Commonweal articles from October 2004

Commonweal archives from October 2004

Not a luxury.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... In his September 10 column ("None of the Above"), John Garvey writes that if John Kerry loses to George W. Bush, Garvey will "mourn Bush's victory and celebrate a well-deserved loss." And he claims to have talked to a number of people "who are...

Abortion & the election.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... John Garvey makes abortion out to be the central issue of the current presidential election. Yet should Bush or Kerry be elected president in November, abortion will, unfortunately, still be legal in America; the Supreme Court has ruled it to...

Horse sense.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... John Garvey's column saddened me. I agree with him and the U.S. Catholic bishops that abortion is evil. Yet I can't disagree with the conclusion that abortion should not be re-criminalized at this late date. Our bishops (and apparently...

Ratzinger's feminism.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... Sidney Callahan is one of the few Catholic feminists who can be both kind and truthful when it comes to commenting upon the hierarchy's strange teachings on women ("Ratzinger, Feminist?" September 10). It is difficult to articulate just how...

Resurrected body.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... One can only speak of matters eschatological with modesty and reserve. And one takes issue with Sidney Callahan only with circumspection. Nonetheless, I will make bold to question one aspect of her recent reflection. Callahan paraphrases a...

Closed for business.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... I have just finished reading Maurice Timothy Reidy's article "Closing Catholic Parishes" (September 10). By consolidating parishes, it appears church leaders are pursuing a "cathedral" model of church where the bottom line is efficiency and the...

Difficult change.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... I read Maurice Timothy Reidy's article on parish closings after participating in a Mass celebrating the clustering and eventual consolidation of three Rochester parishes, ranging in size from 475 to 1,500 households. As a member of our...

Gay & Catholic.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 8, 2004... Regarding the "Catholics Protect Marriage?" advertisement in the September 10 issue: As a gay Catholic who has been in a committed and faithful relationship with another man for almost twenty-three years, I fail to see how allowing me to marry...

The rich get richer.
October 8, 2004... In recent weeks the stalled economy has brought renewed attention to the White House's fiscal record and plans for the future. For the third straight year the number of people living below the poverty line has increased, as has the number of...

Daria Donnelly, R.I.P.: 1959-2004.(Obituary)
October 8, 2004... Daria Donnelly, Commonweal's associate editor (at large), died September 21 at the age of forty-five. She was the mother of Leo and Josephine, two beautiful dark-eyed children, and married to the singularly devoted Steven Weissburg. Daria had...

Wash day.(Brief Article)(Poem)(Illustration)
October 8, 2004... Soiled thoughts heap up like rags in a basket. Time to do a wash. The weather's right, bright and windy. A quick-dry day. First, soap. Not store-bought. But stone-hard pigfat and lye mixed with oatmeal in a pail. Then...

Bishops & abortion.(Continuing the Conversation)
October 8, 2004... "For the pope, the bishops... and most practicing Catholics," Newsweek's Kenneth L. Woodward wrote recently in the New York Times, "abortion is the taking of innocent human life and therefore violates the most fundamental of human rights" ("A...

Campaign 2004: are guile & force enough?(Continuing the Conversation)
October 8, 2004... In the presidential election of 2004, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the state and future of the country--something like 70 percent of Americans have been telling pollsters that the election matters a "great deal" to them,...

Right, left & none of the above: three voters make up their minds.
October 8, 2004... At the dual risk of being a prig and a bore, let me begin with what the scholastics called the via remotionis (crudely: what something is not). I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Republican Party. In the Catholic ghetto where I...

Politics & communion: a bishop's response to segregationists.
October 8, 2004... For the first time in over forty years, there is a strong possibility that the next president of the United States will be Catholic. Unlike the pride and jubilance that American Catholics showered on John F. Kennedy, though, the potential...

The last, best hope? The perils of American exceptionalism.
October 8, 2004... Two weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, President George W. Bush said "The people who did this act on America and who may be planning further acts are evil people.... That's all they can think about, is evil. And as a nation of good folks, we're...

Showtime: PBS's 'Broadway'.(Media)(Television Program Review)
October 8, 2004... Musicals blow the dust off the soul," Mel Brooks remarks in the first moments of Broadway: The American Musical, tossing out an exuberant metaphor well suited to this terrific PBS documentary, which blasts the dust off priceless showbiz...

Misreading the pope.(Books)(Book Review)
October 8, 2004... Is the Market Moral? Rebecca M. Blank and William McGurn Brookings Institute Press, $16.95, 151 pp. From "reality" TV to talk radio to world terrorism, it seems many people would rather eliminate their opponents than talk to them....

