Commonweal articles from June 2004

Commonweal archives from June 2004

He stands alone.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... There is no one now writing about Jewish-Christian relations whom I read more willingly than Irving Greenberg ("Anti-Semitism in 'The Passion,'" May 7). In a dialogue that so often lumbers under the dead weight of cliche and boring earnestness,...

No satisfaction.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... Rabbi Irving Greenberg is nothing if not straightforward. When I first read his article, I was surprised by his shift of focus from Mel Gibson's movie to the Gospels themselves. It felt like being at a dinner party where a respected guest not...

Watered down.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... The violence of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ seemed to me aesthetically excessive, but the charge of anti-Semitism is a blatant attempt at emotional blackmail. Gibson portrays Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, the male disciples, and Simon...

The author replies.(Correspondence)
June 4, 2004... The author replies: Both Ralph Scheidler and Philip Devine are clearly troubled that a non-Christian wrote so candidly in a Christian publication. Personally, I thank Commonweal for inviting and publishing a dialogue of equals, including...

Priests & contraception.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... Leslie Tentler's article on contraception ("A Bitter Pill," April 23) awakened many memories in this priest entering the declining years of life and ministry. I was one of many priests who had to guide couples who agonized over family...

The bishops & NFP.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... Leslie Tender's article on contraception presents an incomplete history that rests on negative presumptions. Tentler presumes a negative intention behind the not-yet-published bishops' document on contraception, referring to it as an...

Supporting Catholic schools.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 4, 2004... I read with great interest the thoughtful articles in the April 9 issue by Maurice Timothy Reidy ("Needed: The Vision Thing") and Anthony Andreassi ("Higher Ed"). In June of 1973 I finished a field study on The Role of Religious Teachers in the...

Who is responsible?
June 4, 2004... It is becoming increasingly clear that the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an isolated incident or merely the work of poorly trained and undisciplined Army reservists. Similar outrages, including the murder of prisoners,...

Collateral damage.
June 4, 2004... Sudan is Africa's largest country, greater in size than Texas and Alaska combined. For decades, an unrelenting civil war has raged there between the Muslim-dominated north and the black animists and Christians in the south. Estimates say that...

Politics or idolatry? The limits of compromise.(Of Several Minds)
June 4, 2004... There is a cliche floating around that people drop as if it were a self-evident truth--a category that may not exist, despite our Declaration of Independence. In anything involving religion, morals, medical ethics, or sexuality, whatever you...

Humanae vitae's legacy: two views.(Continuing the Conversation)
June 4, 2004... John D. Hagen Jr. A few years ago in Commonweal, a young Catholic scholar referred to older colleagues "whose intellectual clocks stopped in 1968 with the ecclesiastical politics of Humanae vitae." He challenged this older cohort of...

Catholic & political: between a rock & a hard place.
June 4, 2004... The first presidential election I gave any thought to was Nixon-McGovern, 1972. My first-grade teacher asked if we knew whom our parents would be voting for. After we raised our hands it became clear that my parents were the only ones for...

Oratio Pro Caravaggio.(Poem)
June 4, 2004... Devouring desire, Longing indiscriminate, Two-souled (like the rest of us) Driven to despair. Beauty-besotted child, Craving beyond measure, Passionately seeking A half-forgotten face. May your tenebrific spirit (Rank...

Kerry & religion: can he reach 'persuadable' Catholics?
June 4, 2004... It was only a matter of time after Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination that the question of whether he could reconcile his prochoice views with his Catholicism would become a campaign...

A prolife case against Bush: it's about more than abortion.
June 4, 2004... I voted for George W. Bush and I'm heartily sorry now. My support was motivated by prolife convictions, but so is my present dismay. I opted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he'd try to protect embryonic life in and out of the womb, and also...

The Dialectical Development of Doctrine: a methodological proposal.
June 4, 2004... If Christianity--including Christian faith and theology--is to avoid becoming totally out of touch with the world--a museum piece at best, a force of baleful reaction at worst--it must constantly update itself by constant interaction, dialogue,...

Denying communion to politicians: a theologian explains why it's wrong.
June 4, 2004... So Archbishop Raymond Burke of Saint Louis has thrown down the gauntlet, instructing his clergy to refuse prochoice Catholic politicians Communion. In his previous jurisdiction he had done the same, except he included euthanasia in his...

