Religion booknotes
Cunningham, Lawrence S.
onvened e v e r y year at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, the Nostra aetate dialogues bring together two distinguished scholars, one Christian, one Jewish, to discuss a topic...
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...He uses the word "reshape" in his title for good reason...
...Responsibilities: teaching one course and one seminar for undergraduates, and delivering a public lecture...
...Whether all of these hopes will turn into reality is, of course, impossible to judge...
...There is also ample opportunity for the explosion of clich6s...
...This volume provides the papers and discussions from five such dialogues held between 1993 and 1997...
...The original idea was to have a jubilee year once every century...
...He points out that the gospel writers all had visions of the Christian community without showing the slightest knowledge of the thought or work of Paul...
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...that was soon modified to every fifty years and then to twenty-five...
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...onvened e v e r y year at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, the Nostra aetate dialogues bring together two distinguished scholars, one Christian, one Jewish, to discuss a topic germane to Jewish-Christian relations...
...The growth of the Catholic church in the United States was in large part due to the labors of these women who, despite real obstacles from both within and without the church, put a human face on an institution that was the subject of not only suspicion but organized prejudice for most of the previous century...
...The authors end their story in 1920 for a number of reasons...
...Perpetual pilgrimage was a feature of Celtic asceticism (exile and wandering might be the better term) while pilgrimage as a remedy for sin was a regular feature of medieval devotionalism as Chaucer and Margery Kempe testify...
...12-word minimum...
...Such a focus allows us to peer into the minds of those nineteenth-century sisters who, in the Arizona missions, lead prayers and hymns on priestless Sundays, baptize dying infants, and "sprinkling the home-made coffins containing [the] dear ones, say some prayers, and then go to the grave for the older people as well as for the younger ones...
...We learn that the Society of Jesus was missing from the 1775 jubilee because the Jesuit general was in prison in the Castel Sant'Angelo while the order underwent a process of suppression...
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...More jubilees often meant more offerings from visiting pilgrims...
...From those modest beginnings the sisters began to find new venues for their work...
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...What makes O'Grady's book such an excellent read is the interweaving of history, social commentary, and anecdote...
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...By the time I finished Shrady's book, this Pascalian truth seemed all the more true to me...
...Visiting Professorship NAZARETH COLLEGE INVITES applications for a one-semester appointment in Fall 2000 or Spring 2001 to the William H. Shannon Chair in Catholic Studies, an endowed distinguished visiting professorship, established to assist in keeping alive and visible the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition upon which Nazareth College was founded...
...This community began its work early in the nineteenth century when six French nuns arrived in Saint Louis after an extended sea voyage...
...That is praise enough for this timely and well-written work...
...Civil authorities in Rome tremble at the expected hordes coming to celebrate the jubilee while Israel also braces for huge numbers of pilgrims...
...For that reason I enjoyed Shrady's reportage which, despite his own protestations, fits more into the genre of spiritually tinted tourism than into spirituality as such...
...This is the twentysixth time that a pope has declared such a "holy year," with the first, in 1300, announced by the unlovely Boniface VIII...
...Pascal said that most of the world's problems could be solved if people could only learn to stay in their own rooms...
...O'Grady puts more emphasis on the plan to honor twentieth-century martyrs, the papal desire for a jubilee forgiveness of debt to aid the poorer nations of the world, and the desire for reconciliation both inside and beyond the church...
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...A piece of sixteenth-century German doggerel in a volume of satirical poems contrasted the jubilee of Christ and that of Rome ending with the admonition: "Who wisely reads this book at home/Will not for pardon run to Rome...
...These voyages are replete with derring-do, descriptions of exotic scenery, and some religious reflections...
...The increasing frequency of these celebrations coincided with the development of the doctrine of indulgences...
...LASSIFIE| Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...By using Moschus's The Spiritual Meadow as his template, Darymple is able to keep his narrative sharp and focused...
...They keep their historical focus despite the almost reflex instinct to ponder the sad fate of Palesfinian Christians who, caught between the Israeli state and militant Islam, leave their land in droves...
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...The position is to begin in January...
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...One element of the millennium hoopla is the emphasis on pilgrimage...
...What distinguishes these dialogues from many other interfaith exchanges is that they deal with a tightly focused issue discussed by highly competent scholars at a level that is both serious and accessible...
...Commonweal 2 9 January 14, 2000...
...is also the year of what the pope calls "The Great Jubilee...
