The Making of the Popes 1978/The Year of Three Popes
McBrien, Richard
Denmark. Bournonville's own interest in performing saw to are essentially collections of individual dances without the that, and to this day the Royal Danish School continues to...
...theologically the worst statement in There is also a curious naivete about His commitment to collegiality, liturgi- either book...
...Indeed, it is difficult to believe Responsible Election of the Pope (pp...
...Today it is supported handsomely by the govKloborg, she showed a confident feel for the special restrained ernment, but the royal family still retains a special interest in it Bournonville style, which has always preserved a demure look The ballet tradition has flourished and been continuously for the women, even in the most exhuberant and dazzling nurtured in what is one of Europe's smaller nations...
...The Bournon- students in all its sections and even more remarkably does not ville dancer skims the surface of the stage and presents an have any boarding facilities...
...Biblical (although not both at once and architectonic source of judgment, a not Scheler's essay on ressentiment is not certainly not by the same critics...
...that were shown, there was a certain scrappiness about the Among the soloists seen during the Royal Danish's season, succesion of individual dances...
...Wisely, he recalls Paul VI's Commonweal: 472 close association with Pope Pius XII No theological material in Greeley's Americanism emerges always in the (whom he otherwise resembled in so book, for example, can compare with the form of gratuitous "digs": against the many ways that people often caught "Theological Appendix" in U.S...
...and priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, character and career of Pope John Paul II VI and, to a much lesser extent, their have given us such works...
...All appeared effectively in the programs of short ballets or Considering the decline and fall of ballet fortunes in France extracts from longer Bournonville works...
...But it seems he worries satisfaction, models sought and models his own warning, issued at the top of most about Cardinal Cody's being al- forsaken...
...I, at least, require something more, Arthur A. Cohen deceit of its popular marketing, giving not necessarily a longer book, but someway to a peroration of disgust with the thing more...
...on the job were "flawless" (p...
...In a world where dull- TIE TEA11 IF TREE PIPES which ballots, the relative strength (or ness, banality and the predictable are as Peter Hebbkthwalte weakness) of the North European plentiful as oil seems to be scarce, it is Colliers, $8.95, 220 pp...
...and Italy, the lands which had originally given the form its Lise Stripp is one of the younger female members of the impetus and grace, the Royal Danish Ballet is remarkably company but her easy, almost laconic, grace was exception- vigorous...
...He at least admits some of his • I wish to join Pax Christi...
...Its history is surely once-on appropriate occasionscan intellectual undertaking...
...fining and shapltig the human...
...250), the best part of the whole book...
...All the more The only element, then, which I found is an "absolute genius" (p...
...However, without mounting were Niels Kehlet, Peter Martins, Adam Lr ders and Peter entire ballets, which would have required a considerably larger Schaufuss, of whom only Kehlet has made his career solely company than the fourteen dancers who comprised the soloist within the Royal Danish company...
...inaugural address the morning after his editor of the English Jesuit periodical Both adopt a slightly larger view...
...And yet he made some, and the campaign...
...It was an ambivalent relationship at plays, despite the great disparity in prod- ressio (pp...
...3000 N. Mango Ave., more balanced and, therefore, the more Furthermore, Greeley's provincialism Chicago, Illinois 60634 likely to stand the test of history...
...In the end," the institutional Church (p...
...Peter Hebblethwaite, the and his refusal to accept because of age, new Rome correspondent for the Na- papal elections in terms of the mystery the true author(s) of Pope John Paul I's tional Catholic Reporter and former and excitement of the conclaves alone...
...It is so vulgar and intemperate, the cry of con- dipped into the quiver of Catholic much more appropriate to the French tra- servatives bent on philistine rejection of thought and selected a toxic shaft or two dition of inquiry where distinguished lit- novelty and experiment, or the avant- when he reviewed drama in these pages terateurs parse and examine a single no- garde's self-congratulation on having some years ago...