Memories, legends & lies.(Books)(Book Review)
October 8, 2004... The Collected Stories of Benedict Kiely Benedict Kiely David R. Godine, $24.95, 784 pp. Benedict Kiely is a great Irish writer, though not one as well known in this country as he ought to be. He was born in Dromore, County Tyrone,...

Assisi, 1943.(The Last Word)
October 8, 2004... It's the start of a new day in Assisi. A chorus of church bells echoes off the well-scrubbed streets. Flowers overflow from the window boxes, cascading down pink stone walls. The Piazza del Commune, the town's small historic center, is already...

Woodward vs. Cuomo.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... I was disappointed in the articles by Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo ("Catholics, Politics & Abortion," September 24). A much-needed opportunity for dialogue was lost. Woodward did not advance a prolife stance; he simply attacked Cuomo's...

For the defense.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... In their debate on abortion, Mario Cuomo rightly points out that Kenneth Woodward's position would oblige Catholic politicians to work actively to make Catholic teaching on abortion the basis of public policy. What Woodward fails to take into...

Not an argument.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... I am troubled by and disappointed with Kenneth Woodward's challenge to Mario Cuomo. It is not a rebuttal or an independent argument or an exegesis. It is simply a mean-spirited, personal attack. Commonweal could have done much better. ED...

For the prosecution.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... The exchange between Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo ignores several facts. Very early in his political career, Mario Cuomo was prolife and opposed Governor Nelson Rockefeller's decision, in 1970, to sign legislation that legalized abortion in...

Man of conscience.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Kenneth Woodward contends there's a "moral consensus... now tilt[ing] toward the prolife position." Mario Cuomo disagrees, as he did when, as governor of New York, he believed there to be no public consensus for antiabortion legislation. I...

Sage advice.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... While reading the exchange between Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo, I could not but recall the article written by the late Richard McCormick, SJ, "Theology in the Public Forum" (from The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas Since...

Right & wrong.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... The articles by Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo illustrate an important point. The abortion question is so complex that it is possible for both sides to be right and wrong at the same time. Woodward is correct that it is possible to construct...

Telling incongruities.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Mario Cuomo argues that most people are not convinced that life begins at conception, therefore arguments based on this presumption are moral; whereas everyone believes that a forty-year-old murderer is alive and therefore more deserving of...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
October 22, 2004... Sharp-eyed Commonweal readers pointed out our misspelling of the name of classic nineteenth-century British author William Makepeace Thackeray (not Thackery) in Richard Alleva's review of the film Vanity Fair ("Mythmaking," September 24). Our...

Prolife democrats.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... John Garvey's column ("None of the Above," September 10) highlights the difficulties facing prolife voters in the upcoming presidential election. We are faced with two miserable alternatives: (1) fight back the nausea and pull one of the...

Elect Nader?(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... John Garvey's protest vote for Ralph Nader in 2000 shows how well his blinders have been working. That vote sure showed somebody something somehow! Of course Nader was and is staunchly prochoice. So, to protest the prochoice position of the...

Papal power.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Chester Gillis's article "Papal Term Limits?" (September 10) seems to raise more questions that it answers. Gillis states that "the cardinals should consider instituting a plan for the retirement of future popes." He further explains that the...

Theologians & bishops.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Dennis O'Brien's clarion call to the bishops ("Listen Up," September 10) was more than well written and insightful. It was, it is, prophetic. For not only bishops need to listen openly to theologians, but priests (especially pastors of...

Smart and witty too.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... "Brava!" to Jo McGowan for her delightful column in the September 24 issue ("Kerry, Our Erring Brother"). Huzzah for a brilliant insight and witty delivery--would that all essayists had such talent! STEVE SAUS Dayton, Ohio

In & out of love.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Clearly, Fr. Randall Phillips ("Gift or Curse?" September 10) likes falling in love--and as frequently as possible. He even seems to suggest it is his due, given the long hours he puts in. Most adults work twelve-to-sixteen-hour days--ask any...

The author replies.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Apparently I struck a vein of pain and resentment with this reader that reaches beyond my article. There is a difference between falling in love at various times in one's life and doing so as often as possible. I agree that one must move from...

Abortion & retardation.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... I sympathize with Claudette Kane, the mother of the mentally deficient child who committed suicide (Correspondence, September 10). Yet I disagree with her that mental deficiency inevitably leads to a life of abject helplessness and tortuous...

Targeted voting.(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... Kudos to Commonweal for publishing three advocacy statements about the upcoming presidential election, "Right, Left & None of the Above" (October 8). The statements on behalf of George W. Bush and John Kerry by Robert Royal and Thomas Higgins,...

For shame!(To the Editors)(Letter to the Editor)
October 22, 2004... I was outraged by Paul Griffiths's argument against voting in this presidential election. He insists on making this a one-issue election. No to the Democrats because of abortion rights, and no to the Republicans because of the war in Iraq....

