The Public Square
(March 1998)
Richard John Neuhaus
Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 81
(March 1998): 63-79.
Critical Realignments
In this space I recently paid tribute to the late Francis Schaeffer, noting, among
other things, his singular part in alerting evangelical Protestants to the great evil of
abortion. Until the late seventies, I said, the Catholic Church had stood almost alone in
publicly protesting the withdrawal of legal protection from the unborn. Objections from
evangelical friends notwithstanding, the record is all too clear that evangelicalism was
very late out of the starting gate on this question. In fact, it was running in the other
direction.
In 1971, for instance, two years before the Roe decision, the Southern Baptist
Convention passed a resolution calling for legalized abortion, and that was reaffirmed in
1974, one year after Roe. In October 1973 the Baptist Joint Committeewhich
then represented also the Southern Baptistsopposed a protective constitutional
amendment, and joined the general agitation against Catholic efforts to "impose"
their morality on the country. Finally, at the 1980 convention in St. Louis the Southern
Baptists turned around, supporting an amendment "prohibiting abortion except to save
the life of the mother."
Reporting on this development, the Boston Globe called it "a major
earthquake within the nations largest Protestant denomination," and went on to
note: "The shock wave itself is important because the strong antiabortion position by
the 13.4 million member denomination severely damages the argument that abortion is a
Catholic issue, and that efforts to end government spending for abortion
amount to applying Catholic doctrine for the determination of public policy."
Today, of course, evangelicals join Catholics in the front lines of the battle against
what John Paul II has called "the culture of death." Without this experience of
"cobelligerency," as Schaeffer called it, in the cause of life, it is difficult
to imagine consequent developments such as "Evangelicals and Catholics
Together." Discovering common cause on abortion also contributed significantly to
overcoming Baptist "strict separationism" on other questions, such as parental
choice in education, that had historically been driven in large part by anti-Catholic
animus. Once again we are reminded that it is difficult to overestimate the part that
abortion has played in religious and political realignments of recent decades. The
planting of the pro-abortion flag on the liberal side of the great liberal-conservative
divide locked liberalismincluding the liberal oldline churchesinto the
ideologically hardened position of the dont-give-an-inch proponents of
"reproductive rights," while making it possible for Catholics and evangelicals
to find one another in the formation of a new cultural majority.
More jaded students of evangelicalism might say that evangelicals were forced to choose
between distinguishing themselves from the oldline churches or from the Catholic Church.
In this view, being on the same side with the liberal churches was a greater threat to
their identity as evangelical Protestants than was siding with the Catholics.
However that may be, there is no doubt that abortion was and is the question precipitating
one of the most important realignments in American religious and cultural history.
What Then Is To Be Done?
What an awful tangle were in about race. Forget our serially sincere (Jim
Nuechterleins fine phrase) Presidents ballyhooed dialogue on race.
Multicultural effusions about the wonderful new world when there will be no majority or
minority and well all be amalgamated into the gorgeous mosaic on the far side of the
prescribed therapy of black accusations and white self-denigrations for the sins of
slavery and racismall this demeans a subject about which most Americans are
surprisingly ready to get serious. If, that is, it seems believable to them that there is
a purpose in raking over these questions again, if it seems there is something to be done.
There are other recent and more important twists in the racial tangle, such as
Professor Glenn Lourys going very public in a number of forums about his
disillusionment with conservatives because they basically dont care about black poor
people. Loury of Boston University is a cherished contributor to this journal and has been
celebrated as one of the most influential black intellectuals (yes, the adjective is
unavoidable in this connection) in America. Predictably, those on the left, both black and
white, have been quick to react to Lourys break with loud chortles of
we-told-you-sos. Somewhat earlier, Loury and his friend Robert Woodson, who works with
community initiatives in the inner city, very publicly disengaged themselves from the
American Enterprise Institute because of its association with Charles Murray and Dinesh
DSouza, both of whom have written controversial books deemed to be less than
sensitive to blacks as victims.
On the right, the editors of National Review do try to be sensitive to what they
take to be the need of Loury and others to maintain a remnant of credibility among blacks
by continuing to support affirmative action, albeit in a sharply modified form. The
editors conclude: "Still, there is no excuse for conservatives to be
(unconservatively) rude to Professor Lourythough his references to Charles Murray
and Dinesh DSouza are less than genial. There is no doubt that Professor Loury and
Robert Woodson are indeed conservatives; but they might reflect upon the option of
resisting cultural intimidation."
In the same issue of National Review is a long review essay by John J. DiIulio
of Princeton University discussing four new books on race and making some of the points he
has also made in these pages. Of particular interest is his evaluation of America in
Black and White by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom (Simon & Schuster), a recent
scholarly work that documents in great detail the progress that blacks have made in recent
decades. DiIulio does not deny the progress, but he takes the Thernstroms to task for
slighting all that remains to be done, and for ignoring the crucial component in the
possible doing of it. He writes of the book that it "makes nary a mention of the
religious life of black Americans, rich or poor. But the evidence is growing that the only
people who are now doing something to make inner-city blacks part of one nation,
indivisible [the Thernstroms subtitle] are those who seek one nation, under
God, indivisible." Actually, as I note elsewhere in these pages (While
Were At It), the Thernstrom book does make a passing reference to religion in
reporting the growing number of blacks and whites who belong to racially integrated
churches, but it is very much in passing.
A Jewish Factor
Passions are running high in these disputes, and I have been caught in the crossfire,
trying, irenic soul that I am, to hold friendships together. The circumstance is
complicated by what might aptly be called a Jewish factor. It is not coincidence that some
of the conservatives whose alleged unconcern most offends Loury and others happen to be
Jewish, and are usually called neoconservatives. Jews tend to feel, with considerable
justice, that they have historically sided with the black cause, that in recent years they
have been singled out as the objects of frequently vicious black hostility, and that, in
any case, there is really not much more they can do to be helpful. As is regularly pointed
out, it is very dispiriting to be told that the national expenditure over thirty years of
five trillion dollars to eliminate poverty and racism has only exacerbated the problem of
poverty and racism. Some may conclude, not entirely unreasonably, that enough is enough.
There is another aspect of the Jewish angle, however. It is the ascendancy of the view,
ably promoted also by DiIulio, that religion is the key to anything good happening among
the black poor. There are relatively few black Jews, and it is understandable that Jews
who are not black are inclined to think that, if DiIulio and others are right about the
centrality of religion, doing something about the plight of the black underclass is
chiefly a job for Christians, both white and black. Of the Thernstrom study DiIulio
writes: "The tragedy of the book is that the authors are virtually silent about our
moral obligation to do somethingnot talk, not debate, but do
somethingabout those black Americanswho, to white Christians, are brothers and
sisters in our Lord Jesus Christwho have yet to make the climb."
He continues: "When it comes to motivating black and white Americans to respond,
up close and personal, to the plight of inner-city blacks, debating racial
injustice is a sickly, sorry substitute for promoting religious morality and
justification, the Christian doctrine of the sanctification of the human
person through the gift of Gods life, which enjoins us to accept our social and
economic fellowship with others, especially those whom Christ commanded His followers to
love first, last, and always: societys poor, its children, its prisoners, its
fallen, its feared." Protestants should overlook the muddled treatment of
justification and sanctification. DiIulio is a Catholic, and you know how they are. But
his point is clear enough. Both the motivation and the means for doing something
are emphatically Christian.
The gist of the argument is convincing, I believe, but that doesnt mean that
doing something is entirely up to committed Christians. DiIulio concludes by making very
concrete public policy proposals to address the problems of poverty and race, including
getting rid of affirmative action based solely on race, releasing nonviolent low-level
drug offenders from prison, permitting prayer in the public schools, and changing tax laws
to encourage contributions to inner-city community organizations.
Glenn Lourys anti-conservative blast and the contention over the Thernstrom book
are forcing an urgent question. It is not enough to say that what has been tried
hasnt worked as we hoped, and may have made some things worse; nor is it enough to
expose liberal fatuities about remedying the "root causes" of poverty and crime.
DiIulio writes: "So what if brain-dead liberals continue to make silly arguments
about the overall condition of blacks and the state of race relations in America? So what
if most young black males who go to prison are justly convicted? What is our endgame here?
More debate about race à la President Clintons commission on the subject? A
continuation of our de facto three-part national urban policy: abortion (favored by
liberal elites), incarceration (favored by conservative elites), and suburbanization and
gated communities (favored, it seems, by almost everyone who can afford to move)?"
Explicit commandment, moral intuition, and simple self-respect combine in compelling
the belief that there must be another way. Just believing that is prelude to doing
something. The something in question is centered in religion that is both motive and
means, and extends to public policy tasks that should claim the attention of all
Americans. Who knows? Even Mr. Clintons dialogue on raceif or when it moves
beyond the old rancorous mix of invective and utopianismmight contribute to such a
happy change.
