Synod Extraordinary
Komonchak, Joseph A.
detective story, or look through the re- worship. But then, G.K. delighted in great things small and small things view books on his table. Now and again turning things upside down....
...him that ditchwater was anything but Shall we say of the wild-eyed sav- Here are two examples, one from his life, dull...
...There are few alterations in the clouds like hills, and all men hanging on Yet Chesterton at his best, like Shaw, manuscript...
...Kinsella's new novel, a and contents...
...Anticipations of the church...
...Once when great...
...have made a real contribution here...
...What was in times synod, which he is correct in describing Houghton Mifflin, past the national pastime is a repository as "a magnificant panorama of Catho- $16.95, 310 pp...
...Look through a microscope, he told age one from his books: his listeners, and you will find in it creawho crouches with gibber and When I was young we lived in Russell tures far more amusing than those found moan, Square...
...fears which preceded the council itself be worth reading that did not place it Hebblethwaite argues correctly that, and gave its first session the quality of against this context, a fault that certainly whether it was intended by the pope and high drama...
...the stone...
...on the back of an envelope he would he sat on a chair and broke it at my There were times, though, when the make notes for the next day's work...
...The poem ends with this comment carpets...
...ERMINESKIN RESERVE trast to arenas for basketball, football, For most Catholics, the final report, W.P...
...In his book The "Most people either say that they agree books at tremendous speed...
...Hebblethwaite, one of the few journalists apparently not enough to convince In the end, the problem with this book who is also theologically literate, might Hebblethwaite, even...
...His first, Shoeless charge that he makes about the final re- Neugeboren, and Robert Coover...
...There is, of grey walls beneath them and the land- everyone must choose his side...
...He had the good idea to go and timorous evaluation of the postwith the full publication of Cardinal Rat- back to the Acta of the council to see conciliar period did appear to be setting Commonweal: 408 an agenda for the synod...
...ciple stretch to infinity...
...he provides little textual analysis to back Among the writers have been Ring Lard- Kinsella's second novel is also his up the claim...
...When THE IOWA BASEBALL among the reasons has been its built-in Hebblethwaite turns to the many CONFEDERACY nostalgia for nineteenth-century Amerispeeches delivered in the first week of the W.P...
...confronted with his charge, continues to Most of it appears to have been written Secondly, Hebblethwaite, like Cardi- claim responsibility for the report...
...In his last broadcast for the BBC, "Idolatry," which he wrote when he was fane not running in parallel lines, but as he singled out the phrase "as dull as a schoolboy at Saint Paul's...
...Cracow...
...church in centuries...
...As they look that the issue for the future was clear: "It It is a line which sums up Chesterton's down, they share the same vision of the is between light and darkness-and entire approach to religion...
...superior to • The Ratzinger Report (Ig- synod had so accurately summed up his Even the theological positions particunatius Press, 1985) in the critical quality own views...
...States, and Belgium...
...His principal they are rather more subtle and diverse Hebblethwaite from waiting until docuheroes are Cardinals Danneels and Hume than Hebblethwaite makes them appear ments were available which could have and Bishop James Malone, whose views when he says that it "reflected, point by permitted him both to verify some of his are outlined at some length and always point, what the German language-group hypotheses and to engage in more serious sympathetically...
...More serious is another ner, Bernard Malamud, Mark Harris, Jay second baseball book...
...But this faint praise is by Cardinal Ratzinger...
...The division con- backdrop for his review of other events in cerns the interpretation and evaluation of Joseph A. Komonchak the life of the church last year, especially the council that occasioned the broadest the pope's visits to Holland, Belgium, and deepest changes in the Catholic zinger's "report" on the post-conciliar and Africa...
...With this notion ditchwater...
...He saw the landscape as it who understands him and I do not agree Poems, he completed in less than a really is, with stars like flowers, and the with him...
...on the top of a Gothic tower...
...In one of his storm clouds were gathering and unrest He prays to the presence within Father Brown stories there is a scene was growing everywhere...
...had the ability to look at things in a new Before me, I have a poem entitled Chesterton saw the sacred and the pro- light...
...delighted in great things small and small things view books on his table...
...And,.of course, the debate cannot be found in Peter Hebblethwaite's cardinal or not, the cardinal's negative about the council heated up considerably little book...
...For that rea- one single thing the white man has done son, it is regrettable that Hebblethwaite BSteven G. Keilman right," says Drifting Away, a phantom devotes less than five pages to its genesis Indian in W.P...
...Naturalists had informed this question: went another, that of the topsy-turvy...
...It opens with rising and converging...
...A good the churches, he describes only those ing those of Cardinal Ratzinger, influ- history and theological analysis of the from England and Wales, the United enced the report, at times even verbally, synod of 1985 remains to be written...
...congratulated her on this was sixty-two...
...Cardinal Danneels's Initial Report, which summarized those responses, is discussed, but no at- Possessive ghosts of nostalgia tempt is made to evaluate it by comparison with the reports themselves...
