America · America Sept. 24, 2007 THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY $2.75 Mother Teresa’s Dark Night...

AmericaSept. 24, 2007 T H E N A T I O N A L C A T H O L I C W E E K L Y $2.75

Mother Teresa’sDark NightJames Martin

Donald Kerwinon children

and citizenship

Brian Farrellon the rights of

detainees

Daniel Polishon the Messiah and Orthodox Judaism

HE ADVENT of a new school yearreminds every instructor of thepersistence of certain catch-phrases, clichés and verbal

chestnuts much beloved by students andinspires wonder at the sheer stayingpower of some of the more curiousidioms in the collegiate patois. Resur-rected again this fall, for example, is per-haps the most shopworn phrase since“the dog ate my homework.” It’s the oneheard so often when a young personresponds to a question about his or herpersonal beliefs: “Oh, me? No, I’m spiri-tual, but not religious.”

It’s a lovely sentiment, but what exact-ly does it mean? Rarely what it says, to besure, for both spirituality and religion insuch a formulation are defined in waysprobably unrecognizable to any seriouspractitioner of either. Perhaps the mod-ern-day Meister Eckhart and Julian ofNorwich really are in the student loungewatching “The Secret” or reading Eat,Pray, Love. But I doubt it. My suspicion isthat the phrasecheapens themeaning of bothreligion andspirituality, andin the case of the latter actually hijacksthe authority of spiritual traditions thou-sands of years old.

One must be compassionate, ofcourse. Many fans of such a phrase are atthe beginning of a long journey ofknowledge and self-discovery, and it isuseful to remember the regrettable thingsone did and said in the folly of youth. Idistinctly recall a month during my fresh-man year in college when I never woreshoes. I also have vague memories of ahigh school afternoon spent lecturing aJesuit priest on the similarities betweenthe cult of Christianity and the myth ofSanta Claus. No doubt I bored him totears, but he was thankfully a man of fewwords, listening to a child of many.

A further complication is that rara aviswho really means it, the young person forwhom the longstanding traditions of spir-ituality, either in the East or West, actu-ally play a significant role in daily life. Iwas once taking a classmate at ColumbiaUniversity to task for employing the lan-guage of spirituality as an alternative toreligion when she coolly informed methat she yearly attended a 10-dayVipassana retreat, in which she sat lotus-style in meditation, staring at a wall for12 hours a day, and so had little interest

in a lecture on superficiality.And yet when I hear students speak of

being “spiritual but not religious,” it stillsticks in the craw. Yes, I know, the greatBuddha was spiritual but not religious,but so was my erstwhile college room-mate with the medical marijuana pre-scription; both approached somethingthey called nirvana. Too often, the phraseimplies the smug abandonment of a naïvereligiosity in favor of a more sophisticat-ed understanding of the universe, whenin fact the reverse may be happening—someone is making an uninformed sur-render to the silly wind blowing at themoment, a capitulation to what PopeBenedict XVI denounced as “the dicta-torship of relativism.” You’ve got yourreligion, fine; but me, oh no, I don’tjudge. And I’m better than you for it.

Sometimes the phrase also meanssomething relatively harmless, that per-haps “football games are televised at thesame time as Mass,” or “you have no ideahow embarassing my parents are in

church,” oreven “I nowlive in a citywhere thebars are

open until four in the morning onSaturday nights.” And no doubt theexpression sometimes allows a youngman or woman to retain deeply heldbeliefs while avoiding the public impres-sion that maybe they’re just a little toochurchy to be any fun. Then there arethe students who explode the dichotomy,who are both, as their religious faithhelps them move into a deeper spirituali-ty that builds on and informs their pre-existing religious views.

Ultimately, however, I suspect there isanother reason for the popularity of thephrase. Too many of us have internalizedthe tiresome commonplace of our con-temporary culture that “religion” is theprovince of all things narrow-minded,dogmatic, intolerant, fanatical and old-fashioned, whereas “spirituality” encom-passes that which is open-minded, medi-tative, reflective and tolerant of all creeds.Unfortunately, so defined, the latter isalso inclusive enough to embrace all thatis amoral, directionless, apathetic, slothful,banal and pernicious to the human spirit.Given the choice, I’ll stick with what gotme this far and continue with my currentriposte whenever the subject comes up:“Oh, me? No, I’m religious, but not toospiritual.” James T. Keane, S.J.

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Articles

America’s Children 10Donald KerwinTwo visions of nationhood vie for primacy in the U.S. immigration debate.

‘In My Soul’ 14James MartinThe long dark night of Mother Teresa

The Rights of Detainees 18Brian R. FarrellDo the prisoners at Guantanamo have a constitutional right to habeas corpus?

10

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www.americamagazine.org Vol. 197 No. 8, Whole No. 4786 September 24, 2007

Current Comment 4

Commentary ‘Best Colleges,’ Poor Report 5

Signs of the Times 6

Morality Matters 9A Post-War Program That Worked Mary Cusimano Love

Faith in Focus—Yom Kippur 21The Messiah Is Coming Daniel Polish

Book Reviews 23Charm Offensive; Littlefoot; Created for Joy

Letters 29

The Word 31Rich and Poor Daniel J. Harrington

Robert P. Waznak, S.S., on the deaths of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. Plus,

on our weekly podcast, James Martin, S.J., discusses the collected letters of Mother

Teresa. For more Web-only content, visit www.americamagazine.org.

This week @America Connects

21

What We Owe IraqWith the Petraeus/Crocker report presented to Congressand the White House selling yet another set of measuresfor success in Iraq, the American people have a responsi-bility to weigh what they owe the Iraqi people. Whetherwe have the capacity to rescue Iraq, militarily or otherwise,from a downward spiral of civil war, we have some basicduties to the Iraqi people and to others in the region thatwe must not evade. It was the United States, after all, thatlaunched the preventive war of choice that stirred up awhirlwind of violence in that country.

These are duties to refugees and displaced peopleabove all, especially those who aided the U.S. effort, but toothers as well, including Iraqi Christians, who have had toflee the violence in their homeland. In the years ahead, wemust support and resettle them in cooperation with coun-tries of first asylum like Syria and Jordan and organizationslike the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Second, our nation must face up to the regional impli-cations of a U.S. draw-down or withdrawal. It must buildand support a structure for regional security with Iraq’sneighbors, including Iran and Syria, key actors the admin-istration prefers to ignore or vilify. That will mean a broadsettlement with Iran that goes far beyond ending its nucle-ar weapons program.

A regional security pact will also demand working withother nations, like Russia and the countries of theEuropean Union, in a cooperative spirit quite unlike thearrogant unilateralism that has marked U.S. foreign policythese past six years.

Finally, while our own efforts at nation-building in Iraqhave failed, our duty in that regard has not been exhaustedby the billions of dollars we wasted in the attempt. Wemust assist, and not impede, ties between the Iraqi govern-ment and international organizations and programs that,when the time is right, can help the Iraqi people rebuildtheir national infrastructure and economy.

Loan CrisisFor three decades the world of high finance has been spin-ning away from the real-world economy in which mostmen and women live and work. The latest financial crisis isonce again a case where the working poor and lower mid-dle class will soon be paying for the sins of high rollers.New financial instruments, like hedge funds and deriva-tives, have made possible the expansion of the world econ-omy, the digital and biotech revolutions, and the spectacu-lar growth of populous, once-poor countries like Chinaand India. At the same time, they have accelerated the

growth of inequality, diminished the middle class, intensi-fied the focus of business on quarterly returns alone andcreated conditions for spectacular, too-big-to-fail financialcrises. Now the crisis over sub-prime (risky) lending in thehome loan market threatens a new meltdown that willdwarf the 1994 Mexican peso crisis, the 1997 Asian finan-cial crisis and the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000.President Bush has proposed modest support for home-owners threatened with foreclosure. More robust assis-tance to homeowners will inevitably be needed, but anyremedy must address the underlying cause of the problem:lack of regulation. Financial services must be more tightlyregulated and supervised. Tax benefits to hedge fund man-agers, who are billed at lower rates than their gardeners,must be rescinded; and limits must be set for a govern-ment bailout of the mortgage industry, to put an end tothe too-big-to-fail syndrome for money managers whomake colossal mistakes.

Play Ball!Barry Bonds has hit more home runs in American baseballthan any other person alive. There was a brouhaha of nosmall importance when he did it on July 27, 2007; but inthe weeks since, few have paid attention. Hammerin’ HankAaron captured America’s hearts in 1974 (a few exceptionsnotwithstanding) in his heroic chase of Babe Ruth’s record,but we lost interest quickly in Barry Bonds, the endlessstories of his steroid use and his many blasts beyond thefence. Why?

In many ways, medicine rules our lives as Americans:there’s something for everyone in the medical miraclesthat the pharmaceutical industry has engineered (to itsgreat profit) over the last two decades. Nevertheless, weexclude Bonds and his astounding accomplishments fromour appreciation of this sea change in American life,because another trend is working against the dyspeptic,pharmacologically enhanced slugger. Despite the advancesmedicine offers us, we still disdain a cheater.

Baseball occupies a unique place in our national psy-che, a privileged place recognized by Congress (in its con-tinued willingness to abide by baseball’s unique exemptionfrom antitrust laws) and by fans, who see the sport both asa harkening back to a bucolic past and relatively free of thespeed-em-up disease that has corrupted American culture.Autumn introduces a welcome advent of new heroes whoseek glory on green fields with wooden bats, and in theend we have no patience for the intrusion of a perverse sci-ence into our national pastime. Every October we arereminded of our youth by these players, and we preferthem innocent. Play ball!

4 America September 24, 2007

Current Comment

gans like “the national Catholic urban university” (of DesMoines).

Institutions look to Notre Dame, GeorgetownUniversity or Boston College as the finish line, when inpoint of fact those schools, too, race to keep up with theJoneses. In the face of high competition and secular stan-dards, the very question of what purpose a higher rankserves in the Christian scheme of things is easily lost.

The fact of the matter is, U.S. News’s image of a suc-cessful school ill suits Catholic institutions, ignoring theirstrengths or even casting them as flaws. For U.S. News thesuccessful school is a wealthy institution with a lot of“buzz” that accepts very few of those who apply. Tuitioncosts are ignored; commitment to service, values or diver-sity is irrelevant; and accessibility may very well hurt aschool’s score. This year Kelly reassured schools that dataon graduation rates have been adjusted to account for PellGrant students, whom he describes as “low-income stu-dents who tend to graduate at a lower rate than compara-ble students coming in.” “Rather than penalize schools foradmitting a large number of low-income students,” saysKelly, “we put in a formula to factor that out to level theplaying field.” This is an improvement, to be sure, but theunderlying point remains: Accessibility is seen as a disabili-ty to be accommodated, while selectivity is praised. As KayMcClenney from the University of Texas at Austin won-dered on the PBS “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” (8/20),“When in America did we come to the point of saying thatthe mark of quality is the proportion of prospective stu-dents that you refuse to serve?” The same could be askedof Catholic schools.

A growing number of institutions of higher educationare refusing to participate in the U.S. News survey, citingthese issues and others. The valid question, they argue, isnot what is the “best” college, but what is the right collegefor a given student.

