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From Genome to Galaxy
On the day the most complete mapping of the human genome was announced, a human-made spacecraft landed on an asteroid named Eros, almost 200 million miles away from earth. Issuing commands into deep space, smart little specks on our planet slowed the craft’s descent onto the asteroid for a lan
Books
Mar 05, 2001 issue
A Prophetic Vocation
Marie Anne Mayeski
Sandra Schneiders rsquo new book on religious life in the Catholic community is a veritable buffet feast of data reflection analysis and opinion there is plenty here to make many people uncomfortable and some probably irritated But there is even more that will give hope to manyboth inside and o
Books
Mar 05, 2001 issue
Playing by Its Rule
Peter R. Beckman
What to do about China Steven Mosher thumps for the containment of China by reinvigorating American alliances with its Asian allies denying access to technologies that enhance China rsquo s military making trade dependent on ending human rights abuses and unabashedly seeking the continuation of A
Books
Mar 05, 2001 issue
Two Millennia of Catholic-Jewish Relations
Eugene J. Fisher
At this writing I have read five reviews of Carroll rsquo s book and participated in a daylong conference at Brandeis occasioned by its publication One review by Rabbi James Rudin for Religious News Service is generally laudatory another by Andrew Sullivan in The New York Times more cautiousl
News
Signs of the Times
Two Dioceses Object to Program for April N.C.E.A. ConventionCiting objections to programming at the upcoming National Catholic Educational Association convention, officials of the dioceses of Peoria, Ill., and Pittsburgh said they will not allocate diocesan funds to pay for teachers to attend the co
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
In mid-November, I took the bus down to Washington to sit in on the fall meeting of the U.S. bishops - partly because they were to vote on their pastoral statement regarding the need to re-vamp our draconian criminal justice system, an issue I follow for America. The meeting spanned four days, and o
Faith in Focus
A Change of Heart
I spotted the woman the moment I walked into the hospital lobby. Shaking and sobbing uncontrollably, she was talking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, yet I felt a strong urge to comfort her. But something stopped me. She’s a stranger, I reminded myself, and i
Faith
Why Young Adults Need Ignatian Spirituality
A number of articles and books over the last few years have asked: What will the church look like in 20 years? Underlying this basic concern is an awareness that today’s young Catholic adults have not, it seems, employed the models of earlier generations to appropriate the faith and lack the c
Our National Sins?
Back in the 17th century, the Anglican priest-poet George Herbert maintained that the national sin of his day was idleness. Whether that was an accurate portrayal we must leave to historians and sociologists. But Herbert had no qualms in proposing that there was sin—one of a national kind.This
Letters
Letters

What Can Be

I found the column Of Many Things by James Martin, S.J., (1/8) on the role of women religious in the church both inspiring and insightfulright up to his final sentence. After two columns detailing women’s leadership activity in the church today, why would he write that the church does not allow women to lead in its name?

The answer is obvious: Martin equates leadership in the church with ordination to the clerical state and the particular legislative, sanctifying and governance roles reserved to certain church offices open only to clerics. This is much too narrow a definition of church leadership, as Martin himself demonstrates. There are, in fact, both clerical and lay leaders in the church. Problems arise when policy is made without recognizing this fact. What we as a church need to assimilate is that both clerics and laity with vision, gifts and commitment should be a part of the decision-making processes. The good news is that the fathers of Vatican II recognized this and mandated changes in the structure and law of the church that could begin to make this possible. There are consultative bodies mandated and/or suggested by law whereby bishops, pastors and their people can work together to govern, teach and sanctify the people of God. The bad news is that both laity and clerics have not fully appreciated how these bodies could work. Some clerical leaders, for their part, have guarded their power of making the final decision, while some lay leaders have pouted, little understanding their powers in consultation and implementation. The result is a polarized church, with its members deeply suspicious of each other’s motives, and strident/frightened leadership, be it clerical or lay.

My suggestion to all church leaders is that, rather than lamenting what cannot befemale clericslet us concern ourselves with what can and should be: broad-based input in decision-making and broad-based implementation of these decisions. And let us recognize the value and joy in the hard work of sharing our different gifts, all of which are necessary to bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.

Katharine S. Weber