Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Pressure points Philadelphia, Pa. To the Editors: "No lasting peace in the Middle East is possible without a resolution of the Palestinian issue," according to John Langan ["An...
...Nothing has made my job of trying to find Arab and Palestinian partners for Israel more difficult than being greeted by a new settlement every time I arrive...
...Neuhaus is saying that the pope would have said it if only he more fully shared Mr...
...Rather, it is a theological sensibility nourished by a close and meditative pondering of the Scriptures: a lectio divina that joins careful exegesis with concern for the Word spoken now to the community of faith...
...Commonweal correctly notes that numbers of Israelis object to the settlement activities...
...I appreciate that you find the encyclical disorienting, but your editorial need not have been so very defensive...
...and thus, transforming our situation from within, became "the source of the new life of the Spirit for all who believe in him...
...Anyone who looks at the history of the region in this century and the variety of disputes within it can see that treating Israel as the prime source of conflict in the region is both unfair and unrealistic...
...Their" land is all of present-day Israel...
...The concerns you raise about poverty and so much else are not to be balanced against the pope's endorsement of democratic capitalism or, as he more frequently describes it, "the free economy...
...I've been accused of all sorts of things over the years, but Gradgrindism...
...76r three times...
...Selfelevated to this lofty height, Mr...
...George Kilcourse J. Robert Barth, S.J...
...I] CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 418) Commonweal readers...
...and accords pride of place to Karl Rahner as a theological mentor...
...428,430, 435, Emil Antonucci...
...Surely tertium datur...
...Crossing the line" New York, N.Y...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...concerns in the Middle East...
...Canada, $66...
...Suffice it to assert that, inspired by the Letter to the Hebrews' designation of Jesus as "the pioneer and perfecter of faith," Johnson takes with utmost seriousness that Jesus is God's Word incarnate, sharing fully in the finitude of the human condition...
...And, later in the same chapter, he summarizes his understanding of revelation, "not as a product delivered by God but as a human process of interpreting experience...
...From beginning to end, the form of Christian spirituality is the imitation of Christ...
...It has degenerated into a murderous bloodbath of Arab intergroup warfare, with Palestinians killing one another in increasing numbers without judge or jury...
...In this instance some of the evidence is readily available to (Continued on page 444) Commonweal, is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...Neuhaus and certain of his allies, no one has seen contradictions between the two documents or their "controlling assumptions...
...That last disjunction seems particularly unfelicitous...
...Do read it again...
...A Backward Glance at Walker Percy's The Moviegoer Patrick Samway, S.J...
...their" land includes Haifa and Tel Aviv as well as Jerusalem...
...If this definition seems to move theology perilously close to spirituality, I would count that gain and further tribute to the fecundity of the Benedictine spirit...
...Why not require the Palestinians to deal with the Israelis...
...He evidently has read widely and well in philosophy and theology...
...John D. Boyd, S.J...
...We regret that Ms...
...By this I do not intend "cloistered" or "detached...
...On the other hand, perhaps Mr...
...The Arab summit Khartoum formula of August 1967: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel," has never been repudiated...
...Richard A. Blake, S.J...
...Clearly, though, peace will not occur unless Arab leadership emerges which will respect the legitimacy and the security of Israel...
...To avoid construing revelation as "a product delivered by God," is our only recourse to reduce it to "a human process of interpreting experience...
...It still does...
...Copyright _9 1991 Commonweal Foundation...
...bank...
...that he was "brought to perfection by what he suffered...
...The principal authors of the pastoral have welcomed the encyclical, just as high-ranking Vatican officials welcomed the pastoral...
...I also believe that because of the cohesion they have as a nation-state, because of the resolution that the United States has shown in the defense of its allies, and because of the military superiority they enjoy in the region, the Israelis have both greater responsibilities and greater opportunities in opening the way for peace...
...Israelis have also spoken out against instances of human rights violations, and Israeli lawyers have represented Palestinian clients in numerous cases...
...More than his o p i n i o n s about Centesimus annus, what interested us about Mr...
...Secretary James Baker's recent truculent outburst at Israel, unbalanced by equally strong criticism of Arab dismissal of his peacekeeping efforts, or of Syria's dismal record of human rights abuses and virtual annexation of Lebanon, quite rightly "caused a storm in Congress," where many felt he was venting his irritation in bullying fashion on the wrong party...
...Evidently he now feels himself qualified to define who can call themselves Catholic and what today, unlike in the "old times," no longer measures up...
...Your assumption that it is Israel's settlement policies on the West Bank that constitute the major impediment to peace "a critical barrier to peace negotiations"---overlooks the fact that when there were no settlements, there were no peace negotiations...
...His doing so is puzzling, but perhaps explainable...
...North Carolina golf & lake homesites from only $10,900...
