Hans K\:ung: His Work and His Way/The Church-Maintained in Truth
Chirico, Peter
has the best judicial system in the world. Beyond such declara- tions, though, the unshakability of Hiss's faith is implicit in the whole tone of this movie and in the very demeanor of the man who...
...had entered a new historical period...
...Harrington takes issue with the Ronald Reagans and the Jimmy Carter-style Democrats, who blame stagflation on federal deficits and excessive regulation, ignoring either the business cycle or the price-behavior of corporations...
...It is demonstrated by the bare fact that thirty years after the original injustice was done to him, this man who is now in his seventies patiently continues to persist with his appeals, and fully expects that the same system which abused him will also exonerate him in the end...
...This follows from the fact that, according to Vatican I, infallibility primarily rests in the whole church and it is this ecclesial infallibility which the pope expresses in any irreformable doctrinal decision...
...This means that, whenever the pope or the assembled bishops around the pope wish and decide to be infallible, the Holy Spirit automatically intervenes to preserve their subsequent doctriMl pronouncement from error...
...According to this view, these authorities have the power to call effectively upon the Holy Spirit to invest them with what K/ing calls a priori infallibility...
...As examples of fundamental truths which go to make up the Gospel Kting indicates (1) that in Jesus is found God's ultimate and decisive call, his definitive truth about himself...
...The first, edited by two of Kfing's assistants, contains (1) a chronology of K/ing's life, work and times...
...health needs can provide the necessary stimulus for a flagging economy...
...The view opposed by K/ing and which he has long traced back to Vatican I is this: the ultimate infallible criterion of Christian truth is the definitive teaching of church authorities...
...Yet it manages to give us just the same kind of lift...
...John Judis B Y the mid-70s, it was already apparent that the U.S...
...COLIN L. WESTERBECK, JR...
...Some of the alternatives presented-- wage-price-profit controls, gasoline ra- tioning, a federal energy corporation-- suggest new directions...
...Books: GOSPEL, INFALLIBILITY, & KiiNG T HESE two works complement one another...
...A Roman Congregation has deprived New agenda for liberalism IIII II I Kfing of his canonical teaching mission in the church largely because of his views on infallibility...
...And besides, even Nixon would have a hard time today keeping a straight face while accusing Hiss of being a Communist or perjurer or anything else...
...In Decade of Decision, Michael Har- rington goes well beyond the current diagnoses of and remedies for America's ills...
...To understand Kfing's own view on infallibility and the view he opposes is to understand the basic presupposition that undergirds his work and the focus of his battle with church authorities...
...4) a bibliography of K/ing' s productions...
...In the lrwst place, as Lowenthal well knows, no one will go to this movie who isn't already con- vineed of Hiss's innocence...
...Harrington views the 1980s as a transi- tional decade, much like the 1890s or 1930s...
...He thinks that its acceptance by the church has increasingly fostered the notion that any teaching by ecclesiastical authorities, including obviously non-infallible teaching, must be believed because it emanates from persons endowed with a special charism of truth...
...The non-professional middle class, Harrington points out, is increas- ingly divided from its working class cousins by little more than status illu- sions...
...Hence, whenever the 9 May 1980:277 council's documents...
...Harrington, author of nine books, including The Other America and The Vast Majority, and chair of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, attributes stagflation -- simultaneous inflation and unemployment--to a structural crisis in world capitalism...
...Maybe The Trials of Alger Hiss is not so different from Best Boy after all...
...These policies would be designed to enhance corporate profits and divide the employed from the un- employed, the white middle class from the minority underclass...
...This is a very powerful testimonial, one which virtually overrides all the evidence to the contrary in the film...
...The Watergate scandal initially obscured the profound policy crisis that had arisen...
...Unless the Congregation deals explicitly with these two issues, it I will (1) give the impression that it has not grasped the import of K/ing's criterion of the Gospel, (2) confuse the Christian people into thinking that K/ing's a priori infallibility is actually the defined teaching of Vatican I, and (3) miss an opportunity to move toward reconciling Kting with church authorities...
...Har-rington argues persuasively that both soaring deficits and declining productiv- ity were caused by rather than causes of the original stagflation...
...It is the best current antidote to the most common liberal and conservativ e misapprehen-sions about welfare, the poor, the extent of unemployment in the U.S., and the plight of the cities...
...For Kfing the starting point of all theology and the criterion against which all theologizing must be judged is the Gospel...
...Harrington doesn't repeat, however, the usual liberal error of then defending on purely humanitarian grounds a full- employment budget, while ignoring cor- porate rejoinders about skyrocketing in- flation...
...Just as these decades sloughed off past eras of capitalism, the 1980s will cast off the basic structures of New Deal welfare capitalism...
...As I said in my last column, Best Boy is a film that gives us a lift because it documents a case in which the system--all the systems, in fact--worked...
...As canon law puts it, only that teaching can be accepted as infallible which is manifestly so...
...Like Philly Wohl, Alger Hiss compels us to admit that the only thing which ever makes a system credible anyway is the humanity of the people in it, the movement of the spirit in the rock...
