JULY 29–AUG. 5, 2013 $3.50 THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY OF MANY THINGS

PUBLISHED BY JESUITS OF THE UNITED STATES part from a few members of Turkish national motto: “Sovereignty EDITOR IN CHIEF Cairo’s Muslim Brotherhood, unconditionally belongs to the Nation.” Matt Malone , S.J. you’d be hard pressed to find Turkey, say the generals, is a thoroughly A MANAGING EDITOR anyone willing to defend Muhammad secular democracy; should the “religious Robert C. Collins, S.J. Morsi’s record as president of Egypt. fanatics” threaten the public order, then DIGITAL EDITOR Long before he was forced from the the military will intervene, effectively Maurice Timothy Reidy Heliopolis Palace last month by a quick burning the village in order to save it. LITERARY EDITOR and dirty military coup, Mr. Morsi’s While the military has now been tamed, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. incompetence had earned him the per - they will surely remain on the lookout POETRY EDITOR fervid distrust of gigantic swaths of the for religious interference in government Joseph P. Hoover, S.J. Egyptian electorate, most of whom had affairs. Religion and government, after ASSOCIATE EDITORS voted him into power just 12 months all, are a volatile, even dangerous, mix. Kevin Clarke earlier. Or are they? In this issue William T. Kerry Weber And that, as they say, is the rub: Mr. Cavanaugh questions some of our basic Luke Hansen, S.J. Morsi is Eqypt’s legitimate, democrati - and perduring assumptions about reli - EDITOR AT LARGE cally elected head of state. As a general gion and violence. It’s important to get James Martin, S.J. rule, democratically elected govern - one thing straight from the get-go: ART DIRECTOR ments should be changed by ballots, not Professor Cavanaugh does not deny Stephanie Ratcliffe bullets. The most unsettling bit, howev - that some religious people are violent. ASSISTANT EDITOR S er, is not that the condition of Egyptian What he questions is the notion that Francis W. Turnbull, S.J. democracy has been downgraded from religion is inherently violent or danger - Olga Segura serious to critical, but that there are any ous. Perhaps the Egyptians and the COLUMNISTS number of parties who would be Turks are right; perhaps certain forms Angela Alaimo O’Donnell pleased to write a do-not-resuscitate of political Islam, in that particular part Colleen Carroll Campbell order on the patient’s chart. of the world, at this particular moment John J. Conley, S.J. Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M. Even the United States seemed in history, are dangerous. Professor James T. Keane unperturbed by the return of mobo - Cavanaugh isn’t addressing that issue, John W. Martens cratic rule to Cairo. The U.S. State merely questioning the notion that such Bill McGarvey Department, aware that calling a spade movements are dangerous simply Margot Patterson a spade would set in motion a legally because they are “religious.” Between Michael Rossmann, S.J. mandated response, went to the most 1998 and 2008, for example, the WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT incredible lengths to deny that what European Court of Human Rights John Carr had taken place was a coup, the sort of made more than 1,600 judgments SUMMER INTERNS forceful denial of an objective reality against Turkey for human rights viola - Jake Bonar David Quigley that in another context might constitute tions; yet no one has suggested that this prima facie evidence of one’s clinical is evidence that secularism is somehow CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Lisa Pope derangement. For State Department inherently violent. officials, however, such linguistic con - One can quibble with Professor 106 West 56th Street tortions are an ordinary day’s work. Cavanaugh’s thesis, but his basic point New York, NY 10019-3803 And why not? The coup d’état, after all, is compelling: In a strange sort of way, Ph: 212-581-4640; Fax: 212-399-3596 is an ordinary means of governance in the myth that religion is inherently many so-called democracies. prone to violence, that religion and poli - E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Take Turkey, for example, where this tics shouldn’t mix, distracts us from the Web site: www.americamagazine.org. month the Turkish parliament acted to fact that politics and violence almost Customer Service: 1-800-627-9533 amend army regulations that have often always mix. The difference is that when © 2013 America Press, Inc. been used as legal justification for the violence is done in the name of religion, military’s intervention in politics. The it’s called fanaticism; when it’s done on Turkish military has staged three coups behalf of the state it’s called patriotism. since 1960. Each intervention, the mili - In both cases, though, more often than tary claimed, was in defense of the state not, God has a different name for it: Cover: Man with Molotov cocktails. ideology, succinctly expressed in the sin. MATT MALONE, S.J. Shutterstock.com/forest badger CONTENTS www.americamagazine.org VOL. 209 NO. 3, WHOLE NO. 5018 JULY 29– AUGUST 5, 2013

ARTICLES 11 THE ROOT OF EVIL Does religion promote violence? William T. Cavanaugh

15 FROM JOPLIN TO BOSTON The spiritual trauma of public tragedy Patrick Fleming

19 ON THE ‘LIGHT OF FAITH’ First responses to ‘Lumen Fidei’ Drew Christiansen • Robert P. Imbelli • Christiana Z. Peppard

11 COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 4 Current Comment

5 Editorial Save Voting Rights 6 Signs of the Times

9 Washington Front Shifting Winds John Carr 23 Faith in Focus Shelter From the Storm Randall Woodard 34 Reply All

37 The Word The Inheritance; An Alert Faith John W. Martens

15 BOOKS & CULTURE 25 FILM Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” OPINION Finding Melville at Woodlawn BOOKS Hope Sings, So Beautiful; The Good Son; Bruce

ON THE WEB ON THE WEB William T. Cavanaugh , right, talks on our podcast about the myth of religious violence. Plus, Ellen K. Boegel on the Supreme Court and same-sex marriage and, from the archives, Richard A. Blake, S.J., on the films of Woody Allen. All at americamagazine.org. 25 CURRENT COMMENT

birth in the United States in 2012 was $9,775. For cae - Brazil’s Progressive Moment sarean deliveries it was $15,041. A strange paradox is unfolding on the streets of Brazil. A Maternity care is crucial to the health of children and country with a low unemployment rate and a growing mid - mothers. Yet high cost does not guarantee the best care; dle class is facing urban unrest not seen in decades. Hun- infant and maternal death rates in the United States remain dreds of thousands of people have marched in cities too high. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance plans throughout the country protesting higher transportation must cover maternity care, but what, exactly, this includes is costs and excessive spending on the World Cup, which will unclear. Care for mothers-to-be must become more take place in Rio de Janeiro in 2014. Observers have long straightforward and comprehensive. Couples should be able predicted a bright economic future for Brazil, which just to obtain reasonable estimates of costs quickly and easily— surpassed Britain as the world’s sixth largest economy. So and the costs should be reasonable. More hospitals should what gives? offer basic maternity care packages for a flat, affordable fee. Poverty, for one thing, remains very high at 21 percent. Making maternity care affordable will help ease the burden And those who have managed to escape poverty are unsat - on women who may feel they are not financially stable isfied with the level of government service they are receiv - enough to raise a child, or even to give birth to one. This is ing. Brazil’s taxes are among the highest in the world at 36 one way to advocate for life and honor what Pope Emeritus percent of gross domestic product; the public is simply not Benedict XVI has described as “the human freedom…to seeing a return on their investment. Infrastructure, while welcome the life of a new human being.” better than it once was, is still in need of improvement, especially as Rio prepares for an unprecedented string of ‘Hulk. Catholic. SMASH!’ international events: this month’s World Youth Day, next In the latest cinematic incarnation of the Avengers, the year’s World Cup and the Summer Olympics in 2016. not-so-jolly green giant Hulk made short work of the The bishops of Brazil see the protests as the result of godling Loki, literally casting him to the ground as a “puny Brazil’s history of inequality. They are no doubt correct. god.” A snarky aside, yes, but perhaps also a small sugges - Democracy cannot flourish when a large gap divides the tion of the Hulk’s true religious sensibilities, which, rich and the poor. The lesson for the international commu - according to astute observers of American comic culture at nity is clear, if sobering: inequality must be addressed, even L’Osservatore Romano, are Catholic. if it leads to short-term turbulence. A healthy democracy This is not the first time L’Osservatore has discovered will endure some growing pains. There are signs that the Catholics in odd places. A few years back it provided protesters—peaceful thus far—could bring about much- detailed evidence of Homer Simpson’s faith; more recently needed government reforms. If they succeed, Brazil could it tracked James Bond’s Catholic roots through a Scottish become a model for fledgling democracies everywhere. “priest’s hole.” Evidence for the Hulk’s Catholicism, accord - ing to the Vatican paper, are a rosary clutched by a de- The Cost of Pregnancy Hulking Bruce Banner and his own Catholic wedding. Everyone knows that raising a child can be exhausting It’s not easy being green, hanging with better-looking and—considering the price of child care and college tuition Avengers and uttering monosyllables like, “Hulk… alone—expensive. But the cost of giving birth? That can be SMASH!” But Hulk may have other reasons to be out of much harder to nail down. According to a recent report in sorts. Maybe he’s peeved about the new Missal. But a The New York Times, uninsured and underinsured moth - church big enough to tolerate the likes of you and me ers-to-be are struggling to obtain accurate estimates for the should be able to handle the Hulk, so let’s join cost of prenatal care and delivery. One woman, when L’Osservatore and welcome him into the fold. And if the inquiring about maternity care at a hospital, was told the Hulk gets a little unmanageable at the next parish council price would fall somewhere between $4,000 and $45,000. meeting, consider inviting in the X-Man mutant Many hospitals refuse to offer any estimates. Hospitals Nightcrawler to help out. Officially dubbed “Greatest increasingly bill maternity-related costs item by item. For Catholic Superhero” by comicbookreligion.com, the rosary- some women this leads to unexpected additional charges clutching Nightcrawler is famous for his gifted apologetics over the course of their pregnancy; others choose to forgo in speech-bubble standoffs with the tormented skeptic potentially helpful medical procedures. The average pay - Wolverine, and, bonus, his mutant skill set should make ment for routine care during a conventional-delivery child - him a winning fund-raiser at the next parish carnival.

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 4 EDITORIAL Save Voting Rights

cholars may debate the constitutional logic of the The judges’ supreme confi - Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder dence in the unalterable progress of Sthat gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but what voting rights is misplaced. Now it is is beyond dispute has been the unseemliness of the political up to state and national legislators rush soon after the opinion was issued. Just 24 hours after to fill the regulatory void opened the court struck down the formula used to determine which up by the court’s decision. Many states and counties require federal clearance in advance for Republican-controlled state legislatures have been proposed changes in voting and districting policies—a responding to the nation’s changing demographics with mechanism meant to prevent race-based voting discrimina - tortured Congressional districting and new barriers to vot - tion—legislators in five states formerly subject to preclear - ing. Rather than make a case to convert voters, these legis - ance pushed through so-called voting reforms whose net lators prefer to establish obstacles to voting, cynically pro - effect will be to limit the ability of African-American and moting voter I.D. laws that “fix” the negligible to nonexis - other citizens from minority communities to vote. tent problem of voter fraud. The revived deployment of The court’s decision on June 25 lays the foundation such strategies suggests that the problem of racial discrim - for a renewal of electoral gamesmanship. Members of ination in voting has hardly been made to evaporate by Congress charged with enforcing the 15th Amendment’s improving social conditions and the political empowerment injunctions against race-based voter discrimination will be of minority communities. forced into new rounds of legislative “whack a mole” to tap The Senate has scheduled hearings to review its leg - down sporadic innovations in voter suppression—precisely islative options toward a restoration of the V.R.A., but the the iniquitous and exhausting conditions that propelled the leadership of the Republican-controlled House has shown extraordinary federal intervention established by the Voting little interest in revising the act. Some members of Congress Rights Act in the first place. have even publicly challenged some provisions of the Civil The abrupt activation of voter identification laws that Rights Act of 1964. It may be fair to wonder if, abetted by had been suspended while the court considered the argu - the current court, some legislators will pursue other policies ments in Shelby and the sudden enthusiasm for the termi - whose net effect will be to turn back history. nation of early or extended voting schedules in tightly con - The church may have at times worked at cross-pur - tested Southern states make a mockery of the judges’ argu - poses in the early days of the U.S. civil rights movement, but ment that history and social progress has obviated the by the time of the Voting Rights Act, it had come to stand V.R.A.’s preclearance formula. Texas is now enforcing the firmly with the courageous men and women who were most rigorous voter I.D. requirements in the nation. Texas putting themselves on the line in an effort that would legislators are also restoring Congressional redistricting change the nation. Since then, the church has been a consis - maps that, according to a federal court ruling in August tent enemy of racial discrimination and a supporter of the 2012 that rejected the gerrymandering, showed a “race-con - V.R.A. and its goals. scious method to manipulate not simply the Democratic Responding to the decision on the V.R.A., Bishop vote but, more specifically, the Hispanic vote.” Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., and Bishop Daniel E. In his majority opinion in Shelby, Chief Justice John G. Flores of Brownsville, Tex., speaking on behalf of the U.S. Roberts Jr. allowed that the problem of contemporary voter Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “We urge policymak - discrimination is real but claimed that any reauthorization of ers to quickly come together to reaffirm the bipartisan con - the V.R.A. needed to take into account “current condi - sensus that has long supported the Voting Rights Act and to tions”—that discrimination is not as pervasive and flagrant as move forward new legislation that assures modern and effec - it was in 1965. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tive protections for all voters so that they may exercise their said that the court should have considered preclearance itself right and moral obligation to participate in political life.” as a “condition” that successfully prevented voter discrimina - In defense of the nation’s civil rights achievements and tion; invalidating it is like “throwing away your umbrella in a remembering the many who made so many sacrifices in that rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” valiant struggle, Congress should heed that call.

