Capitol Ideas / Priests and Cannibals
Bethell, Tom
CAPITOL IDEAS PRIESTS AND CANNIBALS by Tom Bethell I returned from a month's holiday in England and could not decide which was the more unpleasant sight facing me: a grubby mountain of Washington...
...Around the dining table at Georgetown University the other night," he wrote, "the conversation was brisk and animated among the people, clerical and secular, Catholic and non-Catholic, gathered to talk informally about the pope and America...
...He seems no longer to understand (assuming he ever did) that the Catholic (or Episcopal) Church is one thing and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare quite another...
...further, that one had felt a great deal better without it...
...It felt out of character to me, and, yes, I was upset by that...
...One stunning dispatch from Bangui began as follows: Ministers who were invited to dinner by the now deposed Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa were told after the meal that they had just eaten a former colleague, according to Mr...
...Even many liberals who were dismayed by his stand also felt a strong pull toward him...
...Moore wondered "how someone so warm and so open to people could come down so hard on these other questions of celibacy, abortion, divorce, women priests and homosexuality...
...Remember last summer when President Carter had to go through that elaborate ritual of obtaining resignations from the whole Cabinet simply to rid himself of Joe Califano...
...CAPITOL IDEAS PRIESTS AND CANNIBALS by Tom Bethell I returned from a month's holiday in England and could not decide which was the more unpleasant sight facing me: a grubby mountain of Washington Posts, or a precarious pyramid of Congressional Records...
...People like the Bishop of New York, however, assume that every existing social institution is under an obligation to prove its moral worth by being "contemporary": that is, by abandoning morality...
...I was beginning to worry that this controversy was too hot for Haynes to write about in such a way as to disclose a "verdict" one way or the other...
...I was curious to know what the "Washington reaction" to the Pope's visit had been, and so was extremely fortunate to find, in one of the first editions of the Washington Post that I read after my return, a column on the subject by none other than Haynes Johnson...
...and that, in consequence, it was a mystery why one should even consider resuming contact with it...
...He confessed to me one day that he never actually went to any of these Georgetown dinner parties-he merely read Haynes Johnson in the Post...
...Soon enough, as I had hoped, Johnson turned to the topic of the Pope's "views on such questions as birth control, abortion, ordaining women priests and homosexuality...
...But before reacting to it in typical "knee-jerk" Western-imperialist fashion, we should not forget our own "tribal" conditioning (leading directly to such shock-horrors as male chauvinism and disapproval of homosexuality...
...Poor Bishop Moore...
...At first our columnist seemed to want to preserve a lofty, above-the-battle posture, opining merely that it was surprising, really, that anyone should have been surprised by what the Pope said...
...Suspecting that something like this might occur, I took the precaution of clipping Bruce Loudon's intriguing Daily Telegraph articles on the subject...
...Fred Copperman, British Honorary Consul in Batigui...
...already notorious for having ordained a lesbian in his diocese), who was apparently at the Georgetown University gathering...
...The only alternative would be to begin to entertain doubts as to the correctness of the liberal position...
...So I turned eagerly to his column about the Pope...
...The Church used to be called, on occasion, the Church Militant, referring to "the whole body of believers who are said to be 'waging the war of faith' against the world, the flesh and the devil...
...One of the big events that I missed while in England was, of course, the visit of Pope John Paul II...
...Then again, there is the whole wearisome business of what to do with former ministers, the never-ending anxiety about impending memoirs which does nothing for the peace of mind of our great Presidents...
...On the other hand, I'm glad to say that I can't get too concerned about Senator Kennedy's imminent race for the Presidency (which does at least hold out the promise of some entertainment...
...The distant emperor has now shown us that there was a better way...
...They will remain eternally unread, both heaps having been hauled off to the trash, thus lightening heart and home...
...The "liberal" position is, therefore, the correct one...
...Carter should have invited his (remaining) Cabinet to a state dinner...
...Under similar circumstances, everyone I have ever heard of experiences the same feelings: that one had not even momentarily missed the daily torrent of wretched news...
...Well, that's a thought, certainly...
...I ask, is eating a former colleague such a bad idea, really...
...Igather that in deference to ethnic touchiness, or something of that nature, the story of Emperor Bo-kassa's cannibalism was rather downplayed or ignored altogether in the American press...
...Kissinger would have made a tasty morsel and so saved Time, Inc., a great deal of expense over first serial rights...
...The ultimate goal, of course, is to place the Church's seal of approval on the ideals of modern liberalism, and thus reassure those who embrace them that they are not dancing with the devil...
...Haynes Johnson went on to quote the wishy-washy Episcopal Bishop of New York, Paul Moore, Jr...
...Perhaps I should explain that Haynes Johnson is a journalist of inestimable value to people such as myself who are expected to report on Washington, because in everything that he writes he is in tune, to within a fraction of a vibration, with the current liberal song...
...No one I met in England could believe that Kennedy was really going to be taken seriously by the electorate, and I suspect that this Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington columnist and Washington editor of Harper's...
...You get the message: Nice guys with "appealing" personalities are expected to adopt the "liberal" position...
...It follows, of course, that anyone who does not toe the line must in the end be suspect as to personality...
...he is selfless enough never to deviate from it for an instant...
...The Church's function is the saving of souls, not the promotion of equality or sexual "liberation...
...judgment-from-a-distance may prove more realistic than the judgment of those whose noses are daily pressed to the New York Times...
...They do rather obviously cancel one another out if we are prepared to overlook our dietary taboos...
...It is well known that two of the most serious problems of our day are over-population and food shortage...
...But of course I already find myself picking up the nasty newsprint, and even before I am accustomed to the different time zone I find I am beginning to worry about such matters as the "windfall profits tax" on oil, something I had managed not to think about while I was away...
...So useful is he that a friend of mine, another writer, from time to time includes in his dispatches the news that such and such an item "is making the rounds of the Georgetown dinner parties...
...It was absolutely slam-bang, the door was shut...
...But eventually he did, in this subtle paragraph: Apparently the pope's personality was so appealing that many hoped he would somehow not prove to be as rigid as his reputation on matters of dogma...
Vol. 12 • December 1979 • No. 12