...I admit to being considerably more enthusiastic about the pope's argument, although I am puzzled by your statement that I wrote about it from "the Gradgrind side of the political spectrum...
...dollars by Intemationai Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...This cannot be construed, of course, in a literalist manner...
...Surely the pope deserves at least that much, if only for old times' sake, from a magazine that used to bill itself as Catholic...
...Baker is trying to advance is conceived as much in Israel's interest as to promote U.S...
...bishops' pastoral on the economy...
...Seldom in the journal's history, and not for a great many years, has anyone challenged the accuracy of that self-description...
...whether we found it disorienting...
...When there were a few scattered settlements, there were no peace negotiations...
...I can understand your fond attachment to what you call "liberalism or even democratic socialism," but I do hope Commonweal will open itself to considering the pope's contention that the really big human problems require cultural, moral, and spiritual answers...
...Neuhaus has recently been received into the Catholic church and on several occasions has reported that he will soon be ordained a Roman Catholic priest...
...Neuhaus is the first to suggest that we have abandoned it...
...1-800768-7358...
...I suspect that you will find that, if you really try, it is not so hard to give up nostalgia for democratic socialism...
...I think you may come to recognize that the pope hardly ignores all the frettings and qualifications to which your editorial is devoted...
...Once you grasp the point that democratic capitalism is the economic corollary of the Christian understanding of human nature and destiny, and the further point that economics is a limited dimension of the social order, you will then discover that Centesimus annus gives you ample support for inveighing against this society's cultural and moral derelictions as fervently as is your wont...
...It allows him, perceptively and courageously, to identify two alternative "models" of spirituality, which, though they may employ Christian terms, actually represent debased coinage...
...One seeks in vain to find Arab human rights activists who are similarly outraged about the persecution and torture of Jews in Syria, and equally willing to defend them...
...The elucidation of that pattern forms the heart of this thoughtful and profound book...
...In describing what he means by "a classic spirituality," Johnson disclaims any presumption to be composing "a spiritual classic...
...He calls these the "gnostic" and the "liberationist" models...
...Christian Mythos as Theme in Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse Going Home: The Films of John Ford Fault-Lines in Kierkegaard and Hawthorne: The Sickness unto Death and "Ethan Brand" Raymond Benoit The Varieties of the American Catholic Religious Imagination: A Contemporary Taxonomy Joseph J. Feeney, S.J...
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...The Catholic church is a very large church and certainly there is plenty of room for Mr...
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...The author replies: Contrary to what Gary Wolf suggests, I do not wish to blame Israel for the absence of peace in the Middle East...
...We do not recognize our editorial in the steady patter of adjectives and innuendos Mr...
...RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS The editors reply: When Richard Neuhaus operates in his polemical mode, his conclusions often soar above his evidence...
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...In the rhetorical slippage between "it may be" and "must now be recognized," there is a large and bold accusation about the pastoral letter, along with a very large loophole for the author...
...But this dependence perhaps also accounts for the one area where I found myself registering some reservation...
...It may not be the Interior Castle...but then Johnson is writing for "contemporary Christians...
...Like the wars before it, the intifada has failed to gain its political goals: the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories without negotiation, compromise, peace, or security for Israel...
...Members of Congress who in other circumstances would certainly protest policies analogous to Israel's tactics in the occupied territories fall strangely silent when the settlements are under discussion, or even defend them...
...Moreover, the venomous inter-Palesfinian violence cannot be ignored...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...In that case all might yet be rectified, in the treatment of revelation, by a double measure of Balthasarian leaven...
...These untapped resources may, in fact, derive from another theological influence to which he attributes "significant leavening": Hans Urs von Balthasar...
...Neuhaus has few peers in the use of rhetorical innuendo for planting ideas and for positioning himself in debate...
...Classified payable with order...
...Mr...
...Though I have stressed Johnson's biblical commitment and competence, I would not want to leave the impression that he is an unregenerate "biblicist...
...Neuhaus's Journal article was its attempt to insert a wedge between the encyclical and the U.S...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $62...
...To this day, the official covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization calls for the destruction of the Jewish state...
...But, if laying solid and spacious foundations, raising imaginative and insightful upper stories, and embellishing the whole with a clear elegance of expression, is the stuff of which classics are made, Faith's Freedom is certainly in contention...
...Neuhaus can see what we do not: that "democratic capitalism is the economic corollary of the Christian understanding of human nature and destiny...
...and how d e f e n s i v e - - o r n o t - - w a s our response...
...p. 420, Ray, Rothco...
...CLASSIFIED RATES: 80r a word, one time...
...This sorry spectacle of slaughter has undoubedly reinforced the conviction of most Israelis that, but for Israel's strength and vigilance, such would be their fate...
...It is a formidable challenge indeed...
