to aggressively apply asylum policy to allow victims to find freedom; to raise the abortion and sterilization issue at the United Nations Convention on Human Rights; and to link continuation of MFN status for China with progress on human rights.
In a separate interview, Wu said that the United States needs to “put some teeth in its policy” toward China. Rather than being so enamored with trade possibilities, the United States should evaluate a broad range of issues when dealing with China.
“What is our American policy? Engage. But,” he queried, “engage on human rights, religious persecution, forced abortion, freedom of press, or only engage with commercial investment?”
Gary Bauer, president of American Renewal and the Family Research Council, Washington-based public policy organizations, attended the hearing but did not testify. American Renewal helped support the work of the Laogai Research Foundation, which Wu heads, and which has been looking into these family planning abuses.
Bauer agreed with comments made by Wu and Smith when he said, “We need a policy toward China that accurately reflects the values of the American people. A one-dimensional policy based solely on commerce is not worthy of the greatest democracy in the world.”
In the time before the president's trip, public criticism of China's human rights policies will continue. While some may tend to place the issue in abstract terms of freedom and repression, activists like Harry Wu and now, perhaps, a converted Gao Xiao Duan, will put a human face of hope and sorrow on many of these actions of the Chinese government.
The right to life is likely to be one of those ongoing concerns. Wu may have best articulated this issue when he testified, “To give birth is a basic human right. No government, organization, or individual can deprive a person of his or her right to reproduction for political, social, economical, cultural, ethnical, or any other reasons.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Springfield, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: Former 'population-control' official testifies & apologizes ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Italy, Being Catholic Is Not an Easy Thing DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:ROME—Italian Catholics are in danger of becoming second-class citizens who are “penalized for having the courage of their convictions,” according to the Vatican newspaper, L'Osserva-tore Romano.
In a front-page editorial published May 26, Catholic historian Giorgio Rumi urged Catholic politicians to react against the “humiliating subjugation” that is preventing them from defending Catholic values.
In the past several weeks, the Vatican, together with the Italian bishops' conference, has made clear that regarding issues ranging from the right to life to state subsidies for Catholic schools, from bioethics to Italy's high unemployment rate, the Church is disappointed in Catholic politicians, especially those who are part of the current center-left government.
The latest controversy is about a bill under discussion in the Senate that would provide low-interest rate mortgages for young couples, regardless of whether or not they are married. Same-sex couples would also be eligible.
The family cannot be considered “optional,” said L'Osservatore Romano, and unmarried or same-sex couples are “unnatural aggregations which cannot demand the rights and duties of marriage.” Quoting Pope John Paul II's address to the Italian bishops' conference, the editorial exhorts Catholics to defend the values of life and the family.
The article explains that the first part of the Italian Constitution revolves around the concept of the family, based on the union of a man and a woman, as the fundamental unit of social organization.
“Other types of unions,” said the newspaper, “go against the Constitution and are an attack on the order established by this fundamental norm of the Republic.”
The editorial also touched on an issue that Italian Catholics have long been fighting for: Government subsidies for religious schools, “which offer a service to the national community.”
“We are seriously concerned,” Pope John Paul II told the Italian bishops last month, “about Catholic schools that are not recognized as being equal to public schools, as in other European countries. We therefore request with force and urgency that this unfortunate anomaly, which does not honor Italy, be overcome.”
Catholic schools in Italy, which are open to students of all faiths, are run by religious orders, but employ many lay teachers, due to the decreasing number of vocations.
“Many working mothers depend on Catholic day-care centers and pre-schools because there is simply not enough room for their children in the public system,” said Sister Lidia Bianchi, who teaches in a pre-school in a working-class Roman neighborhood. “We are performing an essential service for the community, but we won't be able to keep it up for much longer if the government does not recognize this fact and consequently approve laws that would give us financing.”
L'Osservatore Romano's sharp criticism of Italy's Catholic politicians came just a few days after the Holy Father's criticism of Italy's Law 194, which legalized abortion 20 years ago.
“This law has killed three-and-a-half million babies,” Pope John Paul II said in an address in St. Peter's Square to more than 8,000 members of the Movimento per la Vita, Italy's main right-to-life organization, referring to the number of legal abortions performed in the country since the law was enacted.
“No human authority, not even the state,” said the Pontiff, “can justify the killing of the innocent. Such a tragic transformation of a crime into a right is an indication of a worrisome decay of a civilization.”
Pope John Paul II characterized Law 194 as a failure, which “not only has not rid the country of clandestine abortion, but which has on the contrary contributed to the country's low birth rate.”
“The abortion law,” he continued, is “a defeat and a humiliation for a woman and for her very dignity.”
Law 194, which calls for the “social protection of maternity and the voluntary termination of pregnancy,” was approved in 1978. It allows a woman to have an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Later abortions are possible only if the woman's life is in danger. A referendum in 1981 that asked Italians whether or not they wanted to abrogate the law resulted in a 70% vote to keep it.
This is a difficult time for Italian Catholics as far as politics is concerned. Until recently there was one very powerful Catholic party, the centrist Christian Democrats (DC), and political unity among Catholics was taken for granted. Though neither the Vatican nor the bishops never officially endorsed the DC, most Catholic voters viewed it as the party that had their best interests at heart.
Sweeping changes in the Italian political landscape, however, led to the DC's disintegration in the early 1990s. Several Catholic parties arose from its ashes. The 1996 national elections marked the first time that the Church remained truly neutral and told Catholics to vote according to their consciences. This marked a turning point for Italian Catholics, for they were forced to choose between the Popular Party (PPI), which belonged to the center-left (Olive Tree) coalition, or the other Catholic parties that were members of the center-right (Freedom Alliance).
Since the Catholic vote was up for grabs, both coalitions sought to convince voters that they were the true interpreters of Catholic values.
The Olive Tree coalition was victorious and named Catholic economist Romano Prodi as prime minister.
Two years later, the Vatican is accusing so-called Catholic parties of not doing enough to defend Christian values. Catholic members of the center-left government coalition are in a difficult position because they cannot ignore political alliances. For example, if the Popular Party were suddenly to call for the abolition of the abortion law, a government crisis could very well result.
The La Repubblica daily recently asked Popular Party President Franco Marini if the PPI is so strongly rooted in the Olive Tree coalition that it would be impossible to heed the Church's appeals for Catholics across the political spectrum to march together in defense of Christian values. Marini replied that, “The social doctrine of the Church is the pillar of our political history. Certainly, on important questions like state financing of Catholic schools or the delicate question of bioethics, the Popular Party could take a stand that diverges from that of the coalition to which it belongs.”
Marini did not mention the topic of abortion, though.
Similarly, other important representatives of the Popular Party have also defended the Catholic point of view on various issues but have stopped short of calling for an end to legal abortion. Silvia Costa, a Popular Party member of the Chamber of Deputies as well as president of the National Commission for Equal Opportunity, said recently that the first part of Law 194, which refers to the protection of maternity, has not been applied.
“‘The culture of maternity’” said Costa, “must move toward the prevention of abortion, which remains a failure on the part of the couple.”
According to Costa, women must be given the necessary assistance that would allow them to make the choice of having a baby.
Rosi Bindi, a Popular Party member who is minister for health believes that the government should work toward reducing the number of abortions by making the law work better.
Pope John Paul II and Prime Minister Romano Prodi met May 24 in Turin. Officially, they were both there to view the Sacred Shroud. Though what the Pontiff and the premier said to each other during their 10-minute meeting was not made public, most commentators guessed that the recent Vatican attacks on the government were at the top of their agenda.
Sandro Magister, who covers the Vatican for the weekly news-magazine L'Espresso, wrote, “Catholic Prodi had to ask for forgiveness for having done absolutely nothing on the issues closest to the Holy Father's heart, like abortion, the family, and schooling.”
Father Gino Concetti, theologian and columnist for the L'Osservatore Romano told the Register that “The recent appeal by the Church for Catholics to join together in order to promote fundamental Christian values is not directed exclusively toward Catholic politicians. The Holy Father, together with Italian bishops, have launched this appeal to Catholics of all political persuasions in order to remind them that they must make their voices heard.”
Father Concetti denies that the Church looks back with regret on the days when Italian Catholics were united under one party, the Christian Democrats.
“My own opinion is that the Church and politics should be separate. Catholics must be free to express their political opinions, but at the same time, they must be guided by a Catholic conscience.”
Berenice Cocciolillo writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Vatican urges politicians to defend life and family values ----- EXTENDED BODY: Berenice Cocciolillo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Assisted Suicide Gets Boost From Attorney General DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore.—Fallout continues here and across the country after Attorney General Janet Reno's suicide prescription decision early this month. Reno's stance lends some support to Oregon's 1994 Death With Dignity Act, saying doctors won't be prosecuted for helping their patients die.
Both legislators and Catholic leaders maintain that doctors do not belong in the assisted suicide business.
“In my judgment, the Justice Department is abdicating its responsibility to protect vulnerable people from deadly harm,” said Archbishop John Vlazny of Portland. “Our nation, from its very beginnings, has been committed to a form of government which provides liberty and justice for all. There is no true liberty without justice.”
Creating a law blocking lethal prescriptions and focusing on pain relief in patients' final hours would be more beneficial, Archbishop Vlazny said. He added that doctors should “not exacerbate any sense of abandonment” patients may feel.
Pope John Paul — referring to societies that permit abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, nuclear war, and capital punishment — has coined the phrase the “Culture of Death,” to describe some of the modern world. Ideologies that support such a culture mixed with Oregon's own cult of individualism to create the first place in the country where assisted suicide is legal. It is one of the nation's least-churched states, and few were surprised that it became the launching point for suicide supporters.
Church leaders maintain that the poor, elderly, and disabled might fall prey to laws that start as a right to die, and then mutate into a duty to die.
“Our government, which we contract to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable, has instead advanced the culture of death by facilitating the suicide of those most in need of our compassion,” said James Cardinal Hickey, archbishop of Washington. “We call on Congress to act promptly to reinstate the Drug Enforcment Administration (DEA) position overturned by Reno, so as to prevent more tragic deaths in Oregon.”
In Oregon, the assisted suicide law is already taking its toll. The law was first approved in 1994, but it was shelved because of legal challenges. It went into effect last November following the sound defeat of an appeal initiative. This first-in-the-nation law permits doctors to use medication, but not lethal injections, to aid patients in committing suicide. It requires the concurrence of two doctors that a person has less than six months to live and is mentally competent to make a decision to end his or her life.
At least three doctor-assisted deaths have been attributed to the Oregon law since it went into effect. The details surrounding one of the first cases provides reason for concern. Before this assisted suicide, two doctors, including the family physician, declined to help in the death of an 82-year-old woman. At least one of the doctors diagnosed her with depression and recommended treatment and counseling. A third doctor, referred by suicide activists, agreed to help in her death after interviewing her by telephone.
Dr. Joseph Graham, president of Texas Right to Life Committee, Inc., said some may wrongly interpret the attorney general's decision as a concession in favor of legalizing assisted suicide in other states.
“This is not a ‘victory for democracy’ as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, but a victory for those who seek to further the culture of death by making it easier for doctors to kill their patients,” Graham said.
On June 5, Reno said that doctors prescribing deadly drugs under Oregon's assisted-suicide law will not face federal prosecution. Almost immediately after her announcement Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) introduced the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act. Hyde said lethal abuse of drugs hasn't ever received federal government backing, nor backing from the American people.
This month's events in the tale of the attempts to legalize assisted suicide began with a request from Reno seven months ago. She asked DEA chief Thomas Constantine to comment on the Oregon law. Constantine said prescribing lethal doses did not meet the Controlled Substances Act's requirement of “legitimate medical purpose.”
In contrast to that finding, Reno, who is in charge of the DEA, now states that medical practice has traditionally been regulated by the states. At the end of her ruling, she wrote that her opinions were for this case only and don't amount to an overall green light for doctor-assisted suicide.
“The refusal of Attorney General Janet Reno to enforce the Controlled Substances Act that prevents the use of federally controlled dangerous drugs to kill patients flies in the face of the professional judgment of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the views of 65% of the American people, and the urging of 37 senators and 169 representatives,” said Burke Balch, director of the National Right to Life Committee's department of medical ethics.
Father Michael Place, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) of the United States, said Reno's ruling is regrettable. Father Place said Congress and the president should now concentrate on the legal and policy ramifications of her ruling. He said CHA will work for education and funding for palliative care and additional programs for those with chronic pain and the terminally ill.
From the standpoint of supporters of legal suicide this new decision bears the mark of federal support. Barbara Coombs Lee, chief petitioner for the Oregon Death with Dignity Act and director of Compassion in Dying, said legal challenges to the law are “exhausted.”
“This ruling clearly supports our society's beliefs that decisions about health care should be made based on local community standards and enforced by local authorities, not the DEA or the federal government,” said Coombs Lee.
It's unknown how Reno's position will impact Jack Kevorkian and the Hemlock Society. Kevorkian, the self-described “death doctor,” has advocated for non-profit suicide clinics. His motto is: “Arational policy of planned death.”
The Hemlock Society, headquartered in Eugene, Ore., says it supports the work of suicide prevention programs and it denounces suicide for emotional, traumatic, or financial reasons. Its mission statement says, “We encourage, through a program of education and research, public acceptance of voluntary physician aid-in-dying for the terminally ill.”
No end appears in sight for the assisted-suicide debate, although it's not yet clear if Reno's ruling will affect initiatives in other states to prosecute or prevent assisted suicides. Opponents of assisted suicide have called Oregon a “firewall” and predicted that legalization will be sought in other individual states. There has already been some support for such a course in Washington, California, Florida, New Hampshire, and Arizona. Earlier attempts at legalization have failed in Washington and California.
James Bopp Jr, an Indiana attorney for the National Right to Life Committee, has been involved with federal court appeals involving assisted suicide since 1994. Bopp said the goal is to find people who face a realistic chance of being harmed by the suicide law. He said injured parties might include families of terminally ill people or health workers forced to obey the law despite its conflict with their religious beliefs.
Richard Doerflinger, associate policy development director for the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, joins those calling for legislative response. Doerflinger said the Justice Department “abdicated its responsibility to protect vulnerable people from deadly harm. Congress should address this issue quickly, making it clear that federally regulated drugs may not be used to assist suicides.”
He said this path would be “morally and legally responsible.”
Meanwhile, assisted-suicide foes continue their fight. Next month a federal district judge will hear an appeal brought by attorneys who are trying to overturn Oregon's assisted-suicide law. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals already rejected the bid, but attorneys are now adding a new plaintiff and complaint to the case. This suit alleges that legalizing assisted suicide stigmatizes terminally ill people and regards lives as not worth safeguarding.
Also, an Oregon legislative committee may mandate that more details of assisted suicides become public to prevent possible abuses.
In another assisted suicide matter, a Baton Rouge man has become the first person charged with violating Louisiana's 3-year-old law against assisted suicide. Police have arrested Joseph Hornsby, 26, for allegedly assisting the suicide of his girlfriend during an argument May 22.
Investigators say Hornsby had been arguing with Kristina Duong, 25, when she threatened to kill herself. After taking a gun away from her, Hornsby allegedly handed it back to her and told her to go ahead. She then reportedly pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger. He could face 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Hazel Whitman writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: Pro-lifers step up outcry against 'right' they say will become a 'duty' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Hazel Whitman ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Should Wives Submit to Husbands? Church Takes More Nuanced Approach DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:SALT LAKE CITY—For the past several years, the annual conventions of the Southern Baptists, America's largest Protestant denomination, could be counted on to issue declarations on social and family issues guaranteed to drive many of the nation's opinion makers wild.
This year was no exception.
The 10,000 delegates, or “messengers,” to the 141st annual Southern Baptist convention, held June 9-11 in Salt Lake City, Utah, overwhelmingly approved a resolution stating that the Bible calls for wives to “graciously submit” to their husbands.
“A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the Church willingly submits to the headship of Christ,” the 250-word addition to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement affirmed, along with declarations supporting marriage as a heterosexual union of “one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.”
Husbands, the resolution said, have “the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead [the] family.” (Other more policy-oriented resolutions against affirmative action remedies for homosexuals, an end to training women in the military for combat, and a halt to public financing of PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts were also voted in by the Convention.)
“I think the Southern Baptist Convention can either be viewed as a bunch of Southern yahoos who just don't know the proprieties of modern feminist protocol and the sensibilities of our cultural mandarins,” observed Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things, “or as people possessed of a refreshing insouciance who feel perfectly free to thumb their noses at the sometimes stifling restrictions our culture imposes on real debate.”
“I suspect,” he told the Register, “that there's some truth in both perceptions.”
While past convention resolutions calling for a boycott of entertainment giant Disney Co. due to the company's perceived pro-homosexual bias, and 1996's launch of a controversial campaign to evangelize Jews drew sharp criticism, this year's announcement on gender roles in the family was greeted by most commentators with quiet amusement.
When President Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, was asked June 10 about the vote, for example, he joked, according to White House press spokesman Mike McCurry, about “how he might call it to the attention of the First Lady,” Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(Later on, Clinton narrowly escaped a move on the part of his confreres to call on his home Church, Immanuel Baptist Church of Little Rock, Ark., to discipline the president if he refuses to rescind a recent executive order banning discrimination against homosexual federal employees, a measure the Convention opposes.)
The Southern Baptist declaration was, naturally, the subject of much “can-you-believe-it” analysis on television. Bill Maher's irreverent TV roundtable “Politically Incorrect” devoted a whole segment to it at the time of the convention.
But, sniggering aside, the Southern Baptist statement on pecking order in the family is another significant indicator of where the 16-million member denomination may be headed.
In contrast to past convention resolutions, the statement was voted in as part of the denomination's basic “creed,” the first such addition to the now 18-article Baptist Faith and Message Statement since 1963. (The Statement itself hails from 1925, a product of the pitched battles that took place in most American Protestant denominations between “liberals” and fundamentalists about biblical interpretation.) Adopted by an overwhelming margin, the amendment easily survived an attempt on the part of a group of delegates to soften the statement's language in favor of mutual submission of husband and wife.
While Southern Baptists generally are not required to subscribe to the document — they do not consider themselves to be a “creedal” Church — it still figures as the denomination's official policy statement, informing Church teaching materials and, often enough, seminary and ministerial appointments. Politically, it's one more piece of evidence that the Church's traditional wing is calling the shots — a growing trend since the late 1970s when a less literal-ist mentality was in evidence in leading Southern Baptist seminary circles. That point was also brought home by the fact that one of the leaders of the effort to reassert traditional Southern Baptist values, Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, ran unop-posed as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and, not surprisingly, won.
Though a strong supporter of the notion of biblical inerrancy — the idea that the Bible is free of any and all error — Patterson has long supported the denomination's 30-year dialogue with the Catholic Church, a “conversation” officially endorsed by delegates to the 1994 Southern Baptist Convention.
More importantly, the statement, in the face of high divorce rates, absentee fathers, and teen violence, underlines the high priority that the restoration of traditional family life is becoming for large numbers of American Christians.
Patterson, 55, the denomination's newly elected leader, indicated as much in a recent interview. The amendment, he said, was a response to “a time of growing crisis in the family.”
Not that the position the Southern Baptists adopted on men's and women's roles in the family is particularly unique in the world of evangelical Christianity. Based on a number of New Testament passages, but laid out most eloquently in Paul's Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33), the notion that gender roles in marriage, conceived after the model of humble service, are part of a “divine order” in the Christian family would come as little surprise to many conservative Protestants, as well as to movements like the Promise Keepers, the fast-growing Christian men's group.
“There's nothing new here,” said Brother Jeffrey Gros, a noted Catholic ecumenist, and director of ecumenical and inter-religious affairs for the National Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).
“The reason for [the statement] is also not hard to fathom,” he pointed out. “There's a breakdown of the family in the culture. There's a women's movement challenging older views of women's roles in the family and society. This is their strategy for dealing with it.”
In this sense, the conservative evangelical approach is the mirror-image of the feminist one. While many modern feminist scholars, both in and outside the Church, dismiss the Pauline directives on male headship of the home as an outmoded concession to first-century mores, conservative evangelicals highlight its relevance — both as a nod to biblical inerrancy, and as a practical strategy for reinvigorating male involvement in contemporary family life.
Even so, some non-Southern Baptist conservatives have moved in recent years toward an understanding of male headship within the family that includes a strong dose of mutual consultation between husband and wife and common discernment about God's will for the family.
The Catholic Church's approach to this area tends to be more sophisticated and, finally, less focused on gender roles than the position outlined by the Southern Baptist plank.
“The Church certainly doesn't deny [St. Paul's] very powerful analogies between Christ and the Church and the husband and wife,” said Father Neuhaus. “But what it underlines is not the ‘dominance’ issue,” he told the Register, “but the call to both husband and wife to mutually submit to Christ.”
Christ's role, he stressed, is always that of the servant-lord.
“He came not to be served, but to serve.”
In that sense, said Father Neuhaus, the Church's position [on the passage from Ephesians] is more radically counter-cultural than the Baptists' one, which can too easily be understood “as a statement about who's boss.”
The Church has never denied that there might be role differences in marriage. Pope Pius XI's 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage) is eloquent on that point (see sidebar).
But what is even more important than roles is the marital goal of creating a community of persons. Pope John Paul II has written extensively on the topic.
For example, the Pope puts the Apostle's admonitions of spousal love and respect in the context of “the sincere gift of self” in marriage.
In his 1994 Letter to Families, he writes: “It is because of this love that husband and wife become a mutual gift. Love contains the acknowledgment of the personal dignity of the other and of his or her absolute uniqueness.”
And, perhaps most strikingly, the Pontiff, in his pioneering 1988 apostolic letter on the dignity and vocation of women, Mulieris Dignitatem, sees that the husband's self-sacrificing love and the wife's divinely motivated subjection “is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a ‘mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ’ (cf. Ep 5:21).”
Only in the context of this mutual submission out of reverence for Christ do the rest of the passage's admonitions make sense.
The special subjection of wives, the Pope writes, is the “old” reality that the New Testament author saw as “profoundly rooted in the customs of religious tradition of the time.” By contrast, the call to mutual subjection is “something new,” an “innovation of the Gospel.”
The U.S. bishops made a similar point in their 1994 Pastoral Message to Families.
“There is a real difference here,” said Brother Gros. The Southern Baptist position argues for a hierarchical remedy to the family's ills. “The Pope's exegesis [of Ephesians] is that mutual submission to Christ is the answer.”
But few would argue, no matter what one thinks about who's supposed to submit to whom in the New Testament's daunting vision of Christian marriage, that contemporary American society has an even more fundamental “bone to pick” with the Letter to the Ephesians.
As New York Times religion writer Peter Steinfels wryly observed in a June 13 article on the latest Southern Baptist controversy: “What all these Christians, from the Southern Baptists to the Pope, might agree upon is that in contemporary society, nobody wants to be subject to anyone, mutually or not.”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
Who are the Southern Baptists?
Southern Baptists make up the largest non-Catholic Church body in America. They claim more than 38,000 churches and more than 15,000,000 members.
While Southern Baptists were not formally organized until 1845, they played an important role in early American religious life. In 1639, Roger Williams founded the first Baptist Church in America, in Providence, R.I.
Baptists migrated South in the mid-1770s, stressing their characteristic doctrines of adult baptism, evangelism, and revival. In 1845, the denomination split into Northern (American Baptist) and Southern branches when Northerners resisted the appointment of slaveholders as missionaries. At last year's Southern Baptist Convention, delegates asked forgiveness of African-Americans for the denomination's past support for slavery.
— Gabriel Meyer
----- EXCERPT: Catholic leaders respond to controversial Southern Baptist resolution ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: California Voters Seen as Barometer for the Nation DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—As California goes, so goes the nation — or so think many political analysts who say that issues debated and either approved or rejected by California voters often end up in other states' referendums.
George Forsyth, political scientist, former foreign service officer, and current executive director of the Catholic Campaign for America, concurs. He believes that because California has the largest and most diverse state population, it could act as a little laboratory for testing ideas, policies, and even movies.
“In many ways, it's the most modern, most advanced part of the United States,” Forsyth said, “so things that are trends [there] today, have historically become trends later in the more established parts of the country. In terms of modern America, [California] is a social, economic, and cultural sample. You couldn't have a better sample.”
Because California offers a political barometer for issues that could create a ripple effect of similar impact on other states, the Register took a broad look at some key issues raised in the state's June primary.
In addition to several hotly contested congressional races and a crucial gubernatorial race, California voters recently considered several propositions that would have far-reaching consequences on the state's education and work environment.
From the beginning, the stage of California's latest primary election was dramatically different. Per the wishes of last season's voters, California experienced its first open primary, in which registered party members were free to vote for candidates of another party affiliation. Some analysts felt this would be a good indicator of general election results, but it's too early to assess such a hefty voting procedure change. Political strategists are still experimenting with the new field of political maneuvering now open to them.
In one high-profile congressional race in Southern California, for example, pundits question whether the uncontested Democratic candidate, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, influenced cross-over voters to choose former Congressman Bob Dornan (R), who lost his seat to Sanchez in a close election two years ago, over another Republican contender, Lisa Hughes. There's no certainty about the motives in the resulting Dornan-Sanchez race, but some analysts believe that the open primary affords uncontested candidates the opportunity to “choose” their opponents in the general election, a strategy that is much more difficult to carry out in a closed primary situation.
Others believe that open primaries will be a good indicator of general election results. One political commentator, Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee, noted that although the June primary drew an unusually high number of Democratic voters, the party's candidates for three vacant statewide and several national offices pulled relatively poorly, indicating a potentially tough upcoming battle for the state's majority party. Either way, analysts nationwide are watching the effects of open primaries in California closely.
The state's battle for governor will be fierce. Pro-choice proponents are already trying to make abortion the key issue against pro-life state Attorney General Dan Lungren. One underlying and oft-ignored issue has much broader implications, though — that of redistricting in the census-taking year of 2000.
Although voter registration reveals a 51% Democrat to 49% Republican split statewide, California's voting districts have been among the nation's most creatively drawn, in an attempt to ensure the greatest number of Democrat representatives at the state and national levels. The issue, while not unique to California, yields exaggerated national consequences here because of the large number of representatives (52) it sends to Congress.
Because the governor plays a crucial role in guiding the redistricting that occurs with every new census, the battle clearly is about more than the gubernatorial candidates' victory or defeat.
Among the initiatives considered by California voters this June, two were of particular note. Proposition 226, a measure that was defeated, could have dealt a mighty blow to the political clout of labor unions. The initiative would have prevented unions from spending any portion of a member's dues for political purposes without the member's written consent. Referred to as “paycheck protection,” this measure attacked what some call the Achilles' heel of labor political power.
Historically, unions have poured most of their political contributions into liberal causes and Democrat candidates. Some union members object to having no say in how their union dues are spent. Proponents of the measure objected to unions using money from their members for causes the members do not personally support. Opponents countered that if members don't like how their money was being spent, they should elect different union leaders.
Union leaders were so concerned about maintaining their political clout and defeating this measure that they set up huge phone bank operations out-of-state, in union-heavy MidWestern states, to systematically bombard California voters with calls to discourage them from supporting the proposition. In addition, they purchased expensive ads that indicated support for the measure would eliminate union members' opportunity to support charitable causes — a false claim. Even though the proposition was defeated, many analysts believe the issue will be revisited soon.
Proposition 227 addressed an issue of growing concern, especially to states with a large number of immigrants: bilingual education. The measure proposed eliminating the current bilingual education program in favor of a more streamlined and controlled program. A new immigrant student would have only one year of bilingual classes and a tutor for a limited time afterwards if the parents formally requested it. Proponents said it would prevent students from leaning on bilingual education as a way to avoid mastering English. The proposal was approved by an overwhelming margin, much to the dismay of education bureaucrats who benefit from state bilingual grant bankrolls.
“[Proposition 227] was opposed by every major [political] leader,” observed Forsyth. “They were terrified of this measure because they were viewing it through the racial and ethnic lenses that have dominated politics since the '60s — but look at the results.”
Forsyth argued that the overwhelming support for the measure, even among Hispanics, indicates that bilingual education programs have failed. Moreover, he said, “It points to the deep yearning in the American people for a common national identity, no matter what their ethnic background. They want this common identity reflected in a common language.”
Forsyth also noted the general success of Catholic schools in bringing minimal-English-speaking Hispanics into the mainstream at a fraction of the cost of public school programs.
As to whether the proposition was structured to be hostile to immigrants, something that would oppose Catholic teachings, Forsyth said the strong immigrant support for the measure would indicate otherwise.
“When you look at the facts [and] who voted for it,” he concluded, “it's an authentic issue, and I think the Church would be inclined to accept that.”
Two prior California initiatives that are still being watched nationwide as they wind their way through various stages of legislative evaluation are Propositions 209 and 187. The first made it illegal to hire based on quotas or other prejudice, saying that applicants must be hired based on their relative merits to fulfill the job. The latter, which passed by a nearly 2-1 margin despite public opposition by the Catholic hierarchy and Hispanic leadership, denied state welfare aid to illegal immigrants.
Should we look to the Church to define the particularities of a political issue? “There's simply no ‘Catholic’ angle,” explained Forsyth. “Catholicism has a comprehensive view of the common good and there's no one lay group that embodies that. Morality should be defended by the law. New citizens should be welcomed. Children should be given high standard education with their parents as the primary determiners of that education. The Church offers a broader and more comprehensive view than that of one narrow ‘side.’ The factional mentality that dominates politics today sets different groups against each other, but [at a more fundamental level] their interests converge in the common good.”
Msgr. Lawrence Baird, director of communications for the Diocese of Orange, Calif., adds that it's a privilege to vote, which comes from a God-given freedom. He underscores the critical responsibility of each Catholic to inform his or her conscience according to the principles of Catholic teaching.
“When we vote,” he said, “we vote as human beings with a conscience, and we must act on an informed conscience. A Catholic must be informed on Catholic principles as they apply to particular issues; whether it's [an issue of] nuclear war or abortion. I can't leave my moral principles outside the voting booth. They are integral to me.”
The priest added that Catholics are called to externally express what they internally believe. “A Catholic must vote with a Catholic conscience, which requires that before I vote, I must be informed. To vote on an issue where I'm repudiating the official teaching of the Church on a matter, I'm not a faithful Catholic. One must approach voting issues from the angle of principle.”
In the near future, Catholics in California may have the opportunity to apply the principles of their faith to a ballot proposal defending heterosexual marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was introduced in late May in an effort to protect the state from being forced to accept “same-sex marriages,” even if they are legalized in other states such as Hawaii, Vermont, and Alaska. California Proponents of DOMA plan to submit it as a ballot initiative in an upcoming election.
Karen Walker writes from Corona Del Mar, California.
Bishop Issues Warning To Pro-Abortion Politician
Bishop Norman McFarland of Orange, Calif., has addressed a concern in the campaign for the state's 46th district congressional seat, sending a letter to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D).
In spite of her support for partial-birth abortion, Sanchez has been introduced in at least four local Catholic churches since March.
Bishop McFarland's letter to Sanchez prohibits her from speaking to Catholics from the pulpit.
The bishop explained to Sanchez that it is “incumbent upon you to give witness to the consistent ethic of life that should animate all conduct, but most especially political conduct…. [Because I am] becoming increasingly alarmed by your visits, I want to share with you my inquietudes in this matter before more public gestures on my part become necessary.”
The letter was not widely publicized.
Diocesan director of communications, Msgr. Lawrence Baird, concurred with the bishop, adding that “If someone, without mitigating circumstances, is pro-abortion, I find it impossible how someone could in conscience vote for that person.”
He also cited Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. From the very beginnings of the Church, the apostolic preaching reminded Christians of their duty to obey legitimately constituted public authorities (cf. Rm 13:1-7; 1 Pt 2:13-14), but at the same time it firmly warned that ‘we must obey God rather than men’ (Ac 5:29)” (73).
— Karen Walker
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karen Walker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Living With the Ghosts of Roe DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Norma McCorvey
Jan. 22, 1998 marked the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion on demand in the United States. Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the case, used the alias of “Jane Roe.” In one of the most celebrated events in the recent history of the pro-life movement, she repudiated her role in the case. Earlier this month McCorvey announced her plans to enter the Catholic Church. Register assistant editor Peter Sonski recently spoke with her in her home state of Texas.
Sonski: The name Norma McCorvey wasn't well known in the pro-life movement before you decided to become a part of it. The news that “Jane Roe” of
Norma McCorvey: Jane Roe was a very sad, very discontented person.
In January of 1973 when the decision was handed down, she found out about Roe v. Wade just like everybody else did: she read it in the papers — even though she was the plaintiff.
She didn't get any special consideration because she had been the plaintiff. The reason for that is still unknown, but from what I've gathered, once “Jane Roe” signed the affidavit that brought the holocaust of killing children into being, then she was no longer important to the pro-abortion people.
“Jane Roe”: former drug addict, former drug dealer, former alcoholic, former lesbian — I mean I can sit here for 30 minutes and tell you the “formers” that she was. “Jane Roe” used to have lots of problems because she wanted something right for women, but she just didn't know what that right was.
How were you convinced or persuaded that what you were doing 25 years ago by allowing your case to decide this crucial issue was going to be “right” for women?
I had been told that women should have the right to control their own bodies and their own reproductive systems, simply because it was due them. In other words, the reason why I signed on to Roe v. Wade was that I fell for all the old feminist rhetoric that had many other women completely bamboozled. I was told in one meeting that by giving women the right to freely choose to exterminate their own children would put an end to rape and incest.
Just by your agreeing to be the plaintiff in this case? Just that action was going to put an end to rape and incest as we know it in the United States?
Right.
Obviously, it has gone in the other direction; it has increased.
Right, absolutely — 100%, if not 1,000%.
What did they tell you afterward, when the results you mention didn't come about?
They didn't care. I honestly think that they did not care.
Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee and [the National Organization for Women] had a hidden agenda that started back in the early 1950s. Now this is just my opinion; I have no documentation. Thinking that once they got abortion legalized in Texas — because from what I understand, Texas had to be the test state in order to legalize abortion throughout the land, because Texas was the only one that had restrictions on abortion. So, by getting a woman in Texas, especially a pregnant woman who had sought an illegal abortion, then what they could do with their agenda was to go to all 50 states and legalize abortion throughout the land, across the board.
For the record, did you abort that child?
No. I never did.
You delivered the child?
I gave birth to that child June 2, 1970. There have been about 25 women or 30 women over the last 25 years who have claimed to be the Roe baby. Of course we understand why that happened. A lot of people think that when people go to the Supreme Court they have a lot of money and a lot of political pull, of which I have neither…. You can pretty well figure out what they're looking for — if she's got a lot of money, they may want to cash in on that — I think that's called extortion.
So the baby was given up for adoption?
Yes, I gave the baby up for adoption.
And you had two children previous to that?
Yes. I had my first born, Melissa. She's made me a grandmother twice. Then there was Paige, my second daughter. I gave her to her father who was an intern at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, and then came the famous Roe baby.
After this Supreme Court judgment was handed down, how did the pro-abortion movement support or care for you?
I was used and discarded like yesterday's trash. I got no support from them whatsoever. For heaven's sake, I read about Roe v. Wade in the newspaper. I wasn't even given any special consideration like a phone call saying, “Hey, Norma, we won.” Now this is sad. It's very sad.
You never had any further contact with your lawyers?
I had very sporadic contact with the attorneys after I signed the affidavit.
It sounds as if you were just a figurehead?
Right.
I don't mean that in a derogatory manner.
I'm not thin-skinned. What they needed was someone who was naive enough to sign that affidavit. What they weren't counting on was that I came out of all of this a very strong woman. I'm not saying a feminist — just a strong-willed woman. I am an ex-construction worker, for heaven's sake. I've cleaned windows on a scaffold 18-stories high.
I guess they thought that with the emotional problems I had from my childhood I would break and wake up one day and just try to commit suicide, and that would be the end of me. They would much rather make me a martyr than to have me alive, so that would enforce what they were doing. But what they weren't counting on was that God, in all of his infinite wisdom and glory, knew exactly what they were doing, even before they thought about it. He protected Jane Roe from Norma McCorvey — and Normal McCorvey from Jane Roe.
I have scars, and a few bad memories, but it's nothing I can't deal with, because God was watching over me. I know that, because I would not be sitting here today talking to you had it not been true.
When did you first begin to realize that?
I've got to tell you, seriously, I was sitting in northern California in a teepee, in an Indian sweat one night in 1989 or 1990 and I couldn't understand why all these women were sitting around in bath towels calling God “goddess.”
I was a crystal gazer, a New Ager. I went back to the house thinking that I had stayed up all night because something was very heavy on my heart and I never really talked to God. I didn't know how. And I said, “Some say you're a God, some say you're a woman. I don't know, but I'm talking to God. I'm talking to the Creator that I learned of when I was a child. And I know that you see everything that is happening down here and I want you to know that I'm really sorry for ever getting involved with this abortion crap.” That was the closest thing I could ever come to for a prayer.
I left the Church when I was very young — at about nine years old — and I didn't go back into another church until 1995 because I was just too upset and too confused. I knew that there had to be a reason for my existence, and the only thing that made any sense at all was that there was a true God and that he really did care.
It took some searching, praying, and discerning before you came to a better understanding. That was about when, 1995?
Well it was probably a lot sooner than that but I really can't give you a year. Things kept happening to me in the abortion industry.
When did you go to work in the clinic?
From 1991 to 1995. And I kept telling myself, “This isn't right. This is not a good thing. This is a bad thing. There are too many people walking out of this place crying. Why is it that they're crying? If they have truly exercised their constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion, then why are they so upset? There has got to be a reason for all this. Because otherwise, it is not valid.”
Like I said, I don't know when it really was. I guess it was the time that [my co-worker] Connie came to my office. She is Spanish and Italian, but she was white — she was as white as a sheet. I said to her, “What is wrong with you?” And she said, “I just heard someone running down the hallway.” We were working in an abortion clinic, and I said, “OK, well let's go check the hallways.” We got up and checked and there was no one in sight.
A couple of hours later she came back and said “Did you hear that?” And I said, “Hear what?” “It sounded like a child” she said, running down the hallway. We got up and checked again. [Nobody was there.]
Had she had an abortion?
No she had never had an abortion. She was just another abortion clinic worker.
Working beside you?
Yes. Or it could have been the time that I went outside to pick flowers for the recovery room, and the flowers started crying.
Making noises?
Making noises, like babies crying. We had experienced too many things in the abortion clinic — too many unexplainable things that were totally freaking us out and making us very uneasy. I went in and I told Connie, “The flowers are crying. How can I pick the flowers when the flowers are crying? They sound like babies crying.”
That was the first time that I looked up into the heavens and said, “OK, God, what are you trying to tell me?”
What he was trying to tell me was that he already had a plan, and that he knew that we would walk out of that abortion clinic and that we would repudiate our position on abortion. And that's exactly what happened.
Do you believe that, someday,
Absolutely.
What will it take to bring about the ultimate end of
I had a videotape made of my testimony, called Reversing Roe. I took nine of those videos to the Supreme Court justices in 1996 and I asked them to reconsider their position on abortion by watching my testimony.
I don't know what it's going to take. I don't know who it's going to take — surely not me; I am not legislatively savvy. All I can do is pray. All I can do is speak out against abortion and try to convince young women that want to hurt their children not to hurt their children.
I think that's all any of us can do at this point. I think the Lord will do this. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but probably in our grandchildren's lifetime. I really do believe it.
Does your involvement in this decision, which has cost this nation millions upon millions of lives, weigh on you? If not, how were you able to shed a sense of guilt?
I have shed it mostly because I have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, and because I pray every night for him to forgive me.
What would you tell a woman who has had an abortion and can't let go of that guilt or shame?
I'd tell her to get in touch with her priest or her pastor and to talk to her God, and to forgive herself. Because if you ask the Lord for forgiveness, it is very simple, he'll do it.
—Peter Sonski
McCorvey to Enter Catholic Church
DALLAS—Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. “Jane Roe” of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision has declared her intention to become a Catholic. She made the announcement while attending an June 8 ecumenical service at Trinity Church in Waco, Texas.
“For the past few months, I was considering the completeness of my new-found faith in Christianity,” McCorvey said. “I want to thank God, who is my holy Father, my Lord Jesus Christ, and the Blessed Virgin Mary for helping me. I now want to complete that process by coming home to my Mother Church, the Roman Catholic Church.”
She attributed, among the influences leading to the decision, the “peaceful, prayerful, and persistent Catholic presence at abortion mills.”
McCorvey will begin receiving instructions in the faith from Father Edward Robinson, pro-life coordinator for the Diocese of Dallas, who expected the process to last two to three months. No date has been set for her to receive the sacraments.
—Peter Sonski
----- EXCERPT: Twenty-five years after Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe, reflects on her change of heart about a woman's "right to choose." ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Sonski ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: National Catholic Charismatic Conference Returns to Notre Dame DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:NOTRE DAME, Ind.—In far smaller numbers than they once did, but with a familiar and contagious enthusiasm, 3,000 Charismatics returned to the National Catholic Charismatic Conference at the University of Notre Dame from June 12 to 14.
During this year officially designated by Pope John Paul II as the “year of the Holy Spirit,” conference organizers had registered the gathering as an official Jubilee 2000 event. The conference theme was “The Holy Spirit: Hope for the New Millennium.”
Ralph Martin, a veteran Charismatic Renewal leader, gave the keynote address, challenging his audience to prepare wholeheartedly for the Jubilee in a spirit of expectation.
“This is an extended time of Advent,” Martin said.
In traveling around the world, Martin said he has seen fantastic outbursts of the Holy Spirit's work. In India last year for the 25th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal there, Martin told of a massive gathering of 25,000 in Bombay.
“Hundreds of people experienced physical healings and thousands of people turned their lives over to Jesus, including Moslems and Hindus who were just attracted by the music and came off the street,” Martin told the group, listing many other examples of the Holy Spirit's work.
Father Benedict Groeschel CFR, who leads the Office of Spiritual Development for the Archdiocese of New York, gave a talk on Church unity, urging the audience to pray to the Holy Spirit to bring it about.
Bishop Joseph McKinney, of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Mich., was the main celebrant at the concluding conference Mass.
In the movement's peak years in the late 1960s and early '70s, as many as 20,000 to 30,000 charismatics had gathered in the Notre Dame stadium. In those years, they poured in conspicuously advertising that “Jesus Christ is Lord” on bumper stickers, banners, and T-shirts.
In 1998, 31 years after its unexpected outbreak on the campus of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, the movement is more quiet, but Kevin Ranaghan, an authority on the Renewal, maintains that the Catholic charismatic movement must not be seen as “spent.”
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal has “prayed over 80 million people for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit worldwide in the last 30 years,” Ranaghan said. And at a recent gathering of renewal movements invited by the Pope to Rome on Pentecost Sunday, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal was well represented.
“I would say that as many as 40,000 of the 250,000 there were explicitly from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal,” he said. But many more than that had been touched by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal before entering other ministries in the Church. (Catherine Odell)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Catherine Odell ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:The U.S. House of Worship
Would it be unconstitutional if the U.S. House of Representatives doubled as a church on Sundays? Not according to the men who wrote the Constitution or succeeding generations of Americans lasting until at least the 1860s.
Religious freedom is a hot topic in Washington now. Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in Congress to try to correct — or fine-tune — the notion that the Constitution prohibits public expressions of religion in government-run institutions.
The Library of Congress, reported The Washington Post June 6, has created a timely display in its lobby that shows the great extent to which religion and government worked in tandem in the days of America's founding.
“The exhibit chronicles the frequent use of federal buildings for Sunday worship services, a practice that was common from 1800, when the government moved to Washington, until after the Civil War. Services ranging from High Communion to evangelical revivals were held in the Treasury Building, the War Office and even the Supreme Court chambers.
“But the most popular worship venue was the House [of Representatives], which in its heyday in the 1860s drew 2,000 people a week to the ‘largest Protestant Sabbath audience … in the United States.’”
“That assertion was made by House Chaplain Charles Boynton, who also was pastor of First Congregational Church, which held services in the House until the members could build their own sanctuary.”
According to the report, such services in the House were frequented by Thomas Jefferson in his day — a man whose reference to a “wall of separation between Church and state” is often misunderstood as a ban of religion from state-run institutions.
Novelist Extols Catholic Schools and Faith
Catholics who see no resemblance between their own “old-style” Catholic schooling and the negative stereotypes they see in movies and on television will be sympathetic to an opinion piece by novelist Edward Sheehan in the Boston Globe June 6, occasioned by his 50-year high school reunion.
“In Newton Centre, where I grew up, I had been educated in grammar school by the Sisters of St. Joseph at Sacred Heart Parish … when a moral consensus reigned between the major religions, right and wrong were clearly defined, and the authority of the Roman Church was virtually unchallenged in Massachusetts. Moreover, the system worked: I was superbly educated in the basics of grammar, religion, and history by the veiled nuns and by the kindly [and quite learned] attentions of Cardinal Cushing.
“Transferring to Boston College High was a shock…. I was a shy, awkward, self-conscious youth. By sheer discipline, my Jesuit teachers struggled to straighten me out.”
“Ah, they were tough…. [But] by the end of our senior year, we survivors were fluent in Latin and Greek, such discipline of mind hardening us for the cruel struggles of life ahead.”
Sheehan said certain themes were a constant refrain in his Jesuit education: “Actions have consequences. Do wrong and you will be punished. Do good and you will be rewarded, if not on this earth then in heaven….
“We had fistfights on the asphalt playground, but guns in school? Unthinkable. We engaged in adolescent [and harmless] sexual humor, but … the Church's command that sex should be saved for marriage and procreation was much honored. Self-respect was drummed into us as the fruit of personal honor and achievement, but the now trendy conceit of ‘self-esteem’ had yet to be invented.”
He concluded that, “However, infecting our culture today are emotions of rancor among many sophisticated and prosperous Catholics, not least in the media, who resent the rigors of their youthful faith and have abandoned it. The Church educated them, but now they scorn it and loathe its teachings. This is a form of Catholic self-hatred that I cannot fully grasp. Let them live with their resentments. Imperfectly, I feel only gratitude.”
Why is Anti-Catholicism OK? Asks Magazine Article
Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi, featuring a homosexual Christ figure, seems calculated to offend Christians, U.S. News and World Report columnist John Leo wrote in the June 15 issue. So why aren't secular critics of hate speech protesting it?
Pointing out that even Passion plays (and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice) are rarely performed because they might offend Jewish people, Leo argues that “arguments about artistic freedom are not applied consistently.”
“Michelle Malkin of the Seattle Times wrote a recent column about a Seattle art show that drew no media criticism, even though the paintings featured Jesus on an obscene version of the cross, a pope apparently engaging in a lewd act, and pages of a Bible defaced with Satanic marks. What would have happened, she asked, if the art had featured a lascivious rabbi or a black slave woman in a degrading sex act?”
“‘There is no question the city's civility police would be out in full force,’ she wrote. “… Cardinal John O'Connor has been called ‘Cardinal O'Killer’ [an AIDS poster] and ‘a fat cannibal’ whose cathedral is ‘a house of walking swastikas’ [an art show catalog]; priests are ‘sociopathic’ and the celibacy vow is ‘an empty sham’ [Spin magazine]; the Pope is ‘His Silliness’ [ACT UP] and ‘a dirty old man walking around in a dress’ [K-Rock radio in New York]; Communion hosts are ‘crackers’ [The Nation] that might be replaced with ‘Triscuits’ [a Michigan talk-show host] — or perhaps sausage, for ‘a spicy body of Christ’ [a Chicago talk-show host]. In the art world, blasphemous art intended to debase Christianity, much of it coming from homosexual artists, routinely features sex acts involving Jesus, or the Pope, or priests. Colorful things are done to the Virgin Mary, too. Gay parades often feature swishy-looking Jesus figures and hairy guys dressed as nuns. It's a continuing theater of propaganda, much of it under the guise of art.”
“Question: In the current age of hypersensitivity, what other group in America has to put up with vilification like this? No religion should expect immunity from criticism. But these aren't arguments about sexual policy or dogma. They are attempts to degrade and enrage. The technical term for this is bigotry. Sensitivity mongers, please note.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Leaders in Canada Justify Disregard of the Faith DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:OTTAWA—Christians attending the recent “Faith and the Media” conference June 7-9 in Ottawa, Canada, were treated to more candor than they probably expected from influential figures in the media. The news about covering the Good News was not good.
Peggy Wehmeyer, ABC News religion reporter, confessed that she was caught between “two cultures” as a religion reporter: “the culture of network TV and the culture of American religion.”
“Journalists are taught to be skeptics,” said Wehmeyer of her colleagues, “so how can they cover people who believe in things that they cannot see?” She joked, “Doubting Thomas ought to be the patron saint of journalists.”
But whereas St. Thomas was moved to faith by what he saw and his own reasoning, media representatives at the conference discounted the world of faith as something entirely separate from the world of reason and fact.
Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic of Toronto identified the heart of the problem as philosophical. The modern media is rooted in a liberal ideology that emphasizes the individual and his preferences, to the frequent exclusion of anything that might originate outside the individual, whether it be revealed religion, community obligations, or even God himself.
The cardinal spoke about the nature of advertising as an example. “Advertising appeals to our self-centeredness,” he observed, “and accepts that self-centeredness as a norm that needs no justification at all.”
Cardinal Ambrozic went further, suggesting that the dominant liberal idea of freedom and the Christian idea of freedom are in inevitable tension. Liberalism emphasizes freedom from constraints in order to pursuit self-development, while Christianity emphasizes freedom from one's own sinfulness in order to grow in virtue.
The emphases are different but not incompatible, he remarked, but in a newsroom where liberalism is the dominant way of thinking, it means that Christian belief and practice get short shrift.
Where Cardinal Ambrozic at least allowed for the possibility of liberal-minded journalist being able to be empathetic with the perspective of Christian believers, the liberal-minded journalists themselves ruled out the possibility altogether.
Nicholas Hirst, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, said, “Religious news is difficult to cover because religious views are informed by absolutes.” He and others of like mind viewed religious perspectives as dictates set arbitrarily by some authority, and completely immune from analysis according to reason. The division between faith and reason was viewed as an unbridgeable gap.
Peter Desbarats, Canada's leading academic journalist, noted that the media are “almost obsessed” with the moral issues (e.g., gambling, drugs, education, prison reform, homosexual rights, abortion, marital fidelity, truthfulness in public life) that have been the traditional domain of religion. “Nevertheless,” he said, “the media treat major religious institutions as irrelevant.”
“Journalists are typical members of rational society,” he claimed, “and they have adopted the liberal outlook.” Therefore they do not turn to traditional religion for insight, even when covering stories with moral content.
“The schism between rationalists and religious fundamentalists is the biggest story of our generation,” Desbarats continued, placing himself on the rationalist side. “And journalists cannot cover this story because journalists themselves are part of the story as participants on the rationalist side.”
The fact that two world views are clashing was made clear by William Thorsell, editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail, Canada's most prestigious newspaper. “Religion is only a part of sociology,” he said, justifying why he has recently done away with the paper's “faith and ethics” reporter.
Having rejected the possibility that truth may be found in the realm of faith, the elite media do not believe religion is worth reporting on in itself. The only reason to pay attention to religion is that it, like any other sociological phenomenon, has an impact in the world of verifiable experience.
The recent Ottawa conference posed the question of whether the gap between faith and the media can be bridged. The proceedings revealed a different gap — between two world views. On one hand there is the Christian view that seeks to integrate faith and reason. On the other hand there is the view prevalent in today's media circles that such an integration is not possible, and therefore faith is to be largely ignored. (Raymond de Souza)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Canadian Government and Churches Look for Solution to 1,000 Lawsuits DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:VANCOUVER—The Canadian government and several Churches are facing the possibility of having to pay up to $700 million following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in British Columbia that found the government and a Church jointly liable for compensation to indigenous people who suffered abuse in a Vancouver Island residential school.
Each week there are an estimated 15 to 20 new lawsuits launched by those who claim they were abused as children. The total number of lawsuits is now more than 1,000 across Canada.
Justice Donald Brenner in the Supreme Court in British Columbia ruled early this month that both the United Church of Canada (UCC) — the nation's biggest Protestant Church — and the federal government were “vicariously liable” for sexual assaults committed by a former dormitory supervisor, Arthur Henry Plint. The judge noted that “vicarious liability” was defined as “the imposition of liability without fault.”
Plint, now in his 80s, is serving an 11-year prison term for sexually assaulting 18 boys at the Alberni Indian Residential School in the 1950s and 1960s. In his decision, the judge described Plint as a “sexual terrorist.”
Ed John, chief of the First Nations Summit, representing indigenous people, told CBC-radio: “It's a positive decision. We've always maintained that both the Churches and the government of Canada were responsible. This particular case was to determine the issue of vicarious liability.”
The case began Feb. 2 when Willie Blackwater told the court he had endured sexual abuse and beatings by Plint. He said he had tried to report the abuse to school authorities, but as a result had suffered further physical abuse.
In 1994, Blackwater went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after telling his story to a United Church minister. At that time, he did not know that other students at the school had also experienced abuse. Eventually, 30 former students joined him in the legal action against the government and the Church.
Schools for indigenous people were run for almost a century by the Anglican Church of Canada, the United Church of Canada (UCC), and the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Canadian government. Government officials estimate that about 105,000 native children attended 80 schools before the last of the schools were shut down in the 1980s.
The government now reportedly wants to meet Church representatives to discuss the issue of compensation. Anglican, Catholic, and United Church officials have indicated they are very open to such a meeting.
Chief Ed John said that rather than drag hundreds of native people through the courts, the government and the Church should negotiate compensation for everyone. The UCC's moderator, Bill Phipps, said he hoped it would be possible to avoid the courts in the attempt to resolve these cases. But he added that it was too early to talk about compensation.
Immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, Phipps said in a public statement: “As moderator of the United Church of Canada, I speak on behalf of our Church of the painful realities of residential schools in which the United Church was involved. We repent of our role in the spiritual and cultural abuse inflicted upon First Nations over many generations.” (ENI)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Abortion and Euthanasia Assailed at U.N. by Former White House Official DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—In a lecture to U.N. diplomats and staff in early June, Michael Uhlmann, former policy advisor to U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, called abortion-on-demand little more than an update of the “barbaric Roman tradition whereby a father could take the lives of his family for any reason at any time.” The old Roman tradition, called paterfamilias, Uhlmann said, had only become in modern times materfamilias.
Uhlmann spoke at U.N. headquarters in New York for the third installment of the Jacques Maritain-United Nations lecture series on the natural law.
He contended that the rights of humans must come from somewhere and “if they do not come from our God-given nature as human beings, where precisely do they come from?”
He said that “abortion advocates claim that our rights come to us solely by the will of our mothers. If [the mother] chooses to kill us, the law in the United States, and in many other countries, says that is all right. Not only is the unborn child not a rights-bearing creature by nature, but its mother is under no moral or legal obligation to convey those rights.”
Uhlmann says this makes the mother no better than a despot whose will becomes the law.
He contended that this argument cannot be confined only to the context of abortion, because the mother's authority to take life can only have come from positive law which is decided upon by legislators. Uhlmann warned of the danger of relying on positive law when it comes to life issues, instead of on God-given rights.
“I have yet to encounter an argument for taking the life of the unborn child that could not also be used to justify taking the life of anyone in this room,” he said.
Uhlmann explained that the arguments for euthanasia are grounded in the same three principles as abortion — autonomy, compassion, and utility. And since the arguments are so nearly identical, Uhlmann expects it will be impossible for the U.S. Supreme Court not to eventually uphold a person's “right” to kill themselves for any reason.
Author George Marlin also addressed the noon-day crowd, telling them that the roots of the current abortion and euthanasia questions grew from the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.
“It was the desire of certain wealthy people in America, the Rockefellers, Harrimans, Eastmans, and others, to get rid of those whom they called the undesirables.” He said it was only a short step from these beginnings to the present day practice in Norway of the “angel-of-death-squads” that roam the Norwegian countryside “coercing the sick into killing themselves.” (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Korean Cardinal Country's ‘Most Influential Religious Leader’
When the president of South Korea visited the White House recently one thing was overlooked — he is Catholic, part of a Church whose influence is growing in the Asian country.
But as President Kim Dae Jung was appearing on American television sets, the current issue of Asia Week was reporting another sign of Church influence in Korea.
“Perhaps South Korea's most influential religious leader, Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou Hwan, archbishop of Seoul for 30 years, is resigning,” it announced.
“Under [Cardinal] Kim, the Catholic Church came to play a role disproportionate to its size in South Korea. The Myongdong cathedral in the heart of Seoul, where [Cardinal] Kim has his office and held forth at Sunday Masses, served as a sanctuary for dissidents, student activists, and militant labor leaders of every religious stripe. [Cardinal] Kim will remain active — he retains the title of cardinal and is still the administrator for the Pyongyang diocese in North Korea.”
Cardinal Kim, 76, will be succeeded by Bishop Nicholas Cheong Jin Suk, 67, of the Chongju diocese.
Kobe Bryant Dwarfs the Sacred Heart
The Sacred Heart, the solemnity that was celebrated June 19, is dear to French Catholics. The devotion, which resulted from the visions of a French nun, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, has traditionally been so popular in France that to Parisians, the beautiful, white Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) Church is often considered more of a landmark than even Notre Dame Cathedral.
Now, the French have a competing passion, said the Associated Press June 5. It lists the traditional sights of Paris as: the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, and Kobe Bryant.
“Kobe Bryant?” “Travelers arriving in Paris for the World Cup are greeted by two familiar sights as they enter the capital from the north.
“To the right, gleaming white atop Montmartre, is Sacre Coeur, the … basil-ica visited by millions of worshipers and tourists each year.
“To the left, decked in yellow and purple, is Bryant, the young star of the Los Angeles Lakers, taking up the side of a building in an advertising mural for Adidas.
“In the bumper-to-bumper traffic that usually clogs the expressways in that area, the 80-foot-high Bryant is harder to miss than Sacre Coeur.”
As Faith Exits Ireland, the Culture of Death Enters
In Ireland, activists have struggled to make their country more “modern” in several respects: more liberal abortion laws, legal divorce, less church attendance — and, in 1993, a legalization of suicide. They may have gotten more than they bargained for.
Reuters reported June 8 that the suicide rate there has skyrocketed — and some attribute it to the nation's move away from the traditional bulwarks of individual and social strength: family, religion, and morally strong laws.
“More people killed themselves in Ireland last year than died in traffic accidents, official government data showed,” said the report. “The 14% increase from 1996 to 433 suicides was the highest figure ever recorded in the republic, and exceeded by two the number of deaths on Irish roads.
“Male suicides outnumbered female by 355 to 78, and young or early middle-aged people formed the largest group of suicides. Eight of the suicides were by children aged between five and 14. Health expert Feargal Bowers said the figures were surprising in the context of Ireland's booming economy, growing so fast it has earned the sobriquet the ‘Celtic Tiger.’”
“Bowers said an increase in the divorce rate, and the diminishing number of people attending church could have contributed to the high suicide rate.”
“Ireland's highly orthodox Roman Catholic traditions have been eroded in recent years, with new legislation on such issues as abortion and divorce winning approval.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Ukraine Warms to Vatican — But Not Pope
Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Cardinal Sodano received a “warm welcome” on his recent visit to Ukraine, but the Pope won't any time soon, said a June 4 Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty report.
On Cardinal Sodano's week-long visit in June, he met with the president and prime minister and even opened an apostolic nunciature office.
“The relations between Ukraine and the Vatican are expanding,” said the report. “President Kuchma visited the Vatican three years ago, and last year met the Pope in Poland while visiting with other Central European presidents. It has also been reported in the Ukrainian media that Kuchma would soon appoint an ambassador to the Vatican to strengthen ties.”
“There is little prospect, however, for the papal visit to Ukraine in the foreseeable future because of the religious tension in the country.”
“The Pope has long been reported to be interested in visiting Ukraine — he has already visited more than 100 countries during his almost 20 years in the office. During recent years there have been occasional rumors that such a visit might have been in the offing. But the Kiev government remains reluctant.”
The Orthodox Christians of the country are split among themselves between those who recognize the Patriarch of Moscow and those who are part of the Ukranian Independent Orthodox Church. The two sides disagree about many things — but they both oppose the Pope, and both assume his visit would be intended to strengthen the Greek Catholic, or Uniate, minority there, according to the report.
At Jubilee, Only Christian Martyrs Will Be Honored
When people learned that the Church would recognize non-Catholic martyrs as part of the Jubilee Year 2000 celebrations in Rome, controversy was expected. The Vatican has received some 8,000 suggestions for new martyrs from around the globe. One suggestion prompted a decision that will help cool arguments: non-Christians like Anne Frank will not be included.
On June 9, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that “an Italian Catholic Church official wants the Vatican to recognize Anne Frank as part of an ecumenical commemoration of new martyrs” for the year 2000, [raising] Jewish concerns that the Church might attempt to appropriate the Dutch Jewish girl — known for the diary she kept as she and her family hid from the Nazis — as a Catholic symbol.
“The Italian media reported over the weekend that Msgr. Antonio Pace of Naples had formally submitted the request to the Vatican. But a spokesman at the Vatican's office told [a reporter June 8] that no such formal request had arrived. He said the Vatican's proposed new martyrs would all be Christians.
“‘It seems to be just a proposal floated by the priest in question as a means of widening the discussion,’ the Vatican official said of Pace's remarks.”
“Pace last week urged that the list be widened to include Frank as well as Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old Pakistani Muslim boy who was killed because of his activities protesting the exploitation of child laborers,” as a means of promoting inter-religious dialogue.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: PERSPECTIVE DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Recently Attorney General Janet Reno told 1,400 Alumnae at Radcliffe College that gun violence in our nation's schools would require a change in America's culture. She was awarded the Radcliffe Medal for her leadership. Shortly after, she announced she was overruling the Drug Enforcement Administration's plans to prevent physicians from dispensing drugs for “assisted suicide.” She has decided that her justice department will not use federal drug control laws to prevent “physicians” from poisoning their patients and killing them if it can be shown that they only have six months to live.
That same day, Chinese “dissident” (freedom fighter) Wei Jingsheng testified before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations. He presented proof that the Chinese regime is killing prisoners, prior to their scheduled execution date, in order to remove their organs for sale. Soon after, Jack Kevorkian announced that he had some kidneys available from a 45-year-old whose death he “attended.” It seems the man was shot 21 years ago and, like Christopher Reeve, was left without the use of arms and legs. Unlike Reeve, however, this man was not encouraged to live a productive life, but rather to kill himself. All this in the name of “choice.”
Now, let me ask, is there an eerie congruence of events here, or have I missed something? We have the chief law enforcement officer of the leader of the free world, in effect, opening the doors to the wholesale killing of disabled, depressed, and elderly people through the distribution of a new hemlock. This is followed by news that the leader of this macabre effort to legalize death on demand, Jack Kevorkian, is now cutting organs out of a 45-year-old man who, rather than being talked out of suicide, was given a poison potion. Finally, the U.S. Congress hears testimony that the regime oppressing the Chinese people not only forces abortions and sterilizations, represses people of faith, jails champions of democracy … but now also harvests body parts for sale. Are we far behind? Will we see a retail network for this “new” market in America as well? Are we far from body harvesting in the name of “choice”?
The attorney general had it right at Radcliffe. We do need a change of culture in America. Only, she is on the wrong side. The epidemic of violence among our children is only one more bad fruit from the decay of our culture precipitated by poor leadership.
Kevorkian, emboldened by the state's inability to stop him from killing, mockingly proclaimed “They're calling this unethical, just like they call everything unethical.” How hollow are words when our actions betray our lack of moral, courageous, principled leadership.
A nation birthed by a declaration that recognized inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is being led astray by the proponents of an ideology of death, libertine license, and debauchery. Our current epidemic of violence begins in the silence of the womb where we continue to dismember, burn and, in the case of partial birth abortions, suck the brains out of our children calling our actions “freedom of choice.” It is promoted by a dominant media culture that cheapens life, disregards human dignity, disdains family, and cheapens the gift of sexuality. It is promoted by leaders who proclaim they “feel our pain” when their ideology promotes it. Finally, at life's end, this immoral leadership may soon, if not replaced, promote human body shops as a profane expression of the market at work. A market economy without the moral infusion of truth and a respect for human dignity, will market anything including death.
Is it any wonder that our children are confused? Is it any surprise that we continue to trade internationally with a regime in Beijing that openly promotes a culture of death and a disregard for basic human rights? Are we not currently walking down the same path as that regime being led by the pied pipers of self-ism and materialism dressed in the language of “free choice”? Where are the leaders of the third millennium?
In an address at Camden Yards in Baltimore in 1995, Pope John Paul II reminded all Americans: “Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of America needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
Moral leadership is about the “oughts” of our life as individuals, and our life together as a nation. America is desperately in need of moral leaders. The issues we currently face are not easily categorized as “liberal” or “conservative,” Democrat or Republican. They are, rather, issues that are foundational to our continuation as a free people. They concern our obligations to one another, to our children, to our elders, and to the least among us. They also have great implications for our international relations.
“From those to whom much is given, much more will be required” reads the biblical text. It's a principle of truth whether one professes religious faith or not. We are all accountable for what we have been given. In this nation we cherish, we have been given the greatest legacy of freedom. We dare not sacrifice this legacy at the altar of self-ism.
America needs moral leadership for a new millennium. Who will answer the call?
Deacon Keith Fournier is president of Catholic Alliance, a Catholic voter movement dedicated to life, family, authentic freedom, and charity.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Keith Fournier ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: A Historian Breaks More Ground DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:by James Monti
(Ignatius Press 1997, 492 pages, $ 19.95 paperback)
If you don't count the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is, after all, in a league of her own, there are more books, articles, and reviews written about St. Thomas More (1478-1535) than there are about all other lay saints combined. Biographies of the famous English chancellor who refused to budge on King Henry VIII's “great matter,” began to appear soon after his judicial murder early one summer morning in the Tower of London. Since his inexplicably tardy canonization in 1935, a rich harvest of Moreana, as it is known, has graced secular and ecclesiastical centers with obvious fruit to all who consult it.
In recent years some of the more ambitious attempts to analyze Thomas More's life and writings have been flawed by the use of dubious psychological theories, apparently under the assumption that any man who could give up so much power and prestige over a technical matter of which he himself was not entirely sure, must have been just a little crazy. But on this count, the verdict of history has already pronounced More “not guilty” and he who quipped more than once about making “merry in Heaven” with his executioners, would doubtless rejoice at meeting some of his sheep-faced modern critics at St. Peter's gate as well.
Ironically, however, it is this very embarrassment of riches in Thomas More studies that may serve to keep the glittering example of the man's life and works from being better known at the popular level. More's most famous book, Utopia, is not typical of the man as he actually lived and believed, and his apologetic writing, comprising by far the largest portion of his works, seems, in the eyes of many, dated. Indeed, Robert Bolt's play, A Man for Seasons, presented on stage and screen, has done more to keep the Thomas More story alive in the popular mind than have, it seems, all of the published materials by or about this great saint. The King's Good Servant but God's First: the Life and Writings of St. Thomas More, may help change all that.
In producing his first major monograph, James Monti has accomplished what, strictly speaking, rather few have tried, and even fewer have succeeded at: he has produced a book which examines the writings of St. Thomas More from the perspective neither of their times nor purpose, but rather as an extension of the life of the man. Not simply another biography of More (however nicely done) and not simply another critique of More's works (however useful), Monti sets out to “present a new portrait of Thomas More in the light of his writings — most especially his writings in the Church and the spiritual life. In this context we will discover a fundamental theme of More's apologetical writing: a passionate dedication to the unity of the Church, a unity of faith he saw as necessitating assent to all her teachings and obedience to her ordained ministers.”
It is Monti's focus on More's lengthy apologetic writings, works usually dismissed as amateurish and acrid, that I found most valuable. Many of the themes which More developed in his published debates are as relevant to the ecumenical issues of today as they were to the doctrinal discords of his times. In discussing these overlooked texts, as well as the later devotional works More penned (or charcoaled, as the case often was) from prison, Monti never fails to relate the saint's written words to his life of charity and faith. “Key to our understanding” writes Monti, “will be the recognition of three fundamental traits of the saint's inner life: his consciousness of the mystery of man's mortality, his pervasive devotion to the Passion of Christ, and his deep love for Holy Eucharist. These elements permeate his spiritual writings, having largely shaped his thoughts, words, and actions. But it is also possible to discern other characteristics of More's spirituality: his intense prayer life, his acts of penance and works of mercy, his devotion to the Heart of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as his love of Scriptures and the sacred liturgy.”
Monti's book could scarcely be better timed. Yale University has brought out 16 volumes of its definitive Complete Works of St. Thomas More series which, however expensive they are, represent the vital first step in presenting authenticated Latin and English texts to a much wider audience than was possible even just a few years ago. Monti wisely keys his own study to these volumes and thereby makes his own book an excellent companion to the direct study of the saint's writings.
My criticisms of Monti's book are few. He could do with fewer oxymorons such as “appears certain” and “gently berates.” Anyone who needs to be reminded that 1492 was the year Columbus discovered America, surely needs to have explained that a “butler” in an “Inn,” as was Thomas More's father, was not a servant in a hotel, but rather on the road to a solid legal career. The bibliography of secondary sources is also uneven. For example, Monti lists Hilaire Belloc's Cranmer but omits his Wolsey. Alistair Fox's flawed but important biography does not appear anywhere, but then neither do any of Gerald Wegemer's valuable recent monographs. But these are small points in comparison to Monti's otherwise fine service.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, an Englishman who, if he were ever to be canonized, could give Thomas More a run for his money in terms of total materials being published about him, once wrote that “Thomas More is more important at this moment [1929] than at any moment since his death, but he is not quite so important now as he will be in about a hundred years.” That only leaves us about 30 years. Let me suggest making Monti's study one of the first things on our St. Thomas More things-to-do list.
Edward Peters, a canon and civil lawyer, writes from San Diego, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Peters ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: A Realist's View of the Culture War DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Peter Kreeft's trademark tough-minded approach to “How to Win the Culture War” appears in the June issue of Crisis magazine.
Kreeft wastes little time countering those who insist that every day in every way things are getting better and better. To those who can't get past materialistic definitions of happiness, he points out “the statistical fact that suicide, the most in-your-face index of unhappiness, is directly proportionate to wealth. The richer you are, the richer your family is, and the richer your country is, the more likely it is that you will find life so good that you will choose to blow your brains out.”
America, as Pope John Paul himself has pointed out, is a major producer and exporter of “the culture of death,” and our just God will not, in his mercy, rescue us from the consequences of our acts: “But is not God forgiving?
He is, but the unrepentant refuse forgiveness. How can forgiveness be received by a moral relativist who denies that there is anything to forgive except a lack of self-esteem, nothing to judge, but ‘judgmentalism?’ How can a Pharisee or a pop psychologist be saved?
But is not God compassionate?
He is not compassionate to Moloch and Baal and Ashtaroth…. Perhaps your God is — the God of your dreams, the God of your ‘religious preference’ — but not the God revealed in the Bible.”
To those who have an image of Jesus as a “nice” God, Kreeft counters that “God is a lover who is a warrior…. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love's enemies. Love fights.”
“Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely ‘compassion’ … but father-love and mother-love are war.”
God is our father, and his fatherly love toward us will be experienced as painful when he is urging us away from wrongdoing.
“If God still loves his Church in America, he will soon make it small and poor and persecuted, as he did to ancient Israel, so that he can keep it alive. If he loves us, he will prune us, and we will bleed, and the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church again.”
The stakes in the culture war are enormous, because they involve the eternal fate of human souls.
“That's what's at stake in this war: not just whether America will become a banana republic, or whether we'll forget Shakespeare, or even whether some nuclear terrorist will incinerate half of humanity, but whether our children and our children's children will see God forever.”
We may think we know who our enemies in the culture war are, but here Kreeft upsets our expectations of waging war with the heretic and the unbeliever. Our enemies are not Protestants or Jews or Muslims (“who are often more loyal to their half-Christ than we are to our whole Christ”); not liberals (for “spiritual wars are not decided by whether welfare checks increase or decrease”). Our enemies are not even our persecutors, for “our persecutors are our patients…. The patients think the nurses are their enemies, but the nurses know better.”
“All the saints and popes throughout the Church's history” teach us that we have two real enemies. The first is the devil; Our Lord and all his faithful followers have assured us that there is “a real Hell, a real Satan, and real spiritual warfare.”
The second enemy, Kreeft reminds us, is found inside every one of us, and that is sin. “[T]here is one nightmare even more terrible than being chased and caught and tortured by the devil. That is the nightmare of becoming a devil.”
The only way we can successfully combat our culture of death, Kreeft concludes, is by becoming saints.
“A bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations on ways to increase vocations. The priest replied: The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, your excellency, would be your canonization.”
“Why not yours?”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Good Catholic News
I've been a reader of the Register for quite a few years but have never taken the opportunity to say “Thank You.” I look forward to your orthodox presentation of weekly events that touch on the life of the Church. I particularly appreciate you giving us the opportunity to hear from persons directly involved in foreign situations, as you did, for example, in interviewing Bishop Gassis in your June 7-13 edition about the persecution of Christians in Sudan. Sudan has been in the Christian press quite a bit lately, but this was my first opportunity to hear about the situation from the Catholic viewpoint of someone directly involved.
I also appreciated your article about the rally and meetings at Pentecost between lay movements and the Vatican. It is encouraging for us, as laity, to hear Pope John Paul's perspective on those areas in which the laity can make important contributions to the mission of the Church, in this case standing up against the tide of secularism. And his direction as to how we do this was enlightening: keep ourselves securely rooted in the life of the Church, and allow the Holy Spirit's grace to reach outward, through us, to the World. His advice reminds us, as we approach the year 2000 AD, of our foundational roots in the year 30 AD.
John Leidy
Dexter, Michigan
The China Puzzle
Engagement or Isolation? That's the big question on China, and one on which reasonable people can disagree. Clinton obviously favors engagement as evidenced by his upcoming trip (“Clinton's China Trip Stirs Discord in U.S.,” June 14-20). But even those who support engagement should certainly recognize and be influenced by the major religious and human rights issues — perhaps worst of all the heinous forced-abortion policy — at stake in China. Paying a little public lip service to the problems and then getting down to business as usual with our most-favored nation trading partner hardly seems enough of a stand.
Engage if you must, but as part of doing business, extract some kind of measurable improvement in the lives and rights of our Chinese brothers and sisters. Somehow, I have little hope that Clinton is committed, beyond the obligatory lip service to hush the protesters, to nudging China toward real change. Remember, this is a man — legendary most of all for his ability to spin media and manipulate symbols for a mass audience — who agreed to be welcomed in China on ground where less than a decade ago, people were mowed down by tanks because they wanted democracy.
Doesn't he know the message he's sending?
Dietrich Hamnold
Scranton, Pennsylvania
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: For Many Politicians, Political Correctness Is The Guiding Force DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Driving past office buildings in downtown Washington one sees people huddled in doorways in cold, heat, and driving rain — smoking. These huddled seekers have learned not to smoke indoors because an anti-smoking culture told them they were pariahs and they should keep their place, outdoors. These belittled hold-outs for personal freedom are lucky to get a seat in a restaurant any more, even in the corner.
In the culture that has come down to us from the decade of the '60s, smoking, at least of tobacco though not of marijuana, is politically incorrect. In this upside-down world view, smokers are seen as “bad” people while those who favor abortion for convenience are “good.” The new culture of political correctness propagated mainly by the elites of the universities, the media, and Hollywood, has seeped into our lives and our institutions, including many churches. This culture is at the core of one of our major political parties and has intimidated the other. Political correctness influences their agenda, their rhetoric, and their ability to lead.
Political correctness in its many manifestations is hostile to the traditional virtues of Western culture. That is not too surprising, since it came from a decade of precisely that sort of hostility. Not too surprising either, political correctness appeals to groups who stand to gain political and cultural influence and power from it. The Democratic Party has a coalition of such groups as its base: feminists, homosexuals, racial and ethnic minorities, and government employee unions. Affirmative action, multiculturalism, and bilingualism are the natural outgrowth of catering to groups rather than to individuals. That many of those policies do harm, often severe harm, to the groups they were intended to benefit does not deflect the powerful thrust of political correctness.
When people identify themselves by ethnicity or gender they naturally want group rights, thus pitting one group against the other. They see themselves as Afro-Americans, Slovakian-Americans, or Latvian-Americans rather than just Americans. Violence, hostility, and envy on college campuses is rampant as each ethnic group seeks its rights against other groups. In many cases they want their own cultural centers and dorms. Dissenting voices are silenced. Political correctness means authoritarianism and turbulence, not harmony and freedom.
Republicans have a political base of a different stripe, conservatives, business leaders, the “religious right,” and people who are not hostile to Western culture. They should be the party criticizing and resisting political correctness. But they are hesitant and confused about how to respond to popular political proposals. They propose “color-blind” policies based on merit instead of quotas but they have made little headway. In the face of vociferous opposition they often do not argue the case against political correctness with clarity and conviction. They are for school choice but their strategy of tucking this provision into a large bill backfired. President Clinton vetoed the bill that, among other things, would have provided $3,000 to each of 2,000 poor families in Washington, D.C. to send their children to the schools of their choice. Republicans are intimidated by the loud and often hysterical voices on the other side. And they want to be liked. After all, they do not want to be seen as the skunk at the picnic. It is astounding that a party that knows better and whose core supporters are opposed to political correctness in all its forms is nevertheless too morally intimidated to oppose and roll it back.
Our system of government needs two parties capable of debating moral and social issues and crafting decent legislation, not screaming matches televised on C-Span, and certainly not equivocation when votes are cast. Political correctness is a cancer attacking the basis of democratic ideas of individual merit, freedom of speech, and Americans' identity. Few politicians exhibit the courage and endurance needed to suffer the barrage of criticism and hostility when they raise their voices against these trends. One wonders why they want to be reelected.
With both parties under the sway of radical ideas about the ordering of society they should heed the wisdom of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae. He speaks forcefully about the need to resist political solutions that are not in keeping with the dignity of the person, including abortion and the denial of religious freedom. The individual person, not the group, is the basis of a democratic government. When we capitulate to false ideas about the ordering of society we risk losing our human freedom, individually and collectively. Politicians of both parties have a weighty responsibility to preserve our democratic freedoms and resist establishing in law futile and harmful ideas about identity, parental choice, and crushing tax burdens on married couples and families. Unless politicians act with a larger dose of moral courage, voters this fall may put them out in the cold, with the smokers.
Mary Ellen Bork, a board member of the Catholic Campaign for America and the Institute for Religion in Democracy, writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ellen Bork ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Healing Racism Through Faith and Truth DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:This pastoral letter on racism was issued Jan. 6 by the cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia. The Register, prompted by the racially motivated murder in Texas earlier this month, presents the document in its entirety (in two parts).
On one occasion when the disciples had been unable to cast out a particularly evil spirit, they asked Jesus why they were unable to do so. “This is the kind,” he answered, “that can only be cast out by prayer” (Mk 9:29).
Like these early disciples, we too approach Jesus with the same concern. Why, after all this time and after so much effort, is the grave evil of racism still so much with us? Our Lord's answer remains the same. It is only through a more profound communion with God achieved through prayer and sacrifice that we can truly be healed of this evil.
Our Lord has given us a fundamental spiritual truth. How we treat one another cannot be separated from our relationship with God. Unless and until we understand this truth, racism and all other sins against our neighbor will remain.
The Vatican Council expressed this teaching of Jesus in these words, “A person's relationship to God the Father and his relationship with his brothers and sisters are so linked that scripture says: ‘He who does not love does not know God.’ As a consequence, the Church rejects, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against people or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion” (Nostra Aetate, 5).
It must be remembered that race, color, or any other physical trait do not constitute the identity of a person though they can be integral. Differences in races need to be valued. Jesus, however, calls us to transcend the differences of races and find our true human identity in our unique but common human nature.
This commonality of our human nature binds us as a family not only physically by blood but also spiritually. Our dignity as human beings is a sacred one for we are children of God created by him in his own image and likeness. For Christians, this basic equality of all human persons has been elevated to a special relationship with God. Through baptism, Christians are incorporated into the life of the Incarnate Son of God. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).
A pastoral letter always has first and foremost the intent of fostering a deeper relationship with God. I write this letter with that intention firmly in mind. I pray that all who read it may hear in it the voice of a pastor concerned for his people's closeness to God.
The primary step in effecting a personal and societal relationship with God is to remove from our lives obstacles that separate us from full union with God. Racism is one such obstacle and, indeed, a grave one. Racism is a moral disease and it is contagious. No one is born a racist. Carriers infect others in countless ways through words and attitudes, deeds and omissions. Yet, one thing is certain — the disease of racism can and must be eradicated.
It must be stated clearly that racism is a sin, an evil that can never be justified. It is a sin against fraternal charity. It violates Christ's command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (cf. Mt 23;39). And as Christ showed us, everyone is my neighbor. In short, racism and Christian life are incompatible.
Healed By Love of God
Racism has been condemned as a sin many times. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Pontifical Commission on Peace and Justice both have done so forcefully. Statements, however, are very limited in what they can accomplish. Pope John Paul II, commenting on the teaching of Vatican II, said that the Council was always concerned with the truth in people (cf. Redemptor Hominis, 14).
For the truth to have an impact, for it really to set us free, it must become our truth. It must be operative within us. It must penetrate and ignite our minds and hearts. The whole mystery of our faith is incarnational. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). Our Lord desires that there be alive in each of us the truth that how we treat each other expresses and affects our intimacy with God. Love of God is the only power that can heal the evil of racism within any individual.
Deeply Rooted In American Life
The human condition is one of myriad differences. How we live these differences is the measure of our spiritual growth and maturity. It is deeply significant that the first sin recorded after the fall of
Adam and Eve is the sin of taking the life of a human being. Subsequent human history shows how ingenious human beings have become in continuing and spreading this sin of taking and diminishing human life. All of this is in direct opposition to the spirit of the Covenant which prescribes that we will be God's people and God will be our God only if we respect and nurture life (cf. Gn 9:11-17).
Our nation was formed on such a proposition, namely, that all people are created equal. But as Pope John XXIII once wisely noted, an historical movement cannot be completely understood through its founding principles, because, while the principles remain the same, the movement itself is subject to constantly evolving historical circumstances (cf. Pacem in Terris).
Our American history from its inception, tragically, has been influenced by the historical circumstance that an exception was made. The flawed concept that “all men except” was adopted in practice. Some among us were not to be considered equal. A distinction based on race was set in motion in American life. This distinction in many and varied guises has remained a sin deeply rooted in American life.
Consequences of Sin
Like the original sin of Adam and Eve, the sin of racism dulls the conscience, blinds reason, wounds the will, and erodes charity. As a consequence, the spiritual immunity built up through grace can be severely weakened, exposing the victim to the onslaught of the viruses of unjust discrimination, and racial superiority, breaking out at times into a fever of antagonism and conflict, hatred and violence.
Words are unable to describe adequately the horror of this human tragedy, as evidenced by the unrelenting human toll, the silent weeping of countless mothers inconsolable over the treatment given to their children, the diminished humanity, as well as the searing insult of rejection. People are given no admittance, are unwelcome, stereotyped, and portrayed as backward and inferior so often that one begins to doubt one's own worth. We witness the quiet suffering, the inner rage, the social pathologies causing shame and helplessness. Such mistreatment amounts to an oppressive weight so heavy as to make it almost impossible to breathe America's air of freedom. An exception indeed! It was an exception so pervasive that it became, in all too many ways, the very rule of people's lives.
As we step back and look at all of this, to the extent we are able, we wonder at it. How could it have happened? Is this really the way things have to be? There has been economic progress, as well as new laws, and greater admittance to a wide range of American life. Strenuous, often heroic, efforts have been made to rectify this nightmare. But it is still so terribly with us. Racism remains the unfinished business of America's freedom.
Whatever may be said about its origins, racism has shown a phenomenal capacity to survive and to affect successive waves of Americans. We Catholics have not been immune. As immigrant peoples, we have been assimilated into American society which, in turn, has brought us along with others into the destructive atmosphere of racism. It is true that Catholics have experienced the hurtful viciousness of ethnic and religious bigotry. But, our experience, for the most part, has been one of dramatic and successful inclusion into all areas of American life and culture. With this inclusion, however, has come a susceptibility to the climate of racism.
In established, low-economic neighborhoods where large populations of dependent people were housed in projects without consideration of the impact on surrounding communities, racial tension has been and continues to be the pattern. Although there was a real need to provide housing as well as a value to fostering multi-racial neighborhoods, the building of these projects, nevertheless, has proven to be a massive social failure. It was inevitable that the problems endemic to them would spill over into the surrounding areas. Our society was not justified in imposing the brunt of the consequences of longstanding racism almost exclusively on the shoulders of working people, ill prepared and inadequately assisted to address them.
Whole populations were thrust upon each other without preparation or warning, because integration did not progress in accord with the housing market and the fair housing laws. The result has been episode upon episode of people unleashing their pent-up racial feelings. Who can be proud of that? Who can say this was the right thing to do? Adding insult to injury, the media has highlighted these episodes in such fashion as to brand whole neighborhoods of people as racist. The task that faces all of us is the undoing of these past mistakes that have deepened racial conflicts rather than healed them. These mistakes have brought shame and suffering on all of us. They must not continue.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is justifiably proud of the contribution to Church life made by our African-American faithful. The accomplishments of the parishes, social programs and, especially, of the schools in the African-American communities have been superlative by any measure. The fact remains, however, that the membership of the Catholic Church in this archdiocese is predominantly white. Large numbers of African-Americans have not chosen the Catholic Church as their spiritual home. We cannot help but ask why. With much regret, we must confess that often it has been because the Catholic faithful have been guilty of the racism that surrounds us and for that failure we ask God's forgiveness.
A pastoral letter on the issue of racism does not imply that there are not other serious moral issues. This letter does, however, address the morally destructive force of the ongoing evil of racism and calls upon all Catholics to treat it as such. Concern for what is right and for the spiritual well-being of ourselves and our communities demands an effort of renewal. Not to endeavor actively to eradicate this evil is to be untrue to our deepest selves.
----- EXCERPT: At America's founding, the flawed concept -- and sin -- that "all men except" are created equal was adopted. Does it really have to remain that way? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: School Choice: An Idea Whose Time Has Come DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:New York Times writer Ethan Bronner has touted it as “the most significant legal decision yet on the growing use of school vouchers.” Earlier this month the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Milwaukee parents could use state funds to send their children to the school of their choice-including parochial or other religious schools. The court's 4-2 decision overturned a lower court ruling and said that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program did not violate the First Amendment non-establishment clause. Hopeful promoters of school-choice legislation have seen this decision as the first nail in the coffin of the public school monopoly on state-funded education.
Kevin Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based public interest law firm, called the ruling “the latest example of the fact that common sense is returning to the law of religious liberty.” Hasson, whose group is currently involved in school-choice litigation in Massachusetts, added, “Courts no longer see religion as an allergen in the body politic but as a normal part of society.”
If this is true, changes in judicial attitudes may slowly be catching up to popular support for school choice. Grassroots backing of voucher legislation has experienced staggering growth during the last decade. Study after study has given the lie to claims that the solution to America's educational crisis lies in increased funding for public schools. While conventional wisdom held that money and educational success go hand in hand, mounting data have proved incontrovertibly that this is not the case. Since 1960, expenditures on public elementary and secondary education have increased more than 200%, whereas standardized test (SAT) scores have plummeted 73 points in the same period. As Eric Hanushek points out in the Journal of Economic Literature, there is no systematic correlation between spending in education and student achievement.
Broad-based support for school choice also manifests a heightened awareness of the inefficiency of public schools vis-à-vis private and parochial institutions. It is now generally acknowledged that Catholic schools nationwide do a better job educating children for less money than their public counterparts. To take one particular example, in Cleveland public schools a child has a one in 14 chance of graduating on time at senior-level proficiency — roughly the same probability he has of being a victim of violent crime at school. Cleveland currently shells out more than $7,000 per child. Meanwhile at St. Adalbert's, an excellent inner-city Catholic school in Cleveland, students are educated at a cost of only $1,500 per child.
In Milwaukee, only 50% of kids who start public high school end up graduating. Things are different at Brother Bob Smith's Messmer High School. He the is principal of an inner-city Catholic school serving primarily blacks and Hispanics. Ninety-eight percent of Brother Bob's students graduate; 80% go on to college.
It comes as no surprise, then, that support for vouchers is highest among low-income minorities (one 1997 poll revealed that 70% of blacks with an income below $15,000 favor school choice). Poorer families who historically have been excluded from better schooling because of inability to pay tuition fees stand to gain the most from broader educational alternatives. Support among minorities is higher still where school choice programs are already in place. In Milwaukee, where a voucher program has been up and running for eight years, 98% of blacks support choice.
The recent court ruling in favor of vouchers is unique in that it allows students to attend religious schools and not just private, non-sectarian schools. Joseph Viteritti, professor of public administration at New York University, suggested that the key to the decision was the court's view that voucher money went to parents rather than the schools, and that its purpose was neutral concerning religion. Carefully worded legislation ensuring that funding be channeled to parents rather than institutions is also the best guarantee against oppressive state intervention in school administration and curricula.
Despite growing support for school choice, the battle is far from over. Powerful teachers' unions, such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), with combined annual revenues in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion, do not intend to relinquish their monopoly on state-funded education without a fight. Rather they are placing the highest priority on thwarting the voucher movement.
Regarding the recent school choice decision, AFT president Sandra Feldman called it “unconscionable” to give public funds to private religious schools, and Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State vowed: “We are not throwing in the towel.”
In its power struggle the teachers' unions also count among their allies President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Last month Clinton vetoed legislation that would have provided vouchers to help poor children in Washington pay to attend private or religious schools.
Meanwhile here in Italy a similar debate rages. For the umpteenth time this year, Pope John Paul II has spoken out forcefully for parental choice in education. Emblazoned across the June 7 edition of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera ran the headline: “Pope Insists on Parity for Catholic Schools.” Everything indicates that the school choice issue is an idea whose time has come.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the Legionaries of Christ general directorate in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams LC ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: On Some Campuses, Students Making Pope's Ideal University a Reality DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Throughout his pontificate, Pope John Paul II has methodically sought to renew and revitalize every aspect of the Church's life. Catholic education — more specifically Catholic higher education — has been among the most important of these. The Pontiff has continually addressed the need for Catholic colleges and universities to revitalize their own enterprises.
This emphasis culminated in the promulgation in 1990 of the apostolic constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, in which he reaffirms the profound importance of Catholic higher education and outlines specific characteristics that Catholic universities should bear to deserve the title “Catholic.”
During a recent ad limina address to the bishops of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, John Paul thanked his brother bishops for their efforts to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae and underscored once again the importance of Catholic higher education.
The Pope's emphasis on higher education in the ad limina speech was no mere coincidence. The states from which the bishops present hailed are home to such prestigious American Catholic universities as Notre Dame, Marquette, Loyola, and DePaul. The address also comes at a time when the U.S. bishops' conference is in the midst of re-drafting a document to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
Two themes are featured very prominently in his recent ad limina address. First, Catholic education, especially higher education, has to do with culture. Second, Catholic education must take into account and be aimed at the integrity of the human person. In his relatively short address to the visiting bishops, the Pope reiterated why Catholic higher education is so important to the life of the Church. His words came not as lofty exhortation, but from personal experience.
“To belong to a university community, as was my privilege during my days as a professor,” John Paul II said, “is to stand at the crossroads of cultures that have formed the modern world. It is to be a trustee of the wisdom of the centuries and a promoter of the creativity that will transmit that wisdom to future generations.”
In the statement, he expressed the urgency of the mission of a Catholic university in our times. The urgency comes from the fact that, in his view, Catholic universities are the primary branch of the Church that engages culture.
The Pope sees the challenge of the Catholic academy as one of restoring a true anthropology, a true understanding of man based on the Son of Man. It is only through this understanding that the dominant philosophy of the Enlightenment can be replaced by the knowledge that man can come to know the truth. The Pope calls Catholic colleges and universities to recognize their specific place as champions of the truth, noting that “in a cultural climate in which moral norms are often thought to be matters of personal preference, Catholic schools have a crucial role to play in leading the younger generation to realize that freedom consists above all in being able to respond to the demands of truth.”
The Pope's emphasis on the integrity of the human person is a message he has been delivering for twenty years. Early in his pontificate, in an address at The Catholic University of America, he noted that young people have the capacity for a dynamic generosity which longs to build communities that fit human dignity. However, the Pope also insisted that the “correct actualization of this noble inspiration beating in the heart and will of the young requires that man be seen in the whole of his human dimension.”
The Pope's great hope in the youth as implementers of revival and renewal is sensible, for there are good things happening today in many different areas of Catholic higher education. In order for Catholic higher education to engage the culture, we must engage it first as a living example. This means that our Catholic culture should be an ethos that sets us apart, and also, an invitation that calls all people to the same communion.
ACatholic campus that endeavors to be a living example must be “a place where students live a shared experience of faith in God and where they learn the riches of Catholic culture.” This kind of authentic Catholic community is redeveloping according to the Holy Father's description that “prayer and the liturgy, especially the Sacraments of Eucharist and Penance, should mark the rhythm of a school's life.” The sacraments need to be the foundation and life-giving source of a Catholic campus.
These words have been heeded by students on various Catholic campuses such as at Georgetown, where they organized eucharistic adoration on campus. At the University of Notre Dame, students have also organized eucharistic adoration and formed their own prayer groups such as the Children of Mary and Knights of the Immaculata. At Boston College, students have formed a St. Thomas More Society, a society that invites Catholic speakers to campus to present an authentically Catholic perspective on a variety of issues. The students also gather for holy hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
Students at Loyola University at Chicago recently formed the St. Edmund Campion Society. Their first event was to sponsor “Catholic Faith Week” to inform the campus of traditional Catholic devotions and of the intellectual contributions made by members of the Church throughout its history. Similar groups are also forming at Marquette University and at many other Catholic campuses across the country.
The Pope also calls for a renewed consideration of academic disciplines in light of the totality of the human person. One can survey positive responses from various Catholic campuses across America. For several years now, the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has offered a Catholic studies program. The program is unique, for instead of dividing various academic disciplines into majors, the Catholic studies major draws from the various academic disciplines in such a way that they contribute to a Catholic whole. Another example is the St. Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco. This Great Books program integrates philosophy, theology, history, and literature to offer students a comprehensive look at Western Civilization. It offers students the opportunity to learn how to think cohesively, which is to think as a Catholic.
These programs fulfill the Pope's call to Catholic universities to “uphold the objectivity and coherence of knowledge.” “Now that the centuries-old conflict between science and faith is fading,” he writes, “Catholic universities should be in the forefront of a new and long-overdue dialogue between the empirical sciences and the truths of faith.” Several other similar programs are starting on various Catholic campuses and some non-Catholic campuses around the country.
Given that engagement of culture and the transmission of the Catholic vision of the human person are the goals of Catholic higher education, John Paul is explicit about the means by which these goals can be attained: “If Catholic universities are to become leaders in the renewal of higher education, they must first have a strong sense of their own Catholic identity,” he writes. “This identity is not established once and for all by an institution's origins, but comes from its living within the Church today and always, speaking from the heart of the Church (Ex Corde Ecclesiae) to the contemporary world.”
Mo Fung, director of the Cardinal Newman Society, writes from Washington.
----- EXCERPT: With visiting bishops, John Paul II returns to a favorite theme: key role of Catholic higher education ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mo Fung ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Head and Heart Of the Family DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:In Casti Connubii, his 1930 encyclical on Christian marriage, Pope Pius XI spoke of the distinct roles of husband and wife in the family:
“This subjection [of wife to husband], however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband's every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife…. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Political Fantasy Direct from the Hollywood Bubble DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Warren Beatty is an important Hollywood figure. His ambitions and contradictions are typical of many in his generation, and his work is a good indication of what that community believes in its heart of hearts.
Beatty began his career more than 35 years ago as a handsome leading man — the Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio of his day. His many off-screen romances were hot gossip-column items, but in 1968, with the ultra-violent outlaw classic, Bonnie and Clyde, he established himself as a creative heavyweight. He took control of the films in which he appeared to make sure it reflected his point of view.
Like many in his age group, the superstar was deeply influenced by the civil-rights struggle and the anti-war movement, and to counter his reputation as Hollywood's best-known hedonist, he took up left- wing politics as a second career. He was one of George McGovern's most powerful backers in the 1972 presidential campaign, helping him meet other celebrities like himself and raise money in tinsel town. Since that time McGovern's new-left agenda has remained his credo even though it was rejected by most of the country both then and now.
In 1981, Beatty produced, directed, and starred in Reds, a valentine to American communist revolutionary John Reed that airbrushed the horrors inflicted on tens of millions of people by Marxist-style socialism. This radical manifesto revealed his continuing commitment to the hard left.
The 1990s have been difficult for Beatty and those in the entertainment business who think as he does. President Clinton's mediagenic personality and amoral lifestyle are appealing to them, but his new Democrat policies are not. Balancing the budget, welfare reform, and the death penalty are reactionary ideas to most of Hollywood's creative community. But what can they do? They'll never become Republicans, and forming a radical left third party isn't a practical option.
Bulworth is Beatty's response. Its mixture of agit-prop, rap music, and farce is an attempt to adapt McGovern-ite new-left ideology to the present day. The basic premise is a good one: An experienced politician is so sickened by the focus-group inspired commercials and the big-money influence on his campaign that he decides to risk defeat and tell the truth. The problem is the truth to Beatty is always to be found out there with Rev. Jesse Jackson or Sen. Ted Kennedy. All other positions on the spectrum are presented as either self-serving or hypocritical.
Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth (Beatty) is in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Having started his career as a left-wing Democrat, he's been forced to move to the right, like President Clinton, in order to survive. Viewing his latest batch of TV spots in which he mouths popular platitudes like, “I believe in a hand up, not a handout,” makes him feel suicidal, and he hires a hit man to take his life.
Bulworth's first campaign stop is a black church in South-central Los Angeles. Unshaven and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, he suddenly blurts out what he believes to be the truth.
“Put down that malt liquor and those chicken wings and get behind someone other than a running back who stabs his wife,” he proclaims to the stunned congregation. He also tells them that the African-American community will never have any clout until it votes in larger numbers and contributes more money to campaigns.
The candidate next outrages a fund-raiser of wealthy Hollywood supporters by declaring, “My guys always put the big Jews on my schedule.” He also scolds them for being smart people who make stupid movies.
These two scenes are the best in the picture. From there on it's downhill. That evening Bulworth goes to an inner-city club where he smokes marijuana and dances badly to hip-hop music with Nina (Halle Berry), a local African-American beauty. The candidate's brain is so badly scrambled by the experience that he can only speak in the sing-song rhymes of rap. At his next campaign stop he spouts his hard-left version of truth-telling with doggerel like: “Whether you call it single payer or the Canadian way, socialized medicine gonna save the day.”
Nina is impressed by Bulworth's radical message, and a romance blossoms between them even though he's 35 years her senior. This kind of liaison is common enough for Hollywood superstars, but Beatty doesn't seem to realize how ridiculous he looks to people outside his charmed celebrity circle when he chases after someone so much younger. He must imagine he's still the hunk he was three decades ago.
Bulworth's manic rhyming gets him positive national press, and he wins the primary with 71% of the vote. The narrative then bogs down in the machinations of his self-generated assassination plot and ends with a paranoid twist worthy of Oliver Stone. Somewhere in this story is an interesting 10-minute Saturday Night Live skit. But Beatty's vanity and ideological bias overwhelm the material. Even as new-left propaganda, it's flawed. Blacks are presented as the only oppressed people. There are no scenes with poor whites or Latinos, the other key constituencies in a radical coalition.
Bulworth is a white superstar's fantasy that he can get down and be as funky as any soul brother. It mistakenly assumes that this kind of hipness is the key to contemporary political relevance. The movie also contains more profanity and drug-taking than any production in recent memory.
Bulworth does us one big favor. It shows us the types of ideas that are popular with much of Hollywood's creative community. Bits and pieces of them may pop up in other films, usually cleverly disguised.
But in Beatty's self-indulgent stew, they're on full display.
Bulworth is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
REGISTER RATINGS
Violence 4
Language -3
Nudity 0
Sexual Content -1
KEY
0 None
4 Suitable
—1 Questionable
—2 Objectionable
—3
—4 Reprehensible
----- EXCERPT: Warren Beatty's Bulworth is a silly stew of his hard-left ideas ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Running for God's Greater Glory DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Are sports about winning, or about how well you play the game? Probably both, but nowadays it's a billion-dollar international enterprise whose champions often become celebrity millionaires. Victory is held up as the only virtue, and losing is seen as a character flaw.
To address these issues, Chariots of Fire, 1981 Academy Award winner, takes us back to a less commercial era. It's 1919, and World War I has just ended. The sport is running, particularly the 100-yard dash and the hurdles. British director Hugh Hudson (Greystoke: The Legend) and screenwriter Colin Welland dramatize the unique excitement of those events with stories about two of England's most honored athletes of that period, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. The movie sets up these two fierce competitors as rivals in national championships and cuts back and forth between their personal stories to build suspense.
As Abrahams (Ben Cross) begins his first year at Cambridge, he often feels out of place among Britain's upper classes because he is the son of a Jewish immigrant. “This England is Christian and Anglo-Saxon,” he observes. “They guard the corridors of power.”
A genteel anti-Semitism seems as much a part of the university landscape as the stately Gothic buildings and courtyards. To prove his worth, Abrahams decides to excel in the 100-yard dash.
“I'm coming to take them on and run them off their feet,” he declares.
Liddell (Ian Charleson) is the son of evangelical Protestant missionaries from Scotland. He plans to follow in their footsteps, but before taking up his vocation, he intends to qualify for the 1924 Olympics. His sister, Jennifer (Cheryl Campbell), is afraid dedication to sport will weaken his spiritual commitment. Liddell disagrees.
“I want to compare faith to running in a race,” he declares. “It's hard and requires concentration of will.”
Only Lord Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Abraham's Cambridge classmate and an Anglican, seems to run for the pleasure of it. With aristocratic flair, he places a glass of champagne at each hurdle while training, hoping that not a drop will be spilled as he glides over the course.
Even though Abrahams is popular with his fellow students, he can be a difficult personality and a poor loser.
“I'm an addict,” he proclaims about his obsession with the sport. “If I don't win, I don't run.”
During that era athletics were considered a gentleman's occupation. Abrahams breaks one of the unwritten rules of the code by hiring a professional coach (Ian Holm). His Cambridge housemaster criticizes him. But Abrahams replies: “Yours are the archaic values of the prep-school playing field. I believe in the pursuit of excellence.”
Liddell seems a more likable person. He tries to place his competitive desires within a religious perspective.
“I believe God made me for a purpose,” he says. “He also made me fast. When I run, I feel his pleasure. To win is to honor him.”
During the Olympics, however, Liddell proves himself to be as stubborn as Abrahams. When a trial heat is scheduled on a Sunday, he refuses to run. According to his denomination's beliefs, the Sabbath is holy, and he must honor God by worship and rest. Considerable pressure is put on him to change his mind, but even a meeting with the Prince of Wales (David Yelland) can't persuade him to back down.
St. Paul compared his life's spiritual journey to an athletic event. “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith” (2 Tm 4:7).
Like the apostle, Abrahams, Liddell, and even Lord Lindsay see running as a test of character, despite their different religions.
“The power to win is within,” Liddell declares, “and Jesus said, ‘Behold the Kingdom of God is within you.’”
Each runner undergoes a significant personality change that makes him a humbler and more decent person. Chariots of Fire captures both the beauty of their physical prowess and the beauty of their souls. This is competitive sports as it should be — a good example for our materialistic, narcissistic age.
Next week: Orson Welles's Citizen Kane.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Chariots of Fire delves deeply into the souls of competitors on the track ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Inspired by God, Made by Human Hands DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Eden Hill is a part of paradise that graces western Massachusetts. Its panoramic views of the Berkshires hills are nothing short of live postcards sent from heaven. It's a most fitting place for the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy.
Long before being given its title, the shrine, on 360-plus acres in the town of Stockbridge, was a novitiate for the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, purchased by the order in 1943. At the time, the reviving congregation of priests and brothers — founded in Poland in 1673, but by the early 20th century consisting of only one member worldwide — had decided to spread the message of Divine Mercy as revealed by Jesus to a Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska.
As printing and distribution of the message quickly spread nationally and internationally, the Marian Fathers looked to add a chapel. But what was to be a simple stucco structure on a small scale budget became instead a version of a grand, timeless European church with the classic beauty of a miniature cathedral. Amazingly, no architectural plan for the chapel was ever put on paper.
The design and detail evolved in the head of Antonio Guerrieri, a local master furniture maker and wood carver who always wanted to do something for God. When commissioned in 1950, he was 74. He would simply hand out his inspirations which had been sketched on the spot for the local artisans and volunteer workers and then oversee the task at hand. Much of the construction material originated from nearby. Marble and granite blocks, for example, came from an estate in the neighboring town of Lenox, and was originally quarried in Lee, Mass., a few miles to the north.
In the tradition of magnificent Middle Ages' churches, this chapel was built over a decade without use of any modern machinery. Everything was done by hand, including all the hand-carved woodwork. The ceiling alone took almost three years.
In art and artistry, the sanctuary inspiringly captures Eden Hill's focus on Divine Mercy and Mary. At the center of the wood reredos, the Divine Mercy image is enshrined in a radiant gold frame. On either side, statues of the Apostles, carved in Italy, stand ready to help bring the message of mercy.
Centered above them is a statue of the Immaculate Conception. Higher still, from a mural above the reredos, the Holy Trinity crowns her.
The central framed image of the Divine Mercy was painted in Mexico by Father Joseph Jarzebowski from the original holy card picture he brought from Poland. The priest arrived in the United States in 1940 after escaping Nazi pursuers and traveling a circuitous route through Siberia and Japan. He brought the messages of Divine Mercy with him as recorded by Sister Faustina, whom Jesus called the “Apostle and Secretary of Divine Mercy.”
Jesus revealed this image to Blessed Faustina in 1931 when he appeared, and directed, “Paint an image according to the pattern you see here, bearing the signature, “Jesus, I Trust in You (Jezu, Ufam Tobie).”
This image of the Divine Mercy also appears on the painted wood carving used for Blessed Faustina's beatification in 1993. In it, rays stream from his heart and through a monstrance to the world as Blessed Faustina points through the rays to Jesus. With it in the Blessed Faustina side altar, there is also a first class relic for veneration. Two stained glass windows depict the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Wilno (Vilnius).
It was in 1935 in Vilnius, a town then in Poland, now in Lithuania, that the earliest Divine Mercy image was transferred from the nun's convent to Ostra Brama (the Dawn Gate) and first venerated publicly. It was most fitting because the shrine in the chapel there was to Our Lady of the Dawn Gate, also referred to as Mother of Mercy. In the opposite side altar, dedicated to St. Joseph, Mary is again pictured as Our Lady of Ostra Brama as well as Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Pilgrims can attend Mass daily at 2:00 p.m.; then at 3:00 p.m., the hour of great mercy, they can pray the Divine Mercy perpetual novena and chaplet. Benediction follows, as does the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the shrine where a former rector says that miracles occur.
Even the exquisite series of stained glass windows done with old-world artistry brings forth this message. Executed by internationally known Stockbridge artist Fred Leuchs, each of the 14 side windows presents a gospel scene illustrating the mercy of God.
More recently, local artist William Murray also hand-crafted stained glass depicting the corporal works of mercy for Our Lady of Mercy Candle Shrine and oratory located on one of Eden Hill's slopes. This newer oratory, with the Blessed Sacrament, continues the prominent themes of Mercy and Mary in two paintings. In the candle shrine, hundreds of vigil lights burn for intentions of petitioners in person or by mail. The Marian Helpers Center next door has Mass cards for all occasions, and other material.
Down the hill from the national shrine, the Immaculate Conception Candle Shrine has just been added to the outdoor Lourdes Grotto. The curved portico and benches there invite rest.
The views of God's natural beauty are to be found almost everywhere you look. Pilgrims strolling on the grounds can stop at St. Joseph's patio, with its pool, fountain, and honeysuckle arbor; the peaceful St. Francis grove; and the bronze statue of St. Peregrine. There are picnic benches about, and a well-stocked gift shop too. Always serene, the spacious grounds host the largest crowd on Divine Mercy Sunday. This April nearly 13, 000 pilgrims came for the feast.
A half-mile below the shrine, Stockbridge's main street still poses for tourists in a scene resident artist Norman Rockwell painted for a Saturday Evening Post Christmas illustration. The 225-year-old Red Lion Inn is opposite the road that rises to Eden Hill.
The area is alive with arts activities. A few minutes away are the Rockwell Museum and, close by, Chesterwood, home of the sculptor of Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial. There is Shakespeare, classic theater, and professional dance. In Lenox, Tanglewood is the summer home of the Boston Symphony. Picturesque Lee is nearby.
Inns, bed-and-breakfasts, and motels including some very pricey ones are abundant in the environs. Eateries are easy to find, as is Stockbridge itself on Routes 102 & 7, a few minutes off Interstate 90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike), exit 2, about 130 miles west of Boston, or 40 east of Albany, N.Y. Many tourists to the area don't seem to realize the spiritual refreshment and natural wonder just two minutes from the town center, or the chapel's old-world beauty brought about with no plan on paper — another of the shrine's miracles.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: In western Massachusetts, a furniture maker's gift to the Creator mimics the great European cathedrals ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: LIFE NOTES DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Florida Governor Vetoes Parental Notification Bill
TALLAHASSEE—Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles vetoed a bill June 12 that would have required the parental notification of any minor girl seeking an abortion.
Laws requiring parental involvement prior to an abortion may be performed on a minor have been enacted in 31 states. Studies have shown that in states where parental involvement laws are in effect, teen pregnancy rates drop dramatically.
Lynda Bell, president of Florida Right to Life, said children change their behavior when they know their parents will be involved.
By vetoing the measure, Chiles, in effect, believes that a minor girl is mature enough to determine whether an abortionist is giving her the best advice concerning her pregnancy, Bell said. Florida Right to Life believes that advice is better coming from those who know her best — her parents.
Judge Blocks West Virginia ‘Partial-Birth’ Ban
CHARLESTOWN—West Virginia's partial-birth abortion ban, scheduled to take effect June 12, was blocked by a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin placed a 10-day restraining order on the ban following a lawsuit filed June 8 by three West Virginia abortion practitioners. Goodwin said the “plaintiffs will likely prevail at trial.” West Virginia county prosecutors and Republican Gov. Cecil Underwood are named as defendants.
Goodwin was expected to extend the restraining order until after full hearing on the lawsuit, scheduled for July 9.
Michigan Senate Approves Feticide Bills
LANSING—The Michigan Senate June 10 gave final approval to legislation to protect the rights of pregnant women whose unborn children are injured or killed due to assault. The two bills creating civil and criminal penalties for assaulting pregnant women and injuring or killing her unborn child passed 36-1 and 31-4 and were sent to Republican Gov. John Engler for signature.