Debates & decisions.(political debates between George W. Bush and John F. Kerry)
October 22, 2004... As we go to press, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry are preparing for their third and final debate. It is conventional wisdom that Senator Kerry won the first two debates, decisively putting the president on the defensive in the...

Commonweal's 80th anniversary issue.(political debates between John F. Kerry and George W. Bush)
October 22, 2004... Help celebrate our birthday along with Wilfrid Sheed, Eamon Duffy, Margaret & Monica O'Gara, David Lodge, Luke Timothy Johnson, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, Paul Elie & others. Don't miss it. Coming November 5. Kerry, on the other hand,...

Bishops for Bush?(Et Cetera)(voting for George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
October 22, 2004... With just a few weeks left in the presidential race, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver is making one last push for George W. Bush. Not explicitly, of course, but it's not hard to do the math. "If you vote this way [for John Kerry], are you...

Culture is politics: two views of America.(Of Several Minds)(two books What's the Matter with Kansas? and On Paradise Drive explore American's political activity)(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... Two new books offer occasionally illuminating but frustrating perspectives on contemporary America, from very different angles. From the left, Thomas Frank (What's the Matter with Kansas? Metropolitan Books) wonders why so many Americans vote...

Basic care: when will we face the health-cost issue?(Of Several Minds)
October 22, 2004... As Clarke Cochran observed in these pages ("The HealthCare Issue," September 24), debates about reforming health care are back with a vengeance. Both major presidential candidates are offering their laundry lists for change, but a healthy...

Time to choose: voting with a Catholic conscience.(presidential elections)
October 22, 2004... When a born-again Methodist from Texas is touted as the Catholic candidate while the Catholic candidate from Massachusetts is treated as an apostate, you know that the Catholic community has been chopped and blended in the great American food...

The ambassador & the pope: Pius XII, Jacques Maritain & the Jews.
October 22, 2004... In the intense debates of recent years surrounding Pope Pius XII, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust, fresh perspectives can advance our understanding. A good example comes from a seldom-discussed letter written in the summer of 1946 by Jacques...

Hitler & the Jesuits: three resisters & the price they paid.(Lothar Konig, Augustin Rosch, Alfred Delp)
October 22, 2004... One day in August 1944, a German priest named Lothar Konig slipped away from the Jesuit house of studies near Munich and pedaled south on his bicycle. The day before, the Gestapo had come looking for him and had searched his room. The following...

The 'new' New Catholic Encyclopedia: something lost--3.5 million words--something gained?(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... The appearance of the second edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia (NCE2, 2003) took me back in time. For it immediately brought to mind my initial encounter with its predecessor, the first edition (NCE1, 1966). I was writing a paper on...

Not 'Vile' enough: 'Bright Young Things'.(Screen)(Movie Review)
October 22, 2004... There are plenty of Noel Coward songs, performed by the composer, on the soundtrack of Bright Young Things. And why not? This film, written and directed by Stephen Fry, is an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, and surely Coward is,...

Greene at 100.(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... The Life of Graham Greene Volume III: 1956-1991 Norman Sherry Viking, $39.95, 800 pp. In Search of a Beginning My Life with Graham Greene Yvonne Cloetta, as told to Marie-Francoise Allain, translated by Euan Cameron ...

Secret agent.(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... FBI Girl How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code Maura Conlon-McIvor Warner Books, $23, 320 pp. As synchronicity would have it, about the time I started FBI Girl, a coming-of-age story by the daughter of an FBI agent, I met a...

Well-Worn Whig.(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... The Universal Hunger for Liberty A Surprising Look Ahead at the Politics, Economics, and Culture of the Twenty-First Century Michael Novak Basic Books, $26, 304 pp. Michael Novak is, he claims several times in this book, a...

A frontiersman.(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... One Matchless Time A Life of William Faulkner Jay Parini HarperCollins, $29.95, 462 pp. William Faulkner is now an institution, first biographed thirty years ago by Joseph Blotner in two massive volumes. Since then a comparably...

The greatest sin?(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... Lying An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity Paul J. Griffiths Brazos Press, $18.99, 254 pp. Paul Griffiths's book on lying has been highly praised by several eminent Christian scholars and, in measure, it clearly deserves such...

Over matter?(Book Review)
October 22, 2004... Mind A Brief Introduction John R. Searle Oxford University Press, $26, 326 pp. This book succeeds in introducing clearly and succinctly the basic concepts, theories, and controversies of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of...

Fathers & sons.(The Last Word)
October 22, 2004... I have been thinking about mortal sin, grave abuses, and the fathers who name them. They're in the news. They're in Scripture. Like the son (Luke 15: 11-32) whose father wouldn't do the convenient thing and die. He tires of waiting for the will...