the national catholic weekly may 20, 2013 $3may 20, 2013 · peoples of great britain. on the other...

T H E N A T I O N A L C A T H O L I C W E E K L Y MAY 20 , 2013 $3 . 50T H E N A T I O N A L C A T H O L I C W E E K L Y

he British have a funny rela-tionship with spectacle. Onthe one hand, they have a

deep-seated love of pageantry—a cen-turies-old belief in the power of publicperformance to tell their national story.Over the centuries, this constellation offact, myth and élan has done the job ofuniting the otherwise utterly dissimilarpeoples of Great Britain. On the otherhand, the British capacity for self-mockery knows no bounds; this is thecountry, after all, that practicallyinvented modern satire. It’s nearly cer-tain, then, that the most cynical view ofthe British penchant for spectacle is tobe found among the British themselves.

So it was not surprising that in thebuild-up to Margaret Thatcher’s funer-al last month there were howls ofprotest among many Britons. “Toomany pounds and too much pomp fortoo little purpose,” they pouted;protests were planned and boycottsannounced. Few people actually turnedout to protest on the day of the funer-al, however; the British respect forrespectability triumphed again. Still, asthe Iron Lady’s cortege wended its wayto Saint Paul’s Cathedral, an impas-sioned debate followed its every turn.To be sure, Lady Thatcher was a polar-izing, transformative figure, a sort ofspectacle in her own right. Yet in thelegacy debate last month, she was fre-quently spoken of as something evengreater than that. In the minds of manyBritons, Margaret Thatcher was eitherthe messiah or Mephistopheles.

That kind of hyperbole, of course, isan inevitable byproduct of any vigorouspolitics. But last month the languagewas particularly strong, the posturingparticularly grotesque and the stakesunnecessarily high. So what gives?

Part of the answer lies in under-standing what the philosopher CharlesTaylor calls “the secular age” that wecurrently inhabit. According to Taylor,a secular age is characterized by thewidespread rejection of the “beyond”; it

is an age in which we live in “the imma-nent frame,” a this-worldly “constella-tion of orders, cosmic, social and moral”that characterize the modern age.

The political implications ofTaylor’s thesis are obvious: If there areno goals beyond human flourishing, noshared acknowledgment of somethingbeyond the short, brutish nastiness ofthis life, then what fundamentally con-cerns only this life becomes all themore important. Politics, therefore,becomes liturgy, and ideology becomestheology as society displaces thechurch as the locus of community.Politicians like Margaret Thatcherbecome ever more powerful (andpriestly) symbols. Instead of thepatient grace of God, the state is whattransforms the pluribus into an unum.The political stakes grow higher andhigher as a result. We no longer live ina fallen world but in an imperfect soci-ety; our politics, then, becomes adebate about the best means to self-perfection, a goal that is equal partscynical realism and tragic fantasy. AsJames Hanvey, S.J., writes in this issue,“any society that has substituted argu-ments about means for argumentsabout ends is a society in decline.”

There is a different kind of declinetaking place across the Irish Sea,Archbishop Diarmuid Martin writes inthis issue. At first glance, it might beunsettling to find an article about theIrish church and an article about aBritish prime minister in the sameissue. Perhaps. After all, as has so oftenbeen said, “What the English couldnever remember, the Irish could neverforget.” Still, these two stories havemore in common than one mightthink. For in order to find their wayout of their very different troubles, theEnglish and the Irish must bothremember the same thing, the samesomeone, the true savior, who presidesin loving splendor within and beyondthe immanent frame.

MATT MALONE, S.J.

PUBLISHED BY JESUITS OF THE UNITED STATES

TOF MANY THINGS

Cover: Harbor and St. Colman’sCathedral in Cobh, County Cork,Ireland. Shutterstock/AndreiNekrassov

EDITOR IN CHIEFMatt Malone, S.J.

MANAGING EDITORRobert C. Collins, S.J.

DIGITAL EDITORMaurice Timothy Reidy

LITERARY EDITORRaymond A. Schroth, S.J.

POETRY EDITORJames S. Torrens, S.J.

ASSOCIATE EDITORSKevin ClarkeKerry Weber

Luke Hansen, S.J.

EDITOR AT LARGEJames Martin, S.J.

ART DIRECTORStephanie Ratcliffe

ASSISTANT EDITORSFrancis W. Turnbull, S.J.

Olga Segura

COLUMNISTSAngela Alaimo-O’DonnellColleen Carroll CampbellJohn J. Conley, S.J.

Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M.James T. KeaneJohn W. MartensBill McGarveyMargot Patterson

Michael Rossmann, S.J.

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www.americamagazine.org VOL. 208 NO. 17, WHOLE NO. 5012 MAY 20, 2013

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O N T H E W E BO N T H E W E B

CONTENTS

A R T I C L E S

11 A POST-CATHOLIC IRELAND?Renewing the Irish church from within Diarmuid Martin

18 THE DIVIDED KINGDOMMargaret Thatcher’s historic and haunting legacyJames Hanvey

23 THE UNSPEAKABLEThe Boston Marathon and the beginning of Christian hopeDaniel P. Horan

C O L U M N S & D E P A R T M E N T S

4 Current Comment

5 Editorial Life, Not Death

6 Signs of the Times

10 Column Liberty or Death Margot Patterson

27 Faith in Focus I Remember Mary Mary Valle

37 Reply All

39 The Word God in Relationship John W. Martens

B O O K S & C U LT U R E

29 FILM “42” COLUMN A Mother’s Love BOOKS The War Within; Democracy in Latin America; God’s Reign and the Endof Empires

Responses to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s essay onCatholic Ireland. Plus, Naomi Schaefer Riley, right, talksabout her book, ’Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriageis Transforming America. All at americamagazine.org.

O N T H E W E B

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4 America May 20, 2013

CURRENT COMMENT

Shocking Assaults in IndiaOut of India have come disturbing reports recently of brutalassaults on girls as young as 5 years of age. In central India,one 5-year-old girl died on April 29, succumbing to a braininjury inflicted when her rapists attempted to smother hercries. In New Delhi another 5-year-old was raped by twomen over a two-day period. The stories of these incompre-hensible attacks follow the account last December of a fatalassault by a group of men on a young woman returning froma visit to a cinema. Does the sudden rush of these sordidreports indicate a new criminal phenomenon? Probably not.

Unfortunately, gender bias has long underminedrespect for the human dignity of girls and women inIndia—a problem, of course, not isolated to India—andattacks like these have been going on for a long time.Their frequency, however, may be on the rise as a vastsocial dislocation continues as armies of young people inIndia are driven from subsistence agriculture in the coun-tryside and into work of all kinds in the nation’s rapidlygrowing urban centers.

If there is any good news to be found in these reports, itis the fact that they are being reported at all. Caste andpoverty biases figure in the problem; police often do notrespond to assaults on poor women and children. Manylow-caste and poor victims and their families have nevereven bothered to report their suffering before. Nownational media are publicizing the problem and pushingfor more thorough investigations and other reforms. Thenews reports have outraged the public and have awakenedit to the problem. Perhaps this new attention may result infewer girls being so horribly victimized in the future.

Courage on the Court“I’m a 34-year-old N.B.A. center. I’m black. And I’m gay,”wrote Jason Collins in Sports Illustrated (5/6). All his lifehe had faced pressure to meet social obligations he natural-ly could not. He dated women and was even engaged, hesaid. “I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I alwaysknew it was blue.” He endured years of difficulty, he wrote,and went to “enormous lengths to live a lie.” Now Mr.Collins is the first openly gay athlete in a major profession-al sport. In his case, courage defeated fear, acceptancetrumped self-doubt, and truth overcame dishonesty.

In a pastoral letter, “Always Our Children,” the bishopsof the United States in 1997 wrote that same-sex attrac-tion, in itself, “cannot be considered sinful, for moralitypresumes the freedom to choose.” They continued: “Godloves every person as a unique individual. Sexual identity

helps to define the unique persons we are, and one compo-nent of our sexual identity is sexual orientation.” When aperson freely chooses to reveal that he or she is gay, some-times at great personal risk, that person deserves therespect and support of others. The bishops also remindedus that when a person “comes out,” when he or she speaksthe truth in this way, it can have a positive, even transfor-mative effect on others. “Love can be tested by this reality,”they wrote, “but it can also grow stronger.”

“The truth shall set you free,” says Jesus. Speaking thetruth about one’s sexual identity is consonant with—notopposed to—a life of integrity and faith. No one should bepressured to reveal his or her sexual orientation, but noone should be ashamed to do so either. The choice to tellthis particular truth, moreover, is distinct from other per-sonal, political or moral choices, which may be justly criti-cized. If we cannot make this distinction, a distinctionembedded within the church’s living tradition, and supportMr. Collins and others as our brothers and sisters inChrist, then the call to respect and love all of God’s chil-dren is nothing but a clanging cymbal.

Mr. Collins, a 12-year N.B.A. veteran, becomes a freeagent on July 1. He hopes to continue his career and, hewrote, to be “genuine and authentic and truthful.” Ourhopes and prayers are with him.

Poverty and GenerosityKen Stern, author of With Charity for All, reported in TheAtlantic (April 2013) that the wealthiest Americans (thetop 20 percent in earnings) in 2011 gave only 1.3 percentof their income to charity, while the bottom fifth ofAmericans gave 3.2 percent.

Why do the rich not give more? Some say the drive toget rich is inconsistent with the idea of communal support;they are more likely to prioritize self-interest. On the otherhand, when both groups are shown a video on child pover-ty, their willingness to offer help becomes identical, accord-ing to research by Paul Piff, a psychologist at theUniversity of California-Berkeley. Another study revealedthat those who live in exclusively wealthy neighborhoodsgive less than those who live in diverse surroundings.Perhaps the wealthy would be more generous if they knewbetter how the other half (or 99 percent) live.

Mr. Stern writes that the poor are more likely to give toreligious and social service organizations, while the richgive to universities. The pity is, concludes Mr. Stern, mostpeople like to believe there is a connection between per-sonal success and generosity toward others. There is, butnot the way they think.

ow we choose to respond to events of inexplica-ble violence both reflects and shapes our values.In an interfaith prayer service on April 18,

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., said of the BostonMarathon bombings: “In the face of the present tragedy, wemust ask ourselves: What kind of a community do we wantto be?”

In Boston, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could receive thedeath penalty if found guilty of the bombings on April 15that claimed three lives and injured at least 260 others.Meanwhile Dr. Kermit Gosnell, whose grisly murder trialended this month, could suffer the same fate. According toa grand jury report, Dr. Gosnell committed hundreds ofacts of infanticide at a Philadelphia abortion clinic; babieswere born alive and viable only to have their spinal cordssnipped. Most of these heinous acts, however, cannot beprosecuted because of a statute of limitations or becausefiles were destroyed. Dr. Gosnell therefore faces just fourcounts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder—the latter case is that of a Nepaleserefugee who was oversedated while awaiting an abortion.

Many people, justly outraged by these coldheartedcrimes in Boston and Philadelphia, believe that if convict-ed, Mr. Tsarnaev and Dr. Gosnell deserve the most seriouspenalty available. Massachusetts forbids the death penalty,but Mr. Tsarnaev was charged in the federal system, whichallows for it. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of NewYork, told CNN on April 21 the Boston bombings are “justthe kind of case” the death penalty should be applied to.Seventy percent of Americans, according to a newWashington Post-ABC News poll, agree with Mr.Schumer.

The reason for this popular support of the deathpenalty is not solely a desire for retribution. Many believethe death penalty demonstrates ultimate respect for thelives of victims by sending an unambiguous message thatsuch grave crimes will not be tolerated. Others, however,see the rancorous cycle for what it is: appalled by murder,some call for even more death. This cycle of violence affectsall of us.

Public officials have the right and duty to dole out apunishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Butpunishment, in the Catholic tradition, in addition to help-ing restore public order, also has a remedial purpose.Blessed John Paul II wrote in “The Gospel of Life” (1995)

that punishment should offer theoffender “an incentive and help tochange his or her behavior and berehabilitated.” If the guilty partyaccepts the punishment, it helps atonefor the wrongdoing. Therefore,Blessed John Paul explained, what we choose as punish-ment “ought not go to the extreme of executing the offend-er except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words,when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.”

This raises an obvious question: In what places arepublic authorities actually incapable of safely and effectivelyincarcerating those convicted of serious crimes? Almostnowhere. “Such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent,” John Paul wrote. This indictment of the deathpenalty, admittedly a development in the Catholic moraltradition, is now shared by a growing number of Catholics.

Robert P. George, writing about the Philadelphia casefor First Things, rightly asked all people who identify aspro-life to support sparing the life of Dr. Gosnell. “No mat-ter how self-degraded, depraved, and sunk in wickedness,Dr. Gosnell is also ‘our brother’,” wrote Mr. George, “a pre-cious human being made in the very image and likeness ofGod. Our objective should not be his destruction, but theconversion of his heart.” Some might dismiss this aim ascompletely unrealistic, but “if there is a God in heaven,” Mr.George wrote, then “there is no one who is beyond repen-tance and reform; there is no one beyond hope. We shouldgive up on no one.”

The Catholic position on the death penalty reflectsdeeply held beliefs about the sacredness of the human per-son and what kind of world we want to live in. Pope Francis,as archbishop of Buenos Aires, said, “Life is something sosacred that not even a terrible crime justifies the deathpenalty.” This undoubtedly applies to the cases of Mr.Tsarnaev and Dr. Gosnell.

