Faith & Sexism

...The loss of treasure in war is real and sad, the destruction of Coventry Cathedral or the lesser fine churches of Cologne--but this does not add up to that...

...Miss McCarthy slants her sympathies in their direction, her antipathies to~,ards the wealthy, but she lavishes the most care, the most words, on the members of the committee, so that we know them best, for what it's worth...

...the salesman discovers finally that the perverse roles--his wife is at one point the Masked Woman in a scary, funny festival to celebrate the hospital's founding--and insane transformations are the underlying pattern...

...It is, of course, impossible to comment on every guideline...

...Systematic" implies conscious, deliberate planning on the part of church officials through the ages, which is surely an over-stated simplification of the results of a very complex interweaving of Christianity with various cultures...

...A comment needs to be made on No...

...It is a pity that the author and her consultants were apparently not aware of this problem, since we certainly don't want to offend our Jewish brothers and sisters when we are opposing sexism...

...His secretary was a test-tube baby...

...He became an artist of revolution instead, and fell fatally in love with a captured Vermeer...

...Also, I would agree with what has been reported as one of the bishops' objections: the use of phrases such as: "The systematic misogynism of theology...

...In addition, they were irreplaceable, which could not be said of their owners...

...This is why the New American Bible, like older translations, follows the traditional usage where the Name occurs, and print in capital letters to show that here "the LORD" stands for the Name...

...In a novel of suspense, the reviewer must not give away the ending, but I think it is fair to remark that the nastiest people go home, if not all free, at least all intact...

...He writes a testament, a document of faith, even when he seems to mock belief in all solutions...

...21 December 1979:727Moreover, any such project has to contend with the difficulties posed by the many existing shades of sexism and of anti-sexism, and of the lack of agreement as to what constitutes sexist language and behavior in many concrete cases...

...It is a pleasure to recognize Miss McCarthy's real affection for and knowledge of the Netherlands, her empathy with its people, her understanding of the CANNIBALS AND MISSIONARIES Mary McCarthy Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, $10.95, 369 PP...

...But works of art were a different type of noncombatant, not to be touched with a tenfoot pole by any government respectful of 'values.' It was in the nature of civilians to die sooner or later.., while works of art by their nature and in principle were imperishable...

...The book is about the philosophies of terrorism, the attitudes attendant upon ownership, and the fallacies of liberalism, at least as sometimes embodied...

...Why not explain once the sense in which sexism is a "sin," and then just say "sexism...

...They therefore not only paid the author for her work but also returned its copyright to her and said she was quite free to publish it elsewhere...

...within the "notebool~s'" are charts, banks of information, and clues...

...The arguments for the value of each human life are put into the mouth of her most fatuous liberal, a Protestant clergyman...

...He offers few glib sermons...

...But they expressed real regret at having to make this decision since they had found so much of value in the book...

...FATHER EUGENE H. MALY is a membefof the faculty of Mt...

...He gives us a series of "notebooks" (and epilogue...

...She disappears into an odd, mul#structured hospital--it is clinic, torture-garden, anal "home"in which nothing~j~or everything) appears planned...

...on whose behalf has the takeover occurred...

...FATHER RAYMOND A. SCHROTH, S.J., formerly associate editor of Commonweal, is now academic dean of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri...

...We are, therefore, put into a mirror-p0sition with the salesman...

...current events are invoked, off-page, in this particulgr fiction, But present happenings in Iran are not what her book is about...

...34...

...But the very beauty and toughness of his novel lies in its refusal to take the easy road...

...And for anti-hero, Lucifer, there is Jeroan, chief of the terrorists, a Dutchman too, who, viewing the Rijksmuseum's treasures as a child, had desired to become an artist...

...Abe is, thus, giving us a violent and nightmarish work...

...Catholic Conference...

...They agreed that the U.S.C.C...

...Mary Perkins Ryan H IGH PRAISE is surely, due to all those concerned with this project-planners, consultants and particularly, of course, the author of the book--for their courage in thus tackling the many and though striking, does not apply...

...divine order--that final encounter by which we understand the meaning of our past and present "somersaults...

...And I hope that it has many readers, especially among educators--including parents--who will use it as a means "of examining their own attitudes and practices and of becoming aware of the many problems involved in advocating any practical steps in this area...

...No...

...It is a tale of unmitigated cruelty: the cruelty of Khmer Rouge soldiers (mostly teenagers) who chop up and disembowel their enemies and display their severed heads on a table...

...Any university or trustee thinking of nominating Henry Kissinger for an honorary degree (probably to get a "celebrity" for graduation) -- indeed, anyone who still thinks Kissinger worthy of a shred of respect -- should read Sideshow, this painful story of how Cambodia has become, in Hanoi's truthful words, " . . . a land soaked with blood and t e a r s . . . heIl on earth...

