Commonweal articles from December 2004

Commonweal archives from December 2004

A young reader!(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... I am a nineteen-year-old college student at Mt. St. Mary's University, an appreciative beneficiary of Commonweal's College Subscription Program, and a double major in theology and political science. I echo Maurice Timothy Reidy's desire to...

Ad multos annos.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... Let me offer my personal and professional congratulations on the eightieth anniversary of Commonweal (November 5). It has been my honor to contribute various times over the years to this amazing publication. And I use the word amazing exactly....

The Catholic vote.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... A number of recent articles in Commonweal argued for the primacy of abortion in the 2004 election. That priority has borne fruit: we have reelected a president who engaged in an aggressive and unjustified war (according to the Vatican), who...

Gnostics redux.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... Luke Timothy Johnson presents an intriguing study of the parallels he sees between ancient and contemporary Gnosticism ("The New Gnosticism," November 5). However, I disagree with him on several points. The argument put forth by Elaine Pagels...

Beyond belief.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... Luke Timothy Johnson's article on Gnosticism begs the question: Why should a church with a rich tradition be reduced to "a crisis of identity and even of survival" by people, like me, who are interested in the Gnostic gospels? I find it...

We have the wombs'.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... I thoroughly enjoyed "The Mass Bells of Maremma" (November 5) by Eamon Duffy. When I studied in Rome way back when, less than 5 percent of Romans ever went to Mass and the only reason there were so many priests around was because, well, it was...

Colorless & boring.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... Regarding Eamon Duffy's article on the de-Christianization of Europe: the main problem of the Catholic Church is not only the diminishing number of priests and faithful. These are mere symptoms. The main problem is with the church's...

Judging Teilhard.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... In reading Eugene McCarraher's review of The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004 ("Passion & Obedience," November 5), I was puzzled by his observation that Teilhard de Chardin was a "charlatan who can't be ridiculed too often." I have found...

A woman's voice.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2004... I was shocked that the editors of Commonweal printed eight letters from men and not a single letter from a woman in response to the exchange between Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo ("Catholics, Politics & Abortion," September 24). What do...

The president's lawyer.(Alberto Gonzales may be appointed as Supreme Court justice)
December 3, 2004... No single incident in the "war" on terror has done more to damage America's credibility and moral stature, or to fuel the indignation and ambitions of Islamic terrorists in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, than the torture of Iraqi...

The end times: coming soon? An advent reflection.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)
December 3, 2004... Christian mysticism has often proved confusing and divisive, hardly a surprise, according to one wag, since it begins in mist and ends in schism. I know of no comparable barb directed at eschatology, nor am I clever enough to invent one. But...

The long view: why the GOP keeps winning.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)(Grand Old Party)
December 3, 2004... There are two kinds of defeats in electoral politics. Some are expected, even felt to be inevitable (for example, Walter Mondale in 1984). Such losses are sad for the losers, but they do not lead the losing party to reflect on fundamentals....

Report from Europe: coming to terms with Bush's win.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)(George W. Bush )
December 3, 2004... On November 3, Western Europe's morning papers had only inconclusive results on the U.S. election to report. The following day, there was no getting around the fact of George W. Bush's victory. The UK's liberal daily, the Guardian, summed it up...

Northern exposure: what a Bush sequel means for Canada.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)
December 3, 2004... The relationship between Canada and the United States is complicated and convoluted, yet in a sense simple. Depending on whom you ask, we are family, friends, neighbors, business partners, or simply an accident of history. We are each other's...

The war in Iraq: how Catholic conservatives got it wrong.
December 3, 2004... H. Richard Niebuhr once wrote that the first question of ethics is not "What should I do?" but "What is going on?" The Baghdad version of that principle might be, "What the hell is going on?" It is a question that comes to me when I wake up to...

Installing democracy.
December 3, 2004... President George W. Bush concluded his final debate with John Kerry by declaring his faith in "the ability of liberty to transform societies, to convert a hostile world to a peaceful world." Now part of his rhetorical repertoire, this statement...

