THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY OCT. 15, 2012 $3...Gerhard Lohfink 17 WAKE-UP CALL How Catholics can live the Year of Faith David L. Ricken 20 REALITY CHECK A fact-based assessment of

T H E N A T I O N A L C A T H O L I C W E E K L Y O C T . 1 5 , 2 0 1 2 $ 3 . 5 0

hen I was studying at theJesuit theological seminaryin Woodstock, Md., in

1964, Vatican II was under way; and Ihad been invited to a “different” Mass ina tiny chapel on the grounds. Suddenlyat Communion, the recently ordainedcelebrant, Jake Empereur, placed the hostnot on our tongues but in our hands! Istill had three years to go before myordination and the official introductionof changes in the Mass, but this cele-brant was taking the initiative. Most articles on the 50th anniver-

sary of Vatican II have overlooked thecreativity before and after the council’sliturgical reforms, which brought newintimacy to the Mass. This essay is notmeant to be a 1960s-style protest but toserve as a time capsule, capturing amoment in history that should not belost. The challenge in that new era wasto bring the Eucharist to the greatestnumber of persons. With the supportof five Jesuit universities where Iworked and the local diocese of NewOrleans, this included students andprisoners. All experiments, particularlyin those years, are vulnerable to excess-es. But I rejoice that the young priestput the host in my hands when he did. At Woodstock each morning, in

small chapels on the fourth floor, theMass took different shapes. At one ofthese the celebrant distributed the rolesof the Mass: one seminarian was toimprovise the opening prayer, another apreface or the closing prayer, anotherwas to preach extemporaneously. Inanother chapel the eucharistic prayerwas a text from the Gospel of Luke orone of the letters to the Corinthians.Many wrote their own canons. JohnMossi, S.J., editor of a collection oforiginal canons from that era as well asancient fraction rites (Bread Blessed andBroken, Paulist Press, 1974), told merecently, “We wanted a liturgy nottranslated from the Latin but in ourown cadence, poetry and experience.”When experimental canons were

widely published (100 in Hollandalone), America printed two (May 27,1967): one by the then-Jesuit poet JohnL’Heureux, which begins, “Blessed areyou, Father, in all the things you havemade: in plants and in animals and inmen, the wonders of your hands.Blessed are you, Father, for the food weeat; for bread and for wine and forlaughter in your presence.”At Fordham in the 1970s, three

Jesuits often concelebrated a Mass forstudents on weekdays at midnight,where we sat in a circle on the floor todiscuss the word of Scripture, thengathered around the altar for theeucharistic meal. For 10 years, studentscame to these—sometimes one, some-times 20.Liturgy must adapt to its context. In

the 1990s I said Mass frequently in aNew Orleans prison. A blind, blackguitarist, an elderly nun who had oncebeen held hostage in a prison riot and Ihad a maximum of 30 minutes to doour thing: wipe the breakfast slop offthe steel table in the cellblock recreationspace, with the sound of toilets flushingin the background; sing “Jesus on themain line, call him up and tell him whatyou want”; a Gospel reading and shorthomily; the Our Father, greeting ofpeace and Communion; a final prayer,hymn and blessing. In a moment I willnever forget, a woman prisoner askedme to find and speak to her son. “Ofcourse,” I replied. “Where does he live?”The boy was in this very prison, somecell blocks away. Jesus said, “When Iwas in prison you visited me.” Becausethere were so many prisoners and sofew priests, it would be months beforethose men or women could be visitedby Jesus in the Eucharist again. Recently, on a visit to an old army

friend at his lakeside home, we satacross the table from one another and Iimprovised some prayers. My thoughtsshot back to Emmaus and to Jesus, rec-ognized in the breaking of the bread.

RAYMOND A. SCHROTH, S.J.

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www.americamagazine.org Vol. 207 No. 10, Whole No. 4986 october 15, 2012

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ON T H E W E B

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ON T H E W E B

CONTENTS

A R T I C L E S

13 EVERYDAY DISCIPLESThe many ways to be called Gerhard Lohfink

17 WAKE-UP CALLHow Catholics can live the Year of Faith David L. Ricken

20 REALITY CHECKA fact-based assessment of vocations to religious lifeMary Johnson and Patricia Wittberg

CO LUMN S & D E PA R TM EN T S

4 Current Comment

5 Editorial School Daze

6 Signs of the Times

10 Column A Pre-Election Primer John J. DiIulio Jr.

27 Poem Old Blackwood Farm Rebecca Lilly

43 Letters

46 The Word A Servant’s Heart Peter Feldmeier

BOOK S & C U LT U R E

26 FILM Andrea Arnold’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ FALL BOOKS An Historical Study of United States Religious Responses to the VietnamWar; When the Magisterium Intervenes; Oblivion; James Joyce; The Great Divergence

Robert David Sullivan analyzes the presidential debates,and the Rev. Brendan Purcell, right, talks about his new bookFrom Big Bang to Big Mystery. Plus, a preview of theupcoming Synod of Bishops. All at americamagazine.org.

ON T H E W E B

4 America October 15, 2012

CURRENT COMMENT

A Surprise in LibyaAs violent demonstrations swept the Muslim world inprotest over a viral video blaspheming Muhammad, otherreactions in the Arab world continued to surprise skepticaloutsiders. In Benghazi, Libya, crowds ran a counterprotestagainst the burning of the U.S. consulate and the killing ofU.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three col-leagues. They seized the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia,the militia suspected of the crimes, and drove it from thecity. For those suspicious that the Arab Spring is a cover fora militant Islamist seizure of power, the counterdemonstra-tion is strong proof that at the grassroots people reject vio-lence and are still intent on building a democratic society. For the moderate Libyan government, the crowd’s victory

has given a boost to efforts to bring the armed militias undercontrol. Mohamed Magarief, the interim head of state, hasdemanded that all militias disband or come under govern-ment control. In response to the demand and the citizens’ire, Ansar al-Sharia surrendered its heavy weapons and dis-banded. Reportedly other militias have also broken up. Toworried Americans, the Libyans’ fearless citizen actionshould offer reassurance that they appreciate the assistancethe West, including the United States, offered them towardwinning their freedom and, in particular, a sign of howgrateful they are for Ambassador Stevens’s service. Stevenshad lived among them during the uprising against theQaddafi regime as the U.S. representative to the resistance;and in the months that followed, he continued to move as afriend among the people, bridging the formal distance thatusually accompanies ambassadorial appointees. While some re-assessment of embassy security and

intelligence is necessary, the late ambassador’s memory willbe better served by bravely following his example of peo-ple-to-people diplomacy than by lurching back fromengagement with the liberated peoples of North Africa. Ifwe Americans put ourselves in a defensive crouch, we willbe allowing the extremists to win.

Vets Among the Moochers?While the public watched the video of Gov. Mitt Romneytelling his supporters at a fundraiser that “47 percent ofAmericans don’t pay income tax,” are “dependent on gov-ernment,” “consider themselves victims” and refuse to “takepersonal responsibility and care for their lives,” SenateRepublicans blocked a $1 billion jobs program for veter-ans. Too few voters saw that. But consider how veteransand active members of the armed services fit, and don’t fit,into Mr. Romney’s 47 percent. For one thing, active service

members are exempt from federal income tax on combatpay, yet they take responsibility not merely for their ownlives but for the security of the nation. In return the federalgovernment typically helps them obtain health care, educa-tion and jobs. Hundreds of thousands of veterans dependon government.With the unemployment rate among veterans of the

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at nearly 11 percent, job assis-tance for veterans ought to win bipartisan support easily.The jobs bill sponsored by Senator Patty Murray ofWashington, a Democrat, included provisions drawn bySenator Richard Burr of North Carolina, a Republican.The Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 would have provided$1 billion over five years to agencies that hire veterans aspolice, firefighters, first responders and national park work-ers. But the bill fell two votes short of the 60 votes requiredto overcome the threat of a filibuster (58 to 40). All 40votes against the bill were cast by Republicans. Ironically,even Richard Burr joined his party in blocking the bill.

Praying TogetherHere is an idea: every month members of the CatholicChurch worldwide focus on a select few prayer intentionsfrom a list proposed by the pope and circulated through-out the church. An intention might be, for example, theprotection of the church in Africa or the success of newevangelization efforts.Sound familiar? The Apostleship of Prayer has been a

special ministry of the Society of Jesus since 1844.Drawing on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, themovement invites Catholics to practice their faith byengaging in morning prayer and an evening review of theday. It also helps promote monthly prayer intentions,which are proposed by the pope. In September PopeBenedict encouraged Catholics to pray for politicians andfor poor Christian communities. Here in the UnitedStates, the ministry is carried on in part by creative ven-tures like Hearts on Fire, a traveling group of young Jesuitswho seek to minister to young adults.Viewed by some as old-fashioned, the Apostleship of

Prayer has proven surprisingly adaptable to the modernage. You no longer need a Sacred Heart Messenger to issuea call to prayer; 140 characters will do. The Jesuits areseeking to broaden the reach of the ministry through socialmedia and by emphasizing the connection between prayerand the work for justice. The Apostleship of Prayer hasthe potential to connect Catholics around the world,demonstrating the global nature of the church and the soli-darity we are all called to practice as Christians.

he teachers’ strike in Chicago in Septemberbrought into sharp relief many of the difficultissues surrounding one of the nation’s greatest

social problems: the persistent failure of public education.Nowhere is that national failure more evident than inChicago, with a drop-out rate of 40 percent.

Some of the proposals made by Mayor RahmEmmanual that led to the strike represent positive steps.Nonetheless, the reaction of the teacher’s union was in itsown right understandable and should have been betteranticipated. The teachers’ union likewise shares someblame. Resorting to a strike when negotiations appearedclose to an agreement was civically irresponsible.

Beyond the particulars and personalities in this dis-pute looms the larger problem of fixing public educationnationwide. That matter cannot be addressed by continuingthe vilification of public school teachers. These are the folkson the frontlines; public education cannot be “fixed” with-out their committed and creative participation.

Self-described education reformers persist in placingthe lion’s share of the blame for the various failures of pub-lic education on classroom teachers. But the Chicago unionasked a legitimate question: Is too much being demanded ofteachers in responding to the economic, social and familialdisarray suffered by many of the children they are asked toprepare for higher education and productive adulthood?

Chicago’s teachers, and teachers everywhere, are cor-rect to demand greater support services and smaller classsizes, even as reform-minded boards of education are cor-rect to seek longer school days, better accountability andimproved performance. More should be expected of teach-ers (and more should be demanded of the higher educationprograms which purport to prepare them), but real reformcannot be achieved by focusing on just one aspect of thepublic system’s manifold failures. A cynic may wonder if thereal goal of such “reform” is not an improved education forAmerica’s schoolchildren but the political takedown of apowerful unionized workforce and the opening of a vastnew arena for corporate profit-making.

Some of the Chicago Board of Education’s proposals,though hard for teachers to accept, like merit pay and recon-stitution of the tenure system, are critical components ofreform. Teachers have to show more flexibility. But even ina time of reduced resources, municipal, state and federalgovernment must make realistic if unpopular assessments.

It is a rhetorical commonplace thateducation cannot be fixed bythrowing more money at it, but thisis a policy apparently unknown insuburban school districts whereper capita spending can greatly exceed spending in urban orrural communities. Rebuilding U.S. public education into asystem that produces college graduates who can competewith the world’s elites and a competent workforce ready totake on the jobs of the future may mean spending moremoney in socioeconomically challenged districts, not less. Itis a task that must be accepted nonetheless. It is inimical toa just and democratic society to maintain two separate,unequal systems, whether that dualism is based on race oron property tax bases.

Fixing education should be at the top of the nation’spriority list; our best minds and most creative thinkersshould be assigned to this critical task. Instead, most of theenergy surrounding the restoration of public educationrevolves around free-market fixes that create opportunitiesfor charter school venture capitalists, even as the resourcesto pay for education continue to come from government.But in the real world, outside of conservative think tanks,privatization is not necessarily the most effective approachto improving school outcomes. In Finland, for instance, itwas not charter schools or an emphasis on high-tech break-throughs or individual excellence that led to globally enviedimprovements in student performance; it was an insistenceon educational equity in resources and school capacity forall of Finland’s increasingly multicultural student body.That meant improving the system in place, not breaking itdown into free-market chunks to be divvied up among cam-paign contributors who stand to gain the most from charterschool experiments.

The church could play a greater role in responding tothe crisis of education in America, were it allowed to; butsecular forces suspicious of religion seem immovable, andthe establishment of voucher systems that could relievesome of the pressure on public school systems seems evermore unlikely. Lay Catholics and church officials, all thesame, are required to fulfill the church’s commitment to thecommon good. They have a responsibility to insist on anequitable and effective education for all of America’s chil-dren who, in public schools, will be taking first steps intowhat should be a lifetime of learning.

