Editorials:
CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 18 Correspondence: ...
...Such an understanding was once the common view in the West Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is and it had its counterparts in other world religions and philosophical systems...
...8 There goes the neighborhood: Abigail McCarthy 9 'Veritatis splendor': Lawrence S. Cunningham, Joseph A. Komonchak, Dennis M. Doyle, Charles E. Curran, Janet E. Smith, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Stanley Hauerwas, Anne E. Patrick 11 Veritatis splendor An offer they couldn't refuse: Richard Goodman 19 0 n first reading Veritatis splendor, we were relieved to find that it was Art: Lee Siegel 21 addressed to the author's "Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate...
...First, people can sacrifice their lives unnecesto revisionist moral theologians are presented in extreme forms, sarily or give them up in bad causes...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...denying the universality and • All of these, and Veritatis splendor in their wake, seem immutability of natural law...
...commandments, particularly those which prohibit always and • In reading and thinking about Veritatis splendor, we could without exception intrinsically evil acts" (115...
...Nonetheless, the careful readAssociate Editor: Paul Baumann er will detect a subtext dealing with issues of sexual morality that are thought to Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell have precipitated John Paul Il's six-year writing effort...
...Moral Imagination/Moral Sense: Still, editorial duty called, requiring a second reading, a third-and a fourth over Dennis O'Brien 26 the most difficult passages...
...Dare we confess that some were held to the light to Medicine at the Crossroads: see what might be behind them...
...Screen: Richard Alleva 22 Pope John Paul II's latest encyclical, all 179 pages and 40,000 words of it, is tough going, even apart from the obscure prose and the perBOOKS haps too careful use of indirect statement...
...the credibility of church officers and diminishing the vitality of Catholic institutions...
...These include the non-collegial seincompatible with revealed truth" (29...
...dividing the unity of the person...
...according the long-established Leadership Conference of Women conscience the status of a supreme tribunal...
...A press re- been built over the last decades...
...For example, this pope (and the American Catholic bishops) John Paul's enthusiasm may reveal a great deal about his excondemned any use of nuclear weapons in war, yet gave moral perience and his spirituality...
...and political violence as well as personal and social corruption...
...REPORT FROM GROTON SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY TIP THE CANOE & TRIDENT, TOO F first, you have to find an unobtrusive, secluded entry point to lower the canoe into the Thames River...
...From our reading, we make the following points...
...Portland, Me...
...Wearing life vests and armed with a huge banner ("Trident Is a Crime...
...women religious parallel to • The errors include: making freedom an absolute...
...teachings to educated and critically reflective Catholics who • The world's woes and travesties cannot be far from the require information, persuasion, and a sense of firm and inpope's mind or memory when he writes to the bishops: "Each telligent conviction in those who teach...
...Second, martyrdom, so general that even the "dissenters" would find them unex- when it comes, must be freely chosen...
...But perhaps this is understand- from entering...
...ical order and the order of salvation...
...The pope's concern to point to the universality of natu- the oath of fidelity...
...You disissuing its irreformable decree...
...11 Graffam Rd., So...
...cific cases cannot be so easily evaded, nor can the real ambiguities in Scripture and tradition...
...In this, the Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, pope rejects relativism, consequentialism, and individualism...
...So, who better than the The Troubled Dream of Life: bishops to hunker down, reflect upon, and render considered judgment on what the William F. May 25 pope has to say...
...So it goes...
...The all-too-common, moral theologians and then call on them to demonstrate loyal "I am free to do as I please (at least in the matter at hand)," ex- assent, internal as well as external, to "authentic" teaching does presses a kind of moral agnosticism that can only end in wreck- little to resolve the problem...
...Madeline Marget 28 The Sixties: David Castronovo 26 Some things are clear: STAFF • Veritatis splendor neither raises the ante on the ban against artificial contraception nor extends the claims of papal infallibility, as rumors of earlier drafts and Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan recent but premature headlines had seemed to suggest...
...Stage: Gerald Weales • The encyclical insists on the existence of objective moral norms founded in Poetry: Rosemary Deen natural law and accessible to human reason in making moral judgments...
...denying a distinction rather than marking necessary boundaries, will end in eroding between mortal and venial sins...
