The current president has cited the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin before, most recently in his speech at Notre Dame: ”He was a kind and good and wise man,” Barack Obama said then of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. “A saintly man.”

And the “Common Ground” approach of Chicago’s Bernardin and Chicago’s Obama have great resonances. At a meeting this morning with eight [mainly] Catholic journalists ahead of his meeting next week with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Obama invoked Bernardin again–and, as the WaPost’s Jackie Salmon writes, he “promised a ‘robust’ federal policy protecting health-care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures.” (I think that’s the sound of another anti-Obama talking point falling.)

Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register has a write-up (the other NCR was also there, represented by editor Joe Feuerherd) based on a conversation with his publisher, Father Owen Kearns, who attended:

“The most noteworthy thing during the meeting was his dispelling of what you might call the expectation of the worst regarding conscience clauses,” said Father Kearns. “He said that the confusion regarding the issue was due to the timing of everything rather than what he was going to do. His administration saw the previous administration’s 11th-hour change as problematic, and so they undid that. He said that in Illinois he was a supporter of a robust conscience clause, something he reiterated in his Notre Dame speech. He added that the government has received hundreds of thousands of public comments and he promised that there would be a robust conscious clause protection in place, and that it would not be weaker than President Bush’s 11th hour change. Still, he added, it won’t please everybody.”

In addition, Father Kearns noted the president’s analysis of the divide in Catholicism.

“The president said he had fond memories of Cardinal Bernardin and that when he started his neighborhood project, they were funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” he said. “After the first question, from the National Catholic Reporter’s Joe Feuerherd, the president jokingly asked, ‘Was there really [a controversy at Notre Dame]?’”

“The president spoke about how during Cardinal Bernardin’s time the U.S. bishops spoke about the nuclear freeze, the sanctuary movement, immigration, and the poor, but that later a decided change took place,” added Father Kearns. “He said that the responses to his administration mirror the tensions in the Church overall, but that Cardinal Bernardin was pro-life and never hesitated to make his views known, but he had a consistent ’seamless garment’ approach that emphasized the other issues as well. The president said that that part of the Catholic tradition continues to inspire him. Those issues, he said, seemed to have gotten buried by the abortion debate.”

Paul Baumann represented Commonweal and he may have more at some point. Joe Feuerherd also has these bits just in:

Asked whether he sometimes felt he has been “dragged into a largely intra-Catholic family fight” on issues that divide liberal and conservative Catholics, Obama again recalled Bernardin’s example, particularly as it relates to the “seamless garment” of life issues the late cardinal saw as integral to Catholic teaching.

“Cardinal Bernardin was strongly pro-life, never shrank away from talking about that issue, but was very consistent in talking about a seamless garment and a range of issues that were part and parcel of what he considered to be pro-life, that meant that he was concerned about poverty, he was concerned about how children were treated, he was concerned about the death penalty, he was concerned about foreign policy.

“And that part of the Catholic tradition is something that continues to inspire me. And I think that there have been times over the last decade or two where that more holistic tradition feels like it’s gotten buried under the abortion debate.”

The president continued, “Now, as a non-Catholic, it’s not up to me to try to resolve those tensions. As I said, all I can do is to affirm how that other tradition has made me, a non-Catholic, I think reflect on how I can be a better person and has had a powerful influence on my life. And that tells me that it might be a powerful way to move a broader set of values forward in American life generally.”

Meantime, Pat Zapor at CNS was also there and reports in:

Obama said his encounters with the cardinal continue to influence him, particularly his “seamless garment” approach to a multitude of social justice issues. He also told the group of eight reporters to expect a conscience clause protection for health care workers currently under review by the administration that will be no less protective than what existed previously.

In addition to Catholic News Service, the round table included reporters and editors from other Catholic publications: National Catholic Reporter, America magazine, Catholic Digest, National Catholic Register, Commonweal magazine and Vatican Radio. The religion writer from The Washington Post also participated.

SNIP

“>Obama said in some ways he sees his first meeting with the pope as the same as any contact with a head of state, “but obviously this is more than just that. The Catholic Church has such a profound influence worldwide and in our country, and the Holy Father is a thought leader and opinion leader on so many wide-ranging issues. His religious influence is one that extends beyond the Catholic Church.”

He said he considers it a great honor to be meeting with the pope and that he hopes the session will lead to further cooperation between the Vatican and the United States in addressing Middle East peace, worldwide poverty, climate change, immigration and a whole host of other issues.

Several of the questions addressed the sometimes contentious relations between the Obama administration and some U.S. bishops, notably surrounding the president’s commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in May. The university’s decision to invite Obama and present him with an honorary degree led to a wave of protests at the university and a flurry of criticism by more than 70 bishops who said his support for legal abortion made him an inappropriate choice by the university.

Statements by the U.S. bishops also have chastised Obama for administrative actions such as the reversal of the Mexico City policy, which had prohibited the use of federal family planning funds by organizations that provide abortions or counsel women to have abortions.

But Obama said he’s not going to be deterred from continuing to work with the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, in part “because I’m president of all Americans, not just Americans who happen to agree with me.”

“The American bishops have profound influence in their communities, in the church and beyond,” Obama said. “What I would say is that although there have been criticisms leveled at me from some of the bishops, there have been a number of bishops who have been extremely generous and supportive even if they don’t agree with me on every issue.”

He said part of why he wants to establish a good working relationship with the bishops is because he has fond memories of working with Cardinal Bernardin when Obama was a community organizer, working with Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago.

“And so I know the potential that the bishops have to speak out forcefully on issues of social justice,” Obama said.

It’s interesting that if Bernardin was something of a prophet without honor in his own country–his common ground initiative met sharp resistance from his fellow cardinals–his ideas and spirit live on elsewhere. Salt of the earth, as Joseph Ratzinger (and someone before him) once put it.

