Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

Faith in Focus
Katherine Olson
After receiving my bachelor’s degree in English from Fordham University in May, I have been full of doubts about the future: Can I find my true vocation? Will I find employment that is both challenging and exciting? What kind of accomplishments will I shamelessly be bragging about over cocktai
The Word
Daniel J. Harrington
At this time of year choirs all over the world are beginning to rehearse George Frideric Handel rsquo s ldquo Messiah rdquo This oratorio is an anthology of key texts from both Testaments set to music One high point among many for believers and even nonbelievers is the so-called ldquo Halleluj
Current Comment
The Editors
Abu Ghraib at HomeThe now infamous photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee crouching in terror before a snarling dog appalled people around the world. But the same thing is happening in prisons in five U.S. states. Jamie Fellner, director of the Human Rights Watch prison program, points out in an October re
Arts & CultureBooks
John B. Breslin
I carried a copy of Seamus Heaney rsquo s latest collection District and Circle with me to Europe this summer reading it on buses and trains and at outdoor restaurants in London This was the rainless summer when London hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time in recorded history happily
Columns
Maryann Cusimano Love
Our family has a new baby, and this has us thinking about the nature of help. What is help? Is it the neighbor who cooked a fancy gourmet meal for us (that none of us, all sick with colds, could eat) and left our kitchen in shambles, using every pot and pan in the place? Is it the friend who decided
Thomas J. Curry
For me, a Catholic bishop, the past four years have been Dickensian—the best of times and the worst of times. How they have been the worst of times hardly needs explanation, but the growing realization that they have also been the best of times has come to me as an ever-deepening conviction an
Letters

Ability to Respond

The deep reflections on the issue of torture in From Disciplina to the Day of Pardon, by Drew Christiansen, S.J., (10/2) are both pertinent and pressing for any Christian troubled by the present political situation in the United States. Your rejection of St. Augustine’s views on politics, however, fails to engage the full tragic character of his understanding of history. The commentaries on Augustine by Dino Bingogiart and Henry Paolucci have influenced my understanding of this issue, and I regret their voices are not available to respond to your statement.

Augustine’s political realism has been persuasive for many because it echoes the view of politics one finds in Machiavelli and Hobbes. If this view lacks any basis in reality, then it is, of course, untenable. But I think it is crucial that any reflection on the political, be it philosophical or theological, clearly states whether the view of the political found in Augustine, Machiavelli and Hobbes must be accounted for. Any political state, that view holds, must be prepared to deal with the challenge of the implacable enemy, one who rejects any way of reconciling conflicts other than violence.

The first duty of every political authority is to maintain order against the criminal within and the enemy without. The use of law, coercion and ultimately capital punishment can always be effective against the criminal. Analogous measures may also be effective against external enemies whenever shared standards of law are available. But when they are not available, Hobbes’s war of all against all becomes a prospect that must be considered, as is the jihadist who views the United States as the evil empire. The jihadist does not merit the protection of international law, since he is a transnational terrorist. The Geneva Convention applies only to citizens of nation-states that are signers to the treaty.

The use of force in the defense of one’s life is defensible by the natural law. So is the right to wage war, but with a difference. The measure of violence a state may have to use is not set by its own moral standards. The enemy determines this. This dilemma is at the heart of the political theory one finds in Augustine, Machiavelli and Hobbes. The Bush administration’s decision to apply extralegal measures against international terrorists seems, therefore, defensible.

Persuasion and good example are surely the responsibility of any Christian in conflict with an opponent. And such a Christian would be beyond judgment if he eschewed the use of force in defending his right to life. But would a state be similarly permitted to accede to another state’s lethal demands? I know no such moral law or Christian counsel that calls for this surrender. Human history, Augustine told us, is driven by two different loves, which form two very different kinds of societies. One confounds our ability to respond with justice and charity. And citizens of a nation state have the right to expect their political leaders to meet this dilemma.

George B. Pepper

Editorials
The Editors
With the exception of his appearance before his old faculty at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI’s travels have been quiet affairs. Even a trip to Spain last July, which threatened to erupt into controversy over policy differences with that country’s Socialist government, t
Arts & CultureInterviews
James H. Cone
"It was truly amazing how Martin Luther King could sustain his hope for a beloved community at a time when nobody, black or white, seemed to believe in it or even care."
Kathleen McChesney
Since the revelation in 2002 of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests in the United States, over 500 accused priests have been temporarily or permanently removed from ministry. This number is not expected to increase significantly, largely because the abuse-prevention policies and procedures
David Beckmann
Collette Kayakez sells dried fish in her urban neighborhood in Lubumbashi, the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Not long ago, her business was failing. It is hard to keep track of prices and sales if you do not know how to read and write. Ms. Kayakez, her husband, Ibert,
Faith in Focus
Tom Beaudoin
In early January of 2003, I was at dinner with Martina, who is now my wife, when I noticed a lump on the right side of my collarbone. It felt tough and nodular, but there was no pain. Martina and I tried to have a normal dinner, but concern got the best of us, and we dropped the rest of our evening
Arts & CultureBooks
Thomas R. Murphy
In 1969 the Apollo astronaut Edwin Aldrin described the ldquo magnificent desolation rdquo of the moon As the United States reflects on its lengthening wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this Veterans Day the issue of how most appropriately to honor soldiers who have died in battle is elevated profoun
Of Many Things
Drew Christiansen
'I puzzled, as I walked across the U.S. Capitol grounds, over the building in the distance. Was that where I was headed? It was certainly distinctive, with a large, story-high lip overhanging the east face. As I drew closer, I could see the south wall undulating in soothing waves. Then the wall
News
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Brazilian Cardinal to Head Clergy CongregationPope Benedict XVI has named Cardinal Claudio Hummes of S o Paulo Brazil a Franciscan to be the new prefect of the Congregation for Clergy The 72-year-old Brazilian-born son of German immigrants Cardinal Hummes will succeed Cardinal Dar o Castrill
Rick Curry
Along with the roughly 2,800 American men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 26,000 have been injured, some of them permanently disabled. The news media tend to focus on those who have died, but what about the stories of soldiers who have been disabled? The scope of the question was br
John W. Donohue
Orrin Hatch, Utah’s Republican senior senator, is a firm opponent of abortion. He is also a firm supporter of research on embryonic stem cells, even though this involves destruction of the embryos. The senator’s reasons for this latter position are mainly two. He believes, as he has said
Film
Richard A. Blake
The Departed is a puzzling name for Martin Scorsese’s remake of the Hong Kong crime action movie “Infernal Affairs” (Lau and Mak, 2002). The term generally refers to dead people. As the film progresses through its two-and-a-half-hour tour of the mean streets of working-class Boston
Arts & CultureBooks
David G. Hunter
Imagine a feasta symposium really in the ancient Greek sense of the wordin which the aim is not merely to enjoy good food and drink but also to share in thoughtful conversation The guest of honor a distinguished Christian thinker is the main course but other luminaries are present occasionall
Current Comment
The Editors
Going Down to the SeaSaving deep-sea ecosystems from destructive bottom trawling is among the issues to be considered in November by the United Nations General Assembly. The marine biologist Sylvia Earle, executive director of Conservation International’s global marine division, has said that