Editorials
involvement as simply naive--the upshot of current attacks on missionaries and clergy in Latin America. Yes, sometimes n~ivet6 is a problem; but the critics should temper their conclu- sions...
...In January of 1980, fiftythree percent of those polled said they were Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, while only thirty-three percent said they were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents...
...growing support for the claim that government had gone too far in interfering with business and the free enterprise system...
...Democrats still outnumber Republicans, but the Democratic lead is only half as big now as it was when last year's presidential campaign began...
...What is striking in this document is less the negative judgment on substantials of Marxist philosophy and politics -certainly no surprise there --but the degree to which the kind of social analysis pioneered by Marx is accepted as being in order for the Christian today, indeed demanded...
...So they commissioned another committee, headed by Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, to come up with an equally intelligent and critical assessment of capitalism...
...I MARX OF THE CHURCH The Jesuit superior general in Rome, Father Pedro Arrupe, has obviously had to deal for some time with the "Commie" slur against members of his order i0 Latin America...
...the Republicans had jumped eight points to forty-one percent...
...His voice is calm, unfrightened...
...Given this fact, plus a very personable and popular Republican president, the Democrats might be making a big mistake if they are overly optimistic al~out their prospects in 1982...
...The Democratic organization, on the other hand, is in a bad state of disrepair...
...The single point most frequently stressed in these editorials is that U.S...
...candidate Carter concentrated funds and attention on his own personal political fortunes to the detriment of the traditional Democratic party machinery...
...selected issues...
...There is nothing the GOP would like better than to win control of the House in 1982, and its fund-raising efforts have been stressing the fact that a switch of only twenty-six seats would do just that...
...Now that, we think, is turning the question around and promising indeed...
...Things will be different in 1982, they say...
...No increased support for a constitutional amendment allowing prayer in the public schools, for example, or for opposition to abortion...
...it will require the kind of research only the university or think tank offers -- and links between academe and retreat house and parish that are not yet forged...
...policy...
...And while warning against the adoption of"Marxist analysis as a whole," Father Arrupe judges it fully appropriate to attend to those factors -- the victimization of entire classes, class struggle, and ideologies which camouflage vested interests and injustice --that Marx's pioneering research in the British Museum disclosed as essential to a critical posture toward one's society and culture...
...Yet something is afoot...
...Carter's handling of the crisis...
...this has been the consistent pattern in every off-year election since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term...
...Organizational superiority, then, is one big Republican advantage...
...For the conservatives in the Order and elsewhere, moreover, Arrupe also had a message...
...I Ill The press on E1 Salvador I VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE EDITOI~AI.ISTS & THE ADMINISTRATION O NE INDEX TO Critical American sentiment about the Reagan-Haig policy toward El Salvador and one measure of the degree to which American opinion-makers have learned any "lessons of Vietnam" was the outpouring of editorials during February and March of this year...
...the next campaign is already under way...
...press has fallen short in its coverage of El Salvador...
...the Iranian hostage issue re-erupted just before the election, opening old wounds over Mr...
...One very important strength on the GOP side rests on the vast superiority of the Republican organizat.ion over that of the Democrats --in popular-level as opposed to fat-cat fundraising, in the GOP's ability to target and appeal to selected groups of voters with special interests, in the GOP's superior ability to search out attractive potential candidates...
...First the GOP disadvantages...
...It is too early to say for sure, but this poll and others suggest that a profound change may be underway in the nation's political climate --a change, says the times, which may offer the GOP a chance to effect a classic political realignment comparable to that achieved by the Democrats under FDR in the '30s...
...That is, whereas in the older asceticism an individua|istic examination of conscience was considered sufficient "purge" to set one on the way of illumination and union with God, this is no longer enough...
...He warns them against construing his critical assessment of Marxism as a retreat from the Order's commitment to the cause of social justice...
...Complaints have recently been raised in several quarters--on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, for instance, and in The Nation (April 25) and The Columbia Journalism Review (May-June)--that the U.S...
...They seem to have caught sight of their own ideological blindness toward the modified capitalism in which they swam...
...Mistakes will be made, but somehow we have more confidence in those who are risking them from up close...
