Editorials
Contents Volume CXI, Number 10 Correspondence 290 Editorials 291 Bye bipartisanship: Jeremiah Baruch 293 Seeking sanctuary: Mark Gibney 295 Weighting for Kundera: Thomas DePietro 297 Screen:...
...there is indeed a militant faction of ultra-conservatives whose standard of ecclesiastical fidelity really remains the uniformity and rigidity, at one and the same time defensive and triumphalist, of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Catholicism...
...Let there be no mistake: serious differences exist among Catholics, for example over the boldness with which the church should reexamine traditional po: ; on sexual morality, the Commonweal: 292 status of women in the church, or the role of the church in the face of social oppression...
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...Attending a recent bishops' meeting in Bogota, Colombia, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have backed off a bit, giving sign .aat the :an is sensitive to the 18 May 1984:291 - Going_ From Commonweal thirty years ago: "We denounce the idols of the peoples behind the Iron Curtain and are blind to those idols whose cult we ourselves follow...
...With all the pride of a Red Brigade, however, along came Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) to take credit for the carnage...
...How willing other conservatives will be to encourage such an attitude remains to be seen...
...Hardly...
...They want to root out the politically liberal sympathies they see as having established a foothold in the American church...
...Unfortunately for bipartisanship, Mr...
...Fears of arbitrary Vatican actions inhibit candid criticism and thoroughgoing discussion of controversial authors or lines of thought that are under fire from Rome...
...And there's much in the videos to overdramatize the Sturm und Drang of the teenage crisis f o r younger brothers and sisters, with what effect we can only guess -- glittery limelight performers and adoring fans, raw erotic energy, images of powerlessness and rebellion, gang warfare, and parodies of the adult world...
...Will Rome cripple the vital liberationist movement...
...No wonder that every Roman decree and demand is apt to be scrutinized suspiciously in turn, and fears repeatedly expressed that, this time, the windows John XXIII wanted thrown open were being closed down and fixed tight...
...Reagan, practically within the same breath, noted that through renewed attention to this and seven other "vital principles" (realism, strength, economic growth, intelligence, shared responsibility with allies, nonaggression, and dialogue with adversaries) America has been steadily rebuilding its capacity to advance foreign policy goals, "and we will not return to the days of hand-wringing, defeatism, decline, and despair...
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...Yet conservatism in the church is by no means all of one piece...
...Money, first of all, for certain...
...All the more so in that two years ago, a joint commission of theologians and canon lawyers, working in conjunction with American bishops, approved a consensus statement of principles to govern doctrinal disputes - - nearly all of which, in this instahce, stand violated...
...Both actions indicate the Vatican's concern with sophisticated theology where it filters down to the people -- with adult religious education North and South...
...Well, for one thing, the darker side of Erik Erikson's adolescent identity confusion, which rock has always been in the business of glamorizing...
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...they are accused of undermining hierarchical authority and fomenting class war...
...Will the church really gain by returning to that strife...
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...As for the U.S...
...Nonetheless, the chances of facing such differences, thoughtfully, prayerfully, and in ultimate unity, have seemed to grow in recent years...
...Washington report BYE BIPARTISANSHIP MR...
...Catholicism has always been tragically, but also gloriously, messy -- not least of all in its contests of ideas that matter...
...The neuralgic point, obviously, is what critics see as a hermeneutic of the Bible overly influenced by Marxism - - a topic that can use all the critical discussion it can get, but which profits little from charges and countercharges of heresy...
...church from the pages of The Wanderer, hand-delivered weekly at every Vatican office...
...Their operation occasionally seems to be headquartered in the White House itself...
...The consequence of this "activism" of the past decade, according to the president, is that "bipartisan consensus-building has become a central responsibility of congressional leadership as well a: :ecutive leadership...
...Yet, even admitting that internal tension has never been absent from the People of God, and perhaps never should be, the situation is not healthy...
...They are welcome to it...
...For the ultra-conservatives mentioned above, the polarization that may result can only be cleansing...
...The idolatrous cult is difficult for us to discern, for we are scarcely ever conscious of it . . . . 'Beware little children, of false gods.' That is the last verse in the first Epistle of Saint John, and for many years it appeared to be the verse with the least meaning for us today, since the warning was addressed to the first Christians who were contending with full-blown paganism . . . . We know today that this is addressed to us...
...He lamented the "rash of congressional initiatives to limit the president's authority in the areas of trade, human rights, arms sales, foreign assistance, intelligence operations, and the dispatch of troops in time of crisis...
...9 "Videos" may be reviving weary record and film industries, contributing their part to the current economic recovery, but Frank McConnell's question in a recent issue's "Media" column ("Infant Art," April 6) is certainly pertinent: When does "art" become a waste...
...Finally there is a broad group of Catholics whose conservative impulses, though they may be edged with a nostalgia for /the settled existence of the pre-conciliar church, are primarily expressions of concern that in breaking down old barriers the very lifeblood of the faith, and of the church's ability to pass it on from generation to generation, may be lost...
...There is much more to be said about the complexities of the current pontiff's outlook and style of leadership, and their appropriateness to the circumstances at hand, which, in turn, vary from continent to continent and from issue to issue_9 Suffice it now to say that there is good reason for those who stand in the tradition which welcomed Vatican II to be thin-skinned about the exercise of Vatican authority...
...If this episode is to balance out on the glorious side of the scale, it will be necessary for those under pressure to resist, yes, but to nourish that resistance out of an increasingly deep and serene attachment to the mystery of the church...
...Rather condescendingly, they see the last decades as a prolonged period of free play, when all the children were allowed to try things out at random and predictably made a mess...
...E--~nes~ B-'a~rte/l " ~ century, has appeared to proceed despite Rome, not on account of it...
...Franfois Mauriae, "To Believe in God" May 14, 1954 volatile, ideologically charged context of the dispute, and that it does not intend to repudiate Medellin or Puebla's "option for the poor," or indeed the pope's.own appeals for social justice...
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...Their main object is to discredit the U.S...
...Science and techniques, social order, party, working class, a philosophy, a theological system . . . . We have placed them above all questioning, all criticism, all judgment...
...It could serve some of their short'run purposes...
...But the costs could be high...
...Notwithstanding this less than flattering characterization of his predecessor's policies, the president's call, before Geoi, getown University's Center for International and Strategic Studies on April 6, for a bipartisan foreign policy consensus has generated considerable debate not only over the role of partisanship in foreign policy, but also over the role of Congress -- if you eliminate party, who is to speak for the state...
...case, the suppression of the Paulist books, no doubt liberal theological texts can use criticism as much as liberation theology can...
...Further on in his remarks at Georgetown's Center, no doubt to ensure that he got his point across, the president repeated his principle of bipartisanship, this time as "our fourth great challenge"- "We must restore America's honorable tradition of partisan politics stopping at the water's edge...
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...M ACAULAY'S LINES could serve as a motto for President Ronald Reagan's call for "bipartisanship at home" as a key principle guiding U.S...
...True, there's nothing here that Shakespeare didn't portray in Romeo and Juliet...
...In the U.S...
...foreign policy...
...We don't know, but either way it's another form of environmental pollution...
...Accordingly, in liturgy, theology, and personal spirituality, there has been a growing tendency to reappraise the first post-conciliar developments and even to reappropriate much that, in the late sixties and early seventies, had been questioned or neglected...
...It is in that context that the current displays of Roman authority are so troubling...
...Once you've seen some of this (and it's not __ af it), the figures on teenage violence and suicide should come as no surprise...
...Party lines harden...
...Authoritarian responses to disputed questions finally discredit authority...
...To some extent, the situation chanaged with the election of John Paul II, undeniably a man of personal vigor and vision...
...Books , , W~dX~I?W exceptional instances, most notably the social encyclicals of John November 1918: David H. Richter 304 and Paul VI, the renewal of the Catholic church in the last quarter ~ ~"~o~c...
...they sniff heresy, they want it exposed, and they want it out...
...there goes collegiality, shrunk like Alice to pin-size...
...10016_9 fine-grained reality is more complex of course, but by and large it is not inaccurate to say that the Vatican bureaucracy, even the popes themselves, have acted through this period more as brakes than engines, more as wary helmsmen simply reacting to the buffeting storms than as navigators boldly charting a new course...
...And what of those who feel themselves, directly or indirectly, the objects of a new regimentation...
...Vatican questioning, then - - if it is question and not closure - - may be, ought to be, a force for eventual illumination...
...With a little luck, the controversy stands a decent chance of becoming a process in the tradition of those momentous patristic and medieval battles of ideas...
...Is this the underground fantasy life of another generation growing up absurd, or merely the attention-grabbing projection of jaded promoters in Hollywood and New York suites...
...Catholic Conference staff at the national level and social activists locally - - and to divide them from the bishops...
...There is another group of conservatives, however, whose agenda is essentially political...
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...First target: Latin American liberation theology, singling out in particular Peru' s Gustavo Guti6rrez and El Salvador's Jon Sobrino...
...The bare, oversimplified facts indicate that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is on a determined offensive...
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...Suppose then that this latest episode, combined with the moderately conservative cast of recent papal appointments, combined with the publicized papal admonitions to American bishops, combined with the several organized inquiries into seminaries, religious orders, and two U.S...
...They have not experienced much generous leadership from those quarters, but all too often a begrudging and suspicious scrutiny...
...Perhaps the bitterest and least constructive turmoil in the American church occurred in the years after Humanae Vitae, when alienation from Rome was greatest...
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...But it would also be dangerously counter-productive...
...And yet what strange powers of deification possess the man of our time even when he is a Christian...
...bu t they imagiae it as somehow providing an updated "content" to be inserted into an essentially Tridentine structure...
...Who needs local bishops, canon lawyers, and theologians familiar with local conditions, if Rome, or more likely in this case, Cardinal Silvio Oddi, staunch Opus Dei advocate, and his new American advisor in the Congregation of the Clergy (wb i,~h supervises catechetics), Monsignor George Kelly, can hanme everything from the top...
...At the moment, furthermore, the tension grows acute...
...The answer, for the moment, is clear...
...Perhaps that battle will have to be joined...
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...videos vibrate with thwarted expectation and premature cynicism...
...Contents Volume CXI, Number 10 Correspondence 290 Editorials 291 Bye bipartisanship: Jeremiah Baruch 293 Seeking sanctuary: Mark Gibney 295 Weighting for Kundera: Thomas DePietro 297 Screen: Tom O'Brien 301 P01,ARiT-ATi0N Dance: DonMcDonagh 302 IN THE CHURCH...
...The second target: two Paulist Press books, one an immensely popular catechism for adults and the other a book on sexual ethics...
...We doubt it...
...Then all were for the state...
...What should be our attitude...
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...They give obeissance to Vatican II, no doubt sincerely...
...Polemic breeds sourness and self-righteousness...
...The ideas here are worth clarifying and suffering for, and of immense practical consequence if the church is to pose realistic alternatives between the right-wing "national security state" and the equally bankrupt "scientific" Marxist-Leninism so popular on the Latin American left...
...Indeed have we not deified all that we are...
...REAGAN'S 'HONORABLE TRADITION' Then none was for a party...
...Of which there is already too much in the church, like a bad hangover from a decade ago...
...It's enough to ground the suspicion that Rome gets its information about the U.S...
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...But in matters of internal church discipline, that vigor and vision seemed either to yield to the practices of Vatican bureaucrats or, in fact, to run strongly against the more decentralized, pluralistic kind of church which had ignited the vitality that, in other respects, the new pope eloquently communicated to the world...
...Have we been remiss in trying to get on with other things rather than rebutting the endless stream of accusations that comes from the angry right...
...The time is long overdue for Authority to blow the whistle and put everyone back into line...
...dioceses, all amount to a rising tide of conservatism...
...We are the ones to whom this ancient precept is directed...
...But th,~r,~ are also the "sick" videos: a lot of neo-Nazi strutting and dress, rampant paranoia, an image of the adult, public world as, a conspiracy to defraud and maim --~1 fantasies of women as eithercastratingfemmesfatales or degraded sex objects...
...But the manner of the action here - - no prior consultation with authors or publisher, no due process for sullied reputations, no effort to explain objections, the' bishops who originally gave imprimaturs demeaned as messenger boys - - is breathtaking for its lack of regard...
...Can we conclude, then, that expressions of pain and protest at Roman high-handedness have been misplaced...
...According to Time, sixty-three percent of the video audience is under twenty-five, but other surveys suggest the majority is under twelve...
...9 / Of course, it hasn't happened -- so far...
...What, besides an apparently irresistible sales pitch, are the children being fed...
...The Religious booknotes -- 1: Mary Gerhart 306 Religion in the Secular City: Lawrence S. Cunningham 308 A House in the Country: Clara Claiborne Park 309 Evolution of Cooperation: Kenneth E. Bouldin 8 310 Religious booknotes--2: Mary Gerhart 312 Time After Time: Gregory A: Schirmer 314 In Banks We Trust: Joseph A. Page 316 Communists in Harlem During the Depression: Dick Howard 318 S t a f f Editor: Peter Steinfels Assistant Editor...
...In this they are j~ined by many who would not consider themselves conservatives at all...
...For without the vigilance of a loyal opposition it is doubtful that the post-conciliar church would have remained open...
...For some years now, it has.been widely recognized that the intensely critical phase of the immediate post-conciliar period had to be succeeded by a constructive effort, much more difficult and delicate, at understanding and teaching and giving flesh to a Catholic Christian identity...
Vol. 111 • May 1984 • No. 10