Under the measures, a person who assaults a pregnant woman intending to cause miscarriage or stillbirth would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to life in prison. A person who intentionally or negligently injured the fetus by assaulting the mother could be charged with a misdemeanor.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Something I Would Expect in the Nazi Death Camps' DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—Speaking about partial-birth abortion, Vicki Stuart, a star of the daytime TV drama Days Of Our Lives, uses the strongest words she can muster.
“This is something I would expect from Dr. Mengele in the Nazi death camps,” she said in a measured, theatrical tone. “Definitely, this is infanticide. It's impossible to stand by and let it happen. There is no reason I can think of for a doctor to do such a thing — except sadism.”
Stuart is one of 30 professional Jewish women, many of them in the entertainment and arts fields, who have signed a petition condemning partial-birth abortion. It will be sent to the nine Jewish members of Congress who last year voted to uphold President Bill Clinton's veto of a bill banning the procedure.
Many of the women, like Stuart, support legal abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, but they understand this procedure — in which the baby is partially delivered and then killed with scissors and a suction machine — to be against Jewish law and all standards of a humane society.
“We're put on this earth to bury our parents, not our children,” Stuart said in an interview with the Register. “To choose to use such a method to kill your child must be the most horrendous of crimes.”
Other Jewish women who have signed the petition are syndicated columnist Mona Charen, author Midge Decter, actress Lainie Kazan, impressionist Marilyn Michaels, who starred in the television comedy Copy Cats, and Suzanne Schachter, one of the nation's leading children's talent agents.
The initiative is supported by the Institute for Religious Values, an interfaith organization in Bethesda, Md., which previously gathered the signatures of 80 rabbis for a similar petition against the procedure (see “Rabbis Join Outcry Against Partial-Birth Abortion,” March 29-April 4). The rabbis, from Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed traditions, stated that Jewish law allows abortion in some instances to save the life of the mother, but killing a baby in the process of being born is murder. They also cited the American Medical Association's judgment that the procedure is never medically helpful.
Sandi Merle, a writer and artist representative, drafted the more recent petition and has called upon her contacts in the arts to gather signatures. Her effort was inspired by John Cardinal O'Connor, who appointed her to the New York archdiocese's Jewish-Catholic Dialogue, which finds ways for leaders in the two religions to work together for the common good.
“Everything I have done in this area is prompted by Cardinal O'Connor, God bless him,” said Merle. “Little by little, I allowed myself to be educated, and he treated me like a gentle teacher would a promising student, to turn me to the truth that was always there. I will thank him till my dying breath.”
Merle first met the cardinal more than 10 years ago, when she heard him say that the rose on his lapel was a symbol of his devotion to saving unborn babies from abortion. She was co-founder with Stuart of an organization for women who suffer miscarriage, and for the first time she saw abortion in terms of losing a child by choice.
“Here I was, meeting him for the first time, and this wonderful man, the cardinal, had already touched my heart,” she told the Register.
Merle says her morning prayers in Hebrew and ends with the words, “Now I begin,” quoting St. Francis de Sales, to whom she has a great devotion.
A heart attack and near-death experience two years ago left her with the conviction that her life was spared so she could perform some good work in the world. After consulting with the cardinal, she formed an organization called STOP (Standing Together Opposing Partial-Birth Abortion).
Polls and the two bills passed by both houses of Congress show that a majority of the American people are against the procedure. What is lacking, she said, is the voice of people in the arts and entertainment fields, who heavily influence public opinion. Most of the women in these fields have not heard of the procedure, or if they have, they do not understand how it is performed, she said.
“At one time, I thought that abortion was a woman's choice though I was never vociferously ‘pro-choice,’” said Merle. “I've made a 180-degree turn on this issue. Now I see that we're talking about babies — innocent children. Conventional wisdom says that since I'm Jewish and a woman and in the arts that these are three reasons why I should be ‘pro-choice.’ But I see them as three reasons to be pro-life. As a Jew, I am called to defend the poor and helpless. As a woman who is a mother, I know what it's like to be on the responsible end of the umbilical cord. As someone in the arts, I have to provoke thought in others.”
She is against all abortions but is focusing on the late-term procedure because she knows that most people in the arts would not support a complete abortion ban.
The petition that will go to Jewish members of Congress states: “As Jewish women and leaders in our communities, we must look to traditional Jewish teaching and our common understanding on moral behavior before formulating an opinion on this sensitive issue. As women, we are responsible for bringing life into the world and for nurturing that life. Partial-birth abortion has been called ‘infanticide’ by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. There is no place in a humane society for this practice, which requires delivery of the entire baby with the exception of the head before it is brutally destroyed.”
Obvious targets of the campaign are the two female Jewish senators from California, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, though Merle said that she does not expect them to convert any time soon. A more likely candidate to switch sides is Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who is an Orthodox Jew.
The only Jewish member of Congress who voted to override the president's veto is Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).
Chris Gersten, president of the Institute for Religious Values, is raising money to place advertisements with the petition in Jewish newspapers in the districts of Jewish legislators as he did with the petition signed by rabbis.
“Our plan is to engage the Jewish community in an ongoing dialogue through Jewish peer groups,” said Gersten. “The Jewish community can no longer be thought of as exclusively on the ‘pro-choice’ side of the debate. We hope that this will lead to a debate on the whole abortion issue.”
Stuart has suffered a miscarriage and lost another child to crib death. She also has two grown sons.
“I know the pain of losing a child,” she said. “How can a mother undergo partial-birth abortion, knowing that this is a developed baby, after she's felt movement? It's a living thing inside her.”
Her niece in Jerusalem recently delivered a (premature) baby during the seventh month of pregnancy, she said.
“They saved that child's life,” said Stuart. “To do the opposite and kill the child is mind boggling. If this is allowed what's next?”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II, in Evangelium Vitae, warned of the demise of democracy when laws are made, such as assisted suicide or abortion on demand mentioned in this issue, that fail to recognize the dignity of human life.
“This is what is happening also at the level of politics and government: the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people — even if it is the majority. This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the ‘right’ ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism” (20.2).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Michigan Assisted Suicide Proponents Face Broad-Based Opposition DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:LANSING, Mich.—When Carol Poenisch received her master's degree in public health education, she visualized changing the world by stomping out unhealthy habits like smoking. Seventeen years later, the 44-year-old homemaker and mother of two is leading the effort to legalize assisted suicide in her home state of Michigan.
What fuels Poenisch's passion for legalizing assisted suicide isn't politics. Poenisch's mother, Merian Frederick, was Jack Kevorkian's 19th victim. Stricken with Lou Gehrig's Disease at the age of 71, Frederick made an appointment with Kevorkian and ended her life in 1993.
Five years later, the grassroots organization Poenisch co-founded, called Merian's Friends, has cleared its first hurdle in putting assisted suicide on the ballot this fall in Michigan. Late last month group leaders carried 96 boxes of petitions containing almost 380,000 signatures into the Michigan Bureau of Elections. Only 247,127 valid signatures are needed to put the assisted suicide measure on the ballot. If the signatures are validated, this November Michigan voters will choose whether to legalize assisted suicide.
The ballot proposal, named “The Terminally Ill Patient's Right to End Unbearable Pain and Suffering Act,” would enact a statute allowing doctors to assist in the suicide of a patient certified as “terminally ill.” The patient must make the request in writing with two witnesses, must be declared “mentally competent,” and must wait one week after making the request before the lethal prescription is written. Advocates of assisted suicide claim the proposal contains more safeguards than Oregon's assisted suicide law, but that the real goal of the proposal is to give patients control.
“My mother chose the time and place for her dying, and that should be the right of all people,” said Poenisch.
In an interview with the Register, Poenisch said the petition campaign exceeded the group's expectations.
“We got an extra 10,000 signatures at the end that we didn't even expect,” she said. “It was hard to shut down the campaign.”
The group originally ran into problems garnering signatures from its volunteer base. To meet its goal, the group hired outside firms to collect signatures in support of the proposal — paying gatherers $1.50 per signature collected.
The fact that pro-life organizations and the Catholic Church are opposing the ballot proposal saddens Poenisch, she said.
“It saddens me that they're spending money to fight this,” she said. “I want that money to go to things like helping poor people.”
Poenisch and other Merian's Friends leaders aren't shy about whom they feel are the biggest enemies of their cause. While a wide-array of organizations have publicly opposed the ballot proposal, Poenisch said Right to Life of Michigan and the Catholic Church will lead the charge against the proposal.
“I don't expect groups like Hospice to put much energy into fighting this,” she said. “It will be Right to Life and the Catholic Church, probably national right to life groups and the national Catholic Church. Maybe even the Vatican will give money to stop this, I don't know.”
Officials with Hospice of Michigan disagree with Poenisch, arguing that a variety of organizations — some that are religiously based and some that are not — plan to fight the assisted suicide proposal. Barbara Lewis, communications director of Hospice of Michigan said those directly involved in caring for patients at the end of life will be involved in fighting the proposal.
“We're talking about what we're going to do,” said Lewis. “If this passes, it will remove any impetus for improving end of life care.”
Lewis said the Merian's Friends ballot proposal is “just really bad law.” She explained that the attending physician would be required to falsify the patient's death certificate (listing not “suicide” but the terminal illness as the cause of death), prohibit the medical examiner from being involved, and create a secret oversight committee which would inhibit any investigation of a suspicious death. The proposal also does not include a residency requirement, meaning anyone could come to Michigan to commit suicide.
“There are a lot of things in there that people are just unaware of,” she said.
Another organization not associated with the Catholic Church or the pro-life movement that, actively fighting the proposal is Not Dead Yet. This group, compromised mainly of people with disabilities, has been vocal and militant in its opposition to assisted suicide, even to the point of conducting a sit-in at the national office of the Hemlock Society in Denver earlier this year.
Bob Liston, a Not Dead Yet organizer in Michigan, said members of the disabled community are mobilizing to defeat the proposal and educate society on the potential ramifications of assisted suicide.
“People are being fed this line by
Merian's Friends and the Hemlock Society that you're better off dead than disabled,” said Liston, who uses a wheelchair. “People are buying it.”
Liston said Not Dead Yet is working through the media and public forums to inject the voice of disabled citizens into Michigan's assisted suicide debate. He says the debate is not a religious or “right to life” issue — pointing out that many disabled-rights activists tend to be very liberal on other issues — but one about people's lives.
“Merian's Friends talks about ‘choice,’ but choosing between being a burden to your family and choosing to end your life is not a choice,” said Liston. “With friends like Merian's, who needs enemies?”
Sister Monica Kostielney, president of the Michigan Catholic Conference, said: “When it comes to any life issue, the Church is identified as imposing its will on the people and that's about as far from the truth as you can get.”
Sister Kostielney said the Catholic Conference has already begun copying the petitions that Merian's Friends have submitted in order to verify their authenticity. She said the Catholic Conference would wait for the state elections division to release an official number of signatures before deciding if a full-scale challenge to the validity of the signatures will be launched. Until then, she says, the Church will continue to educate Michigan citizens.
“Education is the chief component,” she said. “When people learn the difference between letting a person die and killing a person, people change their mind.”
Kostielney said she's optimistic that education will defeat the proposal. A May 31 poll released by the Detroit News shows the number of voters opposing the proposal continues to grow. While previous polls have registered support for the assisted suicide proposal at almost 60%, the Detroit News poll revealed 44% in support, 39% opposed, and nearly 20% undecided.
While it looks as if Michigan voters may have the final say on the issue, assisted suicide opponents say everyone should be concerned about what develops with the ballot proposal.
“This proposal would make Michigan the suicide capital of the world,” said Sister Kostielney.
To Not Dead Yet's Liston, it's even more personal. As a person with a disability, he feels personally threatened by the proposal.
“It's our lives we're talking about,” he said. “We're committed to doing everything we can to make sure this doesn't pass.”
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: Church and Right to Life groups aren't alone in fighting November ballot measure ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Senator Would Rather Lose Than Comprise On Abortion DATE: 06/21/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 21-27, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—There is an age-old inclination in ruling bodies to substitute politics for principle in the name of legislative expediency. Sam Rayburn, the “old guard” of the House of Representatives, immortalized this spirit in American politics by regularly advising freshmen members, “If you want to get along, go along.”
But Compromise is anathema to some legislators on certain issues. Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.) argues that politics and parties without principle are immoral, so he is taking a stand on abortion policy.
Smith introduced uncompromising legislation in the Senate June 5 to protect the right to life from conception until death. The two-pronged maneuver consists of the Human Life Act of 1998 and the reintroduction of the Human Life amendment to the Constitution. The senior senator from the Granite State hopes votes will be scheduled by the end of the current session but concedes that it is not at the top of the leadership's agenda during the few days left for votes.
The Human Life Act stipulates that “the right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person.” The Human Life amendment, first introduced in 1981 by Sen. John East (R-N.C.), would append the right to life to the actual text of the U.S. Constitution, thus eradicating any of the current wrangling about contradictory legal interpretations. Both measures would effectively overturn the right to abortion created in Roe v. Wade. Sens. Jesse Helms (RN.C.) and John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) are early co-sponsors.
Smith admits the chances for his legislation to pass are slim at the moment, but argues that frequently articulating the moral case against abortion is imperative to changing public opinion.
“I'm going to dedicate the rest of my Senate career trying to get to people's hearts through education,” he told the Register.
Smith has made a career and almost lost it fighting for the right to life. Since being elected to the House in 1984 and moving up to the Senate in 1990, he has pushed countless pro-life bills, authored the original partial-birth abortion ban in 1995, and was the floor leader for the Hyde Amendment in 1993, which forbid federal funds being used to pay for abortions.
Pro-abortion groups listed Smith as one of their top targets in the 1996 general election, but he narrowly won reelection (by a 2% margin). The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) have continuously bankrolled his opponents, with no success.
“I survived a tough reelection by not running away from the truth,” the senator said. “You have to stand on your beliefs and let the chips fall where they may.”
Abortion is a contentious issue within the Republican Party at large. Astrike against the “big tent” philosophy of abortion conciliation failed in January when the Republican National Committee voted in Palm Springs, Calif., not to de-fund party candidates who support partial birth abortions. Other party leaders, such as Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), consistently campaign for pro-abortion politicians within the party. Smith disagrees with any move that belittles the abortion fight, rhetorically saying: “What are we winning if we have to compromise our basic principles to gain a majority? We are like a hamster on a treadmill: always running but never going anywhere. I would not fund pro-abortion candidates and we should not campaign for them.”
In abortion-related legislation in the other chamber, Rep. Chris Smith (RN.J.) introduced a bill June 16 to end the family cap that is attached to welfare payments. Under current laws intended to curb childbirths by mothers on welfare, 21 states have cut off the additional monthly allowance traditionally given to needy families that are growing.
However, a $1 million report concludes that increased abortion rates have occurred as a terrible consequence to this policy change. In a December 1997 study commissioned by the Department of Human Services in New Jersey, Rutgers University researchers determined that 240 more abortions per year have resulted in the Garden State alone since new welfare laws were enacted in 1992. Smith's anti-family cap bill is dividing factions in Washington that favor welfare reform over pro- life protections.
June has been a active month for pro-life legislation. The Child Custody Protection Act, H.R. 3682, was passed out of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution by a lopsided vote of 7-2 and is now being considered by the Judiciary Committee. The bill, authored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), makes it illegal to transport minors across state lines to avoid another state's abortion laws. Hearings on forced abortions in China dominated Congress (see front-page story).
St. Basil the Great wrote that “Whoever deliberately commits abortion is subject to the penalty for homicide.” Following this dictum, Smith is leading the stand against abortion in Congress. Enactment of either the Human Life Act or the Human Life amendment would make the protection of all human life the law of the land.
Brett Decker writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Robert Smith (R-N.H.) strikes again with a new Human Life amendment ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brett Decker ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Holocaust Document Falls Short Of Jewish Expectations DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—The just-released document on the Holocaust is the latest in a series of Vatican statements in which the Church has admitted its past errors ahead of the year 2000.
Entitled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, the 14-page text responds to decades of requests by Jews for a declaration on the role of the Church during one of modern history's darkest periods. Reaction to the document by Jewish leaders in Europe, however, has been mixed. Some have called it “a first step,” but nearly all have expressed disappointment the declaration did not go further.
Whether it will eventually be considered a milestone in Catholic-Jewish relations remains to be seen. (See related InPerson interview below, and full text of document on page 9.)
The document was prepared by the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and was accompanied by a letter from Pope John Paul II. Addressed to all Catholics, it was also sent to Jewish leaders around the world. The text asked Jews to “hear us with open hearts,” saying it represented not merely words, but a binding commitment.
In his short introduction, the Pope said, “The crime which has become known as the Shoah remains an indelible stain on the history of the century that is coming to a close.” He repeated pleas to Catholics made in 1994 that they “examine themselves on the responsibility which they too have for the evils of our time.”
However, John Paul maintained an important distinction that has emerged from the Vatican during the past several years: that while some Catholics did not do enough to stop the Nazi persecution of Jews, Christianity could not be blamed for the rise of the “pagan” and “evil” Nazi movement.
“The last thing the Nazis were inspired by was the teaching of the Church,” Cardinal Edward Cassidy, head of the Vatican office that wrote the Holocaust text, said at its presentation. He said it was his “fervent hope” that the new document would “help heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices.”
The document itself decried the “unspeakable tragedy … of the killing of millions of Jews” during World War II and said Christians had a moral duty to ensure it never happened again.
Cardinal Cassidy said the declaration went beyond an apology to Jews, because “an act of repentance is more than an apology.”
“We feel that we have to repent. Not only for what we may have done individually but also for those members of our Church who failed in this regard,” he said.
Anti-Judaism & Anti-Semitism
While the text acknowledged that the Holocaust took place “in countries of long-standing Christian civilization,” it denied that the Christian thought, which formed the basis of political and social ideas in those nations, was responsible for anti-Semitism. It called anti-Judaism “essentially more sociological and political than religious.”
The document noted that many clergy, even those living in besieged Germany, risked their lives to speak out against Nazi persecution. It also said that while many Christians helped Jews during the war, “others did not.” Many people were “altogether unaware of the ‘final solution’ that was being put into effect against a whole people,” the text said.
The Vatican document apparently fell short of satisfying many in the Jewish community, though. Jewish leaders in Europe criticized it for what they called “the Catholic Church's failure to address its preaching of anti-Jewish contempt” for centuries. They said this had made the ground fertile for the anti-Semitism of the Nazis.
The Conference of European Rabbis said the Vatican declaration could not undo “the long centuries of oppression, the Inquisition and the persecution which culminated with the Holocaust.”
At the same time, the conference noted that the text marked an important step forward in Catholic-Jewish relations.
“While we must express our disappointment that the Vatican did not accept their responsibility for the centuries of persecution of the Jewish people, we recognize the significance of this declaration as a first step in the right direction,” it said in a statement.
Rabbi David Rosen, head of the Jerusalem office of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, said March 17 that “we should recognize the significant things” in the document, such as “the expression of errors and regrets for the failure of individuals” to stop the Holocaust. But he added that the document should not have “eliminated the complicity of Catholics and the Catholic Church” in Nazi Germany's persecution of European Jews.
“This document makes it sound like all that Church teaching did was to make Christians insensitive and indifferent to what was happening” to Jews under the Nazi regime, Rabbi Rosen said. “There was more, much more, and Church representatives as well as the Pope himself have used stronger language than that in the past.”
The Vatican declaration said the Holocaust “was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and in its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also.”
In reflecting on the Nazi persecution of Jews, the document also briefly examined several centuries of what it called “tormented” relations between Jews and Christians. It cited discrimination, occasional expulsions, and attempts at forced conversions by Catholics.
“In effect, the balance of these relations over 2,000 years has been quite negative,” it said. “At the end of this millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age.”
Pius XII's Legacy
The Vatican document drew some of its sharpest criticism, however, regarding what some regard an apparent attempt to safeguard the memory of Pope Pius XII. Especially in recent years, Jewish organizations have accused him of silence and inaction in the face of Nazi anti-Semitic policies.
John Paul II's personal theologian, Swiss Father Georges Cottier, said March 18 that several Jewish representatives had mistakenly focused on the document's mention of Pope Pius XII, and not on its call to repentance on the Holocaust.
“This is a wrong reading, and I am really saddened by it,” said Father Cottier. “By shifting the attention to Pius XII, they end up losing sight of the central point of the text, which is its strong condemnation of the Holocaust.”
The priest said there had long been a campaign of falsehoods against Pope Pius XII, but that it was well known “how much the Pope did to save the lives of many Jews.”
The late Pope's public silence was a diplomatic strategy aimed at not provoking “greater evils” by the Nazis, because he knew that “Hitler would not have stopped at anything,” Father Cottier said.
Father Remi Hoeckman, one of the chief drafters of the Vatican document, said much of the negative reaction was from “badly informed or badly intentioned people who wanted to return to old polemics.”
In remarks to several Italian newspapers, he said that a “black legend” had been created about Pope Pius in recent decades, making him a “scapegoat for all the evils of the Shoah.”
As for Pope Pius's presumed “silence,” Father Hoeckman said that “we need to respect the decisions he made before God, in particular historical conditions.”
“It's too easy to say 50 years later what Pius XII should or should not have done. We need to give the rightful space to the honesty and conscience of this man,” he said.
Rabbi Moshe Rose, chairman of European rabbis’ conference, said expectations the document would have addressed the role of Pius were “unrealistic.”
“We recognize that [Vatican officials] couldn't do that. We know it is a great problem for them,” he told a news conference.
The document, citing the “wisdom of Pope Pius XII's diplomacy,” listed in footnote form the accolades bestowed on the wartime-era Pope by Jewish leaders, including the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
“During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives,” it said.
Cardinal Cassidy said that while the declaration generally tried to avoid historical judgments about individuals, it decided to include the words of praise about Pius because they ran counter to the many “negative” judgments aired about his actions during the period.
Vatican historians say Pope Pius XII, who led the Church from 1939 to 1958, worked quietly behind the scenes to alleviate the plight of Jews. They say he did not speak out more forcefully against Nazism to save Catholics as well as Jews from further retribution in Germany and other Nazi-controlled countries.
Pope John Paul II, in his first public comment on the Holocaust document, said he hoped dialogue between Jews and Catholics would continue to make progress.
“I hope and pray that our interreligious dialogue will continue in a climate of renewed openness and trust,” the Pope said at his general audience two days after the document's publication.
John Paul, 77, who grew up amid the horror of the Nazi occupation of his native Poland, has often strongly condemned anti-Semitism. He has also made improving relations with Jews a hallmark of his 20-year-old pontificate. He was the first Pope to visit the sites of concentration camps, the first modern Pope to enter and preach in a synagogue, and he guided the Holy See to historic diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.
Jewish leaders from around the globe were due to discuss the new Holocaust declaration face-to-face with Pope John Paul II. A commission of the World Jewish Congress was to hold three days of talks with Vatican officials at the end of March followed by a private audience with the Pope.
Stephen Banyra writes from Rome. CNS contributed to this story.
----- EXCERPT: European rabbis call Vatican statement a 'first step' to better relations with Church ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Banyra ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rabbis Join Outcry Against Partial-Birth Abortion DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—“Choose Life,” a popular pro-life slogan, is found in the Torah—in the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses spoke these words in the context of a law the Chosen People needed to follow to survive and thrive in the Promised Land, inhabited by hostile pagan tribes.
In the midst of today's semi-pagan “culture of death,” the words continue to have a deep resonance, yet the Jewish people, have not been a vocal element in the pro-life movement, as Catholics and other Christians have dominated the battles on the moral, legislative, and direct-action levels.
A nationwide initiative among rabbis against “partial-birth abortion,” however, is going a long way toward gathering a Jewish pro-life presence, and may eventually bring a strong Jewish voice into the debate about the grisly late-term abortion technique. Sixty-four rabbis from Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox traditions signed a statement March 16 claiming that partial-birth abortion clearly violates any interpretation of Jewish law and must be opposed for the sake of justice and the survival of society.
The rabbis were helped in their effort by George Forsyth, head of the Catholic Campaign for America, a Washington-based pro-life, pro-family action group whose roundtable dialogues with leaders of all religious faiths served as a model for the rabbinic initiative on this issue. The rabbis knew they would not necessarily agree on a host of other issues, be they moral, theological, or political, but they have, in the words of one “gone out on a limb” by addressing the usually avoided issue of abortion, to follow their consciences and God's law, and to lead Jewish people in an unfamiliar fight.
“I want to convey the morally and theologically essential point that the struggle against the unjust killing of the fetus is not a Catholic struggle alone, not a Christian struggle alone. It conforms to the highest and most ancient values of Judaism,” Rabbi Marc Gellman, one of the signers, said in a Register interview. (See Facts of Life column, p. 16)
Rabbi Gellman heads a congregation in Long Island, N.Y., and is co-host of a cable television program The God Squad, with Msgr. Thomas Hartan of the Rockville Centre diocese. Publicly against abortion-on-demand since he published a dissertation on the topic 30 years ago, Rabbi Gellman said his “passionate views” have had little effect on his congregation.
“So many people are implicated in the abortion scandal, either having had one themselves, or helping someone else to have one, that the guilt and shame is so deeply repressed they cannot even discuss the issue,” he said.
Though coming from personal conviction, the rabbis‘ statement is political in nature. It includes an “Open Letter To U.S. Senators From American Rabbis” and an appeal to voters. It urges the legislators to support the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion by overriding President Bill Clinton's veto of the bill. Together with the House of Representatives, the Senate last year passed the ban for the second time, but failed again to muster enough votes to overturn the veto.
Despite its decidedly political appeal, the “open letter” does not shrink from using moral and religious persuasion. While acknowledging that Jewish law allows for abortion in cases when the life of the mother is threatened, the statement concludes, “[A]ccording to Jewish law, once the head of the baby emerges, or the majority of the baby's body emerges, the child is considered a person equal to the mother and cannot be aborted, even to save the mother's life.”
The statement ends with the quotation from Deuteronomy: “We recall the words of Moses: ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life so that you and your decendents may live’” (30:19).
To assure readers that their judgment on the procedure is not solely based on religion, the statement includes a description of partial-birth abortion taken from a Los Angeles Times article, which leaves no doubt that the procedure can rightly be termed infanticide. The American Medical Association's call for a ban on the procedure is also noted.
In partial-birth abortion, a late-term preborn baby is pulled feet first from the womb, with the head remaining in the birth canal; surgical scissors are thrust into the base of the head to make an incision, and a vacuum is used to suck out the brain so the skull can be collapsed and more easily delivered.
The “open letter,” though, falls short of calling for a total ban on the procedure; it approves the language of the current bill, which allows for partial-birth abortion to save the life of the mother. Rabbi Gellman, one of the few Reform rabbis to oppose any abortion technique, admits that this is a compromise and does not reflect Jewish law from the Mishna, which prohibits killing the baby for any reason once a majority of the body is delivered.
He thinks the rabbis’ campaign may awaken a sleeping giant of Jewish opinion, because most Jewish people agree that if abortion is wrong “it is wrong on a huge moral scale.”
Forsyth's Catholic Campaign strategy allows him to work with Jewish leaders and others who do not support the Catholic moral view down the line.
“Christian and Catholic groups have been focused on a Human Life amendment for 25 years and it has not gotten them too far legislatively,” he said.
Citing recent surveys that suggest that the majority of Americans support some access to abortion, while small percentages fall on either end of the spectrum—those calling for a total ban or for complete “choice”—Forsyth said that the broad middle is against most abortions and strongly against late-term ones. Partial-birth abortion is the wedge into the public debate because even people who think of themselves as “pro-choice” are viscerally offended by the procedure. Once you get people to doubt late-term abortion, he said, you can incrementally bring up earlier-stage abortions.
“My thinking is that you can move public opinion slowly by starting with the consensus that is already there,” Forsyth said.
This thinking convinced Chris Gersten, president of the Institute for Religious Values in Bethesda, Md., to organize opinion among rabbis. He founded the Institute in the wake of Clinton's second veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act last October and in surprisingly short time gained the 64 signatures. It was as though he had released a voice yearning to be heard, he said, adding that he believes he could have obtained more than 100 rabbis to sign on if he were not in such a rush to go public. The Institute plans to place the statement in Jewish newspapers across the country, and has already run a series of ads in Connecticut, targeting the constituents of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who is among the nine Jewish senators who upheld Clinton's veto. New Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin are the next targeted states.
Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, had proposed an alternate restriction on partial-birth abortion, allowing for exceptions in cases where pregnancy poses possibility of a grave injury to the health of the mother, and supported Clinton's veto of the congressional ban.
The one Jewish senator who voted to override the veto is Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who called the procedure infanticide.
Gersten, who is married to Catholic conservative columnist Linda Chavez, said his goal is to show Jewish senators and other legislators who rely heavily on support from Jews that, contrary to common opinion, there is not monolithic support for abortion-on-demand in the Jewish community. But Jews who are against most abortions may have been unwilling to join Christians in political action in the past, and have not felt welcomed by pro-lifers who witness with Christian prayer and apocalyptic imagery, he said.
“This is an historic effort,” Gersten noted. “The Jewish community is an ally which the pro-life movement never expected.”
Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who heads the group Toward Tradition in Seattle, which helped Gersten gather support for the statement, called the late-term abortion procedure “barbaric” and worried that a continued silence among Jews on such clear moral issues could lead to the perception that Jews in America have lost their ethical compass, and lead to a form of anti-Semitism.
Rabbi Moses Birnbaum, a Conservative member of two rabbinical organizations, said that New York Jewish legal scholars are studying the issue of partial-birth abortion, something that was unheard of a year ago.
“This could not be discussed because we're so divided on the issue,” he said. “For a long time [many thought] we shouldn't get involved in this because it's too hot to handle among our people. Alot of Jewish opinion is consistent with the pro-choice agenda.”
But, he added, “We should stand shoulder to shoulder with Catholics on this issue.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox leaders go 'out on a limb' in defense of unborn ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Cunning as Snakes, Innocent as Doves': Church's Plan For Weathering Indonesia's Financial Crisis DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:SEMARANG, Indonesia—As tensions escalate in Indonesia due to worsening economic conditions, the Church has called on the faithful to help the jobless. In a pastoral letter issued earlier this year, Cardinal Julius Daramaatmadja, archbishop of Semarang, urged Church social committees to mobilize distribution of basic commodities and to collaborate with other religions’ attempts to help the needy. The cardinal, president of Indonesia's episcopal conference, requested all Christians—contemplative religious in particular—to pray, fast, and offer sacrifices for peace in the country.
The economic crisis has impacted the vast majority of the country's 200 million people. After being sworn in earlier this month for a seventh five-year term, President Suharto told Indonesians to prepare for leaner times. “We will never enjoy again an economic growth such as we have experienced for more than the past quarter of a century,” he said.
Cardinal Daramaatmadja's Lenten message, which was read in Churches throughout the country early last month, reminded Indonesia's faithful to be as “cunning as snakes and innocent as doves” (cf. Mt 10:16) in the midst of the crisis. “We know that the pretext ‘for the welfare of the people’ is not always exactly defending the need of the people, but may be a mask to seek personal and clan interests … if there are symptoms of abuse of human rights … we must not offer any form of support because we do not find the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
The letter suggested four steps that should be taken:
• support for economic transformation and reformation;
• attention to and assistance for those who are directly bearing the consequences of the economic turmoil (e.g, fired workers);
• encouragement of social life that honors honesty, and stops corruption, nepotism, collusion, and monopoly; and
• development of communications, democratization, justice, honor, and indiscriminatory love for all citizens.
Finally, it called for the development of a just government free from corruption; national fraternity and vision; nurturing peace and working together with other religions; and avoiding violent conflicts.
This Lenten message follows a letter published by Indonesia's Bishops’ Conference last year assuring people that they are free not to vote if they cannot do so in good conscience. The letter was attacked by political leaders saying that those who do not vote are irresponsible and considered subversive.
The highly-politicized situation of religion in Indonesia has been aggravated by tensions brought on by rising inflation and unemployment which began with the collapse of the rupiah in July. Since then, three churches have been raided and ransacked. Residents have painted “Muslim” or “Islam” on their doors to keep rioters from attacking their homes; others have displayed Islamic prayer mats on their door steps.
Attacks against Christians and ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs are suspected to have been provoked by supporters of vice-president B.J. Habibie. In an effort to gain the votes of the Muslim majority, Habibie is alleged to have insinuated the attacks to divert attention from the government's apparent inability to solve the country's economic crisis.
According to the response of the Indonesian bishops to the lineamenta, or working document, of the upcoming Asian Synod, Indonesia's government, which includes Christians among its high-ranking officials, leaves politicians of other religions feeling marginalized. But even Christians have limited clout in the current administration. Congressional elections in October 1997 reduced positions given to Christians to 26, compared to the 54 seats they held before. Of the Congress’ 1,000 members, 425 are elected through a universal vote; 75 seats are chosen by the military; and 500 are appointed by the president. Christians holding key positions in government, including in the areas of finance and defense, have lost their posts since Habibie, a longtime confidant of President Suharto, has assumed more power.
In the world's most populated Islamic nation, where 90% of the people are Muslim, Catholics represent less than 3% of the population. The Ministry for Religious Affairs recognizes five official religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The Pancasila (or “five principles” mentioned in the preamble to Indonesia's Constitution) requires at least a harmonious co-existence among persons of different religions. However, this is not always the reality, leading some to follow an “official” religion for safety reasons.
In the initial ten years after Indonesia achieved independence from Britain in 1945, there were no reported attacks against any Christian church. However, between 1965 to 1974, an average of thirteen attacks per year were recorded. Since 1945, there have been a total of 374 attacks—mainly against priests and community leaders—some of whom have been killed. The most affected region has been east of Java. Exceptions to the rule are, for example, Flores Island and certain parts of Timor, where the majority of the population is Catholic.
In the Diocese of Atambua, for example, 93 percent declare themselves Catholics without encountering opposition from other religions. There are also some Muslims who are open to the presence of Christian communities, such as Abdurrahman Wahid, the 50-year-old leader of Nu, a prominent Muslim group. Cardinal Daramaatmadja paid him a hospital visit when he fell seriously ill last January and the bishops have asked the faithful to pray for his health.
Still, in their response to the lineamenta, the bishops note the existence of the “fatwas” decree which strains relations between people of different religions. “The majority religion has a tendency to impose its values on minority groups which leave them unfree to develop,” they noted. “The atmosphere is often perturbed by mutual suspicion. The fact that certain Islamic groups are politicized under the pretext of national security makes inter-religious dialogue difficult and makes it a simple formality without content. Muslims most often consider Christians with antipathy, seeing them as competitors and sometimes even as opponents. Activities may be considered a masked strategy to win members. For lots of people, dialogue is considered a waste of time, even if it may mean more protection for minorities…”
Indonesia's seven million ethnic Chinese minority, which make up about 4% of the population, are mainly Buddhists and Christians. But according to Johanes Wardana (not his real name), a 29-year-old pharmacist and leader of a group of adult Catechumens, most converts to Christianity come from the Chinese Buddhist community. Conversions from Islam to Catholicism are much rarer.
In the recent past, conversions to Catholicism were more frequent among indigenous Javanese peoples. In 1990, there were about 90,000 catechumens. “In Jakarta, since the 1980s, there have been more than 2,500 baptisms per year,” Wardana said. “Each year, a new parish opens. But it is very difficult to get permission from the state, so, the Church is forced to use schools and hospitals.”
Although most members of the Chinese community were born here and have Indonesian names, many are treated as outsiders. They are forbidden to use Chinese names and signs to have Chinese schools, and even to celebrate Chinese New Year. Public celebrations of the Lunar New Year, the main Chinese festival, have been banned since 1967.
Significant Chinese emigration began in the latter half of the 19th century. In countries, such as Indonesia, that prohibited them from owning agricultural land or holding government jobs, the Chinese naturally gravitated toward business. During its colonial days, Indonesia had to conduct virtually all trade with the Dutch through Chinese intermediaries. Today, they may make-up less than 4% of Indonesia's population, but control some 70% of its private national wealth. They have also found favor with and are dependent on the 76-year-old President Suharto for protection.
Rumors circulating in Jakarta before the recent election indicated that prominent military officials were trying to promote anti-Chinese sentiment in an attempt to divert popular criticism of Suharto's bid to remain in power. For instance, a group of Muslim youth from the Muslim Students Association demonstrated outside the residence of prominent Catholic Chinese businessman Sofyan Wanandi for his alleged role in the bombing last month of an apartment in Jakarta. No one was hurt. Members of the PRD (Popular Democratic Party) have been captured since and accused of engineering the explosion. Authorities reportedly turned up proof Wanandi provides financial support to the PRD, and that his brother, Yusuf Wanandi, head of the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), composed of Chinese Christian intellectuals, was planning to seek international aid for them.
For many, the affair recalls an incident in July 1996 when Jesuit Father Ignatius Sandayawan and his brother were accused of collaborating with a group of students from the PRD who had staged a rally protesting oppressive labor practices. Some observers believe the current case involving the Wanandis is, like the earlier case, a ploy to rouse public opposition to Christians and Chinese.
Even in the face of such adversity, the bishops of Indonesia have made it clear that “the Church must shine with her understanding, her goodness, justice and spirit of peace and respect for other religions and religious traditions.”
Joyce Martin writes from Taipei, Taiwan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joyce Martin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Lithuania: Is National Reconciliation Possible? DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:WARSAW, Poland—When a new Lithuanian president was sworn in late last month, the occasion opened a new political era in the long-suffering Baltic republic's post-communist history, but it also held the promise of greater national unity and harmony, after a period of bitter, divisive internecine feuding.
Valdas Adamkus is the third head of state since Lithuania's secession from the Soviet Union in 1991. He is also a practicing Catholic and a U.S. citizen, who, as late as June 1997, ran regional ecology services in Chicago.
A month after his inauguration, the 71-year-old Adamkus is still making his mark, although hopes are high of long-awaited progress on vexing Church-state issues.
“This election has offered the Church a chance,” said Kastantas Lukenas, an editor at the Catholic Church's Kaunas-based information office. “We can assume Adamkus won't just be correct in his handling of relations, but will also try to give the separation of Church and state the kind of positive meaning it has in the United States.”
When the pre-Christmas election was staged Dec. 21, Lithuania's Catholic bishops proclaimed their neutrality, insisting in a statement they had “no mandate to declare infallibly in advance who will be the best president.” But Jan. 5, when a second round pitted Adamkus against center-left Prosecutor General Antanas Paulauskas, it was clear who had the support of most priests and bishops.
Since regaining independence, Lithuania's population of 3.7 million has faced drastic economic and social hardships, in a bitter aftermath to the long years of Soviet misrule and persecution.
With three-quarters of the nation's citizens identifying themselves as Catholics in a 1995 survey, the Church has slowly rebuilt its battered infrastructure and reasserted its presence in national life. Its tasks have been made harder, however, by hostility from former communists in the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP), which governed the country from 1992-97.
In 1995, LDLP parliamentarians accused the Church of attempting to turn Catholicism into an “official state religion,” while the bishops’ conference accused the party of “imposing a pattern of social life with no place for religion.”
All that came to an end in parliamentary elections last October, when the LDLP was ousted by Vytautas Landsbergis's Conservative Homeland Union.
With the Union and two coalition partners now controlling 86 of the 141 seats in Lithuania's Seimas (Parliament), the election of Adamkus has completed the political turnaround, leaving conservative politicians at the helm of the government.
Church-State Relations
Surveys suggest Adamkus drew most support in western and central areas, as well as in large towns. The exception was the capital, Vilnius, which voted heavily for Paulauskas, who garnered most backing from the east and north.
The result is seen as victory for centrist and right-wing groups over liberals and ex-communists. But as a comparative newcomer to the national stage, Adamkus has also promised to stand above party divisions and do what he can to defuse the confrontational politics of the past.
Lukenas thinks Church leaders won't push the new president too hard. Though several successes, such as the appointment of a police chaplain, have already been registered this year, Church-related legislation will be allowed to wait.
“As an American Lithuanian, coming from a multi-national society, Adamkus represents a fresh force in national life …” Lukenas told the Register. “But Catholic Church leaders have done their best to avoid big controversies and opted for a step-by-step approach.”
Ironically, it was under a LDLP government in October 1995 that the Seimas enacted a law to regulate Church-state ties. The legislation, which took three years of work to complete, left several major issues unresolved, though.
One was the fate of properties confiscated from the Church after Lithuania's 1940 Soviet annexation. In 1995, a draft law allowing the Church to reclaim churches and monasteries—but not its lands or buildings now in private hands—was vetoed by President Algirdas Brazauskas who claimed it unjust.
Since then, Church leaders have offered to compromise. In the Vilnius archdiocese, they've tabled ownership claims to 114 buildings, while demanding immediate restitution of only a third of them. But the problem has defied a domestic solution, and won't be solved until a series of treaties has been finalized with the Holy See.
Meanwhile, other pressing tasks abound. “The Church accepts everyone seeking truth and strength,” Auxiliary Bishop Jonas Boruta SJ of Vilnius, secretary of the bishops’ conference, told Lithuania's Lietuvos Rytas daily. “But it's most concerned with sheltering those who never heard about Christian values in Soviet times. Far from pushing them away, we are working with them to find a way of overcoming hostile Soviet stereotypes towards the teaching of Christ.”
Having previously been rated Lithuania's most trusted and respected institution, the Church is now ranked second behind the national media—according to monthly surveys conducted for the Respublika daily.
But its 70% approval rate is still high compared with the Church in neighboring countries. It's also far ahead of most other institutions, including parliament.
Religion or Ethics?
In Lithuania's resource-starved schools, a 1991 law requiring children to choose between religion and ethics classes is still being resisted by some directors. But when LDLP legislators tried to scrap it in 1996, their bill was defeated in parliament.
At least 350,000 Lithuanian school-children currently take religion, compared to 140,000 opting for ethics. Teachers of both receive state salaries as full staff members. A special Vilnius University course for religious teachers is now in its third year.
Meanwhile, Lithuania's 11-member episcopal conference now has a full range of commissions. New figures have come to the fore, such as Bishop Rimantas Morvila, the 40-year-old auxiliary of Kaunas. And in June 1997, the country established a seventh Catholic diocese of Sauliai.
With only 673 priests nationwide (1995 figures), and declining in number, a third of the country's Catholic parishes have no resident pastors, while many of its 700 churches face long-term renovation. But in other areas, Church life is flourishing. When French Benedictines from Solesmes open a house at Sauliai this year, 150 years after they were forced to leave, they'll become Lithuania's 40th religious order.
In March 1997, when Church leaders introduced a requirement of three months of preparation for marrying couples, some priests publicly doubted whether the Church had the capacity to uphold it. But the preparation is now mandatory and few problems are reported.
A Catholic Resurgence
Meanwhile, lay Catholic involvement is growing too, and there's no sign of decline in Mass attendance. In November, when Kaunas's historic Resurrection Church was re-opened after lengthy repairs, organizers cautiously expected 500 to attend the re-dedication Mass. Instead, 17,000 turned out to hear the city's Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius SJ, who spent nearly 10 years in Soviet labor camps, use the analogy of the “partly reconstructed Church” to describe Lithuanian society.
“Clearly, people still cherish symbolic events like this,” Lukenas told the Register. “The Church is still important for them, and their readiness to support it has helped create an atmosphere of stability.”
For now, that “atmosphere of stability” is the Church's best hope. Lithuania's overwhelmingly Catholic Polish minority, which vigorously opposed the country's 1991 independence, comprises 7% of the population nationwide and has in the past demanded wide-ranging autonomy.
In the Vilnius area, or Wilenszczyzna, which was ruled by neighboring Poland before World War II, Poles make up 23%, and most Catholic parishes are required to provide a Polish-language Mass each Sunday.
In late January, another minority grievance was soothed when Archbishop Audrys Backis of Vilnius agreed to hand the capital's restored St. Bartholomew Church to the local Belarussian minority.
Evenly Matched Candidates
Though most minority members backed Paulauskas for president, they've no reason to be distrustful of Adamkus, who promised in his inauguration speech to ensure “tolerance for other national and religious orientations.”
Last October's decisive ouster of the LDLP represented a dramatic change in national politics. But some analysts say the actual policy differences between Adamkus and Paulauskas weren't that great. The fact that Adamkus won by the narrowest of margins—50.3% to 49.7%—on a high turnout of 74%, suggests Lithuanian voters are interested in the issues and saw the candidates as evenly matched.
Meanwhile, though the LDLP opposition is widely seen as the party of “ex-communists,” the reality isn't so simple. Landsbergis's governing Conservative Homeland Union contains numerous former Soviet Communist Party members too. And while the LDLP was noted for its anti-Church stance, individual members often dissented.
The party's former leader, ex-President Algirdas Brazauskas, headed Lithuania's Soviet Communist Party until its 1989 break with Moscow and was responsible for savage anti-religious measures in the 1980s. But some Catholics think Brazauskas had a positive attitude to the Church, and defended it against hard-line colleagues.
In 1996, when Lithuania became the first ex-Soviet republic to place a moratorium on the death penalty, the president said he'd been “guided by humanitarian principles and Catholic Church recommendations.” In 1993, Cardinal Vincentas Sladkevicius of Kaunas described the former president as a “practicing Catholic” and praised him for defending school religion and Church property rights.
Brazauskas was seen making his confession at the cathedral in his home town of Kaisiadorys. On Feb. 25, Lithuanian TV showed him receiving Communion during the new president's inauguration Mass. For some Lithuanians, that apparent image of Saul-like repentance embodies the best hope for national reconciliation after decades of bitter division.
Hopeful Outlook
Preaching in Vilnius's cathedral Feb. 16 to mark the 80th anniversary of Lithuania's declaration of independence from Tsarist Russia, Archbishop Backis urged Catholics to see truth and love as the “two cornerstones” for a free state.
However, the country's latest rulers also had a duty, he added, to provide for citizens’ needs at a time of “economic, social, and moral poverty.”
Lukenas agreed. “After the great religious revival of the late 1980s, and a slump in the mid-1990s, things are now on an even keel … With a new president making a fresh start, people are optimistic and expectant. It's a time for standing upright, and looking ahead with confidence.”
Jonathan Luxmoore writes from Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: Valdas Adamkus, newly-elected president and an American Catholic, may help heal divisions in the former Soviet Republic ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholics & Jews: Sorting Out 'a Tormented History' DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Author and lecturer Dr. Eugene Fisher has directed Catholic-Jewish Relations for the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) for more than 20 years. He is the first layman to hold the post.
On March 16, the long-awaited Vatican statement on the Jewish Holocaust was released in Rome. The statement addressed “the tormented history of relations between Christians and Jews” in the shadow of Hitler's wartime campaign of extermination against European Jewry. Register senior writer Gabriel Meyer spoke with Fisher in Rome.
• 1995 winner of the 1995 National Jewish Book Award for Jewish-Christian relations with Spiritual Pilgrimage: John Paul II on Jews and Judaism
• 1985 made a member of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee by the Holy See.
• 1981 appointed Consultor to the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews
• 1977 published the pioneering work, Faith Without Prejudice: Rebuilding Christian Attitudes Toward Judaism
Meyer: How did the recent Vatican statement on the Holocaust,
Fisher: The statement had its origins in a meeting American Jewish leaders had with the Holy Father Sept. 11, 1987. The background is the so-called Kurt Waldheim affair. The Pope was preparing for an upcoming pastoral visit to the United States, and there was an already scheduled meeting with the president of Austria on the calendar. In the meantime, Austrian voters elected Kurt Waldheim to that post, and controversy ensued when the Pope kept the appointment.
Given Waldheim's wartime record, Jewish groups had questions about the propriety of it. Meetings were set up in Rome to air those concerns, first with the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, chaired then by Cardinal [Johannes] Willebrands, and then with the Pope himself. Cardinal Willebrands had a dinner with John Paul the night before the meeting in which the Pope suggested that the Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews issue a statement on the Holocaust. The project was formally announced on Sept. 11 when the Pope met with Jewish leaders.
Then a series of high-level meetings was launched between the Vatican and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations that includes groups such as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai Brith, the World Jewish Congress, and the Synagogue Council of America, among others. They convened in Prague in 1990, a meeting that included a visit to the Nazi-era concentration camp of Teresienstadt where Cardinal [Edward] Cassidy, current head of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, articulated a sense of teshuvah, or repentance, for what had happened there. Intense meetings followed: Baltimore in 1992 and Jerusalem in 1994.
When did the process of drafting the statement itself begin?
Not until after 1994.
Before we get into the criticisms that the statement has drawn, can you tell us what the Shoah document set out to do? What does the Vatican intend for the text to accomplish?
The statement set out to put the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Nazi-era Jewish Holocaust) on the agenda of the universal Church. Officially, it's a statement of the Holy See addressed to the universal Church. That's a vital point. The statement says that all Catholics everywhere, not just those in countries involved in World War II, or who have an historic tradition of anti-Semitism, need to confront the reality of the Holocaust. The statement is not a Vatican press release on the Nazi persecution of Jews, but a teaching document of the Church, a theological call, if you will, to remembrance, reflection, and repentance. For Jews, it's an invitation by the Church to the process of what might be called a reconciliation of memory. One sees that very strongly in the way the statement is written. In that sense, the statement on the Shoah is another piece in a continuing set of responses to Vatican II's Nostra Aetate teaching on the Jewish people. In 1974 there were the Guidelines on Nostra Aetate, and in 1994, Notes on Presenting Jews and Judaism. This statement is part of that ongoing process.
If the statement is intended to be a reflection on the Holocaust as a theme in the Church's teaching, why has it attracted such criticism?
The statement's fourth section, “Nazi Anti-Semitism and the Shoah,” the historical section, tends to be the locus of much of the controversy. This section has to do with the historical record, from the Church's point of view, with redressing imbalances in the historical record. Now the Jewish community thinks that attempt has resulted in an imbalance of its own. The problem is that some expected this document to be a sort of “last word” on the subject. On the contrary, from the Church's point of view, this is just the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about the meaning of a complicated common history. Cardinal Cassidy underlined that in his press conference on the statement; this is not a limiting document, he pointed out, as though there's nothing more to be said. The Church stressed things in section four that it thinks should be part of the historical record. Jews have a right to say that other things need to be a part of that record, too. Each side has a natural tendency to tell the story its own way. What we need is not two sides, but Catholic scholars working with Jewish scholars to examine that history together and come up with a story that is bifocal, if you will, a story in all its dimensions, with all its ambiguities.
Ambiguities?
Of course. The story of the Shoah is shot through with ambiguities. It includes the record of nuncios during the war in frontline positions who gave up, who ran out of ideas, who were overwhelmed by the weight of the Second World War and of others who figured the situation out, found ways to do things, and of others who merely muddled through. It's not black and white. What is a constant however, is echoing the phrase of Jules Isaac, “the teaching of contempt,” the long-held view that Jews were a deicide or a cursed people. That teaching lulled the consciences of many Christians into failing their duties when the challenge of Nazism appeared. The Pope has stated this clearly. Having said that, there's not a simplistic link between traditional Christian anti-Semitism and Nazism. Nazi ideology was patently pagan. It's no accident that one of the first things the Nazis did when they occupied Poland was to kill Catholic priests.
Even the Middle Ages aren't without their ambiguities. The blood libels begin around the 12th century, for example—the bizarre folk tale that Jews use the blood of Christian children in making their Passover matzoh. From the very beginning of the libels, the popes vigorously condemned the propagation of such evil nonsense. Nevertheless, the passions went on as did the blood libel charge. During the Crusades, when many Jewish communities were massacred by armed mobs, many local bishops tried to hide and rescue Jews. There are lots of gray areas in this history, lots of individual choices by individual persons that resulted in either good or harm.
It wasn't really until the 18th century that the Enlightenment propagated a lot of pseudo-scientific nonsense about biological subdivisions of peoples according to race. Some scholars think that the popularity of “science-based” racism was born, in part, by the need to justify the slave trade. In any case, the 19th century bought the package, and Adolf Hitler figured out how to use this mentality in a terrifying way.
All of which brings up the inevitable topic of Pope Pius XII. It can't have caught you by surprise that much of the critical comment about the Vatican statement circled around the so-called “silence” of the World War II Pope in the face of Jewish suffering and the statement's “refusal” to address that issue?
No, it didn't surprise me. Let's rehearse the facts. Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli, was a member of an Italian nobility not noted for anti-Semitic attitudes. Italians, in fact, have as good a record as the Danes in rescuing Jews during the war and proving uncooperative with anti-Jewish laws and, in living under Mussolini, they were in a much more difficult situation than the Danes were. Pius, as a diplomat in Berlin during the 1930s, got along with German nobility, but then, they hated Hitler, and later, were instrumental in the attempt to assassinate him (in 1944).
Many people try to make a distinction between Pius XI, who issued a powerful indictment against Nazism in the encyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge” (1937) and who died right before the war, and Pius XII who is seen as more of a cautious diplomat. How accurate is that view?
It is my private opinion that the likely author of Mit Brennender Sorge, with its bold statement that “spiritually, we are all Semites,” and its representation of Nazism as “idolatry,” is none other than Pius XII.
Really?
It's very likely, in my view. As Eugenio Pacelli, he was Pius XI's secretary of state, so he was closely identified with everything that Pius XI did. He, not Pius XI, was the German expert, and the encyclical was written not in Latin but in German. And, to top it all off, it was Pius XII, as papal secretary of state, who smuggled the encyclical into Nazi Germany. You can't make such a distinction between Pius XI and Pius XII: They were deeply united in all that they did together in the years before the war. In fact, the Germans were worried at the elevation of Pius XII in 1939 precisely because they felt that he was staunchly anti-Nazi.
What about the war years?
Well, Pius XII had been Pope only for a matter of weeks when the Germans took Europe by storm and invaded Poland. It took everybody by surprise. My estimate of him is that he was a decent man trying to do what he was mandated to do in the middle of a nightmare.
All the many convents and monasteries that hid Jews during the war attest that they did so not only because they knew it was right, but because of the papal mandate. The Nazis planned to deport Rome's Jews in an action that was to last eight days, but after Pius strenuously protested, they stopped the public deportations after a single day, giving many Roman Jews additional time to hide.
But isn't that what many critics contend: Had Pius XII only spoken out more vigorously, aspects of the extermination program might have been slowed?
Pius had spoken out. He had been involved with the Church's most ringing and public denunciation of Nazism, in Mit Brennender Sorge, for example. He also witnessed that such public denunciations largely failed to influence Hitler or to alter the course of events. There's a lot more rhetoric than reality in the current assessment of Pius XII. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that he was in any way indifferent to the fate of Jews. Doubtless, in hindsight, we could all give him some good advice about what he should have done, or should have known.
As in the decision to declare Vatican neutrality in the war?
Pius XII's decision to declare Vatican neutrality in World War II was a reflection of the Church's policy in World War I. The Pope then had wanted the Vatican to remain neutral in the conflict, thinking that such a policy would enable the Vatican to function as an honest broker to stop the war. We can second guess him on that score, but he was following sound precedent with the clear intent to help mediate an end to the conflict.
Pius XII was publicly praised by many Jews, including Israeli leader Golda Meir, for his help during the war years. What has happened to change that perception in so many minds today?
Well, the change really begins with Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy in the early 1960s that accused Pius of “silence” in the face of genocide. It's very strange, really. Hochhuth, a German Protestant blames an Italian Catholic for what Germans did. And, I might add, he got away with it. The sad thing is that too many people have allowed Hochhuth's play to define the issues. “Why was Pius silent?” That's not a question. That's an indictment. The question presumes guilt.
Part of the issue of Pius XII's wartime role has little to do with Pius himself, however, but with the Pope as a symbolic reference point for both Christians and Jews.
What do you mean?
For Jews, the papacy acted for centuries as a break, a restraining force, on Christian violence against Jews. Jews appealed to the Pope, and, at least in some cases, the papacy was able to negotiate an easing of their sufferings. So, for Jews, the papacy is the historic symbol of Christianity itself, its moral voice. So when something goes terribly wrong—and something did go terribly wrong in the war years—the guy at the top gets the blame for what is, actually, a moral failure of Christianity itself.
It is my private opinion that the likely author of Mit Brennender Sorge, with its bold statement that ‘spiritually, we are all Semites,’ and its representation of Nazism as ‘idolatry,’ is none other than Pius XII.
And there's no doubt that that's what the Shoah represents: the failure of Christianity on a massive scale. In that sense, while it's frustrating for us as Catholics to have people dump the burden of the Holocaust on the frail shoulders of one Pope, the conduct of Pius XII is a sidebar to the real story. While more Mit Brennender Sorge from Pius might not have done more, Christians collectively could have done a great deal more to stop the persecution of Jews by the Nazis. Individuals aside, collectively we were simply not adequate to the test with which history presented us.
Why was that, do you think?
Christianity's failure to respond to the greatest crisis in Judaism's history, and in our relationship with the People of Israel, is, fundamentally, a profound crisis of Christian teaching. That's why Vatican II's Nostra Aetate went after the “teaching of contempt,” that's why the Council had to reform that teaching, so that tragedies like the Shoah couldn't happen again.
What, in the end, do you hope that the statement on the Shoah will produce?
The statement is there, it's all what we do with it. Every country will receive the statement and be asked to develop guidelines for implementation. That, of course, is why the statement was written in a general, non-specific way. In the United States, we have Holocaust institutes for dialogue, Catholic colleges and universities have programs on the Shoah, and so forth. A lot of countries are not there yet in the dialogue. Therefore the statement lays out a broad general program that they can begin to explore. Catholics in Indonesia and Africa, for example, need to be brought into this discussion.
The Shoah is not just a Western, or European tragedy. It's an historical reality that affects the whole Church. Why? Because we all need to reform the “teaching of contempt.” Every Catholic reads the Passion accounts in Holy Week. We need to address the way people hear these texts: The Jews are not to blame for the death of Jesus, they are not a cursed people. More importantly, the Church is linked, identified in a permanent way with the biblical Israel. We are linked to the validity of the Hebrew Scriptures, we stand or fall together, Jews and Christians, in the witness that Scripture proclaims to the reality of the one God. Our Christian proclamation makes no sense without Israel and Jews, including the living, ongoing tradition of Judaism.
The statement urges us to redress the wrongs that were committed in the name of the “teaching of contempt,” and to propose the “righteous among the Gentiles,” those Christians who did risk their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, as the models of Christian action in the future. The statement, finally, is not just about what those folks did 50 years ago. It's about all of us today.
—Gabriel Meyer
----- EXCERPT: A Catholic-Jewish expert interprets the Vatican's controversial new document on the Shoah ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Eugene Fisher ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:What Parishioners Want in a Priest
What would the ideal priest be like? Father Pedro Corces, director of vocations for the Archdiocese of Miami has a good handle on the answer. He has asked many Catholics what qualities they like and dislike in parish priests; and he has kept a record of their answers according to a March 13 Miami Herald story.
Here are the attributes of the ideal priest, in order of importance as reported in the story:
• A rich personal faith
• Evident prayer life
• Excited to serve God
• Cooperates with the laity
• Compassionate, humble, flexible
• Community-oriented
• Good communicator
• Willing to delegate
• Wants to work with youth
• A practical counselor who doesn't build barriers
• Comfortable with his identity
• Has positive attitudes toward the Church
• Is honest
• Shows solidarity with other priests and promotes unity.
Downsize in Boston?
If Catholics ran their churches the way they run their businesses, maybe the Church would be in a better position today, argues William Hobbib in the March 15 Boston Globe, responding to an earlier story.
He wrote, “Your story ‘Cardinal Law recommends closing up to 60 parishes’ (March 8) failed to convey most of the context behind the March 7 gathering of 3,000 Boston-area Catholics.
“The focus of Cardinal Law's talk [was how every member] can best carry out the mission of the Church. This included a guiding principle ‘to fill us with greater zeal in pursuing the mission of evangelization, worship, and service to the men and women of today.’”
“In the private sector, successful companies offering similar products or services often merge in order to more effectively use resources, better serve their market, and expand the number of customers they reach.”
“Globe readers should know that Catholic leaders in the Boston archdiocese are also adapting to a dynamic marketplace. These efforts will ensure that the Church can meet the ever-changing needs of millions of Boston-area ‘customers’ well into the next century.”
Milwaukee Construction Boom
“Construction project manager Gordon Corrus is known as ‘Pastor’ Corrus around Bentley & Son Inc. because of the number of church building projects in which he's involved,” reports the Milwaukee Business Journal, March 16.
“At least a couple of nights a week, Corrus is at one parish council meeting or another as the Milwaukee contracting firm helps churches remodel, add space, or build anew. Lately, ‘Pastor’ Corrus has been paying more visits to churches than usual.”
“A church building boom has been generated by a number of factors, Corrus and others said: suburban sprawl, lower interest rates, and a stronger economy that makes it easier for parishioners to contribute. In other cases, a shortage of Catholic priests has prompted parishes to build larger churches so that available priests could say fewer masses to larger congregations.
San Jose Banks Trust Churches
“When it comes to making loans to churches, area banks are seeing the light,” reports the San Jose Business Journal (March 16).
“A growing number of churches are borrowing from banks to build additional facilities, many of them needed to replace discontinued government social programs or to fill the growing demand for private religious schools. And most banks are happy to oblige.”
Lenders “have determined that Catholic entities borrowing money are extremely viable entities, because they've been here for centuries, they're not likely to go away and they're likely to pay back what they say they're going to pay back,” said Mike Cummins, CFO of Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.
“The model of children going to public schools for education, churches for moral fiber, and municipal recreation areas for fun isn't holding up in the 1990s…. Replacing the old model is a new one that involves more children going to church-schools for education, churches for spiritual needs, and churches again for recreation.”
"Sister Claude of the Catholic Diocese of San Jose said diocesan schools are filled to the brim."
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Kosovan Catholics’ Daily Cross
The Los Angeles Times reported about the persecution of Albanian Catholics in Kosovo March 17.
“When he says Mass today, Father Frane Sopi will gather his congregation of ethnic Albanian Roman Catholics under the open skies on a vacant, rocky hillside here in this southern Kosovo town, just as he has done for the last six years.”
“He will pray for peace in a region that only recently was torn by devastating, deadly violence. If it starts to rain or snow, the parishioners can duck into a children's recreational room and squat on low wooden benches that occasionally double as pews.”
“Armed with legal permits and favorable court decisions, [Father] Sopi has been trying to erect a Catholic church on this site since 1992. Local Serbian authorities have repeatedly blocked his attempts.
“‘The main reason is hatred,’ said [Father] Sopi…. Instead of a church for his 5,270-member flock, all [Father] Sopi has to show for his efforts are a waterlogged empty pit in the backyard of his parish house and piles of rusting, iron-reinforced rods.
“Most of the close to 2 million Albanians who make up 90% of Kosovo's population are Muslim and trace their religion to the Turkish occupation of this region that began in the 15th century. Albanians were evangelized early in the history of Christianity, but the country has been in Muslim hands since the Turkish occupation of the 15th century. In a population of 2 million, 90% of Kosovans are Muslim, only 3.5% are Catholic, according to the article.
“Catholics in Kosovo are systematically discriminated against,” [Father] Sopi said. “They do not allow a Catholic church to be built anywhere in Kosovo.”
So Klina's Catholic faithful worship outdoors, unless the cold is unbearable.
“In [Father] Sopi's backyard, next to the pit above which the church should be built, stand the concrete remains of a chapel that his predecessor was constructing in 1974. [Father] Sopi said authorities from the atheist communist regime of the time destroyed it.
"It was communist then, extremists now," he said. "And we cannot breathe at all."
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:The Pope told Cubans during his recent visit, “No tengan miedo”—be not afraid—and now many have taken him up on it. The Miami Herald (March 15) ran down a list of new apostolates in Cuba and South Florida. In addition to possible sister parishes between the Archdiocese of Miami and Cuba's Church, it reported that:
“A South Florida women's rights group is launching a campaign to get pharmaceutical and supermarket companies to donate large amounts of medicine and food to the Cuban Catholic Church.
“A Coconut Grove architect is putting a new roof on a dilapidated church in the town of Caibarien, and he has a wish list of 25 others to assist.
“A Kendall woman wants to find a way to help the Cuban Church reach out to the young prostitutes working El Malecûn, Havana's seaside boulevard.
“Others are trying to raise money to send catechism books and Bibles to a country where there are long waiting lists for religion classes and a shortage of evangelical materials.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: New Bishops: Pope Ordains Three Close Aides DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:ROME—It was no coincidence that Pope John Paul II chose March 19 as the day to ordain three close aides as bishops, including his long-time personal secretary Father Stanislaw Dziwisz.
“This year I have chosen the solemnity of St. Joseph for the episcopal ordinations of three priests, who are particularly bound to the Holy See and to me by the singular service they have carried out,” the Holy Father said in his homily in St. Peter's. “I urge you to continue your work for the universal Church.”
The thousands of faithful gathered in the basilica erupted in prolonged applause after the three bishops were vested and seated. The applause continued as the Pope embraced each bishop individually.
Bishop Dziwisz (pronounced GEE-vish), who was named adjunct prefect of the Pontifical Household in February, was a sentimental favorite for the thousands of Polish pilgrims on hand. He has been John Paul II's right-hand man and confidant for more than three decades.
The second prelate, Bishop James Harvey, is the prefect of the Pontifical Household. His work of programming the Pope's daily schedule of audiences and meetings is expected to take on more importance as the jubilee year 2000 approaches. A native of Milwaukee, Wis., Bishop Harvey previously worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The third new prelate, Bishop Piero Marini, is recognizable worldwide as the tall, silver-haired master of ceremonies who shadows the Holy Father at solemn liturgical celebrations in Rome and during his many apostolic journeys.
Bishop Marini's episcopal ordination—a first for a master of ceremonies—underscores the importance and complexity that his post has taken on in recent years.
The increased visibility of papal ceremonies on television has given the events enormous pedagogical value.
In recognition of Bishop Dziwisz's service, the Pope said, “From the beginning of my Petrine ministry, you have been my faithful secretary, sharing with me fatigue and joy, hopes and trepidations.”
Bishop Dziwisz was ordained a priest in 1963 by then Auxiliary Bishop Karol Wojtyla of Kracow. Three years later, Wojtyla, then an archbishop, tapped him as his personal secretary. After Cardinal Wojtyla's election as Pope in 1978, he brought Father Dziwisz with him to Rome. His companionship and support likely eased the transition to the Vatican for John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope in four centuries.
It was Father Dziwisz who stayed by the Pope's side during the assassination attempt in May 1981.
The new bishop's appointment met with satisfaction in Rome. “Don Stanislaw” has long been known for his humility and fierce loyalty to John Paul II. Observers widely note that Bishop Dziwisz has never sought honor for himself—which would mean that his elevation to bishop shocked him as much as anyone.
The Pope accepted Bishop Dziwisz's invitation to attend a special lunch and reception at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, the seminary of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
There the Pope was greeted by hundreds of Legionary priests and seminarians and more than 500 pilgrims and ecclesial officials who were invited to the luncheon. The Holy Father was met at the door by the order's founder and general director, Father Marcial Maciel LC.
Bishop Dziwisz, meanwhile, lingered at St. Peter's after Mass to greet the pilgrims and well-wishers who lined up to meet him. He arrived at the seminary half an hour after the Holy Father. (Edward McIlmail)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Black Legend of Pius XII DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Though Jewish leaders applauded the March 16 release of a long-awaited Vatican document on the Holocaust, many have criticized it for not going far enough in accepting the Church's role in what Pope John Paul II has called “an indelible stain on the history of the century.”
It's probably inevitable that any document addressing one of the most appalling examples of man's inhumanity to man in history would be controversial. Even after 50 years, the haunting memory of women and men, old and young, being put to death solely because of their Jewish heritage will not fade.
It is also refreshing and right that the Vatican issue a document that it describes as an “act of repentance” for the failure of Roman Catholics to do more to deter the mass killing of Jews under the Nazi reign of terror.
What is troubling, however, is the incessant drumbeat from critics who persist in vilifying Pope Pius XII, who lead the Church during the war years. To hear some tell it, it's as if Pius XII collaborated with Hitler himself.
While Catholics should atone for the anti-Semitism that has sadly marked our history, and especially for the profound failure to better help our “elder brothers” during the dark years of World War II, they shouldn't allow revisionist readings of history perpetuate the black legend of Pius XII.
Responding to the new Vatican document, Israel's Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yisrael Lau said: “To say that Pius XII is not guilty—I can't accept that. He was not actively involved, but he contributed to [the Holocaust] by his passivity. We cannot talk about a full apology [from the Church] without mentioning the guilt of the man who stood on the blood [of the dead] and did not prevent the deaths of innocent people.”
And in a March 18 editorial about the new document, The New York Times criticized Pope John Paul II for “defend[ing] the silence of Pope Pius XII during the Third Reich.”
But was Pius really silent?
Writing in 1942 about Pius's Christmas message that year, The New York Times editorialists didn't think so. They clearly saw things differently from the writers who occupy their places 56 years later. “More than ever,” they wrote, “[Pius XII] is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent. The pulpit from whence he speaks is more than ever like the Rock on which the Church was founded, a tiny island lashed and surrounded by a sea of war.”
After the war, prominent members of the Jewish community praised Pius. The Italian Jewish community, for one, was joined by other Jewish leaders, including Issac Herzog, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, in acknowledging “the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brother and, with great abnegation, hastened to help them, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed.”
When Pius died in 1958, Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel, said: “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims.”
In his Christmas message of 1942, Pius implored men of goodwill to bring society back under the rule of God. This was a duty, he declared, that was owed to the war dead, to their mothers, their widows and orphans, to those exiled by war, and to “the hundreds of thousands of innocent people put to death or doomed to slow extinction, sometimes merely because of their race or their descent.”
It's true that he never mentioned the Nazis by name. It should be remembered that Pius XII, who had been the Vatican's secretary of state under Pius XI, was—by training and by temperament—a diplomat. He believed a more pointed denunciation would do nothing to help the Jews and would lead to greater persecution of Catholics as well, according to Cambridge University historian Eamon Duffy. Pius's low-key approach, which can be second-guessed infinitely, was supported and encouraged at the time by several Jewish groups, according to historians.
But Pius's message wasn't lost on Hitler's ally Mussolini, or on the German ambassador to Italy, both of whom considered the Pontiff's words an unequivocal condemnation of Nazi action against the Jews. The address, in fact, led the Nazis to call Pius “the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.”
Today, however, the same man the Nazis hated, and the same one praised on so many fronts as a lone voice for justice, is now remembered by many only for his “silence” in the face of evil.
The black legend of Pius’ silence was popularized by Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 play, The Deputy, which depicted the Pope as an anti-Semitic coward interested only in protecting the Church's interests—especially her economic ones. When The Deputy opened, prominent Jewish leaders were among the loudest voices dismissing the caricature.
In an interview in this issue of the Register, Eugene Fisher, a respected expert on Jewish-Catholic relations, says, “It's very strange, really, Hochhuth, a German Protestant, blames an Italian Catholic for what Germans did. And, I might add, he got away with it.”
During the war and after, Pius agonized about whether he'd pursued the best course of action against the Nazis. Perhaps he was too much a diplomat when the world needed a thundering voice of righteousness. Even in hindsight, it's difficult to know. What seems certain is that Pius was a man of integrity attempting to act morally in an immoral world.
Ultimately, the Holocaust, as Fisher notes, represents not the imagined silences of a single man, but the failure of Christianity on a massive scale. For that, the Church seeks forgiveness and pledges, “never again.”
Larry Montali is editor of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: Perspective ----- EXTENDED BODY: Larry Montali ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Escaping the Long Shadow of Death DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Reading this cheerful and engaging book, you may find yourself thinking about the difference between ethics and moral theology. It pretty much comes down to this: Moral theology—at least, the kind that hews to the tradition—operates on the assumption that something is fundamentally wrong with us but it's correctable; ethics operates on the assumption that nothing is fundamentally wrong with us—and it's correctable, too.
Dennis Helming's The Examined Life is very much a work of ethics. That has distinct advantages in this day and age.
For more than a few people, “theology” signifies something obscurantist, unverifiable, belonging to the realm of incommunicable private experience. That this is not a true picture of theology doesn't matter much. People imagine it's true and are repelled.
“Ethics,” by contrast, clearly doesn't depend on revelation, incommunicable experience, or anything of that kind. It's a product of reason, accessible in principle to all. That makes it, at least potentially, a medium of reasoned debate in a pluralistic society like ours.
In the hands of a buoyant spirit like Helming, ethics also is capable of generating moral exhortation that steers clear of being moralistic. The central message of his book is, “You can do it … you can do it … you can do it!”
The Examined Life is directed immediately to individuals—probably young people, more likely than not male. What it has to say is adaptable also to the societal level, since the behavior of groups is the behavior of individuals at large.
And certainly there is need for an ethical consensus in society today. In his new book One Nation, After All, Boston University sociologist Alan Wolfe says the “eleventh commandment” of the American middle class is now “Thou shalt not judge.”
Carried to extremes—as it has been—this nonjudgmentalism is incapacitating and contributes to a progressive moral decline marked out in three distinct stages. First, some outrageous behavior becomes public knowledge and the cry is, “Never!” Soon, however, the voices of moderation are heard murmuring, “Well, maybe sometimes.” At the third stage the universal consensus is, “After all, people have a right….”
Helming proposes a three-tiered response to this sort of thing. Growth in ethical acuity, he contends, moves from self-interest to enlightened self-interest, to gratuitous self-giving (which can be understood as self-interest of a super-enlightened sort). The goal is true happiness, not some counterfeit.
How is one to make progress? Helming takes a highly intellectualized view: People misbehave because they don't think things through. Hence the need for reflection and especially self-knowledge.
Crucial to this project, as the title of the book suggests, is cultivation of an examined life. Helming's central chapter argues the absolute necessity of a daily fifteen minutes spent in this exercise. He writes: “Unless we know ourselves, we cannot later own and give ourselves. This self-knowledge is threefold: to own up to our mistakes, to see how it is that we can and do err, and, finally, to see the benefits that come our way from seeking ever higher, better goods.”
Starting from self-knowledge, Helming prescribes practical steps to acquire self-mastery and practice self-giving in such matters as sexuality, study, work, friendship, and marriage. The advice is sound and attractively imparted.
Finally, though, ethics, helpful and important as it is, can take us only part of the way. Why is it such a struggle to be happy? Why are we so wretched so much of the time? And what, if anything, can be done about it? The ultimate answers to these questions, and especially to the last of them, are the answers that theology gives.
Human beings live in the shadow of death. We know we will die, and that knowledge shapes our lives, either by way of fear (we try to distract ourselves from the knowledge of death's inevitability) or by way of desire (we want to die in order to end a miserable life).
That is the human condition without grace. The only possible antidote for the despair to which it gives rise is realistic hope for resurrected life without end. This is to say that the only escape, and the key to Christian morals, is faith in One who says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Ethics is a crucially important prelude, neither more nor less, to the way of life to which this knowledge and this hope—and only they—can lead.
Russell Shaw writes from Washington.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Russell Shaw ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: A Confederate Deserter's Journey Home DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Most best-selling novels are either written by brand-name authors like Stephen King, Tom Clancy, or John Grisham; pushed into the spotlight by glowing reviews from high-brow literary journals; or launched by their publishers with an expensive promotional campaign.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier is the rarest of books. It owes its blockbuster success to none of the above. Individual readers picked it up, liked it, and recommended it to their friends who, in turn, passed it on to others, creating a snowball-like effect. As a result, the novel has spent more than 30 weeks near the top of The New York Times best-seller list, sold more than a million copies in hard cover, scored an upset victory in the National Book Awards, and been picked up by Hollywood for $1.25 million. It obviously satisfies some deep hunger in the reading public that both big-bucks publishers and the East Coast literary mafia have previously ignored.
Cold Mountain is the story of a wounded confederate soldier who decides the war is lost and deserts from a hospital to get back to his fiancee in the North Carolina mountains. Frazier has modeled his book, structurally and thematically, on Homer's Odyssey, alternating chapters between the adventures of his disillusioned Odysseus and the long wait of his backwoods Penelope.
What is unique about the book, when compared to other contemporary bestsellers, is the deep spirituality of its characters and setting. Frazier looks for the sacred in each person's smallest gesture and thought, and in every detail of nature. His perspective, however, isn't always Christian.
Cold Mountain's hero, aptly named Inman, is the strong, silent type who doesn't talk much but who is always ruminating on life's meaning. The war has devastated him emotionally.
“His spirit,” Frazier writes, “he feared, had been blasted away so that he had become lonesome and estranged from all around him as a sad old heron standing pointless watch in the mudflats of a pond lacking frogs.”
Inman wants to reconnect with his fiancee, Ada, because she “might save him from his troubles and redeem him from his past four years.” His search for spiritual regeneration helps him to see the obstacles he encounters on his journey as opportunities for inner growth. With this as his motivation, Inman, who's running from defeat, is able to become the moral equal of his classical model, Odysseus, who was returning from victory.
The confederate deserter's world view is more influenced by a New Age version of Native American cosmology than Christianity, though. If Ada won't have him, he hopes to live on nearby Cold Mountain, whose peak a Cherokee Indian once taught him touches the lower realms of “a forest inhabited by a celestial race.” There “the dead spirit could be reborn” and “all his scattered forces might gather.”
While suffering from his wounds, Inman is later taken in by an aged woman who lives high up on a mountain surrounded by her goats. She uses herbal medicines from nature to cure him, while preaching a kind of pantheistic spirituality also close to Native American beliefs.
Frazier, however, makes sure that readers regard Inman as more than a New Age wimp. The Home Guard is hunting down deserters like him, and he has several tense, violent confrontations which he wins. Along the way, he also rescues endangered women and children and outwits various outlaws.
Meanwhile, Ada is having her own problems. The farm she inherited from her Protestant preacher father, Monroe, is falling into ruin. More comfortable reading George Eliot than plowing the fields, she was never taught any of the practical skills necessary to survive.
An illiterate back-country girl named Ruby volunteers to work for room and board as long as she is treated as an equal. Like Inman's goat woman, she lives close to nature and has learned how to use it without damaging her surroundings. In what seems like a contemporary feminist fantasy, the two women become best friends and prove they can do all the backbreaking tasks stereotypically assigned to men. The farm prospers.
Ruby's practical wisdom is characterized as “grandmother knowledge, got from wandering around the settlement talking to any old woman who would talk back.” This proto-feminist world view is given a spiritual grounding. Ruby always acts “in strict accordance with the signs. In Ruby's mind, everything—setting fence posts, making sauerkraut, killing hogs—fell under the rule of heaven.”
Some might call these notions backwoods superstitions, but the more literate Ada characterizes them as understanding “the workings of affinity in nature.”
Although all the central characters are unchurched and seem inspired by present-day New Age or feminist ideas, Frazier describes Jesus’ life story as the “culture's central narrative.” He is smart enough to realize that mid-19th century America was profoundly Christian and thus gives his creations spiritual roots in that tradition.
When Ada tests the mountain superstition that “if you take a mirror and look backwards into a well, you'll see your future down in the water,” her mind becomes filled with words from the Christian hymn, Wayfaring Stranger. Ruby calls the North a “godless land” because it invented the holiday Thanksgiving and she considers it sinful “to be thankful on just one day.”
Many of the bad characters Inman meets use biblical imagery to threaten him. One scoundrel warns: “What you're about to learn is they're ain't no balm in Gilead.” Even the pantheistic goat woman has a picture of the Old Testament Job on the wall of her cabin.
Despite Cold Mountain's often syncretic spirituality, the novel's central theme is Christian.
“No matter what a waste one has made of one's life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption,” Ada believes, and she and Inman both choose that often difficult course.
Cold Mountain's success suggests that many contemporary readers are tired of the materialism and nihilism usually offered them. They're ready for a return to the 19th-century novelist's habit of fleshing out a person's religious beliefs as well as their psychological quirks and economic status. Frazier's tale revives this tradition with passion and skill.
Arts & culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Chastity, But Why?
In John Haas's March 15-21 column “Chastity: The Most Misunderstood Word in America?” he explains the nature of chastity, the different forms it can take, and mentions a number of statistics that prove that its neglect in American culture has had disastrous social consequences.
While I applaud Haas's allegiance to Catholic morality, I think it is time for responsible voices in the Church to reconsider whether this kind of argument is equal to the challenge of the sexual revolution in contemporary culture. As a senior in college, I can easily imagine that 400 of my contemporaries would burst out laughing and jeering at Haas when he suggested that chastity is the proper alternative to the contraceptive and abortive mentality. It is simply a realistic expression of the spiritual depravity in which young America lives and moves and has its being. Because of the more or less collective decision of our parents’ generation to leave history behind, consign family and nationhood to the flames, and reinvent life as a circus for the gratification of private vanity and desire, there is no longer any real motive to care about the social consequences of our actions.
What needs to be understood as the proper motive for chastity is not its social value so much as the spiritual purity it bestows, which is indeed necessary for true fellowship with God (cf. Heb 12:14). Holiness is a more important virtue than civility, and the free will of every living person can be exhorted to live a holy life, whereas civic virtues depend so much on historical fate. To say that “a better understanding of the ‘C-word’ might lead to a vastly improved America” is really a kind of pedantic, bourgeois moralism. Pedantic because it says to the intelligence what properly pertains to the will, and bourgeois because it appeals to the good of this world alone, which by itself is vanity. Christians are called to order their lives to the kingdom of God, which “does not consist in talk, but in power” (1 Co 4:20).
Tom Irish New York, New York
Partial Birth Abortion Foes?
Your lead front page article, “Abortion Issue Forces GOP Soul Searching” (March 15-21) was apropos. Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in an op-ed column in The Washington Times, Jan. 27, “Questions for President Clinton,” challenged the president's policies with 12 questions covering a number of issues.
One of the questions was: “Twice you have vetoed bills to outlaw partial birth abortion…. Isn't it time for you to part from the extreme wing of the pro-choice movement and sign a ban on this inhuman and medically unnecessary procedure that Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said borders on infanticide?”
The Times published my responding letter, which contained two questions for Nicholson: (1) “Given that Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, a legal scholar, has defined the “partial-birth” abortion procedure to be legal infanticide, why did the Republican-controlled Senate confirm as surgeon general Dr. David Satcher, who supports the president's veto? (2) “Given that President Clinton has done some of his best lying on this issue, what credibility can Republicans have when they confirm a surgeon general who supports infanticide and seriously claim they are trying to override the veto?”
Copies were sent to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Nicholson. Neither has replied to date. It is clear that Republicans who gained control of Congress with pro-life votes believe they can maintain their majority by giving lip service to pro-life issues.
The moral is an old one, “Put your trust in God, not in men or political parties.”
Jane Wilson Rockville, Maryland
Correction
In the March 22-28, 1998 edition of the Register, the article in the World News section entitled “Anglican Bishop Warns England's Blair Against Rome” erroneously reported that “ancient laws are still in place in Britain that forbid a Catholic from holding the office of prime minister or chancellor of the exchequer.” These former restrictions on who may be elected are no longer in place in England. The only current restriction of this sort forbids an heir to the throne to marry a Catholic.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: In America's Heartland, Catholic Youth Offer Hope DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:There is hope in the heartland. In Wichita, Kan., a city equidistant from the east and west coast of the United States, good things are happening.
At the Kansas Catholic College student convention in Wichita last month a small group of committed students organized a three-day conference that I can only describe as a profoundly Catholic experience: part retreat, part seminar, and part fellowship. Kansas Newman College hosted 160 students from 12 other state colleges. Blue-jeaned young people alive with faith and inquiring minds demonstrated their high energy level in spontaneous chants for rival college basketball teams playing a championship game that weekend.
Several things inspired my hope. These students accept the fact that they have grown up in a culture war. They are not naive. Nor are they cynical. They resist the belittling of their moral code in dorms and classrooms. They do not wither under professors who advocate politically correct ideas and undermine religious values by ridicule and neglect. The students know they must seek support from other Catholic students, priests, and teachers, and they have done so imaginatively.
This conference has a 20-year history. Building on that tradition, student leaders spent a year carefully preparing every detail that helped ensure its success. The program combined national speakers with a celebration of Catholic sacramental life that kept the conference from being a “head trip” and allowed for an intense experience of community in Christ. Bishop Eugene Gerber of Wichita and the Catholic chaplains warmly supported it and attended.
These students understand that faith grows through prayer. The first evening a student-planned penance service led by a priest calmed this boisterous group into a quiet congregation that prayed for an hour and had private confession. A peace descended on the group as they carried large candles to rooms for individual confession. We adjourned for their favorite local pizza followed by a holy hour. Everyone attended. All night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament followed.
The rest of the conference showed a thoughtful balance of teaching, information, devotion, socializing, and time for meeting new people. Talks were interspersed with workshops on the pro-life message, vocations, Mary, and the recounting of a conversion story. A husband-and-wife musical team, who also write songs, were a big hit. So was a cop who works with gangs in Los Angeles. The program kept returning to Catholic devotions and I was struck by how these energetic students desired prayer and their ability to settle into a quiet attitude. Besides morning Mass and the rosary, a tableau of the stations of the cross was presented by a group of local high school students who had developed a reverent dramatic presentation. A small choir sang Gregorian chant for each station. Everyone attended.
Saturday evening included dinner with Bishop Gerber, his excellent serious and heartfelt talk about true love, a dance with ear-splitting music, and eucharistic adoration all night. This was the first year they offered eucharistic adoration and everyone agreed it marked the conference in a special way. The presence of the Lord was evident in the atmosphere of peace, joy, and a thirst for knowing more about the Church and the Gospel. Everyone sensed we were in a spiritual oasis.
The students’ questions indicated the level of their commitment to living the faith. As they start to make life decisions they wanted to know how to recognize God's will and how to make a good decision. They wanted to know how to be strong in the face of difficulties and they expressed their gratitude for the strong witness they see in the Church among priests they know, their bishop, certain laity, and especially the Pope. They love this Pope and dedicated the conference to him. The T-shirts they printed read Crossing the Threshold of Hope, and the original song they wrote for the occasion was Be Not Afraid. We rehearsed it several times and, on Saturday, sang it for Bishop Gerber. He may have missed the words to the fast-moving verses, but the chorus was clear: “Be not afraid, I will go far before you. By my word, you'll go forth in my name, Be not afraid.”
My hope was inspired by these students’ realism about the culture, their love of prayer, and their desire to be good Catholics. This conference is a model for other students looking for a formative experience of Catholic sacraments, witness to the faith, inspiration, and community. I want to help spread the word of hope that comes from the heartland.
Mary Ellen Bork, a board member of the Catholic Campaign for America and the Institute for Religion in Democracy, writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ellen Bork ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: We Remember A Reflection on the Shoah DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:The 20th century is fast coming to a close and a new millennium of the Christian era is about to dawn. The 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ calls all Christians, and indeed invites all men and women, to seek to discern in the passage of history the signs of divine providence at work, as well as the ways in which the image of the Creator in man has been offended and disfigured.
This reflection concerns one of the main areas in which Catholics can seriously take to heart the summons which Pope John Paul II has addressed to them in his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente: “It is appropriate that, as the second millennium of Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal.”
This century has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, which can never be forgotten: the attempt by the Nazi regime to exterminate the Jewish people, with the consequent killing of millions of Jews. Women and men, old and young, children and infants, for the sole reason of their Jewish origin, were persecuted and deported. Some were killed immediately, while others were degraded, ill-treated, tortured and utterly robbed of their human dignity, and then murdered. Very few of those who entered the camps survived, and those who did remained scarred for life. This was the Shoah. It is a major fact of the history of this century, a fact which still concerns us today.
Before this horrible genocide, which the leaders of nations and Jewish communities themselves found hard to believe at the very moment when it was being mercilessly put into effect, no one can remain indifferent, least of all the Church, by reason of her very close bonds of spiritual kinship with the Jewish people and her remembrance of the injustices of the past. The Church's relationship to the Jewish people is unlike the one she shares with any other religion. However, it is not only a question of recalling the past. The common future of Jews and Christians demands that we remember, for “there is no future without memory.” History itself is “memoria futuri.”
In addressing this reflection to our brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church throughout the world, we ask all Christians to join us in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again will selfishness and hatred grow to the point of sowing such suffering and death. Most especially, we ask our Jewish friends, “whose terrible fate has become a symbol of the aberrations of which man is capable when he turns against God,” to hear us with open hearts.
We Must Remember
While bearing their unique witness to the Holy One of Israel and to the Torah, the Jewish people have suffered much at different times and in many places. But the Shoah was certainly the worst suffering of all. The inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and massacred during this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey. All this was done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews.
The very magnitude of the crime raises many questions. Historians, sociologists, political philosophers, psychologists, and theologians are all trying to learn more about the reality of the Shoah and its causes. Much scholarly study still remains to be done. But such an event cannot be fully measured by the ordinary criteria of historical research alone. It calls for a “moral and religious memory” and, particularly among Christians, a very serious reflection on what gave rise to it.
The fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of the relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down the centuries of Christians toward the Jews.
Jews And Christians
The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact in his repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people. In effect, the balance of these relations over 2,000 years has been quite negative.
At the dawn of Christianity, after the crucifixion of Jesus, there arose disputes between the early Church and the Jewish leaders and people who, in their devotion to the law, on occasion violently opposed the preachers of the Gospel and the first Christians. In the pagan Roman Empire, Jews were legally protected by the privileges granted by the emperor, and the authorities at first made no distinction between Jewish and Christian communities. Soon however, Christians incurred the persecution of the state. Later, when the emperors themselves converted to Christianity, they at first continued to guarantee Jewish privileges. But Christian mobs who attacked pagan temples sometimes did the same to synagogues, not without being influenced by certain interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people as a whole. “In the Christian world—I do not say on the part of the Church as such—erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility towards this people.” Such interpretations of the New Testament have been totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican Council.
Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way “different.” Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the “Christian” world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact, Jews throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions and communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a certain suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine, war, pestilence, or social tensions, the Jewish minority was sometimes taken as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting, even massacres.
By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Jews generally had achieved an equal standing with other citizens in most states and a certain number of them held influential positions in society. But in that same historical context, notably in the 19th century, a false and exacerbated nationalism took hold. In a climate of eventful social change, Jews were often accused of exercising an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Thus there began to spread in varying degrees throughout most of Europe an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious.
At the same time, theories began to appear which denied the unity of the human race, affirming an original diversity of races. In the 20th century, National Socialism in Germany used these ideas as a pseudo-scientific basis for a distinction between so-called Nordic-Aryan races and supposedly inferior races. Furthermore, an extremist form of nationalism was heightened in Germany by the defeat of 1918 and the demanding conditions imposed by the victors, with the consequence that many saw in National Socialism a solution to their country's problems and cooperated politically with this movement.
The Church in Germany replied by condemning racism. The condemnation first appeared in the preaching of some of the clergy, in the public teaching of the Catholic bishops, and in the writings of lay Catholic journalists. Already in February and March 1931, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, Cardinal Faulhaber and the bishops of Bavaria, the bishops of the province of Cologne, and those of the province of Freiburg published pastoral letters condemning National Socialism, with its idolatry of race and of the state. The well-known Advent sermons of Cardinal Faulhaber in 1933, the very year in which National Socialism came to power, at which not just Catholics but also Protestants and Jews were present, clearly expressed rejection of the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. In the wake of the “Kristallnacht,” Bernhard Lichtenberg, provost of Berlin cathedral, offered public prayers for the Jews. He was later to die at Dachau and has been declared Blessed.
Pope Pius XI, too, condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his encyclical letter, Mit Brennender Sorge, which was read in German Churches on Passion Sunday 1937, a step which resulted in attacks and sanctions against members of the clergy. Addressing a group of Belgian pilgrims on Sept. 6, 1938, Pius XI asserted: “Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites.” Pius XII, in his very first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, of Oct. 20, 1939, warned against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the state, all of which he saw as leading to a real “hour of darkness.”
Nazi Anti-Semitism
Thus we cannot ignore the difference which exists between anti-Semitism, based on theories contrary to the constant teaching of the Church on the unity of the human race and on the equal dignity of all races and peoples, and the long-standing sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism, of which, unfortunately, Christians also have been guilty.
The National Socialist ideology went even further, in the sense that it refused to acknowledge any transcendent reality as the source of life and the criterion of moral good. Consequently, a human group, and the state with which it was identified, arrogated to itself an absolute status and determined to remove the very existence of the Jewish people, a people called to witness to the one God and the Law of the Covenant. At the level of theological reflection we cannot ignore the fact that not a few in the Nazi Party not only showed aversion to the idea of divine providence at work in human affairs, but gave proof of a definite hatred directed at God himself. Logically, such an attitude also led to a rejection of Christianity, and a desire to see the Church destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi state.
It was this extreme ideology which became the basis of the measures taken, first to drive the Jews from their homes and then to exterminate them. The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and, in pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also.
But it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts. Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians make them less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecutions launched against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?
Any response to this question must take into account that we are dealing with the history of people's attitudes and ways of thinking, subject to multiple influences. Moreover, many people were altogether unaware of the “final solution” that was being put into effect against a whole people; others were afraid for themselves and those near to them; some took advantage of the situation; and still others were moved by envy. Aresponse would need to be given case-by-case. To do this, however, it is necessary to know what precisely motivated people in a particular situation.
At first the leaders of the Third Reich sought to expel the Jews. Unfortunately, the governments of some Western countries of Christian tradition, including some in North and South America, were more than hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews. Although they could not foresee how far the Nazi hierarchs would go in their criminal intentions, the leaders of those nations were aware of the hardships and dangers to which Jews living in the territories of the Third Reich were exposed. The closing of borders to Jewish emigration in those circumstances, whether due to anti-Jewish hostility or suspicion, political cowardice or shortsightedness, or national selfishness, lays a heavy burden of conscience on the authorities in question.
In the lands where the Nazis undertook mass deportations, the brutality which surrounded these forced movements of helpless people should have led [people] to suspect the worst. Did Christians give every possible assistance to those being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?
Many did, but others did not. Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honored for this reason by the State of Israel.
Nevertheless, as Pope John Paul II has recognized, alongside such courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence.
We deeply regret the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of the Church. We make our own what is said in the Second Vatican Council's declaration Nostra Aetate, which unequivocally affirms: “The Church … mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by the Gospel's spiritual love and by no political considerations, deplores the hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source.”
We recall and abide by what Pope John Paul II, addressing the leaders of the Jewish community in Strasbourg in 1988, stated: “I repeat again with you the strongest condemnation of anti-Semitism and racism, which are opposed to the principles of Christianity.” The Catholic Church therefore repudiates every persecution against a people or human group anywhere, at any time. She absolutely condemns all forms of genocide, as well as the racist ideologies which give rise to them. Looking back over this century, we are deeply saddened by the violence that has enveloped whole groups of peoples and nations. We recall in particular the massacre of the Armenians, the countless victims in Ukraine in the 1930s, the genocide of the Gypsies, which was also the result of racist ideas, and similar tragedies which have occurred in America, Africa and the Balkans. Nor do we forget the millions of victims of totalitarian ideology in the Soviet Union, in China, Cambodia and elsewhere. Nor can we forget the drama of the Middle East, the elements of which are well known. Even as we make this reflection, “many human beings are still their brothers'victims.”
Looking to the future of relations between Jews and Christians, in the first place we appeal to our Catholic brothers and sisters to renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith. We ask them to keep in mind that Jesus was a descendant of David; that the Virgin Mary and the Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the Church draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree on to which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (cf. Rm 11:17-24); that the Jews are our dearly beloved brothers, indeed in a certain sense they are “our elder brothers.”
Act of Repentance
At the end of this millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as members of the Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great compassion the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment. “We would risk causing the victims of the most atrocious deaths to die again if we do not have an ardent desire for justice, if we do not commit ourselves to ensure that evil does not prevail over good as it did for millions of the children of the Jewish people…. Humanity cannot permit all that to happen again.”
We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm resolve to build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews, but rather a shared mutual respect, as befits those who adore the one Creator and Lord and have a common father in faith, Abraham.
Finally, we invite all men and women of good will to reflect deeply on the significance of the Shoah. The victims from their graves, and the survivors through the vivid testimony of what they have suffered, have become a loud voice calling the attention of all of humanity. To remember this terrible experience is to become fully conscious of the salutary warning it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart.
March 16, 1998
Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, president; Bishop Pierre Duprey, vice-president; Father Remi Hoeckman OP, secretary; Vatican Commission on Religious Relations With Jews.
----- EXCERPT: The Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews' statement on the Holocaust ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Act of Contrition: Is 'Sorry' Really the Hardest Word? DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:In 1996, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hollywood film Love Story, music clubs re-released the original movie soundtrack at bargain prices. The album jacket featured the youthful faces of Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, together with the celebrated maxim: “Love means never having to say you're sorry.”
At a distance of a quarter century, such expressions strike us as quaint relics of past times. They provoke the same amusement as bell-bottom jeans, elevator shoes, or imitation suede leisure suits.
Now, as then, this phrase is ambiguous at best. If it is a poetic way of saying, “I forgive you even before you say you're sorry,” fine. If, on the other hand, it means that true love somehow does away with the need to ask forgiveness, there is something very wrong here. But alas, old lies—especially those couched in catchy slogans—die hard.
Earlier this month, Dr. Benjamin Spock, guru of parental permissiveness and one of the major precursors to the social upheaval of the ‘60s and ‘70s, passed away at the age of 94. His 1946 book Baby and Child Care has sold more than 50 million copies, making it the best-selling American title of all time. Thanks to spin-offs from theories such as Spock's, an entire generation of parents and educators were bred on the myth of unconditional affirmation, premised on the notion that all guilt feelings are pathological and damaging to children's psychological development.
And yet, as any real lover knows, saying you're sorry is a big part of our fragile human love, which so often fails to live up to its lofty ideals. We can't hurt the one we love and then just go on as if nothing had happened. Such conduct would manifest not love, but the most callous indifference.
Our deliberate offenses throw love out of kilter; they damage the basic harmony and trust upon which love is built. This harmony must be restored before building can resume. Saying we're sorry—admitting our guilt— allows us to disassociate ourselves from our past actions and to assure the beloved that we are determined to change.
The season of Lent has a lot to do with saying we're sorry. A variety of words—contrition, repentance, conversion—boil down to the same interior attitude. We want to change; moved by love, we reject our past sins and turn back to our Lord. This contrition, defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again,” goes beyond mere regret. We may regret investing in unprofitable stocks, being caught in a thunderstorm without an umbrella, or the death of the family dog. But we don't repent or experience contrition for these occurrences, since they are either outside our control (such as the dog's untimely demise) or represent practical errors without moral coloring (such as financial blunders or failed meteorological calculations).
In addition to the evident spiritual benefits, a renewed emphasis on contrition can also furnish a salutary remedy for some of our most acute moral maladies, namely relativism, no-fault ethics, and excessive legalism.
In the first place, contrition returns “choice” to its proper place in our moral framework, and thus redresses relativism. Choice has become a buzzword used to justify any and all conduct, from illicit sexual liaisons to the systematic killing of unborn children. In a recent address to educators gathered in Denver, Archbishop Charles Chaput told his audience that Americans have become “slaves to the idolatry of choice.” The practice of contrition, conversely, reminds us that the highest value is not choice or freedom in themselves, but their proper employment. There are good choices and bad choices, and we can use our freedom for good or evil.
Secondly, in an age in which individual rights have captured center stage, returning to a healthy spirit of contrition can do much to bolster our flagging sense of personal accountability. As Pope John Paul unceasingly reminds us, emphasis on human rights must be accompanied by a corresponding attention to responsibility. Contrition ensures this parity. It teaches us to accept responsibility for our own actions, which includes acknowledging our faults and asking forgiveness for them.
Thirdly, the practice of Christian contrition is healthy medicine for overcoming an excessively legalistic morality. When we sin we not only infringe a moral code, we offend our all-loving God and Father. In our moral life we are accountable to someone and not just to a set of laws. Perfect contrition means sorrow for having offended God, who deserves all our love. We are pained not so much by the recognition of our own misery as by our ingratitude and failure to correspond to his divine love.
Last year saw the release of a movie called The Mirror Has Two Faces, starring Barbra Streisand and Jeff Bridges. I was struck by the ad for the film, which bore a caption that almost exactly reversed Love Story's famous line. The new ‘90s lovers learn that “when you truly love, and you make a mistake, the most important thing is to say you're sorry.” It may have taken 25 years, but Hollywood finally got it right.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the Legion of Christ's general directorate in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams LC ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Home of the Parish Priest Extraordinaire DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:“A good pastor—a pastor according to God's heart—is the greatest treasure that God can bestow on a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine Providence.”
—St. John Vianney
Attracting more than half-a-million pilgrims a year, the shrine of St. John Vianney serves as one of France's most popular pilgrimage destinations. Located in the small town of Ars-surFormans, in the heart of the country, the shrine features the saint's home and parish church.
Born to peasant parents May 8, 1786, St. John Vianney developed at an early age a great love and keen understanding of God. As a small boy, when helping his father in the fields, he was often seen instructing the other children in their Christian faith. With a great desire to enter the priesthood, he left for the seminary at the age of 19.
Lacking much formal education, he soon found his studies to be nearly overwhelming. Latin and philosophy posed the greatest difficulties for him, and he was expelled twice from the seminary for failing exams. After several years of struggle, and with the help of tutors, he was finally ordained a priest. Considered ill-fit for the priesthood by most, Father Vianney was assigned by the bishop to a remote parish in Ars.
Although not accepted at first by his parishioners, he soon overcame their hostility through his example of holiness and by preaching powerful sermons. Before long, word about the saintly priest spread throughout the town and people began coming back to church. Eventually, the word went out throughout all of France: “There is a holy priest in Ars; go and see him.”
Popularly known as the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney is said to have possessed a number of supernatural gifts. Reading souls in the confessional, predicting events, and performing miracles were just some of the reasons pilgrims from all over Europe flocked to see him.
Between 1830 and 1845 an average of 300 people visited him daily. In fact, so many people traveled to the town to see him that a special booking office was opened in the nearby city of Lyon to accommodate the pilgrims. Eight-day return tickets were commonly issued, because it took nearly that long to secure an opportunity to talk with him.
To meet the needs of the visiting pilgrims, the saintly priest slept only two hours a night. Between 13 to 17 hours of the Curé's day were spent in the confessional. He spent the rest of his time celebrating Mass, reading the lives of the saints (his favorite recreational activity), reciting the Divine Office, and teaching catechism. Among his other pastoral activities, he re-established fallen-away confraternities, restored the parish church, founded the La Providence orphanage, and helped with missions in the district.
During the night of Aug. 4, 1859, the faithful servant of God relinquished his soul at the age of 73. In 1925 Pope Pius XI canonized him. Four years later, in recognition of his outstanding holiness and commitment to the priesthood, the Church proclaimed him patron saint of parish priests.
The life of St. John Vianney can best be summed up in a meeting the Curé had with a young parishioner upon his arrival near Ars. After receiving directions from the boy as to the town's location, St. John Vianney replied, “You have shown me the way to Ars, now I will show you the way to heaven.”
Among the most popular pilgrimage sites related to St. John Vianney are the basilica of Ars, the saint's home, and the shrine of the Curé's heart. The basilica is divided into two churches—old and new. The old church is where the Curé prayed, preached, and heard confessions. Visitors to the basilica can see the chapels he built, his pulpit, and confessional. The new church features the saint's incorrupt body, which rests in a magnificent reliquary donated by parish priests from around the world.
In addition to visiting the basilica, pilgrims can tour the saint's home. Since everything has been left intact since the day he died, items such as his breviary, rosary, library, and cooking utensils can be viewed. Even his bed, which is said to have been scorched by the devil, may be seen.
Another popular site for visitors is the chapel near the saint's living quarters where the holy priest's heart is enshrined. The chapel also features a famous statue of the saint in prayer. Other places of interest include the pilgrimage bookstore and the historical wax museum. The shrine is well suited to receive pilgrims with two fully functioning hospitality services.
In traveling to Ars from Paris, take motorway A6 (Autoroute du soleil) south to Villefranche-sur-Saône (in the direction of Lyon). Exit the motor-way at Villefranche-sur-Saône and head east on D904 to Ars.
If not traveling by car, one must use a combination of both train and bus service. There is no railway station at Ars. The nearest train stop is five-miles away at Villefranche-surSaône. From there, travelers may take either a taxi or bus to Ars.
For more information on pilgrimages to the shrine of St. John Vianney, contact one of the many Catholic travel organizations offering guided tours to France or contact the shrine's pilgrimage office at: Secretary of Pilgrimages, 01480 Ars-sur-Formans; (tel.) 011-33-474-0817-17; (fax) 011-33-474-0075-50.
Kevin Wright, author of Catholic Shrines of Western Europe writes from Bellevue, Wash.
----- EXCERPT: The Shrine of St. John Vianney honors a man who spent at least 13 hours a day hearing sins in the confessional ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Wright ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: In Enduring an Excruciating Death, Christ Brought Freedom from Sin DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:“Calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation …”
—Eucharistic Prayer III
In a 1986 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and more recently in a video entitled How Jesus Died: The Final 18 hours, medical experts and historians have provided a graphic account of the physical suffering and death of Jesus. While medical analysis cannot explain the meaning of Jesus’ suffering, it can help us to appreciate more deeply the victory Jesus won for us through his incredible ordeal.
The religious and political rulers of the time could not have explained hematidrosis, the rare phenomenon of sweating blood when a person is in an extremely stressful or fearful state. They also would not have been able to clarify that scourging rips both subcutaneous tissues and skeletal muscles, usually resulting in circulatory shock. They would not have been able to describe the sharp shooting pain in the head, neck, and shoulders caused by a crown of thorns, the agony of unsanded wood rubbing against wounded and tender skin, or the excruciating pain resulting from a median nerve damaged by a nail being driven through one's wrist. They could not have theorized whether Jesus died of blood loss, by slowly becoming too weak to breathe, or whether all his sufferings combined to produce acute heart failure.
What the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate did know was that crucifixion was a horrendously slow and painful death (the word “excruciating” finds its origin in ex cruce, literally “from the cross”). The message sent by this public and humiliating form of execution was, “If you resist those in power, this could happen to you.” These power-wielding men understood that crucifixion was the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of fear with which they defended their self-serving status quo; but the men did not understand Jesus of Nazareth.
On the eve of the crucifixion Jesus found himself in Gethsemane with no one but his sleeping friends. At the thought of his upcoming passion and death he was overcome by fear, and so he was exactly in the position in which the earthly power wanted him. However, as he stared into the abyss of fear, Jesus called upon his Father. He then did what no victim before him had done: He offered his sufferings to his Father. He lovingly, obediently, and perfectly offered every single pain he would undergo.
Thus, before the powers-that-be even took hold of him, he rendered them powerless. Everything they did to him from this point on would not affirm their own power, but would reaffirm the bond between the Father and the Son. In choosing the love of the Father over the power of the world, Jesus won the war.
Jesus was betrayed by the kiss of one friend and abandoned by the rest. He stood before the soldiers and guards and the power they represent, an isolated man with no recourse or support. To some, this “Messiah” must have seemed a pathetic joke. Those who were more aware were probably disturbed by his confidence in the face of his inevitable “defeat.”
When Jesus, the man accused of blasphemy, was scourged, each piece of bone tied to the whip became a prayer bead, and each painful tear of his skin was a prayer. Every lash was a gift to the Father whose love was rejected by the powerful as a disturbance and a threat.
When a cloak was put across his open wounds and a crown of thorns inflicted new wounds on his head, Jesus became the first king who lovingly, obediently, and perfectly acknowledged and honored him from whom his kingship came.
When they tore the clothes off Jesus, leaving him naked, the soldiers thought they were mocking him. In fact, they had simply enabled the first perfect prophet to witness to his complete dependence upon his Father. When they nailed him to the cross and sent fiery pains throughout his limbs, Jesus became the first priest and the first truly unblemished victim to offer a perfect sacrifice from his altar, the cross. And as the last breath of life left the bloody and beaten Jesus, and the local rulers thought their power had reached its pinnacle, Jesus uttered the words, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Those who had plotted to hand him over to power did not realize that they were handing Jesus over to love—his Father.
All the plotting that went into the crucifixion of Jesus bought those in power three days of self-satisfaction. Ultimately, it has brought centuries of Christians freedom from sin and from the weapon of fear wielded by those powers who seek to crush us spiritually, culturally, or politically. This Holy Week and Easter, we Christians once again celebrate with joy and confidence the contradiction of the cross and the promise of the resurrection.
“Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice” (Eucharistic Prayer III).
Father Richard Veras writes from Staten Island, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Richard Veras ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: A New Spring for Catholic Higher Education? DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:One hundred and nineteen years ago, Aug. 4, 1879, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical letter Aeterni Patris and called upon Catholic institutions of higher learning to “restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences.”
Such was the respect for the papacy in Pope Leo's day that his call was immediately and generously taken up by Catholic institutions of higher learning throughout the world. The Catholic philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas became the centerpiece of learning in virtually all Catholic colleges and universities, and remained so through the 1950s. It's a matter of history. As Yogi Berra used to say, “You could look it up.”
Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae Aug. 15, 1990, which called Catholic institutions of higher learning to, in essence, adopt a more visible, more open, less defensive, and less apologetic commitment to their Catholic identity. In that document, the Holy Father included, in varying degrees, all members of a Catholic university community in the responsibility for maintaining and strengthening the university's Catholic identity. Among other things, he linked “Catholic identity” with respect for Catholic doctrine.
It is perhaps a measure of the seriousness of the current situation in Catholic higher education that Ex Corde Ecclesiae has not met with the general and generous acceptance that greeted Pope Leo XIII's encyclical a century earlier. Instead, Ex Corde Ecclesiae has met with bureaucratic delay, with pleas for its reevaluation in light of the “American experience,” and, ultimately, with a paralyzing hesitancy in the face of fears over the real or imagined accreditation difficulties and loss of easy access to governmental funding.
The Decisive Moment
Even if there was a time when those fears were based on genuine dangers, it now seems clear that the times are changing.
There is a dramatic scene in the movie Patton in which Gen. George Patton is standing in the midst of the carnage of a battlefield and musing over his predicament. He says to his aide that he seems to be in command of just the right instrument, the Third Army, at just the right moment of time to bring the war to a victorious conclusion. Such a moment is fleeting, he reflects. All he needed in order to seize that moment was gasoline for his tanks.
The combative nature of the example aside, the analogy may fit the current situation facing the American Catholic bishops in their efforts to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The Pope's apostolic constitution may be just the right instrument at just the right moment of time to enable the bishops to re-energize Catholic higher education and to empower its students to play their part in the Church's mission to evangelize the world for Christ.
The signs that this may be just the right moment are increasingly clear to those of us on the front lines of Catholic higher education. Changes are in the wind. There is an obvious hunger among students for a more open, less apologetic, and more embracing attentiveness to Catholic learning and to a Catholic atmosphere at the university level. Students increasingly want exactly those things that would be accomplished by a full and generous implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
The recent successful campaign waged by non-Catholic as well as Catholic students for crucifixes in the classrooms at Georgetown University manifests that hunger. Students at The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law waged a similar campaign three years earlier. Even though their efforts attracted less national publicity, they were successful in calling for classroom crucifixes as well as for a Catholic chapel with the Blessed Sacrament present. In both instances the main opposition, on the part of university administrators, seems to have been a fear of offending anyone or of seeming “non-inclusive.”
