Editorials
.•afaala a'. Correspondence 130 .---~ Na- r , ._1 VA Editorials 131 ;!'U!IINMI Our China tilt: Peter Kovler The Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr. 146 Books Contents Volume CVI,...
...For all the emphasis that has been put on how current U.S...
...are anything but pea-brained...
...It is precisely that which the new climate of opinion is rendering difficult...
...Then the war and Watergate, with all the attending credibility gaps and revelations about Pentagon, FBI, CIA and White House incursions on individual rights, cast a general pall over the exercise of federal power...
...From the Left came charges of the use of social services to pacify or control the powerless...
...There is even a sort of safety in pea- Humanae Vitae dissipated the authority of that literary form brainedness, a safety one does not sense when contemplating just over ten years ago...
...2) He should to stop the killing but where, in truth, there is indifference: Let discuss the status of women (although at this stage we are not "them" kill "them"-as long as they don't come near "us...
...No ployment has decreased, relatively speaking...
...Christ teaches, he said, "a beginnings of World War III," the U.S...
...writings of his predecessors...
...As the Vice-Premier made his way and distribution of its own investments and wealth...
...commonweal _aaa~ +gr 1N DEFENSE OF COVERNMENr History home to roost: Abigail McCarthy 136 Dis-orient express: Frank Getlein 137 Trying for number 37: Margo Hammond 134 Into the secular void: John E. Smith 139 A Puebla diary: Harvey Cox 141 The Stage: Tennessee's Waltz: Gerald Weales 146 AMERICANS have traditionally been "agin' the guv'mint...
...Admittedly, Blumenthal has criticized his hosts for their "transA F'rER A LIFETIME of criticizing a United States policy gression...
...attitude seems to be that there is really practical success: the rendering of economic and social nothing disastrous if one Communist country fights another...
...It seems to us ings of an imminent Chinese invasion were so blatant that even that if the church is to hold credibility in its fight against a casual newspaper reader could have picked them up...
...Raymond A. Schroth Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, Frank Getlein...
...people suppose...
...meeting can be seen as a decisive moment in the self-education Practically, the new outlook simply screens out a great deal and growth of the Latin American church and the world-wide of contemporary reality...
...Since the invasidn the human person, pnderstood in the light of the Gospel, and administration has, again, expressed its disapproval while above all in view of injustices which oppress the individual reiterating the call for Vietnamese forces to leave Cambodia...
...eagerly sends Treasury Secretary HOW ABOUT 'PEACE NOW...
...And not because, bureaucratic giants...
...The writes it, we have some suggestions: (1) The language should administration's attitude is often reminiscent of the view tobe clear and direct, not the usual Vaticanese designed to ward Mafia wars where there is a platitudinous pronouncement obscure rather than reveal the papal mind...
...Not since Herbert Spencer and the nastier forms of social The Civilizing Process: George Ellard 154 Darwinism have there been so many intelligent people bent upon proclaiming that Haven in a Heartless World: Jean Bethke the state is the enemy...
...The state was on the verge, as megastructures -government, corporations, labor, profesSenator Moynihan once wrote, of choosing our spouses...
...Single copy, $1...
...supernatural" destiny-from all forms of evil: from, as John Nevertheless, one main result has been to somewhat aggraPaul said recently, "every social injustice, discrimination, vate tensions in Southeast Asia...
...These widespread currents of feeling were backed by new views among governing elites and opinion-shapers...
...The Communist war If the U.S...
...And we can see its subject recurThe problem is complicated further by the fact that these ring in his addresses since then...
...No sions, education-have reshaped but by no means entirely wonder that big business and neoconservatism were joined by eliminated the market, with its capacity both for helpful realloa revival of native libertarianism...
...This mental- of the `civilization of love' "; and now that the secular and ity smacks of "doing your own thing," now transformed into a religious press have had time to reflect and respond, the Puebla pro bono publico crusade...
...For years I have looked forward to U.S.-China trade but the stalling of trade could have been used as a lever to slow down the war and make the Chinese get out of OUR CHINA 'TILT' Vietnam...
...than by state initiative or government regulation...
...the heart of both the Gospel and the church's official teaching, This is not to say that U. S. policy has been gung ho Chinese...
...today, makes special demands on Christians as they participate In fact, our State Department has expressed so much disapin public life...
...Harriette Balsky Advertising Manager Ruth E. Taylor Publisher Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs, Literature and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...The clumsiness as well as the Meanwhile, according to a number of reports, something bulkiness of the government often seems nothing but a desper- else is afoot: John Paul II, described as a decisive, selfate consequence of trying to keep up with new problems confident theologian who does most of his own writing, is at spawned by dynamic but essentially self-interested corporate work on his first encyclical, indeed the first encyclical since megastructures...
...has tended to act as a special sensitivity toward man, toward human dignity, toward partisan rather than a neutral force which would mediate...
...were really sincere, it would have used real pressure on the Chinese...
