Et cetera
Coming in COMMONWEAL February 27 John Coleman:' What Mel Gibson could learn from Marc Chagall about the Passion of Christ March 12 1 Andrew Greeley: How to restructure the Catholic...
...SCHWADRON Commonweal 6 February 13, 2004...
...Let's hope the commission's investigation will help make that fact even clearer...
...Although the three priests affirm a few of VOTF's stated objectives (supporting the abused, for example), they warn that "the people of ancient Troy learned a valuable lesson once and pastors would be derelict in their duty to do otherwise...
...Apparently not in Fall River...
...February 3, 2004mosenstaituamsevaimomemnim Lessons from Troy...
...0 away...
...The terrorist threat is not tied to a nation-state or a particular region, and in most circumstances it cannot be countered simply by waging war...
...Preemption sounds straightforward enough, but it carries with it far more risks than benefits, as the situation in Iraq shows...
...These misgivings boil down to the usual criticisms made of VOTF by its detractors: that VOTF associates with those who dissent from church teaching and that it is unwilling, in the words of the Fall River priests, to "take a position on issues such as the ordination of women, sexual morality, abortion, and the divine foundation of the papacy...
...Moreover, waging war everywhere is not a possibility, and even if it were, it would be no solution...
...Coming in COMMONWEAL February 27 John Coleman:' What Mel Gibson could learn from Marc Chagall about the Passion of Christ March 12 1 Andrew Greeley: How to restructure the Catholic Church fying the war because of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" to now justifying the war because of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" will satisfy the American people...
...After some initial contact, VOTF went out of its way to distance itself from supposed dissenters, either on the left or the right, O'Brien declared...
...Bush refused to level with the American people about this uncomfortable truth...
...Historian David O'Brien, author of Public Catholicism, felt compelled to respond to this tired caricature of VOTF as a subversive group...
...In a letter to the Fall River priests, O'Brien said that the accusation that VOTF associates with dissenters is a canard...
...They were right...
...I don't are <'t illr Tiros order it...
...There is no evidence that VOTF, after having lured the faithful to their meetings with a moderate-sounding agenda, has been stumping for married or female priests...
...In "A Pastoral Letter from Your Priests," the authors express "grave misgivings" about Voice of the Faithful (VOTF...
...Kay's testimony shows that the very premises of Bush's war on terrorism are wrong...
...He owes the nation an ex-planation for his actions...
...The Zenit news agency (November 19, 2003) reprinted a letter to Catholics of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, written by three of the diocese's priests, Thomas A. Frechette, Paul T. Lamb, and Roger J. Landry...
...The con-sequences are fundamental and far-reaching...
...As a recent report from the Army War College put it, "The global war on terrorism as presently defined and conducted is strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S...
...Yet, as polls showed before the war, the American people did not want to go to war precipitously or without firm international support...
...military action whenever and wherever the U.S...
...It should be remembered that after initial hesitancy, Thomas V. Daily, bishop emeritus of Brooklyn, granted VOTF the right to meet in his diocese...
...As "amateurs at our brutal church politics, surely they [VO'1'F] can be forgiven a few mistakes," O'Brien wrote...
...It has been explicit: "VOTF does not seek any change in church doctrine" (www.votf.org...
...He appears to have thought that a massive show of force, whether justified or not, would intimidate potential adversaries while winning for him the abiding gratitude of the American people...
...In laying out the reasoning behind the war on terrorism, the president asserted that the risk posed by WMD in the hands of terrorists was so great that it necessitated unilateral U.S...
...We now live in a world of potential danger and great insecurity, but it remains a world where terrorist threats are best defeated by increased international cooperation rather than unilateral action...
...military and other resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security...
...The intelligence fiasco in Iraq demonstrates why such a policy is inherently unstable, even incoherent...
...David Kay insists that the failure to find WMD is much more than a "political gotcha" question...
...Instead, he assured the nation that we could vanquish all our enemies on our own...
...VOTF's response to sexual abuse in the church is the sort of project all Catholics can endorse, even those who initially mistake such acts of concern and responsibility for a Trojan horse...
...perceived a threat...
...He's right...
...Because after examination he found VOTF a credible group that was established not to foment dissent but to find a way for laypeople to assist meaningfully in the prevention of clerical sexual abuse (see "VOTF Un-banned," May 23, 2003...
Vol. 131 • February 2004 • No. 3
