A DISPLAY OF UNITY

...Contrasts were also apparent in the different cultural heritages of the bishops present...

...The original may not have been the boldest job plan anyone has come up with-offhand, I can think of two both bolder and more imaginative---but it did place the government as employer of last resort if all else fails...

...And a study published in Commentary indicates that a confrontation on Mid East policy would draw strong political opposition to Mr...

...The word in English--catechismwbrings to people's mind the idea of a book...

...Carter from a significant cross section of American society, with those "fervently dedicated" to the survival of Israel--Jews and non-Jews--making up about 27 percent of the American electorate...

...But if the Sadat trip does not produce striking results, the relationship of Mr...

...The Kisii tribe borders with the Maasai tribe...

...There matters stood until the Sadat trip...

...Only 27 percent of those interviewed in the New York Times-CBS Poll took the opposite view--that the U.S...

...How many for 30 and so on until the crew was complete...

...This year some even hinted that it was a sort of pre-Conclave in which the cardinals, given the advanced age of Pope Paul, would be exchanging views on the nomination of the next Pope...

...The defense line, manned by Carter, 9 December 1977:776...

...Rather than internal divisions, however, the bishops addressed themselves to a different sort of "tension"--the difficulties the church faces in a contemporary society that is often indifferent or even hostile to religious sentiment...

...One might ask," concluded Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio of the Curia Romana, "if after the agitation of post-Vatican I I this Synod doesn't signal a new phase in the life of the church...

...There are people on the Hill who believe it never was much and you can make the case that it never was as much as was needed to achieve something more nearly approaching full employment than anything we are likely to achieve in the next few years...

...Witness the money presently flowing to Northern Ireland from Americans of Irish descent...

...With the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Christian can be, according to the word of the Apostle, 'strong in the faith.' The authentic opening of the spirit presupposes and demands a clear and mature consciousness of one's own identity which is necessary for witness and mission...

...The fact that this year's Synodmunlike the previous sessions which were marked by in-fighting and tension--was, as Canadian Bishop Emmett Carter put it, "the most peaceful that we have had" is in itself indicative of a general sentiment of reconciliation...

...Carter and American Jews is likely to remain strained...

...asked Bishop Lucker...

...In a situation of diversity and pluralism, the Christian Commonweal: 775 shouldn't be afraid," the bishops concluded in their final message...

...Now, there is nothing as last resort if all else fails as all else has stubbornly continued to do for some years now...

...Theology is only one part of the question...

...WASHINGTON REPORT THE JOB ON JOBS That HEW building at the foot of Capitol Hill with a view of the skating rink one way and of the city's most astonishing freeway access complex on the other may be no great shakes as architecture--although well above the Federal mean around hereDbut it is named .for Hubert Horatio Humphrey and that's a good thing...

...Those people say the new bill is not only watered down, which everybody says, but that it is watered down water...

...The workers, leaving the factory gate and seeing the non-workers scraping the garbage cans, thought, there but for the grace of Mr...

...This is a touchy issue, but whatever credit or blame accrues as a result of the Sadat trip, non-Jewish Americans should not allow it to become a divisive factor in our national life...

...The Carter people have tried to present their case to American Jews...

...MARCO HAMMOND (Margo Hammond, a frequent contributor, is an American journalist working in Rome...

...Despite the display of unity shown at the Synod-a document circulated at the beginning of the session which gave a panoramic view of the church's activities since the last Synod in 1974 made a direct appeal to Lefebvre to return to the fold--the meeting of bishops was not without its contrasts...

...The fact is that poverty is not news that makes headlines...

...Catechesis and Marxism...

...For centuries these two tribes have been at war, killing each other and taking away cattle from each other...

...Catechesis and poverty...

...Write if you find work...

...Pointing out that the church in Vietnam had in the past been accused of being linked with imperialism, the bishop of He Chi Mirth City (Saigon), Nguyen Van Binh, emphasized the need for Vietnamese Catholics to collaborate with the new government: "The main goal of the regime is to unite all citizens in the building of a new society...

...There is no reason American Jews should not have similar feelings about Israel, and without any charges of dual loyalty being raised, especially if Israel's survival seems to be at stake...

...Prior to the Sadat trip, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance explained administration policy to a closed meeting of American Jewish leaders, and before the American Jewish Congress Andrew Young defended President Carter's role as an "honest broker" in the Mid East, insisting that administration policies would in fact bolster Israel's security...

