Editorial
CORRESPONDENCE M~l.E~mt P~teg New York, N.Y. To the Editors: There's a place for polemics. In defense of Msgr. Adamo, for instance, or in assault upon his critics, nothing Commonweal is...
...He has restored both the appearance and the substance of honesty and legitimacy to the government...
...10016...
...S/~le eepy rue...
...For despite the differences between the age in which they lived and our own age, "saints should become contemporary enough to force us to examine the way in which we regard Christianity...
...The President's tolerance for Commonweal: 419 level,: as ~ iournalistir history a ragged journal, and as another personal fable of our times...
...In every year that passes, as Israel's enemies become more adepr and confident in the use of military technology, it becomes less consequential exactly where the lines are drawn on the Golan Heights...
...Polemics about the Middle East, however, as in Frank Getlein's column for April 29, seem to me out of place...
...This in essence is majority rule to the African mind...
...S~/e/ two-veGr rate szg.s0...
...The kind of brashness Geflein displays is out of fashion in Tel Aviv...
...That may be unfair...
...Yet, one of the most refreshing meditations on the subject of sainthood, and one that helps restore our concept of the term, is John Garvey's Saints ~or Con/used Times...
...I have been in Africa for many years...
...Adamo, for instance, or in assault upon his critics, nothing Commonweal is likely to say will be too polemical for me...
...But there is no sense of permanent belonging or of finding a permanent home in Him...
...Before he again addresses "Middie East Realities," however, I would urge that he spend two weeks on the West Bank, preferably without a guide...
...Written with clarity and perception, John Garvey's book offers a fresh perspective for our own confused time...
...The correct spelling is Nellie Hill...
...Are you aware of the fact that South Africa has at least 9 different black ethnic groups speaking 9 different ethnic languages with 9 different cultures and I00 different dialects...
...I touch on a number of the complex issues of Anne Sexton's religious poetry in a brief article, "Anne Sexton's Rowing Toward God," in Christianity Today, August 27, 1976...
...monthly in advance for more fl~n three times...
...7c, three times...
...1] Notre Dame professor Peter Walshe states that the U.S...
...It is harder to accept when an outsider who obviously cares about Israel should share the mistake, and fail to see the dangers it creates, the bad politics it inspires...
...Secend g/ass pestelle p_9 at New York, N.Y...
...A careful reading indicates the opposite...
...4an ]/EiISE: James Sullivan 433 NO LAUGHING MAFrEII: Peter Stein/els 434 FLOUNDEHJNG WITH GIr Marilyn Moorcro/t 435 INgIDi[ AN .4kiIORT'ION HO$1PITAkL: Margaret O'Brien Steinlels 438 HOOKS: Robert Phillips, Michael True, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, William O'Rourke, Barbara Mutkoski 439 ILIJ[ISTHALTIONS: Front cover: The Rambona Ivory, A.D...
...ltOBERT O. HoY'r Afvlems IAbcn.~Jms Baltimore, Md...
...He has appointed a competent and intelligent, though not spectacular, Cabinet and he has significantly increased the number of women, blacks and other minorities in influential government posts...
...41614...
...In Andrew Young at the United Nations---and everywhere else--we seem to have an eloquent--if a bit too gabby--spokesman for human rights and the Third World...
...The author fails to realize, however, that these movements are not dedicated to furthering the causes of equality, human rights, and freedom, but are committed to establishing oppressive governments...
...Israel can't afford what it spends on military force...
...its economy is a mess...
...Yes, it was only because of outside factors that the Arabs were saved from another complete humi/iation in the Yore Kippur war...
...Pealtlenm Open TEACHER OPENINGS, all fields, levels locations...
...How can we for example expect the application of one-man, one-vote rule in South Africa...
...000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CARYI[IR: CAPTAIN OR ENGII4EER...
...Sandi Arabia can spend many times as much without a tremor...
...Ferelp $3J.S0...
...The book's thesis is a simple one: "Saints are people who have seen through the idol we usually, make of GOd to the knowledge that God is real...
