OF MANY THINGS 106 West 56th Street New York, NY 10019-3803 ith this issue we are pleased voices focused on spiritual renewal and Ph: (212) 581-4640; Fax: (212) 399-3596 to welcome to these pages social analysis. Subscriptions: (800) 627-9533 the Right Hon. David We are also excited to join with the www.americamedia.org W facebook.com/americamag Miliband, former British foreign Ignatian Solidarity Network to sponsor twitter.com/americamag secretary and current president of Voices From the Margins, a national the International Rescue Committee. film contest showcasing the best short President and Editor in Chief Matt Malone, S.J. Mr. Miliband’s essay on the global videos on social justice by college Executive Editors refugee crisis is the second article we undergraduates. The winning video is Robert C. Collins, S.J., Maurice Timothy Reidy have published this year by a senior shown each November at the Ignatian Managing Editor Kerry Weber international diplomat about innovative Family Teach-In in Washington, D.C. Literary Editor Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. Senior Editor and Chief Correspondent approaches to seemingly intractable With these initiatives and others, we Kevin Clarke problems (see U.S. Secretary of State are proud to actively engage the next Editor at Large James Martin, S.J. John Kerry’s article in the issue of Sept. generation of Catholic leaders. In past Creative Director Shawn Tripoli 14, 2015). years, America’s readers have supported Executive Editor, America Films Jeremy Zipple, S.J. You will also find an extended video these and our other initiatives through Poetry Editor Joseph Hoover, S.J. interview with Mr. Miliband on our our America Associates Appeal. Associate Editor and Vatican Correspondent website as well as links to archival Without this support, we would not Gerard O’Connell Associate Editor and Director of Digital content on this important topic. This be able to sustain our commitment Strategy Sam Sawyer, S.J. is a good example of the multiplatform to excellence. Contributions to the Associate Editor & Director of Audience approach America Media has adopted, Associates Appeal enable us to continue Development Eric Sundrup, S.J. using emerging technologies to explore to broaden our efforts to lead the Senior Editor Edward W. Schmidt, S.J. Associate Editors Ashley McKinless, Olga topics in a multidimensional way and conversation about faith and culture in Segura, Robert David Sullivan to reach a new generation of readers the United States. Assistant Editor Joseph McAuley and viewers. I am very proud of the By now you should have received Art Director Sonja Kodiak Wilder editors and staff, who continue to bring the summer appeal mailing that was Editorial Assistant Zachary Davis Summer Interns Katherine Riga, you this smart, Catholic take on faith sent to our active audience of readers Andrew Wallender and culture, not just each week in print and viewers. Regardless of the size of Columnists Helen Alvaré, John J. Conley, S.J., but every day online and every hour your contribution, we greatly appreciate Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M., James T. Keane, John W. Martens, Bill McGarvey, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, through social media. whatever level of support you can Margot Patterson, Nathan Schneider I am pleased to report that in manage. Please respond by sending National Correspondent Michael O’Loughlin addition to our video and films unit, your check to our offices at 106 West Regional Correspondents John Carr (Washing- ton), Anthony Egan, S.J., and Russell Pollitt, S.J. we have launched a number of other 56th St., New York, NY 10019; or (Johannesburg), Jim McDermott, S.J. (Los Ange- initiatives to expand our readership use our donation page online at www. les), Timothy Padgett (Miami), Steven Schwankert (Beijing), David Stewart, S.J. (London), Rhona and content in order reach the next americamedia.org. Tarrant (Dublin), Judith Valente (Chicago) generation. The Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., If you have already sent a donation, Moderator, Catholic Book Club Postgraduate Writing Fellowship was we thank you! We could not do all we Kevin Spinale, S.J. ditor he esuit ost Michael Rossmann, S.J. created to support the next generation do without your support. Nor would we E , T J P Editorial e-mail of writers for the Catholic media. want to. America is more than a journal [email protected]

Beginning this summer, the fellowship of opinion. We are a community, a Publisher and Chief Financial Officer offers three recent graduates of Jesuit resource for spiritual renewal and social Edward G. Spallone Deputy Publisher Rosa M. Del Saz Vice President for Advancement colleges or universities the opportunity analysis guided by the Jesuit ideal of Daniel Pawlus Advertising Sales Manager to develop their literary skills and finding God in all things. Everywhere Chris Keller Advancement Officer Kerry professional relationships at America I travel, I am reminded that America Goleski Programs and Events Coordinator Nick Sawicki Business Operations Staff Media. Media has the most loyal audience in Khairah Walker, Glenda Castro, Katy Zhou With our sponsorship of The Jesuit publishing today. Many of you have Advertising Contact ads@americamedia. org; 212-515-0102 Subscription contact and Post, an online magazine written supported us for decades, through fair Additional copies 1-800-627-9533 Reprints: exclusively by Jesuits in formation and foul, changing editors, changing [email protected] (www.thejesuitpost.org), we are times and a changing church. On behalf © 2016 America Press Inc. bringing our mission to a broader of all of us at America Media: Thank Cover: Syrian children at a makeshift school at audience of 20- and 30-somethings by you. Have a blessed summer! the camp for displaced Syrians in Atmeh, Syria, in providing a platform for contemporary MATT MALONE, S.J. January 2013. iStockphoto/ Joel Carillet Contents www.americamagazine.org VOL. 215 NO. 3, WHOLE NO. 5135 August 1-8, 2016

ARTICLES 14 HUMANITARIAN REVOLUTION The refugee crisis demands better aid, not just more aid. David Miliband 19 AFTER SCALIA How the Supreme Court is faring without its most vocal justice Ellen K. Boegel 24 WATCHING FOR GOD The gift and challenge of discernment in “The Joy of Love” Antonio Spadaro and Louis J. Cameli 14 COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 4 Current Comment 5 Editorial Crossing the Street 6 Reply All 8 Signs of the Times 12 Column Teaching to Think James T. Keane 28 Vatican Dispatch A Dicastery for the Laity Gerard O’Connell 29 Faith in Focus What Are You Signing Up For? Richard P. Becker 31 Speaking of Christ Mary C. Boys 34 Philosopher’s Notebook Neoclassical Experiment John J. Conley 24 42 The Word The Little Flock; Out of the Mire John W. Martens

BOOKS & CULTURE

35 FILM “Citizen Kane” 75 years later POEM The Moth BOOKS Pip’s Progress; 13 Ways of Looking at the Death Penalty; Hystopia

ON THE WEB The Rev. Bryan Massingale​, right, talks about the shooting​ deaths of two African-American men​ by police, and ​Paul L. Gavrilyuk​ reports on the Holy​ and Great Council​ of the Orthodox churches. Full digital highlights on page 39 and at americamagazine.org/webfeatures. 35 CURRENT COMMENT

to remove encampments of homeless people with 24 Venezuela on the Verge hours’ notice and an offer of shelter. Another supervisor, Conditions in Venezuela appear to be reaching a complete considering this too harsh, proposed a competing initiative breakdown as the nation’s military has taken over its ports that would mandate 72 hours’ notice before removing and begun a distribution of food and other acutely needed encampments and a guarantee of 30 days’ shelter for supplies that will likely prove to be chaotic. The nation’s displaced individuals. A citizens’ initiative would impose a health care system has essentially ceased to function. That payroll tax on technology companies to help pay for low- loss is especially devastating as the region confronts new income housing and services for the homeless. outbreaks of malaria, chikungunya and Zika. It would be preferable for the mayor and board of Multinational consumer-goods producers and banks supervisors to work out a coherent and compassionate plan are closing up shop. The only response from President to address homelessness. Elected officials should not pass Nicolás Maduro, who increasingly appears out of touch the buck to voters, who are being overwhelmed with ever- with the gravity of the national crisis, is to spout socialist lengthening ballots and do not have the time to become bromides and threaten to nationalize more factories. experts on every matter of public policy. Representatives in That last “fix” will probably only accelerate the national a representative democracy should do their job. collapse. Ultimately, however, the source of Venezuela’s immiseration is not hard to discern. Tumbling oil prices have devastated the oil-dependent economy. If a recovery in Olympic Crackdown the oil market is the only way Venezuela can emerge from Amid Brazil’s financial and political turmoil, officials in this crisis, then there is no end in sight to the suffering Rio de Janeiro are scrambling to prepare for an influx of average Venezuelans will be forced to endure. up to 500,000 tourists for the 2016 Olympic Games. Still The local church has repeatedly locked horns with on the to-do list: address fears about the Zika virus, finish President Maduro, demanding that he allow Caritas construction on a subway line to the stadiums and crack Venezuela to move humanitarian aid, especially medical down on the crime and human-trafficking rings that plague supplies, into the country as conditions worsen. Though the city. On July 10, Rio police announced they had rescued Venezuelans have many reasons to view “foreign eight minors forced to work as prostitutes at beaches near interference” with skepticism, in this critical moment it is the main Olympic venues. time for the Maduro government to swallow nationalist The connection between human trafficking and pride and acknowledge that his government needs to accept major sporting events is often overstated, or at least a humanitarian response. The Organization of American misunderstood. Displacement and economic exclusion States, the Obama administration and Caritas Venezuela remain the primary drivers behind sexual exploitation are standing by. The president needs only to welcome their of children and vulnerable people. While the Olympics assistance. can exacerbate these problems—at least 4,120 families have reportedly been evicted from their homes because of the Games—the structural forces driving the sex trade Referendum Irresponsibility predate the added scrutiny and well-meaning advocacy that Residents of San Francisco will need to budget plenty of accompany an international event. According to Unicef, time for voting this fall, when they will decide on as many there were about half a million child sex workers in Brazil as 39 ballot measures. Some proposals may not make it in 2012. all the way to the ballot, but The San Francisco Chronicle The temporary pressure to “clean up” the city for its reports that the city is likely to break the record of 22 moment in the global spotlight may in fact lead to further referendums set in 2008. The high number is possible victimization. In the name of tightening security, police because it is easy to place a question on the ballot. It can have forced homeless people into unsafe shelters and be done by the mayor, any four of the 11 city supervisors, conducted “pacification operations” in favelas that advocacy several city agencies or any group that collects a certain groups say have resulted in human rights abuses. Long number of signatures from the city’s registered voters. after the silvers and golds have been tallied, winners and San Francisco is taxing the patience of voters with losers of the host country’s Olympic gamble will remain. so many unworkable and contradictory proposals. This If these issues matter to the international community year there are at least three that deal with homelessness. gathered to watch the Games, then they deserve sustained One, proposed by a city supervisor, would allow the city commitments, not just timely handwringing.

4 America August 1-8, 2016 EDITORIAL Crossing the Street t the memorial service for the five police officers for years to improve race relations killed in Dallas on July 7, President Obama asked, alongside A. Philip Randolph, a A“Can we find the character, as Americans, to open black civil rights leader and labor our hearts to each other?” On one Dallas street a few days organizer. earlier, some Americans already had begun to answer. On Although the Catholic July 10 a small group of protesters from the Black Lives Church does not have a perfect Matter movement marched down the street, frustrated with track record when it comes to race relations, its deep network police brutality toward black Americans. On the other side in diverse communities puts it in a unique position to work of the road, a small group of counterprotesters, sitting amid effectively for peaceful resolutions in today’s troubled times. U.S. and Texas flags, voiced their own frustrations: “We all The Faith in Flint program in Flint, Mich., for example, brings matter,” one participant told the CNN cameras. together black and white families from across the diocese Yet this situation, in which tensions easily could have to help each group know their neighbors better through come to a head, was defused when the groups chose to talk. service and faith. Formal efforts by the church, for example The conversation resulted in the protesters crossing the road by reviving organizations like the Catholic Conference for to meet and shake hands with the counterprotesters. That Interracial Justice, could also serve as continued reminders moving interaction showcases the power of true encounter, that our nation’s struggle with racism and injustice did not the value of choosing to reach out when it might be easier end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. An encyclical to lash out. from Pope Francis or an updated pastoral letter from the Many people have struggled to make sense of the U.S. bishops on the sin of racism could go a long way toward violent and tragic deaths of both black Americans and fostering local, deliberate and sustained conversations about police officers by trying to quantify the conflict. Indeed, we race and privilege among diverse populations and in the need record-keeping that goes beyond the limited city and context of a faith community. regional data now available, but better statistics will not save “A community consistently subjected to violent us from ourselves. True reconciliation will be motivated discrimination under the law will lose respect for it, and act by names, not numbers: Eric Garner, Wenjian Liu, Alton beyond it,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote on The Atlantic’s website Sterling, Brent Thompson, Tamir Rice and many others. We (7/12), arguing that building a just and democratic society learn best when facts and figures become faces. is the first step toward reducing situations in which police Pope Francis has often reminded us to “see the person,” intervention is necessary in the first place. Acknowledging to acknowledge the dignity of the people we meet. Yet this the continued racism in our country can be difficult for is only a first step. Loving our neighbor requires all our those who do not directly experience it. Many want to senses. To love one’s neighbors means to act alongside them believe that the struggle for equality has ended. But this and to advocate for them. It means we must not only object is one reason racism persists. Systemic injustice does not to violent or racist or ignorant acts but also take positive disappear overnight. In some U.S. cities, schools are even actions to work against the systems that make such actions more segregated now than they were in the 1960s. Quality possible. We must listen. To love one’s neighbors is to seek education, just housing laws and equal opportunity for all, to understand their experience. We need to put aside our without discrimination or violence, remain causes that still own prejudices or have our own beliefs challenged. We must need to be fought for. be vulnerable. We must be willing to find out when we are Still, such large-scale efforts often begin with small wrong. And we must be grateful for the voices that tell us encounters that remind us, as President Obama pointed so. Each of us needs those voices, which often come from out, that “we are not so divided as we seem.” At the end surprising places. of the CNN video, one man calls out, “Everybody get it Our church offers some examples of strong voices to in here.” He stretches out his arms, bringing the two sides follow: Servant of God Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A., taught, together for a group hug. And slowly each person joins—the wrote, sang and ministered to her fellow black Catholics protesters, the counterprotesters and even the police officer while promoting intercultural awareness. John LaFarge, charged with keeping them apart. Together, they raise their S.J., a former editor of America and a white man, worked voices in prayer.