...Who is determining our culture...

...Between union contracts on the one hand and minimum wage laws on the other, the labor market has not worked that way in a long time and even the wildest dreams of the deceptively named Rightto-work Committee don't really see that happy state returning...

...In each part of the world the church must take into account the social, political and cultural conditions .in which it operates...

...The Vietnamese Catholics, refusing to live in a ghetto, do not want to be left out of this effort...

...Humphrey-Hawkins ain't nothing...

...And President Carter made his own effort, pleading with Jewish leaders that "intemperance or partisanship" should not be allowed to thwart what might be "the best opportunity for a permanent Middle East peace settlement in our lifetime...

...Nevertheless, spokesmen for the American Jewish community have not criticized the Begin policy on this matter, and this is no doubt because of their conviction that the Mid East policies of the Carter administration constitute a threat to Israel's security and well-being...

...In this area of the world, the rigid opposition of the past is giving way to a more realistic approach of co-existence for both sides...

...Catechesis and consumerism...

...So the Gotroxes of this world really have nothing to lose by letting people work for the government if they can't find work elsewhere...

...When that is the case, no one feels free to criticize Israeli policy...

...The classic theory of unemployment is that it keeps inflation down, but of course it is not working like that at all and it's time we stopped pretending it does work like that...

...American Jews feel increasingly that the Carter policy is in fact inimical to Israel, and there is therefore a strong tendency among American Jewish spokesmen to close ranks and avoid any internal dissent on issues involving Israel...

...should "pay more attention to the demands of the Arabs even if it means antagonizing Israel...

...Carter made it clear that he would not bend under pro-Israel pressure...

...In the socialist countries where religious practice is often discouraged, the church faces still another challenge: how to compete with an ideology that stresses some of the same social values as Christianity (justice, anti-consumerism, a community spirit, etc...

...The reason both those product-pending projects are good things is that they are memorials to one of the last top liberals in government, a remarkable man any way you lo0k at him, and while one may be dubious about the HEW architecture or reserved about the political science institute, the other available memorial is the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill and you don't need reservation or dubiety about that: whether you like Humphrey and his politics, or hate both with the gem-like flame intensity of James Jackson Kilpatrick, you have to admit that Humphrey is something...

...The words religious studies give the idea of an objective approach rather than a commitment to religious life...

...He warned that the church must re-examine its lifestyle if it is to have any impact on a subcontinent that is overwhelmed by misery...

...The catechetical mission meets up with obstacles not only in those countries where religious liberty is restricted, but also in those nations where materialism and consumerism predominate...

...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 FROM ROME DISPLAY OF UNITY "Catechesis is a difficult word," Bishop Raymond Lucker admitted when asked by reporters in Rome why this year's synod failed to fire the imagination of the general public...

...But this is precisely the rub...

...Bishop Lucker, of New Ulm, Minnesota, was among the more than 200 bishops, cardinals, patriarchs and religious superiors called to Rome to discuss "all those 9 December 1977:774 things that go into making a modern Christian" at the fifth Bishops' Synod held September 30-October 29 in the Vatican...

...Augustus F. Hawkins of California in the leastDhe did co-sponsor a bill that meant at least a little help for the unemployed--in the Carterized version the "Hawkins" seems really to stand for Sadie Hawkins: the Joint Resolution encourages the unemployed to go run after jobs just as Sadie Hawkins Day used to encourage single ladies to run after Dogpatch's determined bachelors, with the difference, of course, that there were a lot more bachelors per Dogpatch maiden lady than there are jobs per job-seeker...

...Italian Americans, German Americans, Polish Americans, Ukranian Americans--all have strong feelings for their people's original homeland...

...The Indian Cardinal Lawrence Trevor Picachy, who headed the Commission for Controversies, admitted he was unemployed during the entire month-long Synod...

...Catechesis, on the other hand, is a Greek word that conveys the idea that we are concerned with all of those things that go into making a modern Christian," he explained...

...That actually did work when the labor market was literally a kind of auction: How many will work for 20 cents a day...

...indeed, he suggested that too fervent support of some Israeli positions might harm Israel by hamstringing negotiations...

...A truly local church will emerge from the use of a life-centered catechesis that will make it possible for the Gospel Message to be rooted in the lives of our African people," said Cardinal Maurice Otunga, archbishop of Nairobi...

