Editorials
Contents Volume CV, Number 25 Correspondence 802 Editorials 803 Prematurely Saved: John Garvey 805 The Illusion in Iran: Thomas Powers 806 God, man, history & the totalitarian...
...That abortion is immoral because it reduces the potential number of soldiers to slay and be slain in war...
...It was not long before the very basis of the civil religion original notion of the covenant--that our Calvinist forefathers, adapting the Testament idea of God's covenant with Israel, had a pact with God to establi "City on a Hill," as a sign to the world of His justice--was corrupted int~ imperialistic and racist version of Manifest Destiny...
...The prematurely save asking us to arrive at conviction this right now, as if it were our end deal, and not God's initiative, mattered...
...In the long r is better to be embarrassed by our inability to live up to our ideals than t, ultimately debased by a cynicism that excludes ideals from national and inte tional life...
...Army War College essay warning that falling population rates will weaken America's military capabilities.9 Population projections are surely the proper busi- ness of military planners, but what is the U.S...
...It centers on the right to be free from government violation of the integrity of persons: torture...
...But I may decide, before long, to give it up...
...Thus, when Christian faith works, the believer looks at the image of the 1 Family on the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem and at the broken body of Jesu the cross and sees both God mysteriously trying to break through to our world an the same glance: all the refugees, "boat people," "illegal aliens...
...Contents Volume CV, Number 25 Correspondence 802 Editorials 803 Prematurely Saved: John Garvey 805 The Illusion in Iran: Thomas Powers 806 God, man, history & the totalitarian temptation: Jean-Marie Domenach 808 The parable of the unresponsive witnesses: James H. Forest 814 Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...seem to think that they are good...
...Thomas Powers Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...It is the 30-year overdue ratification of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, passed 'in response to the Holocaust and already ratified by 83 countries, and the two other international rights conventions, which over 50 nations have joined, spelling out the political, civil, social and economic implications of the Universal Declaration...
...all the nameless outcastsof so~ who break through to us in the newspapers, TV newscasts and our own city str~ So, in spite of the moral messiness and evident inconsistency of many of policies--our long support, for the sake of oil and strategic advantage, of the cot and brutal regime in Iran, and our recent decision to allow the Import-Export Bal finance the export of turbines to Argentina--this is still the time for President C: to reaffirm that human rights are the "soul" of our foreign policy...
...10016...
...We expect that many Christmas homilies and bishops' letters will and should speak of peace and justice in general, the dangers of Communism and the rights of the unborn...
...It isn't GOd I doubt, but myself...
...Thus, the U.S...
...In addition, the unhappiness of many change of heart...
...illD~ HUMAN RIGHTS AT CHRISTMAS T HIS Christmas seems the perfect time--both because of the transcen quality of the political issue itself and because of recent events that rais~ issue again and again--to return to the issue of human rights.' Fol celebration of Christmas--in spite of the vulgar commercialism and evasive, ularistic, flight-from-piety discussions that have degraded it--is a communa tempt to deal with life's fundamental values...
...What gets blessed in all For any Christian a belief in perfectil is a dangerous thing, and here we c get into a discussion of heresy as a n ingful social problem, but we won't more appropriate category migh whatever simple discipline it could to frame the question, "What can it J to say 'I am saved...
...The next issue will be dated January 19, 19...
...It makes you feel better about yourself and lets you be your own best friend and look after I II IIIIII number one...
...It is functionally equivalent to est or TA or inner tennis...
...one of the joyboys asked recently...
...I am bothered by the fact tha people who say this about thems...
...27 issue, which deplored the action of a bishops' committee at the United States Catholic Conference in terminating the services of Monsignor George G. Higgins after 34 years of service and two years before his scheduled retirement...
...foreign...
...When we locate and defil divine we create an idol...
...Special two-year rate: $32...
...This is one instance where it would be better to leave war to the generals.9 ALL'S WELL...
...Poetry: John Fandel Correspondents: Brian Wicker (Great Britain), Desmond Fisher (Dublin), Alain Woodrow (Paris) Staff: Linda F. Kayler, Harriene Balsky Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher...