Will Obama’s Bernardinesque approach work for America, or American Catholics?

(Above is White House photo via NCRegister)

Via Melinda Henneberger at Politcs Daily, a disturbing report from Politico about the Washington Post’s latest fundraising plan, apparently cooked up by CEO and publisher Katherine Weymouth:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

(”Obama administration officials” had never heard of the scheme.) Once word got out, the newsroom wasn’t having any of it. Melinda has the memo sent to Post employees by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, which reads in part:

We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable.

There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values.

Since Politico ran the story, Weymouth has canceled the event(s). We’ll see if that’s enough to save her job.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Thomas Frank writes about the mythology behind the Republicans’ obstruction of health-care reform:

Where the conservative mythologists show their hand is when they use their own monumental screw-ups, committed during conservatism’s long years in charge of the government, to prove that government in general is a futile proceeding, and that Democratic health-care plans, in particular, can’t possibly succeed. [...]

Among former President George W. Bush’s gravest and most characteristic blunders, of course, was his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, when the nation learned the true price of government by crony and contractor. But for conservatives, that is too nuanced a view. The real lesson to learn from Katrina as we debate health care is simply that government can never work. “The federal government would run a health care system — or a public plan option — with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office, and the incompetence of Katrina,” carps the official summary of the Republicans’ Patients’ Choice Act.

I’ve always thought that P.J. O’Rourke was only half joking when he wrote, years ago, that “Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.” Conservatives grasp the grand strategic sweep of politics better than liberals, and consequently they have always seemed to understand that what they do when they’re in charge can help to reinforce the myths that put them there.

I was blown away by On the Waterfront when I finally saw it, just a few years ago. I’d always heard it was great, but… it sounded so dull (Dock workers? Pigeons?). And out of context, the clips of Brando slurring “I coulda been a contender!” always seemed like he was parodying himself. But I finally saw it, on a big screen no less, right here in New York, as part of a film festival downtown. And it turned me into one of those people who go around telling everyone what a great movie On the Waterfront is.

I didn’t know going in that it was, at least in part, a story about a heroic priest. (And I didn’t know it had a connection to Commonweal — screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s story “Waterfront Priest,” about Fr. John M. Corridan, ran in The Commonweal in April 1953, and Associate Editor John Cort had been writing about the Waterfront labor situation for years before that.) In fact, On the Waterfront belongs on parish film-fest rosters alongside chestnuts like Boys Town and The Bells of St. Mary’s (and way ahead of silly epics like The Robe). I would certainly advocate screening it in this “year of the priest.” And as Philip T. Hartung wrote in Commonweal in 1954, “Karl Malden’s portrayal of the courageous priest is as outstanding as the author’s characterization of the part.”

Karl Malden died today at 97. I learned from the obituary in the New York Times that his birth name was Mladen Sekulovich, and that his parents were immigrants (from Serbia and Bohemia). I also didn’t know that he had advocated for director Elia Kazan’s controversial lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999. I did know how good he was at being an ordinary guy onscreen — for example, I think he was the quintessential “Herbie,” even if everything else about the movie version of Gypsy was less than ideal. But it’s as “Father Barry” that I will always remember him. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t delay. Do it for Karl.

While you’re holding your breath for Caritas in veritate (out July 7, they say), why not revisit some of the greatest hits of the past century? At the USCCB media blog, Don Clemmer has a rundown of social encyclicals you should know, from Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum up through Benedict’s Deus caritas est. And it’s complete with links to the official texts on the Vatican’s Web site, suitable for printing and perusing over the holiday weekend. (Just don’t try reading them onscreen, unless you’re looking for a little mortification — squinting at that Times-New-Roman-on-parchment-paper design is a sure way to get a headache.)

You know how to bank. In honor of Canada Day, we’re de-firewalling our piece on the Canadian banking system, “Northern Light.” Kick back, pour yourself a glass of maple syrup, and marvel at their sound financial management.

The fourth volume of John Meier’s A Marginal Jew has appeared. It is subtitled, “Law and Love,” and weighs in at a hefty 735 pages. As reported on the America blog, this is not beach reading! Nonetheless, it exhibits Meier’s trademark clarity, carefulness, and verve — not least in his delineation of the scope and focus of his project.

His introduction repeats some needed reminders and distinctions:

The first important distinction scholars often fail to make is the distinction between Christology and the quest for the historical Jesus. Both are valid academic endeavors … Obviously, the two endeavors are related. Christology is a subdivision of the academic discipline called theology – in Anselm’s famous phrase, fides quaerens intellectum, “faith seeking understanding.” Christology is therefore faith seeking understanding of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the object of Christian faith.

By contrast, the quest for the historical Jesus is by definition a strictly historical endeavor. Of its nature, it prescinds from or brackets Christian faith. This does not mean that it denies, rejects, or attacks such faith… All this is simply a matter of functional specialization, to use a phrase beloved of Bernard Lonergan.

Granted this distinction what then do I mean by “the historical Jesus”? The historical Jesus is that Jesus whom we can recover or reconstruct by using the tools of modern historical critical research as applied to ancient sources. Of its nature the historical Jesus is a modern abstraction and construct. He is not coterminous with the full reality of Jesus of Nazareth. (pp. 5&6)

And he admits, with the modesty we have come to expect from New York priests and Notre Dame professors,

In any rigorous and honest quest for the historical Jesus, we are always dealing with various degrees of probability. Of its very nature, the quest cannot and should not try to sell the product of its hypothetical reconstruction as the new and improved version of Christian faith in Jesus Christ. That would be absurd, though it is all too often done or at least implied. Rather … the historical critical method, when applied to Jesus of Nazareth, exemplifies “both its importance and its limitations,” as a very astute theologian has put it. (p. 17)

(For the identity of that “very astute theologian,” see p. 25, n. 36.)