School Daze

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October 15, 2012 America 5

EDITORIAL


n a survey earlier this year by the Pew Research Center for the Peopleand the Press, 74 percent of registered voters and 72 percent ofCatholic voters named health care a top priority in their voting deci-

sion. There are few issues in the 2012 presidential campaign on which themajor candidates have more clearly differentiated opinions than healthcare. Much of President Barack Obama’s stand on health care is built onprovisions of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, whichthe Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, former governor ofMassachusetts, has said should be repealed.“President Obama believes that quality, affordable health insurance

you can rely on is a key part of middle-class security,” says the president’scampaign Web site.Meanwhile the Romney campaign charges that the Affordable Care

Act “relies on a dense web of regulations, fees, subsidies, excise taxes,exchanges and rule-setting boards to give the federal government extraor-

80 percent of its $100 billion annualcost will be spent on nutrition pro-grams like the SupplementalNutrition Assistance Program (com-monly known as food stamps). “Themajor sticking point was SNAP,” saidEnnis, explaining that instead of cut-ting direct payment programs to farm-ers, Republican House members wereproposing deeper cuts in nutritionassistance. Since the global economiccrisis began in 2008, spending onSNAP has more than doubled to $80billion a year, driven by high unem-ployment, rising food prices andexpanded eligibility under PresidentObama’s 2009 economic stimulus.

he 2012 Farm Bill became acasualty of this election sea-son’s often rancorous budget

debate as the last congressional sessionbefore the November elections endedwithout its authorization. U.S. agri-cultural policy is revised every fiveyears, but the current farm bill expiredon Sept. 30 with no new law in place.The $500 billion 2012 package passedthe Senate with bipartisan support inJune, but the House version nevermade it to a floor debate.“It’s a food and a farm bill really,”

said James Ennis, executive director ofIowa’s National Catholic Rural LifeCommittee, pointing out that about

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

C O N G R E S S

Down on the Farm BillFood stamps now help feed 46 millionAmericans, or one in seven people.“Their complaint is that people are

getting used to these handouts fromthe government and now is the time toget our [fiscal] house in order,” Ennissaid. But House Republican leaderswere reluctant to bring the bill to thefloor, where a fight over food stampsseemed an unappealing prospectbefore the November elections,according to Ennis. He speculated thatsome Republican house members mayhave hoped, in tabling the farm bill inSeptember, that November wouldreturn a stronger Republican Housecontingent to Washington with a man-date to seek deeper cuts in federalspending.Anthony Granado, a policy advisor

on agriculture for the U.S. Conference

dinary control over every corner of thehealth care system.” The Republicancandidate said in mid-September hewould replace the health care law withhis own plan, which would still allow

young adults and those with pre-exist-ing conditions to get coverage.Rep. Paul Ryan, Republican of

Wisconsin, and the Republicans’ vice

T

I

presidential candidate, has become thepoint man for his party on the issuessurrounding Medicare, Medicaid andthe Affordable Care Act. In an address

2 0 1 2 E L E C T I O N

Voters to Decide Fate Of Health Care Reform


highly erodible fields. “They’re goingto go back to farming fence row tofence row right now,” Ennis said,“because [without reauthorization]there is no incentive for them to takefields out of production.” Farmers planfar ahead of planting, Ennis said.“They need to know what’s availableto them now.”

first step to a stronger Medicare” andsaid the law “weakens Medicare fortoday’s seniors and puts it at risk forthe next generation.”President Obama, addressing the

same gathering by satellite on the sameday, argued that health reform “actual-ly strengthened Medicare.” He saidrepeal of the law would mean billionsin new profits for insurance compa-nies. “No American should ever spendtheir golden years at the mercy ofinsurance companies,” he added.Obama and the Department of

Health and Human Services also havetouted the benefits already achieved bythe law, including nearly $4.5 billionsaved on prescription drugs by closingthe “doughnut hole” for 5.5 millionseniors and people with disabilities.The A.C.A. has also led to a notabledrop in the number of uninsuredyoung adults, who may now be coveredunder their parents’ health insuranceto age 26.

of Catholic Bishops, declined to com-ment on Congress’s inability to closethe deal on the farm bill this year. Hedid say that the U.S.C.C.B. and its leg-islative allies, Catholic CharitiesU.S.A., Catholic Relief Services andthe N.C.R.L.C., would “continue tosupport a farm bill that cares for thepoor and vulnerable.“That has been our consistent

interest, and it will be the messagewe’re pushing after the election,”Granado said, referring to the lameduck session that will follow the Nov. 6elections. If a new package is notauthorized then or the existing farmbill is not extended, U.S. farmers andfood stamp recipients, not outgoingmembers of Congress, face a nuclearoption. According to a previous stipu-lation, failure to pass a farm bill in

2012 will mean a policy reversion notto the 2008 Farm Bill, but to its 1949incarnation. It is no surprise thatEnnis thinks that decades-old policy is“archaic and obsolete.”“That would cause all kinds of

havoc,” he said.But Ennis hopes this Congress

proves productive during its last ses-sion. He thinks if that isgoing to happen, Catholiccitizens must urge theirrepresentatives to makepassage of a new farm billa priority. The current leg-islative limbo has alreadylocked down internationalfood assistance programsand an important federalconservation program thatpays farmers to set aside

Controversially, contraceptives,including drugs many consider aborti-facients, and sterilizations are amongthe new “preventive services” mandat-ed by the Affordable Care Act.Certain religious employers qualifyfor what critics charge is a too-narrowexemption based on conscience objec-tions.Bruce Berg, an associate professor

of political science at FordhamUniversity in New York, predictedthat both parties will continue to makehealth care an issue—but withoutchanging very many minds.“Everything that is going to be saidabout health care with a degree of cer-titude has already been said,” he said.“There’s a lot we won’t know untilthree, four, five years down the road,”as other parts of the law are imple-mented, Berg added. After all thechanges mandated in the law havetaken effect, he said, “then we can havethe real debate.”

on Sept. 21 at the AmericanAssociation of Retired People conven-tion in New Orleans, Ryan calledrepeal of the Affordable Care Act “the

A demonstration in lateJune in Washington.


German Drop-OutsThe German bishops’ conferencedefended a decree that said Catholicswho stop paying a church membershiptax cannot receive sacraments. “Theremust be consequences for people whodistance themselves from the churchby a public act,” said ArchbishopRobert Zöllitsch of Freiburg, the con-ference president. “Clearly, someonewithdrawing from the church can nolonger take advantage of the systemlike someone who remains a member,”he said on Sept. 24. According to thedecree, Catholics who legally separatefrom the church can no longer receivethe sacraments of penance, holyCommunion, confirmation or anoint-ing of the sick, except when facingdeath, or exercise any church function,including belonging to parish councilsor acting as godparents. Marriageswould be allowed only with a bishop’sconsent, and unrepentant Catholicswould be denied church funerals. Introduced in the 19th century, the

membership tax, about 8 percent ofpersonal income, brings the Germanchurch about $6 billion annually, mak-ing it one of the world’s wealthiest.

Youth Against PovertySpeaking at a Salesian-sponsored sym-posium on youth as agents of globalchange, Cardinal Oscar RodríguezMaradiaga, S.D.B., Archbishop ofTegucigalpa, Honduras, observed thatone-fifth of the world’s population arebetween 18 and 24 years of age. Hecalled that cohort “an amazing pool oftalent we must tap into if we are torelieve poverty in our lifetime.”According to the cardinal, who pre-sented his views at U.N. headquartersin New York on Sept. 24, unemploy-ment and inadequate education are atthe heart of the problems confronting

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

A spiritual absence within Western secularism underliesthe global economic crisis, Archbishop SviatoslavShevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, toldCanada’s bishops on Sept. 25. • On Sept. 25 LebaneseChristian and Muslim leaders called for the formation ofa legal committee to protect all religions and condemnedboth the film “Innocence of Muslims” and “violent reac-tions that led to innocent casualties and harm toChristians and places of worship.” • The U.S. bishopssend their “unconditional support to the church in Nigeria” followinga suicide attack at St. John’s Cathedral in the northern capital ofBauchi on Sept. 23 that killed a woman and child and wounded 48others. • Among the winners of the 2012 Right Livelihood Awards,announced on Sept. 27, were U.S. peace strategist Gene Sharp andthe international Campaign Against the Arms Trade. • Gregory IIILaham, the Greek-Catholic patriarch of Damascus, reported that all240 Greek Melkite faithful kidnapped on Sept. 25 near the Syrian vil-lage of Rableh have been released. • Drew Christiansen, S.J., finisheda seven-year run as editor in chief of America on Sept. 28, fortifiedwith the many best wishes of a grateful staff.

N E W S B R I E F S

DrewChristiansen

the world’s young. Young people with-out work and access to educationsometimes turn to the streets, druggangs and violence. Others choose tomake a precarious migration to escapetheir plight. “Everyday thousands ofyoung people are making the journeyto cross the border from Mexico intoUnited States,” said CardinalRodríguez. “We must make changes inthe way our global economy func-tions,” he said. “We must create jobsand support small farms. This meansradically rethinking our casino capital-ist system.”

Speech and TolerancePresident Obama issued a defense offree speech and religious toleranceduring a speech at the United Nationsin New York on Sept. 25.Acknowledging that the esteem in

which free speech is held in the UnitedStates is not universally shared,Obama argued that restrictions onspeech can be used to suppress religionand that in protecting free speech, evenblasphemy must be tolerated. He saidthat objecting to expressions of reli-gious intolerance against one’s ownreligion required the rejection of suchexpressions against the faiths of oth-ers. He called violence never a legiti-mate reaction to speech, howeveroffensive. The president cited U.S.religious diversity in making his casefor tolerance abroad, offering it as amodel for pluralism and harmony. Hewarned that religious intolerance andextremism could still derail the courseof democratic movements sweepingthe Arab world.

From CNS and other sources.

time finds that 55 percent do, the sam-pling error is 5 percent. Say, for example, that a well-con-

ducted poll finds that 52 percent pre-fer Obama and 48 percent preferRomney, with an error of plus orminus three points. To calculate therange of results the poll is predicting,you need to add and subtract the errornumber on both sides of the finding.In this example, the poll predicts anoutcome somewhere in thevast territory between 55 to45 in favor of Obama (alandslide for the incum-bent) and 49 to 51 in favorof Romney (a close win forthe challenger). Voter turnout rates are

calculated by dividing thetotal number of voters bythe voting-age populationor VAP (all persons age 18or older). Measured by theVAP, in 2008 turnout was 56.8 per-cent. But as the political scientistMichael P. McDonald has stressed inseveral major studies, the VAPincludes millions of voting-age noncit-izens, ex-felons and persons overseaswho are not eligible to vote. Subtractthese groups from the denominatorand turnout in 2008 among the vot-ing-eligible population or VEP was61.7 percent. Finally, among the vot-ing-registered population or VRP,turnout in 2008 was 70 percent. No matter how it is measured,

among all age groups voter turnout islower in midterm election years thanin presidential election years. Forinstance, according to the Center forInformation and Research on CivilLearning and Engagement, the (VAP-measured) 2008 turnout rate among

ith Election Day less thana month away, we areneck-deep in polling data

on the presidential race and specula-tions about what voter turnout will be.This is not a bad moment, then, to rec-ognize three things: polling remains asmuch of an art as it is a science, voterturnout rates are not as easy to mea-sure as one might suppose, and the“youth vote” is both bifurcated by edu-cation status and dwarfed by the“senior vote.” In the 2008 presidential primaries,

top pollsters picked the wrongDemocratic and Republican winners inNew Hampshire and several otherstates. As survey experts later discov-ered, the pollsters did not reach out tofind enough hard-to-locate voters. Insome cases they interviewed too fewunion members and too many peoplewithout much schooling. And oftenthey interviewed anyone who answeredthe telephone instead of a particularperson named in the sample.No poll, whatever it asks and how-

ever carefully it is worded, can provideus with a reliable measure of how peo-ple think or feel unless it is based on arandom sample of the relevant popula-tion. Any given voter or adult musthave an equal chance of being inter-viewed. And even perfect polling involves

sampling error, the difference betweenthe results of polls conducted at thesame time. For instance, if one pollshows that 60 percent of all Americansintend to vote for a given candidate,and another poll taken at the same

citizens age 18 to 29 was 51.1 percent,but the 2010 “youth vote” was just 24percent, on a par with the anemic 22percent to 25 percent youth voterturnout rates recorded in eachmidterm election year since 1998.But as Circle also reports, among

college-educated citizens age 18 to 29,turnout was 62.1 percent in 2008 and32.9 percent in 2010. Among citizensin that cohort who did not attend col-

lege, turnout was just36 percent in 2008 and16 percent in 2010.Voter turnout is

highest among seniorcitizens. U.S. CensusBureau data indicatethat in 2010, the 20.6million citizens age 65to 74 (about 10 percentof the total U.S. popu-lation) cast 12.7 millionvotes, or 14 percent of

all votes cast, while the 26.7 millioncitizens age 18 to 24 (about 13 percentof the total U.S. population) cast only5.6 million votes. While we cannotpredict election outcomes with preci-sion, we can be sure that whoeverwins, official Washington will contin-ue to care more about Medicare thanabout job training for young unskilledworkers or about college loans.Finally, surveys show that more

than 80 percent of Americans consid-er voting a civic duty. For Catholics,that civic duty is bolstered by the cate-chism’s injunction that as “far as possi-ble citizens should take an active partin public life.” But the sad fact is thaton Election Day at least 80 millionAmericans (half registered, half not),including millions of Catholics, willnot vote at all.

