Commonweal articles from February 2005

Commonweal archives from February 2005

Democrats & abortion.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... A number of letters to Commonweal suggested that I was wrong not to vote for John Kerry (Correspondence, October 8 and 22, 2004). Now, as a result of Kerry's defeat, it seems that Democrats are seriously reexamining their fundamentalism on Roe...

Time for change.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... I nodded my head the whole time I was reading the editorial "Unnatural Disasters" (January 14, 2005). Yes, yes, I thought, President George W. Bush made a grave mistake by invading Iraq. Yet as much as I would like to gloat and say "I told you...

Destructive criticism.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... At this late date, I do not understand why Commonweal is still carping about the war in Iraq ("Unnatural Disasters"). Instead of exploring what the United States can do to extricate itself honorably from Iraq, we get only complaints and...

God only knows.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... As a cradle Catholic, I'd like to offer a big hug of peace to convert Jean Hughes Raber ("The Bumpy Path to Rome," January 14, 2004). It's important to realize that God knows more about us than we know about God. JOHN McNASSAR JR. ...

One step forward ...(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... In her conversion narrative, Jean Hughes Raber tells us nothing about what led her to the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, she makes her former spiritual homes, Unitarianism and the Episcopal Church, sound a lot more humane and rational than the...

Women priests.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... As a Catholic woman of a certain age, I was really touched by Anne Marie Wolf's article about her friend Janet, the Episcopalian priest ("She's a Natural," January 14, 2005). I wish we could have women priests. BETH KANE Philadelphia,...

Critical question.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... The issue of the ordination of women continues to be a critical question for many Roman Catholics, but Anne Marie Wolf's reflection on the subject added little of significance to the conversation. Even the most conservative Catholic could...

Historical analogies.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... Instead of comparing the gay-marriage debate to the nineteenth-century controversy over polygamy ("Remember the Mormons," January 14, 2005), Cathleen Kaveny should look to interracial marriage as a more pertinent historical comparison. Polygamy...

School kids for Bush.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... I agree with Barbara Dafoe Whitehead that the Democrats are asleep at the wheel when it comes to the concerns of married parents ("The Marriage Gap," December 17, 2004). Allow me to add another piece of data to the discussion: In the mock...

Really steamed.(Letter to the Editor)
February 11, 2005... I recently received a notice that it is time to renew my subscription to Commonweal. Although I have read your magazine since my college days, I am sad to say that I am letting my subscription lapse. Your coverage of politics makes it clear...

Torture's apologists.(From the Editors)(Alberto Gonzales as attorney general)
February 11, 2005... In nominating Alberto Gonzales to be U.S. attorney general, highest law enforcement officer in the country, President George W. Bush flouted not only the laws and treaty commitments of the United States on torture, but more than two hundred...

One small step.(ET CETERA)(Iraqi elections)
February 11, 2005... President Bush was right to warn the American people that the high turnout for the January 30 Iraqi elections was only a first step toward democracy and independence. He was also right to describe the greater-than-expected turnout as an...

Sing out: even if you can't carry a tune.(Columnists)(Column)
February 11, 2005... Years ago, before I was married (there were giants on the earth in those days and dinosaurs roamed...), Regina was a music major. She and her friends invited me to a Christmas party, where we gathered around beer and a fire and someone...

Learning not to think: schooling in India.
February 11, 2005... Days after the tsunami, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, toured the Andaman and Nicobar islands, among the areas worst hit by the devastating event. Visibly moved by the sight of so much destruction and misery, he pledged a package...

Prolife & prochoice: can the Democrats enlarge their tent?(Short Takes)
February 11, 2005... I was not surprised when Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) shocked a group of abortion-rights supporters last month by telling them that prochoice and prolife groups need to work together to reduce unwanted pregnancies. In 1994, just about two...

This bridge, like poetry, is vertigo.(Poem)
February 11, 2005... "In a time of dearth bring forth number, weight, & measure." --William Blake Describing the wind that drives it, cloud rides between earth and space. Cloud shields earth from sun-scorch. Cloud bursts to cure earth's thirst. Cloud...

Nearly forgotten: the book behind 'Brown'.(An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy)(Book Review)
February 11, 2005... The year 2004 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Commemorations were impressive and included an exhibit at the Library of Congress and numerous articles, both pro and con,...

