THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FEB. 9, 2009 $2€¦ · CONTENTS VOL. 200 NO. 4, WHOLE NO. 4844 FEBRUARY 9, 2009 ARTICLES 11 FIGHTING POVERTY TO BUILD PEACE Pope Benedict’s challenge

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EDITOR IN CHIEFDrew Christiansen, S.J.

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eginning with the opening ofBarack Obama’s campaign forthe Democratic nomination in

Springfield, Ill., and culminating in Mr.Obama’s swearing-in with his hand onthe Lincoln Bible, the president’s iden-tification with Abraham Lincoln hasbeen on public display. In this Lincolnbicentennial year, I confess to being aLincoln devotee myself, having beenshaped by the Lincoln mythology inmy youth. Early on I identified withthe self-taught young man who wouldsteal away under a tree to read a bookor teach himself geometry, with thebroken-hearted lover of AnneRutledge, with the sometime failurewho remade himself to be elected pres-ident and with the melancholy com-mander in chief who endured thedefeats and unexploited victories ofincompetent generals before he foundin Grant, Sherman and Sheridan themen to win his war. Most of all, Iadmired his way with words. I can stillvisualize myself as a grammar schoolstudent working at a drop-leaf table inour living room on Staten Island,memorizing the Gettysburg Address.

I have also been fascinated by thequestion of Lincoln’s religion, a topicon which there are few satisfactorystudies. The Kentucky and Illinoisfrontier where Lincoln grew up was“the burnt-over land” of revivals andcontending sects. Frontiersmen werenot notably religious; and as settled lifetook hold, so did a contentious plural-ism of Baptists, Methodists, Wesley-ans, Cumberland Presbyterians andCampbellites (Disciples). It is not sur-prising, therefore, that as a self-taughtyoung man Lincoln might keep his dis-tance from the certainties and creedalfeuds of his neighbors. Some of hisfriends regarded him as a skeptic, buthe was reticent about his faith, and hepublicly affirmed he was never a“scoffer” of religion. Mary Lincolnexplained to his law partner and biog-

rapher, William Herndon, that“though not a technical Christian,[Lincoln] was a religious man always”who had a “kind of poetry in his soul.”

In mid-career, as he debated thefuture of slavery, Lincoln’s sacred textswere the Constitution and theDeclaration of Independence, especiallythe Declaration. His mantra, the texton which he meditated again and againand that stood at the heart of his poli-tics, was, “We hold these truths to beself-evident: that all men are createdequal.” His devout attention to that linereveals a lot about his later religiosity.

Lincoln pondered things over andover. He “read less and thought morethan any man of his standing inAmerica,” wrote Herndon. “He readand re-read familiar texts until theywere burned in to his memory,” com-ments Richard Carwardine in his recentessay “Lincoln’s Religion” in OurLincoln. One is reminded of St. Luke’scomment that Mary “pondered all thesethings in her heart” or St. IgnatiusLoyola’s advice that we “savor” the thingswe learn from the Gospel. In bearingdown on a text, Lincoln had learnedsomething quite like lectio divina.

Only late in life did Lincoln becomea regular Bible reader, and he seems tohave applied his practice of attentivereading to Scripture. As fruit of hismeditative practice, he grasped whatfew preachers or moralists of the daydid: that God is mystery and we oughtnot identify our causes with God’s;that sin is a universal condition thatprecludes our judging one another;that God will bring salvation to thepeople, and our responsibility is to“show malice toward none and charitytoward all.” For Lincoln, biblical lan-guage was not simply a source of soundbites; it gave him a felt realization thatthe deepest patterns of biblical historyare interwoven with the events of ourown day.

DREW CHRISTIANSEN, S.J.

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OF MANY THINGS

Cover A boy carries a child in a garbagedump where hundreds of people resideand make a living making charcoal inTondo, Manila. Reuters/DarrenWhiteside.

CONTENTSwww.americamagazine.org VOL. 200 NO. 4, WHOLE NO. 4844 FEBRUARY 9, 2009

A R T I C L E S

11 FIGHTING POVERTY TO BUILD PEACEPope Benedict’s challenge to the world

Howard J. Hubbard

16 ROOTS OF GENOCIDEFrancis M. Deng discusses cultural denial, self-hatred and prejudice.

George M. Anderson

20 WHAT’S GOOD FOR BUSINESS?The ethical legacy of Catholic business schools

Gerald F. Cavanagh

24 COLD WARRIORAmerica’s battle with Senator Joe McCarthy

James T. Keane and Jim McDermott

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

4 Current Comment

5 Editorial Shelter, Food and the Stimulus

6 Signs of the Times

9 Column “Faith-Based” Hopes John J. DiIulio Jr.

28 Faith in Focus Finally, God’s Voice Frank Moan

35 Poem St. Martha Angela O’Donnell

37 Letters

39 The Word Bringing Outsiders In Barbara E. Reid

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

30 TELEVISION The spirituality of “Lost” BOOKS An Altar in

theWorld; Closing the Innovation Gap; Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire

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CONTENTS

O N T H E W E B

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20

30

Profiles of notable Catholic business school graduates.From the archives, reader responses to America’s cover-age of Senator Joe McCarthy. Plus, on our podcast,Regina Nigro and Jim McDermott, S.J., try to piecetogether the meaning of “Lost.” All at americamagazine.org.

O N T H E W E B

CURRENT COMMENT

BottomlessIt has become a cliché to say the losses of the bankingindustry are bottomless. No one, not even among bankers,knows where they end. In the meantime, the governmentcontinues to search for ways to rescue the banking busi-ness. Some suggest establishing a “bad bank” to acquire allthe toxic loans the banks now hold. Others propose “tem-porary nationalization” of ailing banks, with the govern-ment acquiring controlling interest in banks until theyrepay their debt to the federal government. A third pro-posal calls for direct aid to mortgage holders to help maketheir home payments. While not a total solution, aid toborrowers seems the best way to rescue the whole econo-my and the fairest way to see that the economy revives—from the bottom up.

Too many bankers continue to appear either irresponsi-ble or incompetent. John A. Thain, the chief executive ofMerrill Lynch, was forced out by Merrill’s new owner, Bankof America, after he rushed to pay out executive bonuseslast December in advance of the completion of the sale ofMerrill to BofA. For its part, Bank of America, findingMerrill’s value much less than it had estimated, has had totake another $20 billion from the federal government tocomplete its purchase of the brokerage house. Banks needto be disciplined “going forward,” as President Obama hassaid, but they also need to be disciplined for their monu-mental errors of the past decade. None so far has shown itis worthy of the public’s trust with further bailout monies.

Financial institutions have abused their social compactin the first stage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program bylocking up bailout money as they continued to enrich theirexecutives. If they receive new assets, it should be for thebenefit of the people who as taxpayers are paying for thebailout. The major portion of the administration’s newfinancial rescue plan ought to go into the mortgage mar-ket. It is time for the rescue to trickle from the bottom upbefore it is soaked up at the top and cannot trickle down.

The Webby PopePresident Barack Obama’s big day in Washington, D.C.,was not the only inauguration in the news this month. OnJan. 19, the Vatican announced that, in conjunction withthe Internet giant Google, Pope Benedict XVI was inau-gurating his own YouTube channel. There the pope’sspeeches, accompanied by text, will be available for theWeb crowd. It is certainly not the first foray of theCatholic Church into the new media. The Vatican hasmaintained an extensive and helpful Web site since 1995;

and during the pope’s visit to Australia last summer forWorld Youth Day, he texted his younger fans, or at leastthose with younger technologies.

The pope also maintains a Facebook page under “HisHoliness Pope Benedict XVI.” At last count he has over26,000 friends, most of whom count themselves as dedi-cated fans. “Pope Benedict, I would like to meet you,”writes Ziah on the pontiff ’s page, “please visit OrangeCounty, California, USA, as soon as possible.” (The popehas not yet responded to Ziah’s request.) Others wantmore specific help. “Can u please make missing theAustralian V8 Supercar race in Bathurst, Australia, a sinin Australia?” asked Scott. But the pope is in good compa-ny on Facebook. Boasting satirical pages (unlike the pope’sreal one) are luminaries like Karl Rahner and Jesus ofNazareth. Benedict’s fans may be impressed to learn that“Jesus Nazareth,” as he styles himself, had only 24 friendsat the beginning of the new year—which means that, atleast on the Web, the pope is 1,000 times more popularthan his boss.

Miracle on the Hudson? Many of those involved in Flight 1549’s ditching in theHudson River joined New York’s Governor David Patersonin calling the survival of all the passengers and crew a “mir-acle.” Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III explained that “cir-cumstance determined that it was this experienced crewthat was scheduled on that particular flight on that particu-lar day. But I know I can speak for the entire crew when Itell you we were simply doing what we were trained to do.”

Miracle of God, or a congeries of circumstances? Thesurvival of the 155 passengers and crew may fit the moregeneral description of a miracle as an extraordinary hap-pening attributed to the presence and action of a divinepower. But it does not fit the strict Catholic criteria for amiracle. (Even at Lourdes only 68 have been approved).

Yet should we be bound by definitions? Albert Einsteinexplained that “there are only two ways to live your life.One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is asthough everything is a miracle.” Most of us are in between.The birth of a child, the size and complexity of the uni-verse, an incident in which we avoid a tragedy, or even a“Hail Mary” pass may seem miraculous. But then weretreat to the ordinariness of everyday life and take forgranted the marvel of flight, the amazing capability of theBlackberry, the coded information packed in a human cell.What is most important is not losing our sense of won-der—our perception that even with our scientific ways ofexplaining reality, there is usually more than meets the eye.

4 America February 9, 2009

EDITORIAL

he new administration’s projected $825 billionstimulus package should create jobs not only in tra-ditional ways, like infrastructure improvements on

roads, bridges and school construction. It should also focuson offsetting the sharp rise in hunger and homelessnessamong the nation’s rapidly growing number of poor people.

Already, low-income advocates predict that people indeep poverty, that is, those with incomes of less than halfthe poverty line of $21,200 for a family of four, will increaseby between five and six million if unemployment reaches 9percent. Barbara Sard, a policy analyst at the nonprofitCenter on Budget and Policy Priorities, has said that suchan increase would put as many as a million families at riskof housing instability and homelessness. Even those not yetin deep poverty could face homelessness because of homeforeclosures that have already pushed many into the rentalmarket, which, because of competition for affordable rentalhousing, has experienced an increased demand that in turnhas caused rents to rise.

And yet, precisely at a time when help is most neededbecause of the escalating rate of unemployment, homelessprevention programs in some areas are being cut backbecause of state and local budget shortfalls. Congress shouldtake steps to assist states facing this dilemma to withstandthe economic pressures that push more people towardhomelessness. In practical terms, housing advocates urgethat recovery funds provide new non-renewable housingvouchers that would enable 200,000 families to have accessto adequate housing through 2010. Along with vouchers,Congress should also provide an additional $1.5 to $2 bil-lion for the U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment’s emergency shelter grant program, to preventan additional several hundred thousand families frombecoming homeless. The cost would be only one half of 1percent of the overall recovery package, and yet such mea-sures would not only lessen the increase in homelessness,but would also provide a short-term stimulus to the econo-my by injecting funds into local economies.

A similar situation prevails regarding hunger. Withthe steep rise in unemployment and food prices, participa-tion in the food stamp program is nearing record highs.Between August 2007 and August 2008, caseloads nation-wide increased by almost three million persons. But amonth’s worth of stamps typically covers only thee weeks of

the average family’s food bill.Consequently, as another componentof the recovery package, anti-hungeradvocates rightly urge Congress toboost the current food stamp benefitsboth to make stamps last through themonth and to stimulate the economy.Every additional dollar in food stamps results in $1.73 inincreased economic activity.

Since job loss is so central a part of the overall eco-nomic picture, assistance should aim to extend and expandunemployment benefits. Fewer than 40 percent of unem-ployed workers currently receive unemployment benefits.This is partly because many states follow policiesunchanged for decades. As a result, numerous low-wageand part-time workers are ineligible for unemploymentbenefits when they are laid off. A federally funded increasein benefits, as well as an extension beyond the usual 26weeks, would help ease the fallout from job losses.

The stimulus package should also include fiscal aid tostates facing budget cuts that are weakening Medicaid benefits.As of last December, 19 states had lowered payments to nurs-ing homes and hospitals, and had eliminated certain treat-ments, like physical therapy, entirely. Cuts of this kind representa major tear in the health care safety net created by Medicaid in1965. The federal government should do more to prevent cutsof this kind that affect the most vulnerable populations.

President Obama has spoken of the need to reach outto these populations. That might well begin in the nation’scapital, the seat of Congress, which is also a textbook case ofthe stark gap between rich and poor. Before his inaugura-tion, Obama said on ABC’s “This Week” program that “oneof the things I don’t like historically about Washington is theway you’ve got one part of Washington...pretty prosperous.Then, you’ve got another half...that is going through enor-mous challenges,” namely the challenges of poverty. “I wantto see,” he continued, “if we can bring those twoWashington, D.C.’s together.” Congress has the power to dothat not only in the capital but throughout the nation with astimulus package that would create both jobs and the pro-tections that poor people need as shields against hunger,homelessness and lack of health care. We hope the presidentand Congress, acting in a bipartisan spirit, take the neededsteps to meet these and related goals.

T

February 9, 2009 America 5

Shelter, Food and the Stimulus

hile registering its disappointment over anearly presidential decision to restore fundingto programs that offer abortions overseas,

the Vatican has struck a predominantly positive tone as itopens relations with the administration of PresidentBarack Obama, emphasizing hopes for cooperation onissues of peace and social justice. In interviews overrecent weeks, Vatican officials said their expectations forthe new administration were highest on internationalquestions of war and peace—most specifically, theIsraeli-Palestinian war.

What is expected of the Obama administration, officialssaid, is an initiative to restart and sustain the Mideast peaceprocess and move it toward a definitive solution. Vaticandiplomats were disappointed by the Bush administration’speace-promoting efforts in the Holy Land. They said thoseefforts came late and that the most promising initiative—the peace conference in Annapolis, Md., in late 2007—wasnot followed up with diplomatic pressure. While fewexpect Obama to alter the United States’ fundamental sup-

SIGNS OF THE TIMESV A T I C A N C I T Y

High Hopes forU.S./Vatican Diplomacy

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president’s stated concern for the poorin the United States will translate intoa serious U.S. commitment to helpalleviate global poverty. This was animportant area of cooperation betweenthe Vatican and the Bush administra-tion, and the Vatican wants that tocontinue under President Obama.

On pro-life issues, Vatican officialssaid they hoped Obama, who is seenas a deft politician, would not pickunnecessary fights with the church.Although it was expected, the Vaticanreacted quickly to the president’s exec-utive order on Jan. 23 to remove a banon federal aid to programs that pro-mote or perform abortions overseas.Yet pro-life and family issues are notmerely U.S. domestic affairs, they said.Vatican diplomats know that ques-tions regarding population control,bioethics, the family and even homo-sexuality increasingly come up fordebate in international forums, includ-

Outside the White House during the 2008 papal visit


port for Israel, Vatican officials saidthe new president begins his term witha certain amount of much-neededtrust and sympathy among Arabs.