A Pre-Election PrimerW

Pollingremains

as much ofan art as

it is a science.


JOHN J. DIIULIO JR. is the co-author ofAmerican Government: Institutions andPolicies (2012) and other books on politics,religion and public administration.

JOHN J . D I IUL IO JR .



EverydayDisciples

BY GERHARD LOHFINK

esus called the disciples to follow him and to place everything,without reserve, in the service of the reign of God. But does thatmean he wanted to call all Israel to discipleship? Was it his goalthat gradually everyone in Israel would become a disciple?There are indications in the New Testament that point in that

direction. The Acts of the Apostles often speaks simply of “thedisciples.” In that book “disciples” can simply mean “Christian” or

“member of the community,” and “the disciples” often means simply thecommunity in Jerusalem or in some other place. Add to this the com-mand at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Go therefore and make disciplesof all nations!” (Mt 28:19). We could set up an equation: church = disci-pleship. But is that right?If we read the New Testament more closely, things look different. The

language of the Gospels and Acts does show unmistakably that withoutdiscipleship there can be no New Testament-style church. But that usageremains unique within the New Testament. The epistles avoid the worddisciple. There is no text in which Jesus calls all Israel to discipleship.Above all, he nowhere makes being a disciple a requirement for partici-pation in the reign of God. So we have to suppose that life toward thereign of God—in sociological terms, participation in the Jesus move-ment—allowed for a number of very different ways of life.Jesus used a striking and clearly defined symbolic action in choosing

the Twelve from a larger group of disciples, making them an eloquentsign of the gathering of the eschatological people. We are in the fortunateposition of having a few names of disciples who were not among theTwelve but seem to have belonged to the broader group of disciples:

J


GERHARD LOHFINK, formerly a professor of New Testament exegesis at the Universityof Tübingen, Germany, has lived and worked since 1986 as a theologian for theCatholic Integrated Community. His many books include Does God Need the

Church? (Liturgical Press, 1999). This article is an edited excerpt from Chapter 6 ofhis forthcoming book, Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted,

Who He Was (Liturgical Press, 2012).Ph

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THE MANY WAYS TO BE CALLED

Joseph Barsabbas (Acts 1:23); Cleopas (Lk 24:18);Nathanael ( Jn 1:45; 21:2); Mary of Magdala (Mk 15:40-41); Mary, the [daughter?] of James the Less (Mk 15:40);Mary, the mother of Joses (Mk 15:40); Salome (Mk 15:40-41); Joanna, the wife of Chuza (Lk 8:1-3); Susanna (Lk8:1-3); and for a time also Matthias, who then was takeninto the group of the Twelve in place of Judas Iscariot (Acts1:23, 26). The list shows that group of Jesus’ disciples alsoincluded women. That was remarkable in an Eastern con-text and was anything but ordinary. It appears that hereJesus deliberately violated social standards of behavior.Jesus by no means called everyone who met him openly

and in faith to be his disciple. He went to the home of thetax collector Zacchaeus(Lk 19:1-10) as well asthat of the tax collectorLevi (Mk 2:14-17). ButZacchaeus did not receivean invitation to disciple-ship as Levi did.Zacchaeus vows to changehis life; in the future hewill give half of his wealthto the poor of Israel and return wrongfully obtained moneyfourfold. But he will stay in Jericho and continue to practicehis calling as a tax collector.The reign of God requires a dedicated community, a

form of life into which it can enter and be made visible. Thecircle of men and women disciples who followed Jesus, theirbeing together with one another, was to show that now, inthe midst of Israel, a bit of the “new society” had begun.According to the Gospel of John there was a very affec-

tionate relationship between Jesus and the family of Lazarus:Jesus and Lazarus were friends ( Jn 11:3). When Lazarusdied, Jesus wept on the way to his tomb ( Jn 11:35). Thehousehold of Lazarus (Mary and Martha, his sisters), whichwas in Bethany, must have been a kind of support station forJesus on the road to Jerusalem. But nowhere is it said thatLazarus belonged among Jesus’ disciples or followers.

A Complex PatternThe Gospels, especially Mark, reveal a great variety of formsof participation in Jesus’ cause. There were the Twelve.There was the broader circle of disciples. There were thosewho participated in Jesus’ life. There were the localized, res-ident adherents who made their houses available. Therewere people who helped in particular situations, if only byoffering a cup of water. Finally, there were those who simplytook advantage, who profited from Jesus’ cause and for thatvery reason did not speak against it.These structural lines that run through the Gospels are

not accidental. They express something that is essential for

the eschatological people of God, as Jesus sees it, and istherefore an indispensable part of the church. In today’schurch we can find all these forms expressed. It is a complexpattern, as complex as the human body. The openness of theGospels and of Jesus must warn us against regarding peopleas lacking in faith if they are unable to adopt a disciple’s wayof life or if it is something completely alien to them. In anyevent, Jesus never did.Of course, no one may reject the specific call that comes

to her or him. It is not only that in such a case one fails toenter into the broad space God wants to open for that per-son. Rejecting the call also closes the space to others andplaces obstacles in the way of possibilities of growth for the

people of God.It is also true that one

may not assert a claim to acalling. Not every discipleof Jesus could be one ofthe Twelve. The Twelveare sent to Israel andtherefore are clothed withan eschatological officethat will continue in the

church. That is why they are rightly called “apostles” (thosewho are sent) even in the Gospels.It is also true that not everyone can be a disciple, since

discipleship also presupposes a special call from Jesus. Itdoes not depend on the will of the individual. It can be thatsomeone wants to follow Jesus but is not made his disciple.Thus, not belonging to the circle of disciples as such is by nomeans an indication of lack of faith or a sign that someoneis marginal. Nowhere does Jesus describe those of hisadherents whom he has not called to follow him as unde-cided or half-hearted. Each person who accepts Jesus’ mes-sage about the reign of God has his or her own calling. Eachcan, in her own way and capacity, contribute to the buildingup of the whole. No one is second class. The healed man ofGerasa is as important for Jesus’ cause as the disciples whotravel with Jesus through the land.

Radical For AllIs a disciple’s existence the more radical way of life? Hereagain we need to be careful. As I explained in Does GodNeed the Church? (Liturgical Press, 1999), the ethos of dis-cipleship is certainly a radical one. Is there anything harderand more inconsiderate than to be called by Jesus to disci-pleship, to be told that first one must bury one’s father—perhaps recently dead, perhaps lying on his deathbed, per-haps old and ill—to be told, “Let the dead bury their owndead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God”(Lk 9:60)? And yet the ethos of the Sermon on the Mount,which is not just for the disciples but for everyone in the

Jesus regards the concreteway of life, whether marriageor discipleship for preaching,

as sacred.


Two-Level Ethos?Thus there is no two-level ethos, one of perfection for theapostles and disciples and a less perfect one for the rest ofthe people of God. We must admit, certainly, that there isone text in the Gospels that seems to presume such a two-level ethos: the story of the rich man who came to Jesus withthe question about how he could “inherit eternal life” (Mk10:17-22). Jesus points him to the Ten Commandments.The man responds: “I have kept all these since my youth.”Jesus looks at him, embraces him, and says: “‘You lack onething; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’When he heard this, he was shocked and went away griev-ing, for he had many possessions” (Mk 10:20-22).Matthew has reworked the Markan text. The phrase

“you lack one thing” has been rewritten to “if you wish to beperfect” (Mt 19:21). The Gospel story of the rich youngman has had an extraordinary influence throughout the his-tory of the church. Again and again it has given men andwomen the strength to abandon their bourgeois existenceand begin an alternative life of discipleship in community.The history of the founding of many religious orders beganwith this text. The Matthean phrase, “if you wish to be per-fect,” however, has also given rise to the idea that there mustbe two orders of life in the church: that of the perfect, wholive the life of discipleship, and that of the less-than-perfect,

eschatological people of God, is just as radical because itdemands that one abandon not only evil deeds but everyhurtful word directed at a brother or sister in faith (Mt5:22). It demands regarding someone else’s marriage (andof course one’s own) as so holy that one may not even lookwith desire at another’s wife (Mt 5:27-28). It demands thatmarried couples no longer divorce but remain faithful untildeath (Mt 5:31-32). It commands that there be no twistingand manipulation of language any more but only absoluteclarity (Mt 5:37) and that one give to anyone who asks foranything (Mt 5:42).For a man’s lustful glance at someone else’s wife to be

equated with the act of adultery is just as drastic as thedemand that disciples leave their families. Jesus demands ofthe one group an absolute and unbreakable fidelity to theirwives (Mt 5:31-32) and of the others absolute and unbreak-able fidelity to their task of proclamation (Lk 9:62). Thismeans that Jesus regards the concrete way of life, whethermarriage or discipleship for preaching, as sacred. Both waysof life are possible in their radical form only in light of thebrilliance and fascination that emanate from the reign ofGod. But above all, neither way of life exists in isolation andindependent of the other. The disciples, as they travel, aresustained by the aid of the families who open their housesto them in the evening, and the families live from and with-in the new family that began in the circle of disciples.


to whom only the Ten Commandments and the command-ment of love apply.But that kind of two-level ethos does not do justice to the

text. Neither Mark nor Matthew is formulating norms forthe people of God here. The story is about a concrete case.Jesus says “sell what you own” to a particular person who hascome to him searching and dissatisfied. Jesus’ demand isaddressed to him personally. It is a call to discipleship.Obviously, in the minds of the evangeliststhis text is also transparent for the laterchurch: there will be many callings to fol-low, to discipleship, to radical abandon-ment of possessions. But these calls willalso always be specific callings for individ-uals and not a law for everyone.This becomes still clearer if we consider the closing

words of Matthew’s interpretation. Behind the word “per-fect” stands the Hebrew adjective tamim, which means“entire,” “undivided,” “complete,” “intact.” Being perfect in thebiblical sense, when applied to persons, means living whollyand entirely in the presence of God. The rich man in thestory had kept his wealth separate from his relationship toGod, and therefore something “more” was required of him.Jesus wants his “whole [self ].”And wholeness or integrity of the self is again not a priv-

ilege of disciples alone. The poor widow who puts in two

copper coins, in contrast to the rich, who give to the templeonly from their surplus, gives away everything she has. Shegives “what is hers” entirely (Mk 12:41-44).This wholeness is different for everyone. For one it can

mean abandoning everything. For others it can meanremaining at home and making one’s house available toJesus’ messengers. Perhaps for a third it can mean just givinga cup of fresh water to the disciples as they pass by.

Everyone who lives her or his specific call-ing “entirely” lives “perfectly.”The more closely we read the Gospels,

the clearer it appears, over and over again,that the various ways of life under thereign of God do not arise out of acciden-tal circumstances but are essential to the

Gospel. They sprang not only from the practical-functionalpoint of view that Jesus could not possibly have traveledthrough Israel with thousands of followers, and they did notderive solely from the fact that only a relative few in Israelbecame his disciples. We have to look deeper. Ultimately,the variety of callings is a precondition for the freedom ofevery individual within the people of God.The division of the church into perfect and less-than-

perfect, into better and ordinary, into radical ethos and lessradical ethos, ignores the unity of the people of God and theorganization of all its members toward the same goal.


ON THE WEBSeán D. Sammon, F.M.S., on the unfinished business of Vatican II.

americamagazine.org

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t happens when a middle-aged woman hit hard by theeconomic crisis finds herself out of a job and then outof her home, with no family or other support networknearby. Despite hard work and careful planning, she is

seemingly left with nothing. Then one day she turns up at asoup kitchen and daytime shelter run by a Catholic parish.The lay volunteers who run it are friendly and warm, give herfood and a place to rest and spend some of their time in hercompany. Her loneliness gives way to serenity.It happens when a father for whom church lost meaning

in his college days watches his daughter’s baptism. Suddenly,as if he is hearing the words for the first time, he appreciatesGod’s grace in his life and senses how the Holy Spirit willenter his life in this new person.It happens when tragedy strikes, whether through a

heinous act of violence or a natural disaster, and people setaside their petty human dramas and come together as one to

grieve and to pray. They feel a sense of unity as their pas-tor—or even their bishop—comforts them and tries tobring perspective to an otherwise senseless time.Such moments exemplify how Catholics can live out the

upcoming Year of Faith in everyday experiences. Theseexamples depict events that could happen anytime in life.While the Year of Faith comes with specific recommenda-tions from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine ofthe Faith on how to observe it, it is best summed up in twoimages: the first, as described by Pope Benedict XVI, is anopen door through which a person has only to walk. Thesecond is the “spark of faith” lit within the human heart.The Year of Faith, which runs from Oct. 11 of this year

to Nov. 24, 2013, the feast of Christ the King, is the latest ina recent string of yearlong observances sponsored by theVatican. Others included the Jubilee Year 2000, the Year ofthe Eucharist (2004-5), the Year of St. Paul (2008-9) andthe Year for Priests (2009-10). The centerpiece of the Yearof Faith is the new evangelization, a call to Christians toembrace their faith anew and proclaim the Gospel withtheir lives.