August 1-8, 2016 America 5 REPLY ALL have taught me that relationship fail- would like to live to see the day when ure and emotional suffering are just as the entire Catholic Church takes this Who Are ‘They’? prevalent in intact, traditional families attitude, instead of calling gay people Re “Feminism Has Not Lost Its Soul,” as in “broken” families. My older pa- “intrinsically disordered” and asking by Helen Alvaré (7/4): I take little tients’ family stories from the early to them to join the Courage movement to exception to the author’s general con- mid-20th century serve to remind us remain celibate their entire lives. clusions about the enduring political that a golden age of the family, where TERESA MOTTET pandering to the ideologies of two gen- everyone was pleasant, orderly and Fairfield, Iowa erations ago. But the frequent appar- safe, exists only in the collective imag- Modern Goliaths? ent disinterest with which Professor ination. In “Values and Voting” (5/23), Bishop Alvaré clumps whole globs of carica- We Catholics must approach fam- Richard E. Pates of Des Moines im- tured populations of “them” does not ily values carefully. They are beneficial plies that 62 billionaires in the world honor her main thesis. She never really in providing structure and norms of are our modern-day Goliaths. He goes tells us, for example, what “feminism” stability. As Jake Kohlhaas points out, on to list the socioeconomic ills of the is, as she understands it. She seems however, in “Family Bible Study” in the world—hunger, lack of education, to have an account of “their” perspec- same issue, obsession with family roles malnutrition, poor health, inadequate tive but not who “they” are or whether can distract from the individual call to housing—that would be solved if we “they” speak as a singular voice. (They radical discipleship, with its inherent Davids would only take slingshot in do not.) We are invited to eschew risks. Also, overreliance on tradition- hand and topple those billionaires. Or the views of the “avant-garde” and the al family values can serve to further at least that is to be assumed from the “elite” and to embrace the perspective entrench patriarchal structures that juxtaposition of his thoughts. of “grass-roots” women. Who are these, prevent women and children as well as Bishop Pates should consider: 154 other than voices with whom she does men from rising to their full stature of of the super-rich have signed Bill or does not agree? dignity and holiness. Gates’s pledge to give away the bulk In fact, one of the singular achieve- TRACEY HOELZLE Fremont, Ohio of their wealth; their accumulation of ments of many Catholic women’s pub- wealth created economic growth and lic struggle for justice has been to call A Low Bar opportunities that benefited people out the fallacious quality of assertions In “Libertarians Step Up” (Current across the globe; voluntary efforts on like those by Ms. Alvaré, which notes Comment, 6/20), the editors write, the part of the super-rich to address that nothing today is “poised to amelio- “It is encouraging that the party has poverty and other social ills will like- rate the suffering of American women, chosen two qualified, even-tempered ly succeed far better than any govern- minorities or the poor.” Breathtaking candidates.” I get the civility argument, ment or United Nations program. it is that one would presume to but I am surprised the editors failed to So perhaps Bishop Pates should speak en masse for any of those clus- mention that both Gary Johnson and add an additional malady to his list of ters of human beings, let alone all of Bill Weld are pro-abortion and pro- social woes: envy. them. When will we call off the toxic gay marriage. (Mr. Johnson’s position MARK HAYWARD Catholic culture wars that were per- is to “support women’s rights to choose Manchester, N.H. mitted to take deep root in the idyllic up until viability of the fetus.”) Civility 1970s, for which the professor seems Proof of Progress is a low bar for selecting a presidential “How Far the Stars?” by David Collins, quite nostalgic? candidate, but I guess it is something (REV.) J. MICHAEL BYRON S.J. (5/16), is an interesting review of St. Paul, Minn. when the alternatives are accepted liars Christopher M. Graney’s Setting Aside and frauds. All Authority, but I think it misses the Family Limits TIM O’LEARY Online Comment main point. When Galileo used his America’s issue on the Bible and fam- new telescope to observe four moons ily was affirming to read, especially Christian Status orbiting Jupiter and then saw Venus “Ordinary, Holy Families,” by Julie In “Primary Identity” (6/6), John W. showing phases, he made the intellec- Hanlon Rubio, on models of mercy Martens writes, “Being ‘in Christ’ is in- tual leap and assumed the Copernican in all families (6/20). Her stories con- corporation into a new family, in which thesis was true. Was his position log- firm my experiences in my career as a every gender, ethnicity and social sta- ically unassailable? No. But he relied psychiatrist. I have heard thousands tus is welcome; but ‘child of God’ tran- on criteria of simplicity and elegance of stories of families, and my patients scends every other identity marker.” I to guide his decision. These are the

6 America August 1-8, 2016 same criteria that we use today in the The bill is much narrower and more mitment and its consequent validity, era of quantum physics. If we were to restrictive than most advocates of phy- the parties traditionally have had re- demand iron-clad proof for every sci- sician-assisted suicide had wanted. course to ecclesiastical tribunals and a entific hypothesis, science would never While I join the editors’ call for system of appeal in the external forum. advance. We assess the preponderance increased access to palliative care and In “The Joy of Love,” Pope Francis deals of the evidence and move forward conscience protection for health care with the proper formation of con- knowing that future data may upend workers, I think you must frame the science of the people of God, so peni- our present theory. situation honestly, and the article did tent and priest can approach “irregular The mistake the church made was not do that. situations” in the internal forum, giving to demand unassailable proof before it KATHY MARTIN proper primacy to conscience, which is would allow the Copernican thesis to Spring Valley, Ill. probably more rigorous than the tribu- be taught. Instead of recognizing its nal if properly and honestly done, with With God Alone obvious advantages, the church banned God alone as the judge. In response to “Scalia v. Aquinas,” by Galileo’s books and used the Jesuits to JOHN R. HEYING SR. Anthony Giambrone, O.P. (3/21), Paul fight a protracted battle against the in- Aurora, Ill. Lupone writes, “The author seems to evitable. JAMES FOLEY recognize but gloss over an important Order in the Philippines Online Comment issue—namely, that Thomas Aquinas Re “Duterte’s Tough Talk,” by David T. allows that all that is immoral should Buckley (7/4): This article mainly talks The Court’s Call not necessarily be made illegal, lest a about the Catholic Church as the bish- “Canada’s Liberal Orthodoxy” theology become a theocracy” (Reply ops of the Philippines. But the Catholic (Current Comment, 5/9) suggests that All, 5/2). St. Thomas, however, did no Church is much more than the bish- the move to legalize physician-assisted such thing. He merely distinguished ops. President Rodrigo Duterte’s poor suicide in Canada is solely the work of between two spheres: the religious human rights record, especially against the Liberal Party and Prime Minister and the civil/political. He did this 550 the right to life, will surely make the Justin Trudeau. What the editors fail years before the U.S. Bill of Rights. bishops vigilant about what will like- to mention is that in February 2015 The sacrament of matrimony be- ly be an iron-fist leadership style. The the Supreme Court of Canada ruled tween a man and a woman has both trickier part will be how the Catholic that laws banning physician-assisted religious and civil aspects. The church laity will respond. There might be di- suicide are unconstitutional. The court renders to Caesar what is due civil- visions among them. I know many pi- gave the federal and provincial gov- ly but teaches in a religious context ous Catholics (churchgoers, virtuous, ernments a year to devise legislation that marriage is a sacramental union prayerful and over all God-loving) who providing for regulation of this prac- based upon mutual love and self-giv- support Mr. Duterte precisely because tice. When the Conservative govern- ing, which includes procreation and of his brutality in enforcing order. ment of then-Prime Minister Stephen indissolubility. In the latter case, where ROBIN SEBOLINO Harper was defeated by Mr. Trudeau there is sincere doubt about the com- Quezon City, Philippines in October 2015, the court gave the new government until the end of June to come up with legislation. While the editors are correct in say- ing that Mr. Trudeau has indicated his personal support for the bill, to suggest that the bill stems from “liberal ortho- doxy” is plainly misleading. Rather than no legislation or a hodgepodge across provincial jurisdictions— Quebec has already passed its own legislation—Mr. Trudeau's govern- ment has tried to craft a bill that will meet the constitutional requirements set out by the court while protecting the rights of terminally ill patients.

“Every summer the weather gets crazier and crazier.” BOB ECKSTEIN CARTOON:

August 1-8, 2016 America 7 SIGNS OF THE TIMES

VIOLENCE IN AMERICA Police Shootings and Apparent Reprisal Attacks Shock the Nation he deaths of two African-American men last month at the hands of po- lice in Baton Rouge, La., and Falcon Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul, Tprovoked soul-searching and demonstrations against police brutality and institutional racism around the country. In a jolt to the entire nation, the killings ap- parently also provoked a rampage against police that left five officers dead in Dallas, Tex., on July 7. And in a shocking replay on July 17, three officers were shot down in Baton Rouge and three other officers wounded, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said. The suspect in the Baton Rouge attack was killed by police at the scene. The shooting—which happened less than a mile from Baton Rouge police headquar- ters—came amid spiraling tensions across the city—and the country—between the black community and police. “Words cannot express the emotions we feel for those who have lost loved ones in the tragic events of this day,” Bishop Robert Muench of Baton Rouge said in a statement released on July 17. “Their entire lives have been unexpectedly and ter- ribly turned upside down.” The bishop wrote that he had visited with two of the families affected by the shootings and “shared prayer and support in the midst of their shock, horror and grief.” “Prayer is a powerful path to follow when tragedy happens,” Bishop Muench wrote, “but even the most devout of us sometime question: ‘What good could a growing sadness at the “gut wrench- on this issue unless we confront it at come of this?’ Only the Word of God ing” tragedy he was witnessing, then its deepest level and say that there’s a has the answer to the questions that just a sense of “soul weariness.” Father soul sickness that’s present in our na- shake our faith: The answer is our Massingale, the author of Racial Justice tion,” Father Massingale said, “and un- Lord Jesus Christ. and the Catholic Church, worries that til we have the willingness to address “In Jesus, hope ultimately triumphs many Americans “see each of these as it, and not just address it rationally but over despair; love ultimately triumphs isolated incidents rather than saying to address it using the best resources over hate; and resurrection ultimately this is not a Minnesota problem; this of symbol and ritual, we won’t be able triumphs over death. Standing firmly is not a Baton Rouge problem; this is to really deal with or get ourselves out on the pillars of these eternal truths, not a Staten Island problem; this is of this destructive feedback loop that we look to his words of promise in not a Cleveland problem; this is not a we’re caught in.” the Sermon on the Mount, and we Ferguson problem. This is now a na- He issued that appeal just a few recall two beatitudes that speak to the tional problem.” hours before the shooting started in hope we should hold, especially today: He called racism “a profound warp- Dallas. KEVIN CLARKE ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they ing of the human spirit.” Body cameras shall be called children of God,’ and and better training will contribute to T ERRORISM ‘Blessed are they who mourn, for they ending unjustified use of deadly force, will be comforted’ (Mt 5: 9, 4).” but Father Massingale argues, “to my Need for ‘Crisis The Rev. Bryan Massingale of mind they are going to be limited and Architecture’ Milwaukee, Wis., spoke with America even ineffective if we don’t address these on July 7 before the apparent reprisal issues as soul issues, and that should be ighter Western security mea- attacks on police. He had watched the what religious faith and Catholic faith sures and immigration con- latest videos of police shootings of is all about.” Ttrols are two likely outcomes African-American men, at first with “We are going to keep circling back of a truck attack in France on July 14,

8 America August 1-8, 2016 SIMPLE GIFTS. Baton Rouge Police had gathered to celebrate Bastille Day He added, “There are multiple rea- Department Officer Markell Morris on a beachfront promenade in Nice, sons to want to see this very brutal holds a bouquet of flowers and a France. extremist organization collapse much Superman action figure that a Baton Rouge resident left at Our Lady of According to Gartenstein-Ross, more quickly.” the Lake Hospital. what soft-target, mass casualty attacks He also believes that a more cau- have in common is either an internal tious approach to immigration from architecture or outdoor public design extremist hotspots such as Syria and “that makes it easier for attackers to Iraq are justified. “Europe’s policies kill a large number of people.” He cited have been extraordinarily irresponsi- the assaults on night clubs in Orlando, ble” so far on the Middle East migra- Fla., and Paris, France, that left scores tion crisis, he argued. dead as examples of a design that “Clearly, mass migration into packed people into tight areas with few Europe is making things more dan- opportunities to escape and “not a lot gerous,” he said. European intelligence of barriers to a shooter who was trying and security agencies have been “asleep to move through the area.” at the switch” and have to learn to be He said, “Similarly, in this case you “nimble” in response to a fast-evolving have an attacker who literally was able threat. He suggested that more intel- to drive for two kilometers hitting peo- ligence and security resources should ple all the way; he did not run into a be devoted to border control, screen- spike strip; he did not run into a bar- ing migrants passing through the by rier that was designed to slow down or now well-established routes out of the PHOTO:HENRIETTA WILDSMITH/THE TIMES VIA AP PHOTO:HENRIETTA stop a vehicle.” Middle East and into Europe. Despite the fact that al Qaeda had The need for better security strat- but a closer appraisal of “crisis archi- already suggested an interest in a “ram- egy, he said, has to be separated from tecture” may be another response to ming attack” at the event, “the architec- compassion for the people of the re- the unprecedented attack. ture was not designed to slow down gion who seek to escape the same ISIS “I think that, sadly, we’re at a place any attacker who was trying to drive terror. “These are difficult policy steps,” where—not just for terrorism reasons and run people down.” Why those Gartenstein-Ross said, but in the end but for a wide variety of reasons—we measures were not put in place before- “in any society one of its first obliga- need to think about crisis architecture hand should be a focal point of the in- tions should be to take care of its own which can limit the amount of casu- vestigation into the attack, he said. citizens.” KEVIN CLARKE alties,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Talk of a response by a senior fellow at the Foundation France against the Islamic AFTERMATH. French flags at half staff near the for Defense of Democracies and State has followed quickly site of a deadly attack on the famed Boulevard des Anglais in Nice, France, on July 16, 2016. an adjunct assistant professor in in the aftermath of the at- Georgetown University’s security tack. What may seem like studies program. “These attacks are a mere retaliation could, going to get worse before they get bet- all the same, be effective ter; that’s why it’s important to think in preventing more ter- about how we mitigate the impact and ror attacks, according to save lives, knowing that these things Gartenstein-Ross. Having are going to continue.” a caliphate in place, “a qua- More than 80 people were killed si-state,” he said, “where at- and more than 200 seriously in- tackers can plan and train jured after Tunisian-born Mohamed for future attacks, does Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-ton re- make this organization frigerated truck through a crowd that more deadly.”

August 1-8, 2016 America 9 SIGNS OF THE TIMES

ELECTION 2016 NEWS BRIEFS Calling All Pro- Msgr. Owen Campion of Nashville, Tenn., retired Life Democrats? on June 30 after a long career in the Catholic press emocrats for Life may have as an editor and associate publisher. • A few months lost the battle, but they’re after Donald J. Trump’s clash with Pope Francis hoping to win the war, as over immigration policy, a new poll finds that D most U.S. Catholics support Hillary Clinton, the they see the party’s future inextricably linked to how well it carves out room Democratic presidential candidate, by almost 20 for individuals opposed to abortion. percentage points, with white Catholics narrowly Democratic Party leaders meeting supporting Trump, the Republican candidate, and Owen Campion in Orlando, Fla., on July 10 advanced Hispanic Catholics choosing Clinton by a wide a draft of its 2016 platform that for margin. • The Vatican announced on July 13 the appointment ofKim the first time in party history called for Daniels, a former spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic ending the ban on federal money used Bishops, to the newly formed Secretariat for Communication. • The to fund abortion. The Democrats’ pre- California Catholic bishops announced their support on July 14 for sumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, Proposition 62, a voter initiative on the November ballot that would also supports ending this restriction. repeal the death penalty. • El Salvador’s Supreme Court struck But Kristen Day, head of Democrats down the country's amnesty law on July 13, opening the door to law- for Life of America, said her group will suits from perhaps thousands of victims of abuses during the civil be inside the Wells Fargo Center when war in El Salvador, which ended in 1992. • On June 30, a federal Democrats meet in Philadelphia from judge granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of an July 25 to 28 for their 2016 convention, Indiana law that makes it illegal for women in the state to have an pushing the message that Democrats abortion solely because of the race, gender or disability of a fetus. can’t win with what she dubbed “ex- tremism” on abortion. Day says the party’s 2016 platform According to Day, substantial 21 million Democrats who identify as is ignoring the views of the majori- Democratic losses at the state and na- pro-life. ty of Americans. “We’re not calling tional levels following the passage of Day hopes to use the convention “to for safe, legal and rare anymore,” Day the Affordable Care Act, which con- find these pro-life Democrats because said, referring to the stance of former tained provisions to increase access we really need more unity and a stron- President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. to contraception, including methods ger voice in the party because so many “We’re just calling for legal for any rea- church leaders consider abortifacients, pro-life Democrats are afraid to speak son. That’s a big change from where we suggest that the party ignores the pro- out.” Day said she wants to convince were even a couple years ago.” life vote at its peril. “We can’t pass other Democrats who do not share Day said she will urge party lead- more laws to support pregnant wom- their party’s views on the topic to “come ers to look beyond winning the White en and working families and protect out” of hiding. House. this ‘whole life’ point of view if we’re “We’re pro-life Democrats, and “You can’t rely on the White House in the minority,” she said. “In swing we have a consistent ethic of support to pass things like paid leave, or districts, the pro-life vote can make a for the pregnant woman and the new Medicaid for all, or increased access difference.” mother and the young family across the to health care, or a minimum wage in- Day’s group plans to unveil a report board,” Day said. “We don’t think we crease,” she told America, referring to during the convention that suggests should abandon the family when the other issues she believes are important that the party’s extreme views on abor- child is born, and I think Democrats to the pro-life cause. “You can’t pass tion are out of touch with most of the understand that.” any of those things when you have U.S. electorate. Day claims member- MICHAEL O’LOUGHLIN Republican majorities in the rest of the ship in her organization is “in the thou- country.” sands,” but she believes there are about From America Media, CNS, RNS, AP and other sources.

