Inside
NCR Readers invited to praise favorite books
Each year, about this time, we
invite NCR readers to tell us about their favorite book of the year. It
is a chance to be interactive. And an opportunity to do a favor to some book
that surprised, amused, edified or otherwise affected you during the past year.
We think it is a great way for readers to bring special favorites to the
attention of a wider audience, and this is all the more gratifying in the case
of unheralded works that deserve better.
To make this workable we need a few rules.
Your offering may be as short as one line or as long as 300 words.
Tell us the title of the book, the author, and also, if you know, the
publisher, year of publication and price. Books published in the past year are
preferable, but hey, were loose, and if theres some unsung sleeper
that you ache to sing about, go right ahead.
There will be no payment for this, so please look at it as a work
of love. The book will thank you, and so will the author. Deadline is Oct. 11.
The edited results will be published in our Nov. 5 Winter Books supplement.
In an era when more modern media strut and glitter, the sedate but
always faithful book needs friends. NCR readers are, in our experience,
loyal and discriminating book readers. This is a chance to spread the
enthusiasm.
Please send your rave to NCR at 115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas
City MO 64111; or, preferably, e-mail to opinion@natcath.org
We wish to salute the editors of
The Catholic Messenger of Davenport, Iowa, one of the consistently
better diocesan newspapers.
A recent editorial responded to letter writers who criticize the
paper for carrying the syndicated columns of Notre Dame professor and author
Fr. Richard McBrien. Four good reasons are given for carrying the columns:
(1) Fr. McBrien is a good and respected Catholic theological scholar and
(2) one of the clearest writers in the community of theologians; (3) who works
overtime to communicate Catholic developments and the Catholic tradition (4) in
a way that respects the intelligence and judgment of serious American
readers.
The complainers main complaint, it seems, is that McBrien is
not sufficiently deferential to the pope. It is no secret that this papacy has
placed loyalty to the Holy Father high among its priorities. An atmosphere was
created in which criticism of the pope was regarded as defiance. This attitude
has flourished in right-wing circles in this country. To be blunt about
it, comments the Messenger, the form of Catholicism we see
in some letters leans in the direction of papal idolatry.
The paper is quick to grant that Catholics do indeed give
special honor to the pope and that his status in the church
commands obedience and respect. But, the Messenger goes on, it would be
foolhardy to insist that the pontiff is the last word on everything. Galileo is
mentioned, but he is only one name in a litany of those who were right in the
past when popes were wrong. The papacy is not the only way the spirit is at
work in the world, the editorial continues, not the only funnel of grace or
salvation, and McBrien encourages us to be open in this way.
This pope has rightly won world renown for confronting various
forms of hegemony in faraway places. It would be a pity to spoil that legacy by
being a party to the cult of personality at home. No doubt he doesnt seek
it, not directly, but its hard to deny he has created a climate that
fosters it.
For years, as nearly everyone knows, great sacks of letters, many
following formulas dictated by right-wing fanatics and newspapers, have been
dispatched to Rome accusing selected Catholics of abuses. Conservative
watchdogs have lurked at the backs of suspect churches or infiltrated suspect
conferences to get the goods on the bad guys and send off incriminating
evidence, in context or out of context, to big daddy in Rome, where, alas, the
letters were all too eagerly read and often heeded.
These mean-spirited little campaigns have besmirched the
characters and damaged the careers of many good people. It is unfair and
cowardly and it is not Christian -- indeed, it seems so far removed from the
open, eager, compassionate personality of Jesus Christ that the world should
wonder why it has not long ago been resoundingly condemned at the highest
levels of the church.
The Messenger is to be applauded for not bowing to such
nonsense.
-- Michael Farrell
National Catholic Reporter, September 10,
1999
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