...Its principal weaknes- ses stem from incompleteness and from its argumentative structure, which occa- sionally prevents any clear statement of the author's assumptions...
...In short, for Ktng the only ultimate and infallibly known criterion for all theologizing is the real Jesus of the original eyewitnesses as this Jesus is determined by modern scripture scholars using the historical-critical method...
...The American defeat in Vietnam cast doubt upon U.S...
...and (2) that the church as the community of believers in Jesus Christ is indestructible...
...The Gospel i~ the basic meaning imbedded in the earthly life and preaching of Jesus and expressed in the BANS KONm: HIS WORK AND BIS WAY Hermann HiirJng stud Ksrl-Josef Knschel, editors Doubleday, $4.50, 254 pp...
...As Harrington notes, the question is not whether such a program is inflation- ary, but whether corporations will countenance public sector competition and a redistributive tax policy...
...Harrington contends that social spending for housing, mass transit, and Commonweal: 280...
...Despite the title Lowenthal has given his film, it is not Alger Hiss who is on trial...
...K/ing strongly objects to this view of a priori infallibility...
...There are two major omissions in De-cade of Decision...
...Not their reasoning but their charism guarantees that everything hierarchical authorities say is trustworthy...
...Further, K/ing affirms that this Gospel can be known not by biblical fundamentalists but by those who employ "an historical-critical interpretation at the highest level...
...The first work furnishes the general context within which Ktng theologizes...
...Nor were these two points addressed in the earlier declarations of the Congregation in 1973 and 1975 on the same issue of infallibility...
...the second indicates the specific views on infallibility which emerge from this context...
...Harrington also argues convincingly that the vaunted Re- publican solutions to stagflation--regressive tax reductions d la Kemp-Roth--have not led and will not lead toward productive investment, but to- ward speculation in violins, gold, and real estate...
...THE CHURCR--NAINTAINED IN TRUTH Hans Kiing SesbuFy, $6.95, 78 pp...
...Decade of Decision is a long, well- constructed political argument...
...There is no discussion of foreign and military policy...
...It could be financed through progressive tax re- form...
...Harrington sees his revived liberalism as one outcome of the 1980s, but he also sees another possibil- ity: a new reactionary agenda based on a regressive incomes policy and reduced social spending...
...In so faras the further escalation of the arms race DECADE OF DECISION Michael Harrington Simon and Schuster, $11.95, 354 pp...
...Kfing rejects the notion that all individual verses of the New Testament are without theological error, but he asserts that shining through all these errors is the initial witness to the earthly Jesus expressed in the totality of the New Testament which constitutes the basic and infallible Gospel...
...But in 1980, the debate has begun to surface...
...Read together, they furnish a lively and succinct comprehension of the controversial K/ing...
...Harrington argues that the possibility of a revived liberalism lies in the unifica- tion of the working class and the middle class...
...In 1976, politicians ran on their sincerity and truthfulness rather than their record or proposals...
...Unfortunately, the Congregation has not addressed itself to K/ing's basic affirmation of the criterion of the Gospel or to his basic denial of a priori infallibility...
...Simultaneous inflation and unemployment, along with a declining dollar, defied policy-makers...
...2) studies and reactions to K/ing's major books by friendly critics and by K/ing himself...
...Beyond such declara- tions, though, the unshakability of Hiss's faith is implicit in the whole tone of this movie and in the very demeanor of the man who is its subject...
...others--reduction in social spending, return to the gold standard, regressive tax breaks-- hearken back to pre-New Deal days...
...If the verdict of acquittal, or at least of a temporary stay, is surprising to us, that's because we never anticipated that anyone as effective as Hiss himself would serve as the system's staunch defender, its key character witness...
...They were fwst contemplated by Richard Nixon and John Connally in the early '70s and could be- come the program of a 1980s Republican or even Democratic administration...
...and he argues that only a revived liberalism that goes beyond New Deal reforms can achieve social justice and pull America out of its doldrums...
...Peter Chirico New Testament...
...No, it's not Hiss who's on trial, but the American system...
...The real question is political, not economic...
...These scripture experts can strip away from the New Testament text the post-resurrection layers of interpretation and get back to the solid rock of the real Jesus as he was seen by the original witnesses...
...Thus, it cannot be claimed to be the defined teaching of the church...
...Hence, it is not true to say that according to Vatican I the pope is infallible whenever he says he is infallible or whenever he says he has fulfilled the criteria set forth by Vatican I. It is still possible to claim that the only certain evidence we can have that the pope has fulfilled the criteria is that his teaching actually resonates with the faith that lives in the whole church...
...The second, by Kfing himself, repeats and clarifies his views on infallibility...
...It was singled out by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its declaration of December 15, 1979 which stripped Kting of his canonical teaching mission in the church...
...The Trials of Alger Hiss documents a case in which the system hasn't worked at all...
...imperial objectives...
...And price controls could prevent corporate attempts to reap undeserved favors from the new demand...
...3) a revealing 55-page interview of K/ing on his personal and theological evolution up to 1978...
...The continued economic crisis of the 1980s might, Harrington hopes, make this clear to both groups...
Vol. 107 • May 1980 • No. 9