Just the facts: the truth about Social Security.
February 11, 2005... The first important fact about the Social Security "crisis" is that there is no crisis. The second important fact is that the Bush administration's proposals for fixing the "crisis," especially its "privatization" scheme, are perversely...

It's cold up there: 'The Aviator'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
February 11, 2005... Martin Scorsese's first film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, proclaimed what he wanted--no, what he had--to do with his magnificent talent: make poetry out of male obsession. And Scorsese, like Dostoyevsky, knows how to get inside the skulls...

The center does not hold.(Magic Seeds )(Book Review)
February 11, 2005... Magic Seeds V. S. Naipaul Alfred A. Knopf, $25, 280 pp. This is V.S. Naipaul's fourteenth novel, and likely to be his last. He says he no longer has sufficient energy for novel writing (he is now seventy-two), and he thinks that...

The Prison-Industrial Complex.(Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment)(Imprisoning America: The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration)(Book Review)
February 11, 2005... Invisible Punishment The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment Edited by Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind The New Press, $26.95, 355 pp. Imprisoning America The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration Edited...

Gathered together.(Congregations in America)(Book Review)
February 11, 2005... Congregations in America Mark Chaves Harvard University Press, $29.95, 304 pp. The United States has more than three hundred thousand congregations, parishes, synagogues, temples, and mosques, and sociologist Mark Chaves wants to...

The Good Doctor.(Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World)(Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor)(The Uses of Haiti: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor)(Book Review)
February 11, 2005... Mountains beyond Mountains The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World Tracy Kidder Random House, $25.95, 317 pp. Pathologies of Power Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor Paul Farmer ...

The streets of Shanghai.(The Last Word)
February 11, 2005... Last June, in a faraway province of rural China, an eighteen-year-old high-school student, denied the opportunity to take the college entrance exam because he could not pay his eighty-dollar high-school fees, killed himself by stepping in front...

Too much of a good thing?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... How many theologians can dance on the pages of such a slim magazine? Unfortunately, I read through the whole theology issue (January 28) in one day--instead of one article per day, as I should have--and now my head is swimming with...

One Priest's testimony.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Many thanks to "Gerard Thomas" for his very moving article ("A Gay Priest Speaks Out," January 28). I am sorry that he is unable to testify before his parish about "encountering God's love as I am." I hope he knows that he has testified to all...

Silent for centuries.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Regarding "A Gay Priest Speaks Out": church leaders have succeeded in keeping gay clergy silent for centuries. They have done so by keeping gay priests separate from one another, isolated in their fear and shame. Detached and without political...

Hardworking & faithful.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Gerard Thomas describes well the Catch-22 that many priests will face when Rome releases its statement on gay clergy. I suspect that when the time comes the "celibate, hardworking, healthy, loving, and faithful" gay clergy will either leave the...

Don't ask, don't tell.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... I do not believe, nor would any intellectually honest individual accept, that the charism of celibacy "requires the willingness to engage in an honest and open discussion of one's sexuality." Among the priests I know, one is a diabetic amputee,...

Violence & the Cross.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Thank you for Joseph Komonchak's "The Violence of the Cross" (January 28). Distorted interpretations of Christ's death continue to exert a powerful influence. As Komonchak notes, these distortions may have inspired the "excesses" of Mel...

God & suffering.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Joseph Komonchak writes that "it certainly was not God's will" that Christ suffer the violence of the cross. Yet many saints have seen suffering as part of God's plan. St. Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Passionists, believed that "there...

Theology from Below.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... Roger Haight's Christian Community in History is not well served by Luke Timothy Johnson's review ("Theology from Below," January 28), nor are Commonweal's readers. Johnson questions Haight's "ecclesiology from below" and, on the basis of his...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
February 25, 2005... Owing to editorial error, James D. Davidson's review of Congregations in America by Mark Chaves ("Gathered Together," February 11) incorrectly identified Robert and Helen Lynd.

The anonymous Christian.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... As the exchange between Rabbi Irving Greenberg and Jon Levenson indicates ("Do Jews & Christians Worship the Same God?" January 28), accepting another's religion without distorting it or betraying one's own faith is very difficult to do. A...

The war in Iraq.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 25, 2005... I read with a strange mixture of humor and dismay your statement in the January 14 issue that "the U.S. presence in Iraq is not a catalyst for the possible emergence of democracy, but an obstacle to it" ("Unnatural Disasters"). Do you honestly...

