Paul Krugman has a column “Sad Alan’s Lament” in today’s Times (available online only to the well-heeled subscribers to TimesSelect).

In it he excoriates Alan Greenspan for claiming in his new book that he was opposed to the Bush tax cuts. Krugman contends that Greenspan never distanced himself from the tax cuts in his testimony before Congress, even when explicitly given the opportunity to do so.

The close of the article sees Greenspan’s inaction as a sadder sign of the times:

In retrospect, Mr. Greenspan’s moral collapse in 2001 was a portent. It foreshadowed the way many people in the foreign policy community would put their critical faculties on hold and support the invasion of Iraq, despite ample evidence that it was a really bad idea.

This last reminded me of an address I recently read by the Israeli novelist, David Grossman. Grossman, who grew up in Israel in the shadow of the Shoah, has tried imaginatively to enter into the world of both the victims and the perpetrators.

In his address at, the opening of the Berlin Festival of Literature, he warns of the tendency to surrender individual responsibility to the mass mind, a tendency more and more abetted by the mass media. It is available free here for those who can manage the Italian.

Perhaps Commonweal can obtain the rights to Grossman’s address before it is snatched up by The NewYork Review or (orrore!) First Things.

Thomas Powers, ancienne Commonweal colmnist, had a review of George Tenet’s book in the NYRB, July 19, in which he examined Tenet’s claims as well as the administration’s claims about going to war in Iraq.

A reader writes in the current issue, September 27, that Powers failed to address  the real-world question: Why did we really invade Iraq? The reader posits some of the circulating theories. In response, Powers admits that they are all possible reasons for the U.S. invasion. More pointedly, he notes that, in fact, none of the principals have said “why” and more pointedly that no Democrat in Congress or none of the Democratic candidates have asked “why” either, nor do they seem very interested.

“Not knowing why we went in allowed us to go in; not knowing why we should get out will make it impossible to get out. None of the presidential candidates seems to know why we are failing, or to understand what is imperial about the way we deal with Iraq, or to sense that a bigger war is just an other mistake away.”

Powers argues that this is a “two presidents” war and that the next president is in danger of repeating all the mistakes of this one. Sobering.

The whole, but relatively short (for the NYRB) exchange: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20597

I began the new semester of my “Exploring Catholicism” course using a new edition of the Bible: The Saint Mary’s Press, College Study Bible. One of the features that motivated my choosing it was its excellent “Glossary” of terms.

Among the twenty terms I asked the students to familiarize themselves with (a “baby step” towards overcoming theological and biblical illiteracy) were “hermeneutics,” “typology,” and “senses of scripture.” This last gave the traditional division into “literal,” “allegorical,” “anagogical” etc.

I also introduced them to Karl Barth’s well-known dictum that the preacher should speak with the Bible in one hand and The New York Times in the other (okay: he said the Zurich Free Press — same difference).

Little did I realize that The Times would obligingly cooperate by printing Peter Steinfels’ column on “Differences in Biblical Approaches” (though finding it on-line takes a bit of ingenuity).

Steinfels reviews a new book by the noted scholar James Kugel: How to Read the Bible. The book treats the clash of modern and ancient approaches to understanding the Bible; and, though Kugel shows sympathy to both, he concludes that they are ultimately irreconcilable.

Peter, who is a paradigm of a “both/and” person, gently demurs. He wonders:

How to Read the Bible runs through the entire Hebrew Scriptures,
matching modern scholarship and ancient interpretation. The journey is
fascinating enough to render frustrating the author’s conclusion.
Although he admired both approaches, Professor Kugel writes, they are
“quite irreconcilable.”

Is this conclusion as unavoidable as he
makes it sound? Modern minds still seek deeper meanings and still want
relevant instructions for living. As for the ancient worry about
seamlessness, modern minds, sensitized to multiple perspectives, often
find more coherence in contrasting accounts than perfectly harmonized
ones.

The ancient interpreters’ boldness in rewriting was
motivated and justified, Professor Kugel writes, by a fresh
apprehension of God and the corresponding need to flesh out the
command, found in the Book of Deuteronomy and elsewhere, “to serve the
Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.” Is it so
impossible that modern scholarship, too, could be put to that service?

Understandably unmentioned in the column is Pope Benedict’s book, Jesus of Nazareth. But, of course, the Pope’s intent was precisely to unite the seemingly “irreconcilable” approaches.