The Vatican was also alwaysuncomfortable with the Bush adminis-tration’s self-proclaimed “war on ter-ror,” even though Vatican officials gavequalified support to U.S. militaryaction against terrorist enclaves inAfghanistan in 2001. Vatican sourcessaid the hope is that the antiterrorismeffort under President Obama will becarried out with two principles inmind: first, respect for legal rights—that is, a rejection of torture—and sec-ond, attention to the underlying caus-es of terrorism, including injustice andpolitical frustration.

On economic issues, Vatican offi-cials cited potential areas of agreementwith President Obama, including hisconcern for those on the margins ofsociety. They said the hope is that the

ing the United Nations. While theVatican and the Bush administrationwere in close agreement on such top-ics, there is apprehension about thepolicies of the new president—andhow hard his administration will pushthose policies.

The Vatican is also closely watchingfor Mr. Obama’s choice of a new U.S.ambassador to the Vatican. An earlyappointment would be viewed at theVatican as a sign of the president’sinterest in the Holy See. The choice ofambassador is, of course, up to thepresident. One informed Vatican offi-cial dismissed an earlier report that theVatican, in a nod toward conservativeCatholics, might veto the appointmentof any high-profile Catholic supporterof Obama. Rejecting an ambassadorfor such political motives is not in thetradition of Vatican diplomacy andwould, in fact, be very dangerous, theofficial said.

s the recession grows anddeepens, nonprofit organiza-tions across the country face

the prospect of strained services andshrinking donations. The Chronicleof Philanthropy expects that morethan 100,000 nonprofit groups willfail during the next two years in theaftermath of the September 2008financial meltdown. “It’ll be a tightyear” for funding agencies, said FrankJ. Butler, president of theWashington-based Foundations andDonors Interested in CatholicActivities, or FADICA. Butler added,however, that “If you have a goodcharity and it’s run well, you shouldn’tbe that worried… Your donors aregoing to stick with you.”

The economic slide that has

T H E E C O N O M Y

Nonprofits Face Recession Pressures

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N A I R O B I

Kenya ConfrontsFood ShortagesAs nearly 10 million Kenyans sufferfood shortages, the country’s Catholicbishops have urged the governmentto provide assistance and food-for-work programs. While the food crisishas been blamed partly on harshweather conditions and the country’spost-election violence, in which manyfood stores were burned, the bishopsalso expressed concern over the saleof maize, the country’s staple food, toneighboring countries like Sudan.

“We are concerned also about seri-ous allegations of the export of maizeby individuals who seem to be abovethe law,” the Kenya EpiscopalConference said in a statement onJan. 21. Members of Kenya’s Na-

forced corporations and foundationsto tighten their budgets is also push-ing agencies large and small to scaleback how much they seek fromdonors. At Mercy Health Partners inKnoxville, Tenn., officials are seekingsmaller contributions for hospitalprojects. “We’re scaling back the big$1 million ask,” said Carlton Long,regional vice president of philan-thropy for Catholic HealthcarePartners, Mercy’s Cincinnati-basedparent company. “We’re doing moreof the $10,000 and under asks.”Citing stock losses and smallerreturns on other investments, someindividual donors have also slowedpayment of pledges for Mercy’s mostrecent capital campaign.

Meanwhile social service nonprofitson the front lines are witnessing theconsequences of recession firsthand.“This is the worst economy sinceHerbert Hoover,” said JosephHubbard of Catholic Urban Programsin East St. Louis. Hubbard reportsthat those who just months ago heldworking-class jobs are showing up ingreater numbers than ever at his agen-cy for food, clothing and help payingtheir heating bills.

Yet the news is not universally bad.At Catholic Charities USA, the coun-try’s economic woes have actually hada positive impact on donations.Patricia Hvidston, senior director ofdevelopment, said the agency took inslightly more in 2008 than in 2007.“The data is showing we have moredonors than in ’07 and the average giftis down just a little bit. To me that sayseverybody in this country is hurting,but our donors really understand withcompassion that there are others hurt-ing even more,” she said.

tional Cereals and Produce Board,which regulates the cost of grains,have been accused in an export scan-dal. The bishops called on the gov-ernment to be accountable and truth-ful, as well as to provide subsidiesand food-for-work programs.Kenyan media have reported on thefood shortages in Kenya, showingpictures of Kenyans eating tree rootsto survive. Kenyan President MwaiKibaki declared a national disaster inmid-January and launched a cam-paign to raise money to address thefood shortages. He said he would“reduce the price of seeds by 10 per-cent.” President Mwai Kibaki alsoappealed for international assistanceand said that the Kenyan govern-ment, in collaboration with the U.N.World Food Program, was feeding1.4 million people under an emergen-cy program.

Pope Seeks to AllayJewish ConcernsPope Benedict XVI restated his “fulland unquestionable solidarity” withthe world’s Jews and condemned allignorance, denial and downplaying ofthe brutal slaughter of millions ofJewish people during the Holocaust ina statement on Jan. 28. The pope’scomments came a day after the ChiefRabbinate of Israel broke off ties withthe Vatican in protest over the pope’slifting of the excommunication of atraditionalist bishop, RichardWilliamson, who has minimized theseverity and extent of the Holocaust.Pope Benedict XVI said he was moti-vated by a desire for church unitywhen he removed the excommunica-tion of four bishops of the breakawaySociety of St. Pius X. The four bish-ops were ordained against papal ordersin 1988 by the late French ArchbishopMarcel Lefebvre. The Vatican has heldon-again, off-again talks with the soci-ety since 2000.

Iraqi Bishops SeekSynod for MideastIraq’s Catholic bishops called on PopeBenedict XVI to convene a synod toaddress the mass exodus of Christiansfrom the Middle East and the lack offull religious freedom there. ChaldeanArchbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk saida general synod dedicated to the chal-lenges Christians face in the MiddleEast would help the church forge aclear plan of action for the present andfuture. “We can’t do anything by our-selves that would be as wellresearched, prepared and analyzed” asit would be during a two- or three-week synod, he said. He said topics oftop priority for a potential synodwould include the problem ofChristians fleeing the Middle East,

offering Christian witness in a pre-dominantly Muslim world, relationswith Muslims, the role of Christians incivil and political life, lack of full reli-gious freedom and Christians’prospects for the future.

Leon Klenicki, Dead at 78Rabbi LeonKlenicki, a long-time voice onCatholic-Jewishrelations, diedJan. 25 at hishome in NewJersey. He had

spent 28 years working on interfaithmatters for the Anti-DefamationLeague of B’nai B’rith and was a long-time professor of Jewish studies at

The annual March for Life drew tens ofthousands to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22,the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. A con-current Walk for Life West Coast drew anestimated 32,000 people. • The SouthernAfrican Catholic Bishops’ Conference hascalled on Zimbabwe’s President RobertMugabe “to step down immediately.” • PopeBenedict XVI has formally accepted theelection of Bishop Joseph Younan as thenew head of the Syrian Catholic Church. • Sister Nirmala Joshi, superior general ofthe Missionaries of Charity, was among 10people selected to receive India’s second-highest civilian award. • The new patriarchof the Russian Orthodox Church is Metropolitan Kirill of Smolenskand Kaliningrad, who has been in charge of the church’s ecumenicalrelations for the past 20 years and has had dozens of high-level contactswith the Catholic Church. • Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat memberof the U.K. Parliament, has introduced a bill that would abolish the sec-tions of the Act of Settlement of 1701 that prevent British monarchsfrom becoming Catholic or marrying a Catholic. The bill will be debat-ed in March.

March for Life

N E W S B R I E F S


SIGNS OF THE TIMES

N E W S B R I E F S

From CNS and other sources. CNS photos.

Immaculate Conception Seminary inHuntington, N.Y. He is credited withwriting or co-writing 19 books, includ-ing The Holocaust, Never to BeForgotten: Reflections on the Holy See’sDocument “We Remember,” co-writtenwith Cardinals Avery Dulles andEdward Cassidy. “One can only lookback on Leon’s career with gratitude toGod for the paths that he opened upfor so many religious leaders commit-ted to reversing centuries of estrange-ment between their own faith commu-nity and other traditions,” saidCardinal William H. Keeler, the U.S.bishops’ moderator of Catholic-Jewishaffairs. Klenicki is survived by his wife,Myra Cohen Klenicki, and their twochildren.

n 2001 President George W.Bush created the White HouseOffice of Faith-Based and

Community Initiatives. I was its firstdirector. Our main purpose was topromote poverty-fighting partnershipsbetween religious nonprofit organiza-tions and federal agencies.

Bless Bush! He put “faith-based” onthe federal policy agenda to stay. Hewas a compassionate conservative atheart. Witness his multi-billion-dollarH.I.V./AIDS initiative in sub-Saharan Africa and his innovative pro-gram for mentoring prisoners’ chil-dren. And he inspired caring souls instate and local governments to launchtheir own faith-based initiatives.

All good, but legacy-minded Bushloyalists have stretched the truth intheir final “fact sheet” on the faith-based initiative issued on Dec. 2, 2008.Its self-congratulatory semi-truthsmock the nonprofit organizations,both religious and secular, both nation-al and local, that entered 2009 strug-gling harder than ever to meet growinghealth and human services needscaused largely by Bush-era increases inpoverty and unemployment.

Take the “150,000 social entre-preneurs” who were allegedly “trained”to have “impact.” That counts peoplewho attended brief off-site events thatwere more like political rallies thantraining programs.

Or take “more than 110,000 match-es.” Fine print: not 110,000 live match-es between prisoners’ children and

adult mentors, but every match everwholly or partially funded byWashington since the program’s incep-tion, including some that lasted lessthan a year. Bush’s original goal was100,000 prisoners’ children matchesfully funded and functioning for atleast four years, plus a million mentorsfor other at-risk youth mobilized inpartnership with four national secularservice organizations.

Spin seduces, but factsmatter and history bites.Pseudo-statistics suitableonly for presidential libraryframing are pardonable butwill be found out. Besides,self-serving half-truths donot increase actual charita-ble giving, supply morepoor children with healthcare or bless more inner-city churches with grants.

The whole truth is that America’s“armies of compassion” remain much asBush described them in his maiden cam-paign speech in 1999: “outnumberedand outflanked and outgunned,” needing“more support, public and private” andforced to “make bricks without straw.”

The whole truth is that religiousnonprofits, large and small, national andlocal, have been struggling harder thanever to meet human needs begotten byincreases in poverty and unemploy-ment. Thanks to well-meaning leadersand staff in my former office, Bush’sfaith-based initiative had a little post-2006 surge, but the office’s “missionaccomplished” hype unintentionallymasked and mocked the unmet needs.

Now President Barack Obamapromises to do better. On July 1, 2008,in a speech and interviews in

Zanesville, Ohio, he outlined his faith-based plan. His advisers consulted me,and I publicly endorsed his plan. InAugust 2008, I spoke at theDemocratic Convention’s “faith caucus”meetings. After the election, Obama’stransition team consulted with me onfaith-based issues. So consider thesource.

To succeed, Obama, a formerCatholic Charities community worker

in Chicago, must insistthat all grantees serve allpeople in need withoutregard to religion. Hemust keep the faith-based effort fact-based,bipartisan and open tocorrections. And hemust honor all campaignpledges to create orexpand programs that

benefit low-income children and fami-lies.

Will he? In any case, heated contro-versies are unavoidable. Will Obamauphold or rescind the executive ordersand waivers that Bush bestowed onworthwhile groups that hire only coreli-gionists? Will his council track how hispolicies actually affect religious nonprof-its that serve the poor in places rangingfrom post-Katrina New Orleans to sub-Saharan Africa? Will his administrationpull grants from failed programsfavored by key clergy supporters?

Our new president truly seems towant to help the civic saints who gomarching in to help people in realneed. Pray for him, his staff and hisfaith-based initiatives. At least for hisfirst 100 days, have the audacity tohope that those prayers will beanswered.

JOHN J . D I IUL IO JR .

‘Faith-Based’ Hopes

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Religiousnonprofitshave been struggling

harder thanever.

JOHN J. DIIULIO JR. is the author of GodlyRepublic: A Centrist Blueprint forAmerica’s Faith-Based Future (Univ. ofCalifornia Press, 2007).



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FightingPoverty to

Build PeaceBY HOWARD J. HUBBARD

ow will the world most effectively achieve peace? Byfighting poverty. This central insight of Pope BenedictXVI’s 2009 World Day of Peace message has powerfulimplications for the current challenges facing the UnitedStates. Our nation’s internal economic struggles threat-

en to turn our focus inward rather than internationally. Pope Benedict’sfocus on poverty around the world proposes a much more global vision,because difficult times demand a complex and comprehensive response.He points out a different way forward, a way inspired by the Prince ofPeace. Humanity, Pope Benedict reminds us, is one family in God.

Where do we find solutions to our problems here at home?Candidates in the recent U.S. presidential election focused heavily on thedomestic economic crisis and the beleaguered American middle class.Both are valid, critically important areas of focus. But the solutions forsuch problems, Pope Benedict suggests, also lie in the struggle againstpoverty abroad. Ultimately, there is no competition between domesticand international needs, nor between poor persons and the middle class.It is self-defeating to demand choices between help for those who sufferin the United States and those who suffer overseas, or between aid forpoor persons and those in the middle class. Reiterating Pope John PaulII’s warning that “the gap between rich and poor has become moremarked, even in the most economically developed nations,” PopeBenedict notes that we are dealing with a family matter. Concern forpoor persons, both here and abroad, flows from the reality that humani-ty is one family in God.

Pope Benedict argues persuasively that assisting poor persons, espe-cially in developing countries like Ethiopia, Haiti and Bangladesh, willhelp create “a world that is more just and prosperous for all.” He makes

H

POPE BENEDICT’S CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD


MOST REV. HOWARD J. HUBBARD, bishop of Albany, is the chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace

of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.


his point with a vivid image: “It is utterly foolish to build aluxury home in the midst of desert and decay.” He empha-sizes that concern for the welfare of poor persons strength-ens the common good of all and that addressing the needsof the most vulnerable improves the health of all. In the faceof seemingly “either/or” choices, Catholic social teachingproposes “both/and” solutions.

Domestic PovertyBefore exploring the global focus of the pope’s message ofJan. 1, 2009, it is important to examine domestic poverty. In2007 the official poverty rate in the United States was 12.5percent, or over 37 million people. The rate for children was18 percent, almost one in five. These rates will surely climbin the current recession.