I’m packing books in preparation for returning to New York, a task that requires me to make some hard choices. When I told a friend that I was using as a criterion whether I had opened the book in the last twenty years, she said this was too loose and suggested five years, which I find too rigid.

Among the books that came off the shelf for examination was the third edition (1979) of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, which, of course, I began to page through. I agree with much of it, indeed with most of it, but I find some prescriptions rather arbitrary. The chapter entitled “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused” has much helpful advice, particularly on words or phrases that are hackneyed (factor, feature), bankrupt (meaningful; in the last analysis), redundant (a man who; character; nature), shaggy (nice), newfound (offputting, ongoing), feeble (one of the most…), unconvincing (interesting), pretentious (personalize), etc

One of the “Elementary Principles of Composition” set out with Mosaic force in chapter 2 is: “Omit needless words,” which is followed by this paragraph:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should contain no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

(Strunk and White are particularly vigorous against the phrase: “the fact that…”) With the rules fresh in mind, I had to revise four or five of the sentences in the first two of the paragraphs above.

I had six years of very good training in English composition; frequent essays were required, and they were carefully evaluated. It’s often been said that the best way to learn to write is to read well and widely. Late in those years I read everything I could find by Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, and if I can write clearly today, it’s in good part because of their example. Greene praised Waugh’s novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold because “There is almost a complete absence of the beastly adverb – far more damaging to a writer than an adjective.” He believed that if you chose the proper verb, you didn’t need an adverb. (Stephen King says that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.”)

There are later editions of the book, which I like, but there are many people who don’t like it and who dislike the very idea of prescriptions in style.

The two authors should be grateful that they did not live to see today’s Washington Post which has an article on the exchange of letters between the governor of South Carolina and his Argentinian paramour. The author introduces the love-notes with: “He to she” and “She to he”. I didn’t make that up, and the author was not trying to be clever.

An article in today’s Washington Post has some fun with the view that celebrities die in groups of three, something verified this week with the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. I never heard this as applied to celebrities, but  my mother firmly believed that bad things come in threes. This provided me some relief when I had to come home from school in Manhattan and tell my parents that I had been suspended from Cathedral College, minor seminary of the Archdiocese of New York. I walked into the kitchen and told my mother, “I’ve got bad news.” “Oh no! What?” “I’ve been suspended from school.” “Oh, thank God!” she said. She proceeded to tell me that one of my sisters had been in a minor traffic accident, and another had needed stitches after cracking her head open against an old iron radiator. She knew that some third bad thing was going to happen to one of her children, and was very anxious about what it would be. That it was a mere suspension from school she could deal with.

Was this a common belief? That is, among others besides Brooklyn-born Irish?

Any other old truths that got us started on the way to learning to cope with the universe?

At the controls.

I wasn’t expecting any theology when I went to see the new version of The Taking of Pelham 123. But in a very deliberate way, the film early on sets up the bad guy, played by John Travolta, as a Catholic. For much of the film, it’s one of the few things we know about him. The film seems to take it as a given that being Catholic qualifies the subway hijacker as an expert on guilt – others’ guilt, not his own. “A good Catholic knows that nobody is innocent,” the bad guy opines. This allows him to zero in on the moral weaknesses of the people trying to stop his ride of terror on the New York City subway – in particular, of transit dispatcher Walter Garber, played by Denzel Washington. It allows the director to raise broader themes about guilt vs. innocence, sin, sacrifice and redemption.

It’s not subtle, but I thought this Catholic motif added a lot to the movie. And it’s authentically New York, since Catholicism is such a part of the city’s culture.

First, Benedict XVI confirms that tests done on bone fragments from a tomb venerated as that of the Apostle–but often considered more legend than fact–belonged to a man who lived between the first and second century.

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul,” the pope said during an evening prayer service June 28 at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, according to the CNS report.

The basilica has long been held to be the burial site of St. Paul, but because of the destruction and rebuilding of the basilica, the exact location of the tomb was unknown for centuries. Vatican officials announced in December 2006 that several feet below the basilica’s main altar and behind a smaller altar, they had found a roughly cut marble sarcophagus beneath an inscription that reads: “Paul Apostle Martyr.”

Because part of the sarcophagus is buried beneath building material, Vatican officials determined they could not dig it out to open and examine the contents. Initially they tried to X-ray it to see what was inside, but the marble was too thick.

Pope Benedict said a “very tiny perforation” was drilled into the marble so that a small probe could be inserted in order to withdraw fragments of what was inside.In addition to traces of purple linen, a blue fabric with linen threads and grains of red incense, he said they found bone fragments.

The bone fragments “underwent a carbon-14 analysis carried out by experts who did not know their place of origin,” the pope said, adding that the results “indicate they belong to a person who lived between the first and second century.”

Second, and just as remarkable, is the news that Vatican archaeologists have found what is likely the oldest known portrait of St Paul–a fourth-century mosaic (shown above, from the London Times story) that shows the Apostle to the Gentiles much as he has been portrayed down through the centuries.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, which devoted two pages to the discovery, said that the oval portrait, dated to the 4th century, had been found in the catacombs of St Thecla, not far from the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, where the apostle is buried. The find was “an extraordinary event”, said Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Barbara Mazzei, a restorer, said that centuries of grime had been removed with a laser. Fabrizio Bisconti, Professor of Christian Iconography at Rome University and a member of the team that made the discovery, said that it appeared to have decorated the tomb of a nobleman or high church official.

When the Obamas went out on their highly publicized “date night” a month ago, they probably didn’t realize that they were a walking economic stimulus package. Or did they?

