Rumors of Deal Hudson’s disappearance have been greatly exaggerated. Although the one-time publisher of Crisis left that magazine and his position advising the White House on Catholic matters under a cloud of scandal, he’s kept a foot in the game under new auspices. Since January 2005, the Morley Institute for Church and Culture has been sending out his retooled e-newsletter, now dubbed the Window, on a semiregular basis (a few times a month).

The most recent edition takes on Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles for his vocal opposition to a new immigration bill (HR 4437), which Mahony says could criminalize services the church provides to undocumented immigrants. To clarify this complex issue, Hudson turned to Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a Catholic, one of the bill’s authors (the other is Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. [R-WI]). Is Mahony’s interpretation of HR 4437 right?

“Absolutely not.” King continues, “Not a single priest or bishop has
contacted me to talk about this bill. They are questioning my good
faith and that of Rep. Sensenbrenner. We want to target gangs and
smugglers. This law has always been on the books, and no priest, nun,
social worker, or volunteer has ever been arrested or will be
arrested.”

Mahony and others object to the language in the bill that would criminalize the behavior of anyone who “assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or
remain in the United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in
the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that
such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or
remain in the United States.” The bolded words are the legal novelties in this bill, and that’s what has Catholic leaders worried. Couldn’t the vague terms be applied to those who provide shelter, food, health care? That wasn’t in King’s mind, he assures us. So why add the new language?

“It is my understanding that we added the word ‘assists’ at the request
of the Justice Department so we could go after those who issue false ID
cards. If those who are concerned about the language have better
language to suggest, let them offer it and we will certainly consider
it.”

Is the language of “assists” and “directs” really the best the congressmen could come up with in order to secure tougher legal penalties against those who issue fake IDs to undocumented immigrants? Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, thinks not.

No, not that FT. The basic-principles variety. You could fill the Grand Canyon with the ink that’s been spilled on the subject of the Democrats’ post-2004 soul-searching expedition, but every so often something really interesting surfaces in that debate (even the Corner found it intriguing). Just today, in fact, Amy Sullivan (who’s been known to contribute to Commonweal ) again dipped her toe into this water on the Washington Monthly‘s blog Political Animal.

In a previous post, she deployed the term “knee-jerk liberals” to describe those on the left who ritually attack conservatives for their religious convictions, and found her inbox filled with venomous e-mails. To clarify:

I do think there is a tendency on the part of some on the left to
criticize conservative politicians on the basis of their religious
views. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am not defending conservative
politicians, nor do I think it’s inappropriate to criticize religious
beliefs, especially when they’re brought into political debate and
certainly when they’re extreme. But when it’s done with broad
brushstrokes–and here I’m thinking of the charge that Bush is trying
to turn the country into a theocracy (see: Kevin Phillips, Bill Moyers,
and other very smart people)–it can have the effect of sounding
anti-religion when that’s not what I think it is. There are a lot of
reasons to criticize George W. Bush, many of them related to his use
and mis-use of religion. But theocracy isn’t one of them.

Why does this matter? Read on for Amy’s analysis.

Over at First Things, Richard John Neuhaus has some nice things to say about DotCommonweal in general and this author in particular (scroll down after the link). So I thank him for that. But I’m not sure we’re entirely in agreement on every point.

But I’m almost reluctant to keep the debate going. I stand by my sociological observations, which I think remain true regardless of whether one feels they are positive or negative developments. But there has been too much of this “point scoring” lately, where we criticize each other for the various ways we fall short of the call of the Gospel. Isuppose my post on the Cardinal Newman Society can be criticized for falling into that category.

But the debate is important. It goes to the heart of what we are all about. How do we come to know Christ better? And how do we make Him better known?

To say that the answer is “Fidelity! Fidelity! Fidelity!” is to beg the question: fidelity to what? To Christ Himself? Or to an understanding of Him that is bound to a particular time and place? Is it hard to separate the two? Of course it is. The earliest Christians took a hell of a risk when they dispensed Gentile converts from circumcision. Pope John XXIII took a few risks too. Why? Because they thought it would be worth the risk of removing some unnecessary stumbling blocks if Christ could become better known.

At its best, the liberal Catholic project was about how to make Christ better known in a culture shaped by the Enlightenment. We’re still living in that culture, even if we are more conscious of the dark side of human reason, and more aware that perhaps not every “reform” has served its underlying purpose.

In the end, I’m drawn to the observation that Peter Steinfels made at the end of his well-known debate with Francis Cardinal George:

Not long ago I came across some notes from an interview I had with Gustavo Gutiérrez, usually viewed as the founding father of liberation theology. “I don’t believe in liberation theology,” Father Gutiérrez said. “I believe in Jesus Christ.” Let me take my cue from him. I don’t believe in liberal Catholicism. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

But I would argue that insofar as we can humanly tell, liberal Catholicism is essential to the flourishing of that church in the United States and, I believe, in the rest of the world. I don’t deny the need for currents in the church that emphasize preservation and the risks of change or currents of either right or left that call for prophetic confrontation and sectarian witness. But if the church is to remain a healthy organism it needs the self-criticism, open inquiry, and spirit of dialogue that liberal Catholicism has provided.

