NCR Espresso Column

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	January 12, 2007
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King's call for a 'revolution of values'

In a few days the nation will observe the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., preacher, civil rights leader, practitioner of nonviolence. Inevitably, we will hear the stirring and timeless words of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. We will see clips of courageous blacks facing angry Southern sheriffs and growling police dogs, we’ll see displays of ecumenical harmony and unity in the face of official opposition. We’ll hear and read stories about racial progress and about what still needs to be done. Most likely, if it all goes as it has in the past, we’ll hear little from King’s later years, little of the speeches that began to oppose not just racial injustice and violence at home, but the injustice and violence of militarism and war.

One of his most famous speeches of that era, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” was delivered in April 1967 at Riverside Church in New York. Much of the speech was specific to that war and that era, but much of it was timeless. By 1967, a year before his assassination, King had looked deep into the American soul and knew both its goodness and its faults. In this speech he calls for a “revolution of values,” a revolution at least as sorely needed today as it was then. The call comes after a general denunciation of the war in Vietnam. Following are excerpts from that section of the speech.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	January 5, 2007
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Planning a day of fasting and penance

Pope Benedict XVI’s personal preacher, it was reported recently, asked the pope to declare a day of fasting and penance to atone for the “abominations” committed inside the church “by its own ministers and pastors.”

The moment passed with relatively little fanfare, and that is unfortunate, because it is certainly noteworthy that a figure so close to the pope, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, would acknowledge that the crisis is severe. The church “paid a high price,” as a result of the scandal, he said. Cantalamessa also suggested that “a day of fasting and penance” take place “at local and national levels, where the problem was particularly strong, to publicly express repentance before God and solidarity with the victims.” We have some suggestions that we’ll dare to pass on about how such days of repentance might occur.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	December 15, 2006
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Iraq report step in right direction

The Iraq Study Group Report is many things: the realist response to neoconservative adventurism, a devastating critique of a miserably failed policy, and a call for diplomacy and politics to supplant arms as the key weapon in the arsenal of the world’s only superpower in the planet’s most volatile region.

Yes, it is all of those things. And more.

The bipartisan American political establishment has sued for peace. “The ability of the United States to shape outcomes is diminishing,” said the 10-member commission. “Time is running out.” Indeed.

The war is lost. Now the endgame.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	October 13, 2006
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Engaging Islam beyond photo-ops

As the old saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In a similar vein, when you’re one of the world’s most brilliant theological minds, everything tends to look like a theological problem.

Therein may lie the nub of the challenge facing Pope Benedict XVI as he attempts to pick up the pieces in his relationship with Islam, following his controversial comments at the University of Regensburg in Germany Sept. 12.

Benedict’s brief encounter with ambassadors from Muslim nations at Castel Gandolfo Sept. 25 seems to have had the desired effect. Many Muslim leaders announced afterward that it’s time to move on from the crisis of the last two weeks. It might be mentioned in passing, however, that the only two people who spoke at the meeting were the pope and French Cardinal Paul Poupard, with the Muslims essentially reduced to the role of spectators -- a curious way to signal a desire for dialogue.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	October 6, 2006
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Budgets, bishops and engagement with the world

In June 1989, when the U.S. Catholic Conference/National Conference Catholic Bishops moved into their new, five-story, state-of-the-art, $26.9 million offices in Northeast Washington, 292 employees took up residence. Nearly two decades later, if the budget cutting plans of the bishops’ administrative committee are accepted this November, there will be roughly 100 fewer staff at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

There’s a story behind the statistic.

Part of it, a large part in fact, is financial. To listen to the bishops speak at their annual November meetings about conference budgets and plans is to hear a Joe Lunchbucket taxpayer revolt wrapped in ecclesial garb. Increasingly strapped for cash in their home dioceses, many frustrated bishops don’t see the value of the assessment each diocese contributes to conference operations. The assessment is a progressive tax -- wealthier dioceses pay more than poorer ones -- but it is increasingly viewed as a burden, not a benefit. According to this view, the bishops aren’t getting bang for their buck. Hence the proposal to cut the assessment by 16 percent.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	September 29, 2006
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Issue Date:  September 29, 2006

Patriotism's new profile

In the popular imagination, patriotism is most often defined in military terms. It is about military heroes and their exploits, about glorifying war and despising anything and anyone who might be perceived as a threat to the homeland.

So it is particularly significant -- in this time of war when the president of the United States targets opponents of his ideas as threats to the country’s security -- that three U.S. senators of the president’s own party would summon the courage to stand up to him over the matter of rules governing the trials of detainees.

Sens. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona are to be applauded for their political bravery -- and profound patriotism -- in refusing to go along with President Bush’s proposals for bringing terrorist suspects to trial.

It is difficult to overestimate the value of such voices in times like these. And to those voices of courage add Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Bush’s former secretary of state. Powell reportedly has had serious reservations for some time over the administration’s proclivity for ignoring international law and the Geneva Conventions’ provisions for treatment of detainees.

National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	September 22, 2006
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Issue Date:  September 22, 2006

U.S. and Iran: a tangled history

Iran is developing nuclear technology with the intent of manufacturing nuclear weapons. Iran’s president is a fanatic who feeds on religious extremism and hates Jews and wants to see Israel gone from the face of the earth. Iran supplies terrorist groups like Hezbollah, foments war and is a destabilizing force in the Middle East.

All of the above may be true to one degree or another, though it is clear there are questions about just how developed Iran’s nuclear technology is and how much President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s outlandish outbursts are those of a true believer or how much is posturing. Maybe he is crazy enough to believe the Holocaust never occurred. Whatever is the case -- and that is not to be dismissive of the details -- the question now is: What do we do about it? And beyond that, can we do anything about it?

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National Catholic Reporter:  Editorial	September 15, 2006
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Issue Date:  September 15, 2006 Sorting ethics, hope in stem cell battle Developments in science and technology occur in such a rush that ethics, which tempers what we can do with what we ought to do, seems always in a race to keep pace. From the development of nuclear weapons that threaten global destruction to the appearance of health care technologies that promise interminable extensions of “life,” we keep arriving at points that require us to agonize over possibilities that range from breathtaking benefits to incalculable human degradation. So it is with the matter of stem cell research, an issue over which the country is deeply divided and against which the church in some areas has arrayed its considerable resources, energy and authority. One of the major tests will occur this November in Missouri, where voters will consider whether to approve an amendment to the state constitution that would protect embryonic stem cell research done in accordance with federal law, which means a virtually unregulated enterprise. The amendment would also prevent human cloning, which by the state’s definition “means to implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus anything other than the product of fertilization of an egg of a human female by a sperm of a human male for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy.” In other words, creating an embryo in the lab would not be considered human cloning. * * *

The death of Sr. Mary Luke Tobin was certianly not a shock. She was 98 years old. However, her death reminds us all of the work left undone in the renewal of the American Catholic church. Read a heartfelt story recounting Sr. Tobin's life and work: Loretto sister helped shape today's Catholic church.