“I’ve terminated the life of my autistic child,” Jose Stable, age 50, told police on the morning of November 22 outside Kelly Towers, the Bronx apartment building where Mr. Stable, a single parent, lived with his son Ulysses, age 12, who was later found lying in the bathtub of their 16th floor apartment, his throat slashed. Delete “autistic” to contrast the derangement of the alleged killer of his own child with the innocence of the victim. Re-insert “autistic” to learn that the child ate grass, weighed 280 pounds (a likely side effect of medication) and tried to touch neighbors in the elevator “in an agitated way, not a friendly way.”

Mr. Stable has a record of ten arrests; those for which information was available did not involve his son. A number of autistic children have been killed by their parents in recent months: the social profiles of the alleged perpetrators vary but the media focus on the challenges of raising an autistic child is constant. Reporters interview parents, neighbors and professionals never autistic persons though some might surely offer valuable insight. Since Ulysses was labeled as “severely” autistic it might be argued that a “higher-functioning,” “verbal” autistic person’s viewpoint would be of limited value; indeed the popular misperception of autistic persons as socially withdrawn and incapable of empathy might seem to disqualify them altogether as useful sources. But lost amid all the clamor over ’causes and cures’ is a growing body of evidence that this is all wrong; that the communication disorder in autism involves wiring misconnections between parts of the brain; the signs we read as aloofness and withdrawal are in fact practical responses to sensory dissonance. Which means that autistic kid in front of you understands, in ways of his/her own, exactly what’s going down around them.

Kelly Towers stands in view of the Fordham University campus where I worked for four years prior to a move to our Lincoln Center campus. Two years ago the Curran Center put on a conference on the great Jesuit sociologist Joe Fitzpatrick; while speaking with folks in the neighborhood that might have remembered him for his work with the Latino community I found myself asking priests and others if they were encountering more autistic persons or hearing more about it. They were but seemed as puzzled as me as to what might be done locally to help. A Bronx parent/advocate’s initiative led to on-campus informational sessions that sparked some student interest but the kids were oriented toward service in their hometowns just like us, with our 90 minute commute to Central Jersey.

Two years later I still don’t know just what might be done though thanks to a plug from our friend and colleague Mark Naison, Curran Center’s Oct. 27 conference on autism and advocacy drew a really strong Bronx contingent, which witnessed alongside others an autistic self-advocate’s impassioned presentation.

As the parent of an autistic child and an historian there’s quite a lesson in humility here. We can so readily size up the goofs of the past but you just know that in 10, 30, 50 years from now books and documentaries will find in our collective response to this autism phenomenon (which in the past week alone was subject of Newsweek cover story, a New York Times Op-Ed piece by prominent Washington policy guy/communication executive parents and big news on the fund-raising front) much ignorance, science fiction and self-delusion. But we do the best we can with our very poor human tools, as Dorothy Day liked to put it, quoting Eric Gill who surely was quoting someone else again. Just as Dorothy also liked to say she longed and worked for a world where it was a little easier to be good; so too must we work for a world where it’s a little easier (and safer) for autistic persons to simply live, which is why we remember each day Katie McCarron; William Lash; Ryan Davies; Christopher DeGroot. And Ulysses Stable.

NBC “Nightly News” has a segment that they term, rather grandiosely, “Nightly News in Depth.” Unfortunately, it’s rather thin brew.

By contrast “The NewsHour” with Jim Lehrer on PBS consistently provides illuminating analysis of the main issues of the day’s news.

Tonight’s program was a case in point. (Transcripts available 24 hours after broadcast.)

Dennis Ross, special Middle East coordinator under the Bush I and Clinton administrations, and David Ignatius of the Washington Post, offered cogent, informed analysis of the meeting between the U.S. President and the Prime Minister of Iraq.

But the “star” of the evening was Margaret Warner reporting from Istanbul on Pope Benedict’s visit. Margaret has always been competent and professional in her stint on the “NewsHour,” but at times stumbling in her inteviewing.

Not tonight. She was simply superb. And offering her insightful remarks, her face was positively radiant.

Truly “in depth” coverage.

