facebook

America Staff
Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Ignatian Perspective

The article A Veteran Remembers, by James R. Conroy, S.J., (8/1) offers an excellent perspective on the war in Iraq. By calling attention to the disproportionately large number of African-Americans and Hispanics who are serving and dying there, he asks us all to consider whether or not this really is our nation’s war. In addition, his reflections on his experience in Vietnam (first as a soldier and recently as a pilgrim) are the clearest examples I have seen of an Ignatian perspective on one’s own experience. If we are immersed in the work of living in the present, it will always be messy. I appreciate Father Conroy’s reminder of this.

Thomas J. Brennan, S.J.

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Culture of Absence

As one who has spent 10 years of his academic life in Germany, I simply could not relate to the essay by James Youniss, I Know It When I See It, (7/4). Such public policies as universal health care, efficient rail transportation, easy access to high culture, Saturday-Sunday closing laws and cradle-to-grave financial security may be compatible with Christian social teaching, but to suggest that they are inspired or motivated today by distinctive Christian commitments ignores public opinion polls and other empirical evidence of contemporary Germany’s loss of faith. Germans today would insist that these and related social programs are rooted in secular values associated with their country’s social democratic tradition.

Christian influences, particularly Catholic natural law teaching, were strongly represented in postwar West Germany, but with increasing secularization these influences have virtually disappeared from the nation’s public life. Two examples may suffice. German constitutional law, like the nation’s intellectual culture, has grown increasingly positivistic over the years. The same is true of German politics. The Christian Democratic Union (C.D.U.), founded explicitly on Christian principles in 1946, has lost its raison d’etre, while its main competitor, the Social Democratic Party (S.P.D.), is well known for its history of militant secularism.

During the Weimar Republic and in the early years of the Federal Republic, a vibrant Catholic intellectual tradition, centered on the church’s social teaching, flourished in Germany, but no equivalent of this exists today. Christian scholarship in the social sciences is notable for its relative absence. Religious studies, mainly the products of theological faculties, have little resonance in the larger society. Yet literary attacks on Christian belief and piety, such as The Da Vinci Code, seem never to leave the best-seller lists. Secularthat is, non-Christianvalues seem clearly regnant in Germany, the predominance of which has been extended and deepened by the nation’s reunification.

Pope Benedict XVI, a native of Germany, has often agonized over his country’s loss of faith. In book-length interviews with Peter SeewaldSalt of the Earth (1997) and God and the World (2002)the then-Cardinal Ratzinger repeatedly spoke of Germany’s increasingly de-Chistianized society and a public culture characterized by the absence of transcendence. In one of these interviews he observed with regret that only eight percent of the people in Magdeburg [an East German city] are Christians, and that was probably a generous estimate because, as sociological studies have disclosed, even the memory of Christ has almost totally disappeared among East Germans, particularly the young. Finally, and interestingly, Ratzinger makes no mention in these interviews of the connection between Christianity and the comforts, satisfactions or rewards of living in present-day Germany.

Donald P. Kommers

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Major Source

I commend C. Colt Anderson for acknowledging the action St. Peter Damian took regarding the crime of clerical sexual abuse of children in the 11th century (6/6). The time has come for Catholic scholars to give voice to the hundreds of saints and sinners who have done the same. Peter Damian’s notice to the pope is available in English translation, called the Book of Gomorrah. This is one of the rare major sources of the history of clerical sexual abuse that is available to all.

Patrick J. Wall

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Many Best Years

I have read America for more than half a century. It has always been an excellent journal of opinion and many of its best years were under the editorship of Thomas J. Reese, S.J. Father Reese is an extraordinarily balanced, well-informed, faithful priest and Catholic leader, and I have had the pleasure of knowing him for the last 10 years.

Tens of millions of Americans had the opportunity to see Father Reese at work during the extended period of television coverage from the end of one papacy to the beginning of another. The timing of his departure could not have been worse!

The Jesuits can be wonderfully proud of Father Reese and America. May God continue to bless your great work. Onward through the fog.

(Most Rev.) John McCarthy

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Challenging Times

In his article Is This Transparency? (5/16), Russell Shaw asks whether the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is operating in a public and transparent manner. He suggests the answer may be no. Unfortunately, I think the answer is a definite yes.

Could it be possible that the secrecy of the American bishops is not really an effort to hold on to power, but rather an indication that they may very well have little or none in the first place? The danger of doing business in public is that people must take stands and give reasons for their positions. A plenary council or even a synod would have to address some of the serious problems facing the American churchfor example: the shortage of priests, the status of women, of divorced Catholics and of gay men and women in the church, and the role of Catholic politicians in a pluralistic society. The list could go on and on.

As Mr. Shaw indicates, however, according to canon law, plenary councils are held at the discretion of the pope, and their decisions are subject to papal approval. Can you imagine the leadership of the American church openly discussing these issues and taking stands knowing that their actions would undergo review by a higher authority with the possibility of a public rejection of their positions?

