The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
O'Malley, John W.
cement mixers, airplanes, and helicopters. Even the Mobile flying red horse is a symbol of power, escape -- as much a part of the American dream as the belief that everyone should own a home...
...ORBIS BOOKS Maryknoll, NY 10545 19 October 1984:569vise the missionaries more closely...
...He becomes preoccupied with building an air raid shelter, an activity for which his wife Jean has no sympathy...
...Even the Mobile flying red horse is a symbol of power, escape -- as much a part of the American dream as the belief that everyone should own a home and car...
...One wishes to know more about Bess and Warwick...
...She begins to have dreams of Billy as he was as a young kid, before he got caught up in the machinations of men and war...
...Jean reminisces to her daughter Danner...
...The topics are the historically disputed questions relating to the Holy Spirit, baptism, eucharist, ministry, and authority...
...War is something Billy accepts, stoically and inevitably...
...It can, however, be a little distracting at first unless you are forewarned that this book is indeed biography, not a specialized study of "the memory palace...
...He is also in the Vietnam War, in which Jean's son Billy takes part after rejecting his sister's plans for his escape to Canada...
...Mitch, in the second section, is insufficiently established and delineated...
...His memory was prodigious...
...Composed by experts appointed by their own church leaders, the texts are not esoteric and avoid the jargon and antique terminology one finds even in documents of Vatican II...
...The novel is "about" the American dream and how two wars destroyed it...
...Spence provides us with a focused description of two matured and elegant cultures -- China and Renaissance Italy...
...Not a perfect novel, then, but an affecting one, Machine Dreams is written in poetic, lyrical language -- full of pastoral and precise images...
...But these are quite minor blemishes in a work of such ambitious scope...
...Clarifies the linkage of religion and social transformation...
...This is the stuff the book is made of...
...He is thus able to point out mistakes Ricci made and to unmask certain delusions, like Ricci's hope to become court confessor to the emperor in imitation of some of his Jesuit brethren in Europe...
...The gift never materialized, probably as much for logistical reasons as any other...
...Phillips describes basic training and combat as if she'd been there...
...Phillips hartdies her material skillfully...
...One wonders how officials of the Jesuit order in Rome would have reacted to such conduct had communications allowed them to superseas ventures...
...10.95 pbk O Write for catalog...
...Unfortunately omitted is the important text of the international Orthodox/Roman Catholic consultation on "The Mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity," the socalled Munich text of 1982, the first "official" agreement between these churches since the Council of Florence in 1439...
...DANIEE C. MAGUIRE 192 pp...
...This volume, part of a projected series entitled Ecumenical Documents, whose first volume, Doing the Truth in Charity (ed...
...But these limitations pale when placed alongside Ricci's many-sided genius...
...Spence is sympathetic to his subject, but by no means uncritical...
...An ndian theologian offers a very readable theological reflection on how Gandhi, a Hindu, drew inspiration from the life of Chr st in his search for a mode of pol t ca] ana spiritual liberation...
...The many-splendored genius I THE NENORY PALACE OF NATTE0 RICCl Jonathan D. Spence Vildn~, $19.95, 302 pp...
...The first of these consists of four ideographs that Ricci used in his book on the art of memory composed for the Chinese...
...SIMON E. SMITH, SJ, Jesuit Refugee Service, Naitobi 256 pp...
...The novel's other sections shift points of view between family members...
...This is not standard hagiography by any means...
...With her second book Jayne Anne Phillips has earned the acclaim critics were so eager to give her the first time around...
...He structures the book, instead, around two sets of images...
...As time went on, he found himself invited to long banquets at the homes of his Chinese friends, sometimes as many as three or more a day...
...Of the twelve groups included here, seven have Roman Catholics as partners...
...T. Stransky and J. B. Sheerin), appeared in 1982, aims to gather up the fragments...
...JAMES H. CONE, Union Theological Seminary, New York 240pp...
...One reads it knowing it is a work carefully built, sentence for sentence, page for page...
...The second is four engravings of scenes from the Bible that Ricci introduced into China...
...While one has difficulty caring much about Mitch and Jean, there is no questioning the power of the second half...
...He also presents for our reflection and edification -- for our awe -- the towering figure of Matteo Ricci, just as impressive in reality as he is in legend...
...He looked upon these as occasions to speak about the goodness of God in an atmosphere congenial to the Chinese, but we are also informed that he "ate and drank exuberantly" at them...
...11.95 pbk THEOLOGY IN AFRICA by KWESI A. DICKSON "An understand ng of his contribution to African theology is indispensable for all those who wish to be a part of the international theological discourse...
...He was a uomo universale that Italy produced so easily and in such great numbers during the Renaissance...
...In writing about religion for the Chinese, he had recourse to ideas from philosophers like Epictetus and Plato...
...Michael A, Faheu S INCE the founding of the World Council of Churches (1948) and the completion of Vatican II 0965) much of the best collaborative theology has been worked out at international and national bilateral consultations...
...Here the focus is on international consultations, but a later volume will record the national dialogue such as the U.S...
...The Jesuit vow of poverty did not preclude for the missionaries the giving of expensive gifts, of which the harpsichord is but one example...