Father Neuhaus has some interesting comments on a symposium issue of the University of St. Thomas Law Journal on the topic of “The Future of Pro-Life Progressivism” in the December 2006 issue of First Things at 71-72. While generally dismissive of the papers and of the very concept of “pro-life progressivism,” he was kind enough to refer to me as among “the more thoughful participants,” for which I am grateful. But, I did not escape unscathed! One of the points I made in my paper was that the old Catholic Democratic vote had disappeared (this was written in 2005), and I tried to explain some of the reasons. The first reason I proferred “was the Republican Party’s enormous success in forging an iron link between race and taxes– i.e., paying high taxes came to mean spending money on undeserving and threatening black people,” and that this “tore white ethnic Catholics, now largely middle class or at least lower middle class, away from the Democratic Party and its tax-and-spend, race-coddling liberals.” Father Neuhaus takes me to task for this argument, asking whether I “really want to stand by [this]…reason,” because “[i]t is a terrible thing to suggest about Catholics, that once they were non-poor they no longer cared about the poor.” Moreover, “resentment of undeserving and threatening black people does sound like liberal-talk for racism.” I am befuddled as to why Father Neuhaus is surprised and apparently offended by this argument. It was no original argument on my part to point out how the Republican linkage of race and taxes undermined not only the Democratic vote, but solidarity between the middle class (including white Catholic ethnics–”Reagan Dems”) and the poor. Thomas Byrne Edsall’s “Chain Reaction:The Impact of Race, Rights and Taxes on American Politics,” makes this point beyond dispute, at least in my opinion. Catholics in that group may have “cared about the poor” at the level of private charity, but Republican pandering to and exploitation of their resentments about welfare, affirmative action etc.(almost exclusively associated with blacks) and their own economic insecurities, had the effect of exacerbating class divisions that was indeed frankly racist. I didn’t think I was engaging in “liberal-talk” in my discussion of this — I assumed it was entirely obvious that I was talking about racist politics. In any event, I would be interested in seeing an someone try to argue that one of the key elements in the alienation of Catholics from the Democratic Party and progressive politics in general was NOT race. Of course, I know that the other big issue was abortion — I discussed that at length in my piece, so no one needs to remind me of that here — I am simply focusing on the race issue in response to Father Neuhaus’ critique.
In any event, Father Neuhaus raises other points about the papers and the concept of pro-life progressivism, but that is a topic for another post.

From today’s Common Declaration:

We have viewed positively the process that has led to the formation of the European Union. Those engaged in this great project should not fail to take into consideration all aspects affecting the inalienable rights of the human person, especially religious freedom, a witness and guarantor of respect for all other freedoms. In every step towards unification, minorities must be protected, with their cultural traditions and the distinguishing features of their religion. In Europe, while remaining open to other religions and to their cultural contributions, we must unite our efforts to preserve Christian roots, traditions and values, to ensure respect for history, and thus to contribute to the European culture of the future and to the quality of human relations at every level. In this context, how could we not evoke the very ancient witnesses and the illustrious Christian heritage of the land in which our meeting is taking place, beginning with what the Acts of the Apostles tells us concerning the figure of Saint Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles? In this land, the Gospel message and the ancient cultural tradition met. This link, which has contributed so much to the Christian heritage that we share, remains timely and will bear more fruit in the future for evangelization and for our unity.

Richard Dawkins, Oxford professor of science and bestselling author of books of militant atheism, has not received the warmest of welcomes in the media for his latest effort to persuade you that religion is nonsensical, The God Delusion. The New York Times didn’t recommend it. Neither did the London Review of Books. And in a stroke of editorial genius, Harper’s–a magazine not exactly known for its warm feelings toward religion–assigned the book to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead, Marilynne Robinson, who, I think it’s safe to say, quietly sent it out to pasture.

In a time when myriad commentators repeat the opinion that the secular media operates with a nearly explicit anti-religious bias, what are we make of it when the Atheist-in-Chief finds it difficult to get his anti-religious instruction manual positively reviewed in the anti-religious press?

The Washington Post reports that for the second time in one year, the Christian Coalition has named a new a leader and then removed him before he took office:

The Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of a nondenominational megachurch in Longwood, Fla., said he resigned as the coalition’s incoming president because its board of directors disagreed with his plan to broaden the organization’s agenda. In addition to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Hunter, 58, wanted to take on such issues as poverty, global warming and HIV/AIDS.

“My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we’re not carrying out the full message of Jesus,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They began to think this might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn’t go there.”

Ian Fisher and Sabrina Tavernise report:

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters after a brief meeting with Benedict at the airport here that he had asked the pope to support Turkey in its attempt to become a member of the European Union.

“He said, ‘You know we don’t have a political role, but we wish for Turkey’s entry into the E.U.,’ ” Mr. Erdogan said the pope told him. “His wish is a positive recommendation for us.”

(snip)

Hours later, the pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, released a brief statement repeating that the Vatican has “neither the power nor the specific political task” of getting Turkey admitted to the European Union.

But Father Lombardi said the Vatican “views positively and encourages the road of dialogue and of moving toward integration of Turkey in Europe on the basis of common values and principles.”

He’d been quiet for a while, but recently Ur-Diogenes over at Off the Record, the blog of Catholic World News, has gotten back on the horse. (We’ve discussed him before here and here.) Seemingly brought out of hibernation by the midterm elections (Ur-Diogenes is nothing if not deeply interested in how Catholicism features in U.S. politics), he’s really been on a roll lately, letting fly all manner of rhetorical barbs, aimed high and low. And I mean very low. Have a look.

