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ri Mor was the late director ofChristian Community Affairsfor the Israeli Ministry of

Religion. His job was to address theconcerns of the Christian churches inIsrael and the Occupied Territories. Uricarried out his duties with mannersthat mixed Old Europe with theMiddle East. He would greet Christianofficials with a smile, an outstretchedhand, a kiss on both cheeks and a salu-tation in a scratchy, high-pitched voice.

In the early years, Uri would come tomeet me at Notre Dame of Jerusalem,the Vatican pilgrim hospice. Later,when he obtained an office, he wouldalways offer sweet cakes, juice andArabic coffee to his guests. When I hada ranking prelate in tow, Uri wouldarrange for us to depart from BenGurion airport with V.I.P. status. Ididn’t learn until sometime later thatthose V.I.P. exits cost his office $1,000 ahead.

I have fond memories of Morbecause, despite being caught betweenhis own government and his Christianclients, he worked hard to serve theChristian communities. When the firstNetanyahu government came intopower in 1996, it wanted to move hisoffice into Pisgat Zev, a Jewish settle-ment north of Jerusalem. He told hissuperiors he couldn’t do his work in asettlement where Christians would beshown disrespect. For a year and a half,Uri and his assistant worked from hiskitchen table and his car. He workedceaselessly to obtain permits from otherministries and find compromises forissues like visas for clergy and otherreligious workers.

Not everything was sweetness andlight, however. One of Mor’s duties wasto rebut every public statement madeby the Latin Patriarch, then MichelSabbah, and the other heads of church-es. No sooner did they make a state-ment than Uri called a press conferenceto voice the official Israeli view. TheIsraeli policy was clear. Any criticism

had to be responded to—aggressively.In Uri’s case, no matter how vehementthe response, I knew it came from afriend who was also working on ourbehalf, often at cost to himself.

With the rise of the Israeli right andespecially after 2009, with the secondNetanyahu government, there has beenno tolerance for alternative views. In hisbook The Crisis of Zionism(Macmillan), Peter Beinart describesthe closed-minded Jewish exclusivismof Mr. Netanyahu in a chapter entitled“The Monist Prime Minister.” Thatclosed-mindedness has taken form innumerous initiatives to silence dissent.Legislation has cracked down onhuman rights groups, peace activistsand journalists. A recent effort to sup-press news about the disappearance ofnative Arab Christians from the HolyLand, however, backfired.

Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador tothe United States, tried to block CBSNews from broadcasting a “60Minutes” segment on April 22 aboutChristian emigration from the HolyLand (see www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml). Underintense high-level pressure, the veteranCBS correspondent Bob Simon metwith Oren, and that interview wasmade part of the story. Simon, believingin his story and believing even more inthe integrity of the press, upstaged Mr.Oren. He had faced criticism for storiesin the past, Simon said, but never for astory that had yet to be aired and onethe ambassador had not viewed.

The subsequent Jewish outrage waspredictable. More surprising was thepetition from Jewish Voices for Peacethat drew some 35,000 signatures(www.thankyou60minutes.org). Byadvocating a free, tolerant and openIsrael, where Jews can live in peacealongside Christians and Muslims, theJ.V.P. organizers and signers are worthysuccessors to an older generation ofIsraeli officials like Uri Mor.

DREW CHRISTIANSEN, S.J.

PUBLISHED BY JESUITS OF THE UNITED STATES

UOF MANY THINGS

Cover: Veterans listen to an instruc-tor at a surf therapy program for mil-itary veterans in Manhattan Beach,Calif., in May 2011. Photo: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

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www.americamagazine.org Vol. 206 No. 17, Whole No. 4973 May 21, 2012

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CONTENTS

A R T I C L E S

13 HIDDEN WOUNDSHealing after a soldier’s homecoming Nancy Sherman

17 THE ETHICAL EXECUTIVEThe Vatican’s strategic plan for the business communityMichael Naughton

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

4 Current Comment

5 Editorial Budgeting Solidarity

6 Signs of the Times

10 Column Tokens of Love and Loss Margaret Silf

20 Vatican II at 50 Catholic Press at the CouncilThe Editors

22 Poem His Empty Hand Brian Doyle

29 Letters

31 The Word The Spirit’s GiftPeter Feldmeier

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

21 THEATER Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” BOOKS Bad Religion; The Emerging Catholic Church; Places of Faith

Barbara E. Reid, O.P., right, talks about women prophets

and Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., discusses the power of theMagnificat on our podcast. Plus, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanasreports on a visit to Cuba. All at americamagazine.org.

O N T H E W E B

4 America May 21, 2012

CURRENT COMMENT

Conviction, Not RecompenseWhatever sentence the court hands down on May 30, theconviction last month of Charles G. Taylor, former presi-dent of Liberia, on charges of crimes against humanityshows the importance of the United Nations’ internationaltribunal structure. The courts can and do pursue thoseresponsible for genocide and other mass violence. This isprogress. The verdict is also unique in that, while leadingmembers of other nations have been charged and tried,Mr. Taylor is the first head of state since World War II tobe convicted of war crimes. This trial has focused worldattention on his crimes, ensuring them a place in history’sannals of human cruelty. The best outcome of the trialprocess would be to deter other tyrants.

But the process also highlights the current limitationsof the courts. First, justice has been anything but swift.The rebel atrocities in Sierra Leone, financed and abettedby Mr. Taylor, took place in the 1990s, but his trial did notbegin until 2006, leaving victims to languish. Second, courtexpenses have piled up for others to pay. Mr. Taylor’s for-tune, built from the sale of West African diamonds andallegedly used to buy weapons and fighters, is missing. Itmight have defrayed trial costs and assisted his victims.

Third, the court has no alternative means by which tocompensate victims. Some 50,000 people died in the warin Sierra Leone, but thousands more live on, impoverishedin a country decimated by war. Men, women and children,left mutilated by rebel forces, must endure lifelong hard-ship. Through having their case heard by the world’s high-est courts, the victims have experienced a measure of jus-tice. Still, the contrast is haunting: Mr. Taylor, spared inthese courts from the death penalty, will likely spend hisremaining years well fed and sheltered in a British prison.His victimized neighbors, by contrast, can expect no com-parable food, shelter or care.

Hopefully, This Too Shall PassRecently in the Style section of The Washington Post(4/18), those who love precise use of the English languagewere grievously impacted by the news that the adverb hope-fully has transitioned. It happened with the blessing of theAssociated Press, moving from an adverb (“I prayed hope-fully for a cure”) to a pseudo-verb in a mini-sentence(“Hopefully I’ll be cured at Lourdes”). Loyal defenders ofthe active verb—“I hope I’ll survive this”—like disciples ofStrunk and White’s Elements of Style, which ruled in 1959that to say, “Hopefully I’ll leave on the plane” is to talk

nonsense, were crushed. Embarrassed, an AP editor con-fessed, “You just can’t fight it.”

Supporters of changes like this argue that the corrup-tion of words’ previous meanings is as irresistible as anavalanche in the Alps. New words and meanings roll in,infiltrate common speech and, no matter how vulgar, nestand breed. Others corrupt the vocabulary of televisionanchors and politicians. Thus to impact, as a verb, oncemeant “to smash two things together,” like cars in a junk-yard press; but now “Obama’s speech impacted the audi-ence” means they were impressed by it. Incredible meant“not to be believed.” Now it competes with OMG as ameaningless interjection. Her dance, his jump shot, thesnow storm are all incredible. It means no more than“Cool!”. Hopefully this whole mess will transition and wecan disimpact the damage it has done.

Publish and Perish?Are book publishers a dying breed? The alarm that greetedthe U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into the price-fixing scheme of five major publishers would seem to indi-cate the sky is falling, at least for those of us who make a liv-ing worrying over words. The D.O.J. cited the publishers forcolluding with Apple Inc. to raise the prices of electronicbooks. The publishers’ alleged action was intended tocounter the growing dominance of Amazon, the behemothonline retailer, which is determined to control the cost ofdigital books and extend the market share of its Kindle e-reader.

The publishers have reason for concern. If Amazondrives down the prices of digital books, as it is expected todo, publishing houses would make less money on each title,leaving them less to invest in promising young authors orfeats of reporting like those of, say, Robert Caro, the tirelessbiographer of Lyndon Johnson. Apple may have drawn thegovernment’s attention, but Amazon deserves scrutiny too.The retailer’s control of a vast swath of the digital market-place threatens more than just the book industry.

Yet book publishers also need to rethink their businessmodel. Setting higher prices for digital books is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem. Publishers shouldfocus on the benefits of e-readers and try to capitalizeupon them. These devices have made it easier, and moreaffordable, for the public to access books. Creating a cul-ture of readers in a media-saturated landscape is no smallaccomplishment. Publishers need to find new ways to mar-ket content to an audience as hungry as ever for qualitymaterial.

ith the international community on the verge ofsignificant victories against global poverty, whyare leaders in the developed world poised to

sabotage decades of progress? This year nations acrossEurope are slashing foreign aid budgets even as growing evi-dence demonstrates the real-world success of overseas assis-tance programs. According to a new report, aid from rich topoorer countries is a key factor in a historic drop in childmortality—just one of the “transformational changes” for-eign aid has produced for the world’s children. The report,“Progress in Child Well-Being: Building on What Works,”published by Save the Children U.K. and Great Britain’sOverseas Development Institute, found that more than fourmillion fewer children are dying each year than in 1990because of foreign assistance.

According to the report, the number of childrenenrolled in school increased by 56 million between 1999and 2009, and 131 countries now have over 90 percentimmunization coverage for major preventable childhooddiseases, compared with just 63 percent in 1990. Moneymatters. In sub-Saharan Africa, countries that received themost aid over the past decade made the most progress inreducing child malnutrition and infant mortality.

The fiscal mantra of “austerity” has been repeatedacross Europe as each government in turn has come to con-front national deficits and other fiscal challenges. Now thereare similar calls for austerity in the United States despite theclear disruptions such policies are generating in Europe.Economic output is down; unemployment is up; social ser-vices are diminished; and the United Kingdom and Spainhave again fallen into recession.

European newspapers depict austerity’s toll on fami-lies and individuals: the public suicide of a 77-year-oldretired pharmacist in Greece shocked the nation. But thedamage austerity may inflict is not limited to Europe. Farfrom the first world and the financial irresponsibility thattriggered the global economic crisis, the world’s poor mayshoulder a disproportionate measure of European and U.S.austerity. During times of economic crisis, foreign aid bud-gets make appealing targets.

The Paris-based Organization for EconomicDevelopment reported in April that aid to developing coun-tries by major donors fell by nearly 3 percent in 2011, thefirst drop since 1997. Development experts charge that thecuts far outpace the rate of Europe’s economic contraction.

An Oxfam official called the sweepingcuts “inexcusable.”

World donors are far behindschedule to achieve the commitment of0.7 percent of gross national income(G.N.I.) to mitigate global poverty, whichis part of the Millennium Development Goals agreement of2000. Last year the United States continued to be the world’slargest donor in dollar amounts—offering $30.7 billion in aid.But that figure represents a mere 0.2 percent of the G.N.I. ofthe United States, far short of its commitment to 0.7 percent.