The official U.S. definition of poverty is about $21,000 ayear for a family of four. In urban areas with higher costs ofliving, the effective poverty rate is much higher than the offi-cial estimate. Many low-income families living near or justabove this income level see themselves as working class ormiddle class, not poor. But the church’s “preferential love forthe poor” embraces them as well. This special concern forthe poor does not diminish concern for the welfare of thosewho are middle class or wealthy. Everyone benefits whensociety more fully promotes the well-being of all, especiallythose who are poor.

Pope Benedict highlights the importance of building“participatory institutions” and a “civil society” internation-ally that enables nations to invest in people, fight crime,strengthen the rule of law and reduce poverty. As the formerchairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee for the CatholicCampaign for Human Development, I have seen C.C.H.D.projects help poor people help themselves through the sup-port of community-empowered, self-help organizationsthroughout the United States. This is a U.S. example ofwhat is being done internationally to empower poor peopleto improve their communities.

International ChallengesReducing domestic poverty will help to reduce global pover-ty because U.S. foreign policy can be only as strong as thenation is economically. Our country needs a solid domesticeconomy if it is to have the resources to help reduce globalpoverty. Paradoxically, in this age of globalization, theUnited States cannot improve its domestic economy unlessit simultaneously invests in reducing global poverty. Theseinvestments unleash the potential of poor nations to con-tribute through fair trade to a robust global economy thatbenefits the common good of all peoples.

Poverty is widespread across the globe. An estimated 1.4

billion people live in extreme poverty, defined as living on lessthan $1.25 a day. Such poverty assaults human dignity androbs people of their human potential. Fortunately, poverty isa disease with a cure. There are countless stories of poor per-sons and communities rising above crushing poverty. Themission of Catholics and others of good will is to work withthe poor to achieve greater economic opportunity.

Time and again, the world has seen that poverty con-tributes to conflict and violent conflict contributes to poverty.This vicious circle is true within nations and between nations.

Headlines testify daily to the fact that desperate situa-tions of poverty lead some people to do desperate things.There is vivid evidence of this in the crime rates of poorneighborhoods, and in civil wars and international conflicts.For example, the genocidal conflict in Darfur, Sudan is exac-erbated by a competition over scarce resources, such asarable land and clean water; these resources have beendiminished by desertification of the land as a result ofhuman carelessness and global climate change. Similarly, theviolence and division of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict aremade worse by the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis inthe Palestinian Territories.

Violent conflict destroys lives and property and can reverseyears of human progress. War is development in reverse; itdeepens poverty. Poverty destroys human potential, breedsdespair and violence and undermines human security.

Pope Benedict warns that “immense military expendi-tures” divert resources “from development projects for peo-ples, especially the poorest.” Excessive military expenditurescreate “pockets of underdevelopment and desperation” and“paradoxically” become “a cause of instability, tension andconflict.” This warning has profound implications for U.S.foreign policy. As the world’s leading arms producer, theUnited States should assume leadership to promote inter-national disarmament and to reduce the arms trade, whichthe Second Vatican Council called an “utterly treacheroustrap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor.”

The Mandate for Development “The new name for peace is development,” Pope Benedictstates, alluding to the words of Pope Paul VI. The popethen outlines steps in a comprehensive global develop-ment strategy to reduce poverty: improve solidaritybetween rich and poor countries; redirect military expen-ditures to human development; address pandemic dis-eases and the food crisis; and reform international tradeand finance to reduce marginalization of low-incomecountries. He notes that children constitute almost half ofthose living in deep poverty worldwide, and asks thatnations give priority to supporting mothers and families,education, access to vaccines, medical care, clean drinkingwater and initiatives to protect the environment.

Previous page: A homeless man sits outside a communitykitchen in Valparaíso City, Chile.


In recent years there has been a debate over the role ofdevelopment, defense and diplomacy (the three Ds) in U.S.foreign policy. The United States must give development astructure and capacity that raises it together with diploma-cy and defense as the “third leg” of U.S. foreign policy.

What specific strategies can help the United Statesincorporate development as this third leg of foreign policy?First, development with a focus on poverty reduction mustbecome the fundamental goal of foreign aid, including theparticipation of poor people and the involvement of localgovernments and civil society. Second, an emphasis not onlyon immediate humanitarian aid but also on investments inagriculture, health care, education and micro-credit pro-grams will make a global development strategy more com-prehensive and effective in the long run, as will the inclusionof strategies to combat climate change and reform interna-tional trade policies. Third, such strategies will be bolsteredby a gradual increase in foreign aid, to reach the interna-tional commitment by wealthier nations to allocate 0.7 per-cent of national income to global development.

Material and Moral PovertyMost significantly, Pope Benedict highlights the relation-ship between material poverty and moral poverty, notingthat “every form of externally imposed poverty has at itsroot a lack of respect for the transcendent dignity of thehuman person.” Moral poverty that fails to respect humandignity contributes to material poverty. Greed, corruptionand materialism undermine the common good of all.Material poverty demands concrete economic, social andpolitical actions; but these actions will be effective only ifthey are shaped by people committed to what the HolyFather calls “profound solidarity.”

Morality matters in economic policy. The current nation-al and global financial crisis has made this patently clear.Pope Benedict observes that too many economic actorswere making decisions “based on very short-term thinking.”They lacked a commitment to “long-term consideration ofthe common good,” and by pursuing short-term gain infinancial markets, they undermined the market itself. Forthis reason, markets, and financial institutions must beappropriately regulated for the common good.

Morality also matters in developing public policies thattoo often can be driven by ideology. Some countries pro-mote anti-life population-control policies, although theworld has reduced poverty even as its population has grown.Indeed, Pope Benedict says, developed countries “withhigher birth-rates enjoy better opportunities for develop-ment.” The United States would do well to preserve theKemp-Kasten Amendment that prohibits giving U.S. “pop-ulation assistance” funds to any group that supports a pro-gram of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, and

What in God’s NameAre Some New YorkersDoing?

An interfaith panel of some of New York’s most inspired

citizens discuss how their faith brought them to where

they are as community leaders, how it sustains them

and how their faith-based activism functions within a

religiously pluralist society. Moderated by Peter Steinfels,

co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.

Charles J. Hynes, district attorney, Kings County

Alexie Torres-Fleming, executive director,Youth Ministries

for Peace and Justice, the Bronx

Robin Bernstein, executive director, The Educational

Alliance, Manhattan

Abdel Hafid Djemil, teacher and mentor,W.E.B. DuBois

High School, Brooklyn

John A. Calhoun, former state and federal administrator

of family and child care services, drug abuse and crime

prevention programs, and author of Hope Matters, which

chronicles the role of faith in two dozen community leaders

around the country.


should also reinstate the “Mexico City policy” that deniesU.S. funds to organizations that perform or promote abor-tion as a method of family planning.

Morality also matters in designing effective responses tothe AIDS pandemic. The recently reauthorized President’sEmergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) increasedresources for AIDS prevention and treatment, traininghealth care workers and nutrition programs. The bill alsoprovided balanced funding for abstinence and behavior-change programs that research has shown are highly effec-tive in reducing infection rates in countries with epidemics.A bipartisan consensus rejected adding unrelated familyplanning and reproductive health services that would divertresources from life-saving interventions. Sadly, some advo-cacy organizations are seeking to overturn that carefullyconstructed bipartisan consensus. Our nation’s leadersshould not go down this divisive path.

A Call to Further ActionIn response to the pope’s call “to fight poverty to buildpeace,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishopsand Catholic Relief Services will reinvigorate the CatholicCampaign Against Global Poverty soon. An initiativecalled “Catholics Confront Global Poverty” will belaunched on Feb. 23 (www.usccb.org/globalpoverty) with agoal of helping to educate and mobilize U.S. Catholics to

defend the life and dignity of people living in povertythroughout the world.

The initiative will offer six specific policy recommenda-tions: first, an increase in poverty-focused foreign assistanceto meet humanitarian needs and invest in long-term devel-opment; second, the promotion of foreign assistance reformthat emphasizes poverty reduction, government account-ability and the participation of civil society; third, a newapproach to global climate change that focuses on protect-ing the poor; fourth, reform of trade and agricultural poli-cies to stimulate sustainable development and protect smallfarmers; fifth, financial and political support of U.N. peace-keeping missions to reduce the violence that impoverishesmany nations; and sixth, the application of significantresources for peacebuilding and diplomacy to areas whereexisting conflicts threaten to turn violent.

Together with the domestic poverty initiatives of theU.S.C.C.B. Committee on Domestic Justice and HumanDevelopment and the Campaign to Reduce Poverty ofCatholic Charities USA, this new initiative represents a“both/and” approach to poverty at home and abroad. In thewords of Pope Benedict, it is important that “people every-where feel personally outraged by the injustices in theworld. ” Only then can people work together to “redress themarginalization of the world’s poor” and “fight poverty tobuild peace. ”

Help America CelebrateIts Centennial Year

America, the national Catholic weekly founded by the Jesuits in April 1909, iscelebrating 100 years of publication. We invite you to help us celebrate.

Since the issue of April 14, 2008, articles looking at the history of the magazinehave been featured in its print and Web editions. America’s centennial yearwill conclude with a special, expanded anniversary issue on April 13, 2009.Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Helen Prejean, C.S.J., CharlesMorris and Martin Marty are among the authors contributing to this issue.

Space reservations for congratulatory ads are being accepted through February24. Join us in our centennial issue.

For more information visitwww.americamagazine.orgor contact Julia Sosa at

[email protected](212) 515-0102

A

rancis M. Deng has traveled to someof the most violence-ridden parts ofthe world. He has visited areasmarked by the killing of hundreds of

thousands of people, even millions, as in theHolocaust. He is currently the special adviser tothe U.N. secretary general for the prevention ofgenocide. When Deng greeted me in his officeone sunny morning, the peaceful view of theEast River through the large windows made itdifficult for me to think of so painful a subject asgenocide. But Deng, one of the busiest membersof the U.N. staff, immediately addressed theissue.

“When genocide takes place,” he said, “thereis often a general denial by the perpetrators; andthose who might be called upon to intervene arereluctant to acknowledge that it is even happen-ing.” That is why it is better to focus on preven-tion, detecting the problems early on, whilepositions are still fluid and have not yet hard-ened into denial. It is also necessary to developtools that range from diplomatic intercession towell-targeted sanctions, and to realize that manyactions can be taken short of military combat.

Deng explained that the InternationalCriminal Court serves as a useful deterrent ifthose who commit atrocities realize that theywill be held accountable, that impunity cannotbe tolerated. The arrest of the Serbian leaderRadovan Karadzic, now behind bars in The Hague, offersone example of the court’s actions. The fact that Karadzicremained in hiding in Serbia for 13 years, however, is areminder that judicial efforts can be thwarted by a popula-tion that protects a criminal in its midst.

Deng’s homeland is Sudan, where the ongoing conflict inDarfur has led some to label as genocide the approximately300,000 deaths there. Genocide, he said, “is an extremeform of conflicts of identities. It involves conflicts that maybe based on race, ethnicity, religion or nationality; and thesein turn are marked by a great deal of discrimination andexclusion.” The problem is widespread and cannot be con-

Roots of GenocideFrancis M. Deng discusses cultural denial, self-hatred and prejudice.BY GEORGE M. AN DERSON

F


GEORGE M. ANDERSON, S.J., is an associate editor of America.

fined to specfiic regions or countries, though some are morevulnerable than others. Rwanda, which he visited shortlyafter the 1994 genocide, comes to mind as one of those vul-nerable countries, as do Bosnia and Cambodia under therule of the Khmer Rouge, with its killing fields.

“I went to Bosnia in 1992 at the peak of the conflictthere,” Deng said, “and it was extraordinary to realize thatthe two groups of people who hated each other so much,Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, were all but indistinguishablein their facial traits. It was mostly only by their names thatyou could tell them apart.” Hatred in situations like thesecan also involve self-hatred because of shared characteris-tics. He said that in Rwanda, “while some people fit the pro-file of a Hutu or a Tutsi, there are a lot of shared elements,so it’s not always easy to tell them apart.” Deng once asked a

foreign minister in Burundi whether it was possible to dis-tinguish between the two, and he replied, “Yes, but with a35 percent margin of error.” In other words, identifyingmembers of the two groups was not easy.

Using his own country as an example, he observed, “Ifyou go to Darfur, it’s difficult to tell who is an Arab and whois an African, because people there who consider themselves

“What we need to do, even though it might be too latethere,” Deng told me, “is to get back to looking at the causeof problems nationally and comprehensively, so that youbring peace to Sudan as a whole and not isolate Darfur fromthe rest of the country.”

Redefining National SovereigntyDeng underwent extensive preparation for his work ongenocide prevention through his previous assignment as theU.N. secretary general’s representative for internally dis-placed persons. The term “internally displaced” can causeconfusion. As Deng explained it: “People sometimes refer tothem as refugees; but refugees, in fleeing violence in theirown country, have been able to cross international bordersand therefore qualify for assistance through the U.N. HighCommissioner for Refugees. I.D.P.’s, on the other hand,although fleeing violence too, are trapped within the bound-aries of their own nation.” Deng found that identity was apainful factor in the lives of people trapped within their ownborders.

In many of the countries he visited as the U.N. represen-tative for internally displaced people, there was a virtual cri-sis of identity in terms of how a nation is defined.Disadvantaged goups demanded recognition as citizenswith all the usual rights of citizenship. That, however, is fre-quently thwarted because “all over the world when conflictsdisplace people, I have found serious dvisions based on fac-tors like race, ethnicity, religion and culture.

“So instead of being cared for by their own governments,these displaced populations are neglected, sometimes evenpersecuted, as if they were allied with the enemy.” Althoughthey must look to the international community for relief,the same nation that is dispossessing its own people mayinvoke national sovereignty to prevent international accessto these people. That, Deng continued, “is when in ourwork on the I.D.P. mandate, we began to recast sovereigntyas responsibility, a concept which we had developed at theBrookings Institution’s Africa program.”

When speaking with displaced persons, Deng said, “Iwould ask, ‘What message do you want me to take back toyour leaders?’ Invariably they would say, ‘Those are not ourleaders, we have no one in this government who speaks onour behalf.’” He described one such situation while visitingdisplaced persons during a mission to a country in LatinAmerica. “In the eyes of the government here,” the peopletold him, “we are not even citizens; we are no better thancriminals; and our only crime is that we are poor.”According to Deng, internally displaced persons are notonly marginalized; they are often neglected or persecuted.

A nation “should be ready to call on the world for help to


‘When genocide

takes place, there

is often a general

denial, and those

who might be

called upon to

intervene are

reluctant to

acknowledge that

it is even taking

place.’

PH

OTO

: CN

S/R

EU

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Above left: A worker cleans a tomb of massacre victimsoutside a church in Nyanza, Rwanda.

Arabs can be darker skinned than Africans.” Appearance isnot enough to distinguish them. “If you hate a group on thegrounds of race, and yet you have some of their racial char-acteristics,” Deng said, “you are really hating a part of your-self.”