First, read the captions under the pictures in this post. Then click here for his enlightening response to the USCCB’s recent statement on ministry to homosexuals. (Flashback: this post was pretty classy, too.)

I wonder if any U.S. bishops donate to Catholic World News.

Benedict XVI addressed today the President of Turkey’s Office of Religious Affairs. He quoted a medieval pope:

As an illustration of the fraternal respect with which Christians and Muslims can work together, I would like to quote some words addressed by Pope Gregory VII in 1076 to a Muslim prince in North Africa who had acted with great benevolence towards the Christians under his jurisdiction. Pope Gregory spoke of the particular charity that Christians and Muslims owe to one another “because we believe in one God, albeit in a different manner, and because we praise him and worship him every day as the Creator and Ruler of the world.”

He also spoke of the collaboration Christians and Muslims can undertake:

Above all, we can offer a credible response to the question which emerges clearly from today’s society, even if it is often brushed aside, the question about the meaning and purpose of life, for each individual and for humanity as a whole. We are called to work together, so as to help society to open itself to the transcendent, giving Almighty God his rightful place. The best way forward is via authentic dialogue between Christians and Muslims, based on truth and inspired by a sincere wish to know one another better, respecting differences and recognizing what we have in common. This will lead to an authentic respect for the responsible choices that each person makes, especially those pertaining to fundamental values and to personal religious convictions.

Same Pope. Same speech-writer?

On Thanksgving Day (of all times), my twenty-two year old nephew made a passing reference to the Tet offensive (of all topics). It was, he asserted, an American defeat, of course.

Not being a historian or a political pundit, and increasingly loath to enter into disputation, I let the comment pass. (Fuller disclosure: perhaps it was that my interest was fixated on the soon-to-be-served pumpkin pie.)

However, his remark came back to me as I read the op-ed piece in today’s New York Times.

In what strikes me as a rather nuanced article, one of the authors’ contentions is the following: “The Tet offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the communists … The United States had clearly won this round of the war.”

Now that pumpkin pie season is thankfully behind us, I’d be interested to know the reaction to the article of historians, pundits, and assorted readers of dotCom.

“The polls report that 98% of Americans believe in God and the remaining 2% are atheists and agnostics — which leaves not a single percentage point for a seeker”

– Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Grant, Grant, how can you be so indignant about the NY Post headline regarding the way Derek Jeter was cheated out of the MVP by a cabal of rustic sportswriters eager to take the Yankees and Our Captain down a peg? The headline was just telling the truth in the Post’s inimitable manner. Justin Morneau is a nice player, and he managed to drive in more RBIs than Derek, but he plays for the Minnesota Twins!!! How significant can anything be that he, or any other Twin, does? A Twin driving in 130 RBIs is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it. It might as well not have happened. Derek Jeter’s achievments on the hallowed field of Yankee Stadium, the Shrine of Baseball, the Center of the Basenall Universe, are by definition more important. And how can the writers forget the magical aura that surrounds the Kid from Kalamazoo? — far more important that BA, OBP, OPS and RBIs.

Some may ask whether this is an appropriate argument for dotCommonweal, devoted as it is to topics relating to religion and Catholicism in particular. Actually, Catholics should understand what it means to be a Yankee fan — indeed, I would say that all Catholics should be Yankee fans. The equivalencies are remarkable: St. Peter’s/Yankee Stadium; 26 World Championships/2006 years; Ratzinger/Steinbrenner; Ruth/St. Mary’s reform school; Berra,Rizzuto,Torre/Italian Catholics; Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mattingly, Jeter/The Apostolic Succession. I could go on, but I think my point is clear. And I happen to know that every Pope since Pius XII was a HUGE Yankee fan! (Actually, I don’t ,but they should have been).

The Post’s crack about “yokels” was a bit unkind, but it does express the bitterness that the devotees of the One True Team feel when someone who embodies Yankee-ness is so cruelly disrespected. We can only hope that someday the scales will fall from their (the yokels’) eyes.

As a follow-up to Mark Sargent’s excellent post: I guess this means I should stop complaining that I’m too busy to do any writing. I’ll look forward to Commonweal and dotCommonweal reactions to the book (or even the brief intro in this link.)