...Consideration will be given to candidates with recognized scholarship and teaching expertise in an area of the Catholic intellectual tradition: theology, biblical studies, spirituality, ethics, philosophy, history, literature, sciences, or the fine arts...
...In general terms, these dialogues are models of how such exchanges should Lawrence S. Cunningham be done: respectful, scholarly, honest, and genuinely enlightening...
...This is one such flatlander who finds that, on occasion, New Yorkers (and their invited guests) have important things to say...
...We hear from Oscar Wilde, who loved being in the presence of the pope and was not unaware of the young clerics in the city...
...At times the mother general needed to tell a local pastor that the mission of the nuns did not include cleanGraham Greene's Fictions The Virtues of Extremity Cates Baldridge The first critical evaluation of Greene's novels ,~'~, ":~,~ ::i since his death `viii::: ~ in 1991, this ....,.# ~ ~.~ innovative study ~#;~:" ..2...
...10 percent, 6 times...
...Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail by Nicholas Shrady HarperSanFrancisco, $22, 268 pp...
...Thomas Donlin-Smith...
...While the Vatican promises plenary indulgences for various pilgrim activities, such spiritual benefits play a rather insignificant part in the overall plan of activities...
...As an occasional resident of Rome myself, I found the book both highly informative and entertaining...
...Shrady's book, by contrast, is more like one of those "If this is Tuesday, we must be in Varanasi" reports that keeps us moving relentlessly into ever more peculiar places...
...No Religion Is an Island: The Nostra Aetate Dialogues edited by Edward Bristow Fordham University Press, $18, 184 pp...
...In Quest of the Celtic Soul BRIDGET MARY MEEHAN RETURNS to the land of her birth to give us an extraordinary view of the faith, myths, and celebrations of Ireland that are part of its spiritual heritage...
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...The millennium celebration in Rome Rome Reshaped: Jubilees 1300-2000 by Desmond O'Grady Continuum, $24.50, 224 pp...
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...J<~ ~ ':::: ~ major works, ~v" il ~i~{~ as well as a recasting of his overall worldview...
...Rabbi Burton Visotsky, in an opening essay, refers in a jocular manner to the space between the two coasts as the "great, flat Christian heartland...
...It was in this period that the American church ceased to be considered mission territory by the Vatican...
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...Discounts 5 percent, 3 times...
...tion of Greene's ~9...
...Desmond O'Grady, a contributor to these pages and long-time resident in Rome, has written a history of the jubilees while, at the same time, commenting on the Commonweal 28 January 14, 2000 evolving history of the papacy...
...224 pages, $34.95 UNIVERSITY OF M K%~;OU R I PRESS 2910 f,cMonc Boulevard ColumI)ia, MO 65201 1--800--828-I 894 http://www.systcnl.nlissouri.edu/uprcs, Commonweal 2 7 January 14, 2000 ing his house or cooking his meals...
...The exchange between Robert Wilken and Michael Fishbane on the meaning of Jerusalem in early Christian and Jewish thought is learned and enlivening...
...The somewhat freewheeling experimentalism of the previous century fell victim to close administrative control of travel, obligations regarding the cloister, etc...
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...The topics, in order, concern the Jewishness of Jesus (John Meier and Shaye Cohen), the Death of Jesus (Raymond Brown and Michael Cook), CatholicJewish Dialogue in the coming millennium (Ismar Schorsch and Cardinal John O'Connor), the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem (Michael Fishbane and Robert Wilken), and the late Abraham Heschel (in a special session in which his daughter, Susannah, participated along with Daniel Berrigan and Eugene Borowitz...
...Furthermore, they created a locus in which it was possible to become far more educated than many of their contemporaries...
...Still, it is nice to have someone else do the more exotic traveling and then report to us...
...While this estimable volume is fundamentally a history of one religious community and, as such, will attract the attention of a particular audience, its larger merit is bringing into sharp focus something that needs regular emphasis: the historical role of women in the church...
...The late Raymond Brown's vast commentary on the Passion narratives (The Death of the Messiah) concludes that Jewish authority did play a major role in the execution of Jesus, but that responsibility does not engender blame...
...Within a decade, these women, enriched by some new candidates from the local church, were engaged in education of the deal running a small school, and soon taking orphans under their care...
...They even adopted a public image of recluses shaped by "convent manners" when they were, in fact, highly skilled in negotiating in the largely masculine world of public affairs...