...120-1), Cardinal habilitated" by Pope John XXIII in views on the papacy are surprisingly Cooke (p...
...mel, among others, were taking a variety ling away from the excellence and nobil- Clearly, if one reads Gilman's text careof obdurate cultural phenomena and put- ity of ancient patrimony, both pagan and fully, one can detect a hankering for the ting them under the glass of inspection...
...bishops and of Cardinal Suenens in paralways a pleasure to pick up a book that ticular, the readiness of the second conone can read almost effortlessly from Richard P. McBrien clave to elect Milan's Cardinal Colombo start to finish...
...98), the loss of credibility (p...
...When he himself became pope, he weak...
...236...
...Hebblethwaite's, whose anti31 August 1979:473 Close behind are suggestions that Pope social scientist not to hedge his bets...
...metaphors of, debased cultures, ages of category to set the record straight, a perMethodologically how different nonethe- the world, cultural youth and senes- sistent reference to Catholic intellectual less...
...To avoid all cal reform and ecumenism was intellec- ever, are Greeley's earlier, unnuanced misunderstanding," he writes, "I should tually genuine, but it was marred by "in- references to Jesus as the "Founder" of add that ecclesiastical ambition differs consistent practice...
...The school ordinarily has a complement of eighty of several small steps in place of one large one...
...Vying for that honor, how- Hebblethwaite's book...
...good of the church as he conceives it...
...about Paul VI...
...9, and again from secular ambition: if a churchman Hebblethwaite soberly concludes, "the on p. 36...
...rich, sources are abundant, discussion of literary tendenz exacting, asides and: glosses frequently suggestive...
...He spoke out written that it "may not be all that impor- the author describes as "pacing the vehemently and unequivocally against tant what the papal powers are or how streets of Rome, muttering into his pockinjustice (no Deputy would be written they are defined...
...Historical perspective is full and is "irrefutable...
...To maintain the quality and standards that have been quality seeming to signal a permanent celebration...
...49), the Committee for the 1958...
...Hebblethwaite is constantly suggestion that Paul VI's stand on artifi- quoting Cardinal Hume, as if he were the Pea Chri:li cial birth control, the ordination of only source of ecclesiastical wisdom, women and obligatory celibacy was a and Greeley is preoccupied, to say the For those who wish to respond to the advertisement of Pax Christi in the matter of minor significance...
...to the kind of church he will be shepherd- ecclesiologies...
...Not less lighted in Gilman's opening chapters, occasion-have been known to summon Germany, where Max Scheler, Ernst makes clear how the ages after antiquity up my own ancient doctrine to serve as Cassirer, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Sim- employed decadence to signalize the fal- precedent for contemporary criticism...
...Greeley's theological Madison Avenue (pp...
...This means, in effect, that practiopen, welcoming curvature of the arms toward the audience...
...99), his was himself the author of an extended...
...44 was determined not to repeat the mis- that so serious a scholar as he would have ff...
...he the common lot of us all...
...R (CHARD GILMAN'S elegant and vig- whole business...
...Neither discusses the recent of this century...
...vacillation and, finally, stubbornness two-part critique of then-Archbishop PAX CHRISTI USA over Humanae vitae (p...
...Martins and Luders are group, there was no other choice...
...With its moments...
...best...
...It cally everyone is a student from Copenhagen or nearby subis a style that is infused with lightness and has a sunshine urbs...
...Both men view...
...For many, the Pauline spirit and opportunities facing the new pope in folly to seek high office for its own had been "overlaid with paralysing cau- his open letter to John Paul 11 (pp...
...All true...
...Clearly decadence suggests and Hebblethwaite's generally uncritical eventual handling of dispensations from something about human longing and disembrace of Pope John Paul II in spite of clerical celibacy...
...It reasserts in perversity the Chapter 14, that "When a man becomes lowed to remain as Archbishop of claim of hope, masked by the posturings pope, a process of mythologization starts Chicago...
