While We’re At It

· I won’t go so far as to say that some of my best friends are, but some of my friends are ethicists, and I don’t want to be too hard on them. But from time to time I’ve been compelled to note that hiring someone to watch the ethical store-whether the subject be bioethics or business ethics-is a dubious undertaking. By the very structure of the relationship to what they’re supposed to be watching, ethicists end up being more lapdogs than watchdogs. Gordon Marino, a philosopher at St. Olaf, notes that the business ethics industry is doing very well at $2 billion per year, but business ethics is not doing so well, as witness Enron, WorldCom, and other scandals. What is basically wrong with the ethics industry, says Professor Marino, is the idea that we can subcontract the work of moral judgment. First, there are simply no grounds for believing that a person can become an authority on matters moral in the same way that he might on market strategies; that is, by mastering the appropriate information and literature. You can memorize Kant and still be a moral dunce. As Aristotle taught us, moral percipience and judgment are not the product of reading moral treatises and applying them to case histories. Aristotle counsels that if you need moral guidance seek out a person who has succeeded in living a moral life rather than someone who has succeeded in memorizing moral arguments. More important than the lack of philosophical foundation, the idea of ethics experts invites us to believe that the ethical implications of what I am doing are not my business but rather the business of the ethics office down the hall. After all, if there are experts on ethics, then who am I, a nonexpert, to pass moral judgments? Be they ethics audits, codes, or ‘ethics fitness seminars,’ none of the numinous pseudo-products of the ethics industry will restore integrity to commerce. The issues that provoked the present crisis were not overly subtle. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and CEOs do not need a business ethicist to tell them right from wrong. What they need is the character to do the right thing, which is to say, the mettle to avoid the temptation to talk themselves out of their knowledge of right and wrong even if that knowledge lowers their profit margins.”

· For three full days, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), sat down with Peter Seewald, a prominent German journalist, and fielded his questions on, it seems, almost everything. The result is a thick book just out from Ignatius Press, God and the World (460 pp., $18.95). The conversation tackles the existence of God, theodicy, the feminine dimensions of the Divine, biblical inspiration, the uniqueness of Jesus, and a host of other matters that an intelligent interlocutor might want to take up with Ratzinger. In reading it, I am reminded of his masterful Introduction to Christianity, published more than thirty years ago, and cannot help but wonder again about the many books he might have written were it not for his selfless devotion to the usually thankless tasks of CDF. Herewith, selected more or less at random, a few fragments:

“I belong to a Church that is alive and young and that is carrying her work on fearlessly into the future,” said John XXIII, and Ratzinger says he heartily agrees. A big problem, however, is “progressives” who adamantly defend the status quo. “Nowadays, particularly among the most modern representatives of Catholicism, there is a tendency toward uniformity. Whatever is alive and new, anything that does not conform to the academic outlines or to the decisions of commissions or synods, is regarded with suspicion and is excluded as being reactionary. … I believe that a great deal of tolerance is required within the Church, that the diversity of paths is something in accordance with the breadth of Catholicity. … And that is exactly what the office of pope, and the office of a bishop, is there for, to guarantee the breadth, on the one hand, and, on the other, to open up what is closed, what could lead to sectarianism, and to integrate it into the whole.”

· In New Jersey the judicial usurpation of politics is not an aberration to be feared but, it would seem, the established order. When Robert Toricelli was way behind in the Senate race, the Democrats pulled him out of the contest and replaced him with Frank Lautenberg, even though New Jersey law explicitly said that a candidate could not be replaced so late in a campaign. The state’s Supreme Court, in what it called a “liberal” interpretation of the law, simply overrode its provisions. Very liberal indeed. On another issue, fourteen gays and lesbians have brought suit to force New Jersey to grant them wedding licenses. The New Jersey Law Journal runs two editorials on the subject. The first argues at length that the state’s license application form does not specify anything that would prevent same-sex marriages, except for assuming that one partner is male and the other female. That assumption, the editors opine, is now obsolete, for “We are, undoubtedly, becoming more enlightened.” Unfortunately, the people are not so enlightened. The second editorial, “Who Shall Decide?”, acknowledges that “same-sex marriage does not seem to be popular with the voters.” Where it has been put to a vote, it has been voted down. Legislators are also opposed. Therefore, In choosing the courts, the plaintiffs wisely chose the potentially more hospitable forum…. That the sweeping changes the plaintiffs seek may also be a province of the Legislature does not preclude action by a court. Our history is replete with examples of court-initiated profound social change where the Legislature has been silent.” The editors suggest that the court might follow the example of Vermont, where a court ordered the legislature to approve same-sex unions, saying that, if it did not do so “in an orderly and expeditious fashion,” the court would. The editors conclude, “The plaintiffs’ goals are sound and readily achievable by cooperation between the judicial and legislative branches of our government.” Ah yes, cooperation. We tell you what to do and you do it or we’ll do it for you. That “notorious” symposium of 1996 was titled “The End of Democracy?” At this point, at least in New Jersey, we may be permitted to omit the question mark.