10 America August 1-8, 2016 SIGNS OF THE TIMES

DISPATCH | LOS ANGELES notes Taylor. When a commute by car can already take upwards of an hour Stuck in Traffic each way, for many people the public transit option is no option at all. raffic is to Los Angeles what in other major cities. Over the last de- And simply investing more money dangerous animals are to cade the county has invested $9 billion in such a geographically challenged TAustralia—something vis- into expanding its system. Yet over the system has little impact. For those itors fixate on and locals mostly ig- same period, transit usage has dimin- with the means, it doesn’t matter if nore. “Do you know it took me over ished by more than 10 percent. the city schedules more buses or offers an hour to get here?” tourists ask, eyes The problem, explains Brian Taylor, newer, safer trains if the travel time crazed and glassy after their first foray director of U.C.L.A.’s Institute of remains basically the same. Yet cit- in the SoCal stop and go. “Also, why Transportation Studies, lies in the ies continue to push massive funding is Hollywood so gross?” (Seriously, city’s history. Los Angeles is most of- packages—including in Los Angeles a Mayor Garcetti: Why?) ten compared to places like New York proposed $120 billion over the next 40 The issue of traffic congestion here or Chicago. But, Taylor points out, years—both because it appears to ad- is undeniable. According to a re- dress the problem and because cent national study, Angelenos many erroneously think, How spend an average of 81 hours Los Angeles ‘grew up could more resources not help? a year stuck in traffic, the around the automobile.’ As Taylor sees it, rather than worst rate in the country. (San spreading transit resources over Francisco and Washington, Ready access to transpor- the entire city out of a desire to D.C., tied for second at 75 tation was assumed. seem fair, Los Angeles should hours.) But among most locals focus its efforts on areas and the snarls barely rate a men- populations who actually need tion. Between a heavy medication of those cities developed their transit and use rapid transit services. “We’re podcasts and satellite radio shows and networks before the invention of the spending a lot of money on new com- a religious observance to Waze, the automobile. This led to denser urban muter-oriented services,” he explains, community-fed traffic and navigation areas that play to the strength of public but “they aren’t returning a lot in rid- app, Angelenos simply cope. transport—“moving a lot of people in ership.” Still, faced with the growing con- the same direction at the same time.” But what about the congestion? sequences of climate change, like the As a result New York City today car- What about all the cars? Taylor says state’s never-ending drought, the city’s ries 38 percent of the entire country’s they’re largely here to stay. “Private ve- overwhelming dependence on auto- transit riders. hicles are likely to play a central role in mobiles would seem a serious concern. Los Angeles, on the other hand, like mobility in all but the very densest cit- Once upon a time the county had over many other American cities and most ies in the country.” 1,000 miles of electric streetcar lines. suburbs, developed largely after World If that’s the case, alongside the shiny But a combination of rising costs and War II. As such it “grew up around the new train line that links Santa Monica the machinations of car companies automobile,” says Taylor. Ready access to downtown L.A.—but which takes anxious to eliminate competition to transportation was assumed; space, as long to reach downtown as the old eventually destroyed the service. not density, was of highest value. line did 60 years ago—county and Today L.A. County actually trans- This difference complicates con- state government should start think- ports 1.3 million people a day by pub- versation around public transporta- ing about public transit in broader lic transit, second in the United States tion today in ways that are not always terms. They might consider diverting only to New York, but with little of obvious. Even when the problem of some of their proposed billions to the efficiency or convenience offered congestion is acknowledged, the size research and rebates on hybrids and and population spread of Los Angeles electric cars. create significant obstacles to efficient Investing in longer National Public JIM McDERMOTT, S.J., a screenwriter, is America’s Los Angeles correspondent. Twitter: transportation. “Public transit trips Radio programs couldn’t hurt, either. @PopCulturPriest @jmcdsj. take about twice as long as driving,” JIM McDERMOTT

August 1-8, 2016 America 11 JAMES T. KEANE Teaching to Think omewhere around a quarter of a finally read the novel cover to cover. importance. century ago, I found myself sit- Lo and behold, it was rather different There’s an argument to be made Sting down at a table in my high from the musical. Who knew? there, actually. I suspect that I passed school gym to take the A.P. English IV All jokes aside, this memory has that A.P. exam (no really, I did) 25 test. I had an extraordinary teacher for been on my mind during the latest years ago for two reasons. First, my that class, so I should have been ready; round of academic hand-wringing over exposure to curricula heavy on verbal but I had spent months obsessively re- the workplace of the future. The liberal expression had taught me some basic reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, with arts, policymakers agree, should take a skills in critical thinking and writ- the occasional break for a Tom Clancy back seat to the STEM disciplines of ing that helped me scheme my way novel, and so was blindsided by the science, technology, engineering and through a complex problem. Second, essay question: “Many famous novels mathematics. The latter I met people working feature a close relationship between are ballyhooed by everyone in creative endeavors for a protagonist and his/her sidekick. from Barack Obama (a po- which I had no training Select one book from the following list litical science major) to the Economic at all, who offered me and describe how the relationship be- former chief executive of- advantage a basic cultural com- tween the two enriches and develops ficer of Hewlett-Packard, petency. The stupidity the plot. Be specific.” Carly Fiorina (double ma- is not the of trying to fool the Yossarian, the protagonist of jor in philosophy and medi- College Board exam Catch-22, is of one of literature’s great eval history), as the key to only goal of readers with an answer loners, so I could hardly write about keeping America’s economy higher based on a play requires, him. And for some reason, none of competitive. after all, that one has Tom Clancy’s novels were on the list, Much of this is a num- education. seen the play. so Jack Ryan was also out. I peeked bers game. A generation But economic ad- around; my classmates were already ago, according to Forbes, vantage is not the only writing. The situation was dire. 40 percent of the world’s goal of education. Nor Suddenly my eyes alighted on the scientists and engineers lived in the do humanities studies exist just to drama kids in the corner. Eureka! United States; now 15 percent do, and make our nerds more cultured than The fall musical had been “Man of La the percentage will continue to shrink yours. From Plato to Cicero through Mancha,” and what better sidekick as China’s and India’s huge popula- the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum all the way was there than Sancho Panza? The list tions of engineering students enter the to Thomas Dewey, Western cultures of approved novels certainly includ- workforce. And there is little doubt have recognized that broadened hori- ed “the first novel” of them all, Don that the technology sector will play zons account for a good citizenry, and Quixote. Onward to glory I wrote! a more prominent role in the future. every time we move away from that Or so I thought. We met with our We do need more engineers and scien- notion we suffer. Future employment teacher afterward to review. “Keane, tists—many more. might be the most quantifiable goal you fool,” he spluttered. “‘Man of La The funding for those programs of education, but it is certainly not Mancha’ is a two-hour musical. Don has to come from somewhere, howev- the primary determinant of a society’s Quixote is a 900-page book from the er. Because of diminishing resources, health. And can’t we agree these days 17th century. You have no chance of the specter of “program prioritization” that our society’s health is more on our passing.” haunts almost every university in the minds than our economy? Years later in graduate school, I country, and rarely does the priority If we cannot encourage innovative go to the liberal arts. The result is that and creative ways of thinking, or train these programs often have to justify our children to revisit forgotten ones, JAMES T. KEANE is an editor at Orbis Books in Ossining, N.Y., and a former associate editor their existence on the grounds of eco- all the technology training in the world of America. Twitter: @jamestkeane. nomic utility rather than pedagogical is just so much tilting at windmills.

12 America August 1-8, 2016

Humanitarian Revolution The refugee crisis demands better aid, not just more aid. BY DAVID MILIBAND very day in my work at the International Rescue what works rather than a generalized belief in sharing pos- Committee, I hear stories and see evidence itive experience. of how vulnerable people in desperate straits The obvious objection to trying to harness diverse activ- around the world are not getting the help they ity into a single system is that bureaucracy and hierarchy need. The scale and complexity of current hu- would triumph. My argument is the opposite. A system Emanitarian needs are increasingly out of step with the re- with clear goals, a dedicated evidence base and the right fi- sources, policies and practices available to meet them. nancial incentives would be better able to adapt to and even A series of events this year offers the chance to encap- anticipate change than the current sector. Such a system will sulate and enact reforms that make a material difference to need to break out of the categories that currently constrain the lives of the people we and other humanitarian agencies us: emergencies versus protracted crisis, humanitarian relief seek to serve. In May, there was the first ever U.N. World versus sustainable development, helping people survive ver- Humanitarian Summit, which the U.N. secretary general sus helping them thrive. These are meaningless categories to boldly committed to "fundamental reform." There are suc- individuals and families coping with crises. Changes in the cessive U.N. and U.S. government-sponsored summits in wider world have left these distinctions behind. It is time for September on migration and refugees. There is the election public policy to do so, too. of a new U.N. secretary general, also in September, who will take office in January 2017, when there will also be a new The Context of Crisis U.S. president. These are vital opportunities to bring new The current scale of human displacement is staggering. Over hope and dignity to some of the most vulnerable people in 60 million people, split two-to-one between internally dis- the world. placed people and refugees, are now fleeing for their lives. Much humanitarian action is genuinely heroic. The work In 2014, only 1 percent of the world’s refugees were able to of staff members of the United Nations and nongovernmen- return home. Old conflicts are continuing, from Somalia to tal organizations, not to mention the efforts of those afflict- Afghanistan, and new wars are starting, from Syria to South ed by conflict and disaster, is remarkable. But more heroism Sudan. One in every 122 people on the planet is fleeing con- is not an adequate response to the scale of humanitarian suf- flict. Over 40 percent of the world's extreme poor live in fering; instead we need to update our thinking about what conflict or fragile states. humanitarian action is and how it can be delivered. This is what creates the case for more aid. Despite the There is a need for better aid, not just more aid. The guid- fact that fragile states produce 60 percent of the world's dis- ing light of reform should be the idea of turning human- placed and host nearly half of the world's displaced and 43 itarian action from a mission-driven but fragmented sec- percent of the world's extreme poor, they receive just 30 per- tor of activity to a high-performance and dynamic system. cent of total overseas development assistance. As the U.N. Speeches, articles and books often talk interchangeably of High Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing recently said, a humanitarian sector and a humanitarian system. In fact, "Never before has the world been so generous towards the a sector and a system are not the same. A sector is a diverse needs of people affected by conflicts and disasters, and never group of organizations, each with a different focus, operat- before has generosity been so insufficient." ing on the basis of shared principles. A system, for exam- It is more than plausible that the humanitarian effort is ple a judicial system, by contrast, is directed toward shared underfunded to the tune of $15 billion (the figure given by outcomes, not just shared principles; it has agreed metrics the U.N. High Level Panel). But while $15 billion would be of success, not just multiple measures of activity, and a com- very welcome and would make a real difference, it would not mitment to inform all practice with objective evidence on solve the problems that exist. The organic growth of the hu- manitarian sector over 70 years—spurred in recent decades THE RT. HON. DAVID MILIBAND is the president and chief executive by the creation of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of officer of the International Rescue Committee. From 2007 to 2010, he served as British foreign secretary. This article is adapted from a speech delivered at Humanitarian Affairs, the entry of Gulf state donors and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on April 27. the growth of a private sector role—has not kept up with

14 America August 1-8, 2016 GETTING TO CLASS. Afghan children arrive at a school near a refugee camp near Kabul.

the needs of the people. in our work—protecting our staff and supporting our bene- The mismatch is not just one of resources. It is also one ficiaries. But unlike our “development” counterparts, we have of concept, institutions and mindset. And the mismatch is yet to define limited and specific results to guide our programs likely to grow if the likely context going forward is taken and investments and to measure progress and performance. into account, from growing climate risks and economic im- Over the past few years I have argued that the absence balances to the deep trend toward flight and urbanization, of a limited set of agreed-upon outcome measures prevents the reticence at best on the part of most wealthier countries the humanitarian community from operating like a proper to accept refugees and the continued pressure on humanitar- system, with a clear focus of activity and effort. As a result, ian finance at a time when there are increasing pressures on energy is wasted, accountability is undermined, responsibil- domestic budgets. ity is dispersed, a silo mentality is reinforced and the divide In the face of these facts, there is a range of necessary re- between people and institutions who consider themselves to sponses. One is to reinvigorate international action for con- be working on “development” rather than “humanitarian” is- flict prevention and response. Another is to raise more re- sues is reinforced. sources. These are very important. But I focus here on what Outcomes, measured by meaningful indicators and con- we are trying to achieve, how we can achieve it and how we text-specific targets, are not a magic cure, but they are the can finance it. starting point for a serious attempt to build a system that effectively and accountably meets the needs of people dis- Collective Outcomes placed by conflict. The humanitarian community has always embraced funda- It is therefore significant that the recent U.N. report “One mental principles of action. The principles of independence, Humanity” mentions "collective outcomes" not 10 or 20

CNS PHOTO/S. SABAWOON, EPA EPA CNS PHOTO/S. SABAWOON, neutrality, impartiality and humanity are important every day times but 60 times. It rightly calls for "agreement on collec-

August 1-8, 2016 America 15 tive outcomes that are strategic, clear, quantifiable and mea- Follow the Evidence surable” and says that “over a multiyear horizon [collective Focusing on outcomes is the first part of the battle for ef- outcomes] is ultimately how we transcend the humanitari- fective aid. The second is making sure we have the evidence an-development divide." necessary to choose and prioritize interventions that work. Collective outcomes need to specify the improvement Since 2006, the I.R.C. has completed, or is in the process we want to see for the conflict affected and displaced: not of conducting, 66 research studies, including 29 impact eval- just numbers of children in school but whether they have uations, across 24 crisis-affected countries and in the United literacy and numbers skills. In countries where needs most States. But while there have been over 2,000 rigorous eval- outpace resources, we need to agree on the most pressing uations of programming in stable countries in the last 10 changes that our shared activity must achieve. Setting tar- years, we have seen only 100 in conflict settings. And in the gets for improvements in the situation of displaced popu- absence of a strong evidence base, the humanitarian world is lations that are both ambitious and relying on assumptions, experience and feasible will motivate all of us to be intuition rather than research founded more disciplined in our interventions. Everyone expects on fact or evidence. Measuring our progress together will Evidence-based interventions have help all of us improve accountability N.G.O.’s to call for much to offer to improve outcomes. to beneficiaries and incentivize collab- For example, the use of community oration. In essence, these targets would more aid. If we call committees as a means to keep chil- form the bedrock of a systemwide per- dren safe is a common intervention, formance framework. together for better but there is little evidence that these The task of the U.N. Meeting on aid, then we are really committees are effective. On the other Refugees and Migration in September hand, targeted programs for parents is to agree to the details. I offer three doing justice to our and caregivers have been shown to re- points to inform this process. First, duce violence and promote children's there should be some clear priorities beneficiaries. healthy development in high-income for collective outcomes relating to and stable countries. The I.R.C. has health for those displaced by conflict, now tested a family-based approach in to education for children displaced by conflict, to protection Burundi, Thailand and Liberia and set a new standard for from violence for women and children displaced by conflict effective practice. and to economic well-being for those displaced by conflict. A commitment to the use of evidence needs to have five Second, the indicators to measure these outcomes need components. First, donors and implementers need to agree precision and care if they are to have the requisite effect. In on what the evidence says about how to achieve desired education, for example, whether a child has access to educa- outcomes. Second, outcomes need monitoring to measure tion should be indicated not simply by an enrollment rate change from different interventions. Third, we need to demonstrating that she is signed up for school but by atten- generate causal evidence through impact evaluations to in- dance and participation rates, signaling that she indeed was form program design. Fourth, we know that evaluation and able to go to school and participate for a minimum number evidence alone will not necessarily achieve system break- of hours needed for learning. throughs. If we want to sustain a system that is evolving, we Third, the power of this approach comes in the word need to allocate risk capital for research and development collective as well as in the word outcome. That is because, at to vary and test what works and push for breakthroughs in the moment, different donors ask implementers to measure innovation and research and development. Finally, funding different indicators. This means that even if one donor sim- needs to follow the evidence. Programs with high levels of plifies reporting requirements, it does not have the intended impact need to grow, while those without need to shrink. effect of easing the burden on implementation in a mate- The humanitarian community stands to gain from align- rial way. For example, the International Rescue Committee ing behind what works and, where we do not have evidence in Ivory Coast is required by a combination of donor, host of what works, investing in evidence generation. This takes country and internal management demands to track over us directly to the third part of reform: finance. 1,200 indicators weekly and monthly. This information is time-consuming and costly to collect and not well used to The Cost of Aid drive programming. So collective outcomes need to be a dis- Funding requested through humanitarian appeals has cipline on donors to drive out wasteful information-collec- swelled by 660 percent since the United Nations Millennium tion in favor of harmonized and effective accountability. Development Goals were announced in 2000. The rise in

