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Hospitality at Church
Kristeen A. Bruun
The advice appeared in a newspaper column written by an interior decorator. A correspondent had asked, “What’s the single least expensive change I can make in my home in order to improve it?” The columnist responded: “Clean the place up. It’s virtually free, and it will
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Public Scandal

Having read your recounting of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s advice to the U.S. bishops on morality in voting (Signs of the Times, 7/19), I find it little wonder that there is a great deal of confusion. But it should be quite apparent to any right thinking person that the murder of 40 million innocents is not comparable to an individual’s marriage-vow problems. The point to be dealt with here clearly is public scandal. Any politician who purports to be Catholic and supports the intrinsically evil practice of abortion is giving public scandal, notwithstanding all the specious excuses that have been concocted.

Such a person should not be treated as a Catholic communicant for his own good and, more important, in order to avoid confusing people generally as to Catholic teaching and especially scandalizing the faithful. Christ’s teaching on giving scandal is frighteningly explicit.

The politician’s sin is openly public and should be dealt with by his pastor or bishop in a public manner, not with the hierarchy hiding in their offices for fear of unpopularity or loss of their tax immunity.

Not only does a public condemnation of the individual politician’s position emphasize his moral error in the arena most important to him; it would also serve to inform and emphasize to the public at large the importance of the issue in church teaching. Those who wish to follow Christ must be his witnesses and face martydom as he did in leading the faithful to the truth rather than worrying about public attack or approbation. It is significant and sad that the bishops who have done their duty by speaking out against the public scandal of pro-abortion Catholic politicians can be readily named because of their small number, which goes a long way to explaining the reasons for the difficulties, confusion and other scandals experienced by the American Catholic Church in the post-Vatican II era.

Thomas P. Dowd

Books
River+Mountains+Gospel Living
George M. Anderson
Reading a work by someone you rsquo ve met and whose life and ministry you admirethat inevitably counts as a factor when you sit down to review the person rsquo s first book Happily and objectively I can recommend Deirdre Cornell rsquo s A Priceless View My Spiritual Homecoming to all who find pr
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Catholics Rank Abortion Below War, EconomyAbortion was named as a very important priority by 49 percent of Catholics who expect to vote for President George W. Bush, coming behind Iraq, terrorism, moral values and the economy, each of which was named by at least 64 percent in a recent Pew poll. The
Realigning Catholic Priorities
Lisa Sowle Cahill
If asked to name the most prominent item on the Catholic bioethics agenda, most people in the United States, including Catholics themselves, would no doubt name abortion, closely followed by biomedical uses of embryos, such as stem cell research and cloning. Everyone knows that the Catholic Church p
Faith in Focus
Assume Nothing
Beth Sullivan
"Mom, can you and Dad pick up Paul and me?” Our 12-year-old Sean sounded strained and rushed during that surprise Saturday afternoon phone call 17 years ago. “Father Ron’s been acting strange. He wanted to wrestle with Paul and Paul said no, but he tried to do it anyway. And h
Books
A Tangled Web
William Bole
In the debate over poverty in the United States there are just two ideas or at least it often seems that way One is that people are poor because of the system and that any real solutions will have to come from forces outside the individual namely government That is the view from the doctrinaire
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Drew Christiansen
Critics have often asked, “When has the just-war theory ever led to the condemnation of a war?” Seldom, if ever, it would seem. As the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir has written, the Just War Theory provides reason “to pause analytically” before going to war, but an outright condemnatio
Who's Not Ready? Holler I
Valerie Schultz
My daughter is dating a Baptist. Well, she says, he’s not really a Baptist. He was baptized into some Protestant denomination, and he attends a church that happens to be Baptist. In any event, he is non-Catholic. My daughter is 21, almost self-supporting, a woman on the verge of everything. Sh
Inculturating Liturgical Music
Joseph P. Swain
In a delightful scene in Ang Lee’s splendid comic film Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, the oldest sister of the Taiwanese family at the center of the story, a recently converted and fervent Christian, witnesses her new husband’s baptism by submersion. As he rises from the water, the large congre
Poetry
Our Lady of Sorrows
Michael Mack
Why my mother chopped off her hair,
The Word
Money, Money, Money!
Dianne Bergant
It is very difficult to talk about financial equity in a market-driven economy Some entertainers and sports figures earn extravagant salaries while people in essential service professions like teaching often find it difficult to make ends meet So many people struggle with some form of money probl
Books
Meet the Innovators
Clayton Sinyai
In recent decades a growing number of social scientists like Theda Skocpol whose Diminished Democracy I reviewed in this space 10 20 03 have rediscovered the voluntary associations of civil society that flourish in the social space between government agencies and profit-seeking firms Today bus
Editorials
Vietnam Revisited
The Editors
The debate over Senator John Kerry’s service in the Vietnam War sounded a sour and dispiriting note as the presidential campaign of 2004 approached the Labor Day weekend, the traditional start of the final and most serious phase of the campaign. While President Bush prepared to accept the offi
Post-Crisis Morale Among Priests
Stephen J. Rossetti
In the wake of the sexual abuse crisis, more than a few people, including priests, are convinced that the morale of priests is bad. In a letter dated Dec. 12, 2003, 69 priests of the Archdiocese of New York wrote to Cardinal Edward Egan, “We need to tell you again what you already know; the mo
Preparing for Dialogue in the Holy Land
Daniel Rossing
Most of the dramatic changes that produced the vast improvement in Jewish-Christian relations in the last half-century have taken place on the Christian side. In light of the historic record of Western Christianity’s teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism, it is understandable that until th
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Hopeful Heart

Several of my community read with delight Living With My Sisters, by Jeffrey J. Guhin (7/19). Here is a young man whose heart is in the right place, regardless of having to sacrifice his vocation to the sisterhood! Sisters need priests of this caliber in their livesthose who question their comfortable lifestyle, their positions of privilege and power, and those who listen rather than lecture. I salute Jeffrey and his vocation. His reflections give me hope.

Mary Ann Foy, R.S.C.J.

Books
Monk on a Mission
John W. OMalley
This is an important book with much to offer but it is also disappointing Its importance lies in three converging factors The first and most obvious is the subject Martin Luther is a person of almost mythic proportions in the history of the West By his prophetic stance he almost single-handed
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Political Choice

Your editorial The Political Season (8/2) distresses me. It is not so much a call for debate on the Iraq war as an opinion that the war was wrong and that the weight of evidence proves this. I must admit that I do not have an informed opinion on this. But I trusted Bush and his advisers, although I can admit that they may have been wrong. I do not believe all the facts are in yet, so I do not have as strong an opinion as you do.

In any case, assuming Bush was wrong on this most important of issues, one would conclude that he should be turned out. To turn him out, a vote must be cast for Kerry. For Catholics, is this wise? Not only Kerry but the entire Democratic party seems encamped on the side of the culture of death, as Catholics define the issues.

So we are left in a quandary. Vote for Bush or vote for Kerry. Which is worse?

Howard J. White

The Word
We Don't Get What We Deserve
Dianne Bergatn
At first glance ancient Israel rsquo s insistence on being the chosen people of God may appear to be somewhat arrogant A closer look however reveals that again and again the people admitted that they did not merit this distinction Far from it They were not slow to own up to their own inconstan