The Lustre o f Our Country
McGreevy, John
mad dog but as a controlled mad dog: Tom Wilkinson finds the method within the Marquess's madness. Vanessa Redgrave seems to understand that Wilde's mother was almost as crazy but in...
...Etienne Van Billoen, Bruxelles, Belgium...
...But while Cleo followed her Roman into Hades, Bosie abandoned Oscar for country villas, his mother's allowance, and spiteful memoirs...
...Murray's brilliance helped Noonan reCommonweal 2 0 July 17, 1998 assess his position, but also prompted doubt about the veracity of his faith...
...Catholic priests were allowed to drink wine at Mass despite 1920s Prohibition laws, but today's Native Americans are not permitted to use peyote...
...The result, thankfully, is hardly chaos or religious warfare, but religion's meaning for American politics in the current moment is not summarized by what Noonan cheerfully terms "turmoil and civic strength...
...This crusade---or, depending upon one's viewpoint, Roe v. Wade itself--has placed an agonizing, ongoing strain upon our moral and legal institutions...
...John B. Ambe, Cameroon...
...George J. Lucas, SL Louis, MO...
...His Excellency Msgr.Giovanni Moretti, Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium...
...The rector-delegates to this conference were chosen from approximately 900 applicants...
...Inevitably, the exercise of religious belief depends on a cultural consensus, enforced by the government, of what constitutes legitimate religious practice...
...And when Wilde temporarily drops Lord Alfred to devote more time to wife and sons, we hear Fry's voice narrating the giant's redemption...
...Oscar, at least in his prime, would have approved that notion, for he thought self-realization desirable at all costs...
...Mark Sang Ho Han, Hwasong-gun-Kyonggindo, Korea...
...The Lustre of Our Country will immediately take its place as the most readable and informed history of religious freedom in the United States, as well as an illuminating survey of how an American ideal becomes embodied outside American borders...
...But then, when Wilde returns to Bosie, are we not to understand that as a return to selfishness even if we hear nothing more of the story on the soundtrack...
...Doris Donnelly, Director, The Cardinal Suenens Program at John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH, & Consultation Coordinator...
...Michael J. Himes, Boston, MA...
...Jeremiah J. McCarthy, Camarillo, CA...
...It is made possible by a grant from a fdend of the cardinal...
...Carlos Rodriguez Souquet, Caracas, Venezuela...
...Ismael Moreno Coto, S.J., San Salvador, E1 Salvador...
...Paul Supamo, S.J., Yogyakarta, Indonesia...
...A printed epilogue immediately following informs us that the couple split up two months later, but those strings convey neither foreshadowing nor irony...
...Luc A, Tardif, O.M.I., Ottawa, Canada...
...By contrast, Noonan admires the American civil religion that overlaps with that of specific churches and congregations, allowing believers to serve both Washington and God...
...In Rome for the heady days of the Second Vatican Council, Noonan also served as a primary scholarly adviser for the illfated papal commission that urged Paul VI to alter traditional Catholic teaching on artificial contraception...
...But precisely because Noonan is so convincing on the merits of free exercise, few readers will raise a voice in defense of religious establishments...
...Gary Riebe-Estrella, Chicago, lL;James Walsh, Washington, DC...
...In the twentieth century the Court deemed draft resisters from certain religious backgrounds worthy of an exemption from military service, but handed other opponents of the war their induction notices...
...John A. Dick, Leuven, Belgium...
...The issue is not Noonan's own position on abortion--he authored a characteristically prescient discussion of the issue as early as 1970...
...It's a reassuring story, but one that would have seemed less persuasive to someone watching William Lloyd Garrison gleefully burn his copy of a Constitution that allowed slavery in the 1840s, and one that seems implausible today to anyone listening to the most heated voices on either side of the abortion controversy...
...Wlodzimierz Skoczny, Krak6w, Poland...
...It's clear that the filmmakers are fascinated by their hero and are aware of his complexity, but from time to time they seem nonplussed by that same complexity, and their confusion causes them to send incoherent signals to the audience...
...J. William Morell, O.M.I., San Antonio, TX...
...Meinrad, IN...
...Popes and theologians agreed that e r r o r - - t h a t is, any nonCatholic belief--might be tolerated, but only out of charity...
