EEING THE THRONGS of men, be made straight, and the glory of the women and children in Chicago’s Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall Grant Park cheering the nation’s see it together,” he said in 1963, para- America first African-American president- phrasing Isaiah. This is prophetic lan- Published by Jesuits of the United States Select; hearing civil rights lions like Jesse guage. It looks ahead to the “one day” Jackson, John Lewis, Roger Wilkins and when God’s justice will set things right. Editor in Chief Andrew Young grope for words when But who would have thought that the Drew Christiansen, S.J. describing their feelings about the elec- upending of the status quo would happen tion; listening to black schoolchildren on so quickly? Robert F. Kennedy, for one. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT television express in simple phrases what In 1968 Senator Kennedy said, “Things Managing Editor Barack Obama’s achievement meant to are moving so fast that a Negro could be Robert C. Collins, S.J. them; watching replays of the Rev. Dr. president in 40 years.” It must have Martin Luther King Jr. declaim “I have a seemed outlandish at the time. Five years Editorial Director dream” on the steps of the Lincoln earlier, Dr. King had been arrested in Karen Sue Smith Memorial; and downloading videos of Birmingham. And just a year earlier, Online Editor jubilant crowds in the Nairobi slums riots in Newark and Detroit had stripped Maurice Timothy Reidy chanting a Kenyan surname over and the country of hope. But the prophet Associate Editors over—all this made me think of a passage sees that some day “one day” will be Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J. from the New Testament: the today. George M. Anderson, S.J. Magnificat. John LaFarge, S.J., adverted to this Dennis M. Linehan, S.J. Fifty-six million voters did not vote hope in one of his most popular books. James Martin, S.J. for Senator Obama; some reports claim Father LaFarge, a longtime editor of James P. McDermott, S.J. that almost 50 of the 267 active U.S. America, was deeply involved in inter- Matt Malone, S.J. Catholic bishops stated that it was a grave racial issues in the 1930s, when Robert James T. Keane, S.J. sin (some called it cooperation in mur- Kennedy was still a boy. In The Race Peter Schineller, S.J. der) to cast a Question and vote for the the Negro, Literary Editor Illinois senator; published in Patricia A. Kossmann many priests Of Many Things 1943, he Poetry Editor warned parish- examined James S. Torrens, S.J. ioners against making such a choice; and the perils of racism and confidently millions of Catholics, even if they did not concluded that even someone infected Assistant Editor agree with their pastors, did not vote for by prejudice will “by the logic of his Francis W. Turnbull, S.J. Obama because their overall political own principles and by the light of his Design and Production views were more closely aligned with own experience...come to this road at Stephanie Ratcliffe those of Sen. John McCain. long last.” But were there many Christians, even That is why the scenes in Grant Park BUSINESS DEPARTMENT Obama opponents, who watched their were so moving. The “one day” had Publisher African-American brothers and sisters come “at long last.” Jan Attridge weeping tears of jubilation and pride, Despite the passionate rhetoric used whose hearts were unmoved by the trans- to describe Mr. Obama, he is neither a Chief Financial Officer formation among a people who had suf- messiah nor the anti-Christ. But his elec- Lisa Pope fered for so long? Many must have heard tion is a sign that believers downplay only Marketing echoes of Mary’s words in the Gospel of if they wish to downplay God’s activity in Eryk Krysztofiak Luke: “He has...lifted up the lowly; he the world. It is a sign that the “lowly” can has filled the hungry with good things....” be lifted up—to previously unimaginable Advertising In Mary’s song of praise, God visits an heights. That the “hungry” can be filled Julia Sosa oppressed people and restores their for- with the nourishing food of jubilation, tunes “according to the promises he pride and hope. That the valleys shall be 106 West 56th Street made to our ancestors.” exalted. That the mountaintop is a real New York, NY 10019-3803 The civil rights movement sprang place. Ph: 212-581-4640; Fax: 212-399-3596. from African-American churches that Not every Christian rejoiced in the E-mail: [email protected]; believed God would rescue the poor, that election results. But every Christian who [email protected]. the Spirit would lead them and that Jesus knows the Gospels, even those who dis- Web site: www.americamagazine.org. loved them. Dr. King used familiar bibli- agree with Barack Obama’s politics, can Customer Service: 1-800-627-9533. cal imagery—in particular, the exodus of be gladdened to see this particular sign of © 2008 America Press, Inc. the Hebrew people out of Egyptian slav- progress. “We rejoice with the rest of our ery—to call a community to hope in the nation,” wrote Archbishop Donald T. face of fear. “One day every valley shall Wuerl of Washington, D.C., “at the sig- Cover art Mary Ann Glendon, U.S. be exalted, every hill and mountain shall nificance of this time.” ambassador to the Vatican (CNS be made low, the rough places will be For this sign our souls should magnify photo/Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press made plain, and the crooked places will the Lord. James Martin, S.J. Photo) www.americamagazine.org Vol. 199 No. 17, Whole No. 4836 November 24, 2008 Articles 13 Soft Power and Hope 9 Doris Donnelly An interview with Mary Ann Glendon, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See

Maestro of Joy 13 John A. Coleman Through his music, Olivier Messiaen sought to communicate the mysteries of Christ to nonbelievers.

Current Comment 4 18 Editorial Mr. Obama’s Promise 5 Signs of the Times 6 Reflection Place 8 In the Frame Margaret Silf Portfolio 18 Of Clowns and Christian Conscience Franco Mormando Book Reviews 22 Vatican Secret Diplomacy; A Universal History of the Destruction of Books; Death With Interruptions Letters 29 31 The Word 31 The Expectant Months Barbara E. Reid

This week @ Two musicians discuss the spiritual power of Olivier Messiaen's music on our podcast. Plus, a video and slideshow featuring the art of Georges Rouault, and America Connects Mary Ann Glendon on the new feminism. All at americamagazine.org. Current Comment

tion-related violence. International pressure has led to a Giving Thanks, 2008 power-sharing deal between the two leaders of the new We can give thanks for many things this year. The election unity government, signed in mid-September. It has no of the first African-American president is a significant step provision that would allow for the perpetrators of the vio- toward the elimination of racism in our country. The lence by security forces to be exempt from prosecution, so peaceful transition of power, even in parlous times, is an prosecution would be possible. Such a move, however, enduring symbol of the strength of the American political could jeopardize the fragility of the power-sharing system. But hopeful signs were not restricted to the politi- between the two parties, Mr. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Mr. cal sphere. Pope Benedict XVI, during his trip to the Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change. Still unre- United States in April, surprised even longtime critics by solved is who has control of various ministries, especially his compassionate meeting with sexual abuse victims, his Home Affairs, which controls the police. Both leaders stirring homilies and his warm touch with the crowds. And were looking to the 15-member Southern Africa for those in the City of Brotherly Love, the World Series Development Community to resolve the political impasse, finally turned out just right. (Tampa Bay readers may feel but at its meeting on Nov. 8-9, the group failed to produce less grateful.) a mutually agreeable solution. The humanitarian and Still, is it possible to give thanks in such frightening political crisis continues to deepen. times? With each passing day economists deploy ever more alarming adjectives to describe the world economic crisis. Here in the United States, we are fighting two wars, The New Media Presidency expensive in both lives and dollars, are crippled with a Did Tina Fey, with her spot-on “You betcha!” imitation of colossal debt and are beginning to see employee layoffs Gov. Sarah Palin, swing the presidential election? Did and drastic cutbacks in consumer spending. Can we be Will.i.am’s viral “Yes We Can” video help jump-start grateful in the face of so many woes? Barack Obama’s campaign? How many young voters did Yes. One reason that St. Ignatius Loyola in his Facebook attract? Did Senator Obama’s texting news of Spiritual Exercises asked believers to begin their daily the choice of his running mate increase interest? “examination of conscience” with gratitude was this: We It is hard to say with certainty. What is certain is this: often feel so swamped by the problems of the day that we the 2008 election was the first in which the new media, forget to “taste” the gratitude. Thanksgiving is a time to loosely defined as anything outside the traditional press, savor more than just the turkey, stuffing and cranberry television or radio, had a significant influence on the out- sauce. It is a time consciously to “give thanks to God our come. Portents were seen in Howard Dean’s failed 2004 Lord for the benefits received,” even in the midst of tur- campaign, where staffers used Web sites like Meetup to moil—perhaps especially in the midst of turmoil. gather together young supporters and raise amounts of cash that were surprising at that time. This year both candidates aimed to capture young voters with the help Zimbabwe’s Affliction of new media, and by using newer forms of the old Suffering grows for Zimbabwe’s ever more impoverished media, for example, through appearances on Comedy population. The inflation rate stands as the highest in the Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” world. Together with the rise in global food prices, a coun- whose mock news programs often yielded more substan- try that was once known as the breadbasket of Africa now tive results than their more established counterparts. experiences severe hunger. The United Nations has pre- (Katie Couric’s “old media” interview with a tongue-tied dicted that half the population will need food aid by Palin, however, was a hit on YouTube.) But there is a January 2009. An estimated one million children have lost dark side. Harper’s magazine highlighted several videos one or both parents, many because of AIDS. produced by Senator McCain’s more shadowy supporters The human rights record there remains abysmal. In that sowed doubts about Obama’s religion, patriotism the wake of last March’s general elections, and the subse- and even birth certificate. quent runoff on June 27 between 84 year-old Robert Barack Obama was elected in part because the majority Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, of Americans liked his brand of leadership and liked him. state-sponsored violence has led to the murder and torture Many found out about both through new ways, which— of thousands suspected of favoring the opposition party. along with other media not even dreamed of—will be a Mr. Tsvangirai himself was beaten and tortured in elec- permanent part of the ever-changing political landscape.

4 November 24, 2008 America Editorial Mr. Obama’s Promise HE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA as the istration does not resemble a third term for Mr. Clinton. 44th president of the United States affords Though Mr. Obama’s inaugural address will likely and our country a chance to reverse its dismal appropriately focus on domestic concerns, he should not standing in the world. The opportunity ignore foreign affairs. In fact, he should use the address to comes not a moment too soon. A recent renounce unambiguously the Bush doctrine of preventive Topinion survey of America’s most trusted allies, carried out war. He should also unequivocally state that the United by eight leading international newspapers, revealed that States will never again engage in the torture of its enemies, after eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, nor in semantic gymnastics in order to avoid illegality. An America can no longer count on the friendship of even its executive order closing the detention facility at closest neighbors. Only a minority of citizens in the coun- Guantánamo Bay, which has become a notorious stain on tries surveyed, which included Canada, Britain, Mexico the nation’s honor, should quickly follow. Mr. Obama and France, described their country’s relations with the should also revive national support for a stronger, United States as “friendly.” In Britain, arguably America’s reformed United Nations system that can respond more closest ally, over 65 percent of those surveyed said their effectively to the “duty to protect” crises that increasingly view of the United States is worse or much worse since occupy global diplomacy in the 21st century—for example, President Bush took office in 2001. In France and Canada, in Myanmar, Darfur and eastern Congo. that number is more than 70 percent. During the campaign Senator Obama acknowledged ABOVE ALL, THE UNITED STATES REQUIRES new approaches to this global discontent, saying, “These are not the best of the world’s seemingly intractable problems. Mr. Obama times for America’s reputation in the world,” while indicated during the campaign that he would meet with the promising the American people and the world that the leaders of some of the world’s authoritarian regimes with- intransigent, America-first foreign policy of the Bush years out preconditions. This approach involves the kind of would give way to a new approach based on “real strength inventive thinking America’s diplomacy now requires. Yet and vision.” If Mr. Obama is to make that vision a reality, Mr. Obama must be careful to balance engagement with he must overcome a daunting set of challenges: two wars realism. The Iranian nuclear standoff, relations with neo- (one nearly universally unpopular, both draining the imperial Russia, balancing economic and environmental United States and its allies of blood and treasure), a global concerns in our relations with China, facing down the war- economic crisis and a planet in ecological peril. Yet Mr. lords and endemic poverty in Africa, rebuilding the nuclear Obama can take some dramatic steps in the next several nonproliferation regime, kick-starting the Mideast peace months that would help to meet these challenges and process and redesigning international financial institutions reverse world opinion. will require sustained, multilateral and multidimensional Mr. Obama’s choices for secretary of state and a new solutions. Success will depend on coalitions built in a true ambassadorial corps should signal a renewed commitment spirit of strategic partnership, an uncommon occurrence in to engagement and public diplomacy and should indicate world affairs, and one that will also demand sacrifice. that the inflexibly ideological and self-interested policies of Mr. Obama claimed during the campaign that he was the current administration are relegated to the recycling the best choice because of his experience and expertise in bin of history. His selections for these posts should be men bringing people together, raising not only our hopes but and women of ability and standing, professionals with the also the hopes of the world. “Obama represents something expertise in global diplomacy that the times require and different,” Klas Bergman, an official at the Organization who are not chosen simply to appease a wing of the party for Security and Cooperation in Europe, recently told The or to reward a generous political donor. This was too often Guardian newspaper. “He seems ready to listen rather the approach of the Clinton administration, which gener- than dictate. That he’s African-American only adds to the ally regarded foreign affairs as an afterthought. Mr. mystique.” Long after the mystique has faded, as it Obama took pains to say during the campaign that Mr. inevitably will, let us hope that Mr. Obama’s potential has McCain’s election would amount to a third term for been fulfilled and the new era of international cooperation President Bush. Mr. Obama should ensure that his admin- he has promised will have begun.

