BOOKS

...All the way home, and for two paragraphs, Henri curses himself for his own narrowmindedness and immaturity...

...This is typical of the book's failure to give adequate background data on key individuals and movements of the period...

...For modern man is no more likely than Adam himself to regain a foothold in Eden...

...Henry's feast day all the attention goes to a monk named Henry...

...The book reads like a doctoral dissertation`one with a number of serious limitations...

...Por example, he states that "the church had come to terms with man's warlike disposition...

...teners...

...Does the author really believe, as indicated by his book, mat the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) had the kind of influence over the Catholic masses as did the above newspapers...

...And sometimes, I think, in trying to be open to the Spirit, he suspends his critical faculties more than he should and ends up being too hard on himself...

...Most of his troubles-like so many cloister crises-were exaggerated little ones...

...Jay pointed out that I obviously could not give without wanting something in in return...

...The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery HENRI J. M. NOUWEN Doubleday, $6.95 RAYMOND A. SCHROTH For non-monks, one of the great attractions of monasteries, and of those pseudo-monasteries like seminaries on hilltops, is their separateness, their apparent isolation from what the rest of us experience as the troubles of the "world"-social pressure, competitive capitalism, alienation, work anxiety, messed-up love affairs and muggings and bicycle thieves in Central Park...

...He knew he had to step back and take a look at his life...

...and, more important, he fails to establish the veracity of his thesis that the church indeed had a foreign policy...

...Perhaps next year he should read his own book on a short retreat and consider how many of his problems simply come from his being a middle-aged celibate...

...They talk and pray and walk in the woods and meet the simple, "holy" Brother Elias who, all smiles and joy, tells them how God has given us sun, clouds, rain and wind etc...

...Certainly there were many clerics and Catholic laypeople who spoke out against Hitlerism...

...Then, saying goodbye, Nouwen says a "bitter spirit" invades him and he complains about the ingratitude of his friends to whom he has given gifts and who have not responded-including Jay, whom he gave an "expensive book about which I was very excited" without a word of thanks...

...At one moment the empty mail box yawns as wide as a lion's jaws, at the next he feels hurt because on St...

...I would suggest, however, that if the author really believes that the church's criticism of Hitler went beyond that of the Roosevelt administration, he should go to a newspaper morgue and read journals such as Social Justice and the Brooklyn Tablet...

...Monks know better...

...although, since he must have foreseen that he would publish his journal, none of the diary entries is so frank or intimate that we feel we are invading his privacy...

...But there were many in sympathy with Hitlerism...

...Unfortunately, after reading the book, one is not sure what the nature of that policy was...

...Jay has not yet published his journal, but I hope he likewise curses himself for his bad manners in not writing a thank-you note and for giving bis very human, immature friend a priggish homily when he was obviously under pressure and needed some understanding...

...There is little understanding and insight into President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the master politician, gaining access to the Catholic hierarchy through his friendship with liberals such as Msgr...

...The views expressed in the book are interesting but only touch the surface...

...I became defensive in return and our discussion became trite...

...But, more than the work-fatigue and frustration, Nouwen's main problems were those he brought with him, and now they were magnified by the routine, silence, isolation and relative smallness of monastery life...

...A reader already familiar with most of these figures will learn little new...

...If so, let him consult N. W. Ayer for newspaper circulation figures...

...Charles E. Coughlin, the Catholic clergyman with the largest following among the Catholic masses, particularly the Irish Catholic population...

...Nouwen chose to attempt a much longer (though not more radical) seven-month change in his life-style by submitting to the strict Benedictine rule, with an emphasis on manual work and liturgy, at the Trappist Abbey of The Genesee in upstate New York...

...At the end of the week Nouwen drives Jay to the airport...

...The Ignatian method is a crash program, a programmed series of steps in frequent mental prayer designed to root out "inordinate attachments," built around gaining a more intimate knowledge of Christ...

...After all in the eyes of many Catholics, wasn't Hitler the bulwark against the spread of Communism in the 1930s...

...He shaved his head, painted fences, washed raisins for hours, washed and carried rocks, peeled potatoes...

...Roosevelt and Romnnlsm: Catholics attd American Diplomacy, 1937-1945 GEORGE Q. FLYNN Greenwood Press, $13.95 SHELDON MARCUS The relationship of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt with the American Catholic church is indeed a topic worthy of study and analysis, for it is a subject of considerable importance in understanding the foreign policy of the United States prior to and during World War II...

...The book is replete with shortcomings that limit its value...

...Henri J. M. Nouwen-a non-monk, Dutch-born American priest, popular preacher, lecturer, psychologist, teacher at Notre Dame and Yale Divinity School and author of eight sensitive books filled with good advice-sensed in 1974 that his own life had lost some of its zing...

...Unfortunately, Roosevelt and Romanism: Catholics and American Diplomacy by George Q. Flynn will not provide the readers with more than a brief, sketchy overview of the subject...

...The study is virtually a review of the literature of the period with no exposition and in-depth discussion of the events, people and forces that shaped, American foreign policy at such a critical time...

...Further, a reader not already familiar with the prominent laymen mentioned in this book could easily get lost in the maze of names bandied about...

...Yet, in the book, Father Coughlin is simply described as a "consistent opponent of American involvement in Europe," and later as an anti-Communist...