· This will be brief, and then I do not intend to revisit the matter unless new provocations make further comment imperative. In the June issue of Commentary, Senior Editor Gabriel Schoenfeld published “Israel and the Anti-Semites,” in which he noted my criticism here of another Commentary article which, in my judgment, seemed to suggest the generalization that critics of Israel are anti-Semites who want to kill Jews. Mr. Schoenfeld said of my comment, “Such are the tortuous rationalizations to which the swell of worldwide anti-Semitism has led.” Given the context of his remarks in an article dealing with “the anti-Semites,” it is not surprising that some readers of Commentary and this journal thought he was accusing me of rationalizing anti-Semitism. They thought he was saying what he seemed to be saying, namely, that my comments were of a piece with, or somehow reflective of, the swell of anti-Semitism. I chose to respond irenically, writing in this space that “I note, but decline to entertain, the possibility that Mr. Schoenfeld is suggesting that anti-Semitism led me to write what I did.” Others responded differently. Mr. Stephen Hubert, in a letter published in the October Commentary, wrote: “Father Neuhaus has been portrayed by Mr. Schoenfeld as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel, which he emphatically is not…. Mr. Schoenfeld has indulged in yellow journalism of the worst sort, damaging the integrity of Commentary and the reputation of Father Neuhaus alike. I strongly believe that he is owed a full apology and retraction….”In the same issue, Mr. Schoenfeld responds at length, refusing to apologize or retract, offering a garbled version of my views, and asserting that “the conclusion seems inescapable” that my purpose is to “terminate the debate about Pius XII by dramatically raising the stakes for its Jewish interlocutors, raising the specter of a return of anti-Semitism and an end of support for Israel. If I am right about this, it marks an ominous turn for a leading Christian thinker.” Mr. Schoenfeld is quite wrong about that. I do believe that, in the debate over U.S. policy toward Israel, some Jewish writers have at times dramatically raised the stakes for interlocutors who do not share their views by suggesting that they are anti-Semitic. And an “ominous turn” toward what? Not toward anti-Semitism, I am told. I am solemnly assured that in no way did Mr. Schoenfeld intend to suggest, insinuate, imply, or otherwise give the impression that he thinks I am anti-Semitic or even complicit in the slightest flirtation with anti-Semitism. I am pleased to know that, while, at the same time, observing that Mr. Schoenfeld has an extremely odd way of not saying what I am assured he is not saying. And now, as far as I am concerned, we can all, as they say, move on.

· I should have mentioned that, and thank Father John Ubel of St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, for reminding me. I wrote that the confession of sins and “absolution” before Mass may lead many Catholics to think that sacramental confession is no longer necessary. Fr. Ubel points out that the Confiteor in the old Latin Mass, with it prayers at the foot of the altar to which the people said “had virtually the same words. True, but the people did not say all the words, and most probably did not understand the Latin or follow the English translation in a missal. Much to the point is Fr. Ubel’s further observation about the decline in the practice of frequent confession. “One may wish to start with the decline in the reception of the sacrament by priests themselves, After all, Nemo dat non quod habet. ‘You cannot give what you do not have.’ We may need go no farther than that.”

· They’re going to die anyway, so why not derive some good from their deaths? We even talk about “redeeming” the tragedy of so many deaths. Many years ago, the Methodist ethicist Paul Ramsey discussed how seductive this way of thinking and talking is. Then the subject was using aborted fetuses for research purposes; now the debate is about using embryos in research related to stem cells, cloning, and the such. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Lutheran ethicist Gilbert Meilaender provides grist for moral reflection: “The issue of embryo research is not precisely the same as fetal research, of course, but the insight into our ready recourse to the quasi-religious language of finding some redeeming good in what we do is illuminating. We need to think again about the spare-embryo argument. Initially appealing as it may be, offering it seems a chance to move forward with research while still drawing a significant moral line, it begins to lose its force the longer we ponder it and the harder we press on it. The very form of the argument—’he’ll die anyway; we might as well get some good from his dying’—seduces us into supposing that all moral evils must be forms of ‘harm.’ ‘No harm, no foul’ may work well for officiating basketball, but it does not work well for sorting through our moral obligations. Reducing all moral evils to harm, we blind ourselves to issues of dignity and justice—as if, for example, we would not wrong a permanently unconscious person by selling tickets for others to observe him. We need to slow down, think again, and draw back, lest we train ourselves to think in ways that diminish us as a people. Perhaps this means—though it’s hard to say for sure—that the pace of medical progress must be slower than it could be. If so, that only means that here, as in so many other areas of research, we accept and honor necessary moral limits. For, as Paul Ramsey also put it, “the moral history of mankind is more important than its medical history.”

