Editorials

...What kind of information is the pope receiving about the American church as he approaches these decisions...

...There has been excess and silliness, much of it, in fact, diminishing as the post-conciliar experience is reappraised...

...That is one cost of an entire century of relying on the big stick, the kind of cost the U.S...

...it might avoid the fruitless exchange of contempt nearly all parties to the conflict have consistently shown for each other...

...Opposition political parties in Honduras, labor unions, and the church have all protested the mounting militarization of their country, and the rise in human rights violations...

...pays worldwide...

...The folly of all this is that we may win the battle (again, the Chilean example) but lose the war of ideas, of a promise whose time has come...

...Now four major appointments out of the seven archdioceses that have been normally headed by cardinals give the pope an exceptional opportunity to steer the church in this land one way or another...

...administration which can't say "no" to right-wing goons in Central America is not going to be able to restrain dictators and nurture democrats in countries of far greater geopolitical import...

...church can perhaps be controlled by old-fashioned ecclesiastical apparatchiks...

...If the extraordinary pluralism of the American church is to issue in service and creativity, rather than in fragmentation and loss of identity, it will require an episcopal leadership which appreciates that pluralism and sees it as a blessing and not an aberration...

...Meanwhile, in the latest effort to break through the wars of attrition in the region, the Contadora group, composed of Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, and Colombia, has come up with a new, twenty-one point plan, as yet undisclosed, for achieving peace in the area...

...Surveys show that Polish Catholics are no different than Americans in rejecting official teachings on sexuality and contraception...

...The Sandinistas have been driven to pour more and more of their regime's material and psychological resources into defense against the CIA-supported "contras...

...Russian influence and a Sandinista "totalitarianism' ' that does not torture and murder its opponents would be eliminated in favor of an authoritarianism that does...

...But the real point is that these papal remarks so echo other Vatican actions and declarations as to suggest that Rome is persuaded, perhaps under the diligent tutelage of some American conservatives, that complete antinomianism reigns on this side of the Atlantic...

...THE BIG STICK "I don't see why," observed Henry Kissinger with regard to Chile in 1970, "we need stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.'' This seems to be the principle behind the Reagan administration's tightening vise around Nicaragua, and if so one can see the logic of the president's choice of Mr...

...It may even be the case that the big stick could waken the Sandinistas to the dangers of their departure from the revolution's original promises political pluralism, a mixed economy, and international nonalignment...

...Speaking to American and Austrian bishops, John Paul has outlined the role of "servant pastors" of bishops as living signs of Jesus's compassion and intimate awareness of God's nearness...

...Yet such questions have become particularly pressing in view of recent papal statements about episcopal leadership and the United States...

...will no longer readily tolerate sending in the marines but apparently it will accept almost anything short of that...

...Insurgencies can be set back but not really stamped out by interdicting arms, not even by looking the other way while the population is submitted to a right-wing reign of terror...

...But the sins of the American church are by and large the sins of vitality, and one sometimes get the impression that not a few in Rome would much prefei the sins of decrepitude...

...The promise the Nicaraguan revolution represents for vast numbers of Latin America's dispossessed would not be allowed to stand or fall on its own record, but transformed into another case of martyrdom by the Roman Empire up north...

...as in Poland, and even the ratio of seminarians is higher...

...Just what does the U.S...

...But there is much no big stick can do...

...Twenty years after the Vatican Council set forth a vision of the church as a living body in which the members of whatever rank and function must be active participants, the process of choosing new leaders remains essentially unchanged...

...At best, the administration's strategy could force both the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the government in El Salvador to negotiate compromises with their respective internal opponents...

...It cannot repress the force of nationalism, the resentment of Yankee intervention, and the spirit that makes people rebel bravely, if sometimes blindly, against social structures which deny human dignity...

...Is there any genuine dialogue directly with representatives of U.S...

...He should act with a great deal of prudence...

...This possibility rests on a dangerous misunderstanding of the American church...

...Moreover, it is feared that an unyielding, perhaps even uncomprehending,attitude on these specific issues may, in practice, be a more important criterion for the selection of bishops than the pope's larger vision of faith and holiness...

...I will not accept pressure from anyone.'' The two percent of Guatemala's elite which owns two-thirds of the nation's territory, however, received $37.6 million in credit guarantees from the U.S...

...It is ironical to realize that reform and compromise in Managua would probably only strengthen the exemplary power of the Sandinista revolution without diminishing its strain of anti-U.S...

...As for Guatemala, last summer's coup brought to power General Mejia Victores, the man who carried out Rios Mott's "scorched Communist" reign of terror against the Indians...

...The level of Catholic belief and practice remains much higher in the U.S...

...No one would deny the importance of these topics or the need for the pope and bishops to address them, although one might wish that they were not lumped together in a manner reinforcing the impression that the church's official teaching on such different issues as abortion, contraception, and women's ordination has more to do with a special Catholic concern for the pelvic area than anything else...

...It cannot really negotiate viable compromises in any of these Central American countries...

...A series of actions and declarations have indicated that the pope is disturbed by the recent direction of the American church...

...There is little confidence that consultation is truly wide and that viewpoints apparently at odds with Rome's will be transmitted and taken seriously...

...The Holy Father's emphasis on personal conversion, personal holiness, personal encounters between bishop and the faithful, personal testimony to the certainty of faith and the life of prayer all this presents not only a tremendously attractive image of the contemporary bishop's vocation...

...Meanwhile, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, the Philippines are all in those early stages of a traumatic political transformation that even the hawks later recollect as lost opportunities: "Oh yes, we should have been more far-seeing then, but now the chances for peaceful evolution are gone, and under present circumstances...

...drum...

...After promising to "study" the possibility of land reform, on August 27 Mejia Victores was emphatic: "We are not going to carry out any type of agrarian reform...

...At the same time, there has been a tremendous outburst of energy...

...weekly church attendance, for example, is two-and-half times the European average, double what one finds, say, either in "radicalized" Netherlands or "traditional" Belgium...

...and one report estimated that there were more abortions than live births in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland, a statistic that raises some questions about the effectiveness of traditional church structures...

...no, they will remain a permanent feature of the political landscape so long as Latin American governments refuse to respond to the homegrown "sigh of the oppressed" that's risen to a shout for a fair share of the land's bounty...

...in the past year, and they are the sole group visibly favored by the general's new tax package...

...The answers to those questions are shrouded in the secrecy of essentially closed and authoritarian procedures...

...A policy, consistent over the years for both Democratic and Republican administrations, that backs the status quo, reformist if possible but unregenerate where reasons of state dictate, is bound to sow tiger's teeth...

...There is no reason for the American church to be put on probation by Rome...

...than in Europe...

...church has entered into a state of expectancy...

...it can be led only by individuals who convince by the richness and power of their faith, not merely compel by means of their legal and canonical prerogatives...

...Until we start counting those costs, however, Washington will always be reluctant to abandon the big stick for the negotiating table...

...Currying the favor of the military in Honduras and Guatemala with training centers and high-tech arsenals may win us compliant friends, but at what cost of the message that sends...

...Kissinger to oversee the commission on Central American policy...

...In region after region, on issue after issue, the church has taken the risk of serving others and not just its own institutional structures...

...The U.S...

...stand for...

...During the next two years, both Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia and Cardinal Manning of Los Angeles will reach the now-usual retirement age of seventy-five...

...Priests and religious whose work and lives may be directly affected by new appointments, laity who have deeply committed themselves to the church's life, all feel passive and powerless...

...Reversing its previous stand, the Managua government has agreed to participate in this bid for a regional settlement through multilateral negotiation...

...Unfortunately, the pope's profound reflections on the tasks of bishops come accompanied, in the American case, not the Austrian, with a familiar catalogue of animadversions to divorce, premarital sex, homosexuality, birth control, abortion, and the ordination of women...

...In the last two decades, weekly church attendance has dropped, the ranks of the clergy and women religious have thinned, and a great number of Catholics have become determined to make conscientious judgments for themselves on a number of points of doctrine and discipline...

...As the Chilean example showed a decade ago, and as Nicaragua demonstrates today, marines can be effectively replaced by economic warfare, by diplomatic isolation, and by unconcealed CIA actions which violate international law and our own professed values...

...All to what end...

...Let the specifics remain secret as long as possible...

...policy of wielding the big stick...

...At worst and the internal dynamics of the Reagan crew make us suspect the worst the administration could back the Salvadoran government to the hilt and topple the one in Managua, all the while shedding crocodile tears about the "incidental" and "regrettable" bloodshed involved...

...Congressional critics can't get a head of steam up from their constituents when the horror stories of such policies are so remote, when the average American householder is preoccupied with keeping or getting a job and paying the mortgage...

...The ratio of priests to laity is twice as high in the U.S...

...At a moment like this, amidst the sorrows and honors occasioned by death, there is also a sharp twinge of frustration, even bitterness...

...Most observers surmise it consists of an amalgam of previous proposals, including provisions for the reduction of armaments and foreign advisors, free elections, and some international means of verification and control (perhaps a UN peacekeeping force...

...feeling...

...What are the criteria for selection...

...Unhappily, our allies and adversaries abroad often know the answer to that question a lot more clearly than do we at home...

...Popular sentiment in the U.S...

...Catholics...

...Administration officials may currently be congratulating themselves on how El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and to some extent even once neutral Costa Rica have fallen into line, now marching to the U.S...

...The Reagan administration credits this change of heart to the U.S...

...it also provides a guideline especially suited to the American situation...

...The practical reality is that a U.S...