Wake-up CallHow Catholics can live the Year of FaithBY DAVID L . RICKEN

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MOST REV. DAVID L. RICKEN is the bishop of Green Bay, Wis., andchairman of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis of theU.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. P

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The Role of the New EvangelizationThe new evangelization seeks to bring the Gospel anew toparts of the world that are rooted in Christianity—likeEurope and the United States—where believers and theirpractice of the faith have grown cool, cold or even jaded.This evangelization does not involve window dressing or

clever marketing strategies. It is about providing an authen-tic witness. Perhaps then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said itbest during the Jubilee Year 2000: “New Evangelization can-not mean…immediately attracting the large masses that havedistanced themselves from the church by using new andmore refined methods.” It is not about settling for what thechurch has become, but rather daring to recapture the faithand humility of the parable of the mustard seed, to trust Godas to when and how the seed will grow. Again, CardinalRatzinger: “We do not want to increase the power and thespreading of our institu-tions, but we wish to servefor the good of the peopleand humanity, giving roomto Him who is life.”Cardinal Timothy

Dolan of New York, in hisaddress to the College ofCardinals in February,described how the SecondVatican Council has made evangelization the work of everyCatholic by defining the whole church as “missionary”—called to preach the Gospel not only to the ends of the earthbut to the hearts of every human being and “not only tounbelievers but believers.”“Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization,”

a statement issued by the U.S. bishops’ Committee onEvangelization and Catechesis in April, provides practicalways for dioceses and parishes to welcome returningCatholics to church. In doing so, it calls all Catholics—whether active in the church or not—to come to a deeperpractice of the faith. Only Catholics with a vibrant sense oftheir own faith can effectively evangelize those outside thechurch.The start of the Year of Faith coincides with the 50th

anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20thanniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This isno accident. Celebrating the anniversary of Vatican II doesnot mean gazing with curiosity or nostalgia at black-and-white photos of the council fathers discussing theology.Rather, it means appreciating the very real gifts of the coun-cil as they exist in the church today.Vatican II saw the beginning of more active participation

by the laity, both in worship and the life of the church ingeneral. It saw the church rediscovering itself and proclaim-ing the Gospel with renewed energy. Vatican II and the Year

of Faith are essentially part of the same overarching motion.Fifty years are like the blink of an eye for an institutionwhose unofficial motto is “We think in centuries,” so it is nosurprise that the council’s documents embody a sense of thechurch’s relationship with the world today.The Vatican has recommended that Catholics read (and

bishops make abundantly available) the documents ofVatican II and the catechism during the Year of Faith. If faithis to flourish, it must be grounded. These resources are nour-ishment for the body of Christ on the journey, as we seek toreinvigorate the church’s mission and draw others to faith.

Models of Joy and CharityIn his talk on the new evangelization, Cardinal Dolanrecalled what Cardinal John Wright told him and otherseminarians studying at the North American College in

Rome in the 1970s: “Dome and the church a bigfavor. When you walk thestreets of Rome, smile!”—words that CardinalDolan has taken to heartever since. We are allcalled to evangelize bysimply walking into aroom and radiating

Christian joy, even in everyday human interactions.This sort of evangelization can happen all the time. The

woman going to the shelter, the father at his daughter’s bap-tism and a community coming together in grief—theseexamples show how Catholics witness to their faith inmoments great and small and, whether they realize it or not,sow seeds of faith in others. As “Disciples Called toWitness” states: “The everyday moments of one’s life livedwith Christian charity, faith, and hope provide witness tofamily members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and otherswho have stopped actively participating in the life of theChurch. This witness is essential for reaching others intoday’s modern world.”In effect, the goals of the Year of Faith are accomplished

when everyone in the church simply strives to do what he orshe is called to do: husbands and wives, love each other;priests and religious, serve your people; children, be kindand share. All people can evangelize with their lives. Thisincludes believing in the powerful witness of regular partic-ipation in the sacraments, especially Sunday Mass and thesacrament of reconciliation.The saints were masters of this. Pope Benedict has rec-

ommended that during the Year of Faith the church pro-mote the lives of the saints as model evangelizers. The U.S.bishops are doing this, in part, by featuring the saintsthrough Facebook and other social media. Finding great

Husbands and wives, love eachother; priests and religious, serve

your people; children, be kind and share.


applied more broadly to the personal encounter withChrist. The love of Christ, proclaimed in both word andacts of charity, and the body of Christ, the church, help peo-ple experience their true worth.This is a potent contribution to a world no longer domi-

nated by debates between Catholics and Protestants, butnow between believers and others who would say religionhas nothing of value to offer society. The church offers apositive alternative to cynicism, secularism, individualismand relativism—the “sins and errors” of today’s world.Like the world before Christ, our world is pining. There

must be something better than cynicism, misery and emptyfeelings. Many people live life with amaterialistic “whoever has the most toyswins” mentality, all the while coping withaddictions to drugs, alcohol and sex. Wesee people depressed who wonder, “Is thisall there is to life?”To this despair, Pope Benedict offers

the Year of Faith as a countermeasure. For Catholics, thereis much more to life. The worth of the human person is thatall are created to experience the love of God and to love Godin return. Living a life of love for Christ and the church is atthe heart of faith. The spark of that faith can be elusive anddim, but when it is fanned into flame and brightened, it cantransform the world.

evangelizers among the saints comes easily: Mother Teresa,St. Vincent de Paul and St. Francis of Assisi, to name just afew. (St. Francis is also traditionally credited with saying,“Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.”) U.S.Catholics can also find encouragement in the example ofAmerican saints like St. Katharine Drexel, and St. KateriTekakwitha. All of these saints provide a witness of evange-lization. Each one made the encounter with Christ real, andeach one identified strongly with the poor and found Christamong the “least of these.”The church is calling all Catholics to perform charitable

works throughout the Year of Faith. In this way, Catholicswill be given a chance to encounter Christin those they serve, while those who seeand experience this service will encountera reflection of Christ’s love.When describing the effect his Los

Angeles-based Homeboy Ministries hashad on the lives of the former gang mem-bers it serves, Gregory Boyle, S.J., cites the lyric from “OHoly Night”: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining/till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.” This is a beauti-ful image. When Christ simply appears, the power of hislove and his truth transforms lives. Through this love andtruth, people are able to see that they are made for lives thatreflect their dignity and worth. The same approach can be


ON THE WEBA preview of the

October Synod of Bishops. americamagazine.org/synod

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he announcement last April of the results ofthe doctrinal assessment of the LeadershipConference of Women Religious by theVatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine ofthe Faith has provoked strong reaction both

inside and outside the Catholic Church in the UnitedStates. In the process, some commentators have madeassertions about the demographics of religious life in theUnited States that are not based in fact. Regrettably, thesemisinformed statements create dichotomies that not onlymask the complexity of religious reality, but are patentlyfalse. In an article entitled “The Sisters: Two Views,” pub-lished in June on the Ethics and Public Policy Center Website, for example, George Weigel wrote: “In any case, therecan be no denying that the ‘renewal’ of women’s religiouslife led by the L.C.W.R. and its affiliated orders has utterlyfailed to attract new vocations. TheL.C.W.R. orders are dying, while severalreligious orders that disaffiliated fromthe L.C.W.R. are growing.”We believe that the church and the

U.S. public deserve an accurate picture,devoid of distortions, ideology and fatal-ism, of the complex demographics ofreligious institutes. These demographicsare among the most serious issues facingreligious life throughout the universalchurch. A discussion of them demandsthe greatest precision and sensitivity forthe sake of the future of individual insti-tutes, each of which has been entrustedby the Holy Spirit with a unique charismand mission, and which prayerfully dealswith issues of revitalization in their general chapters andother deliberative bodies. Precision and sensitivity are alsodemanded for the sake of the contributions that institutesof women religious continue to make to the church and

society, both nationally and internationally.The information on religious life we report here comes

from U.S. data published in the Official Catholic Directory,statistics for the church worldwide published in theStatistical Yearbook of the Church and a study of religiousinstitutes in the U.S. in 2009 by the Center for AppliedResearch in the Apostolate at Georgetown University andcommissioned by the National Religious VocationConference.

By the NumbersAs of 2009, there were 729,371 sisters, 54,229 brothers and135,051 religious priests in the world. These overall figures,however, mask a wide variation: some countries have expe-rienced a decline in recent years, while in other countries thenumber of religious has increased.

CARA’s statistics for the United States show 55,944 sis-ters, 4,606 brothers and 12,629 religious priests in 2010. Ascommentators note, there has been a decline in the totalnumber of religious in the United States since the peak in1965. But the difficulty with that commonly cited startingpoint is that it represents an exceptional period in U.S.Catholic history (the 1950s and 1960s). Never, before orsince, have numbers serving in vowed and ordained ministrybeen as high. A longer view, say across the entire 20th centu-

Reality CheckA fact-based assessment of vocations to religious life

TBY MARY JOHNSON AND PATRICIA WITTBERG


MARY JOHNSON, S.N.D.DEN., is a professor of sociology and religiousstudies at Emmanuel College in Boston. PATRICIA WITTBERG, S.C., isa professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University inIndianapolis.

Professing vowsin 2011.

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ry, shows just how unusual that 20-year period was. In 1900the United States had almost 50,000 sisters. According tothe Official Catholic Directory, the number of sisters peakedat 181,421 in 1965. This was an astounding increase of 265percent in just 65 years.While the reasons for this unusual growth have been

much discussed, the reasons for the drop-off after 1965 aremore speculative. What we find interesting in the most cur-rent research on religious life are those aspects of the gener-ational data that are usually not mentioned. These data,from the recent N.R.V.C./CARA study of recent vocationsto religious life, show that simplistic generalizations maskcomplex realities. We are just beginning to explore some ofthe key factors that attract women to and dissuade themfrom religious life today.

Behind the NumbersThe N.R.V.C./CARA study surveyed all religious institutesbased in the United States. It received completed responsesfrom about two-thirds of them; these responses, however,account for well over 80 percent of all women and men reli-gious in the United States. Among responding institutes ofwomen religious, L.C.W.R. members make up two-thirds ofall respondents, institutes belonging to the Council of

Major Superiors of Women Religious (C.M.S.W.R.) makeup 14 percent, and 1 percent belong to both groups. Theremaining fifth are contemplative monasteries or newlyformed religious institutes ineligible for membership ineither leadership conference.1) One of the most striking findings regarding new

entrants is that almost equal numbers of women have beenattracted to institutes in both conferences of women reli-gious in the United States in recent years. As of 2009,L.C.W.R. institutes reported 73 candidates/postulants, 117novices and 317 sisters in temporary vows/commitment.C.M.S.W.R. institutes reported 73 candidates/postulants,158 novices and 304 sisters in temporary vows/commit-ment. Those numbers mean that on a per capita basis,C.M.S.W.R. institutes are attracting new candidates at ahigher rate than L.C.W.R. institutes. But they also indicatethat of the total number of American Catholic womeninterested in religious life, an equal number are interested inL.C.W.R. institutes as in C.M.S.W.R. institutes.2) Another key finding is that the youngest generation of

religious women looks increasingly similar to the youngestgeneration of adults in the church. The sisters and nuns ininitial formation today are 61 percent white; 16 percentLatina; 16 percent Asian/Pacific Islander; 6 percent African

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A moment of reflection at the LeadershipConference of Women Religious assembly inSt. Louis on Aug. 9.

American; and 1 percent other.3) A sizable proportion of L.C.W.R. and C.M.S.W.R.

institutes have no one in formation at the present time (32percent and 26 percent respectively). This, of course, doesnot preclude these institutes having new members in thefuture. 4) The median number of entrants to L.C.W.R. insti-

tutes is one, which means that half of the respondingL.C.W.R. institutes had no more than one woman in initialformation in 2009. The corresponding median number ofentrants for C.M.S.W.R. institutes is four, which meansthat half of C.M.S.W.R. institutes had four or fewer in ini-tial formation in 2009. Since there are far fewerC.M.S.W.R. member institutes than L.C.W.R. institutes,the key finding here is that only a very small number ofinstitutes are attracting more than a handful of entrants. Itis this very small group of institutes, however, that is attract-ing the most media attention. Few observers are payingattention to the fine work of N.R.V.C. and the religiousinstitutes from both leadership conferences that have initi-ated new vocation programs, which have galvanized theenergy of the institutes and hold the promise of furthergrowth in the near future.5) The vast majority of both L.C.W.R. and C.M.S.W.R.

institutes do not have large numbers of new entrants.Instead of focusing a media spotlight on a few institutes and


generalizing inaccurately from them, it is essential to probewhat is happening across the entire spectrum of institutes tounderstand the full complexity of religious life in the UnitedStates today.