Very Selective Compassion
The story is laced with all the spins and counter-spins that one has come to expect
from inside-the-beltway journalism, but it is, for all that, a reasonably fair account of
one of the big developments in religion and public life. "Washington Discovers
Christian Persecution" by Jeffrey Goldberg is the cover story in the New York
Times Magazine, and it gives due credit to the heroic work of Nina Shea of
Freedom House, a deeply committed Catholic who has been key to putting together a movement
largely composed of evangelical Protestants. Goldberg obviously doesnt like Michael
Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, accusing him of being a self-publicist, but he
grudgingly acknowledges that the Jewish Horowitz, along with the Jewish columnist Abe
Rosenthal, have shamed many Christian leaders into active concern for their persecuted
co-believers around the world. "Youre only allowed to sit out one Holocaust
each lifetime," Horowitz pithily observes. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council
is also acknowledged as indispensable in building support for the cause.
These and many others are the players behind the Wolf-Specter Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act, which the congressional leadership failed to bring to the floor last
session, despite its promises to do so. The opposition is led by the Clinton
Administration, which appears to have no goal higher than trade, backed by big business.
Neither seems to be much bothered by a little, or even a lot, of religious persecution
when there are big dollars to be made in places such as China. Also opposing the focus on
religious persecution are some elite human rights organizations such as Human Rights
Watch, whose top man, Kenneth Roth, is worried about any connection with conservative
evangelicals and Catholics who are not supportive of "womens reproductive
rights," meaning abortion. Amnesty International, on the other hand, has cautiously
welcomed the surge of concern about religious persecution, seeing in it an opportunity to
greatly expand the general concern about human rights beyond the upper crust and
dominantly liberal human rights establishment.
Working hand in glove with multinational corporations against the Wolf-Specter bill is
the liberal National Council of Churches. General secretary of the NCC, the Rev. Joan
Brown Campbell says: "Thats got some history to it. When Christians act like
their faith is preeminent, it can create problems. I hate to use this example because
its so extreme, but if you look at the Nazi regime, you see in it the philosophy of
Christian superiority." Never mind that the coalition backing Wolf-Specter is
opposing religious persecution across the board, not just the persecution of Christians,
although Christians constitute the overwhelming majority of those persecuted for religious
reasons in the world today. The more interesting aspect of the Rev. Campbells view
is that Nazism was created by an excessive devotion to Christianity. In sheer looniness
that competes with her worry about Christians who "act like their faith is
preeminent."
Despite the formidable coalition of Clintons foreign policy managers,
multinational corporations spending millions in lobbying efforts, and the liberal
Protestantism of the NCC, Goldberg thinks a very major shift may be underway. He quotes
William Schulz of Amnesty International, who says, "In this administration, trade
always trumps torture when the two clash, and this causes dissatisfaction on the right and
the left." Goldberg observes: "That dissatisfaction may well be a harbinger of a
momentous political trend, the creation of a new alliance in which secular liberals and
religious conservatives join together to force Washington to worry as much about moral
issues as the insatiable demands of turbocharged capitalism."
Also noteworthy is the strong support for Wolf-Specter by the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, making this yet another issue on which Catholics and evangelicals are
united, leaving the oldline Protestants out in the cold. Some in the NCC and its liberal
oldline churches complain that they were not made to feel welcome when the religious
persecution initiative was getting underway a couple of years ago, and there may be
something to that. The animosity of liberal oldliners toward evangelical conservatives is
heartily reciprocated. The fact is, however, that Nina Shea, the National Association of
Evangelicals, and others did reach out to the oldline denominations and were, with few
exceptions, coldly rebuffed.
And no petty resentments about not having been on the A-list of those invited to the
party can justify the bizarre position in which religious liberalsincluding some
liberal Catholic publicationsfind themselves as apologists for an amoral foreign
policy and systematic indifference to the jailing, torture, and killing of innumerable
Christians and other believers. When it comes to Chinese oppression, for instance, it may
be surprising to see the champions of liberal compassion pushing the line of Boeing and
General Motors that trade trumps torture, but then one remembers the leftist aversion to
cooperating with conservatives, and Paul Hollanders insightful observation that some
atrocities are more "politically interesting" than others.
Refuse to Obey?
"Scandals to good order and discipline in Americas armed forces,
particularly sexual ones, proliferate and deepen with no end in sight. Scandal
means literally a snare, a trap, a stumbling-block which occasions a fall. At a Pentagon
press conference announcing the results of the latest investigation of sexual misconduct,
the body language of General Dennis J. Reimer, the Army Chief of Staff, could not have
been more apt: there he stood, contrite and confused, with head bowed and shoulders
stooped, military bearing brought low indeed. Defenders of Americas national
interests will not regain their composure until they identify as their true enemies the
cultural priorities of postmodernism."
That is from an editorial in Strategic Review, the quarterly of the United
States Strategic Institute. The subordination of the military to civilian authority, the
editorial continues, is basic to our constitutional order, but that does not mean the
abdication of moral responsibility. "The implication of this false notion of
dutifulness is that soldiers are not also citizens, when in fact they are
citizenships noblest expression, prepared as they are to make the supreme sacrifice
on behalf of the common good. The civilian architects of postmodernism thus insist on
unhesitating enforcement of the tendentious rights of universal democracy, such as are now
found in a decadent Western civilian society, while simultaneously demanding the total
adjuration by citizen soldiers of the freedom of consent and informed debate. That is what
is known as a logical contradiction, or if you prefer, tyranny, and it should come as no
surprise that morale, good order, and discipline are at an historic nadir."
"The hour is late," we are told. "To face the adversary squarely,
members of Congress and the military must begin by dispatching once and for all the
practice of allowing women into combat forces." Secretary of the Army Togo West is
criticized for suggesting that equal opportunity to serve must be put on a par
withor even given priority overthe militarys capacity to fight and win
the nations wars. It is noted that ideologists view the military as a "perfect
laboratory for social experimentation" in gender equality and other causes, but their
biggest reason for undermining the armed forces is that they "represent the best
concrete and only remaining example of the classical concept of the common good." If
the military caves, the game is over.
There is considerable wisdom and an appropriate sense of urgency in the position of Strategic
Review. At the same time, even those who strongly oppose the radical feminist assault
on the military as recklessly imprudent and in violation of natural law may be given pause
by this suggestion: "If Congress and the Pentagon will not act, officers en masse
should simply refuse to implement integration further." If we read this correctly,
this would seem to be advocacy of a refusal to obey orders. There are undoubtedly
occasions when soldiers must in conscience refuse to obey orders. That is clearly
recognized also in the code of the U.S. armed forces. But it is a morally momentous
decision, fraught with consequences both for the ethos of the military and the well-being
of the republic. The editors of Strategic Review undoubtedly know a great deal more
about the military than I do. I am not prepared to say that the editorial is wrong. One
cannot help but be impressed that in such circles the sense of crisis is so acute. At the
same time, very careful thought must be given to whether the question of women in combat
is a terribly wrongheaded policy that should be protested or a categorical evil that
warrants, or even mandates, the refusal to obey orders.
An Enclave of Conformity
A month in Rome, even when crowded with mostly tedious meetings, puts a person on
aesthetic alert. I am frequently accused of optimism, a charge I vigorously reject since
optimism is just a matter of optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what
you dont want to see. Hope is an entirely different thing, and I am strongly
inclined to debunking the claims of those who seem to wallow in exaggerated claims about
the singularity of our cultural decline. Admittedly, if one wants to hunt for indications
of decline, we live in a target-rich environment. For many years I have found most
particularly depressing the state of music and contemporary architecture. It may be true
that "classical" music needs time to be recognized as classical, but does
anybody really believe that much of anything composed in the twentieth century will a
hundred years from now be thought to belong in the ranks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
Brahms, or comparable worthies?
St. Peters Basilica is not the greatest architecture in the world; it is far from
being the greatest architecture in Rome. But it is great. Taken as a whole or in its many
parts, you want to spend time with it, pondering why this was done this way rather than
that, marveling at the sheer craftsmanship. Then one goes just next door to the huge Paul
VI Audience Hall, built only a few years ago, and about the only thing to be said about it
is that it is huge. It is true, as art historians remind us, that the great churches of
five hundred and fifteen hundred years ago borrowed from the more ambitious
"secular" buildings of the time. But we also see in those churches adventuresome
things that had never been done before.
Not so with the audience hall. There is no notable feature there that might not be
found in a bank building, except for the big sculpture of the risen Christ surrounded by
the detritus of a dead world and with the hair on the left of his head sticking way out as
though he had had an accident with a can of hair spray. Other than that, there is nothing
in the building to occasion a moments wonder, except perhaps to a structural
engineer. What is true of the audience hall is, with few exceptions, generally true of
contemporary religious architecture.
I was staying at the North American College with, among many others, Roger Cardinal
Mahony of Los Angeles, and he was waxing enthusiastic about the new Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels that they are building out there and hope to dedicate in the year 2000. I
wanted to be impressed by what they are doing but Im afraid I could not manage it.
(Details on the cathedral are accessible at www.ola-cathedral.org.) Of course one
cant tell everything from architectural drawings and models, but from the outside
the proposed cathedral looks like a very big barge that somehow got beached in downtown
Los Angeles, and the inside looks for all the world like a well-lighted warehouse. Maybe
the inside will look very different with the furnishings in place, and crowds of people
doing the liturgy for which the building is presumably designed. I sincerely hope so.