...and, even more significant, how cence, the descent of gold to the metallic tradition as both friend and foe of his vast the chasm between the implications dross of what follows, the mythology of argument...
...That book remains to be written...
...Hebblethwaite dis- Humanae vitae and Populorum ProgVI...
...He, spiral (if one is forbearing with decline) John Paul I wrote his inaugural address worries about the pope's eventual deci- or a linear plunge (if one is impatient for from scratch the night he was elected, sions concerning sexual ethics and his apocalypse...
...In fact, Gilman's DECADENCE: the whole of culture and the more prag- concluding judgment that decadence is matic _undertaking of employing the now employed as brickbat, shibboleth, THE STRANGE LIFE OF AN EPITHET metaphor of decadence as it is given, rhetorical device, emptied of relevant Richard Gilman examining its possible meanings, sketch- meaning, never having had a settled doFarrar, Straus & Giroux, $8.95, 180 pp...
...And yet he also give us some wants promotion, the motive is not perPetrine principle of conservation came to outstanding passages on the challenges sonal self-aggrandizemen-it would be prevail...
...church leaders and to the people alike...
...but all All sic et non these excellences fail, somehow, to compel me to rethink...
...Bournonville's own interest in performing saw to are essentially collections of individual dances without the that, and to this day the Royal Danish School continues to turn broad integrated line that characterizes ballets done to such out world-class male dancers more frequently than compara- unified scores...
...The Month, and Andrew Greeley, take the measure of the pontificate of The major difference between the two sociologist at the University of Arizona Paul VI and try to extrapolate from the books are their evaluation of Pope Paul...
...He refers to the "failure admit, if there are any, we wouldn't • Please send me _ copies of of nerve at the top" (p...
...generally followed in Bournonville's prime, and so his ballets DON McDONAGH Books: CONCLAVES & CAUCUSES N ErrHER of these books is destined to TIE KAKMG IF TIE PIPES 1171: I shall not dwell here on the obvious become a standard reference on the THE POLITICS OF INTRIGUE IN THE VAT- discrepancies in vote counts and in their modem papacy or even on papal elec- ICAN reports of behind-the-scenes maneuvertions...
...25), they are public: his prediction that Cardihis weakness, hand-wringing, and nal Bertoli would win the August elec- Name "whining" (p...
...It is not least, about Cardinal Cody, who is men- August 3, 1979 issue of Commonweal correct that these issues represented a tioned on at least seventeen different criticizing SALT II and proposing a "superficial way of judging the pontifi- pages...
...City, State, Zip ity to "make his reforms stick," his ap- and his criticism of the critics of Cardinal pointment of "colorless administrators" Benelli without acknowledging that he (p...
...All three go to the heart of the or failings, he doesn't deserve that much Weapons: meaning of human existence because all attention in a book which purports to deal • I authorize my name in support of three have to do'directly'with our under- with the historically momentous...
...And If these books prove nothing else, it is is somehow linked with cultural acedia, Hebblethwaite doesn't...
...17), his promul- know in any case...
...Not less myself-equally, on for Nouvelle Revue Frangaise...
...Benelli in the London Observer several Hebblethwaite's view on Paul VI is the years ago...
...36), his "utter failure" as tion on the seventh ballot...
...This judgment, Greeley insists, produce something of quality...
...and Father Greeley himself, whom takes of his former patron...
...This or someone (guru, politician, Messiah) the year's popes are almost embarrassing is not a problem peculiar to Peter to get civilization off its becalming dead in their praise...
...And its might allow one to devastate a cultural (himself an eminent practitioner) favored pre-modern career, brilliantly high- pretension...
...preserved indicates a special sympathy and talent for the art The practice of symphonic writing for ballet music was not unmatched on such a scale, indeed almost on any scale...
...Paul, then Archbishop Montini, uctivity, the greater sureness of theologi- 119), Commonweal and its view from was "exiled" to Milan only to be "re- cal judgment...
...The only glaring lapse is his provincial...
...So, too, is more above-board than is his ecclesiological perspective...