The seeds for what is happening in Darfur go back to the1950s and 1960s, when southern Sudan endured a 17-yearcivil war that Deng said was “just as atrocious as what is hap-pening in Darfur.” The conflict stopped for a decade butresumed in the 1983; over two million people were killed, withexactly the same kinds of atrocities. Although human rightsgroups tried to call attention to the situation, sometimes evencalling it genocide, Deng said “the world at the time did notgive it as much attention as is now being paid to Darfur.”

A proliferation of regional conflicts is affecting Sudan.

do what was its responsibility in the first place,” Dengobserved. “If you apply the idea of sovereignty as that kindof responsibility, you can also apply it to the prevention ofgenocide.” The U.N. General Assembly adopted the so-called responsibility to protect at the World Summit ofheads of state and government in 2005. Deng’s earlier workon sovereignty as responsibility contributed to the develop-ment of the responsibility to protect.

Genocide sometimes includes what Deng referred to as“culturocide.” Take the case of Sudan, for example, saidDeng: “A group might seize power and promote its ownself-perception in terms of ethnic, racial and cultural identi-ty. But Sudan is a country of multiple cultures and ethnicgroups; and since gaining independence from the UnitedKingdom, the dominant group that calls itself Arab—though in fact they are actually a mix of Arabs andAfricans—has been trying to fashion the country in itsimage as an Arab nation, trying to Arabize and Islamicizeeveryone.” Had they succeeded, the result would haveamounted to culturocide because, Deng said, “a humanbeing is not just a physical entity, but a cultural entity too. Ifyou destroy a people’s culture and thereby assimilate them,you have also in a sense eliminated them.”

According to Deng, the extreme poverty of one groupwithin a population may result in conflict that leads to massviolence. To the extent that poverty implies a dispropor-

tionate sharing of basic resources like water and grazingland, such disparity can generate a reaction among disad-vantaged groups that leads to deadly internal strife. Thedominant group might retaliate with a war that becomesgenocidal.

Denial of responsibility for genocide can also play a rolein the aftermath of conflict, as was the case in Germanyafter the Holocaust, which took the lives of six million Jews.In Germany after World War II, Deng said, “there was gen-eral denial of any wide responsibility, as if the millions ofdeaths in concentration camps were the work of one evilhuman being. I would hear people say, ‘Thank God he’sgone, Hitler wasn’t even German, but Austrian by birth.’”But now and then Deng encountered someone who wouldadmit to having supported Hitler: “I met one man who hadbeen a member of Hitler’s youth group who said, ‘I oncethought Hitler was the best thing that had ever happened toGermany.’” At least he acknowledged where he had comefrom in his thinking. But for a while it was as though thenation at large was in almost total denial, attributing thehorrific crimes of the Holocaust to a single individual.Germany has since widely been acknowledged as havingfaced up to its history that there was a national responsibil-ity for what happened. “Instead of denying such evils, andattributing them to individuals,” said Deng, “we should askourselves what conditions produce a universal evil like the


David Hollenbach, S.J.a Catholic scholar, author and theologian who has made an

outstanding contribution to the intellectual life

Previous recipients of the Marianist Award

John Tracy Ellis, 1986

Rosemary Haughton, 1987

Timothy O’Meara, 1988

Walter J. Ong, S.J., 1989

Sidney Callahan, 1990

John T. Noonan Jr., 1991

Louis Dupré, 1992

Monika K. Hellwig, 1993

Philip Gleason, 1994

J. Bryan Hehir, 1995

Charles Taylor, 1996

Gustavo Gutiérrez, 1997

Rev. David Tracy, 1998

Jill Ker Conway, 1999

Marcia L. Colish, 2000

Mary Ann Glendon, 2001

Mary Douglas, 2002

Peter and Margaret O’Brien

Steinfels, 2003

Avery Dulles, S.J., 2004

David O’Brien, 2005

Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., 2006

The University of Daytonannounces the presentation of the

2008 Marianist Awardto

narrow circle that inculcates all kinds of prejudicesagainst the outside world. Ideally, the sooner we get toknow one another, the greater chance we have of gettingrid of our prejudices. Unfortunately, it doesn’t alwayswork that way. The assumption that education will free usof our prejudices is displaced, because it depends on thecontent of the education.”

“When conflicts have gone on for decades,” Deng said,“instead of questioning why we are allowing our people tosuffer and die, we should be asking what is causing this andhow can we get to the roots of the problem and find a solu-tion.” In the end, he said, it is a question of what recognitionyou give people, what equality you guarantee them alongwith basic respect and social recognition. That recognition,he added, would have to include a fairer distribution ofresources, beginning with such basics as water and grazingland. “It requires a degree of wisdom to recognize that shar-ing is in the mutual interests of everyone,” said Deng. “It’s sobasic, yet many are unwilling to think in those terms.” Butwhat is particularly needed, he reiterated, is prevention—worldwide programs to raise awareness about what causesmass conflicts and genocide and how, being detected earlyon, they can be prevented. It is also important to look formodels of successful management of diversity to be emulat-ed and models of mismanagement of diversity leading toconflict, which should be avoided.

Holocaust. By doing that, we can better deal with a Hitlerin our communities and in ourselves. What’s involved is auniversal fault.”

Universal Human DignityDeng spoke of a tendency to demonize others when we failto recognize that human dignity is universal and carrieswith it certain inalienable rights. “During my work withinternally displaced persons, I was once in an Asian countrywhere there was conflict. In a provincial town, I was joinedat my table for breakfast by a lawyer who was strongly onone side of the conflict. When he learned that I was in hiscountry looking into the human rights protection for thosedisplaced by the war, he said that those ‘were not humanbeings but animals, and therefore had no human rights.’”

Deng recalled a childhood memory as a member of theDinka tribe, the largest in southern Sudan: “We knew ofother tribes we feared were human lions. Some filed theirteeth, which confirmed for us that they were man-eaters.But once my brothers and I left home for our studies andgot to know these groups, we realized we had unfairlydemonized those groups.” Every group, he said, tends tosee itself as the ideal of what humans should be and toperceive others in negative terms. By traveling andencountering many types of human beings, said Deng,“you begin to free yourself of the constraints created by a


A

n a number of public financial scandals over the pastdecade, chief executives of such companies as Enron,Adelphia, Qwest, WorldCom and Imclone have goneto jail. Yet recent revelations concerning the subprime

loan debacle and speculation by hedge fund and privateequity firms show that ethics and social responsibility arestill missing within the business sector. Many executives ofthe firms garnering negative publicity for their actions aregraduates of our “best” graduate business programs. Havebusiness schools in the United States failed to conveyethics, social responsibility and good moral habits to theirgraduates?

Most business schools would claim that that is not theirpurpose, nor do they have the skills to imprint such habits.Increasing profits, including the short-term share price, isthe goal presented by most business programs, and especial-ly by economics and finance teachers. This narrow goal pro-motes outsourcing, layoffs,sweatshops and pollution,while neglecting research,development, the reputationof the firm and the future ofthe business and the commu-nity. Ethics and moral princi-ples might moderate thisshort-term, competitiveviewpoint, but less than one-third of U.S. business schools require students to takecourses in ethics or social responsibility, even after a cascadeof ethical disasters in the last decade.

A Catholic DifferenceWhat can we say about Catholic business schools? Are theybetter than others at communicating that the goal of busi-ness is to serve people, and that profits are merely one mea-sure of that service? In a number of ways, they are slightlybetter than their peers: nearly all Catholic business schoolsrequire a course in ethics and social responsibility; and mostof the textbooks on business ethics and the social responsi-

bility of business are written by authors who have been edu-cated at Catholic business schools or teach at them. This istrue in the United States and in much of the rest of theworld. Liberal education with a core in the humanities, phi-losophy and theology can provide a foundation from whicheducators can clarify ethical issues and provide critical prin-ciples to aid business people. Catholic schools run centersthat study and communicate business ethics to faculty, stu-dents, business people and the general community, such asthose at Santa Clara University, Boston College, theUniversity of Notre Dame and Duquesne University.

Many of the schools underscore global business respon-sibility. They highlight the work of Muhammad Yunus, theNobel Prize-winning economist who makes tiny loans topoor women in developing countries (microlending), andthe new interest in providing goods for poor people “at thebottom of the pyramid.” They examine the work of Lester

Brown, a well-knownenvironmental leader,who provides an outlineof global ecological prob-lems and solutions in hisbook Plan B 3.0: Mobiliz-ing to Save Civilization.

Many professors useother tools to stress theimportance of social jus-

tice in the world of business. These include Berlin-basedTransparency International’s annual ranking of the nationsof the world from least corrupt to most corrupt, which is anattempt to reduce bribery by embarrassing those nationsand leaders at the bottom of the list. Some use two sets ofglobal ethical codes for business: one by the Caux RoundTable of top business executives, and the other by theUnited Nations Global Compact with Business. While thefirst is more detailed, each provides a benchmark for globalbusiness responsibility.

Most Catholic business schools encourage students toengage in “service learning,” which takes them into the innercity to work with people at soup kitchens, homeless sheltersand struggling schools. This is often an eye-opening experi-ence for young professionals. It broadens horizons when anambitious young business student recognizes that “this

What’s Good for Business?The ethical legacy of Catholic business schoolsBY GERALD F. CAVANAGH

I


GERALD F. CAVANAGH, S.J., is interim dean and Charles T. FisherIII Chair of Business Ethics and Professor of Management at theUniversity of Detroit Mercy. He is author of American BusinessValues: A Global Perspective (Prentice Hall, 2006).

Social justice is best communicated

when most faculty integrate the

subject into their class discussions

in all disciplines.

nations, religions and peoples. The accumulated wisdom ofJesus, the fathers of the church and countless theologianssince provides an excellent test for assessing ourselves andour world. The dignity of every human person is the mostbasic of these principles. It is reflected in ethical principlesof justice, rights and duties and caring; these norms are usedin making decisions. The principle of the common good orsolidarity is a critical balance for our self-centered, individu-alistic selves. We see the need for appreciating the commongood when we realize how rarely—even during discussionof national policy—we hear the common good mentioned.Yet recognizing the importance of the common good isessential for any community, whether small or global, if it is

to survive. Subsidiarity, or placing respon-

sibility for actions and policy onthe people who are closest to theproblem, is another insightderived from Catholic socialthought. Subsidiarity requiresindividuals, families, neighbor-hoods and local communities totake responsibility for local issuesand urges organizations and gov-ernment hierarchies to supportsuch local control. Unfortunately,here we find a paradox, becausethe Catholic Church itself oftenviolates this principle. Twodecades ago the Catholic bishopsof the United States inspiredmore interest in social justicethan at any time before or sincewhen they wrote their two highlyregarded pastoral letters onworld peace and economic jus-tice. The bishops wrote two ini-tial drafts of each and asked forcomments from laypeople, clergyand religious before issuing a

final letter. Vatican authorities, however, told the bishopsthat they were not to write such letters again withoutVatican approval. Another apparent violation of the princi-ple of subsidiarity occurred recently when the U.S. bishopsrequested a certain English translation of the liturgicaleucharistic prayers, and the Vatican insisted on a centralizedversion.

‘Catholic’ as a BrandCatholic social teaching is a treasure, but there is an obsta-cle to naming it. The word “Catholic” does not speak well tostudents in Catholic universities, either in the United States

homeless person could have been me, if not for the goodluck of where I was born.”

Business programs were first established at Catholic uni-versities to provide the knowledge and skills that immigrantCatholics needed to succeed in their careers. Today mostCatholic business schools are located in large cities. Theyare interreligious in terms of faculty and student body,which widens their influence considerably beyond theCatholic community.

The Wealth of Church TeachingHow does the Catholic character of a school affect teachers,courses and other activities? This question was addressed inJune 2008, when 250 businessfaculty members met at a confer-ence entitled Business Educationat Catholic Universities: The Roleof Mission-Driven BusinessSchools, initiated by St. ThomasUniversity in Minnesota and heldat the University of Notre Dame.The participants came from 118universities and 24 countries onsix continents. A month later asecond conference, Business andEducation in an Era of Globali-zation, brought another 200 fac-ulty members and deans of Jesuitbusiness schools from around theworld to New York City. Formalpapers and discussions at thesetwo conferences raised such issuesas global ethics, stewardship, ser-vice learning and moral forma-tion, and how such an emphasiscan provide a competitive advan-tage to Catholic business schoolsas students choose which schoolto attend. Many of these presen-tations are on the Web site of theCatholic studies program at St. Thomas University.

Social justice is best communicated when most facultymembers integrate the subject into their class discussions inall disciplines. Not all teachers at Catholic business schools,however, support an emphasis on social justice; some thinkthat it clouds an otherwise clear result of “running the num-bers” to determine the most financially profitable option.The core of those who are less enthusiastic tend to teachfinance and economics. Even so, Catholic social thought,which takes its origin from Jesus’ teachings, provides awealth of insights for business teachers and business people.

Catholic social teaching stresses the common goals of all


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or in Europe. To many young people the word suggests“what one may not do,” especially prohibitions with regardto sex. Teenagers are naturally rebellious, so given thechurch’s overemphasis on sexual ethics and its own sexualabuse scandals, it does not help to call an emphasis on moralor ethical principles Catholic. The label can be a hindrance.For this reason, many professors explain the social princi-ples without identifying them as Catholic.They judge that communicating the con-tent of the teaching is more importantthan identifying its origins. That is unfor-tunate, because the church’s influence andthe authors of the teaching deserve to beknown. Many instructors wait until aftertheir students begin to appreciate the social principles; thenthey reveal their origins in Catholic tradition.

For similar reasons some Catholic universities do notexplicitly acknowledge their Catholic roots in their missionstatements, although they certainly do not try to keep thema secret. To many in our rationalistic, postmodern nation,the word “Catholic” does not suggest free inquiry and a will-ingness to ask tough questions, which are at the heart of anyuniversity. Pope Benedict XVI may be gradually changingthat perception. Meanwhile, most Catholic universities set-tle for simply indicating their Dominican, Mercy,

Benedictine, Jesuit or diocesan origins even as they high-light ethics and social responsibility in their curricula.Catholic universities support spirituality in business, andscholars support business firms that encourage voluntarygroups to gather to pray on company premises, but not oncompany time.

Catholic universities and business schools also supportthe development of personal character.The ethical failures by the managers ofEnron, WorldCom, Adelphia andQwest, as well as those of so many exec-utives in hedge funds, private equity andfinancial services, have made it clear thatsome business executives suffer from a

lack of character. One might loosely define a person’s char-acter as a constellation of that person’s virtues and vices.Virtues and vices are moral habits, and habits are developedby repeated actions. An atmosphere in which students dealwith peers and teachers in an honest, one-on-one way, andhave opportunities to help others, including the poor, is anenvironment that encourages the development of good actsand moral habits. Whenever our schools provide such anenvironment, they contribute to the development of ethicaland socially responsible business practices at home andaround the world.