Adding It All UpThe ecology of religious life in the United States, with morethan 1,000 sisters in formation programs in institutes ofwomen religious, deserves a nonideological analysis. Andthe diversity of charisms of the hundreds of religious insti-tutes in this country needs to be acknowledged as a pro-found gift to the church. The new generations of Catholicswho have come to religious life in recent years bring all thathas shaped them—their experience of God, the church, reli-gion and spirituality, family, ethnicity, education, occupa-tional and professional life and more. The analysis of theirdiscernment of a vocation to religious life is anything butsimple.Their choice of a religious institute, like religious life

itself, does not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, the church back-drop against which these demographics are displayed iscomplex and often conflicted. An analysis of the multipleenvironments in which religious life is embedded is essentialin order to trace interactions that have contributed to thecurrent state of vocations to religious institutes in this andother nations. Most critical in this regard is the analysis byPatricia Wittberg, S.C., of data that point to fewer youngerU.S. Catholic women practicing their faith (America,2/20/12). Since a significant number of young adultCatholic women have fallen away from religious practice,religious institutes have the challenge of trying to recruitwomen who are also struggling with their deep ambivalenceabout the church. This is an issue that belongs to the entirechurch, not just to religious institutes.Given the tension regarding the church and young

women, attention must be directed to those places that holdthe promise of new life. To that end, questions need to beposed: What will religious institutes have to do in order tobuild and sustain more multicultural communities andinstitutes that look like the youth and young adults of thechurch in this country? What structural and culturalchanges will have to take place to ensure a future for newgenerations of religious, whose cultural mix will look verydifferent from the dominant generations in religious lifetoday? And what is the responsibility of the wider church tothe vocation efforts of religious institutes?The Jesuit scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de

Chardin was sociologically astute when he said, “The futurebelongs to those who give the next generation reason tohope.” We believe that the figures we report here show thatthere is both hope and challenge in the full complexity ofreligious life in the United States today. A

The foundling whom Mr.Earnshaw brings to Yorkshire fromLiverpool is not merely dark-skinnedor swarthy. He is of a different race,though we never learn his exact origin(Afro-Caribbean? North African, likeOthello?). Assuming this is not a caseof race-blind casting, and bracketingthe question of whether a blackHeathcliff is anachronistic, whatshould we make of Arnold’s visceralinterpretation of Emily Brontë’scanonical novel?Expectations for this new film are

alfway into Andrea Arnold’sfilm Wuthering Heights, Isaw the ghost of Laurence

Olivier. It wasn’t Olivier playingHeathcliff in the well-known 1939adaptation who appeared, though. Itwas Olivier as the jealous Moor inShakespeare’s “Othello.” My hallucina-tion was made possible by the blackmakeup Olivier wore from head to toein the 1965 film version of thattragedy and by Arnold’s decision asthe director to depict Heathcliff asblack.

high given the affecting realism ofArnold’s last feature, “Fish Tank,” abrilliant study of a 15-year-old girl in acontemporary English housing pro-ject. (Arnold also won an Oscar in2003 for the short film “Wasp.”) Shehas cited the Russian director AndreiTarkovsky as an influence, and thelinkage is not far-fetched. Thanks inpart to Robbie Ryan’s lush cinematog-raphy, “Wuthering Heights” also putsthe director in the company ofTerrence Malick, another great film-maker.Clearly Arnold aims to upend pre-

conceptions and unsettle viewers. Thisis no Gothic romance or genteel periodpotboiler. She and her co-writer,Olivia Hetreed, strip away all literary


BOOKS &CULTURE

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The young Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) and the youngCatherine (Shannon Beer) in “Wuthering Heights.”

F I L M | JOHN P. MCCARTHY

HEATHCLIFF 2.0Andrea Arnold’s ‘Wuthering Heights’

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s.

the vignette suggests theirrelationship will never beconsummated and thatHeathcliff ’s sexual frus-tration is all that driveshim. In effect, he becomesa feral stalker.The movie’s earthy, san-

guine tang is furtherintensified by the preva-lence of blood, usually butnot exclusively connectedto mundane barnyard rit-uals. After Joseph thrashesHeathcliff, Cathy licks hiswounds, literally tastinghis blood. This happensright before a dog ravagesCathy’s ankle as she andHeathcliff are caughtpeering into the Lintonhome. She recuperates inthat more civilized house-hold and eventually mar-ries Edgar Linton.To remove any doubt

about the corporeal basisof the bond betweenHeathcliff and Cathy,Arnold has him verynearly commit necrophil-ia atop her funeral bier.Unable to possess Cathybodily or spiritually, andincapable of sublimatinghis thwarted desire,Heathcliff soon expires.

Giving Race a RoleA viewer’s initial reaction to Arnold’sinterpretation is likely to be: how liter-al and perverse! Not only does shetraffic in a racial stereotype; herFreudian slant is passé! That every-thing is rendered so skillfully from atechnical perspective does not erasethese misgivings. Ryan’s gorgeous pho-tography, with its burlap-and-graypalette, paints the Yorkshire locale as abeautifully harsh backdrop. Yet trans-fixing visuals with gliding birds, flit-ting moths and butterflies and floating

feathers can only communicate somuch; likewise, the many images ofcrawling insects, moss-encrustedtwigs, swaying tree branches andrustling leaves. We understand thatHeathcliff and Cathy briefly foundsanctuary within the forbidding land-scape.Unless Arnold is asserting that

Heathcliff ’s fate is wholly determinedby his race—not an especially com-pelling or radical thesis—the mostinteresting thing is how her take func-tions as a foil to the viewer’s own ten-

artifice. The movie contains minimaldialogue, and the plot has been drasti-cally pared. There are neither contex-tual aids nor a musical score to ampli-fy the mise-en-scène. Intense and imag-istic, sensual and rather salacious, thisis a wild, fascinatingly bleak adapta-tion that seizes on the book’s morelurid motifs.Casting black actors as Heathcliff

(Solomon Glave and James Howson)highlights his status as the “ultimateoutsider,” as Arnold accuratelydescribes Brontë’s protagonist in thepress notes. Put differently, Heathcliff ’sskin color and ethnicity underscore hisotherness. He is isolated from the out-set, and the movie’s suffocating auraand claustrophobic dampness aresymptoms of his alienation.Judging by the scars on young

Heathcliff ’s back, he has likely beenenslaved, and he does not escape phys-ical and verbal abuse in his new situa-tion. He is called a “nigger” by HindleyEarnshaw, and Mr. Linton threatens tohang him. In one sequence, theEarnshaw’s manservant Joseph whipshim.Arnold’s decision to adopt

Heathcliff ’s point of view is also key. Itenables his “monomania” (Brontë’sterm) regarding Catherine (ShannonBeer and Kaya Scodelario) to be all-consuming, to such an extent thatCathy comes off as either the object ofhis obsession—his prey—or a fickletease. It doesn’t mean we are privy toHeathcliff ’s thoughts or gain psycho-logical insight into his character, how-ever. His relationship with Cathy hasoverwhelmingly carnal overtones fromthe moment he arrives at theEarnshaw farmhouse, a rustic hovel.In a pivotal scene of Arnold’s inven-

tion, Heathcliff watches Hindley andhis new wife make love in a field, sur-rounded by yelping dogs. Later, whenCathy and Heathcliff are playing neara bog, he pins her down and appearsready to mimic Hindley’s coarse love-making technique. He does not, and


OLD BLACKWOOD FARM

Leaves catch on field stalks

And broken fence, some grackles

Crying where the road ends.

Leaves, cobwebs, feathers,

Caught in the gutters, light wind

Blows fog through the dusk.

The fence barbs rusted;

Trees’ skeletal silhouettes

Inch toward the wellhead.

Soil leached from sun—

Vultures surround the dead cow

Laid out on bank mud

Wind-swept sticks rustling

With leaves on the walk; clear streaks

Of the last of dusk.

R E B E C C A L I L L Y

REBECCA LILLY, an independent writer and researcher,won the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize with her collection,You Want to Sell Me a Small Antique (Gibbs Smith).

December 1966, that the war hadbecome flatly “unjust” and“immoral”—“a crime and a sin.” So it comes as a shock to realize

dency to confine Heathcliff to a purelyanimal stratum of existence.One particular image, a quick cut to

a scampering beetle, brought thishome to me. Reading the beetle assymbolic of Heathcliff ’s plight is tooeasy, so obvious it must be a trap.Equating him with abug waiting to besquashed, put out ofits misery, opens thedoor to purenihilism. Of coursethat may be where Arnold wants tolead us. She omits anything approxi-mating catharsis or clarification, afterall. But since a white Heathcliff couldserve the same purpose, what Arnoldactually achieves is an interpretiveinversion, in which the viewer’s criticalresponses and aesthetic judgments areturned inside out.Given scant indication that

that more time now divides me fromthose demonstrations than divided methen from the subjects of my disserta-tion. The Vietnam War era is history. Rick L. Nutt wants to put that his-

tory to use. He is a self-declared “childof the Vietnam War era,” who soughtconscientious objector status. Religionand war have been a focus of hisresearch ever since, and this compre-hensive record of religious stances onthe war will be indispensable forfuture scholars as well as challengingfor religious leaders. Carefully mining the archives of

church groups as well as journals,books and dissertations, Nutt presentsthe views of evangelical and funda-mentalist supporters of the war; of lib-eral ecumenical critics of the war likethe National Council of Churches; ofantiwar organizations like theFellowship of Reconciliation, Clergyand Laity Concerned and the CatholicPeace Fellowship; and of a wide rangeof denominations. He describes howthe responses of each category did ordid not change over time and how theydealt with specific questions: Was itpromising or futile to lobby Americanofficials? Was it essential or counter-productive to join with radical waropponents? When was civil disobedi-ence called for—and in what forms?What about assisting draft resistanceor aiding military deserters? Whatwere the realistic options for theUnited States: ceasefire, negotiations,troop withdrawal? All the leading religious figures

make appearances: Billy Graham,Cardinal Spellman, Dorothy Day,Martin Luther King Jr., AbrahamHeschel, Robert Drinan, S.J., RichardJohn Neuhaus, the Berrigans. There isscarcely a march, a speech, a celebratedsermon or an ad in The New YorkTimes that does not get mentioned. It is easy to get lost in these details.

One is left with the impression of anoverwhelming number of anguish-driven efforts, on the one hand, to


Heathcliff lives on anything but a mate-rialistic plane, we are forced to examinethe possibility that there is no emotion-al, spiritual or intellectual basis for hislove for Cathy. We then must accept orreject the idea that a black Heathcliff issynonymous with the darkest, most

primitive humaninstincts. In doingso, our own latentassumptions andprejudices are ex-posed.

The ghost of Olivier’s Othello, forexample, was in my head, not on thescreen. That beetle foraging deepinside the gorse and heather on themoors is more my bogeyman thanHeathcliff ’s, or Arnold’s.

JOHN P. MCCARTHY writes about film andtheater for various publications. His last filmreview for America was of “Beasts of theSouthern Wild” (July 30).