Unfounded Fears
One major fear of those who favor less than a full implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae is the effect such an implementation might have on the secular accreditation of Catholic colleges and universities. But experience from the past suggests this fear is misguided. Back in 1987, even before the issuance of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, The Catholic University of America, in the aftermath of a directive from the Vatican denying Father Charles Curran the right to call what he was teaching “Catholic theology,” suspended him.
It is difficult to think that anything in Ex Corde Ecclesiae would trigger a more direct confrontation between a Catholic university and the secular accrediting agencies than has already occurred in the Curran affair. And yet, when all the fuss and feathers had died down, The Catholic University of America was still in possession of its accreditations from the secular authorities. To be sure, the University had to face a lawsuit from Father Curran and a period of some chaos both within and without its walls, but one might believe that facing those difficulties is exactly what our Holy Father is calling upon us to do in Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
Another fear, and perhaps a greater one to those whose preoccupation involves money, is that full compliance with Ex Corde Ecclesiae might threaten government funding for Catholic colleges and universities. But, again, past experience suggests there is no need to be afraid on this count. Schools like the Franciscan University of Steubenville, which make a point of implementing the apostolic constitution, have not been challenged concerning government funding. In another current incident, albeit outside the Catholic fold, the state legislature of Maryland is trying to find ways to allocate government money for repairs to the Morgan Christian Center and its monument-sized cross at Morgan State University. Their openness to the funding was bolstered by another demonstration of the current positive mood toward religion on campuses. The Baltimore Sun reported March 12 in a front page story that a large number of students at the university staged a protest in favor of keeping the cross and the word “Christian” in the name of the center.
The hunger for a new attentiveness to Catholic doctrine in the curricula of Catholic higher education is also manifesting itself. This is a reversal of the earlier turnaround of the 1960s, when the grand accomplishment of Pope Leo XIII was jettisoned and the Catholic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas was dropped precipitously and unceremoniously from the curriculum of many Catholic colleges. Academic focus turned to those aspects of Catholicism that seemed to be most consistent with the political thinking of the day, especially certain limited parts of the social teachings of the Church. At the same time, courses exploring the relativistic ethos then emerging as dominant in our culture were given equal or even greater prominence.
Signs of Hope
But now all that is changing. For example, a year ago several Catholic (and, just as at Georgetown, a few non-Catholic) students asked The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law to offer a course in the Catholic Natural Law Tradition. The course is being offered for the first time during this current semester. It is a measure of the hunger for things Catholic, and the rightness of the moment, that five times the expected number of students enrolled in the new course.
Finally there is evidence of a willingness on the part of Catholic university administrators to give Ex Corde Ecclesiae a chance. Father David O'Connell CM in a March 17 press release on the occasion of his being named president of The Catholic University of America (see story below), spoke enthusiastically of Ex Corde Ecclesiae's clear and unambiguous commitment to a Catholic value system.
The signs visible at the front lines of Catholic higher education are, at the moment, hopeful. The hunger for things Catholic is there, and waiting. The American Catholic bishops, it seems, have just the right instrument at just the right moment in time to bring Catholicism back into Catholic higher education for the good of the world. The moment, however, like Patton's opportunity for victory, may be fleeting.
Professor Raymond Marcin JD teaches at the Columbus School of Law of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Signs indicate the time is right for a rebirth in Catholic education. Ex Corde Ecclesiae is the right tool to bring it about. Will the opportunity be lost? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond Marcin ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A Cause Worth Dying For DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Loyalty, honor, God, and country—these are ideals once considered worth dying for, but now they are rarely praised. Our age seems so cynical and despairing that people are often scared to even pay lip service to such higher purposes. Yet, something in the human heart still yearns to be part of an idea or a cause higher than itself, and contemporary popular culture, in spite of its natural tendency to mock, occasionally throws up a movie or TV show which satisfies that need.
The Man in the Iron Mask wants us to stand up and cheer for these old-fashioned values. Based on Alexandre Dumas's classic novel, it also endorses the currently unpopular notion that both private and public virtue are important to national leadership.
It is 1660, and France is starving. The poor people, encouraged by the Jesuits, are close to revolt. But King Louis XIV (Leonardo DiCaprio) is content to send them rotten food while depleting the treasury on an expensive war against the Dutch. He also indulges himself in luxurious court entertainments and dallies with the women in his entourage with a carefree abandon that would make Bill Clinton jealous. The royal regime is corrupt, and the times cry out for someone to set it right.
With passion and courage, the three musketeers had once served the present ruler's father in the King's guards, but they're now sulking in retirement. Athos (John Malkovich) has devoted himself to raising his son, Raoul (Peter Sarsgaard), whom he hopes will also become a musketeer. Aramis (Jeremy Irons) has become a priest who takes his vocation seriously. Porthos (Gerard Depardieu) has become a plump, Falstaffian figure, whose greatest pleasures now are food, drink, and women. He often complains that his best days are behind him. Only their old friend, d'Artagnan (Gabriel Byrne), still serves the crown as head of the king's security guards. Ever watchful, his credo is that “a fool's sword can be sharper than his brain.”
King Louis's roving eye falls on the innocent and beautiful Christine (Judith Godreche), the fiancee of Athos's beloved son, Raoul. When she has reservations about throwing herself into the king's embrace, Louis imitates the ploy of Israelite King David towards Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah, and sends Raoul off to the front where he's killed. Louis then offers the grieving widow comfort and seduces her.
At the same time Aramis is called back into service as a musketeer to ferret out the secret head of the Jesuits, who are rumored to be plotting against the throne. His orders are to kill the man when he finds him. However, Aramis turns out to be the covert leader of that powerful religious order, the very same person the king wants murdered.
This chain of events reunites the three musketeers and gives them a mission—the removal of the corrupt king. Aramis has learned that Louis has a twin brother, Phillipe (also Leonardo DiCaprio), who's been secretly imprisoned in the Bastille for six years. His resemblance to the king is hidden by a hideous iron mask. The aging, out-of-shape warriors plan to spring him from jail and put him on the throne in place of Louis. (The film's narration notes that the real-life records of the Bastille during this period did, in fact, list a prisoner number 6438900—a man in an iron mask— but nothing definite has ever been proven about his actual identity.)
Unlike almost any other action film, The Man in the Iron Mask depicts its heroes as agents of a higher morality.
The musketeers’ main adversary is their old comrade, d'Artagnan, who will do everything in his power to foil their scheme. But this loyalist to the crown has admired the royal twins’ mother, Queen Anne (Annie Parillaud), with chaste love for 30 years, and she is poised to influence him to do the right thing.
Despite its promise, the directorial debut of Oscar-nominated screen-writer Randall Wallace (Braveheart) comes up short. The mood shifts from swashbuckling swordplay and broad farce to youthful romance and full blown tragedy and back again so often that it looks as if two or three different films have been stitched together. Wallace is unable to find a unifying tone for the disparate elements in his tale. Least successful is his idea of comic relief, which consists mainly of crude language and frat-house humor that clashes with his otherwise meticulously observed sense of period.
The movie also can't seem to decide which story should be its dramatic spine—the musketeers’ or that of the man in the iron mask. As a result, there is too much plot.
Despite these flaws, the movie also contains much that is admirable. Unlike almost any other action film recently released, The Man in the Iron Mask depicts its heroes as agents of a higher morality. Whenever a character is shown praying, the movie treats him or her with respect.
“We are all God's instruments,” Aramis declares as he hatches his plot. “We must keep the faith.”
The filmmaker resists the usual Hollywood impulse to make fun of his over-the-hill gang and their grandiose ideals. When the hedonistic Porthos asks the priest, “What's more important than sex?” Aramis replies, with a straight face, “forgiveness.” The freeing of the man in the iron mask is shown to be not only a way to restore justice to France but also as an act of mercy to a suffering individual. Thus when the musketeers finally face off against the forces of evil, they're able to proclaim with conviction, “It's judgment day!”
The movie's most emotionally charged moments involve watching the musketeers recapture the passion for honor they had in their youth. When they discover the man in the iron mask has “the heart to be a king,” they've once again found a cause worth dying for, something they thought would be lost to them forever. It's an inspiring sight.
The Man in the Iron Mask is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Violence -1
Language -2
Nudity -1
Sexual Content -1
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Despite some flaws, The Man in the Iron Mask is refreshingly idealistic in a time of cynicism ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Surrogate Motherhood in the Holy Land DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM—Church leaders here say they are not too concerned by Israel's first case of surrogate motherhood, because most local Catholics abide by traditional Church doctrines.
In Israel as elsewhere, the local clergy teach that fertility treatments such as artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood are at odds with Church teachings.
“We believe that man is created by God as an act of love, and that children are the creation of love,” says Father Edward Tamer, parish priest of the Latin Church in Jerusalem. “In Genesis 2:24, it is said that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and that they become one flesh. Christ added that what God united, no one can divide. This applies to surrogate motherhood as well as to divorce.”
Surrogacy became a subject for debate here after a Jewish woman, hired by an infertile Jewish couple to serve as a surrogate mother, gave birth to healthy twins last month. The couple, who live in northern Israel, had tried for more than a decade to have a child.
The wife, who could not conceive naturally, underwent numerous in vitro fertilization treatments. Even when these proved successful, she suffered eight miscarriages due to an immunological disorder that caused her body to reject the fetuses.
In Israel as elsewhere, the local clergy teach that fertility treatments such as artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood are at odds with Church teachings.
Taking advantage of Israel's surrogacy law, which was enacted in March 1996, the couple—who cannot be identified for legal reasons—advertised for a surrogate mother. Ultimately, they chose a 30-year-old single mother motivated to serve as a surrogate because of financial difficulties.
According to media reports, the surrogate mother suffered extreme emotional stress throughout her pregnancy and even considered aborting the fetuses. To date, the couple has been unable to share their side of the story because the surrogacy law prohibits all types of publicity.
The case has angered women's-rights advocates opposed to what they regard as “womb-for-hire” arrangements.
“We were against the law before it was passed, and now that surrogate children have actually been born we're even more against it,” says Rivka Meller-Olshitzky, chairwoman of the Israel Women's Network.
Calling surrogacy an “inhumane” procedure, Meller-Olshitzky says that Israel's first-ever case only proves the point.
“The results have been awful, both physically and emotionally.
The pregnancy itself wasn't easy, and she had to have a cesarean section. Her body was prepared for motherhood, but instead of being a mother her children were taken away.”
Eliezer Jaffe, a professor at the Hebrew University School of Social Work, says that “while there is always the potential for misuse,” Israel's “excellent” surrogacy law was designed to prevent this.
“In most other countries, when a couple contract with a surrogate they do so privately and there's no legal scrutiny. In Israel, the procedure must first be approved by a committee. There's a lot of supervision,” he said.
Indeed, the surrogacy law sets forth very strict guidelines: Prior to striking a deal, both the biological parents and the surrogate must plead their case before the ministry of health's surrogacy committee, which is comprised of gynecologists, a psychologist, a social worker, and a member of the clergy.
At that time, the surrogate mother must prove that she is not a first-degree relative of the biological couple, and that she is single.
The amount of money the biological parents can pay the surrogate is limited to “living expenses.” These include health insurance, the surrogate's legal fees, and compensation for “loss of time and suffering” during pregnancy. Although no sums are actually mentioned in the law, a member of the surrogacy committee said the accepted limit would be $25,000.
Meller-Olshitzky dubs this sum insufficient.
“If a woman becomes a surrogate— and we hope she won't—she's entitled to be paid as if she were working 24 hours a day for nine months. Being pregnant is not a part-time job,” she said.
While acknowledging that Israel's first case of surrogacy could open the floodgates, Father Pierre Grech, secretary of the local bishop's conference, doubts whether local Catholics will opt for such an arrangement.
“These are traditional families— Arab Catholic families—who think of such procedures as taboo. I don't believe they would consider surrogacy as an option.”
Until now the local Church has not issued any statement on the issue, on the grounds that parishioners have not posed any questions on surrogacy.
“This could change in the future, if there is a demand,” says Father Tamer. While acknowledging the plight of infertile couples, he says, “couples cannot turn to mechanical arrangements. In cases where people can't have children, the Church suggests they adopt a child.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: First case underscores some complications of procedure allowed by a two-year-old law ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Under-age Pregnancies in Britain Hit New Heights DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:More adolescent girls in Great Britain than ever before are taking the contraceptive pill. As the latest figures were released, there also came the news of a joint legal suit against manufacturers of the pill launched by 170 women or their relatives who claim they suffered serious side effects—or in some cases died—as a result of taking the contraceptive drugs.
There was widespread concern when Britain's office of national statistics released figures last month showing that nearly one in seven 15-year-old girls is being given the contraceptive pill at birth-control clinics.
Youth and pro-family organizations were horrified at the evidence of ever-increasing sexual activity in under-age girls. The legal age of consent for heterosexual relations in Britain is 16, yet one of every dozen 14-year-old girls was asking for contraception from clinics.
The latest figures were distributed only to health professionals and academics but brought immediate expressions of shock from pro-family, pro-life groups.
Some Catholic commentators said the latest figures may jolt the government into realizing the results of years of government-backed propaganda pushing contraception and so-called “sex education.” As the number of girls taking contraceptive pills continues to increase, so too does the number of teenage pregnancies. The latest figures show that about 4,000 surgical abortions are carried out annually on girls under the age of 16 in England.
However, the Register has learned that this is not the whole picture. One stalwart pro-family campaigner, Victoria Gillick, had previously challenged in the courts the government's right to have the contraceptive pill prescribed to under-age children without parental consent. She lost the case in 1983, won an appeal in the High Court in 1984, only to see that result overturned by the highest court in the land, the House of Lords, in 1985. (In 1986 the government launched its “safe sex” campaign.)
This week Gillick spoke to the Register and revealed the true extent of under-age contraceptive use by adolescent girls. The figures published last month by the government, as previous such statistics, dealt only with girls receiving contraception from birth control clinics. The numbers seeking contraception from local and family doctors (general practitioners) were never known. However, these statistics did begin to be collated from 1992 onwards, after the previous Conservative government launched its “Health of the Nation” policy.
Yet, recently the minister for health refused to furnish these to Gillick, saying they were unavailable. The intrepid campaigner knew they were being collated somewhere— more precisely at the executive headquarters of the National Health Service. Somebody, somewhere, had access to these figures that the government was not aware existed.
Apart from any other reason, they have to be collated because general practitioners (GPs) receive special payments every time they prescribe contraceptives. It is now possible to know how many girls under the age of 16 received contraception not only from family planning clinics but also through local GPs’ offices. Since these figures began to be collated in 1992-93, they reveal an astonishing increase in under-age contraceptive use.
As revealed to the Register, the number of girls under the age of 16 who were given contraceptives either through clinics or GPs in 1993-94 was 52,844. The number of under-age girls receiving the pill from these two sources in 1996-97 was 86,902—almost a 65% increase.
Valerie Riches, a former social worker who now runs Family and Youth Concern (and who, along with her husband, became a Catholic some years ago) said, “The age of consent has virtually been abandoned. Yet prosecutions of men having sex with underage girls have fallen. These girls are the victims of an unlawful act, but it's being ignored. It is very worrying.”
Gillick commented, “It is clear that this report shows an increase in promiscuity. It also shows that you cannot reduce the number of teenage pregnancies if you create a massive increase in teenage sexual activity.”
While the rate of teenage pregnancy in 13- to 15-year-old girls remains more or less constant (0.81% of 13-15 year-old girls in 1993 and 0.94% in 1996, for example), the official figures for teenage conceptions do not reveal the full picture.
When the statistics for “post-coital treatment” (the morning-after pill) are looked at it is estimated that one in four of the girls taking it will have already conceived. The figures obtained by Gillick, and shown to the Register even before Britain's national media received them, reveal a massive increase.
In 1989, 2,200 girls under 16 were given the morning-after pill. In 1996 that figure had soared to 22,300—a 10-fold increase.
Said Gillick: “If as is generally accepted, one in four of these girls had already conceived, then actual conception in girls under 16 has rocketed. The same phenomenon has occurred in Holland, where they have decriminalized under-age sex. Figures there report that 10% of 13-year-olds are now sexually active. Holland claims to have the lowest conception rate but, in fact, they rely on the morning-after pill.”
When the British government statistics on the increase of underage girls being given contraceptives by family planning clinics came out, government ministers were said to be “concerned” and studying ways of reversing the trend.
But it appears that the publicly released figures and the figures obtained by Gillick and revealed here, merely confirm what pro-life and pro-family groups have been telling the government all along.
“I'm afraid they vindicate what we have been saying for the last two decades—that providing contraception is the worst possible solution to under-age sex,” said Gillick. “It merely undermines the legal protection of underage girls—plus it encourages them to think that they are protected from all sorts of future disasters and complications.”
Government health statistics also reveal that one in 10 sexually active girls under the age of 20 are now suffering from pelvic inflammatory disease, principally chlamydia.
Said Gillick: “The most recent figures from our European neighbors in Holland now confirm that women who started taking the pill in their teens face a 50% risk of developing breast cancer.
“When we understand how girls here in Britain have been handed contraceptives and abortifacients like so much candy, we realize a whole generation of girls has been seriously damaged. I think the chances are that they are going to be very, very resentful in the future.”
“We need a radical re-think of sex-education policy,” added Gillick. “My first recommendation to the government would be not to base such education on consultation with those who have vested financial interests in contraceptives.”
The news of increased teenage use of the pill came just after it had been announced that participants in a group action against three British manufacturers of contraceptive drugs had been granted legal aid to fight their case.
One attorney, Rosie Houghton, is representing 170 victims and family members who claim that deaths and serious illness were caused by the drugs. The three companies being pursued by the group are Organon Laboratories, Wyeth Laboratories, and Schering Health Care.
A spokeswoman for Schering Health Care, Carol Graham, said the company would “vigorously defend” itself against the action. Pointing out that clear instructions were given on her company's product, Fermodene, and that users are warned to consult their doctor if they experience worrying symptoms, she said, “they would always encourage greater communication between doctors and patients.”
Addressing what will be one of the main issues in the forthcoming legal action, Graham said: “Women get thrombosis—when they are not on the pill. There's never been a causal link.”
The Guild of Catholic Doctors, though, issued a warning that taking the pill increases the risk in women of life-threatening thrombosis particularly of the veins, but also of the arteries. Less-serious side effects, they pointed out, include headaches, increased blood pressure, and mood swings.
England's Bishop John Jukes, who sits on the Joint Committee for Bioethical Issues of England, Wales, and Scotland, said, “Anybody who brings attention to the dangers of these drugs has done the public a service.”
The New Labor government of Tony Blair, which since before its election has said it is concerned about “teenage mums,” is going to have to do some hard thinking. Whether it will have the courage to re-think the liberal agenda of promoting sex education and “safe sex” remains to be seen. Pro-family campaigners are not holding their breath.
Jim Gallagher writes from London.
----- EXCERPT: Alarming published statistics merely reveal tip of iceberg-sized problem ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Gallagher ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:“God cannot leave the crime unpunished: from the ground on which it has been spilt, the blood of the one murdered demands that God should render justice” (cf. Gn 37:26; Is 26:21; Ezk 24:7-8). From this text the Church has taken the name of the ‘sins which cry to God for justice,’ and, first among them, she has included willful murder. For the Jewish people, as for many peoples of antiquity, blood is the source of life. Indeed ‘the blood is the life’ (Dt 12:23), and life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason “whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself.”
Pope John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae 9.1)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Confusion In Assisted Suicide Country DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:Reverberations from November's vote in Oregon reaffirming the state's law legalizing assisted suicide continue to ripple through different levels of government, leaving behind confusion and uncertainty. While Oregonians attempt to adapt to their new status as the only state to allow the practice, government agencies have been scrambling to develop policies to handle this dramatic shift in public policy.
The day after Oregon voters reaffirmed their support of a state assisted suicide law, federal officials from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced that delivering, dispensing, or prescribing a controlled substance with the intent of assisting a suicide would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act, even if permitted under Oregon law. Although the DEA statement is currently being reviewed by the Justice Department and Attorney General Janet Reno, a new Wirthlin worldwide poll released March 11 found 65% of Americans agree that federal law should not allow the use of federally controlled drugs for the purpose of assisted suicide.
The poll, which was the result of national telephone interviews with 511 U.S. residents, found only 29% of those surveyed supported the use of federal drugs to assist in suicide. Six percent either did not know or refused to participate in the survey.
Respondents were asked: “As you may or may not know, the use of narcotics and other dangerous drugs is generally prohibited by federal law except when a doctor prescribes them for a ‘legitimate medical purpose.’ Should the federal law allow the use of these federally controlled drugs for the purpose of assisted suicide and euthanasia?”
“Federally controlled drugs” include drugs like morphine, amphetamines, and barbiturates—all preferred drugs in the practice of assisted suicide. Currently, these drugs and others are federally regulated due to the substantial danger of misuse.
Pro-life leaders immediately hailed the poll results and called on the Justice Department to allow the DEA to enforce the law.
“The overwhelming majority of Americans, in agreement with the judgment of the professionals at the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, say that federally controlled substances should not be used to assist suicide,” said Burke Balch, director of National Right to Life Committee's Department of
Medical Ethics. “Attorney General Reno should act quickly to end the uncertainty and let the DEA enforce the law.”
DEA enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act would have a substantial real-world impact on Oregon, according to Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. According to Doerflinger, many Oregon physicians are afraid to run afoul of any federal law that may be used against them if they assist a suicide.
“Currently, the DEA's statement is credited with preventing most Oregon doctors from participating in the practice,” he said. “This poll is further encouragement that the legislators should clarify the law if Attorney General Reno will not.”
The confusion over how to practically apply the Oregon assisted suicide law—not withstanding the DEA's statement—continues to plague health care workers. In March, a panel of health care experts released a 91-page guidebook in an attempt to lead health care providers through the ethical and bureaucratic maze surrounding the nation's first assisted suicide law.
The guidebook “tries to ease through some of the very challenging issues and explain the tensions that exist for a provider trying to work through these issues with patients and families,” said Dr. Patrick Dunn, chairman of the panel that produced the guide.
Those challenging issues will become even more challenging if the DEA's statement stands. In the meantime, pro-life leaders are expecting Congress to weigh in on the issue if Reno contradicts the DEA.
Doerflinger, who was surprised by the poll's large two-to-one margin in opposition to the use of federally controlled drugs in assisted suicides, said the poll results and the DEA's strong statement should send a message to Reno.
“It's our reading of the law that the DEA Administrator is correct,” he said. “This should be an easy decision for the administration.”
According to Doerflinger, the current talk on Capitol Hill is that Reno will soon issue a statement contradicting the DEA statement. If that happens, he says, Congress should act to clarify the law.
Immediately following the DEA statement last year, 30 senators and 74 representatives wrote to Reno urging her to affirm that delivering, dispensing, or prescribing a controlled substance with the intent of assisting a suicide would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act. Those 104 elected officials, according to Doerflinger, comprise a diverse, bipartisan group. While pro-life stalwart Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) initiated the letter as judiciary committee chairmen, consistently liberal members of Congress, such as Senators Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Joe Biden (D-Del.), and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), also signed the letter.
This broad-based response leaves Doerflinger optimistic that Congress will act to clarify the law if Reno contradicts the DEA. Adding to his optimism is last year's nearly unanimous vote in both houses of Congress to prohibit the use of federal funds for assisted suicide. That bill, the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act, was eventually signed into law by President Clinton. While Doerflinger acknowledges this issue is different from the federal funding issue, he remains hopeful.
“I think the prospects are good that if the attorney general says that it's currently not covered under the law, Congress will act,” he said.
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Ind.
----- EXCERPT: Applying Oregon's newly legislated 'right' has health care providers running an ethical and bureaucratic maze ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Traditional Jewish Teachings on Abortion DATE: 03/29/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 29-April 4, 1998 ----- BODY:The Jewish faith is based upon a body of commandments that includes the seven Noahide Laws and 613 parochial commandments. These laws are interpreted (but not altered) by a vast body of rabbinic opinions and case law called Halakhah (The Talmud), which is based upon divine revelation.
The Old Testament contains the seven Noahide Laws in Genesis 9:6. The third law (Thou shalt not kill) includes the admonition, “He who spills the blood of a man in a man, his blood will be spilt.” The Talmud (Sanhedrin 57b) defines “a man in a man” as a preborn baby in his mother's womb. This passage specifically says abortion is a capital crime, a view supported by one of the leading sages of The Talmud, Rabbi Yishmael.
Maimonides, the great 12th-century interpreter and codifier of Jewish law (in his interpretation of the Third Noahide Law) writes in his Mishneh Torah that abortion is a capital crime for Jews: “A descendant of Noah who kills any human being, even a fetus in its mother's womb, is to be put to death.”
Maimonides ruled abortion allowable only if the pregnancy definitely and without question endangered the life of the mother (Hilkhot Rozeah 1:9 and Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 425:2): “The Sages’ rules [regarding] a pregnant woman in hard travail that it is permitted to dismember the fetus in her womb, whether by chemical means or by hand, for [the fetus] is as one pursuing her in order to kill her.”
This passage refers to “hard travail,” a delivery complicated by the size or position of the baby, so that a normal birth was impossible. At the time this commentary was written (before the development of obstetrical forceps and, later, safe surgical techniques for a Cesarean section), this kind of problem often resulted in the deaths of both mother and baby. The only way to remove a baby who was “stuck” was to dismember him. In most cases, the mother would have been in labor literally for days, and the baby would have died from anoxia.
In summary, The Talmud rules abortion permissible only in extreme cases: specifically when a woman's “hard travail” places her life in unquestionable danger (Oholoth 7:6). This is a codification of Maimonides's concept of the rodef or “pursuer.” So, traditional Jewish law holds that the preborn child has a right to life equal to the mother's—except when he poses an imminent and actual danger to her life.
The Catholic parallel to the “hard travail” exception is called the “double effect.”
The chief justice of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of America and the U.S. coordinator of the Jewish Survival Legion, Rabbi Marvin Antelman, clearly stated the position of Jewish Noahide law on abortion in 1978 when he said, “All major religions have their parochial and their universal aspects, and the problem of abortion is not a parochial one. It is of universal morality and it is neither a Catholic problem, nor a Jewish problem, nor a Protestant problem. It involves the killing of a human being, an act forbidden by universal commandment.”
Chief rabbi of England Dr. Immanuel Jakabovits outlined the basis for the reasoning behind this statement when he explained, “Jewish law sees every human life as having the sanctity of intrinsic and infinite worth. One life has as much value as one hundred or one thousand; you cannot multiply infinity and you cannot divide it. So every human being has an identical worth and is identically worth saving.”
Source: The Facts of Life: An Authoritative Guide to Life and Family Issues, by Brian Clowes PhD (Human Life International, Front Royal, Va.). Reprinted with permission.
----- EXCERPT: Facts Of Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: After a Century of Sanctions Are U.S. Embargoes Effective? DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Nation's Catholic bishops have mixed support and concern
LOS ANGELES — Trade embargoes have long been one of America's favorite ways of making a point. The young republic was still wet behind the ears when, irritated by French and British restrictions on neutral shipping during the Napoleonic wars, it slapped a draconian ban on all foreign trade to and from U.S. ports in 1807. The rights of naval commerce were at stake, Congress declared.
Two things happened as a result of this bold initiative: American merchants immediately set about finding ways to evade the embargo, and the embargo's targets — Britain and France — went right on interfering with shipping to their hearts’ content. A sobered Congress promptly declared victory and lifted the ban.
Contemporary America, casting a far greater geopolitical shadow than it did two centuries ago, is still finding that using trade sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy is a very tricky business, raising a myriad of not only political and economic issues, but ethical ones as well.
Today we stand at the end of what might well be called “the sanctions century,” a period that has seen an unprecedented growth in the use of various forms of trade sanctions by U.S. governments. In the past four years alone, the Clinton Administration has imposed more than 60 unilateral economic sanctions on 35 countries, including the continuation or intensification of total embargoes on Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea.
And yet, perhaps never has the effectiveness of such measures seemed more elusive.
India's surprise decision to conduct underground nuclear tests in mid-May, raising the possibility of a South Asian nuclear arms race, and the subsequent imposition of sanctions by the Administration under the 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act is only the latest chapter in the sanctions drama.
It's an illustrative case. On the one hand, the penalties are harsh. The law cuts off virtually all U.S. aid to India, bars American banks from making loans to its government, and restricts the export of computers and other technology that might have military uses. It also requires the United States to oppose loans to India from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
On the other hand, India can, according to most experts, evade most of the more painful consequences of the sanctions. For one thing, U.S. trade with India is relatively small with about $7.7 billion in U.S. exports and $7.3 billion in Indian imports from the United States. Further, compared with other Asian countries, India has relied less on borrowing from international banks.
More importantly, the annual summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) nations in Birmingham, England, ended May 17 without agreeing to a coordinated program of economic embargoes against India that would have had a far greater impact on the would-be nuclear power, and on Pakistan, India's regional rival, on the verge of testing its own nuclear device.
While Japan and Canada have joined the U.S. sanctions effort, and Australia is currently considering imposing trade sanctions in light of India's actions, it's unlikely that unless there is greater support from the other industrialized nations that India will be deterred from what commentator Fareed Zakaria has aptly called the country's dangerous path, a “cheap route” via nuclear weapons “to great-power status.”
U.S. Bishops' Concerns
The U.S. bishops weighed in quickly on the India affair.
In a May 15 letter to national security adviser Sandy Berger, Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, chairman of the United States Catholic Conference's (USCC) International Policy Committee, said that “he shared the dismay of the Clinton Administration and so many others” that the Indian government had decided to test nuclear weapons “despite the obvious moral, political, and security risks posed by the proliferation of these weapons of mass destruction” (See story page 2).
However, Archbishop McCarrick urged that U.S. credibility in dealing with non-proliferation issues depended on American commitment to nuclear disarmament, and that in designing any kind of sanctions regime in response to India, that “due care [be taken] to avoid imposing burdens on the poor that they can scarcely bear.” U.S. government aid, he noted, is vital for large numbers of India's most vulnerable people, and urged that “critical humanitarian and development aid” be exempted from any punitive economic measures.
That approach to what might be called the ethics of sanctions — allowing their legitimacy under certain conditions, but insisting on a humanitarian exemption — has, since the U.S. bishops’ 1993 statement The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace, become the hallmark of the Church's response to the flurry of U.S.-led sanctions activity in the past decade involving the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cuba, and Haiti.
“We're not like those on the [political] left or one the right who say that all sanctions are bad,” said John Carr, the USCC's director of social development and world peace. “As an alternative to war, sanctions can be useful.”
Even so, he told the Register, “sanctions can be a blunt instrument or a more precise, targeted one.” Obviously, he said, without second-guessing the politicians, the Church “prefers the use of precision tools. There are human lives at stake here.”
The problem with sanctions, the policy adviser said, was that they're often driven by factors other than the ones that orchestrated them in the first place — and they often result in outcomes far different than the ones intended.
The comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War, for example, were supposed to hold the government accountable for its actions. Instead, he said, “they ended up punishing the Iraqi people for the behavior of a government they couldn't influence or control.”
In addition, he said, long-lasting sanctions often have the effect of bonding people to a rogue government, not distancing them from it.
“People say, ‘Here's the international community ganging up on us again,'and rally ‘round the flag once more,” said Carr.
On the other hand, he noted, the arms embargo imposed during the Bosnian conflict, which was a far more targeted measure, played a real role in persuading the combatants to come to the peace table.
Humanitarian Exemptions
“No matter what the sanctions policy, the Church always argues for the exemption of humanitarian assistance,” said Carr.
That means not only emergency food and medicine, Carr stressed.
“The humanitarian exemption involves those materials needed to carry on normal civilian life.”
There are people who argue that such exemptions undercut the effectiveness of sanctions, Carr said, or that they end up benefiting indirectly the regime you're trying to isolate.
“I don't buy that,” he said. “The reason why you impose sanctions, finally, is that you're trying to defend the life, freedom, and dignity of people. You can't do that if you've starved them to death in the process.”
Carr's colleague, Jerry Powers, the USCC's director of the office of international justice and peace, put it this way:
“No embargo would intentionally starve people,” he said, “but you have to look at the likely outcome of a sanctions regime. From a moral point of view, you can't target the civilian population with egregious suffering, with deprivations that would make it difficult for them to survive.”
Powers likened it to the “just war” provision that forbids combatants to target civilian populations in the prosecution of a military objective.
“Civilian immunity in war provides a useful analogy in terms of the morality of a particular trade embargo,” he said.
However one sees it, the Church's pastoral concerns are placing it right in the middle of the growing public debate on the efficacy of sanctions.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ongoing battle regarding trade relations with China, and, with it, the broader question of trade restrictions as a tool in the struggle for international human rights.
On March 25, the House Committee on International Relations passed the landmark Freedom From Religious Persecution Act (HR 2431) by an overwhelming 35-1 vote. The legislation, introduced last year by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), calls for U.S. sanctions against governments that systematically oppress religious minorities as a matter of government policy, and boasted a remarkable lineup of organizations that testified on its behalf — from the Christian Coalition to Amnesty International.
The U.S. bishops were also supportive of the measure's objectives, although they, along with others, campaigned successfully for a number of key revisions in the final bill. Chief among the bishops’ concerns, as outlined in a May 11 letter of support signed by Archbishop McCarrick, were “ample waivers [in the imposition of penalties] for national security reasons and for cases where the [U.S.] president deems sanctions counterproductive.”
“The important thing for the Church in the Wolf-Specter bill,” said Powers, “is that it's not really sanctions legislation as such. We don't support the imposition of automatic trade sanctions or comprehensive aid cut-offs in such cases.”
“That's a blunt instrument,” he said.
What's important is that “the worst kind of religious persecution,” where it's “systematic, a part of government policy, involving torture and imprisonment — the kind of persecution going on in China and Sudan, for example — gets targeted.”
Powers indicated that what the “revised bill” envisions is holding up military aid, technological assistance, overseas private investment, and government-to-government development money to regimes guilty of the most egregious forms of religious oppression.
Powers stressed that the measure was not designed to address “all forms of religious discrimination” in countries with which the U.S. has trade relations.
“It's a matter of a carrot and stick approach,” he said. “It's saying to these governments, 'Look, if you're going to get assistance, then you're going to have to meet some basic human rights requirements. We're not going to assist you in the killing and torture of your people.'”
“Obviously,” said Powers, “from the Church's point of view, such provisions must exempt humanitarian and development aid.”
While for many religious believers, the Wolf-Specter legislation is a modest sign that, as Archbishop McCarrick's letter of support states, “the issue of religious liberty ... must play a proper role in shaping the U.S. foreign policy agenda,” the bill's critics, including religious organizations like the largely Protestant National Council of Churches and evangelist Billy Graham, decry the initiative as government invasion into sensitive cultural questions.
Business Opposition
More significantly, the measure has brought the growing clout of business-oriented trade sanctions foes out into the open.
For example, USA*Engage, an anti-sanctions coalition formed last year, claiming to represent business and agriculture associations in 40 states, has bombarded cyberspace with pro-free trade material and, according to several recent articles in The New Republic and Mother Jones, was the principal backer of religious-based opposition to Wolf-Specter.
“In the ‘beltway,’ you tend to have two schools of thought about sanctions,” Carr told the Register. For one school, nothing should interfere with trade — not human rights, not persecution, not weapons violations. “For these people, free trade is a kind of global ‘cure-all.’”
The other point of view has a sweeping sanction for every occasion. “We've even got cities and states now that want to impose their own trade sanctions on foreign countries for various real or perceived violations of international norms.”
“The Church occupies a balanced, and, I might add, an easily misunderstood position, between these two extremes,” he said. “For us, as the bishops have often said, sanctions can't be the answer. If they're used, they have to be part of a diplomatic process, a means of provoking a real, onthe-ground solution to injustice.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sex Education: A Parent's Right and Duty DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Despite a spectrum of popular opinion, Church teaching is clear
NEW YORK — Few issues are as divisive on a parish level as Catholic school classroom sex education. Pastors and principals have been pitted against parents, and parents have taken sides against one another. Many parents ask that some form of sex education be provided, but sparks can fly when parents find a sex education curriculum too explicit or inappropriate for the age and maturity of their children and do not find a responsive ear from the school administration.
Significant numbers of parents, when allowed, opt out for their children from programs they find offensive, and others have removed them from Catholic schools altogether, choosing to home school. There are parents who think sex education should not be in the classroom at all, those who think a prudent program should be in place, and those who prefer to leave the whole responsibility in the hands of the schools. There are educators, childhood experts, Catholic advocacy groups, and Church officials who fall at various points along the spectrum of opinion.
What is a Catholic parent to do?
The Church has been consistently clear in all its documents about sex education — parents are the primary educators of their children in the sensitive area of sexuality and marital love, and schools should play a subsidiary role in assisting parents in fulfilling their obligations. Schools should not usurp this parental right in regard to their children and the competence of the parents in instructing their children must be assumed, unless severe circumstance indicate otherwise, since they have a greater and more intimate knowledge of their children's level of maturity and understanding, and bear the grace of their vocation as parents.
Pope John Paul II in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio states explicitly, “The right and duty of parents to give education is essential since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others” unless there is a physical or psychological impossibility to do so.
In regard specifically to sex education, the Pope states that the parents have the basic right and duty, and the task of education “must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.”
The November 1995 document published by the Pontifical Council for the Family, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, sums up the Church's position: “No one is capable of giving moral education in this delicate area better than duly prepared parents.” The normal and most basic method is “personal dialogue between parents and their children ... individual formation within the family circle.”
On the particularly sensitive issue of depicting sexual anatomy and discussing the act of intercourse, the document states, “No material of an erotic nature should be presented to children or young people of any age, individually or in a group.”
All efforts, whether by parents or in schools with the parents approval must emphasize the spiritual and moral dimensions and be more an education in chastity than simply sex education.
Yet there are still incidents in which parents and school officials lock horns regarding who is best qualified to provide instruction in sexuality. Even school curricula carrying a Church imprimatur can be undermined by teachers who invite explicit discussions or “supplement” the textbooks with personal opinions.
There are reported cases of parents not being allowed by school officials to remove their children from programs they find inappropriate, and of students being faced with expulsion or held back from graduation for refusing to take part in such classes. In a few cases, parents have taken or threatened legal action.
Keith Bower, senior editor of the New Corinthians curriculum for the Couple to Couple League in Cincinnati, Ohio, said that the program was developed in 1995 in response to complaints from countless numbers of parents.
“People had been calling up our organization for years asking if any materials were available to replace the sex education that has been typical in Catholic schools,” he told the Register. “The basic approach of the most programs is to copy what Planned Parenthood is doing in the public schools and try to somehow make it Catholic.”
Bower began planning his curriculum on that same model until he read more deeply into the Church's stance.
“We realized that you really couldn't teach facts and details on sexuality in the classroom, it's imprudent,” he said. “We decided to teach once again the moral theology of the Catholic Church, and to give parents a resource they could use at home.”
Excerpts from Truth and Meaning are given, stressing the basic right of the parents and giving guidance on how they may fulfill their obligations.
The New Corinthians has been approved by the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Catechism, which is reviewing materials from all fields of Catholic education and scholarship for their conformity to the teachings of the Catechism.
Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) in Steubenville, Ohio, publishes a pamphlet outlining essential features to look for and to avoid in a sex education program. Drawing from Truth and Meaning, CUF outlines five major points: (1) teaching sexuality in a coeducational setting violates a child's privacy and is counterproductive; (2) programs must respect the phases of childhood development and present biological information appropriately, particularly respecting the “latency” or pre-puberty stage; (3) instruction must recognize that the primary obstacle to chastity is man's fallen nature and sin, not ignorance; (4) thus the program must be structured along moral lines leading children toward holiness; (5) graphic illustrations and eroticism have no place in a curriculum, and safeguards must be in place to assure that teachers do not go beyond prudence and encourage immodest discussion, and that teachers adhere to Church teachings on the sanctity of human life and sexuality.
CUF, an advocacy group that has as its mission the defense of the Magisterium and orthodox Catholic practice, and does not publish a sex education series itself, devotes a pamphlet to a detailed review of the third edition of the Benziger Family Life 1995 curriculum, for kindergarten through grade eight. The group judges that the program violates several principles of Catholic chastity education, lining up specific lessons with statements in Truth and Meaning. Among the criticisms is that Benziger does not respect the different developmental stages of students, “presenting explicit, biological information prematurely and providing other materials that offend modesty.”
Benziger Family Life programs are used in some 5,000 Catholic schools and parishes, according to a company spokeswoman.
Curtis Martin, president of CUF, told the Register that Benziger is not the only program that he sees as deficient. The New Creation series by Brown-ROA, and others, are problematic for many of the same reasons, he said.
Cullen Schippe, vice president and publisher for Benziger, told the Register that the curriculum was voluntarily submitted to the bishops’ Catechism committee, and a decision is pending. He admitted that his company hears complaints about its program, particularly on placing the presentation of procreative anatomy in the fifth grade. He said it was a judgment call on where to place the material, with some experts holding for an earlier presentation and others for a later. All information is presented in a moral context, he said, under the basic themes of God's gifts of family, self, life, sexuality, and community.
Sexuality is “a sensitive issue and you have to treat it sensitively,” he said.
The whole series was approved by a committee recommended by officials of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, he added, and carries an imprimatur.
Greg Lloyd approaches the issue as both a father with young children and head of a lay organization that advises parents on their rights, how to opt out of school programs and seek help when troubles arise.
“This has been the hot issue for decades and it's not going to go away soon,” said Lloyd, executive director of the National Coalition of Clergy and Laity in Whitehall, Penn. In his dealings with parents from across the country, he said, the implementation of Truth and Meaning in schools has been “a non-event.”
He told the story of the parents in southern Florida who contacted him and later had their fight with their Catholic school featured on a television news show. After threatening legal action, their children were given permission to opt out of the school's sex education class, but after they left the room on schedule, the principal expelled them.
“It's a scandal that in most of these classes, Catholic youth have been taught more about the craft of sinning than about the mysteries of the faith and the virtues,” said Lloyd.
Although parents should be the primary teachers, there is a recognition on the part of the Church that there are many broken marriages and other conditions that would reduce the effectiveness or competence of parents, said Msgr. Anthony Lafemina, a Florida priest and former member of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
In any case, he stressed, “The school is subsidiary and should work with parents in developing a program.”
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: School-Choice Initiatives Find Isolated Successes DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Popular federal ‘savings account’ legislation faces presidential veto
WASHINGTON — School choice proponents, including many Catholic groups, have been trying for years to pass legislation at state and federal levels that would allow parents to choose the schools their children attend. Throughout the 1990s they have seen school-choice proposals brought up in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill, only to be defeated time and again by the movement's implacable foes — the well-funded and highly organized teachers’ unions, and the legislators who do their bidding in the corridors of power.
The primary controversy in the school-choice debate is the use of government-funded vouchers for private and parochial school tuitions. Proponents say that government funds are necessary in order that parents of all income brackets can have true educational choice for their children — since wealthy parents already have the option of choosing (and paying for) private schools. Teachers'unions and other opponents claim that vouchers will sap necessary funds from public schools.
The school-choice movement, however, seems to have learned from their mostly grim legislative initiatives. Instead of another Pickett-like charge into the teeth of the enemy's strongest guns, school-choice supporters are trying other avenues to give low-income parents more educational options.
In Washington, school-choice supporters are pushing legislation that would allow parents to save for tuitions, thus sidestepping for a time the nettlesome vouchers debate. At the grass roots, school choice has seen a breakthrough at the local level, as a suburban Philadelphia school district enacted a genuine choice bill for its local students.
What's more, as government-funded vouchers have been a lightning rod, privately funded school-choice scholarships are becoming even more popular around the country. On Capitol Hill, legislation creating so-called “education savings accounts” is moving slowly but surely through the legislative meat grinder. The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.) and Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), would give parents, relatives, or other scholarship donors the option to save up to $2,000 annually in the tax-free accounts. These funds could be used to pay for kindergarten through 12th-grade educational expenses, including books, transportation, or tuition. Similar accounts for college expenses have already been established.
The Senate passed the bill 53-46 in April, and it had previously been approved in the House by a comfortable margin. President Bill Clinton has threatened to veto the bill, although his criticism has been muted in recent months as the popularity of education savings accounts has steadily increased and centrist Democrats have signed onto the initiative. Clinton did veto a District of Columbia voucher plan May 20 (see story, page 2).
The measure is part of a larger federal education tug of war, however, as the GOP Congress and the Clinton Administration wrestle over national testing, block grants, and legislation that involves the financing of public school construction and repair.
Republicans and a handful of Democrats are strongly supporting the measure and pressing for action.
“Federal policy has to become a friend of change and reform, not a defender of the status quo,” said Coverdell.
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, where school-choice stalwarts have come so tantalizingly close to enacting a statewide school-choice plan only to fall a handful of votes short on three different occasions, one public school district has turned to school choice for what it considers its own financial well-being.
Because of increasing private school tuitions, many families in the Southeast Delaware County School District (which runs along the Interstate 95 corridor up to the Philadelphia city line) have had to remove their children from private schools and place them in the crowded public school system. With classroom size in the district already a major concern, building a new school would be necessary, unless the trend was arrested. With these concerns in mind, the local school board in March passed an ordinance to allow students residing in the district the use of public funds for private and parochial school tuition.
The plan allows parents of district students to be reimbursed with public dollars for fees at private and parochial schools for the 1998-99 school year. Reimbursements will total $500 for kindergarten, $750 for grade school, and $1,000 for high school.
Since it costs an average of $6,900 annually to educate a high school student in the district, school officials figure to save close to $6000 for each student who attends private or parochial school and avert the need for a costly new construction project that could result in a property tax hike.
“This is a win for parents, for students, for taxpayers, and for the school district,” said John Shivinsky, executive director of the REACH (Road to Educational Achievement through Choice) Alliance, a school-choice group headquartered in Harrisburg, Pa. He noted that because of tuition reimbursement, a Catholic school education is within reach for many families. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia runs several parochial schools in the area.
The tuition reimbursement program has been challenged in state court, however, by, among others, the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the People for the American Way.
“I think a lot of school districts will be looking closely at that court case, because there are probably a great many districts that are in a similar situation,” said Shivinsky. “It is no surprise that the status quo education establishment wants to stop this effort. When other school districts see what a common-sense solution this is, a lot of other places are going to have interest.”
Although the REACH Alliance has been strongly supportive of this effort, the group remains committed to a statewide school choice initiative.
The school-choice movement also has gained ground in Texas, as a private foundation has set up a $50 million scholarship program for low-income families in the San Antonio area. The Children's Educational Opportunity (CEO) Foundation will be distributing $5 million a year for 10 years to poor families in the Edgewood district in the city. Families that qualify for the free or reduced lunch program will be eligible to apply for the scholarships. Since more than half the 14,000 students in the district come from families below the poverty level, a majority of the students will be eligible for a full tuition scholarship that may be used at any private or parochial school.
According to CEO's San Antonio chapter, the initiative will be a test of the academic effects of school choice, citing that in each of the last three years, half the students at Edgewood's Kennedy High School failed the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).
The National Education Association opposes the program, calling vouchers “a road to nowhere.”
“These school choice initiatives are beginning to come together in a huge flood all across the country,” said Deacon Keith Fournier, president of the Washington-based Catholic Alliance, which has started the First Teachers Coalition to push for an expanded parental role in education.
“We are witnessing the beginning of an education revolution in America.... Parental choice in education is a cutting edge issue in America today,” he said. “These different initiatives are coming about because parents have a genuine hunger for more educational options. I predict that within five years school choice will be the norm across the country.”
Deacon Fournier noted that Catholic teaching and the words of the Holy Father are clear on this point: parents are the primary teachers of their children.
“Parental choice is a natural outgrowth of that,” he said.
Michael Barbera writes from Washington.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Barbera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Lay Associate Movement Answers Call to Evangelize DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:COVINGTON, Ky. — The North American Conference of Associates and Religious (NACAR) met for the second time as an organization May 1-3 with 265 consecrated religious and lay associates from 33 states and two Canadian provinces in attendance. While NACAR completed only its first calendar year in December 1997, the “associate movement” has been developing quietly for many years.
The most recent available data indicates there are 14,500 associates in the United States (1995) and 4,300 in Canada (1997).
According to Sister Ellen Rose O'Connell SC, the group's co-director, associates have been meeting regularly for some time; the first associate group met in 1976.
“The call of Vatican II to evangelize is bearing fruit today,” said Sister O'Connell in reference to the associate movement.
Indeed, the movement is rooted in the teaching of Vatican II about the role of the layperson in the world, and NACAR conferences and workshops build upon the pastoral directions set forth in the Council documents.
NACAR exists to promote the coming together of religious congregations and lay associates, Sister O'Connell explained.
“It is the layperson's coming in touch with the mission and charisms of the congregations and how they live out the mission of Jesus in the world. Many associates are in ministry already. They feel they are alone — especially women who are moving into ministerial roles,” she said. “Many associates are looking for a deeper spirituality. Sometimes it is offered in the parishes, but more often it is not. So by taking part in the spiritual development within a congregation — by taking part in the courses and workshops — they connect.”
Some of the religious congregations that make up the membership of NACAR are like Sister O'Connell's own congregation, the Sisters of Charity, an order of some 550 sisters whose ministry encompasses education, social work, and hospital ministry. The Sisters of Charity in New York have 51 associates. Others are far smaller, though. For example, NACAR's lay co-director, Jean Sonnenberg, is associated with the Sisters of Bon Secours, a congregation of 46 sisters with 86 associates, all clustered around the congregation's health-care centers.
Sonnenberg is a married women who has studied and written on topics of spirituality. She and Sister O'Connell became co-directors of NACAR when it developed out of national gatherings that had been occurring each year since the late 1980s at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Md. When participants decided it was time to move into another phase of development, the Center became the North American headquarters for the Conference. There are now some 80 religious groups in membership, with the number steadily increasing.
Shortly after its formation, a board of directors was formed, composed of persons from associate groups, including: Greg Davidson, Incarnate Word associate director (Grapevine, Texas); Sister Grace Mannion RSM, director, Extended Mercy (West Hartford, Conn.); Ruby Randal, associate of the Oblate Sisters (Syracuse, N.Y.); and Brother John Jerry McCarthy CFC, director, Associates of Edmund Rice (New Rochelle, N.Y.).
The purposes of NACAR are delineated in their brochure: (1) networking and mutual support for associates and religious in the associate movement; (2) identifying and exploring issues relevant to the associate-religious relationship; (3) serving as a clearinghouse for the sharing of resource and talents, especially for associate spiritual growth; (4) visioning for the future of associate-religious relationship as the People of God; and (5) assisting religious congregations in policy and guideline development for their associate relationship.
NACAR publishes a quarterly journal, The Associate; offers workshops for associates and religious in leadership in the movement; and coordinates a yearly conference of U.S. and Canadian associates. The Conference office facilitates networking and information sharing of associates and religious. Membership dues are only $35 a year, but Sister O'Connell notes that the organization has had “a very good track record” of congregations offering support through mini-grants of $1,000. The success of the conference is of like benefit to religious communities who are looking for help in developing associate groups.
“Mission and charism is the basis of what it means to become an associate,” said Sister O'Connell. “It is a call — a call people are experiencing to a deeper level of commitment around the mission of Jesus.”
Audrey Ann Bagnowski is a licensed professional counselor from the Detroit suburb of Rockwood, Mich. A state employee who works with the disabled, she is also an associate of the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, Ohio. Bagnowski said that, in a materialist age and in a disconnected society, she is able to embrace and seek guidance from a Franciscan spirituality. She said of her relationship with the Sisters of St. Francis: “They care about me. Society is so alienated in its race for material things — in its race not to know each other. The associate movement allows me to connect.”
Bagnowski also speaks of a call: “I am called to go wherever God directs,” she said. “God calls me to go across mental, emotional, financial, and physical boundaries, to meet people where people are.”
“Connectedness” is important in the associate movement. Bagnowski said she finds a meaningful connection with the Franciscan sisters and feels enriched by their spirituality. Further, she enjoys a relationship with other associates who meet formally four times a year and have a yearly retreat. She first became an associate in 1986. After an initial lapse, she rejoined the movement in 1995, going through an application process to determine where she was spiritually and her motivations for wanting to be an associate. The Sisters of St. Francis were the logical congregation to connect with because she had known them since she was a little girl.
According to Sister O'Connell, “The commitment of an associate can be for a period of time; it does not have to be forever. The ‘connectedness’ with the congregation is what is important.”
The associates of the Sisters of Charity have an orientation period of one year to allow newcomers to become familiar with the mission and charism of the order, and sense of social justice needed to work with the poor. Other groups operate differently. The specific process is not important, conference directors claim. The affiliation of “connectedness” the associates experience differs with the local orders.
Bagnowski has realized the benefits of being an associate. In her work with disabled persons, and with the recent deaths of her parents, she notes that the support system individuals need is dwindling.
While associate groups provide community, spirituality, and ministry for lay associates, religious congregations gain from the relationships as well. For congregations experiencing a decline in their numbers it may mean the carrying on of their ministry and charism. Consecrated religious are also greatly encouraged and built up by the lay associates.
“Seeing younger people move into works in the inner city and opting for that kind of life is inspiring.... The sense of sharing our heritage is a strong element,” said Sister O'Connell, admitting that the religious congregations are not alone on the giving end. “Laypeople come to the associates [for] a spiritual life. They come to share ... what they have, and we share with them.”
Paul Witte writes from Ypsilanti, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Paul Witte ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Work of Franciscan Missionaries Praised At Centennial Celebration DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Southwest diocese seeks reconciliation with indigenous peoples
TUBA CITY, Ariz. — Hundreds gathered in St. Jude's Church April 25 for the centenary celebration of the Catholic Church in “Navajo-land,” and in special recognition of the long-standing missionary work and commitment of the Order of Friars Minor.
The event was the third installment of a scheduled five-part celebration that will encompass the entire the Diocese of Gallup, N.M. The final celebration will be held Oct. 3, 1998 in St. Michael, Ariz., to commemorate the arrival of the Franciscans and the founding of St. Michael's Mission.
Mass was concelebrated by Gallup's Bishop Donald Pelotte, along with St. Jude's pastor, Father Godden Maynard CM. Dozens of priests and religious from the Franciscan and Vincentian community were also in attendance.
In his opening greeting, Bishop Pelotte spoke of the gratitude everyone shared for 100 years of evangelization, but also mentioned the “dark shadows” of the past and the need for reconciliation. Father Maynard delivered the homily in which he outlined the long and distinguished history of the Franciscan mission at St. Michael's and throughout Arizona and New Mexico.
After the homily, Bishop Pelotte briefly reflected on the appropriateness of the readings for the day, the feast of St. Mark. The same cultural sensitivity that Mark showed the gentile community in Rome must also be shown today to the indigenous peoples of America.
This “cultural sensitivity” that the bishop referred to was evident in the liturgy. The bishop sprinkled the congregation with Holy Water that had been gathered by medicine men from sacred San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, Ariz. The readings were delivered in the five indigenous languages that the original missionaries had found in this area: English, Navajo, Chinese, Filipino, and Hopi. A lone drum sounded during the offertory procession, as a young Navajo girl chanted The Blessing Way in her native tongue. Additional gifts from the earth — corn, melons, squash — were placed at the foot of the altar. A Franciscan friar then “smudged” the altar, the gifts, and the sanctuary, using an eagle's feather to spread the cedar smoke in all directions.
The official term for the integrating of native traditions into Church liturgy is “inculturation.” It has been a goal of Bishop Pelotte for the entire 12 years of his episcopacy in Gallup. However, it first gained wide attention during his recent attendance at the Synod of America, held late last year in the Vatican. Bishop Pelotte was one of 20 U.S. prelates elected by the bishops’ conference to attend the gathering.
During his Synod address, Bishop Pelotte presented his intervention, entitled The Gospel and the Fate of Indigenous Peoples, to Pope John Paul II and the Synod participants, calling for reconciliation and inculturation with indigenous peoples:
“Reconciliation with God and with one another is also needed. As pastors, we must make it clear that we are sorry for past mistakes and actively seek reconciliation. This effort will be painful. For the Church to be connected with the suffering of indigenous peoples and for us to be available for the reconciliation of all with God, we must recognize our instrumentality in the suffering and become a listening partner.
“Inculturation of sacramental life, the liturgy, and theology is of the utmost importance for indigenous peoples.... The Gospel must be preached and lived in a manner that affirms that God was present and working among these peoples before the evangelizers arrived.... Christ did not come to destroy cultures but rather to renew and fulfill them.”
Bishop Pelotte told the Register that his entire life has been intimately connected to the Native American experience. A native of the State of Maine, his mother was French Canadian and his father was Algonquin — one of the few remaining tribes of the Northeast region.
“Unlike the tribes of the Southwest, the Algonquins and others from that area have lost almost all of their traditions. The only common identifying factor they share with other tribes in the United States is their poverty.”
The bishop continued to emphasize the many positive aspects of the church's missionary work, however, especially the work of the Franciscans in Arizona and New Mexico.
“That is why we are here today, to say thank you to the Franciscans and all of the others for all they have done.... Unfortunately, the missiology of the past sometimes brought with it a lot of ideological baggage. Since Vatican II, we have learned that the Gospel of Christ must be planted within a culture and allowed to grow.... To be perfectly honest, there have been cases in the past where people were forced by soldiers and sometimes by missionaries to convert against their will. Even more sadly, people from both sides were killed — and wrongs were committed by both sides. Many native people still hold a lot of resentment about this today.”
Nowhere was this resentment more evident than during the 1992, 500-year celebrations of Columbus and the first evangelizers.
“There were a lot of hard feelings during this time between our Hispanic population and our Native Americans,” the bishop said. Today, similar tensions are beginning to surface concerning the planned 400-year anniversary celebration of the first liturgy, which will be held later this year in Las Cruces, N.M.
Bishop Pelotte has taken a number of corrective measures to deal with these issues.
“A lot of healing can take place from dialogue,” he said. “In 1992, our Hispanics and Native Americans population sat them down and began to share stories about their past. This did a lot of good.”
Several long range initiatives intended to foster inculturation have been started. There is the unique formation program for Native Americans, called Lay Ministries and Catechetical Preparation, that encompasses everything from the diaconate to eucharistic ministers to counselors. The program is conducted within Native American reservations. Only those priests and sisters who are currently ministering in the parishes on reservations, and who have demonstrated their sensitivity to native culture, are allowed to direct this formation.
In the Diocese of Gallup, this generally means the Franciscans, who have been there the longest. Since 1994, however, the Congregation of the Mission (or Vincentians after their founder, St. Vincent DePaul) have been invited into the Western parishes. More recently, the Daughters of Charity (also founded by St. Vincent) have become involved.
Ultimately, the project's goal is that native people will be solely involved in their own formation. To date two Navajo permanent deacons have been ordained, and Bishop Pelotte has commissioned some 20 men and women into various lay ministries.
The second initiative involves integrating native customs into the liturgy — a time consuming and arduous process. The official English text of the liturgy must be juxtaposed to the written text of the native language. This is often complicated because the native languages frequently do not have a written lexicon, or, if they do, many of the natives cannot read it. Added to this of course is the necessity that everything must be approved by the Holy See, where few if any speak or write the native languages.
The Diocese of Gallup has seven different tribes, each speaking a different language. Only the Navajos have received official permission to celebrate Mass in their own language. There is also an approved Navajo Bible, thanks to the work of early Franciscan missionaries.
Work has now begun on a second native language, Keresan, which is the generic language of the Laguna and Pueblo tribes.
Bishop Pelotte looks forward to the many challenges and opportunities of the third millennium. He said his goal for the Jubilee year is to dialogue with the Hopi tribe, where there is a great need for further reconciliation. There is only one small parish of about 40 families on the Hopi reservation. Initial contacts are in the process of being made.
The culture of indigenous peoples has much to offer the Church, he said.
“Each culture has its unique gifts that it can bring to human kind and to religious faith. Indigenous peoples bring a respect for the earth and a depth of spirituality. Their entire day is a spiritual experience. They add a lot of richness to their Catholic faith.”
Gary Griffith writes from Page, Arizona.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gary Griffith ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Combating Third World Disease DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Medical Missionary of Mary Sister Maura O'Donohue, a native of Ireland, is a physician and an expert on tuberculosis — an infectious disease that is threatening to make a comeback in the industrialized world. She is responsible for allocating approximately $40 million worth of medicine to some four dozen countries each year. Her efforts largely depend on the generosity of American pharmaceutical companies. Recently she spoke to Register correspondent Joop Koopman.
Born: March 2, 1933 in Kilfenora, County Clare; one of four siblings.
Current position: Director of programming for the Catholic Medical Missionary Board, Inc. (CMMB), a non-profit international medical relief agency based in New York.
Background: Medical doctor; joined the Medical Missionaries of Mary in college; spent nearly 20 years working mainly in Ethiopia; joined the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (CAFOD) — the official international relief arm of the British bishops — after terms in Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, and Ethiopia; an expert on HIV-AIDS; specialized in endocrinology and cardiology and has a master's degree in international community health.
A Catholic medical doctor, consecrated religious, and veteran foreign missionary explains the successes and travails of contending with illness in underdeveloped lands
Koopman: With the recent breakthrough in Northern Ireland, readers will be interested to hear about your father, Andrew O'Donohue, who fought, alongside Michael Collins, against the British.
Sister O'Donohue: As a young teenager, my father was involved with what might be called the old Irish Republican Army — the Irish Brotherhood. They fought for independence until 1921, when the treaty with Britain was signed.
The treaty gave 26 counties of the 32 counties independence. This caused a break within the ranks, as there were those who wanted complete independence. In the wake of this turmoil, my father opted out. He was pro-Collins at the time and felt that the Irish hero did the best he could at the time.
Did you grow up in a militant household?
No, not militant. My parents preferred to remain silent on the issue, which was very divisive at the time — even splitting families. In fact, the schools did not teach about the treaty, the Easter Rising or any of the events of the war for independence. It was such a difficult issue that, both in public and in the homes, silence was observed.
Of course, my father had a keen interest in the political developments of the time. He would have been very happy about the civil rights movement in the Republic and the North, which was the precursor of The Troubles, and the present events. Catholics were denied rights from the 1920s onward. Catholics were kept down in the counties that had not gained independence. It is to be hoped that the current treaty will be respected by all parties and lead to genuine peace.
Please tell us about the Medical Missionaries of Mary. Who was the founder?
Mary Martin, an Irish woman from Dublin, who was educated in England. She was one of 12 siblings. She died in 1975. Given our meager resources, a canonization process is unlikely. We number about 450 sisters today; we are small, in part because we have focused on medical care.
Some 8% to 10% of us are medical doctors; then there are nurses, nutritionists, hospital administrators, etc. We now have members from Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic. But the biggest growth today is in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Sister Philomena Sheerin, a social worker, is our current mother superior. She is based in Dublin.
You were a teenager when you first considered a vocation. At the end of high school I first began considering becoming a sister; I also had a strong interest in the health-care needs of the poor in the developing world. I had seen films and heard testimonies by returning missionaries.
In those days, the Irish Church produced many missionaries, who went throughout the country telling the young about their work. These men and women had quite an influence — and St. Thérése, my favorite saint, was patroness of the missions.
I started medical school, interrupted my studies to enter the novitiate, finished my degree, making my final commitment to the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1959, when I was already in Nigeria. I would spend nearly 20 years in the mission. Malaria forced me out of Nigeria after a few years. I ended up spending nearly 14 years in revolutionary Ethiopia, where socialist experimentation, warfare, and drought conspired to cause terrible famine.
Was your life ever threatened?
I was an administrator of a hospital and the socialist regime looked on everyone in authority as the enemy. Bands of youth were sent out to “agitate” people across the country, and a group took over a wing of the hospital. I was forced to sit in on weekly, excruciatingly long and tedious meetings. These student-agitators egged on the locals to begin clamoring for free health care, accusing the hospital of exploiting the people. On a few occasions, my staff and I were forced to flee the area to escape an angry mob.
What stands out most in your memory of your years in Ethiopia?
Dealing with the victims of famine. Almost on a daily basis, dealing with extremely limited supplies. During certain stretches of time, I had to walk among rows of starving families — mothers and children — having to determine who would not survive another day without food, and who could. The latter would be passed over.
You also spent time in Sudan in the mid-'80s. What were your experiences there?
I did some work for the bishops’ conference there, evaluating Church-related health programs. At first, I thought Sudan would be a relief after Ethiopia, but things were even worse there. The regime was more brutal. Christians who came North were dealt with very harshly.
There are brutal regimes around the world, but the West deserves some of the blame for not intervening more effectively.
At the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (CAFOD) you were responsible for HIV-AIDS programs. Has the Church reacted quickly enough to that crisis?
The Church was slow to get involved, but so was society generally. The Church has since responded effectively and appropriately in many ways. Its infrastructure in the poorer countries, for example, has been mobilized.
At the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB), you have embarked on an ambitious program that would help the organization be more proactive — more focused. Can you explain?
Traditionally, CMMB has sent a wide variety of medicines to countries; I was a highly appreciative recipient of many such shipments. That is a terrific thing, but I wanted to add more targeted programs. One of the problems is that a particular hospital might get a particular consignment of medicine to help things along for one year; however, the next two or three years nothing may come. That makes it difficult to plan, and dilutes the impact CMMB could have. If we focus more on fewer facilities, for example, or fewer countries, we can make sure that supplies are consistent and that treatments can be sustained from start to finish.
Of course, we will also continue our traditional efforts. An example is our current three-year de-worming project in Central America. At the end of that period, we can be reasonably sure that 1.5 million children will be rid of intestinal parasites, a success that can be achieved thanks also to accompanying educational efforts that stress hygiene, etc.
In Central America, you teamed up with Johnson & Johnson.
Yes, the company is producing the medicine needed for free and specifically for that project. What's more, Johnson & Johnson is willing to consider taking the program elsewhere, now that our joint efforts in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador are turning out to be so successful.
Allow me to use this occasion to praise the U.S. pharmaceuticals who have so generously come to the aid of the sick around the world. While abuses have occurred — and bad or expired medicine has been dumped in places like Bosnia and Armenia — our experience with the drug companies has been overwhelmingly positive.
These companies don't just give to get tax breaks. While there are fiscal advantages, there are hidden costs the public never hears about, such as those incurred by maintaining an international donation department, as well as shipping donated medicine to our warehouse.
What other diseases do you hope to target?
Tuberculosis (TB) is high on the list. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that more than 300 million people will become infected in the next decade; 30 million already-infected individuals will have died by the end of the ‘90s. By 2020, another 70 million are expected to die. In fact, one-third of the world's population is infected with the bacillus. The disease is responsible for no fewer than 26% of avoidable deaths the Third World. TB kills 100,000 children each year.
TB has been proclaimed a global pandemic, and the West is neglecting the problem, because we thought we had it under control once and for all earlier in the century. However, globalization has a downside. Air travel, for example, also allows viruses to travel, and the industrial nations, which have stopped inoculating people, could be hard hit by TB. We thought we had it under control, but there was already a scare here in New York in the ‘80s. HIV-AIDS made all the difference. HIV infection makes people much more vulnerable to TB infection, particularly in the Third World — and HIV-AIDS is already worldwide, of course.
CMMB, at the urging of WHO, has adopted the so-called DOT method for the cure of TB: Directly Observed Treatment. Can you explain?
That method ensures that a patient completes his or her cure. In many instances, an interrupted course of treatment can make the particular strain of TB resistant to medicine, while the patient can go on infecting other people, this time with nearly untreatable forms of TB.
By contrast, for every cured patient, 10 or 15 others will not be infected. We are currently launching a pilot TB program in Zambia. We're hopeful that we will find a pharmaceutical partner for this project, too.
Other priorities?
There is choriocarcinoma, a condition that affects young women of child-bearing age. Treatment costs about $1,000 per patient. That sounds like a lot, but consider that one cancer patient in the West may incur thousands and thousands of dollars of charges — oftentimes only to prolong life. In the Third World, that relatively small amount will bring a mother back to health, and help her be of service to her family and her society.
Anything else you hope to target?
Trachoma, a preventable but often debilitating disease that causes blindness. It occurs in dry, arid regions, where bacteria cause infection under the eye lids. The infection, along with sand and dust, causes scarring of the lining of the eye lids.
Some 10.6 million people suffer from certain complications of the disease, but 146 million have the full-blown disease, mostly living astride the equatorial belt of Africa. Lack of hygiene and water are the main causes, but a new antibiotic, taken once every six months, can cure it completely. The condition does not require much training for health-care personnel, so training is not a major problem.
We have to do more education, not only abroad, but at home, too. We must persuade more pharmaceuticals to partner up with us.
What are your selling points?
We can make use of a unique infrastructure, thanks to our partners, like Catholic Relief Services and the local Caritas agencies in the countries, as well as the local Churches, which allows us to effectively reach even the most outlying areas. We have the advantage of having a direct link to the Churches. That is a spiritual as well as a practical advantage.
In addition, Western governments, and Western societies as a whole, must become more mindful of the difference they can and should make.
How can the wealthy countries become more compassionate? There is compassion, but also self-interest. Consider the fact that one tablet twice a year can prevent a person from going blind, multiply that by millions, and you have an enormous impact on a country economically. There will be fewer people dependent; more able-bodied individuals can help lift a country out of poverty — and that is also an advantage for the West.
A coalition of non-governmental agencies is lobbying the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to use the occasion of the Jubilee Year 2000 to forgive the debts of the poorest countries. What is the effect of debt repayment on health care?
Countries eager to repay their debts can only allot minimal amounts to healthcare for their own citizens, and more cuts are being made all the time.
Money is so scarce. Imagine, many countries are merely making a small dent in the interest owed on loans. They can never catch up, never hope to build up a healthy economy and society. As part of a vicious circle, the countries affected cannot get any more aid pending their repayment.
Many of the local poor, because they cannot afford to pay, even a little, tend to avoid doctors. They will only come when the situation has become desperate, when a cure may no longer be possible. Or some will begin treatment, but quit as soon as there is even a little improvement, before really being cured.
In the long run, if the West doesn't relent, there is bound to be a backlash somehow. As it stands, a fraction of the world population lives very well at the expense of the great majority. As Christians, we cannot allow such a situation to continue indefinitely.
Why are there so many illnesses?
Illness has been with us from the beginning of time. We can say it is environmental, due to our neglect, etc., but that is not the whole story. It is simply part of life. Suffering is part of life, as the faith teaches us. That's why the Church's social teaching exhorts us to care for the sick.
This spring, the World Health Association is considering new guidelines for drug donations proposed by WHO. One of the provisions would stipulate that medicine arrive in a particular country with no less than 12 months left before the expiration date. That, as well as the exclusion of certain drugs approved by the Federal Drug Administration, has agencies like CMMB concerned. Why?
We are very concerned. There are reasons for the guidelines — there is a need to prevent abuses — but some of the out-dated medicine, studies have shown, has come from small, private pharmacies or was given in emergency situations. Most of those supplies also came from Europe.
We only handle donations from U.S. pharmaceuticals. What's more, the guidelines relate only to donated drugs, not purchased drugs. As it stands, the U.S. pharmaceuticals donate medicine, while the European companies sell medicine in the Third World.
In any case, CMMB prides itself on an excellent delivery system once medicine arrives in a country. We are able to ensure that medicines reach even the most outlying areas before expiry and are used responsibly. If we can only accept drugs with 12 months’ expiration, we are forced to decline a significant portion of medicine that could otherwise help the poor, even though we are confident that we can arrange delivery and use of medicines with much less time left before expiry. Rather than setting such extreme limits, WHO might also consider helping streamline some of the red tape that often delays the distribution of drugs.
The bottom line is this: We applaud WHO's efforts to prevent abuses, but any new guidelines should not deprive the poor of a significant portion of essential, life-saving care.
— Joop Koopman
For further information contact the Catholic Medical Mission Board, 10 West 17th St., New York, NY 10011; tel. 800-678-5659.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sister Maura O'Donohue MMM ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:San Antonio Catholic TV
From Vatican II to John Paul II, the Church has urged Catholics to make use of modern technology.
The Diocese of San Antonio has answered that call in the television medium for 18 years, but, as reported in the Express-News there May 13, that could end July 1. Archbishop Patrick Flores has announced that the cable company that carries the Church-supported Catholic Television San Antonio (CTSA) has forced him to halt its broadcasting.
He announced that he had delivered a letter to Paragon Cable warning them that their decision to move the station to a new channel “will eliminate a significant number of viewers from access to CTSA.” The cable company's plan was to move CTSA from Channel 22, which is accessible to everyone receiving the basic cable service, to channel 61, which is only available to those who pay more than twice the basic cost to obtain more channels.
Archbishop Flores has asked viewers to contact the company and register their disapproval.
“I've heard [Paragon] say this station isn't really that important to the people of San Antonio, but that's not what we're hearing,” Flores is quoted saying.
He also said that Paragon has a moral responsibility to people who rely on CTSA's ministry.
Locals seem to agree. The Rev. Kenneth Thompson, an official of the San Antonio Community of Churches said that Protestant and Jewish leaders intend to write to Paragon expressing their disapproval.
One local parishioner said she was “very disturbed” at the decision. “When I was a minister to the sick, whenever I'd go to their homes, they were watching the Mass on CTSA; this will be devastating to them.”
Sinatra Reconciled With Church
There has been much written about Frank Sinatra on the occasion of his death and funeral, but the articles, covering his several marriages, his reputation for past carousing and his Mafia ties, left one burning question in many Catholics’ minds: what was his status with the Church?
The Philadelphia News answered the question May 19: he had been eligible to receive the sacraments since 1977.
He married his first wife, Nancy Barbato in the Catholic Church in 1939, said the article. However, subsequent marriages to Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow, and finally to Barbara Marx were not Church weddings, and were not valid in the Church's eyes, since the first marriage was still recognized.
When Sinatra's mother, Dolly, died in 1977 — a year after his fourth wedding — the singer sought reconciliation with the Church. He sought and obtained an annulment for his first marriage, which was the only one in question, and then remarried Barbara Marx in a Church ceremony.
The annulment was kept secret until 1979, when Sinatra was photographed receiving communion in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
In his final years, Sinatra was a parishioner at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. He actively lived his faith: he arranged to have a priest live in his Palm Springs estate to instruct Barbara and prepare her to enter the Catholic Church. When his friend Princess Grace of Monaco was killed, he organized and led a prayer service for her at his parish.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Indonesian Catholics Targeted by Riots
For days, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were the targets of rioters and looters demanding President Suharto's resignation, which came May 20. Those same ethnic Chinese are among the wealthiest people of their country. Many of them are also Catholic, said a May 18 Reuters story.
According to the report, a large congregation gathered a few days after the riots at a special Mass: “Indonesia's largely Christian Chinese took time off from sifting through their ransacked and burned out shops and homes today to give thanks to God ... and to pray for their future.
The article quotes the church's pastor saying that he — and many of his parishioners — wanted President Suharto to quit.
“He is retarding reform. So are his ministers. The cabinet here is ... just the friends of the president.”
A parishioner added another complaint: “The government has done nothing to protect us. We are scared of more riots — it could happen any time.”
The Christian Chinese population has done so well in Indonesia (where they own 70% of non-land wealth), said one expert quoted in the article, because their strong family networks make them better organized than other Indonesians.
Nigerian Bishops Sound Alarm
Africa's largest and fastest growing Catholic population could be put at severe risk by new political developments, say its bishops.
Plans are underway in Nigeria to transition from military to civilian rule by October — and military ruler Sani Abacha has a plan to introduce democracy in the nation. But many pro-democracy groups say Abacha's plan — and his nomination as the unopposed candidate in the first election — is a farce.
According to a May 17 Reuters report, the nation's Catholic bishops issued a statement saying, “The latest developments in our long and tedious transition program are leading us in a direction that gives us grave cause for concern.... Now our worst fears are coming to pass before our very eyes ... and so we call on all Nigerians: ‘Watch out: there is danger ahead.‘”
Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting government abuses in Nigeria, whose Catholic population is at 12 million and growing.
Vanier Says Sanctity is Normal
Jean Vanier is used to being asked if he is a saint, reports the May 17 Ottawa Citizen. After all, both of his parents are being considered for canonization — and his l'Arche homes for the disabled are doing great good.
Vanier, however, “has little patience for the idea that he may someday be declared St. Jean. He says it is a cop-out to say that a Mother Teresa or a Jean Vanier are somehow different than the rest of us,” said the report.
Vanier said he has an answer ready for those who ask him if he is a saint, according to the article: “What is important is that they become saints.”
He has a similar answer when asked what it was like growing up in a household with the saintly Georges and Pauline Vanier. It was normal, he says.
“Like most men, Dad never spoke about emotions, and Mom was always blurting them out. They were an incredible pair.”
The newspaper profiled him on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Ottawa's l'Arche community.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: John Paul II Recognizes the Spiritual Gifts of Ecclesial Movements DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II marked the vigil of Pentecost by giving unprecedented recognition to lay movements within the Church.
As the Register went to press, tens of thousands of people from ecclesial communities around the globe were scheduled to meet the Pope for an evening rally May 30 in St. Peter's Square. The gathering is intended to highlight the works of evangelization being carried out by these grass-roots groups. It will also demonstrate Pope John Paul II's personal conviction that lay movements represent a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit within the world.The meeting with the Pope caps nearly a week of activity in Rome for members of some 50 movements and communities. The events have been organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity — the Vatican office concerned with the contribution the lay faithful make to the life and mission of the Church.Among those represented at the rally were the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the Neocatechumenal Communities, Regnum Christi, the Secular Franciscan Order, the Cursillo Movement, and l'Arche. Earlier in the week, delegates from these groups also took part in a three-day World Congress of Ecclesial Movements.
This is not the first time the ecclesial movements have come together to share their reflection and experience on an international level. Unlike previous meetings, however, this year's events are the first sponsored directly by the Holy See. (Stephen Banyra)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes $ Quotes DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:The Pope's Personal Milestones
The Holy Father Pope John Paul II has a vigorous, youthful, enthusiastic Church to celebrate this Pentecost in the year he has dedicated to the Holy Spirit, but he also has three personal milestones to reflect upon as the month of May — and Mary — comes to an end.
May 13 marked the 17th anniversary of the attempt on his life. An AP story reported the following day that “during his weekly general audience, the Pontiff gave thanks from the same spot where he was shot in the abdomen ... St. Peter's Square.”
“The Pope has credited the intercession of the Virgin Mary for his survival.”
May 17, the AP reported the Holy Father's birthday the day before it occurred, noting that the occasion had already drawn greetings from around the world. The King and Queen of Belgium wished him a happy birthday during a recent visit, as did working class Romans who he met within their parish.
Finally, the article noted that May 24 was the date on which the Pope became the longest-serving Pope in the 20th century: 19 years, seven months, and eight days. That's one day longer than Pope Pius XII.
Latin for the Children
In California, the ballot initiative “English for the Children” is stirring up controversy. If the Vatican's Father Reginald Foster were to run for office in his home state, he might stir up even more with a “Latin for the Children” proposal.
Father Foster works for the Vatican as chief Latinist for Pope John Paul II, and he sees his trade as important outside the Church as well.
As it turns out, reports of Latin's death may have been premature. A Los Angeles Times profile of Father Foster May 18 points out the following facts about Latin:
4 More than 60% of English words, and more than 80% of Romance language words, are Latin based.
4 About 50 academies devoted to the classics have opened during the past decade in America, teaching Latin. The American Philological Association says that the number of Latin students in universities increased by 25% between 1994 and 1996.
4 In Finland, you can hear Latin talk-radio, in Germany you can go to Latin clubs, and in Norway, you can buy a recording of the best of Elvis sung in Latin.
4 A British study showed that seven-year-olds studying Latin excel in spelling, grammar, history, and other languages, and a U.S. study shows Latin students scoring an average of 150 points higher on the SAT.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: PERSPECTIVE DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:he April 13 issue of Newsweek confronts us with an unlikely question: “With more Americans feeling the Holy Spirit in their lives, what happens to the Trinity?"
It is not difficult to find the answer. Just remember the hymn the Church sings whenever she wishes to implore the Holy Spirit: Veni Sancte Spiritus; Per te sciamus da Patrem; Noscamus atque Filium (Come, Holy Spirit; through thee may we the Father know; through thee the eternal Son).
The end of the Easter season brings the feast of the Holy Spirit, the feast of Pentecost. The sending of the Holy Spirit completes the revelation of the divine Trinity, by disclosing that between the Father and the Son exists a third divine person. He is the person of love because, as St. Thomas Aquinas helpfully remarks in his Summa Theologiae, both Father and Son love through him.
In the Church's earliest preaching, its pastors taught about the Trinity. For example, consider Paul's discourse in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia. He reminds his listeners of what is said in the second psalm: “You are my son; this day I have begotten you” (Ac 13:33). Within the Blessed Trinity, the eternal generation of the Son discloses the unique way that God is Father. That is to say, God is eternally Father by reason of his relationship to his only Son. This truth of divine faith embodies a mystery of salvation to which Jesus himself testifies when he says in the Gospel of John: “No one comes to the Father but through me” (Jn 14:6).
The Christian faith requires us to confess the blessed Trinity of persons. Only through the revelation of Jesus Christ is “Father” known to be literally the name of God. Apart from this precious gift of divine truth, we would be left to conclude that when we call God “Father” we are only using a metaphor, as we do when we say “The Lord is my shepherd.” Even though God transcends all human expression of fatherhood, God still remains uniquely Father. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it simply, “no one is father as God is Father” (239).
Christ's revelation of the Father is inseparably linked to the grace of Christ that saves us. Thus every Christian grace is filial, for no one is saved without being united with Christ, and through this union, entering into a filial relation with the Father. And so, Christ consoles his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places” (Jn 14:1).
Sons and daughters possess a home and an inheritance. Every time we speak a word of personal address to God, we are caught up into the knowledge and love that form the inner life of the Trinity. Every time we utter “Our Father,” we have already found our dwelling place, the one that Christ has prepared for those whom he has redeemed by his blood.
Personal love comes only from a God who is personal, indeed tri-personal. The real and exciting truth is that the persons of the Blessed Trinity first dwell in us before we come to find our proper dwelling place with them. “The indwelling of the Trinity in the souls of the just” is not so much a statement about where God is as it is an expression of a truth about our knowing and loving the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Such an extraordinary opportunity can easily incline us to ask with the Apostle Thomas, “How can we know the way?” Then, Jesus comes immediately to reassure us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. One thinks immediately of the priestly office: to govern (to show the way), to teach (the truth), and to sanctify (to bring new life).
God never fails to call some men to exercise this sacred ministry, so that the world will still have preachers of the Blessed Trinity. How else can we discover that the God of Jesus Christ is not merely a benevolent power that governs the universe, but a loving Father who from all eternity begets a Son? How else can we say at the center of the eucharistic sacrifice, “Our Father”?
In his letter to priests on Holy Thursday (1998), the Holy Father spoke about the transforming work of the Spirit. One effect of this love is the priesthood. This grace conforms some of our brothers to Christ in a special way, disposing them to cry out from the bottom of their hearts, “Abba, Father.” This grace is not for the priest alone. Every member of the Church is a beneficiary of a priestly vocation, and so we are encouraged to support our priests and to foster among young men the desire to surrender themselves to the unique work of this Trinitarian mystery. With more priests who are strong men of faith, then we will never need to ask, “What happened to the Trinity?”
Senior writer Father Romanus Cessario OP is a professor of systematic theology at St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Native American Path to Wholeness DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:by Christopher Vecsey
(University of Notre Dame Press, 1998, 400 pp., $40)
The canvas is enormous. It stretches in bold outline and vivid color from the forests of Maine and Nova Scotia through New York, the Great Lakes district, then southward to the lowlands around the Gulf of Mexico, on through the prairies, the Rocky Mountains, and finally to the Pacific coast. The vast panorama is filled in with figures drawn as if from life, culled from countless sources, reaching back through five centuries, and portrayed with swift brush strokes and the immediacy of an artist's perception.
In The Paths of Kateri's Kin, Christopher Vecsey has gathered material with the authentic historian's concern for facts and the storyteller's feel for details. He has succeeded in conveying an in-depth view of Native American civilization, traditions, and spirituality that is of incalculable value for anyone interested in American history, Church history, comparative religions, or the theology of evangelization.
When the early French missionaries arrived in Quebec City and Acadia in Nova Scotia in the early 17th century, they thought Native Americans totally uncivilized, having neither law, faith, nor king. Vecsey describes their view succinctly: “The Jesuits evangelized as Catholics and as Frenchmen, laboring zealously for God and king.... Whether they countered Protestants or pagans, [they] viewed themselves as waging a holy battle against Catholicism's enemies. At the same time, the French Jesuits in North America were connected with the official interests of New France ... policies of assimilation, economic exploitation, and imperialism. The commercial powers hired, supported, and protected the missionaries; in this context the Jesuits sought to ‘bring the native into the obedience of faith.‘”
The unfolding of this incipient drama carries the reader through four centuries of struggle, much of it bloody and death-dealing, to establish some kind of harmony between Native Americans and European colonizers. The Indians were open in general, and thoroughly impressed by 17th-century know-how in the areas of fur trade, rifles, and alcohol, but when it came to substituting a new culture and religion for their own deeply rooted spirituality and traditions, they balked. Some were willing to adapt to foreign rites and customs. They could stretch acculturation to incredible proportions, and even managed at times to persuade missionaries to an uneasy toleration of many of their traditional practices.
The struggle, however, was an uneven one. It was not exclusively, or even chiefly, about religion. Political ambition and financial power carried the day as the native holders of the land were forcibly driven further and further westward, leaving their tilled plots of maize and European corn to be claimed by waves of immigrants trekking across the country from the East. Glitzy advantages — fur trade, easy access to alcohol, and government-regulated education — were weighed against a whole way of life and found wanting.
Tribe by tribe and century by century, Vecsey records the struggle for dominance, and describes the outcome on the American scene today. The story is profoundly disturbing, and leaves readers less than complacent.
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a symbol of Native American Catholic identity in our times, is the unifying theme of the book. In her life and her person we see a resolution, at a higher level, of the tension between colonizers and natives.
“She was orphaned, persecuted, made a refugee, and damaged by disease,” Vecsey writes. “She wore her sufferings on her face in her pockmarkings; she died an early death. Sister Marie-Therese Archambault OSF, a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, says that her Indian people are scarred, too, so they identify with the Lily of the Mohawks. They suffer from alcoholism; they get into fights and their faces are scarred from these episodes. They wear broken noses, cut lips, and deep scars of pain. So, when they hear in litanies that Kateri is 'scarred but beautiful,’ they feel themselves akin to her. She is a human symbol of their hurt humanity.”
Kateri found an answer to the unanswerable. The beauty that shone through her scarred face was the beauty of Christian faith. She was open to the God who had died for all Natives and all Europeans. Sadly, some Native Americans reject the veneration of Kateri, seeing her as a tool of missionary domination, in effect a “traitor” to her own people. This has been the occasion for a bitter dissension between “Catholics” and “Traditionalists” among various tribes across the country.
Such obstacles to harmony point up the underlying problems of missionary activity within the Church. Her representatives have at times aligned themselves too closely with European nationalists whose motivation was less than altruistic. The fresh air with which Pope John XXIII longed to flood the Church and her evangelization has been welcomed, circulated, and channeled through the world by his successors.
As Gaudium et Spes puts it: “The Church, sent to all peoples of every time and place ... can enter into communion with various cultural modes, to her own enrichment and theirs, too” (58). And in the Decree on Missions, Christians are urged to “be familiar with national and religious traditions, gladly and reverently laying bare the seeds of the word which lie hidden within them” (11).
Where formerly Native Americans were commonly referred to as “savages” by colonizers and treated as such, where their civilization and patterns of spirituality were looked upon with considerable disdain and even horror, in recent times openness and understanding have deepened. Vecsey has done a service to all Americans in his skilled and capable portrayal of the colorful trends in Native tradition and spirituality, and the inculturation that has developed over the past five centuries in this country. He is honest and fair in his assessment of missionary endeavors, policies, and procedures, and leaves no doubt about the delicacy and complications attending current interrelationships. Perhaps his greatest contribution to a professional and general readership is the keen human insight he has gained through years of scholarly research. This he shares in a delightful and forthright style.
In honoring Kateri Tekakwitha, the Catholic Church has honored all Native Americans. A marginalized and battered people can feel loved and respected through this official recognition of one of their own. It affirms them as members of Christ's Body, as they travel the path of Kateri to wholeness.
Dominican Sister Mary Thomas Noble writes from Buffalo, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Thomas Noble OP ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Moving Accounts of Religious 'Maternity' DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:by Ewa Kurek
(Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1997, 255 pp., $24.95)
Since the election of Karol Wojtyla to the papa-cy, Polish Catholics have been under fire for ignoring, abusing, or betraying Jews during World War II. This abuse of the people of Poland has tapered off since the fall of the Soviet Empire, but echoes remain. The truth is that Polish defense of the Jewish population was so strong that only in Poland were entire families executed for helping Jews, and only Poles were put under an automatic sentence of death for assisting in the rescue of their Jewish brothers and sisters.
Ewa Kurek, a warm motherly scholar and historian dedicated to the study of World War II and its aftermath, has written a moving and powerful documentary of rescues of Jewish children by nuns in Poland — rescues impossible without the broad support of local civilians. Your Life is Worth Mine documents the hundreds of convents and religious orders in Poland that sheltered Jewish children from the Nazi genocide machine. Strategies were simple but dangerous. Jewish children were taught Catholic prayers and ritual in order to provide cover, and often issued with fake baptismal certificates, but seldom baptized without the consent of a parent or the adult “child.”
Maria Klein from Israel, saved by the Sacred Heart Sisters in Presemysl together with 12 other Jewish children wrote: “I did not get baptized in the convent, even though I wished to. During the bombardment of Presemysl, I asked a priest who was with us in the shelter to baptize me but he refused.
“When I came to the convent I did not even know how to cross myself. I took Sister Ligoria's advice and knelt at the very back of the chapel and mimicked praying. Sister Ligoria said I should do it in order not to differ from the others, but she also said that each of us had our own faith; the war would end some day, and if my parents survived I would remain Jewish, but one's faith is not a pendulum and one cannot change it. So when I became 21, I would have the right to do what I wanted.
The nuns in no way tried to influence me to receive baptism. Somehow a Hebrew prayerbook found its way to the convent. Keeping something like that jeopardized one's life, just like hiding us did. I could even differentiate and read some letters when Sister Bernarda asked what they were. So she locked me in her room every other day so that I would not forget how to read those letters that I knew. She said, “Pray to the Jewish God, and we will pray to Lord Jesus. If we all pray, then perhaps we will survive the war.”
Boys were sometimes dressed as girls in order to protect them from intrusive and dangerous “examinations":
“As for all the Jews in Poland, the most important key to survival for the children was assimilation into the surrounding world. The nuns, trying to conceal a child's Semitic features, used various methods. For girls sometimes it was enough to cut or bleach the hair, or change the hairdo. Boys usually were in a terrible position. They had short hair and it was difficult to do anything with it, apart from a change in its color. So the nuns used bandages and various caps. As a last resort they gave the boys skirts to wear, or they isolated them altogether from the outside world.”
Accounts of Jewish mothers handing their children to strangers of another faith are heartrending. It is impossible to measure the courage and sacrifice of that act:
“My mother decided to commit suicide with the help of the farmer. Suicide by drowning. Together with my little sister. She was three-years-old ... the farmer came back and said that everything was over and that we should be on our way.... I was a child so terribly damaged psychologically and so shook up that anything that would bring me back to my other, Jewish life, was frightening.... In the convent I felt safe....”
Help did come from surprising places. In one poignant story, a Nazi officer collaborated in a rescue. When a tormented mother attempted to drown her child, a crippled inn-keeper rescued them both, left the village for some months and returned with “her” baby, for whom her lover, the Nazi officer, claimed paternity. Collaborator or rescuer? Who is to judge?
Other accounts are less morally complex, and charming even in the context of the war, Nazis would arrive unannounced at the convents, seizing food and scrutinizing the children for signs of Semitic heritage. These raids required quick thinking and smooth interventions on the part of the nuns.
“The Germans came in so suddenly that I was left inside the room and could not be taken out through any door. Sister Helen — she was tall and slim, her face was like that of the Madonna; she was beautiful — took those eggs out so quickly! She put me inside the basket and covered me with the eggs and straw. A German came in, kicked the basket and asked what was in it. She calmly answered that there were eggs in the basket. The German said he was taking the eggs. The sister started begging him saying that there was a seriously ill nun in the convent who had to have those eggs. The German persisted but then started paying her compliments, for she was very beautiful. Finally he left the basket where it was and went away.”
I am deeply grateful to Kurek for this book. It is a work of hope, and acknowledgment of the human heart's ability to rise above its own immediate desires. Above all it is a work of great scholarship, going beyond anecdote to a deep insight into the Jewish communities, profound religious and personal conflicts regarding the propriety of accepting Christian help and exposing their children to the influence of a powerful “alien” religion, and the ethical challenges faced by simple sisters willingly but perfunctorily thrust into a “resistance” movement.
It is, above all, a tribute to motherhood — spiritual and biological. Kurek traces the tradition of spiritual motherhood of consecrated, celibate women back through the Middle Ages to the most noble mother of all, Mary of Nazareth, at the same time honoring the Jewish mothers who sacrificed their own maternity so that their children could live. Put it on the list. It is light out of darkness. An important document and great read.
Deirdre McNamara writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Deirdre McNamara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Illinois Governor Candidates
I am writing in reference to your recent article about the governor's race in the state of Illinois between U.S. Rep. Glenn Poshard and Secretary of State George Ryan ("When Life's at Stake, Even Hard-Line Republicans Can Vote Democrat,” May 10-16). You omitted some important facts.
You cited the fact that Ryan has chosen a pro-abortion candidate as his running mate. Though Poshard did not choose his running mate, he did endorse her, and she is also pro-abortion. Poshard's campaign has taken great pride in the recent bus trip around the state to promote the Democratic ticket. Included in this trip, of course, was his running mate.
What is even more insulting to the pro-life electorate, is his strong support of U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun. Certainly, if you are aware of politics regarding pro-life legislation, you are aware that Moseley-Braun claims to be Catholic, yet, she is a staunch supporter of the partial-birth abortion, and she has stood right by the president in all anti-family legislation. Poshard has done his best to promote her as she runs for re-election.
In the meantime, Ryan is proudly running with Peter Fitzgerald who is the pro-life Republican opponent of Moseley-Braun. Ryan has worked hard in our state to pass state legislation that is pro-life. Poshard is aligned with people who are not pro-life, and our fear is that if he is elected, the state legislature will override any attempt to pass pro-life legislation.
The state Democratic leaders, in their attempt to gain control of the governorship, chose Poshard because they assumed that the pro-life voters would vote for him. I believe if he were truly a pro-life candidate, he would distance himself from Moseley-Braun, but like many politicians, he too has his price. If he wants to be elected, to keep the party leadership in his camp, he must promote Moseley-Braun as well. I hope that you will reconsider and report these important facts.
Penelope Garbe
Rockford, Illinois
Responsibility Rests With Us
Kevin Hasson's articles on the separation of Church and state (April 19-25 and April 26-May 2) are necessary reminders of the difference between what is and what should be. But there is another reminder we need: the government of the United States derives its power from the consent of the governed. Things could not be as they are unless we, as citizens, at some point gave our consent.
It is therefore not the fault of the runaway courts, or even the arrogance of the American Civil Liberties Union, that is responsible for the current absurd state of affairs in which the Bill of Rights has become the Bill of Oppression.
Every time a teacher takes down a picture in the classroom, every time a city takes a cr&egave;che off the courthouse lawn, every time a school board accepts a change in the name or timing of a holiday (the word, after all, derives from holy day), we are aiding and abetting the secularization of society and the oppression of a people who claim to be religious.
Isn't it time we stopped?
Marie Dietz
via e-mail
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Trial of Activists' Hearts DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:The jury reached a guilty verdict in the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) case of National Organization for Women (NOW) v. Scheidler, et al, extending the federal statute against racketeering to cover pro-life nonviolent action. Until the verdict is reversed on appeal, Joe Scheidler and co-defendants Andy Scholberg and Tim Murphy are guilty of racketeering, a pattern of criminal activity designed to hurt a business.
The trial of activists'hearts is still going on however — and there is no verdict yet. NOW did not pursue Scheidler in order to collect blood from that turnip, but to scare away all activists. They got their court order to collect turnip juice; will they succeed in frightening pro-lifers?
Scheidler is not running scared, and intends to be more active than ever.
“These things get people going,” he stated. “The only Catholic thing to do is go save these children.”
” Like Mary and John at the foot of the cross, we have to be there. We should go to these killing centers, to pray and counsel. We have to be nonviolent and prayerful, and go out there with a new determination to convert them. That's what Christ told us to do.”
He noted that the federal-court trial and decision had galvanized people, including many in the Catholic Church. The vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago spent a day at the trial, waiting to testify. Also, Scheidler said, “I got a letter from Archbishop [Francis] George of Chicago, and he said he remembers me at Mass every day.”
There are many things that can be done outside abortion clinics that can save lives but are unlikely — no guarantees — to lead to arrest. Karen Black and Msgr. Philip Reilly offer models for effective lifesaving ministry.
Karen Black, whose sidewalk counseling ministry supported by prayer has saved thousands of babies and mothers in Atlanta, was not discouraged by the ruling. She said, “We need more than ever to go forward. It's a spiritual battle. The Lord said, ‘Assault the gates of Hell.’ You can't do that by running away. This looks like a defeat, but we don't know what the Lord has in mind. The cross looked like a defeat, and it was the greatest victory ever. And in Los Angeles, when the police came after rescuers with nunchakus [martial arts devices used to inflict severe pain], more people came out.”
She does not foresee any changes in her work because of the ruling in Chicago. Her organization, Women-4-Women, has scheduled another training seminar in which 35-40 people signed up — a small increase over past seminars.
Msgr. Reilly is also very upbeat about his work with the Helpers of God's Precious Infants. This ministry, which started on Long Island, has spread around the world. Msgr. Reilly points out that the work of changing hearts in order to save lives is God's work, not ours. So he teaches people to go to the site of the killing, and then simply to pray for hours, in support of trained sidewalk counselors. Their work has also saved babies and women by the thousands. Within the United States, more than 50 bishops and three cardinals have participated in prayer at the sites of the killing.
“Sometimes we skip past our First Amendment rights and get into a confrontation,” said Msgr. Reilly, who has participated in rescues in the past, “but if we use our rights to free speech, praying and talking to mothers, we can get incredible results. This is the most effective thing we can do now.”
Karen Black and Msgr. Reilly clearly have shown that when people depend on the Lord for their strength and inspiration, and go to the sites of the killing to speak to mothers, they can save lives. In fact, the challenge of finding ways to pray and speak at abortion sites may be just starting; there may be many new avenues to explore. For example, one of the great blessings of the rescue movement was that Catholics and Protestants learned to pray together. That lesson can be deepened in many ways.
The NOW v. Scheidler verdict has been widely regarded as potentially limiting First Amendment rights of speech and assembly, but those in the pro-life movement view the decision as an attack on their moral beliefs.
Unifying Music and Psalms
One of the challenges that all sidewalk counselors face is trying to convey an emotional message clearly, usually in just a few seconds, and sometimes across a parking lot — but without shouting. The task is daunting, but music does that all the time. Pro-lifers have talked for years about the need to put the strength of the Church on streets, but have not focused on taking church choirs to abortion sites. There is no good reason for this failure; it is more an oversight than a deliberate decision.
It is not as if no one else has ever put Christian music on the streets. The Salvation Army delights people every Christmas, in malls everywhere. Christians should not hesitate to put the best music on the streets near abortion sites, sung with skill as well as love. The music they sing need not be specifically pro-life; in fact, it is likely to be more effective if they sing music that abortion-bound women remember from their childhood — music from a happier time, that touches the deepest part of the heart because it is simple praise of God.
Across the nation, Catholics and Protestants are still separating when Catholics want to pray the rosary. That renewed division may not be necessary. In the rosary, Catholics generally are doing three things, two of which can be shared. The rosary includes prayers of petition — specific intentions that are mentioned at the beginning of the rosary or at the beginning of each decade. The petitions are not divisive.
The rosary includes, obviously, prayers addressed to Mary. Not all Christians accept that. But the rosary also includes meditation of specific events in the life of the Lord and the Church, and those meditations can certainly be shared. If Protestants sing hymns about the Annunciation while Catholics recite that decade, they can all stay together in prayer. Students at a weekend organized by Collegians Activated to Liberate Life (CALL) tried it, and found that the music helped the Catholics focus on the meditations.
Similarly, the Psalms are a largely unexplored source of unity. A person with a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary will certainly be pleased to use the prayers she knew and loved: the Psalms. They are at the core of Christian prayer, and used by Catholics around the world. So Catholics can pray the Psalms without any sense that they are compromising their faith.
Using the Psalms moves Christians past one of the differences in style that has plagued activists trying to achieve the unity for which Christ prayed. More often than not, Catholics read prayers out of books — a practice that is frequently a distraction and occasionally a scandal to Christians who are accustomed to spontaneous prayers from the heart. When one reads the Psalms, however, this problem disappears. Protestants who are baffled when Catholics read prayers written by Thomas Aquinas or Francis of Assisi are always pleased to listen to the prayers written by King David.
There are enough Psalms to keep a group of Christians together in prayer for an entire morning at an abortion site. Further, every Christian tradition has a rich collection of musical settings for the Psalms.
A Return to Rescue
The ruling in Chicago makes it possible for wealthy organizations to sue anyone involved in civil disobedience against them. The Supreme Court ruled that RICO applies even if the defendants are not profiting in any way from their attacks on an industry or business. In Chicago, the court ruled that the intentions of the activists were not relevant. So a pattern of criminal activity — two or more events leading to arrest and conviction — that damages a business can be considered racketeering.
In Scheidler's renewed call for action that is nonviolent and prayerful, he offered the opinion that rescues are dead — wiped out by federal legislation.
“They served for a time, and they activated many new people,” said Scheidler. “But now, people think they can be more effective doing other things.”
That opinion is widely held, but not universally. Will Goodman and Chris McKenna, two pro-life activists from Madison, Wis., examined the new, high cost. After seven months of preparation in prayer and study, they conducted a rescue on Good Friday, placing themselves quietly at the door of an abortion site and refusing to move away. They were arrested quickly, and were expected to be in jail until their trial. Early on Easter Sunday morning, however, they were released without explanation.
Their trial is still pending, and they have not yet heard whether they will be charged with violating the federal FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) law, which carries dramatic penalties. They do not have any illusions about the impact of their sacrifice, but they pray for a renewal of a penitent rescue movement, acting quietly, without any bombast.
While Scheidler was on trial, Rev. Flip Benham was sitting in jail in Lynchburg, Va. (Benham's organization, Operation Rescue National, was a co-defendant in the RICO trial.) Benham had been arrested for trespassing at a local high school, convicted, and sentenced to a year in jail, six months suspended. On the day he was at the high school, the police did not arrest him. In fact, the police testified that Benham was a gentleman — at all times cooperative. After he left town though, the city convened a grand jury to indict him for a misdemeanor.
Asked whether pro-lifers can find ways to save children and women without risking lawsuits, Benham noted that “the point of the suits is not to get any money from us; we don't have any. The point of the trial in Chicago was to terrorize any Christians who live their theology in the streets. The cost of action is rising, and the perimeter is being moved farther and farther away from the battle. The point was to drive Christians back into the ghetto of their church buildings. Christianity is OK there, for now.”
Scheidler is pleased that pro-lifers are searching for avenues to protect children and women without being sued for racketeering, but offers a word of caution: A great deal of the testimony against him was fabricated. There were stories about things he or his co-defendants did when, in fact, they were hundreds of miles away. Pro-lifers cannot protect themselves from lies by being more cautious.
The only way to avoid suits completely is to give up completely and join the other side. It is always a little risky standing up for people who are scheduled to die. Just ask St. Peter.
John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, a veteran prolife researcher, author, and speaker, is director of public policy for American Life League.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Daschle Bill: Pro-Life Legislation That Wasn't DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:You can imagine the surprise of the pro-life community when a senator with a 100% pro-abortion voting record (source: National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) announced that he was sponsoring pro-life legislation. He chastised pro-life groups who didn't support it on the grounds that they were more interested in playing politics than saving the preborn. He was saying, in other words, that he was really more pro-life than they.
Funny thing, though, is that the senator decided to introduce his bill as a substitute for a piece of legislation long-sought by the pro-life movement: the bill to ban partial-birth abortions — a bill he opposed. Pro-lifers were understandably suspicious, especially since his bill would effectively allow the vast majority of partial-birth abortions (all those pre-viability) to continue.
The senator is Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), minority leader of the U.S. Senate, and his bill was entitled the Comprehensive Abortion Ban Act of 1997. Recently, some senators with impeccable pro-abortion credentials have been borrowing Sen. Daschle's tactics: using their support for the Daschle bill as an excuse for their opposition to the ban on partial-birth abortions.
How do we make sense of this? In my law-school days, my trial advocacy teacher would say that the truth could usually be found in the explanation that conformed to common sense. Or, in the words of another wordsmith: If it looks like a wolf and smells like a wolf, it probably is a wolf.
Here is what the Daschle bill prohibits: “It shall be unlawful for a physician to abort a viable fetus unless the physician certifies that the continuation of the pregnancy would threaten the mother's life or risk grievous injury to her physical health.”
“Grievous injury” is defined as either a “severely debilitating disease or impairment specifically caused by the pregnancy,” or “an inability to provide necessary treatment for a life-threatening condition.” It does not include conditions that are “not medically diagnosable,” or conditions for which “termination of pregnancy is not medically indicated.”
Even abortionists acknowledge that there are no medical conditions that absolutely require that the doctor kill the baby in order to ‘terminate the pregnancy.’
Sounds good on its face, right? Many without long experience in abortion law have been fooled.
Its first problem is medical: It allows doctors to kill a viable baby when there is no medical indication for such killing. How? By granting doctors the right to “abort” a child upon the evidence that “pregnancy termination” is required.
Most people presume that “pregnancy termination” and “abortion” are the same. They are not. When “pregnancy termination” is indicated, it means only that the mother or child has a medical condition that requires that the baby be removed from inside her — delivered, in other words. Even abortion-ists acknowledge that while there are medical conditions that could require early delivery, there are no medical conditions that absolutely require that the doctor kill the baby in order to “terminate the pregnancy.”
The second problem with the Daschle bill is that the abortionist is able to determine whether or not he has violated it. He gets to define “viability” with no limits, and he gets to exempt himself from any ban, merely by filling out a “certification” form that says that the abortion he performed is legal. If you look carefully at the “prohibition” language of the bill, you see that it is not a prohibition of aborting viable babies with certain exceptions. Rather, it only prohibits a doctor's failure to certify that the moth-er's life or grievous physical health problems indicate for a termination of pregnancy. Big difference.
There is no provision in the bill for judging whether or not the doctor's certification is the least bit credible. Abortion advocates scoffed when pro-lifers suggested that — knowing abortionists as we do — doctors would have no problem self-certifying themselves into as many “health” abortions as they wanted. But they offered no comment when Dr. Warren Hern (author of the foremost textbook on late-term abortions in the United States) stated that he would certify that any abortion met the bill's criteria of protecting a woman from death or “grievous injury to her physical health.” Why? Because some women die while giving birth, he said.
A third problem. Daschle has also made it clear that the “health” exception, which he claims to be narrow — a myth Hern has already exploded — could also encompass situations where a woman is in mental anguish, if such anguish manifests itself physically. “Mental anguish"-type abortions comprise more than 90% of all of the abortions performed in the United States today.
To some it seems downright hard-hearted to respond to a self-described “pro-life” bill with so much criticism, but this bill merits it. It is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information, Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen Alvaré ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mixing Fact and Fiction to Bolster Case for Galileo DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Stephen Jay Gould is an interesting case of a scientist who (1) knows that there is something wrong with current materialistic explanations of the origin of species and (2) is a convinced materialist.
So, Gould plays both pope and Luther in the debate about evolution. In popular books and articles he assures the public that evolutionary materialism is true; at the same time he publishes technical articles demolishing what he calls “Darwinian fundamentalism” — i.e., the neo-Darwinism taught in most high school biology classes.
There is one point, however, where Gould is consistent, and this is his antagonism to religious faith. This hostility erupted in a recent column in Natural History magazine, when he addressed that favorite historical episode of anti-Catholic intellectuals: the Galileo affair.
Galileo is one of those hot button words, like Inquisition, which are used to end any discussion about the compatibility of Catholicism and human progress. Even educated Catholics wish that the whole sorry episode could be swept under a rug and forgotten.
This is not, however, the attitude of Pope John Paul II. Shortly after becoming Pope, he established a commission to look into the Galileo affair. The commission's report affirmed that Church authorities in the 17th century had gravely violated Galileo's rights as a scientist; but it also interestingly supported the anti-Catholic Victorian biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who examined the Galileo case and reluctantly concluded that “the Church had the best of it.”
The Galileo affair, which comprised two trials in 1616 and 1633, is a complicated subject, and I can't lay out all the details in the space of a column. Catholics, however, ought to be aware of a few facts that don't exactly match the version put forth by writers like Gould.
Most people, for example, are unaware that until Galileo forced the issue into the realm of theology, the Catholic Church had actually encouraged the new astronomy that emerged in the 16th century. In 1543, Nicolai Copernicus, a Polish canon and devout Catholic, published his epochal book supporting the heliocentric (earth around the sun) model at the urging of two Catholic prelates, dedicating it to Pope Paul III, who received it cordially.
If the issue had remained purely scientific, Church authorities would have shrugged it off. Galileo's mistake was to push the debate onto theological grounds; he told the Church: Either support the heliocentric model as a fact (even though not proven) or condemn it. He refused the reasonable middle ground offered by Cardinal Bellarmine: You are welcome to hold the Copernican model as a hypothesis; you may even assert that it is superior to the old Ptolemaic model; but don't tell us to reinterpret Scripture until you have proof.
Galileo's belligerence may be partly explained by the fact that he did not have direct proof. His response to Cardinal Bellarmine's challenge was his theory of the tides, which purported to show that the tides are caused by the earth's rotation. Even some of Galileo's supporters could see that this was nonsense. Also, ignoring the work of Kepler, he insisted that the planets go around the earth in perfect circles, which the Jesuit astronomers could plainly see was untenable. In fact, the Copernican system was not strictly “proved” until 1838 when Friedrich Bessel succeeded in determining the parallax of star 61 Cygni.
The real issue in the Galileo affair was the literal interpretation of Scripture. In 1616, the year of Galileo's first trial, there was precious little elasticity in Catholic biblical theology. But this was also the case with the Protestants: Luther and Melanchthon had vehemently opposed the heliocentric model on scriptural grounds. Indeed, Luther had the privilege of being the first churchman to call Copernicus a “fool.”
