Nero redivivus
Dionne, E.J. Jr.
itself, to delight in the feelings we now have about being part of the church, to belong too easily--dangerous, because it lulls us into forgetting that during the liturgy we are taking the...
...To paraphrase the good Admiral James Stockdale: Who are we, and why are we here...
...We are to live (as the letter to Diognetus put it) as if we are at home in any place, and aliens everywhere...
...We're also here because the independent counsel decided to veer off his inquiry into Whitewater, Travelgate, and Filegate and cross his investigation with the Paula Jones lawsuit...
...s the House droned on to a its inevitable conclusion on October 8 on the impeachment inquiry for President Bill Clinton, the little box at the bottom corner of the television screen kept reporting the bad news...
...Will our grandchildren look back on us and say we were the generation so obsessed with the Clinton scandal that we couldn't pull ourselves together to prevent the human costs of a worldwide economic downturn...
...The voters who want this to end could choose to send them a message...
...Most Americans and--despite many pious statements to the contrary--most members of Congress also know where they stand...
...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was busy tightening up and closing down...
...Seuss...
...our schedules did not allow it...
...It would be another decade before I was able to make a ten-day Buddhist insight retreat (in Barre, Massachusetts), which consisted of eight hours of silent meditation a day...
...ICs important, he said, "that Republicans not be the party of dragging it out...
...De Mello's insight into the liberating effects of awareness derives from his training in Buddhist vipissana ("insight") meditation...
...Our work is to realize that "here we have no lasting city...
...It's possible, of course, that Republicans will view this differently after the election...
...When the church forgets that its only reality is the Lord whose return we await, when it loses this eschatological sense of itself, it loses its truest vocation...
...He jeopardized himself, his supporters, and, most importantly, whatever hopes he had of making enduring changes in American political life...
...His stress on awareness, I would say, tries to get at the difference between theory and experience, external conformity and interiorized faith, or the letter of the law versus the spirit...
...The Dow Jones was down more than two hundred points when I was watching...
...Some of de Mello's early texts, the CDF acknowledges, "can be helpful in achieving self-mastery, in breaking the bonds and feelings that keep us from being free, and in approaching with serenity the various vicissitudes of life...
...It was one of the most enriching experiences I have ever had--it cleared the mental and emoCommonweal 9 October23,1998...
...The public's sentiment on this issue is exactly right: Let's decide and get back to business while there is still business to get back to...
...I think he should be censured and allowed to serve out his term...
...If the Republicans had been smart, they would have agreed to Democratic proposals to limit the inquiry...
...The market later recovered, but I couldn't help ruminating on the clich6: To compare this to fiddling while Rome burns may be unfair to the Romans...
...SEUSS CONDEMNED Grinches go after de Mello his past summer was one of the more depressing I can remember, and it had nothing to do with E1 Ni~o...
...The inquiry approved by the House is open-ended...
...argued, with a debt to Jesse Jackson, Republicans "keep hope alive" that new charges will turn up to make impeachment easy...
...Particularly objectionable, it is alleged, are his concept of the unknowability and cosmic impersonality of God, his sense of Jesus "as a master alongside others," a preference for "enlightenment," criticism of the church, and an excessive focus on this life rather than life after death...
...But that's exactly the course they've chosen...
...itself, to delight in the feelings we now have about being part of the church, to belong too easily--dangerous, because it lulls us into forgetting that during the liturgy we are taking the bread of the kingdom that is still to come...
...It's ludicrous to think Starr will come up with something on Filegate" or the other matters in question, Kristol said...
...According to a recent New York Times report, his office was tipped off in advance about Linda Tripp's allegations, which raises many questions about how the two cases got intertwined...
...We've only been at this, in one way or another, for more than four years...
...he was, I felt, the only interesting and believable guru I met on my six-week tour of India...
...We are not, above all, to make the church a part of our lives...
...To take the second question first: We're here because the president had an astonishingly irresponsible sexual relationship that, according to Monica Lewinsky's testimony, he knew could get him into trouble...
...And moderate Republicans may suggest that Clinton be rebuked but allowed to govern...
...There's no time limit...
...But what do we do now...
...Then he lied about it for seven months...
...Our life in the church is either seriously an effort to realize what Paul meant when he said "to live is Christ," a life that looks forward to his coming, or it is nothing...
...First came the extension of "almost-infallible" to disputed questions like women's ordination and Anglican orders...
...But to return to Admiral Stockdale's question: Who are we...
...The notion that elaborate hearings will turn up new evidence is also suspect...
...There's a chunk of Republican opinion that doesn't want to give up the hope of new scandals and new smoking guns," Kristol said in an interview...
...As one Jesuit wag put it, going after de Mello, the very popular Indian Jesuit retreat master who died suddenly of a heart attack at age fifty-six in 1987, is a little like condemning Dr...
...At one end of town, the folks at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were trying to find ways to avoid a global economic catastrophe...
...What will the historians make of us...
...The Vatican is bewildered by de Mello's emphasis on "awareness" and "interior enlightenment" over against Scripture, doctrine, and belief--and puts the worst possible construction on de Mello's awkward formulations...
...Guenka, who was de Mello's insight meditation teacher, to see if I could arrange a retreat with him...
...As Congresswoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich...
...Bishops were ordered to ensure that the offending texts are withdrawn from sale and not reprinted...
...noted, they voted "to put our country in suspended animation for months and months...
...But overall de Mello's writings are said to exhibit a "progressive distancing from the essential contents of the Christian faith...
...The danger to Republicans is that "the strongest argument with the middle of the body politic" appeals to "the desire to get it over with...
...As Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass...
...In my judgment, Father de Mello's Sadhana: A Way to God (Doubleday) remains the best Catholic "how to" book for someone looking for instruction in methods of prayer...
...9 1998, Washington Post Writers Group David Toolan DR...
...At the other, the congressional majority couldn't even agree to set time limits on the Clinton inquiry and restrict the investigation to the matters Ken Starr put on the table--even though it is Starr's referral that launched the inquiry...
...No luck...
...The final blow came on August 23 with a CDF "notification" that the writings of Father Anthony de Mello have been examined and in part found wanting--"incompatible with the Catholic faith" and a cause of "grave harm...
...After a brief run, it seems that episcopal collegiality has now been relegated to the department of obsolescent terms in the holy Roman church...
...One Republican who believes this is William Kristol, the editor and Republican adviser who wants Clinton thrown out of office...
...Then, by means of a procedural ruling, came the effective nullification of the teaching power of regional and national bishops' conferences--and more depressing still, the acquiescence of the bishops in the status of office boy...
...Does anyone believe that the gravest threat to our republic is the possibility that we'll settle the Clinton matter too quickly...
...Guenka was a successful entrepreneur, of crockery and dairy products, who gave insight retreats on the side...
...The result was a highly partisan diviCommonweal 8 October23,1998 sion on a matter that cried out for bipartisanship...
...Anything that comes across the transom canbe added to the committee's investigation...
...Herbert Hoover may look like a hero compared with us...
...And we're here because the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, decided that a civil lawsuit that could lead to questions about the president's sex life couldn't possibly disrupt the president's work...
...There are no evidentiary issues here," Kristol said...
...When I was in Bombay in the summer of 1975, I made an appointment with a Mr...
...Kristol thinks Clinton should be tossed from office...
...I'm happy to confine it to the scope of the Starr referral...
Vol. 125 • October 1998 • No. 18