Social insecurity.(From the Editors)(Editorial)
February 25, 2005... Since the Great Depression, the American people--whether rich or poor--have had an ace in their back pocket. You might lose your shirt in the stock market, get frisked in an embezzlement scheme, suffer a medical catastrophe, or be pulled under...

Haight redux.(Editorials & Comment)(Editorial)
February 25, 2005... Earlier this month, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) barred the theologian Roger Haight, SJ, from teaching Catholic theology until he corrects "grave doctrinal errors" put forth in his book Jesus: Symbol of God (Orbis,...

Evil happens: who's at fault?(Columnists)(Column)
February 25, 2005... The subject of "Science and Religion" has become something of a cottage industry in the academy. Ian Barbour pioneered the conversation, publishing several works since the 1960s that explore the meanings of various theological...

Child rearing: why parents feel so inept.(Columnists)(Column)
February 25, 2005... Are today's parents worried that they're not up to the job? Are they afraid of their own kids? Is the experience of parenthood itself to be dreaded or even avoided? To judge by one of television's new reality shows, Supernanny, the answers...

Catholic politicians: for God or country?(Short Takes)
February 25, 2005... In 2004, it was hard for Catholics to read a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing debates about their political responsibilities. As the election approached, many Catholics were inundated with voter guides that argued no Catholic...

One bishop's legacy: how to save the homily.
February 25, 2005... Kenneth Untener, who died last year of cancer after nearly twenty-five years as bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, was dedicated to the art of preaching. In his book Better Preaching (Paulist), Untener wrote that "when we prepare a homily we...

My life in Opus Dei: why I joined & why I left.
February 25, 2005... The huge, devout crowd attending the canonization of Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva at St. Peter's Square in the fall of 2002 could never have imagined that a much larger, worldwide audience would soon be introduced to Opus Dei through a...

Opus Dei today.
February 25, 2005... British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently had to reshuffle his cabinet, following the sudden resignation of the Home Secretary David Blunkett. As a result, Ruth Kelly, a middle-rank Treasury minister, was made Secretary for Education at the...

Hopeful still: voices on the church in a time of scandal & fear.
February 25, 2005... Last year, in my summer of discontent with the church, Commonweal asked me to supply an essay on the notion of Catholic hope. I begged to be let off the hook--in 2004, was this not, like military intelligence, a particularly bitter oxymoron?...

Laura Sheahen.(catholic church, Russia)
February 25, 2005... I was standing in a Catholic church in Moscow with a few ecclesiastically inadequate years of Russian under my belt. The incomprehensible sermon was long past, and the handshake of peace was next. As people turned in the pews, I realized I had...

Epiphany.(Poem)
February 25, 2005... I didn't even know I was in danger of losing you. I hardly noticed you were slipping away, what with all the physics, the archeology, the literary deconstruction of textuality:...

Unforgiven: 'The Woodsman'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
February 25, 2005... What kind of character do you suppose would top the American moviegoing public's list of hardest to sympathize with? Not far down from "Islamic terrorist," I suspect, would be the protagonist of Nicole Kassell's gritty and disturbing debut...

Fantasy Island: ABC's 'Lost'.(Media)(Television Program Review)
February 25, 2005... Is ABC's Lost a vision of Purgatory? That has been a topic of passionate discussion on Internet bulletin boards relating to the new hit drama, currently airing Wednesday evenings. To be sure, it's not the only theory that obsessed viewers have...

There Is a Balm.(Book Review)
February 25, 2005... Gilead Marilynne Robinson Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23, 247 pp. John Ames, a seventy-six-year-old pastor in Gilead, Iowa, is dying of heart disease. So that his seven-year-old son will know him after his death, he is composing a...

Slipping on the Orange Peel.(Book Review)
February 25, 2005... Catching Light Looking for God in the Movies Roy M. Anker Eerdmans, $20, 432 pp. I have to work hard to be fair to this book because it was not written for the likes of me. No film critics or movie buffs read books to...

Ratzinger Was Right.(Book Review)
February 25, 2005... History of Vatican II Vol. IV Church as Communion, Third Period and Intersession, September 1964-September 1965 Edited by Giuseppe Alberigo, English edition edited by Joseph A. Komonchak Orbis and Peeters, $80, 670 pp. ...

Like Peter.(The Last Word)
February 25, 2005... What place does failure have in our lives? I don't mean the occasional setback or bad day. I mean the things that go terribly wrong. The marriage we couldn't save, the child lost to drugs, or the job we languished in for decades. ...