Contrary to popular reports, Galileo did not abjure his theory under the threat of torture. In the second trial of 1633, precipitated by Galileo's reckless inopportunity, he was treated with great consideration, being housed by the Vatican in a luxurious apartment. As for the trial itself, given the evidence (such as it was) it was extremely fair by 17th-century standards. This was, after all, an age when hundreds of “witches” and other religious deviants were subjected to juridical murder in northern Europe and New England. Galileo himself died peacefully in bed after spending the rest of his life in a pleasant country house near Florence.
Gould is wrong in stating that the Church “officially” declared the Copernican theory to be heresy. The Inquisition's erroneous judgment of the case did not amount to an irreformable teaching of the Magisterium. And, indeed, in 1741 Pope Benedict XIV bid the Holy Office grant an imprimatur to the first edition of The Complete Works of Galileo.
Yes, parties high in the Catholic hierarchy made grievous mistakes in the Galileo affair. But the episode, which did not loom very large in the minds of Galileo's contemporaries, was very different from the myth perpetuated by modern enemies of the Church.
George Sim Johnston is a writer based in New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: George Sim Johnston ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Commitment & Flexibility: An Associate's Life DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Paula Jerard prays regularly with the Felician Sisters at their Chicago motherhouse, joins them at their retreats, kneels beside them during the daily exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and sings in their choir at liturgies. Jerard, who 24 years ago was a Felician postulant for nearly a year, even makes an annual formal commitment of prayer and service to carry out the Felician mission.
Jerard lives apart from the Felicians and works full-time for an air-freight company. She is a lay associate, a person who affiliates with a women's religious order by making a commitment to its charism.
Some lay associates work full-time at hospitals or other institutions run by a religious order; some volunteer at such facilities. Others maintain jobs in the business world or raise families, while devoting weekends, evenings, or even just spare moments during the day to prayer or service.
The lay associates are not an answer to the vocation crisis. Their lives often are full with additional roles such as mother, wife, or wage-earner, and they do not wish to live in community, take vows, or live as regulated a life as women religious do.
“I'm looking for a deeper, stronger, more personal relationship with God,” says Jerard. “Being acquainted with the sisters helps me experience his goodness.”
Most associates knew a religious, were taught by them, or had worked in a parish and affiliated with an order through a personal invitation. A typical associate is a white woman older than 30, though men are associates, too.
Associates are similar to secular Franciscans and other third order members, but crucial differences exist. Associates align themselves with religious congregations. They interact quite often with sisters, whereas priest-directors serve as the primary contacts with third orders. Associates prefer the more flexible relationship afforded them, compared to those found in third orders.
Most orders require their associates to undergo a one year candidacy. They often study the history and mission of the order before making a written oneyear commitment. Associates become part of two cultures: the religious order and the world of lay associates. They not only spend time and pray with sisters, but also hold their own retreats and workshops.
Some orders have a handful of associates while others have hundreds. The Felicians of the Chicago province, who began an associates program six years ago, have 24 associates and five candidates, while another 103 lay people, limited by age or frailty, are prayer associates.
Felician associates carry out their commitment in a variety of ways. One man, a barber, cuts hair at a home for children who are disabled. An older woman, who lives in a high-crime neighborhood, marches in anti-gang rallies and represents her neighborhood at city meetings. Several are active in their parishes.
What the associates share is a conscious commitment to their spirituality. Julia Rajtar of Milwaukee, a Felician associate, is director of pastoral care at a Felician hospital. Her job there is to help employees understand the mission of the order.
“Being an associate only supports me [in my faith] to be that kind of support for others,” she says.
Rajtar, who moved to Milwaukee from St. Paul, once considered becoming a Felician. She still considers them “my family locally,” but believes she can accomplish more as a lay person.
“I can effect more change without being restricted by the rules and regulations” of the community, she says.
Like other Felician associates, Rajtar wears a small pin signifying her special commitment, and those at the hospital respond to her as someone especially committed to her faith.
“They stop me and ask me to pray for them,” she says. “That didn't happen initially. They would ask a sister.”
Yet the growth of the associate movement has created some concerns. Critics say the line between the religious and laity is being blurred. It's fine, they say, for laity to reinvigorate their spiritual life but the associate movement compromises the identity of religious life. The movement seems to offer an alternative to religious life at the very time when religious orders need to redouble recruitment efforts.
Rajtar, for one, is not unsettled by these larger issues.
“The Felicians have a saying: ‘The path is made by walking,’” she says. “I'm not sure where we are headed, but it's going to be very exciting.” Jay Copp writes from Chicago. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: JAY COPP ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Restoring Catholic Character, One Step at a Time DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:
Universities must begin coming into the new era of Ex Corde Ecclesiae
The ultimate goal for all colleges and universities that truly wish to be Catholic institutions cannot be anything else but the full implementation of Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church). Given the secularization that has taken place on so many Catholic campuses, however, as well as the spirit of resistance to any Church authority or oversight that still remains in many of them, proceeding one step at a time is the best way to go for any institution that wishes to return to a more authentic Catholic character and practice.
Second of two parts on Bringing Back the Catholic Colleges
In many cases it may not be realistic to attempt to re-Catholicize institutions by issuing such administrative edicts from on high; too many bad habits and practices are currently in place, and some of them are deeply entrenched and have even been institutionalized. Also, there are still too many people who have not yet been persuaded that re-Catholicization is necessary; dissent from Church teachings — indeed the spirit of dissent generally — have hardly disappeared from the campuses of many institutions that call themselves “Catholic.”
At the same time, though, there is an increasing number of people who do believe that it is necessary, or at least desirable, for American Catholic institutions to return to their Catholic roots. The previous article discussed the essential first step for any school that has come to believe this is to revise its mission statement and other institutional documents to bring them into conformity with Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and to incorporate into them the general norms found in the document. Once these revisions have been made, the institution can then begin to make its future decisions accordingly.
An important step that should then be taken immediately is: begin writing all new faculty contracts in accordance with the revised requirements in the institution's basic documents. The Pope's apostolic constitution, for example, requires teachers who are themselves Catholic “to be faithful to, and other teachers ... to respect Catholic doctrine and morals in their research and teaching” (Article 4 β 3). New contracts for teachers in the theological disciplines would have to require the famous “mandate from competent ecclesiastical authority” that canon 812 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, as well as Ex Corde Ecclesiae Article 4 β 3, requires.
All new hiring decisions across the board would henceforth have to take into account the religious commitment of new hirees in order that “non-Catholic teachers should not be allowed to constitute a majority within the institution,” in accordance with Article 4 β 4. In this regard, some “affirmative action” in favor of practicing and committed Catholics may become necessary in many cases. But why not? What is more “American” today than affirmative action?
Many of these steps could be taken without disturbing the situation of most of those already in place on the institution's faculty or in its administration, whatever the different basis on which they may originally have been hired. For the most part they can simply be left where they are. Dismissals or firings of dissenters long accustomed to the current situation of paying no attention at all to the requirements of the Church for Catholic colleges and universities may not be necessary for those institutions that now wish to return to the Catholic fold; the removal of these people from Catholic higher education can often be left to the normal attrition of resignations and retirements.
Once an institution's intentions about seriously restoring its Catholic character have been made clear in the manner set forth above, though, it may be that many current faculty and administrators will wish to look elsewhere. It may even be gently suggested to those objecting to the institution's decision to re-Catholicize that they might be much happier in looking elsewhere: they are not likely to be happy under the new scheme of things.
And there are yet other concrete steps that an institution wishing to reCatholicize can take. An important one is to begin a policy — publicly announced beforehand — of exercising greater vigilance over events or speakers sponsored on campus, and over the public figures to whom awards or honors are to be given by the institution. The purpose of this step would be to insure greater respect for Catholic teaching and practice generally. It is today's current ambivalent situation where it is not clear whether or not a Catholic college will take a Catholic stand in a given situation that breeds much of today's controversy. This kind of ambivalent situation, moreover, tends to encourage activists or ideologues of whatever stripe to exploit the institution's reluctance to take whole-hearted Catholic positions and defend them when they are decried in the media.
Moreover, once a college or university has reaffirmed its integral Catholic identity and made it clear that it intends to act strictly in accordance with that identity, future students too will be clear about what is, and what is not, to be permitted on a campus that is truly Catholic. This would mean setting definite “term limits” for the present ambiguous and anomalous situation whereby such groups as those promoting abortion or so-called “gay rights” regularly seek official “recognition” on soi-disant Catholic campuses — and too often obtain this recognition.
It would also mean eliminating the kinds of scandals of recent years that have arisen when a “Catholic” institution has decided to honor or award an honorary degree to a rabidly pro-abortion congressman or other public figure.
In addition to all the above steps, there is another very important step that should not be neglected. The college or university should insure that ample Masses, confessions, and other religious observances are available on campus in accordance with the Church's authentic liturgical discipline.
It should go without saying that, having insured these Masses and other religious observances, the institution should then actively encourage students, faculty, and administrators alike to take advantage of their availability. Nothing is more important in the face of today's culture of death than to strive to create a climate on campus that is authentically Catholic — to provide a contrast to today's world that despises Christ and the moral law.
Some Catholic institutions that continue to fall short of what Ex Corde Ecclesiae requires in other respects, nevertheless continue to maintain a real Catholic ambiance and atmosphere — sometimes owing to the presence of individual priests or religious on campus. This is clearly something that can and should be encouraged and built upon.
These are only a few examples of steps that could be taken by Catholic colleges that have unwisely secularized. To the extent that a local ordinary began to encourage or require such things, he would be reminding those in the institutions in his diocese of the necessity of getting their houses in order in the new era inaugurated by Ex Corde Ecclesiae. He would also be providing them with some real incentive to get on with the task.
By committing to begin a process of re-Catholicization, moreover, many schools might preclude the possible unhappy future eventuality of being declared publicly to be no longer, in fact, a Catholic institution. This would be a painful eventuality, both for the institutions in question and for the Church. Let us hope, therefore, that a commitment to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae on many campuses can be made before the bishops feel obliged to take more drastic action than they have to date.
No current “politically correct” cause, court decision, secular law, or any American higher education “custom” should be allowed to supersede the basic right and responsibility a Catholic institution in the United States enjoys under the First Amendment to operate in accordance with its own religious and moral beliefs. Today, this means in accordance with Pope John Paul II's apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
Kenneth Whitehead, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, is the author of Catholic Colleges and Federal Funding (Ignatius Press, 1988).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kenneth Whitehead ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A Place to Remember America's First Citizen-Saint DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Chicago's Columbus Hospital honors Mother Cabrini, a fine friend to immigrants at the turn of the century
Columbus Hospital in Chicago treats multitudes of poor people, telecasts daily Mass to patients, and proudly recalls its heritage as one of the 67 hospitals, schools, and orphanages founded by Mother Cabrini, America's first citizen-saint. The legacy of Mother Cabrini is especially alive at the hospital. The room at the hospital where she lived and died has been preserved as a shrine.
The sparse room looks as it did when Mother Cabrini collapsed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1917. On display is her simple bed, the wicker chair in which she died and even the bloodstained gown she wore at the time of her passing. In a glass case are personal items like her religious habit and eyeglasses. Visitors can view a videotape chronicling miracles attributed to her.
Next to the room is a lovely chapel decorated with black and gold Italian marble. Dramatic frescoes, banners, and stained-glass windows depict important events in the saint's life. The chapel has daily Mass, a weekly novena and occasional concerts.
The room is smaller than most people's living rooms, but St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was a true giant in U.S. Catholicism. She lovingly cared for society's poor and outcasts and founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart religious order. Her death in 1917 touched off widespread mourning, not unlike the grief that came with the loss of Mother Teresa. The diminutive, frail but tireless nun, a native of Italy, ministered in Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, and elsewhere. Her ministry was among immigrants, particularly Italians, and she is the only woman honored by having her name inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
She founded Columbus Hospital on Lakeview Avenue on Chicago's North Side in 1905. Mother Cabrini was quiet and humble, and rarely consented to having her photo taken, but she could be indomitable if necessary, whether haggling with a merchant for a better price or beseeching a bishop or benefactor to back a new project. The building of Columbus Hospital is a case in point. She had purchased the North Shore hotel to convert it into a hospital. Sensing something was amiss, she showed up at dawn one morning and measured the property with a clothesline. Her suspicions were confirmed: The owner tried to cheat her by secretly trimming the size of the lot.
Later, the contractor also tried to cut corners. She promptly fired him and took over as general contractor. She then gladly hired Italian trades-men to complete the project.
A small and sickly child, Maria Francesca Cabrini was born two months prematurely July 15, 1850, in Lombardy, Italy. Her devout parents encouraged her childhood aspiration to be a missionary in China. As a young woman she ran an orphanage before she and seven orphans consecrated themselves to God in 1880, took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and called themselves the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.
The order spread rapidly in Italy, and Mother Cabrini met with the great Pope Leo XIII in 1887. He had heard about this relentless nun from Lombardy who wanted to evangelize China, but he also had been receiving reports of the great difficulties of Italian immigrants in America. As Mother Cabrini knelt before him, he told her, “Not to the Orient, Cabrini, but to the West. Your China is the United States.”
Mother Cabrini, who feared water because of a near-drowning in childhood, eventually crossed the ocean 25 times. She left her mark on many cities. In New York City, she raised funds for orphans by walking through the streets of “Little Italy.” Her sisters saved many lives in New Orleans during an epidemic of yellow fever. In Scranton, Pa., where Italian immigrants toiled long hours in dangerous coal mines, she paid for a school, enabling parents to help their children climb out of poverty. No mountain was too high to climb for Mother Cabrini. Traveling to Buenos Aires, she crossed the Andes riding high atop a mule.
She also opened schools and orphanages in New Jersey, California, Washington, and other states. It was in Seattle, Wash., where she was naturalized as a citizen in 1909.
Her presence was particularly strong in Chicago. She first came to the city in 1899 at the request of the Servite Fathers at Assumption Parish. The priests were desperate to begin a good elementary school for the terribly impoverished Italian immigrants who crowded their North Side neighborhood. As many as a dozen families were forced to live in a single-family home. Mother Cabrini founded Assumption School, where children attended for free and began their steady rise out of poverty. The future saint unceremoniously taught religion to thousands of school-children.
The school closed in 1945 when the area turned industrial. The old school building on Erie Street (a few blocks from Michael Jordan's restaurant, Planet Hollywood, and other trendy places) now houses a cinema museum. Still visible on the facade are the words Assumption School. Next to the old school is the former convent where Mother Cabrini once lived.
Assumption Church on Illinois Street still looks as it did many years ago. Notable are the exquisite stained glass windows, colorful statues, and old-time confessional where Mother Cabrini regularly made her confession. The church is a popular choice for weddings because of its down-town location and old-fashioned look.
Mother Cabrini died Dec. 22, 1917, one day after filling bags of candy for hours. These were Christmas treats for children at Assumption School who otherwise might not get presents. Around noon the sound of her chair toppling over was heard, and she was found in eternal peace.
One of her first students at Assumption later recalled her saintly presence: “When you looked at her you could see holiness and greatness there.” A documented miracle that paved her way for sainthood involved a baby, accidentally blinded in 1921 at a New York hospital named after Mother Cabrini. A nurse had washed the baby's eyes with too strong a silver nitrate solution (then routinely used to guard against infection). That night the nuns prayed fervently to Mother Cabrini, who had died four years earlier. The next day doctors were astonished: The baby's sight was restored. Peter Smith grew up to be a priest and lives in New York.
Mother Cabrini was declared a saint in 1946, igniting huge celebrations in Chicago at St. Frances Cabrini Church and at Soldier Field, where 100,000 people gathered to honor her. She is not forgotten. More than 20,000 people visit the chapel and room at Columbus Hospital annually.
For further information, telephone the Shrine at 773-388-7338.
Jay Copp writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jay Copp ----- KEYWORDS: Traveler -------- TITLE: Deep Impact Makes Shallow Impression DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Summer thriller is long on special effects, but comes up short on issues of morals and character
There are times when contemporary Hollywood seems good only at awesome, computer-generated special effects. Certain screenplays seem conceived merely as a way to exploit this technical expertise, with the product then dumped into several thousand theaters during the summer.
Deep Impact is such a project, but director Mimi Lederer (The Peacemaker) and screenwriters Michael Tolkin (The Player) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) also try to do more than concoct thrill-seeking disaster scenes. They make each of their characters ask the question: What would you do if you had only a year left to live? The result is an uplifting, if somewhat contrived, drama of personal interactions in which the bright side of human nature manages to shine through all the catastrophes.
Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) is an ambitious researcher at MSNBC who wants to get on the air. She is bitter that her father (Maximillian Schell) has recently remarried a woman half his age, and that her mother (Vanessa Redgrave), scarred by the divorce, has taken to drink. Jenny drowns herself in work to the extent that she has nothing in her life but her career.
She believes she has the scoop on the recent resignation of the secretary of the treasury (James Cromwell). Suspecting an extramarital affair, Jenny callously confronts the man in front of his pre-adolescent daughter.
“I know you're a reporter, but you used to be a person,” he cracks, pleading with her to go away.
Jenny has stumbled onto something more important, however; what the ex-cabinet official describes as “the biggest story in history.” A year earlier, high-school science whiz, Leo Beiderman (Elijah Wood), had discovered a comet heading toward earth. It's seven miles long, the size of Manhattan, and weighs 500 billion tons, about the same as Mt. Everest. The U.S. government has been secretly preparing contingency plans to survive the collision, using the code name Ellie, which Jenny wrongly assumed referred to the treasury secretary's mistress.
With Jenny forcing his hand, President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) announces that a specially constructed spaceship called Messiah is being launched to destroy the comet. It carries nuclear devices that are to be implanted deep below the surface of the celestial object and detonated. Messiah's commander is Fish Turner (Robert Duvall), a veteran of several moon landings. His youthful, multi-racial and multi-national crew believe he is too old for the mission and has been chosen mainly for public relations value.
Turner proves he has the right stuff, but Messiah's mission fails, losing one crew member (Jon Favreau) and blinding another (Ron Eldard). The explosions merely split the comet in two.
In a televised address, President Beck warns the nation that the smaller part will land in the ocean off Cape Hatteras, creating a huge tidal wave that will sweep across the eastern seaboard. The larger section will strike Canada soon thereafter and release toxic cosmic dust that will destroy all life forms on the planet within several months.
To preserve the nation, limestone caves in Missouri have been hollowed out to hold a million people — 200,000 top government officials and scientists, and 800,000 randomly selected citizens under the age of 50. The project, which has been fashioned after Noah's Ark, will also include animal and plant species that otherwise would become extinct.
President Beck concludes his address by stating, “I believe in God, and I believe he hears all prayers even when he says ‘no.‘”
Things don't look good. Thus far the filmmakers have created a hard-edged, cynical but perhaps realistic portrait of America, in which everyone looks out for number one. The media is shown to be corrupt and self-serving. The public laps up what it dishes out, and media-derived fame has become the highest value. Even its best and brightest seem uneducated, materialistic, and proud of it.
Turner complains that Messiah's young crew is “only scared about looking bad on TV.” They seem tone deaf to the larger issues involved in their mission and proud of their ignorance of literature and other non-scientific sources.
“Hey, I'm just a child of the movies,” one crew member brags.
A teammate resists being married because he doesn't like “the Church thing.”
The other characters seem just as bad. High-school classmates of Leo, the comet's discoverer, are impressed more by the fact he's a celebrity than by what he accomplished to get all the attention. Jenny, who becomes the network's anchor after her big scoop, seems a shallow narcissist. Both she and her parents are unable to relate to the pain of others.
The possibility of end times brings out the spirit of self-sacrifice in all the major players though, and the audience is swept up in the suspense because initial expectations were that everyone would behave badly. Turner is able to inspire his crew to undertake one final, possibly suicidal mission; Leo, who's been chosen for the Noah's Ark project, refuses to save himself until his true love (Leelee Sobieski) has been taken care of; and Jenny shows that beneath her hard-charging exterior she has both a heart and a conscience.
Deep Impact gives us plenty to cheer for, but it all seems too easy. When confronted with major crisis, none of the characters is tempted to do evil. What's more, despite all the religious nomenclature (the Messiah mission, Noah's Ark project, etc.), none of the spiritual issues involved in a consideration of the apocalypse is explored in any depth.
The filmmakers succeed in taking the meteor-disaster genre beyond its B-movie origins (When Worlds Collide and The Day of the Triffids), but whether the world ends in a whimper or a bang, difficult moral decisions must be faced. Deep Impact speeds past them to get to its mind-blowing special effects and its carefully contrived melodramatic climaxes.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
Deep Impact is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Rationalizing Americans' Moral Decay DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:The cover story of the June-July issue of First Things is J. Budziszewski's “The Revenge of Conscience,” a look at the perversions of thought that have caused America's moral decline and their likely result.
Budziszewski, a rising young philosophy professor attuned to the Catholic natural law tradition, opens with a catalog of society's moral capitulations — to abortion, euthanasia, sexual immorality, and perversion — and then asks, “Why do things get worse so fast?” He disagrees with the view that “conscience is weakened by neglect,” or that the moral law, written on our hearts, is rubbed out by repeated wrongdoing. Instead, he maintains that “By and large we do know right from wrong, but wish we didn't.... We aren't untutored, but ‘in denial.'We don't lack moral knowledge, we hold it down.”
Abortion is a prime example of the self-deception and contorted reasoning that the suppression of conscience lets us in for.
“If it doesn't kill a baby it is hard to see why we should be uneasy about it at all.... We restrict what we allow because we know it is wrong but don't want to give it up; we feed our hearts scraps in hopes of hushing them, as cooks quiet their kitchen puppies.”
When we act against the natural law, while attempting to deny that we are doing it, we are not breaking through the bounds of conscience but distorting it in ways we will eventually pay for — individually and as a society.
For example, Budziszewski recounts the ways modern Americans cover up their separation of sex from marriage:
“Because we can't not know that sex belongs with marriage, when we separate them we cover our guilty knowledge with rationalizations.... One common rationalization ... is inventing private definitions of marriage.... Yet another ruse is to admit that sex belongs with marriage but fudge the nature of the connection. By this reasoning I tell myself that sex is OK because I am going to marry my partner, because I want my partner to marry me, or because I have to find out if we could be happy married.”
And so on.
He then returns to abortion:
“Think what is necessary to justify abortion.... We must deny that the act is deliberate, deny that it kills, deny that its victims are human, or deny that wrong must not be done.” By far the most promising tactic is the third, but “no one has been able to come up with a criterion that makes babies in the womb less human but leaves everyone else as he was.”
If the personhood of the unborn is called into question, because the fetus has not reached our own level of emotional or intellectual complexity, then what about children, the very old, the disabled, the eternally immature? Humanity becomes a very slippery concept:
“No [you protest], the progression is too extreme. People are not that logical. Ah, but they are more logical than they know, they are only logical slowly. The implication that they do not grasp today they may grasp in 30 years; if they do not grasp it even then, their children will.”
This is why, once society seriously began to diverge from traditional moral teaching, its rate of descent seemed so precipitous.
“We can't not know the preciousness of human life — therefore, if we tell ourselves that humanity is a matter of degree, we can't help holding those who are more human more precious than those who are less.”
What can save us from the natural consequences of our crimes against conscience? Budziszewski ends on a religious and almost mystical note:
“Nothing new can be written on the heart, but nothing needs to be; all we need is the grace of God to see what is already there. We don't want to read the letters, because they burn; but they do burn, so at last we must read them.... ‘For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before thee ... a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.‘”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.For more information about First Things, write to: P.O. Box 3000, Dept. FT, Denville, NJ 07834
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Natural Wisdom vs. Spiritual Deficiency DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Oscar-winning film showcases indigenous life of ethnic Mongolian
In this age of environmental concerns, Western artists and intellectuals often over-praise the wisdom of indigenous peoples in dealing with nature. Celebrating more primitive lifestyles is a backhanded way of flailing the cultures of industrially developed nations for excessive pollution and other ecological sins. Agood example is Kevin Costner's 1990 Oscar-winning hit, Dances with Wolves, which finds almost everything about Native American traditions to be good and depicts the white man's ways as destructive to the environment.
Dersu Uzala, a Russian co-production directed by Japanese master Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai and Rashomon), dramatizes these same issues with intelligence and passion, finding a proper balance between the natural wisdom of indigenous folk and their spiritual shortcomings.
The year is 1902, and famous explorer Capt. Vladimir Arsenyev (Yuri Solomin) is leading a topographical expedition into Russia's Ussurti region near the Chinese border, which is inhabited exclusively by tribes of Mongolian ethnicity. He hires as his guide a hunter from the Goldi tribe, Dersu Uzala (Maxim Munzuk), who after the death of his wife and children, has lived on his own off the land.
Dersu can make out human and animal tracks in places where the Russians see only chaotic wilderness. He is also a better shot than any of the soldiers accompanying the expedition, but, unlike them, he refuses to hunt for sport.
“It's bad to kill animals for nothing,” he declares with a logic that would please present-day animal rights activists.
The Goldi tribesman also has an innate sense of giving back to both people and nature what he has taken from them. After the explorer's party has rested for several days in an abandoned cabin, he insists that they leave supplies of matches, rice, and salt for whoever might use the place later. Arsenyev realizes few Russians, who consider themselves more civilized than the Goldi, would show this kind of charitable concern for the needs of strangers whom they will never see.
Winter comes, and the explorer's last assignment is to survey a frozen lake. He and the tribesman set out alone. Dersu has a bad feeling about the place, but Arsenyev insists they keep going. The tribesman's intuition, of course, is right. A sudden windstorm blows away their tracks, and they are unable to return to base camp. They are lost in a treacherous area of frozen swamps and thin ice. The temperature is falling fast, and they will freeze to death by early evening if they don't find shelter.
Arsenyev collapses from fatigue. Dersu saves his life by dragging him into a hut he has hastily constructed from reeds. When the explorer tries to show his gratitude the next day, the tribesman humbly replies, “No thanks needed; we work together.”
Five years pass, and Arsenyev is leading another expedition in the Ussurti area. He hooks up again with Dersu, but the tribesman has changed. His eyesight is failing, and he is no longer the best shot in the party.
Dersu has also become increasingly obsessed with the superstitions of his tribe's animist religion. After killing a tiger that has been stalking the party, he is convinced that Kanga, the forest spirit, wants him dead as revenge. He becomes irritable and fearful and withdraws into himself.
At the conclusion of the expedition, Arsenyev realizes that Dersu is so spooked by the tiger's death that he will be unable to survive on his own in the forest. The tribesman reluctantly accepts the explorer's invitation to live with his family in the city.
“How can you live in boxes,” Dersu asks after trying to survive inside Arsenyev's house. He is unable to adapt to city ways and returns to the wilderness, still afraid of the forest spirit.
Dersu Uzala, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1975, evinces a world of untouched nature that is as dangerous as it is beautiful. The indigenous tribesman is shown to have a respect for the environment from which more urbanized people can learn. However, the movie also depicts, with equal vividness, the obstacles to a safe, sane way of life created by animist spirituality.
Next week: Louis Malle'sAu Revoir, Les Enfants.
Arts & Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Legal or Not, Euthanasia Becoming More Prevalent DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES — “Rare” isn't good enough — especially if it refers to how often doctors are involved in assisting suicides. Though often couched in compassionate-sounding rationalization, assisted suicide is murder, clear and simple. And the horrifying reality is that doctors are participating in it, even doctors at Catholic hospitals.
The encouraging news is that physician support of so-called mercy killing is decreasing, in spite of increased public support for legalized termination of life and increased obstacles to provide adequate care for the terminally ill, referred to as palliative care. Still, the statistics are alarming.
In 1995, Mary Therese Hellmueller's 90-year-old, healthy grandmother was taken to an emergency room to reset a broken bone sustained in a fall. She required surgery and an overnight stay to realign the bone and apply the cast. Instead of being released, though, the woman was dead within four days; the result of a lethal injection of a seizure medication known as Dilantin.
The fatal injection had been administered after Hellmueller's father was told that his mother-in-law was suffering seizures and had experienced a stroke, and after he was pressured into signing both DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and DNI (Do Not Intubate, insert a breathing tube) orders. With his wife and daughter, both nurses, out of town and in daily contact by phone, there was no viable double-check of the information he had been given. The grandmother died within 10 minutes of the fatal injection. Subsequent examination of the medical records revealed that a stroke never occurred and that the patient was in fact in a medication-induced comatose state.
Several months ago, in a small hospital in Merced, Calif., a similar order — this time from a head nurse — was given to inappropriately increase oxygen to a patient who was not in pain and whose history and condition indicated sensitivity to high doses of the substance. The event never made the newspapers. In many ways, it was just a routine request among the onslaught of daily nursing demands placed on an under-staffed facility. But the attending nurse, who asked to remain anonymous, questioned the orders and called the physician to confirm them. Unlike the case of the Hellmuellers, the doctor stopped the orders — and the killing. A less experienced nurse, or a non-nurse assistant, could easily have missed detecting the fatal consequences of administering such a routine order.
Another veteran nurse, Mary E., explains that through orders given for pain control and the comfort of a patient, or for what an attending nurse assumes is pain from the charts, doctors can increase a medication dose to put a patient into such profound sedation as to bring about respiratory arrest. “It's like anesthesia, said Mary. “Respiration stops because a patient is too sedated, then the heart stops because it's not getting enough oxygen.”
Mary's 20-year nursing career encompasses work in Kansas and California, the last eight of which have been in an oncology center where she is director of the nurses in the clinic and working daily with the terminally ill.
“I know [doctor-directed euthanasia] happens,” she said, “but I don't know how often. I would say it happens in Catholic hospitals too.”
Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported in an April 23, 1998, New York Times article that public opinion polls consistently indicate that 60% to 70% of Americans support legalized assisted suicide for patients who are mentally competent and have less than six months to live. So far, Oregon is the only state to legalize such a procedure, but several surveys among doctors reveal that the practice is “rare” and that support for it is diminishing among medical professionals, even though more doctors would administer lethal injections or doses if it were legalized.
An April 1998 New England Journal of Medicine survey found that 18% of physicians of all specialties surveyed had received a request for assisted suicide and that 3.3% had acceded to the request. Eleven percent had received a request for euthanasia and 4.7% had acceded. In total, this survey showed 6% of doctors surveyed had complied with termination of life requests at least once.
A May 1998 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) survey of more than 3,200 oncologists produced similar results and, in addition, pointed to a decreasing trend among cancer doctors to support the procedure. In this survey, 22% of oncologists said they supported physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in unremitting pain, a significant decrease from 45% in a similar national survey conducted in 1994-95. Only 6.5% supported euthanasia, compared to 22% in the survey three years ago. Sixty-four percent reported receiving requests for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, 13% reported acceding to such requests during their careers and only 4% reported doing so within the last year.
The ASCO survey, which was primarily authored by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health, also revealed that the strong decrease in doctor support for so-called mercy killing was offset by the increasing difficulty in obtaining adequate doctor education and patient care for the terminally ill. The survey showed that most recent medical school graduates do not learn about end-of-life care, that 56% of American oncologists report difficulty in obtaining palliative care services for their terminally ill patients, that nearly 50% of oncologists do not feel competent to manage depression among dying patients and that role models are the most effective teaching method to educate about end-of-life care.
“Education of physicians and access to palliative care services remain the greatest obstacles to providing high-quality end-of-life care,” said Dr. Robert Mayer, president of ASCO, who has made improving end-of-life care of cancer patients a major focus of his tenure. “The less access physicians have to such services, the more likely they are to grant requests for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. We must continue to improve palliative care in order to render euthanasia and assisted suicide unnecessary.”
ASCO isn't the only group to focus on providing better education and more accessible resources to help physicians deal with end-of-life care. On May 11, the American Medical Association (AMA) began a widely publicized two-year campaign to educate the country's physicians on how to better care for terminally ill patients. This campaign, Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care, will attempt to reach every doctor in the United States in a “grassroots, train-the-trainer program” to be funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Robert Reardon, AMA board chairman, called it one of the most important initiatives in which the AMA has ever been involved.
Other groups such as the Michigan Circle of Life are offering clinical training, pain management and public information programs to address end-of-life issues.
James Haveman Jr., director of the Michigan Department of Community Health says that the group “will encourage more families to take advantage of the planning tools and resources that are available to help assure quality care and compassion when it's needed most.” One of the new pain management tools being introduced in collaboration with Michigan State University and developed at the university's Communication Technology Laboratory, is an interactive CD-ROM, Easing Cancer Pain, to help patients who suffer from cancer pain understand their situation and effective treatments.
The software features personal stories, describes pain assessment, and barriers to pain relief as well as offering detailed information on treatment options. More than 10,000 copies of the CD will be distributed to physicians, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, and libraries. On May 1, the Michigan-based group also began an aggressive public service announcement campaign to inform Michigan residents that resources are immediately available to offer hope and non-euthanasia solutions to endof-life issues.
“We are the stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding suicide. “Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations.”
Indeed, “rare” isn't good enough when considering the participation of our nation's healing profession in assisting suicides. As Christians there is genuine hope in the agony of the cross and it's our duty to foster that hope among those who are terminally ill and among those dedicated medical professionals who care for them.
Karen Walker writes from Corona del Mar, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karen Walker ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Texas Court and Midwest Lawmakers Recognize Rights of Preborn DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS — The rights of preborn children are receiving a boost as a state court and several state legislatures respond to cases of injury and death to fetuses as a result of intentional harm, drunken driving, and drug use by expectant mothers.
The latest events in what some call a trend toward full legal recognition of fetuses as persons include a fetal homicide bill in the Wisconsin legislature, measures passed in South Dakota and Wisconsin to limit drug exposure to fetuses, and a ruling by Texas's highest criminal court upholding a manslaughter conviction in the death of a baby girl who was injured while in her mother's womb.
In late April, pro-lifers marked a victory when Texas's Court of Criminal Appeals refused the appeal of Frank Cuellar, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for causing the death of Krystal Zuniga in 1996. Krystal was delivered by an emergency cesarean section after the vehicle her mother was driving was struck by an intoxicated Cuellar. The baby died two days later of injuries sustained in the accident.
While not challenging Texas's “born alive” rule — that a person must be “born” and “alive” to be a victim — the court decision was “a real breakthrough,” according to Bill Price, president of Texans United for Life, an education and political lobbying group.
“Four to six years ago we wouldn't have gotten this kind of ruling,” said Price, alluding to a new cache of elected judges who are more favorable to cases involving the rights of the pre-born. “This is limited, but it's still in the right direction.”
Like other publicized incidents that lead to legislation, the Zuniga case may lead to new laws recognizing the rights of babies who die before birth.
“It supports those who wish to amend the law, because only by happenstance was this child born alive,” said Judy Koehler, senior counsel for Americans United for Life, a public-interest law firm based in Chicago. “It certainly adds weight to the argument.”
Price said people have an image of Texas as being a Bible-belt haven of conservatism, but he contends that the state has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country. Texas is also one of 24 states that has no fetal homicide laws.
Most fetal homicide statutes make an exception for abortion, a necessity under the sweeping Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, said Koehler, but clearly states are not afraid to recognize the rights of fetuses whose mothers want to carry them to term. Of the 26 states that do have such laws, just more than half have passed them within the last five years.
“Year by year more and more states are recognizing the humanity of the unborn child,” said Koehler.
Case in point, the Wisconsin Senate this spring passed its version of a bill already approved by the Assembly that would allow for life imprisonment for a person who assaults a pregnant mother and injures or kills her preborn baby. The measure comes in response to a 1992 incident in which a man beat his wife, who was nine-months pregnant, and caused the baby to be stillborn. The man received a 12-year sentence for reckless injury and false imprisonment, but was not convicted in the death of the baby.
Since abortion is excluded, the pending law will take the position that “the child is a child if it's wanted,” said Marianne Linane, legislative assistant for Wisconsin Right to Life, which has worked toward this legislation since 1985. “But it will protect that child from assault, [and] it acknowledges through the court that there is something to be respected.”
Within the past year fetal homicide laws have been passed both in Indiana and Pennsylvania.
In a resounding override of a governor's veto last spring, the Indiana legislature voted in January to stiffen penalties against a person who intentionally kills a viable fetus during a crime. Such individuals, formerly limited to a Class C charge of feticide, can now be charged with Class B felony murder, raising the status of the preborn child to that of a born person.
Last fall Pennsylvania passed a law that would provide for a maximum sentence of life in prison for a first-degree fetal murder charge. The law makes Pennsylvania one of 11 states that recognizes the rights of the fetus at every stage of pregnancy. The other 15 states with fetal homicide laws define some limitation based on the stage of pregnancy, such as “quickening” or viability.
Father Edward Robinson, the Dallas bishop's diocesan pro-life coordinator who has written about and closely followed the abortion and anti-abortion movements since 1968, said rulings for fetal protection show “good logic” in recognizing that there is no difference in a child's humanity from conception to birth. Additionally, he believes such laws are not a mere trend, but demonstrate a righting of the nation's morality since the permissive ‘60s and early ‘70s that created a climate for Roe v. Wade.
“[Abortion] was right in that permissive time. It looked acceptable,” Father Robinson said, but now, “the thing is collapsing.”
“I think the moral climate is beginning to change. The laws are beginning to toughen up,” he said, citing higher discipline standards in schools and stricter laws against juvenile crime.
In another type of fetal-rights case in Wisconsin — a state that made history in mid-May when abortions were voluntarily halted pending judicial review of a new partial-birth abortion law — a measure will soon be law that would put under the jurisdiction of juvenile courts those preborn children who have been exposed to drugs in utero. The courts could exercise that authority by confining the expectant mother to a drug treatment program, hospital, or relative's home.
The bill, which had been approved by both chambers of the state Assembly and was awaiting gubernatorial signature as the Register went to press, stems from a controversial 1995 case in which a cocaine-using pregnant woman was detained by a Waukesha County juvenile court to prevent harm to her baby by further drug use. While an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of the civil detention, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the ruling, leaving an opening for a change in state law.
Wisconsin Right to Life worked toward an amendment that will allow for the detention of the woman through the full nine months of pregnancy, since fetuses in their earliest weeks are especially vulnerable to damage from drugs, said legislative assistant Linane.
Although detention will be a last-ditch attempt after many other interventions have been tried, Linane said she understands people who “get a little exercised” about the notion of detaining pregnant women.
“Now the constitutionality of the law will probably be tested,” she said. “You never, ever know what these judges will do.”
A similar civil detention approach is being tried in South Dakota, where new laws will take effect this summer that will allow the involuntary commitment to a treatment facility of a pregnant woman who abuses alcohol or drugs. Eleven other states have considered such laws this year.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other defenders of abortion laws are keeping a close eye on fetal protection trends, fearing, according to a 1996 ACLU fact sheet, “a direct threat to women's reproductive rights by reinforcing dangerous claims of ‘fetal rights’ in the law.” The fact sheet also warns of a possible “insidious trend toward ‘policing'pregnancy by attempting to control the conduct of pregnant women.”
Americans United for Life's Koehler said the civil detention of pregnant drug users “is a whole new area of the law” and it remains to be seen how these laws will hold up in court.
Nevertheless, Koehler agrees with her opponents that the new laws may have the effect of leading people to question legalized abortion.
“I think anything that establishes the humanity of the child reminds the American public of what it already knows — that [the fetus] is a life,” she said.
Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Canadian Doctor Gets Two-Year Jail Term for Assisted Suicide DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:TORONTO — Church and pro-life organizations in Canada are appalled by a light jail sentence given a Toronto doctor for assisting in the death of a depressed but otherwise viable patient.
Dr. Maurice Genereux, a Toronto AIDS specialist, was sentenced to two years less a day May 13 for prescribing powerful sleeping pills in 1996 to two depressed male patients who wanted to end their lives.
Genereux, who also received three-years probation, is the first doctor in North America to be convicted of assisting a suicide.
The doctor pleaded guilty to the assisted-suicide charges last December.
Genereux patient Aaron McGinn died of an overdose, while a second patient survived after a friend intervened and called an ambulance. That patient has since filed a civil suit against Genereux for medical malpractice.
Groups advocating for the rights of the disabled have suggested the two-year sentence makes light of Genereux's action. They say the sentence should serve as a warning to other suicide-dealing doctors who promote death for the disabled, the depressed, and other vulnerable patients.
Toronto attorney Hugh Scher, a spokesman for the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), described Genereux as a doctor who was “out of control.”
“Two years less a day in effect trivializes this doctor's acts,” Scher told the Register. “Dr. Genereux breached the most fundamental code of ethics in the medical profession by choosing to end life rather than preserving it.”
Scher said the CCD was hoping the government would press for a longer jail sentence to deter like-minded physicians. Under Canadian law, the maximum sentence for assisting a suicide is 14 years in prison. The government had sought a six-year sentence and is appealing the two-year term given Genereux.
Ontario Crown Prosecutor Attorney Michael Leshner described Genereux's actions as “the worst thing a doctor could have done.” He added that while a prison sentence was appropriate, the presiding judge should have sent a stronger message by way of a longer term.
Genereux's defense team, meanwhile, has appealed the sentence and has secured the doctor's release after posting $5,000 bail.
The trial unearthed a number of sordid details about Genereux's medical practice. He had been stripped of his medical license for incidents of professional misconduct and improper contact with patients. Many former patients testified that Genereux was too eager to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients who were depressed or who had expressed suicidal wishes. The majority of Genereux's patients were homosexuals, many of whom were HIV positive.
The Genereux case has sent a disturbing message to those concerned about the rights and protection of the disabled. Last December, Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ted Noble imposed a lenient sentence on Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer for the murder of his severely disabled daughter. The judge justified the sentence on the grounds that Latimer's action was a “compassionate homicide.” At the time, Catholic Church and pro-life groups criticized the decision for its implication that crimes against the disabled are not punished in the same way as crimes against able-bodied persons.
Scher said the Latimer and Genereux cases were not completely alike, but that there are parallels in areas of breach of trust that Genereux and Latimer held over their victims. While Latimer killed his daughter by carbon monoxide poisoning, Genereux provided patients with “a pharmaceutical gun” by which they could kill themselves, Scher said.
“While this case does not impact directly on people with disabilities, what is relevant to us is the fact that Dr. Genereux, a person in a position of trust and authority in the health care profession, prescribed pharmaceuticals for the purpose of killing people,” Scher said. “If Dr. Genereux was prepared to do that, then people with disabilities have to be concerned that other doctors may also perceive our lives as somehow being less worthy or not worth living, and take actions to end our lives.”
Scher said that without reassurance from the Canadian legal system — in the form of stiff penalties — the disabled have reasons to fear for their safety. He also said the Genereux case highlights the need for legal prohibitions against assisted suicide.
“If the law does not recognize the gravity of the offense and lay a significant sentence in punishment, then this will definitely put people with disabilities in a position of peril,” Scher said.
Other commentators, from pro-life to law reform groups, have also criticized the sentencing of Genereux. Dr. Philip Hebert, head of the University of Toronto medical school's bioethics department, told The Toronto Sun newspaper that the two-year sentence suggests society is not treating crimes against the disabled and vulnerable very seriously. Hebert said it is a mistake for doctors to help suicidal but otherwise healthy patients to kill themselves.
Cheryl Eckstein, president and founder of the Compassionate Healthcare Network in Vancouver, British Columbia, described Genereux's sentencing as reprehensible.
“The fact that Genereux provided seriously depressed patients lethal amounts of medication, knowing his patients were intent on committing suicide, is absolutely abhorrent and unconscionable behavior,” she said.
“I think such sentences cheapen life. I am deeply concerned that another message going out is that depression isn't treatable — of course, that is nonsense.” Tom Reilly, a spokesman for the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the bishops’ social affairs committee has yet to respond to news of the Genereux sentencing.
“This is a matter that would be of definite interest to the bishops’ conference,” Reilly said. “It will likely be on the agenda when the committee next meets.”
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Toronto, Canada.
----- EXCERPT: Life activists angered and concerned about light sentence ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mike Mastromatteo ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Regarding the practice of so-called “mercy killing” or euthanasia, Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, wrote:
“The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die. Once again we find ourselves before the temptation of Eden: to become like God who ‘knows good and evil’ (cf. Gn 3:5). God alone has the power over life and death: ‘It is I who bring both death and life’ (Dt 32:39; cf. 2 K 5:7; 1 S 2:6). But he only exercises this power in accordance with a plan of wisdom and love. When man usurps this power, being enslaved by a foolish and selfish way of thinking, he inevitably uses it for injustice and death. (66.4).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro-Lifers Oppose Efforts to Make Health Insurers Pay For Birth DATE: 05/31/1998 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: May 31-June 6, 1998 ----- BODY:Among other objections, opponents point to the abortifacient nature of many forms of contraception that would be covered
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The government should force health insurance companies to cover all forms of approved birth control, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced May 8. Failure to do so, said an ACOG leader, is tantamount to gender discrimination.
The strong statement came during the ACOG's annual clinical meeting in New Orleans. The ACOG — long-time supporters of abortion and birth control — used the occasion to issue several demands to federal and state lawmakers. In addition to mandating insurance coverage of birth control, the group also called for expanded government funding of family-planning programs and increased funding of contraceptive research.
“There is nothing ‘optional’ about contraception,” said Dr. Luella Klein, ACOG's director of women's health care issues, said. “It's a medical necessity for women during 30 years of their life span.”
The organization endorsed a bill pending in Congress that would accomplish the goal of mandatory insurance coverage. Senate Bill 766 and House Resolution 2174 would prohibit a health plan or a health insurance issuer from excluding or restricting benefits for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices. The bill's main sponsors are both pro-abortion: Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Rep. James Greenwood (R-Pa.). The so-called Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act (EPICCA) currently has 32 co-sponsors in the Senate and 96 in the House.
According to the American Public Health Association (APHA), a supporter of the federal legislation, most private insurance companies cover prescription drugs, but many exclude coverage for prescription contraceptives such as “the Pill,” Norplant, Depo-Provera, and the intrauterine device or IUD. APHA claims half of all traditional insurance plans and 7% of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) cover no contraceptive methods other than sterilization.
EPICCA is supported by traditional supporters of abortion such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, and many medical organizations. Opposition to the bill comes primarily from insurance companies, pro-family organizations, and pro-life groups.
One organization publicly opposing the bill is the American Life League. Judie Brown, the group's president, called Klein's comments and the ACOG's statements about the bill “simply ridiculous.” Use of birth control drugs and devices is different from other prescriptions, she argues, because women have a choice whether to use artificial birth control or not.
“The decision to use artificial birth control is elective,” said Brown. “Pregnancy is not a disease, but apparently these doctors find it necessary to require chemical alteration of normal, healthy, fertile women.”
Brown pointed out that the EPICCA legislation requires insurance companies to cover all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices — many of which can cause early abortions.
“Many forms of birth control, including Depo-Provera, the IUD, Norplant, and the Pill, can cause early abortion,” she said. “The ACOG's statements suggest that motherhood is incompatible with a healthy, quality life. That is patently absurd.”
Concerned Women for America, which bills itself the nation's largest women's organization, is also lobbying against the measure. Laurel MacLeod, CWA's director of legislative and public policy, calls legislation mandating insurance coverage of contraceptives “very dangerous.” MacLeod said because chemical abortions are the “new wave” in abortion methods, both domestically and internationally, pro-lifers must actively oppose any legislation that includes drugs that cause chemical abortions.
“Our federal legislators should not be spending their time working to pass legislation which would force private businesses and individuals to pay for chemicals which cause abortion,” said MacLeod. “The right to life is an inalienable right given to every man by God. Forcing businesses to support abortion — either surgical or chemical — flies in the face of everything our nation was built upon.”
She also said the bill's requirement that insurers pay for “outpatient services” related to contraception could be construed to cover surgical abortions.
Although GOP lawmakers have taken the lead in Congress, the EPICCA's prospects were originally dim. However, the ACOG's tenacious statement and the media frenzy regarding Viagra, the new drug aimed at solving the problem of impotence in men, has changed the playing field. Pointing to the fact that many insurance companies have opted to cover Viagra, pro-abortion leaders have launched an attack against what they say is hypocrisy and discrimination.
“Insurers not covering methods of birth control are forcing women to pay more out-of-pocket for medical care than men do,” said ACOG spokeswoman Dr. Anita Nelson.
Pro-life lobbyists remain optimistic that a vote on the EPICCA will not be scheduled. However, they expressed concern at the number of state legislatures considering such proposals.
Cathy Deeds of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said she has received several requests for guidance from state organizations dealing with state versions of the EPICCA. Deeds said both the federal bill, and many of the state bills, do not protect Catholic health care providers from the mandate by offering conscience protection language.
“The bill raises huge issues and problems for Catholic health plans and providers who morally object to providing such coverage,” she said.
Deeds also refuted the claims of the bill's supporters who claim that mandated coverage of contraceptives will reduce the number of abortions. She mentioned a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute that found that many women who seek abortion services were using contraception when they became pregnant.
State legislatures in 20 states have considered or are in the process of considering state versions of the EPICCA. At least six states — Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia — have laws or regulations concerning the coverage of birth control. The Maryland legislature recently passed a bill that will go into effect in October, mandating that insurers cover contraceptive prescriptions and services. Another bill recently passed the Connecticut House but the Senate did not consider the bill before adjournment.
American Life League's Brown is urging pro-life citizens to contact both their federal and state elected officials and ask them to oppose any legislation that would mandate insurance coverage for contraceptives.
“Please tell your state lawmakers to ignore the bogus arguments about ‘gender equity’ and ‘fairness,’ and urge them to vote against these proposals,” she said. “You might also want to remind them that many forms of birth control can cause early abortion.”
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Abortion Doctor's Murder Fans Fires of Media Bias DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—In the wake of the sniper murder of abortion docter Barnett Slepian at his suburban Buffalo, N.Y., home Oct. 23, abortion advocates and many outlets of the national media have used the shooting to discredit the pro-life movement and condemn peaceful protests.
One abortion leader, Polly Rothstein, president of the Westchester (N.Y.) Coalition for Legal Abortion, has blamed John Cardinal O'Connor of New York and Dr. James Dobson, the evangelical leader, for Dr. Slepian's death. Deborah Mathis of USA Today hurled accusations at conservative leaders such as Gary Bauer and Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) for Shepard's murder.
Prominent pro-lifers, however, reject the idea that high-profile anti-abortion advocates are responsible for the killing.
William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, blames these media attacks on “full-time, dedicated activists whose work is the defining element in their identity, their status, and their lifestyle.”
The media have come to reflect their views because of an ideological bias and because “this well-organized minority captures the media's attention,” he said.
The most respected monitor of media bias on conservative social issues is the Media Research Center of Alexandria, Va. Its chairman, Brent Bozell, discussed the reporting of the Slepian shooting and the prevailing media bias against the pro-life movement in an interview with the Register.
“It is unquestionable that the media are shameless in using it [the shooting] to discredit the mainstream pro-life movement,” he said. “It really points to the deep, deep, deep disdain for the right-to-life movement in the establishment press.”
Bozell's organization focuses on monitoring broadcast news and talk shows as well as Hollywood entertainment programs. Experts tape and transcribe programs and enter them into computers to be analyzed. It has the largest video archival and data base in the world, having documented 200,000 hours of television air time since 1987.
Although many pro-life, Catholic, and Christian leaders strongly denounced the Slepian murder and other abortion-related violence, network newscasters tarred all life advocates. In a Nov. 2 statement, the Media Research Center reported that “ABC and CBS didn't wither from blaming the pro-life movement for inciting the violence with its rhetoric.”
CBS anchor Dan Rather said the Buffalo doctor “was just the latest abortion provider to be targeted by a violent, sometimes murderous, section of the pro-life movement.” Even worse was the statement by that network's reporter Richard Schlesinger: “Abortion rights activists now believe some leaders of the mainstream anti-abortion movement are inciting supporters on the fringe to violence.”
At ABC, reporter John Miller said, “Activists on the most radical end of the pro-life camp make no apologies for the sniper.” His colleague Bill Redeker added, “Today a Catholic priest defended the provocative mock cemetery marking hundreds of abortions performed in New York state this year.”
Another media observer is Steven Ertelt, who reports on pro-life activities on the Internet. Ertelt commented on the slanted wire service reporting from the Associated Press (AP).
“The AP continues to run the most overtly biased stories I have ever seen the AP run on abortion in the many years I've followed their reporting efforts,” he noted. “They refuse to alter their stories in any way to encompass legitimate pro-life spokespersons.”
In a report issued earlier this year, the Media Research Center suggested how this bias manifests itself. There are five ways:
• Pro-lifers are presented as ideologues, abortionists are not;
• The abortion issue is portrayed as dividing the Republican party, but showing Democrats as solidly pro-abortion;
• Partial-birth abortion coverage is confusing and misleading;
• Pro-life protests and activities go unnoticed; and
• The violence of abortion and the harassment of pro-life supporters is ignored.
Looking at 1,050 news stories in the The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today in 1995-96, 47% of pro-life organizations were labeled “conservative,” while only about 3% of pro-abortion groups were identified as “liberal.” Thus, this survey emphasizes that abortion supporters, rather than being dismissed as ideologues, are presented as simply mainstream Americans.
By focusing their attention on the split over abortion in the Republican party, the media suggest that party is not generally pro-life. By minimizing disagreements over abortion in the Democratic party, there is an impression created that there are no pro-life Democrats. Pro-life supporters are depicted as a minority who are out of touch.
Coverage of the partial-birth abortion debate showed lack of understanding of the issue or, perhaps, an outright effort to distort the truth.
One third of the stories, for example, stressed that such examples of infanticide are “rare.” Among those who have reported this way are NBC's Tom Brokaw and Matt Lauer, and CBS” Dan Rather and Sharyl Attkisson.
While the unusual instances of violence against abortion providers is given wide attention, the harassment and attacks on pro-life supporters outside clinics are often ignored. So, too, is the violence of abortion itself. Bozell said that the only recent network news story he knew of which dealt with this latter topic was related to Bosnia.
While many pro-lifers have expressed concern about the media coverage related to the Slepian murder, such biased reporting has been seen each time an abortionist has been attacked. Consider, for example, the 1993 shooting of Dr. David Gunn in Florida.
The communications director of the National Right to Life Committee at that time, Nancy Myers, reported, that “for two days after the shooting, no national television program quoted a mainstream pro-life spokesperson — not once.”
“In fact,” she wrote in National Right to Life News, “in conversations with me, many alluded to or flat-out acknowledged the fact that they didn't want the real reaction of the Pro-Life Movement.”
Carrie Gordon, a bioethics analyst for the Focus on the Family, understands the bias. “It's scapegoat time,” she said. “Part of this is the persecution we're going to have as Christians, as people of faith.”
Laurel MacLeod of the Concerned Women for America sees the exploitation of the Slepian shooting by abortionists and the media as an act of desperation. She said, “Faced with a loss of credibility, they turn the focus off of themselves and find a ploy to vilify those who make them look bad. This is a perfect example.”
Similar comments were made by Joseph Scheidler, head of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago. Scheidler, who has been found guilty of racketeering violations for his peaceful protests, told the Register, “They can't tolerate the truth. They have to put a big basket over it.”
Pro-life organizations have said they will not be intimidated by the abortionists’ attacks and the media's bias. The Catholic League's Donohue said, “Now is not a time for us to go into retreat simply because the other side is slinging mud.”
Bozell, who is a Catholic, added, “The pro-life movement ought to target the news media with its hundreds of thousands of active supporters. Make a very major demonstration of anger at the media.”
Another useful perspective was provided by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. In a commentary he wrote, “While the murder of Slepian must be deplored, his family gets sympathy because they can be seen.
“But the unborn are part of the same human family and deserve better than being reclassified into something they are not so that ‘abortion snipers’ can pick them off one at a time, while exercising their supposed ‘constitutional right.’”
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Albanian-Serb Tensions Rise as Kosovo Church Appeals for Mutual Trust DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WARSAW, Poland—Few Catholic priests would relish the job of Father Chan Zefi. After studying in Rome, the ethnic Albanian priest returned to his native Kosovo in 1992 as chancellor of its minority Catholic Church.
Today, with Kosovo's apostolic administrator, Bishop Marko Sopi, frequently preoccupied elsewhere, Father Zefi bears the brunt of the day-to-day burden of sustaining Catholic hopes in the strife-torn Yugoslav province.
These hopes received a boost in mid October, when President Slobodan Milosevic bowed to NATO demands, and promised to scale down military activities.
But the practical implications remain uncertain.
While some of Kosovo's 300,000 refugees have now returned home, many uprooted Catholics are still sleeping in Father Zefi's church at Prizren. And with Catholic aid consignments from abroad still being blocked by the Serb police on the grounds that they could be used by Albanian guerrillas, the local Caritas organization is at a loss.
“The situation has improved a bit, but there's still great tension here,” Father Zefi told the Register. “There has to be a political compromise between Serbs and Albanians. The will of Kosovo's inhabitants has to be respected.”
Under the peace deal, reached Oct. 13 by Milosevic and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, the Belgrade government must withdraw at least two-thirds of its 25,000 troops as part of a NATO-monitored ceasefire.
But there are doubts whether the deal will last, and whether Milosevic can be trusted.
The Organization on Security and Co-operation in Europe, which helped broker the peace, says most provisions are being implemented. But Kosovo's locally elected president, Ibrahim Ruganov, insists “significant Serb forces” are still in place. That's also been the conclusion of most independent observers.
Meanwhile, the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) has remained active too.
In early 1998, UCK fighters captured a third of Kosovo in a series of strategic attacks, only to lose it again in a Serb counter-offensive in the summer. Despite the reversal, the UCK is determined to fight on.
In 1989, when the break up of Yugoslavia began, the Belgrade government revoked Kosovo's autonomy and reimposed tight Serb control. In 1996 it promised, but failed, to restore cultural and educational freedoms to ethnic Albanians.
Today, exasperated by repression, many Albanians say they'll settle for nothing less than full independence.
Though Serbs make up just 8% of Kosovo's population of 2.2 million, which is at least 90% ethnic Albanian, the province is seen as the heartland of Serb culture.
Yet Albanians have myths of their own. Some say Europe's 5 million Albanians should be united in a single state, rather than dispersed between Yugoslavia, Albania, Macedonia and Greece, as they are today.
“The Albanian army doesn't accept the pact between Milosevic and Holbrooke, so it's uncertain how the situation will evolve,” said Archbishop Franc Perko of Belgrade. “On one side stand the Albanians who refuse to submit to Serb control. On the other stand the Serbs, who've made [it] clear they will stay in Kosovo at any price.”
Before fighting started in early 1998, Kosovo was home to 63,000 Catholics, formally belonging to the Church's Skopje-Prizren diocese. With that diocese now divided by the new Yugoslav-Macedonia border, there are hopes the Pope will soon upgrade Kosovo to a separate diocese. But that could depend on how the Church weathers the current crisis.
Although most of Kosovo's 23 Catholic parishes have been outside the immediate fighting zone, several more remote communities have been dispersed by Serb forces. By late summer, at least half the province's Catholic minority was reported to have fled abroad.
Not everything is entirely gloomy. International pressure was the only reason the cease-fire deal was struck at all; if such pressure is maintained, the prospects for peace could improve.
One promising sign has been provided by Yugoslavia's predominant Serbian Orthodox Church, whose governing synod has called for non-violent solutions in several conciliatory statements.
In one notable instance, monks at Kosovo's Orthodox Decani monastery condemned “ethnic cleansing,” and even opened an Internet home-page to relay information about the plight of the Serb-controlled area's Albanian villagers.
The Orthodox leader responsible for Kosovo, Bishop Artemije Radosavlejvic of Rasko-Prizren, has warned that Kosovo's Serbs would suffer if Milosevic's “undemocratic policy” continues.
Though once viewed as a hard-line nationalist, Bishop Artemije has continued to criticize the lack of equal rights for ethnic Albanians.
Thomas Bremer, a German expert on Serbian Orthodoxy, sees a striking contrast with the militaristic rhetoric which came out of the Belgrade Patriarchate during the wars in nearby Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“Perhaps they've learned a lesson from the painful experiences of recent years — that the rights of other nations must also be safeguarded,” Bremer told the Register. “Unlike in Croatia and Bosnia, it's clear that power is in Serb hands in Kosovo. They can't pretend Serbs face repression by the local authorities, when the Serbs are the local authorities.”
There are voices of resistance in the Orthodox Church as well. While most Orthodox citizens inhabit the cities, controlled by Kosovo's 10,000-strong paramilitary police, at least one Orthodox convent was forcibly closed this summer by UCK guerrillas, while Yugoslav newspapers showed nuns preparing to defend another with guns.
Meanwhile, with the Belgrade synod divided over ecumenical contacts, the conciliatory Serbian Orthodox attitude hasn't extended to Catholics.
When the Pope paid his second visit to Croatia on Oct. 2-4, he appealed for forgiveness and reconciliation to “reoccupy the place of violence and destruction.”
But Bremer thinks this had little impact on Serb attitudes. The controversial beatification of Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac (1898-1961), the German believes, confirmed the prejudices of Serbs, who still see him, despite evidence to the contrary, as an accomplice in wartime anti-Serb atrocities.
Significantly, Cardinal Stepinac's beatification was supported by Croatia's Jewish minority, but opposed by Serbia's — a sign that the divisions affect both societies, not just their principal Churches.
That has also been the experience of Archbishop Perko of Belgrade, who is pleased that the “more moderate” Serbian Orthodox attitude has made it possible to talk, and is relieved the Kosovo conflict hasn't sparked any large-scale anti-Catholic reaction.
But most working-age Catholics fled Archbishop Perko's archdiocese when the Balkan wars started in 1991, leaving mostly poor and elderly relatives behind. Though the archbishop has called repeatedly for reconciliation and coexistence, his statements have been attacked more often than applauded.
“All the media here are in the service of Serb nationalism — and anything which fails to follow the prevailing propaganda is likely to be attacked,” the archbishop explained. “All religious communities have an obligation to help change mentalities and foster an atmosphere of peace. But this is something which will happen very slowly.”
Last spring, minority Churches were warned that their rights could be curbed under a new religious law being drawn up by the nationalist Radical Party, which provides 15 of 39 ministers in Yugoslavia's Socialist-led coalition government.
Though the law hasn't been tabled yet, Catholic priests and nuns are facing visa and citizenship problems, while Church properties confiscated under communist rule have yet to be returned.
In late October, an international delegation of Church leaders visited Yugoslavia in an attempt to arrange a meeting of religious leaders. But although Serbian Orthodox leaders are ready to meet with Catholics, they won't talk with Albanian Muslims.
Meanwhile, even this limited Orthodox openness could prove unstable. For all the current ecumenical calm, the militant bishops who dominated the headlines in the mid-1990s are still in office. They would quickly rally alongside nationalist forces if NATO resorted to military action in Kosovo.
That's been the basic view of Church leaders abroad, who have warned that a military onslaught will undermine those working for peace within Yugoslavia.
Speaking in mid October, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Secretary for Relations with States in the Vatican Secretariat of State, reiterated the Pope's appeals for a “direct dialogue” between the warring sides, and called for “international humanitarian forces” to help impose a settlement.
Just what that “settlement” might be, could be decided in the coming weeks.
Since the last serious clashes occurred around Komorane on Oct. 18-19, the precarious stand-off has held. But though Western governments have opposed making Kosovo independent, it's clear that only far-reaching concessions will stand any chance of persuading Kosovo's Albanian majority to remain part of Yugoslavia.
Archbishop Perko says he last spoke with Bishop Sopi in mid October and knows the plight of Kosovo's Catholics has now slightly eased.
But he doubts the nationalism, now so deeply ingrained among Serbs and Albanians, will be appeased by brokered deals — especially when every broken cease-fire gives hard-liners the initiative on both sides.
“Milosevic has his own way of acting. When international pressure is exerted, he says yes: but if he can find a better way, he then takes that instead,” the archbishop said. “We must hope the Albanians will bow to international demands for dialogue too. But in the meantime, we'll have to cope with the Balkan situation somehow, and with the unlikelihood of any stable peace for the next 10-20 years.”
Back at his Prizren church, Father Zefi is more hopeful. With relations now tense even among ordinary citizens, he points out, appeals for coexistence sound unconvincing.
But the Catholic Church will go on appealing for Serbs and Albanians to trust each other, and stay at their homes rather than trying to flee.
“We are determined to be optimistic — but in a realistic, objective way,” Father Zefi told the Register. “It's up to Rugova and the politicians around him to determine whether we're to seek autonomy or independence. The Catholic Church will be glad with any outcome [in] accord with the rights and wishes of Kosovo's people.”
Jonathan Luxmoore writes from Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Prompting Prayer, Alleged Apparitions Of Our Lady in Georgia Brought Grace DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:BBC News called it “America's ‘last chance’ to hear the Virgin Mary.” Readers could have been forgiven for thinking that the news service was announcing the close of a Broadway musical, instead of the final curtain on an event of more sobering significance: the culmination of America's longest running Marian “event” to date — the purported Marian apparitions in Conyers, Georgia.
More than 100,000 pilgrims, some coming from as far away as Mexico and Haiti, converged on the 90-acre farm in north Georgia's Rockdale County October 13 to hear Nancy Fowler, a 47-year-old former nurse and mother of two sons, deliver what she claimed would be the last of seven years of public messages she would receive from the Virgin Mary “for the Americas.”
This, despite the fact that the attitude of the Atlanta archdiocese to the “apparitions” is decidedly cool, and that two episcopal administrations have forbidden priests to organize pilgrimages there or celebrate the sacraments at the site.
Slipping into what one medical expert who has examined her terms a “deep sleep that is wide awake,” Fowler spoke haltingly through loudspeakers to the hushed crowds, urging them to “live your life in full union with God,” to “pray against the evils of this day,” and to shun materialism. Her remarks were simultaneously translated into Spanish for the large numbers of Mexican and Latin American pilgrims who had chartered buses to this rural site 35 miles east of Atlanta.
“Today Our Lady has come for the last time in this way,” Fowler said. “We will not be permitted to see Our Lady again in this way until we are in heaven. She reassured me continuously that she remains with me, and you can be reassured that she remains with each of you.”
(According to a Reuters report, Fowler indicated that the length of the last message made it impossible to deliver in its entirety, and that the complete text will be posted on the internet in the near future.)
The unassuming housewife, who shuns interviews, began claiming daily visits from Jesus and Mary as early as 1987. By the late 1980s, convinced that she was called to “bear witness” to Jesus as “the living Son of God,” and to Mary under the title “Our Loving Mother,” she went public with monthly messages at her farm house. After October 1994, with beleaguered county authorities threatening to declare the site a public nuisance and restrict access, Fowler announced that Mary would confine herself to an annual address on Oct.13.
No reason was given for the end of Fowler's public declarations. She continues to claim daily private visions. She contends that Our Lady wishes a shrine to be built at Conyers, but, given the archdiocesan attitude toward her visions, there's not much chance of that. Then, there are reports that the “visionary” plans to move to Florida within weeks and that she has already transferred title to the farm to a nonprofit group called “Our Loving Mother's Children Inc.”
Coincidentally, a new Catholic church has been established for the greater Atlanta area within a mile of the Fowler farm, a new Byzantine-rite parish called Mother of God Catholic Church.)
What is clear is that the denouement of the monthly events at the Fowler farm that began on Oct. 13, 1990, a date which coincides with the appearance of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, has not come any too soon for county authorities, hard pressed to meet the health and traffic demands of the tens of thousands who have descended on the rural district of 60,000. At its height in the early 1990s, up to 80,000 people gathered off a rural road each month to hear Fowler.
Early on, after the visionary told followers that Jesus had blessed a well on her property, health officials found that the water tested positive for coliform bacteria and demanded that she post a warning sign. While there were reports of physical healings, local medical teams were also kept busy treating pilgrims for exposure and other emergencies.
Church officials are breathing what can only be called a collective sigh of relief.
Msgr. Peter Dora, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, put it simply. When asked what he hoped would happen now that Conyers is folding its tents, he replied, “I hope it will become a fond memory.”
The archdiocese has been skeptical from the start.
“The Conyers situation amounts to a claim of private revelation by an individual, and the Church sees it as nothing more than that,” Msgr. Dora told the Register. “In all such claims, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim and the Church must maintain a skeptical posture.”
While the archdiocese, said Msgr. Dora, had been inundated with hundreds of allegedly miraculous photographs, testimonies of rosaries turned to gold, and other mystical phenomena, along with reports from doctors and other medical experts “making claims about [Fowler's] state of mind,” the diocese decided, early on, that “there was nothing here that prompted us to feel that we should launch a formal investigation of any kind.”
The vicar general did volunteer that he found the alleged messages “verbose” and banal, “lacking the transcendent quality one would expect.”
The various scientific and medical tests that were performed on Fowler in 1993 and 1994 under the direction of Prof. Richard Castanon, a neurological specialist at the Catholic University of Bolivia, and which, according to Castanon, ruled out a psychiatric or physiological cause for the visions, were [Fowler's] “initiative,” said Msgr. Dora. “The Church was not involved at all.”
However, the archdiocese did have “cordial relations” with the visionary.
According to Msgr. Dora, Archbishop John Donoghue, Atlanta's current ordinary, and the former archbishop, James Lyke, met with Fowler over the years and found her “always respectful, always willing to follow the bishop's direction.”
“She understood that she was acting as a private individual, and that she did not speak for the Church in any way,” said Msgr. Dora.
But if Church officials were careful in their dealings with Fowler, they moved quickly to thwart the danger that a spontaneous ersatz “parish” would be created by pilgrims in the fields of Conyers.
Fowler had barely begun to attract crowds when then Archbishop Lyke issued a forceful statement on Conyers in the Sept. 19, 1991, issue of the Georgia Bulletin, the archdiocese of Atlanta's weekly bulletin.
Noting that “the Catholic Church recognizes the phenomenon known as … apparitions,” Archbishop Lyke went on urge “those Catholics who feel drawn by these [Conyers] events … to remember that the sacramental life of the parish must remain the central activity for the worshiping faithful.”
He then went on to forbid priests to lead pilgrimages to the site or promote the Conyers phenomenon from the pulpit. Further, he stipulated that Masses were not to be said there, nor confessions heard at the Conyers farm, and that the nearby Cistercian Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit was not to become a de facto center for pilgrims visiting the site. He even ordered the monks not to add Masses, or otherwise change their mon-astic schedule to meet the pilgrims' needs. Archbishop Lyke wrote a letter to other U.S. bishops a year later, urging them to dissuade their clergy from leading pilgrimages to Conyers. The present archbishop reiterated the directives in 1994.
Nevertheless, much of the pastoral burden of the Conyers phenomenon fell, by default, on the contemplative monks of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit, located only 13 miles from the Fowler farm.
The monastery, established in 1944, and one of 16 Cistercian or Trappist houses in the United States, is a foundation of Our Lady of Gethsemane in Louisville, Ky., made famous by Thomas Merton. The Georgia monastery boasts 41 professed monks in addition to a number of postulants and observers.
“The bishop didn't want some Medjugorje happening out here,” Father Clarence Viggers, the community's former cellarer, or business manager, told the Register. “You know, priests out in the fields hearing confessions, that sort of thing.” (He was referring to the purported visions of Mary, ongoing since 1981, in a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which decades of pilgrimage have turned into a kind of Marianopolis, despite the lack of Church approval.)
But because of the relative scarcity of churches nearby, if pilgrims wanted to go to Mass, “they had to come to us,” said Father Viggers.
When asked for an assessment of Conyers, Father Viggers, not surprisingly, focused less on Fowler's purported messages than on what he saw happening to pilgrims.
“The messages weren't anything special.” “People didn't have to travel hundreds of miles to be told to love God and obey the commandments.”
What impressed him were the changes he saw in people's lives.
“When that many people come together to pray and to manifest their faith and confidence in Mary, grace is present, and miracles do happen.” It's not Nancy Fowler, or a farm in Georgia, he said, “but the simple grace of prayer.”
Official skepticism about the purported phenomena coupled with cautious appreciation for the faith they engender — it's become a common feature of official Church attitudes toward the hundreds of alleged apparitions under investigation at the close of what has, with justice, been called “the century of Mary.”
According to statistics from the University of Dayton's Marian Library, the world's largest Mariological research institute, there have been 386 documented cases of Marian apparitions in the 20th century. In 79 of those cases, the Church has made a “negative” determination — that there is no basis for believing that a supernatural event occurred. In only eight instances this century have Church officials concluded that there are reasonable grounds for believing in the supernatural claims of a given apparition: Fatima, Portugal (1917), Beauraing, Belgium (1932), Banneux, Belgium (1933), Syracuse, Italy (1953), Zeitoun, Egypt (1968), Akita, Japan (1973), Betania, Venezuela (1976), and, according to some sources, Manila, Philippines (1986).
Even in those approved events, it must be stressed, not everything associated with the visionary is necessarily included in the Church's endorsement — Fatima seer Sister Lucy's post-1917 statements, for example, or the Akita seer's grim prophecies.
In the vast majority of instances — 299 out of 386 — the Church has rendered no final verdict on whether the supernatural character of a particular apparition can be established.
Clearly, most Marian events will, and probably always have fallen into that difficult middle category which the University of Dayton listing calls “no decision.”
Why?
For one thing, despite today's ease of travel and its vast curiosity-seeking clientele, most apparitions, historically, have been local affairs with a largely local import. In many cases, they're more the object of a conference with a prudent confessor than a public vocation. Few purported visionary “events” at any time will merit the international scrutiny of a Lourdes or Fatima. This is one of the reasons the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF's) 1977 protocol on apparitions stipulates that the discernment process of any alleged “event” begin with the local bishop, and be referred to a broader Church consensus only if circumstances warrant it.
Historically, it's not always possible for Church authorities to determine whether or not a particular event has a supernatural origin or character. The originating event or inspiration may be too far back in the past. The number of alleged visionaries and their purported messages may make a realistic assessment of their claims improbable.
The silent visions that inspired Ireland's national Marian shrine at Knock, for example, have never been formally approved by the country's bishops; nevertheless, the site is recognized as a place of Marian pilgrimage.
One of the most important reasons, of course, for the Church's prudence is that private revelations, even if genuine, play only a very limited role in the life of the Church.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it: “Throughout the ages, there have been so-called ‘private’ revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith.” Their role, says the Catechism, is not to supplement Christ's definitive Revelation of himself in the Scriptures or the Tradition of the Church, “but to help [us] live more fully by it in a certain period of history” (CCC, 67).
In that sense, authentic visions and locutions can play a role in the life of a Catholic similar to that of the writings of the saints or to other legitimate sources of inspiration: They call us to greater fidelity to Christ or to the demands of the Gospel in the context of a certain time and place. At most, they're meant to function as aids to faith, not the subject of it.
Apparitions are, as Marian theologian and Lourdes historian Father Rene Laurentin once wrote, “modest sign-posts,” always pointing to a reality beyond themselves.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, CDF prefect, put it this way in a 1985 interview with Italian journalist Vittorio Messori: “No apparition is indispensable to faith. Revelation ceased with Jesus Christ. He alone is Revelation. But this does not stop God speaking at times through simple people and through extraordinary signs which point to the shortcomings of our prevailing rationalistic culture.”
In the last analysis, Cardinal Ratzinger concludes, what is important about apparitions is not their authenticity in the strictly scientific sense, but the “spiritual fruits” they produce in “the life of the Christian people…. In the vitality and orthodoxy of the religious life that develops from them.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Chilean Bishops Offer Voice Of Calm in Pinochet Fracas DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet will be released from his imprisonment in London. For many in Chile, however, the legal and political battle that sparked his arrest has reopened the wounds of the past — wounds the Catholic Church in the country has been painstakingly trying to heal.
Pinochet led the military coup that ousted Socialist president Salvador Allende Sept. 11, 1973. He ruled Chile until 1990, when a referendum deposed him, opening the way to democracy. Pinochet's 17-year legacy is checkered; while he led Chile to a level of economic development far surpassing that of any other Latin American nation, he also left a dark history of human rights abuses, including the killings or disappearances of 1,198 men, women, and even some children.
Pinochet was appointed senator for life early this year, in time to see the Senate eliminate the national holiday commemorating the anniversary of his 1973 coup, and institute a new “Day of Reconciliation,” to be celebrated the first Monday of September. Hated by many as a murderer, defended by others as Chile's savior, Pinochet was a bone of contention stuck in the throat of Chilean society.
Yet a slow path to reconciliation was being built, thanks to a gradual and multilateral pastoral campaign initiated by the now retired archbishop of Santiago, Juan Francisco Fresno, and continued by his successors, Carlos Cardinal Oviedo and Francisco Javier Errazuriz, the current archbishop of Santiago, who was installed this May.
The 82-year-old Pinochet, in failing health and wishing to make a last trip to Europe, scheduled a minor surgical procedure in England — a land he once described as “his favorite country in the world.” He also had planned to visit France. But France denied Pinochet a visa, and the Chilean Foreign Office warned him that he could face “unpleasant circumstances” in London. The general, however, trusted in his diplomatic immunity — even more, he trusted in the friends and contacts he had made in England, Chile's largest trading partner and beneficiaries of Pinochet's help during the Falklands War with Argentina in 1982.
Yet none of those friends and contacts were able to stop Pinochet's arrest on the order of a British court. The action was taken at the request of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who wished to prosecute Pinochet in Spain for the murder of several Spanish citizens, including a Catholic priest.
Pinochet's arrest met with the approval of much of the international community. Yet the action deeply divided Chile, where the former dictator still enjoys the support of 31% of the population, and threatened the consolidation of the country's 9-year-old democracy. Immediately, the streets of Santiago and other key cities filled with demonstrators both for and against the general. Some confrontations turned violent; over the course of a week, 215 protesters were arrested, and 37 persons were injured, including several policemen.
The street demonstrations, however, were only the external sign of a more dangerous tension within the system. The current government, a coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialists, was deeply divided on the issue. Chile's Chancellor Jose Miguel Insulza, a socialist exiled during Pinochet's rule, found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place; the military pressed him to uphold Pinochet's diplomatic immunity in England, while his own party demanded that he allow British justice to proceed. Meanwhile, members of the conservative, pro-Pinochet majority in Congress refused to conduct government business until the situation was resolved, thus paralyzing the legislature.
Amid the fierce mutual accusations of the political leadership, the press turned to Archbishop Errazuriz, who has proposed several initiatives to foster reconciliation since he took charge of the archdiocese a few months ago, for an official statement on behalf of the Church.
The archbishop was acutely aware that the slightest perception of partisan-ship on his part — and therefore on the part of the Church — could severely injure the Church's efforts for reconciliation in the country. In his statement, the archbishop deeply regretted the manner in which Pinochet, “an ailing 82-year-old man,” was arrested. “When a man of that age goes to a clinic looking to recover from a health problem, it is not correct to arrest him at midnight, isolating him from his wife, his doctors, and his ambassador,” the archbishop said. On the other hand, he suggested that “had a proper judicial process (concerning the dictator's alleged crimes) been held in Chile, delivering the proper justice and punishment which so many people expected, we would not be going through this dramatic situation.”
The archbishop also insisted that “this is now a judicial process that Chileans should follow peaceably, avoiding violence.” Yet many Chileans did not listen. Demonstrations in front of the Judiciary Building, the Congress, and the embassies of Spain and of England multiplied, while verbal and physical assaults drove the country back to the first confrontational years that followed the fall of military rule.
Bishop Sergio Contreras of Temuco appealed to all factions to stop their confrontations and wait for the final decision of the British court. Bishop Contreras, president of the Chilean Bishops' Conference during Pinochet's rule and a strong critic of the dictator's human rights record, said that the British intervention was “imprudent,” since “it never took in account the consequences it could have in the country.”
“The [arrest of Pinochet] interrupts and injures the slow but solid process toward reconciliation on which Chilean society has embarked,” the bishop said. “[T]he acts of violence we Chileans have seen in these days demonstrate the level of emotion which exists regarding the past,” he added.
On Oct. 25, the Chilean Bishops' Conference called for an emergency meeting to issue an official statement. After a day-long meeting, the bishops issued a document in which they called on Chileans to “recover peace and common sense,” in the face of this situation. “The path to national reconciliation has been blocked. We call all Chileans to peace and responsibility, and ask all concerned not to foster animosity, but rather to show a noble spirit of peace and forgiveness,” the bishops added.
The document also recognized that there are still “painful open wounds” as a consequence of the human rights violations which took place during military rule, but asked that Chileans “contribute to the creation of a climate, in which it is possible to continue the process of consolidating democracy and a respect for human rights.”
The document also offered a first attempt at a diplomatic solution to the crisis. “Given the legal ambiguities surrounding the case, as well as the precarious health and advanced age of Senator Augusto Pinochet, we believe that humanitarian considerations should prevail.” Reliable sources state that, from that moment, the Chilean government, while continuing its public demands for respect of Pinochet's diplomatic immunity, shifted the focus of its private lobbying to humanitarian considerations.
On Oct. 28, the British High Court ruled that Pinochet had the right to diplomatic immunity, but left an appeal by the Spanish judiciary up to the House of Lords, which is expected to decide the matter in two to four weeks. According to analysts, the House of Lords has no great desire to damage British relations with a national army which continues to purchase $800 million worth of British arms per year, thanks to Pinochet. With that in mind, Pinochet can probably expect to be home for Christmas.
While Pinochet's supporters claim that the British court decision “puts an end to the machinations of the European socialists,” his detractors hope that the episode will open up the possibility of trying the general in Chile. The return of Pinochet then will have done nothing to heal the wounds in Chilean society opened by his arrest. As Bishop Javier Prado, secretary general of the Chilean Episcopate, put it, “Perhaps the judge [Baltasar Garzon] was motivated by good intentions, but he failed to take into account the problems he would create in this country. … Nothing [regarding the status of Pinochet] has changed after this ordeal, except that a whole nation is left divided, trapped in a nowin situation.”
Alejandro Bermudez is the Register's Latin America correspondent.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dilemma of the Auschwitz Crosses DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Archbishop Henryk Muszynski
Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno is the Polish Church's foremost authority on Christian-Jewish ties. As founder-chairman of the Polish Church's Commission for Dialogue with Judaism, a position he held until 1994, Archbishop Muszynski is a veteran of Catholic-Jewish debates and has helped calm tensions over the stationing of crosses at the former Auschwitz concentration camp. He spoke recently with the Register's Eastern Europe correspondent, Jonathan Luxmoore, at his Gniezno residence.
Jonathan Luxmoore: Late last summer, the council of Poland's Bishops Conference condemned the “arbitrary stationing of crosses” at Auschwitz's Gravel Pit, but defended the presence of an existing cross, used at the Pope's 1979 Auschwitz Mass. Many Jews have welcomed this gesture of compromise. But Polish nationalists occupying the site have vowed to continue their “Action Crosses.” How do you interpret these reactions?
Archbishop Muszynski:
Apart from a few extremist voices, the Jewish and Christian reactions have generally been positive. I received a long letter commending the statement from the director of Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum, Miles Lehrman. I also spoke about it with France's chief rabbi, and was told the International Council of Christians and Jews had received many messages praising the statement.
But you can't expect such an important statement to be accepted by everyone. Its rejection by those you mentioned has been sad and unpleasant — especially since they declare themselves Church members. But we should draw a sharp distinction between the well-intentioned people who were maneuvered into this, and those who have actually inspired it by exploiting the symbolism of the cross.
For many, the statement has provided an opportunity for deep reflection. The Church isn't just an organization. It's a living organism, the Body of Christ. And the particular responsibility of bishops in this organism is to teach in Christ's name.
The statement follows a mid-August homily by Bishop Tadeusz Rakoczy of Bielsko-Zywiec, who heads the diocese where Auschwitz is situated, deploring “activities which have nothing in common with the cross, but are carried out in its name.” What did you hope to achieve with this more comprehensive condemnation?
The main aim was to support Bishop Rakoczy, by showing the bishops were united and highlighting the political character of the so-called Action Crosses. We hope it will help people of good will see how their trust has been exploited, and how this is undermining the good of the Church, of Poland, and of the Jewish nation. We cannot allow the cross to be used instrumentally. The cross is a symbol of unity, peace, reconciliation, and love. Everything contrary to this should be rejected.
Who has an interest in this conflict, and in damaging the image of Poland and the Catholic Church in the West? Polish commentators have cast a suspicious eye at virtually everyone, from former communist agents to the Russian government.
There's no lack of radical elements on both sides — indeed, the ones you mention might well see an interest in provoking disputes. Poles still nurse vivid memories of their past struggles for the cross, under Russian and German occupation, as well as under communism. Most aren't aware that Jews attach a very different meaning to it. Instead, they see any opposition to the cross as opposition to Christianity itself. So pressure for the removal of crosses causes an emotional reaction. It's like a wildfire — very easy to ignite. And it makes the cross an easy source of conflict.
Yet Jewish opinions are divided over the presence of a cross at Auschwitz. Some say they'd see any cross as a profanation; others say they'd have no objection to a memorial stone with a cross engraved on it.
There's an important difference between the cross already standing on the Gravel Pit and all those additional crosses. This is a place where 152 Poles were shot. And when the original cross was placed on their mass grave, it had some justification and was accepted in some Jewish circles — large crosses are a normal feature at the many mass graves in Poland. But the other crosses shouldn't be there. Once a cross is placed on a grave, there's no need to place any more. Local people believe the Gravel Pit lies outside the concentration camp. This may be so, topo-graphically speaking. But in reality the area is intimately connected with it. We have to learn to value each other in all our specificity and contrasting sensibilities. There is no Christianity without the cross.
Does the cross have to be so dominant? The original cross was set up in 1989, when Jews were demanding closure of a Carmelite convent on the same spot. It's 26 feet high, twice the size of the imposing folk crosses which decorate the Polish countryside. Couldn't it be smaller?
Many Jews see the cross as a provocation. We should recognize this — if we want others to respect our feelings, then we must also respect theirs. I thought we were close to an understanding, but this has moved further away. We now need to allow emotions to calm, tidy the place up, and start looking for a mutually acceptable solution.
In short, you don't rule out the possibility that the “Papal Cross” will have to be removed.
We didn't use the term Papal Cross in our statement. It is the Pope's cross, in the sense that it was used at a Papal Mass. But as some Polish Protestants have pointed out, there is in reality only one cross — the cross of Christ. To label it a “Papal Cross” means dragging yet another figure into the dispute, and causing bad associations. As for the future of this cross, the Polish bishops were quite clear. “We express the conviction,” they noted in their statement, “that it will stay in its place.” At this stage, I wouldn't want to risk causing anger by making any suggestions. A lot of people are attached to this cross and are demanding guarantees for the future.
Preaching at Poland's Zakopane resort on June 6, 1997, under the cross on the summit of Mount Gierwont, the Pope said the cross reminded Poles of their “Christian dignity and national identity.” “Defend the cross,” he urged Catholics; “do not offend God's name in your hearts, in family or social life.” Defenders of the Auschwitz cross have cited this as a justification.
As the Pope's countrymen, we should do everything to spare him further problems and sufferings. The Poles frequently declare their love for the Pope. Well, they should express this love by finding a solution to this conflict in the spirit of his teachings, thus relieving him of part of the burden he carries for all the Church.
The Pope did say “defend the cross.” And he meant it in a real sense — we shouldn't downplay his words. But they must be understood in context. Under Communist rule, the cross was attacked as a symbol of Christianity. Against this background, the Pope wasn't talking about a single cross, but about the wholeness of Christianity. He showed how our life should be shaped by love, how we should never desecrate the cross. The cross should be defended with everything it symbolizes at every moment, in every place and every situation.
The latest dispute has spurred new calls for a final settlement of the status of Auschwitz. Poland's chief rabbi, Menachem Joskowicz, has proposed that the camp be declared an “extraterritorial entity” under the jurisdiction of countries which lost citizens there. Wouldn't this help deflect responsibility from Poland?
I don't think many Jews would subscribe to this suggestion. Just imagine what the consequences might be — for example, for the status of Jerusalem. The Poles fought for decades to assert their freedom and sovereignty. So we could expect vigorous reactions against such an idea, both here and among American Poles.
The status of Auschwitz has many angles — religious, social, political. But Poland's independence is a matter for the governing authorities. There are many ways of guaranteeing rights, and some international presence might certainly help. But the request for extraterritoriality goes too far. I think we should guarantee the same access to Jews as we are seeking for Poles at the wartime massacre sites of Katyn, Kharkhov, and Miednoye in Russia and Ukraine. The religious dimension is more complex at Auschwitz, and the symbolism is different. But a solution should enable Jews to commemorate their dead according to their traditions.
Thanks to my own contacts with Jews, I understand these traditions more fully. But to people who have no contact with Jews in everyday life, they remain alien. Since we worship the same God, many assume, we must commemorate our dead in the same way. This is a great oversimplification.
Up to 80% of all Jews can point to Polish family connections, dating from when Poland was the world's foremost Jewish homeland. But many are also bitter about the popular anti-Semitism which grew up here and still persists. In 1991, the Polish Bishops Conference condemned anti-Semitism in a pastoral letter. But doesn't the Auschwitz conflict threaten to reverse the progress achieved in combating prejudices?
The process has moved ahead significantly. It can't be judged by one particular conflict, caused by particular people at one particular moment. There's still a lot to do. But I see progress, above all, among young people, who are totally open, as well as in Church teaching and catechesis. There's great interest in Jewish religion and history, and the awareness is slowly taking root that Poland's thousand-year Jewish heritage is our common one.
The young are free of the prejudices encountered among older people. And it's very important that young visiting Israelis have a chance to exchange views and experiences with their Polish counterparts. This is the most effective way to fight stereotypes.
But we need this to be a mutual process. There are stereotypes on the Jewish side too — especially that all Poles are anti-Semitic. When terms like “Polish concentration camps” are used in the Western media, they deeply offend the Polish people. Many visiting Jewish friends have been shocked to find their impressions were so removed from reality.
Yet critics of the Polish Church say things aren't so simple. Although the bishops have reiterated Vatican II's general condemnation of anti-Semitism, they argue, they haven't done enough to discredit the elements which make up Polish anti-Semitism. Some Church leaders have even used anti-Jewish stereotypes as a weapon against their opponents.
All forms of anti-Semitism must be condemned as sins — I don't question this in any way. But the term “Polish anti-Semitism” poses a problem. To admit that such a thing exists, means to confirm a stereotype. The notion that a specific type of anti-Semitism prevails here has often been misused — indeed, some people have been persuaded that “Polish anti-Semitism” is the worst form of all. In their letter, the bishops tried to define the anti-Semitism on which our sorrow and remorse should be fixed. We have to confess our guilt — but we can't confess to everything that's been attributed to us.
You have made lifelong efforts to understand Jewish culture from a Christian standpoint and build personal bonds between the communities. Do you feel isolated among other Catholics?
My problem lies in the fact that I had the occasion to encounter the Jewish mentality — first through Bible studies and later through personal contacts. I see many things somewhat differently. Here in Poland, where there are hardly any Jews, I find myself explaining the Jewish perspective. But in Jewish milieus abroad, I present the perspectives of Catholics. Even these vary considerably. For many Poles, the cross is a symbol of justice. Our 19th-century uprisings began in its name. So did the movement for freedom in modern times. Yet this would seem strange to Christians in other parts of the world.
So my role is a paradoxical one. Bishops and priests often ask me about specific issues, and they may not always agree with me. But although I often encounter some lack of understanding, I don't sense any enmity or resentment.
The latest conflict over the Auschwitz Crosses has again focused attention on Catholic-Jewish relations — on what's been achieved, and what remains undone. Could the conflict bring positive results by forcing a meeting of minds?
One thing which strikes me is that everything which happens at Auschwitz gives birth to such pain and suffering. The conflict over the Carmelite convent generated acrimony for years. Yet when the sisters moved out, the protests ceased, and they were still able to continue praying in Christian fulfillment. The only difference was that they had moved a few hundred meters further away. We learned a lot from this — to be much more careful in what we do, and to remember that Jewish sensitivities are different.
If Jews have learned something about Christian sensitivities too, we can learn to love each other more mutually. This is what we are both called to, even if not in the same way. People died the same death, in the same land, persecuted by the same ideology. It isn't a question of the quality of that death, or even of its quantity. The only real problem concerns our understanding that Jews were sentenced and had to die. The Poles, by contrast, could survive as Untermenschen, inferior beings. But the Jews were denied human status altogether.
Yet the competition of suffering which occurs here is incomprehensible to outsiders. For so many years, we were on the same side as victims, faced by the same oppressors. Perhaps the positive good which has emerged from this painful experience will create a basis for dialogue with the passage of time.
The Pope has made Christian anti-Semitism part of his pre-millennium theme of repentance and atonement. Can the Polish Church contribute something to this process of self-questioning and self-improvement?
The Polish Church can contribute through its particular experience of the Holocaust, the Shoah. For us, the Holocaust isn't an abstraction; it's a living reality whose consequences we still carry within us. The German concentration camps were situated on Polish territory. Yet it was only in Poland that sheltering Jews carried a mandatory death penalty. It required great heroism here. Of course, some people showed their sinfulness and weakness by collaborating. But our task now is to show where the border lies between where we are truly guilty and where we are merely accused.
— Jonathan Luxmoore
Archbishop Henryk Muszynski
Personal: Born 1933, in Koscierzyna, Poland. Ordained in 1957; elevated to an auxiliary bishopric of Chelm in 1985. Named Bishop of Wloclawek in 1987; appointed metropolitan of Gniezno, Poland's oldest see, in 1992. Archbishop Muszynski has been vice president of Poland's Catholic Bishops Conference since 1994, as well as heading its Commission for Catholic Teaching.
Accomplishments: Work at the Papal and Franciscan Bible institutes in Jerusalem, and at the Institute of Qumranic Studies in Heidelberg, Germany. Founding director of the Polish Church's Commission on Dialogue with Judaism up to 1994.
----- EXCERPT: Will the controversy upend Christian-Jewish relations in Poland? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Bishops May Pose a Pro-Life Challenge to U.S. Faithful DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops plan to issue a pro-life challenge to Catholics in this country, as well as release statements on disabilities and justice in a Washington meeting Nov. 16-19.
They will elect a new president and vice president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States. Catholic Conference (USCC), in addition to several committee chairmen, since the three-year terms of Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland and Bishop Joseph Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston expire at the meeting. They will also elect several committee chairmen, in a meeting with a crowded agenda.
Perhaps most importantly, they will vote on proposals that would fundamentally restructure the two organizations in what some consider the bishops' “taking back” the NCCB and USCC from the committees that the bishops have set up to handle various aspects of their work.
The bishops' pro-life document, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, calls on Catholics in the U.S., “especially those in positions of leadership — whether cultural, economic, or political — to recover their identity as followers of Christ and to be leaders in the renewal of American respect for the sanctity of life.”
The document has raised questions about whether bishops will publicly admonish particular Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights. Such moves are the correct pastoral response in many Catholics' minds, but others worry that pro-abortion politicians would use an admonition from the bishops to portray themselves as champions of the people and victims of a powerful Church.
The failure of the U.S. Senate to overturn President Clinton's veto of the ban on partial birth abortions has perhaps frustrated the bishops and they want to try a new approach.
The second document that the bishops are slated to finalize is titled Welcome and Justice for People with Disabilities. It is a 12-paragraph statement about the rights of the disabled and the Church's commitment to them, prepared by the Committee on Pastoral Practices.
The third document, a 3,000-word statement called Everyday Christianity: To Hunger and Thirst for Justice, challenges Catholics to meet “the demands of discipleship in the pursuit of justice and peace in everyday activity.”
“Catholics are called by God to protect human life, to promote human dignity, to defend the poor, and to seek the common good,” reads the document, which three committees of bishops drew up. “This social mission of the Church belongs to all of us. It is an essential part of what it is to be a believer.” More than 30 years after Vatican II, the bishops are trying to focus on one of its most central messages: the universal call to holiness and to participation in the mission of Christ.
The bishops will ask Catholics across the United States to sign a “Jubilee Pledge for Charity, Justice, and Peace,” which is an appendix to the statement, according to Catholic News Service. Signers will pledge to learn more about Catholic social teaching, pray for justice and peace, live justly in all aspects of daily life, give generously, reach out across boundaries that divide society, advocate policies that promote life, dignity, and justice, and encourage others to do the same.
On the issue of restructuring the NCCB/USCC, the bishops agreed in June 1997 to combine the two organizations into one, which they will call the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Beyond simply a name change, however, the bishops are now considering transferring much authority from committees to regional meetings of bishops, as a way of carrying out the USCCB's mission.
What this means for the average Catholic in the pew remains to be seen, but some committees and staffers within the NCCB/USCC probably will see their influence recede. The policies that shaped the two organizations in 1967 were designed to broaden participation in the activities of the bishops. The current reorganization is not meant to discontinue the participation of others, but to establish a clearer basis for the bishops to act together as a conference of bishops.
The agenda also includes discussion of — but not a vote on — Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, the Committee on Education's proposed pastoral plan on adult faith formation.
The bishops will also consider the draft document that Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua's commission has promulgated concerning U.S. implementation of Pope John Paul II's 1990 document on Catholic universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The most criticized aspect of the Pope's document, based on Canon 812 of the Code of Canon Law, calls for theologians at Catholic universities to receive their mandates to teach from the competent Church authority, which is usually the local bishop.
Following up on a 1996 Vatican instruction, the bishops also plan to set tighter standards and procedures for reviewing applicants for the priesthood or religious life who have left or been dismissed from another seminary or religious order. (William Murray)
Further coverage of the bishops' agenda in next week's issue will include transferring observance of Ascension to Sunday, norms for clerical garb, and engagement ceremonies.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Ten Commandments are ‘Hot Right Now’
As evidence, it listed the current very public debate over the 7th and 9th commandments (6th and 8th in the Catholic numbering): adultery, in the Oval Office, no less; and perjury, by the president, no less.
But also, “legislators and legions of social activists are fighting over whether it's legal to post this particular top 10 list anywhere in the public square,” it said, referring to the Ten Commandments Defense Act in Congress.
And now, radio superstar Laura Schlessinger has written a book titled The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life, with her rabbi, Stewart Vogel.
Dr. Laura, who dispenses advice to record nationwide audiences, finds in the commandments a distillation of “real life,” said the report. Her co-author, Rabbi Vogel, agrees.
“Without a God … you end up with a subjective morality. There's no way around that,” said the rabbi, who leads Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, Calif. “To believe in God is to believe that human beings are not mere accidents of nature. … Without God, there is no objective meaning to life and there is no objective morality. I don't want to live in a world where right and wrong are subjective.”
“One thing leads to another,” he said. “So people commit adultery and then they have to lie to cover it up. So No. 7 leads straight to No. 9. … And when people start lying, they are really setting themselves up as idols. So we're back to the issue of God. People are saying that they get to set up their own standards for what is right and wrong and it doesn't matter what happens to others. They put themselves in the place of God.”
Y2K: The Final End or a New Beginning?
But other Christians focus on the “Y2K” — year 2000 — bug that they say will cripple society as computers programmed to count years by their last two digits fail to make the leap from “99” to “00” and shut down. “I'm hearing everything from end-of-the-world predictions to head-in-the-sand denial,” Lawrence Roberge, of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, who has been studying the predictions, told a computer news service, wired news.
One vision of the future was offered by evangelical Rev. Billy McCormack: “President Clinton will declare a state of emergency. He will invoke executive power beyond our wildest imagination. He will become our very first dictator. He will seize control over utilities and industry. He will federalize the National Guard. It will ration food, gasoline, etc. Your money will be declared illegal …” the service quoted from his essay, which recommended stockpiling food, water, clothing, and ammunition.
Kate Allen, of Atlanta's Joseph Project 2000, also sees trouble ahead; but her group also sees evangelizing opportunities. “We feel that Christians need to be prepared to minister to the needs of the people both in a physical sense as well as the spiritual sense,” she told the news service.
“We think it's an opportunity disguised as a problem. When people get into a tight spot, they start looking to the Lord as a source of light … If the Christian is not prepared, when the problem arises they'll be in just as much turmoil as the non-believer.”
J.P. McFadden, Defender of Life, Eulogized
“Jim McFadden did not build skyscrapers or write his name in Broadway neon. He didn't run City Hall or preside over a corporate empire. … He was a director of National Review magazine, editor of a scholarly quarterly titled Human Life Review, and editor and writer of a blazing little newsletter called catholic eye.
“Most of all, he was a rock of a man who served God, family, and country. He devoted most of his working life to protecting human life — even as he clung to it by one flimsy thread after another.”
Kerrison briefly remembered the résumé of the man who in death drew so many to his funeral. McFadden was a reporter in Pennsylvania, a military intelligence officer in Europe, a “lowly assistant in the circulation department” of National Review who rose to associate publisher, husband to Faith Abbot, and father with her of five children.
Said Kerrison, “The U.S. Supreme Court forever changed Jim's life when it legalized abortion in 1973. He started up the Human Life Review, a studious, common-sense, pragmatic magazine dedicated to the defense of life.
“At St. Agnes yesterday, the pastor, Monsignor Eugene Clark, said Jim McFadden was a strong, logical Catholic, highly intelligent, punctilious, and interested only in doing what God wanted him to do. He took whatever the Lord sent. [Lawyer] Tom Bolan said Jim was an incredible man with an unbelievable spirit. He got all his affairs in order. He only hoped he had the strength to face death. In a tender obituary, Bill Buckley, a pallbearer, would say Jim McFadden was the prime exhibit of G.K. Chesterton's dogged insistence that piety and laughter are inseparable.”
In conclusion Kerrison said, “Life, born and unborn, was everything to Jim. He defended it for others and fought desperately for it for himself. It was a privilege to have known him.”
Cardinal O'Connor Baptizes El Duque's Daughters
The cardinal was instrumental in uniting Hernandez with his family at the celebration of the Yankees' recent World Series win. Hernandez had not seen his family since he defected from Cuba in December to play for the team.
“We are grateful to President Castro,” Cardinal O'Connor said at St. Patrick's Cathedral. “He also has stated explicitly that the family is free to return to Cuba.” The cardinal also thanked Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.
“This Mass is in honor of God,” the cardinal said. “Give thanks to him for having ‘El Duque’ and his family here.” Said CBS, “After Mass, the Hernandez family had brunch in O'Connor's residence. At that time, the pitcher planned to ask the cardinal to baptize his daughters, 8-year-old Yahuamara, and 3-year-old Steffi.
“They could not be baptized in Cuba, where the Roman Catholic Church was oppressed for 40 years under Castro's rule.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pontificate Riled Polish Communists Early On DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WARSAW, Poland—The official regime report on the Pope's talks with a communist state delegation after his 1978 election has been printed by a Polish newspaper, showing tensions were evident from the first days of John Paul II's pontificate.
“Our Polish mission was the only one the Pope received in full,” noted the text, published in Poland's Rzeczpospolita daily.
“Despite being ‘banished’ from Poland because of the ‘force of facts,’ he said he had not stopped being a Pole. ‘Poland is inside me,’ he added.”
The report, written by Foreign Minister Jozef Czyrek and religious affairs director Kazimierz Kakol, said the talks, a day after John Paul II's October 22 inauguration, had taken the form “not of declarations but of a lively dialogue,” during which the Pope had thanked the Polish government for its “attitude” to his election.
It added that the Polish delegation leader, State Council chairman Henryk Jablonski, had voiced hopes that Church-State ties would now improve and that the Vatican and Poland could “act together” internationally for peace.
However, although John Paul II had “shown agreement,” he had done so only “in general formulations, touching the ideas but without going into detail.”
“Comrade Jablonski talked about state-Church relations in Poland, showing that we are interested in deepening the Church's already wide co-operation with the state in realizing important national aims,” the report continued.
“The Pope thanked him for this standpoint, which he had expected, but did not develop the topic. … He listened to the State Council chairman's speech with great attention, especially the part about needing to see relations as a process in development and to use various reference points — historical, geographical, etc. — in assessing it. When it was said our country has traditions of tolerance and has not had any religious wars, he added, ‘there've been no burnings at the stake either.’”
The Polish delegation, which was one of 15 received by the former Archbishop Karol Wojtyla on October 23, followed a telegram of “hearty congratulations” from the communist regime of Edward Gierek.
However, Polish security agents were ordered simultaneously to recruit new informers and obtain more detailed data on links between the Vatican and Polish Church.
In their report, Czyrek and Kakol said Jablonski had “polemicized” with the Pope at the October 23 meeting over his remarks about the “small role” assigned to spiritual forces in the struggle for peace.
They added that John Paul II, who was an hour late for a lunch meeting with Poland's Catholic bishops, had “voiced sadness” at having to leave his Krakow see and had urged the city's mayor, who took part in the talks, to “rescue Krakow.”
“While getting ready for a photograph, John Paul II said as a disgression he hoped to visit Krakow some day,” the report continued.
“He said Father Stanislaw Dziwisz (Cardinal Wojtyla'secretary), was having trouble since he didn't know what to do with the Polish Pope's passport — send it back or keep it. Asked which he preferred, he replied, ‘Of course, I would like to keep it.’”
The report said Jablonski later told the secretary of the Vatican's Council for Public Affairs, Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, that his government expected its current “line in relations” with Rome to be continued.
It added that Casaroli, who was promoted to Vatican Secretary of State in April 1979, had promised to continue working for a “possible and necessary modus vivendi between state and Church.”
However, although the Pope had “maintained the current position” in his talks with the Soviet Union's Rome ambassador, Casaroli warned, he had also used “more cautious formulations” than his predecessors.
“In this connection, Casardi hopes to be counted among the Pope's first collaborators,” the report noted.
“He calculates the new Pope will continue the policy of his predecessors, although a full and final answer to this question can only be given by the appointment of his closest aides and particularly by his first acts.” (Jonathan Luxmoore)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Egyptian Bishop and Priests Arrested
“Freedom House, a Washington-based human rights group, said the clerics — a bishop and two priests — were arrested Oct. 10, and released later the same day after being interrogated for several hours and posting bail. No trial date has been announced,” it reported.
“Citing information provided by the independent, Cairo-based Center for Egyptian Human Rights for National Unity, Freedom House said the clerics — members of Egypt's ancient Christian Church — were arrested after defending victims of alleged police brutality and torture in the southern Egyptian town of El-Kosheh.
“Arresting the three clerics, added Freedom House, means that ‘Christians face further persecution for simply protesting acts of abuse by the authorities or Islamic extremists.’”
Church Also Has Interest in Jerusalem, Says Vatican
“The Holy See believes in the importance of extending the representation at the negotiating table in order to be sure that no aspect of the problems is overlooked and to affirm that the whole international community is responsible for the uniqueness and the sacredness of this incomparable city,” Reuters quoted Tauran saying in a speech in Jerusalem.
“The meaning and value of Jerusalem are so great, are so unique, that they go beyond the interests of one state or beyond bilateral agreements between one and another state,” he continued, according to the report. “It is essential that the parties to the negotiations take fair and appropriate account of the sacred and universal character of the city. This requires that any possible solution should have the support of the three monotheistic religions, both at the local level and at the international level,” said Tauran, attending a Church conference in East Jerusalem.
The report noted that last May, Pope John Paul II said he hoped “international guarantees of the unique and sacred character of the Holy City” would be in place by 2000, and that Israel responded that such guarantees were not needed, because the rights of Christians were already protected in Jerusalem.
Persecution of Christians: The Forgotten “Hate Crime”?
It opened with these dramatic examples: “A Presbyterian pastor overlooks threats and builds the first Christian church in his region of Pakistan. A mob destroys the church. Masked men invade the pastor's home and stab him to death. A mob ransacked this church in rural Pakistan, where Christians have little recourse against such violence.
“A man leaves Islam to become a Christian. Egyptian secret police arrest him without a formal charge and torture him with an electric probe to make him inform them about other converts.
“A Roman Catholic boy in southern Sudan plays in the trees with his friends. Soldiers waging a holy war capture him and send him into slavery, where he is given an Islamic name and beaten with sticks by his master's wives.”
Events like this are causing a change in attitudes, it said. “From Bosnian Muslims to Soviet Jews to Buddhists in Tibet, Americans have long been concerned about the rights of religious minorities around the world. Only recently have Christians been added to that list.”
The article went on to explore the many new efforts being made by legislators and activists to address the problem.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:The Pope, the Poet, and Mankind
“Pope John Paul II is an intellectual in the largest sense of that word. This man of faith tells all of us, Christian or not, to ‘trust in the power of human reason,’” wrote Fields.
“Faith without reason, he says, withers into myth or superstition. Reason without faith strains the connections we require to honor one another. It lacks a moral vision,” she continued.
Fields is Jewish. She said that the importance of the Holy Father's words are that they place each of us in a larger context of the intellectual and faith community of man.
“The Pope's words led me by free association to one of my favorite meditations, by John Donne, the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 17th century London. … Meditation XVII, which includes the phrase, ‘for whom the bell tolls.’ “‘Every man and woman is in some sense a philosopher,’ writes John Paul. ‘No man is an island,’ writes Mr. Donne. Could even an atheist argue with that?”
Online Readers Agree with Pope on Technology
Ron Lambert of Warren, Mich.: “Technology is useful and desirable, but only as a help to us. Our choices concerning how to use it are what will impact the saving or losing of our souls. Thus, it has always been.”
Joe Galvin of Prudenville, Mich.: “The Pope has set up a Vatican web site, www.vatican.va, so he understands the use of new technology. His worry is the misuse of this new technology, where computers replace human understanding and compassion and where those who cannot afford computers are pushed aside and walked on.”
Rob Stelzer of Rio Rancho, New Mexico: “We risk our souls in many more ways, but his Holiness is right. This is the wisest man alive today.”
Ed Koch Recalls John Paul II's 1980 Visit
He remembered the Holy Father this way: “Pope John Paul, first citizen of the world, came to New York City in 1980. As mayor, I greeted him at the airport.
“Heavy rain was pouring as he disembarked from the plane. At that moment, the sun came out. A cop called out, ‘That's the kind of guy you want to make a golf date with.’”
Koch also remembered speaking with John Cardinal O'Connor about the Vatican: “Cardinal O'Connor, who wrote a book with me, His Eminence and Hizzoner, once told me: ‘My hope before I leave this earth is to help bring about diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel.’”
“He did that and much more,” Koch said admiringly.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Van Gogh's Canvases Reflect Strong Christian Sensibility DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Every day since early October, thousands file reverently past 72 paintings which hang in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The popularity of the exhibit Van Gogh's van Goghs, on view here through Jan. 3, is no surprise. Vincent van Gogh's mental suffering, his devotion to art, his anonymity in life, his suicide at age 37, and above all his brilliant painting have made him a cultural legend. But the exhibit also reveals the strength of van Gogh's Christian identity, an aspect of his art that has been ignored by commentators and curators alike.
Spirituality infuses his canvases — from his early work, sober and dark, done in his native Holland, to the final vision of black crows alighting over a sizzling yellow wheatfield. A religious aspect shines forth in the subjects he chooses to paint, in his recurring biblical references — even the very way he lays down color reflects this character to the open-minded viewer.
For all the attention to van Gogh's final years in the south of France — where he hacked off his left earlobe during a seizure, where he consigned himself to an asylum, where he painted sunflower, and olive groves and a starry night — some important early biographical data get lost.
Van Gogh was born in 1853 in Zundert, The Netherlands, the oldest son of a devout Protestant minister. In his 20s, van Gogh vacillated between a career in art and a religious vocation. At age 22, while working in Paris for international art dealers, he immersed himself in religion which led him, in 1876, back to Holland, resolved to follow his father into the ministry.