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 5 SIGNS OF THE TIMES

EGYPT Future Hinges on Consensus and Role of the Muslim Brotherhood rospects for a resolution to Egypt’s political crisis rest on how well the emerging governing coalition is able to integrate the nation’s Pswirling social forces, including the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the view of James Zogby, author of Arab Voices and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C. The interim govern - ment has made overtures to the brotherhood, he said, “And I hope they accept. For the future of the country a consensus must emerge.... It’s going to be a choice that the brotherhood are going to have to make.” On July 12 Cairo streets were again filled with thousands of supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, demanding his release—an aim endorsed that day by the U.S. State Department. Efforts to include Egypt’s Islamists in a meaningful way in the government that replaced Morsi suf - fered a severe setback on July 8 after 51 demonstrators were killed and almost 500 wounded by Egyptian military. The mayhem began when sol - diers dispersed a crowd of Morsi sup - porters gathered by a Cairo barracks witnesses say the attack was initiated scionable manner. The ability to main - where many believe the deposed presi - by the Egyptian military. Who fired tain order without taking the lives of dent is being held. the first shots is irrelevant, said Zogby. that many innocent people is absolute - The army claims soldiers were pro - “What matters is that the military ly critical.” voked by attacks from the crowd while responded in an absolutely uncon - The killings in Cairo were not the

COLLEGIALITY younger clergy. The association has already made New Priests’ Association Seeks links with similar associations of Church Role, Younger Members priests in Ireland, Australia and Austria—all of which were founded he goad that prompted the Missal is awkward and distracting. for different reasons. The Irish organization two years ago of Throughout the gathering, the pas - Association of Catholic Priests the Association of U.S. toral model of Pope Francis gave includes 30 percent of Ireland’s clergy TCatholic Priests was widespread dis - encouragement to these men, the great and is in regular dialogue with the satisfaction and pastoral dismay over majority of them around the same age bishops who recognize the strength of the new translation of the Roman as the pope. One board member, the this grassroots effort. The Irish clergy Missal. While the Missal remained the Rev. Bernard Survil of the Diocese of group was formed after the focal point of a recent meeting of the Greensburg, Pa., observed, “This widespread disillusionment about how association in late June at Seattle assembly was an affirmation that the the church leadership had handled the University, this group of older priests is Spirit of Vatican II can still be a pre - sexual abuse crisis. not against change. They have been cious asset and living legacy.” The Rev. Peter Maher of Sidney, through plenty of it. But according to a One of the organizational goals of Australia, who participated in the survey by the Godfrey Diekmann the A.U.S.C.P. is to triple its member - Seattle meeting, explained, “We Center at St. John’s School of Theology ship and especially to engage some of formed because of the lack of due pro - in Collegeville, Minn., 80 percent of the younger priests. Members lament - cess for the rights of priests.” He noted priests contend the language of the new ed the widening gap between older and a similar fracture in Australia between

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 6 BETWEEN THE CROSS AND including the Supreme Guide of the said, “or were there signs of a deterio - THE KORAN Egyptians in Muslim Brotherhood, that Christians ration in the political situation that Tahrir Square. were part of a “conspiracy” to remove [Egyptians] feared could become irre - Morsi. On July 6, in Masaeed in North versible? Sinai, the Rev. Mina Abboud “The problem was not so much Sharoubim was shot to death; and a that the other guys won, it was what spate of other attacks have left at least the other guys were doing when they four other Copts dead and church won,” he said. Secular, moderate and buildings and scores of Christian Christian Egyptians feared that rule homes and shops damaged or by the brotherhood was “changing the destroyed by fire. very character of Egypt and making it Despite the bloodshed, Zogby says an authoritarian, religious, rigid state. there is reason to be hopeful that the They didn’t want to see Egypt going turmoil will eventually end and the backwards.” nation will return to a path of eco - An indication that the nation is on nomic and political development. Of the right track, according to Zogby, the second public uprising, which will be the nature of the revised consti - deposed Morsi just two years after a tution that is ultimately passed and the revolution in the streets ended the composition of the parliament that is three-decade reign of Hosni Mubarak, elected. But if in six to 12 months the only violence seen by the nation since Zogby noted that some analysts are military is still running the show, the military ended Morsi’s chaotic concerned that Egyptians are exhibit - Zogby expects that Egypt’s self- one-year rule. A number of attacks on ing an impatience that could be harm - empowered revolutionaries will again Egypt’s Christians followed accusa - ful to democratization. “But the ques - take to the streets of Cairo. tions by several Islamist sources, tion is: Was this just impatience,” he KEVIN CLARKE

younger and older priests. tiate a more transparent process of process that brought it about. The The Austrian priest group, founded selecting bishops and to reinstate gen - liturgy is right at the heart of our life by the charismatic Rev. Helmut eral absolution. They steered clear of as a church. The new Missal negates Schüller, ws organized in 2006 red button items, such as promoting the ‘full and active participation by all because of the increasing priest short - discussion of the ordination of the people.’” age. The Austrians tend to be much women to the priesthood. PATRICK HOWELL, S.J. more aggressive in their reform pro - The Rev. Mike Ryan, pastor of St. PATRICK HOWELL, S.J., is a professor of pas - posals. Their 2011 initiative “Call to James Cathedral in Seattle, summed toral theology at Seattle University. Disobedience” calls for lay leadership up the meeting: “I came away with and preaching in parishes without a the same hope that so many of us priest, permitting divorced and remar - are feeling about the election of ried Catholics to receive the sacra - Pope Francis. The Spirit is ments and support for the ordination breathing new life into the church, N I of women and married men. and we priests are feeling that.” L H G

U The newly minted American asso - Father Ryan concluded, “I was A L

A I ciation has steered a moderate path especially encouraged by how R A M

: and is seeking regular dialogue with Bishop Don Trautman [who T H G I

R the bishops. During the three-day addressed the conference] took

E H T Seattle meeting, members voted to the side of the majority of the MISSAL TALK Donald Trautman, O T

O restore the ancient practice of ordina - priests with regard to the new addresses members of the Association T O

H of U.S. Catholic Priests. P tion of women to the diaconate, to ini - Roman Missal and the flawed

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 7 SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Young, Armed NEWS BRIEFS And Dangerous Gun violence is the second leading A Wisconsin law that requires women to obtain an cause of death for all youth in the ultrasound examination before an abortion and United States ages 14 to 24. In a study abortionists to obtain admitting privileges at near - reported in the August 2013 issue of by hospitals was stayed on July 8 by a federal judge. Pediatrics, published online on July 8, • Pope Francis will be forming a new committee to consider transparency and accountability follow - researchers from the University of Magis 2013 Michigan Injury Center surveyed youth ing the conclusion of an external audit of the bud - 14 to 24 years of age treated in urban gets of Curial offices. • Young people from around the world, including emergency departments for assault. hundreds from Jesuit universities participating in the Magis 2013 mis - Firearm possession rates were high (23 sionary initiative , are expected to attend the World Youth Day celebra - percent) for these young emergency tion in Brazil, July 23 to 28. • After serving just under eight years in room patients. Young people with prison for the killing of Dorothy Stang, S.N.D., Rayfran das Neves Sales firearms were more likely to use illegal was released on July 4 in Brazil to serve the rest of his 27-year sentence drugs, to have been involved in a serious under house arrest. • In a letter to Congress on July 3, the U.S. bishops fight and to endorse aggressive attitudes said that the Supreme Court’s decision striking down key components that increase their risk for retaliatory of the Voting Rights Act “necessitates legislative action to assure that no violence. Thirty-seven percent reported one is denied their right or obligation to participate in public life by vot - they had a gun primarily for protection, ing or speaking out.” • Irish lawmakers on July 12 overwhelmingly yet a majority believed “revenge was a approved abortion in limited cases where the mother’s life is at risk. good thing” and that it was “O.K. to • The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded Catholic Charities hurt people if they hurt you first.” The of Syracuse, N.Y., a grant of $589,000 on July 11 to help homeless and study authors conclude that future at-risk veterans and their families. injury-prevention efforts should focus on minimizing firearm access among the Vatican is being asked to provide: on human rights. According to high-risk youth, promoting nonviolent “detailed information on all cases of Roberts, despite a public perception of alternatives to retaliatory violence and child sexual abuse”; how it has improvements, Myanmar still has one prevention of substance abuse. responded to victims and perpetrators of the worst human rights records in of abuse; whether it ever investigated the world. She said that since former United Nations Seeks “complaints of torture and other cruel, General Thein Sein became president, Vatican Answers inhuman and degrading treatment” of human rights abuses have actually girls in the Magdalene laundries in increased, with higher numbers of A United Nations committee con - Ireland; and how it dealt with allega - reports of rape by the Myanmar Army cerned with children’s rights is tions that young boys who were part of and security forces, hundreds of polit - requesting that the Vatican provide the Legion of Christ were being sepa - ical prisoners still in jail and almost all complete details about every accusa - rated from their families. of the nation’s repressive laws still in tion it has ever received of the sexual place. Roberts said that while there has abuse of minors by members of the undoubtedly been an increase in “civil clergy. The Committee on the Rights Human Rights in Burma liberties” in urban centers, things have of the Child, which monitors imple - Anna Roberts, the executive director not changed greatly on the ground; mentation of the U.N. Convention on of Burma Campaign UK, said that it is and for many, conditions have actually the Rights of the Child, published on shameful that the international com - deteriorated, particularly for members July 1 a list of issues it found lacking in munity is taking such a “rose tinted” of Myanmar’s ethnic and religious the Vatican’s latest report on its com - view of what is going on in Myanmar, minorities. pliance with the international obliga - formerly known as Burma, now tend - tions it accepted when it ratified the ing to focus on trade and investment convention. Among many other items, policies while remaining largely silent From CNS and other sources.

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 8 WASHINGTON FRONT

Shifting Winds journalist friend and I have a suggest voting rights protections are encyclical shows continuity with running debate about whether relics of the past and gay marriage is Benedict and connections among faith, A American politics or the the wave of the future, holding that tra - truth, love and action. Pope Francis Catholic Church is in more trouble. It’s ditional convictions on marriage could advances the canonization of both Pope often close, with destructive polariza - only be motivated by bias or hostility. John Paul II and Pope John XXIII. He tion and enormous difficulties facing A new heroine is a state senator in responds to Vatican bank scandals with both, including the continuing impact of Texas who filibustered legislation new structures and leadership. He the sexual abuse crisis in our church and restricting abortion. Most coverage emphasizes Catholic identity and calls the many costs of two wars hurting our celebrated her “courage and stamina” the church to get out and stand with nation. Ironically, this summer Pope with no reference to the lives of “the poorest, the weakest, and the least Francis is making the church a place of unborn children or public important.” On his first “hope and change,” while Washington in opinion. The administration visit beyond the Vatican, the Obama era is an increasingly sad announced its revised con - Pope Francis Francis goes to jail to place of stalemate and dysfunction. traceptive mandate will be wash the feet of young The Senate has adopted bipartisan implemented next year, but is making people. His first trip out - immigration reform, but the House the employer mandate will the church side Rome is to Lampe- will not consider it because it would not; free birth control is in dusa, the “Island of pass without a majority of place, but basic coverage for a place of Tears,” to welcome Republicans. It is supported by the workers is still on hold. ‘hope and immigrants and decry American people, business and labor, Unemployment numbers “globalization of indiffer - evangelicals and Catholics, but show modest progress, but change.’ ence.” He preaches every Republicans are worried about chal - 20 million people are jobless, day in his house chapel, lenges in the fall primaries. This dys - work only part time or have challenging “melancholy function is not unique. Gun safety given up. Real wages are stagnant and Christians,” “part-time” Catholics, eccle - measures were defeated by pressure poverty is at historic levels. The elite sial ideologues, careerism in the church from the National Rifle Association. advocacy of gay and abortion rights is and greed in the economy. In the House, the farm bill initially constant and the silence on jobs, wages Francis’ amazing appeal may not failed because some insisted that food and poverty is deafening. last as he makes tough choices. The stamp cuts for hungry families were President Obama and House speak - reform of the Roman Curia is still too small. What happened to compas - er John Boehner seem buffeted by ahead. Symbols are substance in our sionate conservatism? forces beyond their control, including a church, but personnel is policy. The Supreme Court rejection of a cen - coup in Egypt or a possible coup in the church needs to do more to heal the terpiece of the Voting Rights Act House. They have abandoned the wounds of sexual abuse and respond brought relatively little comment or search for a bargain on the budget and to aspirations of women. action. But overturning the Defense of live with the sequester they deplored. The implementation of the Depart- Marriage Act and California’s vote They recycle their talking points and ment of Health and Human Services’ against same-sex marriage led to mas - blame others for Washington’s failures. mandate could threaten our ministries sive celebratory coverage. The decisions There is a surprisingly different story and divide our community. But Pope in the church. Pope Benedict decided he Francis’ simple ways and powerful words JOHN CARR is the director of the Initiative on could not continue to lead and took the remind us why we are Catholic. Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at selfless step of resigning. An unexpected Washington could use a little of his faith, Georgetown University. He previously served, new pope took the name Francis to lift hope and charity. His commitment to for more than two decades, as director of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ department on justice up the church’s commitment to the the “least of these” wouldn’t hurt either. and peace. poor, peace and creation. Francis’ new JOHN CARR

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 9

Makeshift memorial for the Boston Marathon bombing

Does religion promote violence? The Root of Evil BY WILLIAM T. CAVANAUGH

he Boston Marathon bombings have fed fears of terrorism and also given new encouragement to one of our society’s preferred ways of dealing with the fear of terrorism: we assign it to the realm of the irrational, to which we oppose the rationality of our own society. The revelation that the perpetra - A U M

tors were Muslims from a part of the world that harbors Islamist militants F / M O

has refueled one of the most persistent themes in public discourse in the West, the idea that C . K

T C

religion has a tendency to promote violence. A spate of articles with titles like “Did Religion O T S R

Motivate the Boston Bombers?” (The Washington Post) and “Boston Marathon Bombing E T T U

Suspects Seen as Driven by Religion” (The Associated Press) appeared in the aftermath of H S

: S O

the explosions. T O H

What the bombers’ motivations were exactly has yet to be pieced together and may never P

WILLIAM T. CAVANAUGH is senior research professor in the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University. He is the author of five books, including The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford University Press).