...A committee of the Department, after some preliminary planning, hired the author and convened a symposium of some thirty persons to contribute their ideas...

...Up in f'trst class is traveling a group of wealthy art collectors on a tour of Iran's museums and antiquities...

...When he looks for her, he encounters various disturbing obstacles...

...MARY PERKINS RYAN is the editor of PACE (Professional Approaches for Christian Educators), published by St...

...But the case could have been made much more strongly, I think, if liberation from sexism had been located in the larger context of our need for liberation from all forms of prejudice and stereotyping-racism, top-nation-ism, etc...

...I do not mean to imply that Abe is a "salesman" of faith...

...Doubtless in real life too it is true that kidnapping and ransom have their long hours of waiting, on the airport tarmac, at the jail...

...Why the title, which, Eighty-five theses FAITH & SEXISM GUIDELINES FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATORS Marianne Sawicki Seabury, $3.95, 93 pp...

...His hero is a salesman of jogging shoes...

...The hospital is suggestively made up of sex and violence...

...It seems that there is no regular procedure for any pre-publication episcopal review of materials published by the varions departments of the U.S.C.C...

...we cannot take hold of one person or event or object and call itreal The novel outmaneuvers us...

...ls.ving Malin K OBO ABE refuses to write a conventional novel...

...JI'he security guards are deliberate (.9), fascists...

...There is another turn--another part of the labyrinth...

...Describe the systematic discrimination against women by the church...

...They include two of the most self-satisfied fools she has ever drawn, one of them a villain, several ordinary empty-heads, and Sophie Weft, a journalist, who speaks in part for the author, and is punished accordingly...

...In fact, the greatest value of the book is, perhaps, that it makes the reader newly aware of the many questions involved in any such efforts--for example, problems of language and of God-language...

...By isolating the salesman and the reader, Abe suggests that only by accepting an underlying pattern to existence, can we conclude (or even begin) our earthly endeavors...

...But, to repeat, readers should keep in mind the pioneer nature of this book...

...He is the author of The Eagle and Brooklyn (Greenwood Press...

...and the cruelty of American policy-makers-Nixon and Kissinger--who could not see their victims but--acting out the .Nixon "madman theory of war" (calculated to keep opponents off balance) and dedicated to the mystique of bombing as a show of manly strength--carried out the secret and illegal bombing and.dis,astrous invasion that brought on Cambodia's internal collapse...

...If a hostage or two got killed, it had to be seen in the perspective of the greater good of the greater number...

...The resuiting material was collated and given to the author, who worked closely with the Department's committee as she planned the format of the book and wrote a first draft...

...Margaret W~_m_eatt nation's fragile position, geographically and physically...

...The fictional structure is a labyrinth, a "secret rendezvous" of science and poetry...

...But experts in Jewish-Christian relations tell us that the use of 'Yahweh," the Name God revealed to Moses, seems blasphemous to Jewish people...

...He deliberately mingles fear and pleasure to force us toward a non-official auspices as a many-sided contribution to serious thought and discussion about "faith and sexism...

...So reflects a politician, presented as intelligent and good-willed...

...But the novelist should manage things better, and McCarthy has not...

...walls, shoes, bodies and notebooks are made to dominate the world--and they make us assume that the salesman can turn everywhere with great ease...

...As the author says at the end of her prologue: "Although these guidelines emerge from prayerful reflection on the Gospel and the signs of the times, they remain provisional in character and advisory in intent," and they should be judged as such...

...For a person or a group today to deal with all these sensitive areas in making practical suggestions for religious educators, obviously, then, a.pioneer effort is required...

...what they have done to the country is greater evil than we have done to any country in the world, and wholly without reason, except for 21 December 1979:729...

...The terrorists come on stage gradually, and are the~only characters to develop as the plot Unfolds...

...16: "Use 'Reign of God' instead of 'Kingdom of God.' Prefer the proper name Yahweh to the title Lord...

...I think that the bishops were wise in feeling--whatever their reasons--that their sponsorship would give these guidelines more authorCommonweal: 728ity than such a pioneer venture could warrant: But I am glad that they were produced and have been published under Through fantasies to SECRET RENDEZVOUS Kobo Abe Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter Knopf, $8.95, 179 pp...

...But most important to refute is the author's assumption that works of art are more important than human beings...

...And why do all the wealthies speak like Vassar girls, circa 1934, even the husbands, even the supposedly rebellious daughter...

...When the plane is hijacked, a rivalry develops between the two groups...

...In brief SIDESHOW: KISSINGER, NIXON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF CAMBODIA,by William Shawcross, Simon and Schuster, $13.95, 467 pp., Pocket Books, $2.95...

...He resembles Kafka in this respect (and many...

...IRVING M),LIN teaches at CCNY...

...Mary's Press, Winona, Minnesota...

...The idea of composing anti-sexist guidelines for the benefit first of producers of catechetical materials, and then also of anyone engaged in any form of religions instruction, originated with the Department of Religious Education of the U.S...

...Life imitates art...

...The assistant director is, for example, a centaur-like creature who can be potent only after a body-graft...

...They are described at" length--the novel perversely exaggerates objects...

...Perhaps real-life victims too have nothing to do but talk at length, reflect endlessly, or keep a journal...

...Her cast of characters, sometimes difficult to keep straight, numbers about thirty, including walk-ons--three groups, written with three pens...

...like the hospital (or the narrator's mind) it is full of deceptions, conceits, and reflections-and it suggests that "reality itself" --that is, the world outside of the fiction-world is ultimately inexplicable...

...If we assume that the salesman imagines the hospital, the disappearance and reappearance of his wife etc., then we are reading an obsessive projection of a fantasy (or series of fantasies...

...In spite of Miss McCarthy's opinion, the average reader does not "feel a thrill of horror" at the vanda, lism of art, and would probably rather have saved Aldo Moro than any picture anywhere...

...Perhaps this method of composition explains why there are eighty-five guidelines, each apparently given equal importance, when--I would think--many fewer, arranged in some kind of hierarchy, would have been more effective...

...39 "Explain that the Creed and the words of consecration mean to include women as ' m e n . ' . . . " Why not give this excellent, if to some of us obvious, directive a wider application, to help people who need it in all their dealings with classic English usage in prayers, religious literature and elsewhere...

...But the salesman discovers that he can barely find his wife (and his feelings about their marriage...

...He is coeditor of The Achievement of William Styron (Georgia University Press), among others...

...If the novel has a hero, it is Van Vliet de Jonge, Dutch Parliamentarian, and readers will learn a lot about his country...

...I complex issues involved in trying to ~veaken the influence of sexism in Catholic religious education...

...The "secret rendezvous" is, in one way, the unforeseen meeting with fate, destiny, REVIEWERS MARGARET WIMSATr lives in New Haven, Connecticut...

...If we assume that the salesman is offering a sane account of an insane hospital (world), then we are shaken by the cruel pattern of the labyrinth...

...The initially dispassionate reader will come to agree, at least emotionally, with Congressman Pete McCloskey, who said after a 1975 visit to Phnom Penh, "If I could have found the military or State Department leader who has been the architect of this policy, my instinct would be to string him up...

...she cannot show many human feelings...

...First we are introduced to a committee of American liberals in economy class on their way to Iran to investigate alleged abuses in the Shah's jails...

...Mary of the West Seminary in Norwood, Ohio...

...These shoes enable him to do' 'effortless somersaults without a flying start, like a trampoline acrobat...

...This was submitted to the participants in the symposium who offered further suggestions...

...My favorite is No...

...I am all for "reign" as being a more active word than "kingdom...

...should not sponsor the book, that publication must be stopped and the published copies which claimed this sponsorship should be destroyed...

...others): he paradoxically affirms the hidden order of the universe by dwelling on secret, ominous, ghostly passageways...

...problems of interpreting the scriptures, doctrinal and moral formulations and traditional practices.., problems of cultural conditioning, of authority, of realistic possibilities of change in the church...

...The book as now published by Seabury consists of a seventeen-page Prologue introducing "the major theological and philosophical arguments supporting the rest of the guidelines," followed by the eighty-five guidelines themselves...

...However in this case, it happened that a copy of the published book was given to son/eone who became concerned about certain statements and emphases and IJrought the book to the attention of Bishop Kelly, the General Secretary of the U.S.C.C., who then consulted the other four bishops who form its executive committee...

...The final draft was then accepted by the committee, and the book was published...

...This point of view is illustrated by recent examples: the kidnapping of the Kenwood House Vermeer, the desecration of the PietY, red paint sprayed on Mona Lisa...

...These are grouped under the ten headings used in Chapter V: Principal Elements of the Christian Message for Catechesis, of the National Catholic Directory, with an additional group dealing with "Other Concerns" as diverse as "Art," "Notes for Parents" and "Policies.' The Prologue represents, it seems to me, a good try at presenting a Christian case for opposing sexism considering the complex issues involved...

...He makes us work (as readers and believers...

...And I became very weary of the phrase, "the sin of sexism...

...faith philosophical position...

...In spite of its spots of fast action, especially near the end, the novel is often tedious...

...But never before has a novel of hers, not even the timely The Groves of Academe (1951), approached so closely to the tall bloody headlines of last year, last week, next week...