Whether or not Benedict fully succeeded is a matter of legitimate debate. But clearly Steinfels’ generous reading of the book in his Commonweal article, “The Face of God,” shows his appreciation for what the Pope attempted … and accomplished.

Good job! What was it like, Jim?

Over at MOJ, a group of law professors (including me) have signed a joint statement regarding the evolving crisis/scandal at Ave Maria Law School.  Here’s a taste (click the link to read the rest):

We applaud the effort to build a law school that consciously draws upon
and engages the rich intellectual, liturgical, moral, ecclesial, and
social justice traditions of the Catholic Church, integrating them into
the daily life of the law school community. AMSL had this vision in
mind when it opened its doors in 2000, but it is now clear that the
Catholic nature vital to its founding and sustenance has been derailed
as evidenced by the administration’s treatment of the faculty member
subject to tenure revocation and the suspensions of those denied tenure.

At the risk of setting off another round of comments on the role of the CDF, have we discussed their recent document on withdrawing nutrition and hydration from PVS patients? If so, I missed it. I believe that this teaching is a regrettable shift in the tradition on end of life care. Among other problems, pastorally, it’s a nightmare.

RESPONSES TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS
 OF THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
 CONCERNING ARTIFICIAL NUTRITION AND HYDRATION

First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a “vegetative state” morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient’s body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?

Response: Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.

Second question: When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a “permanent vegetative state”, may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?

Response: No. A patient in a “permanent vegetative state” is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.

The Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved these Responses, adopted in the Ordinary Session of the Congregation, and ordered their publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, August 1, 2007.

William Cardinal Levada


Prefect

The NCR’s John Allen, who has owned the Peter Phan case from the get-go, has important details and analysis in his weekly column just posted today. Two of the many points John makes strike me as worthy of elaboration: One is the idea that the investigation of Phan and others is about theological dialogue with non-Christian religions. I think the rebukes are primarily about intramural Catholic house-cleaning, and shoring up any doubts Catholics may have about the unique role not just of Christ, but also the Catholic Church. Two, John says the Vatican has been careful to distinguish “between investigating works of theology and investigating theologians.” At this point I think that is a distinction without a difference. Rome tried to use it in barring homosexuals from holy orders. That was ugly. ”Hate the sin, love the sinner” too easily becomes a cloak for indulging our own biases. Final note: My opinion here once again does not go to the content and validity of Phan’s writings, nor the question of whether or not there should be boundaries that we can legitimately say have been transgressed. Those are connected, but separate debates. IMHO…

I have discovered lately (and belatedly) the religious music of the Scottish Catholic composer, James MacMillan.

I am growing to love his Mass, performed wonderfully by the men and boys of the Westminster Cathedral Choir (Hyperion CD).

The Mass is a setting of the English translation of the Novus Ordo and includes a sung Eucharistic Prayer that one can play and use for prayer.

The “Holy, Holy, Holy” evokes something of the awe Isaiah must have experienced that long ago day in the Temple.

Also included on the recording are some of MacMillan’s other religious compositions, including “A Child’s Prayer.”

The simple text is sung by a boy treble and conveys a remarkable sense of innocence and ecstasy:

Welcome Jesu,
Deep in my soul forever stay,
Joy and love my heart are filling
On this glad Communion day.

Does anyone else know MacMillan’s work?

Georgetown University theologian–and Commonweal contributor–Rev. Peter Phan (a priest of Dallas) is being looked at, according to John Allen:

Both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops are
investigating a book by a prominent American Catholic theologian, Vietnam-born
Fr. Peter Phan of Georgetown University. The book raises issues about the
uniqueness of Christ and the church, issues that were also behind recent
censures of other high-profile theologians, as well as a recent Vatican
declaration that the fullness of the Christian church resides in Catholicism
alone.

(…)

Sources who asked not to be identified said that Phan received a July 2005
letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith signed by
Archbishop Angelo Amato, the congregation’s number two official. It presented 19
observations under six headings, charging that Phan’s book “is notably confused
on a number of points of Catholic doctrine and also contains serious
ambiguities.”

The letter said the book is in tension with the 2000 Vatican document
Dominus Iesus, which states that non-Christians are “in a gravely
deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the church, have the
fullness of the means of salvation.”

The congregation asked Phan to write an article correcting the problems
identified in Amato’s letter, and to instruct Orbis not to reprint his book.
Phan wrote back in April 2006 offering to comply under certain conditions, and,
according to sources, to date has not had a response.

