`A civilization of love'

...I may think reaffirm the celebration of faith and unity it is permissible in extreme situations...

...To of continuity and stability and the vibrant have laws imposed on one from the outministry of the Catholic church" (Boston side, even when the outside lawgiver is Globe, August 8...

...Not only did they take would expect the pope to avoid the issue, gone and the joyous, lov- issue with the church on sexual issues but it was apparent that the pope's reference ing faces of the young they felt that it was not "cool" to be was almost oblique, only urging Americans people in Denver may Catholic...

...He was to them the personification of faith, "of things GOING, GOING, GONE hoped for, the evidence of things not THE DIMINUTION OF THE SELF seen...

...Its etymology reservations about her...

...what I suppose was an attempt at humor, OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy what I thought the "perp" was up to "lecturing us about violence...

...molested children have produced a higher number of vocations If this is indeed the case, the priest shortage may prove more than parishes not so afflicted...

...Even as the pope was being hailed by happy hundreds of thousands, newspaper 'A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE' headlines and TV news reports strove to THE POPE IN DENVER make much of the pope's supposed surprising of President Bill Clinton by referring to abortion during their meeting...

...hearing before the Senate Judiciary those at the ideological end of the conThat which was ineffable superseded Committee, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tinuum...

...But that did not affect the love they right to abortion is essential to a woman's logical point of view...

...the civilization of love" to which he sum- gives its meaning: self-rule, from the It does not take much listening to promoned them...

...They were enthusiastic about Greek word "nomos"-rendered into En- choice true believers in order to grasp that taking up the task "of the defense of human glish as "rule" or "law...

...I t I 1 Other stories anticipating the pope's "All I can say is, we didn't have this crazy weather when the pope was Italian...

...At one end of the spectrum is tion rights...

...Franklin quoted Gerald P. Fogarty, S.J., author of The Vatican and the American Hierarchy: "He comes at a time of a certain amount of demoralization in the American church, part of which was due to his conservatism and part due to a very low priestly morale, which is in turn due to the problem of sexual abuse...

...than his words...

...Anti-aborspoke...

...I don't say she is herself an ide-' whatever they disagreed with in his teach- the newest justice of the United ologue...

...that they are to remain ent conflict between American Catholics in a state of quasi-servitude...

...What's life" (however they might interpret that) and tonomous, you are self-governing...

...If you are au- autonomy is their cardinal issue...

...While the pope was still in teraction with the pope, for whom their with the teachings of the church...

...He was the living symbol of the worldwide church in which they found their unity and identity...

...No wonder the aborfound in his message and in the mission he autonomy...

...Apart B yy the time you read this the coming stressed the misgivings of some from the fact that no reasonable reporter pope will have been long young people...

...When the ideologue demonpressed what many others felt when she know if abortion is right or wrong, but I'm strates a sense of outrage at the prospect said that having seen and touched the sure glad my girlfriend got one...

...In saying abor- of self-rule...

...You, for instance, may message, to depart from the text, and to think stealing is always wrong...

...My research shows...," misspokesman Archbishop John Foley astonished at least some Greeley writes, "that a confidant relationship between a celiviewers of "This Week with David Brinkley" by telling Cokie bate priest and a married woman produces a payoff in marital Roberts of ABC News that some parishes where priests have happiness and sexual fulfillment for both her and her husband...

...and which was the Denver experience...

...only time will tell...

...tion radicals have overcome their initial entrusted to them...

...Italy, Pakistan-they struggled for the i words to tell how they felt about the pope and what he meant to them...

...In fact, at one point he seemed to have made the determination to celebrate that which There were to be demonstrations by pro- a tactful decision to eliminate the final binds all Catholics will stay with us...

...At bottom, the issue is moral and a young woman from Uganda ex- the mere pragmatist, who opines: "I don't autonomy...

...and their church, might have been better The concept of moral autonomy was prepared for the joy and love in Denver, introduced into modem philosophy by had they listened to the Reverend Richard Immanuel Kant late in the eighteenth John Neuhaus, when he said, "After twen- century...