In “Populorum Progressio” (1967), Pope Paul VIwrote: “The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peo-ples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to thequick by this cry, asks each and every man to hear his broth-er’s plea and answer it lovingly.” These are lofty words, butthe pope also dealt with specifics, encouraging fair, not justfree markets and higher taxes in rich nations to finance aid.Above all the pope suggested a higher ambition for foreignassistance: that it be used as a mechanism not just torespond to immediate want, but as an aid to the promotionof “brotherly” affection among the peoples of the world, tosolidarity. It is a role that foreign aid can still play today.

Some suggest that foreign aid programs are unafford-able luxuries in the face of the era’s economic challenges.This is plain nonsense. The entire aid budget of the world’slargest economy, the United States, amounts to about 1 per-cent of the federal government’s total annual budget.

“Progress in Child Well-Being” and other studiesdemonstrate that aid saves lives. Industrialized nations havefreely made commitments to reduce world poverty by halfby 2015; military budgets around the world grow largerdespite all the bold talk about fiscal reform. O.E.C.D.nations have other options for deficit reduction. The dollaramounts of most national aid budgets are paltry, particular-ly when compared with the savings that could be achievedthrough small adjustments to defense budgets or tax policy.Unlike foreign aid reductions, defense spending cuts canhave a meaningful impact on fiscal balance while liberatingresources to stabilize or even increase foreign aid.

Despite the progress made thus far, the poor of theworld still face crushing hardship. Millions of children can besaved or written off by the signing of a budget resolution. Theworld community has the information, and the need persists.Now it must summon the resolve to finish what it started.

Budgeting for Lives

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May 21, 2012 America 5

EDITORIAL


n an energetic defense of the Obama administration’s controversial use ofdrones to target leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda networks inAfghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, White House counterterror-

ism advisor John Brennan called drone strikes not only “ethical,” but “wise.”Brennan’s presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for

Scholars in Washington on April 30 was intended to pull back the curtains onthe administration’s drone policy. Brennan called individuals who are part of AlQaeda or its associated forces “legitimate military targets.” According toBrennan, “We have the authority to target them with lethal force, just as we[targeted] enemy leaders in past conflicts.”

Defending drone strikes, Brennan said that as a matter of international law,the United States was in an armed conflict with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban and asso-ciated forces, in response to the 9/11 attacks.” He said, “There is nothing in inter-national law that bans the use of remotely piloted aircraft for this purpose or that

the minds of the parish council mem-bers who approved the divestment.They simply wanted to see the parish’scash assets invested locally to helptheir middle-class city of 102,000 res-idents, Father Rien said. But word ofthe divestment spread quickly.Following the parish’s lead, religiouscongregations have withdrawn about$40 million nationwide from thecountry’s largest banks, said TimLillienthal, lead organizer with thePICO National Network, the largestfaith-based organizing group in theUnited States.

hen the Rev. RobertRien, flanked by the staffof St. Ignatius of

Antioch Parish, showed up at theBank of America branch in Antioch,Calif., in 2009 to close out the church’saccount—all of $135,000—the onlything on his mind was the plight oftwo dozen families in his flock strug-gling with their mortgages against the$2.3 trillion behemoth.

“We know it wasn’t much,” he saidof the parish’s savings. “But it sent amessage and it started a movement.”

Creating a movement was hardly on

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

F I N A N C E R E F O R M

Churches Target Big Banks WithDivestment and Activism

“We’re trying to get the banks to lis-ten to us to try to keep people in theirhomes,” Lillienthal said. The campaignto boost bank accountability hasgained wider awareness across thecountry as hundreds of faith-basedand grass-roots organizations beganworking alongside the Occupy WallStreet movement. The groups havesucceeded in calling attention to exec-utive compensation, secrecy in finan-cial dealings and the banks’ lobbyingefforts to water down rules governingfinancial reform under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform andConsumer Protection Act passed in2010.

One of the longest-running effortsto focus on banking accountability hasoperated with much less public atten-

prohibits us from using lethal forceagainst our enemies outside of an activebattlefield, at least when the countryinvolved consents or is unable orunwilling to take action against thethreat.”

“This conduct remains unlawful,”

Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell of theUniversity of Notre Dame Law Schoolwrote in an e-mail from London. “Theadministration has added argumentsto their case, but these remain defi-cient,” she said. “Despite this fact, one

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year after the killing of Osama binLaden, the Obama administration hasescalated the killing.” O’Connell is theincoming president of the AmericanSociety for International Law.

Charles Schmitz, of Towson Uni-

W A R O N T E R R O R

Administration Official Calls DroneWarfare ‘Ethical’ and ‘Wise’

A rally in Peshawar,Pakistan, against droneattacks, May 2011.


Sister Mika said she told Citigroupofficials, “We’ve engaged you [for]many years and we’re not going away.”

stan and Yemen. Schmitz argued thatdrones “have not been effective instopping the Al Qaeda insurgency” inYemen.

“Al Qaeda’s success on the groundhas been a result of the Yemeni govern-ment’s political crises that pit militaryunits against one another and createdistrust amongst Yemeni citizens,” hesaid. More attention to resolving thepolitical crisis in Yemen, he argued,would be a better use of U.S. resourcesthan continuing a drone campaign thatmerely “bolsters Al Qaeda’s argumentthat the Yemeni government and otherArab governments are puppets of theU.S.”

Brennan said U.S. drone strikeswere ethical because they hit targetsthat “have definite military value” andattempt to limit “collateral damage.”He said drones can be a “wise choice”because they can reach targets overdifficult terrain, strike quickly and“dramatically reduce the danger toU.S. personnel, even eliminating the

tion. Several faith-based coalitionsthat promote socially responsibleinvestment have challenged corporatedecision-making through shareholderresolutions and public statements call-ing for transparency in financial deal-ings and justice for bank customers.

Seamus Finn, an Oblate priest whois a member of the board of directorsof the Interfaith Center for CorporateResponsibility, said all the tactics aremeant to get the attention of corporateofficials about questionable businesspractices. Father Finn, who planned topresent resolutions during the annualmeetings at JP Morgan Chase and theinvestment firm of Goldman Sachs inMay, said the massive bank lobbyingeffort to minimize the impact ofDodd-Frank on trading and invest-

ment practices is high on the list ofconcerns being raised with corporateC.E.O.’s.

Citigroup officials and share-holders meeting in Dallas onApril 17 were confronted withthose questions by Susan Mika,a Benedictine sister who is exec-utive director of the SociallyResponsible Investment Coali-tion based in San Antoni, Tex.Sister Mika charged that thecompany was “spending enor-mous amounts of money to stallthe rulemaking process” underDodd-Frank. The questionshelped Citigroup’s shareholdersissue a vote of no confidence tothe bank’s executive compensa-tion plan.

danger altogether.” He argued thatdrones also reduce the danger to civil-ians, “especially considered againstmassive ordnance that can causeinjury and death far beyond theirintended target.”

Both O’Connell and Schmitz said,however, that the use of drones farfrom areas of armed conflict and whenspecific threats to the U.S. homelandremain difficult to perceive was indeeda violation of international law. Theysaid the strikes themselves were muchharder on noncombatants thanBrennan suggested.

“The U.S. arsenal is dominated bythe Reaper drone that can carry 500-pound bombs,” said O’Connell. “Thatis what the U.S. is dropping on com-munities in Yemen, Somalia andPakistan, where the U.S. is notengaged in armed conflict. Since 2002,nearly 3,000 people have been killed inthese three countries through droneattacks. Neither international law normorality supports such killing.”

versity in Baltimore, Md., who is a spe-cialist on Yemen, pointed out that amajor flaw in the U.S. drone strategy isthat the strikes stoke public anger thatthreatens to undermine support forinternal antiterror campaigns in Paki-

Demonstrators protest outside the Wells Fargoshareholders meeting in the financial district inSan Francisco on April 24.


New Caritas OversightA Vatican decree on May 2 establishednew norms for Caritas Internationalis,giving Vatican offices greater authorityover the work of the umbrella group of162 Catholic aid agencies around theworld. The decision comes after theVatican last year vetoed the re-electionof the organization’s then-secretarygeneral, Lesley-Anne Knight, com-plaining of a lack of coordination withVatican officials. The organization isnow under the supervision of thePontifical Council, Cor Unum, whichoversees the church’s charitable activi-ties, and three members of its boardwill be papal appointees. Top officialsof Caritas Internationalis will berequired to pronounce loyalty oathsbefore the president of Cor Unum; itsstatements—particularly “any textwith doctrinal or moral content or ori-entations”—and activities will have tobe authorized in advance by theVatican, except in “grave humanitarianemergencies.” Cor Unum will alsoappoint an ecclesiastical assistant topromote C.I.’s “Catholic identity,” andthe Vatican’s Secretariat of State willsupervise the confederation’s contactswith foreign governments.

Nigeria ‘Powerless’Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos,president of the Catholic Bishops’Conference of Nigeria, said he couldnot understand why the governmentappeared powerless to prevent deadlyattacks on Christians by Islamic ter-rorists. Speaking on April 30, a dayafter 21 people were killed in coordi-nated attacks on Sunday services at auniversity and a Protestant chapel, thearchbishop said the incidents showedthat the government “is not able tocope with the security situation, andwe feel quite apprehensive.” He added,

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee plans to veto legisla-tion meant to force Vanderbilt University to exemptstudent religious groups from its nondiscriminationpolicy. • The Archdiocese of Cincinnati and theDiocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., are facinglawsuits from Catholic schoolteachers fired for pursu-ing in vitro fertilization treatments. • On May 2Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland said he will notresign despite questions raised in a BBC documentaryabout his role in a canonical inquiry into a pedophile priest in 1975.• Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago on April 25 presided overthe burial of some of the 120 fetuses stored at a medical examiner’soffice. • The Obama administration has issued guidelines for feder-ally funded faith-based groups, ranging from explanations of theterm “explicitly religious” activity to ways to preserve religious iden-tities while using federal funds. • As the May 27 deadline approach-es for a new constitution in Nepal, Bishop Anthony Sharma, S.J.,apostolic vicar to that country, said on May 3, “We want a secularstate, which protects freedoms and individual rights and recognizesall religious communities...that gives women equal rights, equalopportunity, finally overcoming the caste system.”

N E W S B R I E F S

Francis E.George

“Why the government cannot identifythe people involved baffles the imagi-nation.... Those young people killed atthe university represented the hope ofour country. It defies all logic,” thearchbishop said. “They were peopletrying to build a better country.”

Al Qaeda: Catholics‘Fertile Ground’An American spokesperson for AlQaeda, Adam Gadahn, concluded lastyear that because of church scandalsCatholics were “fertile ground” forconversion. According to newly declas-sified documents, Gadahn wrote toOsama Bin Laden in January 2011and laid out reasons for reaching outto Catholics, particularly in Ireland,and urged Bin Laden to use public

anger over the church’s mishandling ofclerical abuse to encourage conversionsto Islam. The letter was among filesallegedly found at Bin Laden’sPakistan hideout after he was killed byU.S. special forces in Abbottabad,Pakistan, last May. The letter fromGadahn particularly highlighted rea-sons for approaching the Irish, notingIreland was not a participant in“Bush’s Crusade wars” and “theincreasing anger in Ireland towards theCatholic Church.” He noted thehunger of youths because of Ireland’seconomic downturn and wrote thatIrish people—”the most religious ofatheist Europe”—were moving towardsecularism. “Why do not we face themwith Islam?” he asked.

From CNS and other sources.


luck aboot the hoose,” composed bythe Greenock poet Jean Adam(1704–65).

