Certain Uniformity

Among the items in Signs of the Times on Aug. 4 is a notice that the Vatican says flexibility allowed on posture after Communion, even though the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 43, states that all are to remain standing until the end of Mass. The reason given for this statement by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is worth noting and should be observed as a principle regarding other postures at Mass, such as standing for the eucharistic prayer: The mind of the prescription of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 43, is intended, on the one hand, to ensure within broad limits a certain uniformity of posture with the congregation for the various parts of the celebration of Holy Mass, and on the other, to not regulate posture rigidly....

That explanation is in accord with the much-ignored principle of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 37, which insists that even in the sacred liturgy the Church does not wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole community.

Charles E. Miller, C.M.

Core Reality

Patricia McCann, R.S.M., has provided an excellent, sweeping overview of what has happened to religious life among women religious in the United States since the Second Vatican Council (Catholic Identity, New Age and Women Religious, 7/21). Her knowledge of history is undoubtedly what made possible her judicious synopsis of the decline of religious life, arguably one of the most confusing phenomena in the postmodern world and one that has plagued the church to the present day. Indeed, what will happen to religious life, that rich gift to the 19th- and 20th-century American Catholic Church?

Of particular interest to me is Sister McCann’s willingness to admit the degree to which New Age action and perspectives have invaded the life and thinking of so many active religious congregations today. This is an honest and correct observation, yet it is ignored as a major reason for the obvious problems within congregations and the consequent decline in religious vocations. If not accepted by religious sisters as occasioning points of confusion, it has certainly not been understood by our lay sisters and brothers.

Here is where I wish that Sister McCann had been more emphatic. She says, for example, that we were not yet ready to focus on an evaluative analysis of these changes and suggests, Now it is time for a dialogue between Catholic faith tradition and New Age thought. To my mind, it is time for dialogue to give way to action. It is time for women religious to recognize that a certain New Age secularity has taken priority, one that must be re-evaluated in terms of its consequences for the future of religious life.

In this time of diminishment and mounting secular ridicule, it is time to face the larger questions Sister McCann also poses. The first question she suggests could alone set us all on the path we need to considernamely, Is faith in God made manifest in Jesus and articulated through the Catholic Church and its theological tradition still our core reality? My hope is that the challenge Sister McCann presents in her insightful article will not be left unexamined by today’s women religious.

Dolores Liptak, R.S.M.

Balanced Approach

The article by Drew Christiansen, S.J., (5/19) drew my immediate attention, because I had spent October 2001 to June 2002 in Jerusalem and on more than one occasion had met and listened to Patriarch Michel Sabbah speak or preach. I first met him in December 1987 in Rome, when he spent his days of preparation for his episcopal ordination in the house where I then lived, and I have followed his work, at a distance, since then. I have always found him to be very balanced in his approach and in his words.

I do agree with the general thrust of the article.

I was taken aback by the statement that George Cottier, O.P., the papal theologian, and other French churchmen supported the idea with vigorous attacks on Patriarch Michel Sabbah in the French Catholic press. Other than an article by Father Cottier in the periodical Nova et Vetera, I have found nothing and am unaware of anything in the French Catholic press. Thus my questions: who else? and where?

Considering where it originates, Switzerland, Proche-Orient Infoat least to me as a Canadiancan hardly be included in the French Catholic press. Further, was what was printed in Proche-Orient Info on Dec. 10, 2002, signed by Father Cottier, or was it a reprint from elsewhere? (I’m sorry, I don’t have access to back issues of Proche-Orient Info.)

Father Cottierand othersmay have done a grave injustice to Patriarch Sabbah, but there may also be a perceived injustice to the French Catholic press.

(Most Rev). John Stephen Knight

Rectification

I only just learned of an article by Drew Christiansen, S.J., that appeared in America on May 19, A Campaign to Divide the Church in the Holy Land, where I am personally cited in a manner that does not conform to the truth. We read: Georges Cottier, O.P., the papal theologian, and other French churchmen supported the idea with vigorous attacks on Patriarch Michel Sabbah in the French Catholic press.

This phrase contains several inaccuracies. I am not a French churchman; I did not write in the French press; to criticize a position in an argumentative manner is not to attack the person who defends that position.

Father Christiansen bases his remarks on an article published in Proche Orient Info. This publication reprised, without asking our permission, large extracts of an editorial, Resistance et Moralit des Moyens (Rsistance and the Morality of Means), published in the review Nova et Vetera, 2002/4 p. 5-14 (see also Terre Sainte, 2003, 1-2, p. 159-161), which is a Catholic review of French Switzerland, founded by Cardinal Charles Journet. Moreover, the reproduction is preceded by several lines of introduction that mislead the reader.