...Such spiritual diagnosis and discernment is an essential moment of mature faith...
...One senses as much in his nuanced treatment of philosophical and theological anthropology under the heading, "the human project...
...The editors reply: Classically, criticism of Israel's policies elicits from Israel's defenders responses in the comparative mode: whatever one thinks of what Israel has done, the Arabs and the Palestinians are worse--far worse, so much worse that the criticism, at hand, of Israel is unfair...
...And settlements did not prevent an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty...
...Canada, $38...
...Over the years, it has become amply clear that on Middle East issues many of them follow the lead of lobbyists who in turn take their briefs from whatever government is in power in Israel-just as many accept guidance from the National Rifle Association on the merits of gun control legislation...
...Johnson indeed speaks of "the proper task of theology" as "the discernment of God's work in the world...
...Illustrations: Cover, pp...
...Another feature of Johnson's approach is its clear Christocentrism...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...There have been eleven infiltration incidents from Jordan this year--greater than the total number in 1990 or 1988-89...
...After all, the absence of peace in the Holy Land has its origins in the longstanding refusal of the Palestinian Arabs and the various Arab regimes to accept the legitimacy of Israel's existence...
...we leave it to them to judge whether our editorial treated Centesimus annus in a ho-hum, tepid, or condescending manner...
...446: Commonweal...
...We hope he will concede as much to us...
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...Thus, we take his letter as intended less to refute our editorial than to display his considerable enthusiasm for "the pope's argument" and, by extension, the pope himself...
...Whatever one's position on the political wisdom of continuing Israeli settlements in the territories, the major impediment to peace remains the intransigence of the Arab states and the Palestinian hardliners...
...Neuhaus wrote: "It may be, for instance, that the controlling assumptions of the American bishops' 1986 pastoral letter, 'Economic Justice for All,' must now be recognized as unrepre444: Commonweal sentative of the church's authoritative teaching...
...As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal essay to which you took such exception, "Far from being an uncritical blessing of the market economy, then, the message of Centesimus annus is that the work of the 'new capitalism' has hardly begun...
...Apart from Mr...
...JOHN LANGAN...
...There is a line between reasonable criticism of an Israeli government policy or action and blaming Israel alone for the failure to achieve peace in the Middle East...
...Johnson's insistence, so faithful to both the letter and spirit of the New Testament, is that holiness is the fruit of unremitting generosity and discernment, not the undiscriminating canonization of one's personal preference and current state, whether mellow or dyspeptic...
...Perhaps nothing illustrates the Neuhaus mentality more starkly than his last sentences urging us to cultivate "second thoughts" about the encyclical, and adding: "Surely, the pope deserves at least that much, if only for old times' sake, from a magazine that used to bill itself as Catholic...
...This familiar refrain unfairly places the blame on Israel for the absence of peace in the Middle East...
...To the Editors: "No lasting peace in the Middle East is possible without a resolution of the Palestinian issue," according to John Langan ["An Imperfectly Just War," June 1], who stresses the need for a "process requiring the Israelis to deal with the Palestinians...
...That refusal to come to grips with Israel as a permanent and legitimate reality is the critical barrier to peace negotiations...
...418: Commonweal doned the invidious elitism of "higher ways" in the Christian life, we seem, in reaction, to have succumbed to a pseudodemocratic leveling-down, confusing the "universal call to holiness" with its actual attainment...
...In both instances, the reasons have as much to do with the cost of election campaigns as with the issue at hand...
...Neuhaus applies to it...
...We also believe that the process Mr...
...He needs it...
...His words bear repeating: "Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process, I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity...
...R e t i r e to North Carolina WHY RETIRE TO FLA...
...In a reflex move to the verb form that might be called the insinuating conditional, Mr...
...Nathan A. Scott, Jr...
...I believe that it is both morally right and politically necessary for the Palestinians to deal with the Israelis as well as for the Israelis to deal with the Palestinians...
...The classic Christocentrism of Johnson's approach provides him with appropriate criteria of Christian identity at a time marked by a perilous "erosion of tradition," when an indiscriminate and promiscuous use of Christian symbols risks rendering Christianity "linguistically dysfunctional...
...And, of course, we recommend a careful reading of the encyclical itself as the surest way to grasp John Paul II's thinking on the intertwined themes of human freedom, the market system, and the cultural, political, and moral systems that so largely determine the impact of the economy, whether on individual persons or on whole societies...
...To refer to the congressional supporters of Israel as "mortgaged" is an invidious use of the word and unworthy of a magazine with Commonweal's record of fairness and decency...
...whether we are animated by a"superannuated anticapitalism...
...His point is that, to the extent that human problems are economic, the challenge is to include everyone within the free economy's "circle" of productivity and exchange...