ON THE WEBRobert David Sullivan

analyzes the presidential debates.americamagazine.org/culture

F A L L B O O K S | PETER STE INFELS

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION

AN HISTORICAL STUDY OFUNITED STATES RELIGIOUSRESPONSES TO THE VIETNAM WARA Matter of National Morality

By Rick L. NuttEdwin Mellen Press. 612p $49.95

From autumn 1967 to autumn 1968, Ilived in Paris researching a history dis-sertation on the quandaries of anti-war French left-wing intellectuals whoconfronted the rise of Nazi Germanpower in the 1930s. I was also march-ing alongside French, Vietnamese andother American protesters in demon-strations against the war in Vietnam.As a young editor at Commonwealmagazine, I shared not only the maga-zine’s longstanding doubts about thepolitical wisdom of the war but its edi-torial conclusion, expressed in



States, no matter its flaws, had beencalled by God to defeat Communism.Opponents of the war rejected thisnotion of “chosenness” and the self-righteousness that often accompaniedit. But most of them retained a faith inAmerican ideals; they judged it stillcapable of a moral role in internationalaffairs. In Nutt’s view, only a smallgroup of religious objectors like theBerrigan brothers agreed with secularradicals that the United States wassuch a profoundly corrupt capitalistand imperial powerthat short of a funda-mental upheaval in itsmores and structures,it could not beexpected to act for thegood. Although Nutt aims at “conveying

the depth of feeling that the warevoked,” feeling gets submerged in hisanalyses of so many public statements.So does the play of personalities. Nuttis very good at indicating the pressureson leaders to compromise. He doesless well in capturing their genuineuncertainties or their moments ofanger, elation and despair. Perhaps thearchives did not contain the personaltestimonies to be found in letters,interviews, diaries or memoirs. Nutt reminds us of how the civil

rights movement intersected with theantiwar one in shaping religiousresponses. Nonetheless, Americanreligion often seems self-enclosed here,isolated from the broader debate aboutthe war and the larger turmoil inAmerican society during those years(urban riots, black nationalism, uni-versity occupations, sexual revolution,countercultural exuberance and shock-ing assassinations). At Commonweal we certainly

shared a bond with other religiouscritics of U.S. policy. Yet our viewswere no less shaped by everything wecould glean from secular experts onVietnam like Bernard Fall andDouglas Pike, from reporters like

David Halberstam and JeanLacouture, from watchdogs like I. F.Stone and Theodore Draper, fromofficial spokesmen like Dean Rusk andMcGeorge Bundy, from geopoliticalthinkers like Hans Morgenthau andStanley Hoffman and from everytough-minded or tender-hearted pun-dit in sight. This relationship of religious and

secular analyses of the war is critical toone of Nutt’s major themes, the failureof Christians to apply any systematic

moral analysis tothe war. “Themoral discernmentfor many people,”he writes, “seemedmore visceral thanreasoned.” They

were appalled by the deaths of civiliansand widespread destruction inVietnam, frustrated over Americancasualties and divisiveness at homeand fearful that there was no end insight. Nutt found—and laments—that Christians relied very little ontheir traditional just war theory andJews on their corresponding teaching.Catholics, he admits, were somethingof an exception. Nutt acknowledges that perhaps

these visceral judgments could qualifyas a rough-and-ready application ofthe just-war principle of proportional-ity. But can a bright line ever be drawnbetween clearly moral reasons foropposing war and other ones? Just wartheory itself requires a base ofarguably secular facts about political,material and psychological realities,and the moral compass is already atwork as we gather these. Still, Nutt is right to ask whether

even religious bodies that once wres-tled with the morality of the war inVietnam learned any lasting lesson:“Did they begin to take seriously theimportance of teaching just war theo-ry, or discussing in any systematic waythe theology of the believer’s relation-ship to the state and war or seeking to

grapple with the war while pollsshowed most of the nation’s believersand worshipers, on the other hand,largely unmoved by these moral andreligious arguments. Nutt valuably documents the mod-

eration of liberal war opponents likethe National Council of Churches,who only gradually and reluctantlysharpened their criticism of U.S. poli-cy. Nothing could be further from thepopular notion of antiwar protestersas pot-smoking antiestablishment mil-itants energized by revolutionaryvisions. As Nutt shows, the war forced

believers and religious bodies either toreaffirm or reappraise their assump-tions about the nation’s moral stature,the balance of good or evil in its histo-ry, how deeply those were rooted inAmerican society and institutions andwhat that implied for the nation’scapacity to use its power justly. Formany evangelical and fundamentalistsupporters of the war, the United

ON THE WEBRev. Brendan Purcell on his new book

From Big Bang to Big Mystery.americamagazine.org/podcast


educate their members in the tenets ofnational civil religion? I do not see anyreason to think so.” Yes, there was religious opposition

to the war in Iraq, again based onrevulsion at civilian suffering andwidespread destruction. “However,that still does not provide ethical guid-ance,” Nutt worries. When he asks hisstudents what they would do if calledto fight in a war, “they are rarely pre-

pared to consider the morality of warin any philosophical or theologicalway.” Shouldn’t that bother religiousleaders?

PETER STEINFELS, a university professor atFordham University, is a former editor ofCommonweal and religion correspondent andcolumnist for The New York Times. He is theauthor of A People Adrift: the Crisis of theRoman Catholic Church in America(Simon & Schuster, 2004).

public cases includes 14 scholars,though many others have been investi-gated or disciplined, particularly thosewho have written about homosexuali-ty or the ordination of women. Since1995 four Jesuits have received notifi-cations from the Congregation for theDoctrine of the Faith and 18Dominicans have been investigated.At least another 11 theologians havebeen censured or criticized by bishops’conferences. James Coriden tracesfrom a canonical perspective the devel-opment of the National Conference ofCatholic Bishops (now the U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops) doc-ument Doctrinal Responsibilities(1989), crafted to deal with doctrinaldisputes between bishops and theolo-gians. He suggests the need for simplerprocedures and a new joint committeeto deal with disputes at both local and

national levels. Colleen Mallon

reviews the efforts ofreligious women torenew their lives fol-lowing the SecondVatican Council inlight of two Vaticaninquiries into womenreligious in the UnitedStates, including thecurrent investigation ofthe LeadershipConference of WomenReligious. She askspointedly if episcopal

structures have undergone a similarrenewal and redesign, noting thatstructural reform of the Roman Curiahas yet to take place. Building on Vatican II, Ormond

Rush develops the idea that thechurch’s prophetic or teaching officeinvolves the sensus fidelium, the workof theologians and the magisterium,each charisms of the Spirit. Whileonly the magisterium has final author-ity, it is dependent on the wholechurch as the primary recipient of rev-elation.

THOMAS P. RAUSCH

WHO SPEAKS FOR THE CHURCH?WHEN THE MAGISTERIUMINTERVENESThe Magisterium andTheologians in Today’s Church

Richard R. Gaillardetz (ed.)Liturgical Press. 295p $29.95.

The result of the work of a three-year“interest group” that brought togethera remarkable number of theologians atthe 2009, 2010 and 2011 conventionsof the Catholic Theological Society ofAmerica, Richard Gaillardetz’s book isan effort to address what he calls the“pronounced magisterial activism” thatbegan under Pope John Paul II andcontinues with Pope Benedict XVI.He shows in the Introduction that thecontemporary magisterium is largely aproduct of the 19th century. Thechurch of the Middle Ages recognizedvarious modes of teaching authorityand a diversity of voices. Theologicalfaculties of the great universities likeParis and Bologna generally arbitratedtheological disputes. Aquinas spoke oftwo magisteria, one of degreed schol-ars, the other the pastoral teachingoffice of the bishops. Popes and bish-ops for centuries played a relativelyminor role. Confronted with an Enlighten-

ment driven protest against religiousauthority and particularly after the

French Revolution, the 19th centurypapacy began to speak out againstwhat it saw as state interference in theaffairs of the church. Pope Pius XI’s“Syllabus of Errors”(1864), rejecting reli-gious liberty and free-dom of conscience, isonly one example. Atthe same time, the termmagisterium began tobe used exclusively ofthe hierarchy. Pope LeoXIII and Pope Pius Xwent a stage furtherwhen they began tooffer extended theolog-ical treatments on con-temporary issues, whilePius XII in “HumaniGeneris” (1950) limited the task oftheologians to explicating what wasproclaimed by pope and bishops. The result was a process that would

transform the papacy from a court oflast appeal to a doctrinal watchdog.Under Pope John Paul II the authorityof the magisterium was furtherextended and the role of theologiansfurther limited. The chapters that follow illustrate

these developments. Bradford Hinzereviews a decade of the Vatican’s disci-plining of theologians. A partial list of


Gerard Mannion uses CharlesTaylor’s concept of “social imaginary”to illustrate how a particular but nar-row understanding of teaching author-ity has been identified with the wordmagisterium, at the expense of a morehistorically conscious theology andother charisms within the church. Twofinal essays interpret differently theeffects of contemporary electronicmedia on magisterial authority.Anthony Godzieba argues that digitalimmediacy results in the pope beingperceived as a kind of chief executiveofficer, bishops like corporate vice-presidents and theologians as writersfor the corporate newsletter, short-cir-cuiting the more complicated processof discernment, appropriation anddoctrinal development, and contribut-ing to a further centralization ofauthority. Taking a different perspective,

Vincent Miller suggests that digitalimmediacy also erodes magisterialauthority by allowing ever smaller,cyberspace communities with special-ized agendas to flourish, diminishingthe ability of religious communities tomaintain their complex identities. Theresult is a kind of sectarianism, withhigh levels of emotion and low levels ofreligious literacy. The final part of the book presents

as a case study the controversybetween Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J.,and the U.S.C.C.B. Committee onDoctrine over her book Quest for theLiving God: Mapping Frontiers inTheology. The committee asserted thatJohnson’s book “contains misrepresen-tations, ambiguities, and errors” inregard to authentic Catholic faith. Inher response, unfailingly polite,Johnson argues at length that the com-mittee misunderstood and consistent-ly misrepresented her positions,regretting that it did not invite her intoa conversation on disputed pointsbefore issuing its statement. In a sec-ond statement after a response fromthe committee, Johnson noted some


cenaries shot and killed him on a streetin Medellín. Also in the pocket wasthe death list on which his father’sname appeared. Hector Abad Gómez, doctor, lov-

ing parent, humanist and “ideologicalhybrid,” was 67 years old when he wasmurdered. During the last years of hislife (1982-87), he chaired a committeefor the defense ofhuman rights andwrote endlessly to gov-ernment officials, gen-erals in the military,even death squad lead-ers, condemning tor-ture and murder, list-ing full names andconcrete cases. His wasa death foretold inColombia during thosevolatile decades, as helaunched a crusadeagainst the plague ofpolitical violence. As a doctor, this jovial parent was

more an academic than a clinician. Hisdefense of human rights and commit-ment to preventive medicine caused

conflict with colleagues, who saw littlevalue in a doctor’s passion for cleanwater and latrines. Even though heopened the department of preventivemedicine at the University ofAntioquia in Medellín and foundedthe National School of Public Health,his sense of social justice and rejectionof ideological extremes confoundedand angered adherents on both sidesof the political spectrum. An activist and esteemed university

professor might be shielded by hispublic profile, but political hatred hasno scruple when it comes to extermi-nating intelligence. The bald, friendly“madman” with a resounding voicethat delivered his public denunciationswas a disturbance to the state and itscohorts. His death sentence for con-demning barbarity was almostassured, even if postponed for a time. While it is not surprising that death

is a prevalent theme in Hector Abad’smemoir, love provides an equallystrong counterbalance. His father’spresence in family life generated trust,tolerance and a spirit of happiness.Both mother and father inherited asomewhat “dark Catholicism” mixedwith confidence in human reason. Hismother maintained a proportion of

the mystic, while hisfather’s humanismemphasized reasonmore than faith. Butthe father could bebrought to tears bypoetry, and his mother’sgift for business notonly kept the economyof the family stable, butalso added a touch ofmaterialism to herdevotion. In short, con-tradictory beliefs some-how contributed todomestic harmony.

Abad recounts the details of life in ahousehold of 10 women, recalling withaffection the attention given him byhis father, while brilliant and witty

corrections and less vituperativerhetoric, but little movement in under-standing.In his concluding reflections on

the ecclesiological issues raised by theJohnson case, Gaillardetz underlinesthe fundamentally conservative, pas-toral task of the bishops in regard tonew formulations of the faith, butasks with Johnson if the committee isequating revelation with doctrine,contrary to the more personalist andTrinitarian approach of Vatican II.He finds problematic the currentmagisterial tendency to rush to doc-trinal judgment and the failure of the

committee to approach Johnson pri-vately.Most of all, Gaillardetz argues that

if the church’s teaching ministry is tobe an expression of the church’s essen-tial nature as a communion, then itmust act as a true communio and not asautonomous authority figures. At atime of considerable disagreementover how the church’s teaching author-ity is being exercised, this is a trulyimportant book.

THOMAS P. RAUSCH, S.J., is the T. MarieChilton professor of Catholic theology atLoyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

DENNIS M. LEDER

A DEATH FORETOLD

OBLIVION A Memoir

By Hector AbadFarrar, Straus and Giroux. 272p $26

Our parents occupy our lives “in aplace that precedes thought.”Something subjective and tribal joinsus while we live and allows for objec-tivity only after a parent’s death. As children we hope for lasting

happiness, but a premonition of ourparents’ mortality teaches us that joy isalways precariously balanced. Whenthe external forces of violence, ideolog-ical struggles and dangerous govern-ments define a society’s structures,happiness becomes all the moreephemeral and death an “impalpableghostly presence.”Love and death in an era of political

turmoil are the motives behind HectorAbad’s memoir, Oblivion. The titlecomes from a sonnet by the Argentinepoet Jorge Luis Borges: “Already weare the oblivion we shall be....” Theauthor notes the irony that thisfavorite poem of his father’s was foundin his pocket the day Colombian mer-


older sisters dominated his home life.His father’s acceptance and encourage-ment were total; he believed that thebest form of education was happiness,but not baseless happiness. Lessonslearned by the son about racial preju-dice, personal cowardice and superfi-cial values were the fruits of his father’sprinciples. The family history divided in two

when Hector’s nearest older sister, “thestar of the family,” died of melanoma atthe age of 16. The effect on his fatherwas a boundless sadness, which subtlymade the idea of death for a just causemore attractive. From that pointonward, his father’s sense of social jus-tice became stronger, with a propor-tionate lack of attention to precautionand personal security.The account of his death and the

subsequent silence about the case,without arrests or suspects, is a well-known Latin American pattern.Hector Abad was 28 years old at thetime, and his only recourse was to keep

his father’s bloodstained shirt as a con-crete memory and “a promise to avengehis death.” Abad’s father confided in “the

evocative power of words” to denounceinjustice. Twenty years after his death,his son assumed the father’s wisdom,unfathomed by those who killed him,“to use words to express the truth, atruth that will last longer than theirlie.” The writing of a memoir can allow

a son to objectify the events, personal-ity and influence of a deceased father.It can also serve to rescue a loved par-ent, at least for a time, from oblivion.Upon completion of his book, HectorAbad had fulfilled a personal projectand had come to the conclusion that“the only possibility to forget and toforgive consisted in telling what hap-pened and nothing more.”

