Editorials

...It depends...

...The U.S...

...Dock Ellis now admits he was an addict: "I used everything," he recounts...

...He now conducts a substance abuse program for a clinic in Beverly Hills...

...Pirate pitcher Dock Ellis hits the first three batters...

...Other debt has been piled up in the course of agricultural overextension, mergermania, aggressive lending in the wake of bank deregulation, speculation in new financial 4 October 1985: 515 instruments as well as high-interest, low-credit-rating "junk" bonds...

...Which brings up the question of "Christian feminism...

...The sheer amount of economic activity stimulated by foreign investment may more than compensate for the fact that future interest and profits will be flowing overseas...

...Actually, the U.S...

...McBrien, who finds no current incompatibility between feminism and Catholicism, warned that feminists who make a pro-choice position Commonweal: 516 on abortion the litmus test for admission to the feminist cause would create an incompatibility between feminism and Catholicism...

...Braxton's talk...

...The union has opted instead for an ineffective voluntary testing plan...

...This debtor nation is like a driven businessman, overweight and overwrought, with high blood pressure and trying to ignore the warning signs — waiting for the attack...

...It could so much more advantageously implement what the pastoral itself called for: the full acceptance of those needed and timely gifts into the life (and yes, structures) of the church...

...That economic expansion has already surpassed the average length of all previous expansions...

...Despite that fact, as his audience itself admitted,,not everyone has even read the pastoral, let alone implemented its call for affirmative action programs in all church personnel matters...

...He does not complete the task...

...What does this mean...

...For the foreseeable future, such questions cannot be out of season...

...Drug use is the number one problem facing the game, he says, and influence by gamblers and drug dealers is a distinct possibility...

...That is not good enough...

...The church" in this case must be primarily Catholic women themselves — feminists among them — who test secular feminist perspectives against their own experiences of womanhood and Christianity...

...For a Christian, the way God is imaged affects one's subjective, personal faith, the crux of one's worldview...

...The seven black bishops present — Moses Anderson of Detroit, Eugene Marino of Washington, Wilton Gregory of Chicago, Harold Perry of New Orleans, James Lyke of Cleveland, John Ricard of Baltimore, and Emerson Moore of New York (all auxiliaries it should be noted) — developed themes of the pastoral during their afternoon session...

...So far, naturally, they have been preoccupied with defining a stance toward the patriarchal structures of the church...

...The bishops should also be congratulated for engaging in months of dialogue with diverse women about the proposed pastoral letter on women in the church, and for taking seriously those who stated unequivocally that a letter on "women" as opposed, say, to one on "patriarchy" would be ill-advised...

...The Catholic church and secular feminism would then represent opposite poles of an issue which each side claims requires the full support of its members...

...Will he be called to do so next year, and the next, and the year after that...

...His talk exemplified what the pastoral itself had called the giftedness of Afro-Americans to the church's catholicity...

...Two examples of the challenge facing Christian feminists to articulate their own identity, being honest about differences and tensions with the larger movement: • While all feminists acknowledge that institutionalized sex discrimination is evil, Christian feminists, accepting a religious worldview, are specifically concerned with expanding traditionally masculine language and images of God not only to apply a feminist critique to the church, but because God is of primary concern to them...

...Catholic feminists could be forced to choose sides...

...The words can be both slippery and problematic...

...What are they supposed to be doing while "the church" defines "the appropriate Christian stance toward secular feminism...

...Anticipation of government bailouts has often filled in this gap...

...Charles Borremeo church in Harlem on September 9, commemorating the first anniversary of the black bishops' of the United States first pastoral letter, "What We Have Seen and Heard" (St...

...The United States Drug Enforcement Administration esti4 October 1985: 517 mates that up to ninety-five metric tons of cocaine were consumed in the U.S...

...The specificity of the bishops* references to women's gifts, talents, and leadership abilities — though expressly stopping short of women's ordination — should not be undervalued, coming as it does during a pre-synod period of apprehension...

...Self-identified Christian feminists, and along with them a whole range of Christian women who have varying degrees of sympathy with feminist perspectives and objectives, have just begun to sketch out a distinctively Christian identity within the larger movement...

...Nonetheless, the trend is clear...

...at the same time, allying themselves with a church which both nurtures and oppresses them...

...LOOKING AHEAD We were invited to attend a symposium at St...

...The wisdom of liturgical renewal would have found few detractors on that moving occasion...

...Is that good or bad...

...A slowdown that piled a further deficit on the current one could produce interest rates sending the economy into coma — and setting off a general debt crisis...

...To believe that establishing a Christian feminist identity could further the pluralism and maturity of feminism is an exciting possibility...

...A wise man once defined health as the capacity to adapt to changing conditions, especially adverse ones...

