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There were so many things I couldn't bear to leave unsaid for the whole summer that I invented a new section, called the Editor's Postscript, which, if the readers think it works, could become an annual feature of the Concourse. Inspired by Richard John Neuhaus' Public Square section of the journal First Things, the idea is to allow the editor to make various brief concluding remarks on some of the discussions we've held throughout the year, as well as to throw out some new ideas that might stimulate thinking for next year's discussions. I hope many of you will write articles over the summer! The more we have the more interesting and fruitful the Concourse will be, and the more frequently it can appear next semester. They need not be long. If you have a worthwhile point to make, and if you can make it in a good spirit, the Concourse is interested.
A suggestion regarding Extraordinary Ministers Regarding the new Vatican instruction on the liturgy, calling for the elimination of "the habitual use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion" at Mass, the Christ the King Chapel administration says, "The Bishop's office has advised us to continue our present practicewhile these new directives are under study and evaluation..." Now, I can well understand that a bishop would want to be very sure of exactly what's being required before he imposes sudden changes in ordinary parishes, where few members are very sharply tuned to the Vatican, and where there is likely to be some resistance -- particularly if the changes involve restrictions on the role of laymen at Mass. But the situation is very different on our campus. We positively delight in doing the will of Rome! We shudder at the thought of not doing it. I have an idea. What if we were to say to the bishop: "Your Excellency, our university has built a con-siderable reputation on its against-the-cultural-tide submission to the authority of Rome. Not only is our congregation more than willing to comply with papal instructions, they are scandalized and even disturbed in conscience by any seeming reluctance on our part to submit. Would you mind if, while this document is being studied, we adjust our practice to suit its first-face meaning,in order not to put stumbling blocks in the way of our faithful?" I bet he wouldn't.
Catholic teaching on capital punishment Noelle Hiester has a knack for nabbing the timely topics. Last year she raised the Extraordinary Ministers issue in the Concourse just a few months before the Vatican came out with the new document on the subject. In March she wrote about how Karla Faye Tucker's execution had forced her to reevaluate her pro-capital punishment thinking. In the April issue of First Things, Father Neuhaus writes, in response to an inquiry about the Church's official position on the death penalty: "What we may be witnessing here is what Cardinal Newman called the development of doctrine...A conscientious Catholic who supports the use of the death penalty in anything but the most extraordinary circumstances must give due consideration to the fact that the bishops conference, and most likely his own bishop, strongly disagree. He must give most particular consideration to the fact that the Pope disagrees, and may be declaring as doctrine that 'extraordinary circumstances' is defined as circumstances in which there is no other way to protect society. Moreover, such a Catholic must be prepared for the possibility that the Church is moving toward a definitive moral prohibition of capital punishment, in which whole-hearted assent to such teaching is required." I don't know about you all, but from now on, I'm taking Noelle Hiester's opinions very seriously.
A final thought on the household issue Apropos of my concern that frequent, mandatory, one-on-one meetings between coordinators and RDs were bound to have a chilling effect on household life, a reader recently said to me, "I don't see anything wrong with it; you'd have to show me evidence that the RDs were somehow abusing the confidentiality of the coordinators." Here I point out that a practice can be bad without being abusive. Every mother or father knows that to stand continually over their children's shoulders -- telling them what to do and criticizing every mistake the instant it's made -- is bad parenting. But we wouldn't call it child abuse. Similarly, we can criticize Student Life policies without accusing Student Life officials of abusing students. In my opinion, even if no RD ever betrayed coordinator confidentiality; even if they were very careful and never asked intrusive questions about what was going on in particular households; even if they didn't impose punishments on coordinators who didn't show; even if coordinators said they didn't mind the regular meetings, it would still be a bad policy -- tending, however gradually, toward the destruction of the household system.
