WARREN BURGER: THE IDEOLOGUE AS REFORMER
Silver, Isidore
Church from the one represented by Siri and his followers. A new type of adult Christian has emerged and made his options for a new kind of Christian presence in the world. What the Council never...
...It is clear that there has been more at stake than the mere survival of the divorce law...
...The Italians had that chance, and used it...
...Certainly a sensible and timely program, but how much more sensible and timely it would have been if proposed before, and instead of the absurd referendum...
...HENRY TEN KORTENAAR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 MARGARET DIORIO BRINGING IN THE PLANTS More than peat moss clung to my fingers I remember thinking, pausing to reflect on the begonia my hands held, and our encounter in an October drizzle...
...Old illusions, like soldiers, die hard, but it will be interesting to watch developments in the years ahead...
...And I must confess that on that night I envied them...
...The adjustments will take much time and a new leadership (which is already emerging...
...The most vivid impression I got was of almost youthful elation at a common act of disobedience, an adolescent revolt against parental authority...
...had high hopes of victory, since it had succeeded once more in rallying the Church to a common goal...
...Or else, it chooses to be what in fact it has become: a moderate conservative party, which might successfully try to catch votes from the Fascists to their right...
...Something, someone, doubtless, is attendant on my house and being, that, not unlike the plants, were set out for a season on the Earth...
...In both cases it would have to give up the impossible pretense of representing Italian Catholicism...
...What they celebrated that night was their coming-ofage...
...the others did no such thing, iust covered the walls with gigantic No's...
...The sooner the bishops realize this, the more hope there is that the Church will still have an important role to play in modern Italy, and that the defeat may turn out to have been a victory...
...Another place where the outcome of the vote will be the topic of some interesting reflections is at the headquarters of the Democrazia Cristiana...
...The "new Catholics" are not the obnoxious minority the bishops thought, which could easily be disposed of by declaring them "outside the ecclesial community" (the use of the horrible word "ecclesial" is one of the bishops' concessions to the "spirit of the Council")Mthey are rapidly becoming that community, or at least a considerable part of it...
...The vote did not solve any of the very serious problems their country is struggling with, but it was certainly worth one night's roaring festivities...
...but there are signs that the bishops have taken notice...
...What the Council never achieved, was done by the referendum--or rather, the referendum has brought to light what the bishops have always refused to admit: that the Council has done its work in Italy, just as in every other part of the world...
...Either it seeks to re-establish a link with the Catholic dissent, which has swung to the left and has other aims than confessional power-politics--but for this it is probably too late and besides, the party is hardly fit for such an enterprise...
...This meant that those who were against divorce had to vote yes, and those who were for it, no...
...On the night of May 13 I was in the Piazza Navona, where thousands of nay-voters had assembled to hear the results and to celebrate the victory...
...The opponents of the divorce bill invented brilliant slogans, such as YES, as on the first day of your marriage...
...Human scenery like the empty outdoor window boxes receded, voices faded though briefly...
...In the many years I have spent in this country, I have seen a good deal of exuberance, but I don't recall ever seeing so much of it...
...In a country where votes in parliamentary elections are still given to party symbols, not to list numbers or names, because of the still considerable number of illiterates, the problem of how to explain the apparent contradiction to the simpler voter seemed insoluble...
...I had been potting and repotting plants an hour perhaps...
...Before the referendum, there had been some perplexity as to the wording of the question on the votingpapers...
...In their postreferendum statement, while deploring that a large number of Catholics had not followed their prescriptions, they suggested these persons might allay their supposed remorse by promoting modern legislation to protect the family and by a common effort to remove the causes of the family crisis, such as unemployment and underemployment, emigration, lack of low-cost housing, etc...
...Who has not dreamt of the chance to say No to all the pseudo-fathers, the know-alls, the moralists, who know so well "what is good for us," who keep deciding, wit.hout ever asking us, but always (of course) "for our own good...
...The mere word No had an irresistible attraction for the majority of Italians...
...Commonweal: 357...
...Since Pope John's days the relation had grown a little lukewarm, but this time the D.C...
...After the disappointing result it faces a difficult choice...
...898, of December 1, 1970, on the regulation of marriage dissolutions...
...It said: Do you want to repeal the law nr...
...And as it turned out, they were right...
...I pressed on knowing if no one brought in the philodendrons, frost would kill them, if left untended the geraniums would die...
...This party owes its power to the all-out support it used to receive from the Church in the past, when most of its canvassing was done from the pulpits...
Vol. 100 • June 1974 • No. 15
