Memories and hopes:
Allen, Rodger Van
ernment thinking, expressed this sentiment editorially. "In the cused him of ignorance, charged him with helping the IRA. wake of President Carter's historic achievement of bringing ...
...develops organically from its New Testament roots...
...O'Neill's remarks were very warmly received by politi- I s S THE PROMISE of genuine historical-mindedness one of the cians in the Republic, with the exception of Senator Conor great unrealized hopes of the Age of Renewal...
...The attempt to camouflage this as a low-key internal United Kingdom matter...
...O'Neill's remarks was known in of a group of Irish-American politicians who last St...
...It was not a debate...
...Obviously, FATHER EDWARD M. CATICH died in life, he certainly gave pain regularly to any school that could produce those two his studio at St...
...Ag- O'Brien granted that there had been wrong turns, mistakes giornamento has, he felt, inspired little in the way of impress- and blunders in the church as there had been in society in ive history and much of what has been done has focused onn general, but he asked: "Has not our church, for all of its topics of current controversial interest-infallibility, con- problems, emerged as the major community in the world traception, the status of women, Modernism-and has been pledged to the defense of human rights, religious freedom, and "likely to suffer from the authors' desire to make timely the promotion of human dignity...
...reading our way through the raged, the more so, no doubt, because being radical or revolutionary...
...insights might be reconciled authentically with traditional Many questions remain in assessing the merit of each preteaching, the latter was directly assaulted...
...After all, the Sorbonne and founded his own quarsion of his faith and the exercise of his everybody knew Christ was not a black...
...This does not, however, rule out either a visit to Ireland by Certainly, the politicians in both parts of Ireland and in President Carter (following in the footsteps of John F. KenBritain took it much more seriously than that...
...And, next day, he paid a surprise visit to ment is achieved, he has been careful to avoid direct involveBelfast where he met privately with the leaders of the four ment in a problem which the British government regards as an main parties...
...He serves as Chairman of the accommodate to American society, they became comCatholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and editor of promised when that society began to reveal serious flaws...
...good offices with President Carter to try to bring about a Governor Carey turned the screw a little more when, a few similar historic shift of emphasis on Northern Ireland...
...Com- The hope in Dublin is that the new British government under monweal, Apr...
...Among the works in hand when he left who looked a lot like either Andrea del Almost immediately I discovered that was the fifteenth station of the cross for Sarto or Albrecht Diirer...
...He concluded by maintainpoints...
...wake of President Carter's historic achievement of bringing But Mr...
...Is this properly respectful both be somewhat clouded...
...We had both spent a lot of quite normal, but at the time I was outthem, Ned Catich had no idea that he was time at C.U...
...One of the lights in our lives was The Catholic Art Quarterly, full of stimulating articles and pictures about what reliACKNOWLEDGING A DEBT gious art ought to be and could be, as opposed to the "holy-o-graphs" we desEDWARD M. CATICH & CHRISTIAN ART pised...
...Ambrose...
...But Mr...
...private trip could hardly succeed...
...to defend above all and everywhere the rights of the renewal, to come to terms with the historical dimensions of human person and not only those of the Catholic church...
...Patrick's advance to President Carter and represents his views...
...Catich and Kerrigan were widely rethe college chapel, the last in a set Catich I got to know Catich as a fellow faculty garded as a couple of kooks...
...O'Neill- nedy and Richard M. Nixon) or behind-the-scenes diplomatic along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Senator Daniel P. pressure on Britain...
...O'Brien invited terminology of Emerson in characterizing the speakers as his hearers to the creative possibilities open to those who had representatives of the "party of memory" and "the party of given up neither on their church nor their society...
...Lynch, and the Opposition leader, been a general loss of and interest in the Catholic past...
...In Davenport as elsewhere, the ing the requirement for M.A.'s at terly...
...Ambrose...
...Is not this what some would call a lack suspect that memories of the past and hopes for the future will of genuine historical-mindedness...
...language, complete with meaning, tan center...
...James Hitchcock maintains that the British politicians' Pavlovian response to Mr...
...The statement favored a continuing tragic happenings there...
...Callaghan and Mrs...
...In the event, Cunneen for most of his 73 years, lived a life in word that the Vatican was not amused decamped, took a fling at acting, went to which the practice of his art, the profes- and he should please cut it out...
...Thatcher...
...Have Irish-American politicians on the American government to put young Catholics of the post-conciliar period grown up in a pressure on the British government to put pressure on the period when literally no one could offer them a strong and Ulster Unionists would only lead to a dead end, he said...
...Garret FitzGerald, expressed the general sentiment when there been a loss of a sense of continuing and vital tradition they praised Mr...
...The session was entitled entered too deeply into our souls as modern men and women to "Two Perspectives on Tradition and Change in Recent Ameri- be expunged by any act of the will...
...O'Neill's political courage and statesman- within Catholicism...
...Has there Cruise O'Brien, now editor-in-chief of the London Observer, been little in the way of impressive history dealing with the who dismissed them as "absolute rubbish...
...About the time ately so regarded, but ineluctably so resaw rejected by the college at the time as Ned was first drawing those heretical pic- garded...