...For all of its strengths, there are real difficulties with the • In his closing pages, the pope writes, "Martyrdom, acencyclical's analysis and its message: cepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order, • As the pope's reflections and argumentation proceed bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God's law and through chapters 2 and 3, the supporting analysis often seems to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man...
...his Christological emphasis...
...They enter in pairs, walk down the narsophical treatise judged it "an insidious attack on sexual be- row entrance way, when they suddenly kneel down and begin havior in general...
...We think that the eight women and men, whom or the Three Stooges...
...proceedings...
...Police and Coast Guard boats lease issued by the federation's president, Pamela J. Maraldo, cruise the river so that the launching ceremonies, attended by who is identified as "a practicing Roman Catholic," denounced thousands of military guests, can proceed undisturbed...
...Maraldo concluded by warning of "the and holding it aloft...
...There are, he writes, "trends of the- of the catechism...
...A cool breeze PLANNED FALSEHOODS The theologians and blows and the Thames River sparkles...
...And he wishes "to draw lection of bishops...
...Veritatis splendor, though in some respects a very "churchy" document, speaks Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, to many of the world's problems: Pamela Quatse • Many-Catholics and non-Catholics alike-will find the pope's insistence a Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor bracing reminder of what is essential in determining and pursuing the common good, Publisher: Edward S. Skillin whether in the tribal village or the global village-and now more so than ever in the post-cold war world...
...Moral abphers and theologians would subscribe...
...ed in history and in any true understanding of Jesus' mission...
...in Rome and in this country for dialogue between bishops and 4: 22 October 1993 Commonweal theologians as the encyclical was being officially issued are canoe under your arms, looking much like the Marx Brothers to be welcomed...
...Instead, the encycliof us can see the seriousness of what is involved, not only for cal and its catalogue of errors looks to become the mechanism individuals but also for the whole of society, with the reaf- for the purging from seminaries and perhaps other Catholic firmation of the universality and immutability of the moral institutions of all but rote proclaimers of the moral law...
...This is true...
...we invited to comment in this issue, contribute a great deal Five blocks down, you find a secluded niche between two to opening that dialogue...
...his call for repentance and a new evangeDesign: Emil Antonucci Screen: Richard Alleva lization...
...making a sharp distinction between the eth- while re-ordaining married priests from the Episcopal church...
...After five minutes, one pair is arrested and esable, for, as Planned Parenthood admits, "the new encyclical corted to a waiting van, the public starts to file in for the ceredevotes only one paragraph (out of 200 pages) to condemning monies again, and another pair kneels down to call a halt to the various sexual acts...
...the manipulation of several universal attention to those elements of the church's teaching which today synods, their agendas, and outcomes...
...Rhode Island, the deadliest weapon ever created in the history of the world...
...granting reason com- Religious...
...splendor are real, but perhaps misplaced...
...At the same time, this treatment avoids the hard out...
...The actual practices of the And in conclusion: church in past centuries also cannot be ignored (the toleration, We have no sharp conclusions...
...elevating a "fundamental option to be part of a strategy to raise up a defensive perimeter that, for the good" above concrete moral choices...
...Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr., Sidney Callahan, Liz Leibold McCloskey, Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr...
...Our anxieties about Veritatis if not approval, of slavery and torture springs to mind...
...ment of an organization for U.S...
...So also with of hectoring, and less holy, enthusiasts: those who are willing developing views on ectopic pregnancies and the withdrawal not to be martyrs but to make martyrs (metaphorically, at least) of life support systems...
...The sky overhead shines a clear, bright blue...
...general formulations prohibiting murder, theft, lying, adultery, etc., are the moral and monthly July and August, by Commonweal rules by which millions of people around the world still live-certainly in principle Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...It should not be imposed or induced...
...04106 (207) 799- • In this country and elsewhere-Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Cambodia, South Africa, 4387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 Dutch St...
...It is dangerous to take the forms to which few if any "dissenters" among Catholic philoso- fact of persecution as confirmation of being right...
...Despite your best efforts, you and your friends are spotted by a woman in the neighborhood who immediately alerts the police about your suspicious activities with the canoe...
...Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt • The pope's opening reflections on the Gospel story of the rich young man Business Manager: Richard Haas (Matt...
