Commonweal articles from July 2004

Commonweal archives from July 2004

Say it ain't so.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... After reading Sidney Callahan's article in the June 4 issue ("A Prolife Case against Bush"), I have to say that I'm disappointed in her. I have read her articles in Commonweal over the years, and always thought of her as an intelligent woman....

Abortion rhetoric.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Thanks to Sidney Callahan for her strong statement and detailed condemnation of President Bush and his policies and actions. She concretely summarizes why many of us feel that Bush's leadership has been a disaster for our country and the world....

Nation building.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Sidney Callahan longs for the "humble" foreign policy that George W. Bush promised in 2000 and now believes that John Kerry is the best hope for such a policy. She may be right, but not in the way she suspects. What Bush meant by "humble" was...

Advancing abortion.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... In his article "Denying Communion to Politicians" (June 4) Frans Jozef van Beeck writes: "I know of no Catholic politicians who have purposely sought to actively advance abortion; most are opposed to it 'personally'--a bad choice of words." Van...

Culture of death.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Frans Jozef van Beeck's otherwise sophisticated and nuanced article agrees too readily with Archbishop Raymond Burke's gratuitous claim that "the port of entry for the culture of death in our society has been the abandonment of the respect for...

Gift of life.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Frans Jozef van Beeck argues that our abortion-on-demand culture has actually reinforced the notion of life as a gift. At one time, he recalls, he told students that knowing they were wanted at birth "was a grace." In truth, the value assigned...

A venial sin?(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Frans Jozef van Beeck's article both puzzles and intrigues me; not on account of its main thrust, but by an obiter dictum. He suggests that Humanae vitae implied that contraception is intrinsically evil, nevertheless may be, within marriage at...

Getting religion.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Amy Sullivan's article ("Kerry & Religion," June 4) offers hope that the controversy regarding prochoice politicians will prompt committed Catholic Democrats to attest to their religious beliefs rather than hiding from them. Unfortunately, we...

Church & state.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... In your editorial "Kerry, the Catholic" (June 18), you maintain that, in its opposition to abortion, the church is not "trying to impose its religious views on others." This overlooks the fact that the church's argument against abortion is...

None of the above.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Your editorial "Kerry, the Catholic" perfectly articulates my own difficulty with Kerry's prochoice politics. Is Kerry sincere in stating his personal opposition to abortion? I wonder. Legislators are obviously publicly constrained by Roe v....

Censure the bishops.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... I agree with your editorial on "Communion Politics" (May 21), but do not share your hope that "individual bishops" will challenge Archbishops Myers and Burke on their statements about denying Communion to prochoice politicians. So far neither...

Ending abortion.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... With regard to your "Communion Politics" editorial (May 21), four points: 1. Contrary to what you seem to suggest, most Catholic prolifers are not seriously aiming at the universal recriminalization of abortion. Their aim is to overturn...

Before 'Roe'.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Regarding your issue on abortion politics (June 4): I am a former seminarian and a retired high-school teacher. Early in my career, before Roe v. Wade, a female student came to me and told me that she was pregnant. The reason she came to me was...

Stopping genocide.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... I was confused by the statement in your editorial on Sudan ("Collateral Damage," June 4) that the American people and their representatives must, in concert with other nations, act to end ethnic cleansing in Darfur." It seems you have set up...

Blaming Bush.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... C'mon guys, I know you have a burning need to blame everything on President George W. Bush, but claiming that his unilateral actions in Iraq have prevented the world from doing anything in Sudan is pretty ludicrous. The world refused to do...

Restoring credibility?(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Both as someone who answered rectory telephone calls about birth control in the late 1960s and subsequently did sociological research on the subject, I must side with Leslie Woodcock Tentler ("A Bitter Pill," April 23). She describes the...

The church I love.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
July 16, 2004... Commonweal is to be commended for providing a forum for examining Humanae vitae's legacy. The original article by Leslie Tentler (April 23) and her exchange with John Hagen (June 4) provide telling insights into two opposing views. That...

Grass-roots eugenics.
July 16, 2004... Some Catholic bishops have been criticized for the way in which they have raised the issue of abortion in this year's election, especially with respect to the voting records of certain Catholic politicians. Commonweal has been one of those...

Extra! Extra!(Et Cetera)
July 16, 2004... This issue of Commonweal contains a special bonus. For several years, Commonweal, in partnership with the Faith and Reason Institute, has been conducting the American Catholics in the Public Square Project. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts,...

In custody: when jailers resort to violence.(Of Several Minds)
July 16, 2004... When my seventeen-year-old daughter first saw the photos of tortured and abused Iraqi prisoners in the Times of India, she put the paper down and said, "I'm ashamed to be an American." So was I. The delight the American soldiers seemed to...

Vincible ignorance: the bishops on prochoice politicians.(Of Several Minds)
July 16, 2004... Edward I. Koch, the former mayor of New York City, says he sometimes wondered how he had managed to have such a good relationship with the late Cardinal John O'Connor despite their opposing views on abortion rights. Koch, who is Jewish, says he...

Let them speak: prochoice politicians & Catholic Universities.(Of Several Minds)
July 16, 2004... Catholics in Political Life, the statement issued by the American Catholic bishops at the end of their June meeting in Denver, will be remembered primarily for how the bishops addressed the issue of whether Catholic politicians with prochoice...

