Bishops & generals
Carlin, David R. Jr.
gage more of their attention. "This is a very interesting area where I live," writes one of the alumnae reporting on her life. In my mind's eye I see her, a serene, calm, and smiling...
...They sense that to give in on these points would be to capitulate to AZ an individualist mentality which is fundamentally hostile to the institutionalist mentality on which they have staked their lives and upon which the future of their institutions depends...
...In short, she will identify with some particular in- nothing to do with institutionalism and evthe bishops and generals may have better stitution...
...There are affluent places, individual generosity Maybe, just maybe, with new leaders we "cheese days" in her post office town of supplements government beneficence, be- will start anew, slowed down like Bob Hope's Colby "with all sorts of activities" and a cause it has to...
...with them, especially not with a single in- Catholic church...
...They sell the ginseng to China where they use it for medicine...
...to the small-town Midwest...
...they could care less about these explained once or twice in this space...
...Arkansas is still a collection of small, very steered Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legShe is busy with the activities common Southern communities...
...It may seem a strange life to sophisti- BISHOPS & GENERALS cates but no one can deny that it has been INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITIES a life lived to the full with enjoyment-a life lived in touch with family and community, a very Midwestern life...
...We may be- in the priesthood, since those pushing ed gays in the military he would have long to institutions or use them or work hardest for ordination of women normalmentioned it during his gospel conversa- for them...
...which would involve, among other things, namely, that if Jesus had wanted women "Arkansans are, no question, folks of admitting women to the priesthood-oth- to be priests he would have anticipated our Commonweal 15 January 1993: 9 late-twentieth-century controversy and, much in common: both have committed fessional imperative that causes this ficklike Bill Clinton, appointed a few of them their lives to institutions...
...better opportunities to exercise my protheless I'm not holding my breath while They have gone much further than that...
...stand, come from Arkansas...
...If your enemy advances a legitimate claim on you, you have no choice but to give him his due, even if he advances the claim from "All in favor say, `Hey, man, you've got yourself a deal...
...This is a very interesting area where I live," writes one of the alumnae reporting on her life...
...far from it...
...to life in rural America-volunteer work South's distrust of all things Northern, es- "Arkansans generally make shrewd for the Christian Mothers' Society, acting pecially Washington and its bossy big-gov- politicians, since making a way out of no as vice-president of the County Extension ernment presumptions...
...They are doing so because I might be expected to be receptive to good construct a spectrum showing the degree they have a profound personal commitarguments for keeping gays and lesbians of identification between personality and ment to promoting and defending what out of the military...
...0 and saw lumber with the engines-there are eleven in the show...
...but we do not identify ourselves ly have a high level of commitment to the tion with the Roman centurion...
...It is a pro- Catholic church...
...This is even Now, the gay rights movement is ining apparently unwise decisions...
...o 10: 15 January 1993 Commonweal...
...kinds of antiques on display, and about twenty-five flea markets...
...But to date I haven't institution, priests and military officers they conceive to be the rights of gays and heard any...
...She tells of the ginseng growers nearby, the largest growers in the country...
...The situation is somewhat different who opposes the admission of homosex- For the most part Americans are individ- when it comes to the question of women uals has yet argued that if Jesus had want- ualists, not institutionalists...
...They have three dance bands, a large building with all OF SEVERAL MINDS David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Perhaps the most different of those "out ecently a letter to the ed- erwise it will soon find few women in its there," and those we most need to under- itor appeared in a local ranks...
...in fact it is not the only hierarchy interested in keep- thing of a nonmilitary life even during their probably the most striking example on ing the door closed on certain newcom- years of service (they usually marry and the current American scene of the phiers...
...In fact, the the press and public opinion, including quently a significant gap between intuitive more a person identifies with his or her some Catholic public opinion-whose insight and the abstract formula offered profession, the less likely it is that he or support for the ordination of women has as an expression of that insight...
...Now my quite as far as priests in their level of in- have a profound personal commitment to sympathy with the gay rights movement stitutional identification, they nonethe- the well-being of the Army, Navy, and is something less than profound, as I have less go much, much farther than most Air Force...
...Laura Sessions newspaper...