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 11 be fully known. What drives a young man to blow up 19th century, and Chechen rebels have fought numerous strangers is most often a volatile cocktail of hormone-satu - rebellions over the last two centuries trying to break free rated ingredients, not always fully transparent to the from Russian domination. bomber himself. What is known, however, is that a version The latest iterations of such rebellion were sparked by of Islam played some role in the Tsarnaev brother’s world - the breakup of the Soviet Union. Chechens hoped to secure view. This fact is generally regarded as sufficient to count their independence just as other former Soviet republics the Boston Marathon bombings as one more grim episode did, but their drive toward independence was crushed by in a long history of religion-related violence. It is common in two brutal Russian military operations that included direct the secular West to run through a list of such episodes—the attacks on civilians. The Russian government saw Chechnya Crusades, the Inquisition, Aztec human sacrifices, the as part of Russia, though now less than 2 percent of its pop - European Wars of Religion, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 ulation is Russian. Russia also wanted to discourage other and so on—and conclude that religion has a peculiar ten - ethnic minorities from seeking their independence. The dency to lend itself to violent acts. brutality of the Russian response has inflamed Chechen There is no denying that faith traditions like Christianity nationalism, which in the last two decades has been mixed and Islam can and do contribute to violence. Some form of with Islamic jihadism of a Wahhabi strain. Islam appears to have been present in the mix of the In the media coverage surrounding the Tsarnaev broth - Tsarnaev brothers’ motivations. It will not get Islam off the ers, the role of religion will continue to be debated at length; hook to say that they were not good Muslims, just as it will the role of nationalism will be passed over in silence. There not get Christianity off the hook to say that the Crusaders will be no debates over the fanaticism caused by devotion to were not really Christians because they did not understand the idea of a Chechen nation, nor the violence caused by the true message of Jesus. Islam and Christianity are not just Russian insistence that Chechnya remain a part of greater sets of doctrines but lived experiences that are constituted in Russia. Why is this so? Why does devotion to jihadism part by what people make of them. strike us as peculiarly dangerous, while the much better- We can grant the commonsense observation that armed devotion to Russian national pride strikes us as mun - Christianity and Islam and other faith traditions can con - dane and generally defensible? Why do we prefer to talk tribute to violence. The conventional wisdom, however, goes about the Tsarnaev brothers’ relation to Islam and not about beyond this to claim that religion has a peculiar tendency to their stated political opposition to the American invasions promote violence—that is, religion is more inclined toward of Iraq and Afghanistan? violence than secular ideologies and institutions. In other Westerners are fascinated by the nexus of “religion and words, the idea that religion causes violence depends on violence.” War on behalf of nationalism and freedom and oil contrasting religion with something less prone to violence. and other such mundane secular matters hardly counts as That something is the “secular.” Religion is thought to be violence at all. At the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Qatar in especially prone to irrationality and fanaticism and abso - 2007, nearly four years into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, lutism, all of which are root causes of violence, in ways that David Satterfield, senior adviser and coordinator for Iraq in secular realities are not. It is for this reason that secular soci - the office of the U.S. Secretary of State, gave a speech con - eties like our own have tried to tame religion by removing it demning those in Iraq “who try to achieve their goals from the public sphere and erecting high walls between through the use of violence.” As the journalist Rami Khouri church and state. The Boston bombings seem to provide sardonically commented, “As if the U.S. had not used more evidence for the wisdom of taming religious passions. weapons when invading Iraq!” Nothing, of course, justifies the Boston bombings. My Religion and Nationalism point is simply that we prefer to locate “religious” causes of The more we burrow into the motivations of the Boston violence and become quite incurious when “secular” causes bombers, however, the more complicated the matter like nationalism are in play. Why? Because we are accustomed becomes. The brothers’ homeland of Chechnya has indeed to dividing life into separate religious and secular spheres. We become a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. The last decade saw have been habituated to think that devotion to one’s religion spectacular and horrific attacks by Chechen rebels on a is fine within limits, while public patriotic devotion to one’s Moscow theater and an elementary school in Ossetia. nation is generally a good thing. We are appalled at violence Traditionally, Sunni Islam in Chechnya has been peaceful, on behalf of religion, but we generally accept the necessity and with a strong Sufi presence. Some scholars think that the even the virtue of killing for one’s country. Chechens converted to Islam from the 16th to the 19th cen - Are these two kinds of violence—religious and secular— turies in part to gain Ottoman support against Russian really such different things? There is a growing body of invaders. Russia officially annexed Chechnya in the early scholars who question whether the binary distinction

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 12 between religious and secular is as obvious as we tend to Why exclude godless Marxism from the category if god - assume it is. There are many scholars, for example, who con - less Buddhism is included? sider nationalism a religion. It is marked by solemn rituals The second approach to defining religion deals with this of sacred communion, salvation from peril and blood sacri - problem by simply expanding the category to include fice on behalf of the collective body. Carlton Hayes’s book nationalism, Marxism, capitalism and other so-called “secu - Nationalism: A Religion represents one such approach. lar” ideologies and practices. This approach is called “func - Braden Anderson writes, “Nationalism is itself a type of tionalist” because it defines religion not according to the revivalist religion.” According to Carolyn Marvin and David substance of what people say they believe but by how some - Ingle, “nationalism is the most powerful religion in the thing actually functions in people’s lives. In 2001, when United States, and perhaps in many other countries.” California’s recently deregulated electricity supply system Robert Bellah has identified the public religion of the experienced rolling blackouts, an economics professor who United States as “civil religion,” invoking a generic “God” had been one of the architects of the deregulation was quot - and based on a heavily ritualized devotion to the salvific role ed in The New York Times expressing his conviction that of the United States in world events. Traditional religions the free market always works better than government regu - like Christianity and Judaism are still practiced in the lation: “I believe in that premise as a matter of religious United States, but they belong in the private realm, though faith.” A substantivist would say he is only speaking they often lend significant support to the public cult of civil metaphorically. A functionalist says it makes no difference if religion. he thinks it is a metaphor or not; what matters is the way he If nationalism is a religion, what does this do to the idea behaves, that is, the way free market ideology actually func - that religion has a tendency to promote violence? That idea tions in his life. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, depends on a sharp line between religious and secular ide - it is a duck. If it acts like a religion, it is a religion. If people ologies and institutions. But if a “secular” thing like nation - pledge allegiance to a flag, salute it, ritually raise and lower it alism is a religion, then the line becomes blurry, and the and are willing to kill and die for it, it does not much matter notion that religion causes violence begins to fall apart. if they acknowledge it is only a piece of cloth and not a god. This approach should not seem exotic to a Christian; it The Meaning of Religion is the basic approach taken in the Bible. The Bible is not We are clearly dealing with two different definitions of reli - gion here. In modern Western societies, we tend to assume that religion refers to forms of worship that explicitly invoke a God or gods. This approach is called a substantivist approach because it is based on the substance of people’s beliefs. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and a few others qualify as “world religions.” Nationalism, Marxism, capitalism and so on are not reli - gions because they do not refer directly to God or gods. They therefore belong in the category of “secular.” Secular ideologies and institutions are generally thought to be more mundane and rational, less absolutist, than beliefs that invoke otherworldly gods. For many people, this explains why religion is more prone to violence than secular things. When we begin to examine the substantivist approach to religion, however, significant problems appear. Some systems of belief that are usually considered religions— many forms of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, for example—do not refer to God or gods. Substantivist approaches tend to deal with this problem by finding a more inclusive term than god —the transcendent, super - natural, transempirical, salvific and so on—to define what qualifies as a religion. But the more inclusive the defining term is, the more difficult it is to exclude things like nationalism from the category of religion. Is nationalism not also transcendent? Are not all values transempirical?

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 13 interested, as functionalists are, in coming up with a defini - cal authorities in early modern Europe, the church would be tion of religion. But like functionalism, the critique of idol - in charge of something essentially private called “religion,” atry that is found everywhere from the First and the state would be in charge of public, “secular” affairs. Commandment to the Book of Revelation is based on the The history is a long and complicated one. What is impor - recognition that people treat all kinds of things as if they tant for our present purposes is to see how the were gods. religious/secular divide functions in our public discourse Sometimes the Bible criticizes the Israelites for mistak - about violence. It serves to draw our attention toward cer - ing empty idols for real gods. More often, however, the tain types of practices—Islam, for example—and away from problem of idolatry is not one of belief but of behavior. other types of practices, such as nationalism. Religion is the Idolatry is not so much a metaphysical error as misplaced bogeyman for secular society, that against which we define loyalty, a lack of trust in the one true God. In the First Book ourselves. We have learned to tame religion, to put it in its of Samuel the Lord equates the Israelites’ request for a king proper, private place; they (Muslims, primarily) have not. with serving other gods, for they have rejected the Lord We live in a publicly secular and therefore rational society; from being king over them (8:7-8). Isaiah accuses the they have not learned to separate secular matters like poli - Israelites of putting their trust in horses and chariots—mil - tics from religion, and so they are prone to irrationality. We itary might, in other words—rather than the Lord (31:1-3). hope they will come to their senses and be more like us. In Jesus says we must choose between two masters, God and the meantime, we reserve the right periodically to bomb wealth (Mt 6:24). Paul warns the them into being more rational. Philippians of those for whom “their god ON THE WEB The idea that religion causes violence, in is their bellies” (3:19). Such people pre - William T. Cavanaugh talks about other words, can be used to blind us in the the myth of religious violence. sumably do not believe that a deity resides americamagazine.org/podcast West to our own forms of fanaticism and in their breadbasket. Most commonly violence. When we label our own devo - from a biblical point of view, idolatry is tions as secular, we tend to treat them as if not mistakenly believing that something mundane is a god, they were not the subject of violence at all. We are endlessly but rather devoting one’s resources and energies and life to fascinated by the violence supposedly hardwired into Iran’s serving something that is not God. Whether or not one Shiite Islam; we prefer not to dwell on the Shah’s 26-year claims to believe in the biblical God is not the crucial point. reign of U.S.-supported secularist terror. We remember that The crucial point is this: people devote themselves to all the ayatollahs imposed an Islamic dress code when the Shah sorts of things. People treat all sorts of things as their reli - was ousted in 1979; we forget that the first shah imposed a gion. With regard to the question of violence, people kill secular dress code in 1924. and die for all sorts of things; there is no good reason to sup - It must be repeated—though it should go without say - pose that people are more inclined to kill for a god than for ing—that nothing justifies the violence done in the name of a flag, for a nation, for freedom, for free markets, for the Islam or any other faith. My point is simply that nothing socialist revolution, for access to oil and so on. In certain justifies violence done in the name of secular faiths either, contexts, ideologies of jihad or the sacrificial atonement of and that there is no essential difference between the two Christ can lend themselves to violence. In other contexts, kinds of faith. Both are based on pre-rational narratives of belief in the free market or in Greater Russia or in the belonging and deliverance. A sound approach to violence United States as worldwide liberator is what releases killing avoids making sweeping statements about religion, as if we energies. If the biblical critique of idolatry is on the mark, knew what that was, and adopts a more empirical, case by there is no essential difference between the two, between case approach, on a level playing field between religious and religious and secular causes. There is no religious/secular secular ideologies and practices. Wahhabist Islam will not distinction in the Bible. In the Middle Ages, the escape scrutiny in examining the Chechen conflict, but nei - religious/secular distinction was a distinction between two ther will secular, Russian nationalism. Forms of evangelical types of clergy; it meant nothing like what we mean by it Christianity may be relevant to American military adven - now. The way we now use the religious/secular binary is a tures abroad, but more so are secular, Enlightenment forms modern, Western invention; it does not simply respond to of salvation narrative that fly under the dangerously the nature of things. ambiguous banner of “freedom.” The myth that religion promotes violence depends on The Heart of the Matter dividing the world up into us and them, the publicly secular So why was this binary invented? It has to do with the sep - and the publicly religious, the rational and the irrational. aration of church power from civil power in the modern The irony is that violence feeds on such binaries. To do away state. After the civil authorities triumphed over ecclesiasti - with such binaries is one small step toward peace. A

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 14 From Joplin to Boston The spiritual trauma of public tragedy BY PATRICK FLEMING

oon after the horrific REMEMBERING MARTIN A Mass at St. Ann Church in Boston shooting at Sandy to celebrate the life of Martin Richard (photo near altar), a Hook Elementary victim of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15. School in Newtown, SConn., I attended a Christmas concert at our granddaughter’s high school. Crowds at such gatherings usually do not bother me, but this evening I felt a low level of insistent anxiety throughout the performance, and when a piece of equipment fell with a muffled boom, I near - ly jumped out of my chair. Since the Boston Marathon bombing, my jumpiness has been rekin - dled. I suspect that many other people feel the same as I do in situations where they once felt safe. In the last few years, many places seem to have become emo - tionally linked with the tragedies that have dominated our news and assaulted our weary minds: Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; Boston, Mass.; and Moore, Okla. Whether these traumas had human causes or were natural dis - asters, the psychological impact has been overwhelming for many. Survivors of previous trauma or abuse experience a resurgence of symptoms of post-traumat - tions, we all experience some degree of psychological struggle ic stress disorder, especially increased fear, hypervigilance and as wave after wave of traumatic news washes over us. depression. They may find themselves—like many Traumatic events not only inflict psychological wounds,

Americans—riveted by the ongoing media accounts of these but spiritual injury and trauma as well. Throughout my T O L I P tragedies, sometimes in an obsessive fashion. Although sur - years of counseling hundreds of survivors of various kinds E H T vivors of previous trauma are most susceptible to such emo - of abuse and trauma, I have come to see that discernible , Y C A

spiritual scars are inflicted by trauma and that there is a def - R T

. L

inite need for a spiritual healing process alongside the psy - Y R O

PATRICK FLEMING G practices psychotherapy in Kirkwood, Mo. He is the chological. When the mind and body are traumatized, the E R G co-author of two books, Shattered Soul? Five Pathways to Healing /

spirit and soul can feel shattered. Survivors of trauma and O T

the Spirit after Abuse and Trauma (WordStream Publishing) and O H P Broken Trust: Stories of Pain, Hope, and Healing from Clerical abuse struggle with despair and hopelessness; loss of life’s S N