...Perhaps all this confusion points up the fact that as yet few points of real convergence and divergence have been clearly articulated within feminism...

...As Mark Liebel, convicted of selling drugs to ballplayers, and now serving a six-year sentence in federal prison, said recently: "Being in prison is tough, believe me, it's really tough...

...After all, history is replete with instances of the church pitting itself blindly against one "secular" movement after another...

...These are overlapping figures, of course, but the point about them is not simply that the sums are astronomical...

...last year...

...Ueberroth has called for mandatory drug-testing programs for everyone in baseball, players and management alike...

...might find reenvisioning God to be of interest because it is one corrective which would further feminist aims for society...

...His manager yanks him first...

...TENHnSMT & CHURCH' Kudos to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops for stating that "the rights and dignity of women need to be affirmed," in their September 15 statement issued in preparation for the November synod...

...Everyone is familiar with figures like the $145 billion trade deficit, now fueling a national debate over protectionism, and the $180 billion annual federal deficit, apparently beyond the power of Congress and the White House to reduce...

...Fans and writers have made much of such exploits (cf...

...By 1990, America's external debt could exceed $1 trillion, and the annual debt service alone would start reaching the dimensions of our recent trade deficits...

...Borrowings, wisely invested, are essential to growth...

...They want neither to sunder the bonds of sisterhood nor the bonds of Christian community...

...Braxton has a gift for bringing little-known history to bear on the issues of the day, and his address raised numerous suggestions calculated to further the pastoral's aims...

...They are caught between needing to learn from and to trust their own church hierarchy on the one hand...

...Many feminists take it for granted that a great diversity of viewpoints already exists under the rubric "feminism," and don't feel the need to label them...

...How does this tension-filled working out of Christian feminist identity relate to the bishops' admonishment that "the church" needs to define its stance toward secular feminism...

...The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimates that 22 million Americans have used cocaine...

...But that cocaine hell was a lot tougher...

...About 800 people filled the parish hall and church for the day-long conference, and another thousand had to be turned away...

...What happens when the inevitable downturn arrives — say, a year from now...

...He reiterated Paul VI's injunction that today the Gospel can only be proclaimed effectively when bonded with the effort to eradicate structures of oppression and injustice...

...Poverty, and the social disintegration it breeds, especially in the black communities, was discussed with a clear sense of both policy implications and self-responsibility by Bishop Ricard of Baltimore...

...Tougher yet is coming to terms with our own national addictiveness...

...The recurring payments crises of Latin nations have been finessed, at least from the financial system's point of view, if not that of the suffering populations...

...That's the official optimist's position, professed by President Reagan, among others...

...Much of the capital inflow from overseas reflects nothing more than the unwillingness of Americans to subtract enough from current consumption through taxes to pay the costs of their government operations...

...Similar differences in viewpoint exist between Christian and secular feminists on other allied issues: church dogma, scriptural interpretation, ethics, and church order...

...Baseball has exhibited a non-punitive, treatment-oriented approach to drug offenders, and Commissioner Ueberroth promises to continue that policy...

...Ellis intends to fire up his flagging teammates by knocking down the first five Cincinnati Reds to face him...

...It is that they have been growing with increasing rapidity — considerably faster than the economy — and constituting a larger and larger proportion of America's GNP...

...Last year the total debt of households, corporations, and all levels of government reached $7.1 trillion...

...Washington's Marino called racism "a festering boil on the face of the church...

...In fact, the announcement of America's new debtor status may even be premature, an artifact of misleading statistics...

...THE LONG SEASON May 1, 1974...

...In a recent syndicated column...

...In dollar amounts that spells mega-billions...

...The congregation, directed by Gray son Brown, sang as if it had entered a greater kingdom...

...Then there's the $200-plus billion owed by American farmers (another sum comparable to the combined debts of Brazil and Mexico...

...To define such terms as "the church," "secular feminism," and "Christian stance" is not easy...

...But so far the major league players* union has refused on grounds that individual privacy would be violated...

...On the positive side, the statement is certainly an acknowledgment that feminism has gained the serious attention of the bishops of the United States...

...The growth of debt, whether foreign or domestic, may be testimony to the nation's long-term economic prospects, or then again it may simply reflect the lure of the biggest and fastest short-term return, no wiser than the lending recklessly conducted in Latin America a decade ago...

...Secular feminists, on the other hand — a dubious term...

...Dock Ellis broke his addiction...

...feminist aims for society are seen as one portion of furthering God's justice on earth...

...But Catholic feminists find themselves in the narrow straits of wanting to build solidarity with feminists everywhere — ultimately with women everywhere...