...We follow Ricci from his boyhood in the little Italian town of Macerata to his studies as a Jesuit in Rome, and thence to his overCommonweal: 568had given to the emperor...
...From Faulkner's As I Lay Dying to Shirley Ann Grau's The Condor Passes, it is a timehonored format for the family chronicle...
...In the search for full communion, members of sister churches have published a number of convergence statements, documents notoriously difficult to locate, scattered in specialized journals, some in foreign languages...
...Dialectics of ecumenism Glumrl'll IN A|LeDP~D~r REPORTS ANB AGREEB STATEMENTS ON ECUMENICAL CONVERSATIONS ON A W0RLB LEVEL Edited by Hardiu Meyer and Lukss Vischer Panflst, $14.95, $14 pp...
...Spence knows Ricci well, but he also knows China...
...He casually wrote in 1595 that he could run through a random list of four or five hundred Chinese ideographs and then be able to repeat the list frontwards or backwards...
...He composed songs in Chinese that could be sung with the accompaniment of the harpsichord that he ICA, IEW THIRD WORLD THEOLOGY TELL US OUR NAMES Story Theology from an Asian Perspective by C.S...
...She begins to think of the past only in terms of what Billy saw and knew...
...In my opinion, it would have been helped by more careful editing, and I noted a few factual errors...
...Danner, in the sixteenth section, rehearses events we've already witnessed in a repetitive and unnecessary way...
...It tells a fascinating story...
...But many Chinese were charmed by them, and Ricci eventually had a number of powerful and wealthy friends...
...Billy broods on his childhood...
...Danner reminisces about her brother Billy...
...Many readers may be familiar with the so-called Lima text of the Faith and Order Commission on "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry" which is also included here even though it is not a bilateral text as such...
...With a few exceptions, Ms...
...He set up and supervised a printing press in the Jesuit residence...
...Their daring and their courageous efforts to adapt to Chinese ways appear all the more remarkable the more we see the difficulties they faced...
...SONG "To those who believe that theology has to do only with ideas and concepts, this come as a volume may joyfu d'sc-o-Sv.eJr.y S"A MARTHA,W orld Councilo f Churches,G eneva "A monumental accomplishment...
...To most readers the best known of the dialogues is the Anglican/Roman Catholic one which in 1981 concluded a comprehensive Fikml Report shortly before the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury prayed together in Canterbury Cathedral...
...What one sees here, in any case, is that the severe discipline of the Counter Reformation was more flexible in practice than we might otherwise have expected...
...Both men write letters home from their wars, and these correspondences are some of the novel's best writing...
...NAM-DONG SUH, Institute for Mission-Education, Seoul 224 pp...
...John W. O'Malley L AST YEAR marked the four-hundredth anniversary of Matteo Ricci's entrance into China, and the event was celebrated by a number of conferences and lectures dealing with that remarkable Jesuit missionary...
...Spence does not follow the narrative techniques of standard biography...
...But then collaborating with twenty ecumenical theologians is a simpler task than achieving consensus among 2000 bishops...
...The special bond of affection between Billy and Danner is the novel's most convincing and touching theme...
...Like any good biography, what is especially rewarding in the book is Spence's mastery of detail...
...Some of the Chinese were hostile and suspicious, and the missionaries were often in danger, often misunderstood...
...9.95 pbk A GANDHIAN THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION by IGNATIUS JESUDASAN, S.J...
...The book is authoritative and learned, but written with grace in a style to appeal to a general audience...
...To the relief of ecumenists, the Vatican's Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, rather than the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has the responsibility to encourage Commonweal: 570...
...He published a Chinese translation of the first six books of Euclid, and hr constructed an accurate world-map with all the place names transcribed into Chinese...
...Lutheran/Roman Catholic or French Reformed/Roman Catholic conversations...
...When Billy is lost in action, the impact upon Danner is predictable but moving...
...Jonathan Spence, chairman of the history department at Yale University and an expert on China, now offers us this full-scale study of Ricci's life...
...Mitch returns from it a changed man, and even engaging in marriage and his own business cannot help him "find himself...
...Fortunately, many of Ricci's letters and other writings survive, so that we have ample and accurate information about how he and his colleagues lived and how they thought about themselves and their work...
...They began running errands for the Chinese in order to provide them with European goods, and Ricci himself made a long trip to Macao to buy several bolts of European scarlet woolen cloth for some Chinese officials...
...The first is World War II...
...10.95pbk CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT FETISHES An Afdcan Cdtique and Recapture of ChdstlanRy by F. EBOUSSI BOULAGA "Once the depth of Eboussi's critique begins to s!nk in, one, realizes !hat,inculturat!on has to do with ve~ basic worldviews, with basic numan vaMues, ana ~naeea w~m me sharing of power...
...The technique is ingenious, and in itself betrays much about the cultural worlds in which Ricci moved...
...The Chinese were intrigued by fancy feathers and plumes, and one of Ricci's associates wrote to the general of the Jesuits in Rome suggesting that "a living ostrich would be a wonderful present for the King of China...
...He and his colleagues were carded to such banquets on sedan-chairs paid for by the host, and they sometimes enjoyed similarly "first-class" accommodations on their long journeys...
Vol. 111 • October 1984 • No. 18