16 America August 1-8, 2016 actual funding over the same period has been 366 percent. accurately, that 93 cents of every dollar given goes directly Various aspects of the financing system are out of sync with to programs and services. the modern reality of humanitarian need. Refugees are dis- While it is a step in the right direction, this form of re- placed on average for 17 years, but the I.R.C.'s median grant porting has significant limitations. It assumes that low ad- length is 11 months. The attendant accountability systems ministrative costs are equivalent to efficiency. A more mean- are multiple, overlapping and divergent, all with their own ingful analysis would be to look at the cost-efficiency and costs. Aid dollars sometimes follow a circuitous route to the cost-effectiveness of specific programs. A cost-efficiency beneficiary, from the donor to the United Nations to an in- analysis compares the cost of a program to the outputs it ternational implementing partner to a local organization. achieves (for example, cost per latrine constructed, or cost The High Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing has per family provided with cash assistance), while a cost-ef- raised the standard for a more efficient and effective financ- fectiveness analysis compares the costs of a program to the ing system. It is vital that its insights are turned into daily outcomes it achieves (for example, cost per diarrheal death practice. avoided, cost per increase in nutritional status). For donors, that means embracing a shift to predictable The truth is that better costing of aid has the potential multiyear funding dedicated to clear outcomes for affect- to save and improve more lives. But the multiplier effects ed populations. It means funding measurement, evaluation of costing will be realized only when the sector is able to and evidence-generation at appropriate levels. It means behave like a system. This means having a common meth- pooling funds across agencies (humanitarian, development) odology for costing that allows cost figures to be compared and sometimes across sectors (health, education for women across agencies, systems that help to automate calculations and children) to make sure money is targeted on people's so they can be done quickly and consistently, and common needs and not on organizational mandates. It means a har- indicators that we are striving toward. monized reporting framework that cuts the costs of man- Everyone expects N.G.O.’s to call for more aid. If we call aging grants. together for better aid, then we are really doing justice to For implementers, N.G.O.’s and the United Nations, it our beneficiaries. means one thing above all others: open books. Transparency is essential for the trust that comes with outcome-orient- The Way Forward ed funding over longer periods. But obviously the agenda There are good grounds for believing that there is an emerg- goes beyond that to include more extensive cooperation at ing consensus about what should be done to reform humani- the local level: to embrace client voices and choices in pro- tarian aid. Yves Daccord, director general of the International gram design and delivery and to upgrade our own human Committee of the Red Cross, put it well: “As humanitarian resources and compliance systems. organizations and their leaders strive to remain relevant and One test of the financial system will be the measurement effective in this dramatically changing environment, carrying of cost efficiency and cost effectiveness. We are convinced out ‘business as usual’ is clearly not an option.” that by better understanding the cost of different programs It is vital to acknowledge the widespread skepticism in different places, we can dramatically increase the number about whether there is sufficient unity of leadership in this of people who benefit. diverse sector to deliver change. We are a donor-driven sec- We know from research in Kenya that while there is good tor, and the main donors have wide areas of agreement. But evidence that a number of programs can improve children's they still run different systems. The United Nations is coor- literacy, they vary widely in cost-effectiveness. According to dinator, implementer, fundraiser and donor, but each U.N. a review by the economist Patrick McEwan, an investment agency has a different mandate, and so a different set of in- of $8,900 could upgrade the reading skills of 100 students centives. The implementing N.G.O.’s are funded to deliver by 20 percent if the money were spent on computer-as- programs, not to exist, and so are in a constant battle to raise sisted literacy instruction. But the same amount of mon- core funds. ey could get the same result for 423 students if spent on My own view is that this change has to be led by the do- performance incentives for teachers, and for 695 students if nors. They have the money; therefore they have the lever- spent on remedial tutoring. In other words, with the same age; therefore they have the responsibility. If they remain amount of funds, we can achieve the same outcome for six fragmented, focused on inputs, not outcomes, and siloed in times as many people. their thinking, then the sector will remain fragmented and Within the sector, cost is widely recognized as import- siloed as well. Overcome this inheritance, harmonize their ant. U.N. appeals often state the "cost per beneficiary," and efforts, put the beneficiaries at the center, and the extraor- N.G.O.’s, like my own, report on the percentage of donated dinary commitment of all the players could build a human- funds that go directly to programs. For example, we say, itarian system worthy of the name. A

18 America August 1-8, 2016 After Scalia How the Supreme Court is faring without its most vocal justice BY ELLEN K. BOEGEL

ECCLESIAL APPEAL. Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh, left, and Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington near the U.S. Supreme Court on March 23.

he quiet death of the Supreme Court’s most vo- and compromise. By simple numerical count, however, his cal justice changed the result of only a few deci- death did not affect many decisions. One-vote majority sions, but the loss of Justice Antonin Scalia mid- opinions make the headlines because they decide contro- way through the 2015-16 term cast a pall that versial issues, but most Supreme Court decisions are made Twill hang over the court through the presidential election by a clear majority. Of the 80 opinions issued this term, 63 and beyond. The nation’s political polarization, the Senate’s were ruled on without Justice Scalia, but only four were de- failure to act on Judge Merrick B. Garland’s nomination and termined by one vote. In another four cases the court was dissatisfaction with Supreme Court decisions from both the unable to reach a decision because of a tie. right and left guarantee that the appointment of the next A tie maintains the status quo. Lower court decisions justice will be a major campaign issue. that are not reversed by a majority of the Supreme Court are It is impossible to truly judge the impact of Justice Scalia’s summarily affirmed, but the outcome is not nationally appli- absence from the bench and on behind-the-scenes debate cable. Of the four cases that were tied, only one, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, clearly would have had a different outcome had Justice Scalia lived. The lower court ELLEN K. BOEGEL, an associate professor of legal studies at St. John’s University in New York, clerked for the United States Court of Appeals for in Friedrichs applied a previous Supreme Court ruling that

CNS PHOTO/JOSHUA ROBERTS, REUTERS CNS PHOTO/JOSHUA ROBERTS, the Second Circuit. She is a regular columnist for America. required public employees who are not union members to

August 1-8, 2016 America 19 pay union agency fees. The case was argued before Justice decision did not affect the original DACA program, which Scalia’s death, and his questions indicated he would have is in effect and currently benefits approximately one million joined his conservative brethren and ruled the requirement a immigrants, but must be renewed by the next president. The violation of employee First Amendment rights. In the other future of immigration reform is not in the courts but in the three tied cases, it is probable he would have voted to uphold hands of the voters, as we elect a new president and Congress. the lower courts’ decisions. Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt invalidated a Texas Quite possibly the greatest impact Justice Scalia’s death law requiring abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgical had on cases this term was the court’s decision not to hear center standards and their doctors to have admitting privileg- an appeal. The Supreme Court picks and chooses the cases es at nearby hospitals. The U.S.C.C.B. submitted an amicus it hears by granting or denying petitions for certiorari (re- brief in support of the Texas law and the health benefits it view). Four votes are needed to accept a case. The petition affords women seeking abortions. A majority of the court, in for review in Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman was ruled on after an opinion written by Justice Breyer, disagreed and held that Justice Scalia’s death; only three justices voted to grant re- the law impeded rather than benefitted proper care and was view, which means the lower court ruling stands. The case an undue burden on the right to an abortion. The 5-to-3 de- involves a family-owned pharmacy and individual pharma- cision was strongly criticized by the dissenting justices who cists who object to filling prescriptions for emergency con- would have denied the appeal on procedural grounds, but traceptives. A Washington State regulation prohibits a phar- also disagreed with the majority’s wholesale rejection of the macy from refusing to “deliver a drug or device to a patient enacted safety standards. While some provisions of the law, because its owner objects to delivery on religious, moral, or like those requiring specific room dimensions and one-way other personal grounds.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the traffic patterns, are not required for patient health, others, Ninth Circuit rejected the pharmacists’ First Amendment like those prohibiting “misleading advertising” and requir- claims. It is probable that Justice Scalia would have joined ing patients to “be treated with respect, consideration, and Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Thomas in vot- dignity,” are beneficial and pose no burden. As Justice Alito ing to grant review. Nevertheless, while the decision not to wrote, “[f ]ederal courts have no authority to carpet-bomb hear the appeal is a blow to the individual plaintiffs, religious state laws, knocking out provisions that are perfectly con- rights advocates generally would agree that no decision by sistent with federal law, just because it would be too much the Supreme Court is better than an adverse one. bother to separate them from unconstitutional provisions.” Whether rightly or wrongly decided, the majority opinion is Major Decisions controlling. The Supreme Court has put pro-life advocates Zubik v. Burwell, which was argued and decided after Justice and legislators on notice not to overreach when drafting fu- Scalia’s death, challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contra- ture legislation. ceptive mandate as applied to religious employers who ob- The court heard a number of other notable cases, par- jected to applying for the government exemption. The court ticularly concerning environmental laws, voting rights and avoided what might have been a 4-to-4 tie by agreeing 8-to- criminal justice. 0 to send the consolidated cases back to the lower courts Environmental Protection. The court stayed the Obama ad- to fashion opt-out provisions acceptable to all parties. The ministration’s Clean Power Plan pending lower court review, decision was praised by the Becket Fund as a win for reli- but permitted the Environmental Protection Agency to en- gious liberty. force certain clean air regulations despite a finding last term The lower court in United States v. Texas issued a prelim- that they must be re-evaluated. The court also ruled in favor inary injunction against the Obama administration’s execu- of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s efforts to tive action on immigration. These initiatives (the Deferred manage the nation’s power grid when it upheld “demand-re- Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent sponse pricing”—a program to pay utility users to reduce Residents and the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood their consumption at peak times—and let stand an E.P.A.- Arrivals policies) would have given certain undocumented administered Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan. immigrants a temporary right to work as well as a reprieve Voting and Redistricting. The right to vote is greatly di- from the threat of deportation. The U.S. Conference of minished when districts are gerrymandered to dilute the Catholic Bishops submitted an amicus brief in support of the power of individual voters, but drawing district boundaries programs, but the Supreme Court split 4 to 4, which leaves is an inexact science. Districts need not be the same size and the injunction prohibiting implementation in place. The low- minor population differences are tolerated. The court issued er court determined the policy was not properly promulgated unanimous decisions in several redistricting cases this term. as required by the Administrative Procedure Act, but it did In a case from Arizona, the court ruled a redistricting plan not find that the programs are inherently impermissible. The was constitutional because political party benefits were inci-

20 America August 1-8, 2016 dental rather than intended. In Evenwel v. Abbott the court exculpatory information to the defense. The most import- rejected a claim by Texas voters that state districts should ant sentencing decision made by the court this term grants be based on the number of eligible voters rather than on the state inmates the right to appeal mandatory life sentences general population. Justice Ginsburg wrote, “We hold, based for crimes they committed as juveniles. on constitutional history, this Court’s de- The court strengthened the right to cisions, and longstanding practice, that a counsel by prohibiting pretrial seizure State may draw its legislative districts of assets not obtained through illegal based on total population.” A challenge The remaining means. A different result would have de- to Virginia’s redistricting was rejected justices did prived defendants of funds necessary to because the members of Congress who pay legal fees. The Fourth Amendment brought the suit had no standing as they an admirable right against unreasonable searches and did not demonstrate actual injury. seizures was further clarified when the As of this writing, the Fifth Circuit job reconciling court held that police may administer a is in the process of rendering an en banc warrantless breathalyzer test, but not a (full court) decision regarding a chal- their differences warrantless blood test, pursuant to drunk lenge to a Texas law that requires voters driving arrests. to present unexpired government-issued and finding In Caetano v. Massachusetts, the photo IDs. The trial court and a three- consensus in court indicated that ownership of a stun judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled gun may be protected by the Second the law violated Section 2 of the Voting almost all Amendment when it vacated a state court Rights Act, but a majority of the circuit’s decision that upheld a ban on stun guns. judges voted to review that determina- the cases. The court made it clear the Constitution tion and stayed the district court’s in- protects new, as well as old, forms of junction of the law. The party that loses weaponry. the rehearing undoubtedly will apply to the Supreme Court In one of the last cases decided by the court this term, for relief. Voter ID law challenges from North Carolina, McDonnell v. United States, a unanimous court vacated Virginia and Wisconsin also must be decided before the the conviction of the former governor of Virginia and de- November elections. termined that arranging meetings, hosting events and con- Criminal Justice. The criminal cases decided this term il- tacting other officials to discuss favors for one’s beneficiary lustrate that justice is elusive. Horrific acts of violence some- do not constitute “official acts” and thus are not illegal under times are followed by prosecutorial and judicial errors that federal fraud and anti-corruption statutes. may lead to wrongful convictions or unwarranted punish- ••• ment. The Constitution establishes procedural safeguards, The Senate’s refusal even to consider President Obama’s but compliance is imperfect and requires constant vigilance. nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy ensures that the The court affirmed that juries, not judges, must make court will continue to operate understaffed for most, if not every decision necessary to impose the death sentence. The all, of its next term. Chief Justice Roberts and the remain- court denounced overt racism in the jury selection process ing justices did an admirable job reconciling their differences when it reinstated the appeal of an African-American de- and finding consensus in almost all the cases they decided fendant who was sentenced to death after the prosecution after Justice Scalia’s death; but the longer the court is kept deliberately excluded African-Americans from his jury. In to an even number, the more likely it is that it will be unable another case, the court held that a potential juror’s expres- to fulfill its role as the third branch of government, keeping sion of doubt concerning the morality of capital punishment checks and balances on the states, Congress and the presi- and uncertainty regarding his ability to vote for the death dent. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 80, penalty provide sufficient cause for the prosecutor to strike “There ought always to be a constitutional method of giving him from the jury pool. efficacy to constitutional provisions. If there are such things In an unusual judicial recusal case, the court upheld the as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a due process right to a fair appeal when it vacated a decision government...may be ranked among the number. The mere of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because its chief justice necessity of uniformity in the interpretation of the nation- previously served as the prosecutor who approved seeking al laws, decides the question. Thirteen independent courts the death penalty against the defendant. Another death of final jurisdiction over the same causes, arising upon the sentence was overturned when the court threw out a con- same laws, is a hydra in government, from which nothing viction because the prosecutor failed to disclose potentially but contradiction and confusion can proceed.” A

