Live from Golgotha
Malin, Irving
ly irritated the rich Catholics to whom the Vatican was appealing for financial aid, though these have now been profoundly pleased by John Paul's 1991 encyclical, Centesimus annus. They must...
...Why do we believe ate that the mockery and the lunacy begin or not religion as such is a fantasy, a "fic- in miracles...
...All that aside, one finishes Kenneth Briggs's year and his fascinating and im- portant book in basic agreement with his conclusion that "the papal capital...
...in Theological Ethics in the Roman Catholic tradition in a joint program with Weston School of Theology...
...ly irritated the rich Catholics to whom the Vatican was appealing for financial aid, though these have now been profoundly pleased by John Paul's 1991 encyclical, Centesimus annus...
...They must also have been pleased by the Vatican's notifying the University of Fribourg that it could not give an honorary degree to Rembert Weakland, the arch- bishop of Milwaukee, who headed up the committee of bishops that produced the offensive pastoral...
...If the Bible--or any I suggest that Vidal's provocative, dis- But if we look closely at the lines, we religious text--is imperfect or incom-tasteful novel is, perhaps, one of his most recognize that there is a narrator...
...And the relation of word to world--of the truth presented "off-stage...
...interpreted...
...the sage of the inner workings of the government...
...Application deadline is February 15, 1993...
...He of the Mossad...
...They play seriously...
...It is appropri- events...
...GRADUATE STUDIES IN THEOLOGY AT BOSTON COLLEGE The Department of Theology at Boston College, a leading Jesuit university in an ecumenical context, shares resources with eight other member schools in the Boston Theological Institute...
...We must view Vidal as a self- conscious actor of subtle roles...
...For a Methodist Times reporter Briggs is more evenhanded than I expected and in the fifty-odd pages he devotes to the pope's ten-day visit in September 1987, he treats John Paul very fairly and pays tribute to the pope's warmth and compassion for the poor, the sick (including AIDS victims), the old, and the young...
...Or--who am 1? I must keep a firm grip memory I must now be extremely alert to Vidal, we know, has always been abu- on myself, assuming that it is mine that I the possibility that my recollections are sive toward religious orthodoxy...
...Bible, patristics, church history, the- ological, social and medical ethics...
...Christ did not found an entirely demo- cratic church, granted, though the church of the Acts seems a good deal more demo- cratic than anything dreamt of in the cur- rent Vatican's philosophy, but a Vicar of Christ, Pius XII, on Christmas Eve, 1944, told the world that democratic government "appears to many a postulate of nature im- posed by reason itself...
...This 38:6 November 1992 means that those with a hopelessly ho- mosexual orientation must feel that God is not treating them fairly, just as he does not seem to be treating fairly all those who for a host of other reasons do not find it possible to enjoy sexual fulfillment...
...Graduate studies at Boston College are supported by 35 full-time theology faculty with specializations in foundational, dogmatic, philosophical, and contemporary theology...
...Although Vidal offers sure and anger...
...religious education, world religions, and other fields...
...he is a mark on the page...
...And if the readGreek tragedy...
...9 Housing available near campus .9 Fellowships available for degree candidates For further information contact Dr...
...the lucid, aris- tocratic visitor from Rome who appears often on television to attack the medium and American technology in general...
...Kenneth Briggs, a Methodist himself and formerly an award-winning writer on reli- gion for the New York Times, does not deal with this barbarity, but he does deal, month by month, with the items summarized above plus a host of other items and per- sonalities of interest to American Catholics, plus vignettes about eleven Catholics with pseudonyms--including a bishop, a college president, and an aged nun--of whom we learn much more than we really want to know, for it's a long book already...
...exist?--"But when I enter the past through American history--is itself a fiction...
...reader is a creator, a judge...
...Live from Golgotha, like blood...
...Commonweal 6 November 1992:39...
...But I hasten to add that Vidal is certainly aware of the nature of performance, of artistic creation...
...In Duluth, Myra Breck- inridge, Two Sisters he intermingles genres...
...He has now try firmly to grip...
...Such questions are especially diswas the nightmare and the knife was with But Vidal cannot stop here...
...Jewish notion and definitely not mine...
...Saint Paul is an agent cry or shriek at performances, theatrical asking basic epistemological questions...
...sustained meditations on the nature of rator is dreaming...
...There is irony here...
...It will be read for many years...
...their meditations are so- phisticated, subtle, subversive...
...What is truth indeed...
...And he is at his best when he mixes roles...
...Irving Malin ore Vidal has always been interested in performance and duplicity...
...or faith...
...He is, after all, dirty, and obscene...
...in Theology with concentrations in History of Christian Life and Thought, Systematic Theology, Christian Ethics, or Medieval Theology in a joint program with Andover Newton Theological School...
...Then the entire notion of "be- tional characters interact with--and inter- He is "possessed," uncertain, "unreal...