The report exerts too much influence for most schoolsto simply ignore it. But Catholic schools would do them-selves and our society a great service (and some do) byevaluating and presenting themselves in terms of the intel-lectual and spiritual formation they provide, the questionsthey raise, the service they require, the world they wish tobuild and the faith that guides their efforts. U.S. Newsmay not appreciate these values, but in a world hungry formeaning and purpose, many others will.

Jim McDermott, S.J.

Commentary

.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT recently pub-lished the 24th edition of “America’s BestColleges”—by far its most anticipatedissue each year. Brian Kelly, editor in chiefof the magazine, gives a soft sell to the

rankings as a “first step” for prospective students, “a way toget a quick read on a variety of schools.” In point of fact,they are a big business with undeniable influence on highereducation. Slight changes in a school’s ranking can signifi-cantly affect its recruitment, even its fundraising.

But the survey has serious flaws in both its method andphilosophy. Americans in general and Catholic collegesand universities in particular would be wise to challenge itsconclusions.

While the issues surrounding the U.S. News rankingsare legion, the most troubling of them regards the validityof the instruments used to determine rankings. U.S. Newsconsiders 16 criteria, including selectivity, alumni giving,peer review and test scores, which are grouped into cate-gories and assigned weights. But 10 years ago, when themagazine commissioned the National Opinion ResearchCenter to evaluate its methodology, the center found that“the weights used to combine various measures into anoverall rating lack any defensible empirical or theoreticalbasis.” Why should peer review, for instance, count for 25percent of a school’s ranking, and academic quality only 15percent? The N.O.R.C. found the system “difficult todefend on any grounds other than the U.S. News staff’sbest judgment on how to combine the measures.”

Also problematic are the data ignored. U.S. News doesnot assess “product”—how students who go to a givenschool turn out, what they learn, what opportunities, chal-lenges or assistance are provided, even how satisfied theyare. Such measurements are possible. In fact, each year theNational Survey of Student Engagement alone surveyshalf a million students on issues like professor accessibility,academic engagement inside and outside the classroom,and tutoring. To rate schools without such data is likeranking football teams without considering their records.In which case, congratulations, University of Michigan!You’re still number one.

This question of the criteria used to evaluate theschools is of particular concern for Catholic colleges anduniversities. The pressure to succeed by U.S. News’s stan-dards looms large. In recent years many Catholic institu-tions have branded themselves with giddy, unrealistic slo-

U

September 24, 2007 America 5

‘Best Colleges,’ Poor Report

the prospect of an international confer-ence raised new hopes and created a “par-ticularly favorable context” for progress.

Church Critic of ZimbabweLeadership ResignsPope Benedict XVI accepted the resigna-tion of Archbishop Pius Ncube ofBulawayo, Zimbabwe, the most outspo-ken critic of the country’s leadership, whois facing allegations of adultery. In anundated letter written by the archbishopand released by the Vatican press officeSept. 11, the archbishop wrote that heoffered his resignation to Vatican officialsin July to spare sullying the image of thechurch. The Vatican announced that the

Signs of the Times

Pope Discusses Exodus ofChristians From Iraq Pope Benedict XVI met with Syria’svice president to discuss the exodus ofChristian and other refugees from Iraq,many of whom have fled to Syria. Syriais now home to an estimated 1.5 millionIraqi refugees, and Syrian officials havesaid the international community hasnot helped the country to deal with theinflux. During a private audience Sept.5, Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa gavethe pope a personal message fromSyrian President Bashar Al-Assad, theVatican said. Later, the Syrian vice pres-ident met for separate talks withArchbishop Dominique Mamberti, theVatican’s top foreign affairs expert. TheVatican said the discussions focused onSyria’s efforts to host Iraqi refugees andon Syria’s requests for aid from interna-tional agencies. Also on the agenda werethe problems and conditions ofChristians in Syria and what the Vaticantermed the “decisive contribution thatSyria can give in order to overcome theserious crises that afflict many popula-tions of the Middle East.”

Pope Voices Hope for JustSettlement in MideastPope Benedict XVI met with IsraeliPresident Shimon Peres and expressedhope that new diplomatic moves canbring peace in the Middle East. After 60years of suffering endured by the peoplesof the region, it is imperative to make“every effort” to find a just settlement,the Vatican said after the Sept. 6 meeting.Following his 35-minute private audiencewith the pope, Peres held separate talkswith Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vaticansecretary of state, and ArchbishopDominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s topforeign affairs official, to discuss theMiddle East and church-state relations inIsrael. The encounters came asPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbasand Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmertwere preparing to renew negotiations.Meanwhile, diplomats were setting thestage for a U.S.-sponsored internationalconference on the Middle East inNovember. The Vatican statement said


Pope Benedict XVI waves a censer during a Mass outside the Mariazell basilica in Austria Sept. 8.About 30,000 people turned out for the service at the popular pilgrimage site.

Pope Stresses Christian Values for Europe

pope accepted the archbishop’s resigna-tion under Canon 401.2, which coversresignations for illness or some othergrave reason. Archbishop Ncube, 60, isbeing sued for adultery, and his case isbefore the High Court of Zimbabwe inBulawayo. The lawsuit was made publicin July, and state-run newspapers pub-lished photos they said were ofArchbishop Ncube and a woman, takenwith a concealed camera placed in thearchbishop’s bedroom. ArchbishopNcube’s resignation “is not to be seen asan admission of guilt” to the adulterycharges and it “shouldn’t have any bearingon the court case,” said the Rev. FrederickChiromba, secretary general of theZimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Before an audience of Austrian politicalleaders and international diplomats, PopeBenedict XVI urged Europe not to jetti-son its Christian values, especially when itcomes to the rights of the unborn and thedying. The pope made the remarks Sept.7 in an ornate reception hall of Vienna’sHofburg Palace, which was packed withgovernment officials, legislators, ambas-sadors and representatives to U.N. andother agencies. After being welcomedwarmly by Austria’s president, Heinz

Fischer, the pope stood at a podium on ared carpet and declared: “Europe cannotand must not deny her Christian roots.These represent a dynamic component ofour civilization as we move forward intothe third millennium.”

The pope then quickly turned to twopro-life issues, abortion and euthanasia,which he said were not merely churchconcerns but represented threats to themost basic human right, that of lifeitself.

Ordination of ChineseBishop Part of TransitionThe ordination of Coadjutor BishopPaul Xiao Zejiang of Guizhou, China,was seen as part of a smooth transitionin the diocesan leadership. More than3,000 Catholics attended the ordinationof the 40-year-old priest Sept. 8 at thecathedral, or North Church, inGuiyang, the capital of Guizhouprovince, reported UCA News, an Asianchurch news agency.

The ordination, performed with theapproval of both the Holy See and theChinese government, marked the firstordination of a bishop since PopeBenedict XVI issued his open letter tomainland Chinese Catholics June 30.The Rev. Long Chengzhong, Guizhou’svicar general, told UCA News Sept. 10that all the diocese’s priests are glad tohave a young bishop.

As coadjutor, Bishop Xiao will auto-matically succeed 89-year-old BishopAnicetus Wang Chongyi, who is stillactive, upon the elderly prelate’s deathor retirement.

Bishops Seek Exemptionon Sex-Change Records English and Welsh bishops haveexpressed concern that they would notbe able to stop transsexuals from becom-ing nuns or priests under new equalitylegislation proposed by the British gov-ernment.

The Bishops’ Conference of Englandand Wales said it feared that proposalsto ban “indirect discrimination” againstpeople who have had sex-change opera-tions would take away the church’s rightto check vital records, like baptismal andconfirmation certificates, that wouldreveal whether candidates for the priest-hood, religious life or marriage weretranssexuals.

The bishops expressed their concernsin a Sept. 10 submission to the Britishgovernment, which has proposed thatvital records be altered when a personhas a sex-change operation. A copy ofthe submission, prepared on behalf ofthe bishops by Archbishop Peter Smithof Cardiff, Wales, was obtained byCatholic News Service.


From CNS and other sources. CNS photos.

$198.1 Million Settlementin California LawsuitsThe Diocese of San Diego and theDiocese of San Bernardino, which brokeoff from its southern neighbor in 1978,agreed Sept. 7 to pay $198.1 million tosettle lawsuits with 144 victims of sexualabuse by priests between 1938 and 1993.The dioceses had originally offered $95million to settle the claims. The plaintiffssought $200 million. Earlier in the year,the San Diego Diocese filed forbankruptcy protection hours before atrial was to begin in one of the first law-suits alleging that the church was respon-sible for sexual abuse by priests. Thejudge in the bankruptcy case had recentlythreatened to throw out that case if thechurch did not reach an agreement withthe plaintiffs.

The settlement is one of the largest inthe country. Under the agreement, theSan Bernardino Diocese and its insurer,Catholic Mutual, will pay $15.1 millionfor 11 cases. The San Diego Diocese willpay $77 million and Catholic Mutual willcover another $75.7 million for a total of111 cases. San Diego will pay another$30.2 million for 22 cases involvingmembers of religious orders. A statementfrom the San Diego Diocese said ithoped at least part of that amount couldbe recovered from the religious orders.

New Missal TranslationExpected by 2009 An international liturgical committeethat advises the Vatican reportedprogress in its work on the new Englishtranslation of the Mass. After meeting atthe Vatican Sept. 2-6, the Vox ClaraCommittee said it hoped the Englishtranslation of the Roman Missal wouldbe completed and approved by the endof 2009. It was the first time a specificdate had been anticipated for the com-pletion of the lengthy project. The thirdedition of the Roman Missal was pro-mulgated in Latin by Pope John Paul IIin 2002, and work on the English trans-lation began soon afterward. A VoxClara statement said its meetingreviewed the most recent draft transla-tions of the Roman Missal.

Cecilia Nya, S.H.C.J. provincial leader of theSisters of the Holy Child Jesus in Africa,was one of four speakers at a Sept. 6 work-shop held during a U.N. conference on cli-mate change. The speakers described cur-rent projects in Nigeria, Indonesia, Australiaand Newark, N.J.

Spiritual EnthusiasmMarks Scout Anniversary As a priest for 52 years and a member ofthe Boy Scouts for 65, Msgr. John B.Brady, a retired priest of the Archdioceseof Washington, D.C., says he has neverexperienced the “youthful spiritual enthu-siasm” he witnessed this summer as achaplain at the Goshen ScoutReservation in Goshen, Va. “Scouts ofevery faith attended religious services inrecord numbers,” Msgr. Brady said in areport on his experiences with the morethan 7,000 scouts and leaders whoattended the six camps at Goshen thissummer. “Jewish and Islamic services,Buddhist meditations, all-faith scouts’own services, nondenominationalChristian services and daily CatholicMasses reported significant increases inattendance,” he added. The summer of2007 marked the 100th camping seasonfor the scouts since Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the world scoutingmovement, oversaw the raising of theflags at the world’s first scout encamp-ment at Brown Sea Island off the coast ofSouthampton, England, Aug. 1, 1907.


leading the movement to expand theseefforts. You would be wrong. Today,another President Bush is in the WhiteHouse, preoccupied with another war inIraq and not providing leadership in thiscritical area. Since 2002 Senator Lugarhas proposed globalizing C.T.R. efforts,particularly to safeguard the vulnerablenuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan. In2004 the father of Pakistan’s nuclearweapons program, A. Q. Khan, was dis-covered selling nuclear secrets and tech-nologies to Iran, North Korea andLibya. Pakistan’s President Musharaff isthe frequent target of assassinationattempts, and Islamic extremists sup-portive of Al Qaeda and the Talibanthrive in Pakistan, including in its mili-tary. The insecurity of Pakistan’s arsenalis a danger to the world.