Last May, Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., chair of the Committee on
Doctrine for the U.S. bishops, also wrote Phan to indicate that the Vatican had
asked his committee to examine the book, and that it wanted Phan to respond to
an enclosed three-page set of observations. Lori indicated that the committee
“feels obliged to publish its own statement.”

In a subsequent letter dated June 20, Lori indicated that his committee’s
examination is separate from that of the Vatican.

According to sources who have seen the correspondence, the central issues
flagged both by the Vatican and the U.S. bishops are:

• Christ as the unique and universal savior of the world;
• The role and function of the Catholic church in salvation;
• The saving value of non-Christian religions.

These themes certainly are familiar. This is also another opportunity for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and now apparently a USCCB committee, to show their cards as they attempt to dispel the “confusion” they’ve identified in Phan’s 2004 book. If Lori was essentially ordered by the CDF to investigate Phan, why should Phan have to answer to separate investigations?

An assessment of the general’s and the ambassador’s sins of ommission by knowledgeable reporters.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19610.html

Talking Points Memo has helpfully posted a slew of videos related to the general and his report. Here are a few worth watching.

First up, a snippet from Petraeus’s exclusive interview with that bastion of fairminded journalism, Fox News. Take it away, Brit…

Did you catch that? Hume asked Petraeus whether the war in Iraq isn’t really a war against Al Qaeda, and the general said that it’s a war with Al Qaeda and its “affiliates,” which isn’t especially true.

Next, here’s a clip of Petraeus saying that he doesn’t know whether the war in Iraq is making the United States “safer.”

Impressively candid, right? Not so fast. Given the opportunity to rethink his answer, Petraeus produced the following clarification.

Ready for that salt lick yet?

Update: I’m going to keep updating this thread as new videos come to my attention. In today’s presser, Tony Snow interprets General Petraeus’s testimony on troop withdrawal by inverting it:

Along with Juan Cole, Patrick Lang is the most knowledgable and astute observer of Iraq, especially on military matters. Here is a snippet from (Advice for the Democratic Party) his take on the questions left for Congress by General Petraeus and Ambassador Croker, above all the question of withdrawing troops:

Nevertheless, we are stuck on the flypaper of Iraq. In my opinion a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, abandoning the protean mess that is the Iraqi government would result in such a disastrous situation that we can not afford to do that.

Some of the consequences?

- A rump state of Iraq in the south in which whichever Shia faction wins will become a satellite of the Iranian government. That government, if not dealt with through a prolonged and aggressive combination of diplomacy and potential military force will continue to act as a major sponsor of Islamic zealot movements and their terrorist manifestations. Iran will also take up a major role as arbiter of alignments and activity in the region.

- Kurdistan will become one of the saddest of experiments in national popular sovereignty that I know of. Would Turkey and Iran continue to tolerate the Kurdish aspiration to achieving something as close to independence as they can manage? I doubt it.

- Would the wide variety of Sunni Arab groups that are revolting against the takfiri jihadis coalesce into a integrated part of a renewed Iraq? Probably not, and among all the little de facto city states, sheikhdoms, etc, the surreptitious support and participation of the Sunni “neighbors” would continue. This means continued war indefinitely in Sunnistan.

- Would the jihadis find a way to re-establish themselves somewhere in Sunnistan? Probably.

What does that add up to in terms of the ultimate political effect of the war on the Democratic Party?

I predict that If you are seen to be the instruments of such a collapse, then you will be blamed for a catastrophe in which thousands of American soldiers will have died. The public will wrongly think that they died for nothing. The public will not blame Bush, Cheney, the AEI crowd. No. They will blame you. You will carry that can for many years.

Petraeus recommends a gradual withdrawal from this disaster. You don’t want that? Have you really thought this through?

If you want to do something useful, pass resolutions tying up the president’s freedom of action in regard to Iran. Make him come to you for permission to strike them. Show some real courage.

Read the whole thing: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

UPDATE: For those who have not been following the run-up to the war in IRAN! http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296450,00.html

UPDATE: Petraeus on Iran: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091201133.html?hpid=topnews

UPDATE: Barnett Rubin an Afghan expert points to one of the consequences of the extended stay in Iraq and its fall-out in Afghanistand and Pakistan. It is, of course, not just a military problem, but a diplomatic one as well. The Bush Administration definitely suffers from ADD. Here is Rubin’s recent post on “things fall apart.” http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/09/collapse-of-legitimacy-in-pakistan.html

The Daily Show on success in Iraq.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker probably did better on Monday than anyone–Republican or Democrats–expected. Whether or not they are accurate remains to be seen.