Daniel Cere’s review (link for subscribers only) of Andrew J. Cherlin’s The Marriage-Go-Around: The State of Marriage and Family in America Today published in the June issue of Commonweal reminded me of Stanley Hauerwas’s provocative essay, “Resisting Capitalism: On Marriage and Homosexuality” collected in the volume A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity. As Cere summarizes, Cherlin identifies as the cause of America’s “marriage wars” the paradoxical coincidence of an “obsession with the conjugal bond” and a lack of regard for either permanence or offspring, two things traditionally understood as essential to the institution itself. In contrast to this American way, Cherlin notes that those evil hedonist-socialist Europeans seem “much more anxious about the birth rights of children.”

One thing missing from Cherlin’s analysis, as presented by Cere, seems to be the economic factors that might be perpetuating America’s marriage paradox. According the Hauerwas, it should not be surprising that one of the most capitalist and consumptive countries in the world should be plagued by this paradox. He writes:

Capitalism thrives on short-term commitments.  The ceaseless drive for innovation is but the way to undercut labor’s power by making the skills of the past irrelevant for tomorrow.  Indeed, capitalism is the ultimate form of deconstruction, because how better to keep labor under control than through the scarcity produced through innovation?  All the better that human relationships are ephemeral, because lasting commitments prove to be inefficient in ever-expanding markets.

This idea was echoed yesterday in a NY Times op-ed by Ross Douthat, who wrote:

The difficult scramble up the meritocratic ladder tends to discourage wild passions and death-defying flings. For bright young overachievers, there’s often a definite tameness to the way that collegiate “safe sex” segues into the upwardly-mobile security of “companionate marriages” — or, if you’re feeling more cynical, “consumption partnerships.”

Read the rest of this entry »

And that was back in 1973! Another fascinating bit of transcription from recently-released tapes of conversations between Nixon and Billy Graham, this time focusing on Nixon’s take on Catholics of the day. At America magazine’s blog, Jim Martin has the goods. The set-up is Graham and Nixon discussing prospects for a worldwide church body to counter the left World Council of Churches. The two men see leading bishops in the GOP camp, and the Jesuits as “all-out, barn-burning radicals.” Plus ca change!

President Nixon: Now what about the Catholics?

Rev. Graham: We don’t know.  They’re going to come in great numbers as observers. 

Nixon: Yeah.

 

Graham: So far, they would not be able to participate, and uh, you know the Southern Baptist and other groups wouldn’t um…

 

Nixon: Yeah…the trouble is…

Graham: They couldn’t anyway.

 

Nixon: Yeah.  The difficulty too is that the Catholics aren’t [in better shape] with that too.  They’re going be losing their stroke, because…

 

Graham: They’re…they’re…that is the problem.

 

Nixon: They’re split right down the middle.  They sure are.  You’ve got the good guys like [John Cardinal] Krol of Philadelphia, and [Terence Cardinal] Cooke in New York.  And then there’s this bad wing, the Jesuits, who used to be the conservatives, and have become now become the all-out, barn-burning radicals. 

 

Graham: I think quite a bit, by the way, of that fellow you’ve got working with you–McLaughlin.

Nixon:  Oh yeah [laughter] the priest, yeah.  You know, he’s good, and he’s sort of a convert to our side.  He came in a total, all-out peacenik and then went to Vietnam and changed his mind.

 

Graham: I never met him, until I was over at a prayer breakfast over at the White House about a month ago.  He invited me up to his office, and I went over and spent about an hour with him.

 

Nixon: He’s a very capable fellow, bright as a tack.

Yes, that would be John McLaughlin, a former Jesuit priest who, unlike the liberal Robert Drinan, defied his superiors and left the order to become a conservative commentator and political insider.

Here is a link to Tape 43, Conversation 161.

A short piece went up on the NY Times website last night in which the author describes her journey from a repressive Catholic upbringing, which seems to have ended in a falling away from the Church, to a rediscovery of her faith in the form of a progressive  ”Catholic under protest.”  I found myself sympathetic to much of the ”under protest” faith she describes, but I also winced at a few passages that seemed a bit to much like consumer religion:

I liked parishes that were racially and socio-economically diverse, houses of worship that were beautiful, the presence of women priests when I was lucky enough to encounter it. I had zero tolerance for folk masses, anti-abortion diatribes, ecclesiastical greed, rote reciters of scripture and congregants who refused to sing. (After all, as St. Augustine said, “singing is twice praying.”) When people in the pews were unkind to my generally well-mannered children, I crossed their church off my list. I preferred my homilists witty, lyrical and learned.

Passages like this seem to conflict with her “reform from within” attitude, as commended to her by one former nun:

One of the speakers was a former Catholic nun who left her order many years ago and is currently an Interfaith minister. She spoke of her work as a person of the cloth, her life as a lesbian, her 25 years with her beloved. The honorific “Reverend” precedes her name. She wears a Roman collar. That night, her address was filled with surprises, but only one aspect of her speech shocked me: her fervent recommendation that progressive Catholics remain in the Church — so as to be in a position to create change. She still worships in a Roman Catholic Church.

What is most concerning is that the church she loves does not seem to be the church that is:

I love the radical Catholic Church. I love that there are Roman Catholic bishops sticking their necks out to ordain women. That Catholic doctrine places mighty emphasis on the role of conscience in worship and creates fertile ground for conscientious dissent. I support dramatic change as energetically as I can. I withhold my cash from the bishops and hand my diocesan appeal tender to the Woman’s Ordination Conference and to SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). I devote much time and talent to working in the Gay Ministry at my church. I recognize it is my obligation as a conscious, conscientious Catholic to discern — to know that the church no more belongs to the Vatican than it does to me. The power of the Church may rest with the College of Cardinals, but its glory rests with people like me.