Before explaining why I hate Thanksgiving, I want to apologize to my co-blogistas here on dotCommonweal for my non-posting since last May. Sometimes what one of my students called my “menial administrative duties” catch up with or even overwhelm me, stripping me of the capacity for sequential thought, let alone the concise expression needed for blogging. For most of this year i have been wrapped up in a capital campaign and working on the design for a new building for the law school where I am dean. My schedule looks a little brighter for the new year, so I will try to chip in here more often.
Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is almost over, I’m relieved. I truly hate Thanksgiving. I have no problem with giving thanks — it’s the least we can do, and we should do it more often — but I do have a problem with “Thanksgiving,” the holiday. It’s not the absurd commercialization, or even the embarassing orgy of consumerism on Black Friday or Black Saturday. (Is Sunday now “Black” as well?). Those are too-easy targets, and they don’t bug me in any kind of personal way. The inevitable family psychodrama doesn’t help, nor does the usual Thanksgiving fare — I’d rather eat a bowl of pasta, or anything Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean….you get the idea. But what really gets me is the prospect of four days of suspended animation doing essentially nothing. Something about my nature abhors a vacuum. Now, you may be losing interest and sympathy exactly at this point. After all, who wants to hear about another pathological, self-obsessed workaholic moan about having to take a break. But — and I mean this — I am not a workaholic — I alternate periods of great activity and indolence in unpredictable patterns. I don’t think the world needs me at my desk; it is perfectly capable of going to pieces with or without me. I’ve never been able to articulate precisely whyThanksgiving and, I must admit, most holidays (and even weekends) fill me with a quiet horror. Fortunately, a great writer has now done it. In Richard Ford’s new book, “The Lay of the Land,” his narrator Frank Bascombe (a 55-year old realtor with prostate cancer), is talking about an interesting day he has planned (watching the demolition of an old hotel in Asbury Park, NJ), but comments that: “Business itself, of course, is the very best at offering solid, life-structuring agendas, and business days are always better than wan weekends, and are hands-down better than gaping, ghostly holidays that Americans all claim to love — but I don’t since these days can turn long, dread-prone and worse.”

Precisely. You can’t do better than “wan” and “gaping,ghostly.”

Sorry, that was just my reaction when I saw this headline and story:

10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster

Zach Plante is close with his parents — he plays
baseball with them and, on weekends, helps with work in the small
vineyard they keep at their northern California home.

Lately, though, his parents have begun to
notice subtle changes in their son. Among other things, he’s announced
that he wants to grow his hair longer — and sometimes greets his father
with “Yo, Dad!”

“Little comments will come out of his mouth that have a bit of that teen swagger,” says Tom Plante, Zach’s dad.

Thing is, Zach isn’t a teen. He’s 10 years old
— one part, a fun-loving fifth-grader who likes to watch the Animal
Planet network and play with his dog and pet gecko, the other a
soon-to-be middle schooler who wants an iPod.

In some ways, it’s simply part of a kid’s
natural journey toward independence. But child development experts say
that physical and behavioral changes that would have been typical of
teenagers decades ago are now common among “tweens” — kids ages 8 to 12.

Some of them are going on “dates” and talking
on their own cell phones. They listen to sexually charged pop music,
play mature-rated video games and spend time gossiping on MySpace. And
more girls are wearing makeup and clothing that some consider beyond
their years.

My son, by the way, is (almost) nine.

What morals will be drawn from Rupert Murdoch’s last-minute decision to scrap the shameless O. J. Simpson book and television interview that his News Corporation’s subsidiaries were about to peddle to the public.

Yes, it does sound odd to include the words “Murdoch” and “morals” in the same sentence. Mr. Murdoch is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished predators of our day. Evidently possessed of extraordinary skills in investing, merging, purchasing, and never underestimating the appeal of the lurid and the xenophobic, he has done as much as any single individual might to degrade the civic and moral culture of the United States—and several other nations too, I believe.

“His media programming has filled a lucrative niche by never being afraid to push the limits of taste, typical of his swashbuckling business style,” Richard Siklos writes on the first Business page of last Wednesday’s New York Times. Which is a deft, New York Times way of saying that Murdoch has made billions purveying sleaze.

The Siklos story includes a condensed but sufficient list of Fox TV sitcoms, celebrity shows, and so-called reality programs that broke new ground in vulgarity, nihilism, exploitation, and human degradation—without even mentioning what that network’s purported news reporting and commentary have done to journalism. Under Murdoch ownership, the New York Post has become just another example of urban pollution.

But the crowning touch of Murdoch’s cynical opportunism is his funding of The Weekly Standard, a conservative journal ostensibly upholding the cultural standards that he is busy tearing down.

So far, the chief moral of the story is not that Mr. Murdoch and the high-level News Corporation executives who signed off on these O.J. projects made a bad decision but that they made a bad business decision. He miscalculated, it seems, the American public’s weakness for the titillating and repugnant, or he miscalculated the residue of human feelings that still afflicts some of his employees, affiliates, and advertisers. More sleaze, in short, than the market will bear.

Ira Silverberg, a literary agent who has regular done business with Judith Regan, the HarperCollins executive who initiated the Simpson project, explained it all in another story in the Business section: “I think people are applying moral standards to a business that has always looked to make money from celebrity and hype in the media,” he protested.