ON THE WEBProfiles of notable

Catholic business school grads.

americamagazine.org/connects

Americacordially invites you to the

Mass of Thanksgiving and Reception Celebrating America’s Centennial Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Saint Ignatius Loyola Church 980 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y.

For more information, contact: [email protected]; (212) 515-0115.

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ne of the most persistent legends aboutAmerica has it that Robert C. Hartnett, S.J.,America’s editor in chief from 1948 to 1955,was ordered by his provincial superiors in May

1954 to stop criticizing the fiercely anti-CommunistSenator Joseph McCarthy and that, a year later, theyremoved him as editor for what he had written.

That legend of his removal is false; but the truth behindHartnett’s ongoing battle with McCarthy is that in an erawhen attacking McCarthy was professional suicide,Hartnett did so repeatedly. Many of his fellow Catholics,including many Jesuits, did not approve. Yet Hartnett’s holyboldness had another side that would prove his undoing.

The Everlasting ManRobert C. Hartnett, S.J., came to America as editor in chiefon Nov. 30, 1948, his new doctoral degree in philosophyfrom Fordham University in hand. A tall, broad-shoulderedman, Hartnett had the ability to write nuanced essays acces-sible to readers without a Ph.D. He had abundant gifts as aspeaker and an apologist, too. Indeed, he was a controver-sialist in the classic style of Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chestertonor Frank Sheed, who loved to match wits with all comers onalmost any question, but especially in defense of the church,and his wit was usually devastating. When the polemicistPaul Blanshard attacked the church in his 1949 book,American Freedom and Catholic Power, Hartnett took himon not only in America but on shared podiums and plat-forms. Time magazine described Hartnett in one such per-formance as “personable, brilliant.” He was viewed by Jesuitprovincial superiors and the America staff as “a certain kindof genius” with an “extraordinary capacity to work.”

As editor in chief, though, Hartnett was an autocrat ofShakespearean dimension. In theory he saw the other edi-tors as advisors, but in practice he had a tendency to treatthem as debate opponents, giving no quarter to their ideasand demanding that his own interpretation be applied tomost everything they wrote. Little seemed to satisfy him;according to the magazine’s board of Jesuit overseers, he

would make “tactless comments like ‘No one on the staff canwrite’” and often rewrote editors’ copy. He also sent manywritten complaints about various staff issues to John J.McMahon, S.J., the superior of the Jesuits of the New YorkProvince and a member of America’s supervisory board.These letters were usually five or six single-spaced, typedpages, with important phrases or whole passages underlinedor capitalized. Using language more appropriate for a pros-ecutor, he said employees had “given testimony” to him, andthat he was providing “evidence.” And once he focused on a“problem,” he had trouble letting it go.

The magazine’s board regularly praised Hartnett for histalent and work ethic, but showed concern over his treat-ment of the editors. In 1952 McMahon noted “the Editor’sfailure to discuss questions calmly, to listen to advice, to rec-ognize value in the ideas of others.” A year prior McMahonhad written, with no little wit, “The Editor has made it clearto the Fathers Provincial how much he esteems the menunder him; how loyally they cooperate and how indefatiga-bly they work…. Perhaps he could take occasion to say thesame thing to the men themselves.” The (irony and thepoint) were lost on Hartnett.

Up Jumped the DevilWhen Senator Joseph P. McCarthy stood up at a meeting ofthe Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, W.Va., inFebruary 1950 and claimed to have in his hand the identi-ties of 205 Communist infiltrators working in the StateDepartment, he was an unlikely candidate to become thefavorite son of American Catholics. Although McCarthywas a lifelong practicing Catholic, a veteran of World War IIand a Marquette University-educated lawyer, his career inpublic life had been grimy with mudslinging from the start.He won the Senate primary by accusing his opponent, therespected four-term Republican Senator Robert LaFollette,of draft dodging and war profiteering. McCarthy alsoclaimed that he had flown 32 missions as a soldier, when infact he had a desk job, flying only in training exercises.Halfway through his first term as a senator he was alreadyfacing accusations about his war record, tax evasion andpossible bribes from Pepsi-Cola. Critics called him “ThePepsi-Cola Kid. ”

Cold WarriorAmerica’s battle with Senator Joe McCarthyBY JAMES T. KEAN E AN D JIM MCDERMOTT

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JAMES T. KEANE, S.J., and JIM MCDERMOTT, S.J., are associate edi-tors of America. This is the fourth in a series of articles on the history ofthe magazine.

innings.” A month later, in “Is the Red Peril a Distraction?”they argued that finding fault in others was not sufficientaction for Catholics; one needed to participate in somethingpositive. Furthermore, they stated, “we ought to be verycareful…not to identify ourselves too closely with anti-Communists like Senator McCarthy, who has never identi-fied himself closely with the Catholic social movement.”

Over the next two years, the magazine published manyarticles about the domestic and international challenges ofcommunism. About McCarthy himself it remained open,attacking Time for turning a biographical piece about himinto a hatchet job, and criticizing the Democrats for down-

But in February 1950,McCarthy’s accusation tappedinto festering American anxi-ety. During the previous yearthe Soviet Union successfullytested an atomic bomb earlierthan had been thought possi-ble, and the Communist leaderMao Zedong evicted theKuomintang from mainlandChina. The year 1950 woulduncover acts of domestic espi-onage, including those of AlgerHiss, a high-level StateDepartment agent, and Juliusand Ethel Rosenberg. TheCommunists were coming;many feared they were alreadyamong us.

American Catholics had aspecial investment in this con-flict. Church encyclicals hadlong condemned specificpropositions of Communism;even so, the political status ofAmerican Catholics remainedin some quarters an open ques-tion. Blanshard’s screed againstAmerican Catholicism was abestseller in 1949 and 1950, aswell as a Book of the MonthClub selection. When the YaleLaw School sponsored a publicdebate between Blanshard andHartnett in early 1950, thequestion posed was: “Is theCatholic Church fundamental-ly hostile to American democ-racy?” For a group still beingasked to prove its trustworthi-ness, anti-Communism was a means of signaling loyalty. Formany Catholics, McCarthy’s relentless pursuit of traitorsover the next four years expressed the passion of their com-mitment to the United States.

Unstoppable Force, Immovable ObjectAt the inception of McCarthy’s hunt for Communist sub-versives, America was open to both sides of the question.“The Senator from Wisconsin has tried to prove too much,”the editors wrote on April 22, 1950. “But if he can producewell-informed witnesses to prove something, we contend,against much of the public press, that he should have his


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Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, duringthe Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954

torial by Hartnett argued that anyone who asserts that hisor her approach is the only approach regardingCommunism has lost perspective—dangerously so.

It took the letter columns of two successive issues to pre-sent the responses to these editorials. Reactions rangedwidely from “I am proud of America” to “It is my convictionthat your charge to the effect that Sen. McCarthy is splittingthe Republican party, etc., is a lot of first-rate potash.”Hartnett himself proved unable to hold back from the fray,attacking critics for considering theirs the only orthodox

point of view. “The McCarthy issue is one ofconflicting opinions,” he admonished.

A month later Hartnett returned to theissue again. In substance his editorialreworked old material, suggesting that theMcCarthy hearings challenged the balanceof powers. But he took the further step ofsuggesting that McCarthy’s actions amount-ed to a “peaceful overthrow” of the presiden-

cy. Hartnett published this editorial without showing it toany other editor.

The piece was political dynamite. The Associated Pressimmediately picked up the story. America’s phone lineswere flooded with calls, and letters poured in, many of themwritten on the back of America subscription cards:“Remember McCarthy in your prayers, not scandalize himin your weekly.” “Wake up. You are not helping the faith.”“No irony when I say that I would not have your paper as agift.” “I WANT NO MORE AMERICAS.”

Even among Jesuits there was backlash. The BrooklynTablet and other publications were host to numerous,strong criticisms of America by Jesuits who wanted it madeclear that the magazine did not speak for the Society ofJesus. In some Jesuit communities in New York City thedivisions were so strong that the topic of the McCarthy edi-torials simply could not be broached.

InterventionOn May 29, 1954, McMahon informed Hartnett thatAmerica was not to write about McCarthy for two months:“America has stated clearly its position. We think it is bestfor America to let the matter rest there, at least for the pre-sent.” He also reassured Hartnett of the board’s backing.“We do not wish you to interpret this Directive as a vote ofno confidence. It is not that. You are not asked to retract orchange your position. You still have our support.”McMahon even left open the possibility of America writingabout McCarthy in the future, subject to the board’sapproval.

Still, Hartnett pushed back strongly: fellow editors felt “asudden silence would be equivalent to a public announcement”that they had been ordered to stop writing about McCarthy,

playing the very sort of serious breach in security from theState Department that concerned McCarthy. It also notedwith concern “hatemongers in the guise of anti-Communists” and criticized McCarthy for his “boorishmanners.”

Then, in late 1952, McCarthy publicly referred to AdlaiStevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate, as “Alger,I mean, Adlai, Stevenson,” and said that the CommunistDaily Worker had just endorsed Stevenson’s candidacy.Hartnett espoused many of the ideals of the DemocraticParty; in fact, some critics had accused himof being in President Harry S. Truman’spocket. Hartnett found that The Workerhad made no such endorsement. So he tookMcCarthy on, calling the insinuation a“cheap stunt” that exemplified “what areeuphemistically called McCarthy’s ‘methods’.”

This was a bold move; in 1952 one riskedmuch, even one’s career and livelihood, inattacking McCarthy. He responded in kind, callingHartnett’s criticism “completely and viciously false” and con-demning the magazine for having failed in its “heavy duty tothe vast number of good Catholic people who assume thatat least in a Jesuit-operated magazine they can read thetruth.” In private he also put pressure on McMahon, theprovincial, to rein Hartnett in. McMahon offered only apolite reply, saying he had read McCarthy’s letter “withinterest.” Hartnett, however, published McCarthy’s letter inAmerica and wrote a detailed response to his every criti-cism. McCarthy’s address, he said, was a “tissue of innuen-does.”

Boom Goes the DynamiteThe magazine then returned to its prior equilibrium, dis-cussing McCarthy along with a range of other issues, andfrequently calling on anti-Communists to be concernednot simply with the domestic scene but internationalissues as well. In a piece on April 18, 1953, about academ-ic freedom, Hartnett condemned academia for the “inex-cusable mistake” of “rallying to the defense of ‘persecuted’professors, including (so it turns out) the pinks and eventhe Reds.”

Then, in October 1953, McCarthy began an investiga-tion into possible Communist infiltration of the Army,including the secretary of the Army. This new move pro-voked consternation even within his own party; to take onthe secretary was implicitly to attack fellow-RepublicanPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The next spring Hartnett wrote an editorial opining thatMcCarthy’s actions encroached upon the jurisdiction of theexecutive branch, and calling on President Eisenhower toprotect the balance of powers. Two weeks later a second edi-


A Ghost ForlornMcCarthy’s world was in disarray by late 1954. Televisedhearings over whether McCarthy had interfered with theoperations of the Army had destroyed his credibility. “JoeMust Go” became the new slogan; and in December, theSenate officially condemned his actions. He remained in theSenate a broken man until his death in 1957 from alcoholism.

In the summer and fall of 1954, America followed issuesthat had arisen from the controversy, particularly the impor-tance of freedom of opinion, but Hartnett was publiclysilent about McCarthy. A year later he announced his retire-ment. His explanation: exhaustion. “The fact of the matteris that I really have not had the stamina you showed and ranout of gas about a year ago,” he wrote to former editor inchief Wilfrid Parsons, S.J.

Despite stories to the contrary, Hartnett’s account isaccurate, if slightly opaque. When the America board madeits annual visitation to the magazine in February 1955, theyfound things had changed very much for the better.Hartnett “has meticulously avoided anything that mightinvolve America in a useless or harmful controversy,”Thomas C. Henneberry, S.J., the new superior of the NewYork Province, reported to the Jesuit superior general. Andthough Hartnett still had a tendency to debate everything,he also demonstrated a remarkable new respect for the workof his staff. Whereas at their 1954 meeting some of theprovincials had suggested replacing Hartnett, Henneberryreported, “There is no present need of making a change.”

But Hartnett suddenly and inexplicably returned to his oldways, “rewriting all that they submit; asserting that only Fr.

Masse and himself can write, discussingwith individuals the shortcomings of othermembers of the Staff,” being inaccessibleand so on, according to a later memo fromHenneberry to Janssens. Three of the edi-tors wrote letters of complaint; so didHartnett, who said, in Henneberry’s

words, “the Staff that in February was very good now cannotwrite.” Frustrated with what he perceived to be a dispropor-tionate burden being placed on him, and fearing total collapse,Hartnett soon asked to step down. He would go on to be deanof arts and sciences at Loyola University Chicago and later aprofessor of political science there.

In his February letter, Henneberry noted that whileHartnett steered the magazine clear of further controversypost-McCarthy, “he lives in an atmosphere of puzzlement.”The issues surrounding what had happened haunted him,and he still talked about them privately. His dogged unwill-ingness to compromise or be satisfied had given Hartnettthe courage to take a bold stand against McCarthy; but ithad also kept him from trusting his peers. He left Americadazed and exhausted, admired but in many ways alone.

he said; furthermore, no matter the written indication ofsupport, the silencing of an editor constituted “about thestrongest possible disciplinary action against him” short ofordering him to retract. Hartnett suggested the staff beallowed to censor itself: “We ourselves regarded our May 22editorial as, so to speak, the climax of our criticism ofSenator McCarthy…. We took our stand and are gratefulthat the Provincials support it. They need not fear that wewant to become a ding-dong anti-McCarthy sheet.”

The provincials immediately modified their stance. Solong as two other members of the staff had seen andapproved anything considered, further publication aboutMcCarthy would be allowed. Still, they reminded the staffthat “they should not treat of this subject at all unless theyseriously judge that the good of the Church and clarificationof Catholic principles require it.” Their concern was the dis-cord growing within the church: “The McCarthy-Armycontroversy has become a matter of dispute even amongCatholics, in which bitter recriminations have not failed toinjure charity.”

Letters From RomeJohn Baptist Janssens, S.J., the superior general of theJesuits, however, was also troubled, particularly over thepublic dissension among Jesuits. In a series of letters to theprovincials he noted that the magazine’s founding documentdirected editors to avoid questions of dispute amongCatholics, “provided there is no question of danger to theintegrity of the faith,” and spoke with concern about thespirit behind some of Hartnett’s work.

It was not the first time the general hadbroached such concerns with the maga-zine. In August 1951 he had written toHartnett directly, after the magazine hadpublished the results of a survey about theopinions of Catholic teachers in Chicagotoward African-Americans. The articlerevealed deep prejudices, but also stirred no little resent-ment.

After hearing from Janssens, the provincials wroteHartnett again. They noted a “personal animus that hasbeen allowed to express itself in certain editorials” and alsoin Hartnett’s initial appeal, which had included the com-ment “to give the Senator this victory rather hurts.” Theirresponse was direct: “The only thing America should beinterested in is that the truth may appear, not in triumphingover a Senator or anyone else.”