Mind you, I dont claim to be an expert on these matters. The architecture critic
of the Los Angeles Times thinks the design is terrific. But then, his counterpart
at the Washington Post gave a rave review to the design of the John Paul II
Cultural Center in D.C., which evokes a sense of sacred mystery comparable to that evoked
by a Russian nuclear power station. Of Our Lady of the Angels, the critic enthused that
the design represents what the Italian Communist theorist, Gramsci, called "an
enclave of resistance." What it is supposed to be resisting, I have no idea.
Certainly not the spirit of an age that seems to be doing its best to squelch the rumor
that the world is charged with the grandeur of God. I am more than open to the
possibility, I fervently hope, that the building when finished will compel a change of
mind. But at the moment it offers no relief from those depressing thoughts about the state
of contemporary music and architecture.
A Prospect Postponed
Bartholomew came and went, and left in his wake a deeply dispirited company of those
who pray for reconciliation between East and West. It seems only a little while ago, when
Paul VI was Pope, that the mutual anathemas between Rome and Constantinople were lifted.
And it was a very little while ago that John Paul II issued the encyclical Ut Unum
Sint, with its bracing hope that, as the second millennium has been the millennium of
Christian division, so the third millennium must be the millennium of Christian unity. The
hope was reinforced by the ascendancy of Bartholomew to Constantinople as His All Holiness
the Ecumenical Patriarch. He had lived in the West and had been actively participant in
the ecumenical movement. His devotion to unity was well known.
But now everything has been put on hold, or worse. During his October visit he was to
make a major statement at Georgetown University. The text of his speech was so virulently
polemical that, at the urging of advisors, revisions were being made up until the last
minute. But even then the final text offered naught for the comfort of those who were
looking for a step forward. Bartholomew suggested that Orthodoxy and Rome are farther
apart than ever. More than that, we are moving in different directions, for there is an
"ontological" difference between East and West in the understanding of the
Christian reality. His Western hearers were stunned, while the revanchist opponents of
East-West reconciliation among the Orthodox were exultant.
A few days later, as the guest of William Cardinal Keeler in Baltimore, the word was
that Bartholomew would undo some of the damage done at Georgetown. In Baltimore he did
have magnificently cordial words for his Catholic hosts, but substantively the message was
the same, if not more discouraging. "The members of the committee for theological
dialogue between our churches have gathered here again. They have boldly reaffirmed their
sadness that the dialogue has not yet borne the perfect fruit upon which all of us would,
as brothers, share at the Lords banquet. Still, we congratulate you for your good
efforts and look forward to the day when we shall dwell as brothers in the House of the
Lord." Which being translated would seem to mean: Nice try, fellows. Maybe we can get
together in the Kingdom of God.
"We wish to reaffirm," said Bartholomew, "that this great work has not
yet succeeded, not for lack of love between us." There is love aplenty, like "a
light whose flame cannot be extinguished, not even by disagreement over organization nor
jurisdiction." Why then has the dialogue failed? "It is by reason of an
essential difference of how the mystery of the Church and salvation in her is
realized," answers the Patriarch. Friends of unity point out that he said the work
"has not yet succeeded"; he did not say it has definitively and irretrievably
failed. They also note that terms such as "ontological" and "essential
difference" do not necessarily mean the same in the East as in the West, but this has
the appearance of grasping at straws. On the other hand, in view of what is at stake, no
straw should go ungrasped.
Expectations Dashed
It is no secret that John Paul IIs highest hope for his pontificate was the
healing of the thousand-year division between East and West. With the dramatic steps that
had been taken under Paul VI and then the collapse of the evil empire that had held
captive so much of Orthodoxy, everything seemed possible. This is the sense of heightened
expectations that pervades Ut Unum Sint. In that encyclical, the Pope went so far
as to put on the table the question of papal jurisdiction, suggesting that it might be
exercised as it was in the first millennium. When influential sectors in Orthodoxy saw how
intent Rome was upon reunion, they took fright. The monks of Mt. Athos, who, while lacking
formal jurisdiction have enormous influence, delivered a blistering salvo against any and
all efforts at rapprochement with the West. Alexis II of Russia, reportedly under pressure
from his synod, repeatedly snubbed John Paul II by calling off scheduled meetings. And it
has been going downhill from there, as is evident in the chilling statements during
Bartholomews visit.
It is said that in private conversations Bartholomew urges his Western interlocutors to
be patient and not give up hope. The role of the Patriarch is not comparable to that of
the Pope, and it is explained that Bartholomew was perceived as getting too far out ahead.
The notoriously fractious Orthodox churches were threatening to revolt unless he took
their hard line during his U.S. visit. An additional explanation is that the end of
communism has produced bitterly ironic results. Orthodoxy in Russia and elsewhere was
deeply corrupted under the evil empire. It is generally acknowledged that no bishops were
appointed without the approval of the regime, and not a few of them were active agents of
the KGB.
At the same time, the Communists were great supporters of ecumenism, or so it seemed.
For decades they controlled the useful prelates who were so actively involved in the World
Council of Churches (WCC) and other ecumenical activities. It is ironic but perhaps not
surprising that reformers in the Eastern churches who are bent upon purification and a
return to authentic Orthodoxy view ecumenism as one of the evils that must be purged. Now
among several Orthodox churches there is a strong movement not only to pull back from
rapprochement with Rome but also to withdraw from agencies such as the WCC. This is joined
to an attitude aptly described as xenophobic, in which "the West" is perceived
as the source of spiritual, moral, and political corruptions beyond measure.
Rehabilitated Bridges
During the short time when reconciliation seemed to be on the horizon, the eastern rite
churches that are in communion with Rome were given to understand that they were no longer
the future. These churches (sometimes, and often pejoratively, called Uniate) have for
centuries been viewed either as bridges to the East or as obstacles to reconciliation with
the majority of Orthodoxy that is not in communion with Rome. Ut Unum Sint held out
the prospect that Rome could treat directly with the separated Orthodox churches, but now
some leaders of the eastern rite churches do not disguise their satisfaction in the
apparent setback that has been dealt that prospect. So "Uniatism" may, for a
time, have been given a new lease on life, but that is almost certainly more apparent than
real. Constantinople, Russia, Greece, Ukraine, Albaniathese and others constitute
the center of Orthodoxy and it would seem that reconciliation, if it is to happen at all,
must happen at the center.
The great Orthodox theologian and my dear friend, the late Alexander Schmemann, said
East-West reconciliation awaits a pan-Orthodox council, and, he quickly added, a
pan-Orthodox council is an eschatological concept. Another Orthodox theologian, who must
remain anonymous, tells me that may be a slight exaggeration, but he says he has never
been so discouraged by the leadership of Orthodoxy. "We have not one leader with the
vision or courage or generosity to even begin to respond to the initiatives of John Paul
II," he says. "For centuries we have demanded that Rome make the moves he has
made, and now that he has made them we react like spoiled, suspicious, squabbling
children." That may be too harsh, but it reflects the sense of bitter disappointment
that is palpable also among some Orthodox.
Although, God willing, he has years to go, it seems John Paul II will not live to see
the reconciliation between East and West for which he so earnestly yearns. Also among
leading figures in the Roman curia, there are those who say his hopes were naive. The
accusation of naiveté is a small price to pay for acting on the possibility of what might
be, in accord with divine imperative and promise. John Paul II has laid the foundation for
the time when, as he has repeatedly said, "the Church will again breathe with both
lungs, the East and the West." We must pray that one day the Orthodox will be
prepared to join in building on that foundation. Meanwhile the prospect so boldly set
forth in Ut Unum Sint has not been abandoned, only postponed.
Ungenuine and Gratuitous
The Evangelical-Catholic statement "The Gift of Salvation," published in the
January issue, is receiving careful and, for the most part, positive reception. Christianity
Today, the most influential evangelical publication, published it in full with a fine
introduction by Dr. Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School. Some Baptists,
however, have taken the position that, while the statement is splendid on justification by
faith, it is also self-contradictory because it mentions unresolved questions such as
baptismal regeneration, it being assumed by these critics that baptismal regeneration is
incompatible with justification by faith.
Clearly, the Catholic participants in the discussion do not think the two doctrines
incompatible, and it is the purpose of serious theological conversation to understand why
that is so, rather than prejudging the question before engaging it. This Baptist criticism
would also include Lutherans, Calvinists, and others who affirm baptismal regeneration and
therefore, if the criticism is right, cannot consistently affirm justification by faith.
Some Baptist opponents of "The Gift of Salvation" would seem to be elevating
baptismal generation to the status of the doctrine by which the church stands or falls, in
which case one might suggest that Baptists are decidedly outside the Great Tradition of
Christian orthodoxy. And of course such an elevation would quite thoroughly shatter the
community that is today called evangelical Protestantism.
There is also expressed Baptist unhappiness with the fear that "The Gift of
Salvation" and similar unofficial initiatives have upstaged the official
conversations taking place between Baptists and Catholics. Such unhappiness is thoroughly
unwarranted. As Cardinal Cassidy of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity has
publicly statedand all the participants in "Evangelicals and Catholics
Together" agreethis unofficial initiative is complementary to other
conversations and, by virtue of being unofficial, has the freedom to help those
conversations by scouting out questions in advance. One prominent Southern Baptist
declares, "Justification by faith alone, if genuinely affirmed by Catholics and
Evangelicals, would require repudiation of baptismal regeneration, purgatory, indulgences,
and many other issues presently affirmed by Roman Catholic doctrine." The implication
would seem to be unavoidable that the Catholics who signed "The Gift of
Salvation" are not genuine Catholics, are dishonest, or are just plain dumb.