...He was a living God, with whom they felt in constant dialogue...
...BARBARA M U'rKO6KI 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CORRESPONDENCE (Continued /rom page 419) gun to be before Israel existed...
...Like too many Israelis, Getlein is still astonished that the peoples of the Levant have not ~oyfully welcomed the Israeli presence, in humble gratitude for the gifts that make the desert bloom...
...Look what they did to Mozambique, a beautiful land, productive and with great potential...
...Classified payable with order...
...Mlcred/mr free Ve4...
...Walsbe contends that America should throw its whule-hearted support to various "socialist" and "egalitarian" movements...
...What about the 3 millions of Afrikaans-speaking people and one and 8 July 1977:446 one-half million of English-speaking people, one and one-half million of Colored and 75(1,000 Indians...
...Readers of Commonweal will be particularly interested in her fascination with Catholicism, a subject which needs more study...
...By his informality, occasional travels, telephone and face-to-face conversations with the people, biweekly press conferences, and his frank and simple manner, he has demonstrated his extraordinary intelligence and dispelled just a little of the mystery that has surrounded his private personality...
...According to the GaUup poll, 66 percent of the people rate him favorably...
...The saints were engaged in a process of "deification," the process by which we are transformed into what Christ is, and they gave themselves completely to this process...
...Greet Jr/tale ALAIN WOODROW: Psr/s HIN|Y TIN goiiimlAAih Iteme NSMOND FISHER: Dab/In EDWARD S. SKILLIN: Pub//sJer Staff: LIND& P. KAYLRR, PAMELA J. FITZGERALD, HARRIETIrE BALSKY COMMONWEAL ~3~ MAOfSON AVE., N|W YORK: N.Y...
...the poet plays cards with Him and concludes: "Dearest dealer, / with my royal straight flush, / love you so for' your wild card, / that untameable, eternal, gut-driven ha-ha / and lucky love...
...A slight majority, many without great enthusiasm, voted and hoped for another FDR...
...Write: NC~, |34 W, hesd$1ey Ave., FJkhert, Ind...
...41~ aredeefl41s service...
...Having felt the evidence in their flesh, hxaelis know Arabs can learn to maneuver tanks and aim missiles, and that they do not always run from battle...
...For a long time it has been a reality as obvious as Mount Everest...
...It is an area where nobody can be sure of being wholly right, and where passionate advocacy of mistaken notions may end in shredded bodies...
...Fore/gn $1f...
...needs a radical assessment" of its African foreign policy...
...To laud the Portuguese record in Mozambique is not worthy of serious debate...
...Today you will hear no such statement from Shimon pares or Abha Eban, or even from Menachem Begin...
...THOMAS O. ~VEL$11KO Rockville, Md...
...Given their history and their situation, I find it understandable that the Israelis should continue to misperceive how they are perceived by their neighbors and by their subjects in the occupied lands...
...that is, if a tribe is black, it is exterminated, if it is oriental or white, then it is expelled...
...Address bx V Commonweal, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...As far as the "strong socialistic tendency" of the African fiberation movements, well, we all know what socialism has done to the world...
...Kierkegaard's belief that 'purity of heart is to think one thing' applies to them...
...this proclamation will not come as news to the Palestinians or their sympathizers, nor will it remove the issue...
...Such astonishment, evinced by a journalist as humane and knowledgeable as Getlein, is astonishing...
...Attorney General Griffin B. Bell, his most questionable choice, so far seems to have risen above his past as a member of Alabama racist clubs to become a fair and firm administrator of civil rights legislation...
...In particular, the concluding poem of The Aw/ul Rowing Toward God, "The Rowing Endeth," does not suggest, as McGiU intimates, that the island was empty...
...Hmek lugs A subscriber offers back Issues of Commonweal, from 1962 as, to anyone willing to pay shipping charges...
...it was powerfully stimulated by the creation of Israel, and by the policies Israel has followed...
...God is there...