The guide sighs as he recalls thatthe unfortunate Fifth Earl ofDumfries, who commissioned thehouse, had every reason to build thissong into the home that brought himso little happiness. His first wife diedprematurely, and so did their 10-year-old son. Hoping nevertheless for amuch-wanted heir, he mar-ried again, but the secondmarriage remained child-less. At this disclosure, themusical visitors sponta-neously break into song,and the notes on the ceilingleap to life, echoing a storyof love and loss and bring-ing 18th-century tears to21st-century eyes.

Heading south now toLondon, as a visitor to theFoundling Hospital Museum inBloomsbury, I pore over some of thetokens left in the 18th century bymothers forced by circumstance toabandon their babies.

An array of simple items is dis-played—trinkets of no inherent value,like buttons or coins or fragments offabric, once pinned to a baby’s clothesso that in future years the child’s natu-ral parent could be identified shouldshe ever return to reclaim her child.One small pendant is engraved with achild’s initials and the words “You havemy love, though we must part.” Whythese tokens? Simply becausefoundlings are meant to be found. Andthe hope was never fully relinquishedthat these children would one day bereunited with their own families,reconnected by a thread of fabric or an

he shadows are lengtheningover a stormy North Sea, aswe enjoy our fish and chips in

the local fish restaurant. My compan-ion has lived here all his life and recallsa disastrous storm that once wiped outhalf of the fishing fleet of this littleScottish town. “In those days,”herecalls, “the fishermen always wore asingle earring with a unique pattern. Ifa man was drowned, his body could beidentified by this earring, and the littlegold it contained would provide somemeagre resource with which his widowand family might manage to survivefor a while after his death.”

I try to imagine the feelings of thegrieving widow, standing on the harborwall, gripping this last small token con-necting her to the loved one the sea hasclaimed. And I think of the friends ofJesus, devastated by his brutal death,hopeless in the face of such total loss.

Across the country, in the south-west of Scotland, a modest but beauti-ful stately home, lovingly refurbished,tells another story—but you mighteasily miss it. Let’s pick up the talenearly 250 years after its beginning. Agroup of visitors, who happen to bemembers of a choral society, areexploring the house with the help of aguide, who points out some interestingstucco work on the ceiling. Their eyesfocus on a few bars of music, incorpo-rated into the original plasterworkback in 1760. And amazingly, one ofthe choristers brings out binoculars,examines the notes on the ceiling andrecognizes the opening bars of the tra-ditional Scottish song “There’s nae

old button.All these incidents tell of loss and

the human longing to reach beyondthat loss, to tell the story of the past tounknown listeners in the future. Theytell of love, its pain and sorrow and sac-rifice, as well as its unquenchable hope.

Before his death, Jesus tells hisfriends that “the Holy Spirit, whomthe Father will send in my name, willteach you everything and remind you

of all I have said toyou”( Jn 14:26). Withthis promise ringing inour ears, we approachPentecost. It is apromise that whatseems to be incon-solable loss will lead usto a new level of unionwith God that we can-not even imagine.

By contrast with ourvery ordinary tokens of

human love, Jesus leaves us with a“token” as immense as eternity in thegift of his Spirit. It assures us thathowever lost we may frequently feel,we are created to be found. It invites usto let the song of our aching heartsecho down the ages, confident ofGod’s open ear and loving response. Ittakes up residence in our innermostbeing, reminding us of all that divinelove implies and allowing the brokenthreads of our stories to be reconnect-ed, woven into a new tapestry andinterpreted afresh in the light of resur-rection.

It is a mother’s tender promise:“You have my love, though we mustpart,” and our creator’s pledge: “I havebranded you on the palms of myhands”(Is 49:16). This promise hasyour name on it.

Tokens of Love and LossT

Howeverlost we

may feel,we are

created to befound.


MARGARET S ILF

MARGARET SILF lives in Scotland. Her latestbooks are Companions of Christ, The Giftof Prayer and Compass Points.


F

CFCA

CFCA priests are messengers of hope

The priests who work with CFCA celebrate Eucharist in parishes across the country while sharing the good news of the Hope for a Family sponsorship program. They travel for weekend assignments only and accept as many or as few assignments as they like. CFCA especially needs bilingual priests, and offers just compensation.

To learn more about preaching for CFCA, contact Tim Deveney at (800) 875-6564 or [email protected].

Christian Foundation for Children and Aging is an international movement of people who support and encourage children, youth and the aging in developing countries. Founded by lay Catholics acting on the Gospel call to serve the poor, CFCA works with people of all faiths. To learn more, visit www.hopeforafamily.org.

About CFCA

Marta, Father O’Toole’s sponsored friend in El Salvador, graduated as an administrative computer programmer.

CHRISTIAN FOUNDATION FOR CHILDREN AND AGING

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Participants practice balancing during a therapy program for mil-itary veterans in Manhattan Beach, Calif., in May 2011.

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HiddenWounds

BY NANCY SHERMAN

he idea that war gives meaning to life is troubling tomany of us, especially now as we think about oursoldiers coming home from long years at war.Drawing from his own war experience, ErnestHemingway spoke to the worry: “Certainly there is

no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have huntedarmed men long enough, never really care for anything else there-after.”

But as I talk to scores of soldiers returning from the grindingground wars of the past decade, few are hankering for killing orbeing killed—if that is what Hemingway meant by war’s ultimateintoxication. Most simply want to find an equable peace with whatthey did and suffered in war. And they know that this involvesunderstanding the moral implications of their individual wars.Indeed, finding meaning after war is in large part about findingmoral meaning in war. And the keyed-up tempo of war, the hyper-vigilance and emotional disconnection—each its own kind ofintoxication—make coming to understand the moral meaningeven harder. Yet that is critical for healing.

Typical is the remarkable story of Joshua Mantz. On April 21,2007, Capt. Josh Mantz died in Baghdad and came back to lifeafter flatlining for 15 minutes—long past the time doctors rou-tinely mark as the cutoff point for lifesaving measures, given the

T

HEALING AFTER A SOLDIER’SHOMECOMING


NANCY SHERMAN, University Professor in the philosophy department atGeorgetown University, is the author of The Untold War: Inside theHearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers (W.W. Norton) and StoicWarriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind

(Oxford University Press).

likely damage to the brain without vital signs. Not only didCaptain Mantz survive; he returned to his unit five monthslater to resume his platoon command. Yet despite theremarkable revival and media tour as the resilience posterboy for the Department of Defense, Captain Mantz emo-tionally crashed four years later. “It’s the moral injury overtime that really kills people,” he told me recently. “Soldierslose their identity. They don’t understand who they are any-more.” And he added, “Society is oblivious to what soldiersgo through.”

What specificallyweighs on Captain Mantzis that he survived, but hisstaff sergeant, MarlonHarper, did not. Thedetails are wrenching:Captain Mantz was guid-ing his troops near theShiite rebel stronghold ofSadr City when a sniper’s bullet penetrated Staff Sgt.Harper’s left arm, severing his aorta. The hot molten roundfused with Sergeant Harper’s armor plate forming a projec-tile the size of a human fist that ricocheted into CaptainMantz’s upper right thigh, severing his femoral artery.Injured and dazed, Captain Mantz administered first aid toSergeant Harper as he waited for medical assistance. Ayoung medic arrived and immediately went to work onCaptain Mantz, not Sergeant Harper, probably because anaortal wound is less viable than a femoral wound. Havingdied and returned “didn’t bring me closer to God,” CaptainMantz says. “‘Ah, He must have great plans for you,’ peoplesay. But what about Staff Sgt. Harper? I ask.”

In The Untold War I write about the moral injuries sol-diers endure. Some are like those with which Josh Mantzstruggles, feeling the guilt of survival, of having luck, mirac-ulous luck and state-of-the-art medical interventions onone’s side and yet experiencing that good luck as an awfulbetrayal of one’s buddies. But as Captain Mantz’s storymakes clear, moral wounds demand moral healing. Expertsin military and veterans’ mental health are now trying toarticulate just what that healing would look like and howtreatments overlap with or are critically different from thoseroutinely used to treat post-traumaticstress. But the general issue of moral heal-ing from moral combat injury is not justfor experts.

Invisible WoundsFor 2.2 million service members deployed over the past 10years to Iraq and Afghanistan, of whom thousands are re-entering civilian life this year, moral injuries will be part ofthat re-entry. Unlike lost legs and arms and missing eyes,

these wounds will be invisible, and soldiers may keep themhidden. Many will not talk to one another or to civiliansabout the moral hurt or the incidents that caused suchanguish; some cannot easily process what happened; otherswill feel shame, which they will cover with a respectablesense of guilt; still others will feel guilty for not feeling theguilt their buddies experience. Some will self-medicate withalcohol or drugs. Others may just go numb until somethingsnaps and stops the numbness from being protective.

In Captain Mantz’scase, the real psychologicalrecovery began only afterhe realized that he wasalive but emotionally dead.The emotional withdrawalwas killing him.Downrange it made forsurvival; it allowed him tooperate with fearlessness,

with an almost stoic indifference to whether he lived ordied. He did not become reckless but was freed from unpro-ductive worry about whether he would come home. “Themoment you stop caring about living, there is a great senseof freedom,” he tells me. It is that liberation, “operating asabove life and death,” that allows you to “operate in and con-trol chaos.” You have two options, he said, when patrollingstreets in East Baghdad “lined with cinder blocks of trash asfar as the eye can see,” each the possible site of a homemadebomb. “You either stop at every rock and call E.O.D.[Explosive Ordinance Disposal] and wait for four hoursuntil they go and check it out, which is unfeasible. Or youjust say, ‘Screw it’ and you drive forward and you accomplishyour mission. That’s what we all end up doing, all the goodunits anyway.” But that same indifference to life and death isalso indifference to social connection. “That restriction thatcomes with caring is no longer upon you any more,” saysCaptain Mantz. “But it is also the point where emotionalcontact is severed.”

In short, numbness to fear is also numbness to livingwith zest, passion, commitment and connection—the veryelements of “embrace” necessary for finding meaning in life.But finding meaning in life, about which Susan Wolf has

written well recently in Meaning in Lifeand Why It Matters, involves both feelingengaged and believing one’s activities areworthwhile and worthy of esteem. Forsome soldiers, this requires reconciling apast and the realization that they have

wasted lives or engaged in futile efforts. Futility is essen-tially meaninglessness; without some resolution, it bleedsinto the present and can leave a person with little taste forliving.


ON THE WEBVideo interviews

with Nancy Sherman. americamagazine.org

In one typical case, the real psychological recovery began onlyafter the captain realized that he was alive but emotionally dead.

There are no easy answers, and compassionate understand-ing is not enough in the absence of well-funded programs,both governmental and nongovernmental, to support thephysical and mental health care of service members andassist their families with education, housing, jobs, non-predatory loans and much more.

But even so, civilians should not underestimate their rolein a civilian-veteran dialogue. At the heart of such dialogueshould be safe places to talk, whether in classrooms or pub-lic libraries around shared readings, for instance, or in townmeetings where civilians and veterans watch and react to adrama with war, contemporary or ancient, as the theme. Onesuch play is “Ajax,” by Sophocles, which has been performedin military and civilian venues around the country in the pastfew years by a troop called The Theater of War. Ajax, a greatand fabled Athenian warrior, “the bulwark of the Achaeians,”as Homer calls him, is profoundly dishonored by his com-mand when denied the prize of Achilles’ shield. The disgracetriggers his own madness and missteps, and in an unparal-leled moment in Greek tragedy on stage, he takes his ownlife. It was after watching a performance of “Ajax” that MajorJeff Hall first told me about his shame, which nearly led himtoo to suicide.