If that is the case, and if believable affirmation of the heart of the Gospel requires
the Catholic repudiation of doctrines that Baptists think incompatible with the heart of
the Gospel, there is obviously no point to further theological conversation. There is then
no brotherly obligation to find out why Catholics who affirm what "The Gift of
Salvation" describes as justification by faith alone is perfectly compatible with the
other doctrines in question. With truly remarkable self-confidence, these Baptists just
know in advance that they are not compatible. The course of greater honesty, not to
mention humility, would be to say to Catholics, "It seems to me that you affirm
doctrines that are incompatible with what you affirm in The Gift of Salvation.
Please explain why you believe that is not the case." Putting the question that way,
one may not be persuaded by the explanation but one may at least learn something. That
assumes, of course, that we all have much to learn.
Then there is another Southern Baptist official, also miffed at unofficial activities
outside the orbit of hierarchical control (so much for the vaunted Baptist devotion to
independence), who goes on to say that he has learned from official talks with Catholics
that "unless one of the ecumenical councils decreed it or unless the Pope decreed it
to be official dogma, no other Catholic signatures on a document make any difference and
hence are gratuitous." So "The Gift of Salvation" simply doesnt
matter. I dont know what Catholics hes been talking to, but by that measure,
except for one infallible definition in 1950 and the Second Vatican Council, every
Catholic book, episcopal statement, and papal document of this century is gratuitous and
makes no difference. It seems all of us Catholics who are in any way involved in the
theological project might as well pack up and take a permanent vacation.
The initial response to "The Gift of Salvation" by a handful of Southern
Baptist officials is very disappointing. Fortunately, they do not reflect the positive
reception of the statement among both Evangelicals and Catholics. This is connected also
to the constructive rethinking that took place in the recent Synod for America convoked by
John Paul II, where Latin American bishops took a giant stride in recognizing evangelical
Protestants in their country as brothers and sisters in Christ. But that is part of a
bigger story to which I will return at another time.
Absolutely Free
In a forthcoming issue there will be an extensive review of Rocco Buttigliones
outstanding book, Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became John Paul II,
just out from Eerdmans ($35). For the moment, a few thoughts on the afterword by those who
so capably translated it from the Italian, Paolo Guietti and Francesca Murphy. There is
the tricky question of the relationship between the writings of Karol Wojtyla, the
philosopher, and John Paul II, the Pope. As the translators note: "Becoming Pope is
not the best way to acquire fame as a thinker; it is more common, and generally easier, to
achieve a (sometimes justified) philosophical respectability by getting into trouble with
Popes and other powerless authorities." A still more serious factor is noted by
Buttiglione: "The criteria and the hermeneutical methods of philosophical thought
differ from those which can be used to interpret the Popes teaching, which have as
their immediate antecedents not the thinking of the philosopher Wojtyla, but the acts of
his predecessors and the entire Magisterium of the Church in its historical
development."
Yet a connection between the philosopher and the Pope there certainly is. Guietti and
Murphy comment on a much earlier work by George Hunston Williams, The Mind of John Paul
II, with its suggestion that, because Wojtyla was a Pole writing under a totalitarian
regime, he did not understand the American mind and the principles of the free society.
The translators think the opposite may be the case. "It appears after reading
Buttiglione," they remark, "that Wojtyla does not understand anything but freedom
and its relationship with the truth, which can be presented freely only to a
person." The reference, of course, is to The Acting Person, Wojtylas
seminal work written during the years of Vatican Council II.
They continue: "From a political point of view Wojtyla knows that relativism, the
dismissal of truth, leads to the primacy of power and political tyranny. We could say that
he defends truth in order to save freedom. In other words, it seems that he values freedom
more than truth, and is ready to subordinate the rights of truth to freedom, which is the
most basic truth of the dignity of the person. The most important truth for him seems to
be a persons freedom. . . . It is with regard to religious freedom, or freedom of
religion or freedom of conscience, that traditionalists may find Wojtylas
understanding to be far too American. The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre described in
words and pictures the victory of freedom (liberalism) over truth as the defeat of true
European and good French traditions by the American way of life. To an integrist mind
religious freedom triumphed over the last of its opponents with Vatican II.
Wojtylas thesis on religious freedom would therefore be the obsession of a brilliant
young philosophical mind which was prematurely exposed to the revolutionary spirit of
Vatican II."
More Polish than Jeffersonian
So it may seem, but there is much more to it than that. Those who have lived under
regimes of unfreedom may understand freedom much better than those who take freedom for
granted. There may appear to be a smooth fit between Jeffersons idea of religious
freedom and the declaration on religious freedom adopted by the Council, Dignitatis
Humanae. "The two doctrines may coincide materialiter, as an Aristotelian
scholastic would put it, but not formaliter. The American and Polish bishops may
both have voted for Dignitatis Humanae, but they did so for different
reasons." The American Founders, and Jefferson in particular, were motivated by the
desire to liberate politics from religion, while Wojtyla and the Council Fathers wanted to
liberate religion from political power. That puts it too simply, I think, but there is an
important kernel of truth there.
Wojtyla understood (and understands) that religion is a public reality with political
implications. That is why, as John Paul II, he has spoken so often of the insidious
connection between a thoroughly secularized democracy and "a thinly disguised
totalitarianism" (the last phrase from his encyclical Centesimus Annus). As
Guietti and Murphy put it, "The disappearance of religion is the ultimate victory of
totalitarianism, a victory which is more powerful than a military conquest because it
subjugates a nation from within. . . . When absolute truths, even moral and religious
absolutes, are lost, then even a hierarchy of relative values is relative. Relativism
consumes itself; where there are no absolutes, nothing can be said to be better
than, not even the good of the majority against a scratch on a tyrants finger.
Someone needs to be the guardian of absolute truth, in order to save relative values and
the importance of their relativity, so that the relative needs of the most powerful
members of society do not become absolute by virtue of their power, but are still kept in
their apparent and real relativeness."
Relativism, of course, is a danger much lamented. But the assertion of the
absolute is not to displace relativity. On the contrary, by asserting the absolute, which
is the role of religion, the relativity of truths that are less than absolute is
protected. As in, for instance, one nation "under God." This, the translators
observe, "is the meaning of Wojtylas antitotalitarian philosophy of freedom
developed in the context of the Vatican II declaration On Human Dignity. While
religion is too powerful to allow politicians to control it, the alternate of lack of
religion is an illusion. Political agnosticism, the belief that the politician deals with
relative things, is possible only where people kneel to something higher than political
power." The alternative to political agnosticism is politics as religion, which is
the error appearing in this century on both the left and the right, as in National
Socialism and Communism. It is the error still perpetuated today by various movements
subscribing to the maxim that the personal is the political, and vice versa. Posited
against that is the free person (the acting person) in the freedom of his relationship to
the absolute, which means, ultimately, in his relationship with God.
Among the most insightful discussions in Buttigliones book is Karol
Wojtylas wrestling with the existentialism of the young Sartre. The earlier Sartre
arrived at the point where the "I" could only be sustained in the face of
nihilism (thus his famous "hell is other people"). Sartre had reached a
dead-end, and many Christian thinkers at the time thought that he would have to move in
the direction of religion to achieve a higher synthesis. But of course, as it turned out,
Sartre sought that synthesis in Marxism. It remained for Wojtyla to take the path that
Sartre rejected, moving existential personalism toward its fulfillment in Christian faith.
Guietti and Murphy put it this way: "Sartre maintains that if there is a God there
cannot be freedom; therefore, since it is evident that we are free, there must be no God.
Wojtyla contends that if there is a God there is freedom, and the history of this century
demonstrates the factual connection between atheism and maximal oppression of freedom.
Wojtylas anthropology of freedom is as modern as Sartres. For Sartre, being
religious is the opposite of being free; for Wojtyla, just as for Pico della Mirandola,
being religious and being free are one and the same." I assume our reviewer will
concentrate on Rocco Buttigliones most persuasive analysis in Karol Wojtyla: The
Thought of the Man Who Became John Paul II, but the suggestive afterword by the
translators is also something not to be missed in this remarkable book. For the
philosophically and theologically minded, it will remain indispensable, even after we are
blessed with what promises to be the definitive biography of John Paul II and history of
this pontificate by George Weigel, which is scheduled for 1999.
While Were At It
- Would you believe this? Of course you would. A pamphlet, "Guide to Bias-Free
Communication," put out by the State of Georgias "Supreme Court Commission
on Equality" and endorsed by Chief Justice Robert Benham. Its filled with
linguistic contortions of the PC kind. Item: "The judge should allow counsel to
present their cases in their own styles." It doesnt say what to
do if theres only one counsel and he has only one style. Perhaps he is to just go
along with the game of multiple personalities. Item: "Foreman" is out,
"Foreperson" is in. Foreperson? If you think that sounds just a bit salacious,
confession is Saturday at four. And here I was just reading this article on how the South
is the countrys best hope for resisting the sundry sillinesses generated by the
decadent coasts. But of course the Supreme Court is based in Atlanta, which, Im
told, has the motto, "The city thats too busy too think," or something
like that. I notice also that the great seal of the Supreme Court of Georgia is emblazoned
with "Wisdom, Justice, Moderation." So where are "Inclusivity" and
"Sensitivity"? Just wait.