Despite these proven dangers, SenatorLugar’s fellow Republicans in Congressand the White House have not followedthe September 11th Commission’s rec-ommendations and advanced C.T.R. pro-grams. This year Senator Lugar has againsubmitted legislation to expand C.T.R.beyond the former Soviet states.

The comparison with Iraq is worthconsidering. Five years ago on Oct. 7,2002, President Bush argued that theUnited States had to invade Iraq so thatSaddam Hussein could be disarmed of hisweapons of mass destruction programs.“America must not ignore the threat gath-ering against us. Facing clear evidence ofperil, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in theform of a mushroom cloud.”

Apparently that argument appliedonly to Iraq. The White House has will-ingly sacrificed the lives of over 3,700Americans and 100,000 Iraqis and hasspent over $450 billion dollars to disarm anonexistent Iraqi program for weapons ofmass destruction. Yet it is unwilling towork cooperatively through proven pro-grams that use nonmilitary means tosecure known, existing arsenals ofweapons of mass destruction in India andPakistan at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Expanding C.T.R. is a proven way tostop terrorists from acquiring weapons ofmass destruction. It works by strengthen-ing the peace rather than by war. Thepublic and Congress ought to appreciateand replicate Senator Lugar’s successes.

Maryann Cusimano Love

A Postwar ProgramThat Worked

Can this success story be repeated?

Morality Matters

E DO NOT OFTEN

hear success storiesabout foreign policy.After the Second WorldWar, the United States

did what victorious powers throughouthistory have rarely done. Rather than van-quishing and humiliating our defeatedenemies at war’s end, we worked togetherto strengthen them and create a saferworld.

After the cold war, the United Statesdid it again. While most Americans arefamiliar with the Marshall Plan, therebuilding of Germany and Japan and thecreation of NATO, most are unacquaint-ed with the Cooperative Threat Reduc-tion programs. But we should know aboutthem. They need support and should beexpanded to other critical areas like Indiaand Pakistan.

This month we mark the anniversaryof this largely unheralded success story.Fifteen years ago, Senator Richard Lugar,Republican of Indiana, and then SenatorSam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, madeour lives much safer from nuclear weaponsby establishing the C.T.R. programs. TheSoviet Union was disintegrating, but a vastnumber of nuclear weapons and largestocks of radiological, chemical and biolog-ical materials were unsecured and scatteredacross the territories of the former SovietUnion. George H. W. Bush, president atthe time, was preoccupied with a war inIraq and not focused on nuclear weaponssafety and elimination. Displaying historiccongressional leadership in foreign policy,the senators reached out across party lines,took the long view and created a betterfuture for us all.

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Through this highly successful pro-gram, the United States and the states ofthe former Soviet Union cooperated todestroy nuclear weapons quickly and safe-ly and to safeguard, protect, control andaccount for the nuclear materials,weapons and scientists from the formerSoviet Union’s nuclear complex. Theprogram was later expanded to includechemical and biological weapons, andmeasures to detect weapons of massdestruction for border security.

Thanks to the vision and persistenceof Senators Nunn and Lugar, Ukraine,Kazakhstan and Belarus are now free ofnuclear weapons and their delivery sys-tems, and last year the C.T.R. programwas expanded to destroy Albania’s chemi-cal weapons. Thousands of nuclearweapons have been deactivated and thou-sands of missiles, strategic bombers andnuclear submarines designed to delivernuclear weapons have been destroyed.Over 75 percent of Russian nuclear war-head sites have been secured to date, and160 buildings housing hundreds of tons ofnuclear materials have been secured. Coldwar biological and chemical weapons pro-duction facilities in Russia, Georgia,Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have beensafely dismantled. Thousands of scientistsassociated with these weapons programshave been retrained and employed incivilian pursuits.

All of this has been accomplished on abudgetary shoestring. From 1992 to2007, the United States has budgeted atotal of only $13.3 billion on all C.T.R.programs combined. According to thegovernment’s nonpartisan CongressionalResearch Service, this is less than wespend on the war in Iraq in a singlemonth.

Given this established track record,you might think the president would be

MARYANN CUSIMANO LOVE is professor ofinternational relations at The CatholicUniversity of America in Washington, D.C.

OT SINCE THE “AMERICANIZATION” movement of the first quarterof the 20th century has the United States given the integration of itsimmigrants the kind of sustained policy attention it deserves. At itsbest, that movement sought to promote citizenship, to assure thatgovernment agencies addressed the specific needs of immigrants and

to teach them English, U.S. history and civic skills. These goals need to be revisited,particularly since Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.


Protecting the rights of those born on U.S. soil

America’s Children– BY DONALD KERWIN –

September 24, 2007 America Vol. 197 No. 8, Whole No. 4786

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NDONALD KERWIN is executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc.

It would be reckless to assume that a diverse and grow-ing population of 37 million immigrants will be incorporat-ed easily or automatically into our national life. The UnitedStates’ historic genius at integrating immigrants has beenrooted in a relatively open job market, a participatory polit-ical system, strong mediating institutions (including family)and a legal framework that extends its core rights and pro-tections to “persons,” not only to U.S. citizens. The essen-tial ingredient, however, has been the conviction of succes-sive waves of immigrants that they can become full membersof the United States. By contrast, many European nationshave developed formal immigrant “integration” policies andextend generous social safety nets to immigrants, but thechildren and grandchildren of many of these immigrants donot feel either that they belong or that they can become fulland equal French or German or Dutch citizens.

What Is a Nation?How immigrants see the United States depends largely onhow the United States views them and how it conceives ofitself, and those attitudes are changeable. At present, twovisions of nationhood vie for primacy in the U.S. immigra-tion debate. Civic nationalism does not deny the role of his-tory, tradition and culture in forging ties among citizens,but it views national membership primarily in terms ofshared civic values and political institutions. This vision res-onates with immigrants and others who see the UnitedStates as a “creedal” nation. According to one of our mostcherished national myths, people from throughout theworld have fled poverty and persecution to find a home in anation that asks in return only that they be good and loyalcitizens. In gratitude, these immigrants have put aside theirother differences to build a nation that offers hope to a bit-terly divided world.

Ethnic or ethnocultural nationalism, by contrast, viewsnations as distinct peoples connected most deeply by inher-ited characteristics like race, religion, history and language.This vision does not dismiss the importance of shared civicgoals and beliefs, but regards concepts like rights, freedomand equality as mere noble abstractions that do not suffi-ciently bind citizens to one another and to their nation.This paradigm might itself be dismissed as an abstractionthat fails to capture the U.S. experience. Its proponentswould do away with the primacy given to family unity inU.S. immigration law. In their view family-based immigra-

tion has led to the admission of large numbers of immigr-nats who threaten to dilute, if not overwhem, U.S.“Western” culture. These cultural differences can be over-stated. Religious faith, a commitment to family, hard workand patriotism—which many see as core features of U.S.culture—likewise characterize immigrant communities.The great wave of immigrants from 1890 to 1916 faced sim-ilar criticism, primarily because of their countries of origin(mostly Southern and Eastern Europe) and their faith(mostly Catholic), which U.S. nativists attacked as alien andincompatible with democratic values.

Targeting Birthright CitizenshipThe main policy ethnocultural nationalists opppose is thegranting of birthright citizenship for the children of undoc-umented persons. Some who would restrict immigrantscynically refer to such children as “anchor babies,” althoughsuch children cannot petition for their family members tojoin them in the United States until they themselvesbecome adults. On the one hand, the opposition tobirthright citizenship seems to contradict the primacy thatethnocultural nationalists give to U.S. history and traditionin defining membership. In fact, most of these children willnever have another culture, heritage or tradition than whatthey acquire in the United States. On the other hand, itstands to reason that if you want to perpetuate a distinctpeople, you would want to deny citizenship to children wholack the inherited characteristics you value. The FourteenthAmendment, which many who would restrict the number ofimmigrants trivialize as an immigration loophole, presents aformidable obstacle to such a denial. Its first sentence reads:“All persons born or naturalized in the United States andsubject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the UnitedStates and of the State wherein they reside.” This languagereversed the infamous Dred Scott decision, which held thatpersons of African descent could never become U.S. citi-zens. An 1898 Supreme Court decision, United States v.Wong Kim Ark, affirmed that the amendment also appliedto children born in the United States of parents who are notU.S. citizens.

A legal skirmish has erupted over whether being “sub-ject to the jurisdiction” of the United States means beingrequired to obey U.S. law (in which case the amendmentapplies to all children born on U.S. soil), or allegiance to thenation (in which case citizenship could arguably be denied


Two visions of nationhood vie for primacy in the U.S.immigration debate: civic nationalism and ethnic or ethnocultural nationalism.

to the children of noncitizens without amending theConstitution). The court reasoned in the Wong Kim Arkcase that “every citizen or subject of another country, whiledomiciled here, is within the allegiance and protection, andconsequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the UnitedStates.”

Limiting the Rights of Young CitizensOne must question how it would serve the national interestto relegate children born here to lives with few rights, lim-ited prospects and no security. How would such childrencontribute or be bound to the only country they might everknow? The Supreme Court made this point trenchantly inPlyler v. Doe, its 1982 decision on the right of undocu-mented children to public education through high school.The Plyler decision highlighted the complementary natureof rights and the common good, an enduring feature of bothU.S. law and Catholic social teaching. “It is difficult tounderstand,” the court reasoned, “precisely what the Statehopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetua-tion of a sub-class of illiterates within our boundaries, sure-ly adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, wel-fare, and crime.... Whatever savings might be achieved bydenying these children an education, they are wholly insub-stantial in light of the costs involved to these children, theState, and the nation.”

What would restrictionists do with such children?Ethnocultural nationalists might favor deporting them (andtheir parents). Or they might pressure such families to leaveby denying them the means to subsist, as hundreds of pend-ing state and local measures are attempting to do. Or theycould make it a felony to be or to assist an undocumentedperson, as the House of Representatives voted to do in2005. The more this vision plays out in practice, the less itseems to honor core U.S. ideals, although this is its verypoint. After all, ideals cannot play a large role in attempts toresurrect one of the most shameful legal decisions in U.S.history, the Dred Scott decision, and apply it to a new classof defenseless persons. The ethnocultural vision neverseems more un-American than when it attempts to articu-late exactly which attributes or characteristics should deter-mine membership.

No mainstream group in the U.S. immigration debatefavors open borders, supports undocumented migration oropposes the “patriotic assimilation” of immigrants.Immigrant advocates believe, however, that these immensechallenges must be addressed in ways that honor ournation’s underlying values.

The Views of Early PresidentsWhat beliefs make up the U.S. creed? In the Declaration ofIndependence, Thomas Jefferson names equality, self-evi-


dent rights and the consent of the governed. In the pream-ble to the 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth ofMassachusetts, John Adams defined as the purpose of gov-ernment “to secure the existence of the body politic, to pro-tect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it withthe power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their naturalrights, and the blessings of life.” He referred to the polity asa “voluntary association” of persons governed by lawsenacted for the “common good.”