Hervé Legrand, OP, a French ecclesiologist, specialist in questions of ministry, has an article (in French), available on the web at http://snv.free.fr/jv096legrand.htm, in which he reviews two 20th-century debates as to the meaning of a vocation to the priesthood. The debate was between those who thought a vocation was essentially a matter of an inner divine call and those who thought it was essentially a call from the Church. The first view tends to assimilate vocations to the priesthood to vocations to the religious life; the latter carefully distinguishes them. Of course, it may be that one does not have to choose between the two, but depending on one’s view of the matter, one will have a different idea of whether there really is a “vocations-crisis” or vocations-shortage” in the Church today.

“The United States has always been and remains a great defender of human rights and the rule of law,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a London think-tank last Tuesday. “I regret that there has been concern or confusion about our commitment to the rule of law.”

Now why would that be?

Boston is once more embroiled in controversy over the Catholic Church. And the Boston Globe is once again pontificating about matters Catholic.

In its editorial of March 14th, “Romney’s Retreat,” the Globe takes Governor Romney to task for proposing to file legislation exempting Catholic Charities from State discrimination laws regarding adoptions by same-sex couples. The editorial urges Romney not to lobby the Legislature for an exemption, but, rather, to lobby the Bishops for a reconsideration of their decision to discontinue handling adoptions.

In the event this does not succeed, the Globe advises the Governor to explore with others the creation of an “arm’s-length organization that would handle adoptions with same-sex couples in close association with Catholic Charities, but with enough distance from it to avoid a Church veto.”

Should both the above stratagems fail, the ever-resourceful Globe advocates the formation of “a new group … outside the Church to take over Catholic Charities adoption work.”

With their creativity now at full throttle, the editors even devise a name for the proposed entity. “Perhaps it could even be called catholic charities, with a small ‘c,’ restoring the root meaning of the word as ‘general, universal, or inclusive in human affairs.’”

Since they are into etymology, the Globe editors might also check the Greek root of another word that seems to be lurking in the background of their mischievous flight of fancy: “schismatic.”

Over the last several years I’ve given many talks about Vatican II, in the US, Canada, and Australia. On almost every one of those occasions, the audience was by substantial majority over (and often well over) fifty years old.

A small group of concerned Catholic lay people in Westchester Co., NY, organized in the shock of the scandals, is composed largely of people over sixty. Does anyone know what the age-distribution of members of the Voice of the Faithful is?

During the Bishop Gaillet affair several years ago in France, polls showed that it was mostly Vatican II – aged Catholics who were publicly protesting.

What is the age-distribution of subscribers to Commonweal?

Much ink continues to be spilled about the issue of “Catholic identity” at historically Catholic colleges and universities. I learned today, for example, that the Cardinal Newman Society is continuing its crusade against Fr. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame, making yet another plagiarism allegation only a short time after the university dismissed their last charge as unfounded. Not quite sure what this has to do with Catholic identity, but it does manage to keep the “other CNS” in the headlines, no?

But while we’re on this topic, I managed to miss a news story from a few weeks ago where law students from Georgetown University turned their backs on Alberto Gonzales when he came to speak at the GULC.  Given Gonzales role as a legal apologist for torture, indefinite detention without trial, and illegal surveillance, I am looking forward to a press release from CNS shortly demanding that he be barred from speaking at Catholic colleges and universities…:-)

Over at the First Things blog, Editor Jody Bottum floats the following theory about the 55 Catholic Democrats’ motive for drafting their “Statement of Principles“:

But still the question remains: Why the statement now? For someone like Rosa L. DeLauro—or for such signers as Bart Stupak, Patrick J. Kennedy, Cynthia McKinney, and Nancy Pelosi—what’s the political gain of claiming Catholicism at a time when the American Church is still reeling from the scandals that broke in 2002?

A general rule is that you should trust people to know their own best interests—or, at least, trust professionals to understand their own professions better than outsiders do. No one gets elected to Congress by being a complete idiot–about politics, at least. There is, I think, a glamour that attaches to Catholicism right now. A lot of mud, too, of course. But the intellectual force of Catholic analysis and vocabulary seems to have touched an awful lot of America’s contemporary political debate, and the 55 signers of the “Statement of Principles” want in on it all.

In one sense, this is just another entry in the Democrats’ general attempt to reclaim religion. But in its peculiar Catholic iteration, the problem of abortion wrecks the logic of the statement from its very first moment. Until the Democrats find a genuine way to be pro-life, they will not be able to deploy Catholic intellectual resources—or claim the prestige of doing so.

Here’s another. I can’t say I’m ready to impugn David Obey’s reasons for signing the statement as an outgrowth of his desire to hitch a ride on the Catholic glamour wagon. It seems there’s more to it than Catholic legislators simply wanting not to “get beaten up anymore for supporting abortion.” Archbishop Burke may know something about this matter.

(If you’ve already read this entry, scroll down for new posts.)