22 America August 1-8, 2016

Watching for God The gift and challenge of discernment in ‘The Joy of Love’ BY ANTONIO SPADARO AND LOUIS J. CAMELI he word discernment has a central, even critical- ly important place in the development of “The Joy of Love,” Pope Francis’ post-synodal apos- tolic exhortation on the family. In referring to Tdiscernment, Francis employs very strong language: “It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being” (No. 304, our italics). Many failures to understand this important magisterial text arise precisely from an inability to understand what discernment is and to live it out. So to understand and appreciate the document, we need an accurate understanding of discern- ment—a word cited about 50 times in the document—and the serious challenge it poses for pastoral ministry. “The Joy of Love” outlines a real and genuine “pastoral conversion”: “We have long thought that simply by stressing doctrinal, bioethical and moral issues, without encouraging openness to grace, we were providing sufficient support to families, strengthening the marriage bond and giving mean- ing to marital life. We find it difficult to present marriage more as a dynamic path to personal development and fulfill- ment than as a lifelong burden. We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often re- spond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form conscienc- es, not to replace them” (No. 37, our italics). The great question, obviously, is this: How do we form consciences? And how do we form those who are called to by the “mud on the street” (Nos, 45, 179). and responsible for the formation of consciences? On June 16, the pope spoke at the opening of the gathering Discernment seems to be a key word in the magiste- of the Diocese of Rome about “The Joy of Love.” He affirmed rium of Pope Francis. He lives his Petrine ministry as an the need “to stay in touch with the movement of the Spirit in evangelical, spiritual and pastoral ministry of discernment, discernment.” This means “listening to what God is saying which is able to foster an adult Christianity. “Discernment, to us within our given circumstances” of life. Discernment purification, and reform” (“The Joy of the Gospel,” No. 30) “does not stop with a description of situations or of prob- establish a tripartite foundation. Discernment drives the lems or—even less—of sin.” Rather, it “always goes beyond mission forward and pushes those engaged in it to move and succeeds in seeing behind every face, every story, and ev- outside of themselves and not to be afraid of being dirtied ery situation an opportunity and a possibility.” Discernment “protects us from turning faith into an ideology.” ANTONIO SPADARO, S.J., is the editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica. Discerning, then, means listening to the voice of the THE REV. LOUIS J. CAMELI, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is the Spirit and facing our unfolding history with its needs and archbishop's delegate for formation and mission. A longer version of this article originally appeared in La Civiltà Cattolica. A full English text is challenges, and—above all—with an eye on individual per- available at americamagazine.org. sons and their concrete lives. This means moving beyond

24 America August 1-8, 2016 “abstract situations” and “cases.” When Pope Francis spoke to discernment—is that there is not only a “generic” or univer- the Jesuits of Civiltà Cattolica in June 2013, he synthesized sal will of God, but there is also a particular and specific way the matter in this way: “Try to discover what God has ac- that God’s will is imprinted in my life with my personality, complished and how he will continue his work.” To do this, with my circumstances and with my unique vocation. “the necessary [elements] are study, sensitivity, and experi- ence,” but you also need “to keep your mind and heart open Beyond Problem Solving and to avoid the spiritual ailment of self-referral.” Discernment is not a form of diagnosis or problem solving or moral casuistry, as valid as these operations might be in a given context. Their goal, however, differs from that of discernment. Diagnosis, for example, pinpoints a pathology Discerning means for which a remedy is prescribed in order to effect a cure. Problem solving uses rational powers to arrive at a solution. And casuistry breaks through moral complexities and ap- listening to the voice plies principles to identify the right way to act. In each of these operations, there is a clear before and after. In a given of the Spirit and moment, the diagnosis, the problem solving and the moral analysis yields resolution. With discernment it is otherwise. The fundamental presupposition of discernment is that it facing our unfolding deals not with a problem but rather with a life in process, a person who is on a journey to God. Discernment then sorts history with its needs through the stages and dimensions of that journey to iden- tify where and how God is inviting that person or commu- nity to conversion and life. Instead of dealing with a discrete and challenges, and— moment or event, discernment is attentive to the ongoing movements of soul and spirit in all their particularities and above all—with an historical unfolding. “The Joy of Love” poses a significant difficulty for some readers, who insist in a pastoral context on dealing exclusive- eye on individual ly with the binary division of “state of grace” and “state of sin.” Of course, there is a state of grace and a state of sin, because we can be in a loving relationship with God. And that means persons and their God’s indwelling or sanctifying grace. Alternately, we can be in a state of sin or alienation from God. An emphasis on the concrete lives. “state” of a person or family or marriage, however, situates people by definition in a static position. This static emphasis fails to regard the dynamism of the Christian spiritual journey even within those states. For ex- Clearly, discernment means following one’s own con- ample, I may be in the state of grace and growing in my rela- science with courage. “This does not mean following my own tionship with God. And that is to be desired. But I may also ego, or doing what I am interested in, or what I find conve- be in the state of grace and negligent in such a way that the nient, or what I like” (Angelus address, 6/30/13). Rather, quality of that relationship is eroding and may even become conscience is that interior space where I hear what is true, susceptible to rupture. I may be in a state of sin and continue what is good, what is of God; it is that interior place of my the downward spiral of alienation. But I may be in a state of relationship with God. And there God speaks to my heart sin with nudges of actual grace that little by little push me and helps me to discern and to understand the road that I toward repentance and a conversion of heart. need to follow. Once I have made a decision, God helps me Discernment and accompaniment presume that the to go forward and to remain faithful to it. Christian life, including the Christian life lived out in mar- The pope generously draws on both Scripture and the riage and families, is a journey. Even when that journey is tradition to identify the goal of discernment. It is to know irregular or imperfect—perhaps especially when that is the the will of God in the particular circumstances of my life, so case—the persons who belong to those families and mar- that I may embrace it and live it as best as I can. The assump- riages need discernment and accompaniment. There is also tion—and this is very important for the understanding of another foundation for discernment and accompaniment,

August 1-8, 2016 America 25 especially in difficult situations. It is what Pope Francis calls After the process of waiting and watching for a God- “the logic of mercy.” He says: given direction to emerge and after a clarification of the It is a matter of reaching out to everyone, of needing to particular call to conversion or change is identified, we are help each person find his or her proper way of participat- summoned to a response, a decision and a commitment. ing in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being This is, in effect, an exercise of our freedom. And it might touched by an “unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous” seem that it is only a question of doing the right thing. Of mercy. No one can be condemned forever, because that is course, that ought to be the direction of our response and not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only decision. The complication rests in the nature of our free- of the divorced and remarried but of everyone in whatever dom. We are never absolutely free in this life. Pope Francis situation they find themselves” (“The Joy of Love, No. 297). affirms this when he states: “Situated freedom, real freedom Pope Francis’ affirma- [which belongs to us], is tion is striking. Because of limited and conditioned. God’s mercy, we are nev- It is not simply the abili- er left in the lurch, never Discernment is not a form ty to choose what is good abandoned and certainly of diagnosis or problem with complete sponta- never discarded. If that neity” (“The Joy of Love,” is the way of God, then solving or moral casuistry. No. 273). The first objec- it must also be the way of tive of the accompaniment the church. Furthermore, of spiritual direction is to if that is the way of the confront a person with the church, then it means the ministers of the church must offer degree of freedom that he has, and help him to grow in it. accompaniment and discernment for those who are on the Along with helping individuals, couples and families to journey, no matter what their situation. Spiritual direction is make the free decisions to which God is calling them, those the help that a believer gives to other believers to help them who exercise spiritual accompaniment need to help them achieve the level of self-knowledge and freedom that will en- identify the sustaining resources that will lead them into the able them to become themselves in faith. future. The dialogue involved in discernment does not come to an end but opens out into a future. And that future in- Watching, Waiting, Observing cludes a continuing process of waiting, watching, observing, Because we live in a mechanized and technological world, deciding and responding. No one can ever rest because they we expect to find applications that will quickly resolve our feel that they are in a “correct” situation. God’s call is to on- problems and situations. We are impatient with anything going conversion until the conversion of heart is complete. less than that. Even our most intimate interpersonal rela- It would be foolish to think that individuals engage in tionships are overshadowed by our impatient quest for discernment within the private confines of their lives as a quick fixes. In the realm of the Spirit of God, it is different. solitary enterprise. Discernment and the decisions of con- A pivotal assumption is that the call of God and the will science are absolutely personal in character, but they are of God are inscribed in the narrative of our lives. In effect, not private matters isolated from the community of faith. God’s truth and direction for us is embedded in our very ex- Spiritual direction itself has always been viewed as an eccle- istence. We also believe that if we wait and watch patiently, sial event, the meeting of two believers in the name of the God’s truth and direction will emerge with sufficient clarity Lord Jesus (see Mt 18:20). In the context of family and mar- for us to embrace it and live it. riage, Pope Francis offers these striking words: “The church More specifically, in the accompaniment of married cou- is a family of families, constantly enriched by the lives of all ples and families, we watch and wait in and through a pro- [the] domestic churches” (No. 87). cess of attentive listening to those entrusted to our care, as we listen simultaneously to the word of God. First, we listen The Results of Discernment to others integrally—that is, not only their problems, diffi- The concluding paragraph of “The Joy of Love” suggests that culties or dilemmas but also, and even more, to their gifts, the entire exhortation has not simply been about family life dreams and hopes. This integral listening helps us to be and marriage but, even more, that it represents a commit- present and attentive to whole person, the whole marriage ment of the whole church to accompany families. This is the and the whole family. Then, if we are serious about identi- fundamental context of discernment. fying God’s call and will in the lives of people, we must also The journey of discernment that is made “walking to- be listening simultaneously to the word of God given in the gether” draws not only on the resources of other believers Scriptures and in the teaching of the church. today. It also draws on the history of faith, on the experi-

26 America August 1-8, 2016 ences of the holy men and women of our tradition, as well as the supportive and encouraging presence of those who serve in the church today. The result of an honest and true dis- cernment is the “good fruit” of which the Gospel speaks (see Lk 6:43-45): “each tree is known by its own fruit.” And since the core of the Gospel is love, an authentic discernment will be manifest and evident in the love it gen- erates, love of God and love of one an- other. Another authenticating sign of discernment, whether for individuals or for communities, is the gift of peace. This peace, however, must be properly understood. The genuine peace that is a fruit of true discernment is not simply an atmosphere of calm; even less is it complacency. This true peace is rooted in right relationship with God and with others. This true peace summons peo- ple to a continuing conversion. Finally, it is critically important to understand the relationship between discernment and hope. For some people the passionate quest for proper discern- ment is linked to their search for certi- tude. They want to know God’s will for them with precision. Presumably, with this knowledge they can then accom- plish God’s will and be certain that they are pleasing to God. But the certitude of salvation is not given to us in this life. We must take se- riously the words of Paul: “For in hope we were saved.” (Rom 8:24) We cannot have absolute certitude about our pro- cesses of discernment, whether in our personal spiritual journey or regarding questions of marriage and family life. This conclusion may appear to some to be disconcerting and disheartening. But it need not be so. On the contrary, it summons us to an act of trust and confidence, not in ourselves but in God. It is the same confidence about which St. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “I am confident of this, that the one who be- gan a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). A

August 1-8, 2016 America 27 VATICAN DISPATCH A Dicastery for the Laity new department of the from the present situation, it is worth nificant developments in the field of Roman Curia will come into recalling that the two under secretaries the laity over the past 50 years with A existence on Sept. 1, called of the Council for the Laity (the pre- the emergence of new movements the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family cursor to the P.C.L., set up by Pope and communities and new lay min- and Life. The pontifical councils Paul VI in 1966), were both laypeople: istries, the growing role of women in for the laity and for the family will Mieczyslaw de Habicht (Poland) and the church and the creation of World cease to exist then, and the Pontifical Rosemary Goldie (Australia). She was Youth Day. But, he said, “much re- Academy for Life will come under the one of only two women at the Second mains to be done in widening the hori- umbrella of the new dicastery. Vatican Council and the first to hold a zons and taking up the new challenges There was some surprise, howev- position in the Roman Curia. that reality presents,” and this is the er, that in the statute signed by Pope Third, the dicastery’s board mem- reason for the new dicastery. Francis on June 4, this new body is bers will include laymen and laywom- The pope announced that the di- called a dicastery. The word, from en, both celibate and mar- castery will take its Greek, is the generic title used to de- ried, who are involved in direction from three scribe the nine congregations, 12 pon- different fields of activity documents: “The Lay tifical councils, three tribunals, three and are from different parts ‘We need Members of Christ's offices and four secretariats of the of the world. Again, this is laypeople Faithful People,” St. Roman Curia. a return to the post-Vatican John Paul II’s exhor- Its use in the statute raises a ques- II period, when all members with a tation after the synod tion: Is this dicastery a pontifical coun- of the Council for the Laity vision on the laity in 1987; cil or a congregation, which has a high- were laypeople. “The Joy of the Gospel,” er status? The evidence suggests the The establishment of of the Francis’ programmat- latter, since in the discussions preced- the new dicastery is the future.’ ic document; and “The ing its establishment, including the ex- culmination of a process of Joy of Love,” the pope’s traordinary consistory of cardinals in ever-growing attention to post-synodal exhorta- February 2015, it was always referred the role of the laity in the church that tion on the family. to as a congregation. Moreover, the began at the Second Vatican Council. He assigned it a dual task: to be “a statute says it will be headed by a pre- (The historical development is de- church that goes forth, a laity that goes fect, and only congregations and two scribed well in From a Roman Window, forth.” He concluded by saying: secretariats are headed by a prefect. by Rosemary Goldie, 1998.) Besides this, three other elements Pope Francis highlighted this his- We need laypeople who are in the statute are worth noting. First, torical development in his address to formed well, animated by a clear it envisages that the secretary “could be the last plenary assembly of the P.C.L. and sincere faith, whose lives a layperson.” Hitherto, the secretary of on June 17, before he spelled out his vi- have been touched by a person- the Pontifical Council for the Laity, as sion for the new dicastery. al and merciful encounter with of every congregation, has always been The pope recalled that the P.C.L. the love of Jesus Christ. We need a bishop. came into existence “at the express will” laypeople who take risks, who Second, the dicastery will have three of the Second Vatican Council, which soil their hands, who are not under secretaries, all laypeople (one for called for a special secretariat to be “es- afraid of making mistakes, who each of its sections: the laity, the family tablished at the Holy See for the service move forward. We need laypeo- and life). While this is a step forward and promotion of the lay apostolate” to ple with a vision of the future, assist the hierarchy and laity. He said who are not enclosed in the petty Vatican II emphasized that the laity’s things of life. And we need lay- GERARD O’CONNELL is America’s Vatican involvement in the life of the church is people with a taste of the expe- correspondent. America’s Vatican coverage is sponsored in part by the Jesuit communities of “by reason of their baptism.” rience of life, who dare to dream. the United States. Twitter: @gerryorome. Francis drew attention to the sig- GERARD O’CONNELL

28 America August 1-8, 2016 FAITH IN FOCUS What Are You Signing Up For? On fatherhood, selective service and a space for nonviolence BY RICHARD P. BECKER