...It should not be sought ceptionable...
...Indeed, published biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...The painful dilemmas presented by spe- of any who do not fall in line...
...and his profound sense of human solidarity have great moral power...
...Catholic higher education and its pending ral law notwithstanding, he focuses his scrutiny most sharply ordinances...
...At least Planned Parenthood tried to count the pages before The current is fast and you are clipping along now...
...Calls • Yes, there are bad ideas loose in the Catholic church...
...You are careful not to attract attention...
...These reflect a decline in moral standards and point to the slackening of efforts toward socialization Commonweal 22 October 1993: and of social pressures that invite the willing compliance of But the encyclical's effort to ascribe those bad ideas to Catholic both children and adults to a moral code...
...Time will tell...
...A tricky call-and one that, in some propriately embrace it, but for those who become the targets interpretations, relied on a form of proportionalism...
...10038...
...This approach fails to understand ing the lives of individuals, undermining communities, and the underlying tensions involved in conveying authoritative corroding human solidarity...
...vast schism that already threatens to permanently divide and Meanwhile, seventeen other peace-activist friends by now destroy Catholicism...
...But we fear it is an enthusiasm sanction to the building, stocking, and aiming of these weapons that is contagious and fatal, not for those who freely and apfor the sake of deterrence...
...In contrast, the pope solutes may demand martyrdom, but martyrdom does not necputs forth Catholic moral norms and methods in formulations essarily demonstrate moral absolutes...
...CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 18 Correspondence: 2 Editorials: 3 Sub-versive activity: John Dear 5 Get me to the church on time: Jo McGowan 6 Single-parenthood is okay!: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...houses where you set the canoe in the water...
...as well as the long-promised English translation on Catholic moral teaching...
...In addition, there is the centralizing and auological thinking and certain philosophical affirmations that are thoritarian style of Rome...
...The pope's overall point is well foundportionalism and the "fundamental option") in the first place...
...Two the encyclical by citing statistics on the use of birth control and friends paddle, while you and another friend are assigned the abortion not only in the United States but in Italy ("the pope's simple task of unfurling the banner at the appropriate moment very own back yard...
...obscure and convoluted...
...pitting law against freedom...
...But before the police boat pulls ashore, you and your friends have removed the canoe and are walking quickly, nonchalantly, down a side street with the Commonweal 22 October 1993: 5...
...We await their reflections and their actions...
...We thought, for example, of instructions and The principal focus is on the Catholic moral tradition: letters discussing the ecclesial responsibility of theologians...
...New York, N.Y...
...not help recalling other documents and other events of the past several years...
...Their reflections begin on page 11...
...Across the river stands church historians at Planned Parenthood Federation of America the military town of New London, Connecticut...
...Swords into Plowshares") as well as a roofing hammer (in case, by the grace of God, you are able to reach the Trident sub itself, whereupon ET CETERA you can begin again the much needed process of disarmament and dismantling), you and your friends take off down the river...
...The erroneous views that are ascribed But two points...
...Display advertising and often in practice-though the prohibited behaviors are not necessarily subsumed correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, under the rubric of intrinsically immoral acts...
...Mind you, a few hundred yards down river at the Electric Boat nuclear submarine factory in Groton, Connecticut, police and security guards have peeled their eyes on the lookout for any peace people such as ourselves who might seek to disrupt the ceremonies launching the fifteenth Trident submarine, the U.S.S...
...the unilateral establishappear particularly exposed to error, ambiguity, or neglect" (30...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Amazon-there is a high level of physical, verbal, economic, psychological, Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...10038...
...It is a gift of God and cases that brought forth forms of ethical reasoning (such as pro- not a tool of church order...
...We missed this insidious intent in our speaking out against the Trident, thus preventing the crowds reading of Veritatis splendor...
...are entering the Electric Boat complex to attend the ceremonies Maraldo's bold summary of the pope's 40,000 word philo- with the general public...
...and the ban on even discussing the ordination of women...
...You are now greeted Pope John Paul II's new encyclical with the organiza- leaving Groton, where 202 nuclear and military submarines have tion's customary intellectual and moral generosity...
...the refusal to reconsider mandatory celibacy, even plete sovereignty...
Vol. 120 • October 1993 • No. 18