Want to stay married? Move to Massachusetts.(Of Several Minds)
July 16, 2004... The Democrats will convene in Boston late this month to officially pronounce John Kerry their man-who-would-be-president. The party's national convention is sure to spotlight not just the senator from Massachusetts, but the politics of his home...

Joining a union: why it's hard to organize workers.(Of Several Minds)
July 16, 2004... Cintas is the largest industrial laundry business in North America. According to Forbes, it is the 417th largest corporation in the United States and is run by Richard Farmer, the 140th richest American. Farmer's personal wealth is estimated to...

One man's vocation: my 59 years as a celibate.
July 16, 2004... On a spring day in 1944, two seminarians chatted about ordination to the diaconate with its commitment to celibacy, scheduled for the following morning in the seminary chapel. I remarked, "For heaven's sake, John, if you can take the step, I...

A priest forever? The case for term limits.
July 16, 2004... When I was in the seminary in the early fifties (yes, Virginia, there was a time before 1960), the rector kept us busy during the long, dark winters compiling a necrology of the deceased priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago. One of the...

The voyeurs.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... It's noon. Lhasa lives inside a jaw snaggled with the broken teeth of mountains. Beijing Street--conqueror's renaming--is, except for two policemen cramming rickshaws with ruffled canopies into an alley, empty for a breath before it's...

American Catholics in the Public Square: a report to the Catholic community; The Commonweal Foundation.
July 16, 2004... FOREWORD The American Catholics in the Public Square Project began in the spring of 1999 with a preliminary inquiry to some twenty-five experts. The project was approved and awarded a $1.5 million grant by the Pew Charitable Trusts. It...

Organizing priests: a report from the trenches.
July 16, 2004... They meet over coffee and cookies in a church basement hall on a quiet weekday afternoon. They are a dozen priests, split about evenly between those active in ministry and former colleagues who left to get married years ago. They are from...

Still life study.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... An apprentice to the craft could draw you, perfect squirrel, in motion, your belly slung low in a physics right for one of your size and disposition. It's plain the tree was your retreat in the hawk-lit woods, your helmeted head...

Patriot acts: 'The Terminal'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
July 16, 2004... In Steven Spielberg's latest, The Terminal, Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a resident of a make-believe East European country, Krakhosia, travels to New York City on a sentimental mission but gets stranded at Kennedy Airport when a revolution...

Two math lessons.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... Grade 3 What belongs with what and how do you name it. Now that's a math I can do, I thought, opening to page 1, the very beginning, the first white crocus in the season of idea. The gaggle, the pride. The happiness of that, the...

Riches.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... In the very midst of my riches, the gold gravel silting up in the future's little corners, I begin to wonder: where can I start to strip it. How much can I set loose in the near-zero gravity of whatever my life floats in, the aqueous,...

Dream fable of horse and fish.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... The horse I am runs deeper and deeper into the city, willingly trading the manifold wild for one wild herb with a common name but manifold possible tastes. Its mane still works in the breeze like before. The fish, out of love for...

The untamed thing.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... Allow somehow for the untamed thing. Shy, slippery. Severed, whole, severe. Who brought it? It brought itself, as the ocean does and does. It brings itself. You be the silent farmer playing up the ground for its harrow music, made...

The life of the verbs.(Brief Article)(Poem)
July 16, 2004... begins when you feel it slow down and start stopping: the grab-wheel, the what-if wheel, the where-is-it wheel, the clench-wheel. It slows down and undoes and what enters is only the life of the verbs. Beginning with enter, beginning...

Two catholics in the public square.(Books)(Inside: A Public and Private Life)(Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver)(Book Review)
July 16, 2004... Inside A Public and Private Life Joseph A. Califano Jr. Public Affairs, $30, 539 pp. Sarge The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver Scott Stossel Smithsonian Books, $32.50, 704 pp. Among the problems with the...

How we live now.(Books)(Modern Social Imaginaries)(Book Review)
July 16, 2004... Modern Social Imaginaries Charles Taylor Duke University Press, $18.95, 215 pp. Charles Taylor is our leading interrogator of modernity. In a series of important books, he has carefully teased out modernity's origins, its...

Voodoo economics.(Books)(The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy)(After the New Economy)(The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Economic Aristocracy)(Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity)(Book Review)
July 16, 2004... The Soul of Capitalism Opening Paths to a Moral Economy William Greider Simon and Schuster, $28, 366 pp. After the New Economy Doug Henwood The New Press, $24.95, 269 pp. The Divine Right of Capital ...

The last Victorian.(The Afterlife: Essays and Criticism)(Book Review)
July 16, 2004... The Afterlife Essays and Criticism Penelope Fitzgerald Edited by Terence Dooley with Christopher Carduff and Mandy Kirkby Counterpoint, $25, 432 pp Octogenarian Penelope Fitzgerald, full-length and full-face; stares in wry...

My son, the soldier.(The Last Word)
July 16, 2004... I am the mother of a twenty-one-year-old Army Ranger, who, since August of last year, has been twice sent to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. I write these words anonymously for my son's sake and for his "band of brothers," as their deployments...