DENNIS M. LEDER, S.J., director ofI.C.E./CEFAS, the Central AmericanInstitute for Spirituality, writes fromGuatemala.

weaves together Joyce’s life and fiction,never hesitating to read the writer’s lifein terms of his Joyce-like characters, oras Bowker puts it, “This biographywill attempt to go beyond the merefacts and tap into Joyce’s elusive con-sciousness.” He recognizes that a writ-er puts part of himself into his noveland that novels can well be read as partof the author’s biography. Thus, JamesJoyce: A New Biography is at once astudy of the man, his mind, his acts ofwriting and his work.Bowker, an English biographer of

Malcolm Lowry, George Orwell andLawrence Durrell, nicely balancesJoyce-in-life and Joyce-in-fiction as“Jim” wanders through life (with wifeNora and children Giorgio and Lucia)from Dublin to Paris to Dublin toTrieste to Rome to Trieste to Zurichto Trieste to London to Paris toZurich and to many other cities andwatering-places, as he works onDubliners, Portrait of the Artist as aYoung Man, Ulysses and FinnegansWake, as well as poems, essays and hisplay “Exiles.” Ever haunted by theDublin he loved but rejected—his“Dear Dirty Dublin”—Joyce makes itsstreets, pubs, houses, humans andenvirons live forever, indelibly, in hispages.

Bowker’s biographyenjoys many felicities.His research is prodi-gious, his sources up todate and the abundanceof detail wonderful andilluminating. Joyce, forexample, once had a cat,used vulgar language,rejected psychoanalysis,sometimes cried at thebeauty of words, was soapolitical that he sawWorld War II “only froma personal point of view,”spoke of his novel as

“Oolissays” and loved to hear “AnnaLivia Plurabelle” (a part of FinnegansWake) read “in a pure Dublin accent.”


JOSEPH J . FEENEY

EXILE ON O’CONNELL STREETJAMES JOYCEA New Biography

By Gordon BowkerFarrar, Straus and Giroux. 608p $35

In a fitting turnabout, this new biogra-phy gives James Joyce what he gave hischaracters in his great novel Ulysses: asympathetic but unflinching portrait.In one day Ulysses goes from LeopoldBloom’s 8 a.m. thoughts in the out-house to Molly Bloom’s 2 a.m. earthymemory-stream as husband and(unfaithful) wife lie in bed. GordonBowker’s James Joyce: A New Biographygoes from Joyce’s Dublin birth in 1882to his Zurich death in 1941, present-ing (sympathetically) his genius, word-fun, sense of humor, transmutingimagination, prodigious knowledge

and language-skills, family and manyfriends. It includesJoyce’s sympathy withJews, passion formusic and hislove/scorn for Irelandand Dublin as well as(unflinchingly) hisself-focus and arro-gance, limp hand-shake, over-strongattraction to alcoholand women, fear ofdogs and thunder-storms, publicationproblems, scorn of“the rabblement,”ever-failing eyesight and spendthriftinability to hold onto money.Throughout, Bowker smoothly


His champions and benefactors areever-present: Sylvia Beach, HarrietWeaver, Margaret Anderson, JaneHeap, John Quinn, Ezra Pound, FordMadox Ford and T. S. Eliot. Religionis significant: born a Catholic andeducated in Jesuit schools, Joyce firm-ly left the church at 16, with artreplacing faith. Yet he still admiredCatholic rituals, was obsessed withdates “especially saints’ days” and in1940 asked Samuel Beckett (of allpeople) to join him at the cathedral inMoulins for the esthetic experience ofan Easter liturgy.Ireland continued to haunt him. It

was his land of birth and family and“the isle...full of voices,” but it offeredno prospects for artists and intellec-tuals, and he “needed to escape thesuffocating atmosphere of BritishIreland and the paralysing grip ofIrish Catholicism.” Later, whenIreland finally won independence, heeven refused to obtain an Irish pass-port.Bowker also offers insight into

Joyce’s work as a modernist writer. InUlysses Joyce took the stream-of-con-sciousness technique from a Frenchnovel by Edouard Dujardin (who tookthe technique from operatic arias) and“employed it to such brilliant effectwith such subtle brilliance [that] he isoften credited, wrongly, with havinginvented it.” In Ulysses Joyce switchedstyles—“third-person narrator, mockliturgy, stylistic pastiche, catechism,newspaper headlines and surrealdrama”—to “offer a confusion of voic-es orchestrated around a series of pow-erful myths and recurrent motifs,”showing “a new and quite astonishingvirtuosity.” Joyce then passed from the stream-

of-consciousness climax of Ulysses to“a long night’s excursion into uncon-sciousness” in Finnegans Wake, which,Joyce wrote, takes place in “the dreamstate.” Bowker continues, “the readershould just allow the language to haveits effect” in this “form of a dream,”


“made”) and uses prejudiced languageabout being Catholic: “old muddledbeliefs,” “the crust of religious super-stition.” But on balance, Bowker haswritten an excellent book.Joyce “was a man of extremes,”

Bowker concludes, and his last twoparagraphs offer a brilliant summaryof this “polymorphic” man and artist.For those who know and love Joyce’swork, Bowker’s James Joyce: A NewBiography will be enticing and com-pelling, though it may be quite long,perhaps, for those who do not. I foundit wonderful. Now I know Joyce.

JOSEPH J. FEENEY, S.J., the author of ThePlayfulness of Gerard Manley Hopkins,teaches Hopkins, Joyce and others at SaintJoseph’s University in Philadelphia.

far the worst in the developed world.Noah’s accounts of the whys and howsof this groundshift is the most com-plete and cogent I have seen.Noah first dismisses some “usual

suspects.” Black and Hispanic familiesare disporportionately in the lowerincome strata and have been hard hitby the recession, but not more so thanpoor whites, so it is not about race.Women have mostly improved theireconomic position, while lower- andmiddle-class men have lost ground, soit is not about gender either.Immigration has put pressure on low-end wages, but its overall impact ismuch smaller than most peoplebelieve. Noah points intead to a hostof small factors, all changing in thesame direction, and all reinforced andamplified by a political environmentantipathetic to even modest publicschemes for redistribution. Consider the recent apparent

shrinkage of middle-class jobs.Computers have replaced armies ofcorporate clerical workers, just as auto-mated conveyor and picking systemshave eliminated legions of warehouse-men and inventory clerks. But tradi-tional jobs have always disappeared.

The difference nowis that for the first timein history, our educa-tional machinery is notkeeping pace with thenewer technology. Butat the same time, stategovernments through-out the country areengaged in a radicaldefunding of publichigher education.Those are the institu-tions that enroll abouttwo-thirds of all

American college students. Globalization, force-fed by new

technology, has also had a big impact.Over the last 30 years or so, the work-force available to American companieshas expanded at least sixfold, and is

which is in “the form of a river” flow-ing out, then returning to its sourceand also a stream of unconsciousnessand also a series of cabaret acts as“protean characters come and go,form and transform themselves.” ForJoyce, “the words the reader will see[are] not those he will hear.” IsFinnegans Wake literature’s greatestpuzzle? Bowker stumbles, though, in his

treatment of Catholicism. He missesthe difference between “Jesuit” and”Jesuitical,” mixes up “consubstantia-tion” and ”transubstantiation,” has thewrong Latin ending for the Jesuitmotto “AMDG” (“Ad...gloria”), choos-es the wrong verb in “Joyce attendedhis first communion” (it should be


CHARLES R . MORRIS

MIND THE GAPTHE GREAT DIVERGENCEAmerica’s Growing InequalityCrisis And What We Can DoAbout It

By Timothy NoahBloomsbury. 248p $27

Economic inequality is the centraldomestic political issue in the upcom-ing presidential election, since almostall important policy questions—jobs,health care, declining educational out-comes, the high costs of college, taxa-tion, trade deficits—are merely specialcases of how the United States hasstopped working for the bottom half,or even the bottom two-thirds, ofAmericans. Timothy Noah’s GreatDivergence, a model of concise, fair-minded exposition, lays out what hasgone wrong and what will be necessaryto fix it.For some 30 years, from the early

1950s through most of the 1970s,growth in American incomes wasnearly identical over all income quin-

tiles. The rich got plenty richer as theeconomy boomed, but the poorestimproved their position as well, and atabout the same rate. Economistsopined that this consistent incomegrowth up and downthe income ladder was ahallmark of a well-func-tioning economy.But something hap-

pened about 1977, andthe income share of thetop earners began togrow much faster thanthose of people in thelower brackets. Theincomes of the top 10percent rose from along-standing third orso to just about half by2007. The share of the top 1 percentmore than doubled, from about 9 per-cent in the postwar years to 24 percentby 2007. And the share of the top ten-thousandth (.01 percent) quintupled.The consequent maldistribution is by

much cheaper than the one at home.Offshoring is fraught with manage-ment challenges, but it does tend toplace a hard cap on production workerpay. Although economists generallyderide the idea of trade protection in

manufacturing industries, it has beenvery effective in service fiefs likemedicine and law.Most important, perhaps, has been

the last 30 years of conservative poli-tics, which includes the Clinton

administration. Inequality did nothappen by chance. Bryce Harlow, alongtime adviser to Republican presi-dents and a founder of the modernbusiness lobbying industry, warned in1962 that the greatest threat todemocracy was that voters would “usethe mighty weapon of political equali-ty to enforce economic equality,”putting “the belly...in charge of thehead.” Harlow was also a moving spir-it behind the creation of conservativethink tanks and foundations that haveplayed such a powerful role in recentpresidential campaigns. And there is the new class of what

Noah calls “the Stinking Rich,” themega-billionaires who can finance can-didates for presidential nominationsall by themselves, and who often exer-cise great power in critical legislativedecisions. The recent period of hyper-finance—when “Wall Street ate theeconomy,” as Noah puts it—has great-ly worsened the problem. Obviously, there are no simple

answers, and Noah does not pretendotherwise. His solutions are a grab-bag, but an intelligent one. Steepen thetax code. Expand domestic govern-ment (it offers the best middle-classjobs). Be more receptive to skilledimmigrants. Universalize preschool.Slap price controls on higher educa-tion. Be tougher on Wall Street. Andmost important of all, electDemocratic presidents. Historically,economic equality has alwaysincreased under Democratic presi-dents and always decreased underRepublicans. Interestingly, Democraticpresidencies also ring up higheracross-the-board income gains thanRepublican presidencies, which sug-gests that Harlow’s notion of a conflictbetween wealth gains and more equal-ity is simply wrong.

CHARLES R. MORRIS is a fellow of theCentury Foundation. His recent books includeThe Trillion Dollar Meltdown and TheSages. His book The Dawn of Innovationwill be published in late October.


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The Society of Jesusin the United States

Responding to theCall of Christ.

Everyone has a great calling.Let us help you discern yours.

“The Church needs you,counts on you and continuesto turn to you with confidence,particularly to reach thegeographical and spiritualplaces where others do notreach or find it difficult to reach.”

Pope Benedict XVI, address tothe Society of Jesus, GeneralCongregation 35, February 21, 2008

www.Jesuit.org

What Muslims ThinkThe Cardinal Bea Center at thePontifical Gregorian University inRome continues the work described byJohn Borelli (“In the Beginning,” 10/1).I received a masters of theology in inter-religious dialogue, specializing in Islam,from the Gregorian. During my studies,I was amazed at the common groundbetween Islam and Catholicism, espe-cially the admirable Muslim commit-ment to prayer, which Pope BenedictXVI has also pointed out.

It is regrettable that primitive tribalactions in Muslim communities areconfused with Islam. Since returninghome, I have attended more than 50adult education lectures at my localmosque. I know what AmericanMuslims think. They are pro-life, pro-family, pro-business and pro-American.

RAYMOND RICEPort Washington, N.Y.

Find Common GroundThe excellent talk “How to Keep OurHeads Amid the Craziness,” by DrewChristiansen, S.J. (Web only, 10/1),

echoes the dilemma most Catholics facewhen going to the polls: no single can-didate or political party fully embraceswhat I believe is right and just. Because of its checks and balances,

government in the United States isinherently inefficient. It is hard toblame any one individual or party.Therefore, a spirit of trying to findsome common ground might be whatis necessary for progress and makingthe world a better place, as Jesus wouldhave it. President John F. Kennedysaid, “Compromise need not meancowardice.” Finding underlying univer-sal principles on all sides ought to bethe goal of our executives, legislatorsand judges.

JOHN ZOLKOWSKIScottdale, Ga.