- According to Dr. Pieter Admiraal, leader of the euthanasia movement in the Netherlands,
Americans may be just too immature to establish a similarly sensible approach to the
subject. He says that 84 percent of Dutch doctors approve of euthanasia, while the
American medical world is still reluctant. American doctors, for instance, feel better
about prescribing pills than giving lethal injections because it makes them feel less
directly responsible for the death. Admiraal dismisses the distinction as "so
silly" and "so American-style," and he may have a point there. The story in
the American Medical News observes that Holland and the U.S. are unlike in other
ways: "And finally, the two countries have major cultural differences. The United
States, for example, is a fairly religious country. But in Holland, he said, 55 percent of
residents describe themselves as irreligious or atheistic. Even
the Catholic Church there is more tolerant of the concept, he said, noting that he started
performing euthanasia in a Catholic hospital with the help of two priests. Dr.
Admiraal noted with a laugh that polls show 80 percent of Americans admit they believe in
angels, a belief shared by fewer than 20 percent of the Dutch. For us, he
said, there is no place for angels." Its a small world.
- Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in Knightsbridge is the center of a remarkable spiritual
revival among Englands elites, and Cristina Odone, writing in the Spectator, doesnt
like it one little bit. Inspired by the California-based Vineyard Fellowship founded by
the late John Wimber in the 1980s, HTB and affiliated parishes are into barking, swooning,
pentecostal laughter, and even "the Toronto blessing." Odone writes:
"Recruiting takes place at drinks parties where, armed with a champagne glass and a
cocktail sausage, dewy-eyed converts enthuse about Jesus Christ as if He were a
particularly glamorous guest on the party circuit, and praise the Holy Spirit as if It
were a fabulous, no-nonsense nanny who has taken charge of their spiritual upbringing. . .
. By weaving spiritual lessons into the social routine of the well-to-do, the movement
reconciles Jacobs ladder and the social ladder, the urbane and the devout."
Such sniffingly urbane contempt for the devout is no surprise, but Odone says something
more sinister is afoot. Wielding such wealth and social status, the HTB phenomenon
threatens the established church by holding out the threat of cutting off funds if the
Church of England does not move in a more evangelical and conservative direction.
"Lord Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been overheard remarking that
the HTB churches constitute the greatest danger to the Church of England," Odone
writes. What Lord Runcie views as danger many others perceive as high promise.
- A great defender of religious freedom, and a sometime contributor to these pages, is
Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas law school. The first article he wrote on the
subject was many years ago and was favorable to Catholics in a particular dispute. In the
article, Laycock said in a footnote that he was not and had never been a Catholic. He
circulated the article among colleagues before publication, including Professor (now
Justice) Antonin Scalia. Scalia crossed out the footnote and wrote in the margin,
"Never give the bastards any comfort." Laycock took the point to be that one
should not have to disclaim Catholicism in the same way that he might disclaim any
sympathy with the Ku Klux Klan in an article defending the Klans free speech rights.
He took out the footnote. In a more recent article, Laycock notes that he has over the
years been suspected of being a Catholic, a Baptist, a Jew, and a number of other things,
all because he defended the rights of these groups. So at last he comes clean, declaring,
"I am agnostic about matters of religion. None of the claims of the worlds
religions seem to me either plausible or falsifiable." He goes on to insist that this
is perfectly consistent with his determined defense of religious liberty: "An
agnostic has no opinion on whether God exists, and neither should the government. But an
agnostic also believes that humans are incapable of knowing whether God exists. If the
government believed that, it would prefer agnostics over theists and atheists. Agnostics
have no opinion for epistemological reasons; the government must have no opinion for
constitutional reasons. The government must have no opinion because it is not the
governments role to have an opinion." Douglas Laycock is an honorable man, and
believers have good reason to be grateful for his fine work. Of course hes wrong in
treating religion purely as a private and individual matter comparable to matters of
"conscience," which ignores the real-life corporate and action-oriented nature
of biblical religion. And I believe hes wrong in thinking that governments
respect for religious freedom is sufficiently secured by the assertion that "the
Constitution says so." That provides no answer to a number of questions, including
the question, Why should we care what the Constitution says? Push come to shove, religious
freedom is best secured by reasons that are themselves religious. But I certainly
dont want to be too critical of Douglas Laycock, for that would be to give comfort
to the illegitimate ones who do not share his admirable devotion to religious freedom.
- Among us are millions of the walking wounded of the sexual revolution. The Medical
Institute for Sexual Health recently convened the first National Leadership Summit on
Abstinence, and some of the reports were startling. It is estimated that one in five
Americans between fifteen and fifty-five is now infected with a viral sexually transmitted
disease (STD). Adding those infected by bacterial STDs, such as chlamydia and syphilis,
the number is probably one in four. Sixty-six percent of the newly infected are under
twenty-five years of age and 25 percent are teenagers. While the public is generally
unaware of the plague, STDs are potentially more detrimental to health than the use of
tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, all of which are attacked by massive media campaigns. Condoms
are not the answer. They are ineffective against human papilloma virus (HPV), the cause of
genital warts. HPV may cause over 90 percent of all cervical cancer, which takes the lives
of eight thousand American women each year. Condoms offer little protection against
syphilis or herpes. The latter infects an estimated thirty million Americans. These
viruses are transmitted from skin contact and do not require the exchange of body fluids.
A recent article in Social Science Medicine reports that condoms are only 69
percent effective in preventing the spread of HIV. The good news is that the abstinence
message is getting through. Fifty-five percent of unmarried women age fifteen to nineteen
had intercourse in 1990, and that fell to 50 percent in 1995. Among adolescent boys, 35.5
percent said in 1995 that they had had intercourse, down from 42.5 percent in 1990.
Communities with the highest incidence of single-parent households also have the highest
incidence of HIV, whereas communities with the highest incidence of two-parent families
have the lowest incidence of HIV. Material on educating for abstinence is available from
the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, P.O. Box 162306, Austin, TX 78716.
- A private fertility clinic in Toronto, Ontario, will for a fee ranging from $6,500 to
$9,800 weed out genetically defective embryos before they are implanted in the mother.
"This is the beginning of the end of genetic disease," says Dr. Perry Phillips
of IVF Canada. He says they can identify twenty-seven genetic disorders at present,
including Huntingtons disease and breast cancer, and the list will grow dramatically
over time. "A lot of this is going to be eliminated. Thats the dream of
medicine. Its our dream. This should have the same impact antibiotics did to
bacterial disease." The comparison with antibiotics does seem to elide the
distinction between eliminating the sickness and eliminating the sick. Dreams and
nightmares.
- "Righteous Gentiles." The memorial at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem formally
recognizes 13,618 (as of the end of 1995) who risked their lives in order to save Jews in
the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe. Professor Berel Lang of the State University of New
York at Albany has problems with the term "Righteous Gentiles." Writing in Judaism,
he notes that "righteous" applies to those who do their duty. Jewish teaching
does not require that people put their own lives or the lives of their families at risk to
help others. The righteous gentiles, therefore, are more than righteous; they are heroic.
Further, to say that they are simply righteous is to imply that all the other gentiles
were unrighteous, which is not the case. Many, perhaps most, of them were simply doing
their duty as best they understood it and as best they could. The current usage also lumps
all those who are not recognized as "Righteous Gentiles" into the same category,
thus obscuring the fact that some of them were wicked in supporting or actually
perpetrating the extermination of Jews. Lang concludes: "To honor the heroic and
More-than-Righteous gentiles in no way diminishes the responsibility of the
much larger number of others who were (as they then, and we too now, might be) less than
heroic. Quite the contrary. To identify and honor those who are heroic means that the
burden of being righteous goes back to where it belongs, in the day-to-day
life of ordinary people who are not and perhaps cannot be heroes, but who are nonetheless
responsible for knowing and acting on the principles of common humanity. That is, for
being righteous." The article makes an interesting case that we should begin to refer
to the rescuers as "Heroic Gentiles," thus distinguishing them from the common
run of Jews and Christians alike, who, like most of us, are less than heroic. While one
may want to affirm Prof. Langs intention, one may also question whether it is not
already achieved by "Righteous Gentiles." The Hebrew phrase is hasidei ummot
ha-olam, and my Jewish friends who know about these things say that it is understood
that a hasid is by no means just an acceptably moral person. Thus the designation
of the hasidim, the ultra-Orthodox groups found in Brooklyn and elsewhere. In
English also, we surely do not refer to someone as "righteous" unless he is
notably so. (Sadly, in our secular culture "righteous" is often taken as
synonymous with "self-righteous.") In sum, hasidei ummot ha-olam in
Hebrew and "Righteous Gentiles" in English would seem to mean something very
much like "gentile saints."
