More than coincidence?
McCarthy, Abigail
forever balancing their commitment to a moral life and moral lopsided was Ronald Reagan's victory.) With Pat Robertson's culture with their desire to live and let live. (A neat trick,...
...And each year Catholic church in the United percent of the lay-persons questioned there will be a little less...
...And it would surely arouse The supposed political power of the Christian Right in the Silent Variable...
...lengthy delegate selection process, that threat is again being These Americans become a political "group" simply by their examined seriously - almost breathlessly - by political refusal to fall neatly into any political group...
...Real outrage seems to the response to that which is proclaimed...
...It fundamentalism's several subgroups, he will be the agent of would certainly reveal that, in political terms, the potential to anything but Christian unity...
...recent showing in the first stage of Michigan's complex and but somebody's got to do it...
...And we can sympathize wonderful organization called The perfectly valid point that the economic with the hard-pressed ordinaries of small New England Board of Higher Edu- future of the region and the nation dedioceses who say that they simply do not cation...
...Washington Post: Hoge study on future church leadership...
...tion has not been given high priority...
...The prophetic role is part of that...
...The sis- tion...
...overseas annually to the Vatican Catholic bishops should take public Aidan's are among the lucky ones...
...If that 61 percent is augmented communities whose chief work was pecially the nuns who nurtured the by those disturbed by the economic teaching in the schools owned by faith...
...gan, emerging as a "new force" in presidential politics...
...It is the more equipment, redecorate the community of Christ's disciples living dormitories...
...Just a daily invocation to have been reserved to those who were In my last column on the bishops upGod, the Father of the poor, and to . taught by the nuns in the "good old coming synod, a topic I will return to in a St...
...Its conclusion is that it will which prevailed in many small comtional press about the dire economic take at least $2 billion to right the situa- munities is realistically explored in an plight of,America's aging nuns...
...coincidental releases...
...True enough...
...David looked Lay response to the press reports of the flawed the example, however large the baffled...
...with fewest spelled-out policy recom"It was, and it did very well mendations, has been the section on ecofinancially...
...It would likely day can yank the best of them through a doctrinal keyhole, and publicize the conflict and competition that have always existed he remains ever watchful for the opportunity...
...The convent kept out his message...
...Janet Scott Barlow has written for Chronicles, Parents (Perhaps its members made a difference in the 1984 presiden- Magazine, Marriage and Family Living, and the Cincinnati tial election, but they obviously didn't make the difference, so Post...
...what he, Robertson, considers "a `win-win' proposition...
...A neat trick, yes...
...And the nothing except what was necessary constitutes an embarrassment...
...Nevertheless, the perRuth shook her head...
...As long ago as 1981 a bishops' copies of this recent survey in hand were Aidan's," their school and convent: survey showed at least one thousand nuns not slow to point out the irony of the "But after all these years there . Commonweal: 394 must be money so that you can the global economy...
...plight of the American sisters and those parishes and dioceses, and who did so for The writer urges a moratorium on all indifferent to it (who are probably indifstipends barely covering their needs for collections for funds "destined for over- ferent to any needy), the hope for a sigfood, housing, and clothes, have no such seas" - a response which augurs that nificant Catholic response to the pastoral recourse...
...the body of Christ.' "Will sees this as a losing proposition for A "political" story as interesting and as relevant as the the Republican party,, worrying that Robertson "might taint Michigan test appeared with less fanfare a week later, when it the GOP with peculiarity and extremism...
...It belonged to dalized that my church has not the arms race or the American economic them and they could sell it...
...So now there is nothing...
...Robertson is said to have scored a "coup" in MichiSilent Variable...
...church has not taken care of its own...
...George Will has written that Pat Robertson is looking at Maybe so...
...As such, it is my duty to go two or pends heavily on the quality of educahave the funds to come to the sisters' three times a year to conferences at which tion...
...We can sympathize with the bishops EARNING & LEARNING who are now faced with the result of A NATION ILL-PREPARED some sisters' independence and unworldliness...
...Their and to foreign missions, I am scan- stands on some political issues such as school was a private one...
...But the company is both dignified relief...
...The discussions, ample, and the accommodations splenat least since 1981 and that its ameliora- frankly, are usually a bit on the dull side...
...Considering the resources of the It showed among other things that 61 Ruth nodded...
...But small taken care of its own religious, es- system...
...relying on public assistance...
...Robertson's religious/political bind: if such practices are Should Pat-Robertson run for president, the explanations he "scriptural," he cannot refute them...