Shame and guilt need social healing, but they also needself-healing. Self-empathy is critical in order to surmount thecorrosive effects of self-loathing and self-reproach at the coreof those emotions. One of my students, Tom Fiebrandt, aformer Army sergeant and intelligence analyst stationed inTal Afar, Iraq, taught me something about self-exoneration.For months he was rattled by his inability to prevent thedeath of a buddy, Lt. William A. Edens, who was gunneddown by sniper fire while trying to block an egress route outof Tal Afar in preparation for a door-to-door raid plannedfor the next day. Sergeant Fiebrandt was out of the country,away from his unit, on command-ordered rest and recreationin Qatar when he learned the news.

What bothered me was that it was in an area that Iknew very well. It was in a part of the city that youreally had to see in order to visualize. And I had thislurking suspicion that my soldiers, who had neveractually, personally been there didn’t really have agrasp on all the information that I felt I did. In someway, I almost felt responsible for not being there toprovide them with the information that may havepotentially resulted in a different outcome. So it isrough. It is a difficult thing for me to process…. Sohere I was sitting by a pool, and I hear this. It was—Idon’t even know how to describe it. It was—devastat-ing.

He is sure that if he had been there when the raid was

Moral BetrayalArmy Major Jeff Hall has struggled with that emptiness. Heserved as an infantry commander during two tours in Iraqin 2003 and 2005. Though trained to engage and destroythe enemy, shortly after the occupation of Baghdad, Hall (acaptain at the time) found himself deep in the softer warfareof counterinsurgency operations. During one deployment,he was in charge of an area that included 250,000 people. “Iwas essentially the mayor, concerned with their security,their sewers, their water, their medical needs.” But what hewas ordered to do was often inadequately supported. He feltbetrayed and forced, in turn, to betray those who dependedon him. Referring to his post-traumatic stress disorder, hesaid: “You have to understand. My P.T.S.D. had everythingto do with moral injury. It was not from killing or seeingbodies severed or blown up. It was from betrayal, moralbetrayal.”

One incident, from his first deployment, still sears. Hewas charged to find and comfort the relatives of a familykilled as they were driving home from church. Their car wascaught in the cross-fire of a U.S. attack on a high-value tar-get in the Mansour District of Baghdad. He eventuallyfound the surviving daughter and uncle and over many cupsof chai assured them that condolence money would beoffered and that he would personally help recover the bod-ies for a proper burial. But the compensation money offeredby his command turned out to be a mere $750. He enduredendless delays and bureaucratic nightmares trying to securethe bodies for interment (during which time, unembalmed,they rotted in the scorching summer heat and becameunrecognizable). The final indignity came when the deathcertificates were stamped with the word “ENEMY” in boldred letters. Hall was in disbelief: “Can’t you give me some-thing without ‘Enemy’ on it,” he pleaded with the IraqiMinistry of Health officials, partnered at the time with theAmerican coalition: No, they insisted, “They are consideredenemies.”

Without much of his usual arsenal as a warrior in thismission, Hall needed to be able to trust his own goodness tohelp civilians who had already suffered grievously at thehands of Americans. It had become an intimate, personalduty, not just a soldier’s obligation to ameliorate collateraldamage. But his command betrayed him and compromisedhis character. He felt far more powerless and captive than hehad ever felt in facing enemy fire. “What really hurts,” hetells me as he reflects on the futility of missions such asthese, “is that I had to make my soldiers believe in some-thing that I didn’t believe in.”

How to HealSo how does someone like Maj. Jeff Hall or Capt. JoshMantz heal? What role can civilians play in that healing?


being planned, he would have recom-mended that Eden not take that road.So he felt responsible for having knowl-edge that could have prevented Eden’sdeath. Yet he realized that he could nothave known in advance that that partic-ular bit of information—about thatstreet on that night—would become rel-evant and somehow should have beenconveyed to his team before he left.

Once home, over a beer with hisolder brother, he began to talk about theincident for the first time, reframing thesituation in a way that made it possiblefor the guilt to start to dissipate. Herealized that as an intelligence analyst,there would always be “gaps in hisknowledge,” as he later put it to me. “Icouldn’t be the person that was there allthe time. I could only be in one spot at atime. I was never going to be the one-stop intel analyst for the whole Army.Maybe my role was actually very small.”

What healed Mr. Fiebrant, in part,was self-compassion and fairness. It wasnot softness or mercy or clemency. Hecame to realize that the sentence he hadimposed on himself simply did not fit.Reconstructing what happened in a con-versation with me, he thought he wasprobably more like an off-duty cop whohad some relevant knowledge but wasnot there to give it than he was like anegligent parent who never got aroundto putting up a fence around a backyardpool and then discovered that a childhad wandered into the pool one day anddrowned.

Mr. Fiebrant came to self-empathy,sustained by trust in others and a beliefthat they could listen to what he wasabout to say. This is where civilian sup-port enters. It is not easy to tell thosewho have not been to war about war. It isnot easy to tell the details, not onlybecause it may involve blood and gorebut because it involves shame and feel-ings of helplessness. The more safeplaces we can create for soldiers to speak,the more we will help them to heal. Wewill also be honoring our own moralobligations in sending them to war.


A

hen a business leader confronts Catholicsocial principles, there is often a dualresponse that was best captured by AndreDelbecq, former dean of Santa Clara

University’s business school: “We seem to have a sense ofwhat we yearn for, but behavioral specificity is thin.” Catholicsocial teaching’s principles ofhuman dignity, the commongood, solidarity and subsidiarityinspire a deep sense that there issomething more to business thanmerely maximizing wealth forowners. But once this inspirationmoves to practice, specifics arehard to locate, and yearning turnsinto vague sentiment.

As important and as rich asthe Catholic social tradition is, itsprinciples have not been effective-ly communicated to the businesscommunity. For many businesspeople, the social principles of thechurch are perceived as wellintentioned but too abstract tohave any impact. These principlesdo not seem to land anywhere,but rather float in the strato-sphere of theory. As one chiefexecutive officer said to me notlong ago, “I wouldn’t know thecommon good if it bit me.” Forthe most part, business peoplehave received little help from the church or the academy intheir desire to move from principle to practice.

This gap is not an easy one to bridge, but a recentlyreleased document by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council forJustice and Peace is a move in the right direction. On March30, 2012, Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the council,

presented a document titled “Vocation of the BusinessLeader” to 2,000 business leaders at the InternationalChristian Union of Business Executives World Congress inLyon, France. The document, which I coordinated andhelped draft along with colleagues from around the world,signals a watershed moment. The church, drawing from its

rich social tradition, all but declared that “God loves busi-nesses” and offered concrete ways to bridge principle andpractice. (The complete document is available atwww.bit.ly/businessleadervocation.)

Business Plan“Vocation of the Business Leader” takes to heart PopeBenedict XVI’s call in “Caritas in Veritate” (2009) to “a pro-foundly new way of understanding the business enterprise.”Writing in the context of the financial crisis, he explains

The Ethical ExecutiveThe Vatican’s strategic plan for the business community

BY MICHAEL NAUGHTON

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MICHAEL NAUGHTON is director of the John A. Ryan Institute forCatholic Social Thought of the Center for Catholic Studies at theUniversity of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minn. p

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Apple Inc.'s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, second from left, visited the iPhone pro-duction line at Foxcomm Zhengzhou Technology Park, in China's Henan Province, inMarch. Cook has been trying to respond to criticism of the treatment of workers by theChinese industrial giant Foxcomm, its subcontractor, which Apple acknowledges was inviolation of Apple's ethical standards.

that the economic world is in need of rediscovering deeplymoral and spiritual principles, which will orient it towardbetter, more effective, more humane business practices. Likeall institutions, whether church, government or education,business is in need of renewal and reform. It needs torethink its purpose, its telos, if it is to be contributor to thecommon good rather than a drain on it.

Catholic social principles help articulate this new under-standing. In light of the ongoingfinancial and cultural crises inwhich we find ourselves, theneed is clear and the opportuni-ty could not be better to bringthis set of principles into focus.At the heart of the document isthe conviction that businessexecutives are called not just todo business, but to be a particu-lar kind of leader in business.The actions of business peopleare significant because theyengrave a specific character ontheir work communities, onethat takes them and otherssomewhere. Ten years ago, JohnKavanaugh, S.J., wrote in thismagazine that “our choices arethe prime indicators of our des-tiny.” Human work, and in par-ticular the work of businessleaders, is not a second-ratevocation, but, as “Vocation”states, it is “a genuine humanand Christian calling” fromGod. The document sees busi-ness not simply in terms of a legalminimalism—“don’t cheat, lie or deceive”—but rather as avocation that makes “an irreplaceable contribution to thematerial and even the spiritual well-being of humankind.”There is nothing second-rate about this.

But this vocation is not without difficult challenges, espe-cially in the modern world. Chief among these difficulties isa divided life, or what the Second Vatican Council’s“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the ModernWorld” calls a “split between the faith which many professand their daily lives” (No. 43). The council saw this split as“one of the more serious errors of our age.” Religion andfamily are too often viewed less as components of a socialinstitution than as a private enclave where individuals liveout their own private preferences. Business is viewed as amechanical operation of inputs and outputs that need to beengineered for maximum efficiency. This divided life mutes

the social demands of faith and conceals rather than reveals“the authentic face of God and religion” (No. 19).

To show the implications of this vocation, “Vocation of theBusiness Leader” is organized according to a structure com-mon in the Catholic social tradition: “See, judge and act.”Anyone in business “sees” the increasing complexity of doingbusiness. “Vocation of the Business Leader” does not shy awayfrom the serious and complicated trends within business and

the moral and spiritual issues theypresent. While it recognizes a widevariety of challenges and opportuni-ties, it focuses on four: globalization,communication technology, finan-cialization and cultural changes.These trends or signs, the documentexplains, are “a complicated mix offactors” that present “a complexinterplay of light and dark, of goodand evil, of truth and falsehood, ofopportunities and threats.”

The document describes, forexample, the increasing phe-nomenon of “financialization,” afancy academic term for the shift ina capitalist economy from produc-tion to finance as the determinantfor economic development. In awell-ordered market economy,finance is at the disposal of produc-tion, development and wealth cre-ation, allowing productive invest-ments and improvement of humanresources. By contrast, “financial-ization” switches this relationship,and production comes to be at the

disposal of finance.Ask any business person today, and most will tell you

that business worldwide has intensified tendencies to com-modify relationships and reduce them to one value—price—the price of a product, the compensation of laborand the monetary value of the company. The mantra inbusiness and increasingly in other areas of life is “if it can’tbe measured it does not exist.” And the one clear measure-ment in business is financial. Without a strong sense ofvocation, financialization becomes the default mechanismthat moves business from relationships of virtue to the thinthread of price.

Practical PrinciplesAt the center of the document is a rearticulation of thechurch’s social principles for business leaders to “judge” anddiscern what is good and not so good in business. The docu-


What Businesses Should Do

Meet the needs of the world. Businessesproduce goods which are truly good andservices which truly serve; that contributesto the common good. They maintain soli-darity with the poor by being alert foropportunities to serve otherwise deprivedand underserved populations and people inneed.