- I was struck by the assertion in a fine new book by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, America
in Black and White, about the disappearing color line in American religion. The claim
is that a majority of blacks attend racially integrated local churches, and the same is
true of nearly half the white Christians in the country. That didnt seem quite
right, given the number of blacks, their geographical distribution, and their
concentration in almost exclusively black churches. So I wrote the Thernstroms and they
kindly responded that they were relying on data gathered by the National Opinion Research
Centers "General Social Survey" of 1978 and 1994. In 1978, 37 percent of
blacks reported that some whites attended their church; by 1994 that figure was 61
percent. The change is no doubt due to the very big rise in the number of blacks living in
suburbia. In 1978, 34 percent of whites said some blacks attended their church; and in
1994 the figure was 44 percent. So there has been change, but it is not all that dramatic,
since only a family or two of the other race makes it possible for hundreds of people to
say that their church is racially integrated. Nor, it seems to me, is it necessarily a
moral imperative that the color line be erased in religion. Many people have said, among
them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that eleven oclock Sunday morning is the most
segregated hour in America. Of course, racial segregation against peoples will is an
odious thing, but there are many reasonsranging from geography to styles of
worshipwhy most blacks prefer to worship in predominantly black churches. This is
reinforced by my own experience as pastor of a black Lutheran parish in Brooklyn for
seventeen years. The goal of a color-blind societywhich, despite its detractors, is
morally imperativedoes not mean indifference to cherished traditions, also in
religion, that are closely related to race. In this connection, I note that the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has once again reaffirmed the goal of having
a membership that reflects the racial composition of the nation. This is nothing but
politically correct posturing that apparently goes over well in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
It is also deeply anti-ecumenical. The ELCA has obviously not consulted the National
Baptist Convention or the African Methodist Episcopal Church about giving up 700,000
members. What the Thernstroms report is indeed an encouraging trend, but it is still very
much a trend at the margins.
- Beyond the English-American-Australian fringe, the Anglican communion is generally
flourishing. Moving toward the next Lambeth Conference, provinces in Africa and Asia have
talked seriously about excluding the American bishops of PECUSA from the meeting because
of their theological and moral deviations, but that could hardly be done without busting
up the entire Anglican thing. The natives, however, who are now the custodians of moral
and theological sanity, are restless. It doesnt help that the Church of England is
pondering whether to abandon officially, as it largely has in practice, the teaching that
sexual intercourse is rightly reserved for marriage. A C of E bishop recently remarked in
a debate on the subject, "All those biblical and theological points are undoubtedly
interesting, but the fact is our children are living and having sex with people outside
matrimony, and are we really prepared to say that they are living in
sin?" A theologian who was on the other side of the question responded,
"His graces observation has the merit of candor in suggesting that his position
is that it is not nice to say that nice people such as ourselves and our children are
sinners. This new version of the comfortable words will no doubt be welcomed
by some as a great relief, but, in the absence of sin and forgiveness and all they entail,
it does rather leave the church scrambling for a reason for its existence."
Theres that old foundationalism again.
- Poor New Orleans. Said to have the highest murder rate in the nation, the sidewalks
buckling, the grand mansions on St. Charles Avenue falling into clammy disrepair, Bourbon
Street reduced to hard rock and strip joints. A recent visit surrounded one with the
sadness of the decaying world described in Walker Percys Love in the Ruins.
Antoines, the fabled restaurant, is still a grand experience, and the cathedral is
noteworthy, but there is little else that is grand any more about New Orleans. Then there
was this in the Times-Picayune: the school board has adopted a policy against
"retaining names of schools named for former slave owners or others who did not
respect equal opportunity for all." So George Washington is out. Robert E. Lee School
is now named for Ronald McNair, an astronaut killed in 1986. A school named for E. D.
White, once the Chief Justice of the U.S., now bears the name of Langston Hughes; Thurgood
Marshall has displaced Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis has
given way to the former New Orleans mayor, Dutch Morial. The current mayor, also named
Morial, is rumored to have his eye on the high pedestal where there is still a statue of
Robert E. Lee. After that is politically corrected, maybe the city will rent out the
pedestal for the celebrity of the year. Princess Diana perhaps. Its not that the
city has entirely lost its historical consciousness. The school board rule requires that
schools keep their new names for twenty years. For a place whose chief appeal was its
capacity to evoke another world, the erasure of historical memory does seem like another
step in the citys determination to commit suicide. Soon only Percys moviegoer
will be able to see the New Orleans that formerly enchanted as a place elsewhere.
"Equal opportunity for all" is undoubtedly important, but it hardly requires an
ideological rectification of history that leaves a dank and disenchanted city obliviously
sinking into the swamp on which it was once so audaciously built.
- I always get in trouble when I say that the federal government is responsible
for the death of more than eighty people, many of them women and children,
at the siege of the Davidians in Waco, Texas. I dont like saying it,
not least because it might give aid and comfort to the black helicopter crowd,
but I dont know any more judicious way of putting the matter. (Along
with many others, I believe the most accessible and accurate account of the
incident is still the late Dean Kelleys "Waco: A Massacre and Its
Aftermath," FT, May 1995.) At the time, the newly appointed Janet
Reno earned media points for saying she took "full responsibility"
for that catastrophe, but in fact that was accompanied neither by an apology
nor by appropriate discipline against those immediately involved. Now an interview
with Louis Freeh, director of the FBI, supplies what might pass for an approximation
of the former. "The bureau had this sense that it could do more than
it was really capable of. At Waco and Ruby Ridge [where Randy Weavers
wife and son, plus a federal marshal, were killed] we had a very competent
hostage response team, but there werent any hostages to rescue. These
people wanted to be there." Later in the interview Freeh responds
to the criticism that he is too candid in speaking about the FBIs problems.
"A lot of people still say to me, Why do you say we made a mistake
at Waco and werent prepared for Ruby Ridge? Well, my answer is:
Thats the truth." And thats a beginning, but
"we made a mistake" is hardly an adequate response to one of the
most brutal and deadly abuses of government power in American history.
- A while back in the Weekly Standard, Christopher Caldwell took the New York
Times Book Review to task for routinely assigning novels to other novelists rather
than to critics. Not surprisingly, the reviews tend to be uncritical, as reviewers,
believing that turnabout is only fair, anticipate the treatment of their next offering. In
a similar way, the Book Review gave a new biography of Alfred C. Kinseyhe of
the sexual revolutionto sex writer Richard Rhodes, who thinks the sexual regression
of recent years to be one of the high points of human history. Rhodes acknowledges that
Kinsey was a deeply disturbed person, a homosexual masochist who routinely seduced his
graduate students and had his senior researchers engage in group orgies, among other
perversities. But "genius" covers a multitude of sins. Rhodes is critical of the
author, James H. Jones, for suggesting that Kinseys research was marred by his
prurient and exploitative interests. He does not deny Kinseys motives, but writes,
"Jones appears to cherish the quaint notion that good science is disinterested
science, that a scientist must somehow contrive to avoid emotional investment in his
work." Having sex with the subjects of ones research and otherwise behaving in
ways that would today land one in the slammer does seem to go beyond what we would
ordinarily think of as emotional investment in ones work. Rhodes is especially
enthusiastic about Kinseys work on homosexuality, "which contributed vitally to
the march toward tolerance that continues today." He does not mention Kinseys
now notorious use of unrepresentative groups such as prisoners, he pooh-poohs
Kinseys often-stated purpose of overthrowing sexual constraints, and he completely
ignores Kinseys thoroughly discredited claim that 10 percent of the male population
is dominantly homosexual. Commenting on Kinseys work, the great theologian Reinhold
Niebuhr noted his "abysmal ignorance of the complexities in the heights and depths of
the human spirit." Rhodes is not impressed. Before he got into the sex business,
Kinsey was a world-class authority on the habits of gall wasps. Critics of his sex work
attacked his methodology, failing to note, says Rhodes, "the irony that the same
methodology had merited praise when he applied it to gall wasps." Well, yes, but that
was rather the point of Niebuhr and others: human beings are not gall wasps. It says here
that Richard Rhodes is the author of Making Love. Yet another book that one is,
with such strange ease, resigned to never reading. (I am open, just barely, to the
possibility that the Rhodes review is intended as a parody. But that is to allow for an
ironic reach that is without precedent in the Times book review.)
- Its too easy to say that Harvard hates America, as a book title of several years
ago put it. Its simply that Harvard is married to an America very different from the
America experienced by nine out of ten Americans. Here, for example, is the program of a
recent conference, "One Nation Under God? Religion and Contemporary American
Culture." There are two presentations on the spiritual significance of rock music,
one on the cult of Princess Diana, several critiquing Americas captivity to
capitalism, one on Islam, one on gays, a couple on exotic fringe movements (including
Scientology in Germany), and two on aspects of the Jewish experience. I dont know
where to put Rita Nakashima Brocks "Beyond Eurocentric Religious
Paradigms," but I could take a wild guess. This is no doubt fun stuff for academics
with too much time on their hands, but this is "Religion and Contemporary American
Culture"? Its not that the religious beliefs and connections of most Americans
(oldline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, Roman Catholic) were entirely neglected.
Robert Ellsberg of the very lefty Orbis Books, for instance, gave a paper on
"Cardinal Bernardin and the Quest for Common Ground." So a dead cardinal, may he
rest in peace, and a comatose project he sponsored, may it rest in peace, did make an
appearance on Harvards screen of religion and American culture. To think that
parents beyond numbering flirt with bankruptcy so that their children can get what is
called a Harvard education.