At the interfaith prayer service, Cardinal O’Malleyshared the prayer of Pope Francis that the people of Boston“be united in the resolve not to be overcome by evil, but tocombat evil with good.” In the face of darkness, the easychoice might be a form of justice marked by revenge—an“eye for an eye.” But when Cardinal O’Malley invited us toconsider what kind of community we want to be, he offeredhis own view: “It cannot be violence, hatred and fear.” Weagree. Our response must be life, not death.

Life, Not Death

H

May 20, 2013 America 5

EDITORIAL


suffering for Palestinian civilians,” theU.N. agency reported.

The refugee crisis sparked by theconflict in Syria is increasingly straininghealth services in surrounding coun-tries, while refugees are finding it hard-er to access the quality treatment theyneed, the United Nations refugee agen-cy warned in a report released on April26. According to the report, more thana million refugees need treatment for awide range of both common and con-flict-related conditions.

With no end to the conflict insight, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the Security Counciland countries in the region to come upwith a unified position that mightpersuade all actors to come to thenegotiating table. “We risk an entiregeneration of children being scarredfor life. The children of Syria are ourchildren. They need our help,” heimplored.

early 2.5 million refugees are now scattered in camps instates bordering Syria, a crisis that threatens to overwhelmunderfunded U.N. capacity and upset regional political

order. Jordan warned the U.N. Security Council on April 30 that theswelling refugee population was a threat to its stability. Around1,600 Syrians crossed into Jordan on May 1, raising the total num-ber of refugees that week alone to over 12,000, according to theJordan Armed Forces.

The new arrivals included 70 wounded refugees, as Damascus’aerial offensive on rebel positions along the Jordanian-Syrian borderentered a second week. Speaking after a private meeting withSecurity Council envoys, the kingdom’s permanent representative tothe United Nations, Prince Zeid al-Hussein, said Jordan faces a“crushing weight” if the refugee numbers, which have already reachedover 500,000 since the onset of the conflict in March 2011, keepgrowing.

Prince Zeid complained that international help has been “insuffi-cient” and that “from the perspective of the Jordanian government,

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

unless the support is forthcoming,then we consider this to be a threat toour future stability,” which could meanclosing its borders. The UnitedNations predicts there could be 1.2million refugees in Jordan by the endof the year—equivalent to a fifth of thekingdom’s population.

Meeting at the Vatican on May 3,Pope Francis and President MichelSleiman of Lebanon called on theinternational community to offer con-crete aid to Lebanon and other coun-tries that host refugees from Syria. Inlate April the United Nations saidmore than 440,000 Syrians, about 10percent of Lebanon’s current popula-tion, were registered or were awaitingregistration as refugees. Sleiman saidthat when refugees staying with rela-tives in Lebanon were also counted,the total number exceeded one mil-lion, which places an enormous bur-den on the country.

Increasing numbers of Palestinian

refugees in Syria are being killed,injured or displaced amid the intensi-fying violence, the U.N. Relief andWorks Agency for Palestine Refugeesin the Near East reported on April 30.An estimated 235,000 Palestiniansinside Syria have been displaced, withPalestinian refugee camps directlyaffected by the escalating violence. Theagency confirmed the additional dis-placement of some 6,000 Palestiniansfrom the Ein El Tal refugee camp, justnorth of Aleppo, after armed groupsoverran the camp. Mortars and smallarms were reportedly used in theassault, which damaged numerousrefugee homes and contributed todozens of fatalities and injuries.

“Ein El Tal is the latest manifesta-tion of a cycle of catastrophic violencein which the conduct of all parties hastransformed Palestine refugee campsinto theatres of conflict in which heavyweapons are used, resulting in severe

S Y R I A C R I S I S

Jordan, Lebanon StruggleUnder Refugee Deluge

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V O C A T I O N S

New Priests:Reviewing theClass of 2013

he median age of men ordainedto the priesthood in 2013 is 32;two-thirds are Caucasian; and

26 percent carry educational debt. Thesefigures stand out in “The Class of 2013:Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood,”the annual national survey of men beingordained priests for U.S. dioceses andreligious communities. The study, con-ducted by the Center for AppliedResearch in the Apostolate, aGeorgetown University-based researchcenter, received responses from 366 of497 potential ordinands nationwide.Three in 10 respondents were born out-side the United States, the largest num-bers coming from Mexico, Vietnam,

Colombia, Poland, the Philippines andNigeria.

Mexico is the most frequently men-tioned country of birth among theresponding ordinands born outside theUnited States. The ordinands identifieda total of 35 different countries of origin.On average, respondents who were bornin another country have lived in theUnited States for 14 years.

Most of the ordination class werebaptized as infants, but 9 percentbecame Catholic later in life. Eight in 10report that both parents are Catholic,and more than a third have a relativewho is a priest or religious.

On average, respondents report thatthey were nearly 17 years old when theyfirst considered a vocation to the priest-hood. Two in three say they wereencouraged to consider a vocation to thepriesthood by a parish priest. Otherswho encouraged them include friends(46 percent), parishioners (38 percent)and mothers (34 percent).

Two-thirds of the respondents reporttheir primary race or ethnicity asCaucasian/European American/white.Compared to the U.S. adult Catholicpopulation, men to be ordained aremore likely to be of Asian or PacificIslander background (10 percent), butless likely to be Hispanic/Latino (15percent).

More than half of the class of 2013(52 percent) report having more thantwo siblings, while one in five reporthaving five or more siblings.Ordinands are most likely to be theoldest in their family (40 percent).Before entering the seminary, 6 in 10ordinands completed college (63 per-cent). Almost one quarter (23 percent)entered the seminary with a graduatedegree. One in three (29 percent)entered the seminary while in college.

Ordinands of the Class of 2013 havebeen active in parish ministries. Two-

thirds indicated they served as an altarserver and about half (47 percent) par-ticipated in a parish youth group. One-fifth participated in a World Youth Daybefore entering the seminary.

More than 4 in 10 of respondents (42percent) attended a Catholic elementaryschool, which is a rate equal to that for allCatholic adults in the United States. Inaddition, ordinands are somewhat morelikely than other U.S. Catholic adults tohave attended a Catholic high school, andthey are much more likely to have attend-ed a Catholic college (44 percent, com-pared with 7 percent among U.S.Catholic adults). Many ordinands speci-fied some type of full-time work experi-ence prior to entering the seminary, mostoften in education, accounting, finance orinsurance. Four percent of ordinandsindicated that they had served in the U.S.Armed Forces.

The survey also found that newpriests in dioceses and religious ordershave educational debt. Just over a quarter(26 percent) carried debt at the timethey entered seminary, averaging just alittle over $20,000.

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SYRIAN EXODUS: Refugee chil-dren at play in a camp in Lebanon

that is supported by CaritasInternationalis

PRAY BALL! The DC Padres team inWaldorf, Md., on April 28. The DCPadres, priests and seminarians of theArchdiocese of Washington, useAmerica’s pastime to raise awarenessfor vocations.

PHOT

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DAID/EVERT-JAN

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Francis has said recently, power has todo with service to others; it is notpower for power’s sake,” the cardinalsaid. He told the religious that theVatican decision in 2012 to place theL.C.W.R. under the control of bish-ops was made without consultationwith his office, a decision that causedhim “much pain.” According to TheNational Catholic Reporter, CardinalBraz de Aviz told the sisters:“Cardinals can't be mistrustful ofeach other. This is not the way thechurch should function.”

Gang Truce Sought In HondurasMsgr. Romulo Emiliani Sánchez,C.M.F., auxiliary bishop of San PedroSula, Honduras, has begun a dialoguewith the main criminal gangs in his

Central American nation in anattempt at a truce modeled after anagreement that has reduced gang vio-lence in the neigboring country of ElSalvador. “We are in a process ofrecovering respect for life; we are lis-tening to both gangs, but the govern-ment has not yet given an answer,” saidBishop Sánchez. The two gangs arethe Mara Salvatrucha and the “18Street” gang. The bishop has acknowl-edged that the government is reluc-tant to talk to the gangs, but “we havethe example of countries such as ElSalvador, Guatemala and Colombia,”where authorities have negotiatedwith gang members to promote peace.Bishop Sánchez said the progress ofthe peace efforts may be measured in“generations’ time.”

The Rev. Scott Deeley, assistant chan-cellor of the Archdiocese of St.Andrews and Edinburgh, said thatwhile the church “won’t be telling peo-ple how to vote” in the fall 2014 refer-endum on Scottish independence,“some bishops have indicated unoffi-cially they’d have no problem withindependence.” • Foreign Policy maga-zine included Pope Francis and Carolyn Woo, president and chiefexecutive officer of Catholic Relief Services, among the 500 mostpowerful people in the world in its May/June issue. • Israel’s PresidentShimon Peres, named an honorary citizen of Assisi, Italy, on May 1,noted that St. Francis of Assisi called people “to love the faith and thepoor, to pursue the value of peace and to respect nature,” precepts thatare of “fundamental importance today just as they were in 1208.” • Itwas announced on May 3 that Pope Francis has appointed MichaelBarber, S.J., director of spiritual formation at St. John’s Seminary inBrighton, Mass., to be bishop of Oakland, Calif. • The Vaticanspokesperson Federico Lombardi, S.J., said on April 25 that he “wouldnot exclude” the possibility of the publication of Pope Francis’ firstencyclical “within this year.”

N E W S B R I E F S‘Irresponsible’ DecisionThe Food and Drug Administration“acted irresponsibly” with its decision tolower the age limit from 17 to 15 forpurchasing an over-the-counter emer-gency contraceptive, said an official ofthe U.S. Conference of CatholicBishops. “No public health considera-tion justifies the unsupervised sale ofsuch drugs to young teens,” said DeirdreMcQuade, spokeswoman for theU.S.C.C.B.’s Secretariat for Pro-LifeActivities. Plan B One-Step now will besold openly on pharmacy shelves, whilegeneric brands will still be sold underpharmacy counters and only to people17 years of age or older. A ruling by afederal judge in early April said theF.D.A. must make emergency contra-ceptives available to all ages by May 6.The Justice Department announced onMay 1 that it is appealing this decision,arguing that the judge who issued theruling had exceeded his authority. Theappeal and a request for an injunctionwill not affect the F.D.A.’s April 30decision to allow emergency contracep-tives to be sold without a prescriptionto 15-year-olds.

Power ReviewThe need for improved relationshipsand a rebuilding of trust in the churchis the message that emerged from ameeting of the International Union ofSuperiors General, which opened inRome on May 3. The conferencebrought together 800 leaders ofwomen’s religious communitiesworldwide. The head of the Vatican’sCongregation for Religious, CardinalJoao Braz de Aviz of Brazil, spoke ofrecent tensions with the LeadershipConference of Women Religious inthe United States during a session onMay 5 and called for a review ofstructures of power within thechurch. “As our Holy Father Pope

Shimon Peres, center, in Assisi

From CNS and other sources.

are saying no to indefinite detentionwithout trial, saying no in the only waypossible for them—by risking theirlives.

It seems a terrible irony that themen confined in Guantánamo arebearing witness to the human need fordignity and freedom, that the countrythat confines them is one that holdsitself out as a beacon of freedom to theworld but will neither try these mennor let them go. Due pro-cess and the rule of law donot exist at Guantánamo.

In recent years, Congresshas restricted detainees atGuantánamo from beingtransferred to the mainlandor to other countries, butthe Pentagon can grantindividual exceptions. Nonehas been given, thoughmany of the men are inno-cent of any crime. Eighty-six of them have been cleared forrelease or transfer, some by the Bushadministration years ago. Fifty-sixprisoners are Yemenis, who cannot gohome because Mr. Obama has barredtransfers to Yemen, citing security con-cerns about the country.

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, theauthor of The New York Times op-ed,is one of these. “I could have beenhome years ago—no one seriouslythinks I am a threat—but still I amhere,” he writes.

Moqbel is one of 23 prisoners beingforce-fed as of this writing, a proce-dure the World Medical Associationhas called torture and that the 35-year-old Yemeni describes: “I willnever forget the first time they passedthe feeding tube up my nose. I can’t

hen I first heard the newsof the hunger strike at theU.S. detention center in

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, my impulsewas to tune it out. A few days laterThe New York Times printed a col-umn on its op-ed page by one of thestrikers, and my eyes moved past it toother articles on the page. What hedescribed was too awful to contem-plate: the detention center, still openafter all these years; the prisoners lan-guishing in the legal black hole they’vebeen cast into for more than a decade;the coercive measures the authoritiesat Guantánamo were taking againstthe hunger strikers. Years ago I readDorothy Day’s description of herexperience in prison in 1917 after sheand other women picketing outsidethe White House for women’s suffragewere arrested. The suffragists staged ahunger strike to dramatize their cause.

“Those first six days of inactivitywere as 6,000 years,” Day wrote in hermemoir, The Long Loneliness. “To liethere through the long day, to feel thenausea and emptiness of hunger, thedazedness at the beginning and thefeverish mental activity that cameafter.”

Eventually, the women were movedinto solitary hospital cells. An olderwoman was being force-fed in the cellnext to hers. “It was unutterably horri-ble to hear her struggles,” Day recalled.