Damian Cave and Allissa Rubin in the New York Times  (9/11/07) call Crocker’s testimony into question, based in part on a briefing he gave to reporters some weeks ago in Baghdad.  News Analysis: Envoy’s Upbeat Tone Glosses Over Baghdad’s Turmoil  nytimes.com

Juan Cole (at the top of today’s post 9/11) thinks their testimony has created a fait accompli and the Dems have to hope they [Petraeus and Crocker] will accomplish what they say is possible so that a Democratic president doesn’t take the fall for Bush. Cole’s argument is smart and worth a look: http://www.juancole.com/

E.J. Dionne ferrets out another possible trajectory in Rep. Ike Skelton’s opening comments, i.e., let’s hear from some others at the Pentagon worried about over-all readiness: Democrats’ Last, Best Hope (Washington Post, 9/11).  Washingtonpost.com

Sorry my machine is not letting me copy links (advice anyone?).

UPDATE: Thomas Ricks (author of Fiasco) has a running commentary on today’s (9/11) testimony in the Senate. If you can’t watch the whole thing: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/

D. Paul Sullins, a sociologist at Catholic University of America and himself a married priest-convert from the Episcopal Church, has a new survey of married convert-priests that shows they are generally as conservative as we suspected–only moreso. As summarized in the September issue of ReligionWatch (not yet on-line), Sullins’ survey of many of the 70 married men who have become priests in the U.S. since 1980 under the Vatican’s special exception shows that they are consistently more conservative on sexuality issues than celibate priests. Some 84 percent of convert-priests said sex before marriage is “always” a sin, as opposed to 57 percent of other priests, and 89 percent said homosexual behavior is always sinful, versus just over half of other priests.

Interestingly, married convert-priests were far more likely than other priests–61 versus 29 percent–to oppose allowing priests to marry. Hypocrisy, some may say. Or maybe they know something we don’t? Also, a whopping 97 percent of the converts describe themselves as “somewhat” or “very” conservative, versus under 30 percent of celibate priests who self-identify as conservative. Also, married convert-priests are more likely than other priests to view ordination as giving them “a distinct and permanent status in the church” (92 v. 77 percent).

Something tells me this story is more about conversion than optional celibacy.

There is a very oddly reported story in today’s NY Times about the Bureau of Prisons’ ordering chaplains to remove from prison libraries any books, tapes cds and videos that are not on an approved list. According to the story, “the Bureau of Prisons said it relied on experts to produce lists of up to 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources for each of 20 religions or religious categories “ These experts were not named.
What is odd about the reporting of the story is that few of the books approved are named. The “Encyclopedia of Catholicism” is among them, as well as nine unidentified works by C.S. Lewis, and an unidentified work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and we are told that eighty of the volumes approved for Judaism (all unidentified) come from the same Orthodox publishing house, also unidentified. We are also told that there are no volumes by theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, or by the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller. One would like to know what went into the choice of these to illustrate the unapproved.
The Times has copies of the lists but chose not to tell us much about them nor to make them available on line. I would think it at least as interesting to know which books did make the list.

That’s the title of our editorial in the new issue of Commonweal, which went live on the homepage today. Serendipitously, the new iteration of Crisis magazine also launched today: Inside Catholic is the umbrella Web site that hosts the now online-only Crisis, its parent organization the Morley Institute (run by Deal Hudson and named for his aunt), and something called the “Inside Blog” (apparently the new home for Hudson’s old blog). I haven’t delved too deply into Inside Catholc’s content, but I did chance upon this delightful video, a brief sendup of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s $660 million sexual-abuse settlement (sample: “The Archdiocese of Los Angeles: Because We Could Really Use the Cash!”). Because, really, what’s funnier than clergy sexual abuse and the havoc it’s wreaked in that benighted archdiocese? What other goodies can you find on Inside Catholic?

Story about companies that charge employees more or penalize them for health risks makes an interesting companion to Grant Gallicho’s post about the uninsured.

So far, companies that tie wages to health improvements focus on conditions that can be managed to some extent–smoking, obesity and high cholesterol. At least one company is no longer hiring employees who use tobacco, in states where not hiring them is legal.

What the story doesn’t say is whether the programs have been successful at holding or improving health insurance costs for employers. Nor does it say how successful those wellness programs are. Are employees getting healthier in those company gyms?

Anyone have experiences with employee wellness programs? Thoughts on where this all might be headed?