Practice, Then PreachRe “Diplomacy and Disarmament”(Editorial, 9/24): Weapons of massdestruction are morally evil becausethey are built, as their name implies, tokill indiscriminate masses of people bythe tens of thousands. They shouldnot be in any nation’s arsenal ofweapons because no nation is morallypermitted to use them.Nuclear nonproliferation talks are

unreasonable and a waste of time aslong as even one of the participants ispermitted to have and is able to usenuclear weapons. Who gave theUnited States, the only country onearth to have immorally used an atom-ic bomb, the moral right to preventIran and North Korea from having thesame weapons of mass destruction?Nonproliferation talks make sense

only if the United States and the othernuclear-capable countries voluntarilydestroy their own arsenals of weaponsof mass destruction and unite firmlywith every nation on earth against anynation that would dare to build them.No nation could survive the threat of atotal boycott and embargo by a unitedworld that preaches what it practices.

LARRY N. LORENZONI, S.D.B. San Francisco, Calif.


CLASS IF IED

LETTERS

MORAL THEOLOGY for the School ofTheology/Seminary program, beginning fall 2013.This faculty position is responsible for graduate-seminary level teaching in moral theology (i.e., fun-damental, social, sexual, medical ethics) and serviceas a formator in the Sulpician tradition. The idealcandidate would be a Roman Catholic priest witha terminal ecclesiastical degree in the field.Academic rank at first appointment is commensu-rate with prior achievement. Competitive salaryand benefits package.Send letter, curriculum vitae and names of refer-

ences to Timothy Kulbicki, O.F.M.Conv., Dean ofthe School of Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary andUniversity, 5400 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, MD21210, or send e-mail to [email protected].

TranslatorI WILL TRANSLATE INTO SPANISH any book,article, essay, blog, Web site, newsletter. LuisBaudry-Simon, [email protected]; Ph.(815) 694-0713.

WillsPlease remember America in your will. Our legal titleis: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th Street, NewYork, NY 10019.

America classified. Classified advertisements are acceptedfor publication in either the print version of America or onour Web site, www.americamagazine.org. Ten-wordminimum. Rates are per word per issue. 1-5 times: $1.50;6-11 times: $1.28; 12-23 times: $1.23; 24-41 times:$1.17; 42 times or more: $1.12. For an additional $30,your print ad will be posted on America’s Web site for oneweek. The flat rate for a Web-only classified ad is $150for 30 days. Ads may be submitted by e-mail to:[email protected]; by fax to (928) 222-2107;by postal mail to: Classified Department, America, 106West 56th St., New York, NY 10019. To post a classi-fied ad online, go to our home page and click on“Advertising” at the top of the page. We do not accept adcopy over the phone. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Formore information call: (212) 515-0102.

PositionsMERCY HIGH SCHOOL, Baltimore, Md., a pri-vate Catholic college preparatory school educatingyoung women in grades 9-12 and sponsored by theSisters of Mercy, is seeking applicants for the posi-tion of PRESIDENT. With a student body ofapproximately 350, Mercy is a member of theNetwork for Mercy Education and the Associationof Independent Maryland Schools.Accountable to the Board of Trustees, the

President provides overall institutional leadershipto the school. The President is appointed by theBoard, with the approval of the Leadership Teamof the Sisters of Mercy South Central Community.Primary responsibilities include: implementing theeducational mission of the Sisters of Mercy; serv-ing as the official representative of the school to theexternal education, civic, religious and businesscommunities; inspiring educational excellence;advancing institutional development and achievingfinancial sustainability.The ideal candidate will demonstrate a strong

commitment to the educational and religious val-ues of the Sisters of Mercy; have, at a minimum, agraduate degree in a relevant field; be an accom-plished educator and administrator; have a provenrecord of successful fundraising; exemplify person-al integrity and exceptional leadership skills; andbe a practicing Catholic.Interested candidates should electronically

submit a letter of application, résumé and threereferences to Sister Patricia Smith, R.S.M., Ph.D.,Chair of the Search Committee, at [email protected] by the application deadline ofNov. 2, 2012.Please visit www.mercyhighschool.com for

additional information about the school and acomplete position description. Click on “PresidentSearch.”

ST. MARY’S SEMINARY AND UNIVERSITY inBaltimore invites applications for a position in

None of them knew. How can there beany doubt about the connectionbetween the teenagers’ ignorance ofCatholicism—even “localCatholicism”—and their eventualdeparture from the church?Impastato’s suggestions are the first

signs of hope—realistic hope—thatsomething can be done to improvereligious education. To insist that reli-gious knowledge does not matter is adangerous accommodation to failure.Doing the same thing over and overand expecting things to change is thepath of insanity. Trying somethingnew stands a fighting chance ofputting us on the path to, well, trans-figuration.

MARY MARSHColorado Springs, Colo.

Why He LeftAfter reading Matt Emerson’s article,“Help Their Unbelief ” (9/10), Ithought I would share my son-in-law’s

reason for joining a fundamentalist,evangelical church. He attendedCatholic elementary and high schoolin the 1970s and 80s. When the sub-ject came up as to why he left theCatholic Church, his answer surprisedme. He said, “When I was in gradeschool, I learned all the Bible stories.When I got to high school, I was toldthey were all myths.” He is a great hus-band and father of four children. Iwonder how many others left for thisreason. He joined the fundamentalistchurch about two years ago.

CHARLES SCALLYChalfont, Pa.

Holistic CatechesisI appreciate Matt Emerson’s conclu-sion that the mission of Catholicschools has not failed if, under cultur-al conditions that foster skepticismamong youth, the schools at least“point them in the right direction” intheir faith development. He makes aslight misstep, however, when hereduces catechesis to “a matter of read-ing or memorizing, or knowing a‘bunch of stuff.’”Catechesis is about evangelizing

people with incipient faith to be incommunion with Jesus Christ. Ratherthan merely targeting the mind withtheological and ecclesiastical concepts,catechesis hopes to set the heartaflame with an apostolic zeal for serv-ing Christ. The hypothetical Sarah,with her budding spiritual life and loveof service, is just the sort of personthat catechesis serves.

MARK L. ASSELINBethesda, Md.

Preach With Your LifeRe “As It Is In Heaven,” by EdwardMcCormack (9/10): For a Jesuit pub-lication, I was struck by howDominican this message sounds!Preachers, indeed. Yes, good preachingis the obvious response to the call ofPope Benedict XVI for a new evange-lization.But good preaching is not synony-

A Suicidal Species?I appreciate Kyle T. Kramer’s hope(“After the Fall,” 9/24) for a new wis-dom to emerge from our current fault.I fear we will have to hit the wallbefore we will change the way weabuse our resources. E. O. Wilsononce wrote a white paper posing thehypothesis that Homo sapiens mightbe a suicidal species. I hope he iswrong. Our hope may be in catastro-phe—if that catastrophe does not ren-der our garden uninhabitable. Maybethen we can turn toward wisdom.

CHARLES KINNAIRDBirmingham, Ala.

Path to TransfigurationRe “Faith by Heart,” by DavidImpastato (9/10): I’ve been sitting inon parish religious education classesfor years. Things are only gettingworse. I recently asked my confirma-tion students what Transfiguration,the name of our home parish, meant.


WITHOUT GUILE

CARTOON BY H

ARLEY SCHWADRON

“We survived the plane crash, but now an oil spill is heading our way.”

To send a letter to the editor we recommend using the link that appears below articleson America’s Web site: americamagazine.org. This allows us to consider your letter forpublication in both print and online versions of the magazine. Letters may also be sentto America’s editorial office (address on page 2) or by e-mail to: [email protected]. They should be brief and include the writer’s name, postal address anddaytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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mous with good homiletics, and it isnot just the responsibility of clergy.All the baptized should considerbecoming preachers. We preach withour lives when we clarify the Gospelmessage to those around us in waysthat engage them and when—by ourorientation to Jesus as a model forright living—we can provide themwith examples for how he transformsus and brings fulfillment to us hereand now.

DANNY OTEROCincinnati, Ohio

JP2 and DialogueRe “Of Many Things,” by DrewChristiansen, S.J. (9/10): Pope JohnPaul II is a flawed model to offer achurch longing for meaningful dia-logue. The pope failed to adhere to thestructural changes of the SecondVatican Council. Collegiality man-dates that bishops as a collective have arole in the governance of the universalchurch with and under the pope. JohnPaul regarded the bishops as hishelpers in his governance of thechurch, and he regarded the Synod ofBishops as an instrument of the papa-cy with whose teachings it had to con-form. Pope John Paul also unilaterally

declared that the question of women’sordination is definitively resolved, andhe disallowed further discussion. Thiswas an imposition of the papal will(voluntarism) on the entire church.Gender and celibacy are obsolete crite-ria for ordination. Honest dialoguewould make this obvious. But rigidauthoritarianism under Pope JohnPaul II and now Pope Benedict XVIholds sway.

(REV.) PAUL SURLISCrofton, Md.

f you look at exercise video ads,the sell typically works like this:work hard, sweat hard (i.e., suffer),

and the prize you get out of it is a killerbody. It might be tempting to applythis sort of mentality to discipleship:work hard for the kingdom, suffer, andget the prize of heaven for it. C. S.Lewis rightly points out in TheProblem of Pain that this way ofapproaching discipleship ultimatelydoes not work: “Heaven offers nothingthat a mercenary soul can desire. It issafe to tell the pure of heart that theyshall see God, for only the pure ofheart want to.”Lewis’s insight strikes me as a key to

the Gospel reading for today. Jesus hasjust given his disciples the third andfinal prediction of his passion. Recallthat after the first prediction, Peter“rebukes” Jesus (8:31–32). After thesecond, the disciples argue about whoamong them is the greatest (9:31–34).Today’s reading begins just after thethird prediction, with James and Johnasking to be given places of prestigewhen Jesus enters his glory. Ultimately,Jesus tells them, these seats are not histo bestow. Their request then occa-sions another teaching about disciple-ship: “Those recognized as rulers overthe Gentiles lord it over them, andtheir great ones make their authorityover them felt. But it shall not be soamong you. Whoever wishes to be firstamong you will be the slave to all. For

the Son of Man did not come to beserved but to serve.”The disciples just don’t

get it. But do we? Let’s faceit, most of us value posi-tions of prestige. Doesn’t thechurch itself give outawards and hold honorsbanquets? One couldcounter that suchhonors and awardshighlight Christianmodels and celebrateministerial blessings.Granted. But even so, it’s a thin linethat is crossed often. More penetrat-ing, how many of us imagine bless-ings in this life or heaven in the nextas a prize for hard work or sufferingendured for the Gospel?A servant’s heart holds the oppo-

site impulse. It does not seek pres-tige but opportunities to attend toothers. It doesn’t seek a reward forwork done or personal prize toclaim. The ideal of embracing a ser-vant’s heart seems to me to be the cen-ter of Jesus’ teaching today. Theemphasis should not be on the suffer-ing that Christian discipleship mightinclude, though Jesus reminds Jamesand John that this will be their lot.Nor is it directly about leadership orlording authority over those under us,though this too is important.Discipleship, as Jesus frames it here, isbest understood as reorienting one’swhole psyche, regardless of whetherone suffers much or little, has muchauthority or little. To embrace truediscipleship is to take on the mind of

Christ, who took the form of a slave(Phil 2:5–7); it is putting on a newdivine nature (Col 3:10); it is becom-ing conformed to the image of Christhimself (Rom 8:29).The second reading, from the

Letter to the Hebrews, describes thehigh priesthood of Jesus, who haspassed through the heavens (to theeternal temple) and invites us to cometo him there. Hebrews wants toremind us that though Jesus bears thestamp of the divine nature (1:3), he isfully human: “For we do not have a

high priest who is unable to sym-pathize with our weaknesses,but one who has similarly

been tested in everyway, yet without sin.”

Jesus did not sin, notbecause of his divinenature, but because of his


A Servant’s HeartTWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B), OCT. 21, 2012

Readings: Is 53:10–11; Ps 33:4–22; Heb 3:14–16; Mk 10:35–45

“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mk 10:45)

I

PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

• Think about humble servants you haveknown.

* How can you embrace their spirit?

• Consider your experience of beingpraised; offer it to Christ.

ar

t:

ta

D D

uN

Ne

THE WORD

PETER FELDMEIER is the Murray/BacikProfessor of Catholic Studies at the Universityof Toledo.

human one, one that was fully actual-ized. In the same way, our putting onof this new divine nature and beingconformed into the image of Christdoes not entail leaving behind ourhuman nature. Christian discipleshipeffects a spiritual renewal that enablesus to live our human lives as fully anddeeply as possible. Put it all together: What does it

mean to be human? Servant. Whatdoes it mean to be Christian? Servant.What does the divine nature look like?Servant. Who belongs in heaven? Nomercenaries, just servants.

PETER FELDMEIER

Documents

THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY OCT. 15, 2012 $3...Gerhard Lohfink 17 WAKE-UP CALL How Catholics can live the Year of Faith David L. Ricken 20 REALITY CHECK A fact-based assessment of