As of this writing, 100 of the 166prisoners remaining at Guantánamoare on hunger strike. Their demand isone heard in this country long ago:Give me liberty or give me death. They

describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, itmade me feel like throwing up. I want-ed to vomit, but I couldn’t. There wasagony in my chest, throat and stom-ach. I had never experienced such painbefore. I would not wish this cruelpunishment upon anyone.”

Until I saw myself ignore the newsabout Guantánamo, I had always won-dered at the silence of people in coun-

tries where historichuman rights crimeshad been committed. I’dattributed their inactionto indifference. Perhapsfor some it was. Perhapsothers simply felt help-less, thinking, as I had,that nothing they coulddo would change thesituation. Living, manyof them, in conditionswhere protest might

cost them their liberty or even theirlife, they had a greater excuse than I dofor inaction. I am free, after all, unlikethe prisoners in Guantánamo, whocan protest only by not eating.

My mind turned to Dorothy Daywhen I heard about Guantánamobecause she had described so vividlythe misery of that brief time she spenton hunger strike when she felt onlydesolation and despair. It’s a curiousaccident that the same woman wouldin later life demonstrate the strengthof Christian conscience, protestingagainst war, nuclear weapons andoppression. She and the desperatemen at Guantánamo make me realizethat hope is not an emotion but anaction, a step often taken in darknessand against all odds.

Liberty or Death

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The prisoners are saying no in theonly waypossible for them.


MARGOT PATTERSON is a writer who livesin Kansas City, Mo.

MARGOT PATTERSON

entered the seminary in Dublin in October 1962, just one week before the openingof the Second Vatican Council. The winter of 1962-63 was one of the bleakest indecades, and our seminary was a very cold place in more ways than one. My mem-ory of the seminary is of a building and a routine, a discipline and a way of life thatseemed to have been like that for decades. Even to someone who was not a revolu-

tionary, it all seemed very out of touch with the world from which I had just come, and inwhich my friends were thriving. But one was not supposed to think that way. Things wereto be done as they had always been done. The Catholic Church was unchanging, but thatwas about to change.

A Post-Catholic Ireland?

Renewing the Irishchurch from within

BY DIARMUID MARTIN

I


MOST REV. DIARMUID MARTIN is the archbishop of Dublin. This article is adapted from an address presented as the Russo Family Lecture at the Fordham Center on Religion

and Culture in New York on April 24, 2013.

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For decades Ireland was looked on as one of the world’smost deeply and stably Catholic countries. Today Irelandfinds itself, along with other parts of Europe, being classifiedas “post-Catholic.” Everyone has his or her own definition ofthe term. You can fully define post-Catholic only in terms ofthe Catholicism that has been displaced. Irish Catholicismhas its own unique history and culture. Renewal in the Irishchurch will not come from imported plans and programs; itmust be home-grown.

Ireland does, of course, share the same currents of secu-larization with other countries of the Western world andthus shares many of the same challenges. There are specificchallenges within Europe; there are specific challenges com-mon to the English-speakingworld. Yet the fact that Irelandis an English-speaking countrydoes not mean it can be put intothe same category as the UnitedStates and Great Britain.

Ireland is different. Neitherthe United States nor GreatBritain was ever a predomi-nantly, much less a dominantly,Catholic country. The demographics and the cultural pres-ence of Catholicism in society were different and remaindifferent. Indeed, one would have to say that todayCatholicism in Northern Ireland, where years of conflictforged a tighter Catholic identity, is different from that inthe Republic of Ireland.

There is a growing difference between the social realitiesin Ireland North and South because of the evolving differ-ences in social policy and the emergence of a perhapsunforeseen consequence of the peace process: a newNorthern Ireland identity. You can no longer simplisticallyequate Catholicism and nationalism in Northern Ireland. Avery large number of Northern Irish Catholics would favorstaying in the United Kingdom.

What Happened to the Old Ireland?For years now people have looked to Ireland as a vibrant andsustainable model for strong economic growth. Today theeconomic situation of Ireland is full of uncertainties, pre-cisely at a moment when confidence and trust are urgentlyneeded. Why did so much happen so quickly? The deeperquestion is: What were the values that underpinned the bet-ter-times Ireland? How did we underestimate the fact thatthe success of an economic model ought to have been evalu-ated in terms of long-term social sustainability of jobs,mortgages and borrowing, of lifestyle, education and healthcare and sustainable opportunity for young people?

Ireland is today picking up the pieces economically andpaying the price socially. In modern Ireland many children

come to school without having had breakfast. There isgrowing anxiety that the austerity measures introduced torespond to the economic crisis are now coming to a socialbreaking point. In a time of rapid change, ownership ofsocial change is vital. Who, however, wants to own policiesof austerity? There is a certain flight from political owner-ship. In Ireland it is easy to put the blame on the previousgovernment. It is too easy simply to say that it is beingimposed from the outside or by necessity and that wewould really prefer to do it somehow differently. You willnot generate ownership if the measures imposed areapplied arbitrarily across the board and do not appear todifferentiate according to real situations, especially the sit-

uation of those already vulner-able. We see that in Ireland insome policies regarding educa-tion or health care or the careof the elderly. I attended anational congress of theSociety of Saint Vincent dePaul where it was noted thatpeople who one year ago werecontributors to the society are

now turning to the society for help. Patience is wearingthin; it is hard for some to hope.

When I was asked to return to Dublin, Pope John Paul IIasked me why secularization had taken place so rapidly inIreland. It was one of the rare occasions when I told a popehe was wrong! The roots of change in Ireland were there butwere not seen. It is not that Ireland is today in a momentaryout-of-the-ordinary period in its history, somehow tem-porarily adrift from what is really the default position. Thereis no default position anymore, and there has not been sucha position for some time. In many ways the church in Irelandhad been trapped in an illusory self-image. The demograph-ic majority the church enjoyed hid many structural weak-nesses, and the church became insensitive to such weakness.In the immediate post-Vatican II period there was a momentof enthusiastic renewal in the Irish church, and the positiveacceptance of change probably indicated that there wasalready a deep dissatisfaction and a desire for change in theIrish church and that the church leadership was out of touchwith the religious sentiment of the people.

The Catholic Church in Ireland had for far too long feltit was safely ensconced in a “Catholic country.” The churchhad become conformist and controlling not just with itsfaithful, but in society in general. I was at a seminar lastweek about the church’s self-understanding as a “perfectsociety.” All I can say is that anyone who might have thoughtthat “Catholic Ireland” was anything like a perfect societymust now be very disillusioned.

Faith in Jesus Christ must open us out beyond human

The Catholic Church inIreland had for far too longfelt it was safely ensconced

in a ‘Catholic country.’


overlook the fact that the very term “institutional church”has meaning only in a context of clericalism.

Clericalism will be eliminated only by fostering a deepersense of the meaning of the church; that understanding ofthe nature of the church will come not from media strategiesor simply by structural reforms, but by genuine renewal inwhat faith in Jesus Christ is about. If we focus only on struc-tures and power, there is a risk that clericalism might bereplaced by neo-clericalism. The Christian presence in soci-ety is not achieved by the imposition of a manifesto or sim-ply by high-profile social criticism. It is more about the wit-ness people give to Christian principles, mediated withinthe particular responsibilities they carry.

A Changed SocietyFor generations now the Irish Catholic Church relied onIrish society in general to be the principal instrument for thepassing on of the faith. Day by day that becomes less and lessthe case. The religious culture of Ireland has changed. Manypeople say to me that they reject the church but still consid-er themselves believers in Jesus Christ. The difficulty is thatin such a situation, without a personal and rigorous intellec-tual encounter with the Scriptures and Christian tradition, aperson can drift into something that is their own, rather thana challenging encounter with their faith. The realities offaith, if viewed, consciously or unconsciously, through secu-larized lenses, can easily end up with a distortion of faith oran inability to understand the logic of belief.

I am not saying that reform of structures is not necessarywithin the church. Anything but! What I am saying is thatsuch reform without ongoing radical renewal in the faithwill end up with the wrong structures and indeed might endup just answering yesterday’s unanswered questions tomor-row. Clericalism will to some extent vanish when a new cul-ture of co-responsibility and collaboration develops.

There is a further and more vital need: that of charting anew path to allow the church once again to have an impacton society and mediate the Christian message into thebroad culture of the Ireland of tomorrow. Reform is not justan inner-church reality. A church trapped in inner-churchsquabbles will never be attractive to others.

The church will relinquish many of the institutional rolesit has held in Ireland. But this does not mean that thechurch should retreat into sacristies or into the private val-ues systems. If anything, its presence must become evenmore vigorous within society. I am not advocating hereimposing one’s belief on others or establishing a sort ofCatholic mafia to manipulate society. I am not thinking justof the area of sexual morality. I am talking about the place offaith and of believers in the social, economic, political andcultural world. I am talking about the type of person I haveso often encountered in international life. These are people

horizons. Christian faith requires changing our way ofthinking, of trusting in God’s love rather than in the tangi-ble securities of day-to-day life. When faith leads to con-formism, it has betrayed the very nature of faith.Conformism falsely feels that it has attained certainty. Faithis always a leap into the unknown and a challenge to gobeyond our own limits and beyond our own certainties andthe distorted understanding that comes from them.

In the comments Pope Francis made at the congregationof the cardinals just before the conclave, he spoke about theneed for the church to to break out into what he called theoutskirts—the frontiers—of human existence. And headded when the church does not break out of herself toevangelize, she becomes self-referential and so shuts herselfin. One of the keys to understanding the mismanagement ofthe recent sexual abuse scandals in the Roman CatholicChurch in Ireland must be precisely the measure in whichthe church in Ireland had become self-referential.

The effects of the child abuse scandals have had a demor-alizing effect on the entire church in Ireland and continue todo so. In one sense the scandal crisis could not have come ata worse time, in that confidence in the church was well onthe wane; and when the scandals broke, their effects weredevastating. Today Ireland has strong child protection mea-sures in place, and the Irish church is a much safer place forchildren than in the past. I would like to pay tribute to theNational Board for Safeguarding Children in the CatholicChurch, and in particular Ian Elliot, for their extraordinarycontribution to helping make the church a safer place forchildren. One still has to ask, however, where the roots ofthis scandal and its mismanagement were to be found with-in the church. Was the issue simply the action of a fewdeviant priests who did not represent the church, or wasthere something deeper?

Certainly the overwhelming majority of priests in Irelandled and lead an exemplary moral life; they carry out theirministry with great dedication and enjoy great support andaffection from their people and contribute and support thenew ethos of child safeguarding.

What is extraordinarily high is the number of childrenwho were abused. We are talking about thousands. There isno way you can simply explain away the huge number ofthose who were abused and the fact that this took placeundetected and unrecognized within the church of JesusChrist. Today we are in a safer place, but it took decades toattain this.

One of the great challenges the Irish Catholic Churchstill has to face is that of strong remnants of inherited cleri-calism. The days of the dominant or at times domineeringrole of clergy within what people call the “institutionalchurch” have changed, but part of the culture still remainsand from time to time reappears in new forms. We often


who are recognized by their colleagues as people whose reli-gious faith brings an added dimension to the quality of theirprofessional life and to their broad humanitarian concern.

The Catholic Church requires lay men and womenwhose faith enables them to dare to hope and who will chal-lenge us to expand the parameters of our hope beyond thenarrow confines that each of us individually and as commu-nities consciously or unconsciously fix for ourselves. Thechurch has to re-find its ability to form leaders in an Irelandthat is facing new challenges culturally, economically, politi-cally and religiously.

We have men and women who take this task on in themedia world. But much of our Catholicpunditry is as ideological as much of thepunditry of the other side. Catholic pun-ditry of this kind will only appear to theother side as narrow defensiveness, whilethe analogous secular punditry will beperceived as entrenched anti-Catholicism.Why is it that the type of mature dialogue between believ-ers and atheists and nonbelievers that we find in otherEuropean societies—in the academic world, in the mediaand indeed in churches—does not happen in Ireland?

DemographicsLet me take a brief look at the changed demographics ofCatholic Ireland. Church attendance is very low in someareas, especially in socially deprived areas. In Dublin, Massattendance is generally highest in middle-class parishes,where parishioners are middle class economically and liber-al middle-of-the-road on matters of church teaching. Theyare parishes, however, where there is a sense of communityand activity. There is a growing interest in adult faith for-mation, but as yet generally on an irregular basis. IrishCatholics are generous to the church even in hard times.The International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012was financed above all by the voluntary contributions ofordinary Catholics. The presence of young people in the lifeof these parishes, however, is minimal. The strong backboneof good Catholics in Ireland is an aging group.

Where there are signs of youth participation in the Irishchurch it is among more conservative young Catholics. Isthis where the future of the church lies? I am not sure. Manyof these movements of young, more traditional Catholicsare very limited in numbers and make few inroads into thelives of their peers. When it comes to new evangelization,the Irish church has to ask radical questions about where itshould direct its resources.

On the question of vocations, numbers are low and theseminarians are divided between two establishments, one inIreland and one in Rome, neither of which can really achieveits aims on the basis of such small numbers. There are reli-

gious congregations that have not had an ordination for 15years and more. There are dioceses that have currently noseminarians. No one from west of the River Shannonentered the seminary this year. It is not the case of a secu-larized, urban Ireland and a healthy, rural Ireland. The samecultural processes are at work across the country.