The New Republic has posted a useful primer on the myriad Iraq reports that have already been issued. It’s worth reading before General Petraeus delivers his tomorrow.

Also worth reading: today’s New York Times editorial on the general’s report.

As Congress waited anxiously for General Petraeus’s testimony, a
flurry of well-timed news reports said that he told the White House he
could go along with the withdrawal of about 4,000 American troops
beginning in January but wanted to maintain increased force levels well
into next year — just like Mr. Bush. Democrats who once demanded a firm
date for the start of a troop pullout immediately started backpedaling.

Withdrawing
4,000 troops and dangling the prospect of additional withdrawals is a
token political gesture, not a new strategy. If it proves enough to cow
Congress into halting its push for a more robust and concrete exit
strategy, that would be political cowardice at its worst.

We hope
that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an
unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an
important source of information, of course, but he is only one source —
and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on
listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public
must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two
new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim
that things in Iraq are substantially better.

Still more to read: the Washington Post‘s important front-page story on the surge and its discontents (registration req’d). It’s too long to excerpt usefully here, but give it a look.

Update: Watch the live video of the hearings and follow the NY Times blogger’s reports right here.

Pope Benedict’s homily in St. Stephen’s Cathedral Vienna this morning began with a phrase that is dear to him and that guides his theological vision: “Sine dominico non possumus.” He explains its significance:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“Sine dominico non possumus!” Without the gift of the Lord, without the Lord’s day, we cannot live: That was the answer given in the year 304 by Christians from Abitene in present-day Tunisia, when they were caught celebrating the forbidden Sunday Eucharist and brought before the judge. They were asked why they were celebrating the Christian Sunday Eucharist, even though they knew it was a capital offence. “Sine dominico non possumus”: in the word dominico two meanings are inextricably intertwined, and we must once more learn to recognize their unity. First of all there is the gift of the Lord – this gift is the Lord himself: the Risen one, whom the Christians simply need to have close and accessible to them, if they are to be themselves. Yet this accessibility is not merely something spiritual, inward and subjective: the encounter with the Lord is inscribed in time on a specific day. And so it is inscribed in our everyday, corporal and communal existence, in temporality. It gives a focus, an inner order to our time and thus to the whole of our lives. For these Christians, the Sunday Eucharist was not a commandment, but an inner necessity. Without him who sustains our lives with his love, life itself is empty. To do without or to betray this focus would deprive life of its very foundation, would take away its inner dignity and beauty.

Does this attitude of the Christians of that time apply also to us who are Christians today? Yes, it does, we too need a relationship that sustains us, that gives direction and content to our lives. We too need access to the Risen one, who sustains us through and beyond death. We need this encounter which brings us together, which gives us space for freedom, which lets us see beyond the bustle of everyday life to God’s creative love, from which we come and towards which we are travelling.

Vatican Radio provides the full text here.

For those old enought to have forgotten and those too young to know:

When General Petraeus Speaks, Don’t Listen

by Allan J. Lichtman

On the cusp of General David Petraeus’ report on the “surge” of American troops in Iraq we should recall one of the most important if neglected lessons of the war in Vietnam: Don’t listen to generals.

|During the Vietnam War, America’s top generals were consistently wrong in their assessments and recommendations. The generals’ display of bad judgment began a dozen years before America’s withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. In October 1963, with about 17,000 U. S. military “advisers” in Vietnam, the top U. S. commander, General Paul D. Harkins said, “I can safely say that the end of the war is in sight.” General Charles J. Timmes the head of America’s Military Assistance Command added, “we have completed” the job of training the South Vietnamese Army.

A month later, the situation had become so desperate in Vietnam that President John Kennedy approved a coup by South Vietnamese generals that led to the assassination of President Ngo Diem. It didn’t help.

Two days after Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration in 1964, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor cabled from Vietnam: “We are presently on a losing track … To take no positive action now is to accept defeat in the fairly near future. … The game needs to be opened up.” Johnson responded by commencing a major America ground and air war in Vietnam.

Yet the president knew that short of nuclear war (“blow them out of the water in ten days,” he said) America could not achieve a military victory in Vietnam. Rather, he hoped only to force a negotiated settlement by raising the costs of war for the North Vietnamese. In June 1965, he told his cabinet: “Our objective is just that: to convince them that they can’t win there. We think we can achieve this objective my moving toward a stalemate.” But how could a president ask Americans to sacrifice their lives to tie one for the Gipper?

