Editorials
Contents commonweal Volume CVI, Number 3 Correspondence ...
...Dear Commonweal, Well at least no one's groaning when I But it is also a well-known fact that (as a reading of the open my mouth...
...He gave Commonweal: 68 mixed signals...
...Swallow four that is probably unheard of in any other country in the world-Z times daily, with a glass of white wine...
...common fatherhood of God...
...He makes a strong but the guidelines originally set by Medellin ten years ago, but generalized plea for justice and human rights, condemns tor- only half-sure they have the Holy Father's blessing...
...Indeed the majority of the English have digested for instant easy consumption...
...But this is because the' lunch (as in "There is no such thing as a...
...But then the Vatican must This does not exactly contradict the Pope, but it makes politibear responsibility for its misinterpretations...
...Did Rafs- "Top people read the Times" it said, and showed a city gent hoon pay for the lunch...
...and represent-besides the Carter administration's need to distract public attention from Canada, $20, foreign, $22...
...No story ever lasts probably never read anything in the Times at all, despite the more than about two hundred words (beyond that, they reckon, Commonweal: 70...
...our 1970 Cambodian bombing and invasion, as Stanley Karnow wrote recently in the Washington Post, "turned that bucolic land into a battlefield, unleashing the forces that are still fighting there today-and that may go on fighting for years to come...
...The Times and teenagers...
...Thomas Powers corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek, through our twenty-year persecution of the Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...If today we can receive the about our treaty obligations or our support of human rights...
...Single copy, $1...
...we had dedicated ourselves to rebuilding Indochina right after At the White House dinner, a table away, sat the former we had destroyed it we would feel less helpless in face of the president who had both reopened the door to Red China and, in tragedies unfolding there today...
...I have never seen a nude in the Times...
...Staff The arrival of Teng makes us sharpen our focus on our relations with the Far East: Editor: James O'Gara it is a part of the world Americans have long misunderstood through a series of Executive Editor: Peter Steinfels inadequate, historically conditioned concepts-through the 19th-century expansion Associate Editor Raymond A. Schroth of the China trade, through the zeal of Christian missionaries to baptize the pagans of Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John .Garvey, Frank Getlein...
...Could you tell me precisely what rejects recourse to violence," says both too much and too little the tired rhetoric of the '60s is...
...You will have to ship, was finally judged as a subversive figure on the adopt the energetic rhetoric of the '70s...
...American diplomats who allegedly "lost" "our" China to the Reds, and our almost Poetry: John Fandel twenty-year bloody struggle to maintain our power base in Indochina at the cost of Correspondents: Brian Wicker (Great Bri- countless lives and our national honor...
...His defenders say-as Vatican apologists tend to say ence...
...It is a church historically identified with fascist dictators our treaties...
...It is planned Robert Kennedy and His Times: and staged to accomplish what it is supposed to symbolize...
...If At the same time his tour was our test of him...
...with Vietnam and Cambodia as well...
...In short, no sign that he is Carter, I went to work at HEW...
...But Jesus did Dear Faithful Reader, We'll do our best...
...They have done this was reckoned pretty well informed about the political scene...
...last two practically indistinguishable...
...they had to fill in for the laity in political leadership, on This was the consequence, on the= historical, ecoMonday he seemed to be calling for a radical redistribution of nomic and socio-political plane, of his religious mesthe land...
...at Oaxaca, because of different dialects, the Indian audience missed, the message...
...politicize" Christ but to draw attention to the political Again, like so many Vatican documents, it may be deliber- aspect of his religious message...
...We blatantly conservative, more mean-spirited or "Thatcherish" arrived in the middle of Nixon's first election campaign for the than its rivals...
...our frustrated and self-destructive attempt to immediate shock may lead to internal reforms on Taiwan impose our solution on the civil war in Indochina where the where, we tend to forget, the Taiwanese people have been forces of social.- and political change were as beyond our ruled by the Kuomintang Chinese who fled the mainland with control as they had been in China after World War II...
...I did this not just to find out what was happening back socially: to clerks and supervisors, to upper middle rather than home in England, but also to find out what was happening in top people generally...
...patience of the poor), welfare reform, cities, pollution conNor does liberation theology claim that Jesus was a violent trols, affirmative action, and dream (as in "I have a...
...social direction to the Latin American church at the crossand the critics have a point, in the abstract, on our fidelity to roads...
...Faithful Reader...
...ture (without saying who's doing the torturing), kidnapping and abortion, and grants that justice is an essential part of evangelization...
...He called to his briefly made public piety a powerful force in the secularized kingdom the poor and the despised...
...The country was full of politics...
...Edward S. Skillin liberalization and perhaps major economic revolution within this still oppressive totalitarian state-many of our past policies have been misguided or wrong...
