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The Word
Dianne Bergant
Today we seem deluged with reports of anger abuse and even murder at the hand of a family member Spouses are not attentive to each other parents neglect children and children disregard elders It is time to return to good oldfashioned family values But just what constitutes good old-fashioned f
Books
Terrence E. Dempsey
The exhibition ldquo Icons or Portraits Images of Jesus and Mary from the Collection of Michael Hall rdquo recently closed at the Gallery of the American Bible Society in New York City The exhibition was one of New York rsquo s hidden treasures and those fortunate enough to have seen it will ha
Of Many Things
James Martin, S.J.
One benefit of taking a vow of poverty is that it greatly simplifies Christmas shopping. I realized this during my first year as a Jesuit novice, when our monthly stipend (or personalia, in Jesuit lingo) was set at $35. That year my family and friends, who had long been used to receiving numerous gi
Editorials
The Editors
The Christmas celebration in Bethlehem will be muted this year. Few pilgrims are expected. Since the 40-day occupation and siege of the Church of the Nativity last April, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told America, the Christians of Palestine feel abandoned by the world (see the interview in this is
Editorials
The Editors
To the extent of their knowledge, competence or authority the laity are entitled, and indeed sometimes duty-bound, to express their opinions on matters concerning the good of the church.” It might surprise many Catholics that this bold statement on the responsibilities of laypersons in the chu
Edward Collins Vacek
Shortly after the start of the second millennium, St. Peter Damian wrote a long condemnatory treatise entitled The Book of Gomorrah. He demanded what is now being called zero tolerance of clerics who had engaged in homosexual behavior. In response, Pope St. Leo wrote that, while denouncing these sin
Letters
Our readers

Difficult Questions

Regarding An Isolationist View of the International Criminal Court, by Brian Farrell (11/25): I am surprised that the editors would print such an unbalanced criticism of the Bush administration’s position with respect to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of July 17, 1998.

The I.C.C. treaty was written at a conference attended by the Clinton administration. The United States voted against the treaty because provisions it sought were voted down. Quixotically, President Clinton both signed the treaty and said that his successor should not submit the treaty for Senate ratification in its present formfor good reasons.

The I.C.C. treaty extends worldwide jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and the yet to be defined crime of aggression. Nationals of countries that do not ratify the treaty are, nevertheless, subject to the court. Countries that do ratify the treaty are obliged to surrender persons charged before the court found in their territories (which is why the United States sought an exemption from the Security Council for its peacekeeping forces dispatched to Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 2002).

The United States is now the world’s principal peacekeeper. American forces are being called upon to serve all over the world. American servicemen are subject to, and protected by, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, with final review by the United States Supreme Court. This would not be the case with the I.C.C., which will develop its own set of rules.

Because of international missions, American forces are more exposed to events of war than forces of any other country that is a party to the treaty. Most of the countries that have a vote in the treaty assembly equal to that of the United States are not as big as many of our cities and are unlikely to provide peacekeeping forces. The assembly will adopt procedures, elect judges and define what is meant by the amorphous term aggression. Many of the treaty countries do not share our understanding of criminal procedure or evidence, and many are not friendly to the United States. They, however, will elect the court and have a voice in the selection of, and the work of, the prosecutor.

The United States unsuccessfully asked at the treaty conference that at least at the outset, cases be sent to the court by the U.N. Security Council on a case by case basis. The United States did not know what the procedures would be, what investigative activity the prosecutor would undertake or who the judges would be.

There are other problems with the treaty, including the important question of whether it would be constitutional to subject Americans to a court not established under the United States Constitution.

Whether the United States should ratify the treaty is surely debatable, but any article about opposition should at least acknowledge the difficult questions involved.

William T. Hart

The Word
Dianne Bergant
The chorus from Handel rsquo s Messiah begins with a delicate ldquo For unto us a child is born rdquo and builds to a thunderous ldquo And his name shall be called Wonderful rdquo The Gospels for the three Christmas Masses follow a similar progression Images from the first two Gospels are cap
Books
Thomas E. Quigley
Just 100 years ago on Oct 24 1902 the town crier in the Guatemalan town of Quetzaltenango struggled to make himself heard over the deafening roar of the nearby volcano which had blown skyward that morning Despite the noise of rocks crashing against rooftops and the ground shaking beneath his f
News
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Cardinal Says Homosexuals Should Not Be OrdainedA Vatican congregation, in response to a query by a bishop, said men who are homosexuals or have homosexual tendencies should not be ordained priests. Ordaining such candidates to the priesthood would be imprudent and “very risky,” said a l
Jon D. Fuller
One of the deeply troubling outcomes of the Catholic Church’s recent scandals involving sexual abuse and the abuse of administrative power is the call from many quarters to exclude from seminaries men who are gay. This is troubling, because it flies in the face of simple logic. Experts have re
Of Many Things
James Martin, S.J.
A few weeks ago the editors of America discussed their support of the ordination of celibate gay priests (11/11). Our editorial responded to the arguments against ordaining gay men and restated the central argument in favor of their ordination: the historical witness of healthy and celibate gay prie
The Word
Dianne Bergant
Today we move out of the realm of religious testimony into the real world of history Both the first and the third readings situate Jesus within the family of David nbsp This is a family with skeletons in its closet Judah reneged on his responsibilities so his daughter-in-law Tamar tricked him
Books
John A. Coleman
Six years ago the dominant mantra sounded ldquo End welfare as we have known it rdquo Progressive and religious voices however challenged this slogan seeking to replace it with ldquo end poverty as we have known it rdquo What has the welfare reform legislation of 1996 done to poverty How
Randall S. Rosenberg
An important debate carried on among 20th-century Catholic theologians, from Henri de Lubac and Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange to Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, concerned the relationship between nature and gracethe very intersection between the human and the divine. Despite Catholicism’s
Letters
Our readers

Church Blessed

The editorial on Ordaining Gay Men (11/11) does not want to come to grips with the fact that the overwhelming number of priestly sexual abuse cases that have come to light have been committed by gays. It does no one any good to pretend there isn’t a problem here. This does not, however, mean that the church hasn’t been blessed by many priests who are gay. No doubt it has.

The editorial struggles to say that it would be ill-advised to ban gays from the priesthood. Of course it would be, and for one very good reason: no sooner would the ban go into effect when we would learn that a great gay priest, who is celibate, got past the radar. What then? The scandal that would erupt by bouncing this priest would be nothing compared to what we’ve been going through all year.

The answer, then, is to screen more carefully so that immature men are not allowed to become priests.

William A. Donohue,

Editorials
The Editors
Whether they exercised it in the fall elections or not, most citizens of the United States took it for granted that they had the right to cast a vote on Nov. 5. But for close to four million people with felony convictions, no such right existed, because almost all states have disenfranchisement laws
Books
Thomas R. Murphy
There are not many memoirs available from people who work beneath the surface of the executive branch of the federal government Usually presidents vice presidents cabinet secretaries and White House staffers publish such accounts Daniel Ellsberg rsquo s reflections however illuminate the tasks
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
East Harlem stands out as one of the poorest sections of Manhattan, where a faith-based organization—the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service (www.littlesistersfamily.org)—has been helping families cope with poverty-related problems for four decades. “Our mission
Ronald Landfair
The fluorescent pink parking ticket lay on the seat between us. My recently licensed son had forgotten to move the car off the street into our driveway and had now received notice of his first parking violation. As his mother left for work that morning, she pointed out to him: It was your responsibi