Commonweal has never been given to taking up fads. The magazine’s concerns regarding the medium of TV, after all, are a matter of public record (see especially our coverage of Edward R. Murrow’s broadcasts on Senator Joseph McCarthy). So it was with some reluctance that we published on Catholic blogs, but not so much reluctance that we waited very long to do it–our first piece ran in 2002.

The blogosphere has come a long way since then. The New York Times op-ed page turned to Catholic blogger Amy Welborn when they wanted a piece about the Vatican Instruction on gay seminarians. And the Times Week in Review section tapped another Catholic blogger, Rocco Palmo, to explain the fashion choices of the new pope. Blogs have arrived, even if the Chicago Tribune has its doubts.

Bloggers can offer trenchant commentary quickly–much more quickly than, say, a biweekly magazine can. To Commonweal‘s editors and writers, often hamstrung by the magazine’s publishing schedule, blogging offers a place to test out ideas and spur the debate as stories unfold in today’s 24-hour news cycle.

Of course, bloggers can offer unhelpful and misleading commentary quickly, too. Blogging has its risks, but instead of sitting on the sidelines and complaining, we decided to enter the fray and see what we can accomplish. DotCommonweal is the result. We assembled a group of frequent contributors (look to the right) who cover a range of subjects (history, theology, law, culture, politics), and told them they could write about whatever strikes their fancy. As such, they speak only for themselves–not for the magazine itself.

DotCommonweal, along with our spiffy new Web site, will continue to evolve. Features will be added, subtracted, modified as the need arises. We trust you’ll let us know when something’s gone wrong–technically or with what our contributors have written. But in order to do so, you’ll have to register with the site. It’s free for now (the first one always is). That may change later in the year. Hey: the barque of Commonweal turns slowly.

The barque of dotCommonweal does not.

Was John Paul II responsible for a French nun’s sudden recovery from Parkinson’s?

“Exactly two months after the death of the pope, from one minute to another, the nun didn’t show the symptoms of the illness anymore,” Oder told The Associated Press in one of his most extensive descriptions of the supposed miracle.

If the claim is verified, that’ll be one down, one to go before he’s canonized.

So last night was worth the exorbitant price of cable with HBO, for two reasons.  First, “The Sopronaos” reappeared after an eighteen month hiatus.  Second, immediately following “The Sopranos” came the new HBO series “Big Love”  — about polygamy.  I’m not going to blog about ”The Sopranos” because I’m in the process of finishing a print article about the series and its religious dimensions.  So I will blog about “Big Love.”

The series concerns a polygamist, Bill Henrickson (played by Bill Paxton), his three wives, and his seven children.  If you can get over the hair color thing, the quickest way to to convey the personalities among the wives is by analogy to the three sisters in “The Brady Bunch.”  Barb Henrickson (played by Jeanne Tripplehorn)  is like Marcia- the oldest, extremely competent, successful, and nice.  She’s fortyish –the first wife–the only legal wife.  Next there’s  thirtyish Nicki Henrickson, played by Chloe Sevigny –she’s like Jan; the middle wife, not as competent as the older wife, not as innocently charming as the younger wife.  Her father is the “prophet” –the leader of a Mormon sect that practices polygamy on a compound in the countryside.  She feels put upon, and the need to assert herself.  The youngest –and I do mean youngest, like  twentyish is Margene Henrickson (played by Ginnifer Goodwin).  She’s Cindy– except for the curls.  She’s sweet, manipulatively innocent, and incompetent. They live in a nice upper-middle class neighborhood in the suburbs of Salt Lake City; in three houses in a row, furnished in varieties of Pottery Barn.  From the street, the three houses all look separate and distinct; from the back, they share a common, huge backyard.  Thy are keeping up appearances.

My thoughts about the series: 

1) It’s not meant to advocate polygamy, any more than the Sopranos is meant to advocate mob life.  Instead, it invites “normal” busy middle-class, Pottery Barn buying Americans to see their own lives caricatured in the series.  Bill Henrickson is a prosperous businessman; he has no time–he runs from work to home to home to home.  His relationship to his wives suffers because he has no time for them. 

2) If you tilt your head 15 degrees off center, you could see the series as the natural successor to Sex and the City.  Why?  Well, that show was ultimately about the relationship of the women, as filtered through their attempts to relate to men.  So, in a way, is this show.  Suppose all the women from Sex and the City found one good man — and decided to share him.  Then you’d get Big Love.  Bill is a good man.  But Bill doesn’t run things–he is run, and run ragged, I might say.  His wives sit down once a month to parcel out who gets him when–their three day rotation is negotiated, and trades are made around birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  The houses are the wives’s houses, and reflect their personalities.  He doesn’t have anything that reflects him.  He just moves from house to house to house.  In one scene, he is sitting, dejected, out in the yard in the late evening.   The first wife sees him, and is initially moved to comfort him, but it’s not her night–seeing his young third wife in the window looking down upon him, the first wife goes back into the house. 

He’s both busy and alone.