...PATRICIA WARD Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature Pennsylvania State University Cerreetimt The name of the author of the poem Fisherman in the May 27 Commonweal was misspelled...
...To the Editors: I read with interest William J. McGilrs article, "Anne Sexton and God," [May 13], and agree with the thesis that she is indeed a refigious poet...
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...These men and women were often unsettling to their own times, and Garvey managed to focus them for our time...
...It is no longer useful to Israel, if it ever was, to suggest that its Defense Force will always be able to overwhelm any Arab attack...
...Just as, once upon a time, Jewish nationalism was at most latent, so also Palestinian nationalism has a history...
...but the Israelis know that '73 was very different from '67...
...Given our disenchantment with miracles, idolatry and holy cards, it is no wondef...
...Rather the point is that Africans will end the systematic exploitation they suffer under, and that dismantling racial discrimination (or setting up confederations) will not be sufficient...
...Cepyr/fkt C) 19rr ~meawee/ Pldd/sMng r lan.--.U| eed ~ : $17 _9 year...
...This poem is being reprinted in a newly published volume of poetry, Having Come This Far by Elizabeth Keeler and Nellie Hill...
...900, at the Vatican JAMES O'GAIWL: |d~w JOHN DEEDY: MeMllP/xlf |direr RAYMOND A. S~4ROTH: Auec/ate |d/ter ANNE M. RO|ERTSON, |d/ter/e/ Ass/stunt @OLIN L. WBST|RR/CJ~, JR.: Mev/es JOHN FANDIL: Peatry PRANK G4ffL/IH: WesMsgfeu DIIAN Wl~flm...
...In 1969, in Golda Meir's ofrice, I heard the statement that the Palestinlans are not a people and therefore cannot be a nation...
...Getlein's "awful truth," that "history is made largely by force," needs a correlate: Money buys force...
...Nothing of that style is going to work (look at the rest of Africa...
...F. ZEPPETELLA Hep|lr Let me attempt a brief response to Messrs...
...4r seven times: Sic, thirteen times, Twelve words minimum...
...If it were so, I might claim it as my ancestry goes back to the 1820 settlers in South Africa...
...NaflexG/ Ser/e/r Data Pre|rem Ne.: I$SN O010-1~JO...
...Trying to appear toughminded about Israel, Getlein comes off romantic...
...The MPLA take-over in Angola is a case in poinh To say that the United States could ameliorate its influence in Africa by merely supporting the winning side is too simple...
...Welshko should realize that in the late 20th century civil liberties will not survive in societies that do not take determined steps to restructure themselves along more egalitarian lines...
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...Today there are a number who feel they have ended up with Franklin D. Hoover--fireside chats delivered by the Great Engineer...
...It has only brought poverty, racism, oppression, misery and genocide...
...President Jimmy Carter is doing a good many things well...
...Since Sexton did not have a strong "theology" of grace (due partly to what she viewed as the insipid Protestantism of her childhood), she struggled both with self-loathing and with a sense of the absence of GOd...
...The proposition which he poses is at once provoking and unsettling, as well it should be...
...In working for this there are no definitive blueprints for alternative socioeconomic structures, although there is a moral direction----the search for participatory democracy in the context of economic justice...
...Integration or majority rule (African style) is not going to work...
...PETER WALSHE Sextem mad God University Park, Pa...
...I'll gladly read Getlein on any subject...
...How can you integrate such a country under majority rule...
...Capitalist economic growth has shown itself to be incapable of this...
...I0016 TelepIHme: (11.1) MU 3-~M4~ A rev/ew ef Pab//c AIhs/rs, Literature end tie Arts...
...Besides the inexorably shifting balance of military power, there are other novelties in the world...
...Welshko and Zeppeteila...
...The complexity of Sexton's psyche and the confessional nature of her poetry make generalizations about her religious experience difficult to make...
...These moments are characterized by a sense of love as God works through human beings in their moments of exchanged joy or as the poet senses Him directly...
...See, for example, "The Sickness Unto Death...
...We must not only win allies, but also remember our commitment of insuring human rights throughout the world...