After a short period of training as an evangelical preacher, van Gogh began his first ministry in the mining region of southern Belgium. He was particularly fond of the people, identifying with their hard work and devotion to one another. When his appointment was not renewed, he returned to Holland to live with his parents; following his younger brother Theo's advice, he resolved to become an artist.
When van Gogh first began painting regularly, he emulated the French painter Jean-Francois Millet, best known for his scenes of harsh peasant life. It was a subject which resonated with van Gogh's experience among the miners. The masterpiece of this period, “The Potato Eaters” (1885) is included in the National Gallery exhibit.
“The Potato Eaters” shows a family of five gathered around a dinner table. Exhausted faces and painfully angular bodies are the visual proof of poverty and hard work. But caring and mutual concern also characterize the scene. It is a portrait of suffering and a portrait of the redemptive power of love; a small wall crucifixion in the painting's shadowy eaves subtly underscores this message. Though he chose art as a vocation, van Gogh cherished the values and beliefs of his ministry to the miners.
Two poles powerfully influenced Vincent van Gogh: the Bible and the modernist French aesthetic to which he was greatly attracted. To explore the French artistic scene directly, van Gogh moved to Paris in 1886 where he lived with Theo.
“Self Portrait with Felt Hat” (winter 1887-1888) is the masterpiece of the Parisian period. A no-nonsense, neatly attired van Gogh stares the viewer straight in the eye. In terms of volume and space, this is a classic portrait of a red-bearded young man. But its brush-work and use of color is absolutely radical: energetic dashes of red and yellow and green compose the face. The suit is a staccato of blue and yellow marks. Around his head is a halo of color, concentric rings of contrasting pigments whose proximity sets off the notorious vibration and color-saturated intensity of van Gogh's late work.
Much has been made of van Gogh's genius as a colorist. Color, in fact, became almost an obsession. But his interest was not merely technical; van Gogh described color as being spiritually significant. In a letter to Theo, he explained that he intended to use vivid color as halos were used in Renaissance painting — as a divine sign.
For van Gogh, painting was never a mere technical or artistic challenge, but both perceived and represented the awesome power of creation. His art and his voluminous correspondence show a man motivated by two abiding Christian principles — love and truth. “May it not be that one can perceive a thing better and more accurately by loving it, than by not loving it?” he asked.
In the spring of 1888, van Gogh moved to the south of France, choosing the town of Arles as his base. He was captivated by the light and landscape of this exquisite Mediterranean region. Some of van Gogh's best known images came, from that year, including “The Harvest,” “The Night Cafe,” and “The Bedroom.” But that winter, van Gogh was struck by epileptic seizures marked by episodes of psychotic behavior. In one of these fits, he threatened fellow artist Paul Gauguin with the razor which he later used to slash his own ear.
Seven months later, van Gogh admitted himself into a mental hospital in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, where he stayed for about a year. Amidst sickness and anguish, van Gogh continued to paint; some of his greatest works were painted in the last eighteen months of his life.
Christian iconography emerges again in van Gogh's late painting, and death becomes a major theme. He painted a touching “Pieta” (1889), copying the composition from the French artist Eugene Delacroix but using his own brilliant palette of lemon yellow and ivy green for Christ's body; images of olive groves and stalks of wheat in other works resonate with the Bible.
He used nature to explore the theme of death and rebirth in paintings such as “Wheatfield with a Reaper” (1889), “Emperor Moth” (1889), and “Butterflies and Poppies” (1890). Of the figure of the reaper, van Gogh wrote: “I see in him the image of death, in the sense that humanity might be the wheat he is reaping … But there's nothing sad in this death, it goes its way in broad daylight with a sun flooding everywhere, with a light of pure gold.”
Van Gogh went north in May 1890, taking up residence in Auvers-Sur-Oise just outside Paris, to be closer to Theo and to visit a doctor who specialized in neurosis. His last works, “Landscape at Twilight” and “Wheatfield with Crows,” are turbulent images of darkness descending; the crows in flight are an image of death at hand. Yet the unity of earth and sky in color and brush-work, and the inner glow of both paintings, also represent a vision of transcendence, of a reality beyond this vale of tears. In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later.
Van Gogh's van Goghs will travel from Washington to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it will be on view from Jan. 17 through April 14, 1999.
Eleanor Kennelly and Victor Gaetan write from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Artist considered religious life before taking up brush ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eleanor Kennelly and Victor Gaetan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Edith Stein's Last Words DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Come, we are going for our people!” These are the last recorded words of Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, known outside her Carmelite cloister as Edith Stein — words spoken before she died in the gas chamber that has come to symbolize the ultimate unreason of the twentieth century.
The words were addressed to her blood sister Rosa, and were heard in the Carmel of Echt in Holland, where “this eminent daughter of Israel,” as Pope John Paul II has called her, had been sent by her superiors in an effort to save her from the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
Even before her canonization on Oct. 11 of this year, many things had been written to extol the genius and the grace of Edith Stein, a woman who fulfilled in the Church the vocations of philosopher, Carmelite nun, and martyr. Her last words merit special attention.
“Come, we are going for our people!” Who are the “people” to whom Saint Teresia Benedicta refers? — the people of Israel, of course, God's people, as the Church professes. Lumen gentium (no. 9) makes the point explicitly when it affirms that God chose this race (plebem israeliticam) and constituted them into his People (sibi in populum elegit).
When God made Israel his people, he also revealed a plan for our salvation. God does not want to save us as individuals, but as a people. So he creates a people destined to know him and love him in this life and to rejoice with him for all eternity.
This is a great mystery of faith, where modern political notions can be misleading. When the framers of the American Constitution wrote, “We, the People,” they adopted a view about human solidarity that depends more on the Enlightenment than on Exodus. Democracies are self-constituting, insofar as many come together to form a union.
The People of God, on the other hand, exists only because God first chose to constitute us into a people. Historically, this divine election rested first on the People of Israel, and so Edith Stein could go forth heroically from her Carmel cloister in their name.
The Church is not a democracy. This flat assertion is not motivated by a preference for some other kind of political organization with which to compare the Church. That would only invite ideological bickering. The truth is deeper than imagery.
The Church is not a democracy because the People of God are powerless to constitute themselves. How could they? Only God can establish a people as his very own. The difference is so great that the Greek language uses two different words: the people who make up a democratic regime are the demos, and the People that belongs to God are a laios. It is easy to remember. Democracy means the exercise of power by the many, whereas the People of God means forming one Body under Christ's Headship.
God's election of Israel as God's People has not been annulled; Saint Paul makes this clear. And Edith Stein gives eloquent testimony about what remained for her a singular mystery of faith. Aware of the implications of her Jewish origins, she still proclaimed that beneath the Cross she came to understand the destiny of God's people.
The Cross of Christ makes out of both Jew and gentile members of the new People of God. The first letter of Peter affirms this heritage that belongs to all who believe: we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own People” (1 Peter 2:9).
The same biblical text reminds us of something else. God is not obliged to constitute us as his people. Indeed, the New Testament forcefully reminds the Christian believer: “Once you were no people, but now you are God's people (1 Peter 2:10). This admonition should make us attentive to the privilege that God communicates to us in Christ.
We should never take for granted our status as God's people. The main responses to our election as God's people must be praise and gratitude. But we should also remember humility. We belong to God's own people, one that he creates out of many peoples. We call this people the Body of Christ. And membership in this people is a gift — never a right, still less a burden.
The Holy Father has repeatedly invited every member of the Church to take up his or her vocation to holiness with seriousness. Sanctity is never found apart from humility. Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross reminds us that a Christian vocation can even lead to imitation of the ultimate humility of the One who came to serve, not to be served, and to give his life for the many.
Dominican Father Romanus Cessario is a senior writer for the Register.
----- EXCERPT: Perspective ----- EXTENDED BODY: Romanus Cessario OP ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Problem with Hate Crime Laws DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:by James Jacobs and Kimberly Potter
(New York: Oxford University Press 1998, 224 pages, $24.95.)
Throughout the early '90s, state legislatures across the country began to adopt new measures seeking to outlaw what are referred to as “hate crimes.” A typical hate crime statute increases the severity of punishment for a crime deemed to be motivated by prejudice against a victim's race, religion, ethnic origin, and, in some cases, sexual orientation. As of 1995, the federal government, 37 states, and the District of Columbia had all passed hate crime statutes. In addition, the federal government has established a central data bank for hate crime statistics, and the U.S. Congress mandates that every local and state law enforcement department track and prepare reports on instances of hate-and bias-motivated offenses.
Clearly, malicious and unlawful actions directed at persons because of their race, religion, ethnic origin, etc., are contemptible and should be strongly condemned by society. However there is no agreement on exactly how different types of “socially destructive” attitudes and prejudices should be handled. It is not at all clear whether passing laws that target specific beliefs or expressions of prejudice or bias serves to protect specific groups or society at large from the harm that results from hatred. A new book written by a pair of legal scholars from New York University (NYU) presents many reasons why the remedy that has been prescribed may be misguided.
James Jacobs, the director of the NYU's Center for Research in Crime and Justice, and Kimberly Potter, a former fellow at the center, express alarm at the thorny questions raised by the proliferation of hate crime statutes. Their thought-provoking examination concludes that hate statutes are an ill-conceived project, based on the promotion of what they call “identity politics.”
Rather than fostering a more tolerant society, the hate crime concept often solidifies attitudes one would hope to change, say the authors. They claim that hate statutes have “enormous potential, through the misuse of authority and power, to sow the seeds of dissension and conflict.” In addition, the book maintains that hate laws go against the grain of the Constitution: “The First Amendment is implicated when extra punishment is meted out for bigoted beliefs and motives.”
Ironically, one of the most controversial hate crime cases recounted in this work involved an additional five-year sentence meted out to an African-American teen-ager. After viewing Mississippi Burning, a film about the murder of civil rights workers in the South in the '60s, with friends at a theater in Wisconsin, Todd Mitchell became incensed and suggested to his friends that they “move on some white people.” As a young white man walked past, Mitchell shouted out, “there goes a white boy, let's get him.” The group roughed up the youth, causing him serious injuries; Mitchell himself did not take part in the beating. Mitchell was convicted and faced a maximum two-year sentence for aggravated assault. The trial judge, however, decided to charge Mitchell under the state's new hate crime statute, and sentenced him to an additional five years, making his sentence seven years in all. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reviewed the case and overturned the added penalties. In its decision, the state's high court noted, “the defendant could face a dramatically larger sentence simply for uttering the wrong word.” As the judges wrote, such a statute “creates nothing more than a thought crime,” a concept which they rejected as “Orwellian.”
In 1993, however, the ruling was reversed; the U.S. Supreme Court Justices voted 9-0 to restore the original sentence imposed on Mitchell. According to the high court, the legislature may single out such conduct for increased punishment “because bias inspired conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm and incite community unrest” — to quote the words of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
According to the authors, hate crime statutes were the product of an intensive lobbying, media, and public relations campaign, which began in the mid-1980s and culminated in a blitz of federal and state legislation in 1992 and 1993, mostly based on a single model drafted by the Anti-Defamation League. Lobbyists, members of victimized groups, and politicians anxious to represent themselves as “opposed to discrimination and violence,” combined to rush such bills into law. The statutes work on a principle the book calls “victim status,” tending thereby to encourage a trend toward “identity politics.” Officially designated victim groups gain special entitlements at the expense of other groups or the general population. These statutes differ from laws which seek to fulfill a universal standard or entitle everyone to due process, such as the first wave of civil rights laws or, for that matter, the Bill of Rights.
The authors hold that hate laws “may not promote social harmony but, to the contrary, may reinforce social divisions and exacerbate social conflict.” Supporters of hate crime laws will likely dispute the course of action that Potter and Jacobs suggest. Asserting that bias crime law was, in juridical terms, probably ill-advised from the very beginning, the authors suggest a number of practical steps which they say could bring the problem under control.
First of all, they suggest that society simply terminate hate crime incident reporting and statistics gathering, claiming that these practices raise serious fairness questions, and have dealt with the question of people's prejudices in an ambiguous, subjective, and contentious manner. Second, they call for a much narrower definition of hate-related crimes. They would reserve the term “hate crime” for cases involving the commission of a specific felony by a known member of a terrorist or violent group, carried out for the purpose of furthering the stated goals or objectives of that group. Third, the authors would repeal the various federal, state, and local hate crime laws in their entirety. As the book bluntly states, “we think the Supreme Court was wrong” in the Mitchell case, adding that “enhancing the criminal sentence because of the offender's prejudiced motivation is essentially punishing the offender for his beliefs and opinions.” As they insist, “To punish prejudiced offenders two or three times more severely than other similarly situated offenders strains constitutional doctrine and violates the principles of proportionality.”
Hate Crimes is an important work which draws our attention to a serious issue. As a new wave of hate crime legislation comes forward in the wake of the Matthew Shepard case, this book could be a vital resource for elected officials who may want to take a critical look at attempts to reform hate crime laws.
David Peterson writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Peterson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Father of the Prodigal Son DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Father of the Prodigal Son: “The Pursuing Father”
by Kenneth E. Bailey
(Christianity Today, October 26, 1998)
Kenneth E. Bailey writes: “This parable must be seen as the third part of a trilogy in Luke 15. The Pharisees challenge Jesus: ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ … What follows are the three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the two lost sons (the Prodigal Son). … A shepherd pays a price to find and restore a lost sheep. The woman does the same for her coin. … And does this third story parallel the first two stories by having the father pay a high price to find and restore his son(s)?
“The younger son requests his inheritance while his father is still alive and in good health. In traditional Middle Eastern culture, this means, ‘Father, I am eager for you to die!’. … The father grants the Prodigal Son the freedom to own and to sell his portion of the estate. Five times in the parable the father does not behave like a traditional oriental patriarch. This is the first instance.
“In a second departure from the expected norm, the father grants the inheritance and the right to sell, knowing that this right will shame the family before the community. … No human father is an adequate model for God. Knowing this, Jesus elevates the figure of father beyond its human limitations and reshapes it for use as a model for God.
“From the Jerusalem Talmud it is known that the Jews of the time of Jesus had a method of punishing any Jewish boy who lost the family inheritance to Gentiles. It was called the ‘qetsatsah ceremony.’ … The villagers would bring a large earthenware jar, fill it with burned nuts and burned corn, and break it in front of the guilty individual. While doing this, the community would shout, ‘So-and-so is cut off from his people.’ From that point on, the village would have nothing to do with the wayward lad.”
Bailey then compares the messages of the three parables: “In the first story, the lost sheep is a symbol of repentance, and repentance is shown there as ‘acceptance of being found.’ [The story of the woman's lost coin] confirms this definition. But if the Prodigal truly repents in the far country and struggles home on his own, then Jesus contradicts himself. … By telling the parable of the Good Shepherd, Jesus invokes Psalm 23, which also has a lost sheep and a good shepherd. The key phrase appears in verse 3, which is traditionally translated, ‘He restores my soul.’… But the Hebrew … literally means, ‘He brings me back,’ or ‘He causes me to repent.’ Clearly, the psalmist is lost, and God, the good shepherd, brings him back to the paths of righteousness.
“When the Prodigal's speech is read in this light, a new meaning emerges. … The prepared confession reads, ‘I have sinned against heaven and before you.’ … Jesus' audience, however, is composed of Pharisees who know the Scriptures well. They recognize that confession as a quotation from the pharaoh when he tries to manipulate Moses into lifting the plagues. … Everyone knows that Pharaoh is not repenting. He is simply trying to bend Moses to his will. The Prodigal is best understood as attempting the same.
“The father realizes full well how his son will be welcomed in the village when he returns in failure. Thus, the father also prepares a plan: to reach the boy before the boy reaches the village. … [O]ut of his own compassion he empties himself, assumes the form of a servant, and runs to reconcile his estranged son. Traditional Middle Easterners, wearing long robes, do not run in public. To do so is deeply humiliating. This father runs.
“As the father comes down and out to reconcile his son, he becomes a symbol of God in Christ. ‘Father,’ a symbol for God, ever so quietly evolves into a symbol for Jesus. … Once reconciliation is assured, the father … says, ‘Let us eat and celebrate; for … this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ The father does not say, ‘He was lost and has come home.’ Instead, we read, ‘He was lost and is found’ So who found him? The father did!
“Is the banquet in honor of the Prodigal or in honor of the father? Is it a celebration of the Prodigal's successful efforts at reaching home (on his own), or is it rather a celebration of the success of the father's costly efforts at creating shalom? … The banquet fore-shadows Holy Communion. Surely we know that Jesus is the hero of that sacred banquet and that sinners are not the center of attention.”
Finally, Bailey turns to the elder son: “For a son to be present and to refuse participation in such a banquet is an unspeakable public insult to the father. … For a fourth time, the father goes beyond what a traditional patriarch would do. … [I]n painful public humiliation, the father goes down and out to find yet one more lost sheep/coin/son.”
“If the older son accepts the love now offered to him, he will be obliged to treat the Prodigal with the same loving acceptance with which the father welcomed the pig herder. The older son will need to be ‘conformed to the image’ of that compassionate father who comes to both kinds of sinners in the form of a suffering servant….”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article
Whose Views?
As a Catholic who follows closely the teachings of the Catholic Church, I was very upset with a letter to the editor in the Oct. 21 Wall Street Journal, which likens the Pope to a “… famous old coach on a losing team.” It is signed by a Brett M. Decker, whom the Journal, in a feeble attempt of trying to validate the author, adds is a regular contributor to the National Catholic Register, among other Catholic publications. In reading the letter, it's quite obvious that Decker does not agree with the teachings of the universal Church.
Although I am not that familiar with your publication, I do see on your web page that you strive to be in tune with the Church, fed by a communion with the teaching of the Church.
My question for you is: does Mr. Decker write for your publication, and is this the type of anti-Church message you want to portray? Any time I read this type of self-serving journalism, I can only think that such so-called authorities would also criticize our Lord himself if he were walking on our earth today.
Thank you in advance for your reply. I plan to write a letter to the Journal myself, and would like to know your thoughts.
Tom Feick via e-mail
Editor's note: It may be unfair to infer that Mr. Decker “does not agree with the teachings of the universal Church.” Nevertheless, we deplore his use of the paper's name to promote a view contrary to its mission. Obviously the Register is not responsible for the opinions expressed in other publications by any of our contributors.
Ursuline Without Knowing It
In Sister Mary Thomas Noble's review of the wonderful book, Behold the Women (“Heroines Without Knowing It,” Oct. 4-10, 1998), she alludes to Marie of the Incarnation as being a “French Sister of Charity.” According to my New York Ursuline education, Mother Marie of the Incarnation was an Ursuline.
I do agree with Sister that the book is awesome. Last year, it was my Christmas present to myself. However, I would have appreciated a few pictures of Ursulines!
Mary Ann Fanning Houston
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pro-lifers Must Remain Strong In The Face Of Media Stereotyping DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Two events in recent weeks have contributed to the perception that pro-life people are harsh, unfeeling, even murderous. The first concerns the Louisiana woman with the heart condition, denied an abortion by a state hospital. The second is the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a physician who performed abortions in New York. In both cases, media reports and talking heads do not conjure up any pretty pictures of the pro-life person and temperament. In both cases, they are dead wrong.
First, the case of the Louisiana woman, Michelle Lee. Ms. Lee is a woman whose doctors had told her that she should not get pregnant due to her serious heart condition. She got pregnant. She has been on a waiting list for a heart transplant for two and one-half years. The doctors at the very hospital where she had been getting heart treatment decided that her risk of death from pregnancy at this time (about 10 weeks into her pregnancy) was not 50% or more. Louisiana — a very pro-life state — has a law forbidding its public hospitals from performing abortions except when a moth-er's life is at stake. Private abortion clinics in Louisiana refused to perform the abortion because they did not have adequately sophisticated medical equipment and facilities. Spokespeople from the National Abortion Federation (NAF, an abortionists' trade association) attached themselves to Ms. Lee and “spun” the story to the media this way: fanatical pro-lifers, in the fanatical pro-life state of Louisiana, prevent a dying woman from getting an abortion absolutely medically necessary to save her life.
But there's a story behind the story. First, it later came out that the keepers of the waiting list for heart transplants intended to remove Ms. Lee from the list if she continued her pregnancy. Second, an unasked question: had any thought whatsoever been given to trying to save the mother and the baby? Apparently Ms. Lee's doctors thought this could be done; doctors who had been treating her for years saw no need to kill the child. Did Ms. Lee oppose this whole idea? Did she have any interest in this possibility? Did Ms. Lee or her handlers at NAF wish, rather, to push the idea that the mean ol' pro-life citizens and institutions of Louisiana wouldn't let her have an abortion based on her self-diagnosis that her life was at stake? These questions were never asked or answered in the course of the debate.
Finally, no one ever reported the fact that Ms. Lee could have continued to receive treatment for her heart condition, while pregnant. Neither the Catholic Church, nor any other pro-life voice opposes medical treatment directed toward the mother's health. It is true the child might be indirectly and harmfully affected by this treatment. But this is morally very different from direct action to kill the child. In some situations the best that can be done is action to assist the life and health of the mother, while working to mitigate any harm that might be done to her unborn child.
Ms. Lee's story, in other words, is not about harsh, unfeeling pro-lifers. It is rather a story about a very scared young woman, under tremendous pressure of losing her chance at a heart transplant, self-diagnosing her need for an abortion, and refusing her experienced doctors' advice. Advice that might have saved both mother and child.
Regarding Dr. Slepian. It is hard even to write about this without a very heavy heart. Heavy because of the awful specter of a father of four being shot in the back in his own kitchen while talking with his wife and son. And, yes, heavy too because of some self-interest. Self-interest in the well-being and reputation of the pro-life movement.
It has been said before by Catholic bishops all over the United States, and it is being said again: this man's life was sacred and inviolable. It was absolutely wrong to take it, and nothing like this should happen again. The action turns on its head everything the pro-life movement holds dear. At the same time, it must be said, that this action has nothing whatsoever to do with the pro-life movement in the United States. In the case of Dr. Slepian, no suspects have even been named. But even if it turns out that the murderer is someone who calls himself “pro-life,” that could never make him so. By his actions, he would have deliberately placed himself outside the pro-life community. We are and we aspire to be respectful in our dealings with all human life. We aspire to witness to the pro-life vision we preach. So that people will see us and say: “that's how the world should be.”
When our reputations are getting raked over the coals, hold fast to this vision. And speak up and tell them why they are wrong.
Helen Alvaré is director of planning and information at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen AlvarÈ ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: A Year of Catholic-Jewish Controversy DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:In 1998, a number of separate, deeply linked issues have emerged between Jewish and Catholic leaders. All regard negative Jewish reactions to actions or statements perceived as “Catholic.” All touch deep sensibilities in both communities. All have to do with the Holocaust or, more precisely, with how our memory of the Holocaust is to be framed and handed down to future generations of Jews and Catholics. In all cases, some Jews have expressed concerns that, in remembering the Shoah, Catholics can't or won't “get it right.”
No less than three events represent official actions of the Holy See to which Jews have objected: the March statement of repentance for the Holocaust, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah and, in October, the canonization of Edith Stein and the beatification of Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac.
THE VATICAN STATEMENT
With regard to the Vatican statement, the consensus among Jewish organizations in dialogue with the Church was clear: what the statement said, with the possible exception of the passages regarding Pius XII, was less problematic than what the statement did not say clearly enough.
Concerns centered on historical matters. One example: The statement distinguished the ancient religious anti-Judaism of Christians, from modern, racially based anti-Semitism — a term first coined in the 19th century, in an attempt to give pseudo-scientific respectability to the hatred of Jews. Yet many Jewish groups felt that the link between the two was not clearly enough established — that the former paved the way for the latter by, in the Pope's words, “lulling the consciences” of all too many European Christians, so that they did not act toward their Jewish neighbors “as the world had the right to expect.”
Yet Edward Cardinal Cassidy of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews made the link quite explicit in a key address delivered last May to the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. For example, he termed the ghettoes established by the Church throughout Europe in the Middle Ages “the antechambers of the death camps” of the 20th Century.
Christian anti-Judaism was indeed a necessary cause of the Holocaust. Without it, the Jews would not have been so easily targeted for scapegoating by Nazi ideology. But it was not a sufficient cause — otherwise the Holocaust would have happened far sooner in European history, before the Enlightenment swept away the moral restraints of a God-centered, rather than human-centered, world vision.
Others have asked what the text means in saying that “the sons and daughters” of the Church were guilty of anti-Jewish teachings, rather than “the Church as such.” Here, Cardinal Cassidy responded that the distinction is theological rather than historical. “Sons and daughters” includes the whole Church as a human institution. “The Church as such” is seen from the viewpoint of its divine founding as the Body of Christ, as the sacrament of the encounter between the human and the divine. It is in this theological sense alone that the Church is held blameless for the sins of its members.
Yet this distinction, the cardinal declared, calls the Church as a human institution to repent, both for its commonly held anti-Judaism over the centuries, and for the specific sins of omission and commission perpetrated by Catholics during the Holocaust in Europe — as has been done in the remarkable series of statements issued since 1994 by the bishops' conferences of Hungary, Germany, Poland, the United States, Holland, Switzerland, France, and Italy. In September, the U.S. Catholic Conference compiled these statements, with the Holy See's original pronouncement and Cardinal Cassidy's clarification, in the volume, Catholics Remember the Holocaust (publication no. 5-290). Set in this context, the vibrancy and challenge of We Remember re-emerges from the debates surrounding it, with a ringing conclusion:
“At the end of this millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuvah), since as members of the Church we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. … It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment. … We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm resolve to build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians.”
THE ELEVATIONS
The canonization of Edith Stein and the beatification of Cardinal Stepinac represent quite different challenges to Jewish-Christian understanding. In the first instance, a woman born and raised a Jew, who lapsed into atheism, came back to God by way of Catholicism, and who died at Auschwitz as a Jew, was declared a Catholic martyr. Did this mean that the Church felt that she was more a martyr than the other six million Jews who died in the Shoah? That, through her, the Church was proclaiming itself Hitler's primary victim, and the Holocaust an event of Catholic, rather than Jewish, history?
Those who know the Pope's many statements regarding the primacy of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust (see E. Fisher and L. Klenicki, editors of Spiritual Pilgrimage: Pope John Paul II on Jews and Judaism, Crossroad, 1995), know that such an intent is impossible. Impossible also is the potential of Edith Stein — or St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, as she is also known — ever being used to proselytize Jews. The words of the Holy Father and of William Cardinal Keeler, episcopal moderator for Catholic Jewish Relations for the National Conference on Catholic Bishops (cf. Origins, Oct. 4, 1998), among others, clearly frame the new feast day of St. Edith Stein, Aug. 9, as a day of repentance for sins committed by her murderers (baptized Christians, by and large), not only against her, but against all the Jews of Europe.
Cardinal Stepinac's case was clouded by the show trial orchestrated by Yugoslavia's communist overlords after the war, which sought to portray the cardinal as a collaborator with the pro-Nazi Ustashi regime of Croatia during World War II. Yet the actual historical record is quite different: Despite his initial hopes for an independent homeland for his people, the cardinal began within months a series of public protests against the regime, especially in its persecution of Jews. He established an archdiocesan organization to aid Jewish refugees, which directly saved hundreds of Jewish lives. One Sunday, as Ustashi dictator Ante Pavelic came to Mass at the cathedral, the cardinal intercepted him on the steps, and said, ringingly, “Thou shalt not kill!” The message of the cardinal was clear; Pavelic turned and left.
Unlike the Shoah document, the beatification and canonization elicited little Jewish organizational response. Yet much of the media unfairly represented the Jewish community as hostile to the events, on the basis of a few negative Jewish reactions. With regard to Edith Stein, only the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a formal statement of protest; other groups, having noted no particular proselytizing activity since Stein's beatification more than ten years ago, seemingly concluded that the fears they had originally shared with ADL a decade ago could be laid to rest. With regard to Cardinal Stepinac, only the Simon Wiesenthal Center, apparently having failed to do its homework before issuing its statement, spoke out in protest. Meanwhile, the local Croatian Jewish community defended Cardinal Stepinac's record during the war, and the Church's decision to honor him.
The media magnified the ADL and Wiesenthal Center press releases, ignoring the fact that these were rather lonely voices in the larger world of Jewish organizational life, implying that many or most Jewish groups were protesting the canonizations. This has left among both Catholics and Jews the image of a largely imaginary controversy.
CROSSES AT AUSCHWITZ
The issue of the crosses at Auschwitz (see InPerson, pg. 1) goes back to an earlier controversy over the attempt by a small group of Carmelite nuns to establish a convent in an abandoned theater adjacent to Auschwitz, in order to offer perpetual prayers for Jewish and Christian victims who died there. From this point, the issue escalated, until it was only with the direct intervention of the Pope, asking the nuns to move to a new convent a little farther away, that it could be resolved.
When the nuns left, however, the mother superior sublet the property to a group which, it seems, turned out to be nationalist and rather right-wing, and left in place a large cross which had been given to the convent, rather than having it erected at the site of the new convent. The place where the cross is situated, incidentally, is one of great importance in Polish historical memory. It was there that the Nazis shot hundreds of Poles soon after invading Poland, in an attempt to destroy potential leadership that might emerge to fight for independence. Thus, both the site and the symbolism of the cross have deep resonances for Poles.
For many months, a joint group representing the Polish government and such Jewish organizations as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad vaShem, and the World Jewish Congress (WJC), worked to resolve, not only the issue of the cross at the old convent, but the overall disposition of how the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex was to be preserved for posterity. They were on the verge of signing an agreement resolving all the issues save one (and providing a frame-work for resolving this last) when the WJC balked, refusing to sign. That refusal touched off an unfortunate and still explosive chain of events. The one unresolved issue was the removal of the large cross.
Defending the refusal to sign, one WJC official went so far as to opine that Auschwitz-Birkenau should be put under the control of some sort of international body (in which the WJC, presumably, would play a major role). Such a suggestion, of course, offended the Poles as much as similar suggestions to internationalize the city of Jerusalem have offended Israelis. Worse still, the failure to sign and some heated rhetoric regarding the Polish people galvanized the nationalist right in Poland against any sort of deal. A Catholic priest, acting on his own, put up a small cross near the large one. Soon hundreds of others appeared.
The bishops of Poland, seeing a disaster in the making, issued a well balanced yet strong statement, calling for the immediate removal of the small crosses and a return to negotiations over the large cross — yet protesters, now dissenting from their Church, have failed to do so. Organizations on both sides of the religious divide have endorsed the bishops' statement, yet nothing, save prayer, seems likely to sway the protestors.
CROATIAN GOLD
Recently, U.S. State Department historians came across a 1947 memo sent back to the U.S. by a minor Treasury Department official, Emerson Bigelow, which details a rumor that Ustashi members fleeing after the war brought gold from Croatia to “the Vatican.” Despite adding this to its research report, the State Department, after more than a year of investigation, found “no direct evidence” for Croatian gold ever making its way to the Vatican, or for its other chief allegation of direct Vatican involvement in harboring and assisting Ustashi and Nazi war criminals after the war.
In the end, all the State Department had was one rumor from an unnamed Italian source; a Croatian Catholic priest (a Father Dragonovitch) who, far from being a Vatican official, was in fact a paid agent of U.S. intelligence, who did help Ustashi members flee to South America; and the fact that some Ustashi, including Ante Pavelic, stayed at the Croatian College of St. Jerome in Rome for a time while in flight.
As it happened, U.S. intelligence actually ignored the known presence of Pavelic and others, for fear of alienating the many Ustashi agents it was using at the time. No connection between the Croatian College and any particular office of the Holy See was found, or even sought, but merely “supposed.” Astoundingly, State Department historians have tried to stitch this patchwork together into a Vatican plot to get Nazi gold, in return for helping Ustashi escape — which might make for a good spy thriller, but is abysmal historical methodology.
None of this would have anything to do with Catholic-Jewish relations as such, save for the fact that the WJC chose to incorporate this sloppy scholarship in its own campaign to pressure the Holy See into releasing whatever documents have not yet been made public in 11 published volumes (over 5,000 pertinent documents) from the archives of the Secretariat of State.
In fact, New York's John Cardinal O'Connor and the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago have suggested that opening the archives to serious scholars, Catholic and Jewish alike, would indeed help to clear the air. The small portion of the 11 volumes which I have in my office, with the serious work of scholars such as Father John Morley of Seton Hall and Prof. Michael Marrus of the University of Toronto, strongly suggest that whatever further evidence is uncovered — will only round out the picture we already possess.
UNDERSTANDING PIUS XII
That picture is a highly complex one. Pope Pius XII, like the rest of the world totally unprepared for the unprecedented Nazi onslaught on the Jews, responded day by day to the maelstrom of World War II, to the full extent of extremely limited resources. The 11 volumes, along with other sources and scholarship, have already revealed numerous attempts by the Pope to save Jews — not only in Rome, where he stopped the deportations after a single night and hid survivors in convents and monasteries, but also through his nuncios in the various nations under Nazi occupation. (The Nazis would not allow a nuncio in occupied Poland.)
Tragically, the majority of these attempts failed, and certainly more could have been done. But the persistence of the Holy See in trying plan after plan to save Jews, is hardly the image of “silence” and “indifference” increasingly presumed by the media. Should the Pope have spoken out publicly, risking the lives of thousands of Jews hidden in Catholic convents and monasteries throughout Italy? Would it have done any good?
To my mind, by the time the Holy See had any clear understanding of the scope of the Holocaust — mid to late 1942, by way of the famous Reigner memorandum, also sent to Roosevelt and Churchill — a papal statement would hardly have slowed the process of total elimination to which the Nazis were committed. Other scholars may disagree with me, and it is important that discussions over these issues be based on as much actual evidence as possible. We have already seen where “scholarship by supposition” leads. For these reasons, I would be among those supporting Cardinals Bernardin and O'Connor in their suggestion. I can only pray that this process be worked out with sensitivity and moderation of language, among both Jews and Catholics, without resorting to pressure politics.
Dr. Eugene Fisher is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and a consultor to the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
----- EXCERPT: An expert on relations between the two faiths separates fact from fiction in a series of events that threatened to divide us ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eugene Fisher ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Why Daddy Doesn't Say Mass DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Some months ago, Roman billboards were plastered with playbills announcing the release of a new B movie entitled Papà Dice la Messa (“Dad Says Mass”). Such rinky-dink productions poking fun at Italy's largest and most visible institution, the Catholic Church, come a dime a dozen in this paradoxical country. Without wasting 7000 liras to view this short-lived film, I could readily infer from advertisements that it was meant to be an embarrassing (to the Church) comedy involving a priest with children, with all the religious pratfalls that can be derived from such a situation.
This inconsequential movie advertisement would have quickly been erased from my mid-term memory, were it not for a recent article I stumbled upon in The Tablet, Britain's progressive Catholic weekly. “My Father the Priest” is the title of the essay penned by Fiorella Sultana, daughter of a Catholic priest who, years ago, fell in love with a woman and left his priesthood to marry her. Though the article is meant to be a poignant plea for lifting the Church's priestly celibacy rule (“I wonder how long I will have to watch other married priests who were former Anglicans saying Mass while my father is forbidden to do so”), the author touches a far more interesting and important point along the way.
In describing her father's decision to abandon the active priesthood to marry, Miss Sultana considers two possible explanations. The first, frequently offered by “well-meaning friends,” runs like this: “Well, I dare say his ordination was all a big mistake.” Not so, retorts Sultana. Those who think this way are “entirely missing the point.” She then jumps to what she sees as the only plausible reason: her father was indeed called both to be a priest and to get married. This is the story of a man, insists Sultana, “whose vocation to the priesthood was very real indeed, but whose vocation to love a woman was as great a reality.” Hence the appeal for married priests.
While sympathizing with Miss Sultana's delicate situation (had her father remained celibate, she would never have existed), I would humbly suggest that she has overlooked a third possible rationale to account for the present irregular state of affairs. Maybe, just maybe, leaving the priesthood was a mistake. Maybe Sultana's father should have acted against his feelings for the woman he felt drawn toward, in order to remain faithful to his vow of celibacy. In a society accustomed to regarding feelings as an infallible guide to right action, such a suggestion may jar our sensibilities. Yet it is not without foundation.
Let us consider a parallel case: that of a married man who falls in love with his secretary. What should he do? Few women would recommend that the man “follow his feelings” and dump his present bride, so as to marry the new flame. Fewer still would sustain that his vocation to marry his wife was “very real indeed,” but his vocation to marry his secretary is “as great a reality.” Most would rather affirm that the only honorable course of action is for the man to remain faithful to his wife. Why would we judge priestly fidelity differently?
Actually in both scenarios two questions come into play: first, falling in love when one is already committed to another (or Another, with a capital A), and secondly, what to do should the first situation occur. The reason I separate the two is because, ideally, one should strive to assure that situation one never happens. Of course it can and sometimes does happen. Priests are not immune to human affection and, left unchecked, such affection easily becomes strong feelings, attachment, and so on.
But there are plenty of measures both priests and faithful can employ to uphold a priest's commitment to celibacy. Here the most solid counsel continues to be Our Lord's injunction to “watch and pray so as not to fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). Daily prayer keeps a priest's love for Christ fresh and alive, and in it he finds strength to be faithful. Indeed, when Pope Paul VI was asked why so many men abandoned their priesthood after the Council, he responded: “Pregavano poco, pregavano poco” (“They prayed little”).
Watchfulness, in turn, complements prayer. Knowing the tendencies of human nature, priests and faithful alike must guard against situations that jeopardize priestly celibacy. Just as a married man who spends an undue amount of time alone with another woman may be asking for trouble, so too a priest must avoid situations that compromise his consecration to Christ. The faithful, too, should support priests in this endeavor, so that their mutual dealings may always be characterized by honesty and respect.
In the Gospel, Christ speaks of a pearl of great price, for which it is worth selling all. The priesthood is such a pearl. Once purchased, this treasure must be guarded and defended. It is a blessing not only for the one who receives it, but for the whole Church.
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legion-aries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams LC ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Turkey's Surprising Christian Treasures DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Turkey can make good claim to be part of the Holy Land: Christianity took root here speedily in the years following the death of Jesus. The Seven Churches of the Revelation were the Christian communities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Thyatira, all of which were in the Roman province of Asia, which is now part of modern-day Turkey.
St. Paul was born in Tarsus in southern Turkey, and traveled extensively throughout the country — going more than 400 miles inland with St. Barnabas to preach in Iconium, the modern-day Konya. In the fourth century Cappadocia was home to Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa. And Demre, in southern Turkey, was home to St. Nicholas of Myra — the man the world now knows as Santa Claus.
There are a number of examples of Christian heritage in Turkey which exist to this day, such as the underground cities in Cappadocia, where hundreds of Christians lived and worshiped below ground to escape persecution by the Romans, and the treasury of the Topaki Palace in Istanbul, which contains relics of several saints, including John the Baptist.
But one shrine precious to both Christians and Muslims, and a place which reflects most profoundly the good relations between Christians and Muslims in Turkey, is the House of the Virgin Mary at Meryemana, near Ephesus. From the Cross, Jesus placed Our Lady in the care of St. John (John 19:25-27), and it is said that, between A.D. 37 and 48, he took her to Ephesus, which was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire.
In the 19th century, German nun and stigmatist Anna Catherina Emmerich (1774-1824) had visions of Mary and of her surroundings in Ephesus. In the 19th century, Lazarist clergy based at Izmir followed her detailed descriptions of the site and found the foundations of an old house in the hills above Ephesus.
The Lazarists' belief that they had found the House of the Virgin Mary was supported by the fact that the nearby town, Selçuk, is home to the ruins of St. John's Basilica, which housed the tomb of St. John the Apostle until the fourth century. The claim was also supported by the fact that the ruin and a nearby spring were an annual place of pilgrimage for local Muslims and Orthodox Christians on Aug. 15, the Feast of Our Lady's Assumption.
Archaeological investigation of the T-shaped building have found that the foundations date from the first century. The shrine was officially recognized by the Vatican with visits by Pope Paul VI in 1967 and Pope John Paul II in 1979.
Upon entering the shrine, there is a charge of about $2 placed by the Municipality of Selçuk. The house itself is now a chapel; on Sundays, an English-language Mass is celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Most of those attending these celebrations are Irish tourists staying in the nearby resort of Kushadasi. The shrine is cared for by two Capuchin priests and three Franciscan nuns. One of them, Sister Antonio from San Francisco, said:
“This is the only place where you will find Muslims and Christians praying informally together. Mary is mentioned several times in the Koran, and she is the most honored woman in the Islamic world. She is holier than Mohammed's own mother, because, to Muslims, Jesus, the Messiah, is the only one of the prophets who was born by supernatural means.”
Meryemana is a cool, wooded place and it is joyful to think of Our Lady spending her last days on Earth in such a tranquil place following the turmoil she must have experienced during the execution of her son.
Unfortunately, because it is located so close to Ephesus, home of the most elaborate and best preserved classical ruins on the Mediterranean, many tourists pay only a cursory visit to the shrine. Sister Antonio, who belongs to the Sisters Minor of Mary Immaculate, said: “One of our problems is explaining to tour guides that some of those accompanying them need more than 10 minutes at Meryemana; for some people it is the highlight of their visit to Turkey, or maybe the only reason that they came.”
“In Turkey,” she added, “the shrine is regarded very highly and is regularly visited by military pilgrimages and by senior members of the government. Other recent pilgrims have included the president of Pakistan and Hillary Clinton.”
A practice among the Muslims is to leave votive offerings in the form of rags at the shrine. This is similar to the practice among Irish Catholics at holy wells. In an effort to stop pilgrims from tying rags to the surrounding trees, the Church has provided boards on which rags can be fixed. Unfortunately, many pilgrims do not have any means to tie the rags to the boards, so they are fixed in place with chewing gum.
Meryemana is a few minutes' distance from Ephesus, which is easily reachable by bus. Bus travel around Turkey is exceptionally cheap — $3 will cover a 200-mile journey. As a foreigner, you will be treated as an “honored guest” and will automatically receive seats on the shady side of the bus. A delightful practice during bus trips is that at regular intervals travelers are provided with a splash of cologne to refresh them. Drinking water is also available free of charge; drink and brush your teeth only with bottled water and eat only fruit that you can peel. Accommodation is also very reasonable; $20 is about the most one will pay for a night's accommodation.
For more information on making a pilgrimage to the House of the Virgin Mary, contact one of the many Catholic travel organizations or the tourism office of the town of Selçuk, at (011-90) 232-8926911 (fax: 892-6913).
Cian Molloy is based in Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: The House of the Virgin Mary is only one of many fascinating draws for pilgrims ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Return to the Bad Old '50s DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:The 1950s are still an ideological flash point in our culture wars. Was the decade a good one during which American families embraced traditional values for the last time? Or was it a time of emotional repression and political conformity? The answer depends on where you place yourself on the political spectrum, social conservatives holding to the former view, liberals to the latter.
Pleasantville advocates a version of the liberal position. It's the first time at the helm for writer-director Gary Ross who penned Big and Dave. He is also a Democratic party activist and an occasional Clinton speech writer. His father was a blacklisted screenwriter. This intellectual baggage prevents him from taking an unbiased look at the era and distorts what could have been a witty social satire.
The movie's premise is a good one: A pair of present-day teen-age twins are forced to live in the bland world of a 1950s sitcom. David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) have been raised in a broken home typical of our time. Their mother works during the week and takes trips with her boyfriend on weekends. Except for the occasional phone call, their father is rarely heard from.
Jennifer tries to numb her emotional pain through sexual promiscuity. David escapes by immersing himself in 1950s sitcoms, which are rerun on cable TV. His favorite show is the once popular series, Pleasantville, which the filmmaker has modeled on classic shows like Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and The Donna Reed Show. The action centers on a traditional nuclear family where a dad named George (William H. Macy) is the sole breadwinner and a mom named Betty (Joan Allen) is a full-time homemaker who dotes on her husband and kids. Every evening when George returns from work, he exclaims: “Honey, I'm home,” and Betty rushes around to make him comfortable.
David wishes he had a similar kind of stability in his own life. He's become an expert on the show's trivia, having memorized almost all the dialogue and plot twists.
David's TV breaks down the night of a Pleasantville marathon. A repairman (Don Knotts), who also loves the show, mysteriously appears, and when he discovers that David knows more about the series than he does, he magically zaps the teen-ager and his sister back in time to 1958 and turns them into George and Betty's children. The catch is that everything's in black and white, just like the original show.
David is delighted with the turn of events; but his sister is not. “We're supposed to be in color,” she exclaims.
Everyone around them behaves just as they did in various episodes so that at first David can predict exactly what will happen. The town is free of crime and violence, and all its residents seem happy. But as in a sitcom, life is a little too perfect. The high school basketball players score points with every toss and never lose a game. The fire department is kept busy rescuing kittens from trees instead of extinguishing blazes. “Gosh,” “keen,” and “swell” seem to be the inhabitants' favorite words. However, more ominously from the filmmaker's point of view, the bathrooms have no toilets, and married couples always sleep in separate beds.
David encourages Jennifer to follow the script so Pleasantville's reality won't be altered. But she refuses. She's furious at being “stuck in Nerdsville” and, convinced that “no one's happy in a poodle skirt and sweater set,” she insists on behaving like a 1990s teen-ager. Her conduct unravels everything.
All the young couples seem satisfied just to hold hands, but Jennifer pushes her boyfriend to do more. Next, in a particularly offensive series of sequences, she instructs her sitcom mother in the joys of sex. Once in touch with this aspect of her being, the movie shows the older woman becoming an emotionally freer personality, culminating in what the filmmaker considers to be a truly liberating experience — her adulterous affair with the owner of the local malt shop (Jeff Daniels).
In another important step forward according to the movie's message, she refuses to cook regularly for her husband. Like the other townsfolk who begin to change their sitcom behavior, Betty now appears in color against the black-and-white background.
David acquires a girlfriend who, in a lame inverted parody of Adam and Eve, makes him bite into a very red apple. This seems to open him up to performing his own kind of subversive activity. He encourages the residents to read books and appreciate art, which, the film falsely implies, were unusual pastimes in the philistine '50s. Now he too has earned the right to present himself in color.
George and Pleasantville's mayor (J.T. Walsh) want things to stay the way they are. They unleash a wave of psychological and intellectual repression that includes organized sexual harassment and book burnings.
To suggest that this kind of political and cultural McCarthyism was typical of the 1950s is hysterical and dishonest. But it's based on an assumption which is popular with our academic and media elites, namely that sexual liberation is the cornerstone of all our other liberties. The result is the tolerance of almost any kind of sexual behavior as long as it seems to lead to personal growth. In this, Pleasantville is in many ways the perfect film for the Clinton era — a label of which the filmmaker would probably be proud.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C. Pleasantville is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: Pleasantville offers a distinctly Clintonesque view of the past ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Our colleges and universities are in some serious trouble, only part of which is structural. Swollen, bureaucratized, and inefficient, they waste substantial amounts of student time and public money. This is unfortunate but survivable. We are an extraordinarily rich society and can tolerate mere waste. The functional troubles of our colleges and universities are graver.
Especially with respect to the things that matter most, our institutions of higher learning often simply fail to educate. Few students attending them will acquire even rudimentary knowledge of their civilization's shape, history, and traditions, and fewer still will be led to a contemplation of any of the big existential issues that give depth and seriousness to the mind. Worse yet, many will leave college imbued with one or another form of irrational, conspiratorial thought, and a set of carefully cultivated resentments. Troubles like these could eventually kill us.
At the root of the academy's life-threatening pathologies is a spiritual malaise that has large sectors of our culture in its grip. Born of immense affluence and the loss of age-old certainties, its tell-tale signs are cynicism, nihilism, and self-indulgence. On college campuses, the specific manifestations include an increasingly crass merchandising of institutions, ‘humanistic scholarship’ fixated on popular culture and sex, and a chronic indifference to almost anything resembling what was once called liberal education. Curing these ills requires nothing less than a broad-based revival of cultural purpose by a means sadly past my powers to prescribe.
Unless, of course, finding these means only entails that each of us gives close attention to our own little corner of the cultural garden, planting modest beds that will eventually merge into vast fields of flowers. If the completion of small tasks can finally yield great ends, there may yet be hope, especially in an academy where localism and fragmentation offer abundant opportunities to grass-roots effort. How then shall we begin?
Individual faculty members have the greatest opportunities, even when outnumbered by the partisans of political correctness. These arise out of the very disorganization indicative of the academy's plight. For example most general education programs now consist of broad catch-all course categories sporting titles like ‘the humanities,’ ‘the social sciences,’ and ‘the natural sciences.’ Prevailing practice allows students to choose almost any combination of courses within them in order to satisfy breadth requirements. Hence, some students complete their humanities requirements by studying French New Wave Cinema, 20th-century fashion, and heavy metal rock, but fail to encounter Shakespeare, American history, or philosophy. Although a snare for many undergraduates, this permissiveness can prove a godsend for enterprising faculty because it permits the creation of ‘programs within programs’ that satisfy minimal standards while doing much more.
Take the case of David Mulroy, professor of classics at the Milwaukee campus of the University of Wisconsin. Surveying general education requirements long on flexibility but short on coherence, he resolved to improve the situation. Working with about a dozen colleagues, Mulroy crafted an entirely new program fulfilling the existing requirements while exposing students to concentrated readings from the great books, as well as demanding courses in science, mathematics, and foreign language. Students choosing to complete the program would gain a special citation on their diploma, similar in kind (though very different in significance), to those already available for taking programs in Latino, Black, and Gay studies.
Needless to say, Mulroy's proposal for a great books program, though only conceived as a student option, threw the campus into an uproar. Somehow the celebration of diversity did not require tolerance for lovers of Homer, Gibbon, and Tolstoy. Predictably, accusations of elitism and ‘Eurocentrism’ flew fast and furious; one savant from the English Department even declared that the word ‘great’ could have no objective meaning. (And on making inquiry, Mulroy discovered that the English Department indeed had lately gone through its course listings and had expunged all references to the ‘greatness’ of authors and texts.)
Despite an opposition deploying procedural stratagems that would have made a senator blush, Mulroy and his colleagues persevered, finally prevailing after a year and a half of conflict. In the end, the university simply realized that denying students the chance to take an enriched course of study would entail more embarrassment than it could stomach.
Today, the program flourishes, attracting not only first-rate students but also considerable philanthropic support. Moreover, its success has inspired emulation and dozens of campuses now have teams of professors seeking to duplicate Mulroy's triumph.
While non-academics are not in a position to design their own programs, they can give vital support to the good ones that already exist, and to those just struggling to be born. Alumni and parental opinion makes a difference to administrators, provided it gets clearly communicated, while trustee attitudes are always of special moment. Encouraging the good and deploring the bad can — when pursued intelligently — yield substantial results.
Donors can play a particularly valuable role by carefully targeting their academic giving, earmarking support for worthy programs and scholars. Donors wishing to support their alma mater but unsure about how much confidence to invest in its leadership can also consider making their gifts in increments, waiting to see how each sum is utilized before plunking a further installment down. (A useful way to locate well-led institutions is to consult the American Academy for Liberal Education, a Washington-based accreditor that has made excellence its standard.)
Another handy organization is the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, also in Washington. Formed to assist donors, alumni, and trustees, it is especially good at providing advice on how to bring beloved-but-wayward institutions back on track. In addition, it operates the Fund for Academic Renewal, which is specially designed to facilitate knowledgeable giving.
For trustees, the truly fateful passage occurs during a presidential search. Most persons seeking these positions are career bureaucrats, capable managers, and practical fund-raisers, but rarely in possession of the vision needed to revive an intellectually ailing institution. Nonetheless, a vacancy at the top can open the possibility of finding the contemporary equivalent of a Jefferson, a Newman, or a Hutchins — leaders who can fundamentally alter an institution's life. To have any such hope, however, trustees must be prepared to work hard, look long, and consider more than just the usual suspects. Those of strong heart can ensure a productive search by educating their colleagues about what is at stake, developing assessment criteria that address genuine education needs, and closely vetting applicants. (My own organization, the National Association of Scholars, has been working to define a pool of educators capable of offering exemplary leadership. Those looking for some might give us a ring.)
In the long run the best way to reform our colleges and universities is to expose them to vigorous innovative competition. Most college administrators, of course, claim that competition for students is already cut-throat and they're not lying. But it is a competition that occurs in a highly insulated market in which law and regulation present formidable barriers for institutional startups and innovative techniques. Accreditation procedures, for example, make new colleges ineligible to receive federal aid for their students until they have been in operation for several years. The full development of distance learning and the growth of for-profit higher education are also hobbled by regulation. Efforts by citizens and policy-makers to relax such constraints could do a world of good.
Thus, we can make our academic gardens grow — working institution by institution, program by program, gift by gift, leader by leader until what would otherwise have required a miracle is by piecemeal miraculously performed.
Stephen Balch is president of the National Association of Scholars, a New Jersey-based education reform institution. This article is reprinted with permission from Crisis in Education.
----- EXCERPT: Wisconsin professor's triumph with great books program is case in point ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Balch ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Pro-lifers Strive to Shatter World Population Myths DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—This year pro-life groups launched an assault on the annual promotion of World Population Awareness Week, sponsored Oct. 25-31 by family planning advocates. Editorials, advertisements, and a news conference at the National Press Club highlighted the response of 32 organizations and individuals.
Groups such as The Population Institute have been bemoaning the evils of world overpopulation for years. They encourage the use of contraceptives and promote additional “solutions” abhorrent to many Catholics, Christians, and others of faith.
World Population Awareness Week, which calls attention to the concerns and efforts of population controllers, is commemorated by “nearly 500 organizations in 80 countries and proclaimed by 32 governors of U.S. states and more than 200 mayors of U.S. cities,” according to an Oct. 29 advertisement signed by Werner Fornos, president of The Population Institute.
Despite this promotion and the widespread acceptance of the alleged fact of world overpopulation, pro-life groups have questioned the basic premise. This year they embarked on an organized effort to tell a different, less shrill message.
The themes they emphasized were three: global population is not exploding, the world has abundant food to support its people, and the earth is not overpopulated. Implicit in the international population control programs, they argued, is a sense of racism directed against Africans, Latinos, and Asians.
The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, The Population Research Institute, and Concerned Women for America held a news conference Oct. 29 to present this counter view. They and more than two dozen other organizations also placed a full-page advertisement in the Oct. 28 issue of The Washington Times.
In opening the news conference, Austin Ruse, director of the Catholic Family & Human Rights, said “the theory that we are overpopulated is not only wrong, but this theory is causing harm around the globe. Population control is wrong on the facts and wrong on the moral question, too.”
He added, “Demographers from Russia, Italy, and France reported that their countries are no longer replacing themselves and that this phenomenon is causing tremendous societal damage [see accompanying chart]. Fifty-one nations of the world have begun rapidly aging, and the generations have begun to fight over shrinking financial resources.
“Not only are aggressive population control programs wrong, but they inevitably lead to the kinds of human rights abuses, like forced sterilizations, now happening in China and Peru.
“We affirm the myriad problems in the developing world, including hunger, disease, and poverty, but the answers to these problems lie not with fewer people, but more food, medicine, and economic development. And these things are within our grasp.”
Steven Mosher, a leading population expert and president of the Population Research Institute, made similar statements. He noted that newly released statistics made available that day actually showed that now 61 countries — rather than the 51 they emphasized in their advertisement — are below population replacement levels.
Worldwide, he said, there are 2.7 children per woman; replacement — that is, ensuring that world population actually doesn't decline — is pegged at 2.1 children per woman. Replacement figures are rapidly dropping, and there is a reasonable expectation that many more countries could fall in the “below replacement” category in the near future.
Mosher also noted that vigorous population control programs are coming at a time when Africa, the current target of such efforts, is being devastated by AIDS deaths. In Botswana, for example, the average life expectancy of 61 years is expected to decline to 41 in the next decade because of HIV devastation.
The United Nations has reported that there are 66 million people around the world who are 80 years old or older; that's 1 out of 100 people. By the middle of the next century, under current trends, that percentage will more than triple to a level of 370 million. It will have enormous implications.
Italy, which has the world's lowest total family replacement level at only 1.24 children per woman, is already confronted with a serious demographic problem. There are 60% more Italians over the age of 60 than there are children under the age of 16. Such an imbalance will place severe strains on that country's future social delivery systems.
The third news conference participant was Laurel MacLeod, director of legislation and public policy for the Concerned Women for America. She criticized the use of the term “family planning” overseas. Saying the population controllers' agenda is “anti-child,” she argued, “This colonial model imposes its own misguided worldview on developing nations by denigrating marriage and families, and encouraging promiscuous sexual behavior.”
She added, “As I look over this room today, I thank God that I am a woman, and that as a woman I can experience the incredible joy of having children. I also thank God that I am a woman living in the United States of America, and not in Mauritania, Bangladesh, or Honduras.
“Why? Because women around the world must now deal with a new terror that stalks the streets of rich and poor alike. That terror is called international family planning. International family planning programs maim and kill women, and it's time for this madness to end.”
A number of other prominent organizations and individuals endorsed this anti-population control message in the newspaper advertisement. These included noted Catholic clergymen Father Richard John Neuhaus, Msgr. Michael Wrenn, and Rev. Richard Welch, CSSR, president of Human Life International.
Among others were Dr. Robert Royal of the Ethics and Public Center, Patrick Fagan of The Heritage Foundation, Charles Donovan of the Family Research Council, Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, and Randy Tate, executive director of the Christian Coalition.
Msgr. Wrenn, pastor of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in New York City and a respected writer, told the Register, “This shouldn't be an issue. The real challenge is to get people who have tremendous wealth to provide sufficient food, clothing, and shelter to people throughout the world.”
Another signer of the advertisement was Doug Scott, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Life Decisions International. He referred to “Population Indoctrination Week,” during which population controllers seek to capitalize on the ignorance of the public.
“It really is Chicken Little. It's insane. Unfortunately, the average person will not stop to ask, ‘Is this really true?’” He argued for an education program to help us better understand that “people are an asset and not a liability.” He also urged the elimination of U.S. foreign aid, which he believes reflects an elitist mindset.
Scott's prescription is to ensure that Congress hears the voice of pro-life advocates and to make sure parents know what their children are being taught in schools. If we do so, he said, “we'll have a huge impact down the road.”
The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, based in New York City, delivers a pro-life, pro-family message to delegates at the United Nations. “We try to change U.N. policy. It's our goal to get the United Nations out of population control, encourage them to get back to their original intent, particularly with UNICEF,” Ruse, its director, told the Register.
The Institute works with a coalition of up to 70 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. These groups represent a variety of religious traditions, but are united in their concern about population control.
Ruse said, “The enemy is out there. So we're working together in concert. It's an ecumenical effort in the best sense of the word.”
A number of pro-life organizations will be working to counter the impulses of the “Cairo Plus Five” United Nations conference next June. This conference, which will be the latest in a series of international population and family planning summits, will focus on the “reproductive health” of young people ages 10 to 24.
Finally, there is optimism in the pro-life community because the enormous omnibus budget bill which was passed by Congress last month included the Tiahrt amendment. Introduced by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), the legislation ensures that family planning assistance provided through U.S. funds will be strictly voluntary and that no coercion or incentives will be used to promote the population control agenda.
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Facts run counter to common belief of an 'overcrowded planet' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:A “preferential option” for children, for chilrdren's special gifts and special needs, is an integral part of the Gospel of Life. In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II calls us to this particular mission of love and care, both as regards our own children and the children of others.
It is above all in raising children that the family fulfils its mission to proclaim the Gospel of life. By word and example, in the daily round of relations and choices, and through concrete actions and signs, parents lead their children to authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift of self, and they cultivate in them respect for others, a sense of justice, cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity and all the other values which help people to live life as a gift. In raising children, Christian parents must be concerned about their children's faith and help them to fulfil the vocation God has given them. The parents' mission as educators also includes teaching and giving their children an example of the true meaning of suffering and death. They will be able to do this if they are sensitive to all kinds of suffering around them and, even more, if they succeed in fostering attitudes of closeness, assistance and sharing towards sick or elderly members of the family. …
A particularly significant expression of solidarity between families is a willingness to adopt or take in children abandoned by their parents or in situations of serious hardship. True parental love is ready to go beyond the bonds of flesh and blood in order to accept children from other families, offering them whatever is necessary for their well-being and full development. Among the various forms of adoption, consideration should be given to adoption-at-a-distance, preferable in cases where the only reason for giving up the child is the extreme poverty of the child's family. Through this type of adoption, parents are given the help needed to support and raise their children, without their being uprooted from their natural environment. (92-93)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Washington Program Provides Safety Net for Children at Risk DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Scores of Washington youth are finding a form of salvation in Hannah M. Hawkins' Children of Mine Youth Center Inc.
The Center, located in the Anacostia neighborhood of Southeast Washington, serves at least 65 children four days a week. Primarily an after-school education center, it tries to instill basic values such as respect for self and others, a strong work ethic, good study habits, and reverence for God.
Hawkins, a convert to Catholicism, founded the Center 16 years ago after providing drug counseling for adults in the city and observing that the hospitals did not provide adequate services for boarder babies who were exposed to crack cocaine.
“She saw the need for the Center,” said one of Hawkins' seven sisters, Joyce Frazier, who also volunteers. Since 100 children or more flood the Center on some days, it's clear she's tapped an unmet need.
“She knows the children are our future,” explained Wanda Robinson, the Center's volunteer coordinator. “If she could just change one young person's life, she would feel her life's complete.”
Some of the parents of Children of Mine Youth are addicted to alcohol, crack cocaine and other drugs, and some children have suffered physical and sexual abuse. “The sad part is that the children suffer,” Robinson told the Register.
“I got involved here and saw the faces of these children and couldn't leave,” said Robinson, who has volunteered there for more than eight years. Children ranging from 4 to 18 years old come to the Center.
Robinson, a former foster parent, became involved in the Center through her Baptist church and continued to go even when the other members of her distant congregation stopped coming. Even though she lives an hour away in Manassas, Va., she requested a night shift at work so she could work at the Center from 3:30 to 8 four days each week.
Earl Smith, who has volunteered for four years, originally came to help a friend and “fell in love with it.” A 35-year-old Pentecostal, he's preparing to become a single foster parent. He feels that he already has some parental experience. “I'm a parent to all the kids who come here,” he said as he prepared the children's dinner on a recent afternoon.
The largest number of volunteers is a group of Catholic University of America students who trek to Children of Mine Youth Center from the school's Northeast Washington campus, according to Robinson.
“We get very few volunteers from the District of Columbia,” said Hawkins, a native of the city. “We don't get as much support as I'd like.” She wishes that churches would be more involved in providing volunteers.
Hawkins and her volunteers provide meals for the children, as well as clothing and tutoring in mathematics and reading. Each student is expected to complete his homework, read a book, or have one read to him before playing, Robinson said. The kids can take computer classes, learn to sew, and they also work on arts and crafts.
“The Center's mission is to do far more than merely meet the physical needs of its children,” Hawkins wrote in her mission and philosophy statement. “Attending to emotional and spiritual needs is seen as being of equal importance in the effort to save our children.”
The children study the Bible weekly and travel to Brandywine, Md., on Saturdays to visit Father Robert Pittman's Body of Christ farm, where they plant vegetables. Occasionally, Hawkins provides foster care and adoption services, she said.
A prominent pro-chastity poster in the dining room area features the picture of an infant to show what the results of “going all the way” can be for teen-agers. Hawkins, who has five grown children, also holds special classes for boys and girls. The kids can also play on basketball, baseball, and football teams at the Center.
Ubiquitous signs on the Center's walls announce Hawkins' rules for the students and volunteers. The No. 1 rule for the children seems to be to clean up after themselves, an idea Hawkins expects volunteers to promote among the kids when they're at the Center.
“I come down on them in love, not in hate,” explained Hawkins. “I might tell one, you're a beautiful child, but you'd be even more beautiful if you'd bathe? For me, cleanliness is next to godliness.” Hawkins and her volunteers help to fill in the spaces for the kids and teach them hygiene and manners, as well as good personal habits and about God.
Each day closes with a “rap session,” in which the children and volunteers talk with Hawkins about what happened that day at the Center. “A lot of kids don't want to leave,” Hawkins said. Obtaining a larger center where kids could stay would help her even more.
“They're home alone and on their own,” she said of the kids. “People don't understand the depth, the seriousness, of what's going on. We have a lot of mean-spirited, junkyard children behind us who are not being reached” due to parental neglect. Hawkins added that the parents' attitude is, “I conceived you, I don't believe in abortion, so you're here. Don't bother me; I can't cope.” In many cases, parents don't even come to pick the children up in the evening, Hawkins said.
“As a disciple (of Jesus Christ), this is what I try to do,” she explained. “I'm just a foot soldier” — an apt self-description as she doesn't own a car. On many evenings after the Center closes, she finds herself accompanying the children home. Recently, she's been searching for a donated van that would help her with her weekly outreach work, as well as take the stranded children home.
In 1997, Washington's Caring Institute gave its Caring Award to Hawkins, in honor of her work, Robinson said.
A D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, Hawkins launched the Center in her home to meet her constituents' needs and moved it to a two-room Anacostia apartment three years later, in 1985. When the members outgrew those accommodations, the Center bought a free-standing house in 1993 with a basketball court on the side lot.
Hawkins said she does not accept any federal or local government funding because she feels it would restrain her and hinder the work she does.
William Murray writes from Kensington, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: Founder, a Catholic convert, tends to physical, emotional, and spiritual needs ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Euthanasia Movement Marches Forward in Europe DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Belgium is likely to become the third European country to legalize euthanasia. Assisted killing of the terminally ill is already legal in Holland and Switzerland. Last month, the Dutch euthanasia laws were formalized with a new legal requirement that places an onus on doctors to inform coroners if they have had a hand in their patients' deaths. The requirement gives recognition to the fact that for several years doctors in Holland have been killing patients with lethal injections.
An estimated 3,000 people a year die in Holland because of assisted suicides. Until now, an informal medical code of conduct covered euthanasia in the Netherlands and Dutch doctors who administered fatal injections were not prosecuted.
The normalization of euthanasia laws in Holland has now led to pressure in neighboring Belgium to allow similar measures. Belgian socialist senators are demanding a change in their country's laws to allow assisted suicides.
Dutch judicial department official Wijnand Stevens said: “The government has agreed to put the practice into law. It was part of the deal to set up the new coalition, but it will probably take two years to pass. You would probably find that euthanasia is being carried out in all countries and maybe doctors are not being prosecuted.”
In Belgium the proposal by Senators Roger Lallemand and Fred Erdman to legalize euthanasia there is likely to spark a fierce debate in the northern European country, which is nominally Catholic. During the first and second world wars, Irish people were encouraged to join the British army to help “Save Catholic Belgium from the Protestant Hun.”
However the two senators claim only 20% of Belgium's electorate are opposed to assisted killing of the terminally ill. Already one anonymous doctor confided to a Belgian newspaper that he and his colleagues have regularly administered lethal doses of pain killers to patients who ask for them.
Dr. Peggy Norris, secretary of the Worldwide Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life said: “This latest move is very worrying. In Holland, some patients have already taken to carrying certificates stating that they want to live if they become seriously ill. Already, there is evidence that some elderly people are not seeking help from their doctors when needed, because they fear they will be put to death.” Efforts to legalize euthanasia are growing across Europe — in France, for example, a recent opinion poll found that 80% of respondents, including a majority of practicing Catholics, were in favor of a terminally ill patient's “right to die.”
In Britain, the Bland ruling by the House of Lords four years ago allowed doctors to withdraw medical treatment from patients in a “persistent vegetative state.” The ruling went against Catholic teaching in that it defined food and fluids as medical treatment. Once the decision had been made, Tony Bland, who had been in a coma for over five years, died of thirst. Bland had previously been denied a natural death when doctors used antibiotics to treat a potentially life-threatening infection.
Two years ago in Ireland, the Supreme Court ruled in the Ward Case, that food and fluids could be withdrawn from a woman who had been in a coma since being seriously injured in a car accident. Staff at the Catholic hospital which cared for the unnamed ward of the court opposed the move, but the woman's family argued in favor of removing feeding tubes. The case was made more controversial by the fact that the woman's family inherited the compensation she had been awarded following her road accident.
There are now growing fears that European institutions will be used to foist euthanasia on countries, like Ireland, that have traditionally opposed the killing of the elderly and the severely
ill. Last year, the Council of Europe passed a Convention on Human Rights in Bio-Medicine which allows drug companies to experiment on severely disabled patients without their consent. Less than half the countries of Europe have ratified the convention — among those that opposed it were Britain, Ireland, and Germany. German opposition to the convention, which echoes Nazi experiments on the disabled, was particularly vehement.
Dr. Norris believes that growing demands for euthanasia are linked with the legalization of abortion and contraception in most European countries over 30 years ago: “Across Europe birth rates have fallen, as a result the demographics are skewed and Europe has an aging population.” Governments are now perceiving elderly people as a burden on the economy and they want to get rid of them.”
Norris and her colleagues have formed a new UK-based anti-euthanasia group to counter the growing threat of legalized assisted suicides. The group is named Primum Non Nocere after the medical principle of “first do no harm” contained in the Hippocratic oath.
However, she believes that abortion and the culture of death have undermined that oath: “At the British Medical Association's (BMA) annual general meeting this year, a resolution was passed that was proposed by the junior doctors which binds the BMA to holding a conference on assisted suicide next year. What is particularly worrying is that it is the junior members of the profession who are calling for such a move.
“Since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed by the UK parliament, obstetricians who conscientiously object to the killing of the unborn have found themselves barred from senior posts or professorships in teaching hospitals. The same is going to happen to gerontologists who object to euthanasia. Care for the elderly is going to become the next area where doctors with a conscientious objection need not apply.”
Dr. Denis Daley of Prima Non Nocare added: “I am particularly frightened by the attitude of younger doctors, many of whom have lost a sense of the sanctity of life. The potential effect of any decision to allow doctors to hasten the deaths of terminally ill patients can be seen as a development of UK abortion policy in the last 30 years. The 1967 Abortion Act had initially been intended to protect women whose physical or mental health would be endangered by pregnancy or motherhood. But now abortion in the UK is a means of birth control.”
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: Socialists push to include Belgium among nations that permit practice ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: LIFE NOTES DATE: 11/08/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 08-14, 1998 ----- BODY:Social Systems Urged to Adapt For Aging Populations
VATICAN CITY—Social and legal systems must be changed to accommodate the world's growing elderly population, authorities said at the launch of a Vatican conference on aging.
Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, said the late-October meeting was meant to address demographic shifts as well as changes in attitudes toward the old and the ill.
Pointing out that there are more people worldwide who are over 60 than those who are younger than 15 years old, he said “this means profound changes regarding society, the economy, politics, and human culture.”
The archbishop noted that “old age has a lesson … for the next generation and for the next century” which should not be ignored, because it “gives a profound sense to life.”
Father Jose Redrado, secretary of the health care workers' council, pointed out that Pope John Paul II himself is aging, yet remains an example for all. People should regard the last years of life as a time of opportunity, he said, and not of decline.
“The last chapter of life which an elderly person writes must be written with much enthusiasm and with joy,” the priest continued, “and this … presents a personal, ecclesial, and social challenge.”
Views on Suffering Have to Change, Institute Chief Says
VATICAN CITY—PierUgo Carbonin, director of the gerontological institute at Rome's Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, said the Church and society must come to terms with euthanasia by changing people's perspectives on suffering. He was speaking at the Vatican conference on aging.
“When people resort to euthanasia, it is usually not because of the incurability of a disease or because of unbearable pain, but because of a lack of social support,” he explained, adding that euthanasia is viewed as “an escape route from enormous economic problems faced by the old.”
Those concerns are bound to worsen, Carbonin said, as the population of retired people in industrialized societies grows, while the tax-paying base shrinks.
Unless societies raise their ages of retirement or force workers to pay more taxes, he said, there will be increasing tension over limited financial resources for the elderly.
“The big problem is solidarity between the generations,” Carbonin added, “and not conflict between them.”
Don't Reduce People To Mere Things, John Paul Warns
VATICAN CITY—Differing scientific concepts of human nature can have significant impact, especially when individuals are reduced to things, Pope John Paul II said.
Speaking Oct. 27 during a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the Pontiff said “the repercussions on man and on the regard that scientists have for him are far from negligible.”
“The principal danger consists in reducing an individual to a thing, or in considering him in the same way as other natural elements, therefore relativizing man, whom God has placed at the center of creation,” he continued.
Scholars in physics, astronomy, mathematics, neuroscience, and other fields, as well as authorities on the humanities, gathered for the Oct. 26-29 meeting with the theme “Changing Concepts of Nature at the Turn of the Millennium.”
They were to discuss how scientists and humanists can accommodate divergent views in a way which makes sense as the new millennium approaches.
Pope John Paul pointed out that as scientific disciplines have proliferated, they have brought about varying and unaccustomed ways of viewing human nature, including reducing it to instinct and biology alone.
“In a certain number of current theories, one finds this temptation to reduce the human being to this purely material and physical reality, making man a being who behaves only like other living species,” the Pope said.
But humanity, he later added, is uniquely able to discern the existence of a Creator, and to have religious faith.
A person's capacity for reason and will allow self-determination and the ability “to enter into communication with God, to respond to his appeal and to realize one's self according to one's own nature,” the Pope told the gathering.
“In fact, because he is of a spiritual nature, man is capable of welcoming the supernatural realities and achieving eternal happiness, freely offered by God.
“This communication is rendered possible because God and man are two essences of a spiritual nature.”
In Costa Rica Development is Tied To Strength of Family
VATICAN CITY—To continue and to strengthen its role as a model of peace, democracy, and justice in Central America, Costa Rica should give greater support to the family and improve its educational programs, Pope John Paul II said.
Meeting Oct. 29 with Costa Rica's new ambassador to the Vatican, the Pope urged greater cooperation between the Church and state in protecting the traditional family.
“What happens within the family has deep repercussions on the whole social fabric,” the Pope said. “It is in the family, especially the Christian family, that children learn from their parents to respect human life, which is sacred and inviolable from the moment of conception.”
The family along with the Church and Christian society teach people the values they need “in the struggle against corruption, violence, delinquency, and moral degradation in its most varied and painful manifestations,” the Pope said.
“Collaboration in this field between the state and the Church in the schools and through the means of social communications is indispensable for protecting and promoting the family as a sanctuary of life and love, as the educator of persons and as the promoter of development for all.”
Pope John Paul praised Costa Rica for its 50-year-old practice of not having a standing army.
The money saved, he said, has been used for education, health care, and programs to fight poverty.
He encouraged the government, the Church, and businesses to work together to do even more to help the country's poor, especially through education and vocational training programs. Counselors at Abortion Clinics Must Have ‘Mind of Christ at Calvary’
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Post-Hurricane Hazards Test Nicaragua's Resolve DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua—For miles in every direction, the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch litters the slowly drying volcanic soil of this important agricultural province in the Pacific northwest of Central America's largest country.
Enormous, uprooted trees lie in tangled clumps where the swirling floodwaters dumped them. Scraggly thatched huts crouch half-buried in the mud that engulfed these former family homes during the intense three-day storm that dropped 58 inches of rain on Nicaragua at the beginning of November.
Wide swaths of dirt left by the receding waters cover fields of sugar cane, tomatoes, beans, wheat, coffee, and a variety of other bumper crops that had been awaiting harvest. A light yellow scar slashes down the side of the Casitas Volcano where tons of rock, mud, and water gave way and buried a string of villages at the base of the dormant volcano.
Alongside a raised spur of the Pan American Highway, thousands of campesinos (peasant farm laborers) perch with their scant belongings and sketchy shelters on the highest ground they can find, in a wide green valley that resembles the African savannas.
The devastation “Hurac·n Mitch” brought to Nicaragua can easily be seen in their faces and in the stories the campesinos tell of the raging waters.
One woman recounts how she grabbed her children, placed them in bags, and hung them in trees. Another describes how she stood in swirling water up to her waist for two days, until the flooding began to recede. A third said all she did was “climb.”
Many of those living in Chinandega, LeÛn, and other provinces in Nicaragua's west and north, have lost family members and the few goods they owned. Few had much to begin with.
After Haiti, Nicaragua is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. More than 75% of its 4.5 million population live in poverty or extreme poverty. Unemployment hovers around 16% and underemployment around 36%, but Mitch, which has been called Central America's worst storm in two centuries, is expected to make those numbers climb.
History of Disaster
The plight of the Nicaraguan poor, most of whom are Catholic, has been exacerbated over the past three decades by a series of natural and man-made disasters.
In 1972, Managua was leveled by a deadly earthquake. During most of the 1980s, the country suffered from a war fought by the Marxist-oriented Sandinistas and the American-supported Contras. In 1996, Nicaragua's Pacific coast was battered by a powerful tidal wave that destroyed several ports. And now Mitch has killed at least 4,000, injured many more, and left nearly 1 million Nicaraguans homeless.
The death toll is certain to rise. Medical, government, and Church personnel are grimly waiting to see how many will succumb to several fatal diseases that were expected to start manifesting themselves in great numbers in mid-November. Already there have been confirmed cases of cholera and hemorrhagic fever.
Many more cases are expected because thousands live in areas contaminated by the corpses of humans and domestic animals. Although piles of human and animal bodies have been burned in gasoline-fed fires, many more remain to be discovered. It's their decaying presence that may prove to be so dangerous, particularly for the children who swim in fetid water.
Officials from the Nicaraguan government, the Catholic Church, and a variety of international aid organizations are attempting to dispatch clean water, food, medicines, clothing, tents, and building supplies to the hundreds of thousands affected by the devastation, but the humanitarian efforts are hampered by a series of factors.
The first is the sheer difficulty of reaching the suffering.
Dozens of bridges were swept away by the torrents, making many roads impassable. The government and several private construction companies have started to build up rubble and debris in the shallows of streams and smaller rivers, making fords that can be handled by trucks and four-wheel drive vehicles, but many expect it will be years before the bridges are rebuilt. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is sending advisors to evaluate the situation; in a few key areas, pontoon bridges may be built.
Adding to the problem is a lack of helicopters. The Nicaraguan government has only a few. This scarcity made it difficult for officials to rescue people during the hurricane, or to discover in the subsequent weeks how many had been affected. The U.S. and Mexican governments have since sent a score of helicopters to Nicaragua to aid in the humanitarian efforts. Some food and water is getting through by air, but the need is so great that the helicopters can do relatively little.
Humanitarian efforts are also being hindered by the enormous proportions of human demand.
The flooding left hundreds of thousands with little in the way of food, medicine, and material goods. Various aid organizations, including those run by the Nicaraguan Church, rushed whatever they already had on hand to the suffering, but their supplies were quickly exhausted. This lack has created a problem both for those affected by the storm's devastation and for those regularly helped by Caritas, the Nicaraguan-American Foundation, Food for the Poor, and other development organizations.
As the size of the Mitch-related disaster in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador became apparent, material help began flowing in from outside the region. However, aid workers didn't always know what to do with the goods, since the distribution channels are still sketchy.
AgustÌn JarquÌn Anaya, the comptroller general of Nicaragua, noted that some areas are getting nothing, while others seem to be getting extra supplies. He is looking into making the distribution more efficient.
Assessing the Damage
The Nicaraguan government is also conducting a disaster study to discover exactly what damage has been done, and to determine what the country's needs will be in the next few months and years.
More than $200 million in foreign aid has been received in the devastated region so far, but this is only a pittance in light of the billions of dollars of damage caused by the storm. Nicaragua alone is estimated to have suffered more than $1 billion in damage to its infrastructure.
Government and Church officials in Nicaragua are particularly worried that the humanitarian aid flowing in from outside will soon dry up when the world turns its focus to other matters. These officials say that nearly 1 million Nicaraguans will have to be fed a month from now; they also fear that an equal number will have to be fed six months from now.
The country will have a tough time feeding its people from the breadbasket regions of Chinandega and LeÛn. Mitch flattened many crops and drowned thousands of steers in those fertile areas. Most of the crops that survived are ready for harvesting, but the poor road conditions will prevent them from being brought to market. And with the rainy season just ending, no more crops can be planted until May.
Mitch compounded its devastation by wiping out numerous businesses and the employment they offered. Many of the homeless no longer have a job whose salary could be used to rebuild their homes and lives. Widespread unemployment is expected to have a debilitating effect on the country's overall economy.
Noel Ramirez, the chairman of the Nicaraguan federal bank, thinks his nation will have to spend $1.5 billion to revive the economy—presupposing that Nicaragua's $6 billion foreign debt will be forgiven. Many of Nicaragua's highest-ranking leaders, including Vice President Enrique BoloÒos and Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo of Managua, have called for the total forgiveness of the nation's foreign debt.
So far France, Cuba, Austria, and several other countries have renounced their shares of the debt. The United States and Great Britain are discussing the matter.
At the moment, things look grim for the people of Nicaragua. However, government and Church officials are hopeful that, if the country's foreign debt is forgiven, if aid continues to be dispatched, and if Nicaraguans themselves work hard to overcome the aftereffects of Mitch, it will take about five years to bring the nation back to an economic status comparable to that existing before the disaster.
If any of these conditions are not met, officials will not be surprised if it took decades for the effects of “Hurac·n Mitch” to be overcome.
For more information about helping the victims of Hurricane Mitch, contact: Food for the Poor, Dept. 19054, 550 SW 12th Ave., Deerfield Beach, Fla. 33442.
Church Playing Key Role in the Relief Efforts
The Catholic Church in Nicaragua is playing an important role in the country's effort to evaluate the overwhelming disaster caused by Hurricane Mitch, to help those deeply affected by the storm, and to plan for the future.
Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo of Managua has named Msgr. Eddy Montenegro, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Managua and the head of the archdiocese's social-outreach projects, to lead the Church's disaster-relief efforts in Nicaragua. The monsignor also represents the Church on the country's disaster-relief committee, which is headed by Vice President Enrique BoloÒos.
Msgr. Montenegro said that the Church has two roles in helping to deal with the disaster. The first is serving on the national committee that is “planning the general response to the disaster.” The second is that the bishops of the most affected dioceses have been “placed in charge of coordinating humanitarian aid in their dioceses.”
The monsignor noted how logical it is for the Church to handle this task, since it already has a variety of aid organizations in place: among these are Caritas, the Church's international charity; various social justice organizations; and a variety of diocesan- and parochial-aid programs. The two organizations that will do the bulk of the direct distribution are the American-Nicaraguan Foundation and COPROSA, the archdiocese's social-justice committee.
Another reason for the Church's prominence in organizing and distributing disaster relief is Nicaraguans' lack of trust in the government's ability to undertake the task fairly. Most feel that the Church can be trusted to distribute aid to all those who need it, not just to those whom might be politically sympathetic. Many communities have begged the national government, which is headed by President Arnoldo Alem·n of the Conservative Party, to channel all aid through the Church for this reason.
Cardinal Obando y Bravo has told the priests and religious of his archdiocese, which covers about half the country, that there will be no discrimination in the distribution of resources. They seem to have taken his injunction to heart, since some pastors have been forced to mediate between groups on the left and right about the distribution of resources in certain villages.
“Typically,” said Msgr. Montenegro, “a liberal mayor may only want to take care of the liberals. As of now, most of these problems have been addressed. In the face of this disaster, the people have learned to work together better.”
He noted that the Nicaraguan Church is depending on help from Catholic organizations, ranging from the Vatican to local parish groups. The Vatican itself has sent $50,000 to Nicaragua and Honduras, and the money is being distributed by the two countries'dioceses.
Msgr. Montenegro added that many ordinary Nicaraguan Catholics who weren't directly affected by the disaster immediately organized efforts to help the stricken. One of the first was a telethon called the Chain of Love.
In the areas most directly affected by the disaster, many middle-class and upper-class Catholics immediately began helping Mitch's victims. Some left their jobs and began volunteering at clinics, food-distribution centers, and the schools that had been turned into shelters for the homeless.
Many of the very poorest Nicaraguans living outside the disaster areas made a point of immediately sending aid to their victimized neighbors. They gathered materials and monetary donations, and dispatched them to the Church. They also helped the priests, nuns, and medical personnel who have been working almost non-stop since the rains hit.
“The hearts of the poor always respond much faster than the organized groups,” said Msgr. Montenegro. But he added that “everybody is making a special effort to unite in the face of the disaster.”
—Loretta Seyer
Loretta Seyer, editor of Catholic Faith & Family, recently returned from Nicaragua.
----- EXCERPT: Impoverished Country Braces for Expected Onset of Deadly Diseases ----- EXTENDED BODY: Loretta Seyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Religious Freedom Act Shines Spotlight on Persecution Problem DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:If you think that the age of the martyrs is something that belongs to Christianity's past, you've not been paying attention to the 20th century. In fact, religiously motivated persecution is as much a mark of the last hundred years as the invention of the automobile or the spread of mass technology.
“In sheer numbers, this has been the worst single century of persecution for Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism,” says human rights activist Nina Shea, author of the 1997 study, In the Lion's Den, chronicling the oppression, murder, and torture of Christians in countries around the world today. Vast numbers have died simply because of their religious identity.”
Verifiable figures are hard to come by. But, given a century that began with pogroms against Jews in Russia, saw the destruction of more than 1 million Armenian Christians by retreating Turkish armies in World War I, witnessed the midcentury genocide of European Jewry, the destruction of countless numbers of Chinese Christians under Mao, and 70 years of a Church silenced behind an Iron Curtain—few will quibble with the notion that the 20th century has earned a special distinction in the annals of religious hatred.
Worse yet is the situation is not improving. While religion-based discrimination may have eased in much of the former Soviet bloc, for Christians in Sudan, Algeria, China, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, and other countries, it's still the age of martyrs.
In Sudan, the militant Islamic government of Hassan al-Turabi threatens the lives of millions of Christians and animists through war and starvation. While seeking expanded trade relations with the United States, China continues a brutal four-year crackdown on Protestant underground churches and Catholics who maintain ties with the Vatican. In Pakistan and India, the policies of Muslim and Hindu nationalists have created a growing climate of intolerance and violence against religious minorities.
“There seems to be the assumption that everything is all right now that the Berlin Wall has fallen,” said Wilfred Wong, who works with Jubilee Campaign, a British-based human rights group, in a recent interview in Christianity Today. “There is a lack of recognition that Christians are still facing severe persecution in many places.”
‘The Persecution Movement’
The good news is that that perception is changing. In the United States, a newly energized movement of Christians—The New York Times recently dubbed it “the persecution movement”—has risen in the past several years to counter the widespread ignorance and indifference to the plight of persecuted religious minorities by pressing for political and social change, and by coordinating the efforts of missionaries, human rights groups, and relief organizations.
Better still, last month, over much opposition, a coalition of religious and human rights groups, including the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC), the policy arm of the U.S. Catholic bishops, and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), persuaded lawmakers and eventually the Clinton administration to make religious liberty a key foreign policy consideration of the U.S. government.
In early October, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (S 1868) which would require the president to take action against countries that engage in a pattern of egregious systematic religious persecution.
The measure was husbanded through Congress over a period of two years by Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Don Nickles (R-Okla.), and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), along with House members Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.).
The Senate bill, similar to a measure passed by the House last May, establishes an independent 10-member federal Commission on International Religious Liberty with a $3 million budget to investigate religious persecution abroad, report on it annually in May, and recommend courses of action to the president. Further, each fall the State Department will be required to file its own report on violations of religious freedom, and outline possible U.S. responses in each case.
In addition, the measure creates a special State Department post of ambassador-at-large for religious liberty.
This “double reporting,” advocates say, will put pressure on the administration to speak out against, or even penalize scores of nations that are imprisoning, torturing, or, in some cases, killing people because of their faith.
According to State Department figures, more than 70 nations have a record of serious violations of the religious rights of citizens and foreign workers.
A Range of Punishments
The range of punitive options include private rebuke, public condemnation, opposition to invitations to host the Olympic Games, halting scientific and cultural exchanges and state visits, forbidding any U.S. bank from loaning more than $10 million to the offending country, halting government aid or security assistance and, most seriously, imposing trade sanctions, including a ban on export licenses of goods and technology.
“The big thing that the bill does,” said Gerry Powers, director of the USCC's Office for International Justice and Peace, “is give religious persecution a profile in public policy debate that it hasn't had before. It provides an overall framework that ensures that the issue is on the front burner.”
In the past, Powers told the Register , U.S. responses to instances of religious persecution have lacked consistency: “All rights are linked. Even the secular human rights community has come around to the notion that if religious rights are violated, then other human rights will be, too. The point of the legislation is to ensure that religious liberty gets the same attention that other human rights get.”
It was the threat of legislation mandating automatic trade sanctions on countries that engage in persecution that, in part, “spooked” the Clinton administration.
The earlier House bill, sponsored by Wolf and Specter, called for cutoffs of U.S. aid to systematic offenders, including access to loans by international financial organizations—a stipulation that government officials feared would hamper U.S. foreign diplomacy, and which were also a source of concern to Catholic Church officials who oppose comprehensive economic sanctions regimes on moral and humanitarian grounds. (The House bill also highlighted the persecution of Christians, while the bill the president signed expresses concern for the rights of all religious groups.)
Trade and commerce organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce and free-trade and agriculture lobbies such as USA*Engage also vigorously opposed the legislation.
The Senate bill, however, while requiring government response to the most serious violations of religious rights, permits a broad, flexible range of actions on the part of the president, with exemptions for humanitarian aid and waiver authority for cases where action would be counterproductive or where national security interests intervene.
It's worth noting that the law targets only the most egregious forms of systematic repression—torture, rape, killing, imprisonment—not all instances of religion-based discrimination. (Russia's new anti-proselytism law would be an example of the latter.)
White House's Grudging Approval
The president signed the bill into law Oct. 28 with a less than hearty endorsement.
“I commend the Congress for incorporating flexibility in the several provisions concerning the imposition of economic measures,” Clinton said after the signing. “Although I am concerned that such measures could result in even greater pressures, and possibly reprisals, against minority religious communities that the bill is intended to help, I note that Section 402 mandates these measures only in the most extreme and egregious cases of religious persecution.”
Administration officials have also worried that the measure might interfere with Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) attempts to deport aliens who claim asylum on the basis of religious persecution abroad, and create a “hierarchy” of human rights in which religious liberty considerations predominate.
That last objection has not only been challenged by religious leaders, but by some policy analysts as well.
“Of course there's a hierarchy of rights,” says Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Keeping people from practicing their faith is doing something far more cruel to them than keeping them from reading a newspaper. The freedom to worship God is as essential to human life as nourishment and oxygen. To deny that right cuts a very deep wound, indeed.”
Most Basic Human Right
That echoes Pope John Paul II's widely noted remarks to the Vatican diplomatic corps last January where he called religious freedom “the most fundamental human freedom, that of practicing one's faith openly, which for human beings is their reason for living.”
At an April 28 White House meeting with members of the NAE, the president even suggested that the threat of mandatory sanctions might put pressure on him and the rest of the government to “fudge facts” in order to avoid imposing penalties on trading partners, according to Rev. Richard Cizik, acting director of the NAE's office for governmental affairs, who was present at the meeting.
“I was astonished,” Rev. Cizik told the Register. “It was an unintended admission that our own government doesn't tell the whole truth about the facts and circumstances of religious persecution” when that cuts across economic interests. That makes the new law's provision for independent watchdog committees all the more essential, he added.
Nevertheless, said Rev. Cizik, who spearheaded the call in January 1996 for “a movement of conscience” to curb international religious persecution, the passage of the bill represents “a milestone in the fight for human rights for believers. In the end, everybody got on the same page. In the midst of the partisan acrimony of the last session of Congress, the bill's success is a remarkable achievement. It gives us some leverage to get our own government to do what it ought to do.”
Rev. Cizik worries, however, that, given the climate of political acrimony in Washington, D.C., these days, “the new commission will become a forum for partisan attacks on the administration.
“We're going to need a great deal of wisdom and sophistication in order to work together with our own government and with officials overseas. Will we be up to it? That's the question.”
But for human rights activists working in the field, the new awareness of the plight of persecuted believers overseas, and attempts to relieve conditions, can't come too soon.
Buzz Word for Inaction
To critics who charge that persecution activists reduce complex political situations which may have economic, cultural, and even ethnic dimensions to a simple conflict of religions, Shea responds that “the word ‘complicated’ too often is a recipe for paralysis. Every human situation is complicated. Bosnia is complicated, Kosovo is complicated, South Africa was complicated. That's always true.”
But in every case, said Shea, “the idea is invoked in order to bring paralysis, and to justify a lack of action.”
Many commentators have voiced the concern that unless the issue of religious liberty is faced squarely in these waning days of the 20th century, and on a global scale, darker crises may well be awaiting us around the millennial bend.
Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington's provocative 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, raises fears that, unless there's a renewed appreciation of the part religion plays in culture, the new century may be marked by “conflicts of civilizations that are at heart religious.”
Whereas the 19th century was marked by conflicts between nation-states, and the 20th by ideological conflicts, the author says, the coming century may be driven not by economics or ideology, but by the clash of cultural and religious values.
Rev. Cizik agrees. “The good news is that we have choices,” he said. “We can bridge differences between cultures, we can come to common understandings about universal principles.”
It doesn't have to be a century of conflict.
“The developments of the past two years, the signing into law of the International Religious Freedom Act,” he said, “are positive steps in that direction.”
Senior writer Gabriel Meyer is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ex-Irish Chief's Abortion Call Is Only Her Latest Bombshell DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Former President Mary Robinson has shocked pro-lifers by calling for abortion to be legalized in this country.
The call comes in Mary Robinson, The Authorized Biography , a new book by journalists Olivia O'Leary and Helen Burke. It reveals many details about the complex and ambivalent relationship Ireland's first female president has with the Church and with Catholic teaching.
But it is her stance on abortion that has shocked Catholics the most.
“I would make abortion available in this country,” the book quotes Robinson as saying. “It would be healthier and more mature about ourselves, more honest. Even for a country that regrets and feels a great sense of loss at the termination of life, it would be a preferable solution. It would be a kind of coming to terms with the problem, instead of exporting it and moralizing about it.”
Abortion is illegal in Ireland, but hundreds of Irish women travel to Britain each year to terminate their pregnancies.
Already, a former presidential chaplain to Mary Robinson, Father Dominic Johnson OSB, has staged his own “silent protest” over her call. The Benedictine prior of Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick kept a photograph of himself and Robinson in his office as a souvenir of his brief time as her chaplain. But he has since removed the photograph and destroyed the negative. He said, “Mrs. Robinson's office at present is United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. What a contradiction in terms! Unborn children are human beings with the basic human right to life. The commissioner would deny them their human right to life.”
Caroline Simmons, legal spokesman for the Pro-Life Campaign in Dublin, said Robinson is “now seeking to legalize the most notorious abuse of human rights in the Western world.” Simmons described her reaction to Robinson's call as one of “shock and deep concern.”
“This is tragic,” she added. “At the very time when people of all shades of opinion on abortion were coming together to seek positive alternatives, we have a call for the legalization of abortion.”
Maurice Colgan of the pro-life group Youth Defense said: “We have been saying for years that this woman had her own agenda, and this is no surprise to us. What is shocking is that as U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights she is going around criticizing governments for human rights abuses, yet she would deny the fundamental right to life to the unborn child.”
The authorized biography also reveals that Robinson believes her presence as president probably influenced the outcome of the constitutional referendum on divorce in 1995. Before that ballot, which was carried by a slim majority, Robinson gave a television interview where she supported the pro-divorce side. Ger Casey, a member of the No Divorce Campaign at the time, said: “We said then that it was an inappropriate intervention by the president in that campaign. Now she has admitted that she did indeed influence the outcome of the divorce referendum.”
The chairman of the No Divorce Campaign, Des Hanafin, said he is considering making a legal challenge to the referendum's result following Robinson's admission.
Robinson was born Mary Bourke into a prosperous family with a traditional Catholic background, in Ballina, County Mayo, in 1944. She attended a Catholic boarding school but began to question the Church while at a finishing school in Paris in the early 1960s. In the book she is quoted as saying, “I was very angry at a lot of what the Church stood for at that time, at how religion could become power-play and oppressive, undermining the true sense of spirituality and the true ethical norms and standards that are at the highest reaches of the human mind.”
After Paris, Robinson studied law at Trinity College. Because it is a Protestant school, her father had to obtain permission from Dubin Archbishop John Charles McQuaid before she could study there. At Trinity, Robinson met her future husband, Nick Robinson. Her family objected to the engagement, because Nick Robinson was not seeking a traditional career: He wanted to become a cartoonist. Her family did not attend her wedding.
She was elected as a senator to Ireland's upper house, Seanad. In 1971, according to her biographers, “holy war” broke out between Robinson and the Irish hierarchy when she unsuccessfully introduced a bill to legalize contraception. By this stage she had reconciled with her family, but relations were endangered, the book says, when Robinson was denounced at her parents' local church in Ballina. Perhaps naively, not understanding the full weight of the Church's objection to artificial contraception, Robinson traveled to Dundalk to visit William Cardinal Conway in a bid to have him “accept the integrity” of her position. When he refused, Robinson branded him “a bully of the Church.”
The biographers, describing how Archbishop McQuaid outlined his objections to Robinson's contraceptive proposal, make a claim that many would find absurd: “If he had stuck an effigy of Mary Robinson on every church door and invited people to stick pins in it, he could hardly have targeted her more specifically.”
It was a time of great hurt—the hate mail that was sent to the Bourke family may have further increased Robinson's antipathy to elements within the Church. She continued practicing as a barrister and in 1986, she took a case to the European Court of Human Rights which abolished the “illegitimacy” status for children born out of wedlock.
Her liberal credentials were firmly established by 1990, when she was asked by the Labor Party to stand as their candidate in the presidential election. She won the contest in November 1990 with an overwhelming majority—her main opponent had been discredited earlier in the campaign when it became known that he had lied to the Irish public.
Unlike the United States, the office of president in Ireland carries little executive power and is seen as a mainly ceremonial post. But Robinson played politics like no other president before her.
Many Catholics said she demeaned the office and used it for her own ends, particularly in securing her U.N. human rights post. Almost every time she visited New York, she visited the U.N. headquarters, and the United Nations—its potential, its failures, and its future—were a frequent theme in her speeches and interviews. She had a troubled relationship with the Irish government, particularly as she went against its wishes when meeting controversial figures such as Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the political wing of Northern Ireland's largest terrorist organization, the Irish Republican Army.
One of her last acts as president in 1997 was a visit to Rome to address a U.N. conference on International Women's Day, during which she met the Pope in the Vatican. It proved to be one of her more controversial meetings. It was claimed that the ad hoc nature of Robinson's visit showed disrespect to the pontiff and that she broke Vatican protocol by not being properly dressed during the papal audience.
In the biography, Robinson is quoted as saying: “When I recognized that, I was delighted that I had taken the decision that I had. Far from feeling awkward about it, I felt this was what I was about.” Father David O'Hanlon, who was in Rome at the time and who provoked controversy in Ireland by describing the president's gesture as “cheap,” said the biography has reinforced his view of Robinson's actions.
“There was much made of the fact that no offense was taken in the Vatican, but that does not mean offense was not intended,” Father O'Hanlon told the Register. “She did not have to wear a veil; Vatican protocol does not require it. She could have steered the middle ground as Hillary Clinton and Nancy Reagan did, not wearing veils, but suitably dressed. Mary Robinson's actions were calculated to make a point.... She claimed to promote equality and pluralism, but she exploited her visit to Rome in a way that was offensive to the Catholic community—it was an action that was non-pluralistic and non-inclusive.”
In a graver matter, Robinson's view that abortion be legalized goes against Church teaching, set out most recently in the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which says Catholics must oppose the legalization of direct abortion under all circumstances.
The one area where she and Church agencies share the most in common is in the area of development and other assistance to the Third World. She is credited with bringing the Somalian famine in 1992 to the attention of the international community, but it was a priest who helped her do this. At a briefing with Irish aid agencies, she asked “What can I do to help?” to which Father Aengus Finucane of the relief agency Concern, replied, “Why don't you go there yourself, President?”
While her work highlighting famine in Africa helped secure her U.N. post, there is no doubt that the aid agencies benefited from her interest. Indeed, there was competition among them for her attention. According to the biography: “Justin Kilcullen of Trocaire [the Irish hierarchy's overseas aid agency] admits cheerfully that he created a bit of a scene in the Foreign Affairs Department in 1994 when he heard Mary was going to visit the camps run by other agencies at the borders of Rwanda. ‘I went in banging the table,’ says Kilcullen. ‘I said, She's going to Zaire where GOAL is. She is going to Tanzania where Concern is. She has to go to Rwanda itself where Trocaire is.’”
It is in this area that Mary Robinson made the biggest impact. It is thanks to her, working in tandem with Irish aid agencies, most of them Catholic, that the governmental post of Minister for Development was recreated and that Irish overseas aid has increased.
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: Former president, now U.N. human rights head, calls it 'healthier, more honest' ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: As School Choice Gets a Breather Momentum for the Idea is Growing DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:MILWAUKEE—To pay tuition for her three children at St. Albert School in Milwaukee, Linda Cruz begged, borrowed, and worked overtime. But this year, because of Wisconsin's school-voucher program, the full-time crane factory worker can “be more of a mom,” she says.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 9 let stand the Wisconsin program, which offers tax-supported tuition aid to low-income students in Milwaukee. Church-state separation organizations had launched a legal challenge.
“I struggled for many years to keep my kids in there,” says Cruz, a member of St. Albert Parish. “It's because the education is just perfect for them. I've tried to put my kids in public school. They flunked and could not even read.”
Though the debate over vouchers is far from over, parent-business coalitions in a handful of other cities are trying to match Milwaukee's success. Catholic officials across the nation have plenty at stake. And though they have not taken the lead in school choice campaigns, they play a key supportive role.
In June, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the 3-year-old voucher program is based not on peddling religious belief, but on parental choice. That is the ruling the U.S. Supreme Court refused to revisit. But the high court decision came not on legal merit, but because no other court in the nation has rendered a conflicting judgment on vouchers. If and when that conflict comes, perhaps over another state's law, the justices probably will rule definitively on school choice.
Those challenging the Wisconsin law include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Education Association, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These groups argue that the program supports religious catechesis with public funds. The Milwaukee program provides tuition vouchers of up to $4,900 per year per child for use at any school. To qualify, a family of four can earn no more than about $26,000 annually.
Now, 7,500 low-income students take advantage of the program. Most are minorities and most attend religious schools. Almost half of the 88 participating institutions are Catholic.
Walter Jackson Williams III, a 17-year-old senior at Messmer High School, had his full tuition of $4,800 paid this year by the school choice program. “It has helped me and lots of other people I know get an education that would be hard to come by,” says Williams. “If we had gone to public school, we would have missed some of the positive influences, things we experience at Messmer. Some people may have gotten into trouble.”
Williams plans to study political science and journalism at Marquette University. Gail Beanland, Williams'mother, suspects her son would have achieved academically wherever he went to school.
“I'm not going to say public schools aren't good,” says Beanland, a divorced parent who receives federal disability aid because of a job injury. “I just wanted something better, a better environment for him.”
The school aid program may help Messmer continue its rejuvenation. The inner-city school, founded in 1929, had its heyday in the 1950s and '60s. Enrollment declined in the 1980s.
But Messmer is thriving again. This year, the school grew by 16 percent, the largest increase in enrollment of any school in the region. Civic officials are pointing to it as a yardstick of efficiency. Unlike many Milwaukee public high schools, which feature armed police, Messmer manages to avert inner-city woes and produce top-notch graduates. Of a student body of 355, 190 pay tuition with vouchers.
“There have always been kids who were afraid to apply because they were afraid they could not afford the tuition,” says Capuchin Brother Bob Smith, principal of Messmer. “A lot of people said the culture of a school would change if we brought those students in. But our program has not changed one iota in terms of behavioral, social, spiritual, or academic qualities. If anything, they have increased. The key is high expectations.”
Some Catholic schools are facing a sort of chaos intensified by the choice program. At St. Albert School on the south side, 189 of the 210 students receive vouchers for the $900-per-year tuition. Most of the student body is Hispanic, with the rest is made up of Hmongs and African Americans. One in 10 children speaks no English. More than 100 students speak limited English.
“The vouchers provide an opportunity for families who are low income to meet their educational desires,” says Julia Hutchinson, principal of St. Albert's for 11 years. “But it's challenging for the teachers. Kids coming out of public school are behind. Behavior can be a problem. Everything that is allowed in public school is not allowed here.”
Advocates for school choice in Wisconsin succeeded in part because of uncommon partnerships. In Wisconsin, backers of the voucher program include low-income parents, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, African American separatists, conservative businessmen, a school board member who calls himself a “leftist,” libertarians, Latino activists, and a retired public schools chief. “This succeeded because people decided to have parents be lead-advocates for themselves instead of having people do it for them,” says Zakiya Courtney of Marquette University's Institute for the Transformation of Learning.
Howard Fuller, Milwaukee's superintendent of public schools for four years, became one of the primary backers of school choice. In 1995 he resigned in disgust, convinced that the system suffered from inherent flaws that left some students poorly served.
Fuller expects foes of vouchers will attempt sabotage. Some legislators may act to impose a slew of regulations on participating schools. “It gets into the political realm,” Fuller says. “We will always have to be vigilant about that.”
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is part of the coalition that obtained school choice, but was not out front. Organizers like Courtney and Fuller say that no one wanted the effort to be seen as a “Catholic movement.” The archdiocese tends 158 schools with just more than 40,000 students. It is by far the largest private educator in the state. Thirty-seven Catholic schools take part in the voucher program.
“We supported the program as it went through the legislature,” says Jon Huebscher, director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference. “We were trying to make it as palatable to religious schools as possible.”
Despite objections from the Church, legislators amended the school choice law, allowing students to opt out of religious activity.
The most ardent supporters of school choice in Wisconsin have been a group of business owners fed up with the quality of job seekers.
In the early 1990s, the businesses amassed a private financial aid fund. The business owners wanted to inject competition into the world of education, convinced that public schools would respond by improving. “We are talking about the education of children here,” says John Stollenwerk, a shoemaker and fund co-chairman. “This is not selling shoes or airline seats. It is something much more important. We have to do what works.”
At the state capitol in Madison, legislators could not help take notice when the business lobby made school choice its top priority for 1995. The aid fund also helped build a constituency of low-income parents who were sold on school choice and let their lawmakers hear about it.
The U.S. Supreme Court's Nov. 9 action is not the last word on the constitutionality of school choice. Appeals went through state channels to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Foes have other avenues of protest. “As night follows day, the next level is that the ACLU or teachers' unions will go to federal court to try to get it knocked out,” says Robert Destro of the law school at The Catholic University of America. “In the long run, I think the school choice side will prevail, but it will be a long time.”
If the issue returns to the current Supreme Court, Destro foresees a close vote, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as the deciding voice. Chris Wolfe, a political scientist at Marquette, also predicts a 5-4 split, with school choice coming out on top.
In this century, Supreme Court cases on education have alternately favored and hampered private schools. In 1922, the court overturned an Oregon law that would have banned private schools. Beginning in the 1940s and through the 1970s, the court “got more serious about secularizing public schools,” Wolfe says.
But in three cases between 1983 and 1993, the court upheld public aid to special students at religious schools. In those rulings, the justices said that religion was incidental to the purpose of the programs. Last year, the court ruled that public special education teachers can travel to religious schools to aid children.
Legal fights over tuition vouchers are under way in Arizona, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Puerto Rico. Legislatures of about half the states have considered voucher programs in recent years. A new ballot measure may come in the next few years in California, says Phillip Jordan.
Jordan, a 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles School District, now helps the Archdiocese of Los Angeles compile a financial aid endowment for Catholic schools. Since 1988, the archdiocese has collected $94 million, the largest fund of its kind in the nation.
In 10 years, the archdiocese has granted $24 million in financial aid to 32,500 needy students. As hefty as this fund sounds, Jordan says it covers less than half the need.
“We would applaud any effort to create new revenues through vouchers or whatever means,” he says.
In 1993, California voters rejected a school choice initiative. But the past five years of private scholarships and success stories is winning converts, especially among low-income parents, Jordan insists.
Meanwhile, a California business coalition has pledged to help some 3,000 needy urban students through private schools.
Smaller business-backed school choice funds also exist in New York, Indianapolis, San Antonio, and Baltimore. As in Wisconsin and California, the funds are seen as stopgap aid until voucher programs succeed.
Ed Langlois writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Langlois ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Lowdown on Real Love DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Mary Beth Bonacci
Mary Beth Bonacci is a popular youth speaker and the founder of Real Love Inc., a program to help educate and challenge young people to live chastely. She is the author of Real Love (Ignatius Press), a question-and-answer book on chastity for teen-agers and their parents, and We're on a Mission From God , a “Generation X” guide to Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church. She is probably the only person to have appeared on both MTV and EWTN, the Catholic cable network. Her video, Sex & Love: What's a Teen to Do ?, is a dynamic presentation to teens about the “do's” of chastity. Recently she spoke with Register correspondent Mark Brumley.
Are young people receptive when you speak with them about chastity, or is this, as some people have described it, a “Lost Generation?”
They're extraordinarily receptive. They're only lost because no one is showing them the way. When someone comes and explains things to them clearly and honestly, they're extraordinarily receptive. It's standing ovations, they write me letters, it's amazing.
What is the reason for that receptivity?
I think there are two reasons. One, they know something's wrong. The sexual revolution didn't work; they're the ones who have inherited this mess and they know that that's not the way to go. That leads to reason No. 2, which is that my message is different from that of some chastity speakers. I base everything on not what can happen, the consequences, the horrible things, but on love, and understanding that chastity is a way to find and live love. That's positive, it's what they really want. They respond.
How do many adults respond to young people regarding sexuality today?
We leave them to decide for themselves; we don't give them guidance or tools to decide with. You have a generation of adults who don't know what to say because we were never told. The sexual revolution rolled around and everyone said, ‘Make up your own mind.’ So that now all many parents can say is, ‘Just don't do it—but I don't know why you shouldn't except that all these bad things can happen to you.’ As true as that is, it's not terribly effective.
It often comes down to ‘Don't do it because I said so.’ Right?
Exactly. Or even, “Don't do it because it's a sin, but I can't exactly tell you what sin is.” No one's giving [young people] adequate answers and guidance, and something to get excited about.
What are common misconceptions that young people have about sex and the Church's teaching about it?
That the Church teaches that sex is somehow bad or dirty or evil. That's why they respond when I give them true Church teaching, which is that sex is beautiful, it's sacred and holy. I spend a lot of time helping young people understand why sex is holy and how incredible it is, how it's this ultimate gift of one person to another and how new life comes from it. I try to help them see that when you take sex out of context and use it in a context you're not supposed to, it can do damage. I say that it's like using an antique vase to jack up a car. It's not that the antique vase is bad—it's a good thing—but you're using it in the wrong context and that destroys it.
You distinguish between chastity and abstinence: what's the difference?
I don't like the word “abstinence.” I have no problem with abstinence education, abstinence programs, but I don't like the word. It's negative, it's about what you're not doing. It's not even necessarily about sex. Fridays during Lent are days of abstinence for Catholics—not abstinence from sex, but from meat.