...Has cism, and American Catholics and Social Reform...
...Catholicism, post-conciliar Catholicism instead manifests a Citing similar statements of subsequent popes, O'Brien held lessened regard for history "both in the loss of a sense of that the social mission of the church which had long been continuing and vital tradition, and a general loss of and interest identified as a somewhat extraordinary and secondary work of in the Catholic past...
...O'Brien felt, however, that "a degree of Dame on April 6, 1979...
...rather than excuse, for I agree both with the desire for a more Similarly, given a tradition that is being dissented from on vital and coherent tradition and with the hope for the fulfillquestions of contraception or divorce on a massive scale, is it ment of the social mission of the church...
...When I got over my documents, the New Testament, Aristot- to the daily Mass celebrated by Gilbert outrage, I found that far from being in le, St...
...Can this be categorized as the mindedness," one of the "great unrealized hopes of the Age of decline of liberal Catholicism...
...O'Neill's speech, he called for economic sancWhatever the intention behind the O'Neill party's visit to tions against Britain if she did not withdraw physically and Ireland, it stirred things up on this side of the Atlantic...
...Nor was there a concrete cultural context, to approach definition by historical great deal of questioning of either speaker, probably due to the reflection, and to-accept change as at least, one rule of life, has late evening scheduling of the event...
...hope" and had Hitchcock as the representative of the former For O'Brien, the key answer to the question: what is renewspeak first...
...Has Dr...
...It was like Of several minds: Frank Getlein that...
...Philip Gleason, of the Flaws in the church likewise made their impact on this group, University of Notre Dame, who chaired the session, used the undercutting their enthusiasm and optimism...
...realistic to expect it to be a rallying point for vigorous social Whatever one's perspective on these matters, the impormission, however clear such mission might be in conciliar or tance of hopes and memories was articulately expressed at papal teaching...
...its problems, emerged as the major community in the world Concerning historical-consciousness, O'Brien maintained pledged to the defense of human rights, religious freedom, and that around the time of the Council the Catholic community the promotion of human dignity...
...Ambrose, its editors were Catich and a priestly colleague, William Kerrigan...
...During his Dublin visit, Mr...
...For example, has informed and orderly organic orderly organic development for the church has been impeded development for the church been impeded by some a priori by a breaking away from the past and an ahistorical dwelling refusals to allow such development to produce a different on the present...
...days after Mr...
...O' Neill had forced Northern Ireland-for a day or two together the Egyptians and the Israelis," it said, "it is surely anyway-into-the forefront of the British election campaign, neither inappropriate nor visionary to suggest that Con- something which all parties had been working hand-in-hand to gressman O'Neill's visit be used to urge him . . . to use his avoid...
...Until they do, though, I ling' on certain issues...
...Few on the faculty had any notoo unsettling, and finally installed in tures, Joe Cunneen and I were complet- tion of what they were up to in the Quar1976...
...Hitchcock exhorted his audience to do what practical conclusion for the church, e.g., in the question of they could to fulfill the promise of a "genuine historical- contraception, where exemplary historical research was avail8 June 1979: 327 able...
...He was an Italian, or possibly a German, edited ever since...
...O'Neill had just come from London where he had Mr...
...had been postponed for half a century by the anti-Modernist These positions were articulated by the two historians dur- repression...
...He be- complete publication lists of Sheed and Cunneen was hobnobbing with actresses lieved simply that his basic Ward and Westminster Press and going and going to Paris...
...Has Catholicism, despite all of decade, he was a suitable spokesman for "the party of hope...
...We day...
...Like so many of employment...
...I'd be pleased if these questions would go away, by is such a loss of vitality attributable to such a priori 'stonewal- receiving a more adequate resolution...
...Camp David style intervention by President Carter...
...RODGER VAN ALLEN perspective on tradition and change in recent American (Rodger Van Allen is Professor of Religious Studies at Catholicism without significantly weighing the impact of is- Villanova University, and editor of American Religious Valsues like contraception and divorce, something neither paper ues and the Future of America...
...Thomas, meant what they said Hartke, O.P., who, as a theatrical, was some kind of provincial exile, I was, and that an awful lot of subsequent and one of the few priests I'd ever encoun- from my own, hot Catholic, point of continuing ecclesiastical practice was in tered who read Mass Latin as if it were a view, actually in some kind of metropoliobvious and direct contradiction...
...O'Neill MEMORIES AND HOPES expressed his own desire to see Irish unity but agreed that this solution should not be imposed against the will of the people of QUESTIONS ON AMERICAN CATHOLICISM Northern Ireland or at the expense of Irish lives...
...Day issued a strong statement on Northern Ireland...
...O'Neill's visit almost certainly does not presage a two-hour meetings with Mr...
...The British had fumed at Mr...
...nervous U.S...
...Instead of seeking how new church...
...A staff a degree of historical-consciousness entered too deeply into worker for the Call to Action Conference, and consultant to the souls of many Catholics as modem men and women to be many ministry and social action workers for more than a removed by any act of the will...
...Certainly, the Irish government is satisMoynihan and Governor Hugh C. Carey of New York-is one fied that the substance of Mr...