Credo.(Poem)
June 4, 2004... Because the leaves fall softly when they drop, I will follow the vole's track. Because my blood is the shape of sky, I will look to not man nor woman. A theory of beauty? Listen: wing and toil, breath. All measure is a great...

Mythology lite: Wolfgang Petersen's 'Troy'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
June 4, 2004... Strictly speaking, Troy isn't an adaptation of The Iliad. The closing credits of Wolfgang Petersen's production tell us that David Benioff's screenplay was "inspired" by Homer's epic. But actually most of the movie is an expensive guess at what...

What works & what doesn't.(Books)(Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge)(Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now Mark Satin)(Book Review)
June 4, 2004... Stand Up Fight Back Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge E. J. Dionne Jr. Simon & Schuster, $24, 256 pp. Radical Middle The Politics We Need Now Mark Satin Westview Press, $19.95, 219 pp. ...

All too human.(Books)(Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul Roy Porter)(Book Review)
June 4, 2004... Flesh in the Age of Reason The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul Roy Porter W. W. Norton, $29.95, 574 pp. The suggestiveness of the human body is inexhaustible. To the ancient Greeks, the body was an object of esthetic...

Religion booknotes.(American Catholics and Civic Engagement: A Distinctive Voice)(American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon)(Walking a Literary Labyrinth: A Spirituality of Reading)(A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Sacred Place)(Book Review)
June 4, 2004... American Catholics and Civic Engagement is the product of a three-year study co-sponsored by the Commonweal Foundation and the Faith and Reason Institute, and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Edited by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, former...

Dateline: Colorado Springs.(The Last Word)
June 4, 2004... The Catholic Church in Colorado Springs usually flies under the radar. We are a small diocese, carved out of Denver's archdiocese in the 1980s, with a tradition of strong lay leadership. We are a diocese of soldiers and peace activists, and our...

Tough love.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 18, 2004... I very much appreciated Donald Senior's response to Rabbi Irving Greenberg ("Blame the Gospels?" May 7). However, I was disturbed by Senior's dismissal of Greenberg's argument that "satisfaction theology" is at the heart of Mel Gibson's The...

Fuzzy theology.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 18, 2004... Donald Senior's reply to Irving Greenberg's reflections on Mel Gibson and the Gospels struck me as "politically correct" ecumenism resulting in fuzzy theology. Greenberg provides a good study of the tactics of "victimology." Like Luther, he...

The bishops & 'The Passion'.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 18, 2004... In his article, "Anti-Semitism in 'The Passion'" (May 7), Rabbi Irving Greenberg quotes from a review of The Passion of the Christ by the Office Film and Broadcasting (OFB) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); he uses...

Abortion politics.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 18, 2004... It was good to see your editorial, "Communion Politics," in the May 21 issue. The day it arrived, I had just finished speaking with a friend who is running as a Democrat for Congress. He is committed to social justice and has a long public...

The gift of fertility.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
June 18, 2004... I have been following with interest the debate in your pages over Natural Family Planning (see "Correspondence," May 21.) What strikes me most is the amount of passion that the topic arouses. I was born in 1968 and so I missed the turbulent...

Kerry, the Catholic.
June 18, 2004... Defending a Catholic politician's access to the Eucharist (see "Communion Politics," May 21) is not the same thing as defending his or her support for unrestricted access to abortion. Sad to say, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's...

Survey says: who's reading 'Commonweal'?(Notebook)
June 18, 2004... About every four years since the 1980s, Commonweal has conducted a reader survey, and each one has provided a fascinating snapshot of who's reading the magazine at a given time. Our most recent survey, conducted last fall, proved no different....

Sonia Gandhi steps down: the power of renunciation.(Of Several Minds)
June 18, 2004... Should an Italian woman be the prime minister of India? That question transfixed this nation last month. It was answered finally by the people themselves, who said yes, emphatically. The recent elections in India were fought with Sonia...

The pope on PVS: Does JP II's statement make the grade?
June 18, 2004... A recent address by Pope John Paul II regarding the care of patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) has left many people--Catholics and others--scratching their heads. If the withdrawal of tube feeding or artificially administered...