...and he has, of course, courted displea- any person in a novel--lacks flesh and I must stop here...
...hierarchy, thereby received chastisement that was so "awk- ward and amateurish" that a Vatican spokesman later--too much later--wrote that the whole thing had been a mistake and expressed "regret [for] the pain that you have suffered...
...Vidal is at his best when he employs "camp" for se- rious purposes...
...things...
...Timothy, pret the actions of--Lincoln...
...There are sever- being altered in ways that I cannot deterattacked Christianity as a kind of come- al games being played here...
...He is, indeed, fas- cinated by the ability of the performer to play different roles so well that he seduces the audience...
...Perhaps it is time for Vatican Council III...
...He does more--he asks whether turns the tables on us...
...The nar- plete, then it lacks wholeness (or holiness...
...Perhaps few readers re- member that he was our first critic to cel- ebrate Italo Calvino' s fiction...
...We offer: .9 Ph.D...
...He has, in- deed, played many roles: the nineteen-year-old wun-derkind of Williwaw...
...Williwaw, for ex- ample, is one of the most interesting war Commonweal novels because of the very exclusion of epic for a "dream-world" in which "stability" Although Vidal raises questions about scenes of battle, of strong leaders...
...Timothy-- mine...
...617) 552-4602...
...9 MA in Biblical Studies...
...And lief' is indeterminate, open, cut...
...nevertheless, the conclusion seems in-controvertible that Pope John Paul II and his current curia are living in the past, par- ticularly with regard to "due process" and what kind of success can be expected from monarchical methods of persuasion, or coercion, in a world where democratic process and a more egalitarian jurispru- dence have now swept all before them...
...Timothy, the narra- at one point, tells us~oes "he" know we the startling feeling that history----especially tor, is being controlled: "Am I possessed...
...9 MA in Theology, with concentrations in Bible, History, Systematic Theology, and Ethics...
...at the same time his fic- he is being manipulated by outside forces...
...I must mention a wonderful collection of essays on Vidal edited by Jay Perini (Columbia University Press, 1992...
...War is of any sort is disrupted or mutilated...
...He cannot, however, conceal his dislike of most of the positions, notably on sexual morality, taken by the pope, and especially that on homosexuality, which receives continual battering...
...Vidal's history cycle em- The narrator tells us that he is unsure er is being read--by another reader-- ploys such "real" heroes (or villains) as whether or not he exists...
...Vidal is, if you will, so brilliant that he makes us believe that he is "fake...
...The stage is being set It risks misinterpretation...
...Many of these essays support my contention that Vidal has, for the better part of his long career, created odd novels which cannot be easily categorized...
...This stems from the conviction that human nature is so tricky and so determined to do whatever it wants to do that it is essential for any kind of decent life and society that moral laws should be as absolute as possible...
...That is a statement to which Pope John Paul II, our many-ways admirable Holy Father, might well give some serious thought...
...they use low forms--science fic- tion, popular culture--for high ends...
...If we assume that Vidal is unaware of his "acts," we are surely deceived...
...Jesus is fat...
...Weakland, one of the most impressive, popular, and outspoken members of the U.S...
...he questions, indeed, the very notion of genre--of art itself...
...He ques- turbing because they are asked in im- Saint Paul and the circumcision was a tions the validity of time and space--the proper, shocking, indecent ways...
...has] been pretty much depleted...
...Both writers are essentially interested in the nature of "reality...
...Whatever you may think of Archbishops Hunthausen and Weakland, whatever you may think of Father Charles Curran and the insistence of 110 out of 225 Catholic college presidents that the Vatican and/or the local bishop should have nothing to say about who teaches Catholic theology, an- other position with which I do not agree, A FIENDISH GOSPEL LIVE FROM GOLGOTHA Gore Vidal Random House, $22, 232 pp...
...9 Ph.D...
...Anthony J. Saldarini, Acting Director of Graduate Studies, Box "C," Department of Theology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167...
...This is a bias that this writer does not share, having always felt that the church' s and John Paul's defense of the sanctity, indissolubility, and exclusivity of heterosexual marriage was one of its, and his, most admirable features...
...Vidal uses a fiendish gospel--a counter-gospel--he Duluth or Myra Breckinridge, is earthy, the notion that we deceive ourselves: we must be taken seriously...
...I think of the vio- the breaks, ruptures, and mutilations con- of texts--he now offers the idea that every lence which occurs behind the "scene" in tinue to the point of utter rupture and farce...
...existence of"reality...
...Do we find truth by reason in the very first lines: "In the beginning tion...
...Aren't interpreters Lincoln and Burr...
...Thus we have in a sense he is right...
...So, of course, does Calvino...
...Es- pecially unfair, or course, if they do not believe in a future life where all these seem- ing unfairnesses are straightened out and compensated...
...He believes that aren' t critics criticized...
Vol. 119 • November 1992 • No. 19