With regard to the Archdiocese of Dublin, we have beenable to carry out detailed research on the basis of the mostrecent census figures of 2011, matching them to parishboundaries and to the boundaries of the entire diocese.There are a number of interesting facts. The population ofthe diocese has gone up significantly, but the numbers of

those who registered as Catholics hasremained at about 1.2 million. Aboutone quarter of the population of thearchdiocese registered as somethingother than Catholic, well above thenational average. It is very clear that ofthe three quarters who ticked the

“Catholic box” on the census form, many would not bepracticing or even in any real contact with the church. Thisgives a very different demographic picture than the one attimes presented or presumed. There are already parishes inDublin where Catholics are in a minority, and it is clearthat the cultural Catholicism that today still exists will notcontinue forever.

Another significant fact is that the number of thoseunder 6 years of age is higher than of those over 70. Oursis a young diocese. Demographers estimate that the popu-lation of the island of Ireland will once again reach theeight million of pre-famine Ireland and that 50 percent ofthat population will live on a narrow strip of land along theeast coast of Ireland from Gorey to Dundalk, most ofwhich will be within the territory of the Archdiocese ofDublin. Will that emerging demographic reality still be“Catholic Ireland”?

The Future of Irish-Catholic EducationUntil now the formation of young Catholics depended ingreat measure on the schools. The specific preparation for thesacraments of first Communion and for confirmation tookplace within the schools, and at times the link between fami-ly, school and parish was problematic. Almost all Irish educa-tion at the elementary level has traditionally been denomina-tional, with Catholic schools making up well over 90 percentof all such schools. These schools are fully funded by the stateand were thus until very recently the only form of state schoolthat existed. With greater pluralism there is growing demandfor other forms of school patronage.

All the indications, however, are that a sizeable numberof parents wish to see high-quality denominational educa-tion remain an essential pillar, alongside other models, of


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of Ireland. americamagazine.org/ireland

our national educational system to help young people togrow and flourish within the religious tradition to whichthey belong. Obviously such denominational educationshould not become divisive or exclusivist, but neither shouldreligious education be reduced to simply a colorless presen-tation of the history or the sociology of religion.

The presence of the Catholic Church in the educationallandscape of the United States is quite extraordinary. Attimes in Ireland there is a latent fear that Catholic schoolsand Catholic higher academic institutions are somehow alittle outdated in a pluralist and increasingly secularizedworld. There is an ambiguity about how to define theirCatholic specificity. I am uneasy when I hear of Catholiceducation being defined somehow as a service of qualityeducation with religious veneer offered in general to societyand within which anyone can feel fully at home.

I fear that in the current debates about divesting patron-age of a substantial number of Catholic schools, the argu-ment is being presented that Catholic schools are so “open”that there is really no need for schools of different patron-age. The Catholic Church in Ireland has to focus its energiesmore clearly on how it wishes to ensure a presence, in a morepluralist educational system, of schools and institutions thatare truly Catholic. The contribution of Catholic academicinstitutions to the good of society is not something thatextinguishes the ecclesial nature and vocation of those insti-

tutions. Their Catholic identity is an essential part of thepackage that has built their excellence. Indeed, one couldrather say that any downplaying of their Catholic vocationand identity could well result in a downgrading of their aca-demic excellence.

In the past, if one was talking about renewal of thechurch in Ireland one would in the first place have lookedtoward the seminaries. That is still the case, and the crisis ofvocations has to be addressed. But vocations spring fromwithin the life of believing families and communities. Therenewal of the church in Ireland and the challenge of creat-ing a new Christian presence in Irish society tomorrow willcome from a renewed generation of lay men and womenwho feel confident to witness to the meaning that theirChristian faith brings to their lives.

One of the great surprises of the recent InternationalEucharistic Congress in Dublin was the extraordinary inter-est the various seminars and catechesis aroused. Many sem-inars were repeated to accommodate the audience, and forthe first time, hundreds of people had to be turned awayfrom attending my initial talk. (I must add that on thatoccasion mine was the only event on offer and it was rainingoutside.)

There is a strong desire within Irish Catholics for a deeprenewal in formation in faith and in prayer, and this is notbeing responded to sufficiently. We have a first-classnational directory for catechesis, “Share the Good News,”that indicates what is needed at every stage. But its imple-mentation is slow, and it encounters resistance to change.Our school system and our teachers have made an immensecontribution to the transmission of the faith. But manyteachers no longer practice, and there is a growing dangerthat because of curriculum pressures, catechesis will belimited to two events—first Communion and confirma-tion—and stop there. Young people have in many casesalready drifted away from religious practice before theyenter second-level education. The church’s presence atthird-level education is often limited to pastoral care, withminimal faith formation.

All this is taking place at a time in which there is agrowing secularization of culture and politics. I could listmany examples of the distance between politics and thechurch and examples of unbalanced media coverage. But todo that would probably be interpreted as saying that it ispoliticians, journalists and the media who are to blame forthe crisis in the Irish church. The causes of the crisis liewithin the church itself. Much of the heritage of Catholic-dominated Ireland still entraps us from being free witness-es to the Christian message within a secular society that isseeking meaning. It is not a time to be lamenting; it is atime to be rising to the challenge with courage andChristian enthusiasm.


A

ow can we ever forgive Meryl Streep for mak-ing Margaret Thatcher lovable? Maybe it isbecause she is an American actress andAmerica can approach Margaret Thatcher

with an innocence deniedthose of us who livedthrough her 11 years asprime minister.

Even before her forcedexit from power, BaronessThatcher had achievediconic status. Icons canhide or distort the human;but somehow Meryl man-aged to remind us thatbehind the carefully con-structed image, a humanbeing might be found. Thefilm “The Iron Lady” wasnot a political biopic; itwas a love story. Not onlydid it show us Margaret’sslow diminishment; it showed us the love at the center ofher life—her husband, Denis.

Against the very domestic ordinariness of love, loss,death and letting go, the film interwove the high dramaof politics: the massive tectonic shifts in world power,economies, political orders and ideologies that Mrs.Thatcher not only lived through but helped bring about.In a subtle and perhaps unintentional way, “The IronLady” reflects on what, in the end, was real. When thegreat office of state has gone, and the borrowed robes ofpower are put away for someone else to wear, before theinfirmities of mind and body begin to lay their claim, whatremains?

If Thatcher held fast to her oft-quoted poet RudyardKipling, the film leaves us catching the whispered voice ofPhilip Larkin—a very post-imperial English voice—in “AnArundel Tomb”: “what will survive of us is love.” ButMargaret Thatcher, loved?

The Divided KingdomMargaret Thatcher’s historic and haunting legacy BY JAMES HANVEY

H


Long before her death, her political ghost still stalkedBritish politics and culture. No one is yet strong enough toexorcise it. Successive governments—Labour, Conservativeor coalition—have merely tried to appease it. In her death

we find that the divisions, as much as the admirationshe inspired, have surfaced once again. The “mummy”has returned!

We can admire her courage, stamina and steelyresolve whether in facing down the male, class-riddenBritish establishment to become the first womanprime minister, or prosecuting the war againstArgentina’s military junta to recapture the Falklands.Her appearance, immaculately dressed and in fullcommand after the Irish Republican Army’s attempt-ed assassination, was as fresh and determined as ever,with the shattered Brighton hotel behind her. Thiswas not just defiance, it was a political coup. Thisstatement made it clear to the I.R.A. that the politicalprocess would prevail over the bullet and the bomb.

Nations, especially those thatstill believe in their own imperialgreatness, need such iconicmoments of leadership. Here, theleader—the president or the primeminister—may represent a complexmagnificence about human tri-umph, national identity and stabili-ty in the face of disaster or malignintent. All of this is real, and onecan only be grateful for it. But it canalso be dangerous. Sheer strength ofpersonality and conviction, con-vinced of its own rightness, can

erode a nation through the social struggle and division italmost needs to create to claim its triumph and legitimacy.

One of Mrs. Thatcher’s acronyms, TINA, “there is noalternative” (to her way), reveals an odd contradiction at theheart of her defense of democracy in Britain and elsewhere.On the one hand, it was driven by a peculiarly bourgeoismorality of self-determination that eroded the social capitaland social conscience she wanted to restore. On the other,her nostalgia for the “Great” in Great Britain prevented itfrom creatively rethinking its role in Europe and worldaffairs to take account of its long postimperial international

JAMES HANVEY, S.J., a member of the British Province of the Society ofJesus, currently holds the Lo Schiavo Chair in Catholic Social Thoughtat the University of San Francisco.

Meryl Streep in 2011

Margaret Thatcher in 1991

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and economic position. Her desire torestore British “greatness” throughfree-market philosophy, conjured fromFriedrich Hayek and MiltonFriedman, actually divided the countryand sapped much of its confidence andenergy.

Values or Vices?Mrs. Thatcher undid the carefully con-structed postwar social contract, claim-ing to retrieve “Victorian values.” Yet theUnited Kingdom experienced more oftheir vices than their imagined virtues.“Thatcherism” legitimated hedonisticwealth creation—for the few—butdemonized the poor. While soaringunemployment destroyed communitiesand squandered the public benefits ofbeing an oil-rich nation, she neverthe-less blamed the victims of her policiesfor their moral failure of being poor andlacking in enterprise. This massiverestructuring of British society was alsoa restructuring of the British imagina-tion; it shrank to the small possessivepronoun, repetitive improvisations onthe theme of “me” and “mine.” Civilityand humane generosity, noblesse obligethat belongs to our very humanity itself,left British culture.

The paradox continued. Mrs.Thatcher, who reinforced bothBritain’s mistrust of Europe and itsdemand of entitlement for its marketand benefits, took Britain more deeplyinto the European Union than anyother prime minister. While ruthlesslyand foolishly allowing the I.R.A. to make a massive moraland public-relations victory out of the death of BobbySands and the other hunger strikers, she nevertheless signedthe Anglo-Irish agreement without which the Good FridayPeace Agreement would not have been possible. That wasthe end of the beginning of the end of Ulster Unionism.

For a politician totally committed to the Union, her deci-sion to implement the poll tax in Scotland resulted in therejection of her government in Scotland and the end of thefragile Scottish Conservatives as a significant force inScottish politics. This contributed to the resurgence of theScottish Nationalist Party and the push beyond devolutionto independence.

I am sure Mrs. Thatcher, with her Methodist upbringing,

was familiar with the old saying that even the devil canquote Scripture. Did she think this might apply to herwhen, with astonishing crassness, she undertook to inter-pret Christ’s parables as a complete legitimation of her eco-nomic policies? Could the Good Samaritan, she asked,afford to be so generous if he had not first acquired wealth?Does the parable of the talents not give divine sanction tothe entrepreneurial spirit? Strangely, her exegesis did notlead her to support sanctions against the iniquity ofapartheid in South Africa.

Was There Another Way?If all this is part of the complex, painful and divided legacythat now emerges upon Mrs. Thatcher’s death, there

Downing Street: Day 1, 4 May 1979

remains still one aspect that is hardly noticed. As in theUnited States, so in the United Kingdom, there aremoments when politics surprises its practitioners; it actual-ly realizes the moral and social good that it speaks about.Sometimes this happens in moments of genuine nationalcrisis; at other times it happens through the normal mecha-nisms of government: the repeal of oppressive laws, theenactment of a justice long denied or policies that frame avision of humanity and human dignity. In these momentsthe political process redeems itself.

Margaret Thatcher was right: Politics does need a moralvision even when it is at its most mundane and pragmatic. Itneeds constantly to reflect upon the sort of society that cre-ates and sustains human flourishing for all its people, notjust the articulate, powerful or privileged. It is precisely ourdisagreements about what this society might look like andhow it can best be achieved that makes democratic politicsworthwhile. Yet when the moral vision becomes an imposi-tion, enforced by personality or conviction, when it cannothear alternatives, when it must always win, then it ceases tobuild a society; rather, it paralyzes it.

Since Mrs. Thatcher left office, British politics has beenafraid to claim a moral vision because it still remembers thecost of hers. In the main, it has been about staying in poweror tacking to the shifting winds of the focus group, as if thiscan substitute for a formative public discourse. Any society

that has abandoned its moral vision, that has substitutedarguments about means for arguments about ends, is a soci-ety in decline. Neither affluence nor power will save it fromits own internal contradiction and corruption.

When Mrs. Thatcher stood on the steps of No. 10Downing Street having been elected the first woman primeminister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, she recitedthe prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;Where there is hatred, let me sow love;Where there is injury, pardon;Where there is doubt, faith;Where there is despair, hope;Where there is darkness, light;Where there is sadness, joy.

What a magnificent vision for a truly great society. Whata noble task for politics and politicians. If politics is abouthard, impossible choices, why should we not make them infavor of those that enlarge our hearts, our wills, imaginationand purpose; those that take us beyond ourselves into agreater good? You see, there was another way after all. Whata pity that Margaret Thatcher—with all her courage, ener-gy and political skill—seems not to have understood theprayer she spoke as she entered our public lives.


A

here are some events we encounter in life forwhich there is simply no language to describeadequately our experience or words capable ofconsoling the afflicted. The events last month at

the finish line of the Boston Marathon and the siege of thecity four days later might rightly fall into this category.Images of the explosions, biographies of the victims andinterviews with the witnesses circulated throughcyberspace, on television and in print with hypnotizingrapidity and emotion-dulling saturation, onlyincreasing the overwhelm-ing experience of thosedays. As a resident ofBoston, my memory of thatweek in April will foreverbe marked by the surrealnature of a scene thatseemed closer to an actionmovie than to the realityplaying out in my backyard.