...Instead of American theologians...
...The anti-government spirit never disappeared, however...
...was told there would be an invasion which would last poor, it must develop and publish policies on the management from ten to twenty days...
...govnormalization was proper, sane and decades overdue, U.S...
...Perhaps it takes a time of economic ways rejected the post-New Deal welfare state on principle and constraints and uncertainty like the present to remind people many '60s radicals whose social concerns led to a disenchant- that these other megastructures, together with the fluctuations ment with government measures or a fear of government of the market, do determine their lives in a thorough-going control...
...refuse to take offense ward position, at least for the moment, of disliking the at the criticism...
...and one with which the church has had the least obvious At times the U.S...
...But to quote Washington Star reporter Lee Cohn which shunted China aside, this reporter is in the awk- who is in Peking, "Chinese leaders...
...Special two-year rate: $35...
...Poetry: John Fandel Correspondents: Brian Wicker (Great Britain), Desmond Fisher (Dublin), Alain Woodrow (Paris) Staff: Linda F. Kayler...
...has erred...
...proval that they are almost believable...
...personal ties or demoralize young people or spur social disinWhat is happening is unfortunate and no service to our tegration...
...But if he action nor the threat of action to support the rhetoric...
...At a more emotional level, the Gulag, the ubiquity of Third World dictatorships, and the economic travails of Great Britain were all invoked to warn Americans of the dangers or (alternatively) the 16 March 1979: 131 inefficiency of state initiatives...
...In battles which Sen...
...human life, toward spirit and body...
...than in of preventing the state from becoming the tool of these other every other industrial country except Japan...
...It signaled Neuhaus have employed the effective term "megastructure" growth as well for the new Pope who boldly flew into a new to describe the large, bureaucratic institutions that dominate situation and then adapted his later speeches to identify himself our public lives and contribute to the sense of powerlessness more obviously with the cause of the poor...
...The only possible interpretation of this event 16 March 1979: 133...
...We know West, his verbal attacks on Vietnamese "hegemonism" bethat this is the favorite "Catholic" topic of novelists and came increasingly ominous...
...The federal government bore the brunt of resentment from whites who thought desegregation was going too fast and too recklessly, from both blacks and whites who thought it was going too slow and too cautiously...
...Blumenthal to Peking for economic talks with his hosts...
...While it would be pure thoughtless anti-Americanism to blame It might be too early in his reign for this Pope, even as the fighting on U.S...
...the crowds in Mexico he must have seen that many women had When Teng Hsiao-ping visited here in January, the warnmore children than they could feed or care for...
...reaction to the lation in dialogue with, rather than opposition to, the Latin Vietnam-Cambodia and Vietnam-China wars...
...While the Chinese value formalities and courtesies, the U.S...
...If he looked carefully at But this attitude has mostly given way to a pro-China position...
...Instead, the U.S...
...and Canada, $20...
...Nonetheless this mood of cheerful and somewhat resigned contempt has usually been tempered, in fact been partly caused by, the belief that government is actually supposed to do something for you, that it does, after all, have a positive purpose - which it is never quite living up to...
...Indeed, abortion, it must open the door to family planning...
...Elshtain 155 What accounts for this climate of opinion is a remarkable convergence of different views...
...decisions, still the U.S...
...Peter Berger and Richard John church that watched its deliberations so anxiously...
...But it is running at high tide right now...
...Most visibly and upsetting China...
...The state is but one of these Review reporter reportedly told a Christian Century (February megastructures, which include the giant corporations (in many 28) correspondent that the Pope was " 100 percent cominstances now even escaping the control of nation-states), munist," the New York Times (February 26) more-or-less took labor organizations and educational and professional bureauc- back its off-base January 30 editorial lamenting that the Pope racies...
...Perhaps we can discern its outline in his the remarkable ability of great corporations to bend every Puebla address, heavily weighed down as it was with referpolitical, technological, and cultural resource to their private ences to the Scriptures, Church Fathers, Vatican II and the benefit...
...Correspondence 130 .---~ Nar , ._1 VA Editorials 131 ;!'U!IINMI Our China tilt: Peter Kovler The Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...and total tax one should deny the difficulty of this task, the difficulty even revenues are a lower percentage of GNP in the U.S...
...Not because government hasn't expanded its powers tures, combined with the market, create an atmosphere of and range of concerns in ways that bear careful watching- hedonism, dissolve communities, and erode political culture though in fact the expansion has been much less than many and discourse, are no less important for being less visible...
...Abigail McCarthy, Thomas Powers Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck...
...10016...
...Under attack for environmental irresponsibility, big business rebounded with a barrage of publicity about overregulation...
...Everyone knew that Teng wanted columnists...