...They have only to go back, one, maybe two, gen- ters, sending people to Congress like live like our great grandparents....They are erations to recall a life that was not com- [Senator William] Fulbright and Senator good people, always the first ones to help fortable by Washington standards....Today, Joe T. Robinson, the majority leader who in the case of fire or tornadoes...
...Professionals are notorious for erything to do with a philosophy of radireasons than they are giving for keeping shifting institutional allegiances, moving cal individualism...
...If we were to institutions...
...High-ranking military folks are none have children), and they normally retire losophy of radical individualism...
...To the credit of the generals would be at one end of the spectrum while lesbians...
...Hard times also help explain why thrifty and generous like the people of "Our family has an antique steam en- many Arkansans distrust the wealthy and Arkansas, and, like them, exerting the tenacgine....Thousands come to see them thresh why the state historically has been more ity necessary to effect needed change...
...In my mind's eye I see her, a serene, calm, and smiling white-haired woman who has lived all of her life on a farm, first in Minnesota where she was bom, then in Wisconsin with her husband of fiftythree years...
...She writes of the modest means...
...Even well-to-do residents populist/progressive than its Southern sisAmish in a settlement not far away...
...fessional skills than institution A, then it waiting for the church to collapse if it de- they have identified themselves with the becomes something of a professional oblicides to continue keeping women out...
...Her year is Little Rock, is one-third the size of the Dis- bulldog tactics by watching Fulbright, for studded with the local festivals common trict [of Columbia...
...They don't just leness: If institution B will provide me with to his cabinet of twelve apostles...
...from one corporation, hospital, universi- could care less about the well-being of the Priests and career military officers have ty, law firm, etc., to another...
...Two "This man isn't here just for free drinks, Senator...
...It was written I sympathize with those who favor the Stepp, a Washington writer who spent her by an irate Catholic wo- ordination of women, and I confess that early life in that state, thinks Washing- man who warned that the my deficient education in theology makes tonians need to learn what Arkansans are Catholic church had better straighten out it hard for me to grasp the cogency of the "and definitely are not" (Washington Post, its act regarding women-a rectification most popular argument to the contrary, November 29, 1992...
...The bishops and generals, I suspect, understand that there is something more involved here than the relatively narrow issues of women in the priesthood and gays in the military...
...pushing for admission of homosexuals to to remove the ban against homosexuals in But if career military people don't go the military are not doing so because they the Army, Navy, and Air Force...
...And every year there is a huge an- because someday you may need your attle, enjoying its simple pleasures like my tique show near Wausau, the urban cen- neighbor's help...
...There's fre- as institutionalism...
...He wants some answers.' or three Chinese are in the area all year to check on the crop...
...Home-makers' Club, sharing in a birth- or New Orleans, and our biggest city, Clinton may have picked up some of his day club in her neighborhood...
...and most of these allies the door shut on women and gays...
...But they have reasons we give, even when we are try- Yes, but professionalism is not the same powerful allies in the outside world-in ing to be perfectly sincere...
...so contemporary Americans...
...they themselves are loBut as Cardinal Newman used to point stitution...
...ist end of the spectrum...
...we have the Old islation through Congress...
...None- work for an institution, as most of us do...
...more true for priests than for career mil- spired by an individualist mentality, not The Catholic hierarchy, it turns out, is itary personnel, since the latter have some- a spirit of institutionalism...
...bad motives...
...Food and beer stands are busy all day...
...Many of us, it will be said, iden- cated pretty far toward the institutionalout, the reasons we have are often not the tify ourselves in terms of our professions...
...it is the institution that gives gation to desert A in favor of B. Rome has a long track record of surviv- them their personal identity...
...Those too pleased that President Clinton plans before the age of fifty...
...and admirals, it should be noted, no one most Americans would be at the other end...
...She is happily in touch with her five children, grown and scattered now, but busy with her own life, and appreciative of its variety...
...We have no Atlanta way is a thing that tends to be learned early...
...In these small and un- whom he worked...
...Midwestern sister alumna, being at once ter of her world...
...institutions...
...You help your neighbor Texans, savoring life like the people of Separade...
...Of course this is still not a good enough reason to reject women and gays...
Vol. 120 • January 1993 • No. 1
