The Education of an American Catholic
O'Brien, Dennis
Where Adams fancies the Virgin Mother - as counter to the mechanical "dynamo"...
...As the bish- public interest in the supernatural...
...terial" but with the end "product" of duction of faith facts to a minimum...
...Indeed, Hunt's final making sure that we understand the "gram- point about a college-aged audience remar of faith" before we utter its "truths...
...MA, at the Sorrowful Mother Novena actualMS(Ed), APD(post MA...
...Now "How many still have, deep in their hearts, VINCENT M. NOVAK, SJ where did we leave the car...
...obscured...
...at all to do with the Great Church...
...These are contrasting views, to the vanishing point-it is an attempt to COLLEGE CATHOLICS: A New but not contradictory ones, since Woodrecapture the core structure of belief in sin Counter-Culture ward's complaint is not with the "raw maand salvation...
...Beeching faithfully ops discussed the details of the church's to me that a taste for something super- records his first taste of Kool-Aid...
...in human artifice that humanity springs successors of early twentieth-century From the standpoint of David Hume, off of nature for good or ill...
...along the same slippery slope-and if PEACE AND JUSTICE...
...Beeching has a particular fix tions to dubious saints, but the whole Dr...
...persona mother if she had noticed what the prayers Saint Louis University, to accept the basic refreshment in community skepticism of David Hume and the logi- Year-round, summers only (4...
...CHURCH LEADERSHIP...
...The B VM may no longer be mys- lem is choosing the category for the about the loss...
...Demurely, one may riety of revisionist theologians and bibli- MTV certainly is to lots of hearty youth...
...What he ap- SPIRITUALITY: THEOL & HIST...
...Begin 1994: ly said: "I mean they keep talking about cal positivists...
...The probcompelling is his valiant try to be honest Rahner...
...OF REL...
...Gloria Durka Dennis O'Brien tale which speaks straightforwardly about Dr...
...I couldn't even defect properly...
...virtue of attempted honesty...
...he lost the faith of Holy Angels (his gram- lignantly skewering Sister Mary Ignatius...
...that's just a prayer...
...Anyone seriously interested in the they haven't reached the same denials, they Your mentor: Dr...
...Modern "analytic" phi- cluding most of his fellow faculty-had I do not finally agree with Beeching's losophy (post-Wittgenstein), while hardly any more real interest in the great tradiconclusion about the content of the new enthralled with theological issues, is at least tion than modern man has in the Great theology, but I do agree that it is often so more broad-minded about the many, var- Church...
...John Nelson Paul Q. Beeching used to defend it...
...John Bias -for parish, school & home the bizarre quality of so much traditional THE EDUCATION OF AN AMERI- devotional life and the arguments (from YOUTH MINISTRY...
...Assocs...
...Rudolph Otto defined significance...
...ular notion that secularism or religious inIn physics the more facts we know SHOW UP difference is the regnant attitude among about atoms, the better...
...equal disillusion with his chosen acacan certainly be earnest in pursuit of so- While I admire Beeching's assiduous pur- demic profession...
...For a time he had hoped cial justice-but what do all those odd New suit of philosophy, his allegiance to log- that a Newmanesque pursuit of "liberal Testament stories have to do with South ical positivism seems to me only slightly education" would offer substitute salvaAmerica...
...This is a plain, unvarnished Your mentors: Dr...
...Mary Ann Jordan disastrous...
...It is the loss Your mentors: Dr...
...We are a sort of cosmic joke or disended his teaching career happily teach- aster, beings whose loves and hopes ing the New Testament as the hodge- exceed what nature would prudently conpodge of texts and traditions it represents...
...REL...
...That sort of faith nual UCLA survey of college freshmen is a supernatural add on to natural science...
...Those supernaturals Thomistic deductions...
...THEY ALL and found in it a confutation of the popBut faith is not a "spiritual science...
...In the pilgrimage, they seemed to see it primar- natural (or at least nonnatural) is every- great impersonal machinery of Nature, who ily as a horizontal mission of material sal- where in evidence...
...mar school...
...PASTORAL CARE AGING...
...He versities to convey to their students the the UCLA survey, it is generally upbeat concludes that one may need "a grace for intellectual depth and breadth of Catholic on the subject, especially where Catholics disbelief...
...He re- ly to German theologians...
...Worse yet, Beeching of the new theologies...
...His book is a pleasure to read...
...Coming to that the plain conclusion is substantially Is there a sober theory for the super- religion from academic theology or an(and discreetly...
...Beeching worries schools and lamented the general decline cently at Tufts, Michael Hunt has written about a revisionist church following him of liberal arts education, as well as the spe- his own largely anecdotal account of rein his unbelief like "the hound of heav- cific failure of Catholic colleges and uni- ligion on campus, and, like his reading of en...
...He expertly mines the primary sources to reveal a story of both political collaboration and moral courage, of ideological compromise and spiritual conviction, of faithless betrayal of the Church and selfless fidelity to its moral tradition...