Abuse Survivors and Abusers (Crossroad Publishing). meaning and purpose; reduction of trust in life and in God; C

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 15 an inability to be mindful and in the present moment; a lar and often unanswerable “Why?” questions consume and struggle to trust joy or feel gratitude; and either an addictive torment our minds and spirits. Followed soon by “What’s clinging to religion or a loss of faith altogether. Listening to the use?” “What can we believe in?” “What does it all mean my own soul, and to the souls of my clients, friends and anyway?” “Is there any hope?” These questions can leave us family, I identify three primary areas of spiritual trauma: feeling helpless, alone, without a future and even de-souled. fear, shaken or broken trust, and struggles with meaning and Our mind tells us that if we can only find the answers to hope. some of the existential questions raised by these traumatic The kind of fear I experienced at my granddaughters’ events, then we will be all right. Some answers offered by high school, while under - faith and spirituality can standable, can become help to some degree, insidious and can even If we let fear control us and rob us although fully satisfying become a spiritual illness, a of joy, peace, serenity, connection answers often do not sickness of the soul. Fear come. My own observa - becomes a soul sickness and joyful mingling and assembly, tions while counseling when it becomes our basic clients has led me to stance in and against life. our very souls are constrained. believe that the healing Fear drives us to hold on answer is really found in for dear life, to try to grasp and control even the uncontrol - certain kinds of personal experiences and the opening of our lable. If we let fear control us, paralyze us and rob us of joy, spiritual vision to see those experiences in ourselves and in peace, serenity, connection and joyful mingling and assem - other people. These are experiences of two kinds: 1) soul bly, our very souls are constrained and constricted. If we resilience and 2) the transcendence and ultimate triumph of stop doing what our soul desires and needs because of insis - love. tent fear, then we give the terrorists, abusers and shooters control over our lives—and our spirit is diminished. The Force of Love Fear and the soul are antithetical to each other. Our soul Soul resilience is based in the felt knowledge of a deep part is and desires for us freedom, openness, connection, vulner - of us that we call soul, which always remains whole, ability, oneness, letting go, living in the moment, transcen - untouched, alive and seeking a pathway to healing and life. dence and love—all spiritual characteristics that fear tries to It is the consciousness that at our core there is a wellspring steal from us. Fear says, “There is danger everywhere, so pull of energy, hope and purpose, that ultimately cannot be shat - in, hole up, harden up, trust no one, build a fortress.” Our tered, even by the worst of traumas. Although I have seen soul says, “Trust, grow, keep your heart open, remain vul - this soul resilience especially in clients who have survived nerable, build a safe house; but be sure it has plenty of win - and transcended abuse and trauma, it is a basic human, spir - dows and doors to let in the light and fresh air.” Our soul itual capacity. We all possess this inner spiritual resilience, wants to lead us to the spiritual courage that does not let this lifespring of soul that we can tap to carry us through fear, or the purveyors of fear, prevail. I love this anonymous and beyond our personal traumas and trials and those text I first heard at a 12-step meeting: “Fear knocked at the occurring in our society. door; faith answered. No one was there.” In each tragedy, we have seen this incredible human Shaken or even broken trust is a related spiritual trauma capacity for soul resilience: Representative Gabrielle created by these awful events. We ask, “Where was God?” Giffords’s courageous recovery; the teachers of Newtown when these things happen. How can I continue to trust in who sacrificed their lives to protect their students and the the goodness of life and the love and providence of God? parents working for gun safety in memory of their children; How can I trust anyone when humans can be capable of the first responders and medical personnel in Boston who such abuse, cruelty and evil as in Tucson, Aurora, worked so quickly to save lives and the runners and sur - Newtown, Boston and Cleveland? These questions shake us vivors who weeks later ran the last mile of the marathon so to the core. They can leave us feeling profoundly vulnerable, they would triumph over violence and hate and finish the alone and lost in what appears to be a hostile world. It can race; the three women in Cleveland who survived 10 years feel like the once solid foundations of our lives have turned of horror to finally escape their captor. These survivors to sand and mud, and we are sinking in the muck, with banded together to help each other to heal and their com - nothing to trust or to believe in. munities to recover. All of us can tap into this same resilien - This in turn leads us to struggle with questions of mean - cy of soul to overcome and heal from the spiritual trauma of ing and purpose and pushes us into the valley of despair and these horrific events. loss of hope. In the face of such tragedy, the dreaded, circu - Our soul leads us to the second set of experiences, the

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 16 transcendence and triumph of love, even in the face of these gling to make the short walk to his car. The patient’s daugh - tragedies and in their very midst. Our soul can provide the ter was steadying and holding her father from behind. The spiritual vision to enable us to see that despite the apparent psychiatrist and the daughter patiently and gently helped darkness, the light of love—whether we name it God or a the man into the car. They hugged and parted, and the psy - force of the universe—still shines forth. Love is always pre - chiatrist returned to his office. My client and I stood there sent, even when we do not feel it. We are never alone in the for a few minutes in awe-filled silence taking this in and darkness, although we feel lonely. Love is beyond, beneath, then began our session. This scene has been repeated every within and all around these traumatic events. Love is work - week for the past year or more below my office window. The ing within and against the darkness of these events to doctor and the daughter’s kindness and love and the man’s restore life, to bring healing, to give meaning and purpose to courage and determination touch and inspire me each time. the seemingly senseless, to restore hope. Our soul yearns to These moments of soul resilience and love are all around show us this love and its triumph and its transcendent ener - us every day, millions of times a day. They are rarely report - gy even in the midst of the most awful of events. ed in the media; and yet they are, I believe, much more com - mon than the moments of trauma, darkness or evil. They Everyday Moments are so common that we fail to see them. Our sight is blind - Days after the story broke about the three women in ed by the glare of publicity for the dramatic tragedies. We Cleveland who were abducted and held as sexual slaves for have only to learn to see with the eyes of our soul to become 10 years, my own soul opened my eyes to see an example of conscious of these small miracles of kindness that surround both soul resilience and the triumph of love right before me. us everyday. So when the next traumatic news story assaults I was walking into my second floor office with a client— your mind and spirit, remember to look within you to your who has her own story of deeply wounding trauma—when soul and its amazing resiliency and to look around you for I happened to glance out my window to the sidewalk lead - the many manifestations of love and kindness that are in ing from the small office building next door. The elderly your midst. Then hear your soul say to you, “Fear not, for psychiatrist who practices there was slowly walking back - you are not alone; despair not, for soul and love will over - ward down the sidewalk guiding his patient, who was para - come and will lead you through; trust and hope again; love, lyzed on his left side, apparently by a stroke, and was strug - in time, will show you the way.” A

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 17

On the ‘Light of Faith’ First responses to ‘Lumen Fidei’

America invited several writers, theologians and church leaders [searchers] are already, even without knowing it, on the path to respond to Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei,” “The leading to faith.” Light of Faith.” Visit americamagazine.org for additional con - According to the letter, moreover, faith illumines the tributions. whole of life, including scientific inquiry. “Faith encourages the scientist to remain constantly open to reality in all its Knowing the One Whom We Love inexhaustible richness,” the popes write. “By stimulating BY DREW CHRISTIANSEN wonder before the profound mystery of creation, faith broadens the horizons of reason, to shed greater light on the umen Fidei,” Pope Francis said, would be an world which discloses itself to scientific investigation” (No. encyclical written “by four hands”—those of Pope 34). In fundamental theology these dynamics propelling the ‘L Emeritus Benedict XVI and his own. Much of the advancement of science may be interpreted as manifesta - encyclical shows the thinking of Benedict: extensive appeal tions of implicit faith apart from Christ. But when viewed to the doctors of the church, a sacralizing of Hellenistic phi - with the eyes of faith by a believing scientist, like Pierre losophy and a preoccupation with 19th-century atheism. Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., for example, they gain a Christic With these come a concern for (unitary) truth as the object depth. It is to that greater depth of life lived in faith that the of faith, defense of the integrity of the deposit of faith, the two popes want to draw our attention. ecclesial context of faith and the responsibility of the magis - Except for one introductory passage in which Pope terium to guard the wholeness of faith against attrition over Francis speaks of Benedict’s preparation, it is more difficult time. to make out Francis’ own contribution. I suspect it includes Naturally enough for a text begun by Benedict, the letter also touches a num - ber of times on the modern antagonism between faith and reason. At the same time, there are splendidly positive passages on the human search for God and on the penetration of sci - ence by the light of faith. With a bow to the reli - gious sensibility of searchers who lack explicit faith, the letter recognizes that “religious man strives to see signs of God, in the daily experiences of life, in O

the cycle of the seasons, in N A M the fruitfulness of the earth O R

E R

and in the movement of the O T A V cosmos” (No. 35). It contin - R E S S ues, “To the extent that O / S R E

they are sincerely open to T U E R

FOUR HANDS Pope Francis talks with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at Castel love and set out with what - : O

Gandolfo, south of Rome, on March 23, 2013. T O

ever light they can find, H P

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 19 elements of two chapters: Chapter 3, “I Delivered to You popes remind us, speaks of faith as hearing and even as What I Also Received,” treats the transmission of faith; and touch. The Gospel testifies to “what we have heard, what we Chapter 4, “God Prepares a City for Them,” treats the vivi - have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands, con - fying role of faith in family and society. To this reader’s con - cerning the word of life” (1 Jn 1:1; LF No. 31). sternation, however, the ecclesiology of the encyclical is not True love, the encyclical tells us, “unifies all the elements that of a servant church (or, as Pope Francis has described of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to it, a church in the street where accidents happen), but of a a great and fulfilled life” (No. 27). Appealing to all the sens - church that guards the faith against error. The faithful es and the whole person, the Gospel invites us to encounter would have benefitted here from some revision on Francis’ Christ (No. 31). Love yields knowledge because it alone part in keeping with his homiletic teaching on the church’s embraces the whole person. The love at the heart of faith is vulnerable engagement in the world. the love that unites us with Christ. Pope Francis had indicated that he would fold the recom - mendations of the last synod of bishops on evangelization into DREW CHRISTIANSEN, S.J., is a visiting scholar at Boston College and former editor in chief of America. He has been a frequent commentator this encyclical rather than issue a separate apostolic exhorta - on papal encyclicals and Catholic social teaching in these pages. tion closing the last synod. Yet only three numbers (Nos. 37 to 39) touch on the sharing of faith; and these stress the com - munal, ecclesial nature of faith rather than the mission of An Extraordinary Collaboration evangelization. Most of Chapter 3, a baptismal catechesis, BY ROBERT P. IMBELLI treats the transmission of faith in the sacrament. Chapter 4, on the church’s service to the world, hints of the present pope’s t the end of the new encyclical, “Lumen Fidei,” the pastoral touch, especially the closing section (Nos. 56-57) on simple signature appears: “Franciscus.” Officially, the consoling role of faith in suffering and dying. Ait is thus the first encyclical of the new pope. This would have been the fourth encyclical prepared by Yet things are not as simple as they appear. In the encycli - Pope Benedict XVI. It completes a trilogy on the theologi - cal Francis writes: “[Benedict] himself had almost complet - cal virtues. Since two of the previous three—“God Is Love,” ed a first draft of an encyclical on faith. For this I am most on the mystery of God, and “Love in Truth,” on truth and deeply grateful to him, and as his brother in Christ I have love in the moral life—dealt with dimensions of Christian taken up his fine work and added a few contributions of my love, it should be no sur - own” (No. 7). Thus we are prise that love plays a cen - It is ultimately the love of God, witnesses to an extraordi - tral role in this joint nary collaboration that encyclical’s treatment of which comes to us by grace, might equally be called the faith as well. Testament of Benedict and It is ultimately the love the encyclical affirms, that the Inaugural Address of of God, which comes to Francis. us by grace, the encyclical enables us to believe. Those familiar with the affirms, that enables us to three encyclicals and other believe. Quoting St. Paul, “One believes with the heart” writings of Benedict will quickly recognize favorite themes (Rom 10:10), the letter says: “Faith knows because it is tied and sensibilities. In many ways, this lovely exposition of to love, because love itself brings enlightenment.” It is love Catholic faith can serve almost as a “Summa” of Pope that opens the eyes of the mind. “Faith’s understanding is Benedict’s magisterium, written in a lucid, inviting style. born,” it says, “when we receive the immense love of God Indeed, the 60 succinct paragraphs beg to be pondered and which transforms us inwardly and enables us to see reality prayed. with new eyes” (No. 26). It is remarkable that Pope At the heart of the encyclical’s meditation on faith is this Benedict, for all his concern with the truth content of faith, conviction: “In the love of God revealed in Jesus, faith per - not only must turn to love to seal his argument about faith, ceives the foundation on which all reality and its final destiny but that it is with his description of love’s knowledge that rest” (No. 15). Christian faith arises from the loving the argument of the encyclical is most convincing. God, the encounter with Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Thus it encyclical confesses, “is a subject who makes himself known engages the whole person: understanding, will and affections. and perceived in an interpersonal relationship” (No. 36). As a result, before being formulated in propositions (nec - In the end, the image of sight that was the starting point essary though these be), faith is a deeply experiential reality for “Light of Faith” proves insufficient to capture the full - that sets the person on a new way, enabling him or her to see ness and vitality of faith. The biblical witness itself, the reality in a new light, the light of Christ, and opening up a