...Cardinal Lawrence Trover Picachy, archbishop of Calcutta, pointed to the number of Christians both in the East and the West who are attracted to the religions of Asia which are based on contemplation and interior peace...

...If a single theme can be found in the weeks of speeches, discussions and documents of this year's synod it is this: in order to promote "all those things that go into making a modern Christian," the church must confront the modern world with all its competing ideologies...

...but promotes a non-religious conception of the world...

...While the church is struggling to establish Christianity in the Third World amid poverty and cultural diversity, the bishops from the affluent nations of the West spoke of obstacles of another sort: how to teach the faith in an increasingly secularized society where religious values are drowned in a sea of consumerism...

...This year's theme, chosen by the Pope after a series of consultations with the Episcopal Conferences, was: Catechesis of Our Day with Sepcial Reference to Children and Youth...

...the new one, arrived at through weeks of negotiating everything away to the fiscally conservative Carter administration, does nothing...

...This policy in turn led to a resolution in the General Assembly of the United Nations censuring Israel and calling the actions illegal and an obstruction to peace efforts...

...You could have 50 percent unemployment and those who did have jobs would still be paid at least the minimum established by law and in most cases the much higher minimum established by contract...

...On the West Bank, for instance, the Begin government seems intent on increasing the number of Jewish settlements on the land won from Jordanian control in 1967, apparently on the Begin thesis that such land is not occupied but liberated...

...In many nations due to the evolution of the society religious activity has been given a marginal role," the bishops lamented in their final document, "A Message to the People of God...

...Certainly American Jews by and large tend to have intense sympathy for Israel and why not...

...It was like a whiff of grapeshot or a salutary hanging "to encourage the others...

...In the course of that speech Mr...

...On this particular Sunday the priest told the Kisii that their neighbor in the Gospel was the Maasai...

...The whole church, old and young, women and men, spontaneously reacted with one expression: 'KAI, KAF which means, 'Impossible, impossible.' However they got the message which they have never forgotten...

...The Africans, pointing to the importance of the community experience, stressed the need to use local traditions in the teaching of the faith...

...Not to denigrate Rep...

...The Synod is nevertheless the most "democratic" ecclesiastical institution and as such is a good barometer for testing the changing moods and situations of the various national churches throughout the world...

...We have settled into what looks like a permanent seven percent unemployment rate...

...Citing such figures as Jean Vanier and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who have "succeeded to a certain extent in awakening the conscience of the world," the Indian cardinal concluded, "We have a long way to go...

...The United States abstained...

...If all else fails, it ~ails, but we wish you well, pal, in your daily round of workplaces overstaffed with workers...

...Gotrox go I so I'd better go easy on Gotrox, perhaps offer to take a cut...

...The mass media, movie stars, Las Vegas and Johnny Carson...

...Even granting the low esteem in which the UN is held these days, such a verdict of world public opinion cannot be ignored...

...This would make them numerous enough to constitute a veto group in national politics, and such opposition would have a "devastating effect" on Carter's chances for reelection...

...It is a kind of joint resolution, not joint of the two Houses of Congress, but joint of the Legislative and Executive Branches, that they all believe everybody ought to have a job and they sure wish good luck to anybody looking for one...

...It's this that disturbs me...

...only Israel voted against the resolution which was approved by 131 votes...

...Pure fantasy," retorted the official Vatican organ L'Osservatore Romano...

...Meanwhile, in far Minnesota, the Hubert H. Humphrey political science institute is in far too early a stage for anyone to know whether it will ever amount to anything or not, but that's a good thing, too...

...They could have chosen the words religious education, but that implies classroom teaching...

...What is lacking in the Carter-Humphrey-Hawkins is any plan at all to get that down to six, let alone the three/four the bill proclaims as a national goal...

...They may be right, but, however inadequate, the original Humphrey-Hawkins did something...

...If that venture produces a breakthrough in the Mid East, we will be in a whole new ball game...

...Wherever the blame should lie, the fact is that so far the administration has failed completely to sell its case to the American Jewish community...

...The classic theory was that a pool of the unemployed kept the employed from getting too uppity...

...One Sunday, for example, a missionary priest at the Tabaka Mission in Kisii read out the Gospel of the Good Samaritan...

...Initiated by Vatican II to provide more contact between the Pope and the bishops around the world, the special body has been dubbed by the secular press the "Parliament" of the church...