...Jan Van der Veken, Leuven, Belgium...
...Manuel Ginete, C.M., Cebu City, Philippines...
...Albert Mundele Ngengi, Kinshasa, Rep Dem du Congo...
...Even in a nation dedicated to religious freedom, Noonan concedes, national interests frequently trump religious concerns...
...Noonan understands these tensions quite well, but he is relatively sanguine about the situation...
...Fid61e Rakotoarisoa, Antananrivo, Madagascar...
...And the contemporary Catholic must acThe Cardinal SUENENS 79to,ram in Theoloag and Church ii"6 JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, OHIO 44118 TEL: Z16-397-1651 FAX: 216-397-1771 E-MAIL: SUENENS@JCU.EDU is honored to sponsor THE PROMISE OF PRIESTHOOD: SHAPING ITS FUTURE AN INTERNATIONAL CONSULTATION FOR RECTORS OF MAJOR SEMINARIES August 25-?_8, 1998 to be held at The American College of Louvain Leuven, Belgium Rector-Delegate Guests of The Cardinal Suenens Program: The Reverends Lode Aerts, Gent, Belgium...
...But he would have been consistent and dispensed with all the moralizing that Julian Mitchell and Brian Gilbert lay on us in the first two-thirds of this very interesting, handsome, worthwhile but not quite coherent film...
...His scholarly achievements defy casual summary, but a sustained interest in the development of Catholic doctrine has led to a series of important books on topics as disparate as bribes and annulments...
...Instead, the issue is whether the abortion dispute disrupts the narrative Noonan sketches of religious movements reminding the government and its citizens of higher values, and then helping to shape a renewed national consensus on controversial issues...
...David E. Windsor, C.M., Leuven, Belgium...
...Peter Schineller, S.J., Lagos, Nigeria...
...Another chapter--written in traditional expository prose--traces the tortured legal maneuverings that resulted in the Supreme Court's terming the opinions of a small religious sect "humbug...
...Canon Wilfried Brieven, Aartsbisdom Mechelen-Brussel, Belgium...
...Endre Gafil, Esztergom, Hungary...
...As the loyal Robert Ross, Michael Sheen conveys sweetness without the least tincture of smugness...
...Commonweal 2 | July 17, 1998 knowledge that the most important harbinger of John Paul II's persistent appeal to the primacy of human conscience is not, say, Gregory XVI who in 1832 termed "freedom of conscience" an "absurd and erroneous opinion," but James Madison, a devout Presbyterian deeply shaped by the Enlightenment...
...He begins in his native Boston, "cradle of liberty," where Puritans fleeing religious persecution commenced flogging, banishing, and hanging Quakers...
...Reggio Emilia, Italy...
...Manuel Alberto Pereira de Matos, Guarda, Portugal...
...Edward Glynn, S.J.,Acting President, John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH', Rev...
...Amirtha Raj, Naharashta State, India...
...Prof...
...Vanessa Redgrave seems to understand that Wilde's mother was almost as crazy but in a benevolent way...
...S p e a k e r s , Observers, & Special Guests: I Eminence Godfried Cardinal Danneels, Aartsbisdom Mechelen-Brussel, Belgium...
...Eric Vanden Berghe, Bruges, Belgium...
...Noonan's list of crusaders, though, is incomplete...
...In the nineteenth century the Supreme Court declared a Mormon religious practice-polygamy--unconstitutional...
...Joan Rovira Canyelles, S.J., Cuba...
...Thomas Gertler, S.J., Frankfurt, Germany...
...Few readers of Commonweal, or other journals of opinion, will deny Martin Luther King, Jr.'s status as the most important American of the latter part of this century, and surely our most important Christian witness...
...A leading Catholic textbook of the time put the matter bluntly: "If there is only one true religion, and if its possession is the most important good in life for states as well as individuals, then the public profession, protection, and promotion of this religion, and the legal prohibition of all direct assaults upon it, becomes one of the most obvious and fundamental duties of the state...
...Commonweal 2 ~ July 17, 1998...
...Noonan's remarkable career has placed him at the center of both traditions...
...Roberto Donadoni, Siena, Italy...