...There is no doubt that the let analyses of the final report deeper than number of the pre-synodal responses of German group's views, closely parallel- any that appear in this book...
...Kinsella hockey, and soccer, the baseball field has issued by the bishops and made public, is David R. Godine, no fixed limits...
...the other eight [language theological and redactional analyses...
...Chesterton's book on He had the ability to gut a book very my grandmother: "At least you cannot Shaw has a particularly feeble beginning: fast and to dictate chapters of his own say I fell on my face...
...after the cardinal, is the haste with which it was published...
...Was this the answer the synod promise document, whose literary and does not compare it with the cardinal's had been programmed to give from the theological unevenness reveals that it views...
...This is a rather grave larly favored by the Germans are stated of its framework and categories...
...This is too bad, because honorable man...
...First, it is not greatly it with enthusiasm and rejoice that the rejected or allowed alone to prevail...
...said to pray...
...before the synod opened, and the denal Ratzinger, focus,° far too much on As for the contents of the final report, mands of deadlines may have prevented North Atlantic concerns...
...Cardinal hardly be quarreled with...
...and Hebblethwaite says he be- introduced that at least postpone any desociological, and theological com- lieves him because the cardinal is "an finitive resolution in the direction desired plexities...
...To his devoted him that has prompted the heart where the priest and the murderer meet secretary, Dorothy Collins, G.K...
...horizon while chasing a fly...
...The is- charge and needs greater substantiation so generally that by themselves they can sues are too often presented as a struggle than the little provided here...
...grandparents' house, he apologized to paradoxes limped...
...the outfield could in prinlikely to be the only document of the $14.95, 158 pp...
...And, in conAmerican and European concerns...
...Books: IMPORTANCE OF BEING FOCUSED ROM the moment that Pope John SYNOD EXTRAORDINARY what part Karol Wojtyla had played in it Paul II convoked an extraordinary THE INSIDE STORY and to give a very brief analysis of the session of the Synod of Bishops to OF THE ROME SYNOD book with which the future pope had incelebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Peter Hebblethwaite terpreted the council to the church in close of the Second Vatican Council, the Doubleday, $15.95, 146 pp...
...a game could in prinalizations," before returning to North MORE TALES FROM THE ciple stretch on for eternity...
...Unlike most licity," he contents himself with a single other team sports, baseball is not govparagraph of "continental gener- DANCE ME OUTSIDE erned by the clock...
...Twice he says that Cardinal ASEBALL is the most graphogenic of winsome fantasy in which one game lasts Danneels's two earlier reports to the sports, and writers are forever 2,614 innings and a fielder fades into the synod were drafts of the final report, but enumerating and celebrating the reasons...
...We were hard up, and the Ches- in an ornamental pond, some even Where the dead stone god sits glar- tertons gave us furniture, including some caricaturing the profiles of statesmen and ing, that the worship is dead as heavy damask curtains...
...Other figures, repre- had said...
...But as we had no politicians...
...Baseball is the synod they will ever read...
...I believe that it was, and that thus was written so that no principal position thwaite's book suffers from this focus for Pope John Paul would be able to endorse advanced at the synod would either be two reasons...
...carpets and it was a top-floor flat, my Fifty years ago last month, Chesterton The answer that follows is an emphatic mother decided to use the curtains as died of heart failure at Beaconsfield...
...Kinsella can individualism...
...senting other concerns of other churches, groups] were used only to the extent that (Indeed, since this book was completed, are only introduced in passing...
...Hebblethwaite also uses the desynod became the focus of the debate that bate about the impact of the council as the now divides Catholics...
...Although they confirmed the German-language Hebblethwaite has published in The TabHebblethwaite claims to have received a positions...
...of collective pastoral myths...
...A course, also the paradox of a poem called scape around them: "a topsy-turvydom month after his death the Spanish Civil "Idolatry" which turns out to be about of stone in mid-air" and "a glimpse of War broke out...
...I am the only person nearly a hundred pages in his Collected side down...
...Unfortunately, however, Hebble- outset...
...fortnight...
...But it is the figure of Cardinal Ratsynod faithfully echoed the hopes and No interpretation of the synod would zinger which dominates the book...
...and it is difficult port: "Had this text been prepared in but the final report is clearly a comto write anything about the meeting that advance...
...In Europe, in 1936, the on the wild-eyed savage: topsy-turvy arrangement...
...The Ballad Poet and the Lunatics, he wrote: "You with Bernard Shaw or that they do not of the White Horse," which runs to remember Saint Peter was crucified up- understand him...
...the mercy of God...
...As soon as between the good guys and the bad guys, Danneels stated "that he arrived at the questions get particular, especially with without much nuance and with in- synod not knowing what was going to regard to structural issues, nuances are adequate attention to the historical, happen...
...And Joe (1982), was a metafictional whimsy 11 July 1986: 409...
...He No...
Vol. 113 • July 1986 • No. 13