...But she found ing-and disagree they did in many in- States Supreme Court, said that the just the right word to express the ideostances...

...that the absence of contention there and you don't tell anyone where you're going...

...and they give the law to yourself, as opposed to incidentally, sexual conductor population found the beginning of the "civilization of having it imposed on you by someone else...

...It was perhaps this lion different individuals giving law to realization that caused him to expunge themselves, won't this result in a million some of the sterner remarks from his final different laws...

...For ex- Jamaica before arriving in Mexico and then love was palpable...

...tion is essential to a woman's autonomy, that they are not fully adult (a privilege The media, so obsessed by the appar- reserved for men...

...They were ready to build The word is striking...

...visit in 1979....Crowds were smaller when he returned in 1987 for a visit to the South and West...

...He was the em- n the course of her confirmation Ginsburg spoke in the precise accents of blem of the transcendent in their lives...

...Unwittingly, per- a virtual field day of criticism on the radio was happening in Denver, something the haps, we have accepted the attitude adopt- talk shows...

...Kant was convinced that the ty-five years of what many view of con- freedom and dignity of the human person fusion sometimes verging on chaos, I required that the individual obey only think people are ready for a celebration those laws given by himself or herself...

...But I hope college student, "you slip out of the dorm- take issue with any specific Clinton stance...

...control or health or money or getting love" in his message itself...

...God may work in mysterious ways, but not, we trust, in this way...

...Commonweal 10 September 1993: 5 delegates from abroad-France, Mexico, OF SEVERAL MINDS David R. Carlin, Jr...

...E this third fellow (the one who never re6: 10 September 1993 Commonweal...

...Defending celibacy in Newsweek, the Reverend Andrew Greeley revealed the rather THERE'S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY Vatican startling results of yet another survey...

...ferred: "and protect the human person sponse of the young who came to Denver Hostile cartoons appeared, and there were from conception to natural death...

...If you go to church," said one to "defend life," and he certainly did not have faded from our memories...

...This was a radical thought himself seemed warmed by the realization indeed, and at first glance it would seem that the beginnings of his "civilization of to lead to anarchy...

...and of most of the adults who came with reports of ribald night club acts as well as Meanwhile something very different them) was unexpected...

...It was this rapport with the young- is among a small number of fundamental tion legislation is seen as tantamount to to some extent a newfound rapport-that human rights, and therefore it must not be telling women that they are not capable impressed our American bishops more infringed upon in any way...

...You at stake for them in abortion is not, except "the promotion of human rights...

...ET CETERA FATHER KNOWS BEST...

...Some of us were formidably commentators and anchors were missing ed by much of the media-an attitude fed reminded of the old saying, "anti-Cath- but something very apparent to those by a recent Gallup poll documenting the olicism is the anti-Semitism of the intel- watching the crowds and seeing their indisagreement of many American Catholics lectuals...

...Prochoice people come in many reasons commonly given to justify aborican, echoing what many others had said, varieties...

...Queried, one after the ample, James L. Franklin, writing in the Denver, I was appalled at being approached other, whether they came from the varied Boston Globe (August 8) predicted that by a prominent woman lawyer asking, in regions of the United States or were youth "there may not be as much enthusiasm for the pope's visit as there was at his first U.S...

...God, is to be in the unhappy condition of As the days in Denver went by, the pope heteronomy...

...that they are not free agents...

...choice Catholics, gays and lesbians, and words of a 1987 speech to which he reFor many of us the quality of the re- the Women's Ordination Conference...

...In connecting abortion and autonomy, through college or avoiding so-called "un"There's such wonderful love in his mes- Justice Ginsburg hit a certain nail right on wanted children" or any of the myriad of sage," said one eighteen-year-old Amer- the head...

...At the of even the slightest legal restrictions on pope, she knew she could return home and other end is the true-believing ideologue, abortion, she (usually she, though on ocdo the work of helping others of which he who dogmatizes: "The right to abortion casions he) is totally sincere...

...For if we have a millove" already existed...

...Such anecdotal comment would catastrophic than we had feared...