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 20 July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 21 new horizon and mission. “Those who believe are trans - Fidei,” which strives to affirm, “The light of faith is unique, formed by the love to which they have opened their hearts since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human exis - in faith” (No. 21). They are being transformed by the tence” (No. 4). Cognizant of contemporary realities, it wor - indwelling of Christ in the Spirit. ries about the “crisis of truth in our age” and “relativism,” The I of the believer becomes incorporated into Christ’s which present a fundamental challenge to the relevance of ecclesial body, the “I believe” of the individual situated in the “the question of God” (No. 25). It notes the importance of “we believe” of the community. In a rich passage, the encycli - the new evangelization; it specifies that science and faith are cal teaches: “This openness to the ecclesial ‘We’ reflects the complementary: “By stimulating wonder before the pro - openness of God’s own love, which is not only a relationship found mystery of creation, faith broadens the horizons of between the Father and the Son, between reason to shed greater light on the world an ‘I’ and a ‘Thou,’ but it is also, in the ON THE WEB which discloses itself to scientific investi - Spirit, a ‘We,’ a communion of persons” Additional commentary gation” (No. 34). Certainly these are all (No. 39). on “The Light of Faith.” topics worthy of further conversation. Moreover, the ecclesial communion americamagazine.org/light-faith But the encyclical—both its author - experienced and enjoyed is not self- ship and its topic—prompts another enclosed but impels us to our responsibilities for the common question for me: What does it mean to speak univocally and good. “[Faith’s] light does not simply brighten the interior of universally about faith in a time when the global church is the Church, nor does it serve solely to build an eternal city in becoming conscious of its own internal diversity? Two the hereafter; it helps us build our societies in such a way that issues are worthy of further exploration. they can journey towards a future of hope” (No. 51). First, the encyclical views truth as a straightforward and Rooted in the soil of Christ’s paschal mystery, faith does univocal endeavor. In this view, truth is magisterial; through not deny or ignore the sufferings of the world. It seeks to apostolic succession, “the magisterium ensures our contact bring the service of hope and love, especially to the most with the primordial source and thus provides the certainty needy and abandoned. “Faith is not a light which scatters all of attaining to the word of Christ in all its integrity” (No. darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and 36). This is by no means a new claim. But it is noteworthy suffices for the journey” (No. 57). in light of ongoing conversations about the role and author - “Lumen Fidei” offers challenging and enriching spiritual ity of theologians vis-à-vis the hierarchical magisterium. exercises for the contemporary church and the wider world. Second, how is Catholic unity understood? Of course, Tolle, lege —take it up and read! “Lumen Fidei” explains that liturgy, sacraments, biblical wit - ness, prayers and creed are how the church preserves and REV. ROBERT P. IMBELLI, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, transmits the foundational claim: “The history of Jesus is teaches theology at Boston College. the complete manifestation of God’s reliability” (No. 15). These features endure across space and time and are foun - The Unity of Faith dational sources of Catholic unity. BY CHRISTIANA Z. PEPPARD But what is the topography of unity in a global church? This is an important and complicated question. The church hen reading “The Light of Faith,” the first may be unified in faith, but it is not uniform in its constitu - encyclical of Pope Francis’ pontificate, it can tion. How, then, is the diversity of human experience in a be tempting to speculate about what Pope global, pluralistic church incorporated into—or omitted W from—the univocal utterances of magisterial teaching? Benedict XVI wrote and what Pope Francis added. But does authorship make a difference here? Such reflection is absent from “Lumen Fidei,” which offers Readers may observe that early references (to Nietszche, affirmation of unity without delving into the church’s con - Justin Martyr, Dante and Dostoevsky, among others) res - stitutive diversity. This is unfortunate, because unity is not onate with the style of Benedict XVI; likewise, key terms necessarily reducible to uniformity. surface later that evoke themes of Francis’ early pontificate Perhaps the plurality of the contemporary—and (relationships, the common good, economy and creation). future—body of Christ will be addressed in other ways dur - But to interpret this document in this manner is problem - ing Francis’ pontificate. But readers will not find it in atic. Encyclicals are not fragmentary documents. Even when “Lumen Fidei,” where Benedict and Francis speak with written by collaboration or committee, there is a unity of unity about the uniformity of faith. authoritative voice. The genre brooks no majority opinion and minority dissent. CHRISTIANA Z. PEPPARD is an assistant professor of theology, science, Unity and univocality are important themes of “Lumen and ethics at Fordham University in New York.

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 22 FAITH IN FOCUS Shelter From the Storm An education in violence and the Gospel BY RANDALL WOODARD

ather Pedro looked at BORDER SPIRITUALITY Father Pedro me with saddened eyes. Pantoja at his shelter in Saltillo, Mexico. F“One hundred seventy people dead, with a sledgeham - mer,” he explained. My Spanish was poor, but I understood what he said. I met Father Pedro Pantoja in July while traveling in northern Mexico with my pastor, Dan Kayajan, C.S.C. Meeting Father Pedro was like visiting a modern-day prophet. We sat together in a large room—a room later used to serve lunch to about 45 migrants from Central America who were making their way through northern Mexico, an area Father Pedro called the “territory of blood and death.” Here, Father Pedro and others serve many migrants seeking a new life in the United States. That afternoon in Saltillo, Mexico, Father Pedro told the story of the men, women, children and elderly ries of poverty, fear and violence. the 170 people whose lives were bru - were abducted and then separated from Daniel, 38, left his wife and three chil - tally and senselessly cut short last one another to face different, cruel dren in Guatemala to search for work spring by the notorious gang, Los deaths. The men were taken to die by in Mexico or the United States. Zetas. The bodies of the Central sport. They were forced to fight one Although he and his wife both American migrants—mothers, another in gladiatorial-like death worked, the pay was so meager they fathers, children and grandparents— matches with sledgehammers. If they could not afford to feed and clothe were pulled from large dirt pits last refused, they were shot. The women their children. He desperately wants to April, leaving behind the evidence of a were raped and then murdered after work in order to provide a basic stan - truly barbaric mass-murder. being told they deserved to die because dard of living for his family. Because of Father Pedro shared eyewitness tes - they were prostitutes. Small children this he felt forced to leave them to find timony from others who described how were killed with acid, while the elderly work that would pay a living wage. N E were lined up and run over by the very Nelson fled Honduras after taking R G A

D RANDALL WOODARD, an associate professor I buses they had hoped would take them his wife and four children to a safe V A D of theology and religion, is the department /

to freedom in El Norte. house. His brother and father had O T

chair at St. Leo University in St. Leo, Fla., O H P and editor of the International Journal of That afternoon, the men staying at been murdered, while his sister was S N

African Catholicism. the shelter shared nearly identical sto - raped and murdered by the Zetas. C

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 23 Their “crime” was not being able to pay of violence on the way north is shock - have any power over immigration law, the war tax levied by the Zetas against ing—entire busloads are taken—but control over global economic markets those in his village. “They gave me little is done about it. Many accuse law that change human migration patterns three days to pay or they would kill enforcement and government officials or any way to stop the Zetas, I can re- me,” he explained. “There are neigh - of complicity in the crimes. evaluate my understanding of how to borhoods that are empty because peo - At Casa del Migrante, Father Pedro live the Gospel. Father Pedro opened ple couldn’t pay the tax and were and his group of volunteers provide a his eyes to the situation of immeasur - forced to flee.” safe environment, hot food, showers, able suffering and abuse in his commu - The desire to provide their families rest, basic social services and advice for nity and became actively engaged in with basic necessities motivated these migrants. People protecting and pro - migrants to take on the enormous from the shelter ON THE WEB moting the dignity risks associated with the journey protect the migrants Video reports from of his migrant through Mexico, where an estimated from traffickers as Catholic News Service. brothers and sisters. 10,000 people are murdered each year. they disembark americamagazine.org/video Since I have Additionally, the migrants have from trains nearby returned from become a source of easy money for and bring them back to rest and pre - Saltillo, I have become more aware of organized crime and gangs like the pare for the last leg of the journey. attitudes and prejudices held deeply Zetas. Father Pedro estimated that Most migrants pass through Mexico within our society and secretly within about 12,000 people will be kid - on the roofs of trains. By the time they my own heart. I have been forced to napped this year and ransomed back reach Saltillo, they are only about two confront the idea that the commodifi - to their already impoverished families hours from Texas and many are physi - cation of human life is real, pervasive after being tortured and abused. cally and emotionally exhausted. and horribly destructive. The “Although the migrants are poor, they Father Pedro told us about the migrants, because of their vulnerabili - are still bait for the criminals,” he numerous threats he has received ty, are seen as a target for abuse and a explained. “They are like merchandise, because he runs the migrant shelter. source of profit rather than persons just a way to make money.” The danger Father Pedro, the volunteers and staff with intrinsic value. So often we brand live in constant danger of death. When others as undeserving of our uncondi - I walked into the shelter, a police offi - tional love, mercy and compassion cer patrolling the area demanded my because we refuse to understand their identification and inquired about my dignity and our connection to them as business at the shelter. When gang brothers and sisters. members shot up the shelter last year, As in the parable of the good however, the officer seemed to disap - Samaritan, Father Pedro and many oth - pear quickly, explained Father Pedro. ers throughout the migrant trail in Not only are people like Father Pedro Mexico risk their lives to serve the vul - vulnerable to the gangs and organized nerable community passing through crime rings, they have also been their midst. St. Paul writes, “Behold, mocked by their communities and now is a very acceptable time; behold, even by those in the church, once being now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). told it was a sin to help illegal In our Christian lives, as we work to migrants. When asked why he risks turn away from sin and follow the his life to carry on this ministry, Father Gospel, let us remember that in so many Pedro offered a powerful response: “If ways, Nelson and Daniel are present in we didn’t do it, we wouldn’t be faithful our midst. Returning from my brief to the Gospel.” journey through the territory of blood His words have stuck with me. I and death, I knew that I did not have to struggle to develop a personal be in a different country to meet those response to this crisis. Like many oth - who have been oppressed by injustice ers, I can support Casa del Migrante or and violence, those who have been other places like it financially and with robbed of their basic dignity. May we prayer. But there may be something rededicate ourselves to ending the grave more at stake. Although I do not feel I injustice and violence in the world. A

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 24 BOOKS &CULTURE

FILM | ROBERT E. LAUDER sider his masterpiece—“Alice” (1990), “Match Point” (2005) and “Midnight WOODY ALLEN’S WORLD in Paris” (2011), his biggest commer - cial success. In his latest film, Blue The bleak, brilliant vision of ‘Blue Jasmine’ Jasmine, Allen continues to give evi - ea rs ago in these pages, lence we had come to expect of him— dence of his complete mastery of the Richard A. Blake, S.J., I am thinking of such films as “The medium of film while both surprising Y crowned Woody Allen as the Curse of the Jade Scorpion” (2001), and delighting the viewer with an most outstanding American film direc - “Hollywood Ending” (2002), imagination that is insightful and fresh. tor then working in films. He even sug - “Anything Else” (2003) and “Melinda “Blue Jasmine” is bleak but brilliant. gested that some day Allen might be and Melinda” (2004)—his abundant The plot is centered around the title proclaimed the finest American direc - output includes an impressive number character (played by Cate Blanchett), tor ever. At the time, the evaluation of exceptionally fine films. His best whose personality seems to have no may have seemed an exaggeration. work includes “Annie Hall” (1979), center at all. In the course of the film These days, Blake would have plenty of “Manhattan” (1979), “Stardust we learn that she has changed her first evidence to support his case. Memories” (1980), “Zelig” (1983), name from Jeanette to Jasmine and Allen has written and directed “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985), added the name Blue because when approximately 45 films, and though “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986), she and her wheeling-and-dealing hus - there was a brief period when he did “Radio Days” (1987), “Crimes and band, Hal (Alec Baldwin), first met, not quite maintain the level of excel - Misdemeanors” (1989)—which I con - Rodgers and Hart’s song “Blue Moon”

