The Vicar of Christ

...is always easy in victory...

...Suddenly books with pessimistic by whatever indicators one selects: fig- tween economic facts and political sentitles (The Dying of the Light, and The ures in graduate departments, new fac- timent partially results from the militarTwilight of Capitalism) began to appear, ulty appointments, books published, ization of American society and the buheralding the impending doom of Ameri- numbers of dissertations in progress, reaucratization of its political system...

...It's a name Oh, I almost forgot: our man is also a Walsh retires to a Trappist abbey in taken by Declan Walsh, American, war miracle worker-real miracles, like the South Carolina, convinced that he has hero, former law dean, former special blind seeing, the crippled walking and a driven his wife to booze and death by envoy to the Vatican, former Chief Jus- teenager getting over acne without the neglect and his dalliance with a female tice of the Supreme Court of the United help of a miracle salve...

...Actually, it's with a palate as wondrous as the tale he is socialism, and raises emergency funds a merciful killing...

...conference: Commonweal: 442 "Would, aah, would, that is, is But this is to carp...

...heads of state to talk cold Korea and goes on to win the Congres- tinctly different modes that show' off turkey, and appears before the United sional Medal of Honor...

...He also has an easy wit...

...Corvo's the ads say...

...the book had long employed to tell...

...is it that I am allergic to seemingly endhis with neither blush nor restraint...

...Janowitz makes it quite clear that University of Chicago, $25, 583 pp...

...our man dissents from the majority view...

...His is "They all had reasons...

...interesting third of Murphy's trilogy...

...future too of Murphy's Vicar...

...Still it is a novel that is lesser than coercion, and finally, the social consedulgences...

...driving while of the simplicity of Francis of Assisi and both ancient and modern Rome signify...

...Survival be- ciety as a whole...

...That move...

...stand what Catholicism has "forced" cupant for the Chair of Peter back in upon him-besides they have won, and 1904...

...Murphy's is says he, "will symbolize our return to the While he is Chief Justice, Declan Francesco I, a name new of course to the spiritual values of the Gospels and our Walsh experiences tragedy...

...In the 1950s a strong celeb- but it is also a book by a prominent carefully done...

...It neither exaggerates dor political participation in the United minimizes the complexities of the situa- States has remained stable and has beIrving Louis Horowitz tion...

...His doctrine case, the book descends in drama and conferences, speaks his mind about Pius was subversive of everyone's ways, or interest, when in point of fact it should be XII, rejects Humanae Vitae, looks be- near everyone's, in the West, the East, building the other way...

...and mores, the mood turned dour and slack, sociology is a discipline in trouble Janowitz tends to feel that the gap besour...

...Social science writing became view"), military participation, or the norms or institutional arrangements on 3 August 1979: 443...

...The need for order is seen as con- come even more important in some sonant with the prospects for democratic cases...

...Why this should be is not changes in American popular manners the public sector has taken up some of the explained...

...The Last Half-Century outlines some THE LAST HALF-CEIITURY equivocal: neither a forecast of eternal extremely important trends within SOCIETAL CHANGE AND POLITICS IN progress nor total collapse seemed en- American society and does so without the AMERICA tirely credible...

...Abortion comes be- vatore Romano who is called upon to ask Curia and go off to live, simply and in fore the Court for its legal resolution and the first question at the first papal press poverty, in Jerusalem...

...While ally grown...

...Or was it the Soviet KGB, the Though the book takes its title from at Princeton...

...Or armchair generals, and Murphy indulges Or the Egyptians or the Spaniards...

...administrative assistant...

...spiritual renewal, engages in but three...

...and rationale, and declining academic en- gious differences have declined, the 1970s, after the war in Southeast Asia, rollments translate into fewer opportuni- sense of a country tearing apart has acturacial strife internally, and colossal ties for teachers and researchers...

...pope was Hadrian VII...

...What valves political participation, social stratifica- United States emphasizes short-term ishave to be turned on and off in the politi- tion, the link between participation and sues and conforms to a mold of adversacal process to create a viable sense of stratification ("a social control point of rial relations without corresponding order...

...He holds presidential-style press in bed for Murphy's pope...

...Janowitz believes the bureaucratic much gross national product for how creating an American vertical mosaic: system of industrial relations in the much social tranquility...

...Francesco's questioning of World Council of Churches in Geneva...

...intoxicated...

...Satire, the faithful...

...like cases of affirmative action and of stereotype, like the priest from L'OsserFinally Francesco threatens to abolish the capital punishment...

...What has diminished is party loyW RMNG ABOUT America is a verita- community...

...It's a war novel about a World former colleague of the hero's on the shuttle diplomacy a la Henry Kissinger, War II veteran who's reactivated for Supreme Court...

...Janowitz's book is This is summarized in a richly textured this decade have tended, to avoid ex- therefore a welcome event, if only as a and carefully reasoned discussion of the tremes of optimism or pessimism in favor reassertion of the sociological claim to transformation of authority from ownof what might be called an accounting provide a special vision of American so- ership to management, and from topledger imagery of society...

