The Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century
Deedy, John & Nilson, Jon
(Continued from page 4} personhood undermines the utilitarian reasoning pervasive in debates about artificial contraception. By resurrecting an outmoded ethical category, Johnson does...
...An old woman on a crowded trolley in Warsaw, at a time and in a place where one could trust almost no one, replied to the anti-Semitic diatribe a fellow passenger was delivering by saying, "Hush up...
...Readings of Scripture that force it into a fortune-telling role do not have a good track record...
...It was easy to accede...
...I have no more objection to those who choose this path than I do to those who choose celibacy, in or out of marriage...
...he bellowed, and, to our considerable relief, passed out on the laminated tabletop...
...But why should we assume that using a condom is different than periodic abstinence with respect to intention concerning childbirth...
...But if these are the pope's sentiments, why is there no trace of them in the multiple addresses making up Theology of the Body...
...In the end, some might well agree with Johnson...
...JENNIFER POP1EL Green Bay, Wis...
...I wonder what the mystics would say about this...
...I wonder how this squares with the experience of believers...
...WE BRAKE FOR GOD Riders for Cod The Story of a Christian Motorcycle Gang Rich Remsberg Afterword by Colleen McDannett University of Illinois Press, $34,95, 263 pp...
...The Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century Renewing and Reimaging the City of God John Deedy, editor TheLiturgical Press, $24,95,244 pp...
...Eureka moments I trust that Luke Timothy Johnson is too good a scholar not to be profoundly embarrassed that he failed to read Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility before penning his "A Disembodied 'Theology of the Body.'" In this 1960 work, the future pope convincingly establishes the "embodiedness" of his teaching on human sexuality, including a positive discussion on the role of pleasure in the conjugal act, the sheer candor of which was considered by many contemporaries as beneath the dignity of a prelate...
...In point of fact, has the author actually been willing to listen to and learn from people who give witness to the magnificent grace available to those 43 who foEow the church's teachings on sexuality...
...So the book is a collection of essays, a sort of reference work on the topics it covers, rather than a developed and detailed response to its originating questions...
...I'm still looking for answers...
...I would not be surprised to find them multiplied...
...He may have been trying to provoke us by denouncing the most revered of all motorcycle brands in a sort of biker's version of epater le bourgeois, but what31 MORE AMERICAN THAN CATHOLIC...
...Catholics have lost the sense of social and cultural solidarity that marks their authentic tradition...
...Yet she also notes that the world of the exegetes has become too much a world unto itself...
...Trying to cover the major aspects of twentieth-century American Catholic church life in one volume is like trying to cover a cathedral with a kerchief...
...I think perhaps with more admiration about an incident recounted in a letter to the New York Review of Books by an Israeli who survived the occupation of Poland...
...Many on the Left are unaware of socialism's principles...
...Godfrey's opening sentences prepared me for a sentimental look at his ordeals as a single parent...
...This lack of coordination is a drawback...
...Harleys...
...If one more author had been recruited to write a synthetic presentation of the lessons gleaned from these studies, this book would be even more useful...
...A different subtitle, something like "Case Studies in Inculturation," would better describe the main issue that cuts across the best essays...
...However, some reassurance is available from the quality of many of these essays...
...MATTHEW KOWALSKI, O.S.B...
...As he suggests, we ought to revisit this encyclical, and we may end up concluding that John Paul II's personalism cannot support his opposition to artificial contraception...
...John Paul II's experience under "socialism" in Poland has predisposed him to favor the economic views of neoconservatives like Michael Novak...
...As couples, we communicate more, not less...
...He was built like a defensive end, shirtless except for a sweatstained leather vest, intricately tattooed, and evidently hallucinating under the influence of the nearly empty bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila which an unprincipled bartender had surrendered to him much earlier...
...We are more in tune with one another's desires...
...Why doesn't the professor provide a consistent ethic of sexual behavior taking into account the experience of married people, homosexuals, and those who are single "yet whose erotic desires find no legitimate or sanctified expression...
...Robert hannon Fairbanks, Ark...
...My experiences lead me to believe that the answer would not be as dismal as the author assumes...
...I have no reason to think I would have had such courage...
...Matthew Kowalski makes the point that allowing artificial birth control would lead inevitably to abortion, since for people whose sexual activity already excludes the thought of having a child, "abortion becomes the natural solution...
...For example, Johnson's focus on the use of the rhetoric of self-control causes him to miss the larger point: many of us who follow church teachings do so joyfully and find that it has brought greater, not lesser, pleasure and happiness to our lives...
...David O'Brien's title, "Catholic Youth: The Presumed Become the Pursued," sums up the story he tells...
...What is pertinent is a reexamination of the moral issue in light of medical disaster, not a reexamination of the pope's entire corpus to justify the church's present stance...
...God will hear you...
...Haughey's reading of American society on this question is not reassuring...
...Michael O. Garvey tie summer night a few years ago, as my brother and I were having a couple of beers in a local biker bar, I became uncomfortably aware that a conspicuously enraged patron at a nearby table was demanding our attention...
...REV...