While their letter did not rescind their prior cautiouspermission, the message was clear. On the 27th of JuneHartnett wrote to concede that the magazine would nolonger speak directly on the issue of McCarthy. It had been“the most trying of my six years as Editor.”


ON THE WEBFrom the archives, letters on

America’s coverage of Joe McCarthy.

americamagazine.org/pages

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am in my 81st year of life, my 63rd“in religion.” And like many ofyou, my readers, I have had long,

dry experiences of the God Who IsSilent—all those meditations when Ikept looking at the clock: Will thishour never be over? What is it youwant of me, God? Speak to me. Giveme five minutes of consolation.

Well, no more. This year I haveseen the light. Better still, I have heardthe voice, God’s voice, and my medita-tions are completely different. I stilllook at the clock; that has notchanged. But now the questions are:What more do you have to say to me,God? Will you not let up for a minute?Will you give me no rest? Why did youhold up this grace for so long? Is itbecause I could not have handled itwell before now?

It seems that retirement has givenme the leisure finally to understandthat God never stops speaking to me.Perhaps I could not have borne itwhile I was in an active ministry. Orperhaps I let what I thought was God’swill for me deafen me to the God whowas constantly talking to me. Now thelight has dawned and the voice is loudand clear. God speaks to me everymoment in multiple ways on everysubject under the sun. I no longer needto go aside and rest awhile to hearGod’s voice. It is there constantly, bid-ing me to respond.

As a consequence I have never beenmore fully alive, when one would think

down into hell, they determined intheir eternity, that the second Personshould become Man to save thehuman race; and thus, when the full-ness of time had come, they sent theangel Gabriel to our Lady.”

How sterile those words now seemas I type them! They hardly convey tome what the impact of those words hascome to mean to me after 63 years ofreligious life. Yet it is so simple: God isinvolved in this world. God the tran-scendent, the immanent, God the per-son, God the other, beyond my or any-one’s comprehension, is dealing withme, is talking to me, is leading methrough this created, fallible, finite (orinfinite?) world in which I live andmove and have my being.

That is why something I heardmany years ago is now so clear: “ReadScripture as if it were the daily news-paper, and read the daily newspaper asif it were Scripture.” What I ingestfrom the media is God’s holy word tome. Everything speaks to me of howGod works in this world for my con-tinual salvation and eventual new cre-ation.

To what can I ascribe this lightthat struck me? To grace, of course.At some point all those prayers Iuttered over the years to the HolySpirit to teach me how to pray wereanswered.

Grace Working on Nature

Grace works on nature. I should notforget that. Some physical and psycho-logical adjustments helped to make adifference. In my youth, in my middleage, in all those times when I was

FAITH IN FOCUS

Finally, God’s Voice

IBY FRAN K MOAN

FRANK MOAN, S.J., resides at the St. ClaudeLa Colombi re Jesuit Community in Baltimore,Md. A

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I should be counting my last hours.Only a few physical infirmities preventme from engaging in what youngerpeople would call “a more active life.”

A Breakthrough

My breakthrough is the result of real-izing what St. Ignatius Loyola, a mas-ter of the spiritual life, meant when hewrote in the first prelude of the con-templation on the Incarnation in hisSpiritual Exercises: “to call to mind thehistory of the matter which I have tocontemplate: how the three divine per-sons were regarding all the surface orcircuit of the whole world, full of men;and how, seeing that all were going

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engaged in active ministry, I used to do my “mental” prayer the first thing inthe morning. I was taught to get it outof the way or other things would inter-fere.

In retirement, however, I canadjust my prayer life as I wish. Andwhat I wish to do is to become fullyalive and responsive before I began topray. So I put off reading the DivineOffice and spending time in prayeruntil 10 or 11 a.m., sometimes until 4p.m. Maybe you cannot do that. But Ifound that particular change greatlyimproved my prayer. I still look at theclock, and the meditation still dragsat times. But at other times duringprayer I have to say, “Hold off, God, Icannot absorb all your messages rightnow. Give me a break.”

Of course, I have as background allthose years of prayer, of spiritual read-ing, of liturgical celebrations, of inter-action with friends who opened up forme vistas of prayer. These vistas are allstill with me, a cushion to my prayer.The brunt of my daily meditations,however, comes from the world inwhich I live each day—from themedia, from social interaction, fromcommitment to a way of life and a par-ticular form of spirituality, theIgnatian way. An annual eight-dayretreat is balanced by the daily news-papers. I might even be accused ofmaking the daily New York Times orCNN a fifth Gospel.

For whom am I writing this? Formyself, as a way of saying to God:“Thank you” for this belated grace,and for my peers who may want tostop and thank God for similar graces.I would hope these words might alsogive an impetus to the young, whocould learn from my mistakes andmove beyond my stumblings.

Whatever your age, may you learnthe richness to be found in prayer—aprayer life that will make you cre-ators of a new world and that willreflect the “God who speaks throughcreation.” A

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to the island, he boards many transpa-cific flights in the hope of crashingagain (one of the island’s puzzlingcharacteristics is that it is nearlyimpossible to locate). But Jack’s thirstfor redemption predates his tenure onthe island. Prior to the plane crash, hehad been coping with the recent deathof his father, with whom he had astrained relationship, and a failed mar-riage. He is, as another characterdescribes him, “a man of science” and abrilliant “fixer,” which has served himwell as a spinal surgeon. But Jack hasnot been able to fix his profound psy-chological wounds and shattered emo-tional bonds. He could do nothing forthe alcohol problem that plagued hisfather (and that ultimately led to theschism between them), nor could hesave his marriage to a former patient, awoman who would have remainedparalyzed if not for Jack’s surgical skill.“You will always need something to

veryone we left behind...theydie, too, if I don’t come back,”says the lead character, Jack

Shephard, in the teaser for the fifthseason premiere of the ABC televisiondrama “Lost.” Another characterreplies simply, “Well, thank God forsecond chances.” Driven by themescharged with existential significanceand peopled by broken, downtroddencharacters, “Lost” has consistentlyoffered its viewers more than just pop-ular entertainment.

Enlisted in a spiritual odyssey,viewers have followed the narrative ofJack (Matthew Fox), a hero-everymanand one of the 42 survivors of OceanicFlight 815, a plane that crashed in the

South Pacific in 2004. After fourmonths stranded on a mysteriousisland (shown over four television sea-sons), salvation arrived in the form of afreighter sent by a wealthy business-man interested in harnessing theisland’s unusual powers. When Jackand some of the “Losties” force theirway onto the freighter, Jack demandsthat all the survivors be removed fromthe island. But given the vagaries ofchance, only six of the survivors,including Jack, are able to leave.

Once off the island, Jack’s mentalstate begins to deteriorate; wrackedwith guilt over those he left behind, hebecomes addicted to alcohol andpainkillers. Obsessed with returning


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fix,” she says, as she leaves their home.Since he has already fixed her, Jack hasmentally “checked out” of their mar-riage; he is more interested in the med-ical challenges presented by his workthan in the deeper challenge of main-taining their relationship.

In the aftermath of these losses,Jack seemed headed down a solitarypath. Instead, the catastrophic crashthrust him into a ragtag community inneed of his leadership. In an earlyepisode Jack tells his fellow survivors:“We can’t do this. ‘Every man for him-self ’ is not going towork...we’re all herenow. And Godknows how longwe’re going to behere. But if we can’tlive together, we’re going to die alone.”

The “live together or die alone”credo has been a steady refrainthroughout the show’s run, under-scoring what has become a centraltheme: the value of living in commu-nity. So when Jack boards a helicopteron his way to safety while 40 othersurvivors remain stranded, he cannotescape the feeling that he has failed.Jack condemns himself to exile, anes-thetizing his psychological pain andgradually coming to the realizationthat what he needs is a chance to setthings right.

Redemption, like the need to “livetogether,” has long been a part of thishit show. In fact, the island has givennearly all of the survivors a secondchance. Jin and Sun Kwon (DanielDae Kim and Yunjin Kim), freed fromthe constant threat of Sun’s crime-bossfather, rebuild their marriage and com-mitment to each other; James“Sawyer” Ford ( Josh Holloway), anexpert con man, discovers the value ofself-sacrifice; Kate Austen (EvangelineLilly), a former fugitive, runs headlonginto danger to save her friends; SayidJarrah (Naveen Andrews), an ex-inter-rogator/torturer for the IraqiRepublican Guard, confronts the

specter of his past wrongs. Perhaps the greatest and most pow-

erful example of redemption at thispoint in the series, however, is MichaelDawson (Harold Perrineau).Desperate to recover his son, Walt,who was kidnapped by a rogue band of“Others,” who have lived on the islandfor many years, Michael accedes totheir demands to kill two of his fellowcrash survivors and lead four othersinto enemy territory. He is rewardedfor his treachery when the Othersspirit him and his son from the island.

But back home inNew York, Michaelis haunted by thememory of hisbetrayal and triesseveral times,

unsuccessfully, to commit suicide.Unable to live or die, he is given achance to return to the island, wherehe ultimately sacrifices his life disarm-ing a bomb, saving the lives of the samepeople he once endangered.

The significance of individualchoice extends even to the show’s nar-rative style. “Lost” employs parallelstorytelling ( juxtaposing a character’spre-crash flashback with a currentisland crisis), providing several pointsfor meditation on the nature of goodand evil, people’s obligations to oneanother, the power of love and theendless struggle between faith anddoubt. Placing moral crises in the con-text of a struggle for survival lends asense of urgency to the choices made.When characters stumble—in oneinstance, Sayid uses the interrogationtactics he had renounced to tortureSawyer, who he believes is hoardinglife-saving medical supplies—theythreaten not only their own interper-sonal relationships but the strength ofthe only civilization they have. In a sin-ister world where all the charactershave is one another, their decisionsbecome much more important.

While “Lost” is too nuanced forsimple allegorical mapping, the island

The Master of Divinity (MDiv) is the classic ministerial degree for leadership positions in

the church. It develops the pastoral

minister’s capacity for theological reflection.

(206) 296-5330(800) [email protected] euwww.seattleu.edu/stm

The School of Theology and Ministry

Christian Leadership in a

Secular World

The Master of Divinity Degree

ON THE WEBRegina Nigro dicusses “Lost”

with Jim McDermott, S.J.

americamagazine.org/podcast


B O O K S | WILL IAM C . MILLS

EVERYDAY SACRED

is essentially our world writ large.While we are not plagued daily bymurderous polar bears, an ominous“smoke monster” or creepy forestwhispers, the island setting merelymakes the challenge of living in com-munity more apparent. The consistentmessage is that treating each otherwith dignity, respect and love isparamount; and it is no coincidencethat every second chance awarded isoriented toward living together, notdying alone.

Fittingly, in the fifth season, wherethe main focus is the rescue of the sur-vivors who were left behind, all ofthose who returned home mustreunite and go back together (the

island seems to have some very specif-ic dictates about who can come andgo). Jack, the initiator of this quest,seems destined for leadership. Hisfather, the portentously namedChristian Shephard, is a recurringpresence in several characters’ flash-backs, which serve as an interconnect-ing thread between people who areotherwise strangers. Jack is using hissecond chance to fulfill a greater lega-cy, steering his friends toward deepercommitment to and love of one anoth-er, a value that is as critical for them—and us—as survival itself.

REGINA NIGRO is literary assistant atAmerica.

AN ALTAR IN THE WORLD

A Geography of Faith

By Barbara Brown Taylor HarperOne. 240p $24.99

ISBN 9780061370465

First, an acknowledgment: I am notnew to the work of Barbara BrownTaylor. Years ago when I was in semi-nary, a friend of mine recommendedher collection of sermons, Home ByAnother Way, as well as her thoughtson preaching called The Preaching Life,both of which I quickly devoured. Hersermons captivated my attentionbecause she managed to take the Bibleand bring it to life, drawing from herpersonal experiences or through every-day metaphors and images. Brown’searlier writings are primarily collec-tions of sermons, but more recentlyshe has published a memoir entitledLeaving Church, a story of her long-time struggle leaving full-time parishministry, as well as short essays forThe Christian Century.

Though I have never had the

opportunity to hear Brown preach, Ican only imagine that her proclama-tion is as captivating as her writing.Her conversational writing styleevokes that of Frederick Buechner,Nora Gallagher, Patricia Hampl andKathleen Norris, wholikewise write aboutholy and divine thingsin a nontechnical man-ner. Writers serve asprophets and transla-tors, pointing out God’swork in the world to therest of humanity, bear-ing witness to the Wordthrough their writtennarratives. Both pro-phecy and writing arehard work, even painfulat times, and Brown hasearned her reputationby the sheer volume ofpublications, including her newestwork, An Altar in the World.

With An Altar in the World, Brownleaves the confines of strictly “ecclesial

or Church life” and leads her reader onan expedition of spirituality in a newand fresh way, one that is open to theworld around us, free from the oftencited rites, rubrics and rules of theChristian tradition: candles, hymns,prayers, prostrations, rosaries, holywater and saints. Rather, she takes upwhat Kathleen Norris has identified asthe quotidian mysteries, or put inanother way, spirituality or holiness ofthe everyday. Brown reminds us thateven cleaning toilets can be a spiritualendeavor if done with the right atti-tude of grace, love and devotion for aclean house!

The main theme throughout these12 chapters is that spirituality is notmeant only for Sunday, but is foreveryday living. One cannot confineGod to the four walls of a churchbuilding. The prophet Ezekiel tells usas much, when God’s shekinah, hisglory, left the Jerusalem Temple todwell with his people in Babylon.Spirituality is meant to be lived,explored and incarnated in everydayliving, whether at home with family, atwork with colleagues or with one’snext door neighbor. Furthermore,what we may consider routine every-

day chores can beseen as pathways tothe divine. Browndraws from her vastexperience in parishministry as well asher recent teachingat PiedmontCollege to bringhome her point,sharing storiesabout her class tripsto various houses ofworship in nearbyAtlanta as well asher own life experi-ence living in rural

Habersham County, Ga.—throughfarming, raising chickens and sucheveryday tasks as hanging clothes onthe clothesline.


The book’s title also reinforces hermain theme, since Brown finds thatGod’s altar is not found just in thechurch sanctuary, near the pulpit andadjacent to the choir and organ, but inthe middle of the created order—among the trees, rivers, streams andhills, as echoed throughout theHebrew Bible (“Bless the Lord,streams and rivers….”). Enjoying thecreation around us, even performingroutine chores of everyday life can besacramental. Reading Brown’s narra-tive reminded me of an essay thatappeared a few years ago in The NewYork Times travel section, describing arural village in Italy where every yearin the summertime villagers closed offthe streets to traffic in order to set outlong tables in the streets. For severaldays the villagers, numbering a fewhundred, ate dinner al fresco, underthe Tuscan moonlight, with crustybread, jugs of Chianti and of courseplenty of pasta. This is as sacramental

as it can get, people gathering togetherand sharing their joys, pains, hurts andstruggles with one another while con-suming a good meal, providing careand comfort; here echoes of theEucharist abound.