Applying moral standards, think of it! What will be next?

No, not Michael Richards’s racist rant. I’m talking about the main hed on the front page of today’s New York Post. No doubt the headline and sports writers at the Post are giving voice to the resentment Yankee fans feel after seeing their veteran shortstop Derek Jeter edged out of the MVP award by a 25-year-old Canadian with a grand total of two years in the majors. Of course, it can’t have anything to do with the astounding talent of Justin Morneau, first baseman for the Minnesota Twins. Nor can it be related to the fact that he had 30 percent more RBIs than Jeter (130). Never mind the way his midseason hitting explosion tracks precisely with the incredible turnaround the Twins had–they went from a sub-.500 club in mid-June to win their division (the American League Central, AKA the best division in baseball). No, Derek Jeter lost the MVP to Justin Morneau because of the anti-New York sentiment that beats deep in the heart of every “yokel”–best defined as anyone residing beyond driving distance to an American League Eastern Division ballpark.

If you haven’t already seen Michael Richards go on a deranged, racist rant at a comedy nightclub after being interrupted by some hecklers, you should. (Warning: This is incredibly disturbing and contains offensive language; you may never be able to watch Seinfeld again.) First Mel Gibson and now Kramer. I don’t really have anything to say about this, but I look forward to the reading your comments.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to his apology on Letterman. (Thanks, Grant!) One thing about his apology that is striking is his insistence that he
is not a racist. Hard to believe, given his words. But I think a lot of
racism is like that: lying beneath the surface, operating subtly and unconsciously, not fully recognized by the person himself until it bubbles up into full view in response to some trigger. I recommend that readers take a look at Harvard’s implicit association web site, which allows you to test your own
implicit racial attitudes through a series of tests you can take on
your desktop computer. Just click through the demonstration link and
follow the link to Race IAT (which is at the bottom of a list of
options). The results will almost certainly surprise you.

The Boston Globe reports that many African countries have sharply reduced the deaths of young children in recent years, belying the notion that the continent was making little progress against killer diseases:

Across sub-Saharan Africa, the mortality rates for children under age 5 in some countries have decreased by as much as 30 percent in the past five years because of increases in immunization and the use of vitamin A supplements and oral rehydration therapy; a rise in the number of women seeking prenatal care; and the end of regional conflicts, according to child-health specialists.

There is no question that Africa continues to face a number of challenges and this bit of good news does not, by itself, outweigh the enormous suffering that many people living in the continent have to deal with. But is also important to celebrate small victories. There seems to be a growing pessimism that “nothing works” when it comes to intractable social problems. But it seems clear that a combination of public and private efforts are having a measurable effect.

I wonder if this sheds any light on the somewhat heated debate we have been having both here and at Mirror of Justice about whether “liberals” or “conservatives” are more generous toward the poor. This seems to have become a debate about whether private charity or public provision is a better approach to relieving poverty. But surely we need both. Those who would disparage either government or private charity in the struggle against human suffering are like a boxer heading into the ring with one arm tied behind his back.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

OK, I’m giving a talk at Columbia early next week. I’d love to see a taping of the Colbert Report on Tuesday night. It would do my eternal soul some good!
Anybody in the Catholic blogosphere have a connection? Please!

Shameless, I know, but I thought it was worth a shot!

P.R./Newswire reports:

Double Murder in Wisconsin Prompts Lawsuit Against All US Bishops
But Delaware’s Top Church Official Will Be Removed As Defendant
Saltarelli’s Disclosure of Names of Alleged Predator Priests is the Reason

A family whose relative was
murdered by a priest and who has filed a non-monetary, first of its kind
lawsuit against the USCCB and all US Catholic bishops is releasing Delaware’s
Catholic bishop from the suit.

In August, 2006, the O’Connell family of Hudson, WI, filed a unique
lawsuit against all US bishops seeking a non-monetary injunction that would
force them to reveal the names of all proven, admitted, and credibly accused
abusive priests. Several weeks ago, Michael Saltarelli, Bishop of Wilmington
(DE) was served with that suit.

The family is now writing Saltarelli to advise him he will be dropped as a
defendant since Saltarelli recently disclosed names of 20 pedophile priests in
his diocese.

Releasing the names of admitted or convicted abusers is a no-brainer, but I have serious reservations about the notion of releasing the names of the accused–ordained or not–to anyone but the police. What’s the end-game here?

In his recent book, Simply Christian, the Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, comments:

at certain places and moments God’s future and God’s past (that is, events like Jesus’ death and resurrection) arrive in the present — rather as though you were to sit down to a meal and discover your great-great-grandparents, and also your great-great-grandchildren, turning up to join you. That’s how God’s time works.

It brought to mind Micheal O’Siadhail’s poem, “Courtesy:”

I bring my basketful to serve
Our table. Everything mine is yours.
Everything. Without reserve.

Lost faces. Those whose heirs
I was. My print-out of their genes,
Seed and breed of forebears.

Whatever I’ve become — courtesy
Of lovers, friends or friends of friends.
All those traces in me.

The living and dead. My sum
Of being. A host open and woundable.
Here I am.

A blessed Thanksgiving.

Jim McGreevey did not enter politics for the money; of that we can be certain after Channel 2 News (in New York) last night showed viewers the interior of the Woodbridge condo McGreevey continued to call home even after being elected New Jersey’s governor in 2001 (until a mold problem at the official residence outside Princeton was resolved). The tour guide was none other than Golan Cipel, the Israeli national whose purported affair with the Governor–and subsequent threats of exposure–prompted McGreevey to resign his office in August 2004. Cipel made some very rough charges last night in contradicting the account of their relationship offered by McGreevey in his recently published memoir, The Confession.

We called the Confession a “spiritual autobiography” in a post last week because that’s the genre to which McGreevey and ghostwriter David France turned in structuring the work. It also belongs to the subgenre of “conversion narrative,” the most venerable of American literary traditions. Critics of the market-driven tendency of celebrities like McGreevey to publish accounts of their spiritual conversion before its fruits are fully manifest overlook the tradition’s source in the near-spontaneous quality of oral conversion narratives offered in Protestant churches of colonial times (in places like McGreevey’s hometown of Woodbridge along with more familiar New England locales).

Something much more important is also overlooked: works of spiritual autobiography including those presented as narratives of conversion or “recovery” offer no guarantee of the author/subject’s virtue or truthfulness. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), one of the greatest books ever written by an American, William James explained that the power of conversion narratives resides in the degree to which their authenticity can readily be verified over the course of a subsequent lifetime. Ignatius of Loyola, for example, truly did live by the light of his conversion experience as did so many of the other subjects James studied. At the same time there is no shortage of fraudulent conversion narratives crafted by figures in a jam or otherwise seeking to evade responsibility for previous misdeeds. Yet this is not a tradition one dishonors lightly; Americans are a forgiving people but don’t care to be taken for a ride by those in who they’ve invested sympathetic interest.

Perhaps the best that might be said of The Confession is that it reveals an individual in the process of becoming honest. McGreevey lived in denial of his homosexuality for forty-seven long years, but his recovery–as he sees it–is not from the effects of shame and guilt over his orientation but from his addiction to “having a public” which served as audience in his perpetual campaign for adulation. McGreevey is, that is, a recovering politician who happens to come from one of the most politically-charged places on earth. In this sense the most revealing observation on his resignation was found in a headline from the Onion: “Homosexual Tearfully Admits to Being Governor of New Jersey.”

This is in fact the most revealing book ever published on politics in the Garden State and surely the only book we’ll ever have in which Sharpe James (long-time Newark mayor and legendarily rugged in-fighter) competes for influence and space with William James (un-credited inspiration for such chapter titles as “What a Divided Self Can Do”). The Confession arrived at a fateful moment in the Garden State’s political history, when the three regional “warlords” of Democratic politics who each played a large role in McGreevey’s ascent find themselves in a state of major flux: George Norcross (South Jersey) is reportedly eyeing a move to South Florida; John A. Lynch Jr. (Central) will be sentenced next month to federal prison for fraud and tax evasion; and Ray Lesniak (North) has undergone his own spiritual conversion which will certainly bear watching since unlike his fellow Bosses (and his protege the former Governor), Lesniak will apparently continue to exert his influence in the rough and tumble of Jersey politics.

McGreevey’s observations on Lesniak and Lynch are especially fascinating; the two had a bitter falling out prompted largely by McGreevey’s own volatile conduct while Governor in the wake of the now-legendary “epiphany” that inspired him to cut Lynch off from access to guberatorial power (greater in Jersey than any other state) despite his having risen from the obscurity of Woodbridge’s mayoralty to the Statehouse via Lynch’s constant intercession. Lynch is a brilliant guy, a Holy Cross graduate that blended a mastery of old-school ward politics with a visionary gift for urban planning and redevelopment. During the decade I lived in New Brunswick, Lynch’s hometown and laboratory, I never doubted for a moment there was more to be learned about American cities by following him around for a day than could be had from a lifetime of urban studies seminars at Rutgers; let’s just say he was not the kind of political leader one casually hung around with.