Once I accepted that being Roman Catholic did not require that I be a papist — once I understood that it was possible to be simultaneously outraged by and in love with the Church — I saw the obstacles to being a practicing Catholic in a new way.

I worry that this kind of “Catholic under protest” is not one who really wants to embrace a flawed Church and seek to lovingly reform it as the Spirit guides the hearts of ALL the faithful, but rather, she seems to want to support para-church movements that are doing everything but breaking with the church.  This, it seems, is not the most productive strategy for reform.  Mostly, I worry that she is just not being honest about where the church is and the level of commitment to the larger Catholic community that is required to change it.

Though overshadowed liturgically by the celebration of the Lord’s Day, the Church celebrates today one of its earliest and greatest theologians: Irenaeus of Lyons. As is well-known, Irenaeus came from Asia Minor, studied in Rome, and became bishop of Lyons. Thus he is a compelling witness to the tradition of Greek and Latin Christianity, the still undivided Church.

One of the most memorable courses I have ever taken was with the noted Patristics scholar Antonio Orbe, S.J., on the Theology of Irenaeus. Unlike the Gnostics, whom he wrote against, Irenaeus had a deep appreciation of the material universe and of the human, molded from the clay of the earth. In this, of course, he was faithful to the biblical vision and the inseparable unity of the two Testaments.

One of Father Orbe’s favorite phrases from Irenaeus was that humankind was “nuper factus,” only recently created, and thus childlike and in need of education. God’s patient pedagogy was to persuade, not coerce, his creature toward maturity.

Could it be merely coincidence that I happened just yesterday to hear an interview on the splendid National Public Radio Program, “Speaking of Faith?” It was with the geophysicist, Xavier Le Pichon, who also has lived and been part of a L’Arche community.

Le Pichon spoke of the human capacity to identify with the suffering other. But this capacity must be educated. And the litmus test of any society’s humanity is its treatment of the most fragile of its members: the very young and the elderly: those who serve no utilitarian function, but can teach us true humanity by our care and concern for them.

The interview in pdf format is available here.

Update:

The pedagogy may be divine, but to err is human:

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading your recent post to dotCommweal, “Divine Pedagogy.”  I also deeply appreciate your link to Speaking of Faith’s “Fragility and the Evolution of our Humanity” program.

The post refers to Speaking of Faith as a National Public Radio program.  While it does broadcast on local public radio stations nationwide, it is produced and distributed by American Public Media and is not a production of NPR.  American Public Media is the nation’s second-largest producer and distributor of public radio programs.

Would it be possible to make this correction?”

Brad Robideau
National Public Relations Manager
American Public Media

Showtime has a new series you may have seen advertised, starring Edie Falco, formerly of The Sopranos.

It’s called Nurse Jackie and it looks very promising: emergency room nurse who’s tough, quietly kind, fiercely devoted to her vocation — does Percoset and OxyContin on the job for her bad back and stress levels, while having an affair with the hospital pharmicist — takes a long subway ride home (after double shifts) to her hunky husband and two sweet daughters.

The hospital is Catholic; there’s a corridor leading to the chapel that has a statue of Raphael’s transfigured Christ at the end of the hallway. Sisters of Charity seem to process down those halls in random gaggles.

Sts. Jane Frances de Chantal and Augustine (not to mention T.S. Eliot) are quoted in the first episode.

I don’t think it is likely break new ground — it operates in that tragicomic space carved out by recent series like Rescue Me. But it seems off to a great start.

Which makes me wonder: just how dominant is Catholicism in contemporary TV-land? I mentioned Rescue Me, but there are others (Tom Fontana’s Homicide and Oz of recent years come to mind).

Anyone seen Nurse Jackie?

Or have ideas about the way Catholicism and TV seem made for one another?

H/T: Ann Conway at “Good Letters”

Gary Sick has an informative analysis of the Revolutionary Guard.

http://garysick.tumblr.com/    (June 28)

It appears there was another large demonstration Sunday in Tehran.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?_r=1&hp

One reason I enjoy dipping into the Commonweal archives is to look at the ads. I have long been fascinated by magazine advertisements from the first half of the twentieth century (and earlier). I love the combination of hand-drawn art and hand-set type. I love how print ads from the 1950s and earlier are filled to bursting with irony-free copy — who wanted to read all that? I love the window they provide on the culture they were designed for. And, perhaps most of all, I love the juvenile laughs I sometimes get from their use of contemporary slang. If you’ll indulge me, then, something fun for the weekend…

In the 1950s, the candle-making company Will & Baumer had a regular spot facing the table of contents in The Commonweal for its comparatively art-heavy half-page ads. Most of these advertisements extolled the virtues of their various liturgical candles and candle accessories, designed to meet every conceivable worship need. (In one, there’s a great image of an acolyte using what looks like a miniature blowtorch to light tapers suspended above his head.) But they also encouraged consumers to integrate candles more fully into their secular household routines. Candlelight, as any 1950s homemaker knew, is naturally conducive to wholesome family values… Or is it? This is from an ad that ran in the April 23, 1954 issue of The Commonweal:

If you can’t make out the small text, it says:

Whether the occasion be an informal supper, a Coke party for the youngsters, or a formal dinner, the dining table becomes the social axis of the scene.

Make it gay, inviting, friendly with Taperlights: Simple decorations that add a festive note, that lift the plainest menu to the emotional level of a grand occasion. Taperlights provide the light beauty and romance to capture young imaginations… encourage an expansive feeling of gaiety, and compete with the artfully contrived atmosphere of commercialized entertainment.