From the Zenith News Service:

U.S. Bishops Address Role of Catholic Politicians
Response to Statement by 55 House Members

WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 12, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Catholic politicians have a responsibility to defend life at all stages and in all situations, say the U.S. bishops.

The bishops’ conference on Friday released a “Statement on Responsibilities of Catholics in Public Life” in which they responded to a recent public statement on the same topic made by 55 Catholic and Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“We welcome this and other efforts that seek to examine how Catholic legislators bring together their faith and their policy choices,” the bishops said.

“Our faith has an integral unity that calls Catholics to defend human life and human dignity whenever they are threatened,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by three members of the U.S. bishops’ conference: Cardinal William Keeler, chairman of the Committee on Pro Life Activities, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, chairman of the Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians, and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Policy.

The bishops underlined “the Catholic Church’s constant teaching that abortion is a grave violation of the most fundamental human right — the right to life that is inherent in all human beings, and that grounds every other right we possess.”

“The human being is entitled to such rights,” the bishops said, quoting Pope John Paul II, “in every phase of development, from conception until natural death; and in every condition, whether healthy or sick, whole or handicapped, rich or poor.”

“While it is always necessary to work to reduce the number of abortions by providing alternatives and help to vulnerable parents and children,” the statement continued, “Catholic teaching calls all Catholics to work actively to restrain, restrict and bring to an end the destruction of unborn human life.”

The bishops said: “As members of the Church, all Catholics are obliged to shape our consciences in accord with the moral teaching of the Church.

“Through dialogue, especially the irreplaceable dialogue between Catholic political leaders and their own bishops, we hope to promote a better understanding of how the Church’s teaching on human life and dignity challenges us all.” [endquote]

I would be interested in what the other dotComm-ers think about this. The bishops’ statement rejects the notion that a Catholic politician can be true to the faith by supporting the various initiatives that would dramatically reduce the number of abortions if that person continues to support a legal regime grounded in choice. There are apparently also some fissures growing among Democrats who have been trying to find some common ground on the abortion question. The division seems to be between those who feel very strongly about all of the pro-mother/pro-child initiatives identified in the Dems’ statement, but still wish to see the legal “right” to choose an abortion curtailed, and those who also favor all of those things, but would insist on preserving that “right.” Is that division bridgeable politically or philosophically?

– Mark

Just a point of clarification on my earlier post. I was not trying to argue, that “liberal Catholicism” was responsible for the decline in vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

My point was rather that most of those who are entering seminaries, monasteries and houses of formation these days can hardly be described as “liberal Catholics.” This point has been made so often in the pages of Commonweal in recent years that I expected my assertion to be uncontroversial. If my prose was convoluted enough to give a different impression, please accept my apologies.

It may be true, as Margaret suggests in a comment, that liberal Catholicism has given rise to other kinds of vocations. As a married layman involved in prison ministry who is currently studying theology, I’m obviously in no position to argue! But I do believe that the relative under-representation of “Commonweal Catholics” among the ranks of the younger clergy and religious is something that is worth pondering seriously.

And now I think I’ll shut up for a few days…:-)

Wow. The dotCom isn’t even a week old and we’re already asking whether Commonweal Catholics have a future. It’s all so Lenten. For more on the topic du jour, take a look at Mirror of Justice, where Mark’s initial post on the subject has generated some interesting responses–including one from Robbie George.

With regard to the issues raised by Mark and Margaret, I think the latter’s raising of the “what” question is important. If we’re wondering “where” something is, we need to know “what” we are looking for. As Margaret suggests, “Commonweal Catholic” or “liberal Catholic” can describe a number of different schools of thought.

Historically, there was a liberal Catholic tradition of thought that attempted to reconcile Catholicism with liberal democracy. That project has been overwhelmingly successful. In that sense, Pope John Paul II was a liberal Catholic. We tend to take the success of this movement almost for granted today, but a look back at papal statements of the 19th and early 20th centuries shows how significant the development of doctrine has been in this area.

Secondly, one might see a liberal Catholic tradition within academic theology. This could encompass historical criticism in biblical studies and efforts to reconcile Catholic theology with certain trends in modern philosophy, particularly the “turn to the subject.” This movement has been largely successful among academic theologians, although the doctrinal authorities in the Church have tended to view these developments more critically. The success of this project is also being challenged within the academy itself by post-liberal and post-modern approaches.

Finally, I would say that there is a liberal Catholicism that was inspired both by the Second Vatican Council (or at least a certain reading of it) and by the social movements of the 1960s and 70s, particularly feminism. Of all the liberal Catholic projects, this is the one that remains the most contested within the Church.

Now liberal Catholics of this third school often look back to the first for inspiration. In the same way that the Church had to come to terms with the political liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries—so the argument goes—it is suggested that it must eventually come to terms with the social liberalism of the 20th and 21st centuries.

I think this thesis is subject to challenge on a few points. The first is that Christian denominations that have taken this form of liberalism most to heart are also those that seem to be experiencing a serious crisis of confidence, as evidenced by declining membership, intra-denominational splits over issues like homosexuality, and—in some cases—increasing discomfort with core Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ and the Trinity. I find it difficult in the face of this evidence to argue that the embrace of this kind of liberalism is a strategy for Christian renewal. It may be justifiable on other grounds, but this is probably not one of them.