...To the Editors: I was pleased to see that by the end of your ho-hum-so-what-elseis-new editorial review of the new encyclical ["After Communism," June 1 ] you were able to work yourself up to the conclusion, "Centesimus annus is provocative...
...Indeed, Johnson himself, elsewhere in the book supplies resources enough for a more adequate treatment...
...bishops out of step with the pope, and to place Commonweal beyond the pale...
...but it can and must be construed as the Spirit-inspired replication of the pattern of Jesus, the Messiah, in the changed circumstances of our own lives and times...
...While I think the encyclical deserves much better than your tepid, and condescending, commendation for being "provocative," I would settle for some editorial evidence that it has in fact provoked you to entertain second thoughts about the superannuated anticapitalism that animates your evaluation of Centesimus annus...
...Paradoxically, to support this "lay spirituality," Johnson sets forth a theological vision which I deem distinctly "monastic...
...We think readers will find the pope's thinking considerably more nuanced and his conclusions far more conditioned than they are represented to be in Mr...
...Neuhaus...
...JUDITH BANKI The writer is associate national director of interreligious affairs with the American Jewish Committee...
...Banki follows this standard formula...
...The modesty is spiritually becoming...
...Our editorial did not say Israel's settlement policies constitute "the major impediment to peace," only that "the settlements now serve as a critical barrier to peace negotiations...
...And, though he speaks of them as "ideal types" and refuses to associate specific authors with them, anyone engaged in pastoral ministry will quickly recognize their popular epigones and be grateful for the diagnostic clarity his analysis offers...
...From the perspective of the Palestine National Covenant, "their" land is not just the West Bank and Gaza...
...It is thus a preeminently pastoral theology, whose optic is the present encounter with the Word in the community formed by the Spirit...
...Commonweal has always defined itself as a review of public affairs, religion, literature, and the arts published by Roman Catholic laypeople...
...Whatever Syria, the other Arab states, the PLO, or the intifada activists may do, Israel is at liberty to stop turning over land and water in the West Bank and Gaza to Israeli settlers, in contravention of international law, in open disdain for protests from its faithful ally, the United States, and in violation of the rights of the people who own the land...
...72r six times...
...GARY WOLF The writer is executive director of CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America...
...Commonweal may fault the congressional reaction, but many felt it was an appropriate response to inappropriate petulance...
...foreign, $72...
...Neuhaus's letter to us or in the op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal...
...That remains a true statement, and it is not less true because there are other barriers attributable to other parties...
...and at additional offices...
...In our view, it's the settlements policy itself, not what Mr...
...Neuhaus's enthusiasms...
...The abandonment of that reprehensible aim would be an appropriate first step in the process of compelling Palestinian Arabs to "deal" with Israel in a peaceful manner...
...The encyclical doesn't say this, but perhaps it is only our "condescending" attitude that prevents us from grasping that it's what the encyclical means...
...to our knowledge, Mr...
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...The line is ignored by her enemies, for whom nothing Israel has ever done or can ever do is justifiable, and is generally observed by her friends and supporters who are mindful of geography and history--i.e., Israel's tiny size and vulnerable borders, the implacable hostility of the rejectionist Arab states, twenty-one of -hought A Revi u of Cuttm-r and Idea IUNE 1991 THE CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION Thomas Merton on Literature's "Naked Spiritual Reserves" The Temporal Imagination in Wordsworth's Prelude: Time and the Timeless Religion and the Imagination: Some Reflections on the Legacy of William F. Lynch, S.J...
...Perhaps our use of the word "mortgaged" was elliptical, but it was not, we think, invidious...
...Banki describes Secretary Baker's recent comments as "truculent...
...Over half of North Carolina retirees came from Florida--learn why...
...Permit me to urge you to read the encyclical again...
...In his discussion of "revelation" in chapter 3, Johnson writes: "The term revelation, therefore, describes less a divine activity than a process of human interpretation...
...425,433, Ross, Rothco...
...12 July 1991:445 which maintain an official state of war with Israel, and the relentless campaign of Arab terrorism...
...Baker said about it, that is properly called truculent...
...Israelis who would like to see the settlements ended as well as those Americans who agree with them should be heard in Congress--a new project for the American Jewish Committee that Commonweal would happily support...
...She is able to do so only by refuting a statement Commonweal did not make...
...Considering it brought to mind Saint Benedict's not always complimentary discrimination of the "types of monks" early in his Rule...
...Occasionally, however, even usually fair-minded observers cross that line, and Commonweal itself crosses it ["Crossing the Line," June 14...
...Perhaps it is only the novice's eagerness to identify with the Holy See and its authoritative teaching that leads him to attribute his own views to the pope, to find the U.S...
...Microfilm from Vol...
Vol. 118 • July 1991 • No. 13