The situation, therefore, may be more transparent than we’d like. We know as lay Catholics that ecclesiastically we have no power. Now we have a pretty good idea that the leaders of the American church are powerless as well. Where are the courageous shepherds of the past: St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Augustine of Hippo? These are challenging times for us all.

F. Philip Johnston

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Providing Maps

I enjoyed Jesuit History: A New Hot Topic, by John W. O’Malley, S.J., (5/9). Your readers may be interested to know that there is a particularly hot spot within this theme, and that is the story of Jesuits as mapmakers, particularly in the Americas. From the late 17th century until the suppression of the order in the late 18th century, many Jesuits from central Europe sought to enter the mission field, and so went to serve in the overseas possessions of the Habsburgs in what is now Spanish America. These Jesuits had been exceptionally well trained in mathematics, geography and even cartography; and once they arrived in the New World, they were often sent to remote mission stations. These areas were almost always unmapped by Europeans, and so the Jesuits’ training was by chance, as it were, put to good effect all over the continent, from Mexico to Patagonia (and indeed in Canada, another story). The resulting work covered very extensive areas of the Americas, and would not be rivaled in extent until the coming of the national governments in the 19th century.

David Buisseret

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Real Heroes

The Without Guile cartoon by Harley Schwadron, How come there aren’t any peace heroes? (4/25) ought to be made available on T-shirts and sweatshirts. I’d buy one.

Phyllis Karr

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Food for Contemplation

Please convey my gratitude and appreciation to James Martin, S.J., for editing What Should the Next Pope Do? (4/25). The compilation from various knowledgeable individuals made me realize the importance of the Second Vatican Council. Curial officials doing hard time on an annual basis made me laugh (gee, ya gotta be kiddin’). The Rev. Richard McBrien’s article spoke to me. I sent him a thank you e-mail for voicing what so many of us faithful know. Special thanks go to Thomas J. Reese, S.J., for the guts to go against the grain by giving some thinking Catholics religious-based food for contemplation.

James N. Letendre

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

Important Parallels

In his article, Some Forgotten Lessons (4/25), Jason R. Rowe illustrated some important parallels between American military attitudes now, as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those that were operative in El Salvador during the 1980’s. The Salvador Option is truly an insidious concept, when one remembers what the government-sponsored death squads did in the name of fighting Communism in El Salvador during those years. (One such death squad took a friend of mine captive, poured acid on his arms and left him for dead simply because they could not find his brother, whom they suspected of being a guerrilla sympathizer.) But as much as I agreed with Rowe’s analysis, I felt it was torpedoed at the end of the article when he misidentified (twice) the Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional (F.M.L.N) as the Frente Sandanista (sic) de Liberaci6n Nacional (F.S.L.N.). Wrong country (Nicaragua). Wrong year (1979). Wrong spelling (Sandinista).

Dick Howard

Posted inLetters

Letters

facebook by America Staff

A Very Simple Message

Much of the world stood still recently, at least for a few moments, to observe the passing of Pope John Paul II. Television coverage of the crowds of pilgrims making their way to view the body one last time was extraordinary. In a world often deemed indifferent to religion, who would have guessed a humble Polish priest would become a pope the whole world would mourn (4/18)?

I am a Catholic by birth and an editor at a Catholic publishing house by profession. Even among those of us who might be called professional Catholics, there has been a sense of awe and wonderment at the life and accomplishments of John Paul II. In August 2002 I watched television coverage of a visibly ailing, 82-year-old pontiff saying Mass in a field outside Krakow. The crowd was immensean estimated three million people. Everywhere John Paul II went there were crowdsseven million in the Philippines. His general audiences in Rome were attended by 14 million people. It’s difficult to imagine a person living or dead who has seen or been seen by more people than John Paul II. Why?

I decided to search for an answer by immersing myself in John Paul’s writings. He is perhaps the papacy’s most prolific writerauthor of 14 encyclicals, 42 apostolic letters, 15 apostolic exhortations, 10 apostolic constitutions, hundreds of public addresses, numerous poems, five books and a number of playsall this in addition to being the most traveled and most influential pope of the modern age.

What really amazed me, though, was the fact that the magnitude of John Paul II’s accomplishmentsas world statesman, theologian, philosopher and church leaderhad perhaps obscured his greatest role: that of a humble pastor. He knew something about how men and women can find God. He understood how the power of God can be released in our lives. His supreme desire was that we come to embrace a faith that transforms the way we work, the way we relate to other people and the way we live in the world.

John Paul returned again and again to a few basic themes in all his writings and talks: faith, prayer, family, suffering, the church, Mary and, most passionately, ChristChrist as the answer to all life’s mysteries. He traveled the world bringing this very simple message.

Though the papacy of John Paul II has ended, his legacy lies tangibly before us in his writings. We can touch his books, hold his pages in our hands, take his words into our hearts. We should do this. He wanted us to. In so doing we may discover that the secret to John Paul II’s immense popularity was that he really believed in a faith that could change the world for the better. His words will bear eloquent witness to this hope for many years to come.

Joseph Durepos

Gift this article