Secondly, a specifically liberal vision of Catholicism no longer seems to motivate large numbers of Catholics to consider vocations to the priesthood or religious life. The reasons for this are complex, and have at least something to do with Vatican II’s efforts to re-valorize the lay state as a path to holiness. But the fact that “liberal Catholicism” does not seem to inspire many of those called to states of life the Church has always highly valued should, I think, cause its advocates some concern.

Finally, I think the sociological conditions are radically different than those that obtained when liberal Catholicism (of the first type) was in the ascendancy. The leading figures of liberal Catholicism were people deeply and permanently rooted in the Catholic tradition who were, nevertheless, also deeply at home in cultures shaped by the Enlightenment. This tension—a tension that many felt had to be resolved—was felt both by academic theologians like John Courtney Murray and the blue-collar Catholics who insisted they were as American as their Protestant “betters.” I think this widely shared sense of a need for reconciliation between Catholicism and modernity gave the liberal Catholic project an enormous amount of intellectual energy and popular appeal that it seems to lack today.

It’s not that the tension between Catholicism and contemporary culture doesn’t still exist. But the emerging generation of Catholics has weaker roots in the Church and is generally comfortable “following their conscience” when confronted with difficult doctrines. Most American Catholics can generally find a parish where they won’t be confronted with the teachings they find objectionable. When such “local” accommodation is possible, the pressure to demand more global change is reduced.

This could change, of course, if large numbers of the newly ordained insist on preaching sermons on contraception every Sunday. But my guess is that if “local” accommodation becomes impossible, Catholics unhappy with this state of affairs will simply leave the Church (few believe that this would put their salvation at risk). What they are certainly much less likely than Catholics of the past to do is to invest in journals like Commonweal. When the costs of “exit” are reduced, the need for “voice” is diminished.

I wish I could be more hopeful. If I didn’t have some sympathy for elements of the liberal Catholic project, I wouldn’t be a Commonweal subscriber and contributor and I wouldn’t be posting here. But since I’m professionally a management consultant, telling people they are living on a “burning platform” is more or less what I do for a living.

Thoughts, anyone?

Where are the Commonweal Catholics?

Mark Sargent raises an interesting question: Where are the Commonweal Catholics? They are all over the place; I meet them all the time (sorry to say, their numbers are larger than the Commonweal subscription list—but that’s another issue). Maybe the question prior to “where” is “what.” What is a Commonweal Catholic? We might think about it first as a social and intellectual construct that has had different meanings at different times, constructs which were not necessarily synonymous with Liberal Catholic. If we were clear about the “what” maybe the “where” would emerge with greater clarity.

My impression is that Commonweal’s founding generation was most interested in looking beyond the sometimes narrow and constraining world of ghetto Catholicism. They were interested in art and architecture, literature and theater, politics and policy making on a larger scale than defined my the immediate needs of the vast majority of their fellow Catholics who were poor, or near poor, and many still of an immigrant generation—we’re talking the twenties and thirties. In the American context of their time, they sometimes seem conservative.

Post-World War II, more and more Catholics—assimilating, college educated, and moving into white collar jobs—came to share some of those Commonweal interests. Many probably clung to the Democratic politics of their parents, but there were certainly Commonweal Catholics who were Republicans–gasp! But back then, some Republicans were often more liberal than most Democrats—think birth control. Commonweal Catholics should probably be seen historically as existing in a less polarized world and church than now obtains.

Vatican II, the civil rights revolution, the Vietnam war, Humanae vitae, and the women’s movement probably definitively moved Commonweal into the liberal world, where it has mostly been over the last several decades. At the same time, a more radical and/or progressive faction within Catholicism has emerged, while an increasingly conservative and right-wing Catholicism has reemerged. This puts Commonweal Catholics in a centrist position. But, of course, liberalism itself has drifted from the social justice, social welfare issues that aligned Commonweal Catholics with Democrats and liberals after World War II.

Do we have a moving target here? Every issue of Commonweal, it seems to me, is concerned at defining and redefining what it means to be a Commonweal Catholic. Unlike the church itself, it has no need to speak definitively, only soberly and intelligently. And in that task, many Catholics and not just Commonweal subscribers can have a hand.

So back to the original question: WHERE are those Commonweal Catholics?

Take a look at the post below, “A bishop accused.” In that post, I quoted one of the more intriguing elements of the AP story about the accusation of abuse against Skylstad, which noted that Stephen Rubino was hired by the woman’s legal team to investigate the claim. He’s the same lawyer who represented the man who accused Cardinal Bernardin of abuse, but later admitted he made it up. Here’s what I excerpted from the March 9 version of the story, as it ran on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site:

Rubino represented a man who claimed in the early
1990s that he was sexually abused by the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin. The case was dropped in 1994 when the man recanted.

