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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

May 1996

"Keyes said the major crisis that the American country faces today is the destruction of family life. In his speech, he touched upon the need to reestablish strong two-parent families and discussed his pro-life stance."

"USD junior Roxana Nunez and some other women at the conference were not supportive of Keyes' 'moral' messages. 'After watching him in other debates I wanted to see him in person, but the only impression I am left with is that of a sexist,' Nunez said. 'His preachings were cultic not political,' said USD senior Heather Kruger. 'He will not get the nomination.'"


THE WHOLE ACTIVITY IS A NONEVENT. Writing for New York, April 1, 1996, Steve Radlauer raves about a new abortion drug: "'I've had a surgical abortion and I've also done this, and this is much better,' confirms Jean, a woman who participated in the Journal study. A 34-year-old college educated, Manhattan-based financial services professional, Jean exemplifies Hausknecht's urban-upscale demographics. Her reasons for preferring methotrexate are eminently practical: 'It's better, not just because it's not surgery, you don't have to deal with recovering from anesthesia and you don't have to be out of commission for two weeks. There isn't really a recovery period. Once you've passed what you need to pass, that's it. You can exercise and do whatever you want.' 'It feels like you're more in control,' adds Sonia, a 26-year-old arts administrator, comparing her recent methotrexate abortion with a surgical abortion she had several years ago. 'The whole activity is a nonevent in some way, because it takes so long. It's not at all invasive. I felt like I was participating in the process somehow. It's an incredibly different experience, and I would recommend it to anyone.'"


DO NOT, AS SOME UNGRACIOUS PASTORS DO. A warning in Mother's Watch, Winter 1996, reports: "The zeal of sex educators to continue to sell their programs even in light of the new Vatican guidelines is already evident.

"Take for example Pittburgh's Bishop Wuerl's sex program entitled Catholic Vision of Love which relies on a very large selection of videos to do the teaching, many of them being the controversial "In God's Image" video series by Patricia Miller. Speaking about the Vatican document, Father Kris Stubna, Pittsburgh diocese's Secretary for Education, who worked with Bishop Wuerl, was quoted in the Pittsburgh Catholic as saying that 'it confirms everything we've been saying.'"


THE COMMONIZATION OF THE MASS. In John Cardinal O'Connor's homily (Catholic New York, March 21, 1996) at Sunday Mass celebrated in Latin on March 17, he said, "Now just a few personal conjectures, if you will permit me. It is my personal judgment that many, not all, who long for Latin in the Mass do so really not because of the language, although that seems to be the reason. Deep beneath the surface, I think that imprudent, often foolish and irrelevant changes were made in the Mass itself and in the surroundings of the Mass. It was not simply that the Mass went from Latin to English. It is that all sorts of very foolish things were done.

"The beautiful haunting melodies of Gregorian music were banished in favor of what was often practically profane music. The gorgeous polyphony was thrown out in favor of cheap melodies and harmonies, barbershop kind of stuff, and often enough, very irreverent language. Many fads were expressed in music. An awful lot of the music that was being sung in the '60's is gone now but the Gregorian remains.

"Often, we must admit, there was the very heavy emphasis on the social gospel which is always needed...That is absolutely imperative. But there was at times a kind of surreptitious preaching of the social gospel by way of the Mass. Sadly, we have to admit, it became the rage that young people in blue jeans with banjos in the sanctuary would make the Mass more relevant to the young."

"There was a whole generation of adults, we must admit, who saw the fountain of youth and wanted to become kids again. They even dressed like young people with beads and bangles and let their hair grow. Young people lost models. Lost heroes."

"Fellowship replaced sacrifice. This, I think, was crucial. It was the so-called 'table of the Lord'; everybody around the table. But this is the sacred sacrifice."


SUCH PROTECTION AS VULTURES GIVE TO LAMBS. Exhorting pro-choicers to be pro-active Katha Pollitt (The Nation, March 18, 1996) writes, "But it's not for nothing that they call Bill Clinton the Great Triangulator. Since the 1994 elections, he has signed legislation with riders that bar military hospitals from performing abortions, even if women pay for them with their own money; deny abortion coverage in health insurance for federal workers; ban research on embryos; and gut foreign-aid funds for family planning. Joycelyn Elders is long gone, and every time I open the paper the President is telling another church group that there are 'too many' abortions."

"When, for example, was the last time you read a defense of abortion in positive terms?...Pro-choicers need to start talking again about abortion as an essential part of women's right to self-determination."


AN EXTRAORDINARY LEVEL OF AGREEMENT. According to William McGurn asking this question in the March 20, 1996 Wall Street Journal, "What do you get when you take a Nobel Prize-winning economist, put him together with a Roman Catholic cardinal who runs a key Vatican think tank, and ask them to talk economics? The answer is an extraordinary level of agreement.

"That's what happened here early this month at a remarkable symposium called 'The Family and the Economy in the Future of Society,' convened by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo."

"When Pope John Paul II talks about the right to economic initiative and puts it at the heart of his economic letter, for example, he sounds very close to how Prof. Becker defines capitalism.

"For Mr. Becker, there are two critical points here. The first is that an ever more complicated and interlinked global economy is putting an increasing value on something he calls 'human capital' -- the skills, training, education and health of each person in society. The other is that an open economic system allows this human capital to reach its greatest fruition. In this equation, families play the key role."

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