Johnson took the nation to war on what he knew was a false pledge of victory, backed by his generals. In late 1966, as the United States was expanding its troop strength in Vietnam to 360,000, General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Americans, “I was able to report to the President that the war in my judgment continues in a very favorable fashion.”

In November 1967, with 467,000 U. S. troops in Vietnam, the American commander General William Westmoreland said, “I have never been more encouraged in my four years in Vietnam.” A point in the war had been reached, he added, “where the end comes into view. ”

Two months later, the enemy launched a devastating surprise offensive during Vietnam’s Tet (New Year) holiday. American and South Vietnamese troops technically “won” the Tet battles. However, the intensity of the attack and the obvious dependence of the South’s government on a massive American troop presence and bombing campaign made continued predictions of victory sound hollow. In March 1968, President Johnson’s new Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford warned, “the major concern of the American people is that they do no see victory ahead … more men go in and are chewed in a bottomless pit.”

Despite their public optimism the generals had no workable plan for victory. Shortly before Tet, President Johnson privately pleaded with his commanders to “search for imaginative ideas to put pressure to bring this war to a conclusion,” not just “more men or that we drop the atom bomb.” The generals had no answers beyond Westmoreland’s incredible and rejected request for 200,000 additional troops, beyond the planned deployment of 550,000 in 1968, when America began its long, painful withdrawal from a losing war that cost 58,000 American lives and more than three million Asian lives.

There are deep-seated reasons for the generals’ misstatements and misjudgments. As we recently learned in the responses to the Abu Ghraib scandal and the death of Pat Tillman, the military is neither self-reflective nor self-critical. It believes in its ability to succeed in any mission, even when the challenges are cultural and political, not military, as in Vietnam and Iraq.

The real action next week will not come with General Petraeus’ report. Like his Vietnam-era predecessors, he will predictably support administration strategy, although with enough caveats to give an aura of credibility to his testimony. The big question is whether the media and the Democrats in Congress will stand up to the general or will surrender again to the politics of fear, as they did in the push for war during 2002.

Allan J. Lichtman is Professor of History at American University in Washington, DC

Joseph Komonchak has a post below on Pope Benedict’s address to Austrian leaders and members of the diplomatic corps.

During the celebration of the Eucharist today at the Marian shrine of Mariazell (the goal of his pilgrimage) Benedict’s homily spoke of the central theme of his preaching and teaching: friendship with Christ as the heart of Christianity.

Here is an excerpt:

“To gaze upon Christ!” If we do this, we realize that Christianity is more than and different from a moral code, from a series of requirements and laws. It is the gift of a friendship that lasts through life and death: “No longer do I call you servants, but friends” (Jn 15:15), the Lord says to his disciples. We entrust ourselves to this friendship. Yet precisely because Christianity is more than a moral system, because it is the gift of friendship, for this reason it also contains within itself great moral strength, which is so urgently needed today on account of the challenges of our time. If with Jesus Christ and his Church we constantly re-read the Ten Commandments of Sinai, entering into their full depth, then a great teaching unfolds before us. It is first and foremost a “yes” to God, to a God who loves us and leads us, who carries us and yet allows us our freedom: indeed, it is he who makes our freedom real (the first three commandments). It is a “yes” to the family (fourth commandment), a “yes” to life (fifth commandment), a “yes” to responsible love (sixth commandment), a “yes” to solidarity, to social responsibility and to justice (seventh commandment), a “yes” to truth (eighth commandment) and a “yes” to respect for other people and for what is theirs (ninth and tenth commandments). By the strength of our friendship with the living God we live this manifold “yes” and at the same time we carry it as a signpost into our world.

The rest of the homily is here.

Larry Cunningham posted below on abandoning books unworthy of reading. There, Barbara mentions books that are difficult but finally worth finishing. She mentions Jane Smiley’s The Greenlanders.

So the question: books so painful to read that they can only be read a page or so at a time. My candidate from recent reading: Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. Others?

Zenit (http://www.zenit.org/article-20447?l=english) ha Pope Benedict XVI’s address to government leaders and diplomats in Vienna. It repeats many themes of his teaching: the Christian roots of European society and culture; the necessary engagement of faith and reason; respect for human life, especially at its beginning and its end. The part about accepting children as gift, not burden or illness, is surely aimed at the declining birth rate in many parts of Europe. The talk comes from faith and appeals to faith (and reason) but it is not “preachy,” and represents, I think, a good example of how a bishop ought to preach–which is, Trent and Vatican II said, his chief duty.