Read the current verion of the article. This excerpt is gone. On March 9, I read the story as it was picked up in several news outlets, and was dismayed to find that some had edited out this section. The Post-Dispatch hadn’t, which is why I linked to their version. Of course, it’s not unusual for newspapers to rewrite wire stories–there lots of good reasons to do so (space often being primary). But the Rubino thread in this story isn’t a trivial one. So why would the Post-Dispatch remove it from later verions of the article? Or was it the AP itself?

The Chicago Tribune reports that Voice of the Faithful has urged Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane and Cardinal Francis George of Chicago to step down temporarily from their positions as president and vice president, respectively, of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Earlier this week, it was reported that a woman accused Skylstad of abusing her more than forty years ago, when she was under eighteen and he was in his late twenties (he’s seventy-two now). George has been strongly criticized for the last several weeks, since it was revealed that the archdiocese failed to act fast enough to remove a priest who had been accused of sexual abuse (the priest is now charged with abuse that allegedly occurred between 2000 and 2005, against children who are now eleven and thirteen years old).

The press release from VOTF argues that because Skylstad and George stand “accused of personally having failed to comply with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Adults,” which “represents the official policy of America’s Catholic bishops,” they should immediately step aside and have the positions filled by interim leaders.

If the situation is as serious as the press release says, why stop at asking them to resign their positions with the bishops’ conference? Yes, Skylstad and George are number one and two at the USCCB, but their situations in this matter are vastly different, which is what makes so unfortunate VOTF’s use of the term “the accused bishops” to refer to them. Is this the best response to the situation?

Unlike Robert Imbelli, I lacked the nerve to spend January immersed in the Dickensian squalor of Bleak House. I chose Torino. Not the Winter Olympics, but Turin as a center of radical Italian politics and social reform, one theme in the The Best of Youth, a six hour Italian miniseries now available on DVD. The series traces the odyssey of one Italian family from the mid-1960s to the present. One brother meets his lover during the 1966 Florence flood, and she later joins the Red Brigades. A sister serves as a judge during the famous Mafia trials in Sicily in the early 1980s. Another sister’s husband advocates market transparency even as friends in Italy’s unionized construction industry begin to receive pink slips. Best watched as a painless commentary on Paul Ginsborg’s classic two volume history of modern Italy, the series highlights the classical roots of even modern Italy, as exemplified in the glorious art and architecture surrounding the protagonists, (one daughter decides to become a mural restorationist, a pivotal scene takes place at the Roman Colosseum). The series also dwells on one of Ginsborg’s great themes, the continued importance of the family in Italian society. Even as the institutions that structure family life weaken – only one of the adult children in the family is happily married at the film’s end – the family still defines identity. The matriarch, left alone in Rome after her children scatter across Italy, ends life, happily, watching over her grandson, born her late son’s lover, a woman she had never met. The historian in me wonders how – or whether – such a film could be made about the past four decades in the United States, and how changes in family structure during this period should be interpreted by future historians. But who has time? Sunday begins a new set of episodes detailing the history of an Italian-American family, the Sopranos.

This blog is a great idea. Anything that extends the discussion among thoughtful Catholics is to be welcomed in these difficult times. It is particularly welcome to see a blog that will be informed by the Commonweal tradition. Mentioning that tradition, however, raises the question — just what is it? Or, more precisely, what’s left of it? At one time, the phrase “Commonweal Catholic” had a precise meaning, and was used proudly by those who identified with it. While not entirely coextensive with the phrase “liberal Catholic,” it obviously resonated in those precincts. The Catholic conversation today, however, seems to be less of a conversation
than a competition of monologues from what can be called left and right, faute de mieux. The general media, furthermore, tend to turn to voices on the extreme right and, paradoxically, to Catholics with highly agonistic attitudes toward the Church for “authoritative” voices. Where is the voice of liberal Catholicism in the fray? Does its relative absence reflect a crisis of confidence? Is liberal Catholicism an “exhausted project” or a contradiction in terms as some critics argue? Does it have intellectual coherence, moral integrity and political relevance both in the Church and the public square? I’d be interested in my co-blogista’s thoughts on these questions — as well as our readers’ thoughts.

Another piece falls into place, reported by Salon. Read the whole article. (And, if you haven’t yet, take in Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on former general counsel to the Navy, Alberto Mora, and his admirable attempts to stem the tide of torture.) Army Reserve Capt. Christopher R. Brinson was in charge of several military police who were brought up on charges for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Apparently, in 2005 the Army reprimanded Brinson for his role in the debacle (his lawyer won’t say why, exactly, he was reprimanded). Brinson claims that it’s his commanders who deserve reprimanding, not him.

Of course, it’s complicated. Brinson is, after all, the same man who sent a memo to MP Corporal Charles Graner (featured in so many of those horrific photos) saying Graner was doing a “fine job.” And it’s not an unexpected defense to kick responsibility up the chain of command. But one of the many fascinating bits in the Salon piece is this:

According to a handwritten log kept by the military police at the
prison, obtained by Salon, Brinson may have dialed back abuse ordered
in one instance by interrogators. A Nov. 14, 2003, entry notes an order
to “strip out” and exercise six detainees. But those orders “were
changed by Capt. Brinson,” Graner wrote. Instead, Brinson ordered that
the detainees remain in their cells “in jumpsuits.”