In the initial silence ofthat Monday afternoon, asconfusion ensued and vic-tims were treated, Ithought of the renownedspiritual writer, socialactivist and Trappistmonk, Thomas Merton.He had a term that seemedto capture this event: theUnspeakable. There aretimes when we encountersomething so terrible and terrifying, the experience pushesus to the edges of the effable. Such experiences of sin andviolence in our world are concrete encounters with theUnspeakable. Merton explains, in part, what he means in his1966 book Raids on the Unspeakable:

It is the void that contradicts everything that is spokeneven before the words are said…. It is the emptiness of“the end.” Not necessarily the end of the world, but atheological point of no return, a climax of absolutefinality in refusal, in equivocation, in disorder, inabsurdity, which can be broken open again to truthonly by miracle, by the coming of God…for Christianhope begins where every other hope stands frozen stiffbefore the face of the Unspeakable.

The Unspeakable is neither a word of comfort nor agreeting of consolation. It is a moniker that is challengingand indicting. It names a reality that most people wouldrather forget. James Douglass, in his book JFK and theUnspeakable, describes Merton’s concept of the Unspeakableas “a kind of systemic evil that defies speech.” However, it isnot simply the object of our fear or an enemy from outside.Douglass continues: “The Unspeakable is not far away. It isnot somewhere out there, identical with a government that

The Boston Marathon and the beginning of Christian hopeBY DANIEL P. HORAN

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DANIEL P. HORAN, O.F.M., a columnist for America and the authorof several books, currently serves on the board of directors of theInternational Thomas Merton Society.

The Unspeakable

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PAYING RESPECT: A makeshiftmemorial in Boston

became foreign to us. The emptiness of the void, the vacu-um of responsibility and compassion, is in ourselves.”

To confront the Unspeakable requires that we face theways we too are always already complicit in a culture of vio-lence present in our world. This does not mean that indi-viduals are exonerated from the particular and egregiousacts of violence they commit, but it does mean that to lookinto the void of the Unspeakable involves looking into themirror of our own participation in systems of violence.

Our Culture of ViolenceOne temptation we encounter in the face of violence like theevents at the Boston Marathon or in Newtown, Conn., is toobjectify the source of the violence and place it as an evil inopposition to the rest of us. This happens frequently, forexample, in the use of the phrase “culture of death” (whichoriginally comes from Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical“Evangelium Vitae”). There is a sense inwhich a Christian might claim to be “forlife” and therefore make the “culture ofdeath” an exterior enemy to be fought.

Merton’s approach to evil, sin and vio-lence in the world is more nuanced. Tobegin, we might realize that “death” is not the most oppor-tune word and recall that death is a natural part of life. Talkabout a “culture of death,” while the intention is good andthe meaning important, could be taken to suggest that deathin itself is a bad thing. St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, hasa different take on this. In his “Canticle of the Creatures,”Francis praises God for the gift of “sister bodily death,”whom all living creatures will inevitably encounter. As apeople of the Resurrection, we also believe that Jesus Christhas “put an end to death” (2 Tm 1:10) and that death doesnot have the last word. Death should not be feared in itself.

But violence, unlike death, is not a natural part of life.Violence is made manifest in little and big ways, in wordsand actions, in things seen and unseen. Merton’s concept ofthe Unspeakable captures the significance of this reality intwo key ways. First, violence is not something that is ascrib-able only to individuals who commit evil acts, like murderand terror. In his book New Seeds of Contemplation, Mertondescribes how we are often quick to blame others and acquitourselves.

When we see crime in others, we try to correct it bydestroying them or at least putting them out of sight.It is easy to identify sin with the sinner when he issomeone other than our own self.

In ourselves, it is the other way round; we see thesin, but we have great difficulty in shouldering respon-sibility for it. We find it very hard to identify our sinwith our own will and our own malice.

It is difficult to accept that all of us are somehow implicat-ed in the finitude and sinfulness of humanity. Mertonwrites that “we tend unconsciously to ease ourselves stillmore of the burden of guilt that is in us, by passing it on tosomebody else.”

Here we have the second insight about the Unspeakable,which arises from the realization that we are also sinnersand participants in an unnecessary culture of violence.What makes the Unspeakable unspeakable is the maskingover and avoidance of this reality in which we too are alwaysalready a part. Unlike common conceptions of the “cultureof death,” which is an outside enemy to be fought, a “cultureof violence” exists in the language, presuppositions, behav-iors and attitudes of a population. This is what is hidden,what is reflected back to us when we are forced to look intothe void or face of the Unspeakable.

Michael Cohen, a columnist for the British newspaperThe Guardian, wrote a sobering piece theday after the bombing suspect DzhokharTsarnaev had been apprehended and hisbrother, Tamerlan, killed. He asked point-ed questions that shine an uncomfortablelight on a society that, in the same week,

can shut down a major metropolitan city because of one sus-pect on the loose, yet fail to pass federal legislation to man-date criminal background checks for gun sales, a reform sup-ported by nearly 90 percent of the population. He asked,with all due respect and sympathy to the dead and maimedin the Boston attack, how a society in which more than30,000 deaths are caused by gun violence annually couldreact so drastically to the specter of terrorism when, in thepast year, 17 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks.Cohen’s concluding comments echo Merton’s concern:

It is a surreal and difficult-to-explain dynamic.Americans seemingly place an inordinate fear on vio-lence that is random and unexplainable and can beblamed on “others”—jihadists, terrorists, evil-doers,etc. But the lurking dangers all around us—the guns,our unhealthy diets, the workplaces that kill 14Americans every single day—these are just acceptedas part of life, the price of freedom, if you will.

Part of what makes the culture of violence Unspeakableis our strong desire not to face the reality of our complicityin perpetuating injustice through our economic choices,attitudes, language, behaviors, lifestyles, biases, support (orlack thereof ) of legislation and so on.

It is a lot more comforting to blame the “other”—whether a “terrorist” or an amorphous “culture of death”—than it is to accept our individual and collective roles in per-petuating our unspeakable culture of violence.


ON THE WEBDaniel P. Horan, O.F.M., blogs

at “In All Things.”americamagazine.org/things

stage: “A witness of a crime, who just stands by and makesa mental note of the fact that he is an innocent bystander,tends by that very fact to become an accomplice.”

Merton’s challenge for us in Boston and around theworld is to overcome the fear that leads us to claim inno-cence while scapegoating the “other,” to embrace theGospel and become more human in compassion and tolook into the void of the Unspeakable so as to accept ourcomplicity in the continuation of a culture of violence in somany little and big ways. Then we might be able move onto speak and live the word of Christian hope that beginsthere in the face of the Unspeakable.

The Beginning of Christian HopeOn the day of the attack in Boston, Cardinal SeánO’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., archbishop of Boston, wrote: “Inthe midst of the darkness of this tragedy we turn to thelight of Jesus Christ, the light that was evident in the livesof people who immediately turned to help those in needtoday.” There are times—for example, when those whomight otherwise run away from danger out of fear runtoward others to provide care and assistance—when signsof Christian hope displace the behaviors and attitudes ofthe culture of violence. Christian hope is not a belief in afar-off utopia that will come from outside. It is a descrip-tion of God’s presence in the worldnow, when, like Jesus, we love theunlovable, forgive the unforgiveable,embrace the marginalized and forgot-ten and heal the broken and broken-hearted.

Christian hope is a hope that with-stands the challenge as it appears to uswhen we look into the void of theUnspeakable and realize that we cando something about violence in ourworld and live a different way. It is ahope that proclaims through the incar-nate Word of God that what was onceineffable in the Unspeakable can benamed and overcome, but it alsorequires our honest admission of“what we have done and what we havefailed to do.” Only then do we confrontthe culture of violence that we wouldrather forget.

The Unspeakable culture of vio-lence extends far beyond the city bor-ders of Boston and Newtown. It is per-haps more acutely seen in the commu-nities of Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistanand in places largely unknown to us.There the experience of theUnspeakable witnessed on a sunnyBoston afternoon is an everyday reality:Marketplaces, buses, houses of wor-ship, elementary schools and neighbor-hoods are all affected by the terror ofviolence and fear that we in the UnitedStates cannot begin to imagine.

In his essay “Letter to an InnocentBystander,” Merton challenges us witha truth that undergirds the perpetua-tion of an Unspeakable culture of vio-lence on the local, national and world


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A

’m a Mary. My mom is a Mary. Myolder sister is a Bridget Mary.Although I was born in the

decline-of-Mary era, I was never thesole Mary around, because I attendedCatholic school, although some of myfellow Marys got to go by their mid-dle names or nicknames. As a child, Iwished that I had a “beautiful” namelike Heather or Melissa and not plainold Mary. Later, I wished for some-thing unisex, like Quinn, or exotic,like Siobhan.

I never wished to be Mary.Besides, I felt I had been given a“used” name, since my mom and sis-ter had been there first. My dad hasalways called me Mary Katherine inorder to differentiate between theMarys in his life, which I rather fancy.A few friends call me Mary K orMare, but I’m pretty much “justMary.” And for years I have been inthe good company of many otherswho share my name. But that ischanging. According to an article byPhilip Cohen in a recent Atlantic, “Inabsolute numbers, the number of girlsgiven the name Mary at birth has fall-en 94 percent since 1961.” He adds,“In the recorded history of names,nothing this catastrophic has everhappened before.”

Over the years, I have come to lovemy name. I appreciate that it is so easyto say and spell. I like meeting otherMarys and automatically having some-thing in common. I remember beingwheeled into surgery a few years agoand a nurse at my side telling me her

I Remember Mary

ICan we revive a classic Catholic name?BY MARY VALLE

ART: BOB

ECK

STEIN


name was Mary Jennifer, but she wentby Jennifer. “Mary Jennifer?” I askedher just before the drugs took medown. “Do you wish you went by

Mary instead?” I see her nodding andlaughing in slow motion. I like notic-ing how many Mary authors there areand hearing Mary songs—”JollyHoliday” from Mary Poppins beingmy personal favorite. Of course, thereis always the fact that Mary is thename of the Queen of Heaven. I don’tmean to brag, but it is, technically,hands down, the most triumphant andholy female name in all of Catholichistory. I gather a certain amount ofstrength from that.

Still, a Catholic high school teachertold me that she did not have too manyMarys, but that she had students withsome saints’ names, including ones likeKolbe (after St. Maximilian) andNormandy (related to St. Thérèse ofLisieux). A native of Spain said thatshe and her siblings all had saint-relat-ed names with lots of Marian refer-ences (such beauties as Pilar, Dolores,

Concepción and Remedios) but thatthe next generation of children werenot so named.

So why is Mary in precipitousdecline everywhere—even (gasp!) inIreland, where only 106 Marys wereborn in the year 2011? Baby-naminghas become a bit of a competitivesport, it seems, with everyone tryingto express their own personal esthet-ic through the monikers of their off-spring. Catholic children no longerhave to carry saints’ names—the ruleis that a child who is to be baptizednot be given a name “foreign toChristian sentiment.” In otherwords, Everleigh or Mason is finebut not Lucifer.

I would like to see a return, espe-cially for Catholics, to lots of Marynaming in conjunction with what Iconsider to be old-school classics likeFrancis Xavier, Ignatius, Aloysius,Bernadette, Theresa (two of these) andPatricia. Since old-time names likeRuby and Henry and the like havebecome so popular, why not have ababy Patty? Or Joe? Perhaps there issome value in recognizing that we areall inherently unique, but a name issomething that should be solid,formidable and pointing towardgreater aspirations of the heavenly vari-ety. Maybe I’m old-fashioned that way.

Mary may well stage a comeback.There is some chatter in the Internet-name community that she may beready for dusting off and restoration.With “baby name regret” on the rise, Iwould suggest it as the most classicchoice possible and, for Catholics, themost meaningful. I would even go so

FAITH IN FOCUS

MARY VALLE, a writer, lives in Baltimore, Md.

far as to say that Marys made thisnation in the form of swarms of Mary-named nuns who built and staffed hos-pitals and schools everywhere.

I was recently telling a friend aboutmy “used-name” feelings and she said:“Well, it’s not like it was something likeDaphne. That would have been weird.It’s the Mother of God!” It’s true, Imused. Then I discussed the topic withmy mother, Mary Sr., who lamentedthe dearth of Marys, though she notedthat she hasn’t seen the same decline inthe Hispanic community. “Theyhaven’t given up on Maria,” she said. Iasked her why she gave me my sister’smiddle name. “That always struck meas bold,” I said. She said, “Well, sinceyou were the sixth child, and we knewyou were going to be the last, we justdecided to name you after me.” Oh.Turns out I mistook “glorious” for“used.” Do not make the same mistake,America. We need Marys now morethan ever.


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vated crowds that opening day—thecolor of Robinson’s skin—for theentirety of this two-hour film, whichhe wrote and directed. The journalistWendell Smith, portrayed capably byAndre Holland, narrates portions ofthe movie and guides Robinsonthrough the gauntlet of racism andapathy that awaited him at every junc-ture of his journey from the KansasCity Monarchs of the Negro leaguesto the end of his rookie season withthe 1947 Dodgers. ChadwickBoseman’s fine performance asRobinson and Harrison Ford’s steelyturn as the Dodgers’ president andgeneral manager Branch Rickey pro-duce much of the movie’s most memo-rable dialogue. Rounded out by thesuperb work of Nicole Beharie, playingRobinson’s wife Rachel, the leadingcast of “42” pays fitting homage to therevolution Robinson helped spark in

he logo of the New YorkMets—a bright orange N andY interlocking on a vibrant

blue background—is instantly recog-nizable for many baseball fans. But thestory behind it may be less wellknown. The Mets rose from the ashesof the Brooklyn Dodgers and the NewYork Giants, both of whom left the BigApple for California in 1957. Fiveyears later, when the Mets took thefield for the first time, they did sowearing caps that acknowledged theirancestors: the orange of the Giantspaired with Dodger blue.