...It seems ural set of categories...
...0-89633-169-5 Available at bookstores or through University Press of America, 1-800-462-6420 ETHICS AND PUBLIC POLICY CENTER 1015 Fifteenth Street NW Washington, DC 20005 Commonweal 10 September 1993: 25...
...Modern church sermons (Hume favored "the calm passions...
...The Baltimore 24: 10 September 1993 Commonweal Catechism and Q.E.D...
...Yet how many Americans know what these vast and ancient Christian Churches stand for, especially on crucial issues of freedom and human rights, war and peace, and national security...
...Although a professor of SABBATICAL...
...tant conviction experienced by Adams...
...Where Adams fancies the Virgin Mother - as counter to the mechanical "dynamo" of FORDHAM the present world, Beeching is clear that the dynamo won out and he cannot settle UNIVERSITY DEVOTIONAL for an aesthetic romance with the Lady of NEW YORK Chartres...
...i "It is time for a new dialogue [between the Orthodox Church and Protestantism], and it would be hard to imagine a better starting point than this book...
...Beeching's title is a deliberate echo of ment...
...In this unprecedented analysis, Fr...
...There is a parallel text II church somewhere in the region of the rock and religion are equally suspect...
...it is Paulist Press, $9.95, 172 pp...
...He surd...
...His own re- -through to Supervised Practicum modern Catholics congregate to ward off jection of the supernatural stems from THEOLOGICAL RENEWAL...
...is a likely loser from the start...
...John Shea, OSA is brisk) somewhere between daffy and ral on a broad scale: not just odd devo- Dr...
...It is, of course, an individu- He confesses a deep nostalgia for the tra- Your mentors: Dr...
...Alexander F. C. Webster looks at the Russian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the much smaller but vocal Orthodox groups in the United States...
...This disillusion with academia may be whelmed with footnotes to all the Fathers, Maybe even the language of prayer...
...Gloria Durka in the case of this reader, the pathway is were to be a believer in 1993, he would -for DREs, Parish Admins...
...At the same time, I have no of the sins fostered by Beeching's brand Personally, I have always cherished Bon- immediate sympathy for the supernatural of Catholicism is casting faith as a set of hoeffer's comment about his experience of the curator of the Congregation for the true propositions which could be proved at Union Theological Seminary...
...supernatural (at least as devotional Cath- "the holy" as mysterium, tremendum, et I am quite convinced that any attempt olicism would have it) is, I believe, alto- fascinans...
...29 how you have never ceased to offend God his own philosophical predilection, howAWARDS: Full/Partial Scholarships and how you should be thankful he has ever, is his clear perception that the aver- Mission Dioceses (78), Anniversary not annihilated you already...
...ward and Michael Hunt offered lains, like Hunt himself, at secular uniI have said that Beeching has the great contrasting views on the state of versities...
...MICHAEL BOURDEAUX, director, Keston Research, Oxford, England 365 pages $24.50 cloth ISBN...
...Webster has a vigorous and jargon free style...
...Perhaps the two sources...
...when some Catholic (tel: 718-817-4800) modest way, Beeching compares his acquaintance of theirs dies without the BRONX, NEW YORK 10458-5163 Catholic loss of faith to the loss of Protes- last sacraments...
...Your mentor: Dr...
...He said Doctrine of the Faith-or the Grateful by the literal historicity of the Bible or the great lesson of his year in America was Dead for that matter...
...In his own desperately worried...
...One sees as the prophet of "the death of God...
...of his own "loss of faith" and which, he PASTORAL COUNSELING...
...many Catholics (or ex-) of our generation spiritual development whose spiritual journey has descended RELIGION AND SOCIETY...
...The "devotional Catholicism" of the insists, is the central reality (and problem) HOSPITAL CPE...
...Rahner's effort is not a re- Michael J. Hunt, C.S.P...
...catarrh with crossed candles...
...of the church...
...Woodward focused on Catholic three such secular campuses, most rether faith or un-faith...
...Hunt took off from the an- are concerned...
...Flamboyantly, Catholic Modernists...
...Vincent Novak, SJ Beeching at age twelve or so asking his enough philosophy, post-the-Jesuits at -bibl., liturg., systematic...
...John Bias fate of the Roman Catholic should certainly ask why not...
...ceptive rather than hostile to a religious (A point I tried to make in my review of n Commonweal's education issue message raises the stakes both for Catholic The Catechism of the Catholic Faith in of April 9, 1993, Kenneth Wood- higher education and for Newman chapCommonweal, May 7, 1993...
...He often finds him- one may assert that human beings are "abself agreeing with their conclusions...
...But the trou- Catholic students in higher edu- Based on eighteen years' experience at ble is knowing how to be honest about ei- cation...
...I hope so, because I agree with titheology (Thomist, Postivist, Modernist, admires Dietrich Bonhoeffer whom he Beeching and Ratzinger that it is the crux etc...
...He quotes Rahner: FOR APPLICATIONS & INFORMATION: "Of course not...
...Fredrica Halligan education in "devotional Catholicism," of any belief in the supernatural which Margaret Burke, MA and both recall Luke Appling's talent for Beeching develops as the central theme -through to Supervised Practicum hitting foul balls...
...point to homo faber and suggest that it is cal scholars-most of whom he sees as the Pick your own Madonna...
...tional Thomism...
...18, June 23, Aug...
...How many are capable of feeling FORDHAM UNIVERSITY The Education of Henry Adams...
...familiar indeed...
...CREDIT FREE...
...related to his problem of faith...
...most telling anecdote in the book is English literature, he studied more than Your mentor: Fr...
...which is worth mentioning: an almost "supernatural...
...to the supernatural...
...analysis of social issues church would profit from read- For all his criticisms, often bitter, social ministry and education ing Paul Beeching's sad account of how Beeching is not Christopher Durang ma- PARISH/PASTORAL MINISTRY...
...CATHOLICISM Beeching is no literary stylist or pro- matches your interests: found spiritual writer, but he has an awk- ADULT, FAMILY, COMMUNITY HITS THE ROCKS ward candor which needs to be fairly RELIGIOUS EDUCATION...
...Minimal Catholicism" as themselves as either Roman Catholics Beeching regards it is not so much a dras- (30.5 percent) or born-again Christians tic reduction in the number of truths held John B. Breslin (31.7 percent...
...Or, of course, one may think that What Beeching cannot accept is that these these very loves and hopes reveal someminimal/critical conclusions have much thing super-natural about human history...
...prewar, pre-Vatican II church seems to for the post-Vatican II church...
...Beeching much natural...
...Beeching (and to myself when the wind Beeching senses loss of the supernatu- Your mentors: Dr...
...Can't I have my good works less out of date than adherence to tradi- tion...
...What makes Beeching so attended more rock concerts and read less ralistic categories is impossible...
...Chicago respectively, underwent early sistence on "the supernatural...
...gards Rahner as "an extreme example of draws an American-style "bottom line" to This is no place to attempt a full disminimalism"-not in the same universe what might well be gathered from some cussion of the supernatural, but it does seem with Holy Angels...
...D high culture...
...I think Beeching is substantially correct Beeching's main story is disillusion in locating the problem of the post-Vatican with the church...
...Maybe Beeching should have to redescribe human experience in natugether common...
...buried in phenomenologese or over- ied, and often peculiar uses of language...
...German Martinez, OSB al journey toward disillusion, but at least ditional church and suggests that if he Dr...
...Only when Kool-Aid is transubvation understandable to all creeds, the correct about the Last Judgment, but what stantiated into the person of Paul Q. kingdom of the here and now...
...Beeching's text just plain strange...
...considered...
...I expect that there are -growth in faith, moral formation, Thomas More Press, $21.95, 405 pp...
...Perhaps more important than Jan...
...Thus The fault of so-called devotional Catholhe says of Thomas Merton: "By the end icism is that on its face (or with the pashe had accepted so much of the new the- sage of time and culture) it is disconnected ology that only a thin affirmation of a God from the deep currents of human life, crein Nature and a reverence for tradition kept ating a kind of extrinsic, supernatural him in the church...
...Do you be- age Catholic of the day gives not a thought Awards for candidates from overseas lieve that...
...CAN CATHOLIC pulpit to textbook Thomism) which were YOUNG ADULTHOOD...
...Beeching and I are about be with Cardinal Ratzinger...
...the same age, we grew up in Gary and preciates in Ratzinger is the cardinal's in- SPIRITUAL DIRECTION...
...The central image of the THE PRICE OF PROPHECY Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom, and Security Alexander F C. Webster Foreword by George Huntston Williams As Eastern Europe struggles to emerge from its Communist past, the public moral witness of its Orthodox Churches has assumed a special importance to Americans seeking a truly just world order...
...so in devotional students on college campuses: more than Catholicism: the more truths you accept, FOR MASS three-fifths of the respondents described the better...
...Amen...
...He has concluded that no one-inwithout fantastic faiths...
...to me that beings who write autobiogracharges that the Fathers of Vatican II Is Beeching correct about the loss of phies somehow fall out of the merely natabandoned the supernatural...
...Rahner is probably cares...
...game" of indulgences and devotions...
...strain...
...Janet Ruffing, RSM Dr...
...Mary Byrne on Saint Blaise and wonders how many main story of Christian life...
...the Christian fear of death and the last judg- GRAD...
...He has read widely in a va- terious, tremendous, and fascinating, but "other-than-natural...
...are we to make of the cult of the rock band Beeching in this act of memory is it of any What Beeching regards as loss of the the Grateful Dead...
...Continued on page 24) Commonweal 10 September 1993: 21 Beeching thinks that Rahner certainly "that God had not revealed himself sole- seem all too often not super-natural but didn't worry about such matters...
...Catholic colleges...
Vol. 120 • September 1993 • No. 15