Reuters reports:

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego has settled lawsuits with
144 victims of sexual abuse by priests for $198 million, the diocese
and lawyers for the victims said on Friday.

The settlement was twice as much as the diocese offered five months
ago to resolve allegations that priests and church workers molested
scores of young men and women 20 or more years ago.

Luciano Pavarotti who died yesterday at age 71 was, like only a select number of operatic tenors, immediately recognizable on hearing his glorious voice. I pride myself on being able to recognize Caruso, Gigli, Del Monaco, Di Stefano after only a few notes on the radio. Pavarotti belongs in their company. His voice envelops you like the Mediterranean sun — and you bask in its glow.

But in addition, as Anthony Tommasini says in his balanced review in today’s Times, part of the beauty of Pavarotti’s artistry, was not only the luxuriant sound, but the intelligent phrasing. To hear his Italian was to marvel at his diction and instinctive knowledge that opera was more than music, but music wedded to language (however far-fetched the story might be).

Tommasini writes:

[N]o one ever mistook the voice of Luciano Pavarotti.
There was the warm, enveloping sound: a classic Italian tenor voice,
yes, but touched with a bit of husky baritonal darkness, which made Mr.
Pavarotti’s flights into his gleaming upper range seem all the more
miraculous.

And it wasn’t just the sound that was so
recognizable. In Mr. Pavarotti’s artistry, language and voice were one.
He had an idiomatic way of binding the rounded vowels and sputtering
consonants of his native Italian to the tones and colorings of his
voice. This practice is central to the Italian vocal heritage, and Mr.
Pavarotti was one of its exemplars.

For intelligence,
discipline, breadth of repertory, musicianship, interpretive depth and
virile vocalism, Mr. Pavarotti was outclassed by his Three Tenors
sidekick and chief rival, Plácido Domingo. But for sheer Italianate tenorial beauty, Mr. Pavarotti was hard to top.

Pavarotti’s victories and vicissitudes are also well known: the commercial success of “The Three Tenors” concerts and albums, the vocal decline of the past decade and more, the lax work habits. Yet listen to his great recordings of the 1970s, thrill to his artful phrasing, his clarity of expression, and the climactic high “Cs” and one can not quibble with his assertion that his vocal cords were “touched by God.”

Yet, thankful as I am for the great joy that he has brought to me and to millions, I also confess a deep sadness that his marriage of more than three decades came to a sad ending, as he became infatuated with his secretary, thirty years his junior. Bitter divorce and subsequent re-marriage ensued.

And I am reminded of the film “Moonstruck” — a film in which an opera, “La Boheme,” figures prominently. One of the film’s subplots features Olympia Dukakis as the afflicted wife of a philandering husband. When in anguish she asks a casual acquaintance: why married men run after other women, he ponders and then replies: “Because they fear death.”

Every time a tenor strives for a high “C,” the strain of his body and the release of the note conveys an almost sexual intensity. It is death-defying. And it takes its toll.

Update:

The Archbishop of Modena, Benito Cocchi, celebrated the funeral Mass yesterday for Luciano Pavarotti. His homily (available in Italian here) seems to me to have managed to unite respectful honoring of the deceased with a clear evangelical challenge to those present.

Here, in part, is what he said:

The funeral liturgy is not the exaltation of the deceased, a sort of beatification. It is the prayer that the Christian community makes to God to welcome with his mercy one who has completed his earthly journey and now presents himself before the Lord.

From the human point of view, the funeral rite, in itself, is the acknowledgment of our impotence in the face of death. It is our realization of the end of everything.

In its unfolding (prayers and gestures, incensing and blessing with holy water) it sums up so many elements: the sorrow of those who survive, relatives, friends, admirers. It arouses anguish: the passage from sickness to death, the memory, indeed, the regret, for affections we would have wished to communicate, yet now it is too late. The question of life’s meaning.

The wooden coffin has become an insurmountable barrier.

The Archbishop goes on to suggest that, in the silence evoked by an overwhelming sense of helplessness, perhaps we can begin to hear anew the Word who is Jesus Christ himself, and who promises his disciples: “I go to prepare a place for you.”

We often criticize the quality of homilies. May I suggest that Archbishop Cocchi has hit all the right notes in difficult circumstances.

Final thought:

Several references have been made to what became Pavarotti’s signature piece, the tenor aria, “Nessun Dorma,” with its climactic “Vincero, Vincero!”

