On March 16, 1998, the Holy See’s Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews published "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah." This document is only one of a long series of statements that have come from official Catholic sources. In 1990 the same commission issued the "Declaration of Prague," in which it acknowledged that some traditional Catholic teaching and practice had contributed to the spread of anti-Semitism in Western society.

I am grateful to the conference organizers for suggesting the word "glimpse" in the title of this talk, because I have to admit at the outset that I do not have a vision of a fully formed new feminism rising like Botticelli’s Venus in all her glory from the sea. But that word "glimpse" got me thinking about the story of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses, as you know, never did enter the promised land. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, however, he "glimpsed it from afar." And that glimpse was so satisfying that he died happy.

The political climate has changed dramatically in light of the Republican landslide in the fall elections and the Contract With America. But what astonishes me is not so much the content of the contract or the rhetoric of the debate, but the zeal and seeming joy with which social programs are being actually dismantled or put in line for their time on the block. This is coupled with the battle cry of "dismantle government," a return of the get-the-government-off-our-backs rhetoric of the late 1980's, all this dignified now by the rhetoric of devolution and states' rights. More dismaying than anything else, however, is the underlying theme of isolated individualism, a cry of "I've got mine, now you get yours." The Irish nationalist movement, for all its excesses, has at least recognized that the basis of reform is "Sinn Fein"--we ourselves. Our cry seems to be I myself. And we will be the worst for it.