Well, I never! (Complete ad, and another fun excerpt, after the jump…)
Read the rest of this entry »

An unapologetic liberal, I confess that I am occasionally drawn to the cultural critique offered by the right.  I thought of both Robert Bork’s—hence the title of this post—and Allan Bloom’s invocation of Michael Jackson as representative of the decline of Western civilization.  Bloom’s chapter on contemporary music in The Closing of the American Mind is a must read.  Here is one memorable paragraph.

“Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV.  He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs . . . And in what does progress culminate?  A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feeling are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music.  In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.”

I like Michael Jackson’s music and dancing as much as the next middle-aged white guy, but I couldn’t help but recall this passage as I watched the inexplicable outpouring of grief over Jackson’s death.

It’s odd that the State Department didn’t make a public announcement when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed a new envoy this week to represent the United States among Muslims. The appointment of Kashmir-born U.S. diplomat Farah Pandith follows up on President Obama’s Cairo speech.

As a reporter noted in Thursday’s State Department media briefing, it would seem to make sense that Muslims be notified. Curious exchange:

QUESTION: Has the Secretary appointed a special representative for Muslim communities?

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: When was this?

MR. KELLY: This was – you know, she’s actually a friend of mine. I worked with her very closely in the European Bureau, Farah Pandith. She was a special advisor for outreach to Muslim communities in Europe. The Secretary has appointed her to more of a global role. And I think it’d be a good idea for her to come down here and talk to you guys about her role.

QUESTION: Could you put something out in the meantime about her appointment and –

MR. KELLY: Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

QUESTION: Just out of curiosity, is she a Muslim?

MR. KELLY: You know, I can’t answer that question.

QUESTION: You’re friends and you don’t know?

MR. KELLY: Sorry?

QUESTION: You’re friends and you don’t know? (Laughter.)

MR. KELLY: I haven’t asked her her religious affiliation.

Yes, Dave. I’m sorry. You have a follow-up?

QUESTION: When was this appointment made?

MR. KELLY: I believe it was made two days ago.

QUESTION: It was recent?

MR. KELLY: Yeah, it was either yesterday or the day before.

QUESTION: Is there some reason you guys didn’t announce it?

MR. KELLY: Well, there was an announcement, and I know it was sent out to the State Department community. But we will put it out more broadly.

QUESTION: That might be interesting for – just for a broader Muslim community other than those in the State Department, you know.

MR. KELLY: Fair point. Yes.

In my recent column, I discussed Palsgraf v. Long Island RR, one of the most famous tort law cases in the United States. I got a very interesting email from William Manz, a law professor at St. John’s, which I post below. The way law and life interact is fascinating–I’m going to buy his book!

I read with interest your column in Commonweal which mentioned the Palsgraf case. A few years ago, LexisNexis published my book, The Palsgraf Case: Courts, Law & Society in 1920s New York, which treats the case as a historical event and includes the backgrounds of all thirteen judges who heard the case.

Cardozo’s apparent indifference to the situation of Mrs. Palsgraf stands in interesting contrast to that of the trial judge, Burt Jay Humphrey, who denied the railroad’s motion to set aside the verdict as against the weight of the evidence, stating that the decision was a “close call,” but that he would let the verdict stand. Humphrey, the son of an upstate New York farmer, was widely regarded as a kindly person, and it’s highly probable that sympathy for Mrs. Palsgraf played a part in his decision. However, overall there was no general correlation between a judge’s background and his position on the Palsgraf case. For example, Judge O’Brien who sided with Judge Andrews had spent much of his career with the New York City Corporation Counsel’s office, whose duties included defending the City against negligence suits. In contrast, Justice Andrews of the Appellate Division, who sided with the LIRR, came from New Rochelle, a community which had once lost many of its residents in a major train crash caused by a railroad’s negligence.

Finally, while researching the book, I contacted a retired attorney who had once been chief counsel for the Long Island Railroad., who provided useful insights on the practices of the LIRR’s legal department (e.g., if there was any settlement offer made to Mrs. Palsgraf, it would have been minuscule). He was certain that the railroad would never have attempted to collect the costs awarded to it by Cardozo’s decision.

William H. Manz

St. John’s University School of Law

Queens, NY

Thanks to Grant’s gentle prodding and the fact that he provided me with the username and password I had forgotten, I’m posting again.

This is follow up to Mollie’s June 17 post on summer reading.  Those who have ventured onto Facebook know that a favorite pastime there is taking quizzes designed to reveal something about you.  Below is a version of one of the literary quizzes, along with my answers.

***
“Rules: You have received this note because someone thinks you are a literary geek. Copy the questions into your own note, answer the questions, and tag any friends who would appreciate the quiz, including the person who sent you this.”

Don’t bother trying to italicize your book titles, even though we know you want to…

1.    What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?  (Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason)
2.    Do you prefer the French or the Russians? (The Russians, no contest)
3.    Roth or Updike?  (Roth)
4.    Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? (I’m reading Paradise Lost right now, so I guess it’s Milton)
5.    Austen or Eliot? (Eliot; it’s heresy but I can’t stand Austen)
6.    What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? (Joyce)
7.    What is your favorite novel? (Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing is right up there)
8.    Who is your favorite writer? (Wendell Berry – because his work is beautiful in three different genres, fiction, poetry, and essays)
9.    Who is the most overrated writer alive today? (I’m going to define overrated as a writer who has received enormous acclaim, but whose work just doesn’t engage me.  With that definition:  Annie Proulx,  I’ve tried The Shipping News multiple times, but have never made it past 100 pages.)
10.    What is your desert island book? (My Kindle, with solar cells attached)

While going through my library in order to decide which books to keep when I move back to New York, I cam across American Catholic Exodus, edited by John O’Connor (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968). Eleven chapters, written by Catholic “progressives” (the one exception, the Protestant Robert McAfee Brown) describe what the editor calls “a gigantic walkaway” of people who are not so much leaving the Church as “taking the Church with them. They feel they are the Church. What they are leaving behind, for the most part, are old forms, old structures, some old ideas and prejudices and postures, and, sad to say, some old men in moldy mitres…. Rather than being certain that they had God cornered in a tabernacle, guarded by canon lawyers and the flashing blades of those plumed samurai, the Knights of Columbus, they set out in search of him…. The result has been a breakthrough into a new and unknown land.”