Organize good and productive work.Businesses make a contribution to the com-munity by fostering the special dignity ofhuman work. They provide, through sub-sidiarity, opportunities for employees toexercise appropriate authority as they con-tribute to the mission of the organization.

Create sustainable wealth and distributeit justly. Businesses model stewardship ofresources—whether capital, human or envi-ronmental—they have re-ceived. They are just in theallocation of resources toall stakeholders: employ-ees, customers, investors,suppliers and the community.


ment lays out six practical principles in relationship to threeessential objectives of business. These six principles attemptto help business people to see things whole and not just asparts. Business leaders are tempted to fixate on one principleor area of business over another. A common fixation is onwealth creation and stewardship at the expense of wealth dis-tribution and justice, a focus on shareholders at the expenseof the dignity of employees. Wise and just business leadersavoid such dichotomies and seek deeper levels of integration.

The document resists the temptation to draw up a detailedlist of policy recommendations and instead provides a frame-work of action that reflects the rhythm of the contemplativeand active life. In “Caritas inVeritate,” Pope Benedict capturesthis rhythm when he definescharity as “love received andgiven.” The document explainsthat the first and for some themost difficult “act” is “to receivewhat God has done for him orher.” A principal challenge forbusiness people is that their “cando” and practical orientation cantempt them to regard “them-selves as determining and creat-ing their own principles, not asreceiving them.” What is desper-ately needed for business peopleis first to receive, and in particu-lar: “to receive the sacraments, toaccept the Scriptures, to honourthe Sabbath, to pray, to partici-pate in silence and in other disci-plines of the spiritual life. Theseare not optional actions for aChristian, not mere private acts separated and disconnectedfrom business.” This can be a powerful shift from the over-charged activism one finds in business. Without a deep wellof reflection, contemplation and prayer, it is hard to see howbusiness people, or any other professionals,can resist the negative dimensions thatcome from financialization, technologicaloverload, hyper-competitive situations andthe like.

The second act to which the churchcalls the business leader is to give in a waythat responds to what has been received. This giving is nevermerely the legal minimum; it must be an authentic entryinto communion with others to make the world a betterplace. In particular, the giving of business leaders entails cul-tivating practices and policies that foster integral humandevelopment. These include fair pricing, just compensation,

humane job design, responsible environmental practices,social and socially responsible investment. Such cultivationwould also address a host of other organizational practicessuch as hiring, firing, layoffs, marketing and advertising,receivables and payables, board governance, employee train-ing, leadership development, supplier relations and more.

Return on Investment“Vocation” asks much from contemporary business people;it also foresees new challenges for Catholic educators. Thedocument asks Catholic universities and especially theirbusiness schools to foster a mission-driven approach to cur-

riculum and research. WhileCatholic business schools havemade helpful contributions inthe areas of business ethics andcorporate social responsibility,they have not engaged theCatholic social tradition in rela-tion to business thoroughlyenough. Instead, they havelargely drawn upon ethical tra-ditions like utilitarianism,Kantianism and other secularsystems to understand the roleof ethics in business.

In “Caritas in Veritate,”Benedict observes that businessethics severed from a theologicalanthropology “risks becomingsubservient to existing economicand financial systems ratherthan correcting their dysfunc-tional aspects” (No. 45). It is

important for Catholic universitiesto reconsider their own tradition and discuss it in the contextof other approaches; otherwise, the tradition will fail both todevelop in a robust manner and to contribute to the widerculture.

The Catholic social tradition bringsforth a rich interplay of teachings,thought and practice to the area of busi-ness and penetrates deeply into the signif-icance of human action. “Vocation of theBusiness Leader” is a timely response thatarticulates a coherent set of social princi-

ples governing business practice that arise from the Catholicsocial tradition. The Pontifical Council asks business peopleto reflect on their vocation, guided by church teaching, withthe hope of more fruitful dialogue to come and a meaning-ful spiritual and practical return on investment from theseCatholic business principles.

ON THE WEBThe full text of “Vocation of a

Business Leader.”americamagazine.org

Genesis of a Teaching Document

The publication of “Vocation of theBusiness Leader” is a sign of the leadershipof Cardinal Peter Turkson and Bishop MarioToso at the Pontifical Council for Justiceand Peace, who are seeking a broad col-laboration of academics and practitionersin order to better evangelize the socialworld. The genesis was a seminar orga-nized and sponsored by the council enti-tled “The Logic of Gift and the Meaning ofBusiness” (visit bit.ly/businessvocation). Thecouncil brought together business leadersand academics from various disciplines, likeeconomics, theology, philosophy, manage-ment, business ethics and engineering, tograpple with Pope Benedict XVI’s insightsin “Caritas in Veritate.” One fruit of thisexploration is “Vocation of the BusinessLeader.”

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ttentive readers of the diocesannewspapers will have noticed,in the past month or more, a

perceptible improvement in both thequality and quantity of news about theVatican Council. During January, partic-ularly, when the CentralPreparatory Commission wasreceiving reports, authorized sto-ries succeeded each other inunprecedented abundance. If thereleases dealt primarily with theagenda and gave no hint of thedecisions reached, they were atleast fairly detailed and certainlyofficial. It is a pleasure toacknowledge...these happy signsof a new and progressive presspolicy in Rome. When theFathers of the council meet onOctober 11, the newly function-ing press officers will have madetheir shakedown cruise. TheChurch, the council and world opinion,we are convinced, will profit greatly ifthe new policy fulfills the hopes thathave been placed in it.

The situation was not always soencouraging. In the first stages of thepreparatory work, Archbishop PericleFelici, general secretary of the CentralPreparatory Commission, held severalpress conferences. But these eventswere singularly uninformative andunproductive. Newsmen noted thatthey were urged to study and write upformer councils, as though the veilwould remain drawn on the forthcom-ing council. As a result, attendance atthe conferences dropped off. Catholicjournalists in Western Europe began

Catholic Press At the Council

ABY THE EDITORS

to refer to the “Chinese Wall” aroundthe council. Europeans recalled a state-ment of the former episcopal modera-tor of the Catholic Press Association,Most Rev. Thomas K. Gorman, ofDallas-Fort Worth, who, in another

connection, once declared: “There isan Iron Curtain and there is a BambooCurtain. Let’s make sure we don’t havean ecclesiastical Velvet Curtain.”

In mid-1961, however, the HolyFather received the officers of theInternational Union of the CatholicPress and discussed the council withthem for three-quarters of an hour.Then, on June 20, he told the CentralPreparatory Commission: “We do notwish to neglect the journalists.” Thecorner had been turned in the historyof the apostolate of the Catholic press.

The danger of sensational, irrespon-sible and politically motivated journal-ism ever hangs over such a worldassembly as an ecumenical council.

Experience has cast doubt on the belief,once favored in the Vatican, that secre-cy is the best means for coping with thisdanger. The first Vatican Council(1869-70) provides us with usefullessons. On this question of informa-

tion policy, Dom CuthbertButler has some valuableremarks in his two-volume studyThe Vatican Council (Longmans,1932). He notes that those whotook part officially in the council(bishops, theologians, secre-taries) were held by oath tosecrecy. But, in fact, “the secretwas badly kept.” Printers andbinders had the documents intheir hands. It was commonknowledge that foreign diplo-mats could buy copies of every-thing printed. “The result,”writes Dom Cuthbert, “was nei-ther secrecy nor publicity, but an

atmosphere of rumor and suspicion, ofstories, reports, surmises, that could beneither proved nor refuted.” Effectivecorrection of the slanted reports couldhave been made only through publica-tion, week by week, of full reports onthe transactions and debates. Instead,secrecy put a premium on scoops andleaks, from which the unscrupulouswere the first to profit.

A liberalized press policy at theVatican Council is not a right extendedto the Catholic press but an opportuni-ty for it to serve the Church. To the sec-ular press, as well, it is an opportunityto demonstrate the high ideals pro-fessed by the “Fourth Estate,” includingthe duty to serve the truth for itself.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES : FEB . 24 , 1962

Auxiliary Bishop Mark McGrath of Panama, standing,in the press center at the Second Vatican Council.Bishop Manuel Larrain Errazuriz of Chile is seated athis right.

A

is actually lived, paycheck to paycheckand bill by bill, as with its psychologi-cal acuity and near-perfect form. Everyscene is a beautifully constructed mini-play unto itself, yet none ends withoutlaunching an arrow forward to thenext. The result, even in a mediocreproduction, is an inexorable tragicmomentum that gives Miller’s socialcritique the dramatic force that makesit worth reviving.

The new Broadway productiondirected by Mike Nichols is far frommediocre. It is a revelation, majestic yetunfailingly intimate, and it makes this63-year-old show breathe and barklike a freshly born thing. If the play’ssteady drumbeat of unpaid bills and

he claim of “relevance” is near-ly irresistible to some criticsand other performing arts

boosters, particularly those who fretabout the health and future of theaterin an age of Netflix and the 24-hournews cycle. The notion that this orthat classic play is “still relevant”—or“more relevant than ever”—competeswith the discernment of a work’s “uni-versal themes” for most shopworn crit-ical cliché. It should be clear by now

that we return to great works for plea-sures quite apart from how well theyreflect us and our time, and that a clas-sic play will nearly always strike us asrelevant and, yes, universal; this is thedefinition of a classic.

Even though your high schoolEnglish teacher said it, it is still true:Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesmanis a classic, even a towering one. Thishas as much to do with its laceratinginsights into American capitalism as it

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Andrew Garfield, Finn Wittrock, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Linda Emond in “Death of a Salesman”

T H E A T E R | ROB WEINERT -KENDT

UNQUIET DESPERATIONArthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’

unfulfilled aspirations seems especiallytimely in the midst of our still-stag-nant economy, so much the better. Butin fact, it premiered in 1949, a time ofrelative postwar plenty, and was mem-orably revived during a new (ifarguably false) dawn of Americanoptimism, in 1984, with DustinHoffman in the lead.

Dashed dreams and devastatingloss spring eternal, in lean and fat yearsalike.

Set, Score, CastThe new production’s uncanny fresh-ness springs in part from a paradox.Nichols has lovingly preserved twokey elements of the original produc-tion directed by Elia Kazan, which hewitnessed as an awe-struck teenager:Jo Mielziner’s skeletal, shambolic setand Alex North’s limpid, ruminativescore. Rather than lock the play inreverent museum mode, though,these iconic accompaniments feel as

integral to the play’s architecture andmeaning as Miller’s similarly iconicdialogue.

The other reason for this revival’svividness and vigor may be more obvi-ous, though it is no less astonishing:the actors. To a person, Nichols’s cast-ing consists of risky gambles that payoff big-time. These start at the topwith Philip Seymour Hoffman, who at44 is only a few years younger than thelast Hoffman (Dustin, who was 47) totackle the role of Willy Loman, awashed-up gladhander who is sup-posed to be an exhausted 63.

It is not his age that makes the newHoffman a bold choice for the role buthis introverted, almost pigeon-toedawkwardness, his crabbed averageness.This is Willy Loman not as a fallen,tragic hero but as a sad schlub achingfrom worn out arch supports—thekind of human wreck people avoidbecause he makes them feel a sicklypity, something close to disgust, as henatters compulsively about his imagi-nary influence and unseen triumphs. Itmay be that we flee desperate peoplebecause we fear their desperationmight rub off on us somehow.Hoffman’s Willy is a man who cannotshake desperation’s taint.