...Carroll's irony The ultimate irony of James Carroll's theories [see Robert Wilken's review of Constantine's Sword, "Dismantling the Cross," Janurary 26] about the inevitability of Christian anti-Semitism is that those Christians who risked their lives to save Jews did so not in spite of their faith but because of it...
...Ultimately, economic fairness constitutes a question of identity: do we want to be creatures of the market or creators of a more faithful and humane order...
...But even in his analysis, a dismissal of current theology would have to involve a serious attempt to confront the realities behind the church's teachings...
...The book's answers to these questions remain cloudy because its sixteen contributors worked independently...
...Jon Nllson_______________ he title of this book makes a promise that only an encyclopedia could fulfill...
...It is precisely the connection between birth control and abortion that Johnson seems to disregard...
...Jeffrey Gros demonstrates his claim that the revolution in the church's ecumenical posture and the postconciliar progress toward church unity are nothing short of "amazing" and "marvelous...
...DEREK s. JEFFREYS Green Bay, Wis...
...Jeffreys connects my poor grasp of the pope's overall position with my suggestion that the church may be in danger of colluding in genocide...
...For example, Barbara Kraemer shows how the unique blend of developments in American society and within the church itself have not only transfigured the modes and ideals of vowed religious life but continue to pose fundamental questions about its future...
...They did so in response to the belief that Christ died to save all of us— Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the handicapped as well...
...JULIAN IRIAS Davis, Calif...
...The joys of Catholic sex Luke Timothy Johnson's article left me with a nagging unease...
...If natural family planners, surprised by pregnancy, are then open to God's will concerning a birth, why should we assume that those using condoms who are surprised whould then seek an abortion...
...Moreover, I have witnessed too many joy-filled "Eureka...
...Where do we stand now...
...Is Johnson sure that "absolutely everything we can learn about God must come to us" from our bodies...
...He supports this thesis autobiographically, historically, and empirically before pointing to the bedrock importance of money issues...
...Even with a narrower scope and the appropriate disclaimers, the book's enterprise is still quixotic...
...My brother and I had begun to agree upon a discreet, or even panicked exit when the drunken biker disgorged, among other things, the rest of his thought: "Harleys suck...
...Just a small point in response to Popiel: I think that I called the pope's theology "deductive," whereas I would prefer a theology that was more "inductive...
...Patricia McDonald traces Catholic biblical scholarship from its European and Protestant tutelage to the full maturity of professional credibility...
...Its actual scope is narrower: not the whole church in the whole world, but Roman Catholicism in the United States over the past hundred years...
...Marvin, S.D...
...Finally, in regard to the Theology of the Body, I found one of Johnson's principles rather hard to accept: "Human bodies are part of God's image and the means through which absolutely everything we can learn about God must come to us...
...Its continuities with pre-Enlightenment traditions of biblical interpretation, its ability to contribute to broad and basic theological and ecclesiological reflection, and the nourishment it offers to the faith life of the church itself have become thin and weak...
...marian burkhart New York, N.Y...
...They never met nor, it seems, did they ever confer...
...I am pleased to hear them...
...Cort maintains that the principles of contemporary socialism are virtually identical with Catholic social teaching...
...This is true enough, but I wonder if Johnson has really offered an alter44 chetical address" was to support, as I suggest, Humanae vitae...
...Jeffreys says that the pope does not really have an "act-centered morality...
...Johnson wants church teaching to be based in ordinary life experience, but let him consider this basic problem: If a population of 1 million couples is using artificial birth control, one year the normal failure rate will result in at least fifty thousand unwanted pregnancies...
...This to me is the real problem of native...
...What was learned...
...What went right...
...Landry praises what the pope had said about pleasure and the rest in 1960...
...Maybe I will...
...he roared at us several times, as the other customers continued nonchalantly to converse...
...Only a thorough renewal of "the church's sense of mission and purpose" will win the next generation's loyalty...
...But my point about genocide was linked to the absolute prohibition of condoms, including for people with aids...
...Certainly, not everyone who uses natural family planning will find it easy...
...Two Johns, Cort and Haughey, offer the most provocative contributions...
...This is borne out by documented facts: a high percentage of women seeking abortions were using birth control methods that failed...
...In what way is God's image connected to the human body...
...Americans are viscerally opposed to it...
...Jo McGowan's "Corporal Punishment" and A.W...
...Although this option has powerful precedents in U.S...
...PAUL A. HOTTINGER Downers Grove, III...
...LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON Large families & ideas I was pleasantly surprised by two pieces in the February 9 issue of Commonweal...
...Since these couples have already decided to separate childbearing from sexual pleasure, abortion becomes the natural solution...
...Jeanne Knoerle's survey of Catholic education overlooks none of the questions and complications that make up its history from the mid-nineteenth century to Ex corde ecclesiae (and the problems posed by the mandatum for theologians...
...ROGER J. LANDRY Fall River, Mass...
...Godfrey's "Crowd Control" reimpressed on me how disparate elements can join to strike a blow to the solar plexus...
...The moral, as he sees it, is that the church has found a place in America but that place is too cozy...