A line in Dr. Miletic's October article in favor of Distance Education degrees bothered me. He wrote: "As the Church prepares for the twenty-first century, so do we at Franciscan University prepare for a new Evangelization. Technology and the internet make it possible to fulfill our institutional mission of bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth." Setting aside questions about whether or to what extent the gospel can be spread through technology, I want to protest the idea that it's Franciscan University's mission to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. It is the Church's responsibility to evangelize the world. Each individual and institution within the Church has only a specific and limited part to play in this otherwise completely overwhelming mission. FUS' part is to see to the higher education of the students entrusted to her care. I may seem to be quibbling needlessly over terms, but there is something very practical at stake. If we think it's our task to evangelize the whole world, we will spread ourselves far too thin. Instead of concentrating on giving the best possible formation to the students we have, we will think: "How can we get the rudiments out to the greatest number?" If we have the whole world in our sights, what we will chiefly notice about our own students is that they are exceptionally well-off -- practically glutted with the Good News. So, rather than striving to provide a deeper, fuller, more excellent and rigorous education for them, we will throw our resources and creative energies behind efforts to come up with more efficient and further-reaching means of getting the basic message out to others -- people normally beyond the range (intellectually, geographically, financially or otherwise) of an institution like ours. But, in spreading ourselves too thin, we will make a poor job of our real mission. We will wind up short-changing our students -- sending them out into the world imperfectly prepared for their own particular tasks within the Church, whether as artists, intellectuals, priests, parents, businessmen, or missionaries.
What if Shakspere wasn't Shakespeare? Last month my parents sent me a copy of Joseph Sobran's new book, Alias Shakespeare, defending the thesis that the real author of Shakespeare's works was Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford. I read it in practically one sitting. It was riveting, and (to my mind at least) completely convincing -- more than convincing. He made the accepted theory look ludicrous. The reader is left amazed that so pitifully few and slender pieces of "evidence" in favor of the authorship of the actor William Shakspere could, beaverdam-like, have held back such an overwhelming flood of probabilities in favor of Oxford for over three hundred years. Part of the explanation, according to Sobran, is that Shakespearean scholarship, almost from the outset, has been bound up with the anti-aristocracy, egalitarian ideology of the post-enlightenment period. (We were so enamored of the idea that a regular, middle class guy could have been the greatest literary genius of all time, that we failed to investigate whether it was really the case.) Another reason has been the unwillingness of the public to admit the likelihood that the greatest sonnets in the English language were inspired by a homosexual passion. Stated so starkly in abstract thesis-form like that, the idea is no doubt a stunning blow to many devotees of Shakespeare, but I for one find it consoling in the concrete. As a student of philosophy with a particular interest in the nature of love (my senior thesis at FUS was on the nature of love in Shakespeare's Othello, and I am currently writing a book on Christian courtship) I have found Shakespeare's plays an endlessly rich source of wisdom and insight. The sonnets, on the other hand, have been disappointing. More than once, looking for inspiration, or for help in expressing some elusive aspect of the mystery of conjugal love, I have turned to his sonnets, and come away virtually empty-handed (feeling, I might add, a little confused and conflicted about it. Was I missing something? This was Shakespeare.) The experience is completely different reading, for instance, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. I can't judge the relative literary merit of the two sets of poems -- I remain perfectly ready to believe the experts who say Shakespeare's are superior -- but, for someone "looking for love," every one of EBB's drips gold. All the truest aspects of a pure romance are beautifully and marvelously revealed in them: the life-giving, salvific power of love; how it ennobles the soul; the bliss it engenders; its rootedness in and directedness toward the deepest selfhood of the person; its bodily expression; its goodness; its living reciprocity; the unity it creates between the lovers; its gift character; the joy and awe and humility and gratitude and courage it inspires in the beloved, and so on. Consider just these few lines from number VIII:
"What can I give thee back, O liberal The major themes of Shakespeare's sonnets are completely different, and less inspiring. One is the physical beauty of his "lovely boy" and the regretableness of its inevitable passing. Another is the repeated unfaithfulness of both the poet and his beloved. The sonnets speak much of jealousy, doubt, betrayal, self-loathing, torment, deception and bitter disappointment. Here are a few lines from number XCV:
"How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame I do not mean to suggest (never mind contend) that Shakespeare's sonnets are not surpassingly great poems. I only say a Christian need not be depressed or scandalized if it turns out to be true that they were inspired mainly by a disordered, same-sex passion.