November 24, 2008 America 5 Signs of the Times

Pope Pius XII's Contributions ‘Overlooked’ Pope Pius XII and his which inevitably occur from teachings represent for the time to time, must always be church an “exceptional gift expressed in a manner that for which we must all be reflects this spirit and not in grateful,” said Pope language that only exacer- Benedict XVI during an bates tension.” audience on Nov. 8 with Cardinal Kasper noted that participants of a congress the concerns of the Jewish titled “The Heritage of the community have been clearly Magisterium of Pius XII.” conveyed to the Holy See at Excessive attention to Pope the highest level. Ten days Pius XII’s role during ago, the request was made by World War II has over- the International Jewish looked the rich and “pre- Committee on Interreligious cious heritage” he left to Consultations at a papal audi- the church and Christians ence with Pope Benedict XVI today, the pope said. that all archival material be Pope Pius, who led the Pope Pius XII writes one of his wartime Christmas radio messages using a type- made available for indepen- Catholic Church from 1939 writer at the Vatican in this undated photo. dent scholarly review before to 1958, has been criticized any far-reaching decisions are by some Jewish groups, who have said he intemperate statements that have been made by the Holy See concerning per- did little to mobilize the church in defense made over the controversy. sons and policies during the period of the of Jews during the period of the Second The matter is one of great concern in Second World War. World War. Other experts have gathered the discussion of Jewish-Christian rela- Organized by the Pontifical evidence to show that he worked quietly tions. Cardinal Walter Kasper and Rabbi Committee for Historical Sciences and but effectively to save the lives of thou- David Rosen, co-chairs of the I.L.C., the Rome’s pontifical Lateran and Gregorian sands of Jews and others during World convened body of the Holy See’s universities, the Nov. 6-7 congress com- War II and the Holocaust. The Commission for Religious Relations with memorated the 50th anniversary of Pope International Catholic-Jewish Liaison the Jews and the I.C.J.L.C, declared: Pius’s death by highlighting his teachings Committee, holding its 20th conference “We reiterate our commitment to a rela- and influence on the Second Vatican in Budapest on Nov. 11, has expressed its tionship based on mutual respect and Council, which began four years after he deep regret over certain polemical and sensitivity. Disagreements between us, died in October 1958.

Armed Men Kidnap nuns, like all the members of the group, for transplant is “dramatically real” as Two Nuns in Kenya “share their lives with the poor. We don’t seen by the long waiting lists of people have any big structures. We welcome whose only hope for survival is “linked to Two Italian nuns were kidnapped Nov. into our homes the sick, the aged, people meager supplies which do not correspond 10 in northeastern Kenya near the border who are starving.” As of midafternoon to actual needs,” he said Nov. 7 in a pri- with Somalia, the Vatican newspaper Nov. 12, the kidnappers had not been in vate audience with some 500 participants reported. L’Osservatore Romano identi- contact with the congregation, he said. attending a Vatican-sponsored gathering fied the nuns as Sister Caterina Giraudo, on organ donation. The Nov. 6-8 67, and Sister Maria Teresa Oliviero, 61, Pope Condemns Trafficking congress, titled “A Gift for Life: both from Cuneo, Italy, where their reli- in Human Organs Considerations on Organ Donation,” was gious order, the Contemplative sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Missionary Movement of Father Charles While organ donation is a generous act Life, the World Federation of Catholic de Foucauld, is based. The newspaper of love, the sale and trafficking of organs Medical Associations and Italy’s National said the women had been working for is abominable and must be condemned, Transplant Center. years with Somali refugees in Kenya. said Pope Benedict XVI. “Tissue and Members of the Kenya Red Cross organ transplants represent a great Continued Pain Society told authorities the nuns were advance of medical science and are cer- taken by a group of armed men, who also tainly a sign of hope for the many people Over Kristallnacht stole three vehicles. Father Pino Isoardi, who suffer from serious and sometimes Pope Benedict XVI said he still feels head of the Contemplative Missionary critical medical conditions,” he said. But “pain for what happened” in his home- Movement, told Vatican Radio that the the low number of vital organs available land in 1938 when Nazi mobs went on

6 America November 24, 2008 Signs of the Times the rampage against Jews, an event that Role of Religion in Presidential Election became known as Kristallnacht. The pope was 11 years old when, on the The leader of the Knights of night of Nov. 9, 1938, “the Nazi fury Columbus said one reason why Vote by Religion against the Jews was unleashed in Barack Obama won the presi- Germany,” he said. Marking the 70th Catholics who attend church weekly voted dential election may be that he for Obama and McCain in equal numbers. anniversary of Kristallnacht—“Night of was more forthright than John Broken Glass”—the pope asked McCain concerning his reli- CATHOLIC (church attendance) Catholics to pray for the Jewish victims gious beliefs. “Senator Obama Obama McCain of the Holocaust, and he condemned all gives every impression of being weekly 49% 50% forms of anti-Semitism. Pope Benedict serious about his religion, that less % % spoke about the anniversary during his religion is important to him, often 58 40 midday Angelus address on Nov. 9 at that Christianity changed his the Vatican. life,” Carl A. Anderson said PROTESTANT (church attendance) During Kristallnacht, throughout Nov. 6 at a news conference Obama McCain Germany “stores, offices, homes and preceding a speech in weekly 32% 67% synagogues were attacked and numer- Columbus. “Perhaps he made a less % % ous people were killed, initiating the stronger case for that than John often 45 54 systematic and violent persecution of Kerry or Al Gore [the losing German Jews that concluded with the candidates in the preceding two NO RELIGION Shoah,” or Holocaust, the pope said. “I presidential elections] did. I Obama McCain still feel pain for what happened in that don’t believe Sen. McCain 75% 23% tragic circumstance, whose memory made quite the same case as Source: CNN exit polls ©2008 CNS must serve to ensure that similar hor- President [George W.] Bush rors are never repeated again and that did in his two elections and we commit ourselves, at every level, to President Reagan did earlier,” said not mean the Democratic senator from fighting anti-Semitism and discrimina- Anderson, supreme knight of the 1.75- Illinois is a better Christian than his tion, especially by educating the million-member international organiza- Republican opponent, but that Obama younger generations in respect and tion of Catholic men. Anderson, who made a stronger public presentation of mutual acceptance.” was a presidential assistant during the his faith, while “McCain was more reti- Reagan administration, said this does cent about it.”

Christians, Muslims Call for Religious Freedom and Tolerance

Christians and Muslims must ters of conscience and reli- work together to protect reli- gion.” Religious minorities gious freedom, they must deserve protection, they have learn more about each other a right to their own places of and they must witness to the worship and their sacred fig- world the reality of God, said ures and symbols “should members of the Catholic- not be subject to any form of Muslim Forum, which was mockery or ridicule,” the held in Rome to discuss their leaders said. In an increas- faiths’ understanding of the ingly secularized and materi- obligation to love God and to alistic world, forum partici- love one’s neighbor. pants called on Catholics and The final statement said Muslims to give witness to both Christians and Muslims “the transcendent dimension recognize the dignity and of life.” sacredness of human life The forum participants, because each person is “creat- Pope Benedict XVI greets Mustafa Ceric, the grand mufti of Bosnia Herzegov- 28 Muslim and 28 Catholic ed by a loving God.” Christi- ina, during a session of the Catholic-Muslim Forum at the Vatican on Nov. 6. representatives, met at the anity and Islam teach that Vatican on Nov. 4-6 . love for God and genuine faith lead to uine love of neighbor implies respect of love for one’s neighbor, it said, and “gen- the person and her or his choices in mat- From CNS and other sources. CNS photos.

November 24, 2008 America 7 Reflection Place

and eternity from the spiritual tradition

and culture in which we grow up. The In the Frame windows that define our personal view are ‘ tiny, framed by our own “threescore years and ten,” but they can open up a view We all inherit a particular much larger than their own narrow ‘ dimensions. They invite us into a particu- window on God and eternity. lar “point of view,” about the world, and God and life, but what we do with this point of view is another matter. We can let ERHAPS IT IS THE CHILLY of threat or promise. The sun always set it draw our minds and hearts beyond itself autumn air that awakens the behind the farmstead, and it made my into an awareness of possibilities beyond urge in me to travel back to my evening peace. our dwelling-place, or we can allow it to roots, to the soil that nurtured I am as old now as my aunt and uncle narrow down our souls into rigidity, for- my father, grandfather and were when they farmed “the home- bidding our imaginations to venture Pgreat-grandfather. It has been nearly three stead.” I have traveled the world and beyond the window frame. decades since I made a journey back to the made friends on every continent, while Our windows are the attitudes and lanes and farmsteads of these left-but- they spent their years within a few miles’ opinions we inherit from those who have never-forgotten homelands. radius of the view from this little win- gone before us, but every window on the The little village where my father’s dow. Yet I feel a moment’s trepidation as world is just one particular way of look- family has its roots has hardly changed at I ring the bell of the house that now ing at things, one particular viewpoint. all. The irrigation dikes still flow through stands where my grandmother’s cottage The window on the other side of the these flatlands, brown and slow, alongside once stood and where my remaining rel- house would yield a different view. The the sandy Lincolnshire fields. The atives still live. Will they even recognize windows in quite different houses would hedgerows where we played as children me after all these years? Will they wel- apparently reveal a different world still stand untroubled by the passage of come the prodigal cousin who arrives entirely. And yet the reality beyond the time, and the village still has fewer than unannounced at their door? window is all one, a coherent whole, 500 inhabitants. I need not have worried. The door fragmented only by our individual ways I used to sleep in a small bedroom opens, and my cousin Pat lets out a cry of of looking at it. tucked into the end gable of my grand- delighted amazement. “Margaret. What In these troubled and uncertain mother’s bungalow in this village, and I a wonderful surprise! I was thinking times, we may well be tempted to retreat could look out of its tiny window, barely a about you just this morning.” I fall into a behind our windowpanes and narrow foot square. I used to gaze out of this win- loving embrace and know I am home. I down our vision to the tiny fragment of dow for a few minutes every morning know it because I can feel the sap of life reality that we feel we can understand when I woke up and every night before I rising up from these roots, through the and control. Yet the Gospel invites us went to bed. Over the years those quiet lives of all my forebears, through my not only to look beyond our own imme- moments became sacred for me in ways I own life and on into the lives of genera- diate viewpoint but to open the windows only recognized when time and circum- tions still to come. of our souls wide, to welcome the vision stance had distanced me from them. Soon after this visit to my childhood that beckons us beyond ourselves toward It was such a very small window, yet it haunts, I am exploring a 500-year-old God and one another. Left to ourselves, contained such a very large view. To my Tudor mansion in northwest England, and we will choose the narrow confines of child’s vision, its compact little frame held something the guide says triggers once security. But the Gospel is all about risk nothing less than the universe: an expanse more my memories of the little window in and challenge and trust. It is an open of brown furrows that seemed to be the my grandmother’s cottage. Windows, she window, not a solid wall. very highway of my life, a network of irri- tells us, were very expensive in Tudor This week especially, as millions of gating dikes and a line of poplars, provid- times, very much a status symbol, and a people make their journeys home to their ing the horizontal axis and drawing my sign that the house owner was a person of roots and sit once more with their kinsfolk gaze to the distant horizon. In the center substance. They were so highly prized that gazing out on familiar landscapes, we of the view was my aunt and uncle’s farm- they were often individually bequeathed remember the journey of our own lives stead, standing proud against the sky, on the death of the owner. Imagine inher- and give thanks for all that has brought us braving whatever the heavens might bring iting a window! The guide smiles, as she to this moment—or our personal window reflects on the problems that would arise if on the world. It contains all that has made MARGARET SILF lives in Staffordshire, the house and the windows were not left to us who we are. It beckons us toward all we England. Her latest books are Companions the same recipient. might become. And above all, it welcomes of Christ: Ignatian Spirituality for Everyday Yet I think we all inherit “windows.” us home with the enduring glow of love. Living and The Gift of Prayer. We all inherit a particular window on God Margaret Silf

8 America November 24, 2008 November 24, 2008 America Vol. 199 No. 17, Whole No. 4836 PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR Mary Ann Glendon on the art of diplomacy Soft Power and Hope – BY DORIS DONNELLY –

ARY ANN GLENDON was sworn in as the ambassador of the United States to the Holy See on Feb. 14, 2008. Meeting her in June at the residence of the U.S. Embassy on the Gianicolo Hill in Rome, I understood firsthand why the Senate confirmed her as ambassador as quickly as it did. She combines an impeccable professional Mrésumé with a gracious, unaffected personal elegance. Ambassador Glendon met me at the portico before we moved to a more comfortable setting, where we spoke with ease and openness. Mrs. Glendon is also the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University and an expert on international human rights and comparative constitutional law in the United States and Europe. Her list of publications is yards long. In 1994 Pope John Paul II appointed her to the newly created Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; 10 years later he appointed her its president, marking the first time a woman had been named as president of a major pontifical academy. She is also the first woman to lead a Vatican del- egation to a U.N. conference. In 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed her to head the 22

DORIS DONNELLY is director of the Cardinal Suenens Center in Theology and Church Life at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio.

November 24, 2008 America 9 members representing the Holy See at the Conference on fair amount of time to organizing several conferences on Women in Beijing. Mrs. Glendon is married and the moth- aspects of human rights that are of particular concern to er of three daughters. both the United States and the Holy See. That seems to me a fitting way to celebrate the upcoming 25th anniversary of How did you become ambassador to the Holy See? formal diplomatic relations between the United States and I became an ambassador, funnily enough, just as I was in the the Holy See, which is on Jan. 10, 2009, one month after the midst of writing a book about people who were torn 60th anniversary, on Dec. 10, 2008, of the U.N.’s Universal between scholarship and politics. I was at home, putting the Declaration of Human Rights. finishing touches on a chapter on John Locke, when the The conferences scheduled for this year include: a phone rang. Karl Rove was calling from the White House roundtable on the fight against all forms of human traffick- and asked if I would like to be the ambassador to the Holy ing, a forum on the challenges to the universality principle, See, and I said yes. I probably should have said, “I’ll think a forum on what Pope Benedict calls the American model of about it,” or “Tell me more about the position,” but instead “positive secularism” and a forum showcasing the “one lap- I just said, “Yes, I top per child” initia- would like that.” tive as a way of bring- Because I was raising ing to life the right to three children in the don’t think that there has ever education. And we are years when such pro- I probably going to have fessional opportunities been more synergy of interest a conference on phi- usually come along, I lanthropy, because had more or less between the United States and there is so much inter- thought, well, you can’t est in Europe about do everything in life, the Holy See than there is now. the role that private and so I never thought giving plays in the about the possibility of something like this happening at this United States, as distinct from thinking of humanitarian aid time. as just something that only governments do. We had our first conference in May, where we lifted up the Latin What book were you writing? American contributions to the post-World War II human- It’s called The Forum and the Tower. It’s a book of biograph- rights project. Two Latin American embassies co-sponsored ical essays about people who were struggling with the push it, many attended it, and now the papers are being dis- and pull of whether to go into politics or to stick with phi- tributed all over Latin America. losophy or scholarship or charitable works, or vice versa— people like Plato, Machiavelli, Edmund Burke, Max Weber, I’m thinking of your book A World Made New: Eleanor Alexis de Tocqueville, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Locke and Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human several others. Many of the people I’m writing about Rights. What was Mrs. Roosevelt’s basic understanding of thought they were destined for one thing and ended up human rights? doing something else. There probably will be 12 chapters. I Mrs. Roosevelt understood that where human rights are was working on Chapter Six when the call came from concerned culture is prior to law. That understanding was Washington. shared by most of her colleagues on the U.N.’s first Human Rights Commission, but she was the one who expressed it And Plato, didn’t he always want to be a philosopher? best: “Where, after all, do human rights begin? In small Few people know that Plato came from a political family. places, close to home—so close and small that they cannot He assumed that his destiny was politics. He tried four be seen on any maps of the world.... Unless these rights have times to go into politics and failed spectacularly each time, meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without first in Athens and then in Syracuse. So philosophy for him concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we was a second choice, which turned out to be a great thing shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” for the world. You have said that the United States and the Vatican are in Do you have a job description? agreement with most of the principles contained in the Since I come from an academic environment, I am trying to Universal Declaration. Where is the agreement most evi- put my background in international studies and human dent? Where is it strained? rights to good use in public diplomacy. So I am devoting a The points on which agreement is most obvious, because

10 America November 24, 2008 most frequently emphasized by both entities, concern the a standard as the United States has in all the wars in which importance of human dignity and religious freedom. Too lit- it has been involved. This does not mean that countries tle noted, in my view, is their shared commitment to the goal always live up to the standard they set. But just to be even of “better standards of life in larger freedom” for everyone, more emphatic, I am not aware of any country that has set especially for the most disadvantaged peoples of the world. for itself such a high standard and that has done as well at A major difference arises from a tendency in the United living up to that standard as has the United States. States to read the declaration as a “list” of rights (like our Bill of Rights), while the Holy See has consistently understood Is the Roman Catholic understanding of human rights dis- the document’s provisions as indivisible and interdependent. tinguishable from rights language in other religions? How universal is human-rights language? Did the visit of Pope Benedict to the United States in April The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become, solidify relations between the Holy See and the United for better or worse, the single most important reference States? point for cross-cultural discussions of what is owed to human It is unprecedented for the president and the pope to meet beings simply by virtue of their humanity. But no religion, so not only once but three times in little over one calendar far as I know, is entirely comfortable with the language of year. This is big news, and I don’t think that there has ever rights. Popes in recent years have praised the declaration, been more synergy of interest between the United States but at the same time have emphasized the need to maintain and the Holy See than there is now. The three visits are, in the connection between rights and responsibilities, to be on a way, outward symbols of the close correspondence guard against manipulation and to search for ways to place between the president and the Holy Father. the declaration’s small core of fundamental rights on a firmer foundation. The universality principle, and the challenge of Do you suppose when they were alone at their April meet- maintaining it, will be the theme of an embassy-sponsored ing that they might have discussed Iraq? forum on Oct. 16 titled “For Everyone, Everywhere.” I can say a little bit about that because the president did tell me that the day before he met with the pope, he checked How distracting or damaging is it for human-rights lan- with Gen. David Petraeus to get the most up-to-date report guage to be co-opted as secular by thinkers like Michael on the situation, and he began his conversation with the Ignatieff? pope with the latest information. The Holy See’s interest I would not single out any particular individual in this now is really similar to that of the United States in that they respect. Rather, I would say that the more the human rights are very worried about building a stable political order that idea showed its power, the more contests were to be expect- will protect the rights of Christians and other religious ed over the identity, meaning and implementation of funda- minorities. mental rights. That is why Pope Benedict XVI cautioned in his U.N. speech that “efforts need to be redoubled in the How does that look? face of pressure to...move away from the protection of It is fragile. Everybody says it is fragile, but significant human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, improvements have been noticed. I don’t think anybody often particular interests.” wants to predict with certainty that this will last, but things have definitely been improving. The pope gave a wonderful What does a faith perspective add to the discernment speech to Holy See diplomats in January. I wasn’t here regarding intervention in or on behalf of nonsovereign because I wasn’t yet accredited; but at the end of his speech he states? Is that faith perspective in play? said diplomacy is the art of hope, and diplomats must make The rise in aggression by nonstate actors presents interna- every effort to discern the rays of hope wherever they appear tional law and Catholic just war theory alike with novel and and however faltering they may be. That’s the art of diploma- difficult problems. As a starting point for reflection, I don’t cy, or what is now called “soft power,” as opposed to force. think one can improve upon what Pope Benedict said at the United Nations on April 18, 2008, about “the duty to pro- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has emphat- tect.” A government’s duty to protect the community for ic words about torture. Have there been conversations at which it is responsible, he said, is at the foundation of all the Holy See about torture in light of Abu Ghraib and good government, and it was implicitly present in the Guantánamo? founding of the United Nations. If a state is unable to fulfill Yes, there have been conversations with the Holy See. I cer- its duty to protect its own citizens, he said, “the interna- tainly am not an expert on the subject, but I am not aware tional community must intervene”—but only “provided of any other country in history that has held itself to as high that it respects the principles undergirding the internation-

