Editorials

...If Lebanon ends up under the tyranny of forces hostile to the West, not only will our strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean be threatened, but also the stability of the entire Middle East, including the vast resource areas of the Arabian Peninsula...

...If it were, how have we survived its dismemberment since 1975 by the PLO, by Syria, by Israel, and most of all by its own feuding political and religious sects...

...but many others are so general that it is hard to see exactly who is put under obligation by them or what would constitute their infringement...

...all the warring factions should do the same...

...and yet we have some reservations...

...Marines went into Lebanon only as a result of Israel's ill-conceived invasion of that unhappy land...

...Almost half of the country's eligible voters do not cast ballots...

...does have considerable interest in a stable Lebanon, especially as it affects the rest of the Middle East, and that interest grows the more American blood is shed there...

...One way or another, the Marines are there...

...it would not be easy just to withdraw them now...

...The Middle East is in an extremely volatile condition at the moment...

...But the U.S...

...They have their eyes on a whole generation who have grown up knowing only that whirl is king...

...Lacking any contradictory findings from another poll, we are forced to reluctantly accept the conclusion that a big jump in voter turnout is unlikely in the near future...

...Indeed, it may take a miracle to bring the seventeen warring factions in Lebanon together, and that miracle cannot be stamped "Made in the U.S...

...Lebanon is a confessional state, with political representation allotted according to religious strength...

...A striking exception to this general rule was found in the case of the black population...

...In the Carter-Reagan race in 1980, for example, only 52.4 percent of those eligible bothered to go to the polls...

...Marines will not be used to pull refuseniks' chestnuts out of the Middle Eastern fire...

...Finally, however, it is less any specific disagreements with our friends' ecclesiastic Magna Carta that bother us than the worry that the whole exercise may fall beside the mark...

...We ask ourselves why...

...Fourth, deeply objectionable as the government of President Hafez el-Assad is, Syria's vital interest in its next-door neighbor must be recognized, and third-party efforts to bring Syria to the bargaining table should be renewed...

...Its authors intend it as an "invitation to dialogue...

...bargains on...

...Now a poll conducted by Harvard University and ABC News to find out why people do not vote indicates that having a holiday on election day would increase voting, but that conducting the balloting on Sunday might actually result in lower turnouts...

...During his recent visit to this country, the United States urged Lebanese President Amin Gemayel to extend his army's control in the south...

...Genuine theological conservatives-and we do not mean those for whom a false certainty or tidy chain-of-command masquerades as faith-have worried that the "decisions of conscience" which liberals rightly celebrate will, in the concrete, be informed by the slackness of soap opera, the slickness of Timese, the attention-span of the one-minute commercial...

...Millions and millions of Americans simply do not choose to participate in the choice of those who will govern them...

...We live by stories...

...There are places in the world-behind the Iron Curtain, in South Africa and Latin America-where freedom of choice deserves priority attention, but in the America of the eighties the most pressing issue may be the shallowness or depth of that choice...

...In 1958 Dwight D. Eisenhower sent not 1200 but 30,000 troops to Lebanon...

...But 1200 Marines cannot achieve the same thing now...

...This is an aspect of the theological agenda on which both conservatives and liberals can join...

...After weighing all these factors, the poll-takers came to the discouraging conclusion that "there is probably little or nothing that government, the media, or society in general can do that would dramatically increase turnout in the short run...

...thinkers look at Syria, occupying more than half of Lebanon, and see the USSR...

...Some U.S...

...images with no 'meaning...

...It is true that U.S...

...Bishops have the right to teach, the charter avers, "only after wide consultation...

...Only the Lebanese themselves can achieve it, and so far there is little to indicate that the will for the effort is present...

...This task is made even more necessary by our newly strengthened relationship with Israel, a relationship which will almost certainly antagonize the entire Arab world and further endanger peace in the region...

...It was, however, based on the last census to be held, in 1932, and everyone agrees that the demographic picture has changed radically since that time...

...We are well aware of all that, and aware of the considerable common ground we share with the charter's authors...

...First of all, Lebanon's warring factions should be put on notice that they must make peace if the U.S...

...despite Israeli objections, that treaty should be subject to reexamination...

...Lebanon should be a matter of some concern to the U.S., but it is hardly one of vital strategic import...

...A good number of the declared "rights" are plain common sense...

...However, it is possible to argue for and against certain broad possibilities...

...Christians, however, are not the only ones who should be required to give guarantees and make concessions...

...all Catholics, "regardless of race, age, sex, sexual orientation, state of life, or social position," have the right to receive all the sacraments-which means the married and women can be ordained, and divorce ought not be a bar to communion...

...The United States went into Lebanon almost with its eyes closed...

...I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew was what I saw: flash pictures...

...That, from a liberated woman, strikes us as more a comment on the culture than the individual...

...With new headlines of attack and counterattack appearing almost every hour, no editorialist can easily examine such options...

...Lebanon was once part of Syria...

...With seven thousand Soviet troops and advisers in Syria, it would be hard to find a surer way of igniting a large-scale Middle Eastern war and of involving the Soviets directly in it...

...To readers of Commonweal the issues that the ARCC charter raises are hardly terra incognita...

...one misplaced American bomb could set off more of an explosion than the U.S...

...Neither Syria nor Israel will readily withdraw their troops, nor will warring Lebanese leaders who last month tried to kill each other become bosom friends overnight...

...The Harvard-ABC poll suggested a few things would help...

...Nonetheless, we still think that some increases in the short run are worth working for...

...But the irritation or weariness that others feel at confrontations over ecclesiastical equality and individual rights is not limited to conservative circles, and may reflect a kind of schism of sensibility, one that has to do with a difference in ranking problems, a different order of priorities...

...This was good advice...

...One reason is the extended jostling of the post-conciliar period has given many Catholics a much keener sense of their own freedom to make choices...

...to put soul back into action...

...Half said they would be more likely to vote if they had a holiday on election day...

...It is therefore imperative that the U.S...

...Above all, we would urge caution on Mr...

...This system, which gave Christians a dominant position, worked for years...

...Nonetheless, it would be folly to ask Israel to drive the Syrians out, just as it would be sheer madness for us to enlarge the Marine force and try to do so ourselves...

...thinks it has a vital interest in Lebanon, why shouldn't Syria as well...

...Easier registration would encourage 11 percent of those surveyed to vote and would help those who moved from one voting district to another...

...authentic human living...

...This is something that is far easier said then done, with an army that reflects all of that nation's tragic internal divisions...

...Such procedural changes would promote somewhat greater participation...

...Others are so sweeping that, taken literally, they would mean an almost total break with traditional Catholic polity...

...presence in their country is to continue...

...Like Mr...

...should consider the possibility that it made a mistake in negotiating a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon with no input from Syria...

...Occasionally the asserted rights lean heavily on the pious language of the contemporary mind ("self-realization as unique human beings...

...That is, we think, overstating the case by a good bit...

...Nonetheless, they should not be allowed to remain simply as sitting ducks for every suicidal enemy who comes along...

...put substance, psychological complexity, and spirited virtue into our narratives of self and society...

...Now it is essential that Washington come up with a better grasp of just what we seek in Lebanon and just what is possible...

...What are we doing in Lebanon, people ask, and why were our troops there to serve as a target for attack...

...The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) was formed four years ago in the wake of the Vatican's censure of Hans Kiing and its investigation of Edward Schillebeeckx...

...The problem with low turnout is apparently not to be found in procedure but in motivation...

...This tactic might work, but it is a long shot, and it risks uniting the Arab world against us...

...The simple fact is that a challenge to the lingering authoritarianism in the church does not carry today the charge of a decade ago...

...The institutional, social, and psychological pressures that can be wielded by church officials loom much less large...

...As the survey director put it, "For many citizens, not voting is as American as apple pie," and that translates into voting figures that are a national disgrace...

...BESIDE THE NARK...

...President Reagan thinks U.S...

...Lebanon's first need is for national reconciliation - something it has so far failed to accomplish without outside prodding...

...as the New York Times promptly pointed out, the situation in Lebanon has been beyond anyone's control for eight years...

...if we do not attack the Syrians ourselves, they believe we should persuade Israel to attack and knock Syria out of the game entirely...

...if the U.S...

...Nonetheless, such a shift is necessary and inevitable if internal peace is ever to be restored to that war-torn nation...

...I was supposed to hear cues, and no longer did...

...The Marines cannot come home, President Reagan originally said, ' 'until the situation is under control.'' But that is not good enough...

...The negotiated settlement that might result from such bargaining would not be completely satisfactory to the United States or to anyone else, but it is still likely to be far better than the present situation...

...Nixon, Reagan is worried about national believa-bility...

...Heaven knows we don't need any such decrease...

...at other times, it is unclear exactly what they are aiming at: "all Catholics have the right freely to enjoy the fruits of the arts and culture...

...Second, the United States should not encourage Israel to attack Syria, nor should we expand our forces there to do that task ourselves...

...That's not surprising since the names listed on the organization's board of directors are names that also frequently crop up in these pages...

...Most people who vote are better educated, older, and better paid than those who do not...

...Blacks are less educated and earn substantially less, but once registered they vote at nearly the same rate as whites...

...That does not mean there aren't many individuals, especially those directly employed by the church, who aren't subject to these pressures...

...Recently the group, speaking for one thousand members, issued a charter of Catholic rights in the church which expands the principles of collegiality and lay participation considerably beyond the current practice...

...According to the pollsters, an increased level of higher education was the long-range change that was most likely to raise the proportion of adults who vote, and that change is obviously not going to come about overnight...

...The result is an impasse...

...In short, Lebanon is the tar-baby of the Middle East...

...The other recommendation made to President Gemayel was that he should broaden his political base...

...weigh its options carefully before going much further...

...The Vatican investigation of U. S. seminaries and religious orders, acknowledged tensions between Rome and the American bishops, the recent inquiries into the stewardship of Bishops Hunthausen (of Seattle) and Sullivan (of Richmond)-all these incidents justify attention to questions of justice within the church...

...And it is not difficult to see why a charter like this would strike many Catholics as particularly relevant at this moment...

...and Israeli bombing can persuade the Syrians to withdraw their troops from Lebanon...

...Can anything be done about this situation...

...Subtract the number who voted for Jimmy Carter and for John Anderson from that 52.4 percent, and you can see that a small minority of Americans actually determined that Ronald Reagan should become president - a result that would have been the same, of course, if Carter or Anderson had won...

...Reagan...

...What it has too often been left to conservatives to articulate is a growing alarm about the thinning, the evisceration, of our individual and collective plot lines...

...once we have embraced it, we will find it hard to disengage...

...In a country with a history like Lebanon's, such fears are not imaginary...

...Coming on the eve of the official instatement of the revised Code of Canon Law, which the charter claims "only partially articulates the principles which should inform a just, loving, and therefore fruitful, relationship between the magisterium and the people of God," this implicit coun-terstatement may raise some hackles...

...Particularly harmful is the widespread belief that voting makes little or no difference...

...this country must make it very plain that U.S...

...In an editorial on voting in our Dec...

...It is not clear yet, but the nineteenth-century battle over "Americanism" could be doing a rerun...

...THE NON-VOTERS Well, we can't be right all the time...

...Third, the U.S...

...To begin with, a rule book propounded by defenders of ecclesiastical underdogs may be a crude instrument for settling complex, disputed questions like those of divorce and remarriage or sexual ethics...

...Syria resents the terms of the American-negotiated peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel, and Israel refuses any modification in the points of that agreement...

...Seventy percent of those polled favored a twenty-four-hour voting period, and this would help...

...policymakers...

...Christians like President Gemayel and his followers whom we are protecting fear for their well-being if they yield more power to their adversaries...

...17, 1982 issue, we cited the successful example of other countries and urged that election day be scheduled on a Sunday in an effort to improve voter turnout...

...Force sometimes works, but it is always dangerous...

...Things were less fragmented then, and his intervention succeeded in calming down an already troubled religious and political situation...

...Christians are entitled to ask for firm guarantees in any shift in power...

...Stability in Lebanon, he told the nation, "is central to our credibility on a global scale...

...As Joan Didion observed at a time of personal disorientation: "I was supposed to have a script, and I had mislaid it...

...If they will not do so, their refusal should be a clear message to U.S...

...But in general the indications are that major increases will be hard to achieve...