Running scared
Betl, Robert H.
CHURCH & CUOMO Permit us to add our appreciation to Governor Mario Cuomo for his address, "Religious Belief and Public Morality: a Catholic Governor's Perception," delivered September 13 at the...
...Don't worry so much...
...For another, we do not like risking unfairness to Professor Sheehan, who may have reason to see himself the victim of the old tough-cop-nice-cop routine: " y o u ' r e a slippery fellow and don't know what you're talking about," says Officer Greeley and bangs Sheehan one over the noggin with his nightstick...
...You're lookin' good...
...Now it is true that the authority of bishops can be abused, and the attempt to place all of the episcopal authority finally in the lap of Rome doesn't work, historically, if what you want is consistent orthodoxy...
...and where Rome has spoken - - even where it has not made its teaching a matter of faith by declaring it to be said ex cathedra -- there can be no more discussion or speculation...
...Whadd'ya mean, don't worry...
...The governor has set a precedent for some bishop(s) to distinguish as clearly as he did the distinction between adherence to moral teachings and acceptance of particular political measures proposed by the teachers...
...Rigorously, candidly, and intelligently, the governor treated a highly controversial concern within both the Catholic church and the body politic: the relationship between specific moral principles and the public morality supported by policy and law...
...Cuomo on the particulars of abortion legislation will heed the example of one who has moved a public debate beyond slogans, fingerpointing, and electioneering...
...With all the running I do, I figured I'd do pretty well on the stress test...
...Of several minds: John Gamey AMBIVALENT HERITAGE...
...But Sheehan will get his day in court...
...We admire Governor Guomo's willingness to stand against consensus on the issue of capital punishment...
...Thirty-nine-year-old Tom Seaver blanked the Red Sox on three hits . . . . " At my age, friends you haven't seen in a while greet you, "Bob...
...The president's success suggests that Roe v. Wade is far from the center of gravity of public opinion...
...These were questions that I raised at the end of my last column on the controversy surrounding Christ Among Us and the criticism of that book put forward by Catholics United for the Faith...
...When we were twenty-eight, nobody said that because "you're lookin' good...
...We recognize that the analogy is imperfect, but what hampers him from leading similarly on the issue of RUNNING SCARED R.I.P...
...that's how I ended up a teacher...
...JIM FIX3( A T MY AGE, you start thinking about figures of speech like "alive and well" or "alive and kicking...
...According to the latest medical research, it should last me the rest of my life...
...Big Jim dropped dead of a heart attack while he was cruising along a quiet Vermont road feeling no pain, taking in the sights and s o u n d s . . . WHAMMO...
...As a whole, we hope the governor's labor may prove to be as fruitful as it was painstaking...
...Cuomo made clear his belief that abortion is a life and death issue, placing it among other life and death issues, we wished he had been stronger in his statements...
...Look where it got him...
...It means you look okay for somebody thirty-eight-years-old...
...Okay, maybe not...
...We hope that both those who agree and those who disagree with Mr...
...The key to understanding how this judgment works is in the concept of consensus...
...While Mr...
...He doesn't run...
...Our thanks to them all for their contributions...
...For one thing, amid the sparks of this controversy, real light has been shed...
...If consensus is so unlikely how is it, we wonder, that President Reagan has garnered such support...
...Finally, we regret the almost built-in "Catholicizing" effect of Mr...
...Being a Type-A person, the sudden death of Jim Fixx made me a little nervous...
...He farms...
...BEYOND THE CATECHISM CONTROVERSY W HAT SHOULD AN adult catechism be like...
...For the moment, we find his description of the "liberal consensus" in Catholic theology accurate in about as limited a sense as it is accurate to describe Moby Dick as a book about a white whale...
...So David Tracy concludes his latest contribution to the discussion on "The End of Catholicism...
...He has two books - - one on Karl Rahner and one on the origins of Christianity about to appear...
...but even short of restrictive legislation, isn't there more a prominent Democratic like Cuomo could do to move his party away from its one-sided stance on this issue...
...But is consensus as impossible as it seems to Mr...
...We put on our Nikes, put in sixty-miles-a-week on the asphalt -- and feel invincible...
...I decided I'd better have a physical exam...
...A pity...
...We figure on leading longer, healthier lives...
...From CUF's point of view, of course, there can be no ambivalence: whatever comes from Rome is absolutely to be accepted...
...He courageously risked what few politicians will in this age of TV clips -- complexity...
...I f history makes the simplicities of Catholics United for the Faith hard to sustain, the way in which Christians have regarded tradition should make some of their opponents more humble...
...more powerful than a locomotive...
...On theother hand, this mere beginning has already run to roughly twenty-five thousand words in these pages...
...We are not running out of interest, only out of space...
...CHURCH & CUOMO Permit us to add our appreciation to Governor Mario Cuomo for his address, "Religious Belief and Public Morality: a Catholic Governor's Perception," delivered September 13 at the University of Notre Dame...
...originally provoked by an article by Thomas Sheehan...
...We don't mind little jokes like: "Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it passes...
...Cuomo's talk, delivered as a Catholic to a Catholic audience...
...ROBERT BELL I 5 October 1984:517 abortion...
...state bans would mean inconsistent application of the law...
...No, but I might give Up HMgen-Dazs vanilla swiss almond...
...At my age, Bill Russell and John Havlicek had retired...
...We hope he does, and when he does, we suspect it will be done with depth as well as brio...
...There is a modern attitude Commonweal: 518...
...When is one to launch out and break the new ground of social morality...
...The only definite factors ard smoking and family history...
...A recent article in the National Catholic Reporter spoke with approval of a suggestion that the Creed might be dropped from the Mass to make things a bit easier for doubtful people...
...A lot of guys my age run...
...Cuomo disagrees with the bishops' public support for legislation to prohibit abortion...
...On the other side, there is a vague direction which finds the idea of orthodoxy itself intolerable...
...I was completely calmed by this consultation with my doctor...
...withholding funds (state or federal) for abortion would only burden the "already disadvantaged...
...At my age, John Keats had been dead thirteen years...
...He might have died ten years ago if he hadn't been running...
...Can it never be ambivalent...
...Jim Fixx wasn't worded...
...Is there not some point, at least in the later development of fetal life, after which we as a society could agree that abortion is to be disallowed...
...From this point of view, the ordinary teaching authority of Rome is to be accepted as if it were infallible, even if it is not...
...Furthermore, the quest for consensus raises the problem of leadership...
...He takes things as they come...
...I always liked doing well on tests...
...While we don't know how it could have been avoided, such a narrow purview distorts the issues a bit, however unintentionally...
...Ha-ha-ha...
...But the fact is that from the time of the earliest ecumenical councils until the relatively recent past, the bishop was seen as the guardian of orthodoxy, and the work of councils was to show that what the church confessed with one voice in its creeds was consistent with the prayer and worship and professed belief of Christians back to the time of the Apostles...
...Tracy is right...
...Suddenly Jim Fixx, the king of the road, the genius of jogging, the apostle of running died...
...If you are still playing a big league sport in your late thirties, like Tom Seaver, you're reminded how old you are every time you burp...
...He rightly called upon the church to teach by example...
...But at least alive and kicking...
...How should it regard tradition and orthodoxy...
...As a Catholic Cuomo upholds the moral teachings of the Catholic church, but on issues of policy, he uses his own prudential, political judgment...
...Contrary to the impression sometimes given in any controversy, the differences here are not among individuals suffering from any intellectual defects but among individuals willing to confront tough problems over which even equally thoughtful and competent thinkers can part company...
...His grounds are pragmatic: lack of consensus in society would make enforcement a nightmare akin to Prohibition, even jeopardizing respect for law in general...
...We find disconcerting his tendency to launch his own distinctly post-Christian agnosticism from the basis of his sympathetic exposition and even defense of Catholic thinking (most recently of liberation theology) when in fact his position requires a definite"leap" of its own, which - - so far - - he has not explained or defended...
...t THE END IS NEAR "The conversation has just begun...
...I needed something to boost my morale, and a stress test is part of a physical...
...You're doing what you can...
...He had a terrible family history...
...Governor Cuomo's central thesis is that even the mostagreed-upon moral principles can be translated into a variety of political strategies...
...From now on, I'm not going to worry about my heart...
...My doctor is a real mellow guy...
...abortion is not a failure of government, so its remedy should not be sought there...
...What are you going to do if we detect some slight blockage -- have triple coronary by-pass surgery...
...It's also possible that stress is a factor...
...Let eagles, whales, and fat cynics be the endangered species...
...He was not run over...
...When I casually mentioned that Jim Fixx had suddenly dropped dead yesterday and asked for a physical examination that afternoon, he told me not to worry...
...It's advice people often give me...
...He waits...
...He did not die of terminal hemorrhoids...
...Certainly those may provide occasions for carrying on the discussion...
...I have met priests who do not believe in the Resurrection except in an allegorical sense, and priests who believe that the Mass is a memorial of Christ's presence rather than a present realization of it...
...For example, while agreeing with the bishops that fetal life is to be respected, hence, abortion is to be avoided, Mr...
...able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...
...doesn't mean "you're lookin' good...
...Ah, you're a fine Heidegger scholar, Tom," says Detective Tracy with a smile, "Don't you think it's time to come home...
...We feel obliged to call a halt - - at least for the time being...
...Are there not some difficult circumstances upon which we might agree that it be permitted...
...You don't smoke, and you can't change your family history...
Vol. 111 • October 1984 • No. 17