...What politics they have is right-wing, in a fairly was, I found, the answer...
...impossible for an outsider like myself to get the hang of what The real middle-brow papers, of course, are the Daily Exwas going on, or to see the political wood for the trees, either press and the Daily Mail...
...Since I'd been born and not in Poland or Rome...
...That is why, from then Still, the most disappointing aspect of the Pope's trip was onwards, every genuine historical liberation, every ideal his apparent lack of understanding of both the peculiar Latin of justice, every option for the poorest and most forsaken American situation and what the theology of liberation really members of society can make Him their point of refermeans...
...poW-cr...
...and conpolitics, on Sunday he admitted there were occasions when demned as a political criminal (Lk 23, 271.4...
...It is more London-based too: you don't see presidency...
...But the most obvious thing about them you the ability to hold your own at any academic party when, is that they have both gone "tabloid" in recent years-more as it always did, the conversation got round to American pictures, less reading matter, smaller in size (easier to handle politics...
...I Gospels in the light of their socio-political dimension notice that those who complained a lot about the tired rhetoric makes clear) Jesus' life and message seriously disturbed of the '60s aren't getting much done either...
...As Segundo See if you don't feel better...
...They are made up It doesn't mean that every Englishman feels deprived...
...Sincerely, Faithful Reader...
...brought up in Georgia I thought this might have had something And his much-quoted dismissal of the image of Jesus the to do with my accent...
...it appeals to the "intelligentsia" rather than to the solid business people...
...new class (see British national newspapers are class-conscious to a degree page 73), and the tired-rhetoric-of-the-'60s...
...It is We should be cautious in expecting that a dose of capitalism another more difficult task to give spiritual, theological and will make our new friends the Chinese more like us, more free...
...It doesn't try to keep up with what used to be called, simply "society," (i.e., the goings-on of the very rich or the SIGNS OF 'THE TIMES' tided), but goes instead for what is liberated and "trendy" in intellectual or artistic circles...
...But now I read in Carter's State of the Union: "Two centuries While the Guardian is vaguely anti-Conservative, whereas the ago a bold generation of Americans risked their property, Times is mildly pro-Conservative and the Telegraph militantly their positions and life itself...
...The year was 1968-69...
...Special two-year rate: the disaster suffered by "our side" in Iran-a willingness to free ourselves to some $35...
...used to run an advertisement which blatantly battened on the snobbery of the people who were likely to consider reading it: Dear Faithful Reader, That is tired '60s rhetoric...
...leader of the nation that fought,us to a standstill in Korea Traveler Teng brought with him some morally questionable twenty-five years ago, is the time far away when, in spite of the baggage- including his long (though now muted) support of illegality of their invasion of Cambodia and the very mixed the murderous Pol Pot regime in Cambodia which may have feelings we have about its moral consequences for the Cambokilled a tenth of its own population...
...But we know that the public face, the image, of the tour can both highlight and obscure some of the deeper issues involved...
...tain), Desmond Fisher (Dublin), Alain In this sense, Teng's arrival, especially when our welcome has been so warm, is a Woodrow (Paris) Staff: Linda F. Ka'ler, Harriette Balsky solemn event...
...revolutionary...
...and we would have been CELAM at Medellin, inspired by a "theology of liberation" willing to keep diplomatic relations with the Taiwan govern- which takes as its starting point the lived experience of the ment if it stopped pretending it was the government of China...
...81 Television: Philip Terzian 82 THE CHINESE 'Political idiot but a saint': Lawrence S. Cunningham 84 THE INTERNATIONAL grand tour of a great leader- whether of Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Teng Hsiao-ping who told us, among other things, that we Books' must do more than pray, or of Pope John Paul II, who told us, among other things, that we must pray more-is, on at least one level, a media event...
...What it told you was enough to give nasty, prejudiced way...
...Abandoning religious line, explicitly refusing all temporal leader- the tired rhetoric of the '60s is not enough...
...What's this...
...The mainly of gossip, sniggering, nude women, sport and cheap average Englishman never reads a word of the Times from one mail-order advertisements...
...In fact, the newspapers are probably the most obvious manifestation of class division in Dear Commonweal, I think it's working...
...Their opinions are entirely preyear's end to the next...
...foreign, $39...
...Our new realism, however, need not blunt our moral sense...
...Fools Die: John Druska 93 Somehow, we feel, if we can simply introduce opposing forces to one another we Is Christ the End of the Law?: can heal the wounds of history and even war...
...That means words like 16 February: 69 crisis-of-authority, failure-of-nerve, excess-of-democracy, fact that it actually tells you more about the things the average deregulation, limits (when referring to equality of income, English person wants to know (like football results, racing government's ability to foster social change, and the patience tips, or who is going out with whom in the Royal family) than of the U.S...