...Embassy spokesman in Dublin had tried to play Carey was going against the Dublin government's line which down its significance...
...I church finally caught up with, or at least Catholic University and contemplating no longer find this as shocking as I did came close to, some of its sons and the awful necessity of finding gainful then, indeed I find it not shocking at all, daughters like Catich...
...Though he While in Dublin he had a long private session with the called two years ago for a just solution in Northern Ireland and Taoiseach, Mr...
...O'Neill was even more outspoken...
...Down through channels came then, but did not...
...It was meet and just that he died the top.' In the late 1940s, which was wrote off for jobs in the English Departwhen he did and where he did, for Catich when I knew Catich, he began printing ment, got them by return mail, which was totally sensitive to the rhythms and holy cards with a picture of a black should have aroused our suspicion right meanings of the liturgical year and had, Christ...
...Louis University, is tual leaders of American Catholicism which I think can be the author of The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism and categorized as the decline of liberal Catholicism...
...al all about, was found in the deathbed testament of Pope John Gleason's characterization seemed apt for Hitchcock's XXIII: "Now more than ever, certainly more than in past paper, entitled "The Loss of History...
...Informed and sentation...
...Jack Lynch, and the leaders of the other two promised substantial job-creating investment once a settleopposition parties...
...Instead of doctrinal development irony of our time, has found its home at last in the Catholic there was doctrinal contestation...
...coherent account of what it meant to be a Catholic...
...hot Catholics, like us, out to rediscover night or the early morning of Holy Satur- One such occasion occasioned pain at and rebuild the Catholic church...
...He referred to it as "a low-key, fact- is that a precipitate British withdrawal, without the prior estabfinding mission" and said it was "something of a private lishment of a solid and agreed political structure, would be trip...
...remarks...
...potentially disastrous...
...Mr...
...27] This criticized British policy which had Margaret Thatcher will begin to feel the pressure of world "gone beyond delay and neglect and has become a policy of opinion, led by the U.S., and make a new effort to launch a conspicuous tilt in favor of the majority and to the detriment of political initiative on Northern Ireland to put an end to the the minority" in Northern Ireland...
...A politically from Northern Ireland...
...Quick to The Recovery of the Sacred...
...Affectionoriginally designed almost 30 years ago, member at St...
...I went to St...
...It was my first experience of Though he remained in obedience all his nuance and rhythm, and intended to be Midwestern Catholicism, derived from Commonweal: 328...
...Does post-conciliar Catholicism have a ship...
...O'Neill's the answer to all these questions is "Yes...
...This opening has proven "far more problematic ing the'general session of the Spring meeting of the American for the church than it is likely anyone expected during the Catholic Historical Association at the University of Notre Council...
...David O'Brien maintains had opened itself to modern consciousness, an opening which that the answer to all these questions is "Yes...
...opening of itself to modern consciousness, since around the David O'Brien, Professor of History at the College of the time of the Council, been far more problematic for the church Holy Cross, is author of The Renewal of American Catholithan it is likely anyone expected during the Council itself...
...If there is a loss of vitality in the tradition, to what degree did...
...munity...
...O'Brien emphasized "the loss of nerve among the intellecHitchcock, Professor of History at St...
...The Irish people, too, got more than a little satisfaction at lessened regard for history...
...DESMOND FISHER United Ireland with institutions linking the Protestant and (Desmond Fisher is Commonweal's regular correspondent Catholic communities and protecting the rights of each com- in Ireland...
...heard by others in the room...
...Neither speaker historical-consciousness, a tendency to see things in their directly commented on the paper of the other...
...Reformers were appropriately attentive the church was now in fact the very nature of the church's to the Scriptures, but were forgetful of how the church also presence in the world...
...Much of the promise of renewal was ruined by the ing that the possibilities of the liberal tradition, of history tendency to present every theological development in negative becoming a human project, man's responsibility, "in the great and destructive terms...
...I say that by way of explanation of a living tradition...
...He charged Britain with bearing a heavy responsibility for the failures of recent years on the political front...
...Pressure by Christian tradition produced during the last 15 years...
...Has the Catholic community's Renewal...
...Hitchcock maintained centuries, our purpose is to serve men as such and not only that while it was to be one of the major and appropriate tasks of Catholics...
...It was published at St...
...the theological quarterly Communio...
...For that matter, few ever saw it...
...Ambrose College, ecclesiastical administrators whenever men and that magazine was a hotbed of Davenport, Iowa, on Good Friday the occasion arose...
...terly, Cross Currents, which he has priesthood were all the same thing...
...O'Neill's cheek, ac- Has there been a loss of nerve among the intellectual leaders Commonweal: 326 of American Catholicism...
...Indeed, can one really offer a thoroughgoing Notre Dame...
...And he called Report from Notre Dame on the post-election British government for "an early, realistic and major initiative" to get serious negotiations moving quickly towards a just and workable solution...
...In this suggestion, Mr...
...can Catholicism" and that is what was presented...
...Has there But the Taoiseach, Mr...
Vol. 106 • June 1979 • No. 11