You can't get enthused about the word abstinence. I love the word “chastity.” There's a generation that shies away from it because the word was abused in the '40s, '50s and into the '60s. It came to mean repression or the idea that sex is bad. That's not the case at all. Chastity means that sex speaks a language. It speaks the language of permanent, committed love. It has a meaning, it has a logic. It's positive: chastity means respecting the language of sex so that we can find love in our lives. Part of chastity is abstaining—abstaining from speaking that language when you can't speak it honestly—which is outside of marriage. But it's only part of it.
Are young people looking for chastity?
They don't all know it, but they are. What got me into this work in the first place was realizing that teen-agers, especially teen-age girls, are not having sex because they can't control themselves or because they're incredibly curious. They're sexually active because they're looking for love. And they're not finding it in sexual activity. But as long as all we're doing is saying, “don't do it so you don't get diseases, or so you don't get pregnant,” it's not going to work.
Sure, young people are afraid of getting a disease or getting pregnant—well, some are afraid and some aren't. But whatever they're afraid of, they're more afraid of not being loved. So if all you're doing is taking away the one thing they think is going to get them love, it isn't going to work. But if you say, “No! Here, look! This is where you're going to find real love,” it will.
How do you answer those who say that while they're not for teen-age sex, they think teen-agers should be told how to avoid pregnancy, since kids are “going to do it anyway”?
I answer that simply: cattle are “going to do it anyway.” They have no control. We have different ways of handling cattle because we can't keep them away from each other. So we perform a crude form of surgery on them. Now do we really believe that about our teen-agers—that they can't control themselves, that they're “going to do it anyway”? On so many levels, that's a dangerous message. Do we think they don't hear that? “You're going to do it anyway.” So they think, “Oh, OK, I guess I am.”
From Mary Beth Bonacci's book,
Like every unmarried Christian, I had struggled with questions. How far is too far? How do I know when I am in love? How do I say “no” nicely? ... Thus, what I heard in my senior year in those chastity talks enthralled me. The word “chastity” brought my understanding of the gift of sexuality to a whole new level. This was not just about avoiding unpleasant consequences. This was a complete “owner's manual” for our bodies. This was about understanding, finding and living love!
When I was in high school, if they had said that there are some teen-agers who are ready for sex and some who aren't, I would have raised my hand to be in the ready line. Who wouldn't? So it's dangerous on that level. It's also very dangerous as a way of trying to protect young people. These devices which supposedly make them safe, don't. When you look at their failure rates, you see they don't work very well. The condom has a 31% failure rate in preventing AIDS and even worse in preventing other diseases. Not to mention the fact that these things can't protect young people emotionally and spiritually. The emotional and spiritual consequences of teen sexual activity, I am convinced, are more severe than the physical. The impact of teen sex on young people's emotions, their ability to date well, on their ability to make a good marriage decision which affects the next generation, on their relationship with God—those bad consequences you can't protect them from. None of this is to say that I think young people shouldn't know the consequences—they should and I tell them the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease, we talk about teen pregnancy, we talk about the emotional consequences and the spiritual consequences. I'm just careful to put it in the context of what happens when we abuse something beautiful.
What about the media, young people, and sex?
The single biggest problem is the fact that across the board, on every TV show I watch that features indoor plumbing—which means every show not depicting life in the 1800s—every show that features single people, depicts them as having sex with virtually every person they date. It's a given. This is on the most popular shows and it's really a fairly new development. You didn't see it in the '60s.
In the '70s, you got the shows with the side characters who were sleazes and it was the big joke that they were promiscuous. Now, the central characters on the show are promiscuous and they're not portrayed as such; they're portrayed as normal. I find that very disturbing because it's happening on otherwise very entertaining, very interesting shows.
How do parents handle that? These TV shows are part of the ubiquitous popular culture.
There's a two-pronged approach. There are two different assaults on young people when it comes to this. One is actual sexual activity—seeing things of a graphic sexual nature. You'll see more of that in the movies; you might see borderline things on television. The second is something like we're talking about—on a Friends or a Seinfeld where you don't actually see them do anything but it is just assumed that they do. Now with the first situation—graphic sexual information—at all costs they should not see it. It's dangerous and damaging. It imprints on the brain in ways not many other things do and it will come back when they don't want it. The second kind of influence you get on Friends or Seinfeld. I have absolutely no problem with sheltering kids from those shows; I think it's an excellent idea. However, given the fact that the chain is only as strong as the weakest parent, you can count on the fact that your teen-agers are probably going to see those shows somewhere. They need to know how to watch critically. I think parents need to teach them, not by letting them watch those shows but by periodically watching something together and saying, “What's wrong with this? What's going to happen because of it?” They're going to need these skills in life because they'll see this stuff. However you do it, give young people the skills to analyze popular culture and to view it critically. A lot of times these show unwittingly make our point. I watch Friends because I know many of the teens I talk to watch it. You see clearly these massively promiscuous people who've slept with everyone they've ever dated and then suddenly when they're dating they sleep with somebody else and it makes the whole relationship fall apart. Why? You can ask those questions. It's amazing how [these shows] won't mean to but they'll make our point if your eyes are open wide enough to see it.
What about your experience with single young adults? What do you tell them, especially if they've been sexually active?
There's kind of a progression. In junior high, you get a lot of “When is it OK to kiss somebody? When is it OK to go on a date?” Certainly, sexual activity is creeping down into those ages but it's at high school where [if they've been sexually active] they start to say, “How can I start over?” By single adulthood, they're saying more articulately than the high school students, “Are there support groups for adults who want to live [chastely]? Where can we turn? What can we do to recapture this, to embrace this?”
Some people talk about “secondary virginity.”
I don't use the term—not that there's anything wrong with it; I find it simpler to talk about chastity and make it clear that chastity is about the future, beginning today. Those who are starting over shouldn't have a different label on their heads. I just tell them virginity is about the past, it can't be changed. Chastity is about the future and it's wide open. If you're living a life of chastity, it's no one's business about what happened in the past. I think it's extraordinarily important to stress that chastity is about the future; it's not an “I made a mistake so it's too late for me” kind of issue.
There's a perception many parents have that sending their children to Catholic schools will solve their problems regarding teens and sex. What do you say?
I'd call that passing the buck. Parents are the primary educators of their children and I think that the whole “sex education establishment” has taken that burden from them. Parents have this attitude that, “Well, it's a difficult issue to deal with and now I don't have to—the school will. And because it's a Catholic school, it will all be fine.” Wrong. Children need to hear the facts of life from their parents. It's a personal matter, it's private, it's sacred and the home is a sacred space. And the parent child-relationship is a sacred relationship. I think the schools have a twofold role. One is to help the parents, especially in the elementary grades, to support them, to teach them what the Church teaches and why, to teach them about the development of their children—what they're prepared for, at what age. Then, I think that the school has a responsibility to children to inculcate virtue and among those virtues is chastity. I think on the junior high and high school level, schools need to be promoting chastity. Helping children understand how to date well, to understand what the consequences of unchastity are—that's fine.
But the real “sex education”—plumbing stuff—I really believe needs to come from the parents.
How would you sum up your message about chastity?
It all boils down to love, and love means wanting what's best for the other person. Once we really understand that sex speaks this language—the language of “I give myself to you forever”—and that outside that context it causes damage, everything else falls into place. Sex outside of marriage is not looking out for what's best for the other person. It's putting that person at physical, emotional, and spiritual risk. Chastity is love; chastity means looking at this other person and saying, “I want what's best for you. Sure, I'd like to do this; sure, it would feel good. But because it's not what's best for you, I'm not going to.” Chastity leads to love, helps us date better, helps us make better marriage decisions, helps us find love; it's about love.
Mary Beth Bonacci
Personal:
Born 1963. Single. Full-time writer and speaker on chastity since 1986. Founder and director of Real Love Productions, an organization devoted to upholding and disseminating the message of chastity. Holds a bachelor's degree in organizational communications from the University of San Francisco and a master's in the theology of marriage and the family from the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C.
Accomplishments:
Author of two books (We're on a Mission from God and Real Love , both published by Ignatius Press); writer of a regularly syndicated newspaper column, and consultant to the national Life Teen program. Speaker at 1993 World Youth Day in Denver. Has developed numerous videos, including a series, entitled Real Love , which is currently in release. Her video Sex and Love: What's a Teenager to Do? was awarded the 1996 Crown Award for Best Youth Curriculum.
—Mark Brumley
For more information, call Real Love Inc. at 602-854-1594.
----- EXCERPT: Why young people respond to chastity-promoter's message ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Younger Catholics Staying in the Church DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—In a major new study of post-baby boom Catholics ages 20 to 39, researchers have found nine in 10 people who were confirmed as adolescents have kept the faith of their youth, and three in four said they could not imagine belonging to any other Church.
The findings, reported Nov. 6 at the annual joint meeting of the Religious Research Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, stand in stark contrast to a similar study of mainline Protestants finding large numbers abandoning the Church as young adults.
The new study also found Catholic identity remains strong despite high rates of intermarriage.
While denominational boundaries may be vanishing among conservative and liberal Protestants, there is little evidence of a Protestant-Catholic melting pot, researchers found.
“I went into this study... with the idea the Catholic scene is going to replay the mainline scene,” said Dean Hoge, a Catholic University of America sociologist involved in both studies. “It took me by surprise.”
Hoge and colleagues William Dinges of Catholic University, Notre Dame Sister Mary Johnson of Emmanuel College in Boston, and Juan Gonzalez Jr. of California State University at Hayward conducted telephone interviews of 427 non-Hispanic Catholics and 421 Latino Catholics in 1997.
In the 1990 study of Protestants, Hoge, Benton Johnson of the University of Oregon and Donald Luidens of Hope College in Holland, Mich., interviewed 500 people, ages 33 to 42, who were confirmed in Presbyterian Churches in the 1950s and 1960s. Only 29% remained active Presbyterians. Twenty-three percent joined other Churches and 48% were classified as “unchurched,” meaning they were either unaffiliated or attended church fewer than six times a year.
In the new study of Catholics, Dinges reported, “First, there is no evidence that young adult Catholics today are a generation of irreligious scoffers.”
Despite an intermarriage rate of 50% for non-Hispanic Catholics and 24% for Latino Catholics, only 10% of the respondents reported leaving Catholicism, and of that number only 4% reported they are non-religious, the researchers said. Six percent left for other Christian Churches.
Three-quarters of non-Hispanic Catholics and 81% of Hispanic Catholics said they could not imagine being anything other than Catholic. And more than two-thirds of each group said there is something very special about being Catholic which you can't find in other religions.
In defining some elements of their faith, about nine in 10 current Catholic respondents said the bread and wine actually becomes the body and blood of Christ during Mass. Nearly nine in 10 said Catholics have a responsibility to end racism and more than three-quarters said they have a duty to close the gap between the rich and the poor.
Johnson said some religion scholars, who predicted as many as 50% of young adults would no longer consider themselves Catholic, were “stunned” by the results.
The 10% of those contacted for the study who are no longer Catholic “are more theologically conservative, less individualistic, and less relativistic than the Catholics,” reported Hoge.
The researchers said this discovery “was an unexpected finding” because the earlier research on young adult Protestants had brought exactly the opposite result—those who had left the denomination they were raised in “were less conservative and more relativistic in religious beliefs.”
“The non-Catholics in the present study were more firmly Christian than the Catholics, not less so,” the team reported. “They have not fallen away from the Christian faith; rather they have switched Churches or kept a personal religion while rejecting Catholic churchgoing.”
Interfaith marriage was the main reason most ex-Catholics gave for having left the Church.
Among those who remain Catholic, 75% of the Euros and 81% of the Latinos agreed with the statement, “I cannot imagine myself being anything other than Catholic.”
However, 64% agreed that “one can be a good Catholic without going to Mass,” although Church law says Catholics are obliged to worship every Sunday and on certain holy days.
In addition, 87% thought the Church “should allow women greater participation in all ministries,” although recent Church statements have called the exclusion of women from priestly ministry an infallible teaching pertaining to the deposit of faith.
While 55% of the current Catholics reported attending Mass weekly or at least twice a month, only 37% of the Euros and 42% of the Latinos said they had gone to confession within the past two years.
In response to a series of other questions on prayer or devotional activities within the past two years, responses included:
• Kept religious images in the home: Latinos 83%, Euros 61%.
• Wore medals, scapulars, or other devotional items: Latinos 70%, Euros 51%.
• Said the rosary: Latinos 64%, Euros 46%.
• Read the Bible at home: Latinos 58%, Euros 53%.
• Made the Way of the Cross: Latinos 44%, Euros 29%. (RNS—Religious News Service and CNS—Catholic News Service)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dallas Bishop Suspends Father Ken Roberts DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS—Bishop Charles Grahmann of Dallas suspended 68- year-old Father Kenneth Roberts from the active priesthood Nov. 13 after the priest disregarded orders to discontinue a national online ministry, which received as many as 50,000 hits a day and included work with Catholic young people.
Bishop Grahmann had wanted the priest to end the ministry for some time because of several accusations of improper sexual behavior dating to the '70s, including one case the diocese settled out of court for $30,000. Because of those past incidents Roberts had been required since 1995 not to work with adolescents or men younger than 30.
A spokesman for the diocese, Lisa LeMaster, said that Roberts was warned in July, August, and October to end an Internet ministry on AOL, including a cyberspace club for young Catholics interested in vocations. LeMaster said that Roberts had been given a deadline of Nov. 5 but had not complied.
Suspension from the active priesthood does not mean that Roberts is returned to the lay state. Rather, he is forbidden to celebrate Mass, perform any other sacraments, or wear clerical garb. In order to avoid the implication that he is a priest in good standing he is also forbidden to use the title “Father.”
Roberts became nationally well-known as a result of an autobiographical book, From Playboy to Priest and was in demand as a speaker and pilgrimage leader. He also wrote audio and video tapes and magazine articles about reported visions of Mary in Medjugorje.
The dioceses of Dallas has also requested that his television shows be removed from EWTN. (Staff)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Fox to Catholics—No Apologies?
According to the Washington Post, it did. It was reporting on the recent episode of the show about a nun suing the Church after being forced out of the religious life for violating her vow of celibacy. The show, apart from its premise, offended Catholics by casting pedophilia by priests and lesbianism by nuns as commonplace. It also featured a priest who videotaped confessions.
Rick Henshaw of the Catholic League was quoted as telling the Washington Post that the network had promised that, “they would see that this kind of thing does not happen again. We were quite pleased with their forthright response.... They said they totally understood and totally sympathized, and promised to monitor the show more closely.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, however, no assurance was made. It said sources at Fox “merely said—in an off-the-record conversation—that they were sensitive to the Catholic League's concerns, but weren't issuing any apologies or assurances.”
Catholic News Service reported Nov. 10 that Fox's new official response to Catholic concerns about the show was “no comment.”
Nuns Are Sports Fans, Too
The story noted that Catholic nuns from the Sisters of St. Joseph order in Boston had recently “described their obsession with the Red Sox, admitting that they frequently call in to sports talk radio and get rowdy at the games. One nun said the sisters especially enjoy dogging former Red Sox players like Jose Canseco: ‘It is not un-Christian to boo,’ said one.”
The report also said, “The sisters of the Precious Blood order in Edmonton, Alberta, believe they were instrumental earlier in the year in saving Edmonton's hockey team, the Oilers, by praying that the team would not be relocated.”
An archdiocesan spokesman there confirmed that members of the order are hockey fans. He also said the sisters enjoy booing the Calgary Flames.
New Latin Mass Center to Open in South Jersey
The group plans to take over a property which was owned for three decades, said the paper, by “a band of lay people who called themselves monks but were not associated with the Catholic Church.”
“Now Opus Mariae is converting the 34,000-square-foot property into a home for Philadelphia-area seminarians, priests who join the association, and others who want to learn more about Latin rituals,” said the paper. Renovations should take another six months, it said.
Founded by Father William Ashley, the 2-year-old organization, which has some 4,500 supporters nationwide and 200 locally, will move its headquarters to the renovated site. The diocese and the local government have both been very helpful to the new group in expediting its move to the facility, said the paper.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Catholic and Protestant Scholars Speculate On Task of Bringing Social Teaching to Life DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—A landmark conference brought together Catholic and Protestant thinkers Oct. 30-31 to reflect on the past century of Christian social teaching, focusing on the remarkable achievements of Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) and Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), a Calvinist theologian and Dutch politician.
The conference underscored the basic compatibility of Christian social teaching with liberal institutions—democracy, free markets, cultural pluralism—but also raised unanswered questions about the practical difficulties of living the Christian faith in contemporary free societies.
The conference, entitled “A Century of Christian Social Teaching: The Legacy of Leo XIII and Abraham Kuyper,” was sponsored by the Acton Institute and Calvin College, a Protestant theological college and seminary. It was held in Grand Rapids, Mich., where both institutions are based.
The conference boasted influential figures from both the Catholic and Protestant world, including Templeton Prize winners Chuck Colson and Michael Novak, Mark Noll, Fr. Avery Dulles, and Archbishop F.X. NguyÍn Van Thu‚n, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. It was held this year to mark the centenary of Kuyper's 1898 Stone Lectures at Princeton, a series in which he outlined his vision of a Christian social order.
Pope Leo XIII began modern Catholic social teaching – theological reflection on the political, economic, and cultural ordering of society – with his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. In the same year, Kuyper delivered a major address on poverty that paid tribute to Leo's work. Yet conference participants judged that Kuyper's achievement, based on a Calvinist framework, eventually reached many of the same conclusions and principles as Leo XIII. Reflecting on the degree of agreement gave hope that contemporary Christians will find areas of common witness in the field of social teaching.
In fact, the areas of general agreement for the conference participants will not surprise those who have followed the work of the Acton Institute, which works to advance the compatibility between Christian social teaching and classical liberalism, as understood to mean political liberty and free-market economics.
Speakers of both traditions emphasized the centrality of human dignity and human freedom, and the need for the state to leave room for human creativity and solidarity.
Mark Noll, author of the widely acclaimed book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, focused on the the human person as key. “Much of the power of Kuyper and Leo's work derives from their attractive picture of the ways that a Church-anchored social policy preserved the dignity of God and the well-being of humans in ways that neither the varieties of socialism nor the plans of individualistic liberalism could.”
Noll was one of several speakers who raised the thorny question of whether free—and often prosperous—societies are hospitable environments for the development of virtue. He asserted, “It is clearer now in 1998 than it was in 1989, at the point of collapse of state communist regimes, that mere markets and freedom by themselves cannot revive economic life and restore societies. A wide range of commentators seem now to agree that for these goals to be reached it will take markets with morality, enterprise with ethics, and opportunity with responsibility to nurture an improved economic and social life.”
Professor Bob Goudzwaard of Amsterdam took the question further: “Now the greatest threat comes from a far too dominant economic sphere and the corresponding business activities, which tend to commercialize almost all elements of human culture, infringing deeply (think of aggressive advertising campaigns) in the sphere of family life, making it very difficult to educate young children in a non-materialistic way.”
Reflecting on more than 100 years of Catholic and Protestant teaching, in the end the conference clarified perhaps the most fundamental challenge for the future: how to strengthen free markets and democracy without allowing them to dominate every aspect of society and the lives of its individual members. (Raymond de Souza)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:In Rural Ireland, Church Much Stronger
Irish Archbishop Dermot Clifford said that he would like to see an increase in numbers attending confession and saying a family rosary, but he was quoted saying, “The prevailing wisdom that the Catholic Church is in terminal decline is given the lie here and in rural Ireland in particular.”
Conducted by Irish Marketing Surveys, the attendance study found that the national average of 65% of Catholics attending Sunday Mass was significantly different in rural archdioceses, like the one including much of Tipperary and Limerick. There, even the least-interested age group—18 to 34 year olds—almost met the national average, with 60% attending. For other age groups, the number was 94%.
Other rural findings: 65% of adult Irish Catholics pray daily, and 70% use holy water frequently. Nearly all were faithful to the magisterium: only 5% thought priests should be allowed to marry, and only 3% even considered dissenting on Church teaching that women can't be ordained.
Hit Pop Singer says “Abortion is Murder”
The interviewer asked her if she wasn't a little frightened by the violence of “right-wing Christian fundamentalists” who might not like the cover of Merchant's album, where the singer is dressed as a nun. The interviewer even mentioned the recent killing of an abortion doctor as cause for alarm.
Merchant responded that she grew up Catholic and admires the Church, has great respect for nuns, and that she was not, “one of those moderns who totally discounts the convictions of thousands of people who go to their death for those beliefs.”
“Don and Karen Peris, who play on my album, are devout Catholics. I don't mess with that!” she told the paper.
She added: “And, as for the murder you mention... of course, I don't take things like that lightly.” Nevertheless, “it is criminal that so many out-spoken feminists, and members of the ‘pro-choice’ movement, deny the argument that life begins at conception.
“As much as I am annoyed by the tactics of the so-called pro-lifers, I'm also annoyed by the tactics of the ‘pro-choice’ people.... They both have valid arguments and in the work I've done with the pro-choice movement, I'm the one who stands up and says ‘personally, I think abortion is murder and that's why I've never had an abortion.’ But most of my friends have had abortions and I don't judge them on that. So all I'm saying is, let's not stifle the argument, let's not try to silence one side of the debate. Too many in the pro-choice movement do just that, shouting down the opposite point of view.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Bishops Move to Avoid Infractions over Communion DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:LONDON—In a year when U.S. President Clinton's reception of holy Communion sparked a worldwide controversy, bishops in Britain and Ireland have published a document to clear up public confusion that has arisen over similar infractions in their own countries.
One Bread, One Body, issued last month by the Bishops' Conferences of England and Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, calls on the faithful to refresh and renew their belief in the holy Mass, firmly restates the Church's Eucharistic teaching and discipline, and stresses the need for other Christian denominations to respect Catholic teaching on inter-communion.
Earlier this year, Irish President Mary McAleese caused a storm when she received communion at a Church of Ireland service. Even mild-mannered Cahal Cardinal Daly, the retired Irish primate, admitted she was wrong, although he also said she had been placed in the awkward position of avoiding an appearance of rudeness to her hosts.
He called on Protestant churches not to pressure Catholics on such occasions; this plea is reiterated in the new document.
In England, a similar controversy arose concerning Prime Minister Tony Blair, a committed Anglican whose wife, Cherie, is Catholic. In the summer of 1996, reports of Blair's receiving Communion at a Mass in London appeared in the Catholic press. A hastily issued statement promised that he would not receive again, so as not to offend Catholics. England's Basil Cardinal Hume privately rebuked Catholic newspaper editors, asking, “One wonders what purpose running these stories served?”
Speaking at the new document's launch, Cardinal Hume said he had written to Blair, informing him that he should not receive Communion.
But the cardinal also said Blair had been entitled to receive Communion while on vacation in August in Italy, where “he couldn't get to his own church.”
“He had a spiritual need,” the cardinal said. “He believes what we believe. So he responded entirely to Catholic teaching.”
The statement, issued by Cardinal Hume as primate of England and Wales, along with Thomas Cardinal Winning, primate of Scotland, and Archbishop Sean Brady, primate of Ireland, acknowledges the pain and ecumenical difficulties which the issue raises: “We look forward to that day when all obstacles to full visible communion are overcome, and all Christians can celebrate the Eucharist together, sharing as ‘one body,’ the ‘one bread’ of the Lord.”
The bishops said the document's primary purpose was to present the Church's teaching on the mystery of the Eucharist, adding that the Mass was the hallmark of Catholic identity. They urged Catholics to renew their reverence for the mystery of the sacrament, adding that “the fundamental principle which underlies our norms, is that ‘the Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1395).
“It is important that Catholics themselves understand this doctrine. We appeal in love and truth to the whole Catholic community in our countries for their faithfulness to the deepest meaning of the Mass.”
One Bread, One Body also acknowledged, “We know only too well that the Catholic Church's understanding of itself, and our convictions about who may or may not be admitted to Holy Communion, can and do cause distress to other Christians and to some Catholics.”
But it added, “It is not, however, the Church's norms on sacramental sharing which cause division: those norms are simply a reflection and consequence of the painful division already present because of our Christian disunity.
“People often ask ‘What would Jesus do?’, implying that he would offer the gift of himself to anyone who asked. Jesus himself was often the cause of division. His will was that all be one, but his teaching and action led to people going away from him. This was even true of his ‘hard saying’ on the Bread Of Life.”
Seeking to quell misunderstandings which have grown up in recent years, the document stated that the sacrificial understanding of Mass needs renewed emphasis even among Catholics. “In some Catholic circles, there can appear to be a confusion between the celebration of Mass on the one hand, and a Communion Service or ‘Celebration of the Word and Communion’ on the other.
“The Eucharist or Mass is much more than a service in which we are led in prayer, hear the Word of God and receive Holy Communion,” the document said.
It noted that there are proper occasions for Communion services, such as Good Friday or when no priest is available. But it stressed that such services in the absence of a priest are not the same as Mass. “No Communion Service can substitute for the celebration of the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,” the document said.
It also outlined why it is impossible for mutual Eucharistic sharing between Catholics and Protestants. Restating Catholic teaching that only a validly ordained priest can consecrate the bread and wine, the bishops noted, “It is therefore essential that the one who presides at the Eucharist be known to be established in a sure sacramental relationship with Christ, the High Priest, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, conferred by a bishop in the recognized apostolic succession.
“The Catholic Church is unable to affirm this of those Christian communities rooted in the Reformation. Nor can we affirm that they have retained ‘the authentic and full reality of the Eucharistic mystery.”
Paul Burnell writes from England. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Paul Burnell ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:
Hollywood vs. the Vatican?
“By far the biggest offender is Vampires,” it added, but said that the movie was so bad that Catholics probably wouldn't notice or mind the offensive references to the Vatican, the home of the story's vampire hunters.
Catholic League President William Donohue agreed. The Vatican and the Catholic Church are “treated in a rather insulting manner in John Carpenter's Vampires,” Donohue told the Philadelphia Inquirer Nov. 5. “But the reviews were so horrendous, the movie sounds so vile—the gore, the violence—I can't imagine anyone in their right mind thinking it will have an impact on culture.”
Expert Defends Pius XII, in
He didn't waste any time correcting a New York Times report. In a letter to the editor printed Nov. 5, he wrote: “A Nov. 4 news item about the Holy See's request to be involved in discussions over Jerusalem's future includes a quote in some editions from Aharon Lopez, Israel's Ambassador to the Vatican, seeking publication of all Vatican records concerning the attitude of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust ‘to eliminate any doubt’ about his character before his beatification.
“Such a request, apart from being irrelevant to the issue of Jerusalem's future, overlooks the fact that the Holy See under Pope Paul VI opened its archives to historians and published 11 volumes of documents. This was perhaps a more comprehensive publication than that of any other prominent international agency or state for that tragic period of history.
“It appears that few authors critical of Pope Pius XII have used this collection, which documents the help the Roman Catholic Church gave to Jews during the Holocaust.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Pope's Week DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:AUDIENCES
Saturday Nov. 7:
Lucas Cardinal Moreira Neves, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
Monday, Nov. 9: Jorge Arturo Cardinal Medina Estevez, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
Tuesday, Nov. 10:
Archbishop Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature.
Wednesday, Nov. 11:
Archbishop Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Msgr. Diarmuid Martin, secretary of the same council.
Thursday, Nov. 12:
Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, archbishop of Montreal, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Canada, accompanied by Bishop Gerald Wiesner of Prince George, vice-president, and secretaries Fr. Emilius Goulet PSS, and Msgr. Peter Scholnenbach PH
Friday, Nov. 13:
Carlos Saul Menem, president of the Republic of Argentina, accompanied by his entourage.
Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Monday, Nov. 9:
Approved the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, as vice-dean of the College of Cardinals. The election was held by the cardinals of the Order of Bishops on Nov. 6.
Tuesday, Nov. 10:
Appointed Msgr. Thomas Yeh Sheng-Nan, councilor of the apostolic nunciature in London, as apostolic nuncio in Sri Lanka, elevating him to the dignity of archbishop. The archbishop-elect was born in Kaohsiung, China, in 1941, was ordained a priest in 1971.
Wednesday, Nov. 11:
Appointed Bishop Jose Vieira de Lima TOR of Maraba, as bishop of Sao Luis de Caceres, Brazil.
Thursday, Nov. 12:
Appointed Bishop Anthony O'Connell of Knoxville, as bishop of Palm Beach
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Faithful Reason, Reasonable Faith DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Although formally addressed to the bishops of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II's 13th Encyclical, Fides et Ratio [“Faith and Reason”], speaks to cultural problems found far beyond the Church's boundaries. These problems revolve around a single, urgent question: Can human beings know the truth of things?
People who don't spend much (or any) time around intellectuals shake their heads and ask: Why is that even considered a question? Of course, they say, I know that some things are true. I know that that is a chair and that this is a glass of wine; that Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863, and that D-Day was June 6, 1944; that freedom is better than slavery and that children must never be tortured. There are truths of all sorts and we can know them. What's all the fuss about?
But you won't find that robust confidence in the human capacity to know the truth in the places that shape much of our high culture—our colleges and universities. And the leading skeptics about there being anything called “the truth” can be found in university philosophy departments. This, too, strikes many people as bizarre. Isn't truth-seeking what philosophy is for?
Well, yes, once upon a time. During the past two centuries, though, philosophers have been intensely preoccupied with how we can know anything, to the point where philosophy has become thinking-about-thinking-about-thinking, rather than thinking about the truth of things. This intense self-absorption has taken several forms. The most prominent today argues that truth is culturally constructed “all the way down.” There is your truth (based on your cultural conditioning) and my truth (similarly “constructed”), but there is no such thing as the truth.
All of which, John Paul II suggests, has made for immense human suffering. Ideas, as always, have consequences. If there is only your truth and my truth and neither of us recognizes a standard by which to judge whose truth is truer (so to speak), then there is only one way to settle things when we disagree: you will impose your will on me, or I will impose mine on you. Why has the history of the 20th century been replete with political violence? One crucial reason, the Pope proposes, is that philosophers have lost their nerve and their sense of vocation.
Fides et Ratio argues that it's time to recover a sense of the awe and wonder with which real philosophy begins, and to reopen the great questions that philosophy is meant to examine: Why is there something rather than nothing? How can I tell good from evil? What is happiness and what is illusion?
The human mind, the Pope suggests, has a built-in affinity for these questions. To deny that the questions are meaningful (as many contemporary philosophers do) not only demeans philosophy; it demeans the human spirit. You are greater than you imagine, John Paul is telling his fellow philosophers (and the rest of us). Recover your nerve. Don't retreat into a bunker without windows or doors. Don't prematurely close yourself to an encounter with the realm of the transcendent, with the mystery that bounds reality.
Fides et Ratio is also a challenge to Christian believers. Faith without reason risks decaying into superstition. Christian faith is something to be thought about and analyzed, not simply experienced. Here the Pope offers a powerful citation from St. Augustine: “Believing is nothing other than to think with assent. Believers are also thinkers; in believing they think and in thinking they believe. If faith does not think, it is nothing.”
It's a quote that might usefully be posted over every Catholic classroom in America, mounted over every religious education director's office, and attached to every preacher's notepad.
Fides et Ratio is also an appropriate marker for John Paul II's 20th anniversary. A pontificate that began with the great antiphon, “Be not afraid!” continues into its third decade with a related challenge: “Be not afraid of reason!” That the Catholic Church is the world's premier defender of human reason on the edge of the 21st will strike many of the makers of modern culture as ironic at best, and absurd at worst.
But as Walter Cronkite used to say, “That's the way it is.”
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Handbook of Spiritual Treasures DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:(Magnificat USA LLC, New York, 1998, 421 pages, $5.95)
It is not often that we get, in one slim, pocket-sized volume, the cornucopia of spiritual bonuses that comes pouring out with Magnificat for December, 1998. The volume under review is the equivalent of a daily missal for the month of December, 1998, 3/8” thick and measuring 4.5” by 6.5.” It is this, and so much more.
In the opening editorial, Father Romanus Cessario, OP, senior editor at Magnificat (and, like Magnificat editor-in chief Father Peter John Cameron, a senior writer at the Register) explains that “the French framers of Magnificat borrowed the title for this new monthly missal from the words that our Blessed Lady spoke when, already pregnant with the Infant Christ, she visited her cousin Elizabeth: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.’ Since its European debut in 1992, Magnificat has helped countless Christian men and women to join in Mary's canticle of praise and thanksgiving to God. Now, Advent 1998 commences the publication of this highly acclaimed, low-cost missal for use by English-speaking Catholics in North America. Its widespread success in Europe persuades its American editors that many readers will want to become part of the rapidly growing Magnificat worldwide family.”
A first glance at the attractive booklet, its front a cover reproducing a 16th century study of Boccaccino's painting of The Virgin Mother and Child in glowing colors, and its back cover unfolding in four laminated pages containing the Te Deum and the three canticles of Zechariah, (prayer for the morning), Our Lady, (prayer for the evening), and Simeon, (night prayer), leads to a quick dive into the contents.
There are antiphons, prayers, Scripture readings and commentaries for the daily Eucharist covering Sundays, feasts and weekdays. A special feature entitled “Saints of Today and Yesterday” introduces many new and unsuspected friends in the Church Triumphant, both modern and ancient, who will stand us in good stead today and tomorrow. Throughout the text at strategic points are “meditations of the day,” brief selections from such disparate writers as Guerric of Igny, Dorothy Day, Pope John Paul II, Madeleine l'Engle, Henry Suso, St. Therese of Lisieux, T.S. Eliot, Jessica Powers, and St. Catherine of Siena, to mention only a few.
Hymns, psalms and canticles, readings, intercessions and prayers, all adapted from the Liturgy of the Hours, are given for morning, evening, and night prayers, which can be used individually, or by prayer groups. Add to this: reproductions in color of great works of Christian art, one each month, paired with art essays that delight as they inform. And for music lovers, there is a bevy of hymns, some even done in Gregorian chant notation with Latin and English texts. A central section of 26 pages edged in red gives the complete Ordinary of the Mass, including the Latin for the Gloria, Creed, Our Father, and Lamb of God.
The end result of this comprehensive and exquisitely crafted work is a book of enduring beauty and integrity, directed to the spiritual joy and growth of American Catholics. The production of the American Magnificat coincides aptly with the final year of preparation for Jubilee 2000. Coming in Advent, the season when the whole world is in waiting mode, and the whole Church participating in Mary's time of expectancy “in joyful hope,” it is a symbol of that joy and hope, and points us to another world, where our deepest longings will be fulfilled.
Rich in its offering of spiritual reading from the Fathers of the Church, renowned masters and teachers of the spiritual life, and modern writers outstanding for their perceptive orthodoxy, Magnificat is of special significance for today's lay Christians. Following its simple program of prayer and reflection, we enter easily into the rhythm of the Church's life from day to day, without prejudice to the needs of our apostolates at home or abroad. And we enter into a whole new world of gladness. Such an experience is captured by the Carmelite nun, Jessica Powers, in her poem offered for meditation in the first Week of Advent. Her insight cannot fail to move us at a time when the child in the womb is kept in the forefront of our consciousness by the media. It cannot fail to delight us in a season when the divine Child in Mary's womb is the focus of our daily prayer:
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free from its high mooring and walks down the sky to be the dot above the Christus i, I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I walk in Mary-darkness, faith's walled place, with hope's expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me, guarded and loved me, though I could not see. But only now, with inward jubilee, I come upon earth's most amazing knowledge: someone is hidden in this dark with me.
Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic letter announcing the Great Jubilee, exhorts every Christian to expect a special grace of the Lord for the Church and for the whole world (No. 55). It would seem that this book could well be the channel of such a grace.
Domincan Sister Mary Thomas Noble writes from Buffalo, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Domincan Sister Mary Thomas Noble ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Bewildering, Indispensable Original Sin DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:“
Jesuit author Edward T. Oakes tries to follow Thomas Aquinas' example by setting out the arguments against original sin before he responds to them. He writes: “[H]ow can guilt, an ethical and spiritual category, be inheritable, a category drawn from nature? As with the doctrine of predestination, to which it is often married, there seems to be a kind of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don't’ aura to the theology of Original Sin: Free will may be free, declares Augustine without apparent embarrassment, only it is not free to do good.
“What is remarkable about [original sin] is how even its most ardent defenders admit its blazing paradoxicality. Reinhold Niebuhr... began by openly admitting the strange logical status of the doctrine: ‘The Christian doctrine of sin in its classical form offends both rationalists and moralists by maintaining the seemingly absurd position that man sins inevitably and by a fateful necessity but that he is nevertheless to be held responsible for actions which are prompted by an ineluctable fate.’
“[O]ne must also admit that the Bible never attributes to Adam the role of biologically tainting us with his guilt, as can perhaps best be seen in the history of Jewish interpretation of Genesis up to and just past the beginnings of the Christian era: for it was the much more common Jewish interpretation of Genesis... that the human proclivity to evil (insofar as it came from anywhere else than man's free will) was the product not of the sin of our first parents but of that strange episode narrated in Genesis 6 of the mating of ‘the daughters of men with the sons of God.’...
“It is generally believed that theological schools such as Jansenism and denominations such as Calvinism bring in their wake legions of members with withered emotional lives, censorious views of their less austere neighbors, and a bleak, nearly blasphemous, view of God's love.... And so, it would seem that Original Sin ought not be believed.
“[But] first of all, the doctrine of Original Sin is... really, when soberly examined, an inference that arises from reflection on the reality of evil when considered in the light of ethical monotheism. John Henry Newman, for one, always insisted that Original Sin is the only way believers can make sense of the world when they contrast that world to their faith in God... the doctrine of Original Sin... is a secondary implication arising from a prior belief in God's goodness and omnipotence.
“What is more, the consequences of abandoning the doctrine are nothing short of disastrous.... I am reminded in this context of a shrewd observation by Anatole France to the effect that never have so many been murdered in the name of a doctrine as in the name of the principle that human beings are naturally good.
“The reason we are drawn, despite the theory of evolution, to Augustine's and Milton's portrait of paradise before the Fall is the memory of that original justice we once had with God but lost through sin.... The term ‘Original’ Sin still retains its validity... even when applied to Adam and Eve, for the narrative definitely holds that, in St. Paul's terms, sin entered the world through the sin of our first parents and henceforth takes on the specifically human form of ‘giving in,’ of yielding to a force already heavily at work in the world of creation.
“Finally,... I would like to add my own version to this argument: to deny this doctrine is not to escape the gray doldrums of Jansenist/Calvinist Christianity, but to warp the very core of the Christian Gospel: that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to save that world from its sin.... There is no doubt that Original Sin is a hard doctrine. For if we are infected with an original corruption to the very core of our natures, then there is a great deal of evil that cannot be uprooted.... [But] it is my deep conviction that any mitigation of the doctrine of Original Sin will prove disastrous for the health of the Church in the future....
“But as St. Paul knew, this need not be a morbid doctrine. For our diagnosis has come with a cure.... As Pascal—who can set forth in two lines what it takes other theologians two books to show—says with his usual precision: ‘... Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine, and yet without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves.’”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Book -------- TITLE: Persecuted for Faith DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Iam writing to commend the Register for running such a fine article on the International Day of Prayer (IDOP) for the Persecuted Church (“Churches Gear Up for Day of Prayer...,” Nov. 1-7). This was only the third year for the IDOP, and your article will undoubtedly “get the word out” and encourage many more people to pray for the needs—both spiritual and temporal—of Christians worldwide who are forced to suffer terribly for their faith.
Unfortunately, their numbers are only growing, and they include both Catholics and Protestants. The latest report from the Helsinki Commission cites no fewer than 19 European nations for religious liberty violations. In countries such as Congo and India, Christian towns have been looted and burned. In countries such as Laos, Nigeria, and China, Christians are arrested and jailed for practicing their faith. Atrocities such as rape and torture are not uncommon.
It was for the sake of these victims that the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews established its Operation Alert project. We must pray for these poor souls every day, but let us raise up our petitions with particular fervor each year on the International Day of Prayer, imploring God to show them mercy, to ameliorate their sufferings, and to give them the grace of unfailing courage.
Fr. Stanley de Boe
Director, Center for Jewish and Christian Values
Washington, D.C.
Ursuline and Knowing It
Orchids to Mary Ann Fanning for pointing out the mistaken reference to Marie of the Incarnation as a French Sister of Charity in my review (“Heroines Without Knowing It,” Oct. 4-10, 1998). Marie of the Incarnation is, of course, one of the best-known members of the Ursuline Order, and the first Ursuline missionary to the New World, leaving France for Canada with two companions in 1639. The foundation she made in Quebec was the first convent devoted to the education of girls in North America. Twice burned to the ground, it was rebuilt each time. Mary Ann Fanning can well be proud of her Ursuline education.
Sister Mary Thomas Noble, OP Buffalo, N.Y.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sister Mary Thomas Noble ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: In Forgotten Literary Giants, a Chance to Revive Catholic Culture? DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:A friend, a late vocation, left town for a distant seminary. Wanting to travel light, he donated a box of old books to the Catholic Answers library. Among them were six volumes comprising The Book of Catholic Authors. The first bears a copyright date of 1942; the sixth, undated, seems to have been published around 1961. The editor of the series was Walter Romig, who produced a work, The Catholic Bookman, which I have in my home library.
Of the sixty or so writers profiled in the first volume, I recognize only five: David Goldstein, a Catholic apologist who converted from Judaism; Winfrid Herbst, SDS, author of books on spirituality; Daniel Lord, SJ, known for his novels and dramas; Msgr. John A. Ryan, whose topic was social ethics; and Daniel Sargent, poet and biographer. The other names are strange to me: Mabel Adelaide Farnum, historical novelist; Thomas A. Lahey, CSC, author of children's books; Sister Mary Madeleva, poet; Father Will W. Whalen, playwright. And so with all the rest.
The six volumes are subtitled Informal Self-Portraits of Famous Modern Catholic Writers, and a promotional line notes that the books are “fully illustrated by [photographic] portraits.” The photographs are what first caught my attention. All of them are black-and-white, and the older ones have that ethereal quality that makes the eyes seem especially piercing, the skin almost translucent.
About half the profiles, and so half the photographs, are of women. There's Covelle Newcomb, a writer of children's books; with bangs pasted against her forehead and a lost look on her face, she reminds me of Flannery O'Connor. Mary Perkins, author of At Your Ease in the Catholic Church, looks like a young Katharine Hepburn, only less angular and more attractive. Eva J. Ross, a sociologist, faces away from the lens and reminds me of another Eva, General Peron's wife.
Most of the writers composed their own sketches, but the one on the then-deceased Margaret Yeo, a writer of historical novels and a convert from high-societyism (she wears pendant earrings and her neck is framed in fur), is by Msgr. Ronald A. Knox. He notes that “her husband, who remained a delightful pagan, was a chronic invalid and no breadwinner,” while Mrs. Yeo “was a loyal and active Catholic, without a trace of the fussiness and stuffiness which sometimes dim the luster of good example.” (That last line echoes the style of Samuel Johnson.)
In six volumes are profiled at least three hundred Catholic writers I've never heard of. I don't think of myself as ill-educated, and I'm familiar with many more writers than I've read, but still ... What happened to them? They disappeared down the memory hole. Some may say that they deservedly disappeared, that their writings weren't worth preserving. Maybe so, in some cases. But even the names I recognize—good writers all—are known to few Catholics today. Goldstein? Herbst? Lord? Ryan? Sargent? Few literate Catholics under fifty have heard of any of them. We have lost our literary consciousness, and we won't be able to hope for a Catholic society until we get it back.
“Whoa!” you may say. “Just look at what happened in the recent election. The bad guys won and the good propositions were defeated. If we're to clean up our society, we need to attend to the next election, starting right now. Let's not waste time talking about forgotten Catholic writers.”
I see the point, but I disagree. I don't want to discount the importance of politics, but we need to recognize that salvation doesn't come out of a ballot box—not even cultural salvation. If our society is to be turned around, it has to be turned around on a lot of fronts, including the literary.
Something we should be seeing by now, having hit our collective heads against the political walls for decades, is that there is no prospect that new faces will make much difference unless they are backed by brains filled with the right ideas. You can't just vote a Christian culture into being. It has to be lived into being, and it has to be lived on all fronts, including the literary—and the political. If we neglect any front, we lessen the chances of a revival. If there were no Catholic writing, there could be no truly Catholic candidates for political office—at best they would be Catholic in name only, entertaining no Catholic thoughts. If they have no Catholic thoughts, they can engage in no Catholic form of politics. At that point I, for one, would lose interest.
Yes, I look forward to the next election. I relish the prospect of political foes biting the dust and good guys riding in and taking charge. But white hats won't be enough. Our society needs good guys with good ideas, and I don't mean just good political ideas. Political ideas can't survive without support. They need a cultural matrix, as a plant needs good soil. I hope the right people run two years from now, and I hope they spend plenty of time, between now and then, reading good Catholic writing, including the “forgotten” stuff. If they don't, they likely will wither in office.
Karl Keating is the founding director of Catholic Answers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rediscovering Human Dignity DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Following is a statement by Archbishop Renato Martino, in response to Item 108 of the Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, concerning Questions Relating to Refugees and Displaced Persons and Humanitarian Questions, delivered before the Third Committee of the 53rd session of the General Assembly on November 1, 1998.
This Committee has discussed the issue of refugees and internally displaced persons for years. Suggestions were made during each session to address this complicated and urgent problem. But as we all know, this “wound which typifies and reveals the imbalance and conflicts of the modern world” (Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 24) has continued to bleed all the more and affect more people.
The New Refugees
The problem of displacement has seen significant changes and assumed complex and unparalleled proportions in the last two decades. One remarkable feature is that in addition to the almost 25 million refugees in the strict sense, people who have fled across borders, more than the same amount of people have been internally displaced by the unwar-ranted conflicts of these recent decades. Unlike refugees in the strict sense, those forcibly displaced within the borders of their own countries suffer from an absence of legal or institutional bases for their protection and assistance from the international community. These displaced persons are at the greatest risk of starvation, have the highest rates of preventable disease, and are the most vulnerable to human rights abuses. Some countries have deliberately starved the displaced while invoking their sovereignty. Sovereignty, one of the pillars of international relations, when it excludes the necessary responsibility to provide protection and assistance to citizens, becomes a modern disguise to uproot entire societies.
Further, refugees are no longer the byproduct of a conflict, but in many cases are its very substance and scope. The “immoral strategy of ethnic cleansing,” the unpunished attempts of total annihilation of communities, and armed pursuit of the displaced until they are exhausted to death, are just some of the new and abominable techniques in recent conflicts. Attacks on refugee camps or making them abodes of criminals, blocking humanitarian aid to the starving victims, and killing and hostage-taking of humanitarian aid workers, are some other violations of international humanitarian law.
Every humanitarian aid worker and every organization which extends a helping hand to the displaced, deserves the recognition and commendation of the international community. Many of them operate in often dangerous situations at the risk of their own lives. In this context the roles of the UNHCR, of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, of the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the ICRC and of the numerous religious relief agencies deserve special mention and praise. No doubt, humanitarian aid is and will continue to be crucial in protecting refugees and displaced persons, because survival is the first requirement in that situation.
Still, the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons cannot be resolved by providing humanitarian help alone. The problem itself and its lasting solution should be approached from deeper human and moral perspectives. Humanitarian aid, however crucial it might be, should be seen as a temporary emergency provision. The international community cannot be satisfied with providing humanitarian aid while lacking the necessary political will to solve the problem
A Human Issue
The plight of millions forced from their countries of origin or from their homes is in every sense a human problem The conflicts of recent years have made one out of every 120 people on earth a refugee or a displaced person. The saddest note of all is that the most vulnerable members of society, women, children and the aged, are the most affected and afflicted victims of unwarranted and violent conflicts. They are forced to leave their homes, go to environments strange and often unfriendly, confined to situations humiliating and hostile without any hope of returning home. By becoming dependent on the mercy of others for survival, their personal dignity is wounded and their identity destroyed. They carry with them the unjustly imposed burden of becoming strangers in a world which should belong to all
Mr. Chairman, most of today's refugees and displaced persons comes from developing countries, and a considerable majority from Africa, Most of them were bearing the sears of poverty long before becoming refugees or displaced persons Over 12 million children are on the move without the possibility of living a life worthy of children, nor having the ability to prepare for their future. Opportunities for education or vocational training become rarities
Since the question of refugees is a human issue, it has also serious moral implications. Behind every single conflict, there is a long story of continued and systematic violation of fundamental human rights. History has taught us that contempt for the dignity of the human person and denial of human rights will sooner or later lead to conflict situations. The best method to prevent conflicts is to create respect for the dignity of the human person and guarantees for human rights.
The Root of the Problem
The over fifty direct or indirect conflict fields of the world in this decade have produced over fifty million uprooted people. The international community itself has difficulties in finding the financial resources to procure the much-needed humanitarian aid to keep them alive. But none of those conflict fields lack in weapons. Weapons are what the warring countries have in abundance. In supplying arms to war-mongers and power-brokers, some countries turn out to be extraordinarily generous. The illegal and exaggerated sale of weapons to impoverished people, from whichever source or under whatever disguise they may come, is morally wrong. Stop the illegal flow of weapons and many conflicts will thus be prevented. Stop the flow of weapons, and most of the actual conflicts will considerably subside.
Behind the immediate causes of flight, there may also be interdependent economic and social factors. Poverty, the deterioration of economic conditions, social inequalities, conflicts concerning the distribution of resources, especially in times of economic recession, exacerbate already existing ethnic and social tensions. Minority groups become the main victims of economic crises. When already precarious conditions of life are worsened by war or civil and ethnic conflicts, famine and illness often claim more victims than the conflicts themselves. Sometimes, even economic decisions aimed at achieving economic growth that reach only certain sectors of the population, or that are not combined with human development and respect for the environment, can create a context for violence, armed conflict and the deterioration of the habitat. This may oblige many to leave their homes. States have a special responsibility in orienting their policies towards a participatory and environment-friendly development. This task is not, however, the monopoly of the state; it can and must be shared by the private sector as well as by the international community through a renewed effort of cooperation for development.
To the millions who are presently suffering from the pain of displacement, the right to protection in its diverse aspects, the right to remain in conditions worthy of human persons, and the right to return in security and dignity should be guaranteed. Return to situations of fragile peace might be the start of new cycles of renewed displacement, as cases in some parts of Africa and elsewhere have shown. Along with peace-making and peace-keeping, concrete action towards peace-building becomes a must in such situations.
Finally Mr. Chairman, the issue of displacement is not only a matter of humanitarian concern, but also of international peace and stability. The condition of refugees, with their sufferings and pains, becomes a pressing appeal to the conscience of the international community. It becomes, at the same time, an authentic challenge to solidarity and concerted action. Let the close of the second millennium be, for millions of refugees and displaced people, a time of new hope, marking a new page in history where displacement no longer exists.
Archbishop Renato Martino is Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.
----- EXCERPT: Will the New Millennium Bring Hope to the World's Refugees and Displaced Persons? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Archbishop Renato Martino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Utilitarian Philosophies Bless Morally Suspect Bio-Tech Advances DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:We now receive the news that biologists are taking cells from very young human embryos and multiplying them in petri dishes. These cells are so primitive, they are so early in their development, that they may be able to develop into various kinds of tissue to be used in curing diseases or to grow human skin or cartilage. These developments in biology seem to be coming along faster than our ability to think about them ethically.
Almost everyone wants to act morally. Regrettably the kind of ethical thinking which is dominant in the United States is one which is derived mostly from English and American thought and is ill-suited for helping us make moral decisions about these challenging developments in biotechnology.
England and the United States have been the sources of the industrial and technological revolutions which have radically altered our life on earth. But the techniques which worked very effectively to enhance manufacturing are now being applied to human beings, so that in the realm of biotechnology, the human person is increasingly viewed as a machine which can be altered and/or discarded, not according to the laws of morality but according to the laws of efficiency.
Philosophers in England developed an approach to morality which considered human actions good or bad according to their utility, their usefulness. Their measuring stick for determining if something was right or wrong was a function of “the greatest good for the greatest number.”
If you asked these philosophers what constituted “the greatest good,” they responded that it was whatever maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. It can easily be seen how such a philosophy would come to value only those humans capable of enjoying the greatest pleasure. Those who can no longer “enjoy” life may indeed, according to this kind of thinking, be locked in “a life not worth living” and would be better off dead. There is no question that such thinking lies behind the abortion and euthanasia movements in our day.
Such a way of thinking was easily exported to the United States, where it was developed into a “philosophy” known as pragmatism. Americans have enjoyed remarkable growth in wealth and power because they are very pragmatic. They look at a problem and find ways to solve it, without being bound by old ways of doing things. This may work very well in manufacturing, but it is a poor way to deal with human beings.
The man who developed pragmatism was a professor at Harvard named William James. He applied the same measuring stick to both thinking and to acting. Does it work? As he put it, “the true ... is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behaving.” Whatever works is true; whatever works is good.
Joseph Fletcher was an Episcopal theologian who worked hard to introduce this way of thinking into Christian circles. He developed what he called “Situation Ethics.” He insisted that we could judge something to be good or bad only by its consequences. As he said, “for the situationist there are no rules—none at all.” He did not shrink from teaching that “the end justifies the means.”
Fletcher one time addressed a Planned Parenthood convention and had reassuring words for them. “I want to say carefully and without elaboration: Sex is morally acceptable in any form. Hetero, homo, auto, bi or poly. And looked at from the ethical perspective ... I want to add that what makes any sexual act right or wrong is its consequences.”
This man went on to teach medical ethics at the University of Virginia medical school. It is this kind of thinking which is dominant in the field of biotechnology today. Do we think that the brain cells from unborn babies will help improve the condition of people suffering from Parkinson's disease? Well, then we will simply procure the brain cells from them and try it. And we have done just that. Do we need organs to transplant? Does this dying person have a life worth living? Clearly not, in the minds of these people. So let's not wait until they die before we harvest their organs. We will put these poor people out of their misery, and we will have fresh organs to use for those who are suffering.
Only one moral tradition will keep us from preying on one another. Only one moral tradition will keep us from reducing human beings to machines or manufactured products or mines from which we harvest organs and cells. It is the moral tradition of Moses, of the noble pagan physician Hippocrates, and of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the moral tradition which insists that the human person is noble, that he is the image of the divine and therefore sacred. It is the moral tradition which says that virtually everything which was created can be used for the good of man. There is only one thing which cannot be used for the benefit of the human person—and that is another human person.
Dr. John Haas is president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Haas ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Muddy Condemnation of Slavery DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:Toni Morrison is one of the high priestesses of political correctness. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, she argues that America is economically, politically, and culturally structured to oppress women and minorities. In a recent New Yorker article, she urged African-Americans to ignore President Clinton's impeachment problems and vote for Democrats who support him because of their common backgrounds of victim-hood. In return, the night before the election Hillary Clinton hosted a White House screening of Beloved, based on Morrison's novel of the same name.
The movie's director, Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia), and screenwriters, Akousa Busia, Richard LaGravenese, and Adam Brooks, are faithful to the author's purposes which, in themselves, are admirable. Morrison wants to force Americans to confront the harsh legacy of slavery—not just the physical pain but also the psychological scars carried by the victims even after they were freed. It's a terrible, hidden inheritance which rightfully should be exposed and analyzed.
Both the movie and the book use the conventions of the fantasy-horror genre to tell their stories. These clash with emotional and political points that are being dramatized, resulting in an uneven hybrid which is slow moving and confusing.
The action is set in 1873 in a black community on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives in a haunted house which everyone in the neighborhood avoids. Inside, furniture mysteriously moves around; her dog is attacked by strange forces; and the walls shimmer with a red glow. Her teen-age daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise), who is too shy to venture outside, states the obvious when she declares: “We have a ghost here.”
Into this deranged world come two outsiders, Paul D (Danny Glover), who had been a slave with Sethe on the “Sweet Home” plantation across the river in Kentucky. A sane, rational, decent man, he's supposed to represent the audience's point of view. He has always loved Sethe and hopes to turn her house into a home for both of them.
The few moments of calm which he brings are disrupted by the appearance of the second visitor, Beloved (Thandie Newton). A beautiful, developmentally disabled woman-child, she seems to come out of nowhere and attach herself to Sethe. Her eyes rolling from side to side and her mouth drooling saliva, she speaks in a deep guttural voice that seems demonic.
Is she another ghost, the spirit of Sethe's long-dead daughter? The movie deliberately keeps the answer ambiguous. She's meant to be a kind of grotesque symbol of the effect of slavery's evils on its victims. She is Morrison's metaphor for the way the damage inflicted on slaves can haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Beloved's presence triggers a series of flashbacks about Sethe's past. We see the sadistic cruelty with which the slaves on the Sweet Home plantation were treated. For example, Sethe's mother is lynched in front of her for reasons that are never explained to her.
Even though pregnant, Sethe and the father of her children plan an escape, but only she makes it. While fleeing through the woods, she gives birth with the help of a young white woman who continually invokes the name of Jesus.
Sethe herself isn't a particularly spiritual person. But she takes refuge in free Ohio in the home of her grandmother, Baby Suggs (Beah Richards), a self-anointed preacher. Her message is a syncretic mixture of Pentecostal Christianity and folk religion. She attracts a large following of freed slaves who gather in the woodlands behind her house and respond enthusiastically to her words with spontaneous, self-created rituals.
Morrison depicts Baby Suggs as a saintly personality whose earthy, unorthodox sermons function as a Greek chorus and spiritual center to the action. But Sethe seems untouched by them, and she's forced to make certain horrible, moral compromises to survive when the plantation owner finally catches up with her.
Back in the present, Beloved begins to behave in ways that threaten to destroy Sethe's fragile family unit. But the ex-slave refuses to take any action to protect herself. Paul D decides to leave. “Your love is too thick, Sethe,” he warns. “Thin love ain't no love at all,” she replies.
The movie slowly loses itself in scenes of melodramatic and allegorical excess. Morrison believes that America continues to oppress black people even after the Emancipation Proclamation. “Just because you can't see no chains, that don't mean they're not there,” another ex-slave tells Sethe. “As long as the world is white, that's the way we stand.”
Morrison's good intentions aren't enough. Her laudable desire to set the record straight on slavery is overwhelmed by her negative, deterministic view of what she believes are America's systemic evils. There's no redemption or catharsis in her sad tale, only unrelenting pain. Despite a halfhearted attempt at an upbeat ending, the filmmakers remain true to her bleak vision.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
Beloved is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: Despite some bright moments, Beloved gets sunk by its makers' pessimism and confusing story ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Videos on Release DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:In 1923, a quarter-century after the death of ThérËse in the Carmel of Lisieux, a new parish was formed in the northwestern corner of Rhode Island. Although ThérËse had not yet been canonized, the bishop of Providence, William Hickey, suggested that the church be placed under her patronage, and offered special permission for a shrine to be established to her honor.
“We're sure it's the first shrine dedicated to St. ThérËse in the Americas,” says co-director Jerry Finelli, who shares administration duties of the shrine in Nasonville with his wife, Shirley.
Immediately following ThérËse's canonization in 1924, the current brick combination church-school, one of three new buildings on the grounds dedicated by the bishop, officially became St. Theresa Church—using the American spelling of her name, which the shrine has retained. An outdoor shrine and altar were added in 1927, and a Scala Sancta and outdoor Stations of the Cross in the mid-1930s. By the war, pilgrimages and events drew as many as 7,000 people to the shrine each year.
One more event in the birth of the shrine happened just after the parish was formed. A parishioner named Olivier Faford, who had been ill for years, became bedridden, unable to speak or eat, and was considered incurable by Boston doctors. The first pastor of the parish, Father A.P. Desrochers, brought her Communion and told her to turn to the saint. That very afternoon, the woman got out of bed by herself and ate a hearty meal. Her doctors called her recovery a miracle.
Today, the thriving parish has 550 families, including relatives of Faford. With the last decade bringing a renewal to the shrine, with renovations and expansions establishing new devotional sections, it continues to grow and flourish on the grassy, woodsy acres around the church.
As the shrine unfolds toward the outdoor chapel, the first stop for pilgrims is the Scala Sancta. These granite and limestone Holy Stairs, which replaced wooden ones in 1956, rise nearly three stories to a marble Crucifixion scene under an open chapel. The Holy Stairs are wide enough to accommodate at once those making the journey on their knees, with or without cushions, and those unable to do so. The stone courtyard before the Scala Sancta boasts new outdoor pews, for those who wish to linger in prayer. The canopy of trees continues to extend outward, toward the stations.
These unique Stations of the Cross form a huge semicircle around the Holy Stairs. The stone relief scenes, begun in 1941 by internationally known sculptor Amedeo Nardini, are sheltered within tall arched wayside shrines. These arches were patterned of stones gathered from the 48 states of the continental United States, to reflect the devotion of the whole nation; the stones used are different sizes, colors, and textures, from smooth, to craggy and coral-like. Shades of red and white predominate in the 11th station, while black stone is used in the 12th station. The 13th mixes granites and marbles. Five of the stations have had to be entirely reconstructed, and volunteers from the church and the area worked painstakingly on the process.
The shrine extends to the outdoor altar and stone sanctuary with statues of Mary, Joseph, and St. Thérèse. The large sanctuary of Vermont granite, marble, and Tennessee stone replaced the original wooden altar at midcentury. Everything from the tabernacle to Communion rails are made of stone.
Parish workers have recently built wood and cement pews, under twin canopies arched to resemble a chapel roof. They protect pilgrims—up to 1,500 at a time—during services celebrating the feast of the Little Flower, which the shrine conducts about six weeks before her feast, on the third Sunday of August, when weather is more predictable.
Italian-made stations line the outdoor “side aisles” of the nave, and the “center aisle” is paved. Many of the faithful have offered donations for memorial plaques for the pews, just as they have for each bead of the monumental rosary which hangs beyond the shrine to St. Michael the Archangel.
Preceded by a rose garden and a statue of the Sacred Heart, and over-spread by countless leafy boughs, the 15-decade rosary was blessed and dedicated in 1994. The large beads were shaped from timbers; each decade drapes between the “Our Father” beads resting on top of posts. A rosebush adorns each, and the particular mystery is illustrated. Outdoor pews with kneelers accommodate visitors.
In the great circle of the rosary, a flower-lined walk leads to a stone pool and fountain overlooked by a statue of Our Lady of Peace. The paved path also follows around the rosary itself. The director, who designed this rosary, aims to make the entire shrine completely accessible to all visitors.
Across the lawns and parking area, a section of the former convent is being readied as a gift shop. The brick parish church itself has been enlarged and renovated. The crutches, wheelchairs, and ex-votos which had been stacked around the sanctuary for years were removed, and the church's white interior, trimmed in blue, is simple and soothing. By the statue of St. Thérèse, a relic is displayed for veneration. For major celebrations, a larger reliquary with multiple first-class relics is used.
Bus groups and carpools can call ahead to arrange to meet the shrine directors for a personal explanation; groups with a priest can arrange for a Mass. Besides weekend Masses, there is 8:30 a.m. Mass Monday through Friday, and first Saturday Mass in the rectory chapel.
The only official shrine in Rhode Island, this first shrine of St. Thérèse in America is a bough from which the Little Flower continues to “let fall from heaven a shower of roses.” For the 50-mile drive from Boston, use Interstates 95W to 295W. Take exit 8, Route 7, a few short miles north, to the intersection with Route 102. The shrine is just past the corner in Nasonville. From New York, use I-95E to Route 146N, to Forestdale/Slatersville exit, to Route 102N.
For information on the shrine and Confraternity of St. Thérèse, write the Shrine at 35 Dion Drive, Nasonville, RI 02830, or phone (401) 766-0917, or (401) 568-8280.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Peace awaits visitors to St. Theresa's Shrine, the first to the Little Flower in the Americas ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Newman Society Strikes a Bullish Tone DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—“What's at stake for Catholic education is important for the culture as a whole,” Mo Fung, executive director of the Cardinal Newman Society, said at the beginning of the organization's third annual conference.
The society was founded in 1993 to encourage Catholic colleges and universities to more fully emphasize their roots. Its patron, John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-90), was an English convert to Catholicism, university administrator, and author of The Idea of a University.
Speakers meeting at The Catholic University of America, Nov. 7-8, cited the thoughts of Newman as well as the teachings of Pope John Paul II in his 1990 apostolic constitution Ex Corde Eccelsiae and his recently released Fides et Ratio.
The society's previous conferences were held at Marymount University and Georgetown University. At this year's meeting, administrators and students from 22 institutions heard talks from Dr. Jude Dougherty of Catholic University, Father Benedict Groeschel CFR, Dr. Robert Royal of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Connaught Marshner, formerly of Christendom College. There also were panel discussions on mentoring students and campus witness.
Dougherty, the dean of Catholic University's philosophy department, gave the opening address. He discussed the decline of moral grounding at U.S. universities and added, “Unfortunately, Catholic institutions have not escaped the drift toward secularism.”
Citing historian Christopher Dawson, he noted that “the secular state school is an instrument of the Enlightenment.” He added that the secular worldview was exacerbated by Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist, and by American philosopher and educator John Dewey.
Durkheim believed the state would free the individual from such mediating influences as religion and the family. Dewey, his disciple, crafted a philosophy of pragmatism. In doing so, he “had no use for religion,” Dougherty said. “Religion was socially dangerous, it was an undesirable course for knowledge.
“By 1910, nearly every university chair was held by materialists,” he added. The secularist trend then intensified, leading, among other things, to Supreme Court decisions that have transformed public education. A once Protestant-oriented educational system has been replaced by a secular humanist system.
This creates a problem for society. Dougherty said, “We have no experience of being under wholly secular auspices. As early as the 1830s the great observer of American life Alexis de Tocqueville noted that ‘liberty can't govern without religious faith.’” Yet, what de Tocqueville said would not work is the dominant approach in the United States today.
Dougherty argued that to counter this development there needs to be a thorough grounding in philosophy, a reestablishment of morality, and a rededication to our Catholic heritage. “There can be no ecumenism in the intellectual order; Catholic tradition must be maintained,” he said.
Father Groeschel, a prolific writer and director of the Office of Spiritual Development for the Archdiocese of New York, asked, “How do we get higher education back to Catholicism?” In his lively keynote address, he said the answer is in Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
“I love the Holy Father,” he said, “because he gloriously and consistently ignores what's going on. He says it as it is—with an incredible practicality. I'm glad the Holy Father has never studied public relations.”
The apostolic letter encourages Catholics to aspire to an ideal with its educational institutions. In so doing, Father Groeschel noted, the Holy Father is telling the Catholic universities to build on the basis of truth.
Rather than treat universities as mere consumer institutions content to train people, society needs to return to the mind-set behind the first Catholic university, founded 1,850 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt. Its founder, St. Clement, defined a Catholic university as a reflection of only one teacher, Jesus Christ.
Even today “a Catholic institution—even a truly Protestant institution—should be built on faith in Christ,” Father Groeschel said. In order to accomplish that “radical” notion, “we have to become a countercultural phenomenon.” In doing so, Catholics will come to understand Newman's point that “truth has two attributes: beauty and power.”
Father Groeschel was optimistic about this happening. Telling the many students who attended the conference “you are the children of a generation of destiny,” he ended with a moving anecdote about the late Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York.
On his deathbed in 1983, the prelate told him, “Benedict, don't be disheartened—because you can hear the bagpipes.” Those bagpipes proclaiming victory, Father Groeschel noted, are now closer. “I will die happy because I lived to see the turning of the tide,” he said.
In more reserved style, Robert Royal offered an analysis of the importance of science in reversing secularism. There is, he said, no conflict between religion and science, but rather a complementarity.
Royal emphasized the importance of the encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), which was released Oct. 15. The document shows how Catholics can confront the “isms” of the modern world—secularism, relativism, materialism, and the rest—by recognizing that faith, through Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium, will withstand any test.
The professor lauded the Holy Father, who “puts no prior limits on the Gospel. He trusts the truth. Be faithful and confident in that spirit, and you will be astonished because there is nothing else in the modern world.”
Other discussions instructed conferees in how to implement changes suggested by these principal speakers. Connaught Marshner, who served as student affairs director at Christendom College, said, “To be authentically Catholic, the institution has to swim against the tide.
Christ showed us a way to live that is radically different from the way we live today.”
To capture that spirit, then, Marshner said students need to be taught the truth, see it lived, experience it, and pray. “All of the campus should be ordered so students can pursue the truth.”
Dr. Susan Matthews, of the University of Scranton and a member of the Cardinal Newman Society's faculty council, was one of several people who discussed ways faculty can mentor students to meet these ends. “To help our students engage the culture, do it with them,” she said.
A co-founder of a Catholic Studies Program at her institution, she encouraged professors to nurture students by bolstering the curriculum. She also suggested they “light fires of passion to help build alternative communities.... A virtuous kind of life is wonderful, liberating, and fun. Help students understand [Catholic] wisdom, particularly regarding sexuality.”
Another commentator on mentoring, Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski of Fordham University, offered four practical suggestions: give students time, create supportive Catholic groups, encourage religious activities such as eucharistic adoration, and share books.
In addition to offering conferences for students and faculty, the Cardinal Newman Society has been actively involved in efforts to adopt norms for the U.S. implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae , which is scheduled to be discussed at the U.S. bishops' meeting this month.
Such involvement is exactly what the group needs to focus on, according to the society's executive director, Mo Fung. He told the Register , “A lot of institutions are going with the flow and not very conscious of where they're going. If we can direct that flow, corporate personality can be transformed.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
The Cardinal Newman Society can be reached at 207 Park Ave., Suite B-2, Falls Church, Va. 22046; telephone: (703) 536-9585; e-mail: cardnewman@erols.-com; and website: www.rc.net/cardinal newman.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Notre Dame Wrestles With Tolerance-of-Abortion Questions DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:University of Notre Dame officials want to ensure that the school's catholicity runs deeper than the surface. Many Americans can recognize campus landmarks such as the Golden Dome—on which stands a statue of the Virgin Mary—and “Touchdown Jesus,” an enormous mosaic on the side of the school's library near the football stadium.
Despite protests from some faculty members, Notre Dame officials last May placed the university's Women's Resource Center (WRC) on probation for two years for providing students with literature from a local abortion clinic.
“Official recognition by the university is contingent on an organization's not violating Church teaching,” explained Notre Dame spokesman Michael Garvey.
On April 16, undergraduate student Catriona Wilkie visited WRC and picked up a pamphlet for the Michiana Abortion Clinic in nearby Niles, Michigan. The brochure listed prices for abortions according to the unborn child's gestational age, and it had a map to the clinic, she said.
Wilkie also found what she called “propaganda brochures” from abortion-industry groups such as National Abortion Rights Action League, which listed “pro-choice” and “anti-choice” arguments.
WRC has distributed abortion information since at least the fall of 1995, claimed Maureen Kramlich, a Notre Dame law student who received her undergraduate degree at the university. During a 1995 student activities night, Kramlich picked up information with the telephone number and address of the Women's Pavilion, a nearby South Bend, Ind., abortion clinic. “The description of what the clinic does said nothing about abortion,” she recalled. “It said something like ‘provides birth control, Pap smears, and other gynecological services.’
Helping a person to obtain an abortion is a grave offense, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2272): “Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
Although university officials want to preserve Notre Dame's Catholic identity, some faculty members and students have opposed their actions.
On Oct. 12, about 40 people, including 10 or more faculty members, attended a forum to support WRC, said Ava Preacher, assistant dean of Arts and Letters. “There was a consensus among those present that the WRC is perhaps being held to a different standard than other clubs, and that the stated violation of (Notre Dame's student handbook), of which they have been accused, is at best vague and arbitrarily applied,” she said.
Daniel Sheerin, a classics professor, argued that WRC's probation was an “act of censorship.” During the meeting, “I found particularly useful the suggestion that this controversy is a manifestation of a fundamental difference of opinion about whether the university's goal is to provide religious formation or education,” he told the Register.
The Notre Dame Faculty Senate's Student Affairs committee plans to issue a report about the probationary status of the WRC in December or January, said Preacher, who is the committee chairwoman. “Given that the investigation is in progress, I am not prepared to discuss the status of it at this point.”
Parents of prospective students complained at Notre Dame last spring following the publication of an exposé on the WRC in the student publication Right Reason. Their outcry led to administrative action against the WRC.
John Imler, assistant director of admissions, said he notified the Student Activities office about the “problematic situation created by the WRC and visiting parents' reaction to it.”
Imler recalled speaking with WRC officials about how the abortion literature “ran counter both to the university presented by admissions and to that expected by parents and families coming to us,” before he wrote the letter. After Student Activities became involved and sent a letter to WRC, the university placed the center on probation.
The WRC incident “demonstrates that Catholic campuses are under siege by secularizing forces that are both overt and covert,” said Luke White, editor in chief of Right Reason.
The school's handling of WRC “provides an excellent case study of how the administration of Notre Dame is still very willing and able to protect its Catholic character,” the undergraduate remarked. “Where other Catholic universities have failed, Notre Dame has succeeded due to the fortitude of administrators who aren't afraid to be vilified for preserving Notre Dame catholicity.”
But one faculty member had the opposite interpretation. “It is certainly a very serious error of educational judgment for a university to prohibit the collection of any kind (of) information that is legally available (for instance, in the telephone book),” said Mary Rose D'Angelo, a theology professor at Notre Dame, who attended the Oct. 12 forum.
“It's also very imprudent to suggest that Catholic teaching is so weak that students may not even collect information that reflect other perspectives,” D'Angelo said.
Notre Dame spokesman Garvey disagreed. “This has nothing to do with academic freedom. The university does-n't want to extinguish free speech. This is a case of an official university group that receives funding that we collect from student fees. This is not the case of a dispassionate debate about abortion.”
Garvey attributed the WRC situation to an “oversight problem, rather than maliciousness. (WRC officers) have been very cooperative” with Notre Dame's administration. “In some respects, as passionate an issue as abortion is, there's less here than meets the eye.”
Other observers are more skeptical.
While applauding the university's response to the WRC, Mo Fung, executive director of the Falls Church, Va.-based Cardinal Newman Society, pointed out that “there are still many problems at Notre Dame. They had to know they were sending a message” with the appointment of former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) to a visiting professor position. Bradley consistently voted for abortion rights legislation during his political career.
But Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Jenky, of the Fort Wayne-South Bend (Ind.) diocese where Notre Dame is located, was quoted by Right Reason earlier this year as saying the Bradley appointment did not concern him much because the Princeton graduate is a visiting professor. Bishop Jenky is a member of the Holy Cross order which runs Notre Dame, and a former rector of the Sacred Heart Basilica on campus.
But Charles Rice, a Notre Dame law professor, called Bradley's appointment “indefensible”: “It sends a message to the students that it is acceptable and even commendable for a legislator to support abortion.” The university's announcement of Bradley's appointment, Rice pointed out, touted his record as a national leader in tax reform, international trade, pension reform, community building, and building race relations, but did not mention abortion.
The Pro-Life Action League, run by alumnus and former Notre Dame instructor Joseph Scheidler in Chicago, rented two planes with banners to fly over Notre Dame stadium during the Sept. 5 Notre Dame-Michigan game. The banners read “Dump Bradley” and “Bradley supports abortion.”
According to a Pro-Life Action League press release, Bradley answered a Scheidler question during a Sept. 3 campus lecture by stating that he “stands by” his voting record on abortion, including his support of President Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban.
“Can we have a serious Catholic university that is on the cutting edge of academic teaching and research? I'd say ‘yes,’” said Fung, whose Newman Society promotes Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic universities. “There's room for non-Catholics at a Catholic university, but you need to have 100% of the faculty committed to the university's mission.”
William Murray writes from Kensington, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: Some faculty support inclusion of clinic literature at campus women's center ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Natural Family Planning Advocate Knows No Borders DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:DALLAS—The population control cartel pressuring Latin America was disrupted last month in Argentina, when natural family planning (NFP) promoter Mercedes Arzu Wilson addressed television and radio audiences, as well as the national legislature in Buenos Aires. She warned against contraceptive imperialism, abortifacient chemicals being sold as contraceptives, and a non-replacement population growth of 1.4 children per family that threatens to leave the country “empty.”
Wilson followed her South American visit with a trip to Dallas to lecture against “the culture of death” and to train Spanish-speaking couples in the ovulation method of NFP. She said she was invited to address a one-day conference of the Argentine legislature by Rita Drisaldei, a representative from Santa Cruz who had heard Wilson speak in Brazil last year.
Like other Latin American nations, Argentina is facing pressure for “sustainable development” (that is, population control) as a result of U.N. conventions in recent years, even though its population growth is below replacement levels, Wilson said. The country's leaders also raised concerns regarding the absence of governmental regulation of “test tube” babies and the specter of fetal experimentation, she added.
“(Wilson) came with some views which hadn't been broadcast here previously,” said Father Pedro Richards, a fellow NFP promoter and founder of the 50-year-old Movimiento Familiar Cristiana (Christian Family Movement) in Latin America and Spain. “She was quite a novelty, since she placed NFP and sex education on the table.”
And Wilson, whose enthusiasm for NFP has not dampened in her 30 years of international promotion and education, is looking forward to future visits to train NFP teachers through Argentina's Ministry of Health, and also to address priests and religious at the request of Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio. During her five-day trip, she also updated teachers from Uruguay, Peru, and Argentina in the ovulation method, which she learned from John and Evelyn Billings in 1968 and for which she developed the popular color stamps for women to use in charting their fertility.
“It's always the same: The lower the income, the poorer the people, the better the response,” declared Wilson, founder and president of the 21-year-old Family of the Americas Foundation, based in Dunkirk, Maryland. In Argentina and Guatemala “we had to turn people away because we didn't have enough space or materials for everyone,” she added.
Father Richards is not overly optimistic about the immediate impact of Wilson's visit to his native country of Argentina, where the Catholic president speaks broadly in defense of life but where his supporters throughout the country promote “reproductive health,” a euphemism for government-sponsored contraception and abortion.
Nevertheless, at least the representatives and senators have been “alerted to new things,” Father Richards said.
Ultimately, he added, “what else can we be but hopeful, because (Wilson) is a heavyweight, she knows how to do things, and she is engaging.”
To further spur her work in Latin America, Wilson's book Love and Family (Ignatius Press, 1996), a comprehensive sex education resource for parents, has just been published in Spanish.
She is also focusing on her native Guatemala where her brother, Alvaro Arzu, is president. She is working on a large-scale campaign to promote NFP there while the government is friendly toward it.
“If the same party is not re-elected, we're in trouble,” she said. “This is our chance to try to expose the harmful programs of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates around the world.”
Shortly before her trip to Argentina, Wilson was among the more than 2,000 people attending an international NFP conference in Peru. The Andean nation's president, Alberto Fujimori, has pushed birth control as the answer to his country's poverty and has vocally attacked the Pope for the Church's teachings against contraception and sterilization. Earlier this year The New York Times and the Register chronicled the Peruvian govern-ment's “ambitious” family planning program that has resulted in hundreds of poor women being coerced into, or injured by, sterilization.
Wilson also spent time in Mexico in February to protest massive vacci-nation programs against tetanus in women of child-bearing age. Lab tests have shown the shots to contain the component HCG, which would, in effect, “vaccinate them against their own pregnancy,” she said.
Wilson might get discouraged but for her noted ability to gain access to further her work and for her unflagging belief in the wisdom of the poor, who continue to be more receptive to natural methods of family planning than developed peoples are.
“It's like in the times of Christ,” Wilson explained. “Who were the ones who listened? It wasn't the learned, those of high cultural levels, the priests, the lawyers—no. It was the poor who followed him.
“God seems to put some kind of inborn wisdom into the poor to defend them. They have natural childbirth, they breastfeed, and then they have everything natural. They are the last ones to accept artificial methods, because they are so dependent on nature, for their crops, for everything, that a natural method just seems logical, just makes sense to them.”
Other developing nations responding to the message of NFP include, perhaps surprisingly, China. Behind the scenes of the country's extreme population control policies, where city-dwelling women are limited to one legally recognized child, NFP continues to win converts among government officials, doctors, and couples hoping to avoid the alternatives of sterilization and abortion. Wilson has been to China nine times for lectures and training, and to date has distributed 20,000 copies of her instruction book Love and Fertility there.
“Even in China, we can't go back enough; I have an open invitation to go back,” said Wilson. “We get standing ovations from the students, the doctors, even the government officials who attend our lectures. My lecture is against contraception, against abortion; I even talk about the moral aspects, spiritual and moral benefits, and I get standing ovations. I tell them that the government has no right to tell a husband and a wife how many children they can have.”
The leading advocates of the ovulation method—arguably the simplest and most popular modern natural method used around the world—include Dr. Zhang De-wei, an adviser to the State Family Planning Commission of Shanghai and the vice president of an advisory committee of a Ministry of Public Health.
Her study of 688 couples reported a rate of 98.82% effectiveness in postponing pregnancy and a continuation rate (the percentage of couples who used the method through 12 months) of 93.04%.
“These clinical results were very satisfactory and encouraging,” Dr. De-wei wrote in her award-winning report, updated in 1994. “Because it has no contraindications, side-effects, and requires no government investment for manufacturing contraceptives and devices, etc.; it is a very good method which benefits the nation and the people.”
Wilson and De-wei say the Chinese are delighted with the ovulation method because they see it will decrease induced abortions. And the fact that the people “all say they hate abortion” puts China in a better moral position than the United States, Wilson believes. “(China is) a country (where) a small group in government, dictatorial government, is forcing mothers to abort their babies, and some courageous women choose to keep their babies or hide their babies so they are not killed... whereas in the West, the United States being at the top of the line, people get in their cars, and go kill them.
“Who is worse off morally—the one who's forced to abort her baby, or the one who freely goes to kill her own child? I am sick and tired of hearing the Chinese people get criticized, because they are being forced to kill their babies. In the West, not only are mothers willingly killing their babies, but [pro-abortion forces] are forcing legalization of abortion on the rest of the world.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas.
----- EXCERPT: Government policies are no obstacle for Mercedes Arzu Wilson ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Efforts to Elect Pro-Life Women Are Paying Off DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:ALEXANDRIA, Va.—In a decade in which the importance of money in election campaigns has reached new heights, a unique pro-life political action committee (PAC) has become a growing force. The Susan B. Anthony (SBA) List helped re-elect eight members of the House and one new senator in the Nov. 3 election.
Named after the 19th-century women's rights leader, the SBA List was founded in 1993 to help seat more pro-life women officeholders. It was a response to the influx of pro-abortion women elected to Congress in 1992, which was called the “Year of the Woman.”
The effort was launched also to compete with EMILY's (“Early Money is Like Yeast”) List, which was started in 1985 and had become a mainstay of pro-abortion Democratic politics. They identify themselves as “the nation's biggest source of contributions for federal candidates.”
The SBA List's first public event was held at the National Woman's Party building at Washington, D.C., in February 1993. Susan B. Anthony was selected as the patron because she was a staunch opponent of abortion, calling it “infanticide” and “child murder.”
The early organizers of the SBA List were dedicated, but lacked any campaign background. Susan Gibbs, one of the founding board members and now director of communications for the Archdiocese of Washington, said, “None of us had political experience. None of us had PAC experience. We just had a passion for being pro-life.”
That soon changed. First Marjorie Dannenfelser and then Jane Abraham, both of whom had worked in politics and government, were brought in to run the effort. Dannenfelser is now chairman of the board, and Abraham, the wife of Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), is president.
In the 1994 elections, 15 women were endorsed and financially backed for House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests. Eight of those were elected, and the number of pro-life women in the House quadrupled. Two more were elected in 1996, while the List helped return five others.
Last year, the organization became a 501(c)4 not-for-profit organization to provide educational outreach. The PAC continues, but is now known as the Susan B. Anthony Candidate Fund and is attached to the parent entity. This structural change allows for issue advocacy and training schools.
The training schools, which are for candidates, future candidates, and political staffers, comprise what Abraham calls “a state-of-the-art campaign academy.” Candidates have a virtual one-to-one consultation on how to articulate their message and work on such things as dealing with a hostile press.
In addition to political activists, the faculty includes Helen Alvaré of the U.S. Catholic Conference and Mary Ellen Bork, both of whom are columnists for the Register. Another instructor has been Carol Long Tobias, the PAC director of the National Right to Life Committee.
“There are some great pro-life women candidates,” Tobias told the Register. “But like many pro-lifers, they are not always sure what to do. The school helps prepare them.”
This activism has paid off. Membership for the List has increased from 2,000 to 9,500 over the past year and a half. That's still only about 20% of the membership of EMILY's List, but its leaders are excited about the progress.
They're also pleased with the results of the Nov. 3 election.
All eight of the endorsed pro-life House members were re-elected, even though several were locked in tight races. This year, for the first time, men were endorsed in a pilot program, and all three were successful. One of those was Peter Fitzgerald, a Catholic state senator who unseated pro-abortion incumbent Carol Moseley-Braun in Illinois.
This was partly accomplished by a rapid increase in fund raising. Money raised has climbed from $60,000 in 1995 to $262,000 in 1996, $475,000 in 1997, and $806,000 in 1998. In short, more than $1.2 million was available for this last two-year “election cycle” to support candidates and run the education component of the SBA List.
While such fund raising is impressive, it still pales in comparison to money contributed to EMILY's List. A total of 66,000 people—21,000 more than its membership—contributed at least $13 million over the past two years. Still, all this money was not enough to elect many key pro-abortion candidates.
Moseley-Braun was strongly supported by EMILY's List. In addition, all three endorsed gubernatorial candidates lost, three of its six senatorial candidates were defeated, and only five of its 11 nonincumbents were elected. Its six endorsed House incumbents were re-elected, but this was a year in which 98% of all members there were returned.
Abraham said, “I'm disappointed we missed the opportunity to elect some very talented pro-life women. But we can look back as a pro-life movement and take a lot of encouragement from this election.”
This is the kind of competition the SBA leadership is seeking to promote. However, in addition to political success, it seeks, as Susan Gibbs notes, “to give extra confidence to other women and to be a role model for younger women.” Such encouragement will help them better present the pro-life message in all venues.
Because of this positive message, the list of prominent supporters continues to grow. Mary Cunningham Agee, a member of the executive committee, told the Register, “This is one of the bright lights in the pro-life movement.”
Aformer board member and now vice chairman of the executive committee, Cathy Deeds of the U.S. Catholic Conference staff discussed the significance of the SBA List. “Working as a staffer on Capitol Hill and in the pro-life movement, I know the importance of pro-life women publicly engaging in the abortion debate.
“SBA seeks qualified women who are committed to public service in their state. We also need more pro-life votes in Congress. We seek dedicated spokespersons who will elevate the abortion issue, educate their colleagues and the public, and end this national tragedy.”
Twelve past and current members of Congress also serve on the advisory board. Among these is Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), who said, “The Susan B. Anthony List helps to get our grass-roots, pro-life citizens involved in the political process.”
Serrin Foster, an SBA List advisory committee member and executive director of Feminists for Life of America, added, “They have proved they are a force to be reckoned with on the national level. My hope is that one day the Susan B. Anthony List will extend itself to the state level, and do similar work there.”
For those associated with the SBA List, politics and morality intertwine. Many faiths are represented on its executive and advisory committees, and a large number are Catholics, according to Gibbs.
This Catholic involvement is appropriate, she said, because “we're called to understand the Church's pro-life teaching, accept it, and believe it. The Susan B. Anthony List is one way to carry out the teachings of the Church.”
As the Second Vatican Council said in its December 1965 “Message to Women”: “The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.”
The Susan B. Anthony List can be contacted at 228 South Washington St., Alexandria, Va. 22314; telephone: (703) 683-5558.
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
Jane Abraham (at podium), president of Susan B. Anthony List, with Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), a member of the List's advisory committee.
----- EXCERPT: In short time, political neophytes' initiative has become a growing force ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 11/22/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 22-28, 1998 ----- BODY:A Culture of Life requires renewal and transformation of society—especially as regards education. As the Holy Father writes in Evangelium Vitae, teachers, educators, and intellectuals, particularly those active at Catholic institutions of learning, have special roles in propagating the Gospel of Life:
In this mobilization for a new culture of life no one must feel excluded: everyone has an important role to play. Together with the family, teachers and educators have a particularly valuable contribution to make. Much will depend on them if young people, trained in true freedom, are to be able to preserve for themselves and make known to others new, authentic ideals of life, and if they are to grow in respect for and service to every other person, in the family and in society.
Intellectuals can also do much to build a new culture of human life. A special task falls to Catholic intellectuals, who are called to be present and active in the leading centers where culture is formed, in schools and universities, in places of scientific and technological research, of artistic creativity and of the study of man. Allowing their talents and activity to be nourished by the living force of the Gospel, they ought to place themselves at the service of a new culture of life by offering serious and well documented contributions, capable of commanding general respect and interest by reason of their merit. It was precisely for this purpose that I established the Pontifical Academy for Life , assigning it the task of “studying and providing information and training about the principal problems of law and biomedicine pertaining to the promotion of life, especially in the direct relationship they have with Christian morality and the directives of the Church's Magisterium.” A specific contribution will also have to come from Universities , particularly from Catholic Universities, and from Centers, Institutes and Committees of Bioethics. (98)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: 20 Years Later, John Paul II Remains a Tireless Force DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:ROME—This week, Pope John Paul II will enter St. Peter's Square for the Mass marking the anniversary of his election as pope on October 16, 1978. He will be walking slowly, stooped with age, leaning on his crosier for support. It will not be like his first Mass in St. Peter's Square, when he was installed as bishop of Rome six days after his election. Then, as described by the French writer André Frossard, he wielded his crosier like a sword. “This man does not come from Poland,” Frossard reported, “He comes from Galilee.”
In that moment, Frossard realized that, even as popes go, John Paul II was an extraordinary figure, and not merely because he was the first non- Italian elected in four and a half centuries. That first October morning in St. Peter's Square, the man from Krakow exhorted his flock with the same words that the man from Galilee spoke to his apostles on the rough sea: “Be not afraid.”
He is already the longest-serving pope of this century. At 78, his voice is weaker and his visage is heavy. The toll of compressing several lifetimes' worth of work into 20 years is evident, not to mention the trauma inflicted by an assassination attempt, a broken hip, surgeries for an intestinal tumor and for appendicitis, and whatever disorder (widely rumored to be Parkinson's) is causing his arm to tremble. And yet he continues to work, at a pace that would exhaust most men a third his age. For, despite having reenergized the Church and changed the world, his eyes are still fixed on the future.
“I see a pope who is continually projected toward the future, mentally and spiritually; I see it in his daily work,” said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. “Whether he will be able to complete all that he believes is his mission, only God knows.”
The Holy Father said on his 75th birthday that he will leave it to the Lord “to decide when and how to relieve me of this office.” He once recalled that Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, primate of Poland when John Paul II was elected, told him that his mission was to lead the Church into the third millennium. The Holy Father then asked his countryman, “Beseech the Lord on your knees, that I might be able to complete this task.”
That task is among the few remaining in what has already been a historic pontificate. In 14 months, the Holy Father is to open the Holy Door for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, and the Church will cross the threshold of the third millennium, prepared by his pontificate for what he expects will be a “new springtime of evangelization.”
Culture is the broad arena where the Church meets the world, and it is for his achievements in the world that the history books will give John Paul II a prominent place.
The Holy Father has repeatedly stated that the program for his pontificate has been the application of the Second Vatican Council. When archbishop of Krakow he had been an active participant in Vatican II, and he understands the council as the Holy Spirit's gift to the Church in preparation for the new millennium. Indeed, he has written, in Tertio Millennio Adveniente, that the best preparation for the Jubilee will be a faithful application of the Council.
His lasting legacy likely will be the enormous body of teaching he has given the Church (see accompanying article). It will take generations for it to be fully assimilated. Its hallmark has been a clear proclamation of the ancient faith of the Church, preached to a modern mentality skeptical about whether faith is still relevant.
In terms of the Church's internal life, he ended the sense of confusion that marked the immediate postconcil-iar period. Early in his pontificate, John Paul II acted to stem the tide of priestly defections and disciplined a few high-profile dissenting theologians. But these actions were for the most part isolated, and not the Holy Father's preferred way. Taking a cue from Pope John XXIII, who desired that Vatican II present the faith without condemnations, John Paul II has worked to present the good news about the dignity of man redeemed in Christ.
The signal achievement of this approach was the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Far more than a thousand anathemas, the Catechism serves as a powerful witness to the unity, sanctity, and catholicity of the apostolic Church. A worldwide best seller, the Catechism is one of the fruits of Vatican II.
Two distinctive aspects of the council have animated this pontificate — the ecumenical imperative and the emphasis on the universal vocation to holiness.
More than any other recent pope, John Paul II has sought unity with other Christians, devoting his attention first to the Orthodox. Until recently, hopes were high that the Church would, in the Holy Father's memorable phrase, “breathe with both lungs — East and West.” In Ut Unum Sint, he issued a breathtaking invitation to other Christians, to rethink with him the exercise of the papal office itself (while maintaining its divinely willed essence,) so that the Successor of Peter might be a better servant of the unity of the Church —servus servorum Dei, in the words of Pope St. Gregory the Great. Deeply disappointed at the recent difficulties in relations with Orthodoxy, the Holy Father plans to visit Romania next year to reinvigorate that dialogue, and still hopes to visit Russia when conditions permit.
Relations with Jews have also been a top priority for John Paul II, and his 1986 visit to the synagogue of Rome, the first ever by a pope, symbolized a new approach. It was there that he spoke of Jews as “our elder brothers in the faith.” Later, he opened diplomatic relations with Israel.
This pontificate has taken up the council's teaching that all Christians are called, by virtue of their baptism, to holiness and to the missionary activity of the Church. Leading by example, the Holy Father has traveled more than 700,000 miles, visiting 119 countries in 84 trips outside Italy. He has also paid more attention to Rome than many of his Italian predecessors, visiting most of the city's parishes, and opening a three-year-long city mission to prepare his own diocese for the Jubilee.
Confident that the examples of the saints can inspire contemporary holiness, he has canonized 280 people, and beatified 804 more. An increasing number of these are 20th-century figures and lay men and women drawn from all parts of the globe, demonstrating that holiness is possible for all Christians, even in our day, in every part of the world. The Sunday after his anniversary Mass, the Holy Father returns to St. Peter's to beatify American-born Mother Guerin.
For the former poet and playwright, the Council's call for the evangelization of culture has been a key priority. “At the heart of every culture is the attitude it takes to the mystery of God,” he wrote in Centesimus Annus. Some of his best writing has come on the subject of culture and faith, and he has sought out men of culture and scholarship to be his standard-bearers, such as Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger in Paris, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn in Vienna, Austria, and Francis Cardinal George in Chicago, to name only three of the men he has made cardinals.
Culture is the broad arena where the Church meets the world, and it is for his achievements in the world that the history books will give John Paul II a prominent place. Already a respected secular biographer, Jonathan Kwitny, has dubbed him “Man of the Century.”
That title was bestowed in recognition of the Holy Father's central role in the collapse of communism. Once asked about the importance of John Paul II's role in the peaceful overthrow of communism, former Polish President Lech Walesa said that he could not really think about it. “The pope is like the sun,” he said. “You do not think very much about the importance of the sun, but without it, nothing would be possible.”
The Holy Father's principal weapon in the fight against communism was the Council's insistence that human rights, especially the right to religious liberty, belonged to man by virtue of his creation in the image of God. Moreover, that same man, redeemed in Christ, has a lofty vocation to freely give of himself — a vocation that no earthly power may frustrate.
Sir Michael Howard, Oxford's Regius Professor of Modern History in the mid-1980s, has often been quoted on his observation that because of the Council and under John Paul II, “The Catholic Church has been transformed from a bastion of the ancien règime into perhaps the world's foremost defender of human rights.”
John Paul's development of the teaching about human rights brings together two of his favorite themes: freedom and truth. While facing the threat of totalitarian regimes and lesser dictators, the pope emphasized the freedom given to man by God. This freedom is part of the truth about the human person, endowing him with a great dignity that must be respected by the state.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Holy Father emphasized that freedom must be exercised with respect to the truth about man. The first of these truths is that human life itself is a gift from God that can never be taken away by any person, even the person himself. Hence the clarion call of Evangelium Vitae, a document of such importance that the Holy Father himself compared it to the landmark social encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. The insistence that freedom is only authentic when it respects the moral law has brought the Holy Father into conflict with the United Nations and the abortion-driven foreign policy of the Clinton administration. The clashes surprised many in the Western world that religion was not, at the end of the 20th century, a spent force.
“In today's world, the pope has become the supreme moral authority for humanity,” said Jozef Cardinal Tomko, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and one of the pope's closest advisers.
“There is no doubt about that. Some may not agree with specific teachings, but if they look closely, they discover that these teachings are linked to the pope's deep vision of salvation, and are not just a rigid set of rules.”
John Paul II has not shied away from the role of being the world's moral teacher. Twice he has addressed the United Nations on the principles that must undergird a stable, free, and prosperous world order. In updating the social teaching of the Church to take account of the material and moral strengths of a free economy, the Holy Father has provided a compelling Christian analysis of how politics and economics ought to be organized in the age of democracy and global markets. He has raised his voice against the unjust distribution of the world's resources, even going so far as to call for the forgiveness of international debts owed by poor countries as a part of the Jubilee year.
“The poor South will judge the rich North,” he cried out during his 1984 visit to Edmonton, Alberta, his voice shaking with rage. Yet his social teachings, unlike his upholding of Christian moral norms regarding marriage and sexuality, have gone largely ignored, even in the Church.
As regards sex, the world still does not understand, and perhaps cannot understand, John Paul II. He has devoted a large part of his pastoral ministry, as priest, bishop, and pope, to the problems and possibilities of man as a sexual being, called to marriage or to celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. He devoted the first years of his pontificate to a thorough exposition of sexuality according to the divine plan. He has grounded the constant teaching of the Church against fornication, adultery, homosexual relations, and contraception in an analysis of what it means to be a free person, called by God to love others through the gift of self. This teaching has yet to be fully received within the Church, but it bids fair to become his most enduring theological contribution.
Now, even as the Holy Father prepares to celebrate his anniversary in characteristic fashion — by issuing his 13th encyclical, Faith and Reason, devoted to the relationship between revelation and modern philosophy — he may be embarking on his most important witness. As his health declines and mortality beckons, John Paul II will teach the world how to cope with suffering and the specter of death.
“Certain physical limits are evident, and the pope doesn't try to hide them,” said Navarro-Valls about the pope's health. “They don't worry him and, thank God, up to this point they don't interfere with his work. I think that when people see his arm trembling, inner walls tend to fall. Maybe this trembling arm performs the same function as his powerful figure did 20 years ago.”
Raymond de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: With Vaticaniias A Guide, He Leads Church and World Toward 3rd Millennium ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: For Many Seminarians, The Pontiff Is the Man DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:ROME—Aspirants to the seminary are commonly interviewed by various chancery officials, inquiring as to the plausibility of a priestly vocation. Three years ago in a large American diocese, a friend of mine had such a meeting and was asked by the presiding nun which priest had had the greatest influence on his vocation.
“Sister, it would be the Holy Father,” he said.
It was not the answer she wanted. She pressed for another response — perhaps he wanted to mention a local parish priest or chaplain, the nun suggested. But my friend persisted. The simple truth was that Pope John Paul II was the most influential figure in his vocation, far more influential than any of the priests he had met personally.
His story is not unusual. A majority of seminarians today would likely name John Paul II — his person and his teachings — as a major factor, if not the major factor, in their hearing the call of God to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
When I first announced that I would be entering the seminary, a French graduate student I knew from the university chaplaincy told me: “You are going to be part of the John Paul II generation of priests — dynamic and zealous.”
Perhaps, Deo volente. On one level, to speak of the John Paul II generation of seminarians and priests is just chronological shorthand. After 20 years in the See of Peter, almost all current seminarians have grown up with John Paul as pope. Indeed, many now beginning their formation were born after Oct. 16, 1978.
Yet when observers speak of the John Paul II generation — or perhaps more precisely, the generation of John Paul II enthusiasts — they are speaking of much more than a period of time. They correctly identify two characteristic marks of many in this generation. First, that the figure of John Paul II has been a decisive factor in their entering the seminary. Second, that these seminarians are self-consciously John-Pauline men, taking after their model in many ways.
It is likely that whoever was pope these last two decades would have been more of a factor than his predecessors in influencing young men to enter the seminary. The sheer media exposure of the modern papacy means that many people identify the Church with its supreme pastor on earth, in contrast to an earlier period when the parish priest served as the day-to-day public face of the Church. More Catholics today would recognize the face and voice of the pope than would recognize their own local bishop. John Paul has magnified this effect by his travels, his enormous written output, and his mastery of the theater of public appearances. The Holy Father's exposure is wide because of our age, but his influence is deep — deep enough to persuade many men to give their whole lives — because of what he preaches, and how he lives.
He would be the first to acknowledge that what he preaches is not his own message, and that his life is the work of Christ, who lives in him. He attracts young men because he is humble enough to realize that no mere man can ever be attractive enough to draw authentic priestly vocations to the Church. He stands apart from the celebrities who celebrate themselves and their works alone. From his first homily as pope, when he exhorted the world to open wide the doors to Christ, he has consistently presented Jesus alone as the answer to all the questions modern man asks. “Build your lives on the one model who will never deceive you,” he said at World Youth Day in Manila: “Jesus Christ.”
“In that little Host is the solution to all the problems of the world,” he once preached. That kind of statement — so simple, so radical, so incredible — invites even the most cynical to look a second time. That a world-class intellect can believe that — it is so astonishing as to invite the leap of faith that idealistic young men have always been eager to make.
John Paul II knows that proposing high ideals to young men is the only way to satisfy their longing to give their lives to a great cause. He shares the joy of a young man who discovers within his heart the divine call to the greatest cause of all.
“A bishop's joy is great when the Lord gives vocations to his Church, while their absence causes him anxiety and concern,” he wrote in Gift and Mystery, the book commemorating the golden jubilee of his priestly ordination.
The worldwide increase in vocations to the priesthood is a cause for rejoicing. At least three aspects of the Holy Father's personality are partially responsible for attracting sufficient vocations to reverse what had been a downward trend.
First, his identity as a priest is secure. He has done many things — far more than most priests. A sometime philosopher, poet, playwright, and professor, he has practiced the arts of diplomacy and high politics as a prince of the Church. Yet he understands himself, and presents himself to others, as a priest, first and last.
“I am deeply grateful to God for my vocation to the priesthood,” he has said. “Nothing is more important to me or gives me greater joy than to celebrate the Mass each day. This has been truly so since the day of my ordination to the priesthood. Nothing has ever changed this, not even the fact of being elected pope.”
The fact that the world's outstanding personality at the close of the century is a septuagenarian priest is a surprise, but there are no other figures on the world stage today who approach him in stature. And to the same extent that he commands attention for that reason, he calls attention to his priesthood, self-understood as rooted in the Mass. It is small wonder, then, that many young Catholics want to be like their hero, John Paul II, and so open themselves to the possibility of a priestly vocation.
Second, the Holy Father is a witness. He understands that a witness is far more powerful than even a very good teacher. John Henry Cardinal Newman spoke of this when he analyzed what makes a man assent to a truth and reform his life. It is not the power of words, but the witness of a man:
“Deductions have no power of persuasion,” wrote Newman, in The Grammar of Assent.”. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.”
The Holy Father's vast experience with youth has only confirmed Newman's point. “A priest can be a guide and teacher only to the extent that he becomes an authentic witness,” he has written. “People, especially the young, are looking for such guides.”
The Holy Father's witness to the Gospel invites admiration, and more to the point here, emulation. Whether by forgiving his would-be assassin, standing up to the principalities and powers of the world in defense of innocent lives, or pushing himself to the limits of physical exhaustion as his health fails, his witness alerts others to the real possibility of fighting the good fight, of keeping the faith, of running the race to the end.
Third, the Holy Father is not timid about calling men to the priesthood. The fact that a vocation is a mysterious thing does not mean that the means of promoting them are unknown. One reason that so many young men credit the Holy Father with their vocations is that he may have been the first one, or even the only one — albeit at a great distance — who talked to them about the possibility of becoming a priest. The Holy Father does not think this state of affairs is optimal.
“The time has come to speak courageously about priestly life as a priceless gift and a splendid and privileged form of Christian living,” he writes in Pastores Dabo Vobis, his apostolic exhortation on priestly formation. “Educators, and priests in particular, should not be afraid to set forth explicitly and forcefully the priestly vocation as a real possibility for those young people who demonstrate the necessary gifts and talents. A clear invitation, made at the right time, can be decisive in eliciting from young people a free and genuine response.”
It is no surprise that the response has come where the call has been issued. And many of those who have responded form today the John Paul II generation of seminarians. It is always difficult to make generalizations about large groups, but some observations have been made so repeatedly about this cohort that it is possible to suggest some common characteristics.
First, there is a great sense of Catholic confidence. Most seminarians today are not beset with doubts about whether the Church is teaching the truth about faith and morals, including the difficult questions of sexual morality that so preoccupy our contemporary culture. They intuitively understand what the Holy Father speaks about when he writes that the world is “growing tired of ideology” and is “opening itself to the truth” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope). Looking around, they see no competing worldview that offers the coherence, persuasiveness, and even the adventure of Catholicism at the dawn of the third millennium.
For better or worse, many of these seminarians are not particularly interested in the disputes that have divided the Church since Vatican II. They generally accept the Holy Father's reading of the council as the authentic one. Rather than argue, they quietly ignore those who are still fighting battles of the 1960s and 1970s, that is, before many of the John Paul II generation made their first communions. Indeed, the willful deafness of the new generation to so many of the rallying cries of the immediate postconciliar period can be a source of tension between generations of priests.
Second, many of the John Paul II generation desire to be men of the Church. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon, but a matter of a different emphasis. Where a previous generation might have sought to evangelize the culture by adapting themselves to become more like the men of the world, this generation tends to favor being unabashedly Catholic. Perhaps, as modernity collapses in upon itself, there is less concern for what the modern world thinks. Whatever the reason, the traditional Catholic practices are enjoying a revival: adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, frequent confession, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, the rosary, pilgrimages, Latin chants, penitential practices such as abstinence and fasting. The increasing number of those who wear clerical clothing, including the cassock, is also part of this desire to be visibly Catholic.
Third, this generation is predominantly “Roman.” This follows naturally from the influence of the Holy Father himself, as the Roman aspect of their vocation was central from the beginning. The loyalty of many to John Paul n himself is fierce, and the willingness of many to be docile to the magisterium is pronounced. In discussing various issues, seminarians frequently ground their arguments by appealing to the documents of Vatican II, the recent papal magisterium, and even the personal teachings and practices of the Roman pontiff. In this last regard, John Paul II has secured for his successors a generation both more aware and more supportive of the initiatives of the Apostolic See.
The John Paul II generation has its flaws, of course. Original sin is still as formidable an obstacle as ever. And, as is common in the spiritual life, their dominant flaws are related to their dominant strong points, as enumerated above.
Confidence can become triumphal-ism. A belief that the world has nothing better to offer can slide into a belief that the world has nothing good to offer at all. John Paul II's persistent dialogue with the world, seeking to affirm all that is good wherever he can find it — in any philosophy or theology, Christian or otherwise — is a model not always followed by his most enthusiastic followers. Smug complacency is not the same as being secure in the faith.
A desire to be more devotedly Catholic can mask a desire to be more ostentatiously Catholic. Formalism—a focus on externals to the neglect of interior conversion — has been a problem for clerics since at least the time of Jeremiah. Those of us in the seminary today need to be especially on guard against becoming “whited sepulchers.”
And the danger exists that Roman be put in opposition to Catholic. The Church abounds in paradoxes, and the paradox of being Roman while at the same time universal is one that needs to be respected. Fidelity to the Roman magisterium should not produce dis-missiveness toward the proper diversity of the local churches and the apostolic authority of their bishops. The magisterium of John Paul II itself calls for this, but it would be a fair criticism to note that the John Paul II generation is prone to downplay it.
Over the door of an American seminary it is written: Spes messis in semine (The hope of harvest is in the seed). The Holy Father's inspiration over two decades has ensured that the Church can hope for a rich harvest indeed.
“The truest secret of authentic pastoral success does not lie in material means, much less in sophisticated programs,” writes John Paul II, providing us with the key to understanding even his own success. “The lasting results of pastoral endeavors are born of the holiness of the priest. This is the foundation!”
Above all else, John Paul II has been a priest for 52 years — 40 of them as a bishop, 35 as an archbishop, 30 as a cardinal, and 20 as pope. To his successors as Bishop of Rome will belong the happy task of rendering the Church's judgment on his sanctity. But many of today's seminarians, grateful for the blessing of entering the seminary during the pontificate of this extraordinary priest, look forward with confidence to celebrating, during their priesthood, Deo volente, the Mass for the feast of Pope St. John Paul II.
Raymond de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vocations Rising in Denver DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES — For Catholics, the shortage of priests is far more than a problem of staffing parishes: It touches the very mission of the Church.
“Without priests, the Church would not be able to live that fundamental obedience which is at the heart of her existence,” wrote Pope John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis, his 1992 apostolic exhortation on priestly formation, “[nor fulfill] her mission in history,… an obedience to the command to announce the Gospel and to renew daily the sacrifice of the giving of his body and the shedding of his blood for the life of the world.”
So, faced with still-dismal numbers of seminarians in much of the industrialized world, and with growing numbers of diocesan clergy closing in on retirement age, why does the pope confidently forecast “a springtime for the Church” in the near future?
Maybe he has places like Denver in mind.
In the past year, the number of diocesan seminarians has nearly doubled, to 39, in this archdiocese of 340,000 Catholics. The separate Neo-Catechumenal Way diocesan house of missionary formation boasts 16 candidates. And a new experimental religious congregation, Cor Jesu, has set up in a former convent with 11 seminarians and expects four more to join soon.
The Neo-Catechumenal Way, founded in Spain in 1962, is an international movement, centered in parish-based communities that provide religious instruction and fellowship modeled on the example of the early Church. Denver's Neo-Catechumenal seminarians hail from Colombia, Mexico, Italy, Nicaragua, Spain, Venezuela, and the United States. Cor Jesu (Heart of Jesus) is still in its formative stages as a community.
Far from a momentary blip on the vocations graph, trends point to even greater apostolic growth in the future, according to diocesan officials. New Catholic communities and established religious orders alike have contacted the archdiocese to explore the possibility of relocating their apostolates there.
What the archbishop does through his personal witness is to make the priesthood attractive to a lot of people…. It's his highest priority.
In fact, the vocational prospects look so promising in the mile-high city that Archbishop Charles Chaput is considering opening a new diocesan seminary, perhaps as early as next year. Until now, seminary candidates from Denver have been studying at a number of mainly Midwestern institutions. Diocesan officials caution, however, that the final decision about a Denver seminary has not yet been made.
According to Father John Hilton, director of vocations, the rapid rise in seminarians can be attributed to a spiritual year, or “year of discernment” program, developed on the Paris seminary model followed in the archdiocese and, even more importantly, by the relentless efforts of Archbishop Chaput in promoting vocations.