...And to make further studies...
...continue to live...
...It After all, how many new and exciting I attended the most recent of these con11 July 1986: 395...
...frequent funerals...
...And somebody always has...
...but as a serious presidenwill be forced to give (repeatedly) on the "religious issue" tial aspirant, he cannot endorse them...
...The right to for daily needs...
...If he Yesterday's little political surprises become today's big news, wins, bingo...
...nomic justice within the church...
...They are the analysts...
...Until they were rescued by the emergency fund, the sisters had not complained or asked for help...
...But we must be uneasily aware we talk about the linkage between educa- and pleasant, the food good, the drinks that the situation has been known to them tion and the economy...
...You say that for The weakest part of all three versions many years this was a first-rate of the economic pastoral, and the one school...
...A nun is trying to explain tive retirement and health programs...
...A more re- years...
...Putting the implied power of a doctrinal nit-picking and hair-splitting...
...One group of sisters in New he, and others like him, will make a poor is certainly somewhat illusory...
...third version, the drafters have taken "So whatever money came in pains to point out that the church is more was used to make it a better school than an institution employing people and - to build another building, buy carrying out service programs...
...welfare...
...York, reported the Journal, struggled on audience for the pastoral's sections on ABIGAIL McCARTHY teaching in a poor inner-city neighborhood, all the while falling into deeper and deeper debt to their undertaker for their Of several minds: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...The attitude mediately preceded by stories in the na- the pastoral...
...Marpay now find themselves without effec- thousand dollars for an office and a staff tin's, 1982...
...nomic house," wrote John J. Fialka in THE-;CHURCH'S CARE OF ITS OWN the Wall Street Journal...
...Granted, the dimensions of the problem of the sisters' poverty has been hidden, even from the bishops, over the THE TIMING was less than felicitous...
...her order's predicament to a lay friend...
...But we have seen this kind of reaction before...
...If he looses, the attempt `would still bring unity to to be forgotten by tomorrow's fresh surprises...
...Robertson and was reported that "fundamentalist preachers from coast to Will notwithstanding, it seems that the greater risk of a coast" have prepared a "prayer hit list" and are "praying for Robertson campaign would be to the Christian Right itself...
...the death of their foes," one foe being Supreme Court Justice The risk is two-fold, putting at stake both its present appear- William Brennan...
...Revelations like this one expose ance of spiritual unity and its future political potency...
...We can sympathize, too, with those among them who feel that the problem was not of their making - that I HAPPEN to be a member of a perfectly ways are there of making the point -- the they inherited it...
...curity...
...States, and the millions we send disagreed with the statement: "The Yet the nuns of the fictional St...
...Religious orders, guarding their The release of the bishops' third cent study, Retirement Needs Survey of independence and unprepared for longdraft of the economics pastoral United States Religious, was slated for range planning, have tended to keep their called Economic Justice for All was im- release in the same week as the draft of troubles to themselves...
...And should fully politicized Christian Right to the ultimate test with the Robertson, in the course of his explanations, upset one of ultimate elective office would finally quantify that power...
...No in- pressions of dismay, shocked surprise, ception of the flaw is bound to weaken surance, no pension, no Social Se- and indifference...
...many:,bave been reduced to applying for Business reporters with advance They must, she tells him, sell "St...
...An Accidental Grace, St...
...The American Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy bishops "who for two years have been deliberating how to improve the moral quality of the U.S...
...Jimmy Swaggart alone on an off influence is also the potential to antagonize...
...proclaim justice abides no matter how "Insurance...
...sisters' distress has ranged through ex- beam in the eye...
...In the "So...
...among conservative Protestants...
...With Pat Robertson's culture with their desire to live and let live...
...economy, are facing a large moral problem in their own ecoMOBS THAN COINCIDENCE...
...Joseph, who was official patron days," like the man who wrote to The later column, I referred to the Dean R. of material needs...
...So far the bishops have provided a excellent novel about a community in ters,,who made the parochial school sys- sixty-thousand-dollar emergency fund extremis by Sister Irene Mahoney, tem possible by teaching for little or no and earmarked two hundred and fifty O.S.U...
...will receive their greatest scrutiny from his fellow fundamen- That bind can only tighten if Robertson pursues the Repubtalists, - a group historically given to almost compulsive lican presidential nomination...
...JANET SCOTT BARLOW recentyears has existed mainly as an implied power, a threat...
Vol. 113 • July 1986 • No. 13