...In 1920 Catholic nuns maintained about five hundred hospitals in this country, fifty women's colleges, and over six thousand parochial schools...
...Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life: 1836-1920 by Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith University of North Carolina Press, $19.95, 327 pp...
...These women were able to palliate ethnic and class differences by integrating recent European immigrants and native-born women into a single community with a coherent spirituality...
...More important, the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917 meant a more severe set of restrictions on religious women...
...Accuracy and attention to detail are critical...
...his most recent book is Thomas Merton and Monastic Wisdom (Eerdmans...
...In addition, these sisters (there were roughly ninety thousand of them) administered orphanages, private academies, and homes for the elderly, the handicapped, and unwed mothers...
...In separate chapters he recounts his saunters (from the French ~ sainte terre) to the apparition site of Medjugorje, a boat trip down the Ganges to explore Hindu spirituality, a walking trip in India to follow the footsteps of the Buddha, the pilgrimage walk to Saint James in Campostella, a journey to Jerusalem, and a visit to the tomb of the Sufi saint and poet, Rumi, in what is presentday Turkey...
...If you are interested in this special ministry please send your r6surn6 and three references to: Catholic Chaplain Search Committee, California Catholic Conference, 1010 11th Street, #200, Sacramento, CA 95814...
...One can only hope that such exchanges have not ended with the publication of this volume...
...He points out that the great streams of visitors to the Eternal City for the various jubilees have had a large impact on the city and its monuments...
...Finishing it in two sittings, I desired even more...
...Such landmarks as Michelangelo's Pieta, the Spanish Steps, the dome frescoes of San Andrea della Valle, as well as, a number of Bernini's public works were all hurfled along in anticipation of a jubilee year...
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...Some celebrations were marred by various historical upheavals such as the Avignon exile of the popes or the sixteenth-century tumults brought about by the Reformation...
...Over and above the rich detail describing the growth of the Carondolet Sisters of Saint Joseph, one appreciates this book for its sensitivity to the social milieu in which these sisters flourished...
...In Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail, Nicholas Shrady, an American resident in Barcelona, describes a series of his own pilgrimages...
...15 percent, 12 times...
...The final chapters of this enormously readable book provide a r6sum6 of plans for the millennial jubilee...
...Among the minor characters in this panorama, my favorite was Master Titta who, from 1796 to 1864, served as the papal executioner, dispatching more than five hundred persons to the next life either by rope or by axe...
...Given the papal taste for the symbolic, one can only pray that some of John Paul's desires will find fruition...
...Advance payment required...
...If one likes books of this genre, my recommendation would be to read William Darymple's brilliant From the Holy Mountain (1998) which retraces the travels of the seventh-century monk, John Moschus, through the Christian, largely monastic, world of the Middle East...
...Michael Cook did not dispute the scholarly conclusions of Brown, but worried (as did the audience) about the fallout at the popular level if the Passion narratives are not read with nuance...
...Pilgrimage, of course, is a staple of Christian piety whose roots stretch back into the early patristic period...
...e-mail sofiabmm@aol.com Catholic Chaplains TWO FULL-TIME POSITIONS 1. Diocese of Fresno, Central California Women's Prison, Chowchilla, CA 2. Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Southern Youth Correctional Reception Center & Clinic, Norwalk, CA Qualified applicants include priests, men and women religious or lay persons with appropriate background and skills...
...John Meier, to cite one instance, observes how overblown is the idea that Paul was the real founder of Christianity...
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...The meaning of pilgrimage has been amply explored by such savants as Edith and Victor Turner while historians, theologians, and others have noted the polyvalence of the practice...
...We meet pilgrim enthusiasts like Philip Neri and Ignatius of Loyola...
...Separate chapters in this rich work of archival research describe the internal life of the communities as they sought to integrate themselves into a church whose leadership was both masculine and authoritarian...
...O'Grady's book is not a scholarly one, but his long-time residence in Rome and his reputation as a well-prepared "vaticanologist" makes this a wonderful read...
...By the 1860s nearly half of the congregation was American-born and their presence was found in Minnesota, upstate New York, and four other states as well as the territory of Arizona...
...Frequently the sisters had to raise the monies to augment their meager stipends as parochial school teachers by giving piano lessons, selling handicrafts to raffles, or, when all else failed, begging...
...It is the burden of Spirited Lives to tell that story with a focus on one religious community, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondolet...
Vol. 127 • January 2000 • No. 1
