Commonweal articles from March 2004

Commonweal archives from March 2004

The next scandal?(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... David Gibson identifies many reasons why the Catholic Church could be susceptible to a financial scandal ("The Bottom Line," February 13). Sadly, based on his reasoning, one could easily conclude that a scandal could emerge in any area of...

Bishops & stewardship.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... I read David Gibson's article on church finances with great interest. While I found much of what he wrote to be compelling, I believe his work lacked depth of research. Gibson referred to the recent publication of the audited financial...

More data, please.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... David Gibson's article on church fiscal malfeasance contained at least two conclusions that were unsupported by data. Gibson states, "Sadly, there are plenty of examples of lay people absconding with church funds." I would have appreciated at...

Autopsy lessons.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... "What the Body Teaches" by F. Gonzalez-Crussi (February 13) was simply superb. When I was a chaplain at Kenmore Mercy Hospital in Kenmore, New York, the pathologist had a class in autopsy two days a week. He was not a Catholic but a profoundly...

Keep quiet & listen.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... I read with delight and recognition "Caring for the Dying" by Mary Lee Freeman (January 30). Wise words rendered with elegance and beauty. Would that all could read this work. I, too, have walked alongside those who work in hospice. I have...

Is Fred dead?(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... John's Garvey's reflections on death and life after death ("Ashes to Ashes," January 30) are profound and erudite, but his own position on personal survival after bodily death remains unclear. Does he deny that there is any life at all between...

Our Lady of North Fork.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... In his review of Our Lady of the Forest ("She's Back," February 13), Gregory Wolfe suggests that David Guterson might have written a better novel if he had just stuck to the "agony and yearning" of the people of North Fork and skipped the...

Galston & tradition.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2004... In his review of my book Democracy and Tradition ("Augustine or Emerson?" January 30), William Galston charges that "By representing the Emersonian tradition as the core of American culture, [Stout] needlessly stacks the deck against competing...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 12, 2004... We regret that in the January 16 issue, the name of Robert Ostermann appeared incorrectly in the Correspondence section. THE EDITORS

Beyond the numbers.
March 12, 2004... The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released two studies February 27, one on the number of incidents as well as the financial cost of the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy between 1950 and 2002, the other...

Paying the piper: Greenspan says the unsayable.(Of Several Minds)
March 12, 2004... Leave it to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to stir the political pot. Theoretically above politics, Greenspan has more influence on the political class than almost any human being, presidents--perhaps--excepted. Earlier this month Greenspan did...

A second opinion: examining medical reform.
March 12, 2004... The centerpiece of last year's Medicare modernization act is an outpatient prescription drug benefit that will go into effect in 2006. Politically savvy, this new benefit was used to sell a number of other major provisions in the bill that will...

Information deficit: why the church's hierarchy isn't working.
March 12, 2004... Despite the fax machines and computers ubiquitous today in offices of the Roman curia, the institutional organization of the Vatican has not changed appreciably since the late eighteenth century. Perhaps the organization of the Vatican worked...

Orpheus in Heaven.(Brief Article)(Poem)
March 12, 2004... Orpheus, thank God, did not go back to Hades; to spare the awkward meeting strings were pulled. Somebody up there liked him: son number one, who'd seen a bit of the world. So, bathed in the light of a C major God Orpheus,...

Torturous: Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
March 12, 2004... While attending Mass as a child, I used to wonder why it was necessary to change the wine into blood. After all, the consecrated bread had become body, and a body already contains blood. Why more blood? I had to wait forty years for my silly...

Repressed memories.(Books)(The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870)(Book Review)
March 12, 2004... The Conciliarist Tradition Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870 Francis Oakley Oxford University Press, $80, 298 pp. The magisterial article on "Councils" in the authoritative 1911 Dictionnaire de Theologie...

Conflicting diagnoses.(Books)(My Struggle for Freedom: A Memoir)(The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America)(An American Conversion: One Man's Discovery of Beauty and Truth in Times of Crisis)(Book Review)
March 12, 2004... My Struggle for Freedom A Memoir Hans Kung William B. Eerdmans, $32, 478 pp. The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America David Carlin Sophia Institute Press, $24.95, 405 pp. An American Conversion ...

How far does the rot go?(Books)(Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in the Age of Scandal)(Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II)(Book Review)
March 12, 2004... Our Fathers The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in the Age of Scandal David France Broadway Books, $26.95, 637 pp. Vows of Silence The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Jason Berry and Gerald Renner ...

A man for all seasons.(Books)(Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession)(Book Review)
March 12, 2004... Jesus in America Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession Richard Wightman Fox HarperCollins, $27.95, 496 pp. Jesus has had a distinctively American incarnation, because the overall national obsession with him has...

A Mensch.(The Last Word)(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)(Obituary)
March 12, 2004... When former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan died last March, the tributes were instant and profuse--yet they never managed to say all that there was to say. Moynihan was what the Founders had in mind when they envisioned an American political...

It's a blog, blog world.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... It was good to see Rachelle Linner's comments ("St. Blog's Church," February 27) on Catholic blogs posted on Catholic World News, a Web site (www.cwnews.com) that I encourage all of your subscribers to read. I was surprised, however, to find...

No link for you!(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... If Flannery O'Connor had had a blog, Rachelle Linner would have hated it. I don't think her O'Connor quote means what she thinks it does. I was deeply, deeply offended that I, the very first Catholic blogger in the whole wide world...

Wild country.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... I was pleased to see your notice of St. Blog's Parish (though a little shocked to see my own name in the article!). I don't think it is quite fair for Rachelle Linner to call us "vibrant" because, though many of us write well, any actual...