A place-marker brought me to William Birmingham’s description of this land’s new style of liturgy. It’s worth reading as a reminder of the chaos that in more than one place erupted after the Council (this is within a couple of years of its close!, and before the promulgation of the New Order) and that made more than one person cling to the traditional rite of Mass.

Experimental liturgies….are meeting a need that is deeply felt; to give thanks in community. At one such liturgy in which I took part, the priest was twenty-eight. The liturgy of the Word had been prepared by a boy and girl of sixteen and seventeen. The opening was unfortunate: a Donovan song which could not be understood because the record player was momentarily broken. The readings which followed were taken from Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, Heinrich Hesse’s Damien, Ezra Pound’s ‘The Ballad of the Goodly Fere’, and the first epistle of John. It closed with the playing of “Suzanne’ sung by Judy Collins. The eucharistic prayer, composed for the occasion, though not by the teenagers, reflected the content of the readings. It was read seriatim by those present. The priest recited the narrative of institution and all together said the words of institution over the loaf of Italian bread and common wine. Following communion the celebration dissolved slowly into conversation among the thirty or so people who had taken part.

This kind of liturgy is not rare among the new generation. Ones like it can be found on many college campuses. I see the problems involved, of course. But I also see among the best of these young people an insistence on valid religious experience that has for a long time been rare in the Roman Church. And this is a sign of hope, of very great hope indeed.

At the First Things blog, resident climate change denialist Thomas Sieger Derr (whose dishonest tactics Grant has exposed before), after weighing in on the cap and trade debate, lets loose with a predictable volley of faux-scientific silliness:

All this diplomatic turmoil is proceeding against a backdrop of growing public indifference. So the alarmist community has reacted predictably by issuing ever more apocalyptic statements, like the federal report ”Global Change Impacts in the United States” issued last week which predicts more frequent heat waves, rising water temperatures, more wildfires, rising disease levels, and rising sea levels—headlined, in a paper I read, as “Getting Warmer.” This is mostly nonsense, and it is certainly not “getting warmer.” The earth stopped warming in 1998 and since 2002 has been getting slightly cooler. Sea ice in the arctics is growing. Sea levels are not rising faster than their usual steady tiny pace. The incidence of severe storms is not increasing. And so on. If you want to worry about the climate, worry about colder weather and lower crop yields as the sun remains unusually quiet.

For heaven’s sake, climate people, pay attention to real life, real time data and not your wobbly and unreliable computer models.

Let’s go through this line by line, shall we?

The earth stopped warming in 1998 and since 2002 has been getting slightly cooler.

Actually, no. As the indispensable John Cook explains, 1998 happened to be an unusually warm year thanks to abnormally high levels of El Niño activity, but when we correct for that anomaly we find a consistent warming pattern that continues the trend of the past century-plus, with the eight warmest years on record all having occurred since 1998. The idea that global surface temperatures in an obviously extreme year can be taken as a straightforward data point to compare with temperatures from other years is as wobbly and unreliable a strategy for measuring climate trends as there could possibly be.

Sea ice in the arctics is growing.

Again: no, not really. Like the above-discussed claim about planetary temperature trends, misleading talk about sea ice has become a common trope among climate change denialists, most famously in a recent George Will column that the Washington Post fact-checkers seemed to have forgotten about. But it’s every bit as dishonest when Derr appeals to it as when Will does: for one thing, it’s only in the Antarctic where sea ice levels show a pattern of long term growth; and for another, as Cook helpfully explains once again, the increase of sea ice in the Antarctic is something that seems to be an effect of warming patterns in the region, not cooling ones.

Sea levels are not rising faster than their usual steady tiny pace.

Untrue. As the NOAA notes, the rate of sea level rise over the past century has been “significantly larger” than that of the past thousand years, and this trend is expected only to worsen as greenhouse gas levels rise. A similar point to that last one also holds for the incidence of severe storms, which is projected to increase as the Earth’s climate warms; the fact that such an increase hasn’t been observed since the relevant projections were issued in 2007 is no good reason to think that they are wrong.

Mostly nonsense, indeed. If the First Things crowd ever decides to do one of those fundraising cruises that have become so popular of late, I know of a river in Egypt that would be an appropriate destination.

P.S. None of this is to say that the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, which Derr begins by criticizing, is worthy of support. (Even many environmentalists think it may not be.) But it’s entirely possible to argue that without pretending that global warming and its effects are any less real than Thomas Sieger Derr’s evident penchant for intellectual dishonesty.

Last week the political philosopher Michael Walzer wrote a short piece about the response to recent events in Iran for the Web sites of the New Republic and Dissent. There he carefully distinguished between the way private citizens and members of the media should respond to the Iranian government’s mistreatment of its own people, and the way public officials in the West — and President Obama in particular — should respond. Anyone committed to democracy, Walzer argued, had a reason to denounce the fraudulence and thuggery of Iran’s leadership, and to support the protesters who have defied the Supreme Leader. President Obama, though, must decide what he can allow himself to say in function of what he must later do — which is to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

For liberals and leftists — opposition and nothing else; for state diplomats –handshakes and negotiation. The difference in the two roles is important. It doesn’t mean that heads of state cannot defend political principles, but they also have other things to do. Right now, the most important task of the U.S. government with regard to Iran is not regime change. The most important task is to persuade or coerce the Iranian government to give up the effort to produce nuclear weapons. Doing that will require some mix of toughness and conciliation — and that necessary mix will still be necessary whoever actually won and whoever finally wins the Iranian election.