These are the facts:

1. The editorial of Nova et Vetera is signed by the editorial staff and not by me, though insofar as I am director of the review, I assume full responsibility for it.

2. Proche Orient Info, which attributes the editorial to me personally, prefaces it by several lines of commentary which suggest that it concerns an indirect intervention, via my person, of the Holy See toward Patriarch Sabbah. This interpretation is gratuitous; it is false.

I continued my directorship of the review upon coming to Rome. What I write and publish is not connected to my position as Theologian of the Pontifical Household. Our readers are under no illusion about this.

3. The editorial, which Father Christiansen should have read with greater attention, does not treat, either directly or indirectly, the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel. It treats, by way of a critique of the positions taken by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, a question of the ethics of war.

4. The editorial recognizes the justice of the cause that Patriarch Sabbah defends. Based on a declaration made May 8, 2002, and on a book of interviews (Michel Sabbah, Paix sur Jerusalem, Propos d’un vque Palestinien [Paris, 2002]), it criticizes his position on terrorism. The editorial is not a support for terrorism, but an excessive comprehension with regard to the actions of Palestinian suicide bombers. An interview in Newsweek of Dec. 23, 2002, summarizes well this position: Q: Do you see suicide bombers as true martyrs? Patriarch Sabbah: According to Islam, they are. It’s necessary to treat each one according to his own principles. As Muslims see it, suicide bombers are giving their lives for their country, to gain their liberty. As a Christian, suicide is not permissible in any case, even for your country. You may not kill yourself.

Nothing in these lines is said about terrorism as an action that deliberately brings about the death of innocents in order to destabilize the adversary. The response relativizes the condemnation of suicide, making it a cultural problem, when it is in fact an act contrary to the universal moral law.

5. It is this precise point that the editorial critiques. It does so through a carefully argued analysis of the notions in play: right to resistance, legitimate defense, reprisals, terrorism. It questions the morality of means: a just cause cannot justify recourse to intrinsically immoral means.

If it is true that the distressing situation into which the Palestinian people have been thrown creates fertile terrain for the phenomenon of suicide bombers, it cannot be considered as its necessary cause and its justification.

I ask you to publish this rectification, because the affirmations of Father Christiansen do not conform to the truth and constitute an offense to my person.

Georges Cottier, O.P.

Inspired to ShareThank you to Kevin O’Brien, S.J., for the affirming and encouraging message in The Classroom as Holy Ground (5/26). Like so many teachers, I was ending the academic season with the year-in-review, still struggling with last minute makeup tests and lost textbooks. By fortunate coincidence, I happened upon Mr. O’Brien’s article and was indeed delighted to read the reflections of a fellow teacher. While Mr. O’Brien may be at the beginning of his career, I am a veteran of 45 years, who decided this past year, for whatever reason, to return to the vineyard.

I have not taught high school students since the late 1970’s, when I was a public school English teacher. The last 25 years as an administrator may have kept me in touch with the students, but there is nothing like being on the front lines. What an epiphany I have had!

As a member of the religion department of our local Catholic preparatory school, I have had a joyful challenge almost every day. The students unquestionably have changed, and yet so many times they remind me of their parentssome of whom I taught.

Mr. O’Brien is righttoday’s students need, more than anything else, understanding and patience and listening. My journey this year has been not only to travel with my students through church history but also to strive to know their life history...and understand their struggles and hopes and to learn about their culture. Most of all, to allow grace to operate in the classroom. It is good to be reminded that teaching is a great act of hope.

I begin this summer inspired to share Mr. O’Brien’s thoughts with my department and to return in the fall with the striking image of my classroom as holy ground and my students’ desks as altars. Now that’s an image that has the potential to provoke a real educational reform!

Marie Rinaudo

War Theory

This letter is in reference to Unjust War, Good Outcomes (5/19), by John F. Kavanaugh, S.J. The recondite philosophical analysis of just war theory in the case of Iraq ranks close behind the angels dancing on the pin issue. Why not ask how many Iraqis need to be raped and have their tongues cut out before some soreheads can feel better about losing the last election?

Is it really correct to use morality and just war theory to protect evildoers while they kill and torture thousands of innocents? Is it good sense to search so hard for a rationale to condemn those with the better spirit while injustice runs rampant?

Why not look at other alternatives, such as whether war is even the best term to describe the Iraqi action before getting carried away with war theory? Or how about rationalizing on the basis of the lesser of evils theory?

John M. Michels

Final Words

As a Sister of St Joseph who labored over teaching the words, but more important, the meaning, of the Act of Contrition to many a distracted second, third and fourth grader during the 1950’s and 60’s in schools in Philadelphia, I was delighted on reading, first, the remembrances of James Martin, S.J., in Of Many Things (5/12) and then the letters debating the words of the ending. What a joy! They did listen; they do remember!