There are no makers of peace be- the Selective Service System, the fed- onizing with my dorm buddies about cause the making of peace is at least eral agency that oversees draft registra- whether we would “surrender our free- as costly as the making of war—at tion. Selective Service has been around dom,” trudge over to the post office and least as exigent, at least as disrup- since the 1940s, but it was shelved in sign the card. A few of us got cocky, tive, at least as liable to bring dis- 1973 when the U.S. returned to an and we postured about refusing to co- grace and prison and death in its all-volunteer military. After the Soviets operate on account of our “objections” wake. —Daniel J. Berrigan, S.J. invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Jimmy (read: indignation). Carter reinstituted registration for The risks of refusing turned out to y second son, Crispin, the draft (just in case), and Selective be pretty high—no federal financial aid turned 16 this year. He for college, for one thing. Moreover, Mgot his first job, which and despite Russian aggression, the means soon he will be paying for his possibility of our country being own cell phone plan and guitar les- pulled into an armed conflict requir- sons. Also, he has a driver’s permit, ing conscription seemed downright with license and driving privileges to fantastic—we were all too young follow this summer, if all goes well. to have remembered much about These are significant milestones Vietnam. In the end, we all relent- for any teen, boy or girl, and there ed and registered, although we were are plenty more to come in the years definitely chastened. Suddenly, war ahead. There is one particular mile- and killing were not just matinee stone he will share only with his popcorn fodder. brothers: registering for the draft And nobody talked to us about when he turns 18. it—not my dad, not anybody's dad. I know there is talk these days I am sure, in their minds, there of requiring young women to do was nothing to talk about. Signing the same—especially in light of the the card was a purely perfunctory Defense Department’s new policy act—it was just another government of opening combat roles to women. form, and such forms are part of The Senate even passed a bill in June growing up, of getting along in the that would require women to regis- world of adults. Besides, it was the ter. Service has been keeping track of the patriotic thing to do. What is the point For now, though, the law only com- nation’s warrior reserves ever since. of splitting hairs over just war criteria pels males ages 18-25 to sign up with and conscientious objection? Signing On? But our dads were wrong. Signing I was already in my 20s and in col- up with the Selective Service System is RICHARD BECKER, R.N., is a father of seven and an assistant professor of nursing at Bethel lege when President Carter rebooted a grave crossroads of American man-

College in Mishawaka, Ind. Selective Service, and I remember ag- hood (soon to be just adulthood, ap- O’NEILL PHOTO: GERRY

August 1-8, 2016 America 29 parently). Given the advent of perpetual pus. “Look, Ben,” I told him pointing was Russ more than Gethsemani that war since my own sons were born, and to the website, “another monastery— lingered in our conversations on the the steady stream of news reports about Buddhist this time. How about we trip home as we talked about his im- wartime casualties, post-traumatic stay in a yurt?” pending Selective Service registration. stress disorder and G.I. suicides, draft “I dunno dad,” he winced. “It looks I am not a pacifist, and I affirm the registration has become an occasion for pretty sketchy.” church’s teaching on resisting aggres- my family to have serious conversations Nevertheless, I talked him into it, sion, especially as a father. “Legitimate about national defense and our com- and it ended up being the highlight defense can be not only a right but a mensurate responsibilities as citizens. of the trip. The center's yurts are ba- grave duty,” the Catechism teaches, “for After all, whether Crispin simply sically small, circular cottages built to one who is responsible for the lives of registers for a theoretical draft in a resemble the tents used by Mongolian others” (No. 2265). If my family were couple of years or actually enlists, he nomads, and ours came complete with attacked, and there were no chance will be committing himself to take up futons and a kitchen, but that was it— of creating a space of non-violence as arms when called upon, to risk Russ described, I hope I would his life and to likely take the lives be able to defend and protect of others. And this in service of… Draft registration has them, no matter what it took. what? Warcraft and statecraft in become an occasion to have Still, there is a long way be- our times have not exactly in- tween a hypothetical family de- spired confidence in a national serious conversations about fense and heading overseas to vision, both long-term and short- fight wars with no clear objective term, underlying that weighty national defense and our or will to win. The unprecedent- commitment. ed savagery of terrorism and ex- As I anticipate hashing through responsibilities as citizens. tremism clearly needs to be con- all this with Crispin, I can at least fronted, but I confess that I am draw on my experience with his older no TV or Wi-Fi. Hence, we did not exceedingly ambivalent over how that brother, Benedict. The summer before spend much time there, and when we ought to be undertaken—as is Pope Ben’s senior year in high school—the weren’t touring I.U.’s campus or meet- Francis apparently. summer, that is, when he turned 18— ing with admissions staff, we strolled He has spoken of “the madness that we went on a father-son trip. Our first the grounds of the center and chat- is war,” calling it “the suicide of human- stop was Thomas Merton’s home base, ted—yet another gift. ity, because it kills the heart, it kills Kentucky’s Gethsemani Abbey. precisely that which is the message of It was a huge concession on Ben’s Stepping Back the Lord: it kills love!” Yet, the Holy part—what 18-year-old wants to One morning, we met up with a Father also made headlines by intimat- spend two summer days in an isolated groundskeeper smoothing out one of ing that some kind of limited action abbey with a bunch of silent monks, the gravel paths. His name was Russ, was nonetheless required to “stop” un- plus dad?—and I treated our time there and we engaged him in conversation just aggression. “I underscore the verb together as a tremendous gift, especial- about the center and its mission of pro- ‘stop’; I don't say bomb, make war— ly when he accompanied me to several moting peace. At one point, Russ set [just] stop him,” Pope Francis said in retreat talks. In one, Brother Christian aside his rake to spread out his hands reference to Islamic State in Iraq. “The spoke of the walls of the monastery as about a foot apart. “We can choose to means by which he may be stopped less about shutting out the world than create space for non-violence,” he said, should be evaluated.” about creating a space—a space free of nodding toward his hands. “That’s the Yes, evaluated—but who is going to noise that allowed monks and guests teaching of the Dalai Lama—to step do that evaluation and on what basis? to better focus on God. back from aggression.” As my own boys evaluate a decision After our stay at Gethsemani, we It was strikingly similar to the mes- to sign up for the draft or enlist in the headed up to Bloomington for a col- sage we had heard just days before military, I feel obliged to urge them to lege visit at Indiana University. I had from Brother Christian, though this proceed with somberness and caution. hunted around the internet ahead of time, instead of a vertical God-focus, Considering the remaining field of time for lodging alternatives to pricey the space Russ suggested provided candidates aspiring to become com- motels and come across the Tibetan for a horizontal communion of rap- mander in chief, I do not expect to be Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center prochement and mutuality. It was an altering that approach in the foresee- just a couple of miles south of the cam- image that really stuck with Ben, and it able future. A

30 America August 1-8, 2016 FAITH IN FOCUS Speaking of Christ When Elie Wiesel met François Mauriac BY MARY C. BOYS

mong the more poignant trib- In A Jew Today (1978), Elie Wiesel ery one of whom suffered a thou- utes that have appeared since wrote about their ini- sand times more, Athe death of Elie Wiesel on tial meeting. Mauriac six million times July 2, 2016, is Eva Fleischner’s open was “famous, old [70] more, than Christ letter to him published in America and rich, covered with on the cross. And in 1988 and now posted on its web- honors, comfortably en- we don’t speak site. The Austrian-born Fleischner, a sconced in his Catholic about them. Can Holocaust scholar and pioneer of re- faith,” whereas he was you understand lations between Catholics and Jews, “young [27], poor, rid- that sir? We don’t reflected on Mr. Wiesel’s relationship dled with doubts, a sol- speak about them.” with the eminent French Catholic itary stateless person, writer François Mauriac, who had unknown and Jewish.” Elie Wiesel then left written the preface to Night upon its Seeking to put his abruptly, overwhelmed publication in 1958 (English transla- younger interviewer at Elie Wiesel by his audaciousness be- tion, 1960). ease, Mauriac spoke of in 1943 fore this revered figure. Rereading Ms. Fleischner’s letter his admiration for the While waiting for the brought to mind my J e w i s h elevator, he felt a hand own interpretation of people. He continued on his arm. It was Mauriac, asking him that encounter. When by speaking at length to return. So he did: “And suddenly the the two men met in about Jesus, the Jew man I had just offended began to cry… Paris in 1954, Elie from Nazareth. Mr. wordlessly, never taking his eyes off me, Wiesel had already Wiesel regarded it as he wept and wept.” Mauriac wanted no written a lengthy manu- an “impassioned, fasci- apologies; to the contrary, he wanted to script in Yiddish, Un di nating monologue on know why Mr. Wiesel hadn’t written Velt Hot Geshvign (And a single theme: the son about his experiences in the Holocaust. the World Kept Silent); of man and son of God, Wiesel said, “I shall never forget that published in Argentina, who, unable to save first meeting…. It was brought to a it had attracted little no- Israel, ended up saving close by Mauriac’s escorting me to the tice. The interview with François Mauriac mankind. Every refer- door, to the elevator. There, after em- in 1952 Mauriac led to what ence led back to him.” bracing me, he assumed a grave, almost was eventually pub- Both riveted and an- solemn mien. ‘I think that you are lished as La Nuit (Night), the book Mr. gered, Elie Wiesel spoke in atypically wrong not to speak…. Listen to the old Wiesel regarded as his “testimony,” his harsh terms to Mauriac: man that I am: one must speak out— “deposition.” one must also speak out.’” “Sir,” I said, “you speak of Christ, Encouraged by Mauriac, Elie Wiesel Christians love to speak of him. revised and radically abbreviated his MARY C. BOYS, S.N.J.M., is the dean of ac- The passion of Christ, the agony Yiddish work. He brought the French ademic affairs and the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union of Christ, the death of Christ. In version to Mauriac, who helped him Theological Seminary in New York. This essay your religion, that is all you speak find a publisher and contributed the is adapted from her book Redeeming our of. Well, I want you to know that foreword, writing: Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and Relations Between Jews and Christians ten years ago, not very far from (Paulist, 2013). here, I knew Jewish children ev- And I, who believe that God is MAURIAC: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/NOBEL FOUNDATION. WIESEL: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY. MAURIAC: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/NOBEL FOUNDATION.

August 1-8, 2016 America 31 love, what answer could I give All is grace. If the Eternal is the Jewish Holocaust, never touches my young questioner, whose Eternal, the last word for each on the question of Jewish guilt for dark eyes still held the reflection one of us belongs to Him. This Christ’s crucifixion;but what vanishes of that angelic sadness which is what I should have told this in his reading of Jewish catastrophe is had appeared one day upon the Jewish child. But I could only the other half of that story—the histori- face of the hanged child? What embrace him, weeping. cal animosity of Christian against Jew.” did I say to him? Did I speak It is my conviction that Christians of that other Israeli, his broth- The two remained friends until need to enter into the “other half of er, who may have resembled Mauriac’s death in 1970. Mauriac that story,” the catastrophic conse- him—the Crucified, whose even dedicated a book on Jesus to him: quences for Jews of the accusations cross has conquered the world? “To Elie Wiesel, who was a crucified that they were responsible for Jesus’ Did I affirm that the stumbling Jewish child.” death. Christians bear responsibility block to his faith was the cor- Nevertheless, the conversation for singling Jews out as “Christ killers” nerstone of mine, and that the between François Mauriac and Elie and for centuries of anti-Jewish teach- conformity between the Cross Wiesel reveals profoundly different ing that served as a precondition of and the suffering of men was in sensibilities about the cross of Jesus. Nazi ideology. Fifty years of new un- my eyes key to that impenetrable And in those differing sensibilities lies derstandings of biblical texts and of mystery whereon the faith of his the great theological divide between revised church teachings now enable childhood had perished? Zion, Jews and Christians: the cross as the us to teach and preach about the cru- however, has risen up again from cornerstone of faith for Christians cifixion of Jesus in ways reflective of its the crematories and the charnel and as a theological accusation against historical and theological complexity. houses. The Jewish nation has Jews as those responsible for the death Elie Wiesel believed that indiffer- been resurrected from among its of Jesus. As Naomi Seidman ob- ence lies at the heart of all evil. By thousands of dead. It is through serves in Faithful Renderings: Jewish- doing justice to the “other half of the them that it lives again. We do Christian Difference and the Politics story,” we Christians honor our moral not know the worth of one sin- of Translation (2006), “Mauriac, in obligation to the Jewish people—and gle drop of blood, one single tear. his Christological reframing of the to Elie Wiesel’s profound legacy. A

32 America August 1-8, 2016

PHILOSOPHER’S NOTEBOOK Neoclassical Experiment mail messages from my Latin; intriguingly, one of the few elec- ings by the distributists Chesterton high school alma mater, tives is Mandarin Chinese. and Belloc. (One can only sympathize ECardinal O’Hara in suburban In both pedagogy and content, the with a senior plowing through Belloc’s Philadelphia, are usually predictable neoclassical educational project of Servile State.) The religious finality affairs. They will either report sports Regina Chesterton is clearly indebted of the program is summed up in one triumphs, name new inductees into to the Great Books programs origi- of its major goals: “to reignite a New the school’s Hall of Fame or (earnest- nally launched from the University Evangelization built on the unity of ly) beg for money. Last year, however, of Chicago. Justin Youngblood, the Faith and Reason.” an unexpected email landed in my director of Regina Chesterton, cites The classical educational program box.The president announced the another influence, Dorothy Sayers’s offered by O’Hara is not an isolated opening of a new educational track, seminal 1947 essay, “The Lost Tools phenomenon. Chesterton academies the Regina Chesterton Academy, at of Learning,” which pleaded have recently emerged the high school in the fall of 2016. for a revival of the medie- in Buffalo, Omaha and Linked to the national Chesterton val trivium (grammar, log- Rochester. Is this neo- Schools Network, the Regina ic and rhetoric) to revivify classical approach a res- Chesterton Academy offers a classi- an educational system too The faith torationist exercise in cal education within the context of a centered on technical in- nostalgia? Apparently pedagogically pluralist high school. struction. Socratic dialogue is more not. O’Hara’s Regina The integrated curriculum is strik- is the preferred method than cult Chesterton certainly ingly ambitious. Its structure is gen- for instruction in the liter- does not reproduce the erally historical, with echoes of older ature, history, philosophy and code. education I knew in Western Civ curricula. Freshman year and theology seminars. my own years (1965- focuses on the ancient world, sopho- (One can only sympathize 69) at the school. There more on early medieval, junior on high with a teacher helping was no philosophy, no medieval and Renaissance, senior on 13-year-olds wrestle with Augustine, no Aquinas, modern. The individual courses reflect Sophocles.) Student agency is even no Dante, no obligatory courses in a particular vein of Catholic classicism. more pronounced in the extensive arts music, art or drama—and certainly Freshman literature features Homer, curriculum: four years of music, four no Mandarin. Few teachers used the Sophocles and Virgil; sophomore lit- of art, three of drama. While theory Socratic method; performance was erature examines Augustine, Chaucer and appreciation are included, the fo- strictly confined to extracurriculars. and Shakespeare. Juniors read Dante, cus is on performance. Students learn This neoclassical experiment makes while seniors tackle Dostoyevsky. how to draw, use pastels and paint in a signal contribution to the neuralgic Unusually for a high school, four en- watercolor and oil. They all participate question of Catholic educational iden- tire years of philosophy are required. in choral singing and learn how to act, tity. It treats Catholicism as a complex Although the courses introduce stu- orate and debate. culture with its own language, litera- dents to a wide range of philosoph- A church-militant Catholicism ture, history, philosophy, economics, ical texts, pride of place is clearly flavors the theology curriculum. Few music and art. The faith is more than reserved for Aristotle and Aquinas. freshman religion courses start with cult and code. It uses the tools of phi- Logic and rhetoric, presumably of an the theology of the body. Only the rare losophy and theology to explore the Aristotelian stripe, are included in the senior in Catholic high schools studies truth of Catholicism with intellectual philosophy cursus. All students study apologetics. The academy’s reference rigor. In a society that systematically to Chesterton is more than decorative. reduces religion to a matter of sen- Each year’s literature course includes a timent and service, the neoclassical JOHN J. CONLEY, S.J., holds the Knott Chair in Philosophy and Theology at Loyola book by G. K. Chesterton. The senior academies may quickly become a spiri- University Maryland in Baltimore, Md. course in philosophy features writ- tual oasis. JOHN J. CONLEY