November 24, 2008 America 11 al order.” There’s the rub. There are a host of unresolved from speaking at La Sapienza University earlier this year. questions concerning the circumstances under which it is appropriate to intervene. You are also planning a conference on what the pope calls the American model of “positive secularism.” Would you Is someone at the Holy See looking into the unresolved say something more about that? questions? I don’t think that most people know how the American This has not come up in my conversations with the Holy model of religious liberty works. The reason they don’t Father, but it does come within the purview of the understand it is because even constitutional lawyers have Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, which includes a difficulty explaining it in a way that is intelligible to non- number of lawyers and political theorists. They are aware lawyers or non-Americans. Church-state law is extremely that we are dealing with an area where the principles are complicated, so there’s a challenge for us now that the pope clear, but the application of the principles to new situa- has praised what he calls the American model. People are tions is not. High-ranking officials in the Holy See have asking me as the ambassador, and as a lawyer who does some suggested to us that it would be helpful to the Holy See if constitutional and even church-state law, for a brief summa- we would have our experts devote attention to these diffi- ry. So I wrote to colleagues who are experts in this field to cult and novel questions. see whether anyone knew of a primer that would be intelli- gible to nonlawyers. There does not seem to be one. This is You have said that conversation about faith in public life what we are going to attempt in January for our grand finale takes place in the United States more than in Europe. conference. We’re going to elucidate the American model. Where does that conversation most excite you? What strikes me particularly about the United States, in Is there a clue you could give us as to how it works? contrast to Europe, is the degree to which the public What attracts a European observer in the model of what square is at least open to religiously grounded moral Benedict calls “positive secularism” is that you can have a viewpoints. In the wake of the pope’s visit to the United secular state that is not hostile to religion. States, many Europeans told us that what impressed them most was the sight on the White House lawn of the If we might return to Eleanor Roosevelt for our final ques- leader of a great nation warmly welcoming a great reli- tion: How “sell-able” to U.S. women in 2008 is her mes- gious leader. For most of them, it would be hard to imag- sage that we need “to find how we can best use the poten- ine such an event in their own countries. That event tialities of women without impairing their first responsi- spoke volumes about what the pope calls the American bilities, which are to their home, their husbands and their model of “positive secularism.” Italians, especially, were children”? impressed, given the opposition that prevented the pope There have been many changes in the status of women since Eleanor Roosevelt made that statement, but many of the challenges remain the same, especially for women who are Who Cares struggling to balance work and family about the responsibilities. Today, women and men Saints? alike are struggling to find ways to have a decent family life while working in Don’t Just Read about the Saints... Meet Them! environments where, all too often, they Let Father James Martin, SJ, bestselling author of My Life with the Saints, introduce you to some of are required to conform to a unisex his favorite saints in a new DVD that combines model in which family life is subordinat- insightful commentary along with dramatic photos ed to the demands of the job. Broadened and historical artwork that bring their stories to life. Discover what each of these remarkable men and to include both women and men, Mrs. women can teach you about yourself. Perfect for Roosevelt’s challenge to rethink the personal reflection, parish groups, and educators. organization of the world of work remains as important as ever. A For DVD Ordering Information: Please Visit: www.loyolaproductions.com Or Call: 310.815.8542 From the archives, Mary Ann

,/9/,!02/$5#4)/.3 Glendon on the new feminism, at James Martin, S.J. americamagazine.org/pages.

12 America November 24, 2008 Maestro of Joy Olivier Messiaen at 100

BY JOHN A. COLEMAN

HO SINGS WELL, prays twice,” said St. rhythm from meter. In many of his best pieces, Messiaen Augustine (and we must never forget that created music that seemed, at times, outside time. Esa- caveat: who sings well). Music and prayer Pekka Salonen, the principal conductor of the Los Angeles ‘ have been closely intertwined in the Philharmonic, said in a lecture on Messiaen that unlike world’sW great religions, and no one in the 20th century so almost all other Western music—which is mainly dominat- inextricably linked the two as did Olivier Messiaen, the ed by a kind of forward movement, the recapitulation of composer and master organist whose birth centenary we earlier motifs and crescendo—Messiaen alone, and charac- celebrate this year. teristically, was capable of achieving a kind of timeless and A few years ago, when I was interviewed on a program contemplative sheer stopping of time, inhabiting, for a for the Australian Broadcasting Company, the host insisted moment, eternity. that I choose a piece of music to be used as background, say- As Messiaen once put it: “My music is not ‘nice,’ it is ing that we would discuss, among other things, why I chose certain. I am convinced that joy exists, convinced that the it. I chose Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps” (“Quartet for the End of Time”), which was originally composed in, and pre- miered at, Stalag VIII A, a German prisoner of war camp where Messiaen was interned in the early years of World War II. A piece for piano, violin, cello and clar- inet (the only instru- ments available at the camp), the title refers to the Apocalypse, but it also slyly evokes Messiaen’s rhythmic shifts of musical tempo; these combine both tonal and atonal scales, which, following medieval Western chant forms, dislocated

JOHN A. COLEMAN, S.J., is professor of social values at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Calif. Portrait of Olivier Messiaen, acrylic on panel, 1993 by Tom Phillips

November 24, 2008 America 13 invisible exists more than the visible, joy is beyond sorrow, the angel tells Francis: “God dazzles us by an excess of beauty is beyond horror.” Michael Linton, a professor of truth. Music carries us to God in default of truth.” music, once said of the quartet that it is “a piece of musical Messiaen himself once said that music serves for us as a radiance, joy and transcendence” written in the midst of conduit to the ineffable. squalor and misery. Throughout his long career as a composer, Messiaen preferred joy to any preoccupation with suffering. This is evident both in his stunning Messiaen rarely organ piece “Transport de Joie” and his truly astounding and monumental “Et composed songs Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum,” which was commissioned by the French commemorating the government to commemorate the war suffering and passion dead of the World Wars. of Christ, but instead emphasized Musician and Mystic A brief recap of Messiaen’s major works the rapture of divine vision and joy. shows just how this genuinely mystical, deeply devout Catholic brought music to prayer and prayer to music. Consider some of the following The Sound of Eternity major Messiaen works: “The Ascension,” “Ecstasies of a What would a Messiaen piece be like without pealing Soul Before the Glory of Christ, Which Is Its Own Glory,” bells and birdsong? One of his most dramatic uses of “The Nativity of the Lord,” “Visions of the Amen,” birdsong takes place in “Et Exspecto Resurrectionem “Twenty Gazes at the Infant Jesus,” “Three Small Liturgies Mortuorum.” Though André Malraux, the French of the Divine Presence,” “The Transfiguration of Our Lord Minister of Culture who commissioned the piece, Jesus Christ,” “The Colors of the Celestial City,” requested that Messiaen compose a sort of requiem com- “Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity” and “Et memorating the outbreak of the two world wars and Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum.” France’s dead, the composer turned it instead into a pro- Michael Linton has said of Messiaen’s music that it was found meditation on the resurrection of Jesus. Messiaen able “to shed light on the theological truths of the Catholic recounted that he reread and meditated on Thomas faith.” The composer himself once exclaimed: “I was born Aquinas’s writings on the resurrection before composing believing. I would not have been able to compose anything the piece. He uses two bird songs, including that of the if I had not had that grace.” “Vingt Regards sur L’Enfant Uirapuru, an Amazonian bird traditionally thought to be Jésus” (“Twenty Gazes at the Infant Jesus”), a tour de force heard at the moment of death, to symbolize Christ wak- for a pianist, captures well his multiple gazes on God in the ing the dead from sleep, signaling their impending resur- light of the Catholic faith. Written in Paris between March rection. The virtuosic sublime song of the Calandra lark and September 1944, “Vingt Regards” evokes an extraordi- symbolizes, in turn, the gift of a new celestial agility for nary time when the Allies invaded France (D-Day took the risen ones. Appropriately enough, an image of a bird place that June). Messiaen’s score is a profound contempla- has been etched on Messiaen’s tombstone. tion on existence and a major outpouring of gratitude. It Perhaps surprisingly for such a devout Catholic, ends with a movement that encapsulates a 15-minute paean Messiaen rarely composed songs commemorating the suf- to love. It meditates not only on the love of God and of exis- fering and passion of Christ, but instead emphasized the tence, but on Messiaen’s own newfound love for the great rapture of divine vision and joy. His was decidedly a theol- pianist for whom he wrote the score, Yvonne Loriod, whom ogy of glory, transcendence and eternity. Time, suffering he married after his first wife died. and the corporeal—all had their proper role, to be sure, but Few musical events so touched me as the American never set the primary tone of his musical compositions. premiere of Messiaen’s tableau opera, “Saint Francis,” in On Messiaen’s centenary (Dec. 10), concert halls and San Francisco in 2002. One critic refers to this music as music festivals will amply celebrate his religious and musi- “arguably the most complex, difficult score in all of cal genius. I hope churches also lift up his gift to the 20th opera.” In one scene an angel plays heavenly music to the century: for almost 60 years, Messiaen served as the princi- saint, who gasps that one more note of this celestial song pal organist at the church of La Trinité in Paris, and his would force him to sever soul from body. Citing Aquinas, contribution to the organ repertoire is probably the great-

14 America November 24, 2008 est since that of Johann Sebastian Bach. If Bach’s organ rep- nearby mountain after him, Mount Messiaen) and com- resents a cathedral of sound, Messiaen’s is like the stained municating the mysteries of Christ to nonbelievers. At an glass in a cathedral. He once said of his organ playing: “The appearance in 1986 with his wife, Yvonne Loriod, at the stained glass windows magnify the light, one of God’s first New England Conservatory of Music, Messiaen was asked creations, but the organ brings to the church something by a student, “Does a listener have to have had a spiritual similar to light that yet surpasses it: the music of the invisi- experience to appreciate your music?” “Not at all,” he ble. It is the wondrous overture of the beyond.” Some argue replied, “but it would be the highest compliment to me as that Messiaen’s organ music is too unfamiliar, modern or a composer if you had a spiritual experience because of sometimes jarring for ordinary congregants; but too few hearing my music.” A have really had the opportunity in churches to listen to its exquisite improvisations. Two musicians discuss the spiritual power of Olivier He was catholic with a small “c” too. His 10-part Messiaen’s work, at americamagazine.org/podcast. “Turangalila Symphony” was influenced by Hindu melodic Plus, samples of Messiaen’s music. songs. After a visit to Japan, Messiaen wrote a tribute to Japanese music in his musical haikus. He also drew on the Indonesian gamelan. If Jesus suggested that his followers consider the birds of Bernardin the air, Messiaen took this advice to heart and captured the distinct birdsong Scholarship music of at least 250 different bird species in his various musical works. at Catholic (Not surprisingly, one of the rapturous Theological Union parts of the opera “Saint Francis” is the section where Francis communes with the birds). Preparing promising students for a life of ministry and leadership THE SOCIOLOGIST Robert Wuthnow argues in Creative Spirituality: The Way Full tuition scholarship…. of the Artist that music, for many of our If you want to pursue an M.A. in Theology or an Ecumenical Doctor of Ministry degree at CTU and are committed to building upon the work of Joseph Cardinal contemporaries, is indeed a privileged Bernardin, apply to be a Bernardin Scholar! conduit toward the ineffable God. Fittingly, this fall several symposia are More than a scholarship… being held on the spiritual origins of In monthly seminars, Bernardin Scholars learn from today’s Church leaders about Messiaen’s compositions. (One held at Cardinal Bernardin’s signature issues. And through apprenticeships and mentorships Southern Methodist University in with CTU’s world-renowned faculty, Scholars obtain invaluable practical experience. September was titled “The Musician as Apply today… Theologian.”) Duquesne School of Download your application at www.ctu.edu/Bernardin_Center. For additional Music has celebrated an entire year of information call 773.371.5432 or email us at [email protected]. Messiaen concerts. In our churches, too, Messiaen deserves a fitting tribute Joseph Cardinal Bernardin served as the Archbishop of Chicago until his death in 1996. He is most (perhaps through his organ music) for known for his commitment to peace and reconciliation and is the author of The Gift of Peace, written in the last months of his life. The Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry was formed at his bless- the way he helped bridge so many gaps. ing to continue his work in the areas of reconciliation and peacemaking, interreligious dialogue, the As one scholar has said, Messiaen consistent ethic of life, leadership development for the Church, and Catholic Common Ground. Through educational initiatives, theological research, and public lectures and conferences, The Bernardin Center pursued four dramatic tasks in his life: fosters an understanding of these issues closely associated with Cardinal Bernardin’s legacy. teaching birdsong to urban dwellers, linking color to music (Messiaen had the gift of synesthesia), attuning his music to the rhythms of nature (consid- er his remarkable musical tribute to The Largest Roman Catholic Graduate School 5401 S Cornell Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60615 Bryce Canyon, “Des Canyons Aux of Theology and Ministry in the U.S. Etoiles...,” which led Utah to name a