The crowd of 12,447 at the PoloGrounds that first opening day of the

Mets likely focused more on the gamethan on what the players wore. But 15years earlier at Ebbets Field, when theDodgers squared off against theBoston Braves for the first game of theseason, the crowd’s attention rested onan entirely different matter.

It was on that day that JackieRobinson, the first player to breakMajor League Baseball’s color barrier,took the field. Robinson’s journeyfrom the Negro League to the majorleague is told in 42, Brian Helgeland’sbiopic of Brooklyn’s most famousDodger.

Helgeland keeps his viewers’ eyestrained on the same matter that capti-


BOOKS & CULTURE

T

BREAKING THROUGH: Chadwick Bosemanand Harrison Ford in “42”

F I L M | PETER FOLAN

TAKING THE FIELDOn issues of race, ‘42’ hits home

PHOT

O: © 2012 LEGE

NDAR

Y PICT

URES FUN

DING

, LLC/D. STEVENS

Major League Baseball and Americansociety at large.

Still, for those already familiarwith the basic contours of Robinson’sbiography, “42” is more likely to pro-vide supporting details than broadnew insights. It comes as no surprise,for instance, that fans and fellowballplayers hurled racial slurs atRobinson virtually everywhere heplayed. But many viewers may knowlittle about the extraordinary vitriolof the Philadelphia Phillies’ manager,Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk), whosedugout barkings the movie depicts asmore violent than those of any othercharacter. The presence of theDodgers’ manager, Leo Durocher(Christopher Meloni), whose famousquip “Nice guys finish last” earns aspot in the movie, also contributessome interesting details. Though adefender of Robinson’s right to playbig-league ball, Durocher was sus-pended for the 1947 season, and theiconic Dodger skipper vanishes from

the film shortly after spring trainingbreaks.

What “42” lacks in biographicalincisiveness, however, it makes up forin thought-provoking moral and socialcommentary. One example of this isthe way the film handles the virtue ofcourage or, as different characters callit many times, “guts.” Helgeland’sscript makes tacit appeal to theAristotelian claimthat all virtues haveopposites as well asdeceptive equiva-lents, both of whichare vicious. In onescene, Robinson questions Rickey, say-ing, “You want a player who doesn’thave the guts to fight back?” Rickeyresponds: “No. I want a player who’sgot the guts not to fight back.” Thismarks the first of many times that “42”throws light on the thin line betweencourage and the vices of cowardice andrecklessness.

Each time Robinson steps into thebatter’s box amid a cascade of boos andinsults, the viewer understands hisdilemma: if he lashes out against hiscritics, if he spins around and jawswith, say, Chapman, Robinson looksrash; if he remains silent, if he goesabout his business of hitting .297 thatrookie season, Robinson looks cow-ardly. Either way, Robinson loses.History has correctly decided thatRobinson had a superabundance ofguts and a stunning lack of both reck-lessness and cowardice. “42” reaffirmsthis decision by showing how deftlyRobinson navigated the virtuousmedian between two vicious extremes.

The film also takes on the topic ofconversion, both its slowly emergingpresence in some characters and itstragic absence among others. Onemyth “42” dispels is that Robinson waslucky to be called up by the Dodgers, ateam in a progressive part of the coun-try that surely would have been glad tobreak baseball’s color barrier. On thecontrary, the movie depicts most of

Robinson’s teammates as apathetic,and some of them as openly hostile, toRickey’s experiment. It is only whenpitchers start whizzing fastballs atRobinson’s head and the slurs becomeespecially violent that some Dodgersstart to stand up for their teammate.Even then, the conversion is sluggish:more than one Dodger clarifies thathis support of Robinson has every-

thing to do with thecolors on Robinson’suniform, not thecolor of his skin.Many never even getthat far.

While Robinson could not count onthe support of every Brooklyn Dodger,his most valuable teammate never setfoot in the clubhouse. In one moment,the film paints Rachel Robinson in thecolors of a stereotypical Americanhousewife of the 1940s, as she cares fora newborn child, keeps a home inBrooklyn and loves her husbandunconditionally. But “42” also gazesbeyond this idyllic picture and presentsa woman who disregards signs for seg-regated restrooms, who bears the stingof every threat uttered against her hus-band and who shows that Jackie is notthe only Robinson to whomAmericans owe a debt of gratitude.

In one of the more memorablescenes from “42,” Pee Wee Reese (LucasBlack), Brooklyn’s Hall of Fame short-stop, gives voice to his dream that, oneday, “We’ll all wear 42. This way theywon’t tell us apart.” To some extent,Reese has gotten his wish. When MajorLeague Baseball celebrates JackieRobinson Day on April 15 each year,every player and umpire wears the samenumber: 42. But Reese’s words, and“42” itself, also remind our culture ofwhat still needs doing, of the unity andequality our country must work for, notjust in ballparks, but beyond.

PETER FOLAN, S.J., is studying theology atBoston College’s School of Theology andMinistry in preparation for ordination.


ON THE WEBThe editors

on Jackie Robinson. americamagazine.org/pages


been represented more often in paint-ing and sculpture, inspired more musicor had more poems penned in an effortto express her unspoken heart.

A new, and highly unorthodox,depiction of Mary has been in thepublic eye of late, the Irish writerColm Toíbín’s play “The Testament ofMary.” The one-woman play, first pro-duced in Dublin, was recast as a novel-la, and has returned to the stage,newly revised forBroadway. I greeted thepublication of the novellawith enthusiasm andattended the play as soon asI could get a ticket. As adevotee of art and litera-ture, I’ve enjoyed the manyversions of Mary I havemet on the walls of church-es and museums and in thepages of books. Most ofthose incarnations, espe-cially the more contemporary ones,have emphasized Mary’s humanityover her sanctity, dramatizing theways in which she is like us ordinarymortals. In Henry Tanner’s arrestingpainting “The Annunciation,” forinstance, we see Mary’s youth and vul-nerability. There is fear in her eyes asshe regards the intruding angel,shown as an explosion of light. InJohn Collier’s painting “Pietà,” Marycradles her dead son, embracing himwith both arms and legs in a posturereminiscent of childbirth. Her grief isharrowing. Such depictions of Marybring her closer to us—and us closerto her. This is especially true for thoseof us who are mothers, who knowwhat it is to conceive and give birthand fall in utter love with a child.

ay is the month in whichthe church honors Mary;by happy coincidence, it is

also the month when secular culturehonors mothers. According to theBible, Mary’s role in salvation historyis small but mighty. Through the agen-cy of the Holy Spirit, she conceives theMessiah, gives birth to Jesus and raiseshim to adulthood. She appears at a fewkey moments in Christ’s ministry—searching frantically for him and find-ing him teaching in the temple; urginghim to assist the hapless hosts at Cana;and, finally, standing vigil beneath thecross. These brief glimpses into thehidden life of Mary suggest that shewas an attentive mother, a bit pushywhen she needed to be and faithful toher son in his darkest hour.

Admittedly, this isn’t much to goon. It seems that the woman given thetitle Mother of God might have war-ranted more space in the Scriptures.The Koran contains more mentions ofMary than the Bible—34 references,listing her genealogy and even depict-ing her childhood. Perhaps it is thisrelative lack of information aboutMary in Christian tradition that hasinspired so many artists over the cen-turies to fill in the gaps. It is the natureof human beings to try to imaginewhat they cannot know. Given thispaucity of knowledge, painters andpoets are free to depict Mary as theychoose, so long as their images con-form to the few established biblical“facts.” As a result, artists have had afield day with Mary. No woman has

And here is where Colm Toíbín lostme. Much as I admire his writing, Icould not countenance his Mary. It isnot Mary’s unorthodoxy that troublesme. Toíbín is trying to deconstruct theimages of the passive, bloodless Marythat dominated pietistic art of the19th and 20th centuries; and I, alongwith most of his readers, welcome thatcorrective. What troubles me about hisMary is that she is a coward. After her

son is nailed to thecross—a scene de-scribed in agonizingdetail—Mary runsaway. She runs awaybecause she cannot helphim, because she isafraid and (here is thehardest part to swallow)because she wants tosave her own skin.

Toíbín sins hereagainst Scripture and

tradition, yes, but also against themore universal code of Motherlove—that irresistible compulsion that drivesa mother to protect her child at anycost. Motherlove is the deep knowl-edge that you would stand between akiller and your child and take a bulletin the face, that you would dive infront of a runaway train to shove yourchild off the track, that you would partwith your own heart if your childneeded it and that you would do thisgladly. The inventions of tradition andbad art have provided us with toomany impossible Marys who bear norelation to us. Do we need another?Toíbín denies Mary what makes hermost human, sinning at last againstthe law of verisimilitude, and giving usone more Mary we cannot believe in.

A Mother’s Love

M

It troublesme thatColm

Toíbín’sMary is acoward.

ANGELA ALAIMO O’DONNELL is a poet, pro-fessor and associate director of the CurranCenter for American Catholic Studies atFordham University.

ANGELA ALAIMO O’DONNELL

THE WAR WITHINIsrael’s Ultra-Orthodox Threat toDemocracy and the Nation

By Yuval Elizur and Lawrence MalkinOverlook Press. 224p $26.95

For years, American newspapers havereported on the clashes between Israeland its neighboring countries.Similarly, coverage has extended to thechallenging situation facing Jews andArabs within Israel’s own borders.Only recently have we begun to hear ofan equally pressing concern for manyIsraelis—namely, the rising tensionsbetween Israel’s Haredim and the restof its citizens. The term “Haredim”refers to a number of ultra-orthodoxgroups that reject all religious accom-modation with modernity and secularsociety. According to Yuval Elizur andLawrence Malkin, seasoned journal-ists, these tensions have created adomestic crisis akin to “war” that men-acingly tears at Israel’s fabric and seri-ously threatens its future. In 2009,Elizur and Malkin exposed this situa-tion in a Hebrew language publication.In The War Within, they have revisedand updated their study for English-language readers.

At the core of the issue is the ques-tion: Is Israel a state for Jews or aJewish state? The founder of Zionism,Theodor Herzl, originally envisioned astate for Jews. David Ben-Gurion,Israel’s first prime minister, had a sim-ilar outlook, although a year before hedeclared Israel an independent state(1948), for political concerns, he madean agreement that called for a religiousstatus quo with Agudat Israel, thepolitical party representing Israel’sHaredim. This agreement honored theSabbath as an official day of rest,observed Jewish dietary laws in themilitary and government, adopted

Orthodox Judaism’s marriage rulesand traditions for the State of Israeland guaranteed full autonomy for reli-gious instruction. At the same time, itprovided for the gov-ernment to prescribea nonreligious cur-riculum for publicschools.

At first such anagreement worked,especially since thenumber of ultra-Orthodox Haredimwas small comparedwith the majority ofIsraelis, who were lessreligiously bound ormore secular. ManyJews, both in Israeland throughout theworld, viewed posi-tively (and continue to view positively)religiously conservative Jews who main-tain traditional garb and religious study,and consistently pray.

Elizur and Malkin argue, however,that serious problems began in 1977,when Menachem Begin’s Likud Party,an alliance of right-wing and liberalparties, defeated the long-entrenchedleft wing parties and formed a govern-ment through an alliance with theultra-Orthodox political parties. Fromthis point on, the authors find thatsuccessive Israeli governments haveover the years granted increasing con-cessions to ultra-Orthodox concerns.These concessions in turn have affect-ed Israeli society as the line betweenreligious and civil law graduallyrecedes from view. The authors findthis particularly troubling with regardto discrimination against women, gov-ernment regulations governingSabbath observance and Haredi con-trol of marriage and conversion.

At the core of Elizur and Malkin’sconcern is the participation of theHaredim in the life of the State ofIsrael. Though they live in Israel, manyHaredim reject the legitimacy of thisJewish state altogether, believing thatthis kind of state may come into exis-tence only when the Messiah comes.Until then, the task for Jews is to live a

“traditional” Jewishlife by studying andpraying as theypatiently wait forthis “transcendentevent.” To preparethemselves for sucha life, Haredi menattend yeshiva—aJewish higher edu-cational institutedevoted to the studyof sacred texts.Never in historyhave so many Jewishmen at the sametime attended yeshi-va. Currently, some-

where between 100,000 to 120,000Jewish men study full time in Israel.Even at the height of Haredi Judaismin pre-World War II Europe, therewere, at most, 4,000 Jews attendingyeshivas.

Demographics, however, are not theauthors’ only concern. Elizur andMalkin also lament that even with thisvast number of yeshiva students, nonew “breakthrough” scholarship hasbeen produced. The authors are equal-ly troubled by the growth and incon-sistencies of what is called indepen-dent education—the result of anagreement between the ultra-Orthodox parties and the Israeli gov-ernment to create a new classificationof elementary and middle-schools out-side the government-sponsored sys-tem. The curriculum in many of theseschools, though not all, has in theauthors’ view devolved into the studyof religious texts alone at the expenseof state mandated subjects like science,


B O O K S | KEVIN P. SP ICER

WHEN THE MESSIAH COMES

mathematics and history. Thus inde-pendent schools have become inessence preparatory schools for yeshiv-as that produce generations of HarediIsraelis unequipped for the technicaldemands of the future.