“Young people today want to be called to do heroic things and they see the Church as a sign of hope in the world,” Father Hilton said recently in an interview in the Denver Catholic Register. The spiritual year, he said, is designed to help them explore the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood.
Fran Maier, archdiocesan chancellor, agreed that much of the dynamism behind Denver's new vocations landscape belongs to Archbishop Chaput.
“The medium is the message,” said Maier. “What the archbishop does through his personal witness is to make the priesthood attractive to a lot of people…. It's his highest priority. He raises the issue of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life every time he's with young people.”
In the case of young men, said Maier, “it doesn't hurt that Archbishop Chaput is known to be an aggressive racquetball player, either. He's a good masculine role model.”
What happens is that “the habit of encouraging vocations is catching,” Maier said. “Through the archbishop's example, it spills over into the way the whole diocese works.”
Recently, Archbishop Chaput even initiated an “altar call” for vocations — an invitation for young people to come forward — at a youth rally at a local Catholic high school. Before it was over, more than 150 teen-agers willing to consider a life of service in the Church had crowded around the archbishop.
The other aspect of Denver's new vocations profile that is attracting attention has to do with the spiritual-year program originally developed for the Paris seminary by Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger.
An innovative program of prayer, study and apostolic work, the spiritual year is designed to allow seminarians to come to a deeper understanding of Christ and of their particular vocation in the Church before plunging into formal studies for the priesthood.
Seminarians enrolled in the Denver program live together in a special wing of the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization, a 40- acre campus, once a Vincentian seminary, which also houses the chancery office and the diocesan pastoral center. Should the plans to open a formal diocesan seminary pan out, officials hope to set aside a portion of the large facility for the new school.
A giant outdoor Mass venue is under construction at the site, as are state-of-the-art baseball and soccer fields.
Each day of the spiritual year begins and ends with the Liturgy of the Hours; there is also daily Mass and Benediction and all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each Saturday.
Course work consists of a thorough reading of the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as a selection of spiritual classics, including works by Augustine, John of the Cross, and Thèrése of Lisieux. Apostolic work includes visiting AIDS patients and the aged and working with the homeless, along with parish assignments.
So far, Denver church officials seem satisfied with the results of the spiritual year experiment, and expect that it will continue to attract increasing numbers of seminarians. Archbishop Chaput and his team are now visiting France, reviewing the Paris seminary structures and curriculum pioneered by Cardinal Lustiger.
“Still,” Father Hilton confided in a recent interview, “there's no way to explain why so many young people here are suddenly considering a vocation — ultimately, it's a mystery.”
For chancellor Maier, Denver itself may also have something to do with it.
“There were tremendous building blocks set in place by [former] Archbishop [Francis] Stafford and the World Youth Day he spearheaded in 1993,” Maier said.
Archbishop Stafford (now the prefect of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome) always described Denver “as the ‘first city of the 21st century,’ and perceived the special contribution that Denver can make to the Church,” Maier added.
The Pope's Invitation
“… To today's young people, I say: Be more docile to the voice of the Spirit, let the great expectations of the Church, of mankind resound in the depths of your hearts. Do not be afraid to open your minds to Christ the Lord who is calling. Feel his loving look upon you and respond enthusiastically to Jesus when he asks you to follow him without reserve” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 82).
Denver is the paradigm of America as a 21st century mission territory, Maier opined: “There's a veneer of Christianity, but Denver's fundamentally a secular environment — anti-institutional, post-Christian, media savvy. It's on the front line of the cultural and spiritual battle right now.”
Maier stressed that Archbishop Chaput would not want to diminish in any way the importance of other sees, “but there's something unique happening here, and, undoubtedly, the rise in vocations is preparing us to meet the future.”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Community-Life Plan Invigorates Twin Cities' Priests and Seminarians DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:MINNEAPOLIS—A group of young priests and seminarians in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis blends diocesan priesthood with a type of community living more associated with religious orders. The fraternity, called Companions of Christ, finds itself attracting supporters and vocations with its evangelical charism and zeal for living obedient, simple, and chaste lives.
“People are very attracted to priests living communally in their diocesan service,” said Father Jeffrey Huard, leader of the Companions. “Community, when well done, offers strength. One of the great vulnerabilities that any diocesan priest would note is the danger of isolation. Ecclesiastes [4:9,12] says, ‘Two are better than one, and a three-ply cord is not easily broken.’ Young people are thirsting for community.”
The Companions currently has 17 members: seven priests and 10 seminary or pre-theology students. Several others have expressed an interest in the community. It began in 1985 when several young men in Michi-gan and Minnesota formed a lay brotherhood in St. Paul committed to living together to promote holiness and serve the Church. The Companions of Christ were formally established as a public association of the Church by then Archbishop John Roach in 1992. The original members shared a history of living communal lives and an apostolate of youth ministry and evangelization — a charism that continues today as a complement to other ministerial duties.
“There's a flavor among us that tends to be very evangelism-minded: sharing the Faith, expressing a love for Christ quite openly, quite actively,” says Father Huard.
(Another group of Companions in Detroit comprises a handful of men but has yet to achieve public association status. Its men therefore do not live together or enjoy the full expression of the Minnesota group.)
The St. Paul fraternity has a board of advisers for theological advice. Current Archbishop Harry Flynn has been “extremely supportive, very encouraging for this model and for its use in the archdiocese,” according to Father Huard, who is also director of campus ministry at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, just across the street from one of the four Companion houses.
Two other households are in St. Paul and one in its suburbs. Each household has an oratory that houses the Blessed Sacrament, and the men pray the Liturgy of the Hours together, have a holy hour of prayer each morning, and gather for dinner about three times a week. In addition, the entire community meets regularly for Eucharistic adoration, dinner, evening prayer, and fellowship. The men also meet weekly in small groups to discuss community life and share joys and concerns about their faith and work.
In the two houses near the University of St. Thomas, guests — often students —regularly stop by to be fed at the table or spiritually in prayer. Students from the St. Paul seminary, which adjoins St. Thomas, often visit to pray, study, and socialize with community members.
All guests witness the draw of a healthy community committed to the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience, and chastity. “There's a lot of power in men living joy-filled celibate lives,” Father Huard explains. “There's something about a vibrant celibate witness; it's very stunning to young people. We're not ashamed of the faith, and young people very much are longing for certitude, for clarity. That kind of clear, fresh witness to the splendor of Jesus Christ is really potent. Jesus Christ is ever-attractive.”
The Companions' desire for communal living, however, does not overshadow their call to serve as diocesan priests in whatever capacity necessary. “We're very concerned to be and remain diocesan priests,” says Father Huard, who was elected moderator, or head, of the Companions for a three-year term.
It seems the dual role of community member and parish priest has worked well. Father William Baer, associate pastor at Nativity of our Lord church in St. Paul, lives with other Companions on a floor of the rectory at the Cathedral of St. Paul across town and has found little conflict. “The key is to inform the people at the parish from the get-go that these are my existing commitments. I worked pretty hard from the beginning to be present as much as possible in parish life, and people learned very quickly that they have no more difficulty getting in touch with me than any other priest. In fact, most people are very concerned that I be getting the kind of time I need with community and prayer time and so on.”
Father Andrew Cozzens, associate pastor at the Cathedral of St. Paul, has also found that community life complements, rather than confounds, parish ministry. “Every priest needs community life and for me it's built-in, so it actually saves me work.” He said at times he's had to make difficult choices about ministry vs. community life or when fatigue dampens his enthusiasm for a community event. But, he says, “those are a minimum. In fact, community builds into my life a safeguard that keeps me from the extremes of overworking or overrelaxing. I would argue that it makes me better in my parish ministry because I'm a healthier priest.
“There's a growing sense that priests are overworked, lonely, and isolated, so [parishioners] approach it from a very practical standpoint. They say, ‘It makes sense. These priests have decided to enrich their lives by joining themselves together.’”
Companions in the seminary, who receive the same instruction as any other seminarian, find a similar balance. “I've been impressed by how much I've been able to participate in the seminary's life,” says first-year theology student Michael Keating. “There isn't much that I miss because of being in community.”
In fact, similar to the priests' experience, community can provide a certain moderating influence for seminarians. “It's a community of priests who have lots of time commitments,” says Keating. “So the life is fashioned to provide certain bases of life in the midst of what is fundamentally a full-time job. I'm a seminarian, but that's kind of a full-time job. Study can be one of those unbalancing things, so it's nice to have such a regular round of life, like meals, prayers, etc.”
For a growing number of young men called to such a balanced life of prayer, sacrifice, and witness, the Companions of Christ is fostering vocations in a diocese that, in general, is seeing more seminarians. Archdiocesan vocation director Father William Pelant, himself a Companion, says that nationwide vocations are on the rise, especially in orders and dioceses that are faithful to the Catholic faith.
Father Pelant sees the problem with vocations in some areas of the country as being “not so much a crisis of vocations to the priesthood and religious life as a crisis of faith.” In this “culture of death,” he says, we have lost “generativity” — the generating of enthusiasm for the faith and for vocations.
But in the Companions of Christ, he explains, “We have this hunger to evangelize, to preach the Gospel, that for which we were primarily ordained. And we nourish each other by praying together, by standing tall with one another, by having a common ideal, by seeking truth, by hungering for the life of Christ in the Church, in her sacraments, and in and among one another.”
In addition to having a solid message, it helps to have the right opportunities to foster vocations. “We do a lot of youth speaking, a lot of retreat work,” says Father Huard, “and in those settings we're always forthright about the beauty of the consecrated life.
“My hope for us in this archdiocese is that many, many young men will find their avenue to priesthood because of the attraction to other young priests living community vibrantly, witnessing to Christ vibrantly, loving the Church.”
James Wappes writes from Minneapolis.
----- EXCERPT: Diocesan group takes a cue from religious orders'example ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Wappes ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Abstinence Program Meets Resistance at All Levels DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—A $50 million annual federal program to promote sexual abstinence continues to meet with resistance from federal and state officials around the country. A House Commerce Subcommittee looked into the problem at a Sept. 25 hearing, which included witnesses representing government agencies and abstinence programs.
The education initiative, part of the 1996 welfare-reform bill, began Oct. 1 last year and is scheduled to provide $250 million over five years. The money, part of the Maternal and Child Health block grant, is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Funds are assigned to states through the same low-income formula used to determine other forms of social assistance. Annual allocations range from a high of $5.8 million for Cali-fornia to $69,855 each for Utah and Vermont.
The program has attracted opposition from the outset because it excludes promotion of contraception (which is provided for in other federal law).
Pressure from organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and the indifference or even hostility of some state health departments has resulted in federal funds being turned down or diverted to unrelated uses. Last fiscal year, New Hampshire declined funds and California chose not to spend its money.
In addition, HHS has drafted guidelines which appear to undermine sections of the law such as provisions which say a “mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.”
Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council and a prospective Republican presidential candidate, told the Register: “It shows how much this is an ideological struggle about what we should be teaching our children about love and sex.”
The recent hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to evaluate the implementation of the program. The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), has questioned the Clinton administration's commitment to the intent of the law as defined by Congress.
Peter Brandt, head of a private watchdog group set up last year to monitor state compliance with the law, told the subcommittee, “We see great hope in this program. But while there are a number of successes, there are also some horror stories. There has been a concerted attempt by some in the public health establishment to water down, and in some cases to even violate, the intent of the law.”
“This subversive effort has been successful in too many states,” Brandt said. “The potential and importance of the abstinence law is too exciting for Congress to allow anything short of full national commitment to the sexual health of our children.”
Brandt's group, the National Coalition for Abstinence Education (NCAE), represents more than 60 local and state organizations committed to pre-marital chastity. A number of these entities are statewide family institutes affiliated with Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family.
In their status report on compliance, NCAE identifies only 16 or 17 states which “have embraced the intent of the law.” Ten states have adopted regulations which attack the law's intent, 21 others have diluted the law, and two are not participating.
Among the most conspicuous state violators, according to NCAE, are Montana, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In Montana, for example, 78% of the funds are being used for overhead. Abstinence and safe-sex messages are combined in North Carolina.
But the most bizarre circumvention of the law appears to be in Utah, where funds have been diverted to purchase balls, hockey sticks and pucks, video cameras for sporting events, payment for referees, and other recreation programs.
Another major issue in the controversy is a so-called “A-to-H” definition, in which the law spells out eight component parts of abstinence education. Brandt said these definitions were meant to be “a composite, or mosaic, to be considered in its totality. The eight-part definition was not to be a pick-and-choose exercise,” a procedure which creates contradictions when some parts are endorsed and others are scuttled.
Speaking of Rhode Island, Brandt said, “This state stands at the pinnacle of arrogance. Potential grantees never saw the A-H definition. The state literally rewrote the statute. Abstinence from sexual activity became abstinence from sexual intercourse.” Other forms of sexual activity are still considered abstinence.
Also receiving criticism was HHS. Testifying before the subcommittee, Dr. Peter van Dyck, acting associate administrator for Maternal and Child Health, emphasized the need to reduce teen pregnancies. But Brandt contended that department officials have dragged their feet, encouraged subterfuge, and said one official “was part of an orchestrated attempt to get the states to refuse funding.”
Further, that same official, Tom Kring, was taped as saying, “If I were in charge, I would provide limousine service for anyone [pregnant teenagers] who lived within 50 miles of the border to go across the state line for an abortion so it would be paid for and counted by another state.”
Despite these criticisms, the year-old federal abstinence program can claim several successes. Virginia, according to Claude Allen, state secretary of HHS, “welcomed the federal funds for abstinence education as a way to complement our existing efforts to strengthen the family unit.” Gov. James Gilmore strongly supports the program.
The resulting Virginia Abstinence Education Initiative embarked on a media blitz last summer. This past summer the program ran radio spots and a “Not Me, Not Now” television campaign. Brochures, posters, and T-shirts are also being distributed.
In addition, six abstinence programs have been developed. Included in these are workshops for secular and religious social providers. Allen said, “These workshops will emphasize the promotion of the ‘abstinence until marriage’ message in the clinical, faith, human service, and community-based program settings.”
The embryonic program in South Carolina was given careful supervision by the state before a contractor was chosen to implement the program. According to Larry Huff, director of family policy for Gov. David Beasley, “Inasmuch as Congress wrote the law, the state of South Carolina assumed a high duty to take no liberties with congressional intent.
“For that reason, we made it clear to potential providers that they must adhere to the spirit of the law, by accepting only those programs that (in the words of the congressional guidance) ‘send the unambiguous message that sex outside of marriage is wrong.’”
Another highly regarded program, in Louisiana, benefited from Gov. Mike Foster's direct involvement. The state's multifaceted approach crystallized after the governor took control in November 1997. The program includes local community projects, a pilot rural parish (county) effort, a statewide grass-roots mobilization, free and paid media spots, and a clearinghouse to disseminate abstinence education.
The coordinator of Louisiana's program, Dan Richey, said, “It's time for a rebirth of truth to lead us back to healthy lifestyles. It is incumbent upon us to lead a fallen generation back to ordered liberty. It's time for a return to responsibility, healthy lifestyles, and a bright future. It's time for abstinence — the new sexual revolution!”
A longtime leader in abstinence education, Kathleen Sullivan of Project Reality, offered several suggestions on how the block grant program could be enhanced from Washington. These include funneling money through an abstinence division within the office of the governor in each state (as South Carolina and Louisiana have done); giving greater weight to chastity education by trebling funding; and eliminating the requirement for state matching money.
While federal and state officials wrestle with implementing this program in its second year, Catholics and others of faith continue to look at ways to promote abstinence. “Abstinence-based instruction is the only type of so-called ‘sex education’ that is both morally correct and effective in preventing the creation of a new life,”' said Father Richard Welch CSSR, president of Human Life International. “All other efforts are grounded in moral debasement.”
Fortunately, abstinence also is being taught successfully through private programs. Among these are Sullivan's national Project Reality, based in Glenview, Ill.; Friends First of Longmont, Colo.; True Love Waits, established by the Baptist Sunday School Board; the more holistic Best Friends Foundation of Washington, D.C.; and Real Love, headed by Catholic writer and chastity lecturer Mary Beth Bonacci.
Church teaching, of course, is clear on this matter. The Catechism of the Catholic Church , 2348, speaks of the broader virtue of chastity: “All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has ‘put on Christ,’ the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.”
Father Frank Pavone, international director of the Priests for Life, told the Register: “This controversy [about use of the federal funds] shows the need for the respective efforts of both church and state. The state, indeed, should fund abstinence programs, but that alone obviously does not achieve the goal.
“People need to experience conversion of the mind and heart, enabling them to see the meaning of human sexuality and, therefore, the value of such programs.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Panel chairman questions commitment to intent of law ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Recovering the Church's Beautiful Music DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Forty years ago, C.S. Lewis described most hymns as “fourth-rate poetry set to fifth-rate music.” Nowadays the situation is far worse, says theologian Father George Rutler. But it needn't be, given the Catholic Church's rich patrimony of hymns. Father Rutler is the author ofBest and Brightest Stories of Hymns (Ignatius Press), a collection of great hymns and their inspiring stories, from the early days of the Church Fathers up to the 20th century (see review, pg. 9). Father Rutler spoke with Register Correspondent Mark Brumley. The New York-based priest is also the host of a 13-part video series, Stories of Hymns, which originally aired on the Eternal Word Television Network. Recently, he spoke with Register Correspondent Mark Brumley.
Mark Brumley: Why a book on hymns?
Father Rutler: I wrote this book, unlike most of my books, as a kind of diversion. I began reflecting more and more on my anxiety about the poor quality of hymns in the Church. And I thought to myself that I had had the good fortune of being brought up with a wonderful repertoire of hymns — most of which are unfamiliar to Catholics. I was a convert and was brought up as an Anglican — Episcopalian — and I was a choirboy. Every week we had to practice these hymns. I knew so many by heart and most of them, certainly, are suitable for Catholic worship today. In fact, a great many of them are Catholic hymns that have been lost in the liturgical chaos in the Catholic Church. By a massive irony, they have been preserved outside of the Catholic Church. With very good translations, they certainly are recoverable. So the book just began as a kind of meditation about what I thought were my favorite hymns, and hymns of significance also to the Church. Many of them are familiar to Catholics already. Some were authored by Orthodox or Protestant writers, but are certainly Catholic in sentiment.
But your book is about more than hymns. It's the story of these hymns.
Yes. And these stories are about the authors of the texts, many times [about] the people who translated them into English. These are fascinating individuals themselves. It is also about the composers of the music.
What period are these hymns taken from?
The earliest hymns I cover go back to the 300s and go right up to the beginning of this century.
One thing that sets your book apart from an ordinary hymnal is that it has music and lyrics on one page and the story of the hymn on the other, facing page. That suggests that the story of a hymn helps us appreciate it and enhances its power for us.
Absolutely. As Christians and Catholics, we're related to all those who are baptized in the faith. To know that these hymns have burst forth from their own spiritual lives is an inspiration. To know how so many of these hymns were written at times of persecution. Or how many were written by people who were unknown in their own day, inconspicuous to the likes of the literary world. To know that some of them were written to champion the faith of the Church against heresies. Some of them were written by great saints; others by people with enormous failings. To know that some of them were written by people with tremendous talent — some of the most famous poets and musicians of all time — and that others were written by farmers, shoemakers. All of this, I think, should inspire the congregation.
What makes a song a hymn?
In musical literature, there are different forms of music: popular songs, symphonies, sonatas. What we call a song is a popular musical rendering in celebration or commemoration of some sentiment or an event; a hymn is a musical form for the praise of God. We have lost that distinction to a large part. One reason we have bad music in the Church today is that a lot of the new songs were written by people with no talent — that goes without saying — but also by people who didn't understand that the hymn form has its own unique style or architecture. It shouldn't change key often to make it difficult to sing; it should be in a singable register and also it should be accessible to people who are not professional singers. Nor should it be banal. The music should connote the mystery of the faith and the majesty of the faith.
In the late 18th century and 19th centuries the most popular cultural form was the theater, specifically, the opera. The liturgy of the Church was effected by that. And to a certain degree, the Mass took on forms of operatic music. St. Pius X, the Pope at the beginning of this century, tried to reform that. The Mass is not a show, not entertainment, not a performance. That's why he tried to recover Gregorian chant.
Much modern hymnody is basically pseudo-folk music, based on very superficial kinds of entertainment music, really designed to please the singer. But a hymn is directed to God. That's why it doesn't necessarily have to be all that catchy. The psychology of the hymn is completely different from the psychology of singing for one's own amusement.
Someone is liable to object that what we have here is a case of
Well, I admit that I'm setting my taste up. But I have very good taste [laugh]. To say there's no difference between good taste and bad is to say that you're a barbarian. The Church has always encouraged art. In fact, it's sad to say, it's only in the last two generations that the Church has dropped the ball; the artistic patrimony of the Church has been discarded. I think now we're on the cusp of a recovery of that, but we're paying a very serious price for the bad taste which is endemic in our culture. The Church is supposed to set the standard. Unfortunately, on the local level, it has sometimes followed the mob. I'm not saying that we should only do what was done a long time ago. We have to be faithful to the sacred tradition of the Church by encouraging the best new forms of art — but the best. We have not produced good music; we have not produced good architecture. The facts are all around us. The popes at the golden ages of the Church have stood at the city gates and have told the barbarians to go away. And I'm afraid many of our leaders are afraid to tell barbarians that they are barbarians. That's not a pejorative, that's simply an objective statement. We have to convert the Philistine. And it has nothing to do with wealth or social position. As I said, so many of these [hymns] were written by very simple people, peasants, by working men and women, but who were consecrated to listening to the best they had been taught and passing it along.
Many people of a more traditional bent might say that while you have better taste than the choir director at their parish, you're still advocating much more than Gregorian chant. And they would see that as a problem.
First of all, whatever the standard is, it has to conform to the Church's standard of theology, which is an obedient act of the will directing the reason toward the truth. Now that sounds rather convoluted and complicated, but it means that our worship is based on love—love as an act of the will—and is based on truth; therefore, it involves the intellect. I would say that the vast majority of the modern repertoire is not expressive of true Christian love but is just sentimental and is the result of losing the intellectual comprehension of music. Consequently, the melodies have to be classical. But by that I do not mean old-fashioned; I mean conforming to the standards of excellence and not just pandering to the emotions. Plato, in ancient Greece, warned against music that just pleased the lower bodily rhythms. He was talking about what we might call rock music or rap music, and so on.
The words [of the hymns] themselves have to express the faith of the Church; they have to be theological. The way we pray is what we believe, so our hymns have to express these truths. Now the Church has maintained—and the Second Vatican repeated — that Gregorian chant or plain chant is the highest form which music in the Western Church has attained precisely because the music serves the thought, not vice versa.
In so much modern music you can eliminate the words and it wouldn't make any difference to people. But hymns of the Mass are intrinsic to the Mass; the Mass itself is a hymn. A low Mass, a said Mass, is not really the norm. So I am a great champion of Gregorian chant; what I'm writing about as hymns are those that can precede the Eucharistic worship of the Church or follow it as an act of thanksgiving. Or possibly, according to current rubrics, accompany the offertory; they should not replace the liturgical hymns — the Gloria, Kyrie, the Creed, and so on. And while Gregorian chant is commended in the highest way, it's not the only kind of chant; the Church has traditionally had many forms — the Ambrosian chant in the West being a conspicuous example and the Eastern forms of chant as well. But we have to remember that there are forms of worship outside the Mass and these hymns can accompany Eucharistic devotion, extraliturgical services, missions. One price we've paid in the liturgical chaos has been the loss of these various other services, devotions, and forms of worship.
How would you respond to the charge that the words of these hymns are outdated and that therefore to enter properly into worship they must be updated?
I'd say that, with all due respect, someone who says that is a slave of his moment.
Do we say that about Shakespeare?
The Church is supposed to raise people to the highest; of course we have to have simplicity, too.
Our Lord taught in parables, in very simple language. These are very simple sentiments, if we pay attention to them. But we have to teach, especially the young, and we have to raise them up to the glory of our patrimony. If we are not capable of entering or trying to enter into the psychology of our ancestors, appreciating what they said, we have cut ourselves off from the sacred tradition, of life, of the faith. We have isolated ourselves into one moment and that is the definition of the barbarian. Nothing beautiful is alien to a soul that loves God. We don't go into a museum and say, I'm not going into the Rembrandt room because that was from hundreds of years ago.
Of the hymns you've selected, which ones are people most apt to be familiar with?
I suppose some of the Eucharistic hymns, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” some of the Marian hymns, and certainly seasonal hymns, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” for the advent hymn; “O Come All Ye Faithful,” the Christmas hymn; some of the Easter hymns and certainly the hymns of benediction, “Tantum ergo” and “O salutaris hos-tia.” There are a large number of hymns written by saints which are, curiously, actually more well-known outside the Catholic Church than inside the contemporary Catholic Church.
Why is that?
One reason is they challenge the superficial spirituality of much Catholic life today. Hymns that speak of sin, death, the Crucifixion, the sacrifice of the Mass, blood atonement, the angels and archangels, and, above all, hell and heaven. When Our Lord said to the crowd; “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you shall have no part of me,” most people walked away. Those were hard sayings. These great classical hymns contain a lot of hard sayings, and I think that's why some of them have been thrown out.
Where do you think we're headed with respect to Church music?
Well, I'm heartened by what's going on in Church architecture right now. I know some very fine young architects,
who are inventive and creative, but fully respectful of the patrimony of classical architecture. They don't seek to destroy the old and beautiful. Oliver Cromwell did that in England, you know — he destroyed churches. But at least he didn't charge parishes for it. We have a lot of liturgists in our generation who've destroyed churches and sent the parishes a bill, like the Chinese government officials who shoot political prisoners and make their mothers pay for the bullets! I think a sort of return may be happening now musically. I see more and more an awareness of the problem and a sense of what should be done. It's a shame we have to go to concert halls or buy CDs to hear music that should be sung in the Church, for which it was originally written. I hope that this younger generation, once aquainted with this heritage, will build upon it. You see, I wrote this book not simply to recover the old hymns — that's part of it. But I'm also doing it to imbue people with what great hymns consist in so that we can have more of them.
—Mark Brumley
Father George Rutler
Personal: Born 1945; served as rector of an Episcopal parish from 1971 to 1978. Received into the Catholic Church 1979; ordained as a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of New York in 1981. Now in residence at St. Agnes Church in New York City, where his preaching at the annual Good Friday service continues the tradition of the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
Education: Attended Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, and Oxford University. Studied for the priesthood at the North American College in Rome, and holds degrees from the Pontifical Gregorian and Angelicum Universities.
Achievements: Author of some fourteen books, including A Crisis of Saints, The Impatience of Job, The Four Last Things, and Beyond Modernity. Serves on the boards of several academic institutions; travels widely as a preacher, lecturer, and retreat master; has recently completed documentary films in Rome and London. His most recent book (reviewed in this issue of the Register, p. 9) is Best and Brightest.
----- EXCERPT: Author looks at great hymns, and the stories behind them ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father George Rutler ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Compromise Offered in Effort to Pass Religious Persecution Bill DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Supporters unveiled a new compromise proposal Oct. 2 in a last-ditch effort to pass legislation to make opposition to religious persecution abroad a focal point of U.S. foreign policy.
The latest effort is the third legislative attempt to address the issue, which has been a running theme in Congress the past two years. Both conservative and liberal religious groups and their congressional supporters have pushed the issue, saying religious persecution in China, the Sudan, Pakistan, Russia, and elsewhere is on the increase against Christian groups and others.
Backers said that by providing a greater range of possible presidential responses to offending nations they have now met the concerns of opponents and should gain Senate passage prior to Congress' scheduled Oct. 9 adjournment.
Those options now range from a private diplomatic communication to stringent economic sanctions — a sharp departure from the first bill to address the issue in 1997, which mandated sanctions in virtually all cases.
The new bill would also create the position of State Department ambassador-at-large “as a full-time high-level, single-issue diplomat opposing religious persecution by forcefully representing American values and interests in bilateral relations with persecuting nations,” according to a congressional synopsis of the legislation.
It would also create a 10-member Commission on International Religious Liberty appointed by the Congress and the president that would investigate religious persecution incidents and make policy recommendations, and would provide for an annual State Department report on religious persecution “country by country.”
Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., in a statement on behalf of the United States Catholic Conference, said the bill “offers a practical corrective to U.S. policy in one area where that is much needed.” (RNS; See related story “Coptic Bishop Blames Brutality, Not Persecution…” on page 4.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:The Human Environmental Movement
Christian and Jewish leaders have an answer: your spiritual and moral life would be healthier, strengthened by a community that would notice — and care — if you began to go astray.
Many religious groups want to improve the "human environment" in just that way, said a story published in the San Jose Mercury News by a Dallas Morning News reporter.
It said a Cleveland program begun by Archbishop Anthony Pilla is being mirrored across the country as religious people long to see their understanding of the human person reflected in the communities in which they live.
Nancy Eiesland, a religion sociologist at Emory University in Atlanta, told the reporter that Churches see firsthand that modern commuter living damages the basic building blocks of society.
"Religious organizations realize this style of life that combines longer work hours with longer commutes creates less time for care of self and community and family," she is quoted saying.
The Cleveland program is designed to ensure that parishioners — and diocesan neighbors — have an opportunity to meet and develop relationships with each other, in an admittedly limited attempt to address the problem, said the report.
Democrat's Human Rights Principles Make Him Pro-Life
"I was pleased to talk with your reporter… [but] I was surprised to find that my comments ended up in your front-page story on 'Clinton Loyalists' and how they are 'distraught' but still 'supportive of the President,'" he wrote in his published letter to the editor.
"Your article correctly identified me as a practicing Catholic and lifelong Democrat, but as a matter of conscience I have never supported Mr. Clinton or any other Democrat who believes that citizens should have the right to kill children as long as they have not yet been born."
Lickona went on to quote a passage from Pope John Paul II's encyclical The Gospel of Life: "Civil law in a democracy," wrote the Holy Father, "must ensure that all members of society enjoy respect for certain fundamental rights which innately belong to the person. First and fundamental among these is the right to life of every innocent human being."
Cardinal and Parish say “Shanah Tovah” to Jews
Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua's lecture at the Temple Sinai on Yom Kippur was highly unusual, said the first. Jewish officials quoted in the article could not remember any comparable precedent. The article, written before the lecture took place, showed the high praise Temple leaders had for the Cardinal's willingness to address them on the Vatican's document about the holocaust.
The second article reported that on the two Sundays falling closest to the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, St. Agnes Catholic parishioners were given cards to deliver to Jewish neighbors. Each side of the cards contained a message by a Pope.
On one side, a prayer by Pope John XXIII is quoted saying, in part, "Forgive us for the curse which we have unjustly placed on the name of the Jews. Forgive us for crucifying you a second time," according to the report. On the other side is a 1987 quote of Pope John Paul II wishing the Jewish people, "Shanah Tovah," Hebrew for "good year". Monsignor Thomas Craven told the paper he created the cards because his father taught him to fight anti-Semitism when he was 9, in 1937.
Alan Miller, who has suffered from anti-Semitism in his own life, received a card from an employee, and was so touched he made copies of it for family and friends. "Everybody is stunned," Miller told the paper. "My wife was almost moved to tears. She said, 'I can't believe how beautiful this is, and how thoughtful this is.'"
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from selecte publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Anti-Corruption Campaigners Appeal for Church Support DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:KUALALUMPUR, Malaysia—Members of the world's largest anti-corruption movement have urged Church leaders to back their campaign against the growing worldwide practices of bribery and misappropriation. They added that abuse of public office should be seen as a major human rights issue, and condemned as a sin equally with theft and lying.
“Churches are one of the forces of civil society which should mobilize themselves behind this cause, especially in countries where they have a moral authority,” said Dieter Frisch, a senior Catholic adviser to the European Union.
“Corruption is a moral and human issue, as much as an economic one. Struggling against it should be seen as a corollary to Christian doctrine.”
The Belgian adviser was speaking at the end of a September annual meeting of Transparency International, a global coalition with active members in 70 countries worldwide.
In a Register interview, he said Catholic Church leaders had played key roles in the transition from military to civilian rule in parts of the Third World, and should now involve themselves more forcefully in the struggle for openness and accountability.
“You don't have to be a Christian to oppose corrupt practices,” Frisch continued. “You just have to be able to see the catastrophic harm it is doing by depriving people of basic needs.”
Founded in 1993 by German former World Bank director Peter Eigen, TI has gained an average of 14 new national chapters yearly.
The movement helped formulate a ground-breaking Anti-Bribery Convention, signed in December 1997 by member-states of the Organization for Economic and Cultu-ral Development (OECD), and is widely credited with persuading other intergovernmental organizations to adopt anti-corruption policies.
A concluding declaration at the five-day Kuala Lumpur meeting, which was addressed by representatives of the International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, and other institutions, said “corruption, cronyism, and insider exploitation” had contributed to the current East Asian crisis, with dire consequences for the region's most vulnerable citizens.
It added that corruption had a negative impact on human rights and development, but also threatened peace and security by undermining political and economic stability.
The U.S. was placed 18th in TI's 1998 annual Corruption Percep-tion Index, published Sept. 22, which rates 85 countries from least to most corrupt.
The list, compiled from surveys among investors and risk analysts, cited Denmark, Finland, and Sweden as the world's “cleanest” countries, and Honduras, Paraguay, and Cameroon as its most “highly corrupt.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jonathan Luxmoore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Anti-Church Activist Denied Communion & Parish Role
Her parish priest, Bishop Geoffrey Mayne, serves as Bishop for the Australian Defense Forces. He twice informed her of his decision that she would be penalized, said the report.
Nugent is an executive member of Ordination of Catholic Women, a group that should have become obsolete in 1994, according to information the paper noted. That was the year Pope John Paul II issued his apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and declared that the Church had no authority to ordain women as priests. It used pointed language to call the doctrine “definitively held by all the Church's faithful,” according to the report. Again, last June, the Holy Father reiterated that “definitive” teachings were binding articles of faith and that public dissent would earn a “just penalty,” according to the report.
Nonetheless, Nugent felt like an “outcast and a victim,” said the report, which quoted her calling the Bishop's decision “an abuse of power.”
Bishop Mayne, who says Nugent was given fair warning, told the paper, “I, as a bishop or a priest, cannot in conscience give communion to someone who is working against the teachings of the Church. It's as simple as that.”
He added, “If they say you can't wear thongs into a league's club and you do, they don't let you in. To be a Catholic we have to accept the totality of the Church's teaching. You can't pick and choose, particularly in matters of faith and morals.”
School May Suffer For Ousting Teacher, Says MP
The two married five months ago in the Church of England, said the report. They were apparently aware of the Church's prohibition of their marriage but disregarded it.
Member of Parliament Paul Clark warned that the high ratings the school's academic performance has earned in government tests may be jeopardized by its view of the marriage, according to the report.
“The appointment of teaching staff is a matter for [its] governing body but I'm concerned Catherine Davidson has headed the school and ensured excellent [government ratings]. The upheaval could clearly affect the standards of the school,” it quoted him saying.
Ireland Needn't Fear Catholic Schools, Says Scholar
In a Trinity College debate over whether Catholic schools contribute to religious intolerance, research by the late Dr. Daniel Murphy was presented to show that the opposite was the case, said the report. Dr. Murphy's research produced four main conclusions. First, evidence from the U.S., Australia, and France showed that Catholic schools excel in “school effectiveness,” which includes academic and other categories, according to the report.
Second, his report said that where state funds are allowed to help pay for a parent's choice of a denominational school, there is little danger of “social elitism.” However, where states refuse to help fund the private education of citizens, he said the chances were higher that the best schools will be reserved for the upper-classes — although he added that American Catholic schools have been an exception to the rule in this regard. Third, he found that research in the U.S. and Australia shows that Catholic school students are “less prejudiced in religious matters than those who attend public schools,” quoted the report.
Fourth, his paper shared the “profound concern in many quarters” that denominational schools “must not be absorbed into a multi-faith pluralism that will diminish and weaken their cultural distinctiveness, rendering them less effectual as schools, to say nothing of their effective promotion of their ethical and religious ideas,” the paper quoted.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:World Heeding John Paul Us Call
Canadians have now joined in the effort, said the paper, reporting that Anglican Bishop John Baycroft and Catholic Archbishop Marcel Gervais will meet with Canadian government officials to urge them to endorse the efforts. They also promise to deliver half a million signatures to an unprecedented world-wide petition drive, inspired by the Pope's words, that hopes to present 24 million signatures to a 1999 Group of Seven meeting in Germany.
The Holy Father's idea is to apply Old Testament Jubilee practices to the great anniversary of Christ's birth. He suggested that by writing off Third World debt, industrialized nations could help developing nations start the new millennium with a clean slate, said the report.
Experts cited in the paper estimate that Third World countries have already paid back twice the original $1.5 trillion they borrowed in the 1960s and 1970s, and have become bankrupt.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin fears that a blanket forgiveness of Third World debt would send the wrong message to nations who are badly in need of fiscal discipline, said the report.
Thieves Rifle Through Vatican Desks
The offices are located just off St. Peter's Square. Leaving computers, disks, and documents untouched in the office that oversees Catholic education and religious orders, thieves instead rifled through desks for the cash, said the report, citing Vatican officials.
Thousands of tourists cross by the targeted building each day, said the report. The theft occurred on a Sunday, when St. Peter's sees many pilgrims. Thefts in the Vatican are rare enough that notable ones have been spaced two years apart in the last four years, according to the report. Four Greek vases were stolen in 1994, and in 1996 an American art history professor was sentenced for tearing pages from a valuable 14th century manuscript and attempting to smuggle them out of the Vatican Library, it said.
Holy Year History
“There are three entrances to the Vatican in Rome. Two doors are passable; the third, bearing a large cross, is not. The sealed door, it is said, is only opened every 25 years. Why is this?” wondered the reader.
The answer: “Holy doors, the main doors at St. Peter and other Roman basilicas, are kept sealed except during Holy Year, a periodic Year of Jubilee, observed every 25 years by the Roman Catholic Church. Holy Year was begun in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, who intended it to be celebrated every 100 years. Since then, there have been three changes in the intervals. In 1470, Pope Paul II reduced the time to 25 years, the period it has been held each year since, except in 1933 when Pope Pius XI made an exception in honor of the 19th centennial of Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. When Pope John Paul II closed the Holy Door in 1984, it marked the end of the 26th Jubilee Year in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Overall U.S. Seminarian Tally Continues to Fall DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:According to statistics published by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., current enrollment in the graduate level of priestly formation in the continental United States and Puerto Rico totals 3,158 — 2,359 for diocesan candidates and 799 for those from religious orders. This figure includes those candidates in formation programs abroad sponsored by the American bishops, such as the North American College in Rome and the American College in Louvain, Belgium. Theologate totals for the previous year, 1996–97, were 3,276.
According to CARA figures, the number of seminarians at the college and high school levels continues to drop. In 1991, there were 1,911 college-level seminarians. By 1998, the figure had fallen to 1,516, with an even sharper decline in numbers for high school seminarians — from 1,483 in 1991 to this year's total of 853. These figures do not reflect the numbers of students enrolled outside high school and college-level programs. In so-called pre-theology programs, for example, there's been a marked increase in candidates since the 1980s. (There were fewer than 200 candidates in pre-theology programs in 1980; today, there are more than 500, comprising 17 percent of all theology-level seminarians.)
Among the top 10 theologates by enrollment, Mundelein Seminary in Illinois has 187 college-level students in 1997–98, while the North American College in Rome has 156. The Franciscan University of Steubenville boasts one of the largest pre-theology programs, with 65 students this academic year. The Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in New Jersey also includes 49 seminarians associated with the Neo-Catechumenal Way.
A generation ago, in 1967–68, diocesan and religious order seminary enrollments totaled more than 8,000, and college and high school seminary figures stood at a combined figure of nearly 30,000.
— Gabriel Meyer
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vocations: to Each His Own DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Every person has a vocation, a calling from God. Unfortunately, many Catholics still understand vocations almost exclusively in terms of priesthood or consecrated life. As a result, a two-tiered spirituality persists among some Catholics, with clergy and religious deemed “called to sanctity,” while most lay people are given a “holiness pass.” Yet, as Vatican II stressed, not only does everyone have a vocation, everyone is call to holiness — clergy, religious, and laity.
Even so, not all vocations are the same. There is the one, universal vocation to holiness we all have as disciples of Jesus. But this is realized in several specific vocations or “states of life” — lay, ordained, and consecrated life.
While some lay people are called to “church work,” most should primarily “seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God” (Lumen Gentium, 31). In other words, most lay people should do their “church work” in the world by being the Church there, the “leaven in the mass.” “Lay ministry” and other lay activities in the Church are, in this sense, exceptions to the main lay vocation of bringing the Gospel to the world.
Ordained ministers, on the other hand, are called “to carry on the apostolic ministry in time” (John Paul II, Vita Consecrata, 31). That is, through Holy Orders they perpetuate the apostolic ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church. Without ceasing to belong to the Church, ordained ministers act, in their respective ways as bishops, priests, or deacons, in the person of Christ — the Head in relation to the rest of his Body, the Church.
Finally, consecrated persons (drawn from among the laity and the clergy, whether in religious orders, in secular institutes, or in other ways) bear “witness to the eschatological character of the Church, that is, the straining towards the Kingdom of God that is prefigured and in some ways anticipated and experienced even now through the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience” (John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 55). They manifest the Church's holiness in a special (though not exclusive) way (John Paul II, Vita Consecrata, 32), showing that the things of this age are only relatively good, compared with the fullness of the age to come (the Kingdom of God).
After Vatican II, some Catholics have mistakenly treated all vocations as the same. Usually, they advocate a disguised clericalism, defining lay participation by how many clerical roles the laity may assume. In this view, a lay vocation means having a “ministry” to engage in.
Pope John Paul II has tried to straighten things out by emphasizing the value of all vocations, while not obscuring the distinctive features of each. Vocations, he writes, are “different yet complementary in the sense that each of them has a basic and unmistakable character which sets each apart, while at the same time each of them is seen in relation to the other and placed at each other's service” (Christifideles Laici, 55). No vocation is an end in itself; all vocations are first for the Church's upbuilding, and then for the personal holiness of the recipient.
When people speak of a “vocations crisis” today, they usually mean the so-called priest shortage or the decline in religious orders. In response to this “crisis,” some advocate radical changes in the life and structure of the Church. They argue that the drop in priestly vocations, for example, reveals that the Holy Spirit wants the Church to ordain women or eliminate the hierarchical view of Holy Orders.
One major problem with this argument — besides being diametrically opposed to Catholic tradition — is that the call for radical revision of the Church's life and structure has itself contributed mightily to vocations problems, whether confusion about the lay vocation, the “priest shortage,” or the decline of religious life. Where Catholics embrace the universal call to holiness and understand the specific nature of the various vocations, there are highly motivated and active laity, clergy, and religious. In short, no vocations crisis.
Take, for example, the “crisis” of priestly and religious life. Dioceses and religious orders that energetically present Catholic teaching are growing. The Lincoln, Neb., and Arlington, Va., dioceses — to mention but two examples — have numerous priestly and religious vocations, despite relatively small Catholic populations. Or consider a religious order such as the Legionaries of Christ. In 1971, the Legionaries had 423 priestly and religious vocations. Ten years later, the number had more than doubled to 915. Ten years after that, it more than doubled again to 2,010. This year, the Legionaries have some 3,000 priestly and religious vocations.
The lesson is clear. Vigorously and joyfully proclaim the universal call to holiness. Teach people about the various vocations in which this calling is realized — lay, ordained, or consecrated life. Challenge people to discern where God wants them to serve. Form them and provide them the opportunity to serve. Then get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit work.
Mark Brumley is managing editor of Catholic Dossier and The Catholic Faith magazines.
----- EXCERPT: Perspective ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Brumley ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Music to Our Ears DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Brightest and Best: Stories of Hymns
by Father George Rutler
(Ignatius Press, 1998, 235 pp., $15.95)
Father George Rutler is a master of English prose, an authority on liturgy, an amateur musicologist, and a repository of arcane historical data. No one is better suited to write this unique book, celebrating the history of 100 Christian hymns that strike Father Rutler as the “brightest and best” that the tradition of English hymnody has to offer. That's “English” both in language (even the Latin hymns presented here are in translation) and country of origin, as the anglophile Father Rutler weights his collection heavily toward what might be found in the hymnals of Victorian England.
And without apology. For the hymnals of that age were superior to the banality that abounds in the pews today. Father Rutler's book is meant to remind pastors and choirmasters that what can be found between the covers of Worship, Glory and Praise, or Breaking Bread does not exhaust the legacy of Christian hymnody. “The treasury of sacred song is meant to be plundered by the faithful,” Father Rutler declares in the opening line of his book, before observing that much of the song in Catholic parishes today is neither sacred nor worthy of being treasured.
One need not be a devotee of the old rite Mass or a musical aesthete to judge current Catholic hymnody to be in an appalling crisis. One must only have ears to hear, a minimal appreciation for poetry and a passing familiarity with Christian doctrine — three requirements that sadly seem to have been forbidden among the writers and editors of popular hymnals.
“It seemed to me that hymns might be better appreciated if we knew a little more about the stories behind them,” writes Father Rutler. It is likely that the editors who emasculate the hymns of old will recoil in horror at the histories that Father Rutler provides, honoring as they do the faith of our fathers (Faber's hymn is included here). The most recent edition of the Canadian Catholic Book of Worship renders the first lines of “Amazing Grace”: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/ that saved and strengthened me.” The wretches who modified that classic are not likely to welcome Father Rutler's celebration of the hymns of old.
For the rest of us, however, Father Rutler's book is best enjoyed not as another entry into the polarized debate over liturgical reforms, but as a delightful romp through the history of great Christian hymnody. The guide dispenses his idiosyncratic commentary, his rococo phrases salted with wry humor. He introduces William Williams, “the Charles Wesley of Wales,” thus: “Born in Cefn-y-coed, he studied medicine at Llwynllwyd and served as an Anglican deacon in Llanwrtyd, showing that the Welsh make up in erudition what they may lack in vowels.”
The former Episcopal choirboy provides a whimsical selection of data, assuming a shared premise with his readers, namely: not only the major facts of history are important; the recondite details surrounding them are just plain fun to know.
“Saint Augustine may have heard this hymn, for it was almost certainly written by Saint Ambrose, the spiritual father of Augustine's conversion, although this particular hymn does not occur in the Liturgy named for the Bishop of Milan,” Father Rutler writes in his entry for “O Trinity of Blessed Light.” “As in the late 900s the emissaries of Vladimir, Emperor of the Rus, were dazzled to conversion by the splendor of the worship in Saint Sophia, and in the late nineteenth century the poet Paul Claudel was reconverted by the Song of Our Lady in her cathedral in Paris, so was Augustine ravished by the music he heard around the altar and throne of Ambrose of Milan.”
If that is off-putting, then the reader and Father Rutler ought to part ways, to the reader's detriment. For if he continues, he will in due course meet, among a parade of others, John Mason Neale, “the greatest hymn translator of the nineteenth century,” who produced the aforementioned version of Ambrose's “O lux beata Trinitas,” as well as the hymns translated into English as “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” “Sing My Tongue the Glorious Battle,” and “All Glory Laud and Honor.”
“All Glory Laud and Honor” is typical of this collection. Rousing, easy to sing, and triumphal, it belongs with “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Praise to the Lord the Almighty” (both included here) in that class of hymns that congregations love to belt out while the organist (literally) pulls out all the stops. A Palm Sunday procession without “All Glory Laud and Honor” is quite simply naked. Also found here are the perfect hymns for Advent (“Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending”), Good Friday (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross), Corpus Christi (translations of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymns, “Adoro te devote” and “Pange lingua gloriosi”), All Saints (“Who Are These Like Stars Appearing?”), and even Mission Sunday (“From Greenland's Icy Mountains”), though it would be a courageous pastor who asked his people to sing “They call us to deliver/ their land from error's chain.”
Father Rutler's book is not a hymnal, but it does include the music for the melodies of all the hymns, and commentaries on the melodies themselves. It is striking how simple and memorable the melodies are (memorable because they are simple?), reflecting the age-old wisdom that hymns composed for congregations ought to be easy to sing. This book cannot replace a hymnal, but it would be a wise pastor (and grateful congregation) who directed the choirmaster to use it in determining the parish repertoire.
An unexpected delight of the book is the nuggets of autobiographical data included by Father Rutler, who acknowledges that he has otherwise “assiduously avoided writing autobiographical books or essays.” Here it cannot be avoided, for favorite hymns are tied not only to the tradition of the Church, but contain the echoes of one's own past. My own favorite appears here, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” sung as it was at my graduation from Queen's University at Kingston, a secular institution that still permits vestiges of its Presbyterian founding to survive. The hymn was written by Isaac Watts, and is sung to the melody “St. Anne,” composed by William Croft. The closing line of Father Rutler's commentary sums up the situation which caused him to write this very fine book: “Imagine how the effigies of Croft and Watts must have trembled in [Westminster] Abbey in supernal agitation as Elton John banged his lachrymose lament on a piano during the funeral of the Princess of Wales in 1997.” Perhaps a generous reader will send a copy of Brightest and Best to the dean of the Abbey.
Raymond de Souza is a seminarian studying at the North American College in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Lowdown on Angels DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:“Angels in the History of the Church,”
by Father John Hardon
(The Catholic Faith, September/October 1998)
Father Hardon writes, “Towards the end of the first century, about 90 AD, Pope St. Clement I published a famous letter to the Corinthians … he urged them to ‘consider the whole multitude of the angels, how they stand to minister to the divine will.’ The logic of Pope Clement was that the angels who remained faithful by their submission to God's will were rewarded with heavenly beatitude. They are also the ones who are sent to help us cope with the deepest problem in our own lives. This is the problem of subjecting ourselves to those in legitimate authority as an act of loving submission to the will of God.
“Four centuries later, a bishop by the name of Priscillian developed his own ideas about God and the world of creation. He made the astounding claim that the angels were mere emanations of the Godhead.
“Clearly this was simply a form of pantheism, which claimed that spiritual beings are not really distinct from God…. Priscillian himself was executed by civil authority in 385 AD, but his ideas… are still pervasive in our day. At root, Priscillianism is just another form of Manichaeism. Both heresies claim that there are two creators, one good and the other evil. They are in constant conflict with one another. … Behind these errors is the basic falsehood that the material world is essentially evil. It is supposed to be the creation of the evil spirit, who is himself a deity. As the Church's history shows, this is almost a pattern of all moral error, denying that we ourselves have a free will.”
Centuries later, the article continues, “the most authoritative declaration of the Church on the angels was made by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 AD. … Fourth Lateran had to cope with a resurgent Manichaeism, now masked under a new name as Albigensianism…. Once again, the underlying issue was the origin of moral evil in the world…. This time the issue at stake is how the devil became a devil. Was it because he is an uncreated evil being, or did he become evil by his own free will? ‘The devil and the other demons were created by God good according to their nature, but they made themselves evil by their own doing…. As for man, his sin was at the prompting of the devil.’ We may say that the whole foundation of the Church's doctrine on the angels is contained in this irreversible teaching of the Fourth Lateran Council.
Not only are the angels real but they are our constant guides and protectors as we go through time into eternity.
“The most extensive dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church … was occasioned by the rise of Protestantism…. Even when [Protestants] speak eloquently about the providential role of angels as agents of God, they never budge on what is basic Catholic teaching, that we can invoke the angels and ask them to obtain from God what we need.”
Father Hardon then discusses “a new series of six conferences by Pope John Paul II” on the role of angels, in which “the Holy Father first of all defends the existence of angels,” but his main focus lies on their providential roles as pure spirits by which they “are nearer to him than material creatures, and… constitute as it were the closest circle to the Creator.”
John Paul II then draws “on the massive evidence of Scripture and Tradition” to “bring out how important the angels are in our own spiritual lives. … Our materialistic culture has seduced millions into identifying reality with materiality and has practically identified spirituality as unreality. Not only are the angels real but they are our constant guides and protectors as we go through time into eternity.” They are moral counterparts of the devils, who “use deceit for the mind to mislead the will into sin. The most basic lie in the devil's vocabulary is the claim that we, and not God, are masters of our own lives.”
“Anyone who sees what is going on in the modern world has no doubt how active the devil is in our day,” Father Hardon writes. “What Pope John Paul warns us against is discouragement that may even tempt some people to despair… Christ and not Satan will win the final victory over the human race.”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: The Definite Article ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Life First
I was heartened to read about Cardinal O'Connor's recent speech to Catholic health professionals, in which he appropriately described partial-birth abortion as “a horror far beyond others” (“Cardinal Blasts Partial-Birth Abortion at Medical Congress,” Sept. 20–26 issue).
In the same week that United Nations bureaucrats cheered wildly for President Clinton in spite of his current scandal, Cardinal O'Connor reminded us that the violent destruction of human life is an even greater scandal. The Declaration of Independence reminds us that “all Men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien-able Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Our nation's founders realized that life was the most basic right, that no other right could be enjoyed if the sanctity of life was not first recognized. The Founding Fathers also realized that only a virtuous people could remain free.
Our beloved nation faces many serious challenges as we prepare to cross the bridge into the 21st century. If we return to the set of values advocated by Cardinal O'Connor and our nation's founders, America can once again be a beacon of hope — a shining city upon a hill.
Gary L Bauer President
Family Research Council Washington, D.C.
Sermons from Dr. Laura?
Your article on Dr. Laura Schlessinger (“Dr. Laura's Rx for Bill, Monica, and Everyone Else,” Sept. 27-Oct. 3) appears at the same time many Catholic publications and diocesan papers are writing about morality in the wake of the Starr report.
In my estimation, Dr. Laura's advice is first-rate. While I listened to her program three or four times several years ago, I was completely turned off by her use of street language; I don't know if she has continued to do this. However, it seems that she is doing the morality sermon for all the faiths — I wonder why more of the Catholic clergy cannot give the same advice from the pulpit?
This past weekend I attended Mass in the Archdiocese of Washington; the church bulletin contained an insert with “the cardinal's reflections.” One sentence stood out because it was so sad and, unfortunately, so true of today's Church: “Church leaders are sometimes reluctant to speak about personal sin — lest some of the membership be alienated.”
Sarah McCray Annapolis, Maryland
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: After Tragic Abortion Vote, Reason for Hope DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:The politics of partial-birth abortion. Sigh.
What are we to make of the Senate's latest failure to override President Clinton's veto? What possible explanation could there be for a vote hopelessly contradicting all that is known to be true and humane? When you consider that all the medical evidence about partial-birth abortion goes one way (in the words of the American Medical Association, it is “basically repulsive,” “not a recognized medical procedure,” and “never medically indicated”). When you consider that the only “new information” that emerged since Congress last voted was the birth of a nearly full-term infant girl who survived an attempted partial-birth abortion. Her survival — albeit with broken bones and lacerations — being the most eloquent evidence possible of the fact that partial-birth abortion is really infanticide. When you consider that, during final debate on the override vote, pro-abortion senators barely took to the floor of the Senate in support of this horrible thing. What could they say? The same tired old misrepresentations and anec-dotes trotted out since the beginning of the debate? Misrepresentations and anecdotes soundly disproved at every turn?
Clues to the politics of this can be drawn from some of the comments made by senators as they were lobbied by various pro-lifers. And some educated guesses can be made based on the overall political environment in Washington at the moment. It could be that pro-abortion Democrats made a decision not to appear weak in the onslaught of recent charges made against President Clinton, and by extension, against Democrats. It could also be that pro-abortion Democrats decided that, in an electoral season wherein campaign donations might be harder to come by (again, thanks to Clinton), one better move in lock-step with a lobby — pro-abortion political action committees — which opens its huge coffers only to hard-core abortion loyalists. For some years now, the single richest political action committee in the United States is Emily's List, which gives only to pro-abortion Democratic women candidates. Planned Parenthood's political action committee and that of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights' Action League are wealthy and influential, both among pro-abortion Democrats and pro-abortion Republicans.
While the legal victory is not yet accomplished, many significant goods are being achieved in the course of pursuing it.
These are not pretty political realities to contemplate. They could lead to despair. Despair that truth, even combined with majority will and good grass-roots action, could ever change anything.
But we're a long way from having to despair. This recent vote is only the latest round in the debate. As soon as a new Congress, including a new Senate, is elected, we will have another chance. And the omens look good for pro-life gains in the Senate. We will take this matter up again and again until it is done, because we must. What else would we do while infanticide is proceeding in our country under the mantle of the law?
Furthermore, while the legal victory is not yet accomplished, many significant goods are being achieved in the course of pursuing it. As the partial-birth debate rages, America is receiving the most important pro-life education it's had in a very, very long time. It's conceptualizing the child at the other end of the abortion instruments. It's learning about why it is never necessary to directly kill an unborn child—not this way, not any way — in order to preserve a mother's life or health. It's learning that the abortion lobby in the United States could be described with the phrases “Say Anything” and “By Any Means Necessary.”
The partial-birth debate has proven again to the pro-life community that massive grass-roots action is possible, and can have good results. House Minority Leader Gephardt, Senators Landrieu, Specter, Daschle, Hollings —just to name a few — would not likely have voted our way but for mass outpourings of public opinion in the form of letters and calls. Senator Bob Kerry of Nebraska felt the need to apologize for his pro-abortion vote in the form of a public letter to the pro-life majority in Nebraska.
Pro-lifers remembered that prayer must always be included in a pro-life campaign. When the National Conference of Catholic Bishops announced a “Novena for Life” the response overwhelmed us. (What do you know, we said to ourselves, we produce 20 different kinds of tools for people to use in the campaign to ban partial-birth abortion, and what people really want is a good old-fashioned novena!) I knew the success of this prayer was indeed of epic proportions when I got a call from a wonderful Jewish woman in New York working to organize members of the Jewish community against partial-birth abortion. She wanted a copy of the novena, to adapt it for use at her synagogue.
Pure “politics” may sometimes seem to prevail in the short run. But it will only prevail in the long run if pro-life people throw up their hands and let it.
Helen Alvarè is director of planning and information at the Secrtariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Helen Alvar… ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Will the Supreme Court Rule On School Choice? DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:With the opening of another U.S. Supreme Court term Oct. 5, many court observers are discussing the fate of Milwaukee's school voucher program. On June 10, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the program, under which Milwaukee gives vouchers to needy children. Schoolchildren can use those vouchers to attend any school their parents choose for them, including religious schools.
A variety of secularist groups and teachers' unions sued to block the plan, claiming that it unconstitutionally established reli- gion, in violation of the First Amendment. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected that argument and upheld the voucher program. Now, the opponents of school choice have filed a petition, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. This action is probably the most closely watched petition among those on file at the Supreme Court. Observers are wondering whether the court will review the program's constitutionality, or simply let stand the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling upholding the program. The court will probably announce its decision in the next several weeks.
A SUPREME COURT PRIMER
Here's what you need to know to follow the discussion and to understand the court's decision.
The Supreme Court, unlike lower federal courts, is not obliged to hear cases that are brought to it. Instead, it chooses those cases which it wishes to hear, and rejects the rest. There are a very few exceptions to this rule; a case that will be argued on Nov. 20, concerning the method for the next census, is one such exception. But, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the court chooses the cases it will hear. In fact, the court refuses to hear about 70 cases for every one it accepts.
What happens to a case the court refuses to hear? It is treated as if a Supreme Court review had never been sought; the decision of the court from which review was sought remains in place. Is the case a precedent? Yes and no. The lower court's decision is a precedent for that court, but only for that court. The Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case sets no national precedent, one way or the other. So, for example, if the Supreme Court were to refuse to hear the Milwaukee vouchers case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision would still be binding in Wisconsin, and schoolchildren there could still use their vouchers in religious schools, but courts in other states would remain free to agree or disagree. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court were to hear the case and rule on it, either affirming the lower court's ruling or reversing it, then that ruling would apply nationwide.
TO HEAR OR NOT TO HEAR?
In theory, the court accepts cases in order to resolve questions of exceptional import or to resolve a disagreement among different lower courts. These factors are indeed important. But there are other, unwritten factors that also come into play. For example, the court is often reluctant to take the first case that presents an important issue. The justices often prefer to let several lower courts wrestle with a question first. That way, the court can reap the benefit of their different analyses when it finally chooses a case that presents that issue.
The court also tends to prefer cases where the issue is presented clearly, without the burden of other, less interesting issues specific to the case that would also have to be decided. Because the justices can choose the cases they wish to hear, there is no difficulty in passing up one case that presents an interesting issue, in order to wait for a different case that better presents the same issue. The reputations of the lawyers who are bringing the case also play a role. The court will more readily agree to hear a difficult case if the lawyers on both sides are experienced.
SCORPIONS IN A BOTTLE
The Supreme Court's power to pick its cases also makes for some interesting politics among the justices. The Supreme Court is not famous for its collegiality. (The late Justice Jackson once described it as “nine scorpions in a bottle.”) It does not decide cases by consensus, but by hard-fought majority vote. The justices all have strong personalities, and are sharply divided ideologically. Moreover, neither the liberal nor conservative wing has a majority. There are four generally liberal justices — John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. There are three solidly conservative justices, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Finally, there are two swing votes, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy. This means that, for either the liberal or conservative faction to decide an issue, they must attract the swing votes. Thus, justices with a firm view on how a particular issue should be decided, will prefer a case that presents that issue sympathetically.
Since there are nine justices on the court, it takes five votes to decide a case on the merits. But, under the court's internal procedures, it takes only four votes to agree to hear the case in the first place. That means four justices could vote to take a case, hoping it comes out one way, only to be outvoted at the merits stage by the other five justices. This is obviously something all the justices work hard to avoid; far better not to review a case at all, than to have it come out the “wrong” way. So another key element in the court's agreeing to takeacase is the belief of four justices that they can attract a fifth vote at the merits stage. All of these factors — the importance of the issue; the reputation of the opposing counsels; the Justices' ideological leanings; whether the issue is idiosyncratic, or likely to come up again — are the tea leaves court watchers attempt to read.
SCHOOL CHOICE
And just how do the tea leaves look for the Milwaukee vouchers case? Mixed. On the one hand, this is a very important issue that is crisply presented and is being handled by experienced counsel. All of these factors argue in favor of taking the case. On the other hand, it is the first case of its kind to come up, and there are several others close behind. Moreover, it is a very ideological issue that promises to divide the court, probably 5 to 4. If there are any doubts among the justices about their ability to persuade a majority of the court, they may well decide discretion is the better part of valor. But then again, those justices who favor vouchers may believe that the current case constitutes a more sympathetic presentation of the issue than those which are likely to follow. As a result, it is a case in which court watchers are divided in their views.
REASON FOR HOPE
Nevertheless, the future looks bright for vouchers, in general. In a recent case, Agostini v. Felton, five justices voted to uphold allowing publicly paid tutors to help needy parochial school students inside the parochial schools themselves. The majority's reasoning was that, because the public aid flowed to parochial school students according to neutral criteria, and since the only reason that the aid arrived in the parochial schools in the first place could be traced to the free choices of individual parents to send their children to those schools, the Constitution was not violated. That reasoning should also apply to vouchers. Thus, it may only be a matter of time until the court approves school choice, in one case or another. Still, which case and how much time, are factors that are tactically important for the school choice movement. Thus, from any perspective, there is much at stake in the court's decision whether to take the Milwaukee case. Stay tuned.
Kevin Hasson is president and general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: A behind-the-scenes look at what the justices will consider when deciding whether to hear the Milwaukee voucher program case ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Hasson ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ted Turner's Cold War Comfort DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:On Sunday, Sept. 27, Ted Turner's CNN launched the first episode of its massive 24-hour documentary series, entitled Cold War.
Bravo. An objective exposè on the decades of tension between the Eastern and Western blocs, evidencing the underlying interests, diplomacy, errors, and coups, should make for an entertaining and highly educational program. Historia, magistra vitae, as Cicero sagely noted.
For those who follow Mr. Turner's activities closely, however, there is something very wrong with this picture. The chances of an “objective exposè” seem rather slim. All the facts appear to indicate that, behind Turner's seemingly disconnected enterprises, stands a man with an agenda.
Let's do a little memory exercise. Last fall, Ted Turner announced his momentous one billion dollar billion grant to the United Nations.
Far and wide, observers applauded the munificence of this media mogul turned philanthropist, while U.N. officials licked their chops and strategized as to how to secure large portions of the Turner pie for their own plates.
Such enthusiasm was short-lived. Little by little Turner's “disinterested, no-strings-attached” gift proved to be bound not by mere strings, but by heavy cables. The stoutest cable of all was Turner's stipulation that the U.N.'s use of the funds would be supervised by a foundation headed by Timothy Wirth, erstwhile undersecretary of state for global affairs in the Clinton administration. A longtime crusader for population control and global warming restrictions, Mr. Wirth led the U.S. delegation to the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development, where he fought to make abortion part of the United Nations' “reproductive rights” package. Thankfully, he was thwarted, chiefly due to efforts by the delegation from the Holy See.
Summing things up with her characteristic acumen, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon observed that, as details unfolded, Mr. Turner's massive donation began to look “less like a gift and more like an offer to acquire the services of U.N. agencies with privileged access to target populations.”
Mr. Turner himself declared that the purpose of his gift was to help the “poorest of the poor.” Yet somehow unborn babies didn't make the cut. The first U.N. grant of Turner's money went to provide funding for abortion programs opposed by the U.S. Congress. One of Turner's major interests is population control, and he supplies heavy funding to such groups as Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Catholics for a Free Choice, and the Pro-Choice Resource Center. Perhaps Turner would argue, with Clintonesque precision, that unborn children aren't technically “poor,” since the poor are those who have very little, whereas the unborn have nothing at all.
Be that as it may, animals do make the cut. From sea turtles to owls to elephants, no winged, scaled, or hoofed beast has escaped Turner's paternal gaze. The long list of Turner Foundation grant recipients reads like a cross between Ralph Nader's Christmas card list and the pet shop section of the Yellow Pages. Beneficiaries range from “The Snow Leopard Lovers' Club” to “Ducks Unlimited” to the “Coral Reef Alliance.” Turner also gives lavishly to environmental protection groups, to assure that the earth is spic-and-span for the few human inhabitants left after his proposed one-child policy has been in effect for a few generations.
Among those lucky inhabitants will no doubt figure some of Turner's own progeny who, as heirs to their patriarch's wisdom, can be counted upon to continue pursuing his vision of the Brave New World. As recounted by Time magazine, Mr. Turner was recently asked how he could justify his zealous campaigning for one-child laws, when he himself has fathered five children. Turner responded, “If I was doing it over again I wouldn't have done it, but I can't shoot them now that they're here.” This surely drew a collective sigh of relief from the Turner children, though they may now lock their bedroom doors at night and frisk their dad for firearms at family gatherings.
Patriarch though he might be, Mr. Turner openly curries the favor of feminists, going so far as to espouse male inferiority. In a recent statement he boldly challenged men to retire from politics for a hundred years, leaving the women to govern. “Let the women run the world for a while,” Turner advised. “They don't have all that testosterone in them.” One wonders whether Turner intends that this withdrawal of men from government extend to other powerful institutions where testosterone could also cloud men's judgment, such as multimillion-dollar foundations and television networks. Maybe Mr. Turner himself will lead the way by stepping down as president of the Turner Foundation and turning the helm over to a talented woman, say Sister Nirmala of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.
Until that blessed day arrives, however, we should remain wary consumers of Turner's productions. As for Cold War, what can viewers reasonably expect? The cast of scriptwriters —including Germaine Greer, a pioneering feminist writer; Hugh O'Shaughnessy, founding member of Amnesty International; and William Shawcross, author of the book Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia — certainly doesn't bode well for an unbiased report. Nor does Turner's unabashed belief in television's power to influence world events. And just last July, Turner had to publicly apologize for another CNN war documentary that falsely accused the U.S. Special Forces of using sarin nerve gas to kill American deserters during a 1970 raid into Laos. Perhaps Lisa de Moraes, writing in the International Herald Tribune, said it just about right in her appraisal of Cold War as merely another “cleverly disguised step in Mr. Turner's master plan to turn our planet into his.”
Father Thomas Williams is rector of the general directorate of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas Williams LC ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: School Choice Looks for A Political Champion in Washington DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Voters in the nation's capital will head to the polls next month to elect a mayor to succeed Marion Barry, but school choice advocates will not be able to elect a major party candidate who supports their cause.
The city's mayor does not have responsibility for schools, and only Congress and the White House can authorize a school choice program, said Daisy Voigt, a spokeswoman for Republican Carol Schwartz's campaign. Since the 1994 election, which gave the Republicans control over Congress, President Clinton has vetoed two budget packages for the District of Columbia that included school choice pilot programs.
Anthony Williams, the former chief financial officer for the district and Democratic mayoral candidate, does not support education vouchers, according to Max Brown, his deputy campaign manager.
“The public school system would be eroded and only richer people would have the ability to pay the amount” over what the program would cover, Brown told the Register. Williams “supports charter schools as long as public schools are given the tools to compete,” Brown said.
Williams is likely to win the election in Washington, which is heavily Democratic. He's also a Catholic, raised by a large adoptive family in Los Angeles before he earned degrees at Harvard and Yale.
Likewise, Councilwoman Schwartz has actively opposed any District of Columbia appropriations bill sent to Congress that includes school choice, said Voigt. “She does not support the use of tax money to pay for private education,” because such a program would diminish public schools, Schwartz's spokeswoman said. “She believes in public education.”
But school choice advocates don't see it as an either/or situation. “We're not in the business of thrashing the public school system,” said Ron Jackson, executive director of the D.C. Catholic Conference. To make their case more compelling, advocates need to use the term “scholarship,” instead of “voucher,” he added.
In some ways, Washington is ripe for school choice. Its rate of spending per pupil is among the highest in the nation, though its standardized test scores lag below national averages, its dropout rates are high, and its lack of facility maintenance often results in lengthy school closings.
Jackson favors a three-year pilot program in the capital so that the schools and the voters can see the results before deciding about implementing the program on a larger scale.
I want every parent to have that vision of what their children are capable of doing when teachers care about them and hold them accountable.
James Cardinal Hickey, head of the Washington archdiocese, would not support any school choice programs that might undermine the schools' Catholic identity, Jackson said.
But from all appearances, one form of school choice is taking off.
Enrollment has jumped about 10% in 16 elementary archdiocesan schools this year due to new tuition assistance programs sponsored by the Catholic school system and private organizations, said Vincent Clark, director of school marketing and public relations for the archdiocese of Washington.
On Sept. 28 in Washington, a group of 35 business and political leaders announced a plan to distribute $172 million in scholarships to allow more than 35,000 children in 38 cities to attend the schools of their choice through The Children's Scholarship Fund.
School choice “is going to become an important issue,” said Prof. Edward Smith, director of the American Studies Program at American University in Washington.
Smith criticized Marion Barry, Jesse Jackson, and other Democratic politicians who have lived in Washington and sent their children to private schools, while still opposing school choice. “They don't want people to ask” where they're sending their children, he said. Most people assume the political leaders are supporting the public schools, said Smith, who is a third-generation Washingtonian and a Catholic convert.
Three of the four leading candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary had attended Catholic high school, but none supported school choice, according to The Washington Post. One candidate, Councilman Kevin Chavous, sends his two children to Catholic schools in Washington, according to The Post.
Schwartz sent her three children to D.C. public schools; by the time Williams moved to the district about three years ago, his now 23-year-old daughter had already graduated from high school.
Although D.C.'s leading politicians may give their thumbs down to school choice initiatives, many people who work in the front lines with children appear to support school choice.
“There's a lot of grass-roots support for school choice, but it's not very well organized,” said Virginia Walden, a single mother who works with charter schools and soon plans to leave that job to become executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice.
Walden became involved in school choice after sending her 16-year-old son William to Archbishop Carroll High School last fall on a scholarship. “People say what a nice boy he is now, but two years ago, I was calling the police to speak with that young man. He thought no one cared. He was skipping school,” she said.
“I want every parent to have that vision” of what their children are capable of doing when teachers care about them and hold them acountable, Walden continued.
“It brings tears to my eyes,” she said, to come home now and see her son doing his homework. In the public school her son used to attend, “they barely knew I was in the classroom,” she quoted him as saying.
Retired Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) tried to convince Walden to run for D.C. mayor earlier this year, after reading an opinion/editorial she had written for The Post. She was flattered when Pressler looked her up in the telephone book and came to visit her, she recalled. “He really cares about the kids,” she said.
Hannah Hawkins, director of Children of Mine Youth Center Inc. in the Anacostia area of Washington, strongly backs school choice. Her organization serves 60 to 85 children who come regularly after school. She feeds and clothes the children, tutors them, conducts a Bible study class, and also sponsors an adoption and foster care program.
Hawkins, a parishioner of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Anacostia, says there is a lot of grassroots support for school choice in D.C. Hawkins, the mother of five grown children, recently directed scholarship money to one student to attend Archbishop Carroll High.
“Kids have to survive on the streets by using their wits in this city, so if they're in a private school, I know they'll do well,” she said.
writes from William Murray Kensington, Md.
----- EXCERPT: Many D.C. politicians tout public education, but send their kids to private schools ----- EXTENDED BODY: William Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Cardinal George Favors Big "C" Universities DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:CHICAGO — “Too secular.” “Too dependent on government regulations.” Or “too religious.”
The seven Chicago-area universities and one college invited to participate in the inaugural Convocation of Faculty, held Sept. 22 at Loyola University, have at different times felt the sting of such critiques.
The also have two other things in common: their origins with Catholic men's and women's religious communities, and their uncertainty whether to enter the new millennium as “Catholic” or “catholic” institutions.
“There was a perception, at least a sense, that the bishops are a little divorced from the Catholic universities [in their diocese,]” said David Struckhoff, an instructor in the criminal justice department at Loyola University.
The convocation at Loyola, which included an address from Francis Cardinal George and remarks from Joliet Bishop Joseph L. Imesch, was a first of its kind attempt to shatter that perception and challenge universities to remain true to their Catholic roots.
“We [bishops] are not guests [at Catholic universities,]” Cardinal George told the Loyola group. “Catholic universities are part of the household of faith, so we are at home. So the question of relationships should be reversed. It shouldn't be how am I in the university, but how are you in the church,” he said.
The question is not a new one for the cardinal.
During a talk last October at Georgetown University, the cardinal said discussions about the place of a Catholic university in the church needed more voices than those of bishops and university administrators. Such conversations, he said then, “have left untouched relations between bishops and faculty.”
Loyola University's president, Jesuit Father John J. Piderit, said the cardinal's message at Georgetown inspired him to offer Loyola as the first in a rotation of sites to explore the relationship between the bishops of the Chicago Archdiocese, the Joliet Diocese and the Catholic institutions within their boundaries.
Invited were presidents, administrators, and faculty members of Benedictine University, Lisle; DePaul University, Chicago; Dominican University, River Forest; Lewis University, Romeoville; St. Francis University, Joliet; Xavier University, Chicago; and Barat College, Lake Forest.
Bishop Imesch said that while he understood that Catholic universities shared the common dilemma of being labeled “too secular” by church officials, yet “too religious” by those outside the university community, many institutions attempt to maximize their appeal to both groups.
“I am aware of our diverse populations at universities, but do we need to delete our Catholic identity or be apologetic about it to survive?” said the bishop, who raised the absence of the word Catholic in the radio ads of certain universities and the scheduling of university athletic activities on Good Friday as examples when Catholic institution have made secular concessions.
Cardinal George and Bishop Imesch agreed that while professors at Catholic universities do not necessarily have to be Catholic, they need to be consistent in articulating the mission of the Catholic Church.
Representatives from each institution also provided their take on the ideas presented by the cardinal and bishop.
DePaul University law professor Bruce Ottley said that the presence of diversity among Catholic universities is good. “By being a small ‘c’ catholic university, we are best at being a big 'C Catholic university,” said Ottley.
Citing the history of DePaul's law school, Ottley reminded participants of the period in the 1930s and 1940s when DePaul admitted Jewish students when other religious and state schools enforced quotas.
“Catholic universities also have assimilated people of different backgrounds into the mainstream. I hope this opportunity will continue in the future.” said Ottley.
Cardinal George responded by asking Ottley if the DePaul that welcomed Jewish students was the same that exists today. The cardinal said, “In order to be small ‘c’ Catholic at times, there must be a big 'C perspective.”
Piderit also championed the big “C” approach. “I think the fact that we can speak a big ‘C’ for the big conversation that we've engaged in today,” he said.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael Wamble ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Darkness on Both Sides of the Border DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Many consider the late Orson Welles the greatest filmmaker America has ever produced. His 1941 classic, Citizen Kane, was voted the best movie of all time in a recent American Film Institute poll. His 1958 film noir, Touch of Evil, is currently being re-released in major markets around the country in a re-edited version that is closer to what Welles intended. The studio's original release made numerous changes from the filmmaker's cut, attempting to soften and simplify the harsh edges of his point of view. Now we can fully savor the richness of Welles' vision.
The story line is at times conventional, but the filmmaker's treatment plunges us into a dark vortex of cruelty and corruption that's a visceral evocation of how evil operates in our psyches and in the world. Mexican narcotics agent Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) is honeymooning with his American wife, Susie (Janet Leigh), in the border town of Los Robles, when a car bomb kills one of the region's most prosperous citizens, Rudy Linnekar.
As the device was planted on the Mexican side, Vargas technically has some jurisdiction. But it exploded on the American side, giving famed local police detective Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) effective control. Quinlan is proud of his record of quickly solving murder cases, and he expects to wrap this one up in a hurry.
Linnekar's daughter, Marcia (Joanne Moore), has been having an affair with a Mexican shoe salesman, Sanchez (Valentin de Vargas), whom the dead man was trying to push out of the picture. Quinlan is certain he has the motive; all he needs is the proof, which he quickly manufactures by planting two sticks of dynamite in Sanchez's apartment.
Clearly, there's prejudice against white-Hispanic couples involved, and Vargas, himself part of a mixed marriage, takes his fellow countryman's side, vowing to establish the accused man's innocence even if it means discrediting the much respected Quinlan.
In his pursuit of the truth, Vargas neglects his honeymoon bride. Joe Grandy (Akim Tamiroff), a leader of a local crime family the Mexican narcotics agent has been prosecuting for drugs, decides to put pressure on the cop by terrorizing his wife — first when she is on her own at night downtown, and later at a deserted motel. In a series of bravura sequences, Welles uses hallucinatory images and jagged camera moves to make us feel part of the nightmare to which she's subjected.
Vargas' mind is elsewhere. He's determined to bring Quinlan down. He discovers that the American lawman has a history of framing murder suspects with false evidence. Quinlan becomes aware of Vargas' ambitions and makes an alliance with crime boss Grandy to smear the Mexican cop's wife in hopes that he can be stopped.
More than most movies, Touch of Evil achieves its power by means other than clever plotting. Based on Whit Masterson's otherwise unknown pulp thriller, it uses purely cinematic devices to make the most of its psychological and moral points. When Quinlan's old friend Tana (Marlene Dietrich) lays eyes on him for the first time in a long while, she quips: “You should lay off the candy bars. You're a mess.”
Quinlan's obese, unshaven appearance succinctly communicates his inner state of moral decay. His original motivations as a police officer were good. He's never taken a bribe, and he walks with a limp because of a bullet he took to protect his longtime associate, Pete (Joseph Calleia).
His intuition for sniffing out the guilty is still uncanny. He says he can feel it in his bum leg when he's on the right track. But, many years ago, the man who strangled Quinlan's beloved wife went free, and ever since he's made it his mission to see that every murderer in his jurisdiction is caught, convicted, and hanged, even if it means bending the rules.
Quinlan has indulged the need to avenge her death, to the point where it's crowded out his virtues. His personality has been deformed by his obsession, and it shows in his face and figure.
At first glance, Quinlan seems to be the movie's villain and Vargas its good guy, but Welles' point of view is more nuanced and ironic. The Mexican narcotics agent is a straight-arrow, by-the-books cop. However, despite his sincere belief in justice, he turns himself into a mirror image of Quinlan. Both are equally self-righteous, and Vargas' pursuit of his nemesis becomes a personal crusade which pushes everything else out of his life. The dangers his wife experiences are as much his fault as Quinlan's.
Welles stages his action so it literally takes place in a world of shadows. Using black-and-white film, which was an anachronism even 40 years ago, his tortured characters move in and out of darkness into scenes of half light. His ever-moving camera prowls after them as they try to hide their guilt and overweening pride.
Black humor of the sort usually found in Shakespeare and other Elizabethan playwrights is employed to depict the horrors of this moral universe. The night watchman (Dennis Weaver) at the motel where Vargas' wife is tormented is played for comic relief, and drug chieftain Grandy often loses his toupee when he's trying to be most menacing.
Touch of Evil is relentless in its exposure of human foibles, but also makes Quinlan and Vargas sympathetic characters even as they suffer and are punished. We wind up caring for the sinner even as we learn to despise his sins.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
Touch of Evil is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America
----- EXCERPT: Orson Welles'classic Touch of Evil is re-released as he really meant it to be ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:—John Prizer
----- EXCERPT: Movies currently at theaters or soon to be released on video ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Sweet Sounds of Heaven on Earth DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Located in the rolling hills of north central Spain, Santo Domingo de Silos is home to the Benedictine monks who have become famous with the success of their recordings of Gregorian chant in the United States, Europe, and beyond. Their albums have sold in excess of 10 million copies, many of them to young people between the ages of 16 and 25. Yet far from being attracted to the glamours of the world, these cloistered monks are dedicated to serving Christ through chastity, poverty, and obedience. Seven times a day they gather in the abbey church, to raise their voices to God in praise and thanksgiving.
The Gregorian chant to which they devote themselves is a tapestry of holy Scripture and writings. The words are in Latin and the melody is simple and singular. Gregorian chant focuses on one of the most beautiful and universally appealing aspects of traditional Christian I faith, an art form upon which all the later, more elaborate music of Western civilization was built. In its original, pure form, plainchant has survived intact from the Middle Ages and continued to inspire its listeners.
Through their worldwide dissemination of this music, the Silos Benedictine monks are helping people appreciate the spiritual riches of the Catholic Church. Thanks to the monks, chant is experiencing a rebirth throughout the world, especially with the younger generation. Many are looking to monasteries such as Santo Domingo de Silos as centers for chant scholarship and recordings.
The monks of Santo Domingo de Silos live according to the Rule of St. Benedict. Work and prayer are the two elements of their daily lives. When not singing, the monks attend to their assigned duties. Some are involved in studies, others in manual labor. Although they spend much of their time in solitude and silence, the monks lead visitors on guided tours through sections of the monastery.
Built in 919, the abbey lies in the Province of Burgos, in the great Castilian plain. It is believed that monastic life probably began in Silos during the seventh century, and was reorganized, full of vitality, at the beginning of the 10th century. After half a century of decadence, from the end of the 10th century to the first decades of the 11th, the man now known as St. Dominic of Silos (the namesake of the more widely known St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order) arrived in 1041, and served as abbot until 1073. Shortly afterward, the new prior began construction of a new cloister, sparking the beginning of a new era for the monastic community. After the death of St. Dominic of Silos, his successors completed the construction during the second half of the 12th century.
Monastic life at Silos continued mostly uninterrupted for more than a millennium. The only brief exception to this was the 45 years (1835–1880) during which the monks were forced to abandon the cloister when the state established anti-clerical laws.
Today, the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos remains a vibrant community. With their newfound fame, the monks are now dealing with a greater number of pilgrims and visitors than ever before. Despite their “celebrity status,” however, the monks' lives have changed little. Liturgical celebrations, asceticism, and providing hospitality to guests remain at the heart of the monastic community — as it has since 954.
While traveling to other Spanish shrines such as those at Avila, Montserrat, Zaragoza, or Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrims visiting Spain will surely want to include Santo Domingo de Silos in their itinerary.
For pilgrims visiting Santo Domingo de Silos — whether for a morning, a day, or a week — the abbey offers an unforgettable experience. Each waking morn-ing begins with the warm embrace and angelic sounds of lauds. Less than two hours later, the solemn High Mass commences with the gentle sounds of chant, as rays of sunlight entering the monastic chapel highlight the rising clouds of incense. In the evening, visitors gather one more time to hear the sublime vesper prayers of the monks in the candle-lit chapel.
When the monks are not singing during the day, pilgrims can join one of the abbey's guided tours. These tours offer an excellent inside look at the physical structure of the Romanesque cloister. Of particular interest are the remarkable bas reliefs at each corner of the monastery courtyard showing scenes from the life of Christ. Another highlight is the painted Mudejar vault, depicting the everyday life of local Spaniards in the 14th century. Finally, each walk through the abbey ends with a stop at the cloister museum. Among the prominent features here is a reconstructed 18th-century pharmacy.
To get a true sense of the monastic experience at Santo Domingo de Silos, most visitors like to spend two nights in the abbey town. This gives pilgrims a chance to attend at least one full day of services, including the solemn Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. It also provides an opportunity to spend some time walking in the peaceful countryside surrounding the abbey.
The monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is located about 100 miles north of Madrid, 40 miles southeast of Burgos, and is easily accessible by car, bus, or taxi. From Burgos, take N1 south toward Madrid, exit at the town of Lerma, and head east on the local road to Santo Domingo de Silos. The nearest rail station is at Burgos. From Burgos, there is a daily late-afternoon bus departure for Santo Domingo de Silos. Taxis are also always an option for traveling to the monastery from Burgos or other nearby towns.
For more information on making a pilgrimage to the monastery, call one of the many Catholic travel organizations leading pilgrimages there, or contact the abbey at: Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos, Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain, tel 011-34-947-39-00-68, fax 011-34-947-39-00-33.
Kevin Wright, author of Catholic Shrines of Western Europe, writes from Bellevue, Washington.
----- EXCERPT: The monks of Santo Domingo de Silos in central Spain bring the Church's age-old music to the masses ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Wright ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: UNICEF and WHO Embracing a 'Reproductive Health' Agenda DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—In renewed evidence of the systematic effort by senior U.N. officials to mobilize the entire U.N. system in support of the population-control agenda advanced by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recently invited UNFPA to become a full partner in a three-agency Coordinating Committee on Health (CCH). Dr. Nafis Sadik, the Executive Director of UNFPA, headed her agency's delegation at the first session of the CCH, which was held recently at WHO headquarters in Geneva.
UNFPA's strong influence within the newly created CCH became readily apparent in the choice of two of the three topics under discussion in Geneva: “Safe motherhood” and “adolescent health.” According to the official U.N. summary of the Geneva gathering, repeated references to “reproductive health” were made in the context of both “safe motherhood” and “adolescent health.” By U.N. definition, “reproductive health” includes access to abortion services and to artificial contraceptives that have known abortifacient effects.
In her own remarks to the CCH, Sadik stressed the importance of the collaboration with UNICEF and WHO in attaining UNFPA's population control and feminist goals. “Indeed, the three agencies had all worked together extremely well, especially in developing the social services agenda,” she reported, according to the UN summary of her comments.
“The program of action of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo Conference) had placed reproductive health in the context of primary health care, thus recognizing it as an essential component of any minimum package of health services. It was, therefore, important for the three agencies to make sure that their activities contributed to the development of the health system of a given country.”
Further evidence of UNICEF's support for population-control programs is available in the 1998 edition of The Progress of Nations, UNICEF's just-released annual assessment of national child-related policies. It includes an article entitled “The Family Planning Gap,” which alleges that “at least 10% of girls aged 15 to 19 have an unmet need for family planning services.” UNICEF obtained the international data on this claimed “unmet need” from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm for the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which is the world's largest abortion provider.
WHO complicity in pro-abortion activity has been even more explicit. At a pair of U.N.-organized youth conferences this summer in Portugal, WHO lobbied aggressively for “reproductive health” services to be made available to children as young as ten, without parental oversight. And last March, WHO released a 110-page abortion compendium entitled Medical Methods for the Termination of Pregnancy. WHO said it was intended to serve “as a guide to the introduction of medical abortion as a routine clinical service.” (Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Maine Pro-Lifers Seek Partial-Birth Abortion Ban DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:In Maine, pro-life leaders are gathering signatures for a November 1999 ballot measure that would seek to classify partial-birth abortion as infanticide. Some 52,000 signatures are needed by Jan. 1 and 27,000 are already collected.
“We're going all out,” says Father James Nadeau, pastor of Portland's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Bishop Joseph Gerry authorized signature gatherers to work at parishes on Oct. 4, an unprecedented step in Maine.
The Diocese of Portland has allied itself with the Christian Coalition and Maine Right to Life in the campaign. Rank-and-file parish volunteers have stepped up to help in the effort.
As in Washington state, where voters will decide on a similar ban next month, Maine's pro-life leaders are going straight to the electorate after a bill failed narrowly in the state legislature.
No polls have been taken, but diocesan spokesman Mark Mutty says a majority of Maine voters will probably support the ban. Washington is the first state to attempt a ban by voter initiative. In the past three years, partial-birth abortion has been outlawed by legislatures in 25 states. But legal challenges have put the bans on hold in all those states except South Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and Oklahoma.
The Washington initiative and the Maine effort are attracting national attention and may signal a new strategy in the fight against partial-birth abortion.
“These campaigns have a huge secondary effect of keeping the question alive nationally,” says Helen Alvare of the U.S. Catholic bishops' pro-life office. “It keeps people interested and active in a very practical, local, meaningful way.”
Alvare contends that Washington state pro-life advocates have been able to uncover the main weakness of their opponents—evidence against the bans is mostly anecdotal. “We have been able to debunk every hypothetical they can present,” she says. “When stories are challenged or when we ask them to bring up any doctor to say the story is true, they can't.”
— Ed Langlois
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ed Langlois ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Life Chain Still Standing Strong Against Abortion DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:MILWAUKEE — When Life Chains were introduced to communities across the country in 1987 as a means of peacefully demonstrating against abortion, attention was often paid to just how many pro-lifers gathered at the events. One by one, the Christians who stood on the side of the road in their community with signs that read “Abortion Kills Children” were counted and sent to a national office where general estimates were released to the news media.
More than a decade later, Life Chain has changed its focus in several ways. No longer is the emphasis on how many pro-lifers participate, but the prayerful witness and impact it will have on the community and Christians themselves — regardless of the sheer number of participants, Royce Dunn, national director of Life Chain, told the Register.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians participated in the Life Chain '98 on Sunday, Oct. 4. Life Chains were held in more than 800 American cities and towns and more than 65 locations in Canada. Dunn said Life Chains were held in almost every state this year. While the focus of Life Chains may be expanding, the challenge hasn't changed.
“We of the corporate Christian Church know abortion as an issue,” said Dunn. “But we have yet to dis cover the holocaust's flesh-and-blood victims. We have yet to see them as individual human beings whom we are to defend, sacrificially.”
More than 160 congregations participated in the Oct. 4 Milwaukee Area Life Chain with a mix of Lutherans, Catholics, Assemblies of God, and various non-denominational Churches participating.
Dunn said the Oct. 4 public gatherings were not intended to simply educate the public at large, but to call attention to local abortion centers and encourage Christians to “pray earnestly for repentance to come to our nation and for the wrath of our just and grieving God to be lifted.”
Fearing that Life Chain leaders were becoming more focused on how many people were gathering, rather than on the spirit and core purpose of the event, Dunn said national tracking of attendance at Life Chains stopped in 1994. That decision may have resulted in less contact with grass-roots organizers and less media attention, but at least one local organizer says today's Life Chains are drawing more committed, focused participants.
Mike Kofroth, organizer of the Milwaukee Area Life Chain, said that numbers at Wisconsin Life Chains have leveled off after a decline following a push for more participation in the early 1990s. Kofroth estimates that 4,200 people gathered in the Metro Milwaukee area for the area's ninth annual Life Chain Oct. 4. In all, he said, Life Chains were held in 15 Wisconsin communities. To Kofroth, numbers don't necessarily equal success.
“Our numbers may be smaller, but the quality of the individual person at the Life Chain has gone up,” he told the Register. “People know what they're out there for now — there's less laughing and standing in groups and more people solemnly standing and praying.”
Kofroth said the key to a Life Chain's success remains the same: Church leaders supporting the effort. He said more than 160 congregations participated in the Oct. 4 Milwaukee Area Life Chain with a mix of Lutherans, Catholics, Assemblies of God, and various non-denominational Churches participating.
The mix of Christian Churches participating in the Life Chain has allowed Dunn to begin educating pro-life Christians on other issues as well, namely artificial birth control. A Protestant, Dunn used a press release issued before the Oct. 4 event to address the need to stand for all pre-born children — whether they are threatened by surgical or chemical abortions. Dunn said pro-life Christians, not just Catholics, need to realize that contraception's link to abortion cannot be ignored.
“Rhetoric extolling ‘the precious little ones’ flows freely from numerous church grounds, but its ring is too often hollow, for the children killed by surgical abortion usually die with few, if any, compassionate Christians standing legally and peacefully near the abortuary door,” he said in the press release. “And as for the victims of abortive contraceptives, no current pro-life message is more difficult than persuading Christendom to … reject these chemicals and devices that prevent newly conceived boys and girls from safely attaching themselves to the uterine wall.”
“Few words are as unwelcome in the sanctuary today as the dreaded 'C word (contraception), and that statement is not Catholic overspeak, for I am a Protestant,” said Dunn.
Dunn has utilized his leadership as National Life Chain director to educate pro-life leaders and pastors about the need to recognize and actively oppose what he calls a “crisis in the Church”—the acceptance of abortifa-cient birth control (such as the pill, Depo-Provera, intrauterine devices, and Norplant). After producing a 5,000-word brochure entitled Contraception: The Tragic Deception, Dunn mailed copies to all Life Chain organizers and more than 120 pastors. The response was minimal, signifying an unwillingness to address the topic, he believes.
“I don't understand why pastors are so unwilling to talk about abortifa-cient contraception while regarding themselves as stridently pro-life,” said Dunn.
That expansion of Life Chain's educational focus was also revealed in the diverse messages on this year's official Life Chain signs. In addition to the traditional “Abortion Kills Children” and “Jesus Forgives and Heals” signs, this year's participants also carried signs reading “Abortion Hurts Women” and “Life: the First Inalienable Right.”
Greg Chesmore writes from Bloomington, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: Leaders shift priority from number of participants to the intensity of prayerful witness ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Chesmore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: ProLife ProFile: A Rookie Congressman Charges Ahead with Initiatives DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), one of the leading pro-life advocates in the House of Representatives, has introduced legislation to provide federal assistance for abortion alternatives. This bill would replicate a highly successfully statewide program Pitts championed in Pennsylvania.
Known as the Women and Children's Resources Act, it will allocate $85 million annually to reimburse crisis pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and adoption agencies. Reimbursable services would include pregnancy testing, health care and guidance, sexual abstinence education, and referrals for assistance in a variety of areas.
The bill prohibits any funds from being used to perform or make referrals for abortions. In addition, no contraceptive services, drugs, devices, or related advice can be dispensed.
Pitts, who served 14 years in the Pennsylvania House before entering Congress in 1997, was instrumental in shepherding a similar bill through the state Legislature in 1995. Today, that initiative is responsible for sustaining a network of 92 centers.
In Pennsylvania $3.1 million is made available annually to such centers through a program supervised by the Department of Public Welfare. The agency, in turn, selected a contractor to administer the program. The contractor, a non-profit known as Real Alternatives, then developed a system from existing crisis pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and adoption agencies which act as subcontractors.
For a center to become a subcontractor and enter the network, it must meet rigid criteria, including disavowal of religious proselytizing. The centers, which are reimbursed at specified rates for the counseling and services they provide, include Church-affiliated groups such as Catholic Charities.
The Pennsylvania program, known as Project Women in Need, served more than 15,000 clients during its first two and a half years of operation. These clients are located in 42 counties, but television and yellow-page advertising has expanded the service area to 57 of the state's 67 counties.
In his first term as congressman, Pitts already has gained national recognition through his pro-life advocacy.
“We think, based on the experience in Pennsylvania in serving 92 different groups, this program will be in much demand all over the nation,” Pitts told the Register. He emphasizes that this concept is a compassionate approach that substantially aids both women in crisis and their children.
In a statement the congressman released on the legislation, he noted, “Instead of continuing to defend the pro-life cause from the fallacies of pro-choice rhetoric, the pro-life movement must take the offense.
With more crisis pregnancy centers in the United States than abortion clinics, pro-lifers should be able to mount a significant battle to change their face from suppressor of women's rights to one of compassion for all involved in the heartache of unwanted pregnancy.”
In his first term as congressman, Pitts already has gained national recognition through his pro-life advocacy and his appointment as head of the Values Action Team, a liaison effort between the House Republican leadership and social conservatives.
Earlier this year Pitts worked with national pro-life and pro-family groups in getting input on the abortion alternative legislation. Also participating has been the director of the Pennsylvania program, Kevin Bagatta, a Harrisburg, Pa., attorney.
The congressman held a news conference in Lancaster, Pa., which is part of his district, Sept. 30 to unveil the new law. Bagatta, appearing with him, said, “This is the day that our country followed the lead of Pennsylvania, who taught America how a compassionate society provides life affirming alternatives to abortion. This is what Pennsylvania has done. This is the right thing to do.”
Although he and his supporters are enthusiastic about bringing this Pennsylvania model to the nation, Pitts has no illusions about the challenge of enacting such legislation.
“I don't expect action this year,” he said. “It will be a long-term strategy. We have to wait to get a hearing and tell the Pennsylvania story.”
The bill will be reintroduced in the 106th Congress, which convenes in January, and which Pitts hopes will attract additional co-sponsors.
Meanwhile, Pitts remains active on several other pro-life fronts. He is the founder of the Congressional Life Forum, an informal monthly lecture series which features prominent pro-life advocates. Also involved in the forum are Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and James Barcia (D-Mich.).
Among those who have spoken to members of Congress and their staffs are Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Norma McCorvey, Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute, and Karen Garver Santorum, wife of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and author of Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum.
The most recent guest was Harry Wu, a human rights advocate, who on Sept. 24 discussed China's population control program.
Some of the speakers have praised the value of such talks. Frederica Mathewes-Green, a prominent writer and pro-life advocate, said, “Congressman Pitts is doing a very important thing by providing this ongoing forum.”
“The abortion fight has lingered for so many years that everyone can get a little numb,” she said. “Those on the political front lines — members of Congress and their staffs — can get out of touch with new developments and approaches. By offering this forum, Congressman Pitts keeps the abortion issue alive and Hill workers informed.”
Another participant, Paul Swope of the Caring Foundation, said, “The Life Forum was extremely helpful in affording the opportunity to present our work to over 20 congressional offices and numerous pro-life organizations. Not only did this forum save enormous time, it also ensured that the same information was conveyed to all groups, and allowed for a sharing of questions and ideas among the various offices and organizations.”
In addition to these efforts, Pitts has introduced an amendment to the foreign aid appropriations bill which would transfer $100 million of population control funds to child survival efforts. He also is a co-sponsor of the Hyde-Oberstar Bill (HR 4006), which amends the Controlled Substances Act to curb physician-assisted suicides.
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Republican hopes to bring Pa. model to the federal level ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Washington State Voters to Decide on Partial-Birth Abortion DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:SEATTLE—Though a bid to ban partial-birth abortion failed on Capitol Hill last month, the debate is reaching a peak in Washington state. By voter initiative, pro-life advocates are seeking to outlaw the controversial procedure in Washington, the state with the most permissive abortion statutes in the nation. Radio and television ads from both sides are about to start airing. The vote is slated for Nov. 3.
Polls seem to show that support for the ban — called Initiative 694 — has waned since mid-summer.
A survey commissioned in July by pro-choice campaigners showed that 47% of voters supported a ban on the late-term procedure, while 45% opposed it. But two media-sponsored polls taken in September show only 37% support and 49% opposition.
In the procedure known as partial-birth abortion, doctors pull the infant into the birth canal and use a suction catheter to remove the brains before crushing the skull and fully delivering the child's body.
Using a structure of sequential logic not unlike the proofs of St. Thomas Aquinas, the ban initiative's writers argue that partial-birth abortion is not abortion at all, but infanticide.
“Scientifically, medically, and legally, a child in the process of birth is no longer a fetus, but an infant,” says the proposed law, which would provide exceptions if the mother's death were imminent. “The intentional killing of an infant child in the process of birth is infanticide. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by intentionally killing a living human fetus in the uterus or womb before the process of birth begins.”
Supporters of the ban, ironically, are hanging their hopes for constitutional muster on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In that ruling, the justices argued for a right to abortion, but upheld parts of a Texas law that banned infanticide. The justices were silent on the issue of partially born children.
“This is a tack that no one has taken yet,” says Chad Minnick, campaign coordinator for the Committee to Stop Infanticide. He said that if the opposition can turn the issue into one of abortion rights instead of infanticide, then they have a better chance of winning.
No one is certain if any partial-birth abortions have occurred in Washington state; distinct reports are not required. The closest published statistic is this: late-term abortions have ranged from three to six per year since 1994.
Those come among the total of approximately 26,000 annual abortions in the state. But pro-life advocates estimate that 5,000 to 6,000 partial-birth abortions are performed each year nationwide. Minnick says it stands to reason that many of such abortions happen in Washington state.
Foes of Initiative 694 see the measure as a step toward outlawing all abortions. The Internet website for ‘No on 694’ says the initiative “is designed to sensationalize abortion procedures and try to reduce public support for choice.” Stephanie Bowman, campaign manager for the group, says, “Initiative 694 places the doctor-patient relationship in jeopardy because its odd and vague language means virtually any abortion could be investigated and prosecuted as a felony.”
However, Michael Stokes Paulsen, a constitutional law expert at the University of Minnesota, says the initiative “takes care to define its terms with precision, tracking medical definitions and understandings, to limit itself to situations where the process of birth has begun and not to affect situations of true ‘abortion’ as legally and medically understood.”
The ban is the idea of evangelical Christians in Washington, including local outlets of the Christian Coalition. Also backing it vigorously are the state's three Catholic dioceses, which authorized signature gathering in churches this summer. In just six weeks, volunteers collected 220,000 signatures, about 40,000 more than required.
In June, the state's three bishops issued a parish bulletin insert about the initiative. In the coming week, they intend to send out another insert, re-stating their support for the ban as well as for initiatives that boost the minimum wage and affirmative action.
Unlike Oregon's bishops, who took up a collection at Masses in a failed attempt to defeat a 1994 assisted-sui-cide proposition, Washington's Catholic prelates will not raise funds in an organized way.
However, the bishops are allowing groups like the Knights of Columbus to collect campaign contributions.
Ban supporters appear to be depending on a large number of local, Church-based donors who give $100 to $200 apiece. So far, they have collected more than $75,000. The largest donor to date is Human Life of Washington, which gave $5,000.
Planned Parenthood is by far the major donor to ‘No on 694,’ having given $300,000. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League donated $15,000 and the American Civil Liberties Union gave $10,000. ‘No on 694’ reports total fundraising of $400,000 so far.
Other foes of the ban include local women's coalitions, abortion clinics, the state Democratic party, the Washington State Women's Political Caucus, and the League of Women Voters. The Washington State Medical Association also opposes the proposal, saying it threatens the health of women.
The outcome may be determined by what some political scientists call “the soccer mom effect.” Suburban middle-aged women with families— moderate Republicans and “New Democrats”— are the swing vote, says David Olson, professor of political science at the University of Washington. Olson thinks this sometimes unpredictable bloc will oppose the ban strongly. “These women can be very conservative or very liberal, but in this case I expect a strong vote against,” says Olson.
Olson thinks another reason the ban may fail is that Washington is “one of the most secular states in the country. If you look at active Church membership, we tend to rank near the end.”
Washington state has for decades voted in favor of legal abortion. A1970 initiative secured abortion rights in the state well ahead of Roe v. Wade. In 1984, voters refused to withdraw public funding for abortions for women on Medicaid. In 1991, amid fears that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe. v. Wade, voters passed an initiative that strengthened abortion rights in Washington state, even to the point of requiring that any funds allocated for maternity care be matched by funds for abortions.
The Washington legislature attempted to pass a ban on partial-birth abortion in the last session. The House ushered it through, but the Senate made dozens of amendments, attempting to avert a veto by Gov. Gary Locke. The watered-down bill never made it to the governor's desk.
“Unfortunately we have never been able to win on abortion,” says Dominican Sister Sharon Park, director of the Washington State Catholic Conference. “But this is different. It just targets the procedure. There is no way this will stop abortion in the state of Washington.”
Initiative 694 has also become a fiery issue in the state's race to fill a seat in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic incumbent, opposes it. Rep. Linda Smith, a Republican challenger, favors it.
Ed Langlois writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: Pro-lifers supporting ban on procedure face well-funded opposition ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel of Life DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:Public officials and private citizens alike are called to witness to life, each in his or her own way. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II distinguishes some of the ways in which citizens and leaders may further the Gospel of Life.
If charity is to be realistic and effective, it demands that the Gospel of Life be implemented also by means of certain forms of social activity and commitment in the political field, as a way of defending and promoting the value of life in our ever more complex and pluralistic societies. Individuals, families, groups, and associations, albeit for different reasons and in different ways, all have a responsibility for shaping society and developing cultural, economic, political, and legislative projects which, with respect for all and in keeping with democratic principles, will contribute to the building of a society in which the dignity of each person is recognized and protected and the lives of all are defended and enhanced.
This task is the particular responsibility of civic leaders. Called to serve the people and the common good, they have a duty to make courageous choices in support of life, especially through legislative measures. In a democratic system, where laws and decisions are made on the basis of the consensus of many, the sense of personal responsibility in the consciences of individuals invested with authority may be weakened. But no one can ever renounce this responsibility, especially when he or she has a legislative or decision-making mandate, which calls upon the person to answer to God, to his or her own conscience, and to the whole of society for choices which may be contrary to the common good. Although laws are not the only means of protecting human life, nevertheless they do play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behavior. I repeat once more that a law which violates an innocent person's natural right to life is unjust and, as such, is not valid as a law. For this reason I urgently appeal once more to all political leaders not to pass laws which, by disregarding the dignity of the person, undermine the very fabric of society. (90. 2–3)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Polls Tight In Michigan Battle Over Assisted Suicide DATE: 10/11/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 11-17, 1998 ----- BODY:FLINT, Mich.—The ballot measure to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Michigan could likely pass, according to one survey of focus groups and likely voters.
The survey, conducted in July for Citizens for Compassionate Care, found 47% of the people in eight focus groups and 500 likely voters supported a measure to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Forty-two percent opposed the initiative and 11% were undecided.
The polling company, Public Opinion Strategies, noted that ballot language had not been settled by the time of the survey, so the likely voters were responding to the concept of the measure instead of the actual question.
“I think many people in Michigan already have a view on assisted suicide basically because of [Dr. Jack] Kevorkian and the media attention the issue has had,” said Tom Farrell, a volunteer media relations director for Citizens for Compassionate Care, based in Lansing.
The survey showed that support for and opposition to the measure has strong coalitions. Those who oppose physician-assisted suicide tended to identify with conservative, pro-life, or Republican Party positions. Opposition among those groups was found to be so strong that there were no circumstances in which a majority would support assisted suicide.
In contrast, those who favored legalizing physician-assisted suicide identified strongly with liberal, pro-choice and Democratic Party positions. The study found that within those groups women, African-Americans, and those without health insurance were more likely to oppose the measure.
Among that group of supporters, there were few circumstances under which they would not back legalizing physician-assisted suicide.
The survey found the undecided voters were likely to be more moderate, less religious, and less partisan in their outlook.
That's the group of voters defined by Citizens for Compassionate Care as “persuadable” and who were among the target audiences of efforts by Michigan's bishops to educate Catholics on Church teaching on the issue.
The survey and focus groups also found that voters responded negatively to Kevorkian, who has become known for his involvement with assisted suicides. The report said participants believe Kevorkian brings out the worst abuses in physician-assisted suicide.
The measure to legalize assisted suicide will be on the Michigan ballot as Proposal B.
In anticipation of Election Day Nov. 3, the bishops who head Michigan's seven dioceses released a statement affirming their “collective efforts to educate the 2.5 million Catholics in our state on the problems with Proposal B. In each of our dioceses we will speak to our people about this proposal as is our right to do.”
They said that in the days leading up to the vote, much will be said about the measure “and it is our sincere hope that what is said will be truthful, especially as it relates to the Catholic position on physician-assisted suicide.”
They also took issue with an organization which voiced outrage that a Catholic citizen's group was speaking out against legalizing assisted suicide.
“It is a deep irony then, that the leaders of the Merian's Friends movement were outraged by a Catholic citizens group speaking out on Proposal B as a violation of ‘separation of church and state.’ Yet, they use a quote from Pope John Paul II and his encyclical The Gospel of Life, to advance their efforts to impose their proposal of death on the people of Michigan,” the bishops said.
“The Church has not, does not, nor ever will support physician-assisted suicide in any form or fashion,” the bishops said. “The Catholic Church has long held that one may legitimately choose to relieve pain by use of medications which may have the unfortunate side effect of decreasing consciousness or shortening one's life, if this is done with the intent of relieving pain and no other means are available to serve this goal. This is very different from the direct intention to take life as is the intent of Proposal B.”
The statement was signed by Adam Cardinal Maida of Detroit and Bishops Patrick Cooney of Gaylord, James Garland of Marquette, James Murray of Kalamazoo, Carl Mengeling of Lansing, Robert Rose of Grand Rapids, and Kenneth Untener of Saginaw.
According to Farrell, after a couple of weeks of an advertising campaign to defeat Proposal B, the members of Citizens for Compassionate Care were hopeful the tables are turning.
“The campaign is really heating up,” he told The Catholic Times, newspaper of the Lansing Diocese. “We hope it's tightened up and we might even be ahead for our position. We've already spent $800,000 in a $2 million campaign.”
Farrell said Merian's Friends, the major group supporting physician-assisted suicide, spent most of its money to get the measure on the November ballot. “They were in the hole when the campaign started,” he added.
Contributing to this story was Kathy Funk.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Evelyn Barella ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Veto-Override Bid Fails But Not Pro-Life Hopes DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON—The latest congressional failure to ban the partial-birth abortion procedure has been a frustrating blow to pro-life forces. But they are also hopeful that the issue can be used to elect more sympathetic legislators in the critical November midterm elections.
On Sept. 18 the Senate fell three votes short of overriding President Clinton's veto of HR 1122, which passed both houses of Congress in 1997. The House successfully overrode the veto on July 23, but the Senate could not reach the necessary 67 votes, two-thirds of that chamber's membership.
Bills prohibiting partial-birth abortion and providing criminal and civil penalties for practitioners were passed in the last two sessions of Congress; enactment has been thwarted by the president. A previous veto override vote in the Senate failed by nine votes.
Over the last several months vigorous campaigns to change Senate votes were undertaken by the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Right to Life Committee, the Family Research Council, and other religious and secular organizations. Steve Forbes, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2000, ran full-page newspaper ads the day of the vote.
Among groups appealing directly to senators was the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. In the Sept. 16 statement signed by 54 bishops, they said, “We pray that this long and difficult chapter in our country's abortion debate be brought to the only appropriate conclusion: the rejection of a truly heinous violation of human rights and dignity.”