November 24, 2008 America 15 Portfolio Of Clowns And Christian Conscience The art of Georges Rouault BY FRANCO MORMANDO

EORGES ROUAULT was 34 years old and barely recovered from a physical and nervous breakdown when he had a life- Gchanging epiphany in 1905, which he described in a letter to his friend, Édouard Schuré. While out walking one day, the artist happened to come across a “nomad caravan, parked by the roadside.” It was a circus, preparing for its next public perfor- mance. Rouault’s eye fell upon one of the figures: an “old clown sitting in a corner of his caravan in the process of mending his sparkling and gaudy costume.” It was then that Rouault had a piercing flash of insight, one that was to affect deeply his vision of life and art. The artist was utterly struck by the jarring contrast between the clown’s external garb and professional accou- trements—“brilliant scintillating objects, made to amuse”—and the wretchedness of his condition as an impoverished, vagabond laborer living on the fringes of society, enduring a “life of infinite sad- ness, if seen from slightly above.” From that contrast came another equally eye- opening realization: “I saw quite clearly that the ‘Clown’ was me, was us, nearly all of us.... This rich and glittering cos- tume, it is given to us by life itself, we are all more or less clowns, we all wear a glit- tering costume....” (Rouault summed up

FRANCO MORMANDO, associate professor of Italian at Boston College, curated the exhi- bitions “Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image” at the McMullen Museum at Boston College (1999) and “Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague” at the Worcester Art Museum (2005). “THE WOUNDED CLOWN (LE BLESSÉ II),” BY GEORGES ROUAULT

18 America November 24, 2008 this vision in several studies entitled “Sunt Lacrymae Rerum”—“There are tears [of grief] at the very heart of things.”) From that moment on, the clown, as well as other circus fig- ures and denizens of the disrep- utable periphery of society, haunted Rouault’s imagination and art, becoming one of his sig- nature icons. An icon of what? Of the painful disconnection between appearances and reality, between who we are on the inside and who we pretend to be, or what society judges us to be, on the outside. Rouault con- fronts us on the one hand with clowns and prostitutes, whose real (if battered and buried) human dignity nonetheless still emits some light from within their souls, and on the other hand with the furthest extreme of the social spectrum: the rich, the well-born, the powerful, the “glitterati,” wearing the masks of their expensive clothes and pol- ished manners, hiding cruel, nar- cissistic hearts full of dust and ashes. (See, for example, Rouault’s “The Accused” of 1907 and “Superman” of 1916). In his professional life Rouault knew this type well, for it was and is a familiar figure in the upper echelons of the art estab- lishment. His own art dealer, the unsavory but hugely successful Ambroise Vollard, certainly seems to have been of that ilk. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Rouault’s death, the McMullen Museum at Boston College has mounted a magnificent, comprehensive review of his prodigiously pro- ductive career, Mystic Masque: Semblance and Reality in

Georges Rouault, 1871-1958, “HEAD OF CHRIST (OR MOCKED),” BY GEORGES ROUAULT on view until Dec. 7. This landmark exhi- also edited an ample and illuminating cat- his clown paintings, but everywhere in his bition features over 180 works from every alog that features interdisciplinary contri- art, Rouault explores—and provokes his period of the artist’s life, some never butions from more than 20 scholars. viewers into exploring—the private before seen in the United States. The The key word is “masque,” meaning human reality behind the public mask in exhibition was boldly conceived and curat- both “theatrical face cover” and “masked order to expose the soul. In that exposure, ed by Stephen Schloesser, S.J., of the pageant” (think of Edgar Allen Poe’s the high and mighty are reduced to the Boston College History Department, who “Masque of the Red Death”). Not only in level of the risible, if not the pathetic (as in

November 24, 2008 America 19 his 1927 aquatint, “As proud of her noble for many viewers, is the Rembrandt- ten for the online magazine Slate. stature as if she were still alive”), while the inspired style of his earliest period, repre- Those who prefer art that presents lowly are made to shine in their inherent sented in the exhibition by two stirring only what Charles Baudelaire would call human dignity. Again, as the artist himself canvases, “The Way to Calvary” and “la vie en beau” (the pretty side of life) or explained to Schuré: “I have the defect...of “Job.” But perhaps his most enduring who shun the examination of conscience leaving no one his glittering costume, be stylistic trademark is the use of richly might not fully savor this exhibition, but luminous colors Rouault’s style is so visually compelling gleaming forth that it will certainly arrest anyone’s from a heavy attention and ultimately give delight on matrix of thick some level. For many viewers, I dare say, black lines, clearly questions surrounding the moral life, the influence of social justice, sincerity and authenticity his youthful will likely dominate their response to apprenticeship this exhibition, as they dominated with stained-glass Rouault’s artistic imagination and as makers. The exhi- they dominate the conception of the bition includes exhibition itself. one actual Rouault is probably familiar to any- stained-glass win- one who went through the parochial dow by Rouault, a school system in the United States. My crucifixion scene, own introduction to “Rouault the and it is simply a Catholic artist” occurred many years ago gem in the literal at Cardinal Hayes High School in the sense of that Bronx. Yet Rouault himself (a true word. believer, albeit not of the orthodox kind) Rouault uses rejected the very notion of sacred art or the same stained- the “Catholic artist.” “There is no sacred glass-inspired art,” he has been quoted as having said. style to perhaps its “There is just art pure and simple.” most memorable Nonetheless, Rouault’s work not only effect in his many has the power to please the eye and feed depictions of the the mind, but to quicken our attention to “Holy Face,” the the moral and spiritual dimension of face of the suffer- human experience and to help move us ing Jesus as tradi- to a higher plane of consciousness. A tionally seen in

“VERLAINE WITH THE VIRGIN,(VERLAINE À LA VIERGE),” BY GEORGES ROUAULT representations of he king or emperor. I want to see the soul the sudarium of St. Veronica, which, Page 18: “The Wounded Clown of the man in front of me…and the greater according to pious belief, shows the true (Le Clown Blessé II),” by Georges he is, the more mankind glorifies him, the likeness of Christ. The face of Christ is an Rouault, 1939. Currier Museum more I fear for his soul.” In Schloesser’s almost obsessive visual leitmotif for of Art, Manchester, N.H. ©2008 view, “Rouault felt compelled to unmask Rouault, a potent symbol of the suffering Artists Rights Society (ARS), New society’s well-respected and well-born, of an innocent humanity oppressed by an York/ADAGP, Paris and to raise up society’s lowly and over- unjust society. looked.” In other words, Rouault’s art Another disturbing existential ques- Page 19: “Head of Christ (or comforts the afflicted and afflicts the com- tion is raised by Rouault’s art, most liter- Christ Mocked) (Christ aux fortable. It is an art that a Peter Maurin or ally in the title he gives to several of his Outrages),” by Georges Rouault, a Dorothy Day would assuredly have works: “Are we not all slaves?” Here 1905. Chrysler Museum of Art, cherished. Rouault is speaking from bitter personal Norfolk, Va., ©2008 Artists With his fertile imagination and years experience. In 1917, desperately poor Rights Society (ARS), New of productivity, Rouault treated many dif- and with a family to support, he was York/ADAGP, Paris ferent themes beyond clowns and masks forced into what was essentially inden- and employed a variety of media and tured servitude to that same infamous art Page 20: “Verlaine With the Virgin styles. A revelation for me, and, I suspect, dealer, Ambroise Vollard, or Fifi Voleur (Verlaine à la Vierge),” by Georges (Fifi the Thief) as Gauguin called him, a Rouault, c. 1939. The Phillips View a video and slideshow of cunning businessman whose ambiguous Collection, Washington, D.C., Georges Rouault's art, at america- personal life had much to hide, as ©2008 Artists Rights Society magazine.org/connects. Christopher Benfey has probingly writ- (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

20 America November 24, 2008 Book Reviews diplomatic training—speaks to his natural early as 1923, Pacelli, then papal nuncio in talents. Germany, wrote to the Vatican (following Gallagher’s book is as much character Hitler’s failed putsch) and denounced the study as religious biogra- future dictator by name. Fighting the phy. Hurley was a man of One of Gallagher’s Lord’s Fight contradictions. Though sources against Pius XII is outstanding in many Hurley himself, who revered respects, he sometimes Pius XI but doubted Pacelli. Vatican allowed prejudice to over- But the claim that there was a Secret Diplomacy take him. While serving in big difference between Pius Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII the papal secretariat of XI and Pius XII is uncon- By Charles R. Gallagher, S.J. state (1934-40), he sympa- vincing, since Pius XI Yale Univ. Press. 304p $40 thized with the controver- appointed Cardinal Pacelli ISBN 9780300121346 sial priest Charles his secretary of state and said Coughlin. When he finally the cardinal “speaks with my Among the movers and shakers of took a stand against voice.” American Catholicism, Joseph P. Hurley “Charlie,” as he called Some of Hurley’s criti- (1894-1967) surely deserves a high place. him, it was only because of Coughlin’s cisms may have been based on simple As priest, bishop, Vatican envoy and ally criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, not his ignorance. Gallagher cites an entry in one of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he was at the anti-Semitism. And yet, to Hurley’s cred- of Hurley’s papers, for example, where center of a number of 20th-century it, after he witnessed what was actually Hurley praises Pius XI’s anti-Nazi debates involving the church. As influen- happening to Jews during the 1930s and encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge: “Ratti tial in his day as his contemporary, Francis 40s, he became their champion—deliver- [Pius XI] said it in March 1937, even if Cardinal Spellman, Hurley remains far ing scorching sermons against Hitler and Pacelli missed the point later.” less known. Fortunately, with the publica- his “criminal effort to eradicate the Jews.” Apparently, Hurley was unaware that tion of Charles Gallagher’s new work, He also aligned himself with the White Pacelli drafted Pius XI’s encyclical. Vatican Secret Diplomacy, this forgotten House, becoming “the most outspoken Similarly, Hurley believed Pius XII’s prelate finally receives the attention he critic of American Catholic noninterven- wartime statements were not direct deserves. tionism and arguably the most ardent enough; but the Nazis themselves Gallagher, a Jesuit seminarian, is the Catholic supporter of Roosevelt’s wartime denounced Pius as a “mouthpiece of the author of a previous work on the foreign policy.” At a time of rampant iso- Jewish war criminals,” and many rescuers Archdiocese of St. Augustine, Fla., which lationism, this was daring. have testified that Pius inspired them. Hurley led from 1940 to 1967. Granted Even after America’s entry into the In 1940, Pius XII suddenly appointed access to Hurley’s private papers, he has war, conflicts continued, especially when Hurley (still stationed in Rome) to be produced a fascinating study. the United States and the Holy See dif- bishop of St. Augustine, a move that had As Gallagher tells it, Hurley was a fered. Invariably, Hurley took his govern- the effect of placing the outspoken prelate classic pre-conciliar Catholic. He ment’s side, even promoting the State in a “backwater” diocese. Gallagher sees believed, as did many U.S. bishops, that a Department’s “Black Propaganda” against this as Pius’s punishment for Hurley’s “blessed harmony” existed between the the papacy (meant to influence its political independent ways. But whatever tensions church and the United States, and thought stands). Had the Vatican become aware of existed, the pope must have admired the patriotism “should have the strongest this, it could have ended Hurley’s ecclesi- feisty American on some level; for when place in man’s affections.” astical career. the war ended, he surprised Hurley by Once ordained, a combative spirit ani- Though positive toward Hurley, reviving his diplomatic career, appointing mated him: “Dominating concepts of Gallagher offers a one-sided view of him acting chief of the apostolic nuncia- Catholic militarism, Americanism, patrio- Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII). Relying ture in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. There he tism, and athleticism would all be trans- upon questionable evidence, Gallagher courageously battled the Communists, ferred to his religious outlook and his later depicts Pacelli as overly cautious; more even as he met with constant frustration. diplomatic career…. To compromise, fearful of Communism than of Nazism; dither, walk away from a fight, or ‘not face and not as outspoken as his predecessor, The Reviewers up to facts’ placed one in the detestable Pius XI. These are familiar but unpersua- category of ‘the Catholic milksop’.” sive charges, given that Hitler’s most fer- William Doino Jr. is a Catholic researcher Fighting the Good Lord’s fight—as vent supporters always blamed Pacelli for and writer who specializes in the history of he saw it—was Hurley’s specialty. A man the anti-Nazi line taken by the Holy See. the Holocaust. of the world as well as the cloth, his abili- Gallagher errs when he writes that Peter Heinegg is a professor of English at ties were recognized by his superiors, who Cardinal Pacelli’s 1937 warning to the Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. assigned him posts in India, Japan and, American diplomat Alfred Klieforth was Gerald T. Cobb, S.J., is associate profes- finally, the Vatican. That Hurley took well “arguably the only time Pacelli personally sor in the English Department at Seattle to all these positions—despite any formal expressed his disdain for Hitler.” In fact, as University.

