THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY MARCH 23, 2009 $2.75 OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ALL CREATION Kate Blake OF MANY THINGS PUBLISHED BY JESUITS OF THE UNITED STATES EDITOR IN CHIEF ord of mouth makes for Mortenson, won over by the villagers’ Drew Christiansen, S.J. the best advertising. How hospitality, promised to return the next often have you learned of year to build a school. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Wthe most enjoyable books or movies Mortenson attempted to scrape ANAGING DITOR M E from the reports of friends? They are together the $12,000 he needed to Robert C. Collins, S.J. all the more enjoyable for being plea- build the school by writing more than EDITORIAL DIRECTOR sures shared among friends rather than five hundred individual letters to Karen Sue Smith highly promoted, mass-market com- potential celebrity donors, but he ONLINE EDITOR modities. So it was recently for me. received little help. He lived ascetically, Maurice Timothy Reidy Barb and Lou Kuttner are two of crashing in a student apartment, stor- CULTURE EDITOR the best-read people I know. Their ing his possessions in a rental locker, James Martin, S.J. ranch house in Arizona’s Sonoran setting aside his savings for the project LITERARY EDITOR desert is brimming with books. Years and selling his mountaineering equip- Patricia A. Kossmann ago when I took vacation time with the ment to meet his goal. Even when, at POETRY EDITOR Kuttner family on North Carolina’s the last moment, he found financial James S. Torrens, S.J. Outer Banks, they took as much time backing, married and became a father, planning the books they would bring Mortenson lived on a shoestring. He ASSOCIATE EDITORS and share as in packing for the trip. practiced a kind of apostolic asceticism. Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J. A few weeks ago I took my annual He lived poorly for the sake of his mis- George M. Anderson, S.J. Dennis M. Linehan, S.J. retreat at a casita on the Kuttners’ sion—building schools, especially for Jim McDermott, S.J. “ranchette” in the mesquite landscape girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Matt Malone, S.J. of the San Pedro drainage in southern The religious dimension of his story James T. Keane, S.J. Arizona. The evening before I began is understated. His parents ran Peter Schineller, S.J. the retreat, both Barb and Lou recom- Lutheran mission schools in East ASSISTANT EDITOR mended I read Three Cups of Tea, by Africa, where he spent his boyhood. Francis W. Turnbull, S.J. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver When Mother Teresa died, he hap- DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Relin. pened to be in Calcutta, and we learn Stephanie Ratcliffe It was not the first time I had heard that the saint of Calcutta was his praise for the book, but I confess I had “hero”; he talked his way into her con- BUSINESS DEPARTMENT been turned off by its marketing as vent to pray alongside her body. PUBLISHER “chick lit.” If Three Cups of Tea: One Otherwise, his spirituality is an austere Jan Attridge Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One humanitarianism, not so foreign to the CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER School at a Time (Penguin) is chick lit, children of other American Protestant Lisa Pope then I have to reconsider my views of missioners. MARKETING the category. For this book is a rip- The book is replete with stories of Eryk Krysztofiak roaring adventure story of 21st-century Mortenson’s kidnapping in Waziristan, ADVERTISING humanitarianism. of fatwas against him and his schools, Julia Sosa Greg Mortenson, a trauma nurse of warlords who are won over and oth- and a mountaineer, stumbled on the ers who meet him deep in the desert to 106 West 56th Street village of Korphe in Pakistan’s seek his help and of progressive New York, NY 10019-3803 Karakoram Range after a failed Muslims who volunteer to be his fixers. Ph: 212-581-4640; Fax: 212-399-3596 attempt to climb the notorious K-2. Everywhere he is known for his good E-mail: [email protected]; Twice on his descent he fell behind his work and fidelity to his word. [email protected] porter, lost the trail and wandered into Eight years into a deteriorating war Web site: www.americamagazine.org. Korphe. While recuperating there, he in Afghanistan, it is good to know that Customer Service: 1-800-627-9533 discovered the villagers had set aside Gen. David Petraeus has sought his © 2009 America Press, Inc. land for a school, but the government advice. Only last week there was a of Pakistan never made good on its report that militants in Pakistan’s