The Contrary Traveler
Swenson, Karen
The Contrary Traveler They ask, "Why do you go to...?" It's not that journey allegorizes life; pilgrims know the fallacy of progress. Travelers are light particles, a sand scrim blown low...
...That long-running feud has pitted Commonweal 18 January 16, 2004...
...William Kenneally, a Chicago pastor and frequent George critic, notes that while the cardinal enjoys theological de-bates, he rarely intervenes in the day-to-day operations of parishes...
...Even at the Apache Trading Post in Alpine there's a woman, divorced, three kids, who drove a semi, an eighteen wheeler—granny gear through 13—for twenty years who has a happy marriage ending to invalidate my cynic's belief—a traveling woman gathers no man...
...So, told, "There's nothing in Presidio," I'm making the left turn onto route 67...
...It's rare to hear of clergy and parishioners feeling squelched [by George...
...He has played a major role in the efforts to change English-language translations to bet-ter reflect what he describes as the intent of the original Latin...
...Nathan Mitchell, a liturgist and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, points out that the cardinal has been critical of the liturgical translations developed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL...
...The Yakima diocese is a materially poor place, and I felt very much at home there...
...Travelers are light particles, a sand scrim blown low over dunes, whose fragile meetings, partings clothe wind with form...
...Chicago, with its 1.2 million Catholics, the country's second largest archdiocese, is a place where getting to know names is impossible, especially when compared to smaller dioceses such as Yakima and Portland, Oregon, where he previously served as bishop...
...Some supporters of post-Vatican II English translations see this as evidence that George wants to return to a more triumphal style of liturgy...
...Karen Swenson scribing the bureaucratic nature of the job...
...Martin Marty, University of Chicago professor, historian of American religion, and Lutheran minister, says George is quite aware of what Rome expects from church leader-ship today but doesn't revel in cracking the whip on inno-vation...
...One of the cardinal's regrets is that, in Chicago, he does not have enough time to spend with the poor...
...There's no place where there's nothing...
...One area where George has taken on liberal thought is the liturgy...
...But there is worse poverty in Chicago, only I don't have the kind of hands-on contact that I would like to have," he told me, noting that his focus as archbishop is to tap Chicago's wealthy to support projects that benefit the poor...
...Everywhere there's something, someone, an ingredient as I'm an ingredient a level half a tablespoon of thyme...
...He sees evangelization as the solution to perennial problems such as the looming priest shortage...
...The Contrary Traveler They ask, "Why do you go to...
...Her family tried to bribe her home with a beachfront apartment in Malibu...
...Instead, we tell each other life-tales, helping to haul an unskinned yak haunch, or bedding down in the monastery's storage room among grain sacks and rats...
...One of George's favorite themes is that the church has spent enough time focusing on itself and now must spend more time on the work of conversion...
...Still, George's detractors—and they are largely on the left side of church politics-continue to see him as a micro-manager out to put the toothpaste of innovative Catholic thought in Chicago back in its tube...
...His boundaries for experimenting may be narrower, but so are the ambitions of the experimenters today," says Marty, citing a Chicago Sun-Times poll of archdiocesan clergy in which the cardinal got high marks...
Vol. 131 • January 2004 • No. 1