22 America November 24, 2008 Hurley experienced far more success devastation in 2003 of Baghdad’s skeptical, omnivorous, funky, depressed in St. Augustine, to which he returned in Archaeological Museum and National (with good reason) bibliophile. Not con- 1950, expanding the diocese through Library—only 150 miles north of Uruk— tent with cataloging the myriad assaults savvy real estate deals and religious gusto. under the absent-minded aegis of against books, incunabula, manuscripts If only Hurley’s knack for property Operation Shock and Awe. The toll exact- and records of every sort in every age by development had been matched by a ed by arsonists and looters: 1 million every brand of fanatic, Báez also lists and more prophetic imagination. A staunch books, 10 million documents, 14,000 arti- laments the ravages caused by accidental traditionalist, he opposed the Second facts. fires, floods, wars, insects, material Vatican Council and even ridiculed John Fernando Báez, a Venezuelan writer decomposition (e.g., in papyrus and wood Courtney Murray, S.J., as a “master of whose previous books include The pulp paper) and human indifference. double-talk.” Cultural Destruction of Iraq, sounds like a It is an astonishing story. Most readers Last, though an outspoken foe of disciple and imitator of Robert Burton, will have heard of the burning of the racism abroad, Hurley was less sensitive to Jorge Luís Borges and Umberto Eco: a Library of Alexandria (often carelessly it back home. During 1964, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. transformed St. Augustine into “a major area of civil rights activity and media attention.” Hurley wanted no part of this. Declining to meet with King, he instead sent him an equivo- cal letter expressing Christian fraternity “among people of different races,” but warning against “any act which might occasion…ill will.” This was six years after the American bishops had issued—on the orders of a dying Pius XII—a pastoral condemning the sins of racial segregation. One wonders how anyone, observing Hurley’s failure, might have mistaken him for a “Catholic milksop.” William Doino Jr.

Singed, Smashed, Shredded… A Universal History of the Destruction of Books From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq By Fernando Báez Trans. by Alfred MacAdam Atlas & Co. 272p $25 IBSN 9781934633014

Samuel Noah Kramer told us that history begins at Sumer, and so does the inveter- ate attempt to expunge it. Pulverized and broken tablets from the city of Uruk (bib- lical Erech), dating from 4100 to 3300 B.C., bear witness to the beginning of a 7,000-year-long pattern whose most hor- rible recent manifestation was the wanton

November 24, 2008 America 23 attributed to Omar I [585-644], but lectual and ethical value; but to judge from getting at the truth. The United States almost certainly the result of various the deluge of mediocre (or worse) books, may not have been plagued by the Khmer depredations over the centuries by Roman films, programs, ads, speeches and so on Rouge or the Taliban, but we have had troops, earthquakes and plain old neglect). pouring out into the contemporary mar- and have our share of book-banners and But Alexandria was only one site among ketplace, can’t we assume that most cul- book-burners tackling a whole range of the hundreds that Báez describes or at tural products of literate societies have noxious items from Huckleberry Finn to least enumerates where great collections always been of—shall we say—limited Harry Potter; so it is good to have Báez’s of books came to ignominious grief: Ebla, worth? So perhaps we need not weep too passionate, pessimistic plea for tolerance. Persepolis, much of China profusely for what has been John Milton could be an insufferable, in 213 B.C., Ephesus lost forever. And what about humorless, sexist crank, but his words (where books of magic the downright harmful, from Areopagitica (1644) still haunt us: “As were incinerated at the vicious or worthless books? good almost kill a man as kill a good book: urging of St. Paul), The inevitable liberal Who kills a man kills a reasonable crea- Byzantium (the Icono- response here must be that, ture, God’s image; but he who destroys a clasts), the Swiss good, bad or indifferent, we good book, kills reason itself, kills the monastery of St. Gall in ought to be guided by the image of God, as it were in the eye.” 926 (Huns), Cairo in 1068 Library of Congress’s ideal Peter Heinegg (Turks), Damascus in 1108 of preserving—somewhere (Crusaders), Baghdad in or other—copies of abso- 1258 (Genghis Khan) and lutely everything that gets on and on. Medieval clerics published. Even wretched lit bonfires of Talmuds; stuff is worth knowing Life Eternal? conquistadors and monks destroyed Aztec about, because it helps to complete our antiquities; Catholics and Puritans burned picture of the age that made and con- Death With each other’s books. Revolutionaries, sumed it. And then there are the usual Interruptions counter-revolutionaries, moral extremists John Stuart Mill arguments about the A Novel (Savonarola, Anthony Comstock), fascists, uncertainty of our judgment and the dan- By José Saramago Nazis, communists, Russians, Germans, ger of suppressing unpopular opinions. trans. by Margaret Jull Costa Spaniards, Serbs, you name it (and Báez Báez does not come to grips with such Harcourt. 256p $24 does, over and over). questions, but his book serves as a perfect ISBN 9780151012741 One might think that the end of this launching pad for them. particular historical nightmare is now in Báez’s approach is spirited and jour- The Portugese writer José Saramago sight, thanks to the ease of mechanical nalistic—there are no footnotes or index. received the Nobel Prize for literature reproduction and the digitizing of infor- On the other hand, he traveled to Iraq and in 1998, in part for novelistic fables that mation. Surely even the most fiendish reports movingly about the catastrophes powerfully critique social institutions tyrant could never succeed in eradicating he saw there. His data are generally quite and human failings. Now 86 years old, the Book of Isaiah, the plays of reliable (he claims to have spent 12 years Saramago has based his latest novel, Shakespeare, the scores of Mozart’s operas writing the book), though Death With Interruptions, or Joyce’s Ulysses; there are simply too he does betray a weakness on the extraordinary many copies out there. Báez acknowledges for overstatement, flatly premise that the people of a this, after a fashion, when he notes that all declaring, for example, that small, unnamed country of surviving ancient Greek literature can Dubrovnik was destroyed suddenly stop dying. now be inscribed on a single CD; but in 1991 or that Iraq was Thousands of people, rang- then, perhaps reluctant to abandon the struck by genocide in 2007. ing from poor citizens to scenes of conflagration and cultural loss And his grim dossier is the country’s Queen that have fueled his outrage, he adds that important, because of the Mother, linger in seeming- CDs are easily scratched and discarded. way it illustrates the end- ly permanent stasis at the Perhaps the most crucial issue Báez lessly quoted but still indis- threshold of death. raises is the psychology of “biblioclasty.” pensable epigraph from While initially appear- Obviously, the book-burner is aiming to Heinrich Heine’s Almansor ing to be a blessing, the silence or erase an idea, a school of (1821): “Where they have moratorium on death soon thought, perhaps an entire culture; but burned books, they will end presents very serious prob- there is more to it than that. (Some of the by burning human beings.” lems indeed. Families strain to care for most ferocious fans of book-burning— There is a lot to be said against human infirm relatives who cannot die; insurance Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Cardinal beings (including their habit of writing companies falter as people cancel obsolete Cisneros, Adolf Hitler—were also avid dreadful books), but letting all of them life insurance policies; and the undertak- book collectors.) Báez largely ignores the have their say without violent interruption ers’ union seeks a government bailout in problem of greater or lesser artistic, intel- seems, on the whole, to be the best way of the form of regulations requiring the buri-

24 America November 24, 2008 al or cremation of all domestic animals. Realizing that critical patients will never leave his hospital, an administrator observes with unintended irony, “The sit- uation is extremely grave.” Management Skills for Larger political, moral and religious reverberations move through the coun- More Effective Ministry. try. The Catholic cardinal phones the prime minister in great consternation to The Center for the Study of Church Management say “without death there is no resurrec- at the Villanova School of Business is pleased to tion, and without resurrection there is announce the Master of Science in Church no church.” Economists warn that the Management online degree program. burden of caring for the near-dead will fall upon an ever-shrinking fraction of society. A philosopher predicts impend- This unique degree is designed to meet your needs— ing moral chaos, because “if human as a clergy or lay church leader—in an affordable and beings do not die then everything will convenient online format. In less than two years, be permissible.” you will build a network of peers across the nation and Throughout this parable Saramago graduate with the following managerial competencies: presents death in three successive guises. Initially death is an unseen force; then it Planning: strategy formation and implementation, appears as the familiar skeletal figure but technology/data, and the legal environment holding the position of a bored bureau- Controlling: financial literacy, budgeting, transparency, crat: “She lives in a chilly room accom- and financial statements panied by a rusty old scythe that never Organizing: human resources, organizational structure and replies to questions, and is surrounded behavior, and advisory board utilization only by cobwebs and a few dozen filing Leading: group dynamics, ecclesiological perspectives, and cabinets with large drawers stuffed with alignment between the faith community work and values index cards.” In the novel’s final section Saramago portrays death as an attractive This special program is led by Villanova Professor woman in her mid-30’s who becomes Charles Zech, a widely-recognized national expert on entranced with a cellist, a Prufrockian church management and finances. All courses are holistic fellow who was supposed to die at age 49 and integrated, and have been specifically designed for but somehow has slipped into his 50th church managers. year. Death determinedly tracks the cel- list down, only to become entranced I Ideal for professionals who can’t take leave of their with him. positions to relocate and pursue full-time study The successive stages in Saramago’s I Convenient online course delivery; one week of portrayal of death come across as arbitrary residency is the only travel requirement and disjointed. Is death just another func- I Steep tuition discounts are available to students tionary asleep at the job, or is she becom- who receive financial support from their employer ing human in some unexpected, secularly redemptive transformation? The ideal Our next class will begin in May 2009. To view a full listing Saramago reader is someone who enjoys of courses and apply, go to www.mscm.villanova.edu settling in for long, philosophical musing or contact us at [email protected] or 610-519-4371. about these questions and about the way an extended thought experiment casts Join us for an educational experience that will transform light upon our contemporary situation the way you lead and serve the Church in an increasingly and human nature. But by forgoing many complex world. of the conventions of character, plot and style, Saramago produces a work that is at times confusing and clunky. For example, he eschews all quotation marks to distin- guish speakers within his text, and refuses to name any of his characters. The effect at times is dizzying. Without convention- al narrative anchors, the novel at times seems to come unmoored.

