5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Commonweal Confronts the Century, April 14, 2000
This review is from: Commonweal Confronts the Century : Liberal Convictions, Catholic Tradition (Paperback)
When many people think about the Catholic Church, they imaginethe pope, the bishops and the clergy. But the clergy are only part ofthe church. The church includes every member. Most of those members are lay people. Commonweal magazine is unique because for 75 years it has been edited and written by some of the most intelligent American lay people in the Catholic Church...The problem in editing this book was not trying to find interesting and thought provoking articles, but eliminating many that the editors would have liked to include but did not have space for.
The first article is by George N. Shuster, an early editor of Commonweal and later President of Hunter College in New York and U.S. Representative to UNESCO.
It describes Vienna on the eve of Hitler's takeover of Austria in 1938. It captures the ominous feeling that something terrible is descending on Austria and Europe.
The last article is Richard Alleva's review of "Schindler's List." He asks the question, "Is the movie perfect?...It is splendid."
The articles are not arranged in chronological order, but divided into five sections: .Encountering the twentieth century. .War and Peace. .Life, death and the dignity of persons. .Beliefs. .Art.
Among the authors represented are E.J. Dionne, Eugene J. McCarthy, Dorothy Day, Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, Jacques Maritain, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan,George Weigel, Peter Steinfels, Daniel Callahan, Sidney Callahan, Michael Novak, Graham Greene, Reinhold Niebuhr, George A. Lindbeck, Willa Cather, Evelyn Waugh, Wilfrid Sheed, and many more. They are not all Catholic lay people, but most of them are. What they have in common is respect for the reader's intelligence and a sense of responsibility for the world we live in.
If you want to know what intelligent Catholic lay people have been and are thinking and writing for the past 75 years in the U.S.A...Edmond Bliven END
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent thinking, superb writing, and still fresh, April 29, 2000
This review is from: Commonweal Confronts the Century : Liberal Convictions, Catholic Tradition (Paperback)
When I discovered a while back that I am a Commonweal Catholic I decided, now that I could put a name on my malaise, to sit back and enjoy it and to purchase this book to deepen my knowledge of the intellecual tradition from which my illness springs. The book is published in celebration of Commonweal's 75th anniversary and offers reprints of important articles that have appeared in the magazine. The first is a chilling account by George Shuster of what the atmosphere in Austria was like as Hitler was smashing his way to power. The rest cover social, political, and religious issues that today are constantly in our faces but, back then, only drew the attention of such intellectuals as Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and others less famous but equally brilliant. Commonweal has always been interested in the arts and that area is well represented in this volume. The Editors are to be congratulated.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I THOUGHT THIS A STEAL AT ANY PRICE AND FOR ONCE I WAS RIGHT!: I GOT ROBBED!, November 24, 2007
This book should declare on its cover it is heavily edited otherwise it is a fraud. For one thing it displays very little Liberal Conviction, and less authentically Catholic tradition. Instead we must turn inside to where the acknowledgements page might ordinarily be found, to read the editors proudly declaring they have excised the text of most of the articles presented, without any indication of their intervention and censorship, except for the occassional ellision where the laguna would be too obvious. Therefore we find this heavily edited selection as unfortunate as the careful selection of articles published as
Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal, which appears to be comprehensive yet publishes only a very select few writings, carefully edited, with a disclaimer whenever she is allowed to dare speak of peace.
This is what happens when our holy writ is entrusted to human if so-called sacred magisteriums. We humans tend when able to heavily edit according to our personal limited experience and thought and preferences, not by the whole Truth and nothing but the truth.
Thus we receive these texts as fragmentary as anything from Qumran, expurgated to the tastes of an overwrought editor of 1999 as easily and as draconian as any other sacred magisterium sitting on a treasure lode of scripture and sending forth that which pleases them only.
Thus we find the article from the Reverend Father Thomas Merton violently and immorally and unjustly expurgated to one and a half pages, his famous Commonweal article when he was under orders no longer to write about war and peace as being beneath the concerns of a monk.
Here is a piece of that article, a very small piece, as peace is no longer an editorial concern of their commercial marketing strategy: "We are no longer living in a Christian world (this written in 1962) ( . . .) It is therefore a serious error to imagine that because the West was once largely Christian the cause of the Western nations is now to be identified without qualification with the cause of God (p. 176)."
What do these words of the Prophet tell us about George W. Bush's alleged purposes for indulging in his very profitable warmongering on our grandchildren's credit cards?
Another worthwhile few pages comes from the first month of the Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan's fugitive pursuit of sanctuary from the FBI, including a poignant reference to his beloved and strong Irish mother. He asks like Jesus who are his friends:
"The question burns like a night flare. The night sticks come running. But the night sticks can do nothing; they do not signify (p. 184)."
This from May of 1970, not long after the rain of Chicago nightsticks upon the praying heads of blessed peacemakers. Those were serious times of standing up and running for peace, no matter what the consequences. Where are such Christian witnesses now? Where our transignification?
And yet the bulk of this book are editorials written in committee declaring yes but yes as well and yet still, and finding some supposedly patriotic way to twist their beloved but basically evil "just war" criteria into the on-going GOP war profiteering, whether in Nicaragua or Desert Storm or Los Alamos.
Save the few pages cited here for constant strengthening consoling comforting lectio divina, and cut the rest crosswise for keeping on that special shelf in your outhouse, as this book is printed on strong newsprint as once was the magazine itself.
Better yet get the full texts at
Peace In The Post-christian Era,
Cold War Letters and
Passion For Peace: The Social Essays etc., and read anything by the Brothers Berrigan. God knows we need them now.
As for this book, in the first page you learn that every article has been expurgated, and that unlike the heavily black magic markered transcripts from the FBI FOIA requests, we cannot tell where the censor has struck.
Only worthwhile as a reference to more complete and authoritative sources. Otherwise, the Crisis has won . . . tragically.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