I would rather read Lynch’s (unwritten) autobiography than McGreevey’s but the book before us is compelling in its provisional fashion. McGreevey does accept responsibility for his actions especially those that clearly devastated his second wife (his first wife moved back to her native Vancouver and wants no part of the publicity surrounding McGreevey or the book). He does not blame the Catholic Church for his struggles: in fact he is extraordinarily appreciative of the communal ethos of the Jersey City Irish-Catholicism into which he was born (and raised, in nearby Carteret, a working-class suburb). Apart from one reference to the “Church’s pointlessly cruel war against gays and lesbians” found very late in the book McGreevey has nothing but good things to say about church and clergy. Before he outed himself McGreevey had ceased receiving Communion in public, in response to attacks from several New Jersey bishops who, he accurately notes, attempted to derail his support for the nation’s first publicly-funded stem-cell research institute by indicating he was no longer welcome at the Communion rail.

McGreevey now worships in an Episcopalian faith community, the same tradition that elevated Gene Robinson–an openly gay priest–to Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. In an April 2006 New Yorker article on the looming schism in his church, Robinson observed that his harshest critics failed to understand “homosexuality is something that I am; it’s not something that I do.” Such battles over identity politics are of course integral to the endless culture wars of religion on which I have nothing useful to add. Except this: most culture warriors may not be lucky enough to reside in New Jersey but other venues offer their own opportunities for personal reflection grounded in real places, real experiences, and an honest accounting of the human heart and its longings for love, commitment and community. Perhaps we should all write our own Confession before rushing headlong into the fray.

Happy Advent of Advent.

John Allen provides a good “backgrounder” to Pope Benedict’s upcoming trip to Turkey, which starts on November 28th. He notes that while Turkey is one of the few Islamic states where conversion is not illegal, significant restrictions on religious freedom remain and the Christian communities in the country face significant challenges:

Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but by any standard Turkey’s Christians represent a tiny minority. The Patriarch of Constantinople presides over perhaps as few as 2,000 souls. The Greek Orthodox presence in Turkey was eviscerated by a “population exchange” between Greece and Turkey in 1922, when almost a million and half Turkish citizens who were Orthodox Christians were sent packing to Greece, while a million Muslims in Greece were thrust into Turkey. There are still some 100,000 Armenian Christians in Turkey, along with roughly 30,000 Catholics divided across a variety of rites.

Whatever their numbers, there’s no doubt that Christians face serious challenges, some of which are a de jure matter of formal discrimination. Christians, for example, are barred from careers in the military, which is the ultimate source of power and prestige in Turkish society. Christian clergy usually are refused Turkish citizenship, no matter how long they’ve been in the country. Only recently have they been able to obtain residency permits valid for more than a few months, paying a tax of 0.50 Euro (about 64 U.S. cents) for every day in the country. Because Christian churches have no legal personality, parishes and schools have to be bought and sold in the name of private Turkish citizens, a requirement that generates all manner of property disputes and administrative headaches. Seminaries for both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Armenian Orthodox Church have been closed by government order since 1971. 

The Belgian-Canadian polemicist and American resident Mark Steyn has set his
face firmly against the Saracen hordes of Europe. His new jeremiad, America
Alone, outlines in fearful detail the dread consequences of an
over-reproducing Muslim community settled in the very heart of a post-Christian
continent. Steyn’s alarmist summons to arms, over simplification of complex
geo-political realities, blatant appeals to nativist and xenophobic sympathies,
and undiluted “redneckery” makes for disturbing reading. He is also an
enthralling and clever writer who should be read for his prose and not for the
cogency of his arguments. 

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds comments on a new book purporting to show that religious conservatives are more generous than secular liberals because they donate more to charities. Reynolds spins this into the following comment:

ARE CONSERVATIVES more charitable?
“The book’s basic findings are that conservatives who practice
religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion
that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most
generous Americans, by any measure. Conversely, secular liberals who
believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to
charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes
and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when
governments don’t provide them with enough money.”

Apparently they’re not big on paying the taxes to support those entitlement programs, either: “Bono demands more of the taxes he won’t pay.”

Greg Sisk, at Mirror of Justice, also touts the book’s findings here. It’s only a matter of time before this meme obtains CW status, like the women who get rich off welfare by having baby after baby. It’s just too rhetorically useful to let truth or sound analysis get in the way.

I’m not sure what the comparison between religious conservatives and
secular liberals is supposed to prove, but it certainly doesn’t establish, to quote
Instapundit (quoting beliefnet), that conservatives are more generous “by any measure.” At
most, it shows that religious conservatives are more generous donors to
private charities than secular liberals. But, if I define “generous” to encompass, say,
support against one’s financial interest for social programs funded
through redistributive taxation, then wealthy liberals (secular or
religious), who generally support such taxes and such programs, do well
and conservatives (religious or not) don’t look so hot.

I have not yet read the book (though I certainly will), but before drawing any conclusions, I would be interested to know whether the “private charities”
canvassed for the study include the religious conservatives own churches. I’d also like to see the magnitude of the differences, especially on some of the non-monetary measures noted in the beleifnet article, such as blood donation. Finally, I’d want to see the numbers for secular conservatives and religious liberals, since the presence of religious involvement is a potentially conflating variable in this analysis that cuts across political orientation.