I would be dishonest were I to deny to thrilling to it as well. Yet, in some ways, it also represents the sign of Pavarotti’s compromise: the easy emotional thrill, at the price of a deeper artistry, a fuller maturation, both artistic and, perhaps, personal.

Play the aria, by all means, to remember his glorious, God-given voice. But then turn to one of his recordings of Verdi’s terrifying and pleading “Requiem.” Play the “Offertory” and listen especially to the plaintive tenor prayer: “Fac eas, Domine, de morte ad vitam transire!” And pray for Pavarotti … and for one another.

The trial of Anton Zgoznik continued in Cleveland today and most of the morning was taken up with the testimony of Sarah Saefkow, a former Zgoznik employee.  The prosecutors took the witness through the process of how invoices were generated for billing various diocesan offices.  Several “engagement tracking forms” that were used internally by Zgoznik’s firm to generate bills were introduced into evidence.  The forms listed an item for “Diocesan Executive Compensation.”  The prosecution introduced evidence to show that the exact amounts in this category that were billed to the diocese were then found in payments from Zgoznik to Tee Sports, Inc., one of the companies owned by Joseph Smith, the chief financial officer of the Diocese at the time.  

To read about the alleged financial misconduct is surely depressing, but there is something about seeing the cancelled checks and the ludicrously inflated itemized invoices on the screen in the courtroom that is completely demoralizing.

For example, among the exhibits discussed today were the separate bills received by the Center for Pastoral Leadership, Borromeo Seminary, and St. Mary’s seminary—all of which are housed in the same complex in Wickliffe, Ohio—for one month in the spring of 2003.  Together the fees amounted to $6,000 for one month’s work and one check from the Center for Pastoral Leadership was cut to pay these bills.  (If I understood the testimony accurately, this was the standard monthly bill from Zgoznik’s company to these diocesan entities.)  Did no one at the CPL, Borromeo, or St. Mary’s question why the bills were so high?  If the bills were questioned, how were the concerns handled?  By whom were they handled?  These are not necessarily pertinent questions for the legal proceedings, but they are questions that beg to be asked.

The other day I ran across an article in The Guardian that reported on a regular list published by the Travelodge Corporation noting the titles of books left behind after guests departed following their stay in one of their motels/hotels. Among the top ten last month was the latest Harry Potter. The little story got me to thinking about books that were huge disappointments. One invests some money in a eagerly awaited book only to find it a bust. Of course, the charitable explanation is that the previous owner wanted to leave the next guest something more appealing to read than the Gideon Bible (or in a Marriott: The Book of Mormon) but I am not sanguine about the plausibility of that motivation. So, Commonweal Nation, got any bad books that you would gladly leave behind? Or, simply, read anything really disappointing recently? I have at least one candidate but: you first.

As predicted, Virginia authorities have dropped their embezzlement charges against Fr. Rodney Rodis to make way for the feds, who arraigned Rodis today new charges of stealing half a million dollars from his two parishes, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. According to prosecutors, Fr. Rodis used his position as a priest to shuttle parishioner donations to the Philippines–and of course to his home, where he lived with a “wife” and children. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story:

Federal prosecutors are taking over the Rodis case in part because the
federal court is better equipped to recover stolen money from other
nations, authorities said. Judge Richard L. Williams is scheduled to hear Rodis’ not-guilty plea today and probably will set a trial date. Williams has signed a restraining order stopping Rodis and any
entity holding assets for him from transferring any of Rodis’ money or
property.

Rodis is ordered also to return to this country any of his assets
located outside the United States, including the Republic of the
Philippines. If he can show that the order restrains more of his assets
than $515,231, the court will consider modifying the restraining order.

He might need that cash. The Catholic Diocese of Richmond has cut
off Rodis’ retirement and health-care benefits, according to Stephen S.
Neill, spokesman for the diocese. His name no longer appears on the
list of active and retired priests on the diocesan Web site. Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, head of the Richmond Diocese, this year
prohibited Rodis from saying Mass or performing any other sacraments of
the church.

We editorialized on the matter and its implications in February. While it seems that Rodis now stands accused of stealing less than was previously reported, the new federal charges again highlight the continuing need for bishops to institute stricter diocesan financial controls and oversight. The Diocese of Richmond’s current draft document on parish finance councils can be found here (PDF). As far as I know, the document does not reverse the policy that made Rodis’s alleged misdeeds possible: as is the case in many dioceses, a priest can open checking accounts in a parish’s name using only his own signature.