From reassembling the bodily relics of st. Gemma Galgani.(Brief Article)(Poem)
June 18, 2004... I do not wish to deceive: Letter from Gemma Galgani to Msgr. Volpi, 1899 As a child, I knew grief as a bank in the business of salvation. It was there I held all my accounts--Mother said, You are never to touch them...

Above the law: president Bush & the Constitution.
June 18, 2004... The Abu Ghraib prison scandal casts a long shadow. Reports of American soldiers' atrocities against prisoners at Abu Ghraib, elsewhere in Iraq, and in Afghanistan have already eroded Americans' support for the Iraq war, emboldened opposition...

Listening to Koko: a gorilla who speaks her mind.
June 18, 2004... This is the story of an embrace: the story of Koko the gorilla, or as she describes herself, "the fine animal gorilla," and Dr. Penny Patterson. Koko, as you may know, has been featured in National Geographic, on PBS, and on Mister Rogers. Koko...

English Catholics: a singular history & an uncertain future.
June 18, 2004... Once, England was a Catholic country. The evidence lies all around, in the medieval cathedrals and churches now given over to Anglican worship, the ruins of abbeys despoiled by Henry VIII, and the names of older Oxford colleges, such as Corpus...

Jonah's whale addresses the almighty.(Brief Article)(Poem)
June 18, 2004... Ruler of oceans, who can fathom this awkward summons? Pity my moans, this long throat aching for everyday air. Doubts are lice. They eat into brain and heart. With a word, I'm consigned to unknown shores. Oh, Maker of magnificent...

Nice guys finish last: 'Still, We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
June 18, 2004... As I write this, it is the cusp of summer, and the Boston Red Sox are winning. They've won seven out of ten and sit in first place, a half game ahead of that barnstorming assemblage of all-stars, that billionaire's vanity toy, also known as the...

Reconstructions: 'Jumpers,' 'Bombay Dreams' & 'Assassins'.(Stage)(Theater Review)
June 18, 2004... Sometimes too much just isn't enough. That was the only conclusion to draw from some of the wild flights of fancy that skidded to a landing on Broadway this spring. In an era when surebet revivals multiply like gerbils and producers frantically...

Valerie Sayers.(Summer Reading)(Brick Lane)(The Madonna of Excelsior)(Hot Chocolate at Hanselmann's)(Book Review)
June 18, 2004... Three recent novels I've found compelling braid politics, religion, and families so tightly that it's nearly impossible (and probably pointless) to pull out the strands. All three explore the ways family life and religious belief can both...

Benedicta Cipolla.(Summer Reading)(Aeneid)(Wittgenstein's Mistress)(Headlong)(What Am I Doing Here?)(Book Review)
June 18, 2004... With a beefed-up Brad Pitt kicking off the summer movie season as Achilles in Troy, what better time to revisit the ancient epics? The obvious choice is to turn to Homer, and perhaps, in response to Hollywood's continuing interest in sexing up...

Rosemary Deen.(Summer Reading)(Homosexuality and Civilization)(The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World)(Book Review)
June 18, 2004... Shaw famously said that polite society does not allow the three most interesting topics of discussion: religion, politics, and sex. For a thorough and thoroughly civil account of sex, we have now Louis Crompton's monumental but compendious...

Michele Dillon.(Summer Reading)(American Pastoral)(The Professor's House)(By the Lake)(The Gnostic Gospels)(Book Review)
June 18, 2004... No matter how you spend your summers or what memories they evoke, the prospect of summer is full of the promise of endless freedom. Summer offers us time to restore the soul, to build up the harried self buffeted by the raw chills of winter....

Julia Vitullo-Martin.(Summer Reading)(Waterfront: A Journey around Manhattan)(The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos and Crime)(The Ordinary Seaman)(The Dialectical Development of Doctrine: A Methodological Approach)(Book Review)
June 18, 2004... Summer would be unthinkable without water--its tempering of heat, its romance, its beauty, its infinite offerings of fun. Yet our benign view of water is a very recent phenomenon, as a walk around many major American cities reminds us. Even as...

'You're lucky, Kid'.(The Last Word)
June 18, 2004... The older of my two sons called from his job in New York to tell me he had just bought his airline ticket home. "I want to be there for Passover," he said. If he had thought at all about Easter, he didn't mention it. I paused, and thought of my...