To be honest,
though, I’d be fairly unsurprised to see that conservatives as a whole donate more to
private charities than liberals. Given egalitarian
liberal views about the role of the state in solving certain widespread
social problems, one would expect liberals to favor state over private
efforts and to view at least some sorts of private charitable
contributions as wasted money.

This may be a variant on what Carl Sagan used to refer to this as the “brick in the toilet”
question. He talked about one category of people, who think that
environmental problems should be solved by voluntary changes in individual behavior. Others, he said, think that many such problems
require a level of coordination that can only be accomplished through
the state. He used water conservation as his
hypothetical. People in the former group might put a brick in their
toilet to save water with each flush but oppose centralized regulation
aimed at ensuring broad-based compliance with water conservation efforts. (These are your
religious conservatives, if you will, who will give money to private
charities but oppose state intervention in the service of social
justice.) On the other hand, people in the latter group, who favor
state intervention to compel water conservation but are skeptical of
the effectiveness of voluntary action in this regard, might support (or
vote for) state regulation of water consumption but, in its absence,
might not bother to put the brick in their toilet because they view the
action as pointless without the broader coordination offered by state
action. (These are your secular liberals who favor redistributive
policies, even to their own financial disadvantage, but who, according
to the book, are marginally stingier with their donations to charity.)
Whether this story supports saying that people who put bricks in their
toilets are the “true” environmentalists (or religious conservatives
are the truly generous) and the people who do not but who vote for
environmental interests are hypocrites strikes me as unanswerable apart
from one’s views about the substantive merits of the beliefs underlying
their decisions.

The relevance of Bono’s behavior for all of this strikes me as too
far-fetched to be worthy of comment and bordering on (or, on second
thought, crossing well over into) the realm of intellectual
dishonesty. (Not surprising for Instapundit.) Suffice it to say that
if we want to get into comparing the anecdotal evidence of hypocrisy
among prominent individuals within the ranks of our respective
political movements, religious conservatives are living in a glass
house. In the same way that meth-purchasing, male-prostitute-hiring
evangelical ministers don’t say anything about the bona fides of
conservative Christians, or the merits of their beliefs, Bono’s tax
evasion adds nothing useful to this conversation.

UPDATE: Over at Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett takes issue with my attempt to redefine “generosity” to include willingness to pay higher taxes to support programs for the poor. He says:

After all, whether they support redistributive policies or
not, religious conservatives pay their taxes, just like “wealthy
liberals”; they just give away more on top of that.

Fair point. Except that, in the states where religious conservatives predominate,
taxes are lower (as are government services). In states were “wealthy
liberals” live, taxes (and services) are higher. Compare, for example,
South Dakota (45th highest tax burden) or Alabama (46th) or Tennessee
(47th) or Oklahoma (40th) with, say, New York (2nd) or Hawaii (3rd) or
Rhode Island (4th). So it’s not clear to me at all, to quote Rick,
that “religious conservatives” pay taxes “just like ‘wealthy
liberals.’” As long as the increment that religious conservatives
donate to charity does not exceed the difference in tax burden between your typical red and blue state, then I
believe my point stands. Interestingly, nothing in the descriptions of
the book I’ve seen on-line says anything about the absolute magnitude of
the giving we’re talking about. It’s all about the relative rate of
giving between religious conservatives and secular liberals. (As an
aside, I’ve never seen any data suggesting that conservatives are more
likely to evade taxes, but, if the Bush administration’s policies with
respect to IRS enforcement are any guide, there appears to be a
constituency for tax evasion among wealthy Republicans.)

UPDATE II:  Apparently, Brooks found in an October 2003 article that religiosity has a much greater impact on charitable giving and volunteering than political affiliation.  (I can’t find an on-line version of the article, but you can find a shorter version of it here.)  In fact, Brooks says that intensity of political feeling matters more than what one actually believes (e.g., strongly conservative and strongly liberal give more than more wishy washy types).  If religiosity trumps politics, then this strikes me as altering some of the fundamental meaning of the book’s findings.  It suggests that the most significant factor at work is religiosity and not ideology and that the comparison of religious conservatives to secular liberals is a red herring intended to stir up debate (and publicity for the book), but does not tell us much about either conservatives or liberals.  In any event, I’ve ordered the book from Amazon and will report back when I’ve had a chance to read it.

OK, we’re all about to have a four-day weekend with friends and family.  If you’re not a football person, what movies should you get for the DVD? 

I suggest a Coen Brothers film festival.

1.  Fargo

2.  Raising Arizona

3.  The Big Lebowski– the Dude, after all, abides.

Any others?