ARE NUKES CRICKET?
Wicker, Brian
we have been conditioned to visualize a papacy where the religious leader, like a king, endures, powers failing, to the last hour, while courtiers jockey for his favor or his ear. We are still...
...Naturally, in such surroundings, one tends to muse, during the gaps in the action of the cricket, upon the imminent collapse of Western culture...
...The contemporary attitude toward the aged may be terrible in many ways...
...The figure~ground relation between writer and public, or between the artist and his making, is an interplay, a kind of intercourse...
...I I November 1977:710...
...Even in a secular-rationalistic age, Christians must have confidence that the Spirit will aid the talent search today...
...It is this understanding of his rolemthat his ultimate function is not to impose his will on history but rather to minister in a preeminent way, both realistically and symbolically, to the people of God--that should lead him to retire while his act of voluntarily relinquishing power would still have meaning to the world...
...But it is certain that in addition to this top-level government-sponsored WOMEN PRIESTS: MEDIUM OR MESSAGE...
...Alas, few great men see many younger men worthy of succeeding them...
...Everyone knew that fairly soon a decision would have to be taken...
...But there is a problem of money to be faced even now...
...But now, in a democratic age, it seems rather the reluctance of Roman curial officials to relinquish their power that has kept modern popes hanging on till death...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 FROM BRITAIN ARE NUKES CRICKET...
...More physical rather than logical demonstrations...
...Meanwhile, the Windscale enquiry into the pros and cons of nuclear waste processing and the development of fast-breeder reactors in Britain goes on...
...of the priest...
...This particular sort of inquiry is intended to be conducted when the issues involved are of an exceptionally complex sort, and at the same time are of outstanding general significance for the public as a whole...
...A cricket match, after all, is so eloquent, in its leisurely gentleness, of an order that is elsewhere nearly extinct, that it automatically brings the spectator to ponder on the fragility of the remaining human decencies...
...He is a servant--like Christ, the servant of servants...
...Only a few days ago, a list of fifteen hundred anti-nuclear signatories was published in The Guardian as a first shot across the bows of the pro-nuclear lobby...
...For the future reunion of Christendom can best take place around the papacy, but in the context of a papacy where the pope himself can give moral and pastoral leadership to our fellow Christian churches without dominating them through a too-exalted notion of his authority and prestige...
...But it is worth asking the question, what does such a "great debate" really mean...
...In this report the issues were pretty well set out, and a call was clearly made for more public discussion, and an opening up of the whole problem to public view...
...But the blade, At the last minute, hesitates And does not fall, And the body does not open, And you are what you are-Trapped, heavy and visible Under the rain, only your vision Delicate as old leaves skimming Over the mounds of the seasons, The limits of everything, The few shaped bones of time...
...it is part of every Christian's daily life...
...On a recent Saturday, on the spur'of the moment, my wife and I decided to pack a quick snack for lunch and drive out of the muck and sweat of industrial Birmingham down to sweet and sunny Worcester to watch the Australian cricket team playing the local county side...
...Worcester's cricket is a clean and tidy business, almost domestic in its blissful defiance of the encroaching outside world...
...Perhaps the nature of the decision to be made, and its irrevocableness, will help to focus the public mind...
...Paul VI should also resign as his final contribution to the ecumenical movement which, with his encouragement, has already made progress on the understanding of both the eucharist and the ministry...
...This is characteristic also in medicine, where the surgeon is only exceptionally a woman...
...Paul VI, perhaps the most intelligent of modem popes, knows that he is neither an emperor nor a king...
...Finally, Paul VI should retire because the picture of a pope who has enough confidence in his people that he need not hold control until death will communicate a more vigorous, credible, realistic, humble and hopeful message about the church to the same disaffected masses of young unbelievers the Synod hoped to address...
...We are still stuck with a papacy modeled on European monarchy, constructed to meet a real need for an independent and stable religious institution that could maintain the church's political position through centuries of turmoil...
...but I can't see much hope of our getting one--even supposing that a referendum were altogether a good thing...
...Reportedly, Paul VI has argued that he could not resign because of the example of Christ who did not lay down his cross and because as "father" of the church he could not desert his family...
...There is, as it were, a sexual relation between performer and public which relates specifically to the priest or minister...
...One tragedy did befall the scene that morning: and this was bad for the visiting team, Greg Chappell, the Australian captain, had to retire hurt with a knee injury after making an elegant hundred 11 November 1977:708 runs not out...
...It is not yet clear exactly how it will work...
...In the same way, resignation for this pope would be particularly fitting--though especially difficult--because he has been so preoccuped with papal authority...
...The Cathedral beams over the rim of the trees with a sort of benevolent smile that only English sandstone can muster on a bright sunny morning...
...Doubtless there will be plenty of demands for that...
...Is the process not likely to generate more heat than light...
...But carrying the cross is not the essence of the papal office...
...But perhaps the thirst for great "public debates" has been whetted by the recent attempts by the government to whip up interest in the question of educational standards through the initiation of a "great debate" on that issuewa point I mentioned in another recent Commonweal report...
...People seem more inclined than elsewhere to dump their disposable tea-cups and sandwich papers in the bins provided instead of leaving them on the terraces to blow about or gather flies...
...But this was hardly enough to ripple the calm of a day well and truly spent on the upkeep of civilization against the barbarians...
...It would be a tragedy if this were to happen: surely if the government means business with its commitment to the 'great debate' it should see to it, somehow, that both sides get the money they need to mount their arguments successfully...