34 America August 1-8, 2016 Books & Culture

FILM | RICHARD A. BLAKE Kane marries twice, once to Emily (played by Ruth Warrick), the niece of the president of the United States, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS whom he despises as “a well-meaning ‘Citizen Kane’ remains relevant 75 years after its release. fathead.” He suggests to her that he might well replace him one day. Their n Sept. 5, 1941, Orson gives his readers what they want: sen- love soon buckles under the strain of Welles’s “Citizen Kane” went sationalism over substance. Through his commitment to the newspaper, Ointo general release in the this strategy he earns his once-lacklus- and even more important, his infatua- American market. On its 75th anniver- ter daily the largest circulation in New tion with Susan Alexander (Dorothy sary, coming in the light of this election York and makes it the linchpin of his Comingore), a seemingly limited young cycle, it is eerily relevant, even timeless. nationwide media network. woman he meets by chance outside her In short, it is the story of a media ma- nipulator who strives to turn his ce- lebrity into elective office. Draw what parallels you may. The opening segment is an obituary of Charles Foster Kane, presented in the style of a 1930s newsreel. The view- er learns that Kane, played by Welles, presided over an empire of enormous wealth. Xanadu, his estate on the Gulf Coast, is identified as “the costliest monument a man has built to himself.” As the voiceover explains, Kane was both loved and hated, considered in turn a socialist and a fascist. His po- litical positions could not be tied down with any clarity. When asked, he de- fined himself as “an American.” After the obituary, we learn through flashbacks that Kane’s spectacular for- tune begins with an inheritance from his mother, after a boarder in her rooming house gives her the deed to a seemingly worthless mine in lieu of rent. The property receives a second life as “the Colorado lode,” the third-rich- est gold mine in the world. When Kane reaches the age to obtain his in- heritance, he tells his banker-custodian that he looked over his assets—which by then include mines, ocean liners, even grocery stores—but they bored him. There was one exception: he thinks it would be “fun to run a news-

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/WFINCH/MOTION PICTURE HERALD/RKO RADIO PICTURES/ALEXANDER KAHLE paper.” Through his newspapers he Orson Welles in ”Citizen Kane” rooming house. Despite her painful- Before the breakup of his first mar- to you. Only you’re going to need more ly fragile voice, Kane is determined to riage, the prosperous young publisher than one lesson.” Rival papers break fashion her into an operatic soprano. is irresistibly drawn to politics. At a the story before the election and fea- Eventually, his Svengali-like insistence campaign rally, Kane stands in front of ture their own front-page story of the on her having a voice coach and per- a gigantic poster of himself. Kane had “love nest.” Kane loses, of course, but forming roles far beyond her capabil- pledged to defend “the working man” his own papers proclaim election fraud ity leads Susan to a suicide attempt from special interests through his news- rather than defeat. and eventually to her leaving him. paper editorials, a theme that resonates With both his political career and Convinced that he is the aggrieved par- during his candidacy for governor of marriage to Emily in ruins, Kane turns ty, he smashes her bedroom and stag- New York, which his associates believe in upon himself. No matter what the gers into the hall in a stupor. In a bril- will be a steppingstone to the White issue, evidence and the opinions of liant visual touch, as he passes between House. The “friend of the working others cannot dissuade him. Left only facing full-length mirrors, they reflect man,” as he identifies himself, continues with his own perceptions of the world, his images back to each other in infinite the populist crusade, but as the cam- Kane can miss the point dangerous- succession. Kane’s world consists ex- paign progresses, he narrows his focus ly. Interviewed after a trip to Europe, clusively of images of Kane. But which to a personal attack on Boss Jim Gettys Kane pronounces solemnly: “There image on the screen is the real man and (Ray Collins), who controls the politi- will be no war.” This in 1941! which mere light and shadow? cal machinery of the state. Kane boasts “Citizen Kane” stakes its claim to that “until a few weeks ago, I had no greatness as an archetypal American hope of being elected,” but now “ev- tragedy. Kane’s arrogance destroys ery straw vote, every independent him from within. He bullies, dismiss- THE MOTH poll shows that I will be elected.” es and humiliates those around him. He clearly relishes the quantifiable His manner encourages, even com- notoriety. For Kane, popularity pels, hostility. Gettys is a formidable A flicker in the woods trumps policy every time. During enemy, but the others—Emily, Susan, yet enduring as those trees. an interview years later, Jedediah Leland: those who loved him—leave This twice-spawned leaf Leland (Joseph Cotten), a lifetime only after he repels them. As Leland friend, summarizes Kane’s political puts it: “He behaved like a swine.” makes you believe you philosophy most trenchantly: “But Why? This question is at the core of can almost catch light he never believed in anything ex- the genius of the script by Welles and cept Charlie Kane. He never had a Herman Mankiewicz. After the open- in your hands. Whatever root conviction except Charlie Kane in ing newsreel sequence, a reporter, Jerry it takes depends on what foot his life.” Thompson (William Alland), tries to becomes a flower. This improbable rise in elect- find the answer. ability can be traced at least in part The screenwriters use the five-act to his newspapers’ front-page po- structure of the Shakespearean trage- Brief bliss, whose moth life holds litical cartoons portraying Gettys dy. Thompson functions as the bridge in a striped prison uniform. He holding the five overlapping narratives close to the flame, this little worm doesn’t want to defeat Gettys; he together. To prepare a background sto- with wings, so that time may show wants to destroy him. Politics, ry to complement the routine obituary, us what once crawled can fly. of course, is a blood sport, and he turns to the five people who should Gettys is no stranger to mortal have known him best. Thatcher Every time one passes combat. His detectives document (George Coulouris) is dead by this the sky waves goodbye. Kane’s involvement with Susan time, but he has left a detailed diary Alexander, and he arranges a describing his role as guardian and fi- NICHOLAS CAMPBELL meeting with Kane and his wife nancial manager for the young Kane. at Susan’s apartment. He offers si- Thompson follows with Bernstein NICHOLAS CAMPBELL’s poems have been lence in exchange for Kane’s with- (Everett Sloane), the ever-loyal office published in the Colorado Review, the Los drawal from the race, but Kane re- manager who witnesses Kane’s rise Angeles Times Book Review, the Corners of the fuses. Gettys comments: “If it was from brash college dropout to cru- Mouth Anthology and Poetry Salzburg Review. anyone else, I’d say what’s going to sading editor. Leland, his friend from happen to you would be a lesson school days, is now in a nursing home

36 America August 1-8, 2016 and gives his account of Kane’s jour- and catalogued, the enigma remains. Of Franzen’s novels, Purity boasts nalistic and political career—and of In the final shot in the movie, the cam- the largest scope, ranging from hack- course his downfall. Susan, an alcohol- era travels across the chain-link fence ers in a present-day Bolivian paradise ic who sings in an Atlantic City lounge, that isolates Xanadu from the outside to the raiding of the Stasi archives in provides her own perspective on their world and pauses over a sign simply East Berlin. But his theme is perhaps relationship and eventual separation. stating “No Trespassing.” Kane em- the most narrow: what goes on in the Finally, Raymond (Paul Stewart), the bodies the American Dream turned human heart. His favorite themes of butler and house manager at Xanadu, nightmare through overarching ambi- social consciousness, love, loyalty, suc- recounts Kane’s final days in his mau- tion. How could this American phe- cess and family are reduced to their soleum for the living. nomenon come to pass? Could it be emotional residue. The question of In the end, what is the explanation repeated in our own day? Purity is not how does loyalty (for ex- of Charles Foster Kane? There is none. ample) function in a life? but how does RICHARD A. BLAKE, S.J., former film reviewer After all the opinions, experiences and for America, teaches film history at Boston its practice change the geography of a personal analyses have been recorded College. person’s heart? Initially, the novel follows the post-graduate life of “Pip” (real name BOOKS | PAUL DAVID LEON Purity) Tyler, who is struggling with student debt and questions about her PIP’S PROGRESS mother’s past and her father’s identity. Getting in the way of her contentment PURITY Over the course of dense, chapterless is her inability to deal with her dissat- By Jonathan Franzen sections, Purity simmers with emo- isfaction and her dysfunctional rela- Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 576p $28 tional tension, and the action is driv- tionships in a squatter community. A en by this slow-burn energy. Only the chance encounter with some German Another character-driven novel by anti-nuke activists puts her in con- Jonathan Franzen, Purity propos- tact with the Julian-Assange-like es a system in which morality is a über-leaker Andreas Wolf and his performance and a frustration of Sunlight Project (because “sunlight desire. His newest book was high- is the best disinfectant”). ly anticipated after the success of After Pip is wooed to an intern- The Corrections (2001), which won ship with the Project, the focus the National Book Award, and the turns to the origins of this crusader highly praised Freedom (2010). of clean in East Berlin of the 1980s. Since Corrections Franzen has worn There his career as a dissident is all the laurels as the darling of complicated by his parents’ ties to American letters. The hype is well the Communist government. The deserved, though, as he continues contradictions of his life reveal the tradition of the large-scale so- his moral opportunism, creating a cial novel and is the direct heir of spotless image while indulging in American novelists like Thomas depravity and self-denial. Pynchon and Don DeLillo. A short return to the present Most impressive is his work’s depicts Pip’s work with an indepen- continued defense of the novel as dent online newspaper in Denver an art form, an issue in which both and her interpersonal struggles he and his late friend, the writer with her editor and his girlfriend. David Foster Wallace, were deeply The remainder of the book fills in invested. He is a writer of 500-plus the gaps in facts and motivations page novels in the age of television until a brief but intense denoue- and Twitter, but the qualities of his ment. work are exclusive to their medium. novel form demands the attention span Despite the sometimes frustrating This is probably the reason they con- needed to build this tension and use it nonlinearity of the narrative, it glows tinue to resist translation into film. to explore the characters’ psyches. with Franzen’s characteristic sensitivi-

August 1-8, 2016 America 37 ty to every shade and contour of emo- but only along a small portion of the timate purpose remains unconsidered. tional conflict. The novel explores how spectrum. He neglects or dismisses Franzen’s previous novels, especial- phenomena as diverse as oppressive relevant concepts like sacrifice as virtue ly his less popular but brilliant Strong governments, Dumpster diving and and the joy of wholeness. Motion, were more comfortable with the Internet can change the landscape Early in the novel a “Catholic Worker unanswered questions. It was allowed of hearts and relationships. Purity has type” is vilified for the harshness of her that there could be multiple ways of be- typical Franzen character as well: a piety. As a young provocateur, the leak- ing. It’s possible that Franzen, who has lean to the left politically, unmasked er Andreas lives in a church basement an obviously philosophical mind and judgments (“having grown up with among nameless, impotent Christian keen sense of responsibility, is growing no television, she had good language dissidents he labels “embarrassments.” frustrated with a world almost beyond skills”) and the fun, but hardly believ- With that treatment, Franzen does satire. But Purity’s admission of the able, specificities of his characters’ or- away with religious and spiritual moral fiction of purity feels like throwing in nithological knowledge (Franzen is a dimensions. The most “irreproachable” the towel. Jonathan Franzen has lost bird enthusiast). characters, as well as the most self-serv- none of his considerable powers, but One stand-out portion of the book ing, find themselves in untenable situa- the hope and openness missing from is the memoir of Pip’s editor, Tom, tions. The reader is asked to then sym- his new book make it a body without written in an engaging and convincing pathize with and accept the solutions a soul. first-person voice. It reveals the ten- of the characters who compromise. derest and most personal treatment Whether a person could order desires PAUL DAVID LEON, a graduate of the of the book’s interest in honesty and and actions into the expression of an ul- University of Minnesota, is a freelance writer. secrets. There are moments of aching confusion over revelations and refus- als, although finally we are shown a KEVIN M. DOYLE compromised solution. Some holding back, some dishonesty is the best poli- CAPITAL CRIMES cy, and herein lies the flaw in the book’s overall conclusion. 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT hear as a young black foreigner. My fa- The various plot secrets are the THE DEATH PENALTY ther stepped back and saw things a bit source of an obsession with scrupu- By Mario Marazziti more honestly. lousness, and this leads to dubious Seven Stories Press. 239p $14.21 Would be it that the United States conclusions about the moral life. The could do the same with our death pen- characters develop and are defined Thanks to Isadore Nikunge, I can at- alty. Don’t blame Mario Marazziti that almost solely by their scruples. The test to the power of international per- we have not. emotional tension, while complicat- spective when it comes to troubling Marazziti is an Italian journalist, ed and well-crafted, is created by the moral issues. activist and legislator. He serves as near-paralysis of self-scrutiny. These In the early 1960s, Isadore was a spokesperson for the Catholic cen- are people torn up inside by the con- foreign exchange student at Fordham ter-left Community of Sant’Egidio flict between what they really want University. He had come from Kenya and in 2002 co-founded the World and the consequences of getting it. (the actual Kenyan nation, not the Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Pip follows her impulses and isn’t well State of Hawaii). Our family, living Apart from the big names, including liked, which depresses her. Passionate two blocks west of Fordham, befriend- St. John Paul II, Helen Prejean, C.S.J., sex lives turn dangerous, so characters ed him. and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, seek safer, easier sublimations. The hu- At the time, folks like Malcolm X Marazziti has done as much as any- man moral life is reduced to the subju- were bluntly decrying abuse by the one to move and amplify international gation of intense immediate desires to New York Police Department, whose opinion against the death penalty. This long-term contentment. Following the uniform my father wore. Law enforce- book describes his journey and carries book’s logic, morality consists of the ment is surely no less tribal than any on his effort to separate the United compromises we make in order to live other profession, so my father tended States from nations like North Korea, with ourselves and in society. Integrity to disregard these complaints. Wasn’t China, Iran and India, which also kill equals good impulse control. he himself fair on his Tremont Avenue prisoners. But this smacks of cheap cynicism. beat? But then Isadore questioned him Marazziti explores the death penal- Franzen may show us every shade here, about the things he would observe and ty from well more than 13 angles. At

38 America August 1-8, 2016 strikes out in all directions and at vary- long before execution. Its deprivations, ing altitudes. physical and psychological, bespeak sa- Marazziti notes practices of clas- dism at least as much as security. sical antiquity and surveys the views More striking, McCarty reflects of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, back on his ordeal with preternatural Christianity and Islam. He considers insight. Marazziti asks: “Would you criminal justice trends, the eclipse of give up the things you learned on death execution-as-spectacle and racism’s row in exchange for never having been persistent toxicity. there?” McCarty says no. Given his At his best, Marazziti tells stories. execrable choices in life before convic- With a generous heart, he illumi- tion, prison was inevitable. More, the nates the personal struggles of players experience brought him wisdom. “I do on different sides of the death game, not hate. Anyone. If I did I would still each a kind of victim. He also reports be a prisoner.” from the heady realm of international If McCarty’s story lifts up, human rights diplomacy, where deals Marazziti’s account of a 2007 episode are brokered and tactics stubbornly at the United Nations disheartens, debated. despite a happy ending. After years One potent chapter centers on of disagreement between those who the outset, he startles the reader with Curtis McCarty. Convicted of rape sought a call for abolition and those a bare eight pages of (superficially) and murder, McCarty spent 22 years who saw a moratorium on executions random dates and statistics. (Average in prison, 19 of them on Oklahoma’s as more attainable, the realists pre- number of days between sentenc- death row, before DNA testing set him vailed. Sights settled on passage of a ing and execution as of 2012: 5,757. free. Marazziti lets McCarty speak for moratorium resolution by the U.N. Longest incarceration before DNA himself. McCarty describes a death General Assembly. Organizations like exoneration: 35 years.) After that, he row designed to end a human existence Amnesty International, Penal Reform

FROM OUR BLOGS What the United States Can Learn from Britain’s Chilcot Report Margot Patterson Will ‘Extremism’ on Hyde WEB EXCLUSIVE Amendment Hurt Democrats in Paul L. Gavrilyuk reports on the historic Holy 2016? Michael O’Loughlin and Great Council convened by representatives of The Good Samaritan and Black Orthodox churches from around the world. Lives Matter, Sam Sawyer, S.J. WHAT YOU’RE READING Pope Appoints Archbishop Cupich to IN ALL THINGS Congregation for Bishops Journalists pay tribute to Federico Lombardi, S.J., Gerard O’Connell the outgoing Vatican spokesman. Pope Francis Says the Church Should Apologize to Gays, Gerard O’Connell Digging Deep for Mercy We All Need Kevin Clarke PODCAST The Rev. Bryan Massingale talks about his reactions Suicide, Sexual Abuse and the Search for Justice, Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea to the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police. A Pastoral Vision John W. O’Malley, S.J.

