Et cetera: Job well done
"I want a speech that doesn't commit me to anything and that drips with sincerity." pie. Foer worries that a Democratic candidate who cannot speak to those with religious sensibilities cannot win...
...For those who think the role of religion in politics should be about much more than the sexual sins of politicians, the Democratic Party remains in need of evangelization and conversion...
...The pitch to Evangelicals and Catholics in the Midwest will be made solely on economic issues...
...I marvel sometimes at the steadfastness of the whole Catholic body, at the discipline and obedience and love it has shown under a very demanding pope, the maturity of the decisions it makes in conscience," he wrote...
...Wallis urges the Democrats to challenge the Republicans on the proper role of religion in public life and politics...
...At the moment, there is not much evidence that Democratic leaders have either the imagination or the courage to compete for the votes of churchgoers...
...Poverty, equality, medical care, and war are all profoundly religious issues...
...Foer worries that a Democratic candidate who cannot speak to those with religious sensibilities cannot win a national election...
...Their anger may be justified, but it's misplaced, and is driving too many Democrats to faulty partisan conclusions of their own...
...Progressive politics in the United States—whether it concerned slavery, the suffrage movement, or civil rights drew much of its strength from religious communities and religious ideas...
...Writing on the op-ed page of the New York Times (December 28, 2003), Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners, argues it does not...
...editorials, its reviews, and...well, we could go on...
...The magazine's "Church in the World" feature, a succinct weekly up-date of developments from around the globe, is one of its most popular features, along with its lucid (and brief...
...Dean has already acknowledged this criticism and taken a few stumbling steps toward ameliorating what the Times calls the "stridently secular tone of his campaign" (January 4, 2004...
...Like the Republican temptation to appeal first to corporate interests and the religious right, Democrats are now in danger of tailoring their message exclusively to prochoice voters, minorities, labor unions, and liberal elites...
...Appealing to secular voters might help you win a Democratic primary—but that's it," Foer quotes pollster John Zogby...
...In welcoming his successor, Catherine Pepinster, Wilkins expressed an inspiring confidence in the church's future...
...I see them moving at ease from an ethic of control to an ethic of responsibility...
...For the last twenty-one years, John Wilkins, a charming, selfeff acing individual known for his masterly editing pencil and keen nose for the news, has been the Tablet's editor...
...I feel great optimism about the younger generation of Catholics...
...Martin Luther King Jr...
...Philosopher Jeffrey Stout makes a similar argument in his new book, Democracy and Tradition (see Commonweal, October 10, 2003...
...If recent electoral history is any measure, voters will look with suspicion at a narrowly economic argument made by Democrats...
...In his decades as editor of the Tablet, John Wilkins has contributed immeasurably to fostering that ethic of responsibility...
...Commonweal 8 January 16, 2004...
...It is now widely thought that, with the nation so evenly divided between Republican and Democratic regions, the key to the presidential election will be to turn out the party's base at the polls...
...Job well done Many Commonweal readers are familiar with, and even subscribers to, the Tablet of London, the voice of liberal and intellectual Catholicism in Great Britain...
...In "withdrawing into secular-ism," Democrats have abandoned the moral resources needed to make their political case, Wallis writes...
...Does the Democratic Party understand that...
...There are not enough swing voters to make a difference, goes the refrain...
...What are the chances that the Democratic Party will heed calls to embrace the moral concerns of religious people...
...Much has been written about the anger and frustration felt by Democratic Party activists toward President George W. Bush, both over the disputed 2000 elecBALOO tion and the partisan use the president has made of the terrorist attacks...
...In a farewell piece marking his retirement (Tablet, December 12, 2003), Wilkins wrote that the Tablet, as an independent lay magazine, performs the indispensable task of providing a "safe space" where Catholics of differing views can engage each other with honesty and candor and with-out fear of ecclesiastical censorship or retribution...
...He wants the party to reclaim the vision of Dr...
...We are in his debt...
...Wilkins, a convert to Catholicism in the heady aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, has been a steadfast supporter and defender of the council's efforts to open the church to the modern world...
Vol. 131 • January 2004 • No. 1
