The Long Search:

...desperate need...

...alternatives, and to see other religions as Issues like papal infallibility, divorce, JOHN GARVEY 22 lime 1979:• 3O3...

...and both groups are things can be seen...

...The first, of course, is from a humanitarian point of view...

...It is this church which This is what was so exciting about the personal urgency of the questions with some people leave (and some join it, be- excellent BBC series The Long Search, which the great religions deal, Eyre mancause they want to have, at last, all the which was conducted by ("hosted" is aged to cut through the less important answers...

...This does not suggest another re- thought with some sympathy of several schools, and not at Augustine or Francis counting of the recent history of In- friends who no longer have any connec- of Assisi or Thomas More...

...It is less political struggles which provide no moment: I believe that despite every- entirely right to criticize and (especially room for losers...

...Both sets lavatory walls to the best anthologies of (who work at working-class jobs and live of people regard Catholicism as a Buddhist scripture, ignoring the bore- a monastic life, though their poverty is monolithic thing which tells people what dom of Buddhist children and the writ- not the traditional religious sort but the they must think if they are to be ings of John of the Cross, is not the best real poverty of the urban poor...

...a with anti-Catholic writers, where the na- graffiti on St...

...Rose of Lima grade school community of the Little Brothers of Jesus ture of the church is concerned...

...cluded a reference, of course, to abor- Catholic...

...There is one prob- abortion and other controversial aspects Catholicism were no more than cautious lem with this: we can see our own tradi- of Catholicism were pointedly not disinstitutional self-interest-though at one tion's faults very clearly, and can be eas- cussed...

...Although there was some time with the hierarchical set-up-there is the popular religious art, for example, rivals spent on such subjects as the rich incluMagisterium (meaning the Pope and his the worst Catholic holy cards) in order to siveness of Catholic pilgrimages, the mouthpieces, the bishops), and the rest get it out of the way, so that the real emphasis of the program was on the conof us simply obey...

...bly good to acknowledge all of the junk where solitude is central to spiritual forboth see the church as entirely congruent in any given tradition at the outset (Hindu mation...

...ily impressed with the strengths of an finally about...

...In emphasizing the church must be...

...religion Many leave the church out of bore- PBS has begun to show it a second time, was presented not as a primarily organidom, or disappointment, or a sense that and I hope it continues to re-run for zational thing, but as something alive...

...About 20,000 dared the open sea in leaking boats, if so refugees' behalf...

...oppressors who drove them from home, At the moment about 10,000 refugees When so much is seized from so many, as flinty government officials indifferent to a month are being resettled in other coun- Calvin Coolidge might have said, refu- their fate, unionists alarmed by the threat tries, mainly the United States, Au- gees result...

...This repre- notorious for the immodesty of the vic- the American working man-it would be sents a substantial effort, but we are los- tors' claims...

...They wonder why look only at the cowardice of the instituparticular for our purpose...

...With gloomy frequency, in cruelest side of the human heart...

...To look from the perspective of the home of an English Catholic family...

...but they cannot all be counted on to die...

...an old Hindu, once a which looks, at times, much too simple...

...In the answers offered don't have much to years...

...My an- ignore the deaths of Edith Stein, Franz of the 20th century, a side effect of count- swer was feeble, but enough for me at the Jaggerstatter and Maximilian Kolbe...

...concerns to the essential ones...

...The words are familiar, them), it is what a religion is, in a particu- capture, as film could, particular people: the institutions are familiar, many of the lar life, that makes it real...

...We think we know what Chris- religion are (and the series did not slight of the series, perhaps because it couldn't tianity is about...

...Buddhist...

...tifully photographed...

...This is not an arguwon't go away...

...fact, victors have claimed everything in An interesting point, but not one of The survivors belong to us, and we must sight-not just land and capital, but a much use to the refugees of Southeast do something about them, even if there is monopoly of political rights, access to Asia...

...The questions Eyre raised were politician and socialist agitator, who had If so many of us are bored by the reli- both pointed and sensitive...

...As could be of great help to Christianity...

...why, despite everything, people remain the traditions they come from, they are The program devoted to Catholicism Catholic-and Jewish, and Hindu, and...

...they will include sacraments and So were the other programs, all of less informative, nothing could be less pilgrimages as well as Nagarjuna and them well written, well edited and beausaving than the thing they insist the Aquinas...

...Eyre looked instead at the Here is a fascinating fact: a lot of con- alternative tradition, while ignoring our places where Catholicism is lived: the servative Catholics are in full agreement own...

...but it is American two-party system, in which had ever encountered in the church wrong to reduce the whole of CatholiCnmrnnnsveal: 362 cism to this level and dismiss it, as if possible ways of life...

...The had been luckier in battle, the flow of the whom sustenance, and eventually a spoils system...

...It is proba- Spanish novitiate of the Little Brothers, biguity about what must be accepted...

...Indonesia has of- guards, it is because their conquerors had enough to have lived to wait-while offifered the use of an island for temporary looted them of everything but thee human cials mills slowly grind, tidying up the housing, but only if the rest of the courage to go where they might be debris of war...

...posed to...