November 24, 2008 America 25 Saramago employs an unnamed narra- In the prophetic tradition tor, who is both omniscient and fallible, frequently admitting that he forgot to mention a crucial fact, or that he offered a Resist! bad description that must now be Christian Dissent for the 21st Century rephrased. While the narrator presents his own flaws as charming foibles, he offers an MICHAEL G. LONG, Editor unstinting critique of virtually everyone In the spirit of the gospels and prophetic tradition, the else mentioned in the novel. contributors to this volume issue spirited calls to resist Read as a stylistic romp, this novel evils in politics, economics, and culture. certainly is diverting, but ultimately it 978-1-57075-800-3 pbk $18.00 disappoints because of its excess of cyni- cism. Saramago’s narrator freely admits A Palestinian Christian to “the congenital unreality of this Cry for Reconciliation fable,” but it is not so much the unreali- NAIM STIFAN ATEEK ty that rankles as it is the replacement of Recent history ands biblical background set the stage for serious literary/philosophical perspective with mere peevishness. Saramago uses a strategy to achieve peace, justice, and security for both too broad a brush to paint society’s prob- Israel and Palestine. 978-1-57075-784-6 pbk $24.00 lems, and his version of the church is particularly narrow and prejudicial. The The Consistent Ethic of Life Catholic Apostolic Church of Rome is Assessing Its Reception and Relevance known by the ominous-sounding THOMAS A. NAIRN, Editor acronym Cacor, and it receives the kind A series of essays by leading Catholic ethicists assess of treatment reserved for ogres and evil the reception and ongoing relevance of the Cardinal giants in fairy tales. The cardinal makes implausibly sinister generalizations such Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life.” as “our speciality...has always been the 978-1-57075-792-1 pbk $25.00 neutralization of the overly curious mind That They May Be One through faith.” Ordinarily the reward for a reader of Catholic Social Teaching on Racism, innovative fiction is the ability to view Tribalism, and Xenophobia the world in a kind of funhouse mirror, DAWN M. NOTHWEHR but this novel portrays an ultimately A creative synthesis of writing on racism, tribalism, and grim house of horrors. It is hard to imag- xenophobia, plus a wide-ranging collection of essential ine the reader who can attain sufficient church documents on these topics. detachment to enjoy speculative fiction 978-1-57075-793-8 pbk $35.00 about death, since death comes into our lives as anything but speculative or alle- gorical. At your bookseller or direct: ORBIS BOOKS At the end of the novel Saramago Order Online! www.maryknollmall.org Maryknoll, NY 10545 offers what might be called the consola- A World of Books that Matter 1-800-258-5838 tion of the cyclical, a tried-and-true device in experimental fiction whereby the novel’s conclusion leads the reader TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW back to the novel’s beginning. This nar- ❑ New subscription ❑ Renewal rative tail-chasing is clever at one level, Yearly rates are $48 for each subscription. Add $22 for postage, handling and GST on Canadian orders. Add but to anyone coming from a Christian $32 for foreign subscriptions. Payment in U.S. funds only. tradition of contemplating death, it will ❑ Payment enclosed ❑ Bill me be disappointingly clear that recursion is On occasion America gives permission to other organizations to use our list for promotional purposes. If you not resurrection and that, at least in this do not want to receive these promotions, contact our List Manager at our New York offices. novel, cynicism is a dead end. For change of address and renewal: Please attach the mailing label from the front cover when writing about ser- vice or change of address. Allow 3 to 4 weeks for change of address to take effect. Thank you Gerald T. Cobb

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26 America November 24, 2008 Classifieds Requirements include a master’s degree in coordinate liturgical celebrations with style and theology, excellent people skills, experience in reverence. Train and schedule ministers; plan Authors supervising, teaching and organizing, and the abil- weddings, funerals, sacramental rituals; respon- ity to work with a variety of people, liturgical sible for all liturgical articles and vestments. Full ANNE RICE on YouTube at styles and pastoral initiatives. The position is open time with weekends; competitive salary and ben- www.youtube.com/AnneRiceDotCom and immediately. A more detailed description is avail- efits. Cover letter and résumé to: L.C. Search, www.youtube.com/AnneRiceSite. E-mail: anneo- able. Cover letter and résumé should be sent to St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church, 1897 [email protected]; www.annerice.com. the pastor, Rev. Ken Simpson: kcsimpson W. Main Street, Lewisville, TX 75067; e-mail: @stclementchurch.org office@stphilip cc.org; fax: (972) 219-5429. No Education phone calls. View job description at www.st OBLATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY offers an M.A. LITURGY COORDINATOR/SACRISTAN, St. Philip philipcc.org/job_board.htm. degree in spirituality. Regular semester and inter- the Apostle Catholic Church. Good liturgy session courses. Visit www.ost.edu. takes hard work; great liturgy takes dedicated MORAL THEOLOGY PROFESSOR. Saint Charles ministers with a vision for excellence. Large Borromeo Seminary is a free-standing seminary Parish Missions Vatican II parish with five weekend Masses with college, pre-theology and theology pro- INSPIRING, DYNAMIC PREACHING: parish mis- looking for an energetic, engaging person to grams. We are currently seeking to hire a full- sions, retreats, days of recollection. www.sab- bathretreats.org. Pilgrimage SPANISH MYSTICAL ROAD: 14-day Ignatian pil- grimage including Fatima, May 13-27, 2009. Experience your Catholic faith and spirituality first hand: Montserrat, Javier, Loyola, Madrid, DEAN Avila, Toledo, Seville, Lisbon, Fatima and more Visit http://mysite.verizon.net/mwcooper. McANULTY COLLEGE and GRADUATE SCHOOL of LIBERAL ARTS Contact: Michael Cooper, S.J., at parabletrav- Duquesne University invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean, McAnulty College [email protected] or (727) 644-5544. and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. Since its founding by the brothers and priests of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, the Spiritans, in 1878 as the first of the University’s schools, the Positions McAnulty College has served as the intellectual heart of Duquesne’s spirited tradition of academic CHURCH HISTORY PROFESSOR, full time. Saint excellence in the Catholic tradition. Duquesne is a progressive educational community that provides Charles Borromeo Seminary is a free-standing an ecumenical atmosphere open to diversity and an ethical and spiritual framework in which to seek truth and disseminate knowledge. seminary with college, pre-theology and theology programs. We are currently seeking to hire a full- Duquesne is a private, coeducational university with more than 10,000 students. An extensive selection of undergraduate and graduate degree programs is offered across 10 schools of study. time church history instructor who has earned at Duquesne is consistently ranked among the nation’s top Catholic universities for its award-winning least a licentiate from a pontifical university. For faculty and 130-year tradition of academic excellence. an application, interested parties should submit The McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts has fourteen departments as well as the their C.V. to: Rev. David Diamond, Vice Rector, Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy. Together, these departments offer thirty-three Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, 100 East undergraduate and twenty-one graduate (six Ph.D.) programs. The College also serves as the academic Wynnewood Road, Wynnewood, PA 19096; e- home of the university undergraduate core curriculum. With over one hundred forty full-time faculty, mail: [email protected]. 1500 undergraduate students and 675 graduate students, the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts ranks as Duquesne’s largest academic unit. DIRECTOR OF CAMPUS MINISTRY sought by The University seeks a Dean who will provide academic and administrative leadership for the College Seattle University. Reporting to the Vice and Graduate School. The Dean will also have scholastic and managerial responsibilities for all faculty, staff, and facilities and report directly to the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. President for Mission and Ministry, the Director As one of ten deans on campus, the College’s chief academic and administrative officer will also have plays an integral role in fostering the spiritual, university-wide duties, acting with the President, Provost, and Board of Directors. Specific liturgical and religious life of students. For a full responsibilities include administering undergraduate and graduate academic programs, instituting job description, benefits information, and to innovations in the core curriculum, fostering faculty scholarship, teaching, and service, maintaining a apply, please visit the Seattle University jobs Web collegial, vibrant faculty community, managing the budget, acting as the College’s advocate within the University, fundraising, and promoting interdisciplinary, alumni, and community relations. site at https://jobs.seattleu.edu. Persons who require assistance with the recruitment process Candidates must have a Ph.D., scholarly credentials that would qualify her or him for a position as a tenured full professor, substantial administrative experience, and provide evidence of excellent may contact the Office of Human Resources at leadership, interpersonal, and communication skills. The successful candidate will also demonstrate a (206) 296-5870. Seattle University is an equal firm commitment to furthering the University’s Spiritan Catholic mission (see www.mission.duq.edu). opportunity employer. Application materials must include a letter of application, a current curriculum vitae, and the names, regular and email addresses, and telephone numbers of at least three professional references. The DIRECTOR OF EVANGELIZATION/PASTORAL application review process will begin the first week of December 2008 and will continue until the ASSOCIATE. St. Clement Parish, located in the position is filled for an anticipated employment date of July 1, 2009. Applications and nominations Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, seeks a should be submitted to: Director of Evangelization/Pastoral Associate to Dr. Edward Kocher, Chair work as a full-time pastoral minister involved in a McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Dean Search variety of creative ministries in our dynamic faith Office of Human Resource Management Duquesne University community. Particular responsibilities include 600 Forbes Avenue Adult Sacramental Preparation, Adult Faith Pittsburgh, PA 15282 Formation and Young Adult Ministry. The E-mail to: [email protected] Director of Evangelization/Pastoral Associate shares in the pastoral outreach to the sick, Duquesne University was founded in 1878 by its sponsoring religious community, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. Duquesne University is Catholic in mission and ecumenical in spirit. Motivated by its Catholic identity, bereaved and alienated. Duquesne values equality of opportunity both as an educational institution and as an employer.

November 24, 2008 America 27 time moral theology professor who has a terminal therapy. Secular Carmelite with M.A. in theology, degree in the discipline of moral theology. The particular interest in the problem of suffering. AMERICA’S PODCAST following qualifications are offered to guide you in Near Annapolis, Md. Jane Lytle-Vieira, Ph: (410) your decision to apply for the position: 1) Be a 987-0775. practicing Catholic, who engages in the intellec- tual enterprise with firm fidelity to Catholic Wills teaching; 2) Have professional academic training Please remember America in your will. Our in Catholic theology with an earned doctorate in legal title is: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th moral theology. Applications will be accepted Street, New York, NY 10019. until Feb. 1, 2009. All qualified persons applying to begin teaching in the 2009-10 school year should send their C.V. to: Rev. David Diamond, Vice Rector, Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, 100 East Wynnewood Road, Wynnewood, PA 19096; e-mail: [email protected]. Religious Art CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS ART in an iconic AMERICA CLASSIFIED. Classified advertisements are tradition available. Go to http://www.contempo- accepted for publication in either the print version of raryreligiousart.com for a gallery visit of original America or on our Web site, www.americam- works. agazine.org. Ten-word minimum. Rates are per word Next month, John Dear, S.J., per issue. 1-5 times: $1.50; 6-11 times: $1.28; 12-23 talks about his new book, A Retreats times: $1.23; 24-41 times: $1.17. For an additional BETHANY RETREAT HOUSE, East Chicago, Ind., Persistent Peace, and Richard $30, your print ad will be posted on America’s Web offers private and individually directed silent site for one week. The flat rate for a Web-only classi- Leonard, S.J., on 2008's most retreats, including Ignatian 30 days, year-round in fied ad is $150 for 30 days. Ads may be submitted by e- a prayerful home setting. Contact Joyce Diltz, popular films. mail to: [email protected]; by fax to (928) P.H.J.C.; (219) 398-5047; bethanyrh@sbcglob- 222-2107; by postal mail to: Classified Department, al.net; www.bethanyretreathouse.org. Hosted by online editor Tim Reidy America, 106 West 56th St., New York, NY 10019. To post a classified ad online, go to our home page and Subscribe or listen online at Services click on “Advertising” at the top of the page. We do not COUNSELING: licensed, certified therapist with 30 accept ad copy over the phone. MasterCard and Visa americamagazine.podbean.com years experience in family, couples and individual accepted. For more information call: (212) 515-0102.