We are still tempted, however, tokeep God in a box, which we callchurch, opening it for a few minuteson occasion only to return it back tothe shelf. Yet Brown rightly reminds usthat this version of God might be toosmall; and I agree. An Altar in theWorld is a delight to the eyes, mindand heart, a book I will certainlyreturn to again at a later time, if only toremind myself of the spirituality ofeveryday living.

THE REV. WILLIAM C. MILLS is the rector ofthe Nativity of the Holy Virgin OrthodoxChurch in Charlotte, N.C., and an adjunctprofessor in the department of philosophy andreligion at Queens University. His bookWalking With God: 30 Days TowardsSpiritual Renewal will be published byPaulist Press later this year.

CLOSING THE

INNOVATION GAP

Reigniting the Spark of Creativity

in a Global Economy

By Judy Estrin McGraw Hill. 272p $27.95ISBN 9780071499873

Judy Estrin is clearly a brilliant andaccomplished woman. She is a serioustechnologist who has co-foundedseven tech companies, one of whichwas purchased by Cisco Systems, theleading provider of Internet infrastruc-ture hardware. She then rose tobecome chief technology officer ofCisco, one of the half dozen mostimportant technology jobs in theworld.

She has also written an utterly vac-

uous book on the “innovation gap.”But that says more about the inanity ofmost business book publishing thanabout Estrin, for it is fairly typical ofthe pap that clogs the busi-ness book shelves.

What is the “innovationgap”? Estrin never says.Other than assuming it inher title, she provides not ashred of evidence that itexists.

In fact, it is an interestingand difficult question.Study groups often proposeproxy measures, like num-ber of patents issued, butthey are notoriously unreliable. Therewere alarms over a “patent gap” withJapan in the 1980s, for instance, but it

CHARLES R . MORRIS

AHEAD, OR KEEPING PACE?

was an illusion—Japanese companiestend to file a multiplicity of patents onthe same technology.

The hysteria over the Japanesetechnology threat peaked precisely atthe time that Americans were racingahead of the rest of the world in thetechnologies that were at the root ofthe computer and communicationsrevolution of the 1990s, especiallymicroprocessor-based computing andthe Internet. A similar scare, absentany confirming data, has arisen aboutan alleged innovation threat fromChina and India.

The history of technological inno-vation suggests that it proceeds in fitsand starts, rather than in a smoothglide. Innovative bursts build on spe-cific enabling technologies, like therailroads and telegraph. (They weresymbiotic technologies. Railroads pro-vided the rights of way for telegraphlines, and their station masters werethe operators, while the telegraphallowed railroads to track their far-flung rolling stock.) Other enablingtechnologies, mostly pioneered in theUnited States, include the machiningof standardized parts, a preconditionof mass consumer production; elec-tricity, which allowed the decentraliza-tion of industry; digital processing;and most recently the Web and theInternet.

There is no consistent pattern ofgovernment versus pri-vate sector initiative inthose examples. Mostcountries recognized theopportunities in railroadsand the telegraph earlyon, and both were heavilysubsidized everywhere.The government was alsoheavily involved in theadvance of 19th-centurymachining technologythrough arms procure-

ment, but its spread into the privatesector was a long, gradual process.Electricity was powerfully advanced by


WILL IAM A . BARRY

CONFOUNDING THE STRONG

MOTHER TERESA’S

SECRET FIRE

The Encounter That Changed Her

Life and How It Can Transform

Your Own

By Joseph LangfordOur Sunday Visitor. 320p $19.95

ISBN 9781592763092

Father Joseph Langford,co-founder with MotherTeresa of the Missionariesof Charity Fathers in1983, believes that herspirituality is a gift for allpeople of our time; hencehe has undertaken thislabor of love to make herspirituality more accessi-ble. By and large he suc-ceeds, although there areflaws in the book, both in its structureand in its style. But let’s first note thesuccesses, which are considerable.

Langford begins with the simplefact, underlined by St. Paul, that Goduses the weak things of this world toconfound the strong. Mother Teresa

private-sector companies like Edison’sand Westinghouse’s, while the Internetand its core supporting technologieswere developed almost solely on thegovernment’s dime. Private companieslike I.B.M. and Microsoft resistedadoption of the Internet until theywere shouted into submission by thegeek community.

There are clear stages in all thoseexamples: an extended and relativelyinvisible development of a core tech-nology, followed by a burst of head-line-grabbing innovation as it achievescritical mass and, finally, a period ofconsolidation and standardization.Plausibly, perceptions of an “innova-tion gap” will differ dramaticallydepending on what stage of a cycle weare in.

Estrin, however, has nothing to sayabout such things. Instead, in the styleof most business books, she starts witha set of mantras for a culture of inno-vation: “questioning, risk-taking,openness, patience, and trust.” (Thesame mantras might work for a bookon marriage counseling.) She thenproceeds to cite a grab-bag of success-ful innovations that arguably demon-strate one or the other mantra. Shewould like to see more “superb teach-ers to inspire and inform the next gen-eration”; she likes charter schools,wants more government spending onresearch (the United States spends farmore than any other nation); thinkswe should reduce regulation of indus-try; and, quite correctly, argues that itis dumb to restrict visas and work per-mits for talented scientists, as oursecurity apparatus is currently doing.One is amazed that 200 pages andmore could be occupied by such ano-dynes.

Estrin does stress the importanceof stocking industry and governmentwith well-qualified scientists. That isclearly an issue of national impor-tance, but she has no numbers tobound the extent of the problem. Ittook me only a half hour or so to

track them down, and I found themsurprising. According to the NationalScience Foundation, between 1993and 2003, the year of the most recentcensus, the number of Ph.D. scien-tists employed in the fields of theirspecialization grew by 172,000, or byabout a third.

There has also been a pronouncedshift toward the harder sciences.Ph.D.’s employed in “soft,” or possiblyersatz, sciences like economics andsociology, dropped fairly sharply.Mathematicians and statisticians,however, are up by 37 percent; com-puter and information scientists havemore than doubled; physicists and

astronomers have increased by 20 per-cent and Ph.D. engineers by 44 per-cent.

In today’s world, maintaining com-petitiveness in core sciences is of cru-cial importance. Do we have an inno-vation gap? Are we falling behind orkeeping pace? The N.S.F. numberslook rather positive, but what shouldwe be comparing them against? Theseare important and difficult questions,but Estrin’s book sheds no light on thesubject one way or the other.

CHARLES R. MORRIS is the author of TheTrillion Dollar Meltdown (2008); TheSurgeons (2007); and The Tycoons(2005).

herself could hardly believe that shewould be the one singled out for a spe-cial mission to the poor of Calcutta.But she was. And if she had notaccepted the mission, think of whatthe world would have missed. FatherLangford over and over makes thepoint that each one of us can make a

difference in our worldbecause each one of us isthe object of God’s love. Allwe have to do is whatMother Teresa did: openourselves to God’s love andthirst for us. God wants aworld where all know of thedivine love and thirst, andlive in it and from it. ButGod’s desire for such aworld cannot be realizedwithout our cooperation.

Why Calcutta for Mother Teresa?That is where millions of desperatelypoor people lived and died withouthope and without any sign of God’slove. God, it seems, was so pained bythe plight of these millions that heasked this diminutive Sister of Loreto


to do the impossible, to bring his lightand love into their lives without any-thing but herself and her faith in God.As I read this book I caught a glimpseinto the sorrow of God at the horrorsso many people suffer in this world hecreates and sustains. In this sorrowMother Teresa was asked to share, andher acceptance of God’s request mayexplain her nearly 50 years of darknessin prayer, a darkness she lived out ingreat faith and love for God and forGod’s people. Langford writes,“Mother Teresa’s whole desire was tobring the poor, forgotten by society,and seemingly forgotten by God, tosee themselves as God sees them—asbeloved.” To those who would say thatonly the beautiful are loveable, shewould say—and spend her life demon-strating—“that God’s love bestowsbeauty on all things.”

In Chapters 8 and 9 Langforddetails the “legacy of light” left byMother Teresa’s spirituality. Whatcomes across is the loveliness of Godand God’s infinite desire for ourfriendship. God will stop at nothing toconvince us of divine love and to winour love. The centerpiece of MotherTeresa’s spirituality comes from Jesus’words on the cross, “I thirst.” Thesewords speak of God’s thirst for us, forour good, for our companionship.Langford shows how this spiritualityof God’s thirst suffused MotherTeresa’s actions and words. Whenpeople met her, they were trans-formed, because they met the Godwhom she allowed to suffuse her heart,mind and soul. And the God they metin her was warm, smiling, tender, car-ing and all-inclusive.

This is not a book for dilettantes ofthe spiritual life. The author wantsreaders to let God touch them the wayMother Teresa allowed God to touchher. Each of us is the “apple of God’seye” and an image of God created toshare in God’s dream for our world.Her secret, she said, “is simple…Ipray.” That’s not much to ask.

Moreover, as Langford notes morethan once, no one but I can satisfyGod’s longing for me. He also writes:“Years later she reflected that had shenot picked up that first person dying onthe street, had she not risked beginningsomething entirely new in mid-life,she would not have picked up the thou-sands later on.” Each one of us cansurely say something similar. Takingthe first step toward another, prompt-ed by love or compassion, changes ourlives and those around us.

Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire deservesto be read by many, for, as the authornotes hopefully, it will change readers’

lives. I wish, though, that the structurehad been clearer; it is difficult to figureout why one chapter follows another attimes. And a care for more inclusivelanguage would have made the bookmore accessible to women, who findreferences to human beings always inthe masculine disconcerting, if notaggravating. These quibbles aside,Langford’s book is a reliable guide to aspirituality God has given for our time.

WILLIAM A. BARRY, S.J., is co-director of thetertianship program for the New EnglandProvince of the Society of Jesus, a retreat direc-tor and editor of the periodical HumanDevelopment.

St. Martha

“She had a sister called Mary,

who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word.”

—Lk 10:37

A silly child she ever always was—

our mother said so a thousand times—

her quick eye caught by the flight or buzz

of some pretty creature’s mastering wings.

Lazarus tried to keep her out of sight,

to spare his clever sister women’s tasks.

I hauled the water, rose before first light,

set bread upon the board before they asked.

The day You came to us our prayers were granted.

My hands obeyed the rhythms of my labor

while Mary sat beside You like a man,

embraced within the circle of Your favor.

I stood apart, Your beauty kept from me,

and only when You left us did I see.

A N G E L A O ’ D O N N E L L

ANGELA O’DONNELL teaches English and American literature andAmerican Catholic studies at Fordham University and is associate director ofthe Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.

PART-TIME DIRECTOR OF MUSIC. Sacred

Heart of Jesus Parish in Milford, Mass., is seeking

a part-time Director of Music to coordinate and

expand the quality of liturgical life for its faith fam-

ily. The candidate is required to have a B.A. in

music, with experience in directing music in vari-

ous parish situations. Continuing professional

development will be encouraged and supported.

Organ and keyboard skills are necessary. The

selected candidate must be a creative self-starter,

able to work collaboratively with entire parish staff

and eager to develop new initiatives. Duties will

include direction of parish and youth choirs, cantor

preparation, weekend Masses and holy days, funer-

als and weddings. Compensation (including bene-

fits) will be competitive. Please send cover letter,

résumé and three references, no e-mails please, by

March 31, 2009 to: Rev. Richard A. Scioli, C.S.S.,

Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, 5 East Main Street,

Milford, MA 01757.

PRESIDENT, ST. XAVIER HIGH SCHOOL,

CINCINNATI. St. Xavier High School is seeking

candidates for the position of President. For infor-

mation about the school, its Jesuit Catholic mis-

sion, students, alumni, etc., and the position itself,

visit www.stxavier.org. St. Xavier High School is

well committed to its Jesuit identity and mission.

The Board of Trustees, in selecting a President,

intends vigorously to continue this commitment.

The Board recognizes the unique qualities that are

inherent with a Jesuit as spiritual and administra-

tive leader of the school. However, the Succession

EducationOBLATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY offers an M.A.

degree in spirituality. Regular semester and intersession

courses. Visit www.ost.edu.

Parish MissionsINSPIRING, DYNAMIC PREACHING: parish mis-

sions, retreats, days of recollection. www.sabbathre-

treats.org.

PositionsMANAGER OF RECRUITMENT, PROMOTION

AND L.P.L.C. Loyola Institute for Ministry,

Loyola University New Orleans, invites applica-

tions for this full-time position responsible for the

development and coordination of the Institute’s

recruitment and promotion efforts for both gradu-

ate and certificate programs. Master of pastoral

studies, religious education or related degree or

extensive experience in ministry field required.

Also important are: ability to handle multiple

tasks, excellent communication and computer

skills, administrative experience, marketing experi-

ence, knowledge of contemporary Roman

Catholicism and ability to travel. For more infor-

mation about the Institute, visit

www.lim.loyno.edu. Interested candidates may

apply by forwarding a résumé and cover letter to:

[email protected]. Loyola University New

Orleans is an Affirmative Action/Equal

Opportunity Employer.


CL ASS IF IED

JUNE 22 - JULY 1, 2009SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY ��SANTA CLARA, CA

An intensive summer institute on interreligious dialogue andmission, tailored for Jesuits and women and men in Jesuit ministries,providing an introduction to Catholic teaching and the Jesuitheritage for interreligious dialogue and relations, and includingintrodutions to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Native Americantraditions and relations, and an update on Jewish relations.

John Borell i (Georgetown) John Borell i (Georgetown) John Borell i (Georgetown) John Borell i (Georgetown) John Borell i (Georgetown) �� Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. (Creighton) Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. (Creighton) Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. (Creighton) Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. (Creighton) Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. (Creighton)James W. Reites, S.J. (Santa Clara)James W. Reites, S.J. (Santa Clara)James W. Reites, S.J. (Santa Clara)James W. Reites, S.J. (Santa Clara)James W. Reites, S.J. (Santa Clara) � �� Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Harvard) Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Harvard) Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Harvard) Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Harvard) Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Harvard)

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J. (Fordham)Patrick J. Ryan, S.J. (Fordham)Patrick J. Ryan, S.J. (Fordham)Patrick J. Ryan, S.J. (Fordham)Patrick J. Ryan, S.J. (Fordham)

tel: (202) 687-4005 e-mail: [email protected]

Visits will be made to temples and a mosque, and instruction will begeared towards responding to pastoral and educational interests andneeds of participants as well. Limited to 25 participants. Applicationdeadline of May 15.