The actors playing his immediatefamily also skew young: raw, wiryAndrew Garfield as the beloved butwayward first-born, Biff; thescrubbed-cheek Finn Wittrock as thewomanizing Happy; Linda Emond asthe resilient, no-fuss matron, Linda. Ifthese younger-than-usual Lomans areat first hard to believe as a familygrinding down into its desolate twi-light years, the actors’ youth is a hugeboon in the play’s frequent flashbacksto a more idyllic time; these reverieshave a palpable, “what might havebeen” glow. This in turn makes thelurch back to the play’s grim presentthat much more wrenching, andWilly’s capitulation to what feels like apremature obsolescence that muchmore awful.


His Empty Hand

Or here’s a story. A man just back from elsewhere tells it to me.

The place I was, he says, the law was that a thief lost his fingers,

The theory being that he could not steal again, but an accusation

Was the same as conviction. A man I knew, his son stole bottles

Of water for a friend who had a new child and basically no cash.

The son is sentenced to lose his left hand, but the dad intercedes,

Offering his hand for his son’s. His offer is accepted by the cops,

An officer comes with an axe, they bury the hand with ceremony

Out back. Now, when this father, who was a friend of mine, tells

Me this story, and sure I gaped at his empty hand, I kept thinking

What’s the meaning of this, you know? What’s the message here,

Other than savagery and what, if you were polite, you would call

Cultural disparity, you know? And it is the dad who answers this.

Why, wouldn’t you give both hands for your sons and daughters?

He asks. Wouldn’t you give anything, if they are in some trouble?

In a way I feel shame, he says, because what happened is so clear,

As if I am boasting of my love for my son. But all mothers would

Do this, and all fathers. If you would not then you are not a parent,

You are only a means through which your child entered the world.

To only be a gate, not a man willing to lose himself, that is shame.

Is that not the essence of your believing in the Father and the Son?

B R I A N D O Y L E

BRIAN DOYLE is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland andthe author most recently of the novel Mink River.

trace elements of this powerful mix-ture can be found in plays by EdwardAlbee, August Wilson, Tony Kushnerand Paula Vogel, it is seldom glimpsedanymore on this scale or rendered thisdefinitively among the frittering diver-sions of today’s Broadway.

Although the American economystill shows distressingly few signs oflife, this “Death of a Salesman” affirmsthat a great American theater tradition

remains as freshand vital astonight’s news(more so, actually,given the dispiritingrepetition of night-

ly news). That kind of relevance doesmatter when it comes to the theater:not merely topical, but able to get deepunder our skin.

ROB WEINERT-KENDT, an arts journalistand associate editor of American Theater mag-azine, has written for The New York Timesand Time Out New York. He writes a blogcalled The Wicked Stage.

codified by the councils of the earlychurch and expounded in the Creeds,has always been its fidelity to the wholeof Jesus. Its dogmas and definitions seekto encompass the seeming contradic-tions in the gospel narratives ratherthan evading them.” This clashes withthe goal of heresies, which “has oftenbeen to extract from the tensions of thegospel narratives a more consistent,streamlined and noncontradictoryJesus.”

Douthat argues that the ortho-doxy-heresy distinctions are far morethan matters of “religion.” His coreargument, familiar to the social scien-tists Talcott Parsons and Daniel Bell,is that religion powerfully affects cul-tures, social structures and identitiesand thus the assumptions, goals andpractices of politics. Douthat’s nimbleand mannerly writing style perfectlyweds with his substantive points.Regarding our current politics,Douthat’s seemingly juggler-like styleitself subverts the Democratic-Republican political polarization cur-rently intermeshed with left-right“fundamentalist” versus “social justice”sectors of American religion. As truthis the first casualty of war, complexityis the first casualty of polemics.

The terms heresy and orthodoxyrequire each other for their intelligibili-ty. Heresy is commonplace because it issimple, while orthodoxy is precariousbecause it is complex. Douthat neitherevades complexity nor succumbs to it.His mastery of sources and his contem-poraneity are matched both by a liter-ary flair and by a down-to-earth con-cern for ordinary people. The real story,he writes, is what’s happening in thevast America where papal encyclicalsrarely penetrate and the works ofRichard Dawkins pass unread.

My advice to librarians is, first, toplace this book immediately afterChesterton’s Orthodoxy and C. S.Lewis’s Mere Christianity and RonaldKnox’s Enthusiasm and then, heretical-ly, to break with the Dewey decimal

Life at the IntersectionIt is in the play’s fluid, dreamlike tran-sit between past and present, andbetween real and imaginary, thatNichols’s two great inspirations inter-sect. While Mielziner’s set perfectlyframes Willy’s free-ranging conscious-ness, as if the play’s action takes placeall or mostly in his own head, the actorswho move through this abstractedworld are not themselves abstractionsor vintage replicasbut flesh-and-bloodcreatures of startling,nerve-jangling imme-diacy.

It is an extraordi-narily potent juxtaposition. It may beeasy to forget because we take it forgranted, but this blend of gritty real-ism and surreal, only-in-the-theaterlyricism used to be the secret recipethat set mid-century American theaterapart from its antecedents. It definedthe early careers of Miller andTennessee Williams. And though


B O O K S | JAMES R . KELLY

UNORTHODOXYBAD RELIGIONHow We Became a Nation ofHeretics

By Ross DouthatFree Press. 352p $26

Ross Douthat has written an “on-the-one-hand” and “on-the-other-hand,”learned yet highly readable analysis ofthe changing role of religion inAmerican politics, culture and history.His result is not simply an agree-to-dis-agree shaking of narrative hands but acritical view of how both the left andthe right hands seek political potencythrough the simplifications thatDouthat identifies as the essence of“heresies.” His controlling thesis is that“the boast of Christian orthodoxy, as

ON THE WEBRev. Terrance W. Klein reviews

NBC’s “Awake.”americamagazine.org/culture

system and move the entire row to thecontemporary politics section. Therethese works can more tangibly con-front the common assumption of toomany authors who refer to the UnitedStates as a “Christian country” insteadof using the more accurate designa-tion, “America, the nation of heretics.”

It is time for a few definitions.While orthodoxy confronts, BadReligion accommodates to the maintendencies of the age, downplayinghistoric religions’ dogmas, differentiat-ing practices and strict codes of con-duct including, of course, the sexual.Bad Religion could have been entitledThe Eclipse of Orthodoxy and theDecline of Institutional Religion.

Douthat maintains that the UnitedStates has always been a haven for reli-gious experimentation, but that untilthe last five decades, it had maintaineda lively center of orthodoxy, broadlydefined as the beliefs of the earlychurch, truths handed down by theapostles and the conviction that as wemore faithfully commit ourselves tothese constitutive truths, the more webecome a good people, if not alwaysobservant, at least acknowledging theNew Testament’s deep suspicion ofworldly wealth and power and its chal-lenging sexual ethics. The accommo-dationism of the 1960s, the authorsays, has resulted not in the disappear-ance of religion but in the flourishingof heresy.

For Douthat (as for Chesterton,Lewis and Knox), what above all dis-tinguishes orthodoxy from heresy is acommitment to mystery and paradox.Think virgin birth, Incarnation,Trinity; ponder the teaching that theworld is corrupted by original sin yetsomehow also essentially good. Youget the idea: orthodoxy accepts para-dox and complexity and acknowledgesthat the meaning of the world will for-ever remain just beyond our grasp,while heresy always contains some-thing of the gnostic—an attempt tominimize paradox and complexity.

Unlike the simplifications of the here-sies of bad religion, the paradoxicalcomplexities of orthodox religion actas a cultural corrective and critique ofboth spiritual narcissism and theheresy of American nationalism, withits tenets of providential purpose andnational innocence. Douthat readilyacknowledges—another paradox?—that Christian orthodoxy needs thechallenge of heresy, particularly utopi-anism, lest it become rote and remote.

Here are a few examples of some ofthe American heresies. In Chapter 6,entitled “Pray and Grow Rich,”Douthat writes that God seems less likea savior than like a college buddy withgood stock tips. You know the names:L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Baker Eddy,Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, TrinityBroadcasting Network, Father Divine,Reverend Ike.

Douthat also examines some of themore complicated and less self-referen-tial entrepreneurial reverends, includ-ing Rick Warren, James Dobson andPat Robertson, whose overall hereticalmessage tempts Christianity to becomean appendage to Americanism. Thechapter includes a brief summary of theCatholic encyclical tradition’s emphasison personal asceticism and social soli-darity, which Douthat, a convert, argueshas long offered the most prominentalternative to the marriage of God andMammon.

As readers of the op-ed page of TheNew York Times know, Douthat’s styleis both taut and engaging. Here is anexample from Chapter 7, “The GodWithin.” Douthat compares and con-trasts two contemporary examples ofbad religion, the anti-institutional “I’m-spiritual-but-not-religious” and the“prosperity-gospel” heresies: “The pros-perity gospel makes the divine soundlike your broker; the theology of theGod Within makes him sound likeyour shrink.”

It is misleading if that last citationsuggests that Bad Religion is full ofjournalism and empty of scholarship.


�e Surprising Story of How �ree American Cardinals TransformedCatholic-Jewish Relations




CUSHING,SPELLMAN,O’CONNOR

Rabbi James Rudin

— Raymond L. Flynn

— Rabbi David Fox Sandmel

At your bookstore, or call 800-253-7521

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portions. For example, it is interestingto learn that soon after Fox, who waseditor at the time, published the firstaccount of the crisis in 1985, an NCRboard member called for a “no confi-dence” vote against him. The motionwas not seconded, .

Despite all this, it is Roberts’s opti-mism, intertwined with his tough crit-icism of the church he loves, that Ifound most interesting. He takes thetime to round out fully stories thathave become too familiar and oftendepressing. Statistics about peoplefleeing the church, for instance, areoften portrayed as symptom numberone of our ills. Roberts explains thatformer Catholics, at an estimated 22million, make up the second-largestChristian denomination in the UnitedStates today, after the CatholicChurch. But his own closer analysisreveals that the retention rate ofCatholics is actually 10 percent to 20percent higher than that of most largeProtestant denominations.

Roberts also points to several posi-tive examples of vibrancy that may bea model for our future health. He tellsthe story of the Archdio-cese ofNewark, where Mass is said each week

in 60 different lan-guages for 1.3 millionCatholics, as an exam-ple of the church liv-ing out the principlesof the U.S. bishops’1995 pastoral letter“Called and Gifted forthe Third Millen-nium.”

There are thosewho may not readRoberts’s book be-cause they assumethey already knowwhat it will say. Infact, as I read in the

second chapter Cardinal RogerMahony’s dismissive comment aboutan academic report that predicted thepriest shortage we are now experienc-

Douthat’s 18 pages of endnotes, alongwith the book, would make for a wor-thy senior year honor’s seminar inAmerican Religion and AmericanCulture. Almost all the important his-torical trends and important namesare present, from Karl Barth andJoseph Ratzinger to Elaine Pagels,from Dorothy Day and ThomasMerton to Joel Osteen and ElizabethGilbert, from Leo XIII and BenedictXVI to Harvey Cox and Glenn Beck.