...that events are always filtered through an ennui before the storm, a lassitude For that matter, neither does Greeley...
...Each is distractingly and realistic...
...But he is too much the have done so...
...of journalistic hue and cry, for decadence which it is difficult to resist...
...experience this unique style and this unbroken tradition...
...Greeley...
...By and large, Hebblethwaite's as- Both volumes share certain deficiensessment of Paul VI is at once judicious cies in common...
...248...
...A pre-war tradition com- age and emplaced a raspberry on the jaw tarium of organizing principle which mon to the essayists that Jacques Riviere of bourgeois smugness...
...49-50), Andrew Young (p...
...that Cardinal Address bishop of Rome (p...
...The pope's first six weeks Hebblethwaite or Andrew Greeley...
...What the programs lost in principal dancers with the New York City Ballet and esthetic quality was more than made up by the opportunity to Schaufuss is a principal with the National Ballet of Canada...
...Hebblethwaite is clearly Their books are more similar than dis- ing, in all likelihood, for much that is left more favorable to the late pope than is similar...
...I leave that to someone else with the Both make interesting reading nonethe- Andrew M. Greeley time and interest in pointing these out: less, and they can be recommended on Andrews and McMeel, $12.95, 346 pp...
...100...
...the ballet master's duties was to teach social dancing to the Along with Linda Hinberg, Annamaria Dybdal and Eva royal family...
...five million population Denmark is about a fiftieth the size of The fleetfooted character of this style is achieved by an the Soviet Union and produces about as many world-class exceptional emphasis on quickness and the staccato succession dancers...
...What counts is the per- et tape-recorder and complaining that about his silence in the face of genocide), son who is pope and the way he radiates the Italians did not understand the and he remained always accessible to goodness" (p...
...This has got to be sociological approach" (p...
...Catholic public's varied reaction to themselves referring to him as "Pius" Hebblethwaite's...
...for the election of his successor (p...
...39), his lack of abil- Hume would get at least fifteen votes...
...the consciousness, experiences, and awaiting something (the fad or fashion) Indeed, his comments about the third of even prejudices of their observers...
...tion is not to recall a tradition traduced or using...
...It began as the private property of the king-part of ally impressive in "Polka Militaire" as well as other ballets...
...Hebblethwaite admits this petition so that I can promote gation of "obsessive-compulsive rules" no error...
...It is center...
...Greeley, on the other hand, is negative p Enclosed is $ to support Pax mistakes in judgment (those he doesn't Christi's peace education work...
...ing the history of its usage, and finally, at main to begin with, leaves me dissatisthe end, exhausted and annoyed with the fied...
...honesty...
...the single reality as a refraction of Civilizations wane, all is a downward ignored, since this comment has no perCommonweal: 474...
...248- sake-but so that he can work for the tion...
...All the infrequent employment of Augustinian much longer than Gilman's inquiry...
...234...
...the Pax Christi Campaign to Help standing of sexualityand its place in de- Give Greeley the edge, however, on Stop New Weapons...
...It is the difference between decadence...
...They own election, and so forth...
...Cardinal Siri's exact support and on that basis alone...
...236) and reason to praise those who can suffi- lacking in Richard Gilman's otherwise "the most gifted pope we've ever had" ciently transcend these limitations and arresting essay is a commanding point of (p...
...Catholicism supplied a tion, spinning out its implications, and supplied itself with the frisson of alien- relevant, if not always useful, armamenconsequences...
...For readers of Commonweal it is esorous essay on Decadence is dif- Decadence is, of course, an epithet as pecially fitting to recall that Gilman ficult to situate in the spectrum of Ameri- Gilman concludes...
...Scheler would pin and those Gilman risks partriarchs depend upon the rhetoric of What is to the point about this observato discern...
...In the programs of excerpts and shorter pieces bly celebrated ballerinas...
...Whatever His Eminence's merits Campaign to Help Stop New cate...
Vol. 106 • August 1979 • No. 15