To obtain additional information, please contact Michael Peterson

in the Office of the President at Georgetown University

TUITION: $550 ACCOMMODATIONS: $585

FOR JESUITS AND WOMEN & MEN INVOLVED IN JESUIT MINISTRIES

INTERRELIGIOUS INSTITUTE

Sponsored by the U.S. Jesuit Conference’s Advisory Board on Interreligious Dialogue & MissionSponsored by the U.S. Jesuit Conference’s Advisory Board on Interreligious Dialogue & MissionSponsored by the U.S. Jesuit Conference’s Advisory Board on Interreligious Dialogue & MissionSponsored by the U.S. Jesuit Conference’s Advisory Board on Interreligious Dialogue & MissionSponsored by the U.S. Jesuit Conference’s Advisory Board on Interreligious Dialogue & Mission

Committee will recommend the strongest candi-

date, Jesuit or lay. The new President will likely

assume office in January 2010.

Further information about this position and

application is available on St. Xavier’s Web site, or

contact Michael McGraw, Succession Committee

Chair ([email protected]).

Review of applications will begin Feb. 1. All appli-

cations are due by Feb.15.

PRINCIPAL SEARCH. St. Thomas Aquinas High

School in Dover, N.H., seeks highly qualified

applicants for the position of Principal, who will

assume the position July 1, 2009. Applicants for

this position must have a thorough understanding

of the mission of Catholic education and its inte-

gration throughout the learning experience,

demonstrate successful collaborative leadership

and exhibit effective interpersonal skills.

Applicants must be practicing Catholics, have a

minimum of five years’ successful Catholic school

teaching/administration experience and hold an

advanced degree in school administration or a

related field. All application materials can be found

on the diocesan Web site at www.catholicnh.org.

Additional school information is also available on

the school Web site at www.stalux.org. Completed

applications should be mailed to: Superintendent

of Schools, Diocese of Manchester, 153 Ash

Street, P.O. Box 310, Manchester NH, 03105. All

applications must be submitted by March 1, 2009.

RetreatsBETHANY RETREAT HOUSE, East Chicago, Ind.,

offers private and individually directed silent retreats,

including Ignatian 30 days, year-round in a prayerful

home setting. Contact Joyce Diltz, P.H.J.C.; (219) 398-

5047; [email protected]; www.bethanyre-

treathouse.org.

BETHANY SPIRITUALITY CENTER, Highland

Mills, N.Y., announces the following spring and

summer ’09 retreats: “From Calvary to Emmaus

and Renewed Hope,” with Ann Billard, O.L.M.,

April 19-23; “From Religion Back to Faith: A

Journey of the Heart,” with Barbara Fiand,

S.N.D., June 5-12; “God in Transition,” with

Margaret Silf, June 22-28; and directed retreats,

July 1-9, 12-20 and 23-31. Please visit

www.bethanyspiritualitycenter.org, for other

offerings.

SAN DAMIANO RETREAT, Danville, Calif.,

located just 35 miles east of San Francisco

announces the following retreats: Rusty

Shaughnessy, O.F.M., and Paula Jenkins present-

ing a Lenten Weekend Retreat, March 13-14. Our

retreat team presenting the Holy Week Retreat

April 9-12. Private retreats with or without spiri-

tual direction also available. We offer a peaceful,

prayerful environment for rest and renewal. Call

(925) 837-9141 or visit www.sandamiano.org.

WillsPlease remember America in your will. Our legal title

is: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th Street, New

York, NY 10019.

Elephantine Issue

In “Making a Mark” (1/5), Richard G.Malloy, S.J., writes eloquently of thedanger of not acknowledging “the ele-phant in the sacristy” when writingabout vocations to the priesthood: gaypriests, and the impact the currentchurch climate has on both thesepriests and their heterosexual broth-ers. Sadly, the current climate is one of“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This lends itselfto problems in seminary formation, inwhich candidates fear that discussingtheir sexual orientation (even with aspiritual director) may lead to theirdismissal. This creates the very cli-mate in which serious problems devel-op later in life, as psychotherapists likemyself can attest.

The challenge for the church is toaccept the gift of gay priests in a waythat is authentic, and that needs tobegin with bishops and religious supe-riors acknowledging their presence.

CHARLES G. MARTEL

Boston, Mass.

The Other 99 Percent

When I saw the title of the Jan. 5 issuewas “The Harvest Is Great: Vocationsin a Modern Church,” I was filled withhope and enthusiasm for what youhad to say. But this issue has articlesabout the call to become a priest or anun. Where are the articles by laywomen and men who also know theyare called by God to be married or sin-gle, divorced or widowed, mothers orfathers, construction workers, secre-taries, teachers, nurses, lawyers, doc-tors and more?

The Second Vatican Councilacknowledged all of us as the people ofGod. The majority of the people ofGod are laypeople, who bring God totheir daily lives and workplaces.Loving God totally is what we are allcalled to do as children of God; this isnot just the expectation of those whochoose to live a celibate life.

Openness to the reality of optionsthat allow marriage and family life isimportant for the Catholic Church inorder for it to thrive in the long term.

ROSEMARY MCHUGH, M.D.

Wheaton, Ill.

Faith and Science

Thanks to Peter Schineller, S.J., for themartyrology “based on contemporarybiblical scholarship and science” (OfMany Things, 12/15). I found it excit-ing and extremely encouraging for con-temporary conversation regarding faithand science, evolution and the eternalsignificance of the veracity of Jesus’birth and life. Happily, the astoundinghistory of the Word in creation frombefore the nativity of Jesus, in our com-mon era and even into the potentialfuture indicates a timetable sufficientfor the demands of love to take hold ofus and whoever comes after us.

PATRICK HIGGINS

Seattle, Wash.

Informed Opinion

Thanks to Bishop Joseph W.Estabrook of the military ordinariatefor his report on all the good work and

Christian witness of his chaplains, andof the progress in training them torespond appropriately to conscien-tious objector claimants (“A Responseto ‘The Chaplain’s Dilemma’,” 1/19).The Catholic Peace Fellowship wantsto maintain the respectful and cooper-ative spirit we established with themilitary ordinariate when CardinalJohn O’Connor was in charge.

I must note, however, that my“opinions” are hardly “uninformed”after more than 40 years of workingwith conscientious objectors, many inthe military. Anecdotal evidenceabounds and keeps coming. The mili-tary considers conscientious objectiondetrimental to morale. For chaplainsto offer positive support is to goagainst the grain. More power to thosewho do, and God bless them!

(DEACON) TOM CORNELL

Marlboro, N.Y.

Photographs and Memories

The reflections of George M.Anderson, S.J. (Of Many Things,1/19) were a beautiful expression ofthe sanctity of human relationships, a


LET TERS

CA

RTO

ON

BY

HA

RLE

Y S

CH

WA

DR

ON

WITHOUT GUILE

In July 1942 the Dutch bishopswrote a letter to be publicly read inchurches, condemning the S.S. At thelast minute Protestant ministers with-drew their support, and as a resultonly Catholic converts from Judaismwere arrested and deported. St. EdithStein was among them. Had the popedone the same as the Dutch bishops,the consequences would have mostlikely been similar or worse.

In 1924, an immigration law waspassed in the United States that cut thetorrent of people coming to the UnitedStates to a trickle. This, too, had animpact on the number of Jews later try-ing to find asylum in our country. Weas Americans need to accept responsi-bility for our lack of action as well.

The article could also have includeda comparison of what the pope was

America (ISSN 0002-7049) is published weekly (except for 12 com-bined issues: Jan. 5-12, 19-26, March 30-April 6, May 25-June 1,June 8-15, 22-29, July 6-13, 20-27, Aug. 3-10, 17-24, Aug. 31-Sept.7, Dec. 21-28) by America Press, Inc., 106 West 56th Street, NewYork, NY 10019. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, N.Y., andadditional mailing offices. Business Manager: Lisa Pope; Circulation:Judith Palmer, (212) 581-4640. Subscriptions: United States, $48per year; add U.S. $22 postage and GST (#131870719) forCanada; or add U.S. $32 per year for overseas surface postage. Foroverseas airmail delivery, please call for rates. Postmaster: Sendaddress changes to: America, 106 West 56th St. New York, NYY10019. Printed in the U.S.A.


sanctity that rises above ideology,ecclesiology, political inclinations andsexual preference. We can see later,when time and age have whitewashedour prejudice and bias, that pho-tographs of times past and of peoplewhose lives have crossed our pathreveal the simple truth that we are allGod’s children.

TED ROSEAN

Wilmette, Ill.

Lack of Action

While “A Pope in Wartime,” by GeraldP. Fogarty, S.J. (12/15), added much-needed information about the actionsof Pope Pius XII during World War II,the article (like many others I have readon the subject) did not address the fol-lowing question: What would havebeen the possible result if the pope hadcondemned the Nazi government?

Poems are being accepted for the 2009 Foley Poetry Award

Each entrant is asked to submit only one typed,unpublished poem of 30 lines or fewer that is not

under consideration elsewhere. Include contactinformation on the same page as the poem.

Poems will not be returned. Please do notsubmit poems by e-mail or fax.

Submissions must be post-marked between Jan. 1

and March 31.

Poems received outside the designated period will be treated as regular poetry submis-sions, and are not eligible for the prize.

The winning poem will be published in the June 8-15 issue of America. Three run-ner-up poems will be published in subsequent issues.

Cash prize: $1,000.

Send poems to: Foley Poetry ContestAmerica, 106 West 56th Street

New York, NY 10019

Poetry Contest

able to do and what leaders of otherfaith communities did or did not do tosave the Jews. Rather than pointing afinger of blame, this information couldserve to remind us all of the terribleprice of the silence of so many voices.

LOU ELLA HICKMAN, I.W.B.S.

Corpus Christi, Tex.

More to Learn

The very thoughtful article by RabbiDaniel F. Polish (“When a LittleUnbelief Is Not a Bad Thing,” 2/2)illustrates how much we Catholics canlearn from Jews in dialogue. Thanks toyou for publishing it, and I hope wewill hear more from him.

EUGENE FISHER

Great Falls, Va.

Open Hearts, Open Minds

As a part-time faculty member teach-ing theology, I immediately decided tolet my students avail themselves of“When a Little Unbelief Is Not a BadThing,” by Daniel F. Polish (2/2). Ithought it would ultimately help todrive home some of the points I makesemester after semester. We can onlybe guided by Scripture and the wis-dom of our tradition, because how ourfaith plays out for us is entirely withinour own power to shape.

I beg my young students whoalready declare themselves agnosticsand atheists to keep their hearts openfor (and their minds receptive to) thepossibility of divine influence in theirlives at a later time. No human mindor heart can fully comprehend thetimetable and agenda of God; howev-er, closed minds and hard hearts maypose a greater challenge, even if noth-ing is impossible with God.

MONSERRAT MELLA-OCAMPO

Mineola, N.Y.

To send a letter to the editor we recommend using the link that appears below articles on America’sWeb site, www.americamagazine.org. Letters may also be sent to America’s editorial office (address onpage 2) or by e-mail to: [email protected]. They should include the writer’s name, postaladdress and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

out his hand to him, touches him, andsays how much he wants to be with theman and to see him “be made clean”and reintegrated into the life of thecommunity. And so it happens.

Jesus’ oneness with the per-son who had been ostracizedbecause of his leprous con-dition is emphasized atthe end of theepisode, when Jesusexperiences an out-sider status similarto that of the manwith leprosy. Jesus“remained outside in desertedplaces,” perhaps not only because ofthe crowds who kept coming to him,but also because he deliberatelysought to be in solidarity with thosewho were relegated to isolatedplaces, offering them the compas-sion of God who wants to be onewith them.

This Gospel offers encourage-ment to those who suffer illness ordisability, that they may reach out inprayer to Jesus and to the believingcommunity, to ask not only for com-passion, but also for incorporationinto the community of faith. Likewise,it reminds those who are well not toavoid or to relegate to the sidelinesthose who are ill or who have disabili-ties, but to stretch out their hands tothem, recognizing the gifts they bringfor spreading the Gospel. At the endof today’s Gospel, the man who hadleprosy proclaims the story every-where. Some translations render the

hose who suffer chronic illnessmay experience themselves asbeing outside all of the usual

spheres of human activity. As theworkplace carries on without themand their family goes about its busi-ness, they can feel isolated, out of theloop, helpless to contribute to the dailydoings, left alone with their own suf-fering. While Christianity does nothave regulations concerning ritualuncleanness and separation from sickpersons, certain contagious conditionsmay require physical isolation. Evenwhen this is not the case, however,many avoid persons with illness. It canseem to such a person that even God iskeeping at a distance. The lonelinesscan be as bad as or worse than the ill-ness itself.

In today’s Gospel, a man with leprosyleaves his prescribed separate space andreaches out for Jesus’ help. He is tenta-tive in his request, “If you wish, you canmake me clean.” Jesus responds withdeep emotion. The verb splanchnizomai,usually translated “moved with compas-sion,” literally means to “have a gut reac-tion,” that is, to be moved in the inwardparts, the entrails. Ancient peoples con-sidered the intestines as the seat of emo-tion. Mark’s use of this strong verbemphasizes the depth of Jesus’ feelingfor the person with leprosy. Instead ofrecoiling from the man, Jesus reaches

expression keryssein ton logon, as “pub-licize the whole matter,” but it literallysays “preach the word.” There is apowerful word to be preached both bythose who are well and by those whohave an illness or disability.

In the second reading Paul tries tokeep the Corinthians from breakingthemselves up into insiders and out-siders. When he says he tries to

“please everyone in every way,”he is not talking about

changing his stripesto fit others’ expec-tations or having nofirm moral convic-tions. Rather, Paul is

advising them thatthey must always seek

the common good andmake their choices based

on what will best give gloryto God. This passage is the

conclusion of a lengthy discussionabout whether it is proper forChristians to eat meat sacrificed toidols. Some thought it permissible todo so, while others were adamantlyopposed to it. Paul sides with the for-mer, but urges those who think as hedoes to forgo exercising what theybelieve to be their right. Paul, as agood pastoral leader, offers to theseCorinthians his own example of relin-quishing his preferences for the sake ofthe common good.

BARBARA E. REID

THE WORD

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B) FEB. 15, 2009

Readings: Lv 13:1-2, 44-46; Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11 (7); 1 Cor 10:31–11:1; Mk 1:40-45

“He remained outside in deserted places” (Mk 1:45)

Bringing Outsiders In

BARBARA E. REID, O.P., of the DominicanSisters of Grand Rapids, Mich., is a professorof New Testament Studies at CatholicTheological Union in Chicago, Ill.

T

PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

• How have you experienced God’s compas-

sion through illness or disability?

• How do persons with chronic illnesses or

disabilities proclaim the gospel in your faith

community?

• How do you know when you should stick up

for what you believe and when you should

relinquish your own preferences so as to

advance the common good?


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Documents

THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FEB. 9, 2009 $2€¦ · CONTENTS VOL. 200 NO. 4, WHOLE NO. 4844 FEBRUARY 9, 2009 ARTICLES 11 FIGHTING POVERTY TO BUILD PEACE Pope Benedict’s challenge