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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

April 1999

"Hmmm. Well isn't it terrible that they are marketing potato chips with a picture of the Pope inside the bag?" Answer: "It is kind of bizarre. But whenever you have a media star -- and the Pope is one of them -- you will have people who want to profit from it. Where you go in the world, famous people, even religious figures, are great for memento marketing. Think of the statues of the Buddha, the velvet wall hangings of Jesus. It's unavoidable unless you want to prohibit people from selling them. The justice issue is this: Since people do sell and buy mementos, it is important that there is not price-gouging; it is important the poor folk, who might especially want such mementos, are not exploited. Here in the United States, we are selling "papal" refrigerator magnets for $4 or $5. If the potato chips are not outlandishly priced, maybe the Mexicans are getting a better deal."

...So far as I know, the interview disappeared into the network's waste bins.

--John Kavanaugh, "Mendacious Media," America, February 27, 1999

CARDINAL FRANCIS GEORGE: "...People who dismiss Humanae Vitae as just somebody's personal opinion will swear that we all must be guided by 'Art and Environment.' And I'm given that when I ask, 'Why don't you just, please, enlarge the clothes closet in which you've put the Blessed Sacrament?' I'm, you know, pumped with the 'Art and Environment' document. And so it's a source of great difficulty, and some resentment, frankly, on my part."

--"Bishops Mull Restructuring, Conference Statements," Adoremus Bulletin, February, 1999

AS HE EXPLAINS HIS OWN DESIRE to cultivate detachment from the legal proceedings, Clinton cited a line from the Rubiyat of Omar Khavyam. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on." That may have seemed an appropriate verse to convey a storied acceptance of historical fate. But in fact the reference could not have been more perfectly chosen to embarrass the President.

The "moving finger" of Khayvam's image is a reference to the Book of Daniel, in which a disembodied finger appears during Belshazzar's feast, and writes a mysterious message on the wall. Troubled by the phrase, the king calls upon the prophet Daniel for an interpretation. Daniel then reads the message (Dan. v. 25-28):

And this is the writing that was inscribed: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; parsim, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

Would a man facing the prospect of impeachment knowingly call attention to a Scriptural passage about a king's removal from office?

--"The Balkanization of American Politics," The Catholic World Report, February, 1999

WHILE MEN STILL RUN MOST CHURCHES, women outnumber men in the pews in Europe, in the Americas, and in Australia. And the absence of males is not of recent origin. Cotton Mather puzzled over it, and medieval preachers claimed women practiced their religion far more than men did. But men do not show this same aversion to all churches and religions. The Orthodox seem to have a balance, and Islam and Judaism have a predominantly male membership. Something seems to be creating a barrier between Western Christianity and men.

...The rapid feminization of the mainline religious community in America has been going on for some time. The most exact figures for the ratio of women to men in religious denominations in the United States come from the 1936 Census, the last governmental tally of religious affiliation: in Eastern Orthodoxy, .75-.99 to one; Roman Catholics, 1.09 to one; Lutherans, 1.04-1.23 to one; Mennonites, 1.14-1.16 to one; Friends, 1.40 to one; Methodists, 1.33-1.47 to one; Baptists, 1.35 to one; Assembly of God, 1.71 to one; Pentecostals, 1.71-2.09 to one; and Christian Scientists, 3.19 to one.

--"The Church Impotent," Crisis, February 1999

[QUEEN VICTORIA'S SON EDWARD'S] favorite mistress was Alice Keppel, and they epitomized the outlook of much of the English aristocracy of a century ago. Extra-marital affairs were expected, so long as the participants were reasonably discreet.

...Alice Keppel's great-granddaughter is known today by her married name of Camilla Parker Bowles, and it is reported that, when she first met the current Prince of Wales some years ago, she said to him, "We're almost fated to have an affair; our great-grandparents did."

"The Sins of Fathers and Mothers," Catholic Dossier, January-February, 1999

IF ABORTION AND EUTHANASIA are bad only in the way that budget deficits are bad, then we should strike a "win some, lose some" pose and be willing to make lots of tradeoffs between saving human lives and our many other goals. But if they are bad in the way that stuffing Jews into gas chambers was bad, then it is morally unthinkable to make our peace with them; human lives cannot be traded off.

"The Future of the End of Democracy," First Things, March, 1999

CARDINAL GEORGE'S ADDRESS WAS DELIVERED when leaders of Catholic academic institutions have gone to the secular press to turn up the heat on the U.S. bishops to repudiate the proposal for implementing Ex Corde Ecclesiae. (A team of bishops led by Anthony Cardinal Bevilaqua of Philadelphia wrote the proposal.)

For example, during Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis last month, the Jesuit weekly America carried a blast at the bishops' proposal written by Notre Dame's Fr. Edward Malloy, C.S.C., and Boston College's Fr. J. Donald Monan. In its coverage of the papal visit, ABC News with Peter Jennings focused on efforts of Fordham University's president Fr. Joseph O'Hare to foment opposition to Ex Corde Ecclesiae.

...A few days after George's Georgetown speech, The New York Times offered its view on the debate, focusing on the lack of Catholic identity at Fordham University.

"Fordham bills itself as 'New York City's Jesuit university'," began Karen Arenson's report.

"But apart from a courtyard statue of Mary and Jesus and handsome stained-glass windows in a student lounge on its Rose Hill campus in the Bronx, there are few outward signs of Fordham's Roman Catholic identity.

"Mass is not required. There are no crucifixes in the classrooms. The faculty of more than 500 includes only 37 Jesuits. And although the university's president is a Jesuit, the chairman of the board, the chairwoman of the theology department, and the faculty chairman are not even Catholics."

...In his address, George, a former philosophy professor himself, opened by contrasting the scenes accompanying the papal visits to Mexico and St. Louis, observing how there were very few policemen in Mexico among the crowds of millions, while in St. Louis, there seemed to be two police officers for every ordinary person on the sidewalk.

"Would it be totally unfair to characterize the difference between Mexico City and St. Louis as a contrast between a culture of relationship and one of autonomy, a culture in communion in contrast to one of control?" he mused.

"Cardinal George Says Academics Are Misrepresenting Ex Corde Proposal," The Wanderer, February 18, 1999

QUESTION: THERE WAS A "RIGHT-TO-DIE" case in Virginia with Catholic clerics and commentators on all sides. Is it legitimate to withdraw assisted nutrition and hydration from someone in a persistent vegetative state?

Answer: ...The case at issue here was that of Hugh Finn, a Catholic from Louisville, who ruptured his aorta in an auto accident that left him brain damaged where a feeding tube was inserted for assisted nutrition and hydration (N&H).

...The Vatican Charter for Health Care Workers (1995) repeats the same presumption when explaining the principle of due proportion in treatment: "The administration of food and liquids, even artificially, is part of the normal treatment always due to the patient when this is not burdensome for him; their undue suspension could be real and properly so-called euthanasia."

...It seems to me--from what I have read--that Hugh Finn was not a dying patient, and surely not a patient where inevitable death was imminent. Of course, once assisted food and fluids were withdrawn, he then became a dying patient since what was set in motion was a chain events known to be death-dealing.

Wm. B. Smith, "Questions Answered," Homiletic & Pastoral Review, March, 1999

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