...just as British society itself is...
...Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs, Litera- It is particularly significant how much our formal change in policy, President ture and the Arts, is published biweekly, except Jimmy Carter's sudden announcement that we were formally recognizing the monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madi- government of the People's Republic of China, exchanging visits and expanding son Ave., New York, N.Y...
...mainly in order to keep up with the other two, really popular Perhaps this reminiscence gives some idea of what it means papers, the Sun and the Mirror...
...No, class appeal is the key to success...
...The Times Reader...
...They seem tired...
...As it liberation from all that oppresses man, particularly liberation is, the progressive bishops will go ahead and institutionalize from sin, liberation as reconciliation...
...of crowds anxious for a spiritual leader they can love...
...They used, a long time ago, to be the by reading the American press or by watching American pace-setters among the mass circulation dailies...
...Just wrote a memo Britain today...
...it still allows for the equality, justice, limits (when referring to economic growth, legitimate use of force when there is no other way out of an American power overseas, non-renewable resources, and the unjust situation...
...ately, diplQmatically ambiguous...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S...
...established powers, while creating a religious move- Do you think there's a connection...
...It is also in this sense that Jesus is the one and only But a careful reading of the full text of his principal January 28 liberator...
...with a bowler hat and.a rolled umbrella to prove the point...
...state that historically has had its own bad experiences with He denounced all privilege and inequality before the clerical political power...
...papers: The Times, the Guardian, or the Daily Telegraph...
...And Catholic words are part of the tired rhetoric of the '60s: poverty, social teaching is not necessarily pacifist...
...It does claim that the implications of the Gospel Take an aspirin and don't use any of these words for a week...
...In fact, by Mid-Western standards at any rate, I think I in the bus-queue or to stuff into a pocket...
...The higher reaches of the middle classon "The Excess of Democracy and the New Class's Failure of managers, professional people, academics-read one of three Nerve in Our Era of Limits...
...The words they made so vivid so, the politics of these papers is probably less important than are now growing faintly indistinct, because they are not heard their class-appeal...
...the remotest corners of the earth, through our virtually blind commitment to the Abigail McCarthy...
...1 would like to avoid it so I can in a few sentences...
...But now it turns out that I talk funny...
...If he had taken this emphasis he would have given Latin long passage is a description of what liberation means- American theology and evangelization a clear direction...
...Other things went wrong: in one town authorities kept the crowds back with barbed wire...
...They are words like justice, equality, unity, influence, there would never be a Labor government in this truth, sacrifice, liberty, faith and love...
...This is why it can afford to be more other places -including America...
...Or at least the fact that the opposing John L. McKenzie 94 forces have been seen together will lead us to believe that the wounds have been or will be healed...
...Telephone: trade, took place on China's timing and terms...
...But it was quite many people reading it in Birmingham or Blackpool...
...Chiang in 1949...
...The Guardian works on the same level of education or money, but its main selling point is, or at least until recently was, its "cleverness...
...Most of the text is cal commitment integral to rather than secondary to the life of a reiteration of the church's traditional social teaching...
...library every day to read the latest copy of the London The Telegraph appeals, I think, to a slightly lower level Times...
...But nowadays television...
...On one level it was his attempt to thrust would not take Taiwan by force, or perhaps more evidence that the force of his personality-and his own particular vision of China could pay for all the 747s, Coca Cola, space technology, the church-on one of both promising (half the world's oil drilling equipment, computers, tractors, tooth brushes, Catholics) and troubled parts of his flock...
...His message signified a critirespect the work and autonomy of the priests and bishops he cism of oppressive power, of unjustly acquired wealth, addressed, and really loved the crowds, the millions who of knowledge possessed only by an elite...
...Contents commonweal Volume CVI, Number 3 Correspondence 66 Editorials 67 Signs of 'The Times': Brian Wicker 70 Far away & long ago: Abigail McCarthy71 Welcome to the new class: James T. Barry73 Scenes: Stephen Darst 78 OUR FRIENDS Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...one faith...
...There is another lesson we might draw from the shift in our We should not idealize our former foes or be less idealistic thinking on Communist China...
...The following not reject violence in cleansing the temple...
...people interpreted in the light of the Gospel message, has the Meanwhile, judging from Teng's recent statements, from church regained contact and credibility with the poor...
...Of course it makes sense for him to offset get some work done around here...
...Nevertheless he pushed himself tirelessly, seemed to sage, liberation from sin...
...the idea that the-.,gun-toting guerrilla priest is somehow correctly modeling himself on Jesus of Nazareth...
...10016...
...It can be argued that if By the same token, our own Cambodian hands are not clean...
...We grant that John Paul II was flying into a difficult situation and that some media commentators had oversimplified the nature of the divisions within the church, centering speculation on whether the pope would come out "for" or "against" liberation theology and activist priests...
...Yet, our original agreement with Taiwan did and rich landowners...
...But invariably, if there is a nude bit to show, the the late sixties, I always went along to the university Guardian will show it...
...Most foreigners would find the to have the Times blacked out by a strike of printers in London...
...After all, if newspapers had much political often enough...
...But I'm still not getting much work done...
...and on one occasion the Pope was hissed when he referred to the "simple joys of the poor...
...The theology of liberation does not aim to address to the bishops does not soften the disappointment...
...It is one thing renewed China trade could really boost our economy substan- to project warmth, to toss children in the air and win the hearts tially, would that make the deal more moral...
...Only within the last ten years, since the allow us to end it when we wished...
...Rafshoon is taking me to lunch...
...For the eagerness on our part may (212) MU 3-2042...
...with third-world demands), back-to-basics, free any of the papers he or she does read...
...Galilea wrote in Lumen Vitae (1978), Jesus rejected political power for himself...
...are certainly subversive in a tyrannical state...
...ment with undeniable social implications...
...HALF A BLESSING Conservative opposition to Carter's decision-for example, the editorial in the New Republic (January 6, 1979) and Wil- The visit of Pope John Paul II to the third CELAM bishops' liam Buckley's collected columns in National Review conference at Puebla, Mexico, plus his extended travels (January 19, 1979)-has stressed our alleged immoral aban- through the countryside, to the Oaxaca Indian festival, to donment of Taiwan and our failure to exact a higher price for shrines, a rodeo, and one Guadalajara slum, had elements of our shifting gears-perhaps a formal guarantee that China the grand tour as well...
...Faithful country at all...
...On Saturday he told priests to stay out of social plane, as a rival to Caesar's...
...And now he is threatening dian people, we will establish diplomatic and economic ties to invade Vietnam to punish it for seizing Cambodia...
...degree from what Sir Denis Brogan called in a 1952 article in Harper's Magazine, the American "illusion of omnipotence"-"the illusion that any situation which 16 Febuary 1979: 67 distresses -at endangers the United States can only exist be- China's practical inability to launch an offensive against cause some Americans have been fools or knaves .. ," an Taiwan in the near future, and from the divided political illusion which in titre contributed to the domestic upheavals of situation on Taiwan itself, there is a good possibility that this the 1960s and...
...You needed something more basic, and in a sense they try to be "family" papers, with something for more pre-digested than the mass of detail given in the local everyone-old and young, husbands and wives, grandparents papers or the political chat-shows on the media...
...It has proportionately less about the Report from Britain stock market and more about education and the arts, than the Times...
...Yet he says nothing that acknowledges the desperateness of TIRED AND TRUE the Latin American situation, not a word about the prelates hand in glove with the dictators, or the priests who have been Dear Commonweal, Two years ago, at the request of Jimmy murdered by right-wing terrorists...
...political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive man from Every time I make a suggestion, someone says, "Oh, that's the Nazareth," replacing it with the Jesus who "unequivocally tired rhetoric of the '60s...
...Hence the paradox: Jesus who had always followed a Dear Faithful Reader, You're only beginning...
...We also know that conservative bishops had controlled much of the conference's planning, that they were so paranoid about open discussion that they refused press credentials to five respected journalists, including Gary MacEoin and two Jesuits, because they disapproved of their past writings...
...By focusing world William V. Shannon 86 attention on one man who, in his person, sums up the values and aspirations of his Faith of Our Fathers:: own culture as he moves through the cities, farm lands, ritual banquets, industries, Henry Warner Bowden 8 sports events, rodeos, shows, songs and dances of an alien way of life-all eyes and The Age of Atrocity: Richard L. Schoen- ears upon him, testing his patience, flexibility and endurance, measuring every wald 90 gesture and word for toughness or grace-we try to discover and dramatize those Max Perkins: Robert Emmet Long 92 once-hidden wayss in which different cultures,although isolated by distance and alienated by history and misunderstanding, are really the same...
...It is a potential turning point in modern history, an implicit acknowAdvertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor ledgment that-even though the visit coincides with a moderated "democratic" Publisher...
...of papal statements-that he has been quoted out of context...
...deodorants, and Pierre Cardin scarfs they would buy...
...In its arts pages, it will quite NO NUDES IS GOOD NEWS often show a nude scene from a show or film (decorously artistic, of course, and always to illustrate something from the I REMEMBER that when I was in America for a year, back in show...
Vol. 106 • February 1979 • No. 3