Swat Cover: A dog waits to be blessed on the day of San Anton, Spain’s patron promises to build it, so the children did Valley had destroyed 200 schools for saint of animals, in Madrid. their lessons drawing in the sand. girls. DREW CHRISTIANSEN, S.J. Reuters/Susana Vera CONTENTS www.americamagazine.org VOL. 200 NO.10, WHOLE NO. 4850 MARCH 23, 2009 ARTICLES 13 ANIMAL WELFARE Our responsibility to all creation Kate Blake 18 TUSHAR GANDHI’S NONVIOLENT PATH A descendant of Mahatma Gandhi strives to keep his great-grandfather’s pacifist legacy alive in India. Robert Hirschfield COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 13 4 Guest Commentary Power in the Present, Hope for the Future Blase Cupich 5 Editorial Truth and Prosecution 6 Signs of the Times 10 Column A Covenant to Serve John J. DiIulio Jr. 22 Lenten Reflection A Little Patience Patricia A. Kossmann 34 Letters 38 The Word Made Perfect 22 Barbara E. Reid BOOKS & CULTURE 25 ART A Lenten reflection on Stanley Spencer’s ‘Christ’ BOOKS Parallel Empires; Medicine, Religion, and Health; The Women ON THE WEB ON THE WEB Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J., (right) author of The Human Poetry of Faith, talks on our podcast about how to nourish the religious imagination. Plus, Rob Weinert-Kendt reviews two religiously themed plays, and from the archives, the edi- tors on the death of Gandhi. All at americamagazine.org 24 GUEST COMMENTARY Power in the Present, Hope for the Future he late Halford Luccock, who began teaching at birth. We are a people who have learned repeatedly Yale Divinity School a year before the Great Crash throughout our history that economic distress can help us Tof 1929, recounts in his book, Unfinished Business, a to appreciate that there are other ways to be rich that are story told by a dinner guest about the fate of Flagstaff, not financial or even material. We are a people who have Maine. When residents learned that their small town was successfully undertaken enormous tasks that would have to be flooded as part of a dam project, they stopped all daunted others. improvements and repairs to their property. Soon the town Here in my own backyard, the Black Hills of South fell into ruin. As the dinner companion observed, “What Dakota, I am reminded that we are a people who esteem was the use of painting a house if it was to be covered with genuine leadership to the point that we literally move water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole mountains to honor our heroes in stone carvings, whether village was to be wiped out?” Then he added: “Where there they be U.S. presidents or a murdered Native American is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.” named Crazy Horse. I heard that same logic during an exchange on a recent episode of “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” on PBS. A Greater Sense of Solidarity Economy experts had just described the current financial It is time to recall all of that and more. I offer here a simple crisis as a crisis of trust. “Yes,” agreed the New York Times proposal as an example of how each of us can be more columnist David Brooks: “People don’t have trust in the intentional in reawakening our common heritage of trust future. And if you don’t have trust in the future, why in the future for our individual benefit as well as for the should you invest? Why should you spend?” good of our nation and the world. Surely the daily reports of criminal behavior, corruption Let us use part or all of the rebate or tax credit we will and malfeasance by money lenders, investment firms, gov- receive each pay period from the government’s economic ernment regulators and many others have created a crisis of stimulus package to benefit someone besides ourselves. trust in our institutions. Yet as Brooks insightfully noted, Give a more generous tip to the waitress, the parking valet, the lack of trust now has spilled over into our vision of the the barber. Buy a bag of groceries for a poor or elderly future, and it is paralyzing our present. neighbor. Help a teacher who may be using his or her own funds to buy school supplies for disadvantaged students, or A Spiritual Challenge help parents who cannot afford medicine for a sick child. Hope in the future is deeply rooted in our national psyche. See this money as our chance to build a greater sense of It is part of the soul of our nation. Pope Benedict XVI said solidarity in our nation, reminding us that we are all in this as much last year when he spoke at Nationals Park in together. Let our generosity say to us and to others that we Washington, D.C.: “Americans have always been a people of are confident about the future.