“We have today in America a lot of pluribus but little unum.” —“A Rite of Service” Kevin Doyle

August 1-8, 2016 America 39 International and Hands Off Cain put Americans are closed to their Isadore worried. Hystopia—the word may be a differences aside. Sponsorship by di- moment. collision of “dystopia” and “hysterical,” verse member nations would blunt the For them, foreigners have nothing or “historic,” and even “isotope”—is a charge of European “neocolonialism,” to teach our country: Europe’s uni- novel within a novel, although both a charge that had contributed to past versal health care is a fast lane on the novels have the same title. failures. road to serfdom. The French are all Doublings are not uncommon in Things looked good. Then Egypt the more damnable for being tragically literature, nor are alternative histories. introduced an amendment linking the right in 2003 about Iraq. And, as sug- Here, the novel-within-the-novel tells elimination of execution and the elim- gested by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of us that John F. Kennedy is assassinat- ination of abortion. Its attachment to New York in The Wall Street Journal, ed in Galva, Ill., in August 1970. The the resolution would have driven away Peter’s Argentine successor, who de- “novel” or “fictional nonfiction” outside votes from member nations lethally cried “trickle-down” economics, simply the novel within, but still a part of wedded to abortion rights. could not have been criticizing U.S. the novel Hystopia, tells us Kennedy Marazziti, himself a disciple of capitalism. American exceptionalism, was assassinated in Springville, Ill., the seamless garment approach, re- indeed. in September 1970. But the reader ports that the Vatican, though lack- No, this book will not be the rescue knows that Kennedy was shot dead ing a vote, brought to bear its unique ship for our nation’s whole death row. in Dallas in 1963, which means that pro-life authority. With help from Still, it may prove a serviceable life pre- there is a third tier to the book even if the Philippines, it shut down Egypt’s server for a few of its inmates. it is not stated. gambit. The killer amendment had no A central infirmity of the death pen- Why all these layers? What is their chance to kill; the resolution passed alty lies in its haphazard imposition. purpose? Perhaps it is to shelter us with 102 yea votes. That same unpredictability permits from the full force of the grim reality of But what bloodlust fuels an attempt the possibility that 13 Ways—having the Vietnam War. Violence has a place to perpetuate executions by cynically fallen into the hands of the right pros- in this novel—often fairly graphic vio- pitting the unborn against the con- ecutor, judge, governor or legislator— lence—and perhaps, to be true to that demned? will arouse shame in a ripe conscience. violence, the author wanted, to a degree, Marazziti’s multifaceted approach If 13 Ways causes even one in- to muffle the screams, falling bombs, could have yielded a hodgepodge. But mate to be spared, be certain Mario crashing planes and helicopters, pistols, he has pulled off a mosaic—or better, Marazziti will join us in prayers of M-14s and M-16s and grenades. One a kaleidoscope. Each shift in focus is thanksgiving for the inmate and for of the chief characters is Rake, a psy- enriched by what has gone before. the rest of us. chopath who shoots anyone who an- So dig into this fine, often power- noys him. He also shoots people who ful book. But do not expect an instant KEVIN M. DOYLE has defended capital defen- don’t annoy him. As a character in the dants and death row inmates in Alabama and downturn in our death penalty’s 61 New York, where he led the Capital Defender book-within-the-book, he is, of course, percent approval rating. Way too many Office until it defeated the state’s death penalty. written by a character from outside that book, one Eugene Allen. (Eugene is a character written by David Means. KELLY CHERRY He bears a resemblance to Melville’s Bartleby.) The fictional Eugene Allen BONDS BROKEN BY WAR had a fictional older sister named Meg. The fictional Meg is different from the HYSTOPIA reaucratic language are rich ores for “real” Meg. She is more winsome and A Novel a novelist to mine. In particular, the happier than the “real Meg,” who of By David Means languages of bureaucrats and stoners, course is also fictional. (Meg may have Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 336p $26 entwined with one another, set up a been inspired by Means’s own sister.) hilarity that is almost joyful until we The maniac Rake holds the fictional David Means, the author of four crit- realize how soaked in menace the sto- Meg as a hostage, limiting what she ically acclaimed collections of short ry is. We may find ourselves chuckling may and may not do. stories, has written his first novel, and with our hearts in our mouth and then Happily, these convoluted and criss- it is a tour de force of imagination. wondering how viable our response crossing levels of reality are not difficult Freudian psychology, de-centered is. But that is what this book does: it to follow when one is reading Hystopia. Vietnam vets and nonsensical bu- makes us laugh and it makes us fearful, Means is a master sentence-maker. His

40 America August 1-8, 2016 characters are vivid, credible and engag- repeating the trauma they incurred in cannot be relieved or dispersed except ing (even Rake, who is horrifying). And war. by bursts of violence. the layers, creating metafiction, let the “The vets” includes Billy-T, the This is not, however, a book infavor reader know that the book is a serious young man Meg loved who was killed of violence. The real concern here is for endeavor, not mere titillation or the in ’Nam. It includes two couples, how we live and how to die with dig- pornography of violence. nity. Meg “hears” Billy-T talking to her, Early on we encounter a Stewart and one of the things he says is: “Did Dunbar, who contributes a comment I imagine my fate was just ahead of on history and fiction. “The young me? You bet I did. Did I stand there at man's creative effort...is realistic to the dawn, a Nam dawn creeping across our extent that it captures the tension of weary faces and fleshing out the colors history meeting the present moment.” in the jungle, and imagine my death? What this fine sentence may actually You bet.... What else could we do?” mean is not entirely clear, but I should Hystopia is a book that makes the think that any artist of any sort is aware reader think. All the same, much of it that meeting the present moment is a reminds us of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” confrontation that the artist must mea- a film in which wretched survivors sure up to, resolve and possibly trans- drive berserk through the apocalyptic form. So that is how I take it. Australian desert. Means’s “Zone of President Kennedy, before the Anarchy” might be the correlative term. “Genuine Assassination”—meaning But in the book one line reveals what the last fictional assassination—es- is driving the story: “...when the love of tablished a Psych Corps charged with two buddies in battle was broken apart, helping young men who have been it was like the splitting of atoms into wounded physically and mentally to pure anguish.” overcome their trauma. It's a lovely Bonds made in war are infused with idea, although the Corps itself becomes Singleton and Wendy and Hank and something beyond earthly love. They a bureaucracy rife with confusion and Meg, who eventually recover enough are forged in the direst of circumstanc- stuck in bureau-speak. And is it helpful memory to discover that they were es, the extremest of emotions. We may to “enfold” painful memories, or does all in, or connected to, Vietnam at the speak of a “theater of war,” but nothing that only increase the pain? same time. Both couples have also tried in war is theatrical. To kill a fellow hu- There are enfolding and unfolding to track Rake with the aim of taking man being is to kill a part of oneself. processes that many of the characters him out, ridding the country of a pre- Eugene Allen ends his book with the undergo. Drugs, sex and dunking one- dictably unpredictable murderer. suggestion that free will and “the grace self in cold water contribute to the suc- Much of the novel takes place in of God” may enlighten us, that his sto- cess of the procedure, which may elim- Michigan, a Michigan that is post-in- ry will endure and resonate. inate or increase memory recall. The dustrial and poor. It is hard to find But then he kills himself. government itself has proposed these work. People live in trailers or rundown, KELLY CHERRY’s most recent book is Twelve measures for the sake of rendering patched-up houses. It is desolate, suf- Women in a Country Called America: the vets saner, happier and free from focated by a cloud of desperation that Stories.

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August 1-8, 2016 America 41 THE WORD The Little Flock NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C), AUG. 7, 2016 Readings: Wis 18:6-9; Ps 31:1-22; Heb 11:1-19; Lk 12:32-48 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12:32)

he Greek for “little flock” is live out its faith, not primarily as an in- master’s “slaves” and is put “in charge mikron poimnion, and while tellectual assent to theological claims or of all his possessions,” it is important Tboth “little” and “flock” are grasping a list of dogmatic propositions to understand that the manager’s most important in this phrase, poimnion, but as a way of following Jesus wherever important task is the care of other “flock,” is evocative, since apoimēn is the Good Shepherd leads. people. The faithless manager is a shepherd. The “little flock” of Jesus’ Faith is following Jesus by at- the one who treats other people disciples is like a flock of sheep who tending to all the “little” things with cruelty and disdain. When are shepherded by God. The image of that seem unimportant or in- “he begins to beat the other the people of God as a flock of sheep significant, as well as paying slaves, men and women,” the does not begin with Jesus but is found attention to all the “little” manager is placed “with the in Zec 10:3 (“the Lord of hosts cares people we are tempted to unfaithful.” To be a member for his flock, the house of Judah”) and forget or overlook. The of the “little flock,” especially Jer 13:17 (“the Lord’s flock”). faith of the “little flock” to have authority within the By qualifying “flock” with “little,” is a rejection of a sense of flock, is to be faithful with Jesus is saying something about the entitlement about what we material possessions but even unassuming nature of his disciples, deserve or have earned, re- who might be little in number, little in placed by a robust sense of God’s PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE power, little in social standing or some grace and mercy for those who trust combination of all of them. Jesus says, in God, as the Psalmist sings: “Our Reflect on yourself as a member of the “little flock.” How are you living faithfully however, that the “little flock” should heart is glad in him, because we trust in your daily life? What is one way you wish not fear because “it is your Father’s good in his holy name. Let your steadfast still to grow in your faithfulness? How has pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we God’s faithfulness been demonstrated to unassuming, insignificant flock, who hope in you.” Faith is this mixture of you? ART: TAD DUNNE TAD ART: elsewhere in the Gospels are called lit- gladness, trust and hope as we allow tle ones or even infants, cannot rely on God’s steadfast love to transform us. more significantly with the precious their power, strength or wealth to create This faith manifests itself in a way of lives of other people. a kingdom but must depend only on life that leads to a proper relationship Hebrews offers us a definition of their faith in God. to earthly possessions, which Jesus en- faith as “the assurance of things hoped Dependence upon God is a poten- courages his “little flock” to sell in order for, the conviction of things not seen,” tial source of fear, as Jesus’ exhortation to give alms to those in need. A proper but all those faithful ancestors who not to fear makes clear, but also one relationship to things reflects that one’s trusted in God, Abraham, Sarah, of the advantages of being “little,” since hopes are not just earthly but heavenly, Isaac and Jacob, while not perfect, faith creates reliance on God and trust “for where your treasure is, there your were people who persevered in fol- in God’s promises. The strength of the heart will be also.” Yet detachment from lowing the ways of God. “All of these “little flock” becomes its willingness to possessions, especially seen in giving died in faith without having received alms and other acts of generosity, trans- the promises,” but they were able to John W. Martens is a professor of theology at forms us by creating greater attachment perceive “a better country, that is, a the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. to God and other people. heavenly one.” Faith in the promise of Twitter: @BibleJunkies. Jesus’ use of slave imagery can be God’s kingdom has always sustained startling to modern readers, but when the “little flock,” and it is this faith that he speaks in Luke of how the faithful sustains us in our relationships with and prudent manager has care of the God and other people even today.

42 America August 1-8, 2016 are not pretty, they’re not nice… I think I’m doing it as close to the Hebrew as Out of the Mire I can get it. But it’s not smooth, it’s not TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C), AUG. 14, 2016 nice, it’s not pretty, but it’s honest. And Readings: Jer 38:4-10; Ps 40:1-18; Heb 12:1-4; Lk 12:49-53 I think we’re trying for honesty, which is very, very hard in our culture.” “I waited patiently for the Lord; he heard my cry” (Ps 40:1) Bono had said earlier in the con- he prophet Jeremiah felt the the other members of U2 to write the versation with Peterson: “Why do we scorn of those who sought song “40,” a meditation on Psalm 40, need art? Why do we need the lyr- comfort, not God’s truth, be- for their 1983 album, “War.” In U2’s ic poetry of the Psalms? Why do we T need them? Because the only way we cause he spoke of God’s irrevocable version, Bono sings: judgment on Jerusalem. The officials can approach God is if we’re honest of the king decided instead to make I waited patiently for the Lord through metaphor, through symbol. Jeremiah’s death inevitable, and they He inclined and heard my cry Art becomes essential, not decorative.” threw him into the cistern intending He brought me up out of the pit The psalms speak with honesty of our for him to die there: “There was no Out of the mire and clay... relationship with God, in praise, in water in the cistern, but only mud, and lament, in anger, in despair, in joy, in Jeremiah sank in the mud.” Ultimately, The biblical scholar Eugene wonder. The gamut of human emotion Jeremiah was rescued from the cistern, Peterson, in a conversation with Bono, is on display, offered to God in hones- but the episode points to the reality of says of the song “40”: “It’s one of the ty from the miry clay of whatever well life. Speaking the truth of God and songs that reaches into the hurt and into we have fallen into. But the psalm- following the truth of God do not al- disappointment and difficulty of ways lead to sweetness and light. being a human being. It acknowl- PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE The truth is not always nice, for us edges that in language that is imme- Consider honestly the realities of your life or for others; and Psalm 40, a psalm of diately recognizable. There’s some- and cry out to God in prayer. What sort David, seems to speak directly to the thing that reaches into the heart of muddy pit have you been caught in? What relief do you shout out for to God? muck that Jeremiah found himself in of a person and the stuff we all feel How has the Lord taken thought of you and God’s saving him in his distress. but many of us don’t talk about.” in the past when you thought you were The first three verses read: There is a tendency when we read abandoned? the Bible to think of it as speaking I waited patiently for the Lord; of people who are not subject to the ist always turns to God with this raw he inclined to me and heard my cry. same fears, tears, pain and hopeless- honesty and at the end of Psalm 40 He drew me up from the desolate ness that we are, but Psalm 40, like seems stunned that God turned to pit, U2’s “40,” reflects raw human suffering him: “As for me, I am poor and needy, out of the miry bog, and concern. but the Lord takes thought for me./ and set my feet upon a rock, Peterson, in his translation of the You are my help and my deliverer; do making my steps secure. Bible known as The Message, offers not delay, O my God.” He put a new song in my mouth, this version of Psalm 40: “I waited and It is not weakness to cry out to God a song of praise to our God. waited and waited for God. At last he with your pain, your loss, your suffer- looked. Finally he listened. He lifted ing, to ask it to come to an end. This is The promise of God is not that we me out of the ditch. He pulled me from the truth God wants, a fiery soul that will not suffer for him, but that God deep mud, stood me up on a solid rock burns with passion for God, that does will not forget us in the muck and the to make sure that I wouldn’t slip. He not let him go but puts him first in all mud of everyday life and will reach taught me how to sing the latest God- things—not just joy and praise, but down to us and be with us in our need. song.” Peterson says, “Praying wasn’t despair and pain. It is a psalm that inspired Bono and getting nice before God…. The Psalms JOHN W. MARTENS

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