To this Vatican II enthusiast, themajor disappointment with the bookis Douthat’s lack of sustained effort todraw some brighter lines between anaccommodationist spirit leading to aloss of theological roots and heresiesand religious institutions’ efforts toboth renew themselves and engagecontemporary society. Admittedly, it isinstitutionally difficulty to invite and


JON M. SWEENEY

FAITH IN THE FUTURE

THE EMERGING CATHOLICCHURCHA Community’s Search for Itself

By Tom RobertsOrbis Books. 204p $24

This book grew out of Tom Roberts’swriting for The National CatholicReporter over the last two decades anda series of articles still available on itsWeb site entitled “In Search of theEmerging Church.” The purpose ofthe book is to show through anec-dotes, statistics, interviews and analy-sis the trends affecting the CatholicChurch today. To anyone familiar withNCR, there are few surprises here.The Emerging Catholic Church clearlyaims to chronicle the opportunitiesthat have been lost to carry out thechanges prescribed by the SecondVatican Council.

We read about the need for more lay

leadership in the church and for bettercoordination between priests and layleaders, the crisis oftoo few priests in busydioceses, the problemsthat come with a cleri-cal culture, statisticsshowing how manyCatholics have left inrecent decades and thedesire for open-mind-edness or questionsthat were once“closed.” The sexualabuse crisis alsoreceives a great deal ofattention (three out of11 chapters).

Roberts chroniclesNCR’s coverage and includes detailsthat would seem unnecessary exceptthat they fulfill a journalistic obliga-tion to a story with such historical pro-

challenge at the same time, to be bothprophetic and institutional. That iswhy there are sociological cycles andchurch councils. Notwithstanding, thenearly homiletic last few pages ofDouthat’s concluding chapter, “TheRecovery of Christianity,” are winning.Like saints and artists, he urges, thewould-be Christian should always beuncomfortable in his or her culturalskin, and he points out that, like artand sanctity, cultural transformationstarts with self-transformation.Mindful of his flair for corrective bal-ance, this reader missed an explicitDouthat admonition that the goodhierarchy should likewise feel uncom-fortable in its ecclesial skin.

JAMES R. KELLY is professor emeritus in thesociology department at Fordham Universityin New York.

ing—“That is nonsense. We are disci-ples of Jesus Christ. We live by God’sgrace, and our future is shaped byGod’s design for his church, not bysociologists”—I wondered how oftenRoberts and his colleagues have heardsimilar remarks dismissing reporters.Some people do not like hearing thatmost Catholics are interested in dis-cussing women’s ordination and mar-ried priests.

I just wish Roberts had started hisbook in a different place, for it is onlyafter the mid-point of the book that hebegins humming toward the future,with chapters entitled “Travels on theMargins” and “Of Rummage Sales andthe New Cosmology.” And he finallylinks all this data with what is increas-ingly referred to as “Emergence

Christianity,” most notably by PhyllisTickle, author of The Great Emergence.In this context, Roberts stresses theimportance of contemporary teacherslike Richard Rohr, O.F.M., JoanChittister, O.S.B., and RonaldRolheiser, O.M.I., as examples of thepresent, emerging moment. Best of all,Roberts contrasts institutionalCatholicism with the positive wayschurches in places like New Mexicoare staying “close to the ground and tothe people,” and he points out “howdisruptive change can be” in a goodway, as in certain parishes in JerseyCity. That is our future.

JON M. SWEENEY is author of The PopeWho Quit: A True Medieval Tale ofMystery, Death, and Salvation.

abbey that morning. If I had not seen itfor myself, I would doubt the existenceof that extraordinary place and its com-munity of extraordinarily spiritual men,seated not 20 minutes away from thecity where so many of us live, work andpray.

The notes of wonder that my wifeand I felt that morning—the presenceof an interesting and unusual spiritualsite in the midst of rural Massachusetts,just minutes from a large city—wouldsound a familiar chord to ChristopherP. Scheitle and Roger Finke, who spentfive weeks traveling the highways of theUnited States to document what theydescribe as “the geography of Americanreligion.”

As the authors point out, the famil-iar landscape of so many of America’scities—and even suburbs and ruralcommunities—can fool one into see-ing spirituality in the United Stateswith the same jaded perspective withwhich we view generic strip malls andcountless roadside billboards. Whatthe authors found beneath this “veneerof homogeneity,” though, as theyreport in Places of Faith, was “a rich and

varied topography ofAmerica’s religion.”

The two authors aresociologists of religionat Pennsylvania StateUniversity—Finke aprofessor of sociologyand religious studies,and Scheitle a postdoc-toral research associ-ate—but this book isfar from the type ofacademic writing wemight expect from twow e l l - c r e d e n t i a l e dauthors. As they writein their preface, “this

book is neither a history of Americanreligion nor a statistical overview ofrecent trends. It is about experiencingand discovering local religious com-munities and traditions.”

The authors literally crossed the


JAMES M. LANG

ON THE HIGH ROADPLACES OF FAITHA Road Trip Across America'sReligious Landscape

By Christopher P. Scheitle and Roger FinkeOxford Univ. Press. 264p $27.95

On the morning of Christmas Eve, mywife and I decided to visit a local spir-itual destination near our hometownof Worcester, Mass. From our home ina city neighborhood, we cruised pastthe typical urban fare of bars and pizzashops, fast-food restaurants and petstores, schools and churches andhomes. Within 10 minutes of ourdeparture, though, we were deep intothe rural communities that encircleour city, and not long after that wearrived at our destination: St. Joseph’ sAbbey, a Trappist monastery set on ahilltop in Spencer, Mass.

From the gift shop parking lot webegan the one-mile walk up to theabbey church. The ground and skieswere clear, and we hiked a road that

took us over babbling brooks, pastwide green fields and between forestedslopes of leafless trees and evergreens.The stone buildingsof the abbey and thequiet and carefullytended groundsgreeted us graduallyas we crested the finalrise of the hill. We satfor a few moments inpeaceful contempla-tion in the visitors’schapel as the elderlyorganist practiced forthe Christmas ser-vices. Then wewalked slowly backthe way we came.

One can hardlyimagine a starker contrast between thecity to which we returned, gripped inthe throes of last-minute Christmasconsumerism, and the remarkablepeace and solitude we experienced inthe unseen presence of the monks at the


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entire country in their search for thoselocal communities and traditions,from New York to San Francisco, withstops in distinctive or ordinary reli-gious cities and towns along the way:Salt Lake City and Colorado Springsout West, Memphis and Houston inthe South, Nebraska and Detroit inthe Midwest, and Brooklyn and cen-tral Pennsylvania in the East.Interspersed among these main stops,each of which is the subject of a chap-ter of the book, are shorter “Viewsfrom the Road” that offer briefaccounts of unique forms of Americanspirituality, including Pennsylvania’sAmish communities and cowboychurches in Texas.

Each of the main chapters focuseson a particular strain of American reli-gion, one closely tied to the city beingvisited. So, for example, the authorstackle Mormonism in Salt Lake City,the Christian megachurch movementin Houston and Judaism in Brooklyn.Each chapter has a similar structure: an

introduction to the city and its distinc-tive religion, a narrative description ofan encounter with a specific church orplace of worship and then some broad-er reflections on the place of that reli-gion in U.S. society today.

The book's strongest features are inthe opening and closing sections ofeach chapter, as the writers use theiracademic training to provide insightsinto the local contexts in which eachreligious tradition flourishes. Theirtime in San Francisco, for example,provides an opportunity to documentthe intertwining of Asian religious tra-ditions on the West Coast and to con-sider those traditions within the con-text of Asian immigration to theUnited States.

The authors’ informed historicaland cultural perspectives unfold manyhidden aspects of America's religioustraditions, and they more than fulfilltheir promise to reveal a rich anddiverse religious landscape overlayingthe physical ground they covered. The

accounts of each religion and its prac-titioners are also admirably sympa-thetic. With open minds and willinghearts the authors join worshipers atJoel Osteen’s Houston megachurch, inan African-America church inMemphis and in a mosque in Detroit.

The book falls just short of itspromise, unfortunately, in the narra-tive accounts of those religious experi-ences. Occasionally the shared wor-ship stories are detailed and descrip-tive, but more often than not theyremain at a very abstract and imper-sonal level. In some cities the reader isintroduced to pastors or fellow wor-shippers; in others we meet no one butthe authors themselves, as they limittheir descriptions to their own person-al experiences. (The authors revealnothing about their own religiousbackgrounds or beliefs.)

One cannot help but wish theauthors had invited a novelist to jointhem in the back seat of the car and tocollaborate on the final project—someone who might have helped themflesh out those personal visits with thesort of narrative details, characterstudies and rich imagery that markgreat nonfiction writing.

Even without some of those ele-ments, though, the book remains anexcellent overview of the spiritualnature of the United States in the 21stcentury. The authors conclude thebook with the hope that their account“will spur others to explore the everchanging religious geography ofAmerica.” If they accomplish that goaland encourage more of us to seek outthe monasteries—or temples, or syna-gogues, or mosques, or storefrontchurches—in our own backyards, theywill have made a worthwhile contribu-tion not only to the religious literatureof the American landscape, but to thevery shape of that landscape itself.

JAMES M. LANG is an associate professor ofEnglish and director of the college honors pro-gram at Assumption College, Worcester, Mass.


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LETTERS

CLASS IF IED

Anti-EvangelizationThank you for the April 30 issue, with“Why They Left,” by William J. Byron,S.J., and Charles Zech, and “TheConvert’s Tale,” by the Rev. John JayHughes. I found them relevant,refreshing, insightful and hopeful.Despite being a religion teacher at myparish and working at a Catholic hos-pital, both of which I love for theirrealization of the Catholic faith in reallife, I find the current relationshipbetween the body of the church andthe hierarchy of the church to be indistress. The recent controversies overthe censure of religious sisters in theUnited States and the archaic Masstranslation have been very dishearten-ing to me as someone who still believesand wants to see our church grow.

Who is speaking for us, the peopleof the church, nowadays? I see how we

are alienating ourselves from the pop-ulation, rather than evangelizing it.What would Jesus do? I hope that youwill continue to speak with this kind ofprophetic voice in the future.

DENNIS KUOMontville, N.J.

Hopeless HomiliesThe results of Byron and Zech’s sur-vey are not surprising. The Rev.Andrew Greeley has reported that thelargest percentage of Catholics nolonger go to church because of “poorhomilies” (44 percent). All the otherreasons given in the study ring true tome, based on my longstanding involve-ment with the institutional churchsince beginning my ministry in the1960s. I must say, however, that I shareFather Greeley’s conclusions. I havetaught homiletics in many settings andfind that almost all priests and deaconsdo not have a clue about what is need-ed to communicate the Gospel. The

very few who do are rare, and I trea-sure their homilies when I hear them.My statistics on poor homilies: about95 percent to 98 percent. Sorry thisnumber is so high, but it is the unvar-nished truth.

ROBERT BELA WILHELMHagerstown, Md.

Stop Whining!After reading “Why They Left” and allthe online comments about it, I havethe feeling that I live on another plan-et, or the church critics do. As an 80-year-old active Catholic who has beenpart of several parish communities,including military duty overseas, I donot relate to the whining. So maybethe priest appears arrogant. Did youever invite him over for dinner? Arehis homilies so bad because he doesn’thave time in a day to prepare ade-quately? Do you know his schedule?Do you visit the sick and takeCommunion to those in nursing

PositionsTHE CONGAR INSTITUTE FOR MINISTRYDEVELOPMENT seeks bilingual applicant for full-time position of ASSISTANT DIRECTORFOR HISPANIC PROGRAMS. The positioninvolves ministerial formation and theological edu-cation consulting, support and program develop-ment in Spanish, and administrative support of thedeveloping Institute. Ideal background includestheology, Hispanic ministry, adult education/cate-chetics and instructional technology. For more jobinformation and instructions on how to apply, visitwww.congarinstitute.org.