Speaking of Joseph Sobran (and disordered passions), he also recently authored an outstanding op-ed piece, titled, "Bill Clinton's legacy: Recreational sex," which I read in The Washington Times National Weekly. He made the point that for all the zigzagging of his foreign policy, and the haphazardness of his domestic agenda, Clinton "has fought with something like conviction for abortion," and otherwise steadily and deliberately lowered the American moral jumpbar, both through his public policies and by his personal example. Sobran concludes: "For all his rattling hypocrisy, Mr. Clinton has found one area where he has been able to adapt his avowed principles to his actual practice. He wants to enact the New Morality into legislation. This is what his presidency will most deserve to be remembered for: his desire to make his own vices normative for the whole nation." Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the opposite sort of president? We have before, and it's not impossible that we could again some day. Let's pray and work for it.
An eager reader has been pressing us to feature a discussion on evolution. I tell him I am more than willing -- the topic represents such a timely and fascinatingly complex conjunction of theology, philosophy and science -- but I myself am not qualified to write on the subject. There have been several articles, papal statements and books written on Darwinism recently, any one of which could serve as a handy starting point for a great Concourse conversation. Might there be any science majors or professors out there willing to give it a try?
Some friends of the Concourse have suggested that many would-be writers feel intimidated by the high quality of our articles. I appreciate the implied compliment, but I beg our readers not to let this stop them from contributing their ideas to our pages! If your writing skills leave something to be desired, do not despair! Capable editors are standing by ready to help.
A gift for the graduates of '98 Heading down the hill after many happy years at FUS is usually a melancholy and at the same time exhilarating experience. You're leaving the nest, but you're also finally testing your wings. If you're feeling part thrilled, part alarmed, part relieved, part sad, part psyched -- you're normal. In any case, the Concourse can help smooth the transition. Right now your brain is probably aching from the strain of finals, and nothing sounds more appealing than a good, long summer of no thinking; but you'd be surprised to hear how much you'll miss the studies next year. You can't take your professors and fellow-students with you, but you can make sure the Concourse meets you wherever you're going, and so ensure that a little bit of the lively atmosphere of FUS goes on lifting your spirit and fortifying your mind -- making it a little easier to do whatever you're doing with joy and with grace. Last year we offered the class of '97 a free semester's subscription, as a sort of graduation present. We'd be happy to do the same for this year's class. If you'd like to take us up on the offer, just let us know. Send your name and address to us either at FUS box 27, or e-mail address concours@clover.net. Warm congratulations to each and every one of you. Go in peace, and under the Mercy. (Can't wait to see what you do with your lives!)
On more than one occasion readers have submitted articles to us and to The Troubadour at the same time. This creates a difficulty for the Concourse, whose publishing schedule is less frequent than The Troubadour's. Our aim is to offer lively discussions and free flowing, fresh ideas, and we don't like the idea of printing something the entire campus may have already read a few days or weeks earlier. We therefore make it a general policy to print only articles written expressly for the Concourse. If you want to publish an opinion, decide ahead of time which publication is the better forum for your particular purpose; if your first choice declines to print it for whatever reason, try the other. But please don't try both at the same time.
The editors have heard that some readers are objecting to our occasional practice of printing anonymous articles. The essence of their complaint seems to be this: "Anonymous opinions have no place in Christian discourse. If someone is afraid to put his name to a piece, he has no business publishing it. It does nothing but spread tension and ill will." This is a plausible and by no means uncommon view, but I don't think it's just. First, if there is tension, I think it is generated more by the theory that anonymous opinions are unchristian than by the reality of the few anonymous things we've printed, which are in themselves remarkably inoffensive. And secondly, the theory itself is not just. There are any number of reasons for not wanting to put our name to an article, which have nothing to do with cowardice. For instance, suppose Father Michael had been reading the Concourse and thought he had an important point to make in one of our discussions. He thought that the point would help advance the debate a good way, but he didn't want to throw the weight of his office behind it; he wanted the readers to be free to consider it on its own merits, without being unduly influenced by the respect they have for him or his position at the University. To me, that would be a very good reason for printing his contribution anonymously. I can think of dozens of others. Recall the opening lines of C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain: "When [my publisher] suggested to me the writing of this book, I asked leave to be allowed to write it anonymously, since, if I were to say what I really thought about pain, I should be forced to make statements of such apparent fortitude that they would become ridiculous if anyone knew who made them. Anonymity was rejected as inconsistent with the series". (Note that it was rejected as inconsistent with the series, not as inconsistent with the principles of Christian discourse.) Lewis recognized that there are times when the identity of the writer works as a distraction or a stumbling block to the reception of the truth the article is trying to convey. There are other times when a highly-charged political atmosphere makes it too costly for a person to be candid, though what he has to say may be vitally important for the good of the whole community. At those times, to insist on signatures would be to turn away numberless valuable contributions to important discussions, and thus let politics triumph over truth. In such cases, and many others, a truth-centered editor, would be falling down on the job, so to say, if she categorically refused to publish articles anonymously. Finally, I point out that there is a long-standing tradition of anonymity in Christian controversy. (I'd have to look it up to be exact, but I remember having learned that, in fact, there was a time when virtually no Christian writers put their names to their work, because to do so was considered egotistical -- what mattered was the truth content or the persuasive power of the article itself, not the identity of the author.) The famous Oxford Movement "Tracts for the Times," which were so toweringly influential in their day, were published anonymously, as were Newman's withering "Tamworth Reading Room" letters, in which he publicly excoriated Sir Robert Peel for his religious liberalism. Many of Kierkegaard's books, too, were published under a pseudonym. Surely we wouldn't want to accuse these Christian controversialists of anything like cowardice? All that being said, I acknowledge freely that anonymity can be problematic, which is why we are careful about what we publish anonymously and why. Our official policy states: "We will consider printing submissions anonymously, or under a pen-name, however, in general we wish to encourage open 'face to face' discussion." Our aim in every case is to serve truth.
Justine Schmiesing has been a heroine. Not only has she generously continued to provide her excellent professional layout and design skills to the Concourse -- even when other things were making enormous demands on her time and attention, and no one could have blamed her for giving it up -- but on more than one occasion her good cheer and enthusiastic support of the Concourse have prevented me from throwing in the towel. I'd think, "If she's willing to carry on, with everything she has on her plate, who am I to complain that it costs too much?" The other members of the editorial board: David Schmiesing, Mark Fischer and my husband Jules, though less active in the role this year, due to circumstances beyond their control, have nevertheless been a very important support for my work as editor. Just knowing that three such sensible and intelligent men were available to give me advice and feedback gave me the confidence I needed to make many difficult decisions. Maria Ellis, who has had a stressful time of it as business manager, also deserves thanks for her vital part in getting the Concourse out to our readers. As our Steubenville pointperson, she's the one who handles all the correspondence, accounting, subscriptions and distribution, as well as the occasional disgruntled reader. I don't think she ever once complained. Several students, alumni, staff and faculty and others have also done more good than they know for the Concourse by well-timed appreciative comments. I mention in particular Michael Gaitley, Ben Brown, Katie DeLine, Susan Fischer, Martha Blandford, Gary Bribiescus, Mike Copeland, Ted and Janene Crisman, Regina Schmiedicke, Fr. Augustine, Susan Treacy, Jim and Sally Fourgerousse, Eva Hammetner, and FUS trustees Bob Thomas and Mickey Pohl. John Crosby's moral support and critical commentary were as unstinting and indispensible as ever. Nothing stokes the editorial engine like feedback. The positive stuff, of course, is preferred, but even negative feedback does the Concourse good. If it doesn't serve to improve the journal, it at least gets my Irish up and running nicely. Please keep it coming! Thanks for reading.
Kathleen van Schaijik
© The University Concourse, April 30, 1998 |