Alter egos: Team America' & 'the incredibles'.(SCREEN)(Movie Review)
December 3, 2004... Team America: World Police is the all-marionette satire of our current administration's penchant for unprovoked invasion. Its creators, the South Park team, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had the brilliant idea of debunking the mindset that...

Niche TV: Animal Planet beckons.(MEDIA)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 3, 2004... It was probably a mistake to start with the animal psychic. Admittedly, I stayed pretty skeptical as Sonya Fitzpatrick, the clairvoyant on the Animal Planet cable channel, conducted her session with the mopey white rabbit (who was glum because...

Critics' choices for Christmas.(The Plot Against America)(War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944)(That Old Ace in the Hole)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... I cannot stand Philip Roth; he not only rips your insides out but makes you laugh in mid-vivisection. Every time I hear he has another book coming out, I know I'm in for a whole new world of hurt, even as I'm logging on to Amazon to pre-order....

Critics' choices for Christmas.(How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization)(The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson)(The Words We Pray)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... The works of Roger Kahn aside, sport writing is usually not a genre one looks to for deep insight into sociology, economics, and politics. Which is why Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization...

Critics' choices for Christmas.(The Saints' Guide to Happiness)(Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life)(All We Know of Heaven)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... When a group of Jesuit friends were hanging out in my room recently, one spied a stack of books on my night-stand. "What are you reading these days?" he said, idly picking up a book. My collection included a newish biography of Mother Teresa, a...

Critics' choices for Christmas.(Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress)(A Suitable Boy)(Miracle Maker: The Selected Poems of Fadhil Al-Azzawi)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... It is no easy task to narrow down to three a list of books for holiday gift giving. I chose these because they are the ones I seem to recommend most frequently to friends and colleagues. Set in a remote mountain village during the Chinese...

Crictics' choices for Christmas.(Chased by the Light)(Dancing in the Margins: Meditations for People Who Struggle with Their Churches)(Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... National Geographic photographers often use a thousand rolls of film to produce twenty photos for an article. New technology has made a good photo easier to take. Sensing that he had lost touch with his craft, world-renowned photographer Jim...

Religion booknotes.(All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Works)(A Book of Hours: Music, Literature, and Life)(Stalking the Divine)(Book Review)
December 3, 2004... One could sink a ship with the books that have been written about the Vatican. There are the appallingly melodramatic novels peopled with cliche-ridden characters and implausible plots, which are only a tad worse than the Vatican exposes by...

Deep in the heart of Florida.(The Last Word)(Christianity and politics)
December 3, 2004... Interstate 4, bisecting Florida along a line running from Tampa-St. Pete in the southwest through Orlando to Daytona Beach in the northeast, is the state's cultural equator. South of this equator is a Florida colonized by displaced, often...

Family values.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... Commonweal is to be commended on publishing an in-depth study relating to the sexual-abuse crisis ("Catholics after the Scandal," November 19). The research conducted by James Davidson and Dean Hoge indicates that most Catholics have heard...

The new faithful.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... Cathleen Kaveny makes some excellent points in her article "Young Catholics" (November 19). She rightly notes that young conservative Catholics need to dispense with their rigidness and young liberal Catholics need to see the wisdom in church...

Hijacking the election.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... Regarding "Bush Redux" (November 19): The U.S. Catholic hierarchy is laying the groundwork for its own demise by allowing a handful of bishops to alienate faithful Catholics, suffocate Catholic candidates who would advance a broad spectrum of...

Glory days.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... Your eightieth anniversary issue (November 5) was indeed special. I was particularly taken by Wilfrid Sheed's sketch from memory of Jim O'Gara, John Cogley, Bill Clancy, and Jim Finn ("Christian Gentlemen"). I would only note two minor details....

Friend & mentor.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... In his remembrance of his colleagues at Commonweal, Wilfrid Sheed said that Bill Clancy was "our most spiritual" and that "his whiskey-jar chuckle won hearts right and left." It certainly won mine. I was a Benedictine seminarian in Kansas in...

European priests.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... Eamon Duffy's essay on the de-Christianization of Europe ("The Mass Bells of Maremma," November 5) rang true to me during a recent visit to see my daughter in Spain. I noticed then, as I have in trips to Europe over the last fifteen years, the...

'Commonweal' & Israel.(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2004... An observant Jew, I enjoy the broad range of ideas offered by Commonweal, which I find to be an excellent read for religious people of all faiths. Unfortunately, the diversity of ideas usually found in Commonweal does not appear when the...

'Adveniat regnum tuum'.(COMMONWEAL)
December 17, 2004... Advent, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, is the season of diminishing light. The closer we come to the winter solstice, the greater we seem to need hope and reassurance. In the Jewish tradition, this longing culminates in the lighting of...

Ratzinger for pope?(ET CETERA)(Joseph Ratzinger)
December 17, 2004... A recent flurry of speculation in Europe suggests that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the controversial prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has emerged as "an important late entry for the papacy" (London Daily Telegraph) in...

Outrageous Christianity: a Christmas meditation.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)
December 17, 2004... At this time of year we are surrounded by Christmas images--the tender scenes of Mother and Child, the manger, adoring shepherds, angels--but moving as all of this is, it is usually taken in out of context. Only two of the Gospels say anything...

Madonna di Loreto.(Poem)
December 17, 2004... The pilgrims have found them at least, and kneel before their doorstep, staffs angling upward, their callused, bare feet dusty with journey. Half-lit by sunset the Virgin observes the supplicants, but the Infant really sees them,...

Judicious insights: Justice Breyer's wise brief.(OF SEVERAL MINDS)
December 17, 2004... Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer performed an enormous service to our country last month. He clarified what is at stake in the coming fights over judicial nominations. He made clear why it is important to raise our national argument over...

The marriage gap: when will the Democrats wake up?
December 17, 2004... Looking back over the results of the presidential election, pundits now agree that the war over terror, not the war over "moral values," led to John Kerry's defeat. Still, that doesn't mean that values are off the political agenda. As the...

A Roman education: a college kid at the council.(Second Vatican Council)
December 17, 2004... Ecclesia adest!... Spiritus adest! "The church is present! The Spirit is present!" I heard these refrains repeated throughout Pope Paul VI's twenty-minute Latin address opening the third session of Vatican II on September 14, 1964. I saw the...

Slowly by slowly: what Africa taught me.
December 17, 2004... On my flight from England to Uganda I couldn't sleep. I was sick with the flu and nervous about such a long journey over the ocean, and about meeting the strangers who awaited me on the other side. When the plane landed I would be farther away...

Message in a bottle: 'Sideways' & 'Closer'.(SCREEN)(Movie Review)
December 17, 2004... The unanimous critical approval greeting Sideways has created some surprising Best Picture buzz-surprising, because Oscar rarely smiles on small movies with loser protagonists. But, if any director can break this unspoken rule, it might well be...

'Sic transit gloria mundi'.(BOOKS)(Prisoner of the Vatican The Popes' Secret Plot to Capture Rome from the New Italian State)(Book Review)
December 17, 2004... Prisoner of the Vatican The Popes' Secret Plot to Capture Rome from the New Italian State David I. Kertzer Houghton Mifflin Company, $26,341 pp. It seems impossible to date the precise moment when European civilization became...

The enemy within?(BOOKS)(Book Review)
December 17, 2004... Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity Samuel P. Huntington Simon & Schuster, $27, 428 pp. Samuel P. Huntington has long been one of America's most influential political scientists. In each of the last five...

Spy games.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
December 17, 2004... Conspirators Michael Andre Bernstein Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25, 506 pp. Michael Andre Bernstein's Conspirators is a historical thriller set in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The author's first foray into...

What child is this?(THE LAST WORD)(Cover Story)
December 17, 2004... The elegant young woman in the blue cloak gazes pensively at the child cradled in her left arm. Her young son, perhaps two years old and wearing a lavender cloak over a red tunic, looks back at her and reaches up to move the veil from her face....