...Consistent ethic Luke Timothy Johnson does offer some salient points in his critique of Pope John Paul II's theology, which he describes as "abstract" and idealistic...
...His thinking leads to a very confusing ethical point of view...
...Although we are far too close to the twentieth century for any definitive assessment (as Deedy, a former managing editor of Commonweal, acknowledges), it is never too early for attention to the main questions it asks: "What took place...
...What went wrong...
...question hovers over the exegetes' conclusions...
...Instead he offered a gentle argument for the large family, that carried all the more weight for avoiding the hectoring arguments of church apologists...
...But Christians reading the New Testament as a source of divine revelation may demand more of a proposed exegesis than that it be sincere and interesting...
...Disappointed As someone who believes in Humanae vitae but also agrees there is room for further development in this teaching, I found Luke Timothy Johnson's essay disappointing...
...moments among young engaged and married couples not to be convinced of the Theology of the Body's great pastoral utility...
...The authors were apparently limited to about fifteen pages, yet some produced small masterpieces that highlight ways in which American culture has shaped our Catholicism...
...By resurrecting an outmoded ethical category, Johnson does little to further the debate about Humane vitae...
...5 McGowan, by juxtaposing the general chaos of India's earthquake with the particular and personal moral challenge of a public interrogation, managed, for me at least, to convey how bewildering our world is and how great events find reflections in our everyday life...
...Each study stands alone, even though each is part of the same story...
...This, it seems to me, would go beyond repetition of the platitudes about access to a lover's body and the benefits of sexual enjoyment to a discussion about the real experiences of people who have made a serious attempt to conform to doctrinal standards...
...Nevertheless, before drawing such a conclusion, we ought to at least represent the pope's position fairly...
...While he celebrates the pioneers (Merder, Wattson, Willebrands) who laid the groundwork for Vatican II's breakthrough, he also underscores the Catholic church's still unmet special responsibilities in the quest for the full, visible unity of the Body of Christ...
...What might have been learned...
...And we still love our partners and rejoice in our ability to demonstrate that physically...
...Too often the "so what...
...Alleva's rapture It is irenic of Richard Alleva ["Beam Me Up," January 12] to seek no quarrel with the idea of the Rapture or even with the LaHaye-Jenkins interpretation of it...
...The author replies: Derek Jeffreys and Roger Landry think that I have misrepresented Pope John Paul II because I did not take into account his other writings on the subject of human love, or grasp the "purpose of a catechetical address...
...Since Alleva's own concerns have to do with the verisimilitude of the Left Behind series as thrillers, he is certainly entitled to be selective in his quarrels...
...D 41...
...Until the critics of Humanae vitae address this, John Paul II will continue to win the philosophical argument while much of the population simply ignores him...
...By the way, though certain passages of the book of Revelation are commonly used to support interpretations of the Rapture, the notion itself is drawn from 1 Thessalonians 4:17...
...He is more in a position to address these issues than the pope...
...But there are other stories, voiced by people of equally deep faith and love for the church but with quite different experiences, and I would like them to be heard as well...
...Catholic history, the task won't be easy...
...No wonder important features like the liturgical revolution, the transformation in the role of the laity, the influence of bishops like Gibbons and Spellman, and the struggles of African-American and Hispanic Catholics for recognition as equal partners in their own church get no essays of their own...
...I think of Jan Korski skiing across the Alps, a consecrated host in a pendant on a chain around his neck, to tell the Allies who couldn't have cared less what was happening at Auschwitz...
...Johnson's failures to contextualize the pope's thought within its corpus as a whole and to understand the purpose of a catechetical address seem to be at the root of his embarrassingly off-base criticisms and misunderstandings...
...Without taking up the philosophical issues behind his "deductive theology," I would push Johnson on his concluding claim that "we must, in all humility, be willing to learn from the bodies and the stories of those whose response to God and to God's world involves sexual love...
...May it not be precisely because the "purpose of a catemodern sexual ethics...
...Still, contemporary socialism remains the closest ideological ally to Catholic social teaching...
...Why can't the consensual use of a condom be as holy an act as the consensual avoidance of fertility...
...Disclosure statement: the latter John is a colleague and good friend of mine...
...Thus, work for justice must take the socialist 40 option seriously...
...When it comes to money, Haughey maintains, American Catholics are far more American than Catholic: "most of our economic attitudes are determined more by our social location than by our faith...
...REV...
...I rather doubt that this generation's revisionists would have either...
...Well, if he does not, then his persistence in supporting Humanae vitae becomes even stranger, for that composition is strictly act-centered...
...Paul Hottinger asks why I don't work at all this stuff I said needed doing, since the pope is a busier guy than I am...
...Perhaps it's the general intellectual numbness of coming off a hotly contested election with its high polemics, but I find personal reflections by such sensitive narrators more persuasive these days than the closely reasoned certainty of experts...
...Roger Landry and Jennifer Popiel offer testimonies concerning the joy brought to couples who are introduced to papal teaching on sexuality or who practice natural family planning...
Vol. 128 • March 2001 • No. 5