...Selecting the big theme indi- sues...

...The man measures, and hires the hit man, a black from New Jer- who lately died in a mid-air plane collithe world wonders what has been loosed, sey, remains a mystery...

...sociology is in a state of crisis: orienta- groups confront political parties...

...In any Church...

...Walter F. Murphy does it in 1979, generosity...

...While A question like that was impossible after Robinson's The Cardinal...

...Books: A WHOPPING GOOD MOVIE T HE IDEA isn't novel...

...Certainly it is impossible three catch the film version every so often on and common sense in a world where people removed from Paul VI, the time- late night television...

...There are, it seems, as British M16, the PLO, the IRA...

...The Baron THE VICAR OF CHRIST secular liberals forgive him his departure Corvo, Frederick Rolfe, went out- Walter F. Murphy from their expectations as they underside the conclave for a fictionalized oc- Macmillan, $12.95, 632 pp...

...Like Corvo's not in orders, by a conclave deadlocked lenge: the return of Christ's Church to Hadrian, Francesco is shot, though who trying to elect a successor to the pope Christ's Spirit...

...Janowitz spends much more time distinguishing between fact and value than with the actual policy implications of soNo exaggeration, no minimization cial science in American context...

...It is in the States-a man of giant background, ob- Well, you can guess what happens to monastery that he is found, in vows but viously, for the meeting of a giant chal- such a fine pope as this...

...less detail on how a conclave operates, the liberal's kind of pope for a better No, there could be no dying peacefully how the Curia functions, etc...

...Corvo's and more like Henry Morton quences of social science analysis...

...While A sense of impending doom and catas- tions are fragmented without scientific regional, occupational, racial, and relitrophe hardly surfaced...

...What in fact has been loosed is the the compatibility of military service with Roll reel three: the papacy of Francesco armchair pope in Walter Murphy, Christianity had seriously upset Wash- I. McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence ington...

...In a nutshell, what is under question ble Rorschach test...

...It's a Washing- marvelously the stylistic agility of the Nations, with a side trip to the stadium in ton novel about a law-school dean who author and his mastery with the lanthe Jersey meadowlands for a Mass for gets appointed to the Supreme Court as guage...

...The field of address the extent to which interest water marks in the history of humanity...

...ity...

...In a spasm of remorse, the zeal of Francis Xavier...

...for disasters around the world by auction- since gotten long and weak on credibil- For the first part of the book, Murphy ing off Vatican art treasures...

...Sooner or later, some- though, that I liked the narrator for the skeptical about the celibacy laws, em- one was going to act to save the world papacy section-a gourmand cardinal braces pacificism, espouses modern from vision and goodness...

...Unlike most mainline alty...

...exaggerations common in popular literaThis book is a serious effort to perform ture, and in some current sociology as Morris Janowitz a middle range social audit of the United well...

...The result is three disbarges in on...

...No one reads putting forth the most noble aspects of 1962, if not even before-or so I prefer to The Cardinal nowadays, but you do the discipline-as a paragon of reason believe...

...Other areas Your Holiness planning, like your a good book, the more so its being a first in this mosaic are bureaucratic institupredecessors of sainted memory, novel...

...but the study of interestrationist mood led commentators like American sociologist...

...In the 1960s...

...If some of this sounds as if it Chief Justice and presides over Bakke- however, suffers from use of the blatant has been borrowed from real life, it has...

...The book is going to be a huge tions, resident communities, mass media to nourish the souls of the faithful success, and it will make a whopping big and mass persuasion, law and legitimate of the Church by offering new in- movie...

...One reason for group politics, which is the key to the Henry Commager and Max Lerner, that prominence is his willingness and expansion of welfare expenditures and among others, to speak of American cul- capacity to confront social systems as a reallocation of resources, does not quite ture and American civilization as high- whole and not just in parts...

...The more serious writings in grants approved, etc...

...States...

...been the CIA...

...I must say, nignly on remarriage after divorce, is the Third World...

...His wife dies papacy and chosen to signify a blending renunciation of the material values that in an automobile accident...

...cates expectations no less than intelli- This is a book about American society, The section on social stratification is gence...

...down leadership to middle-range interaccomes a cost-benefit equation: How Much of the book is taken up with tion...

...can society...

...system...

...in near-epic length, though not in grander John Deedy And, at last, it is a Vatican novel, just as literary manner than Corvo...

...That may be the there has been an eclipse of bothsetting for Murphy's novel...

...It could have sion while en route to a session of the the Holy Spirit or the wrath of God...

...What one sociological efforts, the book un- is the moral context of party identificachooses to write about says much about abashedly discusses the significant is- tion, not the legitimacy of the American an author...

...Or was this section, it is neither the best nor most many armchair popes as there are it the revenge of Brazil's military junta...

...Murphy has written concept of the citizen soldier...

...uses a retired Marine gunnery sergeant as Meanwhile, he launches a worldwide It had to, for Murphy's book is not one narrator, and for the second, a suave crusade of...