Rose Christine Wagner, S.S.J.

Firmly Resolve

The Sisters of St. Joseph taught me to say, I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. It strikes me that avoiding sin and amending life are the same, although I used to think that the resolution to confess sins was strange in view of the fact that I had just done so (Of Many Things, 5/12).

On a related topic, when I teach the canon law of the sacraments to students each summer at The Catholic University of America, I am amazed at the students’ cluelessness on the difference between perfect and imperfect contrition, the former being sorrow for love of God, and the latter being sorrow for fear of punishment or hope of reward (and sufficient for forgiveness only in sacramental confession). They are also vague about the necessary matter for an integral confession: all serious sins by number and species committed after baptism not yet directly remitted through the power of the keys or acknowledged in individual confession that I remember after a diligent examination of conscience. I marvel that many of us knew these things at the age of seven and that there are priests in my class who do not know them at 40!

James J. Conn, S.J.

Not Polite

I have followed with fascination the exchanges about the Second Vatican Council between Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., and John W. O’Malley, S.J. (2/24). Equally fascinating have been the numerous informative and thought-provoking letters that America readers have written in response.

Two sentences by Cardinal Dulles keep haunting me. Stating that style should not eclipse substance and writing approvingly of Dominus Iesus, he said: At times the Roman authorities have found it necessary to speak more plainly and less diplomatically for the sake of truth and fidelity.... The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seems to have learned from hard experience that when you couch unpopular teachings in polite’ language, people easily conclude that you don’t mean what you said.

I found myself asking, If the church is not to use polite language, then what language should it use? Some antonyms for polite are: impolite, rude, harsh, discourteous. How do we help people hear what the church is obliged to preach? Is it by being rude, disdainful and disrespectfulas many Catholics, Jews and Protestants found in the language of Dominus Iesus? Or is it by seeking to make our words more expressive of the attitudes enjoined upon us by Christ and St. Paulhumility, gentleness, meekness, patience, tenderheartedness, long-suffering, kindness and loving concern?

Because God is truth, we are tempted to respond to the world’s skepticism by speaking more sharply and shouting more vociferously. But because God is love, the world will not hear the truth about which we speak unless it is couched in a loving spirit. If not polite, then what?

Richard K. Taylor

R.I.P.

It’s never easy to lose a friend, and when I heard on April 29 that Alma Roberts Giordan had died, I felt a deep loss, tempered only by the fact that we had brought affirmation and joy into each other’s lives. She certainly had done the same for readers of America, as your respected and wise octogenarian writer (Am., 4/21)

I first came upon the name Alma Giordan some 40 years ago, when I would be reading a Catholic magazine carrying one of the articles I had written. There, in that same issue, would often be an enjoyable article by Alma. Then, 21 years ago, when I accepted a position as executive editor of The Litchfield County Times in Connecticut, then a brand new paper, waiting for me that first week was a stack of articles submitted by freelance writers. I was surprised to see a familiar name, Alma Giordan. It didn’t take long for me to call her.

Wonderful friendships often begin in coincidental ways. It turned out that Alma had been happily married to Bob Giordan, an artist, since 1939 and had never stopped writing for magazines, secular ones like Good Housekeeping, the Saturday Evening Post and McCall’s, and religious ones like America, Liguorian and Catholic Digest.

I happily accepted much of her work, often illustrated by her husband until his death, finding that Alma had a special gift. She could take the ordinary, small things we encounter every day and make these vibrate with life with her observations and words. She painted the mundane elements of this world that we all encounter in a way that highlighted how truly profound these arebe they a chipmunk, a crocus, a shoe, a mourning dove, a dogwood tree stump. She had the gift of seeing, as a poet expressed it, the God of things, and she could express this wonder beautifully, yet asking, Are words really necessary at the instant of a scarlet poppy’s miraculous unfolding? Is not my involuntary gasp of delight perhaps a more genuine prayer?

Last year she collected some of her good published work (several items were columns I had placed in The Litchfield County Times) and produced a book. I read it all in one sitting, enjoying her gift of seeing wonder and beauty that most of us need to be prodded to see. She called the book What This Old Hand Knows, the title of a truly notable piece she had written for America, an ode to the remarkable gift that is the human hand, our telltale lifeline (10/3/98). The book was humorously illustrated with her husband’s legacy of sketches, many of which I remember well.

Alma and I remained devoted friends. We were supposed to have lunch together this week. While I think she is having a more sumptuous banquet in a new and glorious place, we’ll nevertheless all be missing her.

Antoinette Bosco