...Kevin Haggerty, GuildfordSurrey, Great Britain...
...But James Madison...
...Alvaro Luiz Pinzetta,Braz...
...Walter Kasper, RottenburgStuttgart, Germany...
...The book concludes with a riveting summary of debates on religious liberty (here we reencounter Noonan's old sparring partner, John Courtney Murray) at the Second Vatican Council...
...As readers might recall, the giant's garden is blighted until its owner learns generosity...
...John J. O'Donnell, S.J., Cambridge, MA...
...Yves-Marie Pean, Portau-Prince, W.L, Haiti...
...Such blanket statements tempt even the most generous reviewer, but Noonan builds a convincing argument...
...Don Lorenzo Ghizzoni...
...And at the end of the movie, Wilde's life in ruins precisely because of Bosie, his wife dying miserably for lack of the expensive operation she needed precisely because of Bosie, the children abandoned to foster parents precisely because of Bosie, Wilde reunites with his inamorato in Naples, embraces him, and the strings on the soundtrack surge up for the lovers just as jubilantly as they did for Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette in Rome Adventure or Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's...
...How should Catholics-and indeed all citizens---understand this...
...Not a simple question, obviously, but John Noonan's unique familiarity with both Catholic and American intellectual life suggests his ability to provide a compelling answer...
...Pablo Navarro, Boynton Beach, FL...
...Gustavo Guti6rrez, Lima, Peru...
...Put bluntly: American Catholics are more affluent and far more powerful than at any other time in their history, but some Catholic theologians, and, one might argue, John Paul II, have denounced the American government more vehemently than at any point in recent memory...
...Francis J. McAree, Yonkers, NY...
...That church leaders and religious people have at various moments supported slavery, wars of conquest, and ruthless attacks on Native Americans only confirms, in this more radical view, the danger of church sympathy with national goals...
...The celebratory tone of Noonan's assertions, though, clash with his savvy discussion of the legal relationship between church and nation...
...The most notable religious crusade of the past thirty years has been a powerful, grassroots anti-abortion effort...
...Administrators at the Internal Revenue Service withdrew Bob Jones University's tax exempt status, despite the claim of Bob Jones officials that Scripture required them to forbid interracial dating...
...But for all the pleasure Wilde yields scene by scene, does it really achieve the overall coherence that the opening scene promises...
...Barring a sudden rehabilitation of Gregory XVI, that argument is over...
...These American "crusaders'--Noonan highlights abolitionist Theodore Parker and Martin Luther King, Jr.--usefully remind their fellow citizens that worship of God is more important than worship of nation...
...John F. Canary, Chicago, IL...
...But the verdict on Operation Rescue, or upon the many religious people convinced that abortion should remain legal, is less self-evident...
...Valentin Pozair S.J., Zagreb, Croatia...
...Michael Foster, Homebush, Australia...
...I think not...
...What are we to make of this...
...Stanislaw Obirek, S.J., Krak6w, Poland...
...Pl~cido Femfindez, Condes de Arag6n, Spain...
...Patrick S. Brennan, St...
...Benedict, OR;Carlos A. Degiusti, Resistencia, Argentina...
...None of this diminishes Noonan's achievement...
...For instance, they set up a moralistic parallel between Wilde's fairy tale, "The Selfish Giant," and its author's own conduct...
...Precisely this American sense that the nation is under God's judgment, Noonan argues, explains the success of nineteenth-century abolitionists and anti-Mormon agitators, as well as twentieth-century Prohibitionists and civil rights activists...
...Toon Osaer, Press Attachd for the Aartsbisdom Mechelen-Brussel, Belgium...
...Paul Cashen, Sydney, Australia...
...Or are we to think that the filmmakers are endorsing selfishness for the sake of self-realization, however momentary...
...Valerian Shirima, S.J., Harare, Zimbabwe...
...He rejects the thinking of more radical theologians, for example, who view the church as the only meaningful social unit and who are convinced that the entire project of a national "community" is as plausible as the Loch Ness monster...
...The Cardinal Suenens Program in Theology & Church Ufe at John Carroll University sponsors programs and Vatican Council II research with a particular interest in continuing the legacy of Leon-Joseph Cardinal Suenens [1904-1996...
...Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., SL Paul, MN...
...This consultation continues dialog concerning that commitment...
...Emil Krapka, S.J., Bratislava, Slovakia...
...Jean-Roger Ndombi, S.J., Nairobi, Kenya...
...Not only is it the lustre of our country, but it is also, according to the book's press copy, "America's greatest moral contribution to the world...
...Gonzalo Silva Merino, S.J., Santiago, Chile...
...As Noonan notes in the autobiographical, and moving, first chapter of The Lustre of Our Country, he began his scholarly career as a graduate student at The Catholic University in the 1940s, convinced that traditional church teaching on religious freedom was unassailable...
...Free exercise, Noonan begins, is an American invention, and "no false modesty" or "nervous fear of chauvinism" should obscure this fact...
...Emmanuel Femando, Sri Lanka...
...Margaret F. Grace, Manhasset, NY...
...Asandas Balchand, S.J., Quezon City, Philippines...
...Mark O'Keefe, O.S.B., St...
...How the Catholic idea that "error has no rights" became viewed not only as implausible but immoral--in the United States, in Rome, and much of the world--is Noonan's subject...
...Currently sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Noonan is a former chairholder at the Boalt Law School of the University of California at Berkeley, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the Harvard Board of Overseers, and a towering figure in Catholic intellectual and legal circles...
...Constantino Pitya Lugor, Khartoum, Sudan...
...Once a crusade is completed, '~'nericans have come again together without those dark and bitter hatreds and ancient grudges still carrying a religious label in many parts of the world...
...So, when Oscar neglects his family to cavort with Bosie and rent boys, we hear Fry's voice on the soundtrack reading those sections of the story about selfishness...
...John McGreevy, the author of Parish Boundaries (University of Chicago), teaches history at the University of Notre Dame...
...He then moves to Madison's battle (first in Virginia, then after the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention) to replace the idea of religious tolerance with that of free exercise...
...Mathias and Marc Slabbinck, Bruges, Belgium;Rev...
...For a scholar once concerned about Catholic triumphalism, this is triumphal history...
...In the spidt of Vatican U, Cardinal Suenens opened John XXIII Seminary in Leuven in 1964 with a commitment to the integration of the affect and intellect in seminary education and formation...
...Free exercise, then, has limits...
...Francisco Lopez Rivera, S.J., Loyocdn, Mexico...
...Subsequent chapters offer different angles on the same problem, including a survey of the nineteenth-century religious landscape written in the voice of a fictional sister of Alexis de Tocqueville, and an engaging mock memoir by an American military officer charged with rewriting the Japanese constitution after World War II...
...Michael AIosanai, S.J., Ramwadi, Pune, India...
...Most Reverend Dr...
...Are we to take the Wilde-Douglas romance as we take that of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, that is, the world well lost for love...
...Joseph Alaerts, S.J., Mechelen, Belgium...
...James Madison, doctor of the church John McGreevy hat Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., should write a book whose hero is James Madison marks a certain moment in both American legal and Catholic intellectual history...
...In this area, as in others, the more Christian response to the problem of religious pluralism came from outside Catholicism, even, at many moments, from outside Christianity itself...
...Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J., Rome and Ireland...
...A more pertinent question, should Noonan turn his apparently inexhaustible energy toward a sequel, is the relationship between religious convictions and the nation-state...
...Constantinus Mahloane, Roma, Lesotho...
...One afternoon, Noonan traveled to Maryland's Woodstock Jesuit Seminary where he argued the matter with John Courtney Murray...
...Robert Marrone, Cleveland, OH...
...Non-Rector Delegate Guests: The Revs...
...Free exercise is a distinctive American contribution to modern life, and its presence in many of the constitutions written around the world during the past decade testify to its continued importance...
...O.K., that's logical if a bit too tidy...
...Fred Hofheinz, Indianapolis, IN...
...Recently, he has authored a sharp attack on the "right" to physician-assisted suicide and participated in the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's Catholic Common Ground initiative...
...Interfaith cooperation on civic affairs, as well as high rates of religious intermarriage, are both (in part) legacies of this two-hundred-year experiment...
Vol. 125 • July 1998 • No. 13