Cate Blanchett as Jasmine

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 25 was playing. Hart’s opening lyrics for the film: “[H]er story isn’t just about back in dealing with actors, how does could be taken as a description of economic deprivation, it’s about a tragic the magic happen? It might be that he Jasmine and eerily prophetic of her flaw in her character that made her the has written wonderful parts in which future: “Blue Moon/ You saw me instrument of her own demise…. She is talented actors can shine forth. It also standing alone,/ Without a dream in someone who chose not to look too might be that Allen casts his films very my heart,/ Without a love of my own.” deeply at the source of her pleasure, her carefully, perhaps even having a partic - We also discover that Jasmine has income, her security, and because of ular actress in mind when he is writ - suffered a total breakdown after learn - that paid a terrific price.” ing. It might be part of the mystery of ing that her husband has been having Blanchett has said: “We all to a cer - artistic creation that even artists do multiple affairs and is leaving her to tain degree see what we want to see in not fully understand. marry a teenage au pair. In a fit of anger, the people who we are surrounded by Allen’s films are filled with psycho - Jasmine, who has always had the ability and certainly in ourselves. It’s very, very logical insights, sometimes played for to disregard anything that does not go difficult for a human being to truly laughs, sometimes played more seri - along with her self-image or her vision look at themselves in the mirror, to ously. There are also provocative of her future, finally faces her husband’s truly see who we are, warts and all— insights into morality. As an astute thievery, and he ends up in jail. and it’s very difficult to change. In the observer of the human condition, After her breakdown, Jasmine, who end, Jasmine is a product of all the Allen, an avowed atheist, remains very has spent her married life mingling delusion and evasion that we all have sympathetic toward his characters with Manhattan millionaires, leaves to some degree, but as time has passed (witness the ending of “Deconstruct- New York and visits her sister Ginger she’s become deluded on an epic scale.” ing Harry,” 1997). Nevertheless, he (Sally Hawkins), who lives in San Every member of the cast in “Blue depicts moral failings honestly. Francisco in much less affluent sur - Jasmine” is exceptionally good, but Though in interviews Allen denies roundings. Adopted from two differ - Blanchett is something special. That that there is an objective morality or ent sets of parents, the sisters had a she is an outstanding actress is obvious anything resembling the natural law, sibling rivalry; Jasmine was their adop - in this film. and certainly no divine reward or pun - tive parents’ favorite. Ginger tries to Allen has made a habit of working ishment beyond the grave, his films help her deeply wounded sister even with some outstanding actresses, like suggest that there are people who act though Ginger’s divorce from Augie Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, not only foolishly but immorally, and (Andrew Dice Clay) was precipitated Geraldine Page, Mia Farrow, Mira that true evil exists. I think of Monk to some extent by Jasmine’s criticism of Sorvino, Dianne (Danny Aiello) in Ginger’s choice in men and by Hal’s Wiest and Scarlett ON THE WEB “The Purple Rose of dishonest dealings. Johansson. Four Richard A. Blake, S.J., Cairo,” 1985; Judah Jasmine has another chance at mar - Academy Awards on the films of Woody Allen. Rosenthal (Martin riage when she meets Dwight (Peter were won by actress - americamagazine.org/woodyallen Landau) in “Crimes Sarsgaard), a millionaire diplomat es directed by Allen: and Misdemeanors,” interested in entering politics and in Diane Keaton (“Annie Hall,” 1977), 1989; Doug Tate (Jonathan Rhys the fact that Jasmine’s good looks and Mira Sorvino (“Mighty Aphrodite,” Meyers) in “Match Point,” 2005; and ability to seem at home with those in 1995) and two by Dianne Wiest others. the wealthiest social class will benefit (“Hannah and Her Sisters,” 1986, and Although Allen may already have his career. However, Jasmine’s distort - “Bullets Over Broadway,” 1994). won a place in the pantheon of such ed version of reality thwarts this rela - Allen is known for giving what great American directors as Orson tionship, too. seems like little direction and for Welles, John Ford, Frank Capra, Throughout the film Jasmine self- encouraging performers to be creative Howard Hawks and William Wyler, medicates with anti-depressants and even to change lines if they feel there is no sign that he is resting on his washed down with vodka. By the end uncomfortable with what he has writ - laurels. Word is that Allen is spending of the movie Jasmine is on the brink of ten. Blanchett, who likes to receive this summer in the south of France another total breakdown; her rupture suggestions from a director, has said making his next film. with reality has led her into her own she found Woody’s approach difficult solipsistic world. at first, but she has turned in a per - REV. ROBERT E. LAUDER is professor of phi - Both Allen and Blanchett have formance worthy of an Academy losophy at St. John’s University in New York. His most recent book is Love and Hope: offered comments on Jasmine’s wound - Award. Pope Benedict’s Spirituality of edness. Allen says in the press materials Yet one wonders: If Allen is so laid Communion (Resurrection Press).

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 26 July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 27 OPINION | ANGELA ALAIMO O’DONNELL FINDING MELVILLE AT WOODLAWN

n a sunny Saturday morning Woodlawn this past Saturday was not O’Connor’s, all four demanding not long ago, I set out early to visit family, but to see a friend— enlightenment in language as grand as Ofor Woodlawn Cemetery in Herman Melville. It might seem pre - it is ungodly. the Bronx. This may seem an odd way sumptuous to regard a celebrated It seems fitting to visit a God- to spend one’s day off, but, truth be 19th-century American novelist so haunted man in a God-haunted place, told, I find cemeteries strangely con - familiarly, but reading a great writer and, happily, I was accompanied in my soling. Perhaps this comes of being across the decades is a means of con - graveyard pilgrimage by some fellow raised Catholic, taught from early on ducting conversation friends of Melville. As that the dead do not stay dead, which with him and, inevitably, we wended our way makes the cemetery a pleasant stop leads to intimacy. As a It seems among the rows of along the road to eternity. long-time English profes - fitting to stones, I was struck by It also comes of my childhood sor, I have taught the similarities among memories associated with the grave - Melville’s masterpiece, visit a my three companions: yard. Every Sunday, my mother would Moby-Dick , to thousands God-haunted all are fiction writers, all drive our family to St. Mary’s of students, (re)read it are authors of historical Cemetery to visit the graves of our some 50 times and writ - man in a novels (a genre dedicat - grandmother and our father. My ten a score of poems and God-haunted ed to the resurrection of grandfather, an Italian immigrant with a play inspired by the the past), and all are a passion for gardening, would labor book. Its language and place. Irish Catholics. As a around the big family stone, mulching rhythms are inscribed in poet, an avid reader the soil, planting geraniums, pruning my mind, carved in my rather than writer of the roses and evergreens. My little heart, and have formed novels and an Italian brother and I would fill the metal my imagination. Catholic, I was the odd watering can from one of the spigots Melville’s mighty book woman out. Yet our that studded the cemetery road, tote it shares a key quality with common reverence for back to the grave and water the thirsty the work of our finest the ties that bind us to plants. This was our contribution to American Catholic writ - the dead and our the business of caring for the dead. It ers, including Flannery (un)common devotion made us feel necessary and useful. O’Connor: it is God-haunted. to Melville’s work made a community Afterward we would wander among Melville’s infamous Ahab is a man in of us that morning. Our visit was ritu - the tombstones, reading the names of search of meaning. His rage is the rage al homage to a mortal man whose strangers and inventing stories about of every human being who has felt words had achieved immortality, fulfill - them. Occasionally, we would run wronged by God, and his revenge is ing the deepest desire of every writer. races, choosing a prominent stone as both heretical and heroic. Here I think At last we reached the graveside. “home,” a safe haven that protected us of O’Connor’s character Ruby Turpin, Each of us had brought a small token from the invisible “It” we imagined in the short story “Revelation.” As she and placed it beside the offerings made pursuing us. Even the word graveyard enacts the evening ritual of hosing by previous pilgrims. At the behest of suggested the place’s paradox. For us, down her prize hogs, Mrs. Turpin my friends, I recited a poem I had St. Mary’s was a space for serious play, challenges God for a perceived insult written after my first visit to his grave, a proving ground where we tested the she has suffered, bellowing at last, “St. Melville.” (This was my adult ver - limits of human life and faced the “Who do you think you are?” sion of emptying the metal watering brute fact of mortality. O’Connor once said of Ruby, “You got can. I felt necessary and useful.) Then My reason for heading to to be a very big woman to shout at the we said our farewells, bowed in defer - Lord across a hogpen.” Ahab too is ence to our friend and parted compa - ANGELA ALAIMO O’DONNELL is a poet, pro - larger than life and does his share of ny, making our way back to our lives— fessor and associate director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at shouting. His quarrel with God is and to our words—awaiting us Fordham University, New York. Melville’s as surely as Ruby’s is beyond the graveyard gates.

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 28 Wonder that take us out of our com - | BOOKS ANTHONY J. POGORELC fort zones into suffering and the hope of a world made new. Both resist com - ACROSS GREAT DIVIDES modification and alienation and call us to human solidarity. HOPE SINGS, SO BEAUTIFUL both united and broken. While Jesus M. Shawn Copeland’s story of a Graced Encounters Across heals blindness, he does not spare us Somali woman, taunted by a crowd as The Color Line the tension of experiencing the pro - she gave birth to a child unassisted By Christopher Pramuk cess. Though everyone stands in a along the side of a road in Italy, Liturgical Press. 224p $19.95 social location, we can visit and be reminds us of Christ who was taunted marked by other similar locations. as he carried the cross and drew this As everyone was scrambling for infor - Pramuk admits: “Whiteness is and is woman and all despised bodies to mation after the bombing at the not my point of entry.” He and his wife himself. Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Boston Marathon, CNN announced Fruit” pushes the margins of white that “a dark-skinned individual” was consciousness and links the realities of seen leaving the area. Recently, in an lynching and crucifixion. Between article on wealth in the United States, Good Friday and Easter, the first disci - The New York Times reported that ples experienced the crucifixion as white families are about six times as lynching, a scandal of senseless suffer - wealthy as black and Hispanic fami - ing and death. The religious imagina - lies. There is a color line. It divides tion bears hope where despair is war - people and is an obstacle to social jus - ranted, but it is not fantasy that is tice. Christopher Pramuk, a theology untethered to history, memory and professor at Xavier University in experience. Cincinnati, invites us to face the com - Where do we stand today? Hurri- plexities of race in the United States cane Katrina continues to stand out as with truthfulness and hope. evidence that the color line remains. In Hope Sings, So Beautiful, Pramuk The privileged white barkers of the air - expresses hope’s power to resist the waves clutched it as they took an oppor - polarizing rhetoric that so often tunity to kick the vulnerable and charge imprisons discussions of race and that they were at fault for the problems invites fresh thinking and fruitful dia - of New Orleans and of race itself. The logue in the face of it. problem of racism in the United States This book, well written and deep, is not only a black or brown problem is spiritual reading. It engages one’s adopted two children from Haiti, and arising from destructive behaviors in the spirit and calls the reader to reflection he says, “The color line passes right ghetto but a crisis woven into the very and meditation. Drawing on the writ - through our family.” The problem of fabric of civilization. ings of a variety of poets and theolo - racial justice is more personal when Citing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gians, the author raises up a “most you have some “skin in the game.” In and the African-American theologian daring and revolutionary concept… many ways, he draws our attention to Howard Thurman, Pramuk reminds God is love” as the foundation for a the flesh and blood reality of the incar - us that the movement toward racial spirituality on the ground that cross - nation. The children of adoption are justice and integration is a spiritual es race lines and social locations and transformed and transforming. movement rooted in a biblical vision of facilitates insight into worlds hidden Pramuk introduces us to women the dignity of all life within the “inter - from provincial and conventional and men of vision and imagination. related structure of all reality.” thought. Awareness of God helps us We meet Etty Hillesum, a young So how do we respond? Radical guard against the “constant threat of Jewish woman murdered at problems require radical responses. In error” that can turn a person’s limited Auschwitz whose diaries reveal God conversation with Pramuk, William perspective into an idol or a prison. in images of warmth, fleshiness and Hart McNichols, a priest and iconog - The book amplifies the tensions of femininity. Pramuk fuses a connection rapher who lives outside of Taos, human experience and reflects on between the poetry of Thomas N.M., reminds us that the Western them theologically. Christ’s body is Merton and the lyrics of Stevie mind investigates and analyzes, but the

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 29 Indian mind sits in and with mystery. boundaries. In conversations about Perhaps we are called to do what Jesus parish and diocesan reorganization did—“wait in the quietness for some today, is racial solidarity a considera - centering moment that will redefine, tion? Pramuk reminds us that the reshape and refocus our lives.” Pramuk church is “called to a radically inclu - offers the witness of his own radical sive way of being in the world and prophetic efforts to create cross- because of who God is!” St. Francis racial solidarity in a racist culture by heard the command, “Repair my building a multiracial family. church.” How do we repair the struc - Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A., believed tures of church and society to help Catholicism had the power to forge people move beyond racist behav - empathetic relationships across the iors? Pramuk suggests that in this color line. This is not work left to indi - regard we suffer from a poverty of viduals; it takes a church. How can the imagination. The quest for racial sol - church make it more possible for peo - idarity needs to be pursued in ple to cross the color line? The spirit of thought, word and deed. Catholic Action, “see, judge, act,” is rel - evant here. ANTHONY J. POGORELC, S.S. , is a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Research and The first step is repentance. We Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of have maintained segregated parish America in Washington, D.C.

PETER WOOD HAUNTED BY THE RING

THE GOOD SON prizefighters are a driven lot. The Life of Ray But the boxing world has never “Boom Boom” Mancini known anything quite like Ray “ By Mark Kriegel Boom Boom” Mancini. His charisma Simon & Schuster. 336p $15.99 went far beyond the boxing ring, and the media reveled not Boxing is the best only in the thrill of his friend a writer ever had. success but in the Despite its squalid rep - exciting personality of utation and moral hazi - a champion whose ness, it has continued to appeal transcended the inspire memorable public abhorrence of prose by many gifted such a violent sport. writers—George Until it all came Plimpton, Budd crashing down in Schulberg, Joyce Carol heartbreak and tragedy. Oates, Robert Lipsyte, The Good Son, by A. J. Liebling, David Mark Kriegel, tells the Remnick and Wilfrid story of young Ray, Sheed. That’s because who grew up idolizing boxing is a sport that allows an angry his father, Lenny, a lightweight boxer young man to rise out of his own in the 1940s who was on the cusp of smoldering personal slum to become winning a world championship when victorious. duty called him to World War II. Prizefighters are a colorful tribe. While Lenny continued his boxing Above—or below—all other athletes, career after the war, the shrapnel

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 30 implanted in his body by a German mortar shell ensured that he would never reach his championship dream. The idea of his father’s thwarted boxing career always burned red hot in Ray’s mind. A grisly black-and- white photo of his father following a fight, eye swollen shut, mouth blood - ied and bruised, exhausted in victory, would epitomize for him heroism, pride and honor. “That picture was beautiful, it’s all I ever wanted to be,” Kriegel quotes Mancini as he recounts how winning the championship became his raison d’etre . Devoted to his father’s thwarted dream, Ray became a professional boxer and lived the same bare-knuckle life as his father on the rough streets of Youngstown, Ohio. The battered and beaten city carved his personality as much as his battered and beaten father had. But his will to win was stronger than any geographical location or physical disability. Ray turned his back on Youngstown’s world of Mafia-influ - enced crime, where over a 10-year period 82 car bombings occurred. Fueled by staggering levels of unem - ployment as the local mills failed, Youngstown earned nicknames in the national press like “ Murdertown” and “ Crimetown USA.” While Lenny had fought out of hunger and poverty, Ray fought out of love and devotion—to his dad. The young Mancini followed his older brother, also named Lenny, to the Youngstown Navy Reserve gym - nasium, walked up to trainer Eddie Sullivan and told him plainly, “ Mr. Sullivan, one day I’m going to be the best fighter you ever had.” Kriegel juxtaposes Ray’s life with that of his brother, who succumbed to a life of crime. The circumstances remain murky decades later, but ultimately crime is what led to Lenny’s death. He was shot in the back of the head in a hotel room. It would be the first death, but not the only one, that affected Ray’s burgeoning professional career.