Financial opacity.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... I enjoyed "Loot," by John A. Lynch, in the February 13 issue. I also served in World War II, in the Pacific. I knew that Commonweal would get around to the issue larger than the sex scandal. "The Bottom Line," by David Gibson (in the same...

Including the poor.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... David Gibson is right that church finances could be the next scandal. I disagree with him on one point, however. He calls for surveys to determine how many parishes have finance councils and how well they operate. Surveys take time and money....

What about the orders?(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... "The Bottom Line" rightly focuses on the noncompliance of some pastors in the financial stewardship of American Catholic parishes. Yet while David Gibson gives some attention to diocesan bishops, he does not train his investigative light on the...

Albright's world.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's encomium to Madeleine Albright and her new book, Madam Secretary ("First in Her Class," February 13), is troubling and surprising. Steinfels endorses Albright's notion that war is "diplomacy by other means," when...

The reviewer replies.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... I reviewed Madeleine Albright's book; I didn't write it. Her phrase "the indispensable nation" strikes me as hubristic, but in fact it may be accurate, with major implications for our foreign policy. The ones she proposes are not jingoistic....

The half-truth.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... Apparently your editorial staff has anointed David Kay the "Oracle of Truth" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction ("Un-intelligence," February 13) by artfully and selectively editing his comments to denigrate President George W. Bush, Vice...

'Veritas vincit'.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2004... Commonweal arrives late here, and in the press of apostolic duties, I have little free time. I only recently read the October 10, 2003, editorial ("A Remarkable Presence") on the twenty-fifth anniversary of John Paul II's papacy. One word in...

Uncharitable interpretation.(Commonweal)
March 26, 2004... Last year the 1,400 branches of Catholic Charities served 4.6 million meals and assisted 6 million needy clients. Most observers consider Catholic Charities to be one of the nation's exemplary social-service agencies as well as, well, pretty...

Religion & politics: let's not mix the two.(Of Several Minds)
March 26, 2004... As we move toward the election, there has been some discussion of religion as a factor in the choices that voters will make. A few studies have shown that regular churchgoers tend to vote Republican, while less regular worshipers and secular...

Outsourcing blame: the president's economic policy.(Of Several Minds)
March 26, 2004... Ohio's unemployment rate is higher than the national average; manufacturing communities like Youngstown and Cleveland have been hit especially hard.... I know there are workers here concerned about their jobs going overseas. I share that...

The view from berlin: reflections on empire.
March 26, 2004... The apartment we're staying in overlooks the Wannsee, the great body of water that cuts through Berlin's westernmost precincts. Each morning we throw back the drapes, and beyond the sloping lawn, beyond the boats in their slips, the lake is...

Llanto for carlos sandoval (1948-1990).(Brief Article)(Poem)
March 26, 2004... Pisare yo el polvico atan menudico. --Cervantes I wish we were all a tribe and that when the news came the tribe could gather, painted in earth colors, with the dust of grief in our hair, to dance for a day and a night in a...

Does Christianity have a role to play?(The Idea of Europe)
March 26, 2004... What is Europe? What holds its many peoples together? Where lies their destiny? A committee headed by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has been preparing a new European Union (EU) constitution designed to integrate the...

Sexual Abuse & the church: what we've learned & what we still don't know.
March 26, 2004... There was a ritual quality to the February 27 release of two studies of the sexual molestation of minors by Catholic clergy. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, voiced remorse and determination...

Mankillers: 'monster' & 'boxed'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
March 26, 2004... Few criminals have won more notoriety in recent years than Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute executed in Florida in 2002 for the murders of seven men who solicited her. Wuornos has been the subject of articles and books, and also two documentaries...

Crimes & banana stands: Fox's 'Arrested Development'.(Media)(Television Program Review)
March 26, 2004... The Securities and Exchange Commission hardly seems a natural place for humor. But in the last few months, as the country's legal system has tightened its grip on a host of corporate evildoers--Martha Stewart, Dennis Kozlowski, Arthur...

His roaring twenties.(Books)(Living to Tell the Tale)(Book Review)
March 26, 2004... Living to Tell the Tale Gabriel Garcia Marquez Translated by Edith Grossman Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95, 484 pp. Few literary memoirs have aroused such expectation as Living to Tell the Tale by Nobel Prize-winning Gabriel Garcia...

Where he stood.(Books)(Martin Luther)(Book Review)
March 26, 2004... Martin Luther Martin Marty Viking, $19.95, 199 pp. What to think about Martin Luther? In an ecumenical age, Protestants and Catholics no longer automatically take opposite sides, casting him as hero or villain. Yet he has not...

Born in the U.S.A.(Books)(Bruce Springsteen's America: The People Listening, a Poet Singing)(Book Review)
March 26, 2004... Bruce Springsteen's America The People Listening, a Poet Singing Robert Coles Random House, $23.95, 244 pp. In the music world, combining great individual talents into a "supergroup" may be intriguing in theory, but it has...

Religion booknotes.(Saint Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master)(Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified People)(Contemplatives in Action: The Jesuit Way)(Saint Therese of Lisieux: Doctor of the Universal Church)(Credible Signs of Christ Alive)(Book Review)
March 26, 2004... Jean-Pierre Torrell's book on Thomas Aquinas is the second of a two-volume study of the saint. The first was a survey of his life and major works. Robert Royal has also translated that book into English, rendering J. A. Weisheipl's older Friar...

Roman holiday.(The Last Word)
March 26, 2004... Wednesday, February 11, began in the Roman Residenzia as expected: coffee with no caffeine and breakfast with no fruit. I shared a table with two amiable Italians from Bologna, he a computer engineer, she a chemist. Just married, they had come...