- Jane Fonda sounds the tocsin calling patriots to action. "Most Americans dont
know their tax money is being used for that, and most Americans dont want it,"
she declares. Ms. Fonda, we are given to understand, has a long record of being attuned to
the values of most Americans. The current cause for her alarm is that Congress has
appropriated $50 million per year to encourage sex education programs that promote
abstinence until marriage. Ms. Fonda is not without support from disinterested patriots.
She has teamed up with Durex Consumer Products, the worlds largest marketer of
condoms (Sheik, Ramses, and Avanti brands), to launch a nationwide "Truth for
Youth" program. Says Ms. Fonda, "Abstinence until marriage is based on an unreal
world that isnt out there." Not if the Fonda-Durex team has its way.
- He was called "Darwins rottweiler." T. H. Huxley was an intellectual
street fighter who translated the masters arguments into the vulgate of Victorian
England. Adrian Desmond, a British writer, has produced a new biography of Huxley that is
highly praised by James R. Kincaid, professor of English at the University of Southern
California, in the New York Times Book Review. He can find nothing to criticize in
Desmonds hagiography, but there is this: "One thing will probably strike
American readers, even in the midst of their delight: Desmond will seem vastly to
overstate the fullness of Huxleys victory, the triumph of secular agnosticism and
scientific rationalism. Is our modern world Huxleys? I dont know how it is in
Desmonds England, but the contemporary United States seems to me about as skeptical,
scientific, and agnostic as a tenth-century tribe of frog worshipers. We need Huxley back
again, debating Pat Robertson, the head of the Promise Keepers, and a worthy
representative of the Church of Scientology, say John Travolta." Oh, for those
Victorian days when we had the smugly established Church of England to kick around.
- I am told it is an old French saying: "Coincidences are events in which God wishes
to remain incognito." The following, from National Right to Life News, is no
coincidence: "On October 10, 1997, at 3:50 p.m., the Office of the Press Secretary at
the White House released a presidential proclamation designating October 12, 1997, as
National Childrens Day. In the first paragraph of the presidential
declaration, Bill Clinton states, With the birth of every child, the world becomes
new again. Within each new infant lies enormous potentialpotential for loving, for
learning, and for making life better for others. But this potential must be nurtured. Just
as seeds need fertile soil, warm sunshine, and gentle rain to grow, so do our children
need a caring environment, the security of knowing they are loved, and the encouragement
and opportunity to make the most of their God-given talents. There is no more urgent task
before us, as a people and as a nation, than creating such an environment for
Americas children. On October 10, 1997, at around 4:30 p.m.less than an
hour after issuing his Childrens Day proclamationBill Clinton issued another
proclamation: his veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act."
- "I am one person who is thoroughly enjoying the television program Nothing
Sacred," writes Mary Hazlett of Akron, Ohio, to the National Catholic
Reporter. According to the latest ratings for the show (which may be canceled by the
time this appears), even one person really matters. "Nothing Sacred appeals to
me because the characters, like myself, are human beings. Flawed. Scared. Insecure. . . .
Those of us who risk diving into our inner darkness journey through this loneliness and
despair. . . . We struggle with the rich questions that have few answers, the very same
universal questions and temptations of Jesus. . . . The characters in Nothing Sacred
are the sort of people I need to accompany me on my journey. . . . In the struggle, they
live authentic lives." Flawed? Scared? Insecure? Lonely? Despairing? Or smugly proud
of being in the company of an elite who live authentic lives, just like Jesus?
- Cynthia Ozick, writing in the New Yorker, is really upset, and with some reason.
A new Broadway production of The Diary of Anne Frank reminds her of how the story
has been twisted into a sweet little tale for adolescent girls, omitting the horror of
Nazism and Annes extermination. Ozick writes, "And because the end is missing,
the story of Anne Frank in the fifty years since The Diary of a Young Girl was
first published has been bowdlerized, distorted, transmuted, traduced, reduced; it has
been infantilized, Americanized, homogenized, sentimentalized; falsified, kitschified,
and, in fact blatantly and arrogantly denied." In fact, Ms. Ozick goes on in that
vein for pages and pages in a magazine once noted for its stylish writing. Somebody needs
to take away her thesaurus. Under the deluge of verbal similitude, however, she may have a
point.
- Our local paper had this big story on the dedication of the Roth Center for Jewish Life
at Dartmouth College. Dartmouth president James O. Freedman declared, "We must
confront the ghosts of the past." He noted with satisfaction that a legacy of
"bigotry" had long since been repudiated. As an example of bigotry, he cited a
1945 statement by Ernest M. Hopkins, then president of Dartmouth: "Dartmouth is a
Christian college founded for the Christianization of its students." That was hardly
original with Mr. Hopkins. The schools charter, granted by George III, declared its
purpose to be the "civilizing and Christianizing of the children of pagans, as well
as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youths, and any others."
More than two hundred years later, a president of Dartmouth is called courageous for
confessing the sins of his predecessors who supported the idea of a Christian college. One
rather doubts that anyone at universities such as Yeshiva or Brandeis think it bigotry
that they were established to be, in some significant sense, Jewish. It even seems likely
that the Roth Center for Jewish Life will be mainly, if not exclusively, for Jewish
students. One hopes the day will never come when that, too, will be deemed a ghost of the
past that must be exorcised. Meanwhile, one wishes Dartmouth well in coping with the
current crop of pagans
- An astute reader points out that in Steven Spielbergs Amistad, former
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, he of Roe infamy, makes a cameo appearance as
Justice Joseph Story ruling in favor of the slaves. Blackmun as Justice Roger Taney in Dred
Scott would seem to be more in character.
- At the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, the confessing atheist organization, Freedom
from Religion Foundation, for the second year in a row put up a sign next to the Christmas
tree. "In this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods,
no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our material world. Religion is but
a myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." On the backside of
the sign they put the admonition, "Thou shalt not steal." Sez who?
- When the New Jersey senate overrode Gov. Christine Todd Whitmans veto of a bill
banning partial-birth abortion, the story in the Times held a welcome change. In
numerous past references to the subject, the paper routinely referred to
"so-called" partial-birth abortion and invented technical-sounding gobbledygook
to describe the surgery, claiming that it is the way it is described by "medical
experts." This time the reporter frankly admitted, on the front page yet, that there
is no accepted medical terminology to describe killing a baby who is in the process of
being born. The editorial writers, however, apparently do not read their paper carefully
and the next day an editorial titled "Abortion Retreat in New Jersey" was back
to lamenting the ban on "so-called partial-birth abortions." The editorial
praised Whitman for her veto, acknowledging that she thereby probably lost any chance at
national Republican leadership and was barely reelected, but deplored her failure to fight
harder for "womens reproductive freedom." "Regrettably," the
editors note, "Mrs. Whitman chose not to lobby the Legislature to protect her veto.
Her decision to leave the vote to each lawmakers conscience opened the field for
anti-abortion forces to exert pressure." There the people go again, trying to
influence their representatives. Isnt it bad enough that Mrs. Whitman had to demean
herself by standing for reelection and was almost defeated by the great unwashed? This
democracy business is clearly getting out of hand. But the fact that New Jersey joins
sixteen other states in banning the killing of babies while they are being born does not
leave the editors without hope. "This latest product of the new abortion politics
should not survive a serious review by the courts," they opine. Ah yes, the courts.
Of course.
- Janet Maslin of the Times calls it "A rare display of spiritual light on
screen." Its Robert Duvalls The Apostle, and this time the Elmer
Gantry line is turned on its head. Duvalls character, Sonny, is a deeply conflicted
southern preacher who messes up big time but then begins anew in a Louisiana small town
where he is redeemed by the gospel he preaches. Much to everyones surprise,
including Mr. Duvalls, the film is being touted as a strong contender for Academy
Awards.
- I encountered Father Thomas Reese, author of a useful manual on the internal workings of
the Holy See called Inside the Vatican, one day as I was leaving the Synod for
America with a friend. He was with other journalists at the gate where the Swiss guards
only admitted members of the Synod. My friend could not resist observing, "But Tom, I
thought you were inside the Vatican." Upon my return I read Fr. Reeses
report on the November meeting of U.S. bishops in Washington, which includes this:
"The pastoral message to parents of homosexuals, Always Our Children, was
defended by Bishop Thomas J. OBrien of Phoenix, Ariz., who is chair of the Marriage
and Family Life Committee. The committees message received very positive coverage in
the media but was attacked by reactionary and homophobic groups. Although the response of
the bishops to the document was positive, some feared the message would be interpreted as
a softening of the churchs teaching against homosexual activity. In response one
bishop noted that homosexual groups were unanimous in saying that the bishops
message was good as far as it went, which indicated that these groups
certainly had not misinterpreted the message." Well, Bishop OBrien would defend
it, wouldnt he? His committee wrote it. And are all those who have strongly
criticized the statementincluding Fr. John Harvey, founder of the homosexual
assistance group called Courage and the distinguished philosopher John Finnis of Oxford
and Notre Damefairly described as "reactionary and homophobic"? It
possibly makes me a reactionary in Fr. Reeses book, but for some reason I do not
share his sense of reassurance when a Church statement on sexual morality receives
"very positive coverage in the media." Most curious, however, is Fr.
Reeses apparent agreement with one bishop who is confident that Catholic teaching is
not compromised by "All Our Children" because homosexual groups say it does not
go all the way in saying what they think should be the Churchs teaching on the
subject.