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 31 At the age of 20, after 20 pro next title defense against an obscure Rather, it was an acknowledgement, fights, Ray challenged the legendary South Korean opponent named Duk at only 24 years old, that he had Alexis Argüello for the World Boxing Koo Kim. already played out the role of a life - Council lightweight crown. He Kriegel explains how it all came time. It was an existential dilemma, a fought bravely, too bravely, and lost a apart on Nov. 13, 1982, in their bru - question of mortality.” Father O’Neill brutal and bloody 14-round war. tal battle at Caesar’s Palace in Las was brutally honest, telling Ray: “ You But Ray, handsome and articulate, Vegas. Duk Koo Kim went down in accomplished your lifelong dream at a remained a star in the making. He the 14th round after absorbing 44 very young age. Everything else from possessed all of the virtues needed unanswered punches, never regained here on will be anticlimactic.” It was and admired. It wasn’t long before he consciousness and died four days something Ray would have to live was being featured on nationally tele - later. Three months later, Kim’s with. “ Nothing ever will give me that vised fight cards. He was the all- despondent mother took her own life. same feeling,” he said of boxing. American kid from the forgotten steel The deaths would haunt Ray and While Kriegel’s book continues city of Youngstown, the insatiable ruin his carefully through the end of brawler and battler. crafted image, sud - Ray’s career, the cul - Ray soon got his second title shot, denly transforming ON THE WEB mination of the story The Catholic Book Club discusses a and he wouldn’t let this one pass him boxing’s all- new biography of Francis of Assisi. is the touching meet - by. He KO’d World Boxing American boy into americamagazine.org/cbc ing between Mancini Association titleholder Arturo Frias a pariah. and Jiwan Kim, Duk at 2:54 of the first round to become Surprisingly, Koo’s son, who was the champion he was destined to be. Mancini was back in the ring just born after his father’s death. Ray car - After making one title defense, three months later in a non-title fight, ried an unbearable load of guilt for Ray was on top of the world. But he but he fought without his signature Kim’s death and its effect on his family. never could have imagined the way aggression and power. He won a deci - But by meeting each other, both his life would change following his sion, then stopped undefeated chal - Mancini and Jiwan were able to find lenger Orlando Romero. He fought much needed closure and healing. another non-title contest, and then There is an undeniable jolt to KO’d Bobby Chacon in January 1984, watching violence in the ring, an stopping him in three rounds. It almost electrical charge composed of TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW would be the last win of Ray’s career. equal parts beauty and savagery, and K K New subscription Renewal Kriegel describes how Mancini it can stir the poet in a talented writ - Yearly rates are $56 for each subscription. Add $30 for postage, handling and GST on Canadian ultimately lost his title to Livingstone er like Mark Kriegel. orders. Add $54 for foreign subscriptions. Payment in U.S. funds only. Bramble in his next fight, the fateful The history of boxing is wonder - K Payment enclosed K Bill me moment again proving to be the 14th fully artful and woefully gruesome. On occasion America gives permission to other organizations to use our list for promotional pur- round. Kriegel brings beautiful prose to this poses. If you do not want to receive these promo- Mancini would later mount a ugly sport. Poetry meets pugilism, tions, contact our List Manager at our New York offices. brave but futile effort to regain his eloquence meets brutality and brains 9 0

9 title against Bramble in Buffalo, N.Y. meet brawn. 0 A FOR E The immediate result of that bout Joyce Carol Oates once said, “ For all CHANGE OF was an overnight stay at a hospital its shortcomings and danger, the ring is ADDRESS










AND and 71 stitches around his eye. a perfect kind of sanctuary, a precious








RENEWAL: In 1992, after being knocked out by counter-world to the chaotic world

Please attach the P Greg Haugen, Mancini retired, leaving that exists outside of it. The ring is less I Z

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t writing about service a But retirement for a 24-year-old and less politically abusive.” t S

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ex-athlete is problematic. The Rev. The Good Son tells an unforgettable

address. Allow 3 to

4 weeks for change Tim O’Neill, Ray’s confidant story of tragedy and triumph, heart -

of address to take

s throughout his career, understood his break and inspiration, fathers and sons.

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- new dilemma: the shelf-life of a pro - N A C E fessional boxer is extremely short. “ Mail to: America PETER WOOD, a high school teacher, is the P.O. Box 293159, Kettering, OH 45429-9159 This wasn’t the normal sense of loss








or call 1-800-627-9533 author of Confessions of a Fighter: or visit www.americamagazine.org brought on by an athlete’s retirement. Battling Through the Golden Gloves .

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 32 ment building? Carlin is so quick to TOM PULEO defend Springsteen from the city HE’S NO HERO, IT’S UNDERSTOOD police union that threatened to pull security from concerts at Madison Square Garden that he forgets to tell BRUCE album because he didn’t trust his civic us Bruce’s take on the art, on the song, By Peter Ames Carlin voice to becoming a willing campaign - a brilliant meditation on skin color, on Touchstone. 512p $28 er for both John Kerry and Barack the veil of racism through which even Obama. the best of us view Michael Br uce Springsteen once said that coun - After Kerry’s 2004 loss to Bush, Harrington’s Other America: “You can tries, like people, can lose the best of wasn’t it Springsteen who in “Livin’ in get killed just for livin’ in/ your themselves. Along the way he has also the Future” sang of personal regret? “I American skin.” claimed to be nonpolitical, a Democrat, got all damaged and undone/ My ship Carlin’s book does contain some scared of his myth, an attention whore, Liberty sailed away/ on a blood-red nuggets of new and insightful materi - vain, clueless, restless, monogamous, horizon/ The groundskeeper opened al—including anecdotes about horny, strong, weak, drunk, sober smart the gates/ and let the wild dogs run.” Springsteen’s Jersey childhood, the dumb and not keeping track. Wasn’t it Springsteen—on that artist’s thoughts of suicide, his decades In other words, he is a walking, same 2007 album, “Magic”—who of psychotherapy and the antidepres - stage-strutting, backstage-hiding con - preached about President Bush’s wars sants he began taking in 2003. But two tradiction who sheds artistic skin faster of choice: “We don’t measure the thirds of the book’s 467 pages cover than Dylan and presents a moving— blood we’ve drawn anymore/ We just Springsteen’s life through 1988 but, come on, fairly simple—target to stack the bodies outside the door”? (Springsteen recorded his first album in any biographer who can shoot a little. How does Springsteen square those 1973). Then Carlin races through all So why do we have multiple top- words with his ongoing bromance the rest, including Bruce’s political evo - shelf works on Bob Dylan and not one with drone-strike Obama? Does lution. on his only (living) American peer? Springsteen, the man who professes to Another question: What about the Someone should ask Peter Ames hate hero worship, need a hero? Is this infidelity lawsuit The New York Post Carlin, whose best-selling 2012 biog - Bruce again circling splashed on its cover in raphy, Bruce, left us with more dan - back to his childhood— 2009? Okay, forget The gling string than a Pete Townshend something he’s talked Post. What about Rickenbacker. openly about with his Springsteen’s second Carlin’s book arrived on the hype of shrink and a busload of wife, Patti Scialfa, who Springsteen’s first-time-ever cooperation writers? Then synthe - did not grant Carlin an with a biographer. But if access equaled size the stuff and tell us interview, and the cou - insight, then who would get backstage something. ple’s marriage in gener - passes? In fairness to Carlin—a former Springsteen—by any al? Wasn’t it People Magazine writer who has written rational account a gen - Springsteen—on the biographies of Paul McCartney and uine American hero— cusp of 40 and middle- Brian Wilson— Bruce is a capably writ - has never been well age—who ventured ten primer for anyone new to served by his bottomless into those same dark Springsteen or recently roused from a well of fawning press. rooms in his 1988 40-year pop-culture coma. Everything the guy does divorce album “Tunnel Beyond that, Bruce is a missed is ground-breaking and transcendent. of Love”? “Then the lights go out and opportunity, the literary equivalent of He never misfires, never strikes a false it’s just the three of us/ You me and all David Sancious’ 1974 exit from the E note. Don’t we need a skilled biogra - that stuff we’re so scared of.” Street Band. Carlin rarely takes over pher to stage a critical intervention? Books about Springsteen are the story to tell us what this guy is Where’s Carlin in his analysis of legion, and few worth the time. Dave really all about. Among the gaps is “American Skin (41 Shots)”— Marsh—a trenchant rock critic mar - Springsteen’s political transformation Springsteen’s bravest song of recent ried to one of Springsteen’s co-han - from self-conscious waif who left vintage, written after the 1999 police dlers—wrote two bestsellers, Born to “Roullette”—a brilliant early ‘80s song shooting death of the unarmed Run (1979) and Glory Days (1987). about Three Mile Island—off an Amadou Diallo outside a Bronx apart - Both works, though ultimately

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 33 deemed hagiographies, are essential REPLY ALL Know your limits. Know what you reading. Another gem is Eric can handle and when to say “enough” Alterman’s It Ain’t No Sin to Be Glad Godly Lives and step back. Know your limits as a You’re Alive: The Promise of Bruce Re “Christian Complicity” (6/17): clinician. Know you will occasionally Springsteen , a 1998 appreciation and Stephen Bullivant has a very interest - get the F-bomb, no matter how hard mini-classic. ing point about our complicity in you try to help. Know that you don’t To that short shelf I would add alienating unbelievers, but the prob - know all there is to know about that Clinton Heylin’s 2013 biography, E lem is much deeper. The whole person in front of you. Take time to Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce church, top down, needs to see faith as listen, and then do whatever you can to Springsteen and The E Street Band. a transforming journey through life make a referral to someone who can Heylin—best known for his books on and see all the challenges we face as help that person and be willing to fol - Dylan—burrowed deep under the opportunities to follow the example of low up. Springsteen facade, showing us the Jesus. Jesus didn’t evangelize by defin - Ultimately though, the times I real - artist’s obsessive-compulsive streak ing doctrines; he lived a life of love, ly helped someone were the times I got and other workaday instincts that ill compassion and mercy toward the out of the driver’s seat and let God serve even the best-intentioned. For least in his society. work through me. Often, after the fact, the years he covered anyway, Heylin If we Christians worked on trans - I don’t even remember what it was that puts Carlin’s work to shame. forming ourselves and our communi - I said that was so helpful—a great It will likely take an Alterman or a ties to opt for the poor and broken ego-deflator and a great way to live Heylin to pen the definitive biography among us, I guarantee the unbelievers one’s priesthood. of Springsteen, a man whose myth would see this Godliness and be (REV.) GEORGE STAMM Chippewa Falls, Wis. hardened long ago. The chisel is still drawn to explore it. there for the taking. ELAINE BERNINGER Worse Than Death Cleves, Ohio Re “Life, Not Death” (Editorial, TOM PULEO is an adjunct professor of jour - nalism at Central Connecticut State Faith and Science 5/20): I am no believer in the death University and a former staff writer at The The photo accompanying “Christian penalty but rather a kind of “devil’s Hartford Courant. Complicity” shows a young man wear - advocate,” trying for many years to ing a t-shirt emblazoned with the stimulate the neglected but critical words, “Atheists: In Science We other half of the issue: What is the LOOKING FOR Trust.” My response as a Christian: “I alternative? also trust in science. But science does “Life without parole” is the usual not have all the answers.” Science can - answer, especially for serious cases. The authors quote Pope John Paul II saying not explain why we are here on earth A JOB that punishment should offer the IN THE CATHOLIC SECTOR? or what our final destiny might be. Science cannot provide a basis for offender “an incentive and help to HIRING AT YOUR moral or ethical behavior. change his or her behavior and be reha - CHURCH OR SCHOOL? Stephen Bullivant is correct in cau - bilitated.” What incentive remains for those serving life without parole? GET THE WORD OUT WITH tioning Christians not to use the Bible as science; but unlike him, I am more Where is the “hope” that is so essential concerned with the mockery of reli - to human dignity? Can we ignore the AMERICA! gion by atheists. Modern media— question of whether there are things worse than death? In “The Bad Thief” Job Listings are accepted for movies, television, music—use every publication in America's print and opportunity to belittle those who hold (Am. 12/6/04), Jens Soering wrote, web editions. religious beliefs of any kind. “But we lifers, we are the dead. Our For more information contact WILLIAM COONEY executions may be stretched out over our advertising department at Philadelphia, Pa. four or five decades, but in the end, life [email protected] without parole produces exactly the Telephone: 212-515-0102 or visit: Know Your Limits same result as lethal injection: 127,677 WWW.AMERICAMAGAZINE.ORG In “The Land of the Gerasenes” human beings killed by their govern - (5/27), James Martin, S.J., asks, ment.” America “What is the best way to deal with A possible Band-Aid to the dilem - emotionally unstable people?” ma could be abolishing both the death

America July 29 –August 5, 2013 34 penalty and life imprisonment. This restraint against criticizing an honored Theological Issues has been done by Mexico and other and honorable person who can no Neither “Just Economics” nor the let - countries. Maximum sentences of longer defend herself. You have done a ters in reply (State of the Question, about 30 years would restore that ele - clear disservice by attacking the legacy 6/17) deal with two fundamental the - ment of hope and (hopefully) some of a (three-time) democratically elect - ological issues. chance of rehabilitation. ed leader who so recently passed away. Number one: What constitutes a (REV.) JOHN KOELSCH JERRY BOWERS moral claim to wealth? Our society Jerome, Idaho Elk Grove, Calif. tends to equate a legal acquisition with Alternative Model a moral claim. Is that theologically Too Soon? Re “Just Economics” (5/6): One way to defensible? Should the wealth be going I am writing to express my surprise and respond to Stacie Beck’s critique of to those making a positive contribu - sadness after reading, “The Divided “wealth redistribution” is to look at dif - tion to society or to those skilled at Kingdom,” by James Hanvey, S.J. ferent economic systems. An economic acquisition? Are the rich acquiring (5/20). One does not have to embrace system is the way a society distributes more wealth not because they are con - Margaret Thatcher’s political and eco - its resources to its citizens. In our pre - tributing more but because they large - nomic philosophies in order to recog - sent system of corporate capitalism we ly control the distribution? nize that she had a remarkable career as channel rewards (profit) to those who Number two: How about a theolo - a public servant and important national have invested money and pay those gy of ownership? Jesus said, “Woe to leader of the free world. Father Hanvey who invest labor as little as possible. you rich!” Is the possession of great clearly had difficulty with that recogni - A possible alternative to this system wealth in itself an evil? Or is there an tion and allowed his unbridled con - is the co-operative model in which obligation of stewardship that goes tempt for her political achievements to workers are owners and reap the prof - along with possession of wealth? run throughout his article. its of the business. This model Might taxation be used as a means of Your readers have come to expect accounts for the prosperity of some encouraging that stewardship? the highest standards of professional third-world countries. The micro-loan Let’s have a serious discussion of judgment and Christian sentiment by system works on a co-operative model. these issues. your editors and contributors. They MARY CASPER JOSEPH H. WESSLING also expect at least a modicum of Bailey, Colo. Cincinnati, Ohio

CLASSIFIED possess a four-year degree. Some experience in the Training Program areas of work described above are a plus. SPIRITUAL DIRECTION TRAINING PRO - Compensation: Full-time salary will be deter - Books GRAM begins Oct. 14, 2013. Consists of eight mined during interview process. Position includes ADULT FAITH STUDY. Faith and reason togeth - weekly sessions held quarterly over a two-year full benefits (health, dental, pension, two weeks vaca - er: www.WordUnlimited.com. period (2013–15) at Mount Saint Joseph tion, disability insurance and life insurance) as well as Conference and Retreat Center, located on a 780- possible opportunities for continuing education. acre rural campus in Maple Mount, Ky. Positions To apply: Please send résumé and cover letter Participants receive intense training, practice and AMERICA PRESS seeks an ASSISTANT to [email protected]. No phone calls supervision. Ph.: (270) 229-0269; e-mail: EDITOR . This is a full-time salary exempted please. Please state a desired compensation range [email protected]. Visit position reporting to the digital editor. Main or a salary history if applicable. We are an equal www.ursulinesmsj.org. responsibilities include but are not limited to post - opportunity employer and encourage all qualified ing content to the Web site, sending weekly candidates to apply. newsletters, preparing the weekly press release and Wills testing the magazine display on Kindle and other Please remember America in your will. Our legal title devices. Other duties include moderating blogs, Position Sought is: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th Street, New SENIOR PRIEST in good standing available for maintaining the magazine’s social media presence, York, NY 10019. routine Web site testing and promoting the ministry: to pastor small parish or assist in large America archives. The assistant editor will also be parish; chaplaincy in convent/motherhouse, America classified. Classified advertisements are accept - encouraged to propose and produce content, retreat center or other. Please send ministry needs ed for publication in either the print version of America including blog posts, podcast interviews and to [email protected] and to receive ministry histo - or on our Web site, www.americamagazine.org. Ten- slideshows. This positioån is subject to change ry and other information. word minimum. Rates are per word per issue. 1-5 times: based on the needs of the business and may include $1.50; 6-11 times: $1.28; 12-23 times: $1.23; 24-41 any other projects as needed and as directed by the Retreat times: $1.17; 42 times or more: $1.12. Ads may be sub - digital editor or the editor in chief. BETHANY RETREAT HOUSE, East Chicago, mitted by e-mail to: [email protected]; by fax Required background and skills: Applicant Ind., offers private and individually directed silent to (928) 222-2107; by postal mail to: Classified should have a strong interest in Catholic history, retreats, including dreamwork and Ignatian 30-day Department, America , 106 West 56th St., New York, culture and current events. Skills needed: writing, retreats, year-round in a prayerful home setting. NY 10019. We do not accept ad copy over the phone. willingness to learn audio and video editing, Contact Joyce Diltz, P.H.J.C.: (219) 398-5047; MasterCard and Visa accepted. For more information knowledge of Drupal a plus. Ideal candidate will [email protected]; bethanyretreathouse.org. call: (212) 515-0102.

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 35 STATUS UPDATE trip par excellence, I don’t know what the domain of the other. else is. The author states, “If carica - Keith H. Peterson In “Christian Complicity” (6/17), tures of Christianity are prevalent and Stephen Bullivant asked whether seem plausible, then Christians them - Gross generalization and refusal to Christians are partly responsible for the selves are surely partly to blame.” perceive nuance are problems that go mockery of their own beliefs. You Really? O.K., let’s replace “Christians” both ways. For instance, it’s easy to responded: with “African Americans,” “Latinos” or read the signs held by Westboro “homosexuals.” See what I mean? Baptist picketers and map that Yes, we are complicit! The “higher” Paul Stolz garbage onto all Christians. By the Christianity of a few generations ago same token, the absurdly simplified gave rise to a “higher,” more sophisti - Believers and nonbelievers routinely “arguments” of a Richard Dawkins or cated and thoughtful atheism. The and maddeningly argue at cross-pur - Christopher Hitchens surely don’t low, anti-intellectual, uninformed reli - poses. It is foolish to reject what stand for all those of no faith. gious climate in this country has given empirical science tells us of how the Reasoned argumentation must spring rise to a low, uninformed, mocking world works; its answers represent the from engagement with specific con - atheism. We seriously need to cate - evidence of our own (extended) sens - cepts or at least abstract ideals, not chize better, increase religious literacy es, which believers themselves concede cherry-picked examples of the worst and increase understanding of what are God-given gifts. Yet science can offenders from either side. we do and why we do it. Apologetics only explain how. It never asks the Michael Skaggs classes wouldn’t hurt. Elliott Smith “Great Why,” nor does it express any interest in the question. There should Wow! If that wasn’t a Catholic guilt be no encroachment by either camp on Visit facebook.com/americamag

Primary Relationship our way of being in relationship is first longer afford the unholy camps we Re “Of Many Things,” by Matt of all with God, and consequently with have created for ourselves. Malone, S.J. (4/22): The discourse on others. We all share a core identity as Our real pastoral stance must be an gay and lesbian Catholics seems stuck baptized men and women of God. insistence that every baptized man and on the way some men and women in This inviolable identity must be the woman live richly and rightly in the the church are in relationship with one starting point of every real conversa - power of their anointing. Pastorally we another. But as baptized Catholics, tion in the church with respect to any - must defend a space for everyone to whether homosexual or heterosexual, one who is “not just like us.” We can no grow to full stature in Christ, engaging the unique gifts and characteristics of each one’s authentic personhood. Each WITHOUT GUILE of us has been anointed to stand in the place of the risen Lord himself. Let’s fix our attention on who we are: the body of Christ for this world today. God has urgent work to accomplish through each one of us. MARY SHARON MOORE Eugene, Ore.

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America July 29 –August 5, 2013 36 THE WORD

rich man said, “I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” The Inheritance One word here opens us up to his fool - EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C), AUG. 4, 2013 ish vanity and to a vanity so many of us Readings: Ecc 1:2; 2:21–23; Ps 90:3–17; Col 3:1–11; Lk 12:13–21 do battle with regularly: soul ( psyche ). He was not vain because he had many “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Lk 12:3) physical goods and would have his earthly needs cared for—God knows he Preacher, Qoheleth, says wisdom: “Teacher, tell my brother to we need these things—but because he that “all things are vanity!” divide the family inheritance with me.” equated his financial success and THis intent is not, I think, to Jesus’ reply evinces more of security with the well- be cynical, though Qoheleth can pro - Qoheleth than might ini - being of his soul. voke this among the world-weary. His tially be apparent, as he The fool saw his wisdom is rather the product of a gets behind the request goods as his alone, hard-boiled realism, which knows the for equality to a desire not as the product of truth of desires and ambitions that for things that indi - God’s bounty intend - often consume us. He speaks of the cate a life in tune with ed for him but also for shortness of life and the ambitions vanity, not with God. all who are in need. In that have driven us, only to have found Jesus warns the peti - the parable he twice them unsatisfying. “Here is one who tioner, and through him addresses his soul’s has labored with wisdom and knowl - all of us, “Be on your health and mistakes his edge and skill, and yet to another who guard against all kinds of has not labored over it, he must leave greed; for one’s life does not consist PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE property. This also is vanity and a in the abundance of possessions.”

great misfortune.” Does this reality The bluntness of Jesus’ response is As you stand in the crowd, listening to E N N

Jesus’ parable, what sorts of vanity do you U

bother you? Make you sad? “This also still bracing—a statement we ought D

most need to be on guard against? D A T is vanity.” to repeat quietly to ourselves any - : T R Here is the wisdom of this ancient time we become convinced we need A Sam Spade in a nutshell: the things more money and possessions. you thought would make you happy Jesus then tells a parable, his way of success on earth for his eternal well- probably will not. And if they do make speaking across time to every class, being. It is because of this basic confu - you happy, it will be for only a short gender and generation, about a rich sion that God in the parable said to while because soon you will die. What man. The rich man had land that “pro - him: “You fool! This very night your seem like the musings of a melancholic duced abundantly.” In thinking ratio - life is being demanded of you. And the scribe, however, are transformed into a nally about the situation, the rich man things you have prepared, whose will bracing wake-up call for those with decided to expand his operations, so they be?” We could easily add to the their eye on the living God. Vanity is he determined to “pull down my barns parable a closing epitaph: “This also is vanity, but those who act with God in and build larger ones, and there I will vanity.” mind and heart know that their desires store all my grain and my goods.” It is This life offers numerous paths, and ambitions can be transformed hard to see much wrong with this plan and we all must travel one with greater from that which consumes them to of action. His crops were successful; he or less success according to the stan - that which awakens them to truth. needed bigger barns, so he planned to dards of this world. It is not the fact In the Gospel of Luke, someone build bigger barns. The parable, found that we must travel a path that creates makes a request of Jesus that on the only in Luke, gives us a significant clue, a fog of vanity, but that we see our surface seems like a reasonable request though, as to why this rich man’s plans earthly rewards as the measure of our to make of a teacher known for his are evidence of vanity and not just life, storing up physical treasures and good planning. thinking they purify our souls, while JOHN W. MARTENS is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Considering his plans for new God is asking us to be rich to those in Paul, Minn. barns to house his abundant crop, the need and rich in the ways of God.

July 29 –August 5, 2013 America 37 THE WORD

adjusted so that they could see the truth through the ephemera of hard An Alert Faith facts. The author of Hebrews pro - NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C), AUG. 11, 2013 claims that “they desire a better coun - try, that is, a heavenly one.” These Readings: Wis 18:6–9; Ps 33:1–22; Heb 11:1–19; Lk 12:32–48 promises have found faithful witnesses “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Lk 12:34) not only in the ancient past, but throughout history. Faith is not a dead eople of faith find themselves demanded faith; and in the interim letter, but a lived experience. often, perhaps daily, tottering between Jesus’ ascension and his Years ago, when I was a teenager, Pon the precipice of disillusion, return, weariness in the contemplation my great-aunt Sarah, then in her 90s, swaying from their own questions, of unseen promises could drag down hugged me for what would be the last wondering if they have been suckered faith. Jesus pleaded that we be diligent time and whispered something in my by some mug’s game that tells them to in seeing where the true treasure is. ear that made me cry. She was born in be satisfied with God’s promises Alertness is essential for maintaining Russia and lost her fiancé in the chaos instead of the cold, hard reality of this faith in the true treasure. Drowsy disci - of the Russian Revolution. She never world’s guarantees. Still, the claims of ples, then and now, need to be awak - married and lived on a small farm with faith are not so easy to shake, not in ened, “for the Son of Man is coming at two of her unmarried sisters, victims spite of the cold, hard reality of this an unexpected hour.” The prophecy of themselves of the travails of the revo - world’s guarantees but because the Jesus’ return claims us, for it is a divine - lution and emigration to a foreign guarantees of this world are so cold ly given word that remains in effect land, whose language they never and hard. Sober reflection allows us to throughout history until it comes to see that faith, supposedly ephemeral, fruition at the end of history. vague and airy, grounds itself on the It is not as if this task were given to PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE rock of history, masterfully building us alone. All who came before us Think of God’s faithfulness to you and how on the hope and love of those who needed to maintain the same faithful - God has been able to assure and comfort have come before us, who have heard, ness and alertness. The author of the you even in the midst of wavering. recorded and lived God’s word. Letter to the Hebrews says about the Yet even among the earliest cloud of witnesses who had come even Christians, faith could waver, replaced before the apostolic age, “All of these spoke. This is what made the tears I by the concerns and worries of the day. died in faith without having received the cried so remarkable. I could not under - The time of Jesus’ parousia, or “return,” promises, but from a distance they saw stand what my Tante Sarah had said to which all his earliest disciples hoped and greeted them. They confessed that me in Low German. I turned to my was imminent, would work itself out, they were strangers and foreigners on mother and asked, “What did she as it still is working itself out in histo - the earth, for people who speak in this say?” Mother explained: “She said, ‘If I ry. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells his dis - way make it clear that they are seeking a don’t see you here on earth again, I will ciples to “sell your possessions, and homeland. If they had been thinking of see you in heaven.’” give alms. Make purses for yourselves the land that they had left behind, they That is faith. And as the years go by, that do not wear out, an unfailing trea - would have had opportunity to return.” whenever heaven or the God who calls sure in heaven, where no thief comes This is the key for the faithful witnesses us home to dwell there seem like illu - near and no moth destroys. For where of old, that the promises of an unseen sions, that faith becomes more solid, your treasure is, there your heart will home were accepted in faith and main - more real to me, for “faith is the assur - be also.” The strong contrast between tained throughout their lives in the hope ance of things hoped for, the conviction earthly wealth and heavenly treasure of faith. of things not seen.” was essential, for the heavenly vision Their earthly vision had been JOHN W. MARTENS

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