...Let him discover that Father Coughlin's weekly radio audience was estimated at between 15-45 million Us...

...He offered Elias as an ideal to strive for and said that my need for a response showed a basic insecurity...

...Nouwen is generous in sharing these reflections with us...

...Except for a brief mention on page 196, there is little discussed on how events from 1937-45 contributed to the rise of McCarthyism in the early 1950s...

...For example, although the author provides considerable material about the views of a host of prominent Catholic clerics and lay-people, there is very little in-depth analysis of the actual impact of these views...

...However, he neglects to mention that one of the prime reasons for this visit was the embarrassment caused the Vatican by Father Coughlin in his 1936 presidential campaign speeches villifying FDR as a "betrayer" and "damned liar...

...Where is the proof...

...In his conclusion, written over a half a year later, Nouwen claims he was not changed by the experience, that none of his problems was solved, that his old demons have settled in again...

...There is neither a clear-cut description of the influence of a William Cardinal O'Connell of Boston, probably the most powerful figure within the American Catholic hierarchy, nor a thorough discussion of Fr...

...Sorry, I'm not satisfied with that...

...This is true up to a point...

...The isolation from anxiety is not...

...On page 101, Flynn talks of the reason for the visit to the United States in 1936 of the then Vatican Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli...

...For example: in October his student friend Jay visits the Abbey for a week...

...Unfortunately, it is just as silly to say that the church was anti-Nazi...

...Little discussion -which would halve been informative -occurs on Roosevelt's use of a number of prominent Catholic laymen, such as Frank Murphy, Leo Crowley and Tommy Corcoran to espouse his views to the "right people" in Catholic circles...

...The author also makes other claims that are not backed by evidence...

...A brave man, Nouwen was ready to explore his own compulsions and illusions...

...In the introduction, the author tells us the "American Catholic church did have a foreign policy...

...Who said so...

...They embody for our own time and place the myth of Eden: here a man can start anew, be Adam again in his original innocence, uncontaminated by the excesses of technology, the CBS Evening News-or Eve...

...Instead, a variety of names are lumped together leaving the reader to sort out who were the more influential figures...

...Certainly a man as sensitive and wise as Nouwen can get enough distance on his own life to alter its compulsive pattern a little bit, at least so the Jays of this world don't throw him quite so hard...

...Mine was only eight days in the Jesuit novitiate at Wemerville, Pa.-a follow-up on the 30 days of Spiritual Exercises I had made last summer in preparation for my final (after 19 years) vows as a Jesuit...

...He had grown so dependent on his own overcommitment, on the ringing phones and stacks of unanswered mail, on students and friends pestering him with their ego-puffing emotional demands that the intermittent silent phone, un-knocked door or empty mailbox would throw him into a tailspin...

...Many others, however, did not do so...

...I would suggest that the author try to qualify such generalizations with words like "some" or "many" rather than give the impression of a universal support for Roosevelt that simply never existed until Pearl Harbor...

...He put himself in the hands of Abbott John Eudes Bamberger, whom he had met at Gethsemani in Kentucky and whose . wide experience in the navy, psychiatry and theology reflected his own aspirations and fantasies...

...This is an election contest against a widely beloved president at the height of his popularity...

...With little supporting evidence, Flynn states that: "When war came to Europe in September 1, 1939, the Catholic press and Catholic leaders pledged themselves to support the president in their crisis...

...These monks are also good capitalists, and Henri worked in the bakery, helping to turn out 15,000 loaves of "monks' Bread" three days a week at 53 cents a loaf (later raised to 59 cents and increased 10,000 to hit the Cleveland market) while the community also agonized over the drought in Africa and the world food crisis...

...I read The Genesee Diary where most people will read it-on retreat...

...For the monk or seminarian prayer and the religious life are no escape but a terrifying-though ultimately liberating-confrontation with the self, with aggression, fear, insecurity and pride...

...With just a few concessions to allow himself more study and writing time, Nouwen threw himself into a way of life for which he had no calling with the hope that this period of detachment and contemplation would give him some insight on his last few disordered years...

...Who but Father Coughlin, in the history of the American Catholic Church, thought himself powerful enough to handpick his own presidential ticket as did the radio priest in selecting Congressman William Lemke of North Dakota to run for the presidency in 1936 and get close to a million votes in the process...

...John Ryan of Catholic University and Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago, using them to support his views and, wherever possible, to facilitate the major goal of any astute politician-win elections...

...And the myth of historical continuity: here men live by a 1400-year-old rule, move through the day and year not so much by the rhythm of the clock or calendar as by the rhythm of the day and nature itself-the liturgical year-in a perpetual harmony of seasons, work and prayer...

...In the pressure of this unusual environment, in his regular conferences with Eudes, whom he respects profoundly, he saw more clearly than ever his insecurity, anger, self-doubt, hypersensitivity-the pos-sessiveness and vanity of his love, his desire for total affection and inability to accept it if it came...

...He says that "In 1937 and 1938 Catholic criticism of Hitler's Germany was equally negative and even went beyond the expressed views of the Roosevelt administration...

...The rule, history and liturgical rhythm are usually there...

...But it would be folly to say that the Catholic church was pro-Hitler...

...If the monastery experience retains, any power over him it is that of a "memory"-a "glimpse of God's gra-ciousness"-that offers new perspectives on present events...