The question, then, is who gave that order, and how many others like it were given to other interrogators? Just nine soldiers have been prosecuted for prisoner abuse. How long will it be before those who devised this policy accept or are made to accept responsibility for these atrocities?

(Hat tip: Josh Marshall.)

Here’s a second to Bob Imbelli’s Bleak House note.

Yes, see the Masterpiece Theatre production (which has a great pleasure to watch in the winter Sundays of January and February), and then:  READ the book or reread the book. For one thing, the performances of Lady Dedlock and Lawyer Tulckinghorn give a whole new sense of the major protagonists in Bleak House.

And that Dickens could really write!

You’ve probably heard this one before: a priest was walking down the street when he was accosted by a thief who demanded his wallet. As the priest was reaching for the wallet, his coat fell open to reveal his collar.

The thief, startled, said “I’m sorry Father, I had no idea.”

The priest, shaken, reached for a pack of cigarettes and offered the thief one. But the thief shook his head and said “No thanks, Father. I’ve given up smoking for Lent.”

It’s a great joke and it encapsulates a certain critique of traditional Lenten practices that has filtered down into the consciousness of many ordinary Catholics. Every year, beginning with the Ash Wednesday gospel, we are warned against the emptiness of external gestures. It is conversion of the heart that matters. Fasting from meat is meaningless if we are not actively trying to feed the hungry. We’re told to pray, of course, but we’re also warned against saying rote prayers. We’re supposed to speak to God from the heart, in our own words.

This year for Lent, my parish is using a small-group, lectionary based program where the groups meet every week to reflect on the coming Sunday gospel. The idea is to help Catholics “talk about their faith,” because apparently we’re not very good at that sort of thing.

Now I don’t object, per se, to any of this. I believe in feeding the hungry. I love our small group, which has been meeting for years and is enjoying using these new materials. And Jesus was pretty clear in prioritizing internal conversion over the external gesture.

But taken as a whole, I’m finding that Lent has become pretty “left brain.” The part of my brain that thrives on symbol and ritual feels like its gasping for oxygen.

But perhaps even more fundamentally, I’m struggling with the extent to which Lent has become all about, well, me. I can fast (partially or completely), I can pray (using traditional prayers or my own words), I can “give something up” for Lent or “do something” for Lent instead. I can avail myself of any number of opportunities for “spiritual growth” during the season. It’s up to me and my choices.

I don’t deny that there is much that is of value in this. But what has been lost is the sense of Lent as a set of corporate practices that shape a pilgrim people waiting for Easter. It’s easy to laugh about the thief in the joke above. But his decision to “give something up” marked him as part of a community. However imperfectly he may have personally lived out his Catholicism, his decision to continue with the corporate penance testified to the power of Catholicism’s communal ethos. Have we lost that?

Okay readers, it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? What’s your experience?

A bleak Boston winter was miraculously illumined by Masterpiece Theater’s eight hour serialization of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. Towards the end of each week spirits began to soar in anticipation of Sunday evening’s episode.

Splendid casting and superb acting transported one into Dickens’ pulsing world. We experienced the no-nonsense goodness of Esther, the agony of Lady Dedlock, the unfailing kindness of Mr. Jarndyce, the lovely folly of Richard and Ada, the villainy of lawyer Tulkinghorn. My excessive pleasure at Tulkinghorn’s well-deserved demise is certainly matter for Lenten repentance.

In his fine book, Sacred and Secular Scriptures: a Catholic Approach to Literature (reviewed in Commonweal: August 12, 2005), Nicholas Boyle quotes Chesterton: “The art of Dickens was the most exquisite of arts: it was the art of enjoying everybody … he enjoyed everybody in his books; and everybody has enjoyed everybody in those books even till today.”

Boyle adds: “it is a part of our own enjoyment of a Dickensian character that we experience it as an enjoyment which must be shared.”

If you missed it on TV, it will soon be available on DVD. Enjoy in all seasons — bleak or bright!

Glad this is up and running. For anyone looking for Lenten reading, I recommend volume VI of John Henry Newman’s [I]Parochial and Plain Sermons[/I]. The volume gathers Anglican sermons of Newman from Lenten through Trinity Sunday. Wonderful things in them! All eight volumes of these sermons, delivered when Newman was an Anglican, are available in a single volume from Ignatius Press. But you can also find volume VI here. The basic Web site: www.newmanreader.org has all Newman’s works online, with fine possibilities of doing word and phrase searches.

Hello everyone,

Thanks to Grant for leading us newbies through the process of posting on a blog!  The new website looks great!

I want to begin by extending greetings to my fellow DotCommonwealers. May the peace of Christ be with you!