...The writer's or performer's public is the formal cause of his art or entertainment or his philosophy...
...Even the pleas of the military for the usual secrecy were discounted to some extent in the interests of greater political awareness and participation...
...he knew that the original church could come into full maturity only when he was gone, when he had ascended to the one and only Father of us all, and when the Spirit was sent forth as Christ's continued but invisible presence...
...It was always possible that the government would shelve the report's findings and then go for some advantages in the short run by taking a hasty decision to "go nuclear...
...In a time when men didn't live quite so long that seemed to call for a life-time term...
...I mean the decision to postpone the plan to take Britain into what has come to be called a "plutonium economy" until adequate public discussion of the issues involved has taken place for a sensible and informed policy to be formulated...
...It is interesting that Peter Shore, the Environment Secretary, has indicated that he intends to conduct the great debate by invoking a hitherto unused bit of legal machinery, namely a "public inquiry commission...
...An important public report of an expert committew,----the "Flowers report"--was published some months ago...
...and it is hardly clear that conditions for picking a wise, holy and vigorous vicar of Christ will be better three, or five ormif he lives to 90--ten years from now...
...And sometimes, for a moment, You feel it beginningmthe sense Of escape sharp as a knife-blade Hangs over the dark field Of your body, and your soul Waits just under the skin To leap away over the water...
...Anyway, whatever the motives, the fact is that instead of being faced with a Jait accompli in the autumn, in the shape of a firm decision to begin building the plutonium economy now, the country is shortly to be confronted by a barrage of opposing olbinions and expert assessments: on the reactor-safety question, on the question of threats to civil liberties implied in an immensely security-conscious nuclearized economy, and on the international dangers of any proliferation of weapons-systems...
...This interplay is at its peak in all performance before the public, and is characteristic of role-playing in general...
...The congregation is necessarily feminine to the masculine role...
...1977 Commonweal: 709 public debate, many organizations, from universities to churches, and from the Friends of the Earth to the big energy corporations, will be involved in mounting their own educational programs and confrontations, and publicizing their own propaganda exercises on behalf of their points of view...
...The best organized of the anti-nuclear bodies, the Friends of the Earth, is poised to launch its counterattack on the case put up by British Nuclear Fuels...
...The costs of the enquiry are becoming so great that there is some chance that the anti-nuclear ease may go by default simply because the various lobbies cannot afford to keep their counsel retained for the length of time needed to do justice to the argument...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 MARY OLIVER YOU KNOW BOW I T FEELS You know how it feels, Wanting to walk into The rain and disappear-Wanting to feel your life Brighten and grow weightless As a leaf in the fall...
...In such a complex technical, and unpredictable area as this one, can "the public" really take part intelligently...
...However, there is one advantage that this debate has over the education case: namely that, at some time or other, a decision will have to be made...
...And ought not some sort of "referendum" have to be the culminating act...
...On a more political level, Vatican-watchers argue that the present pope feels he must hang on because he doesn't want to run away from his battle with Archbishop Lefebvre, because he must block some particular reactionary, or unreliable, or too-liberal prelate from gaining power...
...It was therefore with the greatest relief (a relief made doubly memorable by virtue of the situation I have just described) that we read on that very day of a decision by the British government that may turn out to be the best, and most important one they have taken in the past decade or so...
...The crowds are modest by football standards, or even by the standards of the big city cricket-grounds like Lords or the Oval in London...
...Nor is the "Holy Father" the father of the church in the manner of a family's father--though the modern idea of fatherhood would make him less physically isolated from his children...
...It is interesting, though doubtless futile, to speculate whether this piece of public-opinionforming had any noticeable effect on the cabinet decision finally to go for the immediate discussion rather than the immediate dissemination of nuclear energy, as the first priority of public policy, despite the pleas of the pro-nuclear interests to get on with the job and bow to what they regard as the inevitable...
...But it is the example of Jesus as much as anything that should lead Paul VI to resign, for Jesus was not afraid to set his apostles free...
...This is just a note about the ordination of women which concerns "formal causality," i.e., structural form which is inseparable from "putting on" one's public...
...MARSHALL MCLUHAN (~ McLuhan Associates Ltd...
...The case for has now been completed: and shortly, the public will begin to hear something positive of the case against...
...Worcester has a county cricket ground which still retains some of the atmosphere of a village green...
...After all, plenty of other hefty reports by publicly-appointed committees have been gathering dust for the last ten years while quite different policies are formulated elsewhere...
...In the milieu of unisex, or electronic loss of private identity, the ordination of women can be conceived as a corporate or group event, not in a sacramental but in a sociological sense...
...BRIAN WICKER (Brian Wicker is Commonweal's regular correspondent in Great Britain...
...In a way he can go on doing most of the best things he is doing now: he will always be Giovanni-Battista Montini, a brilliant, warm and, above all, holy man who carries his cross and, in a unique way, bears witness to God's presence among men...
...What can Pope Paul VI do when he retires...
...but, in general, people are reasonable in not wanting important issues in their lives determined by men in their 80s---a fact which Paul himself acknowledged in requiring bishops to retire at 75 and barring cardinals over 80 from voting in the papal election...
...Education is not a question that often issues in a single clear-cut decision: but whether or or not to go nuclear is necessarily a matter of that kind...
...It is, therefore, this inherent sexual aspect of the priesthood that makes the ordination of women impractical and unacceptable to a congregation in their feminine role...
...or because, having looked over the crop, sees no clearly worthy successor...
Vol. 104 • November 1977 • No. 23