In a letter to a Hebrew Congregation at Newport inAugust 1790, George Washington identified good citizenshipand allegiance as the fundamental requirements for member-ship in the new nation. “It is now no more,” Washingtonwrote, “that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indul-gence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exerciseof their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Governmentof the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, topersecution no assistance, requires only that they who liveunder its protection should demean themselves as good citi-zens giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” In his“Gettysburg Address,” Lincoln called the United States anation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created equal.” These concepts define ournation and bind us to our fellow citizens.

Although political membership and religious affiliationcannot be equated, ethnocultural nationalism also seemsalien to a religious tradition based not on ethnicity, race orculture, but on a person’s deepest beliefs and commitments.St. Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there isneither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female;for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Pope JohnPaul II made the same point about immigrants in his mes-sage for World Migration Day 1996: “The church consid-ers the problem of illegal migrants from the standpoint ofChrist, who died to gather together the dispersed childrenof God, to rehabilitate the marginalized and to bring closethose who are distant, in order to integrate all within a com-munion that is not based on ethnic, cultural or social mem-bership.” The church’s vision has been inclusive, even forthose who violate immigration laws. In 1986 the U.S. bish-ops wrote in Together a New People: “It is against the com-mon good and unacceptable to have a double society, onevisible with rights and one invisible without rights—a voice-less underground of undocumented persons.”

In the last two years, hundreds of thousands of immi-grants have taken to the streets in cities across the country.The overwhelming majority of them—pushing strollers,dressed in their work clothes, carrying religious symbols,marching peacefully, carrying “We are America” posters—share our civic values. Like millions of immigrants beforethem, they want to help build the United States and to par-ticipate fully in our national life. We should let them.


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ERHAPS CATHOLICS SHOULD NOT havebeen surprised by the revelations inMother Teresa: Come Be My Light, anew collection of letters by the “saint

of the gutters” that show her astonishing bat-tle with spiritual darkness. Reports of her“dark night” had been circulating since 2003,when Brian Kolodiejchuk, a priest member ofthe Missionaries of Charity and postulator forher cause for canonization, published on theCatholic Web site Zenit.com a series of arti-cles about her struggles. That same year, in thejournal First Things, Carol Zaleski wrote anarticle entitled “Mother Teresa’s Dark Night,”which quoted selections from her letters. Sosome information about Mother Teresa’s inte-rior struggles with darkness, doubt and despairhave been available to the general public forseveral years.

What is new about Come Be My Light is thatit gathers together the bulk of letters, whichreveals the full measure of her inner turmoil.For the first time readers will learn that MotherTeresa suffered this relentless aridity for rough-ly 50 years—with one brief respite—until herdeath in September 1997. “In my soul I feel justthat terrible pain of loss—of God not wantingme—of God not being God—of God not really existing,”she wrote to a confessor in 1959.

According to Father Kolodiejchuk, these letters weregathered from the files of bishops, priests and spiritualdirectors to whom Mother Teresa wrote and who hadretained them. In a recent interview, Father Kolodiejchuknoted that although Mother Teresa had hoped the letterswould be destroyed, the gathering together of such writings

is an essential part of the canonization procedure. The let-ters are also a critical resource for the Missionaries ofCharity as they seek to understand more fully the distinctivespirituality, or charism, of their founder.

Early Mysticism and Later DarknessThe posthumous collection is largely an extended cry toGod, expressed through candid letters. A recurring syntac-tical habit—the frequent use of dashes—adds to the breath-less urgency of her lamentations. “In my heart there is nofaith—no love—no trust—there is so much pain—the painof longing, of not being wanted—I want God with all the

JAMES MARTIN, S.J., is acting publisher of America and author

of My Life With the Saints (Loyola), which will be released in

paperback in October.


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‘In My Soul’The long dark night ofMother Teresa

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"She wanted to proclaim the Gospel not with words, but by being a light, a radiance of God's presence."—Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.

powers of my soul,” she writes in the letter of 1959 quotedabove.

The feeling of God’s absence is not uncommon in thelives of the saints or in the lives of average believers. TheSpanish mystic St. John of the Cross called it the dark nightand posited it as a necessary stage forthe ascent to mystical union withGod. St. Ignatius of Loyola termed itspiritual desolation in his manual forprayer, The Spiritual Exercises. “Oneis completely listless, tepid andunhappy,” he wrote, “and feels sepa-rated from our Creator and Lord.”During her final illness, St. Thérèseof Lisieux, the French Carmelitenun, experienced a desolation thatseemed to reflect doubts overwhether or not anything would awaither after her death. “If you onlyknew what darkness I am plungedinto!” she once said to the sisters inher convent.

For Mother Teresa, the decadesof spiritual darkness, which begannot long after she founded theMissionaries of Charity, were all themore acute when she reflected on herearlier relationship with Jesus.

The woman born Gonxha AgnesBojaxhiu was raised in a devout Catholic family in Skopje,Albania. Her mother, Drana, was a generous woman whoused to care for an elderly neighbor who was ravaged byalcoholism and covered with sores. “When you do good,”Drana told her daughter, “do it quietly, as if you werethrowing a stone in the sea.”

A Jesuit priest’s talk at her parish stirred within Agnesthe desire to do missionary work, and in 1928 at the age of18 she was overjoyed to be accepted by the Sisters of Loretoin Ireland. Three months after her entrance, Sister MaryTeresa (she took the name to honor Thérèse of Lisieux) wassent on a mission to India to work in a girls school inCalcutta. In 1937 she pronounced her vows of poverty,chastity and obedience and, as was the custom in her order,was given the title Mother. Five years later she made a pri-vate vow to Jesus “not to refuse Him anything.”

In 1946 on a train ride en route to a retreat (and somerest) in Darjeeling, she was surprised to undergo a series ofintense mystical experiences, which included hearing thevoice of Jesus, who asked her to begin working with the poor-est of the poor. “Wilt thou refuse?” asked Jesus. These expe-riences, which she would term her “call within a call,” con-vinced her to take the difficult step of leaving the Sisters of

Loreto to found a new order.Her later years of darkness were all the more baffling to

her in the wake of the unique graces received early in herreligious life. Moreover, since clergy and members of reli-gious orders were (and are) regularly counseled to rely on

Jesus as their most intimate friend,his subsequent disappearance fromMother Teresa’s inner life was nearlyimpossible for her to understand.

She also seems to have been slowto recognize that her darkness mayhave been a kind of answer to her fer-vent prayers and private vow; in 1951she wrote of her wish “to drink onlyfrom His chalice of pain” (heremphasis). For the reader who knowswhat awaits her, this is among themost difficult passages to read inCome Be My Light. The subsequenttrials recall the comment of anotherTeresa, of Ávila, who said that moretears are shed over answered prayersthan unanswered ones.

‘I Have Come to Love theDarkness’Ultimately, in 1961 Mother Teresafound some relief from her interiorturmoil through the counsel of

Joseph Neuner, S.J., who suggested that her dark nightmight be one way God was inviting her to identify withthe abandoned Christ on the cross and with the aban-doned poor. He also reminded her that the very longingfor God itself came from God. “For the first time in this11 years,” she wrote the Jesuit theologian, “I have come tolove the darkness.” Indeed, one of the many poignantaspects of Come Be My Light is that it makes clear howmuch someone can suffer without the right spiritual guid-ance, and how much relief can come with a few words ofwise counsel.

Still, while this provided further insight and what onemight call intellectual relief, God’s absence continuedunabated in her prayer. In 1967 she wrote again toNeuner, “Father I want to tell you how you—how my soullongs for God—for him alone, how painful it is to be with-out Him.”

Mother Teresa understood how odd her situation was:the woman acclaimed as a “living saint” struggled with herfaith. Though she sometimes admitted feeling like a “hyp-ocrite,” as she notes in one letter, she decided that a publicadmission of her struggles would direct focus on herself,rather than on Jesus. Consequently, she suffered her spirtu-


In Her Own Words

In April 1961 Mother Teresa wrote toJoseph Neuner, S.J., after hepreached a retreat to theMissionaries of Charity in Calcutta.

Now Father—since [19]49 or 50 thisterrible sense of loss—this untolddarkness—this loneliness—this con-tinual longing for God—which givesme that pain deep down in myheart—Darkness is such that I reallydo not see—neither with my mind norwith my reason.—The place of God inmy soul is blank.—There is not God inme.—When the pain of longing is sogreat—I just long & long for God—and then it is that I feel—He does notwant me....

—Mother Teresa: Come Be My LightDoubleday Books, 2007

al trials largely alone. One less publicized aspect of her jour-nals lies in this personal act of humility: Had these lettersbeen destroyed, few would ever have known of her trials. Asher own mother had counseled, she was trying to do goodquietly.

Why?Most believers who read Come Be My Light will at somepoint ask, “Why would God do this?” Of course one mightjust as well ask, “Why is there suffering?”

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola suggeststhree possible explanations for spiritual desolation. First, wemay be “tepid, lazy or negligent” in prayer. Clearly this wasnot the case for Mother Teresa, who was utterly faithful toher daily prayer, to the Mass and to frequent visits to theBlessed Sacrament. Second, it may test “how much we areworth and how far we will extend ourselves in the serviceand praise of God.” Again, if Mother Teresa, who workedtirelessly until her death, did not “extend herself,” who of ushas? Third, it may give us “true recognition” that consola-tion is “a gift and grace from God our Lord.” In otherwords, it reminds us who is in control. But after 10 or 20years of the darkness, Mother Teresa had grasped this, asher letters to her spiritual directors demonstrate.

Any divine “reasons” for her trials remain mysterious.But with hindsight certain fruits of her suffering—besides

the heightened ability to identify with the poor—may sug-gest themselves.

For one thing, Mother Teresa, like many saints, had acommanding ego, forceful enough that she argued for thefoundation of her order in the face of fierce opposition. Acommon theme in the early letters is her relentless drive tohave the young order approved, a pursuit born of certitudein her mystical experiences. “Why make me wait so long?...How long must I wait? May I not write again or straightto Rome?” she wrote to the Archbishop of Calcutta in 1948,when Vatican approval for her order was not immediatelyforthcoming. Later, when her ministry flourished, she wasshowered with worldly honors, including perhaps the ulti-mate secular accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. Did her spir-itual trials temper a natural pride that might have otherwisesubtly compromised her mission?

Likewise, one might argue that Mother Teresa’s letters,the fruits of her spiritual agony, which she asked to bedestroyed, will now help a new group of people. Havingministered to the sick and dying in Calcutta during her life-time, she will now minister to the doubtful and the doubt-ing as a sort of saint for the skeptics. Could this be a wayGod will use her sufferings to bring about greater good? Isthis the Easter Sunday of Mother Teresa’s long GoodFriday? Only God, and now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,knows the answers.


Great Saint, Complicated SeekerCome Be My Light reveals Mother Teresa to be one of thegreatest of all the saints. To that bold statement church his-torians and theologians will surely respond, “Wait andsee.” Yet it is difficult to think of anyone who accomplishedso much with so little spiritual sustenance. The closest ana-logues are St. Jane Frances de Chantal, founder of theCongregation of the Visitation, whose turmoil lasted forthree decades, and St. Paul of the Cross, founder of thePassionist order, who underwent an even lengthier trial, butwas granted relief toward the end of his life.

While every saint has faced spiritual trials, most have feltclose to God during their years of active ministry. St.Ignatius Loyola, for example, was frequently overcome withemotion while celebrating Mass, even to the point of tears.Some were even granted unique graces. In his later years St.Francis of Assisi enjoyed mystical experiences at his prayerand, during one retreat, received the stigmata.

In contrast, Mother Teresa felt nothing for 50 years—except for a brief respite—all the way until her death. “[M]ysoul is just like [an] ice block,” she wrote.

Come Be My Light also provides an unintentionalresponse to those who during her lifetime dismissedMother Teresa as a sort of well-meaning but unsophisticat-ed believer. Her letters show how, when confronted with acomplex spiritual crisis, she questioned with candor, vigor

and passion, and ultimately responded with trust, love andworks of charity. She is revealed as a complicated andsophisticated seeker.

‘I Have Never Refused You Anything’The unrelieved spiritual aridity of Blessed Teresa ofCalcutta makes her earthly accomplishments all the moreremarkable. Her letters also offer some lessons to believers.First, they are a reminder that what could be termed radicalChristianity is not simply the province of those called saints.Many imagine that since the saints enjoy privileged accessto God in prayer, their work is somehow easier, lighter—amistaken view that excuses the “average believer” fromstriving for sanctity. Instead, Mother Teresa’s life reminds usthat holiness is a goal for all believers, even those given todoubt. Second, her letters remind us that dryness, darknessand doubt are natural parts of the spiritual life, whetherordinary believer or extraordinary saint. Finally, theyremind us that fidelity does not depend solely on feelings oremotions.

Blessed Teresa remained heroically faithful to the origi-nal call from the very God who seemed to have withdrawnfrom her. Shortly before her death, one of her sistersnoticed her praying alone before an image of Christ andoverheard a phrase that could sum up her life. “Jesus,” sheprayed, “I have never refused you anything.”


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N JUNE 29, 2007, in an extremely rare move, theUnited States Supreme Court reversed its ownearlier ruling and agreed to consider whether alaw passed by Congress, the Military

Commissions Act of 2006, can legally deny detainees atGuantanamo Bay access to civilian courts. While this is onlya decision to accept the case and cannot be read as an indi-cation of the manner in which the court will ultimately rule,the move is consistent with the court’s recent scrutiny of thedetention policies used by the Bush administration in its“war on terror.”

This case is of particular significance because it willdetermine whether the detainees have a constitutional rightto the remedy of habeas corpus. The remedy, one of themost fundamental guarantees under the Anglo-Americanlegal system, allows an individual to test in a civilian courtthe legality of his or her detention or imprisonment. A

habeas corpus proceeding does not determine guilt or inno-cence, but ensures that a person is deprived of his or her lib-erty only in accordance with established legal principles andprocesses. Since its origin in medieval England, habeas cor-pus has served as an important means of checking abuses ofauthority and has been embraced by diverse legal systemsthroughout the world.

History and ContextLast year, in the wake of Supreme Court rulings that thepresident did not have the authority to authorize militarycommissions to try detainees without congressionalapproval and that the remedy of habeas corpus was availableto detainees, Republicans in Congress introduced legisla-tion aimed at overcoming both of these rulings. TheMilitary Commissions Act of 2006, signed into law on Oct.17 of that year, authorizes the establishment of militarycommissions to try alien “unlawful enemy combatants” andsets forth procedures for doing so. Among its provisions,this law purports to deny federal civilian courts jurisdictionto hear an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by an

BRIAN R. FARRELL is an attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a

doctoral candidate at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the

National University of Ireland, Galway.


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The Rights of DetaineesPrisoners at Guantanamo are entitled to habeas corpus.BY BRIAN R. FARRELL

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U.S. military police escort a detainee to his cell in Camp X-Ray at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

alien classified as an “unlawful enemy combatant” or await-ing such classification.

While the law does provide for appellate review by anewly created Court of Military Commission Review and,eventually, the Supreme Court, such review takes place onlyafter trial by a military commission is completed. No trialshave yet been held under the Military Commissions Act;charges against detainees in the first two cases under thenew act were dismissed for technical reasons in early June.Keeping in mind that some detainees have already beenheld without trial for over five years, without access tohabeas corpus it could take additional years before even thefirst cases would be subjected to any review by a civiliancourt under the terms of the act. In the meantime, the actprevents detainees from challenging the legality of theirpresent detention.

It is perhaps a testament to the importance of habeascorpus that a group of detainees is using a habeas corpusproceeding—the very proceeding the act seeks to takeaway—to ask a civilian court to decide whether the act doesin fact shut them out of civilian courts.

The key issue in this current challenge is whetherCongress can constitutionally deny civilian courts jurisdic-tion to hear habeas corpus applications from persons des-ignated “unlawful enemy combatants.” The detaineesoriginally filed their habeas corpus petition in the U.S.District Court for the District of Columbia prior to pas-sage of the Military Commissions Act. That court ruledagainst them in 2005 based on then-existing law. Whilethe case was before the Court of Appeals for the Districtof Columbia Circuit, the new act came into effect; and thatcourt was called on to decide whether it was constitution-al. The Court of Appeals held that the MilitaryCommissions Act did not violate the constitutional guar-antee of habeas corpus and that the detainees, as aliensheld outside the country, did not have the right to invokeconstitutional guarantees.

Initially, in April 2007, the Supreme Court declined toreview the case (named Boumediene v. Bush after one of thedetainees) citing the need for detainees first to exhaust theremedies available to them under the Military CommissionsAct. On June 29, however, the court granted a petition forrehearing filed by the detainees. The court’s reversal of itsown decision is without precedent in recent decades,according to experts. While no specific reason was cited inthe court’s order, it is speculated that the June 22 submissionof an affidavit by a military intelligence officer criticizingthe workings of the secretive military commissions may bepart of the reason for the court’s unusual reversal. Althoughthe contents of the affidavit are not yet known, an attorneyfor the detainees described it as showing the military com-mission process to be a “sham.”

An Enforceable Right?When it finally hears the case in its next term, the SupremeCourt will consider whether the Military Commissions Actviolates the right to habeas corpus guaranteed by the U.S.Constitution. The Constitution, however, does not affirma-tively guarantee the remedy of habeas corpus; rather, ArticleI, Section 9, provides that the writ “shall not be suspended,unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safe-ty may require it.” Thus, as in past habeas corpus cases, thecourt will attempt to interpret the meaning of the so-calledsuspension clause, determine the scope of its protections in1789, when the first federal courts were created, and analyzethe right of detainees to invoke constitutional guarantees.

A much clearer, affirmative statement of the right tohabeas corpus, however, exists in United States law, inArticle 9, Section 4, of the International Covenant on Civiland Political Rights, ratified by the United States in 1992.This provision states:

Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or deten-tion shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court,in order that that court may decide without delay on thelawfulness of his detention and order his release if thedetention is not lawful.


The habeas corpus guarantee in the internationalcovenant applies to all persons deprived of their liberty, notjust criminal defendants, and it is applicable in cases of pre-ventative detention. And unlike the constitutional provi-sion, the covenant has been understood by the UnitedNations Human Rights Committee (now the HumanRights Council) to prohibit suspension of habeas corpus intimes of emergency because of its importance in protectingother fundamental rights. As a treaty signed by the presi-dent and ratified by the Senate, the provisions of thecovenant are part of “the supreme law of the land” in theUnited States.

Unfortunately for the detainees, they cannot rely on thecovenant in their case before the Supreme Court, becauseupon ratifying the covenant, the United States declared thatthe treaty was “not self-executing.” In simple terms, thisdeclaration means that in the United States the covenantdoes not create enforceable rights that an individual canassert in court. Rather, it creates obligations on the govern-ment vis-à-vis other members of the international commu-nity.

While the habeas corpus guarantee in the covenant maythus seem irrelevant because of the lack of a judicialenforcement mechanism, such a view is short-sighted. Thefact is that the United States, along with more than 150other nations, has voluntarily, by ratifying the covenant,

accepted the legal obligation to provide access to habeascorpus proceedings. Although judicial enforcement is notavailable, pressure to comply with international law obliga-tions can be applied through diplomatic channels. Thecovenant itself provides a mechanism for a state-party to theconvention to challenge the failure of another state-party tocomply with its obligations. Upon ratifying the convention,the United States declared that it accepted the competenceof the Human Rights Committee to receive and considersuch communications.

In addition, compliance with the covenant guaranteecan be effected through the domestic political process. TheSenate Judiciary Committee, now under the control ofDemocrats, approved a bill in early June that would restorethe habeas corpus right to Guantanamo Bay detainees.Certainly the fact that the United States already has an obli-gation to provide access to habeas corpus pursuant to thecovenant should be brought to bear as this legislation isconsidered by the full Senate.

Habeas corpus has long been a cornerstone of theAnglo-American legal system and is now enshrined in near-ly two-thirds of written constitutions worldwide.Restoration of this right to detainees at Guantanamo Baywould not only bring the United States into compliancewith its international law obligations, but would also mark asignificant victory for the rule of law.


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RABBI DANIEL POLISH, former director of theCommission on Social Action of ReformJudaism, is now spiritual leader ofCongregation Shir Chadash of the HudsonValley in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. His latestbook is Talking About God: Exploring theMeaning of Religious Life WithKierkegaard, Buber, Tillich and Heschel(Jewish Lights Publishing, forthcoming inOctober).

The Messianic Claim: Heresy?Christian readers may be intrigued to learnof a significant conflict taking place in theJewish world today. It is not betweenZionists and non-Zionists, nor betweenOrthodox and Reform. It is wholly con-tained within the Orthodox world (esti-mated at between half a million and onemillion Jews worldwide). WhenMenachem Mendel Schneerson, rabbi of agroup of Hasidic Jews originally from thetown of Lubavitch in Russia, died inBrooklyn in 1994, many of his most devot-ed followers believed that he, widelyknown as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was theMashiach, the Messiah. Many LubavitchHasidim continue to believe that; othersdo not. The movement today is being tornapart by a kind of civil war between thosewho hold to the messianic claim and thosewho reject it. This internal Lubavitchstruggle is being compounded by criticismfrom the non-Hasidic Orthodox world.Serious Orthodox thinkers condemn thevery idea of claiming that the rebbe was theMessiah. They call it heresy and argue thatthe Lubavitch sect runs the risk of strayingoutside of normative Judaism altogether.

And what do non-Orthodox and non-Lubavitch Jews make of all this? Somefind it intriguing to see the Orthodoxworld at war with itself. There are liberalJews who agree with the Orthodox criti-cism of Lubavitch’s messianism, becausethey find it impossible to take any talk of amessiah seriously. They suggest that allthat Lubavitch talk about the rebbe beingthe Mashiach is ridiculous, because any talkat all of the Mashiach is ridiculous. I knowthat many of my fellow liberal Jews believethat the idea of a messiah plays no role inour religious life and has no place in ourtradition. And I know that manyChristians have accepted this depiction ofJewish life and assume that Jews dispensetotally with the idea of a messiah.

What Christians might find evocativeis the argument from the other pole—from the Orthodox critics. These expo-nents of Jewish tradition argue that talk ofthis person or that person as being theMashiach does not make sense, notbecause any talk of the Mashiach does notmake sense but because the claims of therebbe to be the Mashiach do not hold upaccording to normative Judaism’s own cri-

HE DAYS OF AWE, from RoshHashanah to Yom Kippur(Sept. 13-22), afford Jews anopportunity to reflect on

what the enterprise of Jewish life is allabout. As with all religious traditions, itmust be about more than the symbolsor institutions of our respective com-munities of faith. For Christians,Christianity must be about more thanthe church or the sacraments them-selves. Surely Judaism is about morethan “survival” or “continuity”; theproject of Jewish life has a purpose anda goal beyond itself. As I reflect on this,I am reminded of one unusual facet ofJewish life today.


Faith in Focus—Yom Kippur

The Messiah Is Coming

Musings at the gate of the new year

BY DANIEL POLISH

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A Jewish worshipper takes part in Slichot, a daily prayer service leading up to Yom Kippur, at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

part of Jewish faith. From time to time,when things became painful for Jews dur-ing their 2,000 years of exile, peoplewould step forward and claim to be theMessiah arriving to rescue them. Asrecently as the 18th century, thousands ofJews in Europe wandered off, selling alltheir property and venturing to partsunknown to follow one of those falsemessiahs. Even the Jews of Ethiopiarecorded the emergence of a false messi-ah who led his followers into the jungleto take them back home to Jerusalem. Allthose Jews followed these false messiahsbecause for them the ultimate coming ofthe Messiah was a vital and urgent part oftheir Jewish belief system.

When Jews were marched to the gaschambers in that dark night of the Shoah,they sang a song based on Maimonides’sancient theological formula: “I believewith perfect faith in the coming of theMessiah. And even if he tarry, even in theface of that, I still believe.” What a pro-found final affirmation. And not verymuch later, when the Soviet Union triedin its own way to eradicate Jewish life,Soviet Jews expressed confidence in theirultimate triumph in a song that affirmed,

“Redemption iscoming soon, theMessiah is comingvery soon.” Jewishlife has never beenwithout its faith inthe coming of theMashiach.

I myself, whenI was very young,met a man whoclaimed to be theMessiah. OneYom Kippur hewas walkingaround in front ofthe synagogueduring serviceshanding out pam-phlets. I could notunderstand whythe adults were allso sure he waswrong. And I waspained by theeagerness of theleaders of the con-gregation to havehim deterred from

disrupting our worship. Imagine drivingthe Messiah away—and on Yom Kippurno less! To my childish understanding this,of all days, was the time we should invitehim in, even ask him to preach to us. Butadult wisdom prevailed. Our “messiah”was persuaded to move on. The leaders ofthe congregation turned out to be right.He was not the Messiah. Peace, health andhuman well-being did not suddenly burstinto fulfillment on that day. Nonetheless,as I understand my own motivation as aJew, the coming of the Mashiach has neverbeen far from center stage in my ownJewish life. It is never far from my religiousconsciousness.

A Vision of Human Perfection Do I believe in an individual who will ridein on a horse led by Elijah? Do I expecthim to show up in front of my synagoguethis Yom Kippur? No, I confess I do not.If the false messiah I met as a boy were toshow up today, I would probably notbelieve in him either. But I am energizedby that ancient vision of an age of humanperfection when human suffering will beended and disease, war and poverty con-quered. I do believe be’emunah shleimah—with complete faith—that that time cancome. And I believe with complete faiththat we can bring it about. Our efforts cancreate that time of perfection and whole-ness, a time of peace and human well-being. I agree with what Franz Kafka oncewrote: that the Messiah will come the dayafter he arrives. That is, once we havedone the work and created the time ofperfection, then the Messiah will come.This belief has always been a powerfulengine for my own Jewish life, and I amconvinced that the spiritual rededicationof the Days of Awe summons us to it.These days remind all Jews that living aJewish life means being a person on firewith the promise that the world can bemade perfect and impelled by a sense ofurgency to bring that about.

Standing at the threshold of a newyear is always about reconnecting towhat matters most in our tradition,recommitting ourselves to engage morewholeheartedly in the project of Jewishlife. For me, the very heart of the enter-prise is the effort we expend to bring thecoming of the Messiah nearer, to mendthe broken world and to do our part tomake it whole again.

teria. We will know that the Mashiach hasarrived when all the ills of humankindhave been alleviated: war will be no more,the hungry will be fed, the naked clothedand the sick made whole. Jerusalem, theage-old capital of the Jewish soul, will be abeacon of justice and harmony.

I Stand With MaimonidesTo my own surprise, I find myself not inthe camp of many liberal Jews, and cer-tainly not in the camp of the Rebbe-is-the-Mashiach-Lubavitchers, but in thecamp of normative Orthodoxy. I end up inthe Orthodox camp because I believe thatconcern about the coming of the Mashiachis central to the Jewish enterprise. It is notirrelevant. It is not completely absent, assome claim.

For better or worse the Mashiach hasoccupied center stage in Jewish thoughtfor millennia. The rabbis often spoke as ifthe Messiah were waiting just around thecorner. The early church emerged out of aJewish community suffused with messian-ic expectation. When Maimonides triedhis hand at writing a credo of Jewishbelief, he argued that belief in the comingof the Messiah was an absolutely essential


A

of the state in the minds of others—theattractiveness of its culture, the things itstands for, the meaning of its historicalexperience—can influence that behavioras well.

To show soft power at work,Kurlantzick mar-shals a variety ofindicators like“opinion studies,interest inChinese cultureand language,respect forChinese officials,and treatment ofd i a s p o r aChinese.” Heexpands the softpower argumentto include theeconomic rela-tionships anda g r e e m e n t sChina makes withthe rest of theworld. But trac-ing the quiet playof such ties inshaping statebehavior is a difficult, long-term assign-ment. It is easier for Kurlantzick to arguethat “for the Chinese, soft power meansanything outside of the military andsecurity realm, including not only popu-lar culture and public diplomacy but alsomore coercive economic and diplomaticlevers like aid and investment and partic-ipation in multilateral organizations.”When China, for instance, conditions itsforeign aid on the recipient’s stance onthe question of Taiwanese independence(which China bitterly opposes), this is,for Kurltanzick, still soft power and thuspart of the charm offensive. Or inZambia, where “the Chinese ambassadorin 2006 warned that Beijing might cutoff diplomatic ties [and thus its aid andinvestment] if voters picked an opposi-tion candidate.”

Surely these are examples of hardpower—not as hard as a threatened mil-itary invasion, of course, but still anattempt to force compliance by waving astick rather than applying charm. Themore we mislabel an action, the moreconfused we can become about whatChina is doing and with what success.

Wooing theWorldCharm OffensiveHow China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the WorldBy Joshua KurlantzickYale Univ. Press. 320p $26 ISBN 9780300117035

China seems to undergo dramatic changenearly every decade, giving China watch-ers new stories to tell. Joshua Kurlantzick,a reporter with experience in Asia who isnow a visiting scholar at the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace,focuses on “a new, more nuanced andeffective Chinese diplomacy,” somethinghe calls a “charm offensive.” China’s rapideconomic growth—and the ability of itsentrenched political elite to safeguard itsposition while overseeing that growth—has evoked admiration and respect amongelites and citizens of other nations. Part ofthe charm offensive is to nourish thatadmiration and leverage it to advanceChinese interests abroad. At the sametime, as any rapid growth in power carriesa threat, a charm offensive attempts tocalm whatever fears others might have.China’s “peaceful rise” “will not come atthe cost of any other country,” declaredPrime Minister Wen Jiabao in 2004, “willnot stand in the way of any other country,nor pose a threat to any other country.”

Kurlantzick takes the reader fromAsia to Africa to Latin America to watchthe charm offensive at work, blendinghis own experiences and interviews withthe work of other journalists and schol-ars to describe Chinese foreign aid,trade, expressions of friendship, culturalexchanges and the like. To put an aca-demic gloss on his treatment,Kurlantzick has borrowed the concept of“soft power” from the work of JosephNye, an international relations scholarand former Defense Department official.Nye has for some time (most recently inhis book Soft Power) argued that we mis-understand the dynamics of world poli-tics if we look only at “hard power”—particularly military power and the useof potent threats and promises to affectthe behavior of other states. Surely,argues the soft power theorist, the image

Many have claimed that China today hasgained respect from its sticks rather thanits smiles.

In spite of its conceptual problems,Charm Offensive isan instructivelook at contem-porary Chineseforeign policy. Itreports on thefailures of theoffensive as wellas its successes. Itpoints out thedownside: Chinaoften shows noconcern for thenature of theregime it dealswith (and that initself can add toChina’s “charm”),and Chinese eco-nomic practicesare often hostileto workers andthe environment,blind to corporate

irresponsibility and likely to produce avast disparity in benefits. At the sametime, Charm Offensive notes the increas-ing contributions China has made toproviding economic and technical assis-tance, supporting multinational efforts(including peacekeeping) and defusinginternational crises (like North Korea’snuclear weapons program). It recountshow China has urged others to be cau-tious about challenging the UnitedStates, in pressing Venezuela’s govern-ment not to reorient its oil relationshipprecipitously with the United States.

Book Reviews

The ReviewersPeter R. Beckman, emeritus professor ofpolitical science at Hobart and William SmithColleges, is co-author of Nuclear Weapons,Nuclear States, and Terrorism (SloanPublishing).

David Garrison is professor of English andDean, College of Arts and Sciences, atGeorgetown Southwestern State University,Americus, Ga.

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of theArchdiocese of New York, teaches theologyat Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass.


the story of surprises. Joshua Kurlantzickand the reader might well ponder what itis about today’s China and its foreignpolicy that would give some permanenceto his argument.

Peter R. Beckman

Meditating onMortalityLittlefootBy Charles WrightFarrar, Straus, and Giroux. 91p $23ISBN 9780374189662

Though we seldom speak of CharlesWright as a religious poet, at least not aswe might discuss George Herbert orGerard Manley Hopkins, he is neverthe-less among the most spiritual of Americanpoets of the last 50 years. His poetry isrelentlessly attendant to the numinous: “Iam,” he writes in Littlefoot, his 18th book,“what is notfound.” ForWright, the not-found, the “otherside of the river,”has been always asreal as the here-and-now, as sure asa breath and asclose as a not-breath. Years agohe wrote,“Thinking ofDante is thinkingabout the otherside,/ And theother side of theother side./ It’sthinking about thenoon noise and thedaily light.” Alwaysthe present worldand our presentconsciousness exist as the shadow cast bythe light that is the meaning of all things:omnia quae sunt, lumina sunt. This latestcollection, actually one long poem com-posed of 35 numbered but unnamed sec-tions, is another in a series of maps thatillustrate Wright’s way of living, as pil-grim, between the seen and the unseen,attempting to come as close as possible to

the light.This life and art of pilgrimage—

Wright has always been conscious of hisage, of the ticking of the clock, andLittlefoot makes much of his arrival at 70—involves a rich and detailed awareness, inthis case very like Hopkins’s own uncannysensitivity, of the physical world.Landscape, memory, desire and a wistfulacknowledgement of death crowd eachpage. “I remember the way the mimosatree,” he writes, “buttered the shade/Outside the basement bedroom, soaked inits yellow bristles.” A matter-of-fact tau-tology about mortality—“We’re not herea lot longer than we are here, for sure./Unlike coal, for instance, or star clots”—isfollowed by a raised eyebrow, a wink, andthe poet’s hedge: “Or so we think.”Wright works simultaneously in the realmof the physical (coal, star clots, mimosabristles) and the metaphysical. These arenot distinct realms for him, but mutuallypresent, one a palimpsest of the other:“How is it we can’t accept this, that alltrees were holy once,/ That all light is altar

light,/ And floodsus, day by day,and bids us, theair sheet lightningaround us,/ To sitstill and say noth-ing...?” Wright isa pilgrim of thespirit, always onthe road, like theJapanese poetBasho, always thereluctant disciple,u n a m b i g u o u sabout the holybut burdenedwith doubt aboutthe holes wherethe nails havebeen.

And this con-fluence of spiritu-ality and empti-

ness brings us to the heritage ofAppalachia still present in Wright’s work.Granted, these poems are built from manytools and sensibilities, including a sense ofimagery and cadence learned from EzraPound (“Sun over plum-colored leafplanes....”), the vibrant understatement ofpoets of the Tang Dynasty (Wang Wei,for example), the line reach of Walt

This is a measured rather thanalarmist view of China’s efforts, as isKurlantzick’s discussion of the implica-tions for the United States. He arguesthat the growth of China’s soft power ispartially a function of the decline inAmerica’s soft power (a decline acceler-ated by the current Bush administra-tion’s policy choices), and that declinemust be addressed. And while the authoracknowledges that China’s charm offen-sive may create a threat to the UnitedStates, he also suggests that the growthof Chinese soft power may prove to bemutually beneficial, as “both are majorenergy consumers and desire global sta-bility in order to access resources like oiland gas; neither has any desire to see anuclear North Korea or a nuclear stand-off in South Asia; both want to combatH.I.V., avian flu, and other transnationaldisease threats; both are committed tocounterterrorism and counternarcotics;both desire continued reductions in bar-riers to free trade; both want to preventfailed states in the developing world.”

Charm Offensive helps us imagine thegrowth of China’s soft power and mean-ingful cooperation with the UnitedStates. But there are two critical, interre-lated limitations in Kurlantzick’s analy-sis. First, it lacks historical sensitivity.China has mounted other charm offen-sives; they proved short-lived. In themid-1950s, for instance, China sought topersuade its Asian neighbors that a revo-lutionary Marxist state could live in har-mony with them. Second, Kurlantzicktreats the Chinese political system as acohesive, rational decision-making unit,rather than an often fractious set of lead-ers and bureaucracies that advocate com-peting policies in an uncertain world.The success or failure of those policiescan have a profound impact on thepower held by members of China’s elite.The 1950s charm offensive, spearheadedby Zhou Enlai, was quickly undercut byMao’s attempt to impose the Great LeapForward (followed by the CulturalRevolution) on a reluctant party andpopulace, and by the unresolved issuesthat bedevil any state’s foreign policy—at the time, the future of Taiwan andunrelenting American hostility.

History and Communist Party poli-tics thus suggest a short life for the cur-rent charm offensive. But history is also


Whitman, the quick epistemological turnof Emily Dickinson, the structural blocksof Cézanne, the what’s-left-out of theevocative line of Giorgio Morandi, theItalian landscape and language. ButWright grew up in the mountains of east-ern Tennessee and western NorthCarolina and early on knew the death-haunted, weirdly melancholic music of A.P. Carter and the Carter Family. Since hisearliest poems, that music has provided arecurrent hum in the background: life,beauty, love, loss, death, hope, hopeless-ness, the grave, possible but unlikely com-fort. Littlefoot, perhaps more than any ofthe earlier works, is drenched in the sor-rowful loneliness of that music, theorphan’s fear that salvation is an emptyexpectation.

“Is there an emptiness we all share?”asks Wright. For this long poem and itsindividual parts, the answer is yes. Thebook’s 35th entry is A. P. Carter’s “WillYou Miss Me When I’m Gone?” Thatunanswered question is the last word, andit is the silence at the end of it that is theemptiness.

Wright’s artistry, which began withthe publication of the autobiographical

The Grave of the Right Hand (1970), hasnever turned its steady gaze away from theimmediate accessible world visible to any-one who is willing to look—“The littlebirds are honing their beaks on the chop-ping block stump”—nor has it ever failedto situate its language in an understandingof what is not understood: “The dread ofwhat we can see, and the dread of what wecan’t see.” Littlefoot continues Wright’spilgrimage toward an inevitable transub-stantiation, toward absolution: “Almostnoon, the meadow/ Waiting for someoneto change it into an other. Not me./ Thehorses, Monte and Littlefoot,/ Like it theway it is./ And this morning, so do I.”

Poetry, especially American poetry, isseldom long enough and patient enoughto provide us with a formally sustainedinquiry into the meaning of our lives, or atleast into a consciousness of that meaning.One thinks of Whitman, and, though theambition was different, of Pound. CharlesWright has devoted more than 40 years tothat inquiry and to the formality of it (“thisbusiness I waste my heart on”). Anotherpoet, Mark Jarman, has commented that“the paradox of Charles Wright is that hisis a religious poetry without a religion, but

not without a metaphysics.” This “God-fearing agnostic,” as Wright has labeledhimself, keeps producing prayer afterprayer: “So many joys in such a brief stay,”he writes. “Life is a long walk on a shortpier.” Littlefoot takes us closer to the edge.

David Garrison

God’s Real PlanCreated for JoyA Christian View of SufferingBy Sidney CallahanCrossroad. 246p $19.95 (paperback)ISBN 9780824525668

Sidney Callahan dedicates her lovely andwise book Created for Joy: A Christian Viewof Suffering to an infant and a child. Theinfant, her fourth son, died of suddeninfant death syndrome when not yet twomonths old. Thirty-five years later, on thevery same day, came the healing joy of hergranddaughter’s birth. Yet joy and sorrowintermingled once more, when the new-born’s mother died of an undetected


empathy. The book, in effect, rehabilitates“emotion” for spirituality and theology.She insists that “love always includesempathy andmutual union,along with adesire to alleviateanother’s suffer-ing felt as one’sown. Thus empa-thy is the founda-tion of justice andmorality, since itmoves one to takethe role of theother and consid-er her well-beingfrom her point ofview.” And sheboldly declares:“So too with God:it is the sufferinge n g e n d e r e dthrough expandedempathy thatcharacterizes ourdivine Lover, Parent, Friend, andCreator.”

Though she does not pepper her textwith reminders that all talk of God is “anal-ogous,” the author clearly asserts that

“God’s joy is not curtailed or stunted byempathetic suffering: infinite empathydoes not preclude infinite joy.” One could

have wished for amore sustaineddevelopment ofthe point (and aquick allusion toGod’s “di-polarnature” does notgreatly illuminate).But the intuitionseems to mesound: the TriuneGod of lovedesires with pas-sion the good ofcreation. SidneyCallahan can sure-ly enlist PopeBenedict XVI asan ally in affirmingboth eros andagape in God.

Callahan vis-cerally recoils from

any intimation that God sends suffering aspedagogy, much less as punishment. Sheengages in a sustained, respectful exchangewith C .S. Lewis, whose classic The Problemof Pain she now finds unconvincing, thoughshe admits: “I have been intellectuallyshaped by his work, even though I now dis-agree with many of his views.” Her un-swerving conviction is that “love engenderslife and joy. God does not harm or hurt orrule by pain and terror.”

The issue, of course, becomes mostpointed when one confronts the cross ofChrist. No doubt there have been, insome theological and catechetical circles,understandings of the cross that seem tosuggest that punishment has been inflictedupon an innocent victim to satisfy somecosmic debt. This is a view that in theminds of many today, leads to exalting suf-fering and promoting passivity beforeinjustice, in a way incompatible with theGospel of salvation.

For Callahan the passion of the crosscan never be separated from the compas-sionate life and ministry of Jesus, nor fromthe joyful proclamation of the one who isthe firstborn from the dead. Still, it doesnot seem to me that Callahan marginalizesthe cross in this book, as is done in someversions of feminist and liberationist the-ology. As I read her, the cross is not mere-

blood clot. Callahan’s reflections, thoughrich with theological and psychologicalinsight, are primarily forged in the fire ofhuman experience and Christian faith.

Theologically, Callahan has clearlylearned from such feminist thinkers asElizabeth Johnson and the late CatherineMowry LaCugna, C.S.J. She sensitivelyevokes images highlighting God’s femi-nine face. Thus, within the context of anevolving universe, she stresses that God’saction is not controlling and coercive, but,like a parent, guiding and persuasive. Yetthe feminist perspective she favors is neverone-sided: a stress on God’s pervasiveimmanence does not compromise, butrequires acknowledgment of God’s totaltranscendence.

Callahan—an award-winning author,professor and psychologist—draws sug-gestively upon the renewal of Trinitarianthought in contemporary Catholic theolo-gy. She gives special attention to themes ofrelationality, communication and commu-nion among persons. The triune God ofChristian faith is not distant and unaffect-ed. God knows our suffering. In a realsense, such knowing becomes a sharing.

Here Callahan refers to psychologicalstudies about the positive role of emotionin human life to underscore the concept of


ly a consequence of the provocative life ofJesus. It brings that life to consummation.She writes, “Since Jesus lived in readinessfor everything that his work and love ofGod would bring, he freely gave over hisbody, blood, mind, heart, and life for Godand his people.”

The name, unmentioned in the book,but which to some represents a view ofChrist’s atonement that verges on theabusive, is that of St. Anselm. My ownpersuasion is that scholarly as well aspopular approaches to the atonementhave distorted Anselm’s theologicalvision. After all, the often malignedAnselm tenderly evoked “Jesus ourmother” centuries before the much-admired Julian of Norwich did so. Evenmore to the point, in the following heart-felt avowal, Callahan sounds a note notalien to Anselm:

In empathy and love Jesus suffersnot only his own pain and distress,but all the world’s past, present,and future travail. Moreover, aswe have seen, empathy can be feltfor the ignorant and deformedevildoers who in their moralwickedness reject the light andremain in darkness. In this senseJesus bears the burdens and sins ofhumankind. He is innocent, butthrough loving empathy can sufferfor the lethal and sinful lapses ofhis people. His bearing of the sinsof the world is not a passive pun-ishment laid on Jesus by God, butrather it is a voluntary act of loveand empathy for the human fami-ly. A mother mourns and suffersvicariously in and with her chil-dren’s destructive sins, and soJesus suffers for us.

I have cited this passage at length,because I think it recapitulates the heartof Created for Joy. The heart isIncarnation. God so loved the world thatGod gave the beloved Son. Jesus so lovesus that he continues to give himself,sharing our sufferings that he might inturn share with us his life. SidneyCallahan’s book, in plumbing suffering’sdepths and celebrating joy’s heights, is,first and last, a love song to this lovingGod who creates us for joy.

Robert P. Imbelli


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The burden of Bishop Trautman’sarticle, with its examples, is no matter ofjest. It is a swindle of English-speakingCatholics that must already be causingthe bishops and lower clergy of Ireland,India and New Zealand—among othersaffected by ICEL’s decisions—to deploreAmericans’ imperfect grasp of modernspoken English. They will say this know-ing only that ICEL is headquartered inWashington, D.C., and unaware that noU.S. liturgical scholars or litterateurs hadanything to do with this faux religiousEsperanto.

One word on Cyril’s vanquishing ofthe Antiochenes over theotokos, which wasall about Mary’s Son rather than aboutMary. It is true that he has been com-memorated in prayer as assertor invictusfor many centuries, but he was himselfvanquished (if you will pardon theexpression) when he acknowledged thatMary’s Son was a full and completehuman being as well as eternal Son ofGod in the Symbol of Union drawn upafter Ephesus and written probably byTheoderet of Cyrus. It made its way toChalcedon 20 years later as Cyril’sfavored kata hypostasin did not. Winsome, lose some.

(Rev.) Gerard SloyanHyattsville, Md.

Unifying ImpactI read “A Partner for the Pastor,” byThomas P. Sweetser, S.J., (7/30) withinterest, being one of those pastors aboutwhom he writes. I concur with some ofhis itemized points about a partner withappropriate organizational/administrativeexpertise. But I believe the issue of thepastor’s role of leadership should begiven more careful analysis. In the end,parishes—and organizations—rise andfall primarily on the effectiveness of theperson in that seat.

If the roles of a parish pastoral coun-cil and a finance council are to give“counsel” to the pastor on critical issues,the role of a partner or staff administratorshould not interfere with this process andrelationship. Whose agenda is really to beset? Without sufficient reflection, a pas-tor’s attempt at delegation can becomeabdication of his role—and the influence-

Worthy LiturgyIt has been several months since BishopDonald W. Trautman’s article on thenew English translation of the RomanMissal (“How Accessible Are the NewMass Translations?” 5/21), and still nodissent in these pages? Let this be it.

I grew up with the ICEL translation,first as a churchgoer, then as an altarserver of many years, later as a seminari-an and now as a doctoral student in the-ology. My impression, though untechni-cal and visceral, never wavered: ICEL’stranslation was wretched. As I lookedbehind the translation, however, I real-ized it was not just bad, but also treacher-ous. Words that discomfited members ofthe commission—you know, like “soul”or “grace”—were eliminated or marginal-ized in their translations of the Mass andsacraments. There was then no questionof translators translating, but of transla-tors imposing their own theological viewson the church.

Bishop Trautman frets about thenegative, “non-pastoral” effects on “Johnand Mary Catholic” of ICEL’s morestringent translation policies (courtesy ofVatican oversight). Yet he offers no evi-dence that John and Mary Catholic haveliked ICEL’s work in the past, and he issilent about his own measures to gaugethe pastoral pluses and minuses of thecurrent translation. He complains thatthe new Creed’s “consubstantial” will beunintelligible to most Catholics, whileoffering no proof that Catholics under-stand now what “one in being” means.All of which leads me to believe that“pastoral” and “non-pastoral” are merelybuzzwords for whatever one agrees ordisagrees with.

Predictably, the Second VaticanCouncil is forced into service. An appealis made to No. 21 of the “Constitutionon the Liturgy,” arguing that the councilsaid liturgical texts should be translated


Letters

America (ISSN 0002-7049) is published weekly (except for 11 com-bined issues: Jan. 1-8, 15-22, April 16-23, June 4-11, 18-25, July 2-9, 16-23, July 30-Aug. 6, Aug. 13-20, Aug. 27-Sept. 3, Dec. 24-31)by America Press, Inc., 106 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019.Periodicals postage is paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mail-ing offices. Business Manager: Lisa Pope; Circulation: Judith Urena,(212) 581-4640. Subscriptions: United States, $48 per year; addU.S. $22 postage and GST (#131870719) for Canada; or add U.S.$32 per year for overseas surface postage. For overseas airmaildelivery, please call for rates. Postmaster: Send address changes toAmerica, 106 West 56th St. New York, NY 10019. Printed in theU.S.A.

into easy language. Thus, until theVatican got involved ICEL was only fol-lowing the will of the council. Butignored is the fact that the councilfathers of Vatican II never envisioned thewide-ranging use of the vernacular (seeNo. 36). Nor were they providing prin-ciples of translation for liturgical texts inNo. 21, but treating the reform of litur-gical ritual. So the implication thatICEL’s old way of translating hadVatican II’s mandate is anachronistic andself-serving. It is such megalomaniacalthinking by the commission and itsenablers that finally brought about theVatican’s intervention.

I support the Vatican’s efforts toreform the “old ICEL” in order to giveJohn and Mary Catholic a liturgy worthyof the beauty of their faith.

Matthew W. I. Dunn Sparta, N.J.

On WinningI read Bishop Donald W. Trautman’sessay on the new Mass translations (5/21)with interest and appreciation for theinformation it contained. Thank you forrunning it.

Who are the members of the com-mittee of the International Commissionon English in the Liturgy who have pro-posed these linguistic follies? Theirnames, please.

The cartoon accompanying the arti-cle was not entirely apt since it portrayeda parishioner thumbing his dictionary.Surely people know enough semi-archaicEnglish to cope with “deign,” “bid,”“wrought” and the still current “thwart”and to recognize “ineffable” and “con-substantial” as transliterations of theLatin and not translations from it. Suchis the whole purpose of the exercise intogood Finnish, Spanish, Enga andTagalog, not to say English. Yet the dic-tionary reference is not entirely inapt,bringing to mind the gentleman withweak English who tried to explain hischildlessness by saying successively butunsuccessfully that his wife was inca-pable, unbearable and inconceivable. Heshould have tried unmotherly and then,not finding it in the dictionary, shouldhave given up on it.


relationship between himself and hiscouncillors. In the attempt to rescue thepriest-pastor, we can run the risk of los-ing the influence of the pastor as the crit-ical leader of the faith community.

Priest overload or shortages notwith-standing, staff members cannot replacethe vision, relationships and dynamicestablished by the pastor in his leadershiprole.

Several years ago I established theposition of coordinator of ministries as aprimary overseer of that aspect of theparish. It has had a great unifying impacton parish life.

I also have a business manager. Weare managed quite well, thanks to his effi-cient and competent oversight. I workwith these two persons as a primary staffleadership team. I have learned fromexperience, however, that they cannotstand in for me as leader in the consulta-tion process with the primary parish lead-ership groups. I need to hear them andthey need to hear me.

Pastors struggle with an understand-ing of their rightful place in the mix andcan get lost once staffs have been put intoplace, thinking their job is going to geteasier.

Diocesan bishops have staffs to assistthem in their leadership role. From myview, these staff roles seem to be clearand not confused with the public role ofthe bishop as leader. It should be no dif-ferent at the parish level.

The pastor is charged with providingfor the pastoral care of the people withthe assistance and counsel of the laity.His unique role is more than sacramen-tal; he is the ecclesial leader. Someadministrative functions can be handledby a partner or coordinator, but not whohe is and how we will act as the leader.

(Msgr.) James T. GastonLower Burrell, Pa.

To send a letter to the editor we recommendusing the link that appears at the bottom ofarticles on America’s Web site, www.ameri-camagazine.org. This allows us to consideryour letter for publication in both print andonline versions of the magazine. Lettersshould be as brief as possible and includethe writer’s name, postal address and day-time phone number. Letters may also besent to America’s editorial office (addresson page 2) or by e-mail to: [email protected]. Letters may be edited forlength and clarity.


AST SUNDAY’S GOSPEL read-ing from Luke 16 established alink between money andChristian spirituality. Followers

of Jesus must apply their intelligence andenergy to things of the spirit just as theydo to financial matters, use wealth wisely,be good stewards of their possessions andnot make money into a god. Today’s read-ing reminds us that we have a duty toshare our goods with the poor.

The Old Testament readings set thestage for a frightening parable from Jesus.The prophet Amos denounces the rich ofhis own day for their luxurious living andwarns them that they will be the first to gointo exile. Archaeological evidence hasconfirmed Amos’s picture of a societydivided sharply between rich and poor.Psalm 146 celebrates the God of Jacob,who is the creator of heaven and earth, asbeing on the side of the poor and needy.

The parable in Luke 16:19-31 beginswith a contrast of two characters. Onecharacter (traditionally called Dives, theLatin adjective for “rich”) is a very wealthyman who dresses well, eats well and livesin a fine house. The other character is avery poor man named Lazarus (whosename means “God helps”). He is sickly, abeggar who camps out at the door of therich man’s house. The rich man seemsunaware of Lazarus’ existence. These twomen could not be more different.

Both men die. And when they die,their situations are reversed. The poorman enjoys perfect happiness inAbraham’s bosom (what we might callheaven), while the rich man finds himselfsuffering the punishments of the nether-world (what we might call hell). Thisreversal illustrates the sayings of Jesus inthe Sermon on the Plain, “Blessed are youwho are poor, for the kingdom of God isyours… But woe to you who are rich, for

you have received your consolation”(Luke 6:20, 24). Only now does the richman recognize the poor man’s existence.Only now does he want to do something.But now it is too late.

The second part of the parable is adialogue between the rich man andAbraham. That the rich man is accus-tomed to giving orders and getting hisown way is clear from his requests. Whenthe rich man asks that Lazarus be sent togive him some water, Abraham tells himthat now it is too late, since there is nogoing back and forth after death. Whenthe rich man proposes that Lazarus besent to warn his five brothers, Abrahamreplies that all they need to know aboutsharing their goods is in the HebrewScriptures. When the rich man suggeststhat his brothers would understand betterif someone from the dead would go tothem, Abraham responds that it wouldmake no difference. During life he took noaccount of poor people like Lazarus. Nowit is too late.

One of Luke’s goals in writing hisGospel and the Acts of the Apostles was toencourage the rich Christians in his com-munity to attend to the needs of the poormembers and to share their materialgoods with them. One can easily imaginethe impact that this parable would havehad on the rich members. It is both asobering warning and a good scare. Itshould do the same to 21st-centuryAmerican Christians. We live in a veryrich country. However slender our per-sonal fortunes may be, they dwarf theincomes and possessions of most people inmost countries. Yet even in our cities andtowns, there are desperately poor personslike Lazarus, living off the search for sodaand beer cans to redeem the deposits.Lazarus is among us! Do we choose toignore Lazarus? Do we distract ourselveswith foolish pleasures as the rich man did?Neither Jesus nor Luke was an economistor a politician. But at a certain point theproblems of poverty and homelessness

turn into economic and political matters.How we deal with them both personallyand socially is surely one of the great chal-lenges facing us in the 21st century.

Today’s reading from 1 Timothy 6exhorts Christians to pursue a life ofvirtue. The term “virtue” is seldom heardtoday except in certain philosophical andtheological circles. It even sounds quaintand old-fashioned now. Yet what is moreimportant and noble than striving to be avirtuous person? The virtues recommend-ed in this text are a mixture of humanvirtues (righteousness or justice, patience,gentleness) and religious virtues (devo-tion, faith, love). Christians pursue virtuenot for its own sake but rather as aresponse to their call to discipleship, fol-lowing the example of Jesus and in thehope of eternal life with God. What Paulsays shortly after this selection summa-rizes neatly today’s readings, “Tell them[the rich] to do good, to be rich in goodworks, to be generous, ready to share” (1Tim 6:18). Daniel J. Harrington

Praying With Scripture• What emotional reactions do youhave to the story of the rich man andLazarus?

• Where in your daily life do youencounter the modern equivalents ofLazarus? What do you do?

• What virtues do we need to practicein order to deal effectively with povertyand homelessness?

Rich and PoorTwenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Sept. 30, 2007

Readings: Amos 6:1, 4-7; Ps 146:7-10; 1 Tim 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

“Between us and you a great chasm is established” (Luke 16:26)

DANIEL J. HARRINGTON, S.J., is professor ofNew Testament at Weston Jesuit School ofTheology in Cambridge, Mass.

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