...Father Edward Braxton of the University of Chicago's Cal-vert House presented the opening address...

...There are people who willingly claim both designations, although often reserving the right to specify their own- definitions and resenting the use of labels as stereotypes...

...Now the Farm Credit System is standing in line for a bailout of "multi-billions," says its chief regulator...

...A lot of others doubt whether that mountain of debt really consists of seedcorn planted for the future rather than seedcorn consumed or even squandered...

...Father Richard McBrien named abortion as one issue "which endangers the entire feminist agenda within the Catholic church...

...But the ominous reality is that this daunting growth of debt and deficit, of delinquency, default, and bankruptcy, has occurred during the upswing of a business cycle...

...But does the phrase "secular feminism'' have an ominous ring — a hint of a necessarily adversarial relationship between secular feminists and "the church...

...According to a number of major leaguers interviewed by the FBI, 40 to 50 percent of all players use drugs, and 8 to 15 percent are addicted...

...So far the gauntlet has been successfully run: a Continental Illinois bailed out here, a Financial Corp...

...In that sense, today's economy is distinctly unhealthy...

...For example, among feminists — that is, among those who think that systemic discrimination on account of gender should be rectified — the adjective "secular" is seldom applied...

...We assume that they will be part of "the church" who defines its stance...

...But it is up to the players to accept his call for mandatory drug testing or propose an alternative of their own, one with real teeth...

...While this work continues to progress, alongside it must develop an identity of Christian feminism in relation to secular feminism, which undeniably has its own different history and concerns...

...Historically speaking, the term is loaded...

...If the dedication, maturity, spiritual insight, and enthusiasm evident at the symposium serve as any indicator of the vitality and gifts of the black Catholic community, it is hard to imagine why the church settles for mere symposiums...

...and needing to find support and to communicate with self-identified feminists on the other hand...

...does it include religious non-Christians along with those who profess no religion...

...Donald Hall's engaging Fathers Playing Catch with Sons, North Point Press, 1985), glorifying them as part of baseball's earthy, alluring aura, indicative of its instinctual origins...

...Technically, to say that America has become a debtor nation means that the rest of the world owns more of America's assets than Americans own of the rest of the world's...

...Having jolted the economy out of recession in 1981-82 by quadrupling the federal deficit, the nation can hardly do so again...

...Along with this affirmation the bishops' report contains a striking statement: "The church needs also to define the appropriate Christian stance toward the secular feminist movement...

...A worried Business Week story on the speculative fevers of our "casino society" summed up the problem: "The collective ability to execute financial transactions has far outpaced the ability to analyze credit worthiness...

...Probably we'll manage that, too, just as we're absorbing record rates of mortgage delinquencies and business bankruptcies...

...Players from nearly all twenty-six major league teams have been named as cocaine users in these cases...

...That May Day 1974 he was fired up not only on baseball fever, but on "amphetamine-like pills" as well...

...of America there...

...Commonweal: 518...

...Yet given the status of women in the universal Catholic church, there is a legitimate fear that the work of "the church" could become a dictate issued from Rome with little awareness of or respect for women's experience...

...will owe the rest of the world substantially more than currently is owed by Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina combined, with a few other nations thrown in for good measure...

...Yet today one has to wonder...

...was last a debtor nation in 1914 — and had been one during its years of continental expansion in the nineteenth century...

...A recent surge of drug trials involving major league baseball players in several cities indicates the widespread and addictive use of illegal substances in the sport...

...Sports must look at the messages it is sending out: not only from the clubhouse, but on the airwaves, and particularly to young people...

...Perhaps all this is perfectly healthy, an expression of confidence in America's economic future...

...Anthony Messenger Press, $ 1.95...

...Yet, when Bishop Perry of New Orleans, the nation's first black bishop, called for leadership training and inclusion on every level for the American Catholic church's 1.3 million blacks, it became clear he felt it necessary to restate again the very goal voiced in the year-old pastoral...

...Sensitive pastors might find themselves caught between having to exercise an authoritarian arm — which would only preempt women's task — and learning to trust the gifts, talents, leadership, and decision-making abilities of women which the American bishops now wisely urge the church to recognize...

...It is in their own self-interest...

...Braxton had received unified applause when he cited recent figures on the number of black children born out of wedlock, and declared, "Our young people must be effectively taught the importance of growing to maturity, obtaining an education, securing employment, and getting married before they begin their families...

...An intense liturgy, led by New York's Cardinal John J. O'Connor (host of the symposium) and a dozen bishops from around the country, followed Fr...

...The cumulative federal debt will soon approach $2 trillion...

...could well be said to be a debtor nation in a less technical sense...

...Commissioner of Baseball Peter Ueberroth believes the problem is greater now than it has ever been...