The Senate floor debate was lead by two ardent pro-life supporters, Sens. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Robert Smith (R-N.H.). Santorum, who also shaped the discussion during the last override vote, presented charts and data in an effort to debunk six myths about partial-birth abortion. The most enduring myth is that the procedure protects women's health.
The senator reiterated the themes he raised in a recent editorial he wrote for the Register (“The Truth About Partial-Birth Abortion,” Sept. 13-19). “The attempt to preserve partial-birth abortion as a legal procedure,” he wrote, “has been rooted in falsehood — not unlike the abortion industry itself.”
Smith, a likely presidential candidate in 2000, gave a long, emotional speech. At one point he said, “This is America, supposedly the moral leader of the world. What does it say to our children when we kill children, their colleagues, with a pair of scissors and a suction hose as they exit the birth canal? What does that tell them?”
Other senators argued that a society's position on abortion and, in particular, partial-birth abortion reflects its values. “No issue cuts to the core of our values like the issue of abortion,” said Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), another prospective presidential aspirant.
He added, “It challenges us to define our notion of liberty and calls into question our most fundamental assumptions about life. Today, we do not debate whether enactment of a measure will positively or negatively affect the welfare of some Americans. Today, we debate life and death.”
Calling it “something that no civilized society should tolerate,” Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) said the partial-birth vote “is about who we are as a people.”
Retiring Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said, “What we are confronting is an affront to humanity, an affront to justice.”
But in the end, after a day and half of debate and months of pressure and cajoling, no votes were changed from the last tally which was taken in May 1997. Four Republicans joined with 32 Democrats to sustain the presidential veto.
Condemnation of the outcome was swift. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said that it is a “tragedy that even today some senators continued to repeat tired falsehoods on the floor of the Senate in support of this horrid procedure.”
Father Frank Pavone, international director of the Priests for Life, stressed that Catholic senators who supported partial-birth abortions — there were 10 of them — are at variance with Church teachings. In addition to citing the U.S. Bishops' 1989 Resolution on Abortion, he said, “We are also ready pastorally to assist such individuals to overcome their difficulty in embracing Church teaching. “
A disappointed Santorum said, “It is truly regrettable that the Senate could not muster the political and moral courage to override. One president and three senators have kept us from being a civilized country that respects and welcomes everyone into the human family.”
The president of the Washington, D.C-based Culture of Life Foundation, Robert Best, focused on Clinton's role in supporting partial-birth abortion. “It is incomprehensible that President Clinton, who's desperately searching for forgiveness and apparently wishes to atone for his sins maintains a position that gives legal cover to the most gruesome practice in the history of mankind, infanticide,” Best told the Register. “It's hard to understand how a man who has reached such a low level in his life would not want to amend his mistakes by giving innocent children an opportunity to live.”
Keith Fournier, president of the Catholic Alliance, added, “As Catholic citizens, in particular, we can't help but notice the connection between this vote and the current moral crisis facing the nation. In both cases, we have lost our respect for the dignity of the human person.”
Despite the disappointment, pro-life supporters remain optimistic about the future. Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, a prominent pollster, told the Register, “Partial-birth abortion is one of the five or six issues beyond Bill Clinton's wingspan. This will be one of the wedge issues” in the 1998 congressional elections.
The upcoming elections, she added, will give pro-lifers an opportunity to “replace errant members of the House and Senate with folks who will vote the right way in the next Congress.”
This theme was repeated in other interviews. Smith said, “It's a temporary setback. We would have saved some lives. But we're going to involuntarily retire some senators, and that's fine with me. Things are going to change in February.”
Another presidential candidate, Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, said, “There is not another issue more important. This goes to the heart of whether or not the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution applies to our unborn children.”
As such, he said, political repercussions will be felt in six weeks. “Three senators won't be back,” he said, citing tough re-election races for Democratic incumbents in Illinois (Carol Moseley-Braun) and California (Barbara Boxer); Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas is retiring. Five other Democrats who supported the president on the partial-birth abortion issue are running for re-election.
In addition to the political dimension of the issue, some have emphasized the educational value of the partial-birth abortion debate. “This has the potential for turning people around on the whole abortion issue,” said Darla St. Martin of the National Right to Life Committee.
The director of the House of Representatives' Pro-Life Caucus, Maggie Wynne, added, “Partial-birth has done more to jolt public opinion than anything else. It has had the most dramatic impact in 20 years. It exceeds that of (the landmark anti-abortion film) The Silent Scream.”
Although the Senate override effort failed, pro-life leaders remain optimistic about the future. The 106th Congress, which assembles in January, is likely to include more, perhaps even substantial, support for a partial-birth abortion ban.
Perhaps Alan Keyes, the political commentator and 1996 presidential candidate, framed the issue best in an interview with the Register. He said, “Keep fighting. Keep pushing this issue. Today we lost the vote, but we are doing battle for the soul of the country.”
Joseph Esposito writes from Washington.
----- EXCERPT: ABORTION FIGHT SHIFTS TO MID-TERM ELECTIONS ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Population Decline Threatens 'Basic Fabric'of Rural Ireland DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—Population figures in more than half the parishes in the Tuam Archdiocese are in “serious decline,” according to a survey done by the western diocese. The Quo Vadimus report compiled over two years by sociologist Father Michael MacGréil SJ highlights the continuing social problems in rural Ireland, problems that have fueled Irish emigration to the United States and other countries for more than a century.
Before the mid-19th century Great Irish Famine, the population of the diocese stood at about 400,000. That figure had fallen to 118,814 by last year. Archbishop Michael Neary said he commissioned the survey because the sheer size of his diocese — Ireland's largest by area — made such a report necessary for pastoral planning.
Father MacGréil says that population decline due to low fertility and the emigration of young adults is “one of the most serious and fundamental problems facing numerous communities in the west of Ireland.” Not including changes due to emigration and immigration, the population of Aughamore parish in southeast Mayo fell by nearly 9.5% in six years. In the parish of Achill the population fell by 217 people, more than 7.5%.
Added to the natural decrease — the death rate is higher than the birth rate — populations continue to fall due to emigration. While urban areas in the diocese, including Castlebar, Tuam, Westport, and the outskirts of Galway, experienced population growth due to people moving to the area, the survey found emigration exacerbated population decline in eastern County Galway and central and eastern Mayo. In one parish, primary school enrollment fell by 27% between 1993 and 1996. In the same period several other parishes suffered school attendance decreases of more than 15%.
“Since the foundation of the Irish Free State, internal migration out of the west of Ireland has grown progressively while emigration to Britain and to the United States continues to drain our young talent away,” says Father MacGréil. “Without a policy of adequate job opportunities throughout the parishes of the west, the basic fabric of local communities and parishes will be under continuous threat.
“The future improvement of the communities in decline cannot happen without strategic and effective intervention by the state or the European Union (EU), at least in the short term — such as the implementation of a project-based, 10-year plan for the west of Ireland.”
The country's western bishops have long been calling on the government to produce a development plan for their area, but successive administrations in Dublin have not responded. The problem is worst in Achill, where the unemployment rate is 52.3%.
In his report, Father MacGréil says that those in the west who survive on state welfare “are not always given sufficient credit for their personal self-sacrifice.”
He says that because poor people's income from the state is so visible, they are perceived as “more parasitic on community resources.” But, according to Father MacGréil, the opposite is true: “The poor make relatively little demands on higher education, receive very little from the EU's common agricultural fund and make minimal use of other forms of expensive infrastructure. “The value to communities of those in receipt of income supplements, unemployment assistance, grants, etc., is enormous. Without their staying at home many communities would have collapsed for want of population. In a real sense, it has been better for the local community that many opted for ‘the dole’ rather than for migration or emigration.”
The survey found that religious practice is high among Tuam's population, which is 98.6% Catholic. More than 80% attend Sunday Mass. There is also a wealth of spiritual devotion. Every parish organizes an annual pilgrimage, and 41 of Tuam's 56 parishes organize three pilgrimages or more a year. The survey also finds: “The practice of the Stations [of the Cross] or neighborhood Masses is a feature of practically all parishes. The average number of homes in each station area is between 18 and 19, and the average attendance throughout the archdiocese is between 28 and 29 persons. Around one-third of those attending would be under 16 years.”
Despite this rich spiritual tradition, vocations to religious life are at their lowest level this century. In a six-year period, there wasn't one vocation to the priesthood in more than half the parishes of Tuam. While Tuam had a total of 54 new vocations between 1990 and 1995-96, Father MacGréil commented: “When one considers that only between one-third and one-half of them will reach ordination, one gets a very stark picture of what is happening.”
Statistics on congregations of brothers and sisters revealed that in six years only eight women in the archdiocese followed a call to religious life and no men entered life as a religious brother. “The findings present an amazing picture of the current decline in people's desire to embrace the religious life practiced in the archdiocese since the time of Sts. Brigid, Patrick, and Jarlath,” the report says. “The decline of support for the vocation of the religious brothers and sisters marks a rejection of something that was a central feature of Irish Catholicism.
“Why have these congregations ceased to be positive reference groups for believing and committed young men and women? Thankfully, there are sufficient numbers of sisters (at least) to facilitate a recovery of a situation — that is, if the current demise is transitory. It appears to be still possible to rescue the situation, [and to achieve] a continuity and a rebirth.”
The survey, meanwhile, found that a temperance organization, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, is the most popular Church-based organization in the archdiocese with branches in nearly 70% of parishes.
The next most popular organizations are the Legion of Mary, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Joseph's Young Priests' Society, and the Order of Malta. “It is significant that a Church-based peace movement or organizations addressing ecumenical and other issues of pastoral concern have not emerged at the parish level in the archdiocese so far,” the report says. Without such structures, it continues, “it is difficult to enable committed Christians to address the concerns of the current situation in an effectively collective manner. It is more difficult to organize collectively in a culture that emphasizes individualism and in a time when religion in the Western World tends towards a privatization of practice.”
Cian Molloy writes from Dublin, Ireland
----- EXCERPT: Tuam Archdiocese's report cites effects of long-term trend ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cian Molloy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Indian Jesuits Offer Insight Into Vatican's Censure of de Mello DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Register Correspondent
NEW DELHI, India — Complying with a Vatican directive, a Jesuit publishing house has discontinued sales of the work of the late Jesuit Father Anthony de Mello.
“Since we received the Vatican directive last week, we have stopped selling the books of Father de Mello,” Jesuit Father K.T. Mathew told the Register Sept. 7.
Father Mathew is the manager of Gujrath Sahitya Prakash (GSP), publisher of the nine official books of Father de Mello, who died of a heart attack in 1987 at age 56.
In a July 23 letter to the heads of bishops' conferences, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), had urged them to observe the notification concerning Father de Mello's writings. The notification, released to the press Aug. 22, pointed out that “in certain passages in [Father de Mello's] early works and to a great degree in his later publications, one notices a progressive distancing from the essential contents of Christian faith.”
The CDF notification acknowledged the popularity of the Jesuit author, describing him as “well-known due to his numerous publications … widely circulated in many countries.” Yet, the notification pointed out that “according to the author, any belief or profession of faith whether in God or in Christ cannot but impede one's personal access to truth. The Church, making the word of God in Holy Scripture into an idol, has ended up banishing God from the temple. She has consequently lost the authority to teach in the name of Christ.” In order to “protect the good of the Christian faithful,” the notification stated that some of Father de Mello's positions are “incompatible with the Catholic faith and can cause grave harm.”
Hence, Cardinal Ratzinger made the request to the bishops' conferences to ensure that local Catholic publishers cease reprinting Father de Mello's books. The letter further called for prudent withdrawal where possible of copies already available for sale, or the inclusion of a copy of the Vatican's notification in any de Mello book sold.
“The Vatican is right because there is the possibility of misunderstandings,” said Father Lisbert d'Souza, president of the Jesuit Conferences of South Asia and superior of the region's 3,500 Jesuits. He told the Register that the Jesuits had already appealed to the publisher to carry a “clarification” in Father de Mello's books. This move came, Father d'Souza said, after “we began to receive reports that misunderstandings arose regarding the books of Father Tony. Various groups were interpreting his speeches and stories in ways, perhaps, which the author had never had in mind.”
Father d'Souza added that “several unauthorized books attributed to Father Tony, some based on his speeches, are in circulation in Spain, and in North and South America. We don't even have a list of all of the books in circulation.”
[The nine official books of Father de Mello are Sadhana, The Song of the Bird, Wellsprings, One Minute Wisdom, The Prayer of the Frog Vol. I, The Prayer of the Frog Vol. II, Contact with God, Call to Love and One Minute Nonsense, the last three published posthumously.]
“Father Tony's books were not doctrinal expositions on theology,” Father d'Souza said. “His primary concern was to help people find God — believers (in Christ), non-believers, and even atheists. Hence, there is very little religious language used.”
Father d'Souza knew the controversial author since 1961 and, as the local Jesuit provincial, presided at Father de Mello's funeral in Bombay in June 1987. “If one understood the context in which his ideas were presented, there [would be] no problem,” Father d'Souza said.
In January 1997, the publisher GSP, which holds the copyright on Father de Mello's books, insisted that the publishers of all translations of the popular Indian preacher and retreat leader's books “attach in a separate page” the following clarification: “The books of Father Anthony de Mello were written in a multireligious context to help the followers of other religions, agnostics, and atheists in their spiritual search, and they were not intended by the author as manuals of instruction of the Catholic faithful in Christian doctrine or dogma.”
According to the explanatory note to publishers signed by Father Xavier Diaz del Rio, director of GSP “whichever other books [outside of the nine authorized works] have appeared anywhere in the world have not been written by Father Anthony de Mello and his name is incorrectly and unjustly attached to them.” The note also says that the publishers “even know [of] books attributed to him that have nothing to do with even (his) conferences or lectures and have been published for the sole purpose of profit.”
The Jesuit publishing house in India has carried the clarification in all new editions of Father de Mello's books. Had this “clarification” been carried more widely by other publishers outside of India, Father d'Souza suggests, “The Vatican may not have received the complaints that led to the present unhappy situation.”
Jesuit theologian Gispert Sauch told the Register, “If one does not have a certain spiritual and theological maturity, these [books] could be misunderstood. The [Vatican] warning is perfectly justifiable.” Father Sauch, the registrar of the Jesuit Vidyajyoti theological seminary in New Delhi, said Father de Mello's books were “basically wisdom literature … his writing [does not offer] doctrine, but advice through stories.”
Father de Mello was trained in psychology and counseling, the Jesuit theologian said, and was “not dealing with doctrinal truth but helping people to overcome their problems.”
“He followed the dialectic style of raking up controversy to awaken people. There is a certain irony and sarcasm in his stories. If you take them literally, you are likely to be scandalized,” acknowledged Father Sauch, who once attended an 30-day retreat conducted by Father de Mello.
Father Mathew, manager of the Jesuit publishing house said, “It is hard on us to withdraw all the books of Father de Mello just because some objectionable passages are there. However, we have complied with the [Vatican] directive for discipline. We have published his books only after our censors raised no objections.” A better option, Father Mathew suggested, would have been “to delete the controversial portions or to add explanations,” adding that “the bishop here (Ahmedabad) has agreed to take it up with Rome.”
Father d'Souza is saddened over the ban on the books of a priest who was “instrumental in popularizing the full (30-day) Ignatian retreat in India.” The Jesuit superior lamented that Father de Mello had been “dragged into a controversy of this nature” years after his death.
“This is certainly not the way those who knew Father Tony would have liked him to be remembered,” said Father d'Souza.
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi.
----- EXCERPT: Unauthorized works by popular priest-author cited as part of problem ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Amidst Chiapas Flooding, Signs of Reconciliation DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Latin America Correspondent
MEXICO CITY—Flooding has brought massive destruction, death, and millions of dollars in damage have come to Chiapas—yet prompted waves of solidarity and even surprising joint efforts to cope with the crisis.
The unprecedented disaster began in early September, when heavy rains overloaded eight rivers that run across most of the coastal state of Chiapas, located in Southern Mexico near the border with Guatemala.
When the floods precipitated avalanches which buried Chiapas's rural towns, help was slow in coming due to the isolation of the poverty-stricken Mexican state. By mid-September, the toll of the catastrophe included more than 200 known dead, almost 500 reported missing, and 30,000 homeless. A Reuters report estimated that as many as 5,000 were missing in one of the region's larger towns. With the destruction of crops came food shortages, along with flood-related diseases affecting almost 1 million people — more than half the state's population.
A statement issued by the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) described the disaster as “the worst natural phenomenon in Chiapas' history.”
The scene could hardly have been worse in the wake of the flooding. According to the IMSS, special squads will have to work for several weeks to recover hundreds of bodies carried away by the rivers. The destruction of highways and local roads has limited the amount of aid arriving to the area from central Mexico. Countless acres of crops have been destroyed and cattle and dead bodies are being carried off by the muddy rivers.
“The stink of death is all over. Vultures are looking inside abandoned homes and they have become the only inhabitants of our towns,” said Leo Candelaria, an eyewitness who was interviewed by a local newspaper as he was trying to cross the Urbina river.
Early attempts to airlift in help from outside were mostly ineffective since flights could be scheduled only during a few hours of clear sky. “It was like fighting a forest fire with a syringe,” said Luis Pazos, a well-known Mexican political commentator.
But in the midst of the rains, a surprising silver lining became apparent: a wave of solidarity seemed to sweep across Chiapas and the whole of Mexico. “Paradoxically,” Pazos stated, “this flood has done far more to unite opposed sectors (in the region) than any previous initiative.”
The first organization to react to the crisis was the Catholic Church, the only organization in the region with an infrastructure capable of withstanding the collapse of almost all means of communication. “I have to say that I am absolutely proud of my priests and catechists,” said Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel of Tapachula in Chiapas, whose coastal diocese has been the hardest hit.
Both Bishop Arizmendi and Bishop Felipe Aguirre Franco of Tuxtla Gutierrez, another of the three dioceses of Chiapas, have asked their priests and catechists to quickly assess the situation and to provide key information about the most urgent needs of the people. A few days into the floods, the Catholic relief service Caritas established an information network, which now serves as the backbone for assistance efforts to the region.
Bishops Arizmendi and Aguirre Franco have asked parishes and Catholic schools in unaffected areas to provide shelter and “as much help as possible” to refugees, many of whom have contracted malaria and cholera.
Both bishops also asked all Catholic leaders to help foster hope and organize locals in prayers. “The whole territory of this diocese has been directly affected by both the floods and the rains,” said Bishop Arzimendi. “Besides the stunning loss of human life, people are living in anguish, [waiting for news] of relatives carried away by the waters.
“They have lost hope of finding them alive, but at least they want the consolation” of having their bodies returned.
During the first week of flooding, the main problem became the lack of food. With crops and cattle wiped out and bridges broken. It was impossible to provide enough food by air, and it wasn't long before signs of hunger began to appear in the affected regions. The initial solution to the problem came when Caritas coordinated delivery of food from the south with Guatemalan government and Church authorities. During the second week, food came more steadily from the north, thanks to the airlift created by President Ernesto Zedillo, who by press time had visited the disaster area four times.
“We are extremely thankful to the president, the governor, and the army, and we are encouraged by the great signs of fraternity expressed within the local community, across political, social, religious, and economic boundaries,” said Bishop Arizmendi. In fact, members of workers' and peasants' unions, opposing political parties, the army, and different ethnic communities were seen working together for the first time in years, bringing relief to the worst areas.
According to Pazos, “the flood stirred the political waters in Chiapas, reshuffling the players and coming up with new profiles.” Pazos, whose syndicated column appears in local newspapers, believes that the first social consequence of the floods is “the evidence that, in down-to-earth matters, different sectors can not only reach an agreement, but even work together for the development of Chiapas.”
One prominent exception to the joint effort to cope with the crisis has been the region's Zapatista rebel group. In fact, unlike Zedillo and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who distributed and accepted help across the political spectrum, the Zapatistas tried unsuccessfully to dissuade communities from accepting government help, claiming such help was “politically motivated.”
This stance on the part of the Zapatistas drew fire from Bishop Arizmendi, who in a public statement said that “the comments of [Zapatista chief] Marcos' against the government have been quite disappointing. … The pain of our people must bring us together, beyond ideological limitations, therefore Marcos should not simply condemn everything the authorities do, especially when they have been acting properly and adequately.” The bishop insisted that “there is a time for criticizing, and a time for uniting in the face of a great, common challenge.”
Meanwhile, the campaign to aid flood victims has turned into an unprecedented national phenomenon. The amount of aid provided by individual donors recently reached 250 tons per day, while in major cities, the number of volunteers helping to organize, pack, and distribute the aid has surpassed all expectations.
“More than 200 of us have been working here all day,” said Ana Teresa Vegas, a teen-ager involved in collecting and packing donations at the Catholic Parish of San Felipe Apostol in Mexico City. “I have never seen such enthusiasm and commitment before,” she said, adding that “all weekend, young people have come here, worked almost all day, hardly stopped for a bite, slept a few hours and then come back again. “
In announcing a $50,000 donation sent by Pope John Paul II to the victims of the floods, Archbishop Justo Mullor Garcia, apostolic nuncio in Mexico, said: “In the midst of this catastrophe, fraternity and solidarity have sprouted like a beautiful, unexpected fruit, like a fresh and inspiring sign of hope.” Bishop Arizmendi added, “This is incredibly inspiring and encouraging, especially in the face of the difficult task ahead.” The bishop noted that weather forecasts predict more rain — and more destruction — in the area in the coming weeks.
“Now we are turning to the international community to request more help, to cope with the ongoing floods, and also to rebuild in their aftermath,” the bishop said.
“Above all, we are convinced that prayer is the most powerful tool we have, so please pray that we may have better weather and the conversion of hearts.”
Donations may be sent to Master Account No. 329604, Banamex Bank, branch 130, Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico.
Alejandro Bermudez writes from Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Dialogues With Lutherans and Anglicans DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—Long-running disputes have a way of coming full circle. With the millennium fast approaching, many of Christianity's historic divisions have done just that: A generation or more of intensive ecumenical dialogues between Roman Catholics and their “separated brethren” have dispelled clouds of misunderstanding only to find themselves face to face with the issues that occasioned the separation in the first place.
That's certainly the case with the 30-year process of theological dialogue between the Vatican and various Lutheran bodies which has produced a remarkable accord on “justification by faith” — the theological dispute that launched the Protestant Reformation half a millennium ago. The accord will be signed next year by officials from the Holy See and the World Lutheran Federation.
But that's also true of the rockier course of the official dialogue between the churches of the worldwide Anglican communion and the Vatican which has capped a generation of progress on issues like the sacraments and ministry with a new, yet-to-be-released statement on how authority, including papal authority, should be exercised in the Church.
Entitled “The Gift of Authority,” the paper was approved at an Aug. 25-Sept. 3 meeting of the 18-member Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) which convened near Rome, and according to a recent Catholic News Service (CNS) report, won't be published until sometime next year, after Vatican and Anglican officials have reviewed it.
Catholic participants called the document nothing less than a breakthrough in one of the thorniest issues in the Anglican-Catholic dialogue.
“The paper … examine[s] the primacy of Peter in relationship with collegiality and the whole people of God, and as such we think we've made some significant progress on this issue,” Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said in a Sept. 3 CNS interview. Declaring that the paper makes demands on both sides, Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton, England, called the new document “one of the most important ARCIC has produced.”
In part, the document is a response to Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint, in which he asked the leaders of other churches to offer suggestions on how the papacy might serve as a source of unity in the context of worldwide Christianity.
But Catholic participants in the ARCIC meeting noted that the document registers a broader consensus on the issue of Church authority than Anglicans have been able to agree on before.
Father Timothy Galligan, a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who attended the sessions, said that the document placed in context the various levels of authority in the Church, and saw the exercise of universal papal primacy, including the need to teach infallibly under certain circumstances, in the light of the collegiality of bishops and “the sense of the faithful,” the historic consensus of the Church in matters of belief.
As Dr. John Borelli, associate director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' [NCCB] secretariat for ecumenical and interreligious affairs, told the Register: “What's gone on in the Anglican community in the last decade is an examination” of the importance of authority “in serving unity,” and among Catholics, “a [parallel] development in our understanding of Church as communion.”
The Holy See “has great interest in Anglicanism's growing exploration of the relationship of local and universal Church,” he said.
Early reports indicate that while the ARCIC paper hardly amounts to confluence between Anglican views and historic Catholic teaching on papal authority, it bodes well for a more open discussion of the issue that, more than any other, lay at the heart of the dispute between Rome and Canterbury, titular seat of world Anglicanism.
Whereas the Lutheran crisis was based on core questions of theology, Anglicanism began with a tussle between the British crown and papal authority.
In 1534, some 17 years after Martin Luther had pinned his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg University church, the English Church separated itself from the jurisdiction of the pope over his refusal to grant King Henry VIII an annulment from Queen Catherine of Aragon, and Parliament named the king “the only supreme head of the Church of England.”
As most historians insist, the initial Anglican split was over jurisdictional issues, and, at first, was not meant to constitute a break with Rome over faith and practice. Later on, however, the Anglican Church took on more and more Reformation features, while maintaining an episcopal form of church government.
By the end of the 16th century, Anglicans had, in addition to Scripture and the classic Christian creeds, adopted the so-called Thirty-Nine Articles as a loose creedal framework, and developed their own liturgical forms in the Book of Common Prayer.
Although the British monarch remains the head of the Church of England, the spiritual and administrative leader of the church is the archbishop of Canterbury, who also functions as the titular head of the Anglican Communion, a “family” of nearly 30 autonomous, or independent, churches in countries as far flung as Brazil, Uganda, and Japan, with 400 dioceses worldwide and nearly 70 million members. The Episcopal Church in the United States boasts more than 2 million adherents.
While expectations were high for Anglican-Roman Catholic rapprochement in the years immediately after Vatican II, the decision by U.S. Anglican bishops to ordain women to the priesthood in 1976, followed by the Church of England in 1994, sowed new tensions in relations between Catholic and Anglican officials and sparked fears about the internal cohesiveness of Anglican institutions — concerns which, despite signs of progress, remain.
In turn, Anglican sensibilities were jostled recently by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's (CDF) commentary on John Paul's apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem, released last summer, which mentioned Pope Leo XIII's 1896 ruling against the validity of Anglican holy orders as an example of Catholic teaching which required definitive assent.
Nevertheless, significant gains continue to be made in the theological realm.
“It's taken three decades, but there's real consensus [between Anglican and Catholic ecumenists] on the Eucharist and the theology of ministry,” said Borelli, the NCCB official.
Reports on the two areas had been submitted by 1981, he told the Register, and the Vatican issued an official reply in the early 1990s — progress so solid, said Borelli, that “Cardinal [Edward] Cassidy, [president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity] noted that no further clarifications in these areas are needed now.”
The big issue now is authority, Borelli said. In the Episcopal Church, for example, he noted, authority is exercised on three levels: bishops, clergy, and laity. “They're all involved in the decision-making process; it's a kind of national process,” he said. Whereas, for Catholics, he said, “we tend to see things in terms of the local Church and the local bishop's relationship to the college of bishops which is in union with the bishop of Rome. It's a very different model.”
The governing structure of the U.S. Episcopal Church was deeply marked by its origins in the American Revolutionary period when American Anglicans sought independence from the control of Britain's state church. Policy decisions are made by a bicameral church legislature — the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops which convenes a general convention every three years.
For the Anglican Communion as a whole, the Lambeth Conference, first convened in 1867, and held about every 10 years, usually at the archbishop of Canterbury's London residence, serves as a forum for the issues facing the church as a whole. The most recent Lambeth Conference took place last July where, among other non-binding resolutions, attempts to get the conference to endorse same-sex unions was defeated by an African and Third World bishops, and a conscience clause was adopted for Anglican bishops who oppose ordaining women to the priesthood.
Borelli noted that there were signs at the recent Lambeth Conference that “there's a real examination going on of how to get church structures to serve the communion of the various provinces.”
Resolutions were passed “strengthening the Consultative Council [one of the Communion central administrative organs since the late 1960s],” he said. “In representing the thinking of the whole Communion, a stronger role's been given to the archbishop of Canterbury to intervene where there's no consensus — it'll be interesting to see how all this sorts itself out.”
For ecumenist Father Thomas Rausch, chair of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, there are two hopeful signs in Anglican-Catholic relations today.
“First of all, that with all the obstacles that temper the enthusiasm that Anglican-Catholic ties enjoyed in the 1960s, the thing hasn't come to a halt,” he said. “We're still taking the steps that we can take together, we're still seeking reconciliation.
“We should notice that the Anglicans are the first ones to officially respond to the pope's invitation to give input on the exercise of papal primacy [issued in Ut Unum Sint], the first ones to officially explore with us how the papal ministry can be of service to all. What that means is that there's a real relationship there.”
(World Council of Churches general secretary Konrad Reiser and Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople made comments on John Paul II's proposal, but these were informal reactions rather than official responses representing their organizations.)
Reflecting on the progress Catholics and Anglicans have made in dialogue, Cardinal Cassidy, in a July 20 Vespers address at this year's Lambeth Conference, warned attendees against complacency in the search for unity.
“The ecumenical movement has taught us not to be complacent any longer about the effects on mission and evangelization of our disunity and conflicting voices,” he said. “Our divisions may have contributed to the growth in society of a do-it-yourself, a la carte attitude toward what should be believed and which decisions are important. In obedience to Christ we have to address the world sympathetically, but with clarity and conviction.”
Gabriel Meyer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Advances, both small and ‘remarkable,’mark quest for Christian unity ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gabriel Meyer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Do-it-Yourself' Salvation? DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Archbishop Tarsizio Bertone was named secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1996. He spoke to Register correspondent Alejandro Bermudez in early September regarding the CDF's warning that some writings of the late Father Anthony de Mello were not compatible with Catholic belief. The Vatican requested that Catholic publishers cease reprinting the Jesuit priest's books and that Catholic bookstores remove copies already for sale.
Alejandro Bermudez: Father Anthony de Mello's writings have often been associated with the so-called New Age movement. How would you describe this “New Age?”
Archbishop Bertone: It is difficult to define “New Age” with accuracy, as it is not a philosophical or theological tendency with well-defined boundaries. Rather, we are talking about a group of principles which try to approach the sacred by seeing the divine as a force, a dynamism, an all-pervading cosmic entity which permeates everything, including human beings. We face [in New Age], therefore, a more or less pantheistic conception of life and religion, in which the divine somehow runs through all created things, reaching its perfection only in human self-consciousness, as only self-conscious beings can strive for perfection.
Naturally, this cannot be regarded as a religion, but as a so-called philosophy of life, which leads to a fundamental life option aimed at achieving self-control and a “balanced” relationship with other human beings and the cosmos.
From such a perspective, this elusive system cannot accept the existence of a personal God, and therefore denies any creator-creature relationship between God and man. More precisely, there is no creation as such, because the cosmos is seen as an immanent reality which does not have its origin in a creator, in a God that is outside the universe. Consequently the relationship with God is not conceived of [in the same way] as in Christianity. There is no sin, only “imperfections” of the human person. Thus, all effort is directed toward achieving perfection. In such a doctrine, there is no revelation, there is no need for salvation, nor for the truths of salvation history.
The works of Father de Mello include aphorisms that seem to be related to a cosmic, rather than God-centered, spirituality. Could we say in this sense that his writings belong to the New Age?
Yes. We must remember that Father de Mello was a priest of the Catholic Church, [brought up in the] Christian faith, and therefore nurtured in a Christian philosophical and theological context. At the same time, however, he assumes as the framework of his thoughts the existence of a cosmic energy, which he represents as omnipresent and equivalent to the figure of God. He speaks about a “perfection” present in the cosmos which is within the reach of those willing or able to recognize this perfection; therefore, there is no need of salvation as it is understood by Christianity. On the whole, it [Father de Mello's work] follows a pseudo-spiritualist tendency. As an author, Father de Mello evolves from positions more or less acceptable to a Catholic perspective — as the CDF document says — toward forms of thought more New Age, developing, as it were, a sort of proto-New Age.
What are the problems posed for a Catholic by a spirituality of this kind?
The main problem, of course, is the relationship to God. We believe we are creatures and God is the creator; we are mortal and he is infinite. This is the key issue. Our relationship with God brings us into relationship with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, sent to us for our salvation. In the books of Father de Mello, there is no trace of the acceptance of salvation or of the human need for salvation — nor is there a consciousness of sin from which human beings must be redeemed by a Savior. The concepts of creation, sin, and salvation are intimately connected, and are central for Christian life.
A consciousness of sin enables the human person to perceive his own frailty; this human inconstancy is a truth that we accept from revelation. But in Father de Mello's work, there is neither acceptance of, nor need for, any revelation. Without revelation, perfection is no longer the consequence of following God's design that he himself revealed to humanity; rather, perfection becomes something achieved by each person's individual quest for wisdom and salvation.
If we have rejected the concept of sin as revealed truth, as well as the human need to be liberated and saved, the image of Christ is totally effaced. He is no longer the redeemer sent by the Father, but only an exceptional role model. In this sense, Father de Mello suggests a sort of human omnipotence, which is in itself capable of achieving perfection without the participation of God and his grace. Christ is no more than a great human example. We might call such a conception “do-it-yourself” salvation.
To what extent can someone claim to be a Catholic and at the same time support or assume Father de Mello's main ideas?
I cannot understand how a Catholic could accept the principles, assertions, and spiritual guidance of the New Age movement. To show this, I would like to note here a series of dualities or polarities which are fundamental to Catholic doctrine: God and man, God and the world, creator and creature, supernatural and natural, grace and sin, heaven and earth, faith and history, eternity and time, Christ and his Church, Sacred Scripture and theology, faith and works, theology and philosophy, faith and reason, and — the great theme of the pope's next encyclical — the mystical and the moral. All these dualities are fundamental to the Catholic vision, and give meaning to our faith when integrated in a balanced tension, under the primacy of the divine. There cannot be a confusion or divorce between the elements of any of these dichotomies, as there is in the New Age movement.
From this perspective, I cannot imagine how a person who claims to accept the truths of his or her faith could, at the same time, accept the presuppositions of the New Age, which basically ignore the existence of these dualities. The bottom line is that, for us, the word of life is found in Sacred Scripture, not in the books of Father de Mello. His books can certainly be treated with respect. We can even say that they might make good meditation material for a non-Christian, with the reservation that they convey a certain amount of New Age spirituality.
How do you interpret the increasing influence of such pseudo-spiritualities, even in the lives of many Catholics?
First, it shows how much ignorance exists among Catholics regarding their faith. In this sense, I would strongly recommend and urge the study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a means of strengthening a faith which can be considered mature only when it is well-formed and able to understand the true meaning, scope, and consequences of being a Catholic.
Where there is ignorance or lack of knowledge, there will be a search for substitutes to the truth. Today, searching for substitutes is an easy matter, as there are so many religious or pseudo-religious notions around. Such notions, however, only bring [about] deeper misunderstandings and confusions, which lead to the conviction — explicit or implicit — that each of us can become the “author” of our own salvation.
Such a situation leads responsible Catholics to understand the challenge we confront, with regard to formation and catechesis. But there is still another problem, in addition to this: the problem of communication. The media in general, including the print press, TV, the radio, and now the Internet, frequently convey messages opposed to Catholic teachings which are, at the same time, presented as if they were Catholic. We therefore face a problem regarding how to communicate faith and truth as absolutes that are valid for all. The overload, both of information and of misinformation, tends to obstruct the adequate formation of Catholics. As you may note, these problems are interconnected. They are among several factors which shape a quite complex scenario, which poses a pastoral challenge related to the teaching and the transmission of faith.
Archbishop Bertone
Personal: Born in Romano Canavese, Italy, on Dec. 2, 1934.
Background: Ordained a priest in 1960. Appointed by Pope John Paul II to the see of the Archdiocese of Vercelli in Italy in 1991, where he was consecrated as archbishop in July of that year.
Current Position: Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
What should be expected from Catholic bookstores and publishers regarding the books of Father de Mello in the wake of the Vatican's recent notification?
That's a good question. It is important to talk about this. We expect those who are not Catholic to, at least, take note of the Church's teaching on this matter. From Catholic bookstores and printing houses, however, we should expect a coherent vision, which means not printing or distributing any books incompatible with the Catholic faith — and the notification, however careful or moderate, has been absolutely clear in stating that these books contain “ideas and doctrines incompatible with the Catholic faith.” Therefore, the appropriate thing is not to print these books. If books must be available [through secular sources] for those who want to know their content — and the Church respects freedom of conscience and presumes the maturity of a Catholic conscience — the least we would expect is to see the notification added to the text, to make absolutely clear to the reader that the book is incompatible with Church teaching.
—Alejandro Bermudez
----- EXCERPT: Vatican official explains warning about Indian spiritual writer ----- EXTENDED BODY: Archbishop Tarsizio Bertone ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: U.S. Notes & Quotes DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Scandal Seen as an Opportunity to Reject Immorality
On September 12, Scripps Howard focused on the comments of a bishop and a layman, both of whom urged Americans to take the opportunity to refresh their moral standards.
Bishop James McHugh, of Camden, N.J., wrote in an article for his diocesan newspaper, “My purpose is not to judge the president, much less punish him. My deeper and more fearsome concern is the prevailing public reaction and what that says of the moral fiber of the country,” the bishop said.
He said behavior like the President's “is never private. It always has social implications. That is why all societies try to control it by laws, customs, social restrictions,” he said. “His dilemma should be a lesson to the nation that our national mores and attitudes need refashioning.”
Catholic laymen William Bennett's new book The Death of Outrage also mourns what he fears is the deadening of the public's moral conscience. Things have gotten so bad, he said in the report, that the public airing of the President's conduct, unfortunate in itself, may be necessary to force the public to confront — and reject — the present state of American morality.
Picketers Must Not Disturb Mass, Says Cardinal O'Connor
According to the report, the cardinal decried the picketers' timing during his 10:15 sermon.
Calling himself the son of a union man whose archdiocese has negotiated with unions in good faith, he said. “I will defend the right to collective bargaining in good faith until the day I die … I hope that nothing forces me to revise my personal position of a lifetime, but as sacred as is the right to collective bargaining, some things are even more sacred … the holy sacrifice of the Mass, to me of inestimable holiness … [is] in no way to be politicized …”
Furthermore, the cardinal “hinted that the protest, which violates a contract provision prohibiting certain unions from demonstrating outside the cathedral during the 15 minutes before and after Mass, could be met with serious consequences,” added the Post.
Priests Suffer from False Accusations, Says Bishop
The article showcased the bishop's comfortable and convincing style of explaining the Church's teaching on issues such as celibacy, the all-male priest-hood, assisted suicide, and abortion.
But he also spoke of the pain of both true — and false — accusations of pedophilia.
His interviewer asked, “Have you as an administrator ever done anything that just doesn't sit well with you deep down?” He answered by saying he once had to confront a priest who had been accused of an incident from 20 years before that the priest denied. The Bishop put him through the painful and difficult psychological assessment required by the Archdiocese. The tests found that guilt was unlikely, and the accuser then admitted his charge was false.
Bishop McGrath says he told the priest, “You're totally exonerated. It's fine. It's over and done.” But, after the ordeal of the charge and the test, “It was like putting Humpty Dumpty back together; you can never do it. I had stolen a part of that person's soul that I will never be able to put back.… I had put him through hell. And his accuser could be so flippant about it .…
“I've always regretted that because I realized a part of that man died that day. This is a man who dedicated all his life to doing good things for people. And then to be accused of something like that and it not be true — it devastated him. And he still does good things. But I know there is a part of him that just doesn't revive.
“So you can do an awful lot of damage to another human being, damage that you can never take back. On the other hand, I act because I must make sure that people are safe … When somebody brings in an accusation to me, I must respond to that … I don't want anybody endangered.”
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Notes & Quotes DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:French Archbishop, Public Decry Anti-Family Bill
The “domestic partners” bill will be given its first reading in Parliament October 9, said the report. Catholics have already begun to decry the measure. Archbishop of Lyon Louis-Marie Bille, president of the French Catholic Bishops Conference, told the Agence France-Presse that the law would “increase the confusion and incoherence” of contemporary society and “weaken the family” according to the report.
He said the bill was a “suitcase with a false bottom,” saying it was impossible for two people of the same sex to be a “couple,” and insisted that the law would be a first step towards gay and lesbian marriages.
The public, for now, seems to be on the side of marriage. Lawmakers have received some 60,000 postcards and a petition signed by a reported 12,000 French mayors, both in emphatic opposition to the benefit arrangement, according to reports.
Hindus Join Catholics as Singer's Victims
Said the Philadelphia daily, “The World Vaishnava Association wants the singer to apologize for what it sees as her sacrilegious performance on last week's MTV Video Awards.” The report said the group was upset at her for wearing henna marriage markings, which represent purity, while dancing provocatively in revealing clothing.
Madonna, responding through a spokeswoman, was unrepentant. “The essence of purity and divinity is nonjudgment. They should practice what they preach. If they're so pure, why are they watching MTV?” her publicist Liz Rosenberg said of the singer's view, according to the report.
“She certainly had no intention of insulting anyone. On the other hand, I personally don't see that an apology is in order,” Rosenberg said. “I don't think this organization is necessarily speaking for an entire community.”
Cover or Cooperation? Irish Unite on Abortion
Now, in Ireland a conference called “5,000 Too Many…” claims that it wishes to unite those on both sides of the issue to find ways to reduce the number of Irish women having abortions, said the Irish Times.
The idea started when newspaper columnist Breda O'Brien suggested the two sides “bypass the debate about constitutional and legal bans on abortion, and discuss how to reduce the number of Irish women actually having abortions in Britain.”
Wrote Ms. O'Brien, “Most of the debate has centered on medical and legal issues. While this kind of debate is no doubt necessary, it has left people polarized. More importantly, it has not had a major effect on the numbers of women who travel to Britain for abortion — quite the reverse in fact.
“Those who would describe themselves as pro-choice, pro-life, or somewhere in the middle would all agree that it is a tragedy that the numbers of Irish abortions are so high.” She said that everyone could better support women suffering from “crisis pregnancies.”
O'Brien helped organize a conference at which prominent figures from both sides were set to discuss their ideas on how to better serve pregnant women. The conference's supporters and participants include: Prof. Patricia Casey, Prof. Anthony Clare, whose research shows that abortion is most often caused by distress in a neglected woman, as well as Labor Party senator Dr. Mary Henry, Democratic Left lawmaker Liz McManus and Irish Catholic editor David Quinn.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Notes & Quotes DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Cleveland Man Made Slovenia's Vatican Ambassador
Pope John Paul II has accepted the Slovenian government's nomination of the native Slovenian to represent its interests to the Holy See. The appointment is welcomed in the strongly Catholic Slovenia, whose 2 million population broke away from Communist Yugoslavia in 1991.
Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla told the paper that Bonutti “has shown himself to be an outstanding Catholic gentleman witnessing the true Gospel values in both his personal and public lives.”
Bonutti, 70, a dual citizen of America and Slovenia, came to the United States years ago for a research fellowship that vanished upon his arrival. He worked in a factory to support his wife and growing family as he searched for a position in academia.
Five of his six children were present at his recent appointment ceremony in the Holy Father's Castel Gandolfo near Rome, according to the article.
“When I finish my four-year term at the Vatican, I plan to return to my adopted city of Cleveland, which I love very much,” he told the paper. Cleveland has a large Slovenian-American population.
Pope's (and McGwire's) Schedule Nearing Readiness
The newspaper reported earlier this year that Catholic teen groups have been trying to arrange for the home-run hitter McGwire to appear with the Pope at a youth rally Jan. 26 or 27.
But, “We don't know the [Pope's] schedule yet,” Steve Mamanella, a spokesman for the St. Louis Archdiocese, told the paper. “And we don't know about McGwire.” The Vatican advance team that recently visited St. Louis will release a schedule very soon, said the report, which will determine the number of available tickets to papal events.
“Priority will be given to St. Louis parishes. Mamanella said he didn't know how many would be left for outsiders, even if Mass is celebrated in the Trans World Dome, which seats 70,000,” said the paper.
----- EXCERPT: Excerpts from select publications ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Mr. President, You've Done Enough DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:There is a temptation to call the travails of President Clinton a constitutional issue. In fact, we are experiencing a Clinton crisis which will undoubtedly have a powerful impact on our nation. It must be remembered, however, that an ill wind has been blowing from the White House for some time. While the economy has been booming for the past four years or so, the country's moral atmosphere has deteriorated. Charges of wrongdoing in the White House and various executive departments run the spectrum from campaign finance abuses to travel office chicanery. Criminal investigations of federal officeholders have become a cottage industry.
But perhaps the most sorrowful example for many Catholics has been Clinton's steadfast commitment to abortion. Both at home and abroad, the president has been the best friend the advocates for abortion, infanticide, physician-assisted suicide, and population control have ever had in the White House.
No part of Clinton's political constituency has been given the obeisance reserved for the pro-abortion lobby. And so, now at the lowest point of his presidency, they stand solidly behind him.
Many of his supporters also have been staunch advocates of women's rights. Yet, the workplace abuse of a White House intern — and perhaps others — does not concern Clinton's most rabid supporters. One member of the supposedly objective media said she would relish the prospect of illicit sex with Clinton to thank him for supporting abortion.
Joseph Esposito
You have to admire Mary Jane Owen of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities, who declined an offer to attend Clinton's prayer breakfast on Sept. 11. In sending her regrets, Owen wrote to the president: “It was because of your ongoing support of policies which run counter to God's plans for his people: your direct support of partial-birth abortion and your indirect approval of normalizing the killing of patients.”
Clinton attracted a number of religious leaders to that breakfast. Some of those and others around the country, including some Catholics, have rightly embraced his repentance and encouraged forgiveness for the president's lying and admitted sexual misconduct. Certainly, we must respond to their example, regardless of our sense of revulsion.
Yet, we need to recognize the critical importance of public morality. We are called to this in Church teachings, from St. Thomas Aquinas to the Cathecism. Clinton should be forgiven, but his conduct demands discipline.
The president's endorsement of a culture of death, sadly, does not fall into our current legal definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But attempts at perjury, obstruction of justice, and even — dare we say — moral turpitude, do.
The latest debasement from the White House has been the apparent smear campaign against members of Congress in an effort to silence them. One of the giants of Congress, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), a man of devotion and rectitude, has become the current target. Where will it end?
In a recent tribute to Hyde, Crisis magazine commissioned Catholic recording artist Marie Bellet to write a ballad for the great pro-life champion. In her moving tribute, “The Man of the House,” Mrs. Bellet sang, “And he fights the good fight ‘cause there's wrong and there's right; there are things worth losing for.”
In mid-September, while the attempt to sully the reputation of a good and gentle man was unleashed, the Senate — for the second time — failed to override Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban. As the “right” to this gruesome procedure was upheld, Clinton was asking forgiveness for other misdeeds and seeking to return to business as usual.
Charles Krauthammer, a respected national columnist, offered a solution to the growing impasse in the nation's capital. In the Sept. 18 issue of The Washington Post, he called for Clinton's resignation and a pre-arranged pardon. Such a scenario would address the concerns of public morality while also offering forgiveness.
Clinton was born during the presidency of Harry Truman, the simple, no-nonsense post-war leader. One wonders what the man from Independence would think about his fellow Democrat's moral lapses. It is hard to believe that he would not counsel Clinton to stop besmirching the office and step down.
Several writers in recent days have recalled the famous admonition given by lawyer Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954: “You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” That's an apt question to pose to Bill Clinton.
Joseph Esposito is the Register's Washington bureau chief.
----- EXCERPT: PERSPECTIVE ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Before Starr, There Was Cox DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Saturday, Oct. 20, 1973 — the “Saturday Night Massacre” — was a watershed date in American history. President Richard Nixon demanded the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused, resigning that same day; Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who likewise refused to obey Nixon's order, was fired. Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in line in the U.S. Justice Department, finally agreed to execute the president's command to dismiss Cox. Cox's memorable response reflects his commitment to the law: “Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and, ultimately, the American people [to decide].” The events which followed led inexorably to the destruction of Nixon's presidency and his unprecedented resignation Aug. 9, 1974.
Duquesne University law professor Ken Gromley's biography of Cox is excellently written, well-researched, and laudatory to the point of hagiography. Yet, the opening chapter begins neither with Cox's own birth and early years, nor with his appointment as the first Watergate special prosecutor, but with the impeachment trial of Lincoln's successor as president, Andrew Johnson — the only president whose impeachment case ever came to trial before the U.S. Senate.
One ground for this: Johnson's principal counsel for the defense was one William Maxwell Evarts (1818-1901) — none other than Archibald Cox's maternal grandfather. In that trial, Evarts' arguments had proven so persuasive that the proceedings against Johnson failed by a single vote.
Evarts, himself an interesting character — a corruption-busting lawyer, secretary of state under President Rutherford B. Hayes and one-term U.S. senator — is no exception in the Cox family tree. Another ancestor was Roger Sherman, a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Service to country and a deep-rooted love of American values were family values instilled in Archibald Cox from a very young age.
Gromley's biography is divided into three main sections: the first, entitled “The Making of a Lawyer,” follows Cox's early years, his studies at Harvard, a Supreme Court clerkship, teaching at Harvard, and early public service as chairman of President Harry Truman's Wage Stabilization Board. There, his response to the coal miners' walkout in 1952 garnered national attention and brought him into close contact with a freshman senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy.
The second section, “The Kennedy Years,” cover Cox's career from 1953-72. Over these years, Cox served Kennedy in the drafting of key bills, in policy research, and speechwriting. In 1961, Cox was named as U.S. solicitor general in Kennedy's presidential administration. During his tenure, Cox won an astonishing 87.7% of its cases, including key civil rights and voting rights litigation. Were it not for Kennedy's death, Cox might well have been appointed to the Supreme Court.
After his resignation as solicitor general in 1965, Cox accepted the Samuel Williston Professorship of Law at Harvard, served as a consultant to Robert Kennedy, and helped a former student named Elliot Richardson run for state attorney general in Massachusetts. But his greatest career challenge still lay ahead.
Here commences the third section of this fascinating biography. On May 16, 1973, that same Elliot Richardson, about to begin serving as U.S. attorney general, asked Cox to become Watergate special prosecutor. Cox's reputation for honesty and independence, his stature in Washington, and his relationship to Richardson were all key to his accepting the task.
Cox insisted in advance on clear language regarding his work as Watergate special prosecutor. First, Cox demanded that only “truly serious grounds” should justify his dismissal, and that the breadth of the special prosecutor's powers be clearly elaborated. Improprieties or apparent criminal activities by senior Nixon administration officials, White House aides, and officials from the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) were all suitable subjects for investigation.
The White House tapes set up the climatic crisis between Cox and Nixon. The tapes offered possible corroboration of Cox's investigations. Until the existence of the tapes became publicly known, Cox did not think that any court in the land would enforce a subpoena on the president. On July 18, 1973, Cox subpoenaed eight tapes but the Nixon administration refused to turn them over.
Cox and Richardson tried to hammer out a compromise, but Nixon declined Cox's proposals. Instead, Nixon decided on the so-called Stennis compromise, by which Mississippi Senator John Stennis would be the only one allowed to transcribe tapes, and the special prosecutor would be forbidden from seeking any future tapes or papers from the president.
On Friday, Oct. 19, 1973, the White House announced that the compromise had been agreed to by both parties. But the following day, Cox held his own conference at the National Press Club spelling out in detail his objections to the compromise and its unacceptability on legal grounds. This set in motion the fatal collision course that ultimately led to Cox's dismissal and Nixon's resignation. The rest is history. Cox's role is a little-known part of that story but one well worth examining.
Father Pius Murray CSS is professor of Old Testament studies and librarian at Pope John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pius Murray ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Mired in the Land of Self DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:“The Madness of the American Family” by Midge Decter(Policy Review, September/October 1998)
Journalist and social commentator Midge Decter writes, “Talking about the family should be like talking about the earth itself: interesting to observe in all its various details … but hardly up for debate. … Where did the idea that the family might somehow be an object and choice come from? … I knew we were in trouble back in the late 1950s when I picked up Esquire magazine one day and read an essay about his generation written by a young man still in university. The writer concluded … that if he thought he might end up some day like his own father, working hard for the wife and kids, he would slit his throat.”
“[N]ot too much later,” writes Decter, “what we know as the 1960s began to happen. … [I]n short order that young author's female counterparts began in their own way to declare that throat-cutting would be the proper response to the prospect of ending up like their mothers.”
The result of these “declarations of independence,” writes Decter, was that “young men began to cut out — cut out of responsibility, cut out of service to their country, and cut out of the terms of everyday, ordinary society … Insofar as the system was represented by business and professional life, most of them after a brief fling as make-believe outcasts cut back into that aspect of the system very nicely; but insofar as it meant
… building and supporting a home and family … they would for a long time prove to be at best pretty skittish.”
Meanwhile, their girlfriends and lovers announced they wanted their men, in Gloria Steinem's words, “to be the husbands we used to marry.” Steinem's remark, says Decter, is one tip-off that “underlying the real ideology of the women's movement … is the proposition that the differences between men and women are merely culturally imposed — culturally imposed, moreover, for nefarious purposes.”
Misguided attempts to resist such conditioning, Decter argues, reached their apex with the Gulf War era news photo “of a young woman in full military regalia, including helmet, planting a farewell kiss on the brow of an infant at most three months old being held in the arms of its father. The photo spoke volumes about where this society has allowed itself to get dragged to and was in its way as obscene as anything that has appeared in that cesspool known as Hustler magazine. … That photo was not about the achievement of women's equality; it was about the nuttiness … that has overtaken all too many American families. … For the household in which … ‘the sexual differentiation of roles'has grown so blurry that you can't tell the soldier from the baby-tender without a scorecard is a place of profound disorder.”
“We see milder forms of this disorder all over the place, especially in cases where young mothers have decreed that mothers and fathers are to be indistinguishable. … The child, of course, knows who is what. No baby or little kid who is hungry or frightened or hurting ever calls for his daddy in the middle of the night. … What is a husband, what is a wife; what is a mother, what is a father. How have we come to the place where they are open for debate?”
The fallout from this self-delusion is tremendous: “Too many young women, having recovered from their seizure of believing that they were required to become Masters of the Universe, cannot find men to marry them, while the men on their side cannot seem to find women to marry. Both grope around, first bewildered and then made sour by what is happening to them.”
And so “the land of limitless freedom … turns out to be nothing other than the deep muck and mire of Self. And there is no place more airless, more sunk in black boredom, than the Land of Self, and no place more difficult to be extricated from. … The only escape from the swamp of Self is the instinctual and lifelong engagement in the fate of others. … The kind of engagement I mean is the involuntary discovery that there are lives that mean as much to you as your own, and in some cases … there are lives that mean more to you than your own.”
Decter compares our era with comparatively death- and illness-ridden prior eras, and concludes that “because God has permitted us to unlock so many secrets of his universe, we are in constant danger of fancying that any limits upon us are purely arbitrary and we have the power to lift them. … Maybe people are just not constituted to be able to live with the ease and wealth and health that have been granted to us. But … [a]s Albert Einstein once said, the Lord God can be subtle, but he is not malicious. What does seem to be a fair proposition, however, is that given the whole preceding history of mankind, to live as we do takes more than a bit of getting used to. It takes, indeed, some serious spiritual discipline.”
Decter concludes that “two things will help us to be restored from our current nuttiness. The first is for us, as a people and a culture, to recapture our respect for the wisdom of our fathers. … The second is a strong and unending dose of gratitude: the kind of gratitude that people ought to feel for the experience of living in freedom; the kind of gratitude a mother of a newborn feels as she counts the fingers and toes of the tiny creature who has been handed to her.”
Ellen Wilson Fielding writes from Davidsonville, Maryland.
The Definite Article is a digest of the Register's choice from the nation's top journals.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Wilson Fielding ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Defending Private Ryan
I have read and re-read John Prizer's review of the film Saving Private Ryan (“World War II Meets the Hollywood Hype Machine,” Aug. 9-15).
It is hard to decide if Prizer wants to be cynical or fair in his critique of the film. I do know that if you had been in a line company of U.S. Marines, or the U.S. Army, it is impossible not to be “multi-ethnic” and of that I have personal experience, so I don't understand that point of criticism.
Prizer seems to exhibit a certain glibness that leaves the impression he thinks the whole thing has been done better before. It has not. In the suburban Philadelphia theater I saw old men walk out with tears running down their cheeks. I myself couldn't talk to my son for about 20 minutes. I've never experienced that after Platoon or any John Wayne classic, and I've seen them all. Spielberg's epic was an unstated tale of a different “glory” — duty, like the daily cross.
I have more respect for that generation of my uncles, older cousins, and friends, all of whom fought either in the Pacific or Europe. Oliver Stone and John Wayne never “got it.”
Michael Plunkett
Charleston, Illinois
Mother Teresa, Saint?
I am concerned that Mother Teresa's sanctity apparently can be reliably assessed only through the cumbersome canonical process of beatification and canonization (“Alleged Miracle Stirs Interest in Mother Teresa's Sainthood Cause,” Sept. 13-19, 1998). Such a process might well be useful in examining the life of one dead for decades and known only to a small number of people in one part of the world. But is either factor remotely true of Mother Teresa? If the sanctity of Mother Teresa is not already certain based on everything the world knows about her now, will it really be more certain if some woman in France was inexplicably cured of broken bones? For many centuries, the Church exercised the charism of canonization by acclamation. If such a charism cannot be exercised toward Mother Teresa, perhaps it has been lost forever.
Dr. Edward Peters
San Diego
The Creighton Method
The recent report of the effectiveness of the Creighton Model of Natural Family Planning (“Study Confirms Creighton Method's Reliability in NFP,” Aug. 9-15), brought forth criticism from other NFPprograms. As an NFP-only obstetrician-gynecologist who is also a certified medical consultant and teacher of this method, I cannot speak highly enough of the Creighton program.
The detailed documentation of information imparted to the couple and the case management style of handling problems allows couples of any race, religion, or educational background to learn NFPand be confident with it. It is also invaluable in the management of infertility and gynecological problems that commonly are treated with birth control pills.
We should be grateful for all the hard work and dedication Dr. Hilgers' group has done in putting together and assessing this teaching program. NFP is not contraception, it is fertility awareness. The couple decides how to use the information. God is the one who plans pregnancies.
Dr. Kathleen Raviele
Tucker, Georgia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Millennialists Keep Cranking Out Predictions DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:For those who know how to tell time, the new millennium will begin in little more than two years. For those who think the first year of a new century ends with a double zero, it will begin in little more than a year. Little matter. In at most five years (to give everyone a little slack), we will know that the prognosticators have been wrong — again. Doomsday will not have come, there will have been no rapture, and things will remain much as they have been, only a little worse. Catholic seers will have proved as wrong as Fundamentalist and New Age seers.
In 1988 Edgar Whisenant published a thin book titled 88 Reasons the Rapture Will Occur in 1988. Immediately popular with Fundamentalists, it sold 3 million copies. The author — whose claimed competence in biblical prognostication was a result, he said, of working as an engineer for NASA — realized a tidy addition to his bank account, but, not surprisingly, some diminution of his reputation. After all, in 1988 nothing happened, at least so far as the rapture was concerned. Three million people got into a tizzy for nothing.
The next year, Whisenant discovered he had made a mathematical error. His calculations had presumed that there was a Year 0 between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1. It was a foolish mistake, he confessed. So he published a sequel explaining that the rapture would come in 1989. That book sold only 30,000 copies — a decline of 99%, but still a respectable sale.
Whisenant, who has not been heard from since, is not the only person to have made more than pocket change on predicting the imminent end of the world. Elizabeth Clare Prophet, a prominent figure in the New Age movement, convinced her followers that the end was near, and many sold their assets and transferred the funds to her in preparation for the end, not giving much thought, apparently, to the maxim “You can't take it with you.” If they couldn't, how could she? Her followers hid themselves in the wilds of Montana, in a gigantic underground bomb shelter Prophet had built, only to discover that the world went on without them, and, when they returned to the world, they had to go on without their money. Another disappointment, but Prophet did not lose all of her flock, though her regard as a seer went into eclipse.
We snicker at such foolishness when engaged in by Fundamentalists and New Agers — is it any wonder that people whose theology is wrong will not be able to make predictions that come to fulfillment? But what is our attitude toward doom-sayers within our midst? Somewhat less critical, it's fair to say. Two groups vie for attention.
Doomsayers within the Marian movement attach themselves to purported apparitions, nearly all of which have occurred only within the last three decades. Some, such as Bayside, have been condemned repeatedly by the Church. Others have had monitums (warnings) issued against them. But no matter. If the Virgin Mary is said to appear and to predict disaster, the apparition must be true, regardless of what Church authority says — and no matter how silly some of the other predictions of that apparition may be. It's as though some Catholics are desperate for bad news about the future. (Actually, the bad news they look forward to always seems to be bad only for other folks. Somehow, it seems, the true believers inevitably are numbered among the remnant that will squeak through unscathed.)
There is a similar reaction within the Traditionalist movement. No appeal is made to alleged apparitions of recent years. You never hear Traditionalists talking about modern apparitions. They appeal to old (and usually Church-sanctioned) apparitions such as Fatima and La Salette. Two problems arise: The prognosticators claim to know what they can't know, such as the “third secret” of Fatima, or they rely on “predictions” that were not part of the original private revelation, such as the claim, supposedly made late by one of the La Salette seers, that “Rome will become the seat of the Antichrist” — a claim used, not too subtly, to undermine the authority of John Paul II.
In such cases it is achingly obvious that these people really want to believe that the “third secret” will confirm their worst suspicions about the modern Church and that they want to believe that ecclesiastical problems, even local ones, are the fault of a handful of men at the top. The intensity of their belief in the authenticity of these purported revelations seems to be in inverse relationship to the bona fides of the revelations — an odd quirk of the human mind. Sometimes the things that, at arm's length, seem least reasonable are taken to be most reasonable. So who is right and who isn't?
Are we about to see the rapture? Will the “third secret” be made public and shock us with its explanation of the immediate future? Is Rome, the seat of the Church, about to become the seat of the Antichrist? My recommendation: Don't bet on the sensationalists.
Karl Keating is the founding director of Catholic Answers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karl Keating ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Is Eight Enough? DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:The number of children in a family is first and foremost a question of God's will.
”In its true meaning, responsible procreation requires couples to be obedient to the Lord's call and to act as faithful interpreters of his plan. This happens when the family is generously open to new lives, and when couples maintain an attitude of openness and service to life”(Evangelium Vitae, 97).
So many arms are closed to life. So many hearts are closed to the building up of God's family. So many people are closed to God's plan for their family.
“Will you accept children lovingly from God?” As couples joined in sacramental marriage, we were all asked this great question — and we all answered yes. Yet how many placed a limit on the number of children they would lovingly accept? How often, rather than reflect on the joy of following God's plan for us, do we decide beforehand what that plan can be?
Recently I met a young woman with three beautiful children. She confided to me that her husband is hoping for another. While she longed for another baby, she feared she could not handle a fourth child. Since I was introduced as a mother of eight, she apparently felt I could shed some light on her dilemma.
People often come to my husband and me with similar questions and fears; their constant question is “How do you do it?” These days, people look on large families with both astonishment and fear, especially at the prospect of having such a family themselves. But why so much fear?
Perhaps it's a sign of the times. Parents are often overwhelmed and incredibly pressured by the demands of our society. Both parents are expected to work long hours outside the home. They are expected to cart their children back and forth to sports and activities in every season, at all times of the day and week, and to appear at every conceivable school event. Parents are forced to compensate for those same schools' failure to provide for their children's basic educational needs. Even many churches put more emphasis on social events and volunteerism than on the needs of families.
No wonder, then, that any parent, even with only one child, might feel overwhelmed by the breakneck pace of modern society. How often do we hear people say: “One's enough for me,” or “Two is all I can handle”? Pope John Paul II speaks of the problem in Familiaris Consortio,6:
“In the richer countries, excessive prosperity and the consumer mentality paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty about the future, deprive married couples of the generosity and courage needed for raising up new human life: thus life is often perceived not as a blessing, but as a danger from which to defend oneself.”
CHILDREN AND FALSE VALUES
In a “quality of life” society, children are not valued. They are seen as a threat to one's lifestyle. Witness contraception, sterilization, willfully barren marriages, babies in trash cans — and millions upon millions of abortions.
Yet do we — even we, as Catholics — understand the true value of children, here on earth and in eternity? By their own precious contribution, children build up community within the family and contribute to the sanctification of their parents (Gaudium et Spes, 48). More than a source of personal sanctification, children are a gift and a unique reflection of God's own image, full of an unrepeatable spiritual richness all their own, given first to the family and community, then to the universal Church and all humanity, and finally to the communion of saints. Every child fits into God's infinitely wise plan for mankind. So, knowing what good, what love, what blessings a child can bring, why should we limit ourselves to one or two? And if only God knows what is best for our sanctification, and our true goal is heaven, why would we close our hearts and minds to his will?
There are those who limit the size of their family, after prayer and with grave and pure motives which are founded in love of God. Yet how often do we see such prayerful reflection? Sadly, all too many act on motives based on worldly values. These motives lie, above all, in two areas: selfishness and fear — fear which amounts to a lack of trust in God.
BEING OVER HAVING
In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II mentions a “correct scale of values” with which a couple should make family decisions, including family size. Basically he says we should remember the primacy of being over having, of the person over things. He also describes a materialistic attitude which we can see prevalent in America today:
“The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one's own material well-being. The so-called ‘quality of life’ is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions — interpersonal, spiritual, and religious — of existence” (Evangelium Vitae,23).
In a general audience on Sept. 5, 1984, the Holy Father talked about couples using infertile periods for “unworthy reasons” in seeking to avoid having children, thus lowering the number of births in their families below a “morally correct level.” He went on: “This morally correct level must be established by taking into account not only the good of one's own family, and even the state of health and means of the couple themselves, but also the good of the society to which they belong, of the Church, and even of the whole of mankind. In no way is [Humanae Vitae's presentation] of ‘responsible parenthood’ exclusively directed to limiting, much less excluding children; it means also the willingness to accept a larger family.”
Humanae Vitae talks of the total man, who exists on earth and for eternity. The decisions of a total man must be based on both these realities. Likewise, our decisions regarding the transmission of life and of conjugal love must be made with a view to the present and, always, to the eternal.
THE NFP DEBATE
There is an ongoing debate at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio regarding whether Natural Family Planning (NFP) may be used in the absence of grave motives, as a means of prayerful participation in the procreative planning of one's family. Some hold that, to be fully open to God's will, a couple should simply accept all the children with whom God chooses to bless them in the natural course of their marital relations. Another school of thought holds that spouses should take an active role in deciding the number and frequency of their bearing of children, using NFP to plan and space each child in accord with an intelligent and prayerful evaluation of their physical, economic, and spiritual ability to raise that child.
There are points to be made for both these opinions. But it is important to note that both approaches are approved by the Catholic Church, while artificial birth control is not. On the one hand, the “come what may” approach shows a childlike trust in God's providence, allowing him to plan your family, relying on him to guide you and to provide for the welfare of the family as it grows.
On the other hand, prayerful recourse to NFP need never be offensive to God. When the angel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin, God ordained that he would ask her consent to his plan for her to conceive and bear his Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. He desired her fiat, her “yes.” Likewise, God calls us to cooperate by letting him create through us.
God showed this to us beautifully with the example of our Lady. He wants us, as procreators, to give our “yes.” Every time spouses enter into conjugal union, we give our implicit yes. Moreover, a couple using NFP offers an explicit yes by entering conjugal union during a fertile period, whereas a “come what may” couple is saying continually “let it be done to us according to your will.”
THE ROLE OF GRACE
As I've mentioned, my husband and I meet many fearful couples. Frankly, I am seldom able to see in their circumstances a “grave motive” (Humanae Vitae, 10) or serious reason for them to limit the size of their family, for them not to have a third, fourth, or fifth child. Of course I realize there may well be circumstances I cannot see. Yet again and again, I hear the same mantra: “I don't know how you do it!” To so many, it is inconceivable how, with such a large number of children, we can be a happy, loving, and functioning family. To them, we must be an anomaly, even an impossibility. But large families testify loud and clear to the possibility of it all, and by their very strength and love silently encourage other families to open their arms to more children.
I'd like to tell couples how we manage it, on a practical level. But here I can only touch on the essence of “how”: grace. As each new child is added to a family, though the workload and demands on parents seem to increase exponentially, grace provides the ability to meet these demands because God truly provides. Indeed, the grace you need for raising each new child is already in your possession, and has been from the moment you were joined in holy matrimony.
Like all sacraments, marriage confers grace. But the graces one receives in the sacrament of marriage are deposited, if you will, in an account, from which you can withdraw what you need, when you need it, through prayer and cooperation with God's plan. Pope Pius XI spoke of these graces:
“The grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field, unless the parties exercise these supernatural powers and cultivate and develop the seeds of grace they have received. If however, doing all that lies within their power, they cooperate diligently, they will be able with ease to bear the burdens of their state and to fulfill their duties” (Casti Connubii, 41).
In other words, God does not send you more than you can handle with his help and the sacramental graces you received in your marriage. So do not be afraid to accept more children; prayerfully ask yourself the important question, “Do I have all the children that God intended me to have?”
In the Lord's Prayer, we ask God that his will be done. But those who limit the size of their families without grave motive or serious reason are actually saying “my will be done.” We should continually pray for the grace to be able to accept God's will in our families, for our families and for eternity. Pray we may open our arms and say, “I trust you, Lord. Send me children according to your will.”
Carla Coon writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carla Coon ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Sex-Determination Technology Diminishes Human Dignity DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:There seems to be no end to the novel ways in which scientists want to engender new human beings. As if God's ways were not the best! We have in vitro fertilization (IVF), by which “test tube babies” are brought about in a petri dish. We have for sperm donor banks, and there are now newspaper advertisements for egg donors. There are tens of thousands of frozen embryos in states of suspended animation, waiting to be implanted in some womb or simply destroyed. We have the Chicago physicist, aptly named Dr. Seed, who wants to be the first human being cloned and who has set up a Human Clone Clinic. Now we have the fancy-sounding “flow cytometry sperm sorting” with IVF, which allows for the sex selection of a baby before it is conceived.
Why would someone want to choose the sex of one's child, anyway? Well, couples who want only two children would presumably want one of each. There may be those who have had five boys and want at least one girl without running the risk of another boy. Sometimes there are very serious reasons for trying to avoid a child of one sex or another. Some inherited diseases will afflict only girls, or only boys. Hemophilia, for example, is an inherited disorder among boys; it prevents the coagulation of blood, leaving the sufferer open to the constant risk of bleeding to death. Potential parents of hemophiliacs would understandably want to avoid having a boy.
It is now possible to determine which sperm carry the X (female) chromosome and which carry the Y (male) chromosome.
This new “reproductive technology” is based on the fact that an X (female) sperm has 2.8% more DNA than a Y (male) sperm. The sperm are stained with a fluorescent dye which binds to the DNA and highlights the difference between the two kinds of sperm when they swim through an ultraviolet laser beam. Because a female sperm has more dye bound to it, the glow is slightly brighter than for a male sperm, distinguishing the two. The sperm are then separated; the X sperm is used for a female, the Y sperm for a male. This requires, however, that the sperm be joined to the egg in a glass dish in the laboratory.
There are many moral problems with this procedure. One is that the sperm is collected by immoral means, foreign to the marriage act. Another is that the new life is engendered in a glass dish (in vitro). This has been condemned by the 1987 Vatican document Donum Vitae because such a procedure replaces the marital act. The Church insists that new life must be engendered as a fruit of the conjugal act between spouses. The in vitro technique also leads invariably to the destruction of unused embryos. Furthermore, it is not known what harm the fluorescent dye might have on the child's genetic makeup.
But what is striking is that this new technology, like so many fertility or contraceptive techniques, was first developed for use with animals, in this case cattle. Dr. David Cran, a research scientist with Mastercalf Limited in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Dr. Lawrence Johnson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, worked closely to develop this kind of sperm sorting. Their work aims to allow farmers to breed only the livestock they need, avoiding the unwanted birth of male calves in dairy herds, for example.
Christian societies have rightly been averse to taking methods developed for livestock and using them on human beings, because of the transcendent worth and dignity of the human person and because of the dignity of the marital act by which life is transmitted. It is regrettable that in today's secularized, de-Christianized societies human beings are sometimes treated little differently than animals.
“The transmission of human life,” declared Pope John XXIII in the 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra,” is entrusted by nature to a personal and conscious act and as such is subject to the all-holy laws of God: immutable and inviolable laws which must be recognized and observed. For this reason one cannot use means and follow methods which could be licit in the transmission of the life of plants and animals.”
As the Psalmist put it, “we have been created a little lower than the angels,” and our dignity far surpasses that of animals.
Dr. John Haas is president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. John Haas ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Little Guy with Big Faith DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Does God have a plan for each of us? If so, how can we discern it and live accordingly?
John Irving's 1989 novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, explores these questions in depth, mixing black comedy with heart-rending tragedy in a universe peopled with outsiders and grotesques. Simon Birch is the oversimplified, cleaned-up movie version of that best seller. The changes from the original are far-reaching enough that Irving requested that the credits show the film as only “suggested by” his book, rather than the more usual “based on.”
What's left is a sweetly sentimental tale about a 3-foot, deformed adolescent named Simon Birch, who believes that he must live out God's plan for him. First-time director and screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson, who penned the Grumpy Old Men series of feature-film comedies, preserves some of the book's theological musings about the power of forgiveness and the hypocrisy of organized religion. But his main intent is to play on our heartstrings.
The movie's first image is of a stained-glass window of Jesus and his disciples in the Episcopal church of a small Maine town. A grown-up Joe Wenteworth (Jim Carrey) is visiting the grave of his childhood friend, Simon Birch, whom he describes as “the reason I believe in God.”
The action then flashes back to the mid-1960s as Joe explains why he is a believer.
Simon's parents are stereotypical, flinty New Englanders who are embarrassed about their son's dwarfish size and his cracked voice which sounds like “strangled mice.” The young boy himself is aware of his condition's effect on other people and protects himself with a salty wit. He also has an ordinary adolescent's libidinal urges.
Determined to lead as normal a life as possible, the 12-year-old attaches himself to the more prosperous, if dys-functional, Wenteworth family. Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello), who's the same age, is his best friend, and Joe's unwed mother, Rebecca (Ashley Judd), tries to make up for the love Simon never gets at home.
Simon proclaims his religious faith to anyone who'll listen. Joe is an atheist, and the two on occasion heatedly debate the meaning of life. But Simon's main theological adversaries are associated with the local Episcopal church. He often argues with the rector, Rev. Russell (David Strathairn), during Mass. When the priest announces there will be coffee and doughnuts after the service, Simon declares to the astonished congregation: “Who said God is interested in a continental breakfast?”
The filmmaker is determined to make the point that organized religion is often the enemy of true holiness, that its faith can be secondhand and lukewarm. Rev. Russell depresses the 12-year-old by telling him he doesn't believe God has a plan for everyone, and Simon's Sunday School teacher (Jan Hooks) thinks his fervor upsets the other students and continually picks on him.
Despite his condition, Simon is a pinch-hitter on the local Little League team. While his size makes it difficult for pitchers to do anything but walk him, the one time he does hit the ball, it accidentally strikes Joe's mother and kills her. Simon is devastated by the loss of the only adult in the world who seems to love him. In one of the movie's most moving sequences, Simon receives Joe's forgiveness for his mother's death. To show his gratitude, Simon promises to help Joe discover the identity of his real father, an issue which has tormented him for most of his childhood.
While straining to make symbolic points, the filmmaker continues to poke fun at organized religion. The Sunday School teacher organizes a Christmas pageant with Simon as the Baby Jesus because he's “the only one who fits into the manger.” The event disintegrates into chaos when Simon makes a play for the actress portraying the Virgin Mary. For this blasphemy, Rev. Russell rightly punishes him — though it is clear that the filmmakers intend the viewer to see Simon as some kind of Christ figure and as always in trouble with church authorities.
However this idea may have worked in Irving's novel, it seems labored up on the big screen. Yet Simon remains steadfast in his belief that he is “God's instrument,” and eventually he gets a chance to put himself to the test.
Simon Birch will certainly make you laugh, and it may even make you cry. Your heart can't help go out to the feisty, undersized boy whose upbeat spirit and sense of humor help him cope with adversity. His religious faith is always treated with respect. But the filmmaker is unable to strike the proper balance between his story's emotional core and its spiritual themes. The result is an uneven hybrid — part tear-jerker, part theological speculation — a comedy-drama unsure of its own identity.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
Simon Birch is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America.
----- EXCERPT: Simon Birch loves God, but not organized religion ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Wonderful Wizardry of OZ DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Childhood is remembered as a time of innocence and trust. But it's also filled with primal fears, often triggered by the people and events of ordinary life. As we grow up, we learn not to be so afraid of what seem to be small things. Yet, at the same time we still want to retain the wide-eyed, youthful sense of hope.
Few movies have dramatized a child's wild emotional swings with the imagination of The Wizard of Oz. This 1939 classic, based on L. Frank Baum's short story, presents audiences with a fanciful re-creation of the fears and wonder of childhood as we walk with Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City. In addition to be included on the Vatican's list of 45 noteworthy films from 100 years of cinema, it was voted 6th best film of all time in the American Film Institute's recent poll.
Dorothy (Judy Garland) is an orphan raised on a Kansas farm by her stern but goodhearted Aunt Em (Clara Blandinck) and Uncle Henry (Charles Grapewin). She's always getting herself into jams despite the best of intentions. The farmhands — Hunk (Ray Bolger), Hickory (Jack Haley), and Zeke (Bert Lahr) — are usually on her side, much to the consternation of her aunt who urges her to “find a place where you won't get into trouble.”
To an adult, these childhood scrapes and scoldings seem like no big deal. But director Victor Flemming (Gone With the Wind), producer Mervyn Leroy, and screenwriters Noel Langley, Florence Beeson, and Edgar Allan Wolf realize their importance to young people. Dorothy fervently wishes to be in a place where she won't always feel like she's a bad girl. To express this longing, she sings Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harberg's memorable tune, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
But the worst is yet to come. Anasty neighbor, Mrs. Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), has a sheriff's order permitting her to take away Dorothy's dog, Toto. She claims the pup is destroying her property. Dorothy calls the elderly woman “a wicked old witch” but to no avail.
Toto escapes from Mrs. Gulch, and Dorothy decides the only way she can save her beloved pet is to run away. The first person she encounters on her flight is the con man, Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan), who despite his bluster only wants the best for the little girl. He uses his tricks to persuade her to go home.
A twister begins to tear up the landscape as Dorothy returns. Unable to find her aunt, she seeks shelter in a farmhouse, where she passes out. Her unconscious is possessed by a fevered dream or vision. Its contents bring to light her hopes and fears about herself and all the people in her life. The movie plunges into a series of fantastic adventures which reveal certain truths to Dorothy.
The young girl awakes in the land of Oz. The film's images change from black and white to color. “Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,” she remarks.
A tribe of little people called Munchkins welcome her as a conquering heroine. The farmhouse in which she was carried from Kansas to Oz has landed on the Wicked Witch of the East and killed her, and Dorothy is now wearing the sorceress' magical ruby slippers. But the dead witch's sister, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), promises to take her revenge. The evil creature looks exactly like Mrs. Gulch, who made Dorothy's life so miserable in Kansas.
The young girl, afraid her Aunt Em may be worrying about her, wants to get back to Kansas. A good witch, Glinda (Billie Burke), advises her to take the glittering Yellow Brick Broad to the sparkling Emerald City. There resides the all-powerful Wizard of Oz, the only one who can help her get home.
On her journey, Dorothy encounters a trio of fairy-tale-like characters who look like her aunt's farmhands back in Kansas. Each is a needy individual who lacks a virtue that seems important to her youthful mind. The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) wishes he had some brains; the Tin Man (Jack Haley) wants a heart; and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) lacks courage. They all believe the Wizard of Oz (Frank Morgan), who resembles the con man Professor Marvel, will somehow give them these interior qualities.
The Wicked Witch of the West casts spells and throws other obstacles in their way. Her awesome powers are a skillful magnification of the fears Mrs. Gulch evoked in Dorothy's psyche in Kansas.
Dorothy's natural charity and compassion are shown to be strong weapons against evil. She and her companions learn not to depend on exterior magic to solve interior problems of character. All of these escapades unfold with humor and charm, accompanied by wonderful songs and joyful dancing.
The Wizard of Oz allows us to see the world in all its mystery with the eyes of the child. Viewers of all ages will be enchanted.
Arts and Culture correspondent John Prizer writes from Washington, DC.
----- EXCERPT: All ages identify with the life lessons learned by Dorothy and friends ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Touched by an Archangel DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:The ‘Celestial Basilica'at Italy's Monte Sant'Angelo is the world's only Catholic church not consecrated by human hands. Why? St Michael the Archangel got there first.
This is an awesome place; it is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.” So reads the inscription above the entrance to the shrine of St. Michael the Archangel, on the eastern coast of Italy.
Recognized as one of Christendom's most celebrated shrines, the holy site has attracted pilgrims for the past 1,500 years. Some of the sanctuary's most famous visitors include St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Gerard Majella, St. William of Verceli, and six popes. All have knelt at the grotto to ask for St. Michael's protection.
Tradition mixes with legend in accounts of the apparitions of the archangel at Monte Sant'Angelo. The first apparition took place in 490, when Elvio Emmanuele, a nobleman of the area, lost the best bull of his herd. After endless searching, he finally found his bull kneeling in a deserted cave. Unable to approach the bull, the nobleman shot an arrow, but the arrow turned around and struck him. Bewildered, Elvio went to see the bishop about the matter. The bishop ordered three days of prayer and fasting.
On the third day, St. Michael the Archangel appeared to the bishop and said, “I am Michael the Archangel and am always in the presence of God. I chose the cave that is sacred to me. There will be no more shedding of bull's blood. Where the rocks open widely, the sins of men may be pardoned. What is asked here in prayer will be granted. Therefore, go up to the mountain cave and dedicate it to the Christian God!”
The bishop, however, uneasy about the whole affair, dismissed the angelic order. Two years later, in 492, the Christian city of Siponto came under attack by pagans led by the first barbarian king of Rome, the Germanic leader Odoacer. Begging for mercy, the bishop obtained a truce with Odoacer and asked for three days of prayer and penance. Again St. Michael the Archangel appeared to him. He promised the bishop victory if the townspeople would attack the enemy. After he accepted the archangel's promise, a violent storm engulfed the village of Odoacer, saving the people of Siponto.
In thanksgiving, the bishop led a procession to the top of the archangel's mountain. Yet nobody dared to enter the grotto. During the same year, the bishop consulted the Holy Father for his advice on whether to follow the archangel's previous order of 490.
For the third time St. Michael appeared to the bishop. He ordered him to enter the grotto and said, “It is not necessary that you dedicate this church that I have consecrated with my presence. Enter and pray with my assistance and celebrate the sacrifice. I will show you how I have consecrated this place.”
Following the archangel's order, the bishop entered the grotto and found an altar covered with a red cloth and a crystal cross. At the entrance of the cave, an imprint of a small foot was found. It was taken as evidence of the presence of St. Michael.
After the third apparition, the bishop commissioned a chapel to be built at the entrance of the grotto. Upon completion, the bishop dedicated but did not consecrate the church. It was not consecrated because St. Michael had already performed the consecration (it is the only building of worship in the Catholic Church that has not been consecrated by humans). In due time, the church earned the distinction of “the Celestial Basilica.”
The last apparition of St. Michael the Archangel took place in 1656. As a terrible plague afflicted Italy, the local bishop invoked St. Michael for protection. When the archangel appeared to the bishop, the plague ceased. Ever since, the mountain has been a place of pilgrimage and prayer.
St. Louis de Montfort once made a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of St. Michael the Archangel, “to pray to the archangel to obtain from him the grace to win souls for God, to confirm those already in God's grace, and to fight Satan and sin.” Not long ago, Pope John Paul II also made a pilgrimage to Monte Sant'Angelo.
Today, the Congregation of St. Michael the Archangel (Michalite Fathers) serves as the custodian of the shrine. The town of Monte Sant'Angelo is centered around the sanctuary. To reach the grotto, walk through the shrine's double archway entrance and take the flight of stone steps down to the magnificent Byzantine bronze and silver portals. From here, the doors open onto the holy cave itself.
Once inside, the pilgrim will find a 16th century statue of St. Michael that covers the spot where he is said to have left his footprint. Nearby is the main altar, which stands at the site of the first altar consecrated by the bishop of Siponto to St. Michael. Behind this is a small fountain of water, traditionally asserted to be miraculous. The grotto is holds a beautiful marble bishop's chair, resting on two lions.
Once outside, take the short flight of steps opposite the sanctuary to the Tomb di Rotari. Believed to have once served as a medieval baptistery, the room features some remarkable 12th century reliefs. A short stroll to the town's medieval quarter — perhaps best at sunset — affords visitors a sweeping and spectacular view of the coast to the south.
Many pilgrims combine their visits to the shrine of St. Michael the Archangel with a trip to Our Lady of Grace Sanctuary in San Giovanni Rotondo, fourteen miles away. This is the church and friary where Blessed Padre Pio served as a priest, and where the tomb of the beatified stigmatist lies.
There is regular bus service from Monte Sant'Angelo to San Giovanni Rotondo.
Perched amid olive groves on the rugged white limestone cliffs overlooking the eastern coast of Italy, Monte Sant'Angelo is easily accessible by car and bus. From the north of Italy, travel south on A14 toward Bari. Exit at San Severo and follow the road signs for San Giovanni Rotondo, passing through San Marco in Lamis. Once at San Giovanni Rotondo, follow the signs to Monte Sant'Angelo (14 miles). There is no railway station at Monte Sant'Angelo; the nearest one is at Foggia (there are daily train departures from Rome to Foggia). To arrive at Monte Sant'Angelo, take the bus from Foggia (a one-hour trip). There are also daily bus departures from Manfredonia, Vieste, and San Giovanni Rotondo.
For more information on making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Michael the Archangel, contact one of the many Catholic travel organizations offering guided tours to Italy.
Kevin Wright, author of Catholic Shrines of Western Europe, writes from Bellevue, Washington.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kevin Wright ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Liberal Arts for the Mind, Heart, and Spirit DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:Every September, parents quail as they send a new crop of prospective college students plunging into the perilous waters of the nation's campuses. And exposure to the moral hazards of dormitories, declining academic standards, and campus hostility toward religion comes at a high cost — over $30,000 a year, in many places. The corrupting of youth was never such a lucrative business in the time of Socrates.
Yet most still consider college a necessary condition for a successful and happy future in modern America. So except for the few hardy souls who choose to learn on their own, a good school, or at least a few good courses and professors within a school, can make all the difference.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute's college guide Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth about America's 100 Top Schools(William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, 672 pp., $25) is a godsend for anyone who wants to know how to beat the academic establishment and actually get an education. The Whole Truth subtitle may be the one unsubstantiated assertion here, yet students and parents should find more than enough truth here to be able to plan for the future with some confidence.
Other college guides already offer advice about programs of study and campus life, but this volume is unique in its scope. In his preface, editor Gregory Wolfe laments how “few guides focus on what was once considered the essence of a sound education: the liberal arts.” The very idea of liberal arts has become a battleground; the disciplines once thought to guide us to authentic liberty — theology, philosophy, history, literature — by freeing us from slavery to ignorance, impulse, and self-absorption, now seem less the solution than a great part of the problem.
In his introduction, William Bennett describes the traditional view of education: “The essence of education is, in the words of William James, to teach a person what deserves to be valued — to impart ideals as well as knowledge, to cultivate in students the ability to distinguish the true and the good from their counterfeits, and the wisdom to prefer the former to the latter.” That view just as well encapsulates everything many academics now strive against.
Standards and norms are viewed as oppressive impositions of Western or Enlightenment thought, and the ideals of the American founders are thought irrelevant to our situation. Bennett concludes: “The result is not education, but confusion — over the importance of knowledge, the universality of the human experience, the transcendence of ideals and principles.” Students graduate knowing little, “or worse still, they graduate thinking they know everything.”
This guide has compiled as complete and judicious a map of the current collegiate landscape as we are likely to see, by means of careful discrimination among institutions, examination of course offerings and outstanding professors in various disciplines. This is by no means the narrowly conservative or traditional broadside against the academy which some on the left might expect. Researchers at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute still find much of value in the Ivy League, however much these elite institutions may have abandoned intellectual excellence for political correctness. Harvard, for instance, still has a wealth of good courses, but the lack of agreement about the meaning of education leaves many students rudderless. The book cites one Harvard professor who states, “It's absurd. It's like a hospital in which the doctors can't decide on what is health. If you call up professors at Harvard and say, ‘What's an educated person?,’ most would be tongue-tied.”
Grade inflation is also a widespread problem, even in the sciences. A less-established discipline such as Women Studies “has never graduated anyone without at least a magna cum laude.”
When it comes to Harvard's old collegiate rival, the editors declare Yale unquestionably superior. Yale maintains a great deal of educational coherence, especially in its Directed Studies and Ethics, Economics, and Politics Programs. Undergraduate education is emphasized, and the campus ethos is much less politically correct than at many similar institutions. Yet an informed and interested student need not even be dissuaded from attending Harvard, despite its manifest difficulties. Indeed, there may be good reason for the right kind of students to attend such a school: “Given that many leaders of so many fields have graduated from it, readers of this guide might do the nation a favor by making their influence felt there.”
The writers, however, have a decided preference for a certain type of campus combining rigor of intellectual training, usually tied to a core curriculum, with a commitment to a specific mission. They have, therefore, almost nothing but praise for the two campuses (Annapolis and Santa Fe) of Saint John's College, the premier Great Books program in the country. Saint Thomas Aquinas in California receives similar kudos for its curriculum, as well as for its brave resistance to the “diversity” policy which the Western Association of Schools and Colleges sought to enforce. When Stanford and UCLA joined Aquinas in the struggle, they won a significant victory, which may yet have wider repercussions in the academic world as a whole.
According to Aquinas president Thomas Dillon, his college's selection of authors “are to be read not primarily for historical or cultural reasons, but because they are the best attempts to understand things in themselves, while attending to our common experience.” It is a telling commentary on the current academic ethos that this statement, once taken for granted, today engenders so much controversy.
The guide is equally helpful regarding other Christian institutions. Calvin College, for the most part rigorously and staunchly Reformed Protestant, recommends itself for its belief that “diversity among institutions of higher education is no less important than diversity within each of them.” The University of Dallas, with its rich core and passionate commitment to the Catholic faith, “is one of the few genuinely countercultural institutions in the nation.”
According to one Dallas professor, “Students are taught to see freedom, not as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement, but as the ability to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty.” As the Dallas curriculum clearly demonstrates, a properly constructed core is also not a recipe for an ideological straitjacket. Students read “Aquinas and Nietzsche, Burke and Rousseau, Newman and Marx.” Alone among American universities, Dallas requires a course on free market economics. At the other end of the spectrum, once great and Catholic institutions such as Georgetown are criticized for sacrificing their religious identity to mimic the worst aspects of the Ivy League schools. Another Jesuit institution, Holy Cross, seems to be on the way to the same result, if at a slower pace. Notre Dame likewise suffers from many similar drawbacks, especially in theology, though the guide notes that the long Catholic tradition in South Bend has kept dorms more overtly Catholic and certain departments rigorous. Boston College, for all its own turmoil, has benefited from administrators who have deftly tried to resist current trends.
Perhaps the most valuable dimension of the information in this guide is its specificity. The editors lack no boldness in distinguishing the good professors from the bad, to scrutinize the course offerings of whole departments, or to suggest ways to help students cope with uncongenial campuses.
Short of a much needed, widespread renaissance of liberal learning throughout the land, this volume is as good a chance as any for students and parents to find a place for the education of mind, heart, and spirit.
Robert Royal is vice president for research and director of Catholic studies at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: A new handbook for those seeking academic excellence — but not at the price of their souls ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Royal ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: 'Brain Death' Issue Sparks Debate Among Catholic Experts DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—Sacred Scripture says that man is appointed to live once and then die. The number of years allotted, however, has tended to increase in recent times with better nutrition, hygiene, and medical technologies. Those same medical technologies also have influenced the way that death is determined and raised serious moral question about the appropriateness of some organ transplants.
The moral problems are not always raised by the promoters of what Pope John Paul II has called “the culture of death,” who seek to reshape society's view of life and death through abortion, “morning-after” pills, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. In the case of “brain death,” faithful Catholic physicians and moral theologians have politely engaged one another in a debate that is not given to easy resolution and may continue for some time.
Recent articles in the journal of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), The Linacre Quarterly, include a neurologist's explanation of why he has radically changed his view to the point where he now writes “brain death is not true death,” and a medical ethicist who states in the May issue, “There is little doubt that acceptance of the practice of diagnosing death by the death of the whole brain criterion is collapsing. Both the ethical and medical literature contain articles indicating an overwhelming flaw.”
‘Brain death’ is a non-medical term that was invented to allow the harvesting of vital organs from patients who may be dying but not yet dead. Taking organs in such cases actually kills the patient.
At the CMA's annual convention in New York City earlier this month, amid a rousing consensus on the obligation of the Catholic doctor to be a light in a darkening ethical world of medicine, a hearty debate ensued over “brain death.”
Dr. Paul Byrne, the outgoing CMApresident, said in a lecture that “brain death” is a non-medical term that was invented to allow the harvesting of vital organs from patients who may be dying but not yet dead. Taking organs in such cases actually kills the patient, he stated.
Opponents of his view admitted that a person is more than the mere functioning of his brain, and that all precautions must be made to guard against death-by-transplant. Still, they held that death of the brain, marked by cessation of discernible brain functions, is a reliable guide in determining death.
“Physicians should not declare death till sufficient destruction of the body has taken place naturally, so that there is certainty that what they have before them is a corpse,” Byrne, a neonatology doctor from Toledo, Ohio, told the Register.
The Church defines death simply as the separation of the soul from the body. But as Msgr. William Smith, one of the nation's foremost moral theologians, explains, “We don't have a snapshot of when this happens.” Methods for determining the time of death beyond a reasonable doubt must be employed, and the current debate within Catholic circles is really about what a particular doctor or scholar considers “reasonable,” he said.
Echoing the opinion of other experts, Msgr. Smith called Byrne's view an extreme one which calls for an unnecessarily high standard for determining death.
“He wants a criterion for brain death that is really brain destruction,” Msgr. Smith said in a Register interview.
In 1985 and again four years later, a specially appointed panel for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences endorsed the concept of “whole-brain death” as true death. In the latter meeting, the group of medical experts was addressed by John Paul II, who expressed the Church's deep interest in the issue as part of its concern for the unique dignity of human life, made in the image of God.
The Pontifical Academy stated that “a person is dead when he has irreversibly lost all ability to integrate and coordinate the physical and mental functions of the body.” The moment of death comes when “the spontaneous functions of the heart and breathing have definitively ceased, or (with) the irreversible arrest of all brain activity.” The report noted that brain death inevitably leads to cardiopulmonary arrest.
The Pontifical Academy's finding is not an infallible teaching or even an exercise of the ordinary magisterium. It is an expert opinion offered to the Pope and the Church at large. The fact that the Pope has not refuted the finding, though, indicates that he does not find it contradictory to Catholic faith or morals. Many Catholic medical facilities and doctors operate on the understanding that a patient who is declared brain dead may be removed from life-support systems and have vital organs taken with proper permissions.
Two years ago, however, John Cardinal O'Connor took a controversial step by accepting a 5-month-old brain-dead girl into St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. A state Supreme Court judge had ruled that the baby, Mariah Scoon, could be removed from life-support at another hospital against the wishes of her parents. In accepting the baby, the cardinal said he was acting out of compassion for the parents and to emphasize the sanctity of human life. Although he said he did not dispute the medical finding of brain death, he stated that the baby's life would be “prolonged until God decides” to take it. The baby died days later.
The Charter for Health Care Workers issued in 1995 by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, said of the Academy of Sciences report: “Moral theology, in fact, cannot but acknowledge the biomedical determination as the decisive criterion” for determining the point of death, but adds that the Church demands “of health care workers the most accurate use of the various clinical and instrumental methods for a certain diagnosis of death.”
New medical facts are becoming available on the ability of brain dead patients to continue living. The Charter quotes a 1957 address to doctors by Pope Pius XII that it lies within the competency of medical science to determine the precise moment of death using rational criteria.
Medical science, however, is showing increasing uncertainty in the matter, at least among Catholic experts. Not only are new medical facts becoming available on the ability of brain dead patients to continue living, medical experts are interpreting the existing medical data in different ways.
Like some of the problems addressed by St. Thomas Aquinas in his day, the issues raised by brain death are scientific, philosophical, and theological. The challenge is to integrate the disciplines to come to rational conclusions.
Msgr. Smith, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York, said, “If someone gives me irrefutable scientific evidence, I know what principles to apply.”
One of the more deep and eloquent treatments of the topic was given by Dr. Alan Shewmon, professor of pediatric neurology at UCLA Medical School, in the February 1997 issue of The Linacre Quarterly. A Jewish convert to Catholicism, his article traces his 20-year journey from the secular view of brain death to questioning the 1989 finding of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, of which he was a prominent member.
The prevailing view of the human person gives primacy to consciousness and the ability to communicate an inner state — those who cannot express this inner state are thought to be non-persons, even when they are recognized to be human and in some way alive biologically, he writes. The mind, he adds, is seen by most medical experts as the organ integrating the mental and physical powers (much as the soul is recognized by theologians to be the “form” of the body). Thus, when the brain is unable to function, the person is thought to be unable to live. According to his revised view, Shewmon writes, “death occurs when failure of multiple vital systems and bodily processes (including the brain) progresses beyond a systems-dynamical point of no return. Although some ‘brain dead’ patients may be truly dead, it is not because their brains are dead but rather because” of critical multi-system damage. Brain dead patients whose other organ systems are intact, “are not yet dead but are rather fatally injured and in a deep coma.”
This view of death of course rules out taking organs from the latter category of patients. Yet, Shewmon writes, organs may be taken from “non-heartbeating donors” whose lack of pulse has continued long enough to ensure that heartbeat and circulation will not resume spontaneously.
Assessing the widespread support for brain death diagnoses, he continues, “Historically, the reasons for introducing the ‘brain death’ concept in the late 1960s were pragmatic and twofold: legitimizing the discontinuation of ventilators and the transplantation of unpaired vital organs.”
Dr. Walt Weaver, a cardiologist in Lincoln, Neb., who has performed a number of heart transplants, thought he was doing an unmitigated good until he evaluated a young motorcycle crash victim who was declared brain dead. Though the teen-ager was on a ventilator, he had warm, healthy looking skin, self-controlled temperature, and a sustained blood pressure, and he was producing urine naturally.
“How could I say that this young man was dead?” said Weaver. He stopped doing transplants shortly thereafter.
Stressing the findings of the Pontifical Academy, Msgr. Smith said that it is theologically possible to “ventilate a corpse” after death has with certainty taken place. Once death has been carefully determined, he said, the dignity of human life is not necessarily promoted by performing such a ventilation, he said.
Brian Caulfield writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Canadian Pro-Life Activist Jailed for HerSilent Witness DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:TORONTO—The latest arrest of pro-life activist Linda Gibbons has underscored the Canadian pro-life movement's ongoing struggle against injunctions limiting right to life demonstrations.
Gibbons, one of Canada's leading pro-life activists, and two supporters were arrested Sept. 9 for picketing outside a Toronto abortion clinic. It marked the 10th time since the fall of 1994 that Gibbons has been arrested for her pro-life activity.
Often compared to U.S. pro-life campaigner Joan Andrews-Bell, Gibbons refuses to abide by the terms of a “temporary” injunction initiated by Ontario's New Democratic Party (NDP) which governed the province from 1990 to 1995. The NDP made access to abortion services one of its top priorities during its five-year rule in Ontario.
The injunction prohibits pro-life demonstrations, including the displaying of posters and placards, within 500 feet of Ontario abortion clinics. Under the injunction, activities as harmless as prayer vigils or hymn singing are regarded as obstructions to women seeking abortions.
The legislation is similar to that imposed in British Columbia, and prolifers coast to coast have waged a running battle to have both the injunctions lifted. The British Columbia case centers on the Everywomen's Health Clinic in Vancouver, the focal point of west coast pro-life action.
While pro-abortion groups and some Canadian attorneys general argue that the injunctions are necessary to prevent violence near abortion clinics, pro-life supporters have long contended that they are in fact a gross infringement of freedom of speech and religion. They also say the injunctions would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the governments of both Ontario and British Columbia have manipulated the charges against Gibbons and other pro-lifers to avoid bringing the injunctions up against Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In the Ontario case, the Toronto police and the provincial attorney general's office insist on charging Gibbons and other pro-lifers with obstructing a police officer rather than violating the terms of the injunction. Many believe these lesser charges are the Crown's way of ensuring that the unconstitutionality of the injunction does not come to light.
Although the NDP was defeated in provincial elections of 1995, the current Progressive Conservative government of Ontario has so far refused to lift the injunction. Despite numerous appeals from the pro-life community, Ontario Attorney General Charles Harnick has indicated that he will not take any action on the injunction while the matter is before the courts.
Ontario pro-lifers are continually bewildered by the attorney general's action. During the 1995 provincial election campaign, Harnick described the former government's injunction as a clear violation of free speech. After more than three years in power, however, he has refused to take action to rescind the injunction. “I am satisfied that any limits on freedom of expression which the injunction may have imposed are justified in the interest of public safety and the safe provision of medical service,” Harnick said recently to officials with Ontario's Campaign Life Coalition.
In a statement just after the latest arrest of Gibbons, the Campaign Life Coalition reiterated its charges that the province is playing legal games with the injunction.
“This situation is a serious abuse of legal process in which the Toronto police and the Ontario attorney general appear to be directed by abortion clinic staff and to bypass normal legal processes to avoid any interference with clinic abortion activity,” said Campaign Life national president James Hughes.
Sources within Campaign Life Coalition have recently expressed concern that instead of lifting the former government's “temporary” injunction, the Progressive Conservatives are considering a plan to make it permanent.
Complicating the situation is a lawsuit initiated by the former NDP government against a group of 18 prominent pro-lifers in Ontario. The lawsuit, which seeks $500,000 in damages from the group, threatens the province's pro-life organizations with financial ruin.
Gibbons meanwhile, who has spend the better part of the past four years in prison, continues to adopt a unique and sometimes controversial tactic in bringing public attention to the Ontario injunction. Upon her release from jail, she takes a day or two to recuperate before returning to one of Toronto's major abortion clinics to resume her pro-life witnessing. She remains completely silent during her action, and during subsequent jail time and court appearances. Her silence is designed to offer “mute testimony” on behalf of the innocent and defenseless unborn children who are killed at abortion clinics.
While some Canadian pro-lifers have suggested Gibbons' action brings disrepute on the movement, many others have praised her courage and conviction in fighting what she believes is an unjust injunction. Her action has attracted high profile legal support, including John Broderick of New York, the attorney who defended the Lambs of Christ pro-life activists in the late 1980s. Gibbons has also earned praise for bringing the pro-life message to her fellow inmates at women's prisons in the Toronto area. In nearly half a dozen cases, Gibbons has urged pregnant inmates not to proceed with abortion plans, but to offer their children up for adoption.
“She is one of the finest examples of living the Christian social gospel we have today,” said Rev. Ken Campbell of Milton, Ontario, an Evangelical minister who has become one of Gibbons' greatest supporters. Rev. Campbell has also been arrested several times for walking with Gibbons in her pro-life pickets.
In a much publicized “letter from prison,” Gibbons explained some of her motivations. “Although the pro-life effort consists of various specializations, each member shares and supports the common goals and aspirations of the body at large. Pro-life activity is not merely a sympathetic gesture towards the victims of the current death culture, but a wholehearted demonstration of our love towards each and every human life, from conception to natural death.”
While Gibbons remains a symbol of inspiration for many Canadian pro-lifer supporters, there remains deep concern about the future of high profile witnessing against abortion in the country. Canadian pro-lifers worry that such high profile efforts have been seriously undermined by the court injunctions. Without a legitimate venue for bringing up the respect for life message on the public agenda, they fear not only the trampling of the freedom of speech and religion guarantees, but also a growing tolerance of the activity going on behind abortion clinic walls.
Mike Mastromatteo writes from Toronto.
----- EXCERPT: Linda Gibbons disregards injunction that prohibits even peaceful protests ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jerry Filteau ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Coalition Rallying to Defeat Michigan Assisted-Suicide Proposal DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:LANSING, Mich.—Americans are sharply divided with regard to the moral and ethical arguments against assisted suicide — especially in Michigan, where Geoffrey Fieger, an outspoken advocate of euthanasia who is best known as Dr. Jack Kevorkian's former defense lawyer, is on the ballot for governor as the Democratic Party's nominee. But a coalition called Citizens for Compassionate Care has found a compelling reason for voters on both sides of the issue to pull the plug on Proposal B: it's simply bad legislation. The statewide ballot proposition is an attempt to legalize assisted suicide in Michigan when voters go to the polls in November.
At a recent press conference at the state capitol, coalition members said the 12,000-word proposal is overly complex, poorly worded, and contains more than 40 serious flaws and hundreds of unanswered legal and medical questions. If approved by Michigan voters, the legislation would repeal the state's current law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.
Earlier this month, Citizens for Compassionate Care launched an estimated $5 million campaign to educate state voters about Proposal B. The newly formed group, consisting of more than 20 medical, health-care, and religious organizations, including the Michigan Catholic Conference, Michigan State Medical Society, Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, and Right to Life of Michigan, has one clear goal in mind. As Kevin Kelly, managing director of the Michigan State Medical Society, put it, “The committee will be asking the citizens across the state to think very, very deeply about the ramifications of Proposal B, and ultimately we will ask the citizens of Michigan to vote ‘no’ on Proposal B.”
Gary Pokorny is president of the Grand Rapids advertising firm developing the coalition's media campaign in the weeks leading up to the vote. He said the group is asking voters “to think beyond the idea of individual rights and death with dignity and instead focus on the potential for abuse and the dangers of radically changing our approach to caring for the dying.” He said the Oregon experience — where physician-assisted suicide is legal — illustrates the dangers. Earlier in September, he noted, Oregon Medicaid restricted funding for a critical pain relief medicine, while continuing to fund physician-assisted suicide.
“Physician-assisted suicide could become the norm rather than disease treatment, research, pain management, love, hope and support,” said Pokorny. “Where is our compassion?”
The 11-page Proposal B was put on the ballot after a successful petition drive conducted by Merian's Friends, an Ann Arbor-based organization named for Merian Frederick. Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, Frederick died with assistance from Kevorkian, the retired Michigan pathologist who has admitted to assisting the suicides of more than 100 people die since 1990.
Dr. Edward Pierce, a retired family physician and chairman of Merian's Friends, said the coalition's efforts could be very damaging to his organization, which he claimed does not have the resources to defend its proposal against what he termed a “misleading’” campaign.
Dr. Cathy Blight, a Flint pathologist and honorary co-chairwoman of Citizens for Compassionate Care, told the press conference that new organizations are joining daily and said the diversity of the coalition's as impressive as its size.
Earlier this year the Michigan Hospice Organization expressed strong opposition to the proposal, stating: “The hospice community is very concerned that the legalization of physician-assisted suicide will provide an option that will prevent people with a serious illness from seeking proper help, and from discovering the goodness of life that can be found, even while dying. … To encourage an early end to one's life by creating a law that would legalize assisted suicide is to take a giant stop backward regarding the care of the terminally ill in Michigan.”
Blight said the Michigan State Medical Society, a 14,000-member professional association affiliated with the American Medical Association, opposes Proposal B because of the measure's legal ramifications for physicians and its impediments for patients who are not seeking assisted suicide.
Michigan patients already have the right to refuse or discontinue any medical treatment, as well as the right to receive any amount of pain medication, she said.
“Regardless of … personal beliefs for or against the practice of physician-assisted suicide,” Blight said, “voters should know that (the medical society) board of directors came to the decision to oppose Proposal B based not on that ethical debate, but on the basis of the onerous and complex language of the proposal.”
She added, “Proposal B is so riddled with problems that Michigan voters should be compelled to vote ‘no.’”
Among the problems with Proposal B cited at the press conference are:
—It would lead to subtle coercion of the elderly, disabled and minorities.
—It would interfere with the private doctor-patient-family relationship.
—It would allow out-of-state relatives of Michigan citizens to commit suicide in Michigan.
—It would allow mentally ill patients to commit suicide.
—It is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer.
—It would not require prior notification of loved ones.
—Privacy laws would prohibit medical examiners from performing autopsies.
—Doctors would be required to lie because they would have to list the illness and not suicide as the primary cause of death on death certificates.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Digmann ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Works Solicited forAnnual Contest DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—The 1999 Student Contests program sponsored by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund is now under way, according to Nellie Gray, the fund's president. Winners will be honored at the 26th annual March for Life, scheduled for Jan. 22 in the nation's capital.
Junior and senior high school students can submit entries in essay, poem, and poster categories. Each entry must relate to the theme of the 1999 march, “For What Shall It Profit A Man if He Gain the Whole World, and Lose His Own Soul?”
There are two first prizes, one to a junior high and the other to a high school student. These awards include a trip to Washington for the March for Life, a certificate given at the annual Rose Dinner, and $500 donated to a local pro-life organization designated by the winner. Ten other awards will be made.
“This is part of the educational effort of the March for Life,” Gray told the Register. “There are two facets. One is to get students to look at this issue, and the other is to get the student and a parent to come to Washington and see the pro-life movement in action.”
The contest, which ends Nov. 2, will be judged by professionals who are familiar with the 1999 theme and the “no exceptions” pro-life position. Winners will be announced by the end of November.
The fund issues an annual report shortly after each year's march. The thick book includes coverage of the march, the one-day convention which precedes it, and the Rose Dinner which follows it. The publication will also include the 12 winning works.
The March for Life began Jan. 22, 1974, the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision which legalized abortion in this country. Each Jan. 22 since then, thousands of marchers have assembled in the nation's capital to draw attention to the evil of abortion.
Information on the contest, including detailed rules, can be obtained from the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, P.O. Box 90300, Washington, D.C. 20090; telephone: (202) LIFE-377; fax: (202) 543-8202. (Joseph Esposito)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Gospel Of Life DATE: 09/27/1998 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 27-October 3, 1998 ----- BODY:The issue of brain death shows how advances in medicine may not provide ultimate answers to profound human questions. In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II calls to mind the moral confusion which arises wherever technological progress is not directed, formed, and nourished by knowledge and love of God:
[W]hen he denies or neglects his fundamental relationship to God, man thinks he is his own rule and measure, with the right to demand that society should guarantee him the ways and means of deciding what to do with his life in full and complete autonomy. It is especially people in the developed countries who act in this way: they feel encouraged to do so also by the constant progress of medicine and its ever more advanced techniques. By using highly sophisticated systems and equipment, science and medical practice today are able not only to attend to cases formerly considered untreatable and to reduce or eliminate pain, but also to sustain and prolong life even in situations of extreme frailty, to resuscitate artificially patients whose basic biological functions have undergone sudden collapse, and to use special procedures to make organs available for transplanting. (64.2)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life --------