I’m excited by this launch. For more than 80 years, Commonweal has been at the center of an intergenerational conversation about the relationship of Catholic faith to modern culture, politics and economics. Commonweal is one of a number of “little journals,” small circulation publications (e.g. the New Republic, First Things or Dissent) that often have an impact disproportionate to their circulation. The kinds of issues discussed in these journals are increasingly being discussed as much on the Internet as on the printed page, so it is appropriate that Commonweal has chosen to “put out into the deep.”

In some sense, blogging represents the logic of the little journal carried to an extreme. Small voices can have a big impact. Almost anyone with the time and an axe to grind can now nail their opinions to the cyberspace equivalent of the church door. Blogging also offers a degree of interactivity between writer and reader not possible before and the comment boxes of many blogs are often as interesting—if not more so—than the host blog itself.

Catholic blogging became something of a phenomenon in 2002. I started my own blog, Sursum Corda, in March of that year when there were perhaps a dozen Catholic blogs being updated regularly. By the end of the year, the number was well over one hundred and continuing to grow. Attrition was high and many of us who were early pioneers eventually ceased posting. But many have also continued.

 This post is already somewhat long by blog standards, so I will not initiate a long discussion here of the peculiarities of the Catholic blogosphere (a.k.a. “Saint Blogs”). It is a somewhat wild and wooly place, often equal parts inspiring and infuriating. It bursts with youthful energy and real love of the faith, but often lacks an adequate grounding in history. In an understandable reaction to excesses of the recent past, it often draws the boundaries of the tradition tighter than they actually are. But “as iron sharpens iron,” I found people there who often helped me think more clearly about my faith and strengthened me in it. I’m hoping DotCommonweal can do the same!

Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been accused by a woman of sexually abusing her over four decades ago, when she was under eighteen and he was in his late twenties. Skylstad denies all charges. Obviously, it’s too early to tell exactly what’s going on, but the AP story contains a curious bit of information about the accuser’s lawyer, Stephen Rubino:

Rubino represented a man who claimed in the early 1990s that he was sexually abused by the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. The case was dropped in 1994 when the man recanted.

Stay tuned.

What counts as fair in writing history?

On March 1, Donald Critchlow, author of Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, spoke at the New School University on one of the nation’s leading conservative activists. His fellow historians—Lisa McGirr and Paula Baker—were respondents; I served as moderator though one was hardly needed—the evening, though not uncritical, was civil and amiable.

McGirr teaches at Harvard and her work focuses on grass-root movements so she knows a lot about the kind of women Schlafly galvanized in forming the Religious Right. McGirr like Critchlow thinks Schlafly was central to that development, but missed an analysis of the underpinnings of Schlafly’s politics (race was mentioned). Baker teaches at Ohio State and has written on campaign finance, The American Political Industry. Her response: Schlafly’s creation of a movement that altered the direction of the Republican Party from moderate to right-wing underlines the danger to political parties of movements that may bring voters and money, but become the tail that wags the dog.

The audience was remarkably civil considering that the New School sits in the middle of Greenwich Village, the home of the bluest navy blue voters in the country. Audience questions focused on: How had Schlafly achieved such clout without ever holding political office, indeed, without most of the audience (or for that matter most New Yorkers) ever paying her the least attention?

The story behind that clout is the theme of Critchlow’s book.

In contrast to the civility on display at the New School, two reviews of the book are not only critical but ill-tempered. Alan Wolfe’s tone in the New Republic (October 3, 2005) was particularly surprising since he is usually a judicious and balanced commentator, even when he disagrees. Judith Warner, writing in the New York Times Book Review (January 29, 2006), trashed the book and accused Critchlow of ignoring the code words “internationalism and Wall Street” that Schlafly used to mask what Warner sees as anti-Semitism.

Quite a contrast between the panel and the reviewers: The face-to-face encounter of author and fellow historians did not question Critchlow’s motives; the written reviews questioned both motives and character. Does the distance of reviewing provide greater latitude for ad hominem attacks? Or do face-to-face encounters inhibit respondents from fully expressing their criticism? Or does a serious scholarly treatment of Schlafly send two left-liberals over the edge? Perhaps all of the above. Or perhaps disciplinary differences enter here. Do historians have a different perspective on what their discipline requires—what counts as history?

Critchlow’s book is very much a straightforward telling of Schlafly’s story based on research in her archives. If he comes up short on analysis, interpretation and, for his critics, judgment, does that undermine the value of the information he has unearthed? For the historians, the sheer amount of new information will prove valuable. But for the sociologist and pundit, Critchlow’s failure to condemn Schlafly outweighs what we tells us about her, which is probably more than most of us want to know. Since I always thought of her as a crazy old lady in tennis shoes, I am sobered to know that her Convent of the Sacred Heart manners, lady-like demeanor, strong conservative Catholic convictions, and well-off husband counted for a great deal in where our country’s politics have landed.

But you can decide for yourself; here are the sources:

• Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade (Princeton University Press);
• Alan Wolfe, “Mrs. America,” New Republic (October 3, 2005);
• Judith Warner, “She Changed America,” New York Times Book Review, January 29, 2006, with reply by Critchlow, February 26, 2006.

The webcast can be found here.