Inside
NCR
A suggestion: Gather your small
group around this week’s cover story. Marriage and holiness -- material
for a good discussion.
It is easy to zero in on the objections to the beatification of
Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi. How representative can they be, one asks,
if three of their kids entered religious life and they lived the last half of
their lives together as “brother and sister”? Isn’t that last
part, in itself, a putdown of marriage?
Could be. In the first place, though, saints are hardly
representative of life as usual. Whether they should be is another matter. As
others say in the stories that begin on Page 4, there are lots of heroic
married people whose lives are daily parables of love and giving, and they
don’t avoid sex. But they’ll never be saints in the official Vatican
sense.
Still, as official saints go, it is good to have a couple
recognized. I can cheer any small steps in the evolution of church thinking
about marriage.
Discussions here about a story on married saints quickly led to
questions about changes in the theology of marriage, and so the companion piece
to the cover story.
If, indeed, your small group or community should get into a
discussion, have someone take notes and report in to the e-mail address below.
We’d love to be in on the conversation.
Janis Besler Heaphy is not a
household name, but she has displayed more courage than most journalists in the
past few months. Heaphy, publisher and president of The Sacramento Bee,
gave the winter commencement address at California State University Sacramento.
In it she recounted how the Bush administration has made several attempts since
Sept. 11 “to manipulate the press, encouraging the press to surrender some
of its independence and thoroughness in the name of patriotism and
security.”
In short, she questioned the wisdom of the press agreeing to
censorship measures requested by the government.
“Scrutiny by the press of this war on terrorism and
publication of dissenting viewpoints are not signs of disloyalty. Rather, they
are expressions of confidence in democracy and in the fulfillment of the First
Amendment charge to hold government accountable.”
She noted that more than 50 percent of American citizens agreed
with the government’s view that “less is more” when it comes to
information on the war.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a dangerous mindset. When
information grows scant, rumor and innuendo swell to fill the void. When the
press grows timid, half-truths and rhetoric pass as facts.”
Her speech was disrupted by hecklers. To their credit university
president Don Gerth apologized and then a number of students thanked Heaphy as
they received their certificates of completion. Heaphy’s entire address
and Gerth’s response to the heckling can be found at the university Web
site, www.csus.edu
-- Tom Roberts
My e-mail address is troberts@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, December 28,
2001
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