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28 America November 24, 2008 Letters

Opportunity Missed explore the impact that sports figures and deliver sandwiches for the hungry, As a religion teacher and a head coach at have on our culture. The young people I having senior captains offer the Gospel a Jesuit high school (and an amateur ath- teach and coach are astonishingly aware reflection at a team liturgy, praying with lete myself), I was excited to receive the of the exploits and accomplishments of our rivals before a race—all of these Oct. 20 issue with the cover photo and athletes at the professional and collegiate moments are profound opportunities for headline “The Soul of Sports.” Unfor- levels. We live in a culture where athletes our students to see that the spiritual life is tunately, I was disappointed by what I are heroes. not lived simply on retreat, during found inside. Finally, Patrick Kelly, S.J., spends Sunday Mass or in their one hour of reli- None of the articles addressed the much of his article “Sports and the gion class each day. When they can bring essential issue alluded to on your cover. Spiritual Life” discussing the idea of their faith to all aspects of their lives, What is the proper role of athletics in “flow.” But there was very little about the their religious imagination and our entire Catholic schools, especially Catholic uni- educational and spiritual formation that faith community are enriched. versities? The lack of discussion was can be brought about by physical fitness Chad Evans made all the more pronounced by your and competition. The fundamental ques- San Francisco, Calif. cover photo, featuring two African- tion we must ask ourselves is this: How American basketball players. On so many will we measure success? At the end of Study War No More Jesuit campuses, minority students are the season, were my boys more loving I appreciated the recent articles concern- woefully underrepresented, except in our than when we began? Were they more ing war and military chaplaincy (“Show- athletic departments. The tremendous generous? Did they grow in compassion ing God’s Face on the Battlefield,” by amount of money that Catholic universi- for others? Or did they simply run faster John J. McLain, S.J., “The Chaplain’s ties accrue as a result of these “amateur” and win more than in past seasons? Dilemma,” by Tom Cornell, and “One student athletes raises weighty issues What can we do to help student ath- War at a Time,” by Gregory D. Foster, about race, class and privilege. letes develop their physical and spiritual 11/17), but I was concerned by Father The Oct. 20 issue also failed to abilities? Working with them to make McLain’s argument in favor of military

America (ISSN 0002-7049) is published weekly (except for 11 combined issues: Jan. 7-14, 21-28, March 31-April 7, May 26-June 2, June 9-16, 23-30, July 7-14, 21-28, Aug. 4-11, 18-25, Dec. 22-29) by America Press, Inc., 106 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. Business Manager: Lisa Pope; Circulation: Judith Palmer, (212) 581-4640. Subscriptions: United States, $48 per year; add U.S. $22 postage and GST (#131870719) for Canada; or add U.S. $32 per year for overseas surface postage. For overseas airmail delivery, please call for rates. Postmaster: Send address changes to: America, 106 West 56th St. New York, NY 10019. Printed in the U.S.A. Healing the Mind, Body and Soul Addiction robs life from lives

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November 24, 2008 America 29 chaplaincy. He notes that Christ is pre- camp. Nevertheless, when a Roman cen- what made Jon’s characters so real. sent on the battlefield, but he fails to turion reached out on behalf of his dying I will always remember Jon as a soft- mention that where he is most vividly slave, Jesus acted and saved the slave. The spoken, humble and beautiful individual. present is in the dying people who are Gospel of Luke reports that Jesus was It was sad to watch his health deteriorate directly affected by the destruction of amazed at that centurion’s faith. The so fast as he spoke of the many novels he war. Lord judged the individual soldier, not yet had to write, stories that we will never I agree that it is essential to “minister the whole army. get to read. to those who need God.” Such ministerial Similarly, Catholic chaplains are Dolores Schuh, C.H.M. duties involve evangelization—speaking needed to help individual service mem- Davenport, Iowa messages like “don’t kill” and “love your bers who are struggling to serve both enemies” while denouncing messages like Caesar and God. Author, Author Michael E. Kennedy “kill other people” and “destroy your ene- As I read the wonderful article on Jon Groton, Conn. mies,” both favorites of the military. Hassler (“The Last Catholic Novelist,” The church might well consider 11/3), I kept thinking that one truly many women opting to have an abortion A Writer’s Life Catholic writer is not mentioned, one as candidates for those “most in need of Thank you for a beautiful tribute to Jon whose sacramental imagery surprises and God,” yet I wonder how many chaplains Hassler (“The Last Catholic Novelist,” delights and even awes the reader, and are sent to minister in abortion clinics, 11/3). Having lived and worked on the that is the author of the piece, the Rev. where Christ also can be found? Saint John’s University campus in Andrew M. Greeley. Bravo and many Dan Cosacchi Collegeville, Minn. for 30 years, I felt thanks to Father Greeley for the writings Chestnut Hill, Mass. honored to know Jon as a friend. We he has given us, where grace is to be often talked about his forthcoming nov- found and celebrated and lavishly, freely Caesar and God els. When asked how he chose names for given. Re Tom Cornell’s article on military his characters, he told me he walked Gene Szarek, C.R. chaplaincy (“The Chaplain’s Dilemma,” through cemeteries and read names on Chicago, Ill. 11/17): By about 30 A.D., the Roman tombstones. I once asked him how he got army had conquered much of the then- his plot ideas and, with a quiet chuckle, Early Evidence known world. They weren’t nice guys, Jon said, “I sit in greasy spoon restaurants I think Tom Cornell raises some good and their methods of subjugation would and eavesdrop on the conversation of the points in “The Chaplain’s Dilemma” make Abu Ghraib look like a Boy Scout folks in the next booth.” I believe that is (11/17). Chaplains should be more sup- portive of believers who experience a To send a letter to the editor we recommend using the link that appears below articles on crystallization of their conscience while America’s Web site, www.americamagazine.org. This allows us to consider your letter for publi- serving in the military. As a conscientious cation in both print and online versions of the magazine. Letters may also be sent to America’s editorial office (address on page 2) or by e-mail to: [email protected]. They should objector myself, I am very thankful for be brief and include the writer’s name, postal address and daytime phone number. Letters may the support I received from my base be edited for length and clarity. chaplain many years ago. His under- standing of my decision and the reasons for it served to confirm the underlying principles of my convictions. The fundamental problem with chap- SOUTH AUSTRALIA laincy, however, is the witness it gives to the world; it gives the impression that military service is objectively compatible with Christian faith. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is, of course; but I question whether that teaching can be reconciled with the church’s earliest teachings on war. All the I nigo is produced by Ingnatius Cellars, a leading earliest evidence points to an ultimate winery in Australia's famed Clare Valley region and reverence for the image of God in made available in the USA by Loyola Productions. Established in 1851 by the Society of Jesus to provide humanity and a total prohibition of sacramental wine, Ignatius Cellars is still owned and bloodshed. St. Paul criticized the operated by the Jesuits, who today produce an award- Corinthians for suing one another in winning range of fine table wines. court; what would he say about For Ordering Information: Christians killing each other in defense of their nation-states? Please Visit: www.loyolaproductions.com/ingio/ Jonathan D. Lace Or Call 310.815.8542 Montclair, N.J.

30 America November 24, 2008 The Word The Expectant Months First Sunday of Advent (B), Nov. 30, 2008 Readings: Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37 “We are the clay and you the potter” (Is 64:7)

E WATCHFUL! Be alert! Beloved who has entrusted everything to Don’t be caught unaware!” our care in the interim. Jesus warns his disciples in this The time of waiting and watching is Sunday’s Gospel. We begin not idle biding of time or maintaining the them safely out of Babylon, they now find ‘B daunting the work of reconstructing the another Advent season of watching and status quo. Like parents anticipating the waiting. For some it is a time of delight, birth of a child, we have much work to do Temple and their lives in Jerusalem. Their waiting eagerly for Christmas, for antici- during the expectant months. In today’s land is despoiled, their economic pated gifts, for time off from work and Gospel Jesus talks about each one having resources are puny, and their own sinful- school, for happy gatherings of family and his or her own work to do and having been ness looms large. Unable by their own friends. For others it is a dreaded time, as given the power to accomplish it. Paul, means to reshape the inner and outer they approach their first holiday without a too, encourages the Corinthians and us by muck of their lives, they give themselves loved one or worry about how they will reminding us that we lack no spiritual gift over to the Divine Potter saying, “we are pay for the gifts and meals they want to as we wait for the revelation of Christ. the clay and you the potter; we are all the provide. Whatever our situation, the We may wonder how we will recog- work of your hands.” This is the One who Scripture readings today help us to adopt nize the Coming One. In the first reading remolds them into a faithful and hope- a stance of faithful watching and waiting. today the exiles want God to manifest filled people. Advent is not a time of waiting for the divine power in a way that will be abso- In the end it is not we but God who is coming of the Christ child—that already lutely unmistakable. They pray that God faithful and watchful, as Paul tells the happened more than 2,000 years ago. It is, would “rend the heavens and come down, Corinthians. It is God who shepherds us rather, a time when we break our normal with the mountains quaking before” him. with gentle strength, God who tenderly routine and move into heightened alert to They want God to show divine power in cares for us like a vinedresser his vineyard, perceive more intensely the ways of “awesome deeds,” such as “no ear has ever as the responsorial psalm assures us. No Emmanuel, “God with us.” The watchful- heard, no eye has ever seen.” Such a reve- matter what our circumstances, the Divine ness about which Jesus speaks in today’s lation would compel belief and good Potter can mold us into watchful and Gospel is not waiting in dread, nor is the behavior. But in Advent we call to mind hopeful disciples, empty bowls, open and object of our vigilance unknown. Rather, again that divine power is revealed not in waiting. it is attentive listening for the familiar pyrotechnic displays of fire and quaking The beginning of a new liturgical year footstep of the returning Beloved. We mountains, but in the immense love that is a season to hollow out space in the bus- would not want to be found sleeping, but comes in the form of a vulnerable child. iest of days to rejoice in the extraordinary ready with open arms. God has ruptured the dividing line gift that has already been given us in Most of us find waiting very difficult. between divinity and humanity by taking Emmanuel, God with us. It is a time to let We try to eliminate it as much as possible on human flesh in Christ. Advent asks us, ourselves be remolded. It is a season to with fast food, express lines and ever likewise, to both embody Christ and to wait in hopeful anticipation for what this speedier Internet connections. Waiting watch for his presence in each one we new piece of art will become. for the end of a prolonged illness, or at the meet, particularly those who are most Barbara E. Reid unemployment office, is another kind of needy. torturous waiting. Waiting for the return In our watching and waiting, we can Praying With Scripture of a long-expected loved one can seem become discouraged by how unlike Christ • What image of God in today’s read- impossibly long. It is this last kind of wait- we have been. We can feel like the ings most appeals to you: potter, ing of which today’s Gospel speaks: con- returned exiles in the first reading from shepherd, redeemer, vinedresser, stant vigilance for the return of the Isaiah, who lament, “all of us have become father or returning lord? like unclean people, all our good deeds are • What does God want to reshape in BARBARA E. REID, O.P., is a Dominican like polluted rages; we have all withered your life this Advent? Sister of Grand Rapids, Mich., and profes- like leaves and our guilt carries us away • What gifts has God given you to be sor of New Testament Studies at Catholic like the wind.” Although they had experi- shared in this time of watching and

ART BY TAD DUNNE Theological Union in Chicago, Ill. enced God’s redeeming acts in bringing waiting?

November 24, 2008 America 31