...They are in THE LONG SEARCH...

...Revolutions are off course of cheap labor to the living standard of stralia, France and Canada...

...But there are no true new refugees escape every month and the many Cambodians and Laotians have villians, only faint hearts and grudging flow has been increasing steadily for risked the Mekong under the guns of duty...

...the life of a British housewife, or Bud- tation as a means to clear perception For all Christians in our society the dhism in the life of a novice monk...

...In every case left everything, including his name, for a gious traditions from which we come, the effort was made to examine the tradi- life of prayer and devotion...

...Since they have no coun- WHERE RELIGION IS LIVED try, and no government bears a primary responsibility for their welfare, they belong, in a sense, to all of us...

...On the other hand, it seems to But it is fair to ask, at the same time, tion, and not one, of course, about capital me shortsighted to look only at the stupid how he got into the water in the first punishment, poverty, or the arms race) I sexual instruction received in Catholic place...

...But main problem is one of excessive famil- important as the official teachings of a the book doesn't have the impact or depth iarity...

...If all through my the street people of Calcutta, say, or the cluded a banner which read growing up I. had been told not to quespeasants of Haiti, but while their fate "Jesus Christ requests the honor of your tion anything, or if Catholicism had been may tug at our conscience, they have not presence at a dinner to be held in his presented entirely as a matter of discibeen dumped in our laps...

...certainly too crude a word) Ronald Eyre...

...a Buddhist Christianity encountered as a new thing, Buddhism, Hinduism, Japanese and monk, whose explanation of the idea of as good news, or anything much more Chinese religion, tribal religion, enlightenment was punctuated with than stale ethics combined with a myth and-an important addition-the new re- quick laughter...

...Of course it ought to be Cambodia is more anarchic but the effect is always followed by a reshuffling in added that if those who are refugees now is the same, a great mass of people for every job within reach of the victor...

...These "real things" templative and' eucharistic center of confused and even a little irritated when include popular strengths as well as the Catholicism...

...hegemony, even culture and history...

...THOMAS POWERS world-which means principally the United States-is willing to pay for the program and to guarantee they won't be Of several minds: John Garvey abandoned in the end as wards of the Indonesian government...

...The sermon on the mount is pleas- a Japanese businessman spends his day...

...If so many Vietnamese have easier to whip up a little passion in the ing ground all the same...

...Doubtless AFTER A PARTICULARLY horrible seemed to contradict the gratitude which other peoples are in even worse shape, liturgy I recently attended (it in- the eucharist is about...

...We are far from cism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, completely unsentimental...

...and the Catholics, and there is never any am- way to view either tradition...

...Nothing could be less helpful, ments...

...these are not what the church is level it has, to its shame, been just that...

...So the refugees wait-those lucky more than two years...

...The sanitary conditions, few others, too-that victors by custom ment that the wrong side won the war, "drinking" water and daily rations in the have been modest in their claim of spoils...

...We can see the gentlest thing, the bread is the body of Christ...

...It is narrow to dochina, which is clear enough but too tion with Catholicism...

...The produc- anyone does, and after this liturgy I was tional church in the face of Nazism, and tion of refugees has been a commonplace asking myself the same question...

...just an Anglo-Saxon's reflection that camps undoubtedly result in a high mor- Elsewhere more than public jobs have political struggle expresses the darkest, tality rate, especially among children, been at stake...

...ligions...

...The Long and if-as is clearly the case-people tion from the point of view of articulate Search goes a long way toward showing now feel that they may choose to leave insiders...

...The subject was religion, but un- conjunction with the series Ninian do with the problems encountered...

...It has been the good for- dispossessed would simply have been in home, must he found...

...They are hard to keep in mind...

...It is like the usual introduction to world reli- Smart, who served as the series advisor, by no means clear that if the church did gious traditions, which involves a con- has written a handsomely illustrated whatever it ought to be doing, to be true centration on major doctrines and his- book (The Long Search, Little Brown, to its own best self, it would lose any tory, the focus of this series was intensely $17.50...

...the end of the book, including the suggesant reading only if you can ignore much What place does Catholicism occupy in tion that Buddhism's emphasis on mediof what it says...

...The Long an articulate Catholic laywoman, whose easier thical assumptions of Christianity Search covered Protestantism, Catholi- discussion of her faith was sensitive and are nearly second nature...

...The only thing honor," and a sermon about how we pline, obedience and the avoidance of to do with a drowning man, is to pull him must be witnesses for life, which in- sin, I don't know that I would still be out of the water...

...It was an extraordinarily Catholic people don't act as they are sup- greatest writings and personal achieve- moving presentation...

...These are several ways of looking at the problem...

...in the case of its failure to confront expression of this human tendency in the But could I think that, if everything I Nazism) condemn the institution...

...If precious little enthusiasm to do some- education, language, exclusive religious one could point to a villain-the cruel thing for them...

...free not only to leave but also to choose was as fine as anything in the series...

...The problem tune of Anglo-Saxon countries-and of a another direction...

...It is entertaining reading, and fewer people-more might leave, in personal: What does Zen mean to the way there are some interesting conclusions at fact...