For Elizur and Malkin, all thesedevelopments are extremely troubling.The statistics the authors cite (from2008) do in fact provide reason forconcern: 65 percent of Haredi menbetween the ages of 35 and 55 areunemployed, and 60 percent of Haredifamilies live below the poverty line.The state, and therefore Israeli taxpay-ers, subsidize this system. All yeshivastudents, for example, receive a modestmonthly stipend from the governmentwithout any limits on the length oftime such subsidies may be received.By contrast, no similar support is sofreely awarded to students who attendIsrael’s universities. However, subsi-dies for study are not the only benefitsthat Haredim receive from the state.Presently, yeshiva students are exempt-ed from serving in the armed forces—a requirement imposed on all Israeliswith few exceptions.

Haredim respond to their situationin Israeli society in a variety of ways.Some advocate the imposition ofOrthodox norms on all Israeli Jews.Frustrated with breaches, some haveresorted to violence like stone-throw-ing. Other Haredim have followed the“route of pleasantness” by promotingtheir way of life in a positive mannerthrough educational means. Amid allthis, Elizur and Malkin have discov-ered that some Haredim feel trappedby their secluded life and regimentedstudies. Yet the option to leave is notalways available, and many obstaclesexist for those who attempt to inte-grate themselves into non-HarediIsraeli society.

Elizur and Malkin make their caseconvincingly. They firmly believe thatunless the destructive situation isresolved in a “spirit of tolerance,” thechance for the Israeli state to “crum-


ble” and fall into “fragmentation” is areal possibility. In the worst case sce-nario, the authors believe a fragment-ing situation could lead to a singlestate with an Arab majority. This sce-nario might not end positively for theHaredim—or for any Israeli Jews, forthat matter.

Yet despite the urgency of theirwords, Elizur and Malkin do little toallow the reader to hear the case of theother side—the Haredim. Almost allthe sources quoted, mainly statementsby Israeli academics, favor the authors’argument. Similarly, the authorsalmost vilify the ultra-Orthodox—forexample, by graphically recounting

three separate times the story ofHaredi men spitting on a young girl forher failure to follow their religiousnorms. Though no one need approve ofsuch crass actions, Elizur and Malkinseem to miss the key point of “the warwithin.” For the Haredim, the “war” is aspiritual battle for the religious soul ofthe Jewish people, to be won only byfollowing Halacha (God’s law) as theyawait the Messiah. It is a nearly impos-sible conflict to resolve, but one thatIsraelis urgently need to face.

KEVIN P. SPICER, C.S.C., is the James J.Kennelly distinguished professor of history atStonehill College, Easton, Mass.

tions concern the neoliberals and theneopopulists. The neoliberals came topower in the wake of the last cycle ofdictators (although some of the dicta-tors, like Pinochet, enthusiastically pro-moted neoliberalism). They privatizedbloated state companies and encour-aged outside investments. But they alsoleft the poor without jobs or safety nets.

Neopopulism arose precisely as aresponse to this Darwinian liberalism.The late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela,Rafael Correa in Ecuador, EvoMorales in Bolivia and to some extentthe Kirchners (Néstor and CristianaFernández) in Argentina, took up thecause of the “people,” nationalizedsome companies and excoriated NorthAmerican “imperialism.” Althoughthey raised the banner of “21st social-ism,” and made pilgrimages to Havana,none have gone so far as to actuallyimplant a Cuban-style regime in theirrespective countries.

But as Walker argues, neither theliberals nor the populists haveadvanced the cause of democracy. Theneoliberals empowered the wealthy

and excluded the poor.The populists gave riseto charismatic leaderswho centralized allpower in their ownhands, but to the detri-ment of democraticinstitutions. But not allsocialists have been irre-sponsible. Ricardo Lagosand Michelle Bachelet inChile, and “Lula” inBrazil, were, in fact, quitemoderate and avoided

the type of demagogic populism thatChávez practiced.

Although democracy in LatinAmerica has made some progress, itstill suffers from weak democraticinstitutions. The judiciary in somecountries cowers before the whims ofoverbearing executives, and in othercountries it is simply corrupt. Theauthor borrows a phrase from Fareed


JEFFREY KLA IBER

POPULISM AND POVERTYDEMOCRACY IN LATINAMERICABetween Hope and Despair

By Ignacio WalkerTranslated by Krystin Krause, HollyBird and Scott MainwaringUniversity of Notre Dame Press. 280p$38

When things go wrong in LatinAmerica, the tendency is to write newlaws or a new constitution. But newlaws rarely remedy the situationbecause Latin America’s major prob-lems are rooted in deep historical real-ities that condition attitudes and prac-tices, which in turn undermine thedemocratic process. In this well-researched and up-to-date study,Ignacio Walker explains to the readerin clear language why democracy hashad so much difficulty taking holdfrom Mexico to Chile. Althoughdemocracy seems to be well and alivetoday, except in Cuba, the authorargues that it is far from being deeplyrooted in the region.

Walker, a leading ChristianDemocrat in Chile and a former mem-

ber of the Vicariate of Solidarity, aCatholic human rights organization,offers a panoramic view of LatinAmerica’s battle for democracy fromindependence up to the current neo-liberal and populistregimes. He argues thatLatin American politicsare still influenced by theoligarchic mentality thatthe postcolonial elitesimposed upon society.This is not a new theme.In the 1960s and 70s,when military regimesswept across the conti-nent, many authorspointed to the authoritar-ian tradition in LatinAmerica. Others observed that evenMexico under the InstitutionalRevolutionary Party, though it was nota military dictatorship, was in fact aperfect example of this authoritarianand paternalistic tradition. Althoughthere were elections, in reality theP.R.I. controlled the process andexcluded all opposition forces.

Walker’s most interesting observa-

stay. There is despair because democ-racy in Latin America does seem to beat times, as Winston Churchillfamously declared, the worst form ofgovernment, except, of course, for allthe others. Walker’s study on the stateof democracy in Latin America is bril-liant, well argued and convincing. It isa must read for political scientists,sociologists, U.S. government officialsand nongovernmental organizationworkers “on the ground” who want tounderstand how things work in LatinAmerica.

JEFFREY KLAIBER, S.J., teaches history at thePontifical Catholic University of Peru inLima.

Zakaria to underline the fact thatalthough there are elections, by andlarge the democracies in LatinAmerica are “illiberal.” “Illiberal” inthis case does not refer to economicliberalism, but to the absence of a tra-dition of the loyal opposition. To bemore precise, ordinary people do nottrust their own governments. Politicalopposition groups do not dialogue.People do not trust fellow citizens.The culture of civic responsibility isweak. People obey traffic laws onlywhen the police are present.

As the subtitle of the book indi-cates, Latin America is caught“between hope and despair.” There ishope because democracy is here to


WILL IAM RE ISER

AFTER EDENGOD’S REIGN AND THE ENDOF EMPIRESBy Antonio GonzálezConvivium Press. 392p $32.95

Antonio González, a Spanish theolo-gian who worked for a number of yearsin Guatemala and El Salvador, ispresently on the instructional staff ofthe Fundación Xavier Zubiri, a teach-ing and research center in Madrid.(Zubiri was a Spanish philosopherwhose thinking had aprofound influence uponIgnacio Ellacuría, S.J.)An earlier work, TheGospel of Faith and Justice,appeared in 2005; anumber of other titleshave not yet appeared inEnglish.

The eight chaptersthat make up God’s Reign& the End of Empires are,in effect, a course in the-ology—and a very good one. The over-all perspective of the book is libera-tionist; its theological feet are planted in

the historical experience and social real-ity of people struggling under theweight of economic and political“empires.” By empires González meansall those social, political and economicforces that adversely affect individualsand their communities—forces thatdehumanize by wounding or destroy-ing relationships, families, whole soci-eties and the planet itself.

Chapter One sets the stage bydescribing and analyzing the economic

and ecological crises theworld faces today. ChapterTwo interprets the causeof these crises from a bibli-cal perspective, zeroing inon the sin of Adam.Throughout the bookGonzález refers to“Adamic logic” as the rootcause of humanity’s moraldisorder, meaning thehuman proclivity towardself-justifying thinking

and acting. On one level, this proclivityshows itself in the belief that by livingrighteously and obeying the moral law,

reconciliation, freedom and love.The real strength of the book lies in

the last four chapters. With their focuson the new community (and the newhumanity) that the Spirit of Jesusmakes possible, these chapters are agenuine contribution to a contempo-rary theology of the church. Some peo-ple mistakenly believe, Gonzálezargues, that whereas salvation has asocial face in the ministry of Jesus, itassumed a far more spiritual face afterhis death and resurrection. Not so. Hewrites, “The social praxis of the firstChristians...kept as its horizon the lib-eration of the Exodus as this was radi-calized by Jesus.”

Chapter Five examines the earliestChristian communities. González callsthem messianic because they preserve,clearly and deliberately, the praxis ofJesus. Just as Jesus’ praxis contained animplicit rejection of empire, so too didthe life and practice of the early com-munities. Through the evangelicalnature of their family life they were pro-claiming God’s reign, and God’s reignsubverts Caesar’s and every empireafterwards. He writes, “On the basis ofthe household, it was possible to consti-tute a social network different fromthose of the larger society.” And withthat social network came a brand new

way of thinking about how societycould be shaped.

Chapters Six, Seven and Eight workout the implications of conceiving thechurch as messianic communities: therelation between believing communitiesand the state, the emergence of whatGonzález refers to as “popular econo-my” and how Christian communitiesmight continue to live out Jesus’ missionin a world that does not share theirbeliefs. His discussion of the state’s ten-dency to divinize itself (and thus force achoice) is thought-provoking. Hewrites: “On this planet there does notexist the state that does not requireoaths of fidelity, that does not organizecultic ceremonies to its flags and sym-bols, that does not periodically requirethe sacrifice of human lives, that doesnot build ‘altars of the homeland’, orthat does not erect great statues to itsviolent founders.” The book’s secondhalf would make excellent reading for acourse on social ethics.

Experience in the classroom hastaught me that when it comes to study-ing the Gospels, perhaps it’s best to startat the end, that is, with the resurrection.After all, Easter is the perspective fromwhich the Evangelists wrote. In the caseof God’s Reign and the End of Empires,instead of beginning with primal dis-obedience and the manifestations ofAdamic logic, perhaps the Easter expe-rience of the first communities wouldhave furnished a more engaging startingpoint. Domination and oppression arereal and pervasive, no matter how thebiblical writers may have accounted fortheir origin. Adam does not necessarilytake us to Jesus. But the Easter experi-ence and its transforming effects withinindividuals and communities were any-thing but ordinary. And Jesus sooner orlater takes us back to the sorry effects ofAdam’s choice. Nevertheless, it wouldbe easy to structure a great coursearound this book.

WILLIAM REISER, S.J., is a professor of theolo-gy at The College of the Holy Cross, Worcester,Mass.


human beings convince themselves thatthey somehow earn God’s blessing, thattheir worth depends upon the successof their endeavors and that humanaction can bend the divine hand towardbenevolence; Saint Paul understoodthis problem very well.

But there is also a second level. “Thequest for self-justification is an attemptto replace God,” González writes. “Theendless competition with others, thedesire to obtain ever greater results, theobsession with growth and production”or “to justify ourselves by the fruits ofour own praxis” belongs to the logic ofself-justification. All this leads to struc-tures of domination, for which capital-ism is the boldest expression. “TheAdamic logic is pervasive and enduring;no age or region escapes its grip.”

González then moves, in ChapterThree, to the divine response to humanwaywardness; God reveals the way toescape from empire. The escape routefrom poverty and injustice is the“dynamic reality” of God’s reign, the for-mation of a society that will be “radical-ly egalitarian and truly fraternal.” Thisleads into a long chapter on the missionof Jesus, his radical social praxis, themeaning of his death and the creationof a way of being together not markedby alienation and oppression but by

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“So this is hell? It looks just like my old cubicle!”

tution founded by the Sisters of Mercy, offeringbaccalaureate, master’s and doctoral degrees, islocated adjacent to the Pocono Mountains regionof Northeastern Pennsylvania, approximately twohours from New York City and Philadelphia. Theuniversity’s approach of combining a quality liber-al arts education with professional preparation andservice to others has resulted in its wide regionalacclaim.

Small 50-plus-year-old MAIL ORDER SOCIALPUBLISHING COMPANY seeks association andpotential partner. Contact [email protected].

THE RELIGIOUS FORMATION CONFERENCE(R.F.C.) national office, located in Silver Spring,Md., is seeking a full-time Associate Director withexperiential knowledge of religious life and a wellgrounded operational theology of apostolic reli-gious life in the 21st century. In this key positionthe person will work collaboratively with theExecutive Director, engage with readiness and cre-ativity in day-to-day leadership of national officeactivities and continuously work to advance themission with unwavering energy and passion. Inaddition, this individual will facilitate ongoingcommunication and collaboration on variousR.F.C. matters with current and future member-ship and partnering organizations.

Qualifications include a master’s level degree intheology or equivalent. The successful candidatemust be a member of a religious congregation andhave administrative experience that includes aworking knowledge of finances and technology.Please see www.relforcon.org for more detailedinformation. To apply, please submit cover letter,résumé and three reference letters to Sister VioletGrennan, M.F.I.C., Executive Director, [email protected] by May 29, 2013.