...to try to go beyond that--to arriv~ point where I trust myself enough t "I am saved"--is less an act offa God than an act of faith in myself...
...9 :museum...
...Can a Christian really be depressed...
...In the face of such widespread objections, the bishops on the Committee reversed their decision, reinstating Commonweal: 804 Monsignor Higgins and also canceling the abolishment of the only an unheeding bureaucracy, all these are happy de human values committee which deals with urgent biomedical opments, and we congratulate those responsible for ethical questions...
...protests erupted all over the country, including many from other bishops and from personages such as the AFL-CiO's George Meany and former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg...
...by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madi- son Ave...
...and though taste isn't everything, it is at leastsomething, I thoughL watching this version of the slow dissolve...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Coalition for Life's interest...
...We were by no means the only ones to object to the committee's action...
...We seriously doubt its expertise in distinguish- ing a good military analysis from a bad one, and we reject the implicit confusion of contraception, sterilization and abortion in this blind swing at "federal anti-life and anti-natalist policies.9 But what finally is the point...
...But here is an opportunity for both religious and secular communities to demonstrate, in a new way, the solidarity of the human family...
...T precisely what the zeitgeist seen want of me, but I'm not sure thai God's will...
...Meanwhile President Carter has committed his administration to a difficult project that, particularly this Christmas, should have the fullest support of religious and political leaders everywhere...
...Litera- ture and the Arts...
...Mate- rialism is criticized, but this has less to do with the way we live than with the way we feel about how we live--and therein lies a clue...
...MILITANTS & MILITARY There are moments when elements in the anti-abortion movement appear determined to live up to the most far-fetched caricature to which they are subject...
...In an age when it often seems that protests encounter Year's season...
...We know the dangers inherent in a foreign policy inspired by a particular brar American moral fervor...
...James O'Gara Executive Editor: Peter Steinfels Associate Editor: Raymond A. Schroth Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, Frank Getlein...
...The worst problem, though, i., idolatry...
...Some of my best friends are tolerant...
...Single copy, 75r IIII .. ,., .9milllll" , . m ...~.~.il I. :'~v.' pw~'q ,atA~ m...
...He matched words with actions when he said "Our country will do its utmost to ease the plight of stranded refugees from Indochina and Lebanon and of released political prisoners from Cuba and elsewhere...
...816 Verse: Anne Fremantle 813 Geraldine "C...
...foreign, $36...
...If the uni" is what I hope it is, God's will to sav~ God's love for me, God's power to everything created and God's lov...
...Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs...
...New York, N.Y...
...For, in many ways, the debate over human rights today is the latest p of the Western world's ongoing attempt to define what it understands by the Nal Law, to find the richest common ground between the religious and secular apprt tion of man's nature--to emblazon the base of Evgeny Vuchetich's magnifi statue at the United Nations' plaza with Isiah's "They shall beat their swords plowshares" knowing that all the members of the UN may not know Isaiah's and that the day of no swords and all plowshares may never come, but tha civilization can ignore Isaiah's prophecy and survive...
...T, "I am saved" seems to say more me than it does about God...
...arbitrary arrest or imprisonment...
...When we 22 December 1978:805...
...Little 817 Books Visions of Glory Jack Miles 818 Evita, First Lady Joseph A. Page 819 Dasher/Yankee from Georgia William J. Lanouette 820 Education for Justice/The Faith that Does Justice Ed Marciniak 822 Milton and the English Revolution Robert L. King 824 Uncommon Prayer Michael True 824 Index to Volume CV 826 Staff Editor...
...Yearly subscriptions...
...After awhile 1 un- derstood that she really was converted, she really had tried to give her life to God in a rare and important way...
...cruel, inhuman ordegrading treatment or punishment...
...It isn't sincerity I wonder about here--if anything this sort of perfor- mance points up what a cheap virtue sin- cerity is--but the horror involved when you wrap up the gospel in the flag, senti- mentality, individualism, and an uncriti- cal view of American capitalism...
...what has been made--none of things is in question...
...These other rights mean little if the rest of the world cannot know who is Starving and who is torturing whoda...
...The answer was, of course, no...
...The clue is that this is one more damned therapy, this wave of born- againism...