...For were Father Arrupe's letter to be expressed in positive terms rather than a series of reservations and cautions --perhaps meant as much for Vatican eyes as for Latin American ones -- it might be taken as a case for incorporating a refined and revised version of Marx's class and ideological analysis as a basic component of the contemporary Christian's ordinary ascetical practice...
...But in saying this they tend to overlook certain other distinct advantages the Republicans now possess...
...Similarly, among those who said without qualification that they belonged to one party or the other, the Democratic total had fallen from thirty-eight percent to thirtyfour percent...
...A great many also found it worrisome that the hurry to get additional arms to the 22 May 1981:295...
...Normally the party of a sitting president loses seats in Congress in any off-year election...
...It's the common label, as he realizes, with which oligarchs and generals affix nearly anyone advocating social reform in the area...
...bishops met in Washington last November.and endorsed a highly intelligent statement on Marxist Communism, they seemed to recognize that running through the list of Marxist fallacies was too easy...
...In much the same way Aristotle had been taken in during the thirteenth century...
...In the latest poll, the Democratic share had fallen to forty-nine percent...
...What is now required, besides such self-scrutiny, is a systematic examination of one's social reality --and that means making use of those methods of seeing through ideology and social structure that Marx fathered in the Western intellectual tradition...
...some dominant in metropolitan areas, some published in rural communities, some in the backwoods--disputed the administration's assumption that El Salvador's problems should be viewed primarily in terms of a global Soviet threat...
...However a survey of editorial opinion in thirty-eight widelj diverse newspapers shows that an independent and skeptical eye is being cast on official U.S...
...the Democrats lead in the House 243-to-192...
...It is also clear that the Republicans enjoyed distinct advantages last time around: Jimmy Carter was considered an affable but ineffective president by millions of voters across the country...
...A zzo- Commonweal: 294 In short, the United States is becoming increasingly Repub- A GOP FUTURE...
...Quite obviously, the individual Christian cannot do this solo...
...Here the findings of a recent nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll are significant, supplying still more data to support growing Republican optimism...
...When the U.S...
...lican, although it is becoming more conservative only on The 1980 election seems barely over, but politicos are not resting easy...
...He encourages his men to maintain their own distinctive Christian identity, to keep a critical distance, but to continue their dialogue with Marxists...
...Moreover, he wants textbooks scrutinized lest they be inculcating the liberal capitalist world's "individualistic and materialistic vision of life that is destructive of Christian values and attitudes...
...the Democratic administration had shown itself incapable of handling the economy and especially of checking inflation...
...involvement as simply naive--the upshot of current attacks on missionaries and clergy in Latin America...
...its new chairman vows to set things right and match the GOP expertise, but accomplishing this by 1982 will take some doing...
...but the critics should temper their conclusions with some reflections on the n~ivet~ that sees things so clearly from thousands of miles away, the frequently deadly miivet6 of Western economic experts and Pentagon planners...
...What are the Republican chances...
...Last December he wrote a letter, just now published, setting down guidelines for the use of "Marxist analysis" in understanding social reality...
...The Republicans hold a 53-to-47 advantage in the Senate...
...Root cause of that tiny, tormented country's murderous present conflict is seen by most of the press as the unjust division of its wealth and resources and the long oppression of its poor...
...To an overwhelming extent, these newspapers across the country--whether large, medium, .or small in circulation...
...Yes, sometimes n~ivet6 is a problem...
...According to the poll, an increasing number of Americans from most population groups are calling themselves either Republicans or Republican-leaning independents...
...It was, of course, the great John Courtney Murray, who on the eve of his death, clearsightedly told younger Jesuits that the next generation's task would be to assimilate --and of course, thereby transmute --Marxism into the mainstream of the Catholic tradition...
...Even more significant is the changing tide of voter opinion...
...military aid ought to be conditioned specifically on containment of El Salvador's right-wing military forces as well as the leftist guerrillas and on continuation of needed internal reforms, political and economic...
...Democratic loyalists who want to sound an optimistic note like to point out all these factors...
Vol. 108 • May 1981 • No. 10