THE GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY in Rome, thesecond-oldest Jesuit university in the world and theonly one founded by St. Ignatius himself, in 1551,counts among its graduates 23 saints and 16 popes.This internationally recognized university and cen-ter of Roman Catholic higher education, whichforms a consortium with the Biblical Institute andthe Oriental Institute, seeks a creative, experiencedPRESIDENT-FUNDRAISER to lead theGregorian University Foundation in New York.This Foundation, directed and ably supported by aBoard of Trustees, needs a president who is veryfamiliar with the Jesuit tradition and truly capableof generating support for these three distinguished

institutions, which educate men and women, cler-ics, religious and laypersons from over 160 coun-tries and territories. Please send your C.V. and acover letter to: Chair of the Board of Trustees,Gregorian University Foundation, 106 West 56thStreet, New York, NY 10019.

PERSONAL ASSISTANCE NEEDED. We arelooking for an Office Assistant. Duties includegreeting clients, answering phones and routingmail, data entry and retrieval, scheduling and cal-endar maintenance. Ideal candidates will haveproven customer service skills in an administrativesetting and experience with Microsoft Office appli-cations. If interested, send résumé by e-mail [email protected].

RetreatsNEED SILENCE AND PRAYER? Come to OneHeart, One Soul Spirituality Center, Kankakee,Ill. Peaceful wooded river-front setting with her-mitages, private rooms and meeting facilities. Ph.:(815) 937-2244; www.sscm-usa.org/ohos.html.

SAN DAMIANO RETREAT, Danville, Calif.,located 35 miles east of San Francisco. Upcomingretreats: Tom Bonacci, C.P.: June 1-3, Study ofthe Passion of Jesus; Dr. Jeremy Taylor: June 8-10,Dreams Workshop; Sr. Ishpriya: June 11-15,Silent Contemplative; Wil Hernandez: June 15-17, Henri Nouwen; Dan Riley, O.F.M.: July 22-

27, 5-day Silent Contemplative. We offer a peace-ful, prayerful setting for rest and renewal. Tel:(925) 837-9141, ext. 315, or www.sandamiano.org. Our location is excellent for retreats,meetings or conferences. Mid-week space is avail-able. Contact Lisa: [email protected]. Privateretreats with or without spiritual direction are alsoavailable. Contact Kateri: [email protected].

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

America classified. Classified advertisements are accept-ed for publication in either the print version of Americaor on our Web site, www.americamagazine.org. Ten-word minimum. Rates are per word per issue. 1-5 times:$1.50; 6-11 times: $1.28; 12-23 times: $1.23; 24-41times: $1.17; 42 times or more: $1.12. For an addition-al $30, your print ad will be posted on America’s Website for one week. The flat rate for a Web-only classifiedad is $150 for 30 days. Ads may be submitted by e-mailto: [email protected]; by fax to (928) 222-2107; by postal mail to: Classified Department,America, 106 West 56th St., New York, NY 10019.To post a classified ad online, go to our home page andclick on “Advertising” at the top of the page. We do notaccept ad copy over the phone. MasterCard and Visaaccepted. For more information call: (212) 515-0102.

homes? How many functions in yourparish do you participate in?

The church is not only the priestsand bishops, the church is you. Thechurch is not perfect, and neither arewe. I can only suggest that people takea more active role in their parish. Thenthey may understand some of theproblems affecting their satisfaction.

PETER HANRAHANWichita Falls, Tex.

What Matters?I know the Byron-Zech survey willchange nothing at all in any parish inTrenton or anywhere else. That’s theproblem. Like many other layCatholics, I have a sense that we justdon’t matter—complaints don’t mat-ter, even scandal doesn’t matter—because the bishops will stonewall andoutlast the laity’s concerns. It hasalways been thus, and so it will be. Pitythat.

VINCENT GAITLEYExton, Pa.

Passionate HumanismThank you, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J.,for your excellent portrayal of TonyJudt (Of Many Things, 4/30). Thecourage he displayed, not only in hisopinions but in the last few years of hislife battling A.L.S. while dictating hislast book, is inspiring. I loved his dis-like for arrogant nationalism and hishonest appraisal of intellectuals whowere slow to condemn what they oncepraised when the truth became evi-dent.

His recommendation for a bi-national state in Palestine is perhapstoo late, given the increasing acrimony

caused by Israel’s Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, but it standsout as transcendent compared to theblare of fear, hate and ethnic prejudicethat rises from this region and fromour own Congress. His belief in uni-versal health care, public transporta-tion, public investment in citizens andequitable taxation was well reasonedand informed. Father Schroth wasright, that after reading Judt you real-ize how much you did not know. Mostof all, his passionate humanism is avalue so much needed in this timewhen market values have replaced con-science, and privatization substitutesfor public responsibility.

PAUL LUPONESpring Hill, Fla.

Comfort and PeaceNo article has affected me as over-whelmingly as “Our Risen Selves,”(4/9) by Gerald O’Collins, S.J. As weget closer to our own death and resur-rection, the profound questions of ourfuture after death become very realand important. This article helped meto envision a reality that, while diffi-cult to fully understand, brought me agreat deal of comfort and peace. Whilenot planning to leave this earthly life inthe near future, I will try to have thearticle available for reviewing whenev-er I start to grow anxious about theafterlife.

GEORGE AMANEast Hampton, N.Y.

Not a Threat a Gift“In Thy Wounds, Hide Me” (4/9) wasa beautiful editorial. Thank you for it.Women indeed work tirelessly to build

the church, minister to God’s peopleand keep a sacramental life alive intheir own families. Very few of thesefiercely faithful women, however,would tell you that they believe theirvoices are being heard by those in lead-ership positions in the CatholicChurch.

Perhaps this is why these faithfulpeople identify so closely with Jesus,especially during Easter week, as Jesus’message of expansive love and compas-sion is shut out by powerful religiousauthorities whose preference for ordermakes Jesus seem like a threat, not anally. Many women, the church’s great-est allies, wait for the day when theirvoice is not considered a threat, but agift. The enduring hope is that such aday will come.

ALISON DONOHUEWestport, Conn.

Comfort the SufferingAndy Otto’s essay, “In the Garden”(4/2), provides helpful insight into thechallenges of caring for people who aresuffering. Those in health care whoview their work as a vocation and min-istry make Christ present to thosewhom we serve because we havelearned to see the face of the sufferingChrist in them. True self-donationoften requires that we make ourselvesvulnerable in the presence of ourpatients. Vulnerability provokes com-passion, and compassion brings ourpatients comfort, hope and encourage-ment, and reminds them that they stillreside within God’s point of view.

By bringing the face of Christ toour patients, we bring the kind of hopethat helps them cope with their suffer-ing and persist in their Gethsemaneprayer, on the ground with Jesus,“Father, if you are willing, take this cupfrom me; yet not my will, but yours bedone” (Lk 22:42). In verse 43 Luketells us that “an angel from heavenappeared to him and strengthenedhim.”

ANDRE F. LIJOIYork, Pa.


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

going universal. The gift of the Spirit isthe final act of the paschal mystery,the final reversal. Just asChrist reversed the curse ofAdam, so the Spiritreversed the curse of thetower of Babel, where,due to unrestrainedhuman hubris, Goddivided humans by dif-ferent languages andthey became incompre-hensible to each other.The Spirit now unites, andthe church is missioned tothe whole world, for God’s love andsalvation have claimed everyone.

This final act of the paschal mys-tery now completes Easter with theultimate divine dispensation: thegift of the Holy Spirit as ours. Thecenter of the universe has nowbecome our center; God is literallyours. This is the point of today’s sec-ond reading from Galatians. Paul hadbeen arguing for Christian freedomfrom the law of Moses. The law washoly; it trained and disciplined us welluntil Christ came, but now that time isover (Gal 3:24). Now is the time of theSpirit. This is our portion.

With this in mind, Paul contraststhe works of the flesh with the fruit ofthe Spirit. Here flesh (sarx) refers notto the body (soma) but to the soul asdominated by the passions. Paul’s listof these works includes everythingfrom sexual immorality to idolatry toconflict among people. The issue ofconflict dominates: “enmities, strife,jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions,

factions, envy....” Contrast this with thefruits of the Spirit, which include“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,generosity, faithfulness, gentleness,self-control.” Notice that Paul is con-trasting works of the flesh with fruitsof the Spirit. That is, these latter qual-ities are evidence of the already activeSpirit within. Paul’s aim is not to pre-scribe virtuous activities to perform.

Rather, he is pointing out whatthe Spirit looks like.

Everyone knows peo-ple whose external lives

are morally orderedbut whose minds are

stubborn, with myopicviews, and with hearts nar-

row or cold. I fear suchpeople may come to thekingdom’s gates and hear,

“I never knew you” (Mt

The Spirit’s GiftPENTECOST (B), MAY 27, 2012

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104:1-34; Gal 5:16-25; Jn 20:19-23

“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4)


THE WORD

entecost should overwhelm usas profoundly as it over-whelmed the disciples. Let’s

start with them and move to us. Thedisciples gathered on the Jewish feastof Pentecost, the commemoration ofthe gift of God’s law on Sinai. Recallhow powerfully God was experiencedin the Exodus, guiding his people witha pillar of fire at night and with over-whelming power on Sinai itself.Pentecost celebrates the law as Israel’sparticular gift from God: “He pro-claims his word to Jacob, his statutesand laws to Israel. He has not done thisfor any other nation” (Ps 147:19-20).

Recall too how John the Baptistprophesied a baptism “with the HolySpirit and fire” (Lk 3:16). It was on thisgreat feast day that God fulfilled John’sprophesy and brought that same Spiritand fire to the disciples. Today’s read-ing from the Acts of the Apostlesdescribes it: “And suddenly there camefrom the sky a noise like a strong driv-ing wind.... Then there appeared tothem tongues as of fire, which partedand came to rest on each one of them.And they were all filled with the HolySpirit and began to speak in differenttongues.” This enabled everyone pre-sent, including visitors representingmany cultures and languages, to “hearthem speaking in our own tongues ofthe mighty acts of God.” Here weshould think not of the kind of ecstat-ic prayer Paul addresses in 1 Cor 14,but of an expression of the Gospel

P

PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

• When do you feel most inspired?

• Where is your will most aligned to God’s?

• Give thanks to God for his Spirit.

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

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7:33). Paul reminds us, “If you areguided by the Spirit, you are not underthe law.” The law is about obedience,but the Spirit is about love and com-munion. And those who are alive withthe Spirit naturally express the fruit ofthat communion.

When we chant the hymn Veni,Sancte Spiritus, we seek for what wealready have, but have yet to fully real-ize in our lives. Of course, we canthwart or remain obtuse to the Spirit’sactivity, but we should not deny thatthe Spirit is our possession. Is this notoverwhelming news? It is all gift, butthe gift has been assured. If we havenot yet opened it up, now is the time.

PETER FELDMEIER

New Arrivalsfrom ave maria press

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