'Thinking' Catholics
McGowan, Jo
In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only STRUCTURES OF DECEIT When America's most one issue is published each month...
...Will Hilton tle attention is being paid to the egalitarian premises and Kramer, who has made a career out of excoriating his former unfulfilled hopes of American democracy...
...The sister-in-law of tesis done to determine whether this Although he obviously found his subLord Snowden and the wife of one of child would be similarly afflicted, with ject both impressive and appealing, there Britain's wealthiest businessmen, she the obvious assumption that she would was one little problem with her arguwas in the news not because of her con- then abort him if he were...
...Income inequality in the Unit- suasiveness of Wills's book on Catholicism's intellectual cored States is already at scandalous rates and threatens to in- ruption...
...damental principle of democracy...
...migrants have come to this country seeking such opportuni- That idea was conspicuously missing from the celebratory ties while fleeing systems of inherited wealth and power...
...Garry pluses will not continue indefinitely-and that means that Wills's new book, Papal Sin: Structures of f Deceit, is a passionthose less able to pay will be asked to pay more at a time ate polemic that will please some, outrage others, and disapwhen the well-off have never had it so good...
...Not surprisingly, the only critical comment Rorty crease...
...Her daughter, India, age which Armstrong-Jones demolishes wonderful story ("The Per- three, had been born with Down syn- every argument brought against her poA fect Child," London Sunday drome...
...point still more (see, Eamon Duffy's review, page 24...
...ment: Armstrong-Jones is a Catholic...
...A progressive tax system insures that those Rorty, well known for his hostility to institutional religion, who have benefited most from this nation's freedoms con- objective morality, and all other putatively "conservative" tribute their proportionate share to keep opportunity available forces, seemed an odd choice to assess the accuracy and perfor those who come after them...
...Repealing the estate tax would exacerbate that trend...
...could muster concerned Wills's failure to come to the logical Even more important, a progressive tax system is a fun- conclusion that the church should be abolished altogether...
...review Papal Sin received from the pragmatist philosopher Enormous concentrations of wealth can easily foreclose on Richard Rorty in the New York Times Book Review (June 11...
...Now that would be provocative...
...Will the NYTBR ernment too far from the mass of people...
...Or better still, why not have Cardinal advocates what amounts to the repeal of progressive taxa- Joseph Ratzinger, that scourge of relativism, review Richard tion, citizens should pay close attention...
...Whether it's old news or not depends on the nature of the argument and the reliability of the evidence marshaled to support the case being made...
...Some wallets that are at risk...
...The next issue will be dated August 11...
...In keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only STRUCTURES OF DECEIT When America's most one issue is published each month during July and prominent Catholic intellectual writes a scathing indictment August...
...When a candi- employer, review the next expose of the structures of deceit at date from one of the nation's two principal political parties the New York Times...
...that birthright...
...Wills's Americans believe that those who work hard and succeed intellectual range is legendary and his forensic skills formishould be rewarded...
...During her second pregnancy, sition, but what I found more interesting Telegraph, March 5) about a Armstrong-Jones had been put under was the bias of the journalist who wrote woman in England named Caroline enormous pressure to have amniocen- the piece...
...would even call it ecumenical...
...The opportunity to get rich is under- dable, but he is not infallible...
...campaigns, fatally distort the democratic process itself...
...an incredulity that was both astonishing and delightful: how could anyone, JO McGOWAN she asked in so many words, imply that there was anything wrong with India...
...It's not just our Rorty's next effort...
...Great concentrations of Rorty seemed honestly befuddled as to why anyone would wealth, especially when money is the lifeblood of political bother taking the Catholic church seriously in the first place...
...The article is worth reading just for the confident and articulate way in few months ago, I read a her children...
...As the siren call of extend this policy of selecting transparently biased review"prosperity" comes to dominate political discourse, too lit- ers to works on equally contentious subjects...
...It's a point of view, but not a terribly helpful one, espePower in the hands of only a few places the levers of gov- cially for the reviewer of a book like Papal Sin...
...of his church, it's news...
...Armstrong-Jones...
...reasonable people can dissent stood to be a kind of American birthright, and countless im- from his particular ecclesiological and ideological agenda...
...And were she to abort India's little 'THINKING' CATHOLICS brother if he happened to be like her, An old slur that never dies wouldn't she be rejecting India as well...
...To nections or her lifestyle, but because of Her reaction to this suggestion was protect her from the usual treatment an Commonweal 6 July 14, 2000...
Vol. 127 • July 2000 • No. 13