...Appropriately, the distinction and tension between the moral challenge of a national dedication to human rights and the practical effort to achieve them ran through President Carter's December 6 speech commemorating the 30th an- niversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
...If, as Christians believe, in the Incarnation God renewed his covenant with man, this is our time to renew and strengthen those civil and moral covenants that witness to the same belief...
...Tillll .9...
...If pressed-- or even if they aren't--they will admit that Jews, Catholics, and even Protestants will go to hell unless they accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior...
...They are everywhere, even into the technology of satellite television, a medium which, they insist, has been given them by God to get his word all over the planet...
...the denial of a fair public trial, and the invasions of the person...
...Everybody loves a happy ending, so we are glad to salute one in the matter of Monsignor George G. Higgins...
...But our commitment to human rights, because these rights, by definition~ focus on the well-being of individual persons rather than on the legitimacy of national policies, is, to some degree, protected from this abuse...
...TO say "I am saved"--a: were my decision that made the difference--seems arrogant, presur ous...
...On a long bus ride I once sat next to an old lady who said she was saved and worried about whether-I was...
...and Canada...
...Coalition for Life is retailing a U.S...
...Readers may remember our editorial "Getti0g the Ax" in the Oct...
...My reason for thinking badly about this isn't simple resentment at being looked at as if I were a form of fuel...
...is published biweekly, except monthly Christm~-New Year's and July and Au- gust...
...Of several minds: John Garvey THE PREMATURELY SAVED UNECUMENICAL THOUGHTS FOR ADVENT I 'VE always believed in ecumenism...
...But he must have been thinking of Iran and Argentina when he admitted that in a complicated world often a choice that moves us toward one of our goals moves us farther away from another...
...At least I would like to begin asking some impolite questions which come to mind whenever I meet the pre- maturely saved, the "born-again" sorts who are given to lamenting their former existence (they drank, played cards, danced, thought abut sex) and celebrat- ing their present lives (now they do none of the above...
...The people I am worried about are the groups responsible to no one but TV audiences or other crowds, the people who are never involved in the self-critical discussion which true communities always share...
...Richard John Neuhaus has argued well (The Christian Century, DecEmber 6) that these rights should include a subsistence diet and the freedom of expression...
...And Christianity, in spite o institutional scandals and failures, has, in its belief in the doctrine of the Incarnal given our civilization its strongest philosophical underpinning for its respect fo infinite worth and individual dignity of every man and woman...
...In the background there was a chorus of amens and praise Jesus...
...prisoners (gl and innocent) in New York, Manila, Moscow, Havana and Belfast jails...
...Abigail McCarthy...
...An odd argument for a "pro-life" lobby...
...Not all of those people who talk about being saved bother me, as uncomfortable as I am with the language involved...
...His wife, streaming tears and consequent mascara, testified some nights later that she really hadn't wanted to go on with this ministry but (guess what) Jesus gave her the courage...
...This isn't necessarily thing more than silly, except for the that it is a growing phenomenon, converts everywhere...
...Religion has been a pious c over false patriotism and has seemed to justify any atrocity--from born 22 December 1978:803 Hiroshima and~l?!anoi to invading CambOdia (an acti0n the self-descnbed ~: r .9 ~'r " pragmatist" President at that time is still proud oO--done in the name of American democracy...
...The problem i with God's end of the equation but my own...
...bishops with the original action of the Committee on Research, Plans and Programs has led to steps to review, the functions of In keeping with the general magazine practice, C the group and perhaps to curb its considerable power in the monweal is skipping one issue during the Christmas-J future...
...She was converted by her work with old and poor people, and by a minister wh o persuaded her that this should never be a matter of pride and self-righteousness...
...the lo dead piled high in the moral jungle of Jonestown...
...His word comes via sets equipped with rubber tree plants and hosts who yuck it up in between impas- sioned pleas to turn to the Lord...
...One Quaker fi complained, "I hate the way the co-opted the word 'Christian.' I h; when they get some rink Catholic bi or priest up there, to give the ho: opportunity to trumpet the fact that Catholics can be saved now...
Vol. 105 • December 1978 • No. 25