Walzer’s formulation of this distinction is lucid and forceful, but behind it is the dubious idea that only denunciations issued by the White House or the State Department could hinder U.S. negotiations with Iran — or be exploited by the Iranian leadership. Alas, the Supreme Leader and his propagandists are not so choosy. They tend to regard British and American journalists, for example, as agents of the state, perhaps because in their own country many journalists are agents of the state. And any Western voice loud enough to reach the streets of Tehran with useful information or encouragement will be loud enough to find its way into the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei’s rhetoric about the United States, Britain, and Israel as the sources of every evil. President Obama doesn’t have to say a word; the fact that CNN and the BBC are broadcasting images of young demonstrators shot dead in the streets is taken by the Iranian leadership as evidence that the U.S. and Britain are behind the protests.

Of course, since the time Walzer wrote this piece, the president has condemned the Iranian government’s actions in fairly severe terms. On Monday President Obama said the violent crackdown was a violation of “universal values”:

I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days. And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.

How could we not watch? And how could we remain silent about what we are seeing? It has been suggested by people less careful (and less honest) than Walzer that any expression of outrage on our part would be seized upon by those who hope that the Iranian people’s distrust of the West is still stronger than their desire for justice at home. That hope seems more desperate by the day. In any case, our silence is not what the protesters themselves need or want; and if we decide to say nothing, we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we are doing them a favor. It may be easier for us to ignore what’s happening there, or to give it a quick glance and a sad shrug. After all, we have so much to worry about already in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at home. It would be easier to think that what’s easiest for us is also what’s best for the Iranian dissidents. The reality is less convenient. The New Yorker’s George Packer puts it well:

[E]ven if you don’t have Iranian contacts, you can still try to imagine your way into the situation of the protesters. Every day you have to summon the courage to go out into the streets (where the death toll is now reportedly at thirty-two), and your awareness of international opinion is steadily diminishing as Internet and phone access is choked off. A part of your mind is alert to the danger of being labeled an American agent, always a factor in the regime’s propaganda; but given the enormous risks you’re already running, a much larger part of your mind is afraid that the world is going to lose interest or write you off, that the regime is going to stop feeling any international pressure to behave with restraint, and that when the guns start mowing protesters down in earnest, no one will be watching. When the stakes are this high, being the object of too much foreign concern is not likely to be your number one fear.

(H/T Andrew Sullivan, who has more on the BBC report right here.)

For more on detainee abuse in the “war on terror,” read Michael Peppard’s article “Disgrace,” now the lead story on our home page.

John Thavis of Catholic News Service has a post on the CNS blog giving some background to his story about this week’s Oasis conference in Venice. Many important topics were discussed, but I will confess the reason I am posting is to call attention to his blog post’s delightful lede:

VENICE, Italy — I was pleasantly surprised the other day to find that Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice was following me on Twitter.

What interesting times we live in.

It may not merit top ranking on the woes-of-the-world list, but–as many other writers have noted–the continued implosion of the newspaper business is particularly threatening to traditional arts journalism. Papers have been laying off book and movie critics for several years. (I noticed today that a site documenting the waning ranks of film reviewers hasn’t yet caught up with the recent dismissal of the longtime movie critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the daily in the Virginia city where I live.) Reviewers and arts reporters who haven’t been given the old heave-ho may be asked to writer shorter pieces, and to be pickier when choosing works to discuss.

Of course, reviewing, at least, is flourishing on the Web. But the Web tends to be niche-ified: It’s the more conventional journalistic establishment, arts critics included, that can better generate a cultural discourse the whole society can share.

Investigative reporting, too, often falls by the wayside when the media is pinching its pennies. Various  nonprofit organizations, such as ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting, have sprung up to preserve that valuable journalistic genre. Perhaps there’s a need for a national nonprofit specializing in arts journalism–an outfit that could dispatch writers to document and critique that museum exhibit, or small-town adventurous play, or noteworthy dance production that might otherwise fall through the cracks. The nonprofit could publish the pieces on the Web, of course, but perhaps before ink-and-paper outlets die out completely, it could also become a sort of Associated Press for arts journalism, allowing papers and magazines across the country to run the coverage for a modest sum.

Any energetic visionaries willing to step up to the plate?

As part of the protests over Barack Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame, one alum, David DiFranco, launched a website to get ND president Father John Jenkins fired and to tally donations withheld from the university as a way of quantifying the displeasure and pressuring the board to replace Jenkins. The site’s last public tally, on May 13, counted $13.9 million in funds withheld.

Yesterday, Notre Dame announced that it raised $1.54 billion as part of its “Spirit of Notre Dame” campaign–and did so two years ahead of shedule.

In May 2007 the school announced it wanted to raise money to support four areas: undergraduate education; research and graduate studies; diversity and international studies; and Catholic intellectual life.

The Rev. John Jenkins, the university president, said the challenge now is to build on the campaign’s success and fully fund all of the priorities.
University vice president Louis Nanni said there is still work to be done, including raising more money for financial aid in these tough economic times.

The disparity seems to echo the disparity within the student body in terms of support for Obama’s appearance, and the disparity in the Catholic populace. Though not in the conservative Catholic echo chamber. Here’s a thought: Maybe Obama’s appearance–and the opposition to him–actually boosted ND’s fundraising.

H/T: CWNews

New tapes have been released — always illuminating. The New York Times reports:

On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

Makes you feel better about the state of the debate today, doesn’t it? There’s more, of course, on most of the 1970s’ other hot topics. You have to keep reminding yourself that the president knew he was being taped.