- My apologies. I thought I had noted earlier the death last September of Dr. Joseph
Stanton, at age seventy-seven. Dr. Stanton was crippled by polio at age fifteen and spent
much of his life in a wheelchair. He said it made him a better doctor, knowing that
"when you have nothing curative to offer, continuing to care and care very deeply can
be a very important thing for many patients." He was a pioneering hero of the
pro-life movement and his extensive archives on the cause are now preserved by the Sisters
of Life in their convent in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Joes life was a declaration of
faith-filled courage. It still is. Requiescat in pace.
- As the old saying has it, lose a few, lose a few. If youre connected with
something called the Quixote Center, you dont expect to win very often. On the other
hand, as co-director of the center, Sister Maureen Fiedler, said, this time it seemed they
were on to a winner. "We had all this marvelous polling data, which we had for
decades, showing that three-quarters of U.S. Catholics want a married clergy, two-thirds
want married priests, overwhelming percentages would like to return to the tradition of
electing bishops, and so forth and so on," said Sister Maureen. Of course the data
showed no such things, as the Quixotes were about to find out. What the data showed is
that, on these and other questions, the overwhelming majority of Catholics would go along
with whatever the Church decided. But, misreading the signs of the times, the Quixotes
pulled out all the stops to get a million signatures of Catholic Americans on a
"referendum petition" calling for the ordination of women, popular election of
bishops, optional celibacy for priests, the embrace of gay rights, and a change of rules
regarding divorced and married Catholics. The petition drive was to run from Pentecost
1996 to Pentecost 1997, and then was extended through the fall of 1997. Full-page
advertisements were taken out in "progressive" publications, a national network
of parish pushers was enlisted, all the paraphernalia of the putative wave of the future
was recruited, and the campaign ended up with thirty-seven thousand signatures, which was
4 percent of the goal and near-zilch percent of the sixty million Catholics in the U.S.
"We had organizing kits," says Sister Maureen, "We had grass roots efforts,
we had mass mailings. In other words, we tried everything we possibly could. We really
gave it everything we had." The bishops were not sympathetic to the effort, says
Sister Maureen. She tells about walking down a chancery hall with an auxiliary bishop when
the ordinary of the diocese appeared and the auxiliary shoved her into a closet in order
not to be seen with her. "Theres no way to describe the political structure of
our church except to say that it is monarchical, it is certainly authoritarian,
increasingly repressive, and it shows even a few signs, unfortunately, of efficiency in
that regard," she observes. She did not mention the heartbreak of being the kind of
person whom people shove in a closet in order to avoid being seen with in public. Quixotes
are nothing if not quick learners, however. From the debacle of the referendum, Sister
Maureen learned this: "We overestimated Catholic theological maturity."
- Most of what appears in the Tablet (London) is predictably liberal, almost to the
point of self-parody. But a good many people, also on this side of the drink, read it for
its coverage of church news not reported elsewhere. Like other publications, however, it
has to cope with slow news weeks from time to time. The lead item in "The Church in
the World" section this time is headed, "Once again a bishops appointment
divides local church." Oh my. According to the Norwegian Catholic monthly, St.
Olav, there is considerable unhappiness with the appointment of Father George Müller
as bishop of the tiny territorial prefecture of Trondheim, which covers central Norway and
has 2,285 Catholics in a population of 619,000. Thats one Catholic per 271
inhabitants. Catholicism is not big in Norway. It is not clear why the people of Trondheim
dont like their new bishop, but the report is that reservations were sent to Rome
and "handed on all the way to the top." The question is portentously asked,
"Which advisers has the Pope then listened to in connection with the
appointment?" One expects that the editors would be shocked, yes shocked, to be told
that the universal pastor of a billion Catholics possibly spent no more time than it takes
to sign the document of appointment in naming the pastor of a local church as large as a
small parish in many parts of the world. As I say, it was a slow news week. There was also
happier news, however. "Salford welcomes its new bishop" is another item of the
week. The new bishop of Salford, England, is Terence Brain and he said in his installation
homily: "I pledge to encourage you, support you, enable you, so that together we
choose cooperation and collaboration in our common calling to serve the people of
God." Enabling people (are they disabled?) is all fine and dandy, but what happened
to, for instance, empowering? One hopes the faithful of Salford will protest the
discrimination against that and other equally vacuous clichés. Inclusivity in choosing
cooperation and collaboration in our common calling requires no less. Never mind
Trondheim; I want to know who advised the Pope in appointing the bishop of Salford.
- As Edgar Bronfman of the World Jewish Congress goes from country to country and door to
door demanding confessions and reparations for what people did or didnt do at the
time of the Holocaust, he can skip America House over on West 56th Street. A long article
in the Jesuit magazine America is given to nothing more that touting that "America
stands in stark contrast to much of the Catholic and Protestant press in its coverage of
these events." Sure enough, the article relates in numbing detail that the magazine,
to its credit, spoke out repeatedly against Hitler and for the Jews. Had someone suggested
otherwise? An additional oddity of the article is that it nowhere mentions the other
publications to which America stands in such "stark contrast."
Nonetheless, let the record show that America was right about Hitler.
Congratulations, if not self-congratulations, are in order.
- Singin them old third-way blues. For people who dont have a scorecard it
must be explained that the new name for capitalism is neoliberalism. This is the usage
among leftist intellectuals all over the southern hemisphere or what used to be called the
Third World. And among their friends in the West who were so bitterly disappointed by the
failure of real-world, existing socialism, a.k.a. communism. The vicissitudes of history,
however, have not dissuaded them from their earnest search for a "third way"
between socialism and capitalism, namely, socialism. Among Catholics of the left, the
complaint is that the capitalist neoliberals have hijacked Catholic social teaching, with
the help of a none-too-alert Pope who in the 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus,
said the free economy is the way to go. "A theology of liberation is more needed
today than everbut a renewed liberation theology in a different form than
previously," Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Father General of the Society of Jesus,
told a Swiss news agency. He and others have discovered that the global economy of
neoliberalism has not benefited everyone equally. There are still poor people, he sadly
notes. He says that the earlier liberation theology of the 1970s and 80s had become
"exhausted." That is to say, Marxism was discredited by the very history to
which it appealed for vindication. But that older liberation theology should not be
forgotten, since it was "deeply rooted in the Gospel and real life of the People of
God." Fr. Kolvenbach said that a French Jesuit, Fr. Jean-Yves Calvez, is
"working on proposals for a new papal encyclical on problems of marginalization,
unemployment, and social rejection." But the proposed new encyclical will not deal
only with the problems being experienced by the Jesuits. It will also address what is
described as the more general crisis of society. The older liberation theology was sharply
criticized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1984 and 1986. Nothing
daunted, Fr. Kolvenbach says the third way is now being set to a new tune and "is
undoubtedly needed in developed countries too, although not in any sense a copy of the
Latin American theology." He does not say whether the Pope has been informed about
the new encyclical that is in the works. In preparing new encyclicals, the Jesuits operate
on what the intelligence community calls the NTK ("need to know") principle. In
the old daysback when "jesuitical" meant craftythey didnt even
explain their secrets to the news media.
- Homer nods. In Modern Times and many other writings, Paul Johnson has railed
convincingly against the pretensions of the political class that they have either
authority or competence to transform the world. But in the last year or more his column in
the Spectator reflects his being smitten by New Labors Tony Blair, which has
him nodding in blissful dreams of politicians who "can make a difference." Here
is a column in which he urges Blair to make family policy the centerpiece of his program.
"What a splendid title to lasting fame Blair could earn if he went down in history as
the prime minister who restored the British family to health and strength," writes
Johnson. A political leader can restore a nations families to health and strength?
Paul Johnson would be well advised to go back and read Paul Johnson.
- During the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome, according to the Tablet, an elderly
parishioner of a parish in Sussex complained that her hearing aid had been on the blink.
After Mass she inquired of a friend, "I know they asked us to pray for the bishops
who sinned in Rome, but what did they do?"
- We are pleased, I mean really pleased, to announce that Daniel P. Moloney has joined us
as Associate Editor. He succeeds J. Bottum, who, after a brief but brilliant career with
us, decided to retire to the Potomac. Mr. Moloney earned his B.A. at Yale, where he was
senior editor of the Yale Free Press, and his M.A. in philosophy at Notre Dame,
where he has completed all but the writing of the thesis for his Ph.D. His field is
medieval logic and epistemology, and his thesis is on Anselms use of analogy. He is
not limited to such pressingly relevant questions, however. He also maintains a lively
interest in ethics, politics, jurisprudence, and the media, and was founding editor of Right
Reason, the independent student publication at Notre Dame. He plans to finish writing
the doctoral thesis in, as it were, his spare time. And this you will be pleased to know:
Once again we received a big bundle of applications from extremely well qualified
candidates. I wish we had several positions to fill, but we dont. The heartening
lesson to be drawn is that there are an awful lot of capable young people out there who
have survived the calamities of what we persist in calling higher education. Daniel P.
Moloney, for example, from and about whom I expect you will be hearing much more.
- We will be pleased to send a sample issue of this journal to people whom you think
are likely subscribers. Please send names and addresses to First Things, 156 Fifth
Avenue, Suite 400, New York, NY 10010.