...Philosophically, of course, the anti-state fervor frequently THE NEXT ENCYCLICAL reveals an individualism that does justice neither to the social Now that the Latin American Bishops, with the offstage nature of humans nor to the interdependence of our political help of the prominent theologians who had been excluded from and economic life, an individualism too often reflecting the the conference, have published their final CELAM III message status of upper-middle-class activists who can afford to be exhorting the people of God of Latin America, and through uninterested in the mechanisms the state does provide- them all the people of the world, to become "selfless builders barely-to cushion the vulnerable from hardship...
...foreign, $22...
...From quarrelsome colonist to John Cabdriver, they have treated politicians, state agencies, tax obligations, and bureaucrats with the same enthusiasm they assign to bad weather, nagging physical afflictions, and country varmints...
...If this alliance is not extended to big business and the fashion -do shape when, if not whom, they marry, where they neoconservatives, it is only because of the former's attachment will live, whether one parent or two will be home with chilto its favorite government subsidies and the latter's support of dren, what are the chances that unemployment will strain a massive defense establishment...
...federal em- to be controlled without the instrumentality of the state...
...He has, in a sense, co-opted Commonweal: 132 the term "liberation theology," and developed his own formu- tragically, this is apparent in the U.S...
...confident about what he would say...
...Each instance should be argued on its merits...
...has not used its brilliant as he may be, to address the elusive issue which is at considerable influence to help bring peace...
...In the twentieth century this belief was reinforced by the Progressive and New Deal response to the growth of capitalism and the disarray of the economy...
...infatuation with the People's Republic...
...James R. Kelly 156 The Great American Newspaper Raymond A. Schroth 157 Staff 133 Editor- James O'Gara Executive Editor: Peter Steinfels Associate Editor...
...146 Books Contents Volume CVI, Number 5 Jesus: An Experiment in Christology: Donald Senior 147 Winterspelt/My Disappearance in Providence and Other Stories: Ronald De Feo 150 Lives and Letters: Jeffrey Meyers 151 Literary Places: Dennis Vellucci 152 Neighbors in Conflict...
...3) Finally, there have even been reports, although unconfirmed, that the if the church is to gain long-range credibility as friend of the U.S...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...justice-especially when, in so many places, the other great Even though the State Department has called for both China social encyclicals, Quadragessimo Anno, Pacem in Terris and and Vietnam to stop their fighting, there has been neither Populorum Progressio, were whispers in the wind...
...The more subtle ways in which these megastrucsociety...
...Ivan Illich's talk of "deschooling" found a certain echo in Mobil's talk of "deregulation...
...Repeating Nixon's claim that the Great Society had been an orgy of "throwing money at problems," neoconservatives hoped to fend off what they imagined was a collapse of government authority by proposing that social ambitions had to be held back: many of our vexing problems, they suggested, were nearly insoluble anyway...
...He says, in effect, that the message of maintaining an evenhanded approach in these "Communist Christ is meant to liberate man-the whole human person, not wars," the Carter administration has tilted toward China...
...Thus, a National and alienation in the culture...
...but this consistent interest may well indicate a to "punish" Vietnam...
...And if the state suffers from being, in the phrase had "rejected political involvement," and the National Senator Moynihan applied to the federal bureaucracy, a Catholic Reporter confidently headlined a March 2, Rome NC "pea-brained dinosaur," some of these other megastructures news service story, "Pope Backs Liberation Theology...
...But, in truth, such words are as meaningful as when the State Department in another era in Southeast Asia "disapproved" of Thieu's harsh regime...
...foreign, $39...
...Thus Proposition 13 and constitutional convention fever...
...ernment has managed to be publicly critical without in any way policymakers have, in a sense, overdone it...
...4) Perhaps he should call it In response, President Carter is supposed to have told Teng Personae Humane Dignitas, and begin: "The dignity of the that he disapproved of any "incursion...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S...
...By the time he departed from Japan, deep popular desire for some living example of how the riches few doubted that war was close...
...among others, has called the "possible conscience or human conviction...
...In fact, a striking alliance cation of resources and energies and for enormous dislocation has been forged between the doctrinaire libertarians who al- and human wreckage...
...Meanwhile, it was state and local government where the real growth, though not the political controversy, was occurring, a fact to which voters suddenly awakened...
...of the earth should be used...
...From the Right came accusations of waste and corruption...
...But to admit the anti-government premcase by case, there may be better ways of solving problems ises of the day is to abdicate before the work has even begun...
...Patrick violence inflicted by man against the body, the spirit, the Moynihan (D...
...The rise of neoconservatism was linked, in addition, with the growing role of economists in formulating social policy, a group occupationally conditioned to look fondly upon market solutions...
...The ratio of federal expenditures to the GNP Neither these other megastructures nor the market are going has stayed remarkably steady for two decades...
...In the '60s, those who had been protective of the New Deal heritage grew dissatisfied with the inability of these programs to eliminate poverty...
...nor should it...
...just the "soul," as if religion were concerned only with man's Perhaps without even meaning to do it, the U.S...
Vol. 106 • March 1979 • No. 5