...Look at Tanzania, a country with negative growth, probably the poorest country in the world, under the curse of socialism...
...Yes, o~ course, the Arab states have misused the Palestinian issue...
...On one level, Anne Sexton's fascination with death is a statemerit of anguish of being homeless and roofless and an expression of both her desire to escape suffering and to find God...
...COMMONWEAL, 2.12 Madison Ave., New York...
...The selection of saints is eclectic and curious: Francis of Assisi, Mary, Thomas More, Peter, Paul, Germaine Cousin, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, Benedict, and Catherine of Siena...
...In general the public expresses more confidence in its President than in its Congress...
...One respected columnist, stating his preferences just before the November presidential election, said the American people were faced with a choice between another potential Franklin D. Roosevelt and another Calvin Coolidge...
...The message coming out of Uganda is very clear...
...Even then, to anyone who had visited Nablus, Gaza, Ramallah and Nazareth, the statement was silly on its face...
...We are not going to relive Exodus (the Uris version) again...
...Saints are not the most popular topic of conversation these days...
...Garvey's prevailing metaphor is that of wholeheartednes: ".he total focusing of a life...
...It had be(Continued on page 446) NEWS ds VIEWS: 418 COMIIEgPONDENCE: 419 EDITOIlIAL: 419 WASHINGTON l l E P o I r l ' : H~ ~ Wheels: Frank Getlein 420 ARCHHISHOP LEFEDVHI~S HELIGION: Merge Hammond 422 RICH WORI~, POOR WORLD: John Madeley 4an ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN: Michael Novak 425 THE HIDDEN HEVOLUTION: John L. Stipp 42T T i l e ~rA[GE: Gerald Weales 431 TIWE SCREEN: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...A major redistribution of resources will be necessary...
...McGill is correct that the predominant motif of the religious poems is the quest for GOd, but I disagree that the total thrust of these poems is that God is finally and ultimately absent from his "island...
...Please allow four to six weeks for change of address and enclose label Commonweal: 447...
...Instead of criticism only, our pseudo-intellectuals and intellectual snobs should be able to present constructive proposals...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 BRIEF S~wrs volt CONVUS~n TIMES, by Iohn Oarvey, The Thomas More Press, $8.5O...
...Yet Getlein, by ignoring the Palestinians and defining the conflict as one between Israel and the "Arab states," still follows Meir...
...Zeppetella should beware of the argument that residence in Africa provides the basis for insight...
...To the Editors: An article in the April 1 issue of your magazine by Peter Walshe is a complete disgrace...
...Write: ADULT VOCATIONS hx 41H, Commenweal Classified m RATES: 10c 9 word, one time...
...For the saints, God was not an abstraction...
...Com~e~ Is Indexed /n ire_9 Guide to Puff_9 Literature, Catkellc Per/edlc_9 Index, and Seek Kev/ew Digest...
...Printed Is tl~ USA luld pld~sked b/-weeldy b), C@mmenweat Pub~lab~uS Co...
...What it would mean to fall into the hands of the living God, and not the God we have ideas about, is something we can begin to learn by looking at the lives of the saints...
...To me, the only solution is a Confederation within racial lines...
...BUtT VOCATIONS InoFm for men mr tuty4u...
...Human rights do not exist in a vacuum...
...We regret the error...
...I, 1924, te date _9 ~rangl Universffy M/~r~llmst ~00 N. Zeeb Reed, Ann Arber, M/ct...
...Moments of grace illuminate Sexton's dark poetry...
...For br numbers add S0r per Insertion...
...Every other solution proposed so far will only bring genocide, that is, one more...
...Over the years, however, a theme does seem to evolve in her work, namely, that the roots of her illness were not only psychological but religious...
...A person does not become a specialist on Africa just by reading a book, making a trip or even going tO college...
...Each of the book's ten chapters contains biographical sketches and brief meditations on ,a particular saint...
...To the Editors: In ' ~ h e United States and South Africa" [Apr...
Vol. 104 • July 1977 • No. 14