RetreatBethany Retreat House, East Chicago, Ind., offersprivate and individually directed silent retreats,including dreamwork and Ignatian 30-day retreats,year-round in a prayerful home setting. ContactJoyce Diltz, P.H.J.C.: (219) 398-5047;[email protected]; bethanyretreathouse.org.

WillsPlease remember America in your will. Our legal titleis: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th Street, NewYork, NY 10019.

America classified. Classified advertisements areaccepted for publication in either the print version ofAmerica or on our Web site, www.americam-agazine.org. Ten-word minimum. Rates are per wordper issue. 1-5 times: $1.50; 6-11 times: $1.28; 12-23times: $1.23.Ads may be submitted by e-mail to:[email protected]; by fax to (928) 222-2107; by postal mail to: Classified Department,America, 106 West 56th St., New York, NY 10019.To post a classified ad online, go to our home page andclick on “Advertising” at the top of the page. We donot accept ad copy over the phone. MasterCard andVisa accepted. For more information call: (212) 515-0102.

Weaving It TogetherI appreciated the focus on the newevangelization in the April 22 issue.“Mass Evangelization,” by Scott W.Hahn, proceeded further and deeperinto the eucharistic mystery and itscall, “Do this in memory of me.” Culticpractices rightly understand the cen-tral place of the Eucharist in our lives.It is not the end point; rather, thebeginning and nurturing point.

“Do This in Memory of Me,” by theRev. Robert P. Imbelli, makes thispoint—confirming the wisdom ofWhat Happened at Vatican II, thegreat work by John W. O’Malley, S.J.The primacy of Jesus is the unifyingsource of all of the council’s docu-ments. These express the work of theHoly Spirit in enlightening and inspir-ing all of the people of God to holinessby following Jesus and being open-ended and open-minded in doing whatJesus asks.

Loving one another is the essence ofdoing this “in memory of me.” It findsexpression in every aspect of life, andwe celebrate it as a community whenwe gather at the Lord’s table. Thisenergizes us to take up our cross anewin building the kingdom of justice andpeace, an effort that is resisted, reject-ed and ridiculed by every form of vio-lence, all rooted in refusals to love.These represent the “Other Gods,” ofwhich Richard B. Patterson remindsus, the many idols that snuff out life.

MARK FRANCESCHINI, O.S.M.Denver, Colo.

Mixed MessagesThank you for “Mass Evangelization.”It altered my much earlier impressionof Professor Hahn’s theological bent.

I believe, however, that the selectionof the cover for the April 22 issue doeshis article a disservice. The cover con-veys the Eucharist as having the pur-pose of providing the church with an“adorable object” in the host. His arti-cle appropriately portrays the


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PLAINSONG ORDINARIES I, X, XVI, simplifiedfrom the Liber for assembly/choir; revised accord-ing to New Roman Missal. Contact Luella DamesCPPS, O’Fallon, Mo. 636-542-9510, [email protected]

PositionsTHE DEPARTMENT OF SPIRITUAL CARE isseeking a full or associate A.C.P.E. Supervisor toserve as coordinator of the accredited ClinicalPastoral Education (Level I and II) program forCovenant Health. This well-established and well-supported program serves in a faith-based hospitalin Lubbock, Tex., home of Texas Tech Universityand a community with a long history of celebratingthe arts in music, theater and wide range of sports.Covenant Health is a five-hospital system with alarge medical group, and multiple clinics and small-er managed hospitals throughout the West Texasand Eastern New Mexico regions. This programoffers a year-long residency, an extended programand summer internships. The Supervisor will workwith the Director of the Spiritual CareDepartment, Staff Chaplains and AdministrativeSupport staff in maintaining the accreditation ofthe A.C.P.E. center and the overall provision ofspiritual care services in the health system.Requirements include: certification as a full orassociate A.C.P.E. Supervisor, one to three yearsof supervisory experience, certification as aProfessional Chaplain by A.P.C. or N.A.C.C., pre-ferred. Salary is commensurate with qualificationsand experience. Excellent benefits. Interested can-didates may contact Tom Reid, The Reid Groupat (800) 916-3472 or by e-mail [email protected]. To learn more aboutCovenant Health, visit www.covenanthealth.com.

MISERICORDIA UNIVERSITY, CHAPLAIN(PART TIME). The Chaplain will provide leader-ship and direction in fostering the moral and spiri-tual well-being of the university community in theaccomplishment of its educational mission.Responsibilities include but are not limited to per-forming worship activities; formulating a schedulefor the celebration of daily Mass, weekend liturgiesand the regular celebration of the sacrament of rec-onciliation; and providing pastoral counseling,spiritual direction and hospital visitation for stu-dents and employees. For details, qualificationsand application information, please visit www.mis-ericordia.edu/hr (under Staff Vacancies) orhttps://home.eease.adp.com/recruit/?id=2900951.

Misericordia University is committed to stu-dent, faculty and staff diversity and values the edu-cational benefit this brings to campus. Candidatesshould indicate any experience and/or leadershipthat contribute to this goal.

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Eucharist as the action of the peoplecommissioned for evangelization. Thecover undermines this.

Eucharistic adoration is a viableconsequence of and in continuity withthe activity of God’s people celebratingthe paschal mystery in union withChrist. But the pre-eminence of ado-ration, portrayed on the cover, skewsour eucharistic faith and the power ofProfessor Hahn’s article.

(REV.) LOUIS L. ANDERSONGrand Rapids, Mich.

Sports IdolI enjoyed “Other Gods,” by Richard B.Patterson (4/22), but personally Iwould include sports as one of ourprime “other gods” in today’s world.

How many parents take littleJohnny or Janie to soccer, softball,football, tee-ball and so on instead ofto Mass on Sunday mornings! I likesports but more and more realize they

have taken over almost as a nationalreligion. It may even border on anaddiction. We treat our athletes likegods, so why are we surprised whenthey try to act like the gods ofmythology?

In the artwork included with thearticle, the Heisman trophy wasappropriately included among thetrophies depicted.

(REV.) ED DEIMEKEWatervliet, N.Y.

The Peace IssueI’m writing to express belated grati-tude for your April 8 issue. “A Visionof Peace,” by Drew Christiansen, S.J., areview of “Pacem in Terris” on its 50thanniversary, was immensely helpfuland set the tone for the entire issue.And “Lethal Responsibility,” byGeorge B. Wilson, S.J., on reframinggun control, continued your importantrecent contributions to the current


America (ISSN 0002-7049) is published weekly (except for 13 com-bined issues: Jan. 7-14, 21-28, April 8-15, June 3-10, 17-24, July 1-8, 15-22, July 29-Aug. 5, Aug. 12-19, Aug. 26-Sept. 2, Sept. 9-16,Dec. 9-16, 23-30) by America Press, Inc., 106 West 56th Street,New York, NY 10019. Periodical postage is paid at New York, N.Y.,and additional mailing offices. Business Manager: Lisa Pope.Circulation: (800) 627-9533. Subscriptions: United States, $56 peryear; add U.S. $30 postage and GST (#131870719) for Canada; oradd U.S. $56 per year for international priority airmail. Postmaster:Send address changes to: America, P.O. Box 293059, Kettering,OH 45429.

Letters to the editor may be sent to America’s editorialoffice (address on page 2) or [email protected] should be brief and include the writer’s name, postaladdress and daytime contact phone number.

America will also consider the following for print publication:comments posted below articles on America’s Web site(americamagazine.org) and posts on Twitter and publicFacebook pages.

All correspondence may be edited for length and clarity.

national debate.I was especially impressed with

“The Cost of War,” by MargotPatterson. In just one page she gives ascathing overview of the dimensions ofcurrent U.S. militarism, starting withthe folly of the war in Iraq and stress-ing that the same people who urgedthat war now urge warlike responsesto Iran and North Korea, furtherexpansion of our bloated defense bud-get and continuing unconditional sup-port for Israel.

Her final paragraph, on our annual$3 billion dole to Israel “for the privi-lege of funding an occupation thateveryone else in the world regards asimmoral, illegal and provocative,” is, Ibelieve, the clearest and best condem-nation of U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine ever written in America. Asshe says, “This is a ‘special relationship’one would think we could do without.”

JOHN F. KANEDenver, Colo.

Left in AweRe “An Aperture for Grace,” by JeromeMiller (4/8): This meditation onSandro Botticelli’s “Annunciation” is,for me, an extended poem on life,beauty, divine grace and holiness. It leftme awed!

LUCIEN LONGTIN, S.J.Wernersville, Pa.

STATUS UPDATE By listening and utilizing their storiesas a source for theological reflection.Sergio Lopez

Education and invitation, just likeChrist and Mary.

Marya Ross Jauregui

Educate, counsel and be patient.Respect the primacy of consciencementioned in “Humanae Vitae,” butalso respect what’s mentioned thereabout the life-giving power every per-son has. Paul Christian Stokell

Visit facebook.com/americamag.

In “The Ties That Bind” (4/29), theeditors wrote, “Women in every socialclass are choosing to delay marriage.”How should the church respond?

It seems that people sometimes avoidmarriage simply because of howexpensive weddings can be. My practi-cal tip: Each diocese should havereception halls and caterers availablefor the poor “at cost.” The couple couldhave access to these things only uponthe recommendation of a pastor.

Maxime Villeneuve

BLOG TALK

The fact that Scott Hahn is writing forAmerica magazine is absolutely amaz-ing. Hell has either frozen over, orsomething is different aboutAmerica…. Three cheers for Americamagazine!?

JOSEPH FROMMGood Jesuit, Bad Jesuit

ation, for the God who exists in per-fect communion as triune lacks noth-ing, but brings humanity into being forGod’s and our good plea-sure.

These samemysteries appearmore fully in theNew Testament,not as doctrinalor creedal state-ments, but as thereality of God expe-rienced in the lives ofthe first believers.

Paul’s words to the Romans out-line the nature of God by virtue ofthe relationship Paul has enteredinto with the living God. Paulexplains that Christians have gained“peace with God through our LordJesus Christ, through whom wehave gained access by faith.” Later Paulstates that “we boast in hope of theglory of God...and hope does not dis-appoint, because the love of God hasbeen poured out into our heartsthrough the Holy Spirit that has beengiven to us.”

Within this short passage, Paul hasmentioned the relationships amongGod the Father, Jesus Christ and theHoly Spirit and how through them weare given peace, hope and love. Thoughthe word trinity is never mentioned,the Trinity reveals itself to Paulthrough the experience of God’s being.

Jesus spoke of God’s relationalessence as he prepared the apostles forhis departure. The Holy Spirit wouldguide the disciples “to all truth.” But

this truth that the Spirit speaks, Jesussays, is not the Spirit’s “own” but isintended to enlighten believers and toglorify Jesus and the Father as well, for“everything that the Father has ismine.” In perfect communion, theTrinity, three persons in one nature,reveals the mystery of perfect relation-ship: giving of oneself perfectly for theother, in order to bring all of us intothe glory of God.

Even with this revelation of God’sinner life and God’s love poured

out for us, it is impossible totruly describe in rational

terms the nature of theTrinity. It is the revela-tion itself of the Trinity,and the experience ofthe Trinity, that makes

it real for us, however westruggle to describe that

God is three persons in one nature,that one person became human for usand that God desires that we share inthe life of the Trinity.

Still, there is a parallel with humanrelationships and the way we come toknow human beings. We can describethe visible form of persons, the behav-iors that show who they are, but it is inbeing with them that we experiencetheir essence, which concepts andwords cannot capture. It is simply thatin their presence one experiences lovethat in a moment becomes unending.God delights in these moments withinthe eternity of the triune mystery andfor reasons that are inexplicable invitesus to share in this life forever.

JOHN W. MARTENS


THE WORD

he mystery at the heart ofhuman life is discovered inour relationships, whose out-

lines might be simply explained butthat are ineffable at the core. How welove and live for one another defiesdescription. We struggle for words tomake real what we know throughexperience. When one of my sons as asmall boy told me, “I want you to livelonger than anyone else,” he expressedhis love as a desire that our livestogether should continue on and onwithout end. This being for and withone another takes us to the mystery ofChristian life.

God in Christianity is a supernatu-ral mystery; and in the depth of God’smysterious being, we discover the real-ity of the Trinity. God exists in rela-tionship as Trinity and God exists inrelationship with humanity, telling usthrough our very creation that Godwants our lives together to continue onand on without end.

In Scripture, the reality of God asTrinity is revealed through the lan-guage of relationship. In the Book ofProverbs, Wisdom describes herself asGod’s “craftsman…his delight day byday, playing before him all the while,playing on the surface of his earth.”While Wisdom is not necessarilyidentified with a particular person ofthe Trinity, Proverbs expresses thereality of God in communication, whotakes joy in creation. This delightpoints to the gratuitousness of cre-

God in RelationshipMOST HOLY TRINITY (C), MAY 26, 2013

Readings: Prv 8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

“I found delight in the human race” (Prv 8:31)

T

PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

Prayerfully reflect on your relationship withthe triune God. How has your appreciationfor the Trinity grown and deepened overthe years?

JOHN W. MARTENS is an associate professorof theology at the University of St. Thomas, St.Paul, Minn.

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the national catholic weekly may 20, 2013 $3may 20, 2013 · peoples of great britain. on the other...

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