· It is hardly a surprise that Peter Singer, the philosopher from nowhere, is a proponent of world government. He employs a very familiar trope: “The twentieth century’s conquest of space made it possible for a human being to look at our planet from a point not on it, and so to see it, literally, as one world. Now the twenty-first century faces the task of developing a suitable form of government for that single world.” He recognizes that the idea of world government, which in its modern form goes back at least to Immanuel Kant, has its skeptics. “There is little political support for such ideas at present. Apart from the threat that the idea poses to the self-interest of the citizens of the rich nations, many would say it puts too much at risk, for gains that are too uncertain. It is widely believed that a world government would be, at best, an unchecked bureaucratic behemoth that makes the bureaucracy of the European Union look like a lean and efficient operation. At worst, it would become a global tyranny, unchecked and unchallengable. Those thoughts have to be taken seriously. They present a challenge that should not be beyond the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration, once those people adjust to the new reality of the global community and turn their attention to issues of government beyond national boundaries.” The bureaucrats of the European Union will likely be insulted, and rightly so, by the suggestion that they don’t have “the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration.” Remember Bill Buckley’s line about the Harvard faculty and the Boston telephone directory.

· Garry Wills’ Why I Am a Catholic has already taken up enough space in this section. But I cannot resist mentioning Denis Donoghue’s fine review in, of all places, Wills’ home base, the New York Review of Books. Donoghue dissects, inter alia, the ways in which Wills wants to relocate the Real Presence in “the people of God” rather than in the elements that become the Body and Blood of Christ. Donoghue writes, “Wills seems to want to be a pre-Tridentine Catholic, i.e., one who believes that the Council of Trent introduced severities of doctrine and practice that were unnecessary and improper. He would apparently confine his faith to the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, where Transubstantiation is not mentioned.” A pre-Tridentine Catholic. Think about it. Is it possible that, in very important ways, those who make such a point about being “post-Vatican II Catholics” are really pre-Tridentine Catholics?

· “I believe there is a reason that history has matched this nation with this time,” said President Bush in his address a year after September 11, with the Statue of Liberty in the background. History does not have purposes, but the Lord of history does, so Bush is then more explicit: “We cannot know all that lies ahead. Yet we do know that God has placed us together in this moment, to grieve together, to stand together, to serve each other and our country. And the duty we have been given—defending America and our freedom—is also a privilege we share.” Then he becomes yet more Christianly explicit: “Ours is the cause of human dignity: freedom guided by conscience, and guarded by peace. This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it.” The last two sentences are, of course, from the prologue to the Gospel of John, where the reference is to Christ. America is not Christ. Bush’s language revives a current in American thought critically analyzed by Ernest Tuveson in Redeemer Nation. The connection between American history and providential purpose received its most eloquent and nuanced expression in the language of Lincoln, but has been a staple in our public rhetoric. It is there in the Declaration of Independence, in the speeches and private correspondence of almost all the founders, and, after Lincoln, presidents Wilson, Reagan, and now Bush have taken to it quite naturally. Among our cultural elites, ACLU types fret about such language violations of the “separation of church and state,” but most dismiss it as rhetorical candy tossed to the patriotic masses. Their attitude is that of Gibbon toward sundry religions in the Roman Empire-for the philosophers they are equally false; for the masses they are equally true; and for the rulers they are equally useful. Theologians and thoughtful Christian leaders are rightly worried about the abuses that sometimes attend what is called civic religion. The master worrier on this score was Reinhold Niebuhr, who warned against dividing the world into “the children of light and the children of darkness.” Some theologians condemn the use of John 1 in the September 11 speech as manifest blasphemy. I don’t think so. It goes right up to the line and threatens to go over it. America is not Christ; we are not the redeemer nation in a way analogous to his being the redeemer of the world. But Judeo-Christian and specifically Christian tropes are a common feature of this President’s public rhetoric. He has gifted speech writers who share his undoubtedly deep Christian convictions. He understands, as many public figures have not and do not, that American virtues such as tolerance and resolve are grounded in religious, and mainly Christian, commitments. He understands that, in moments of great public solemnity, addressing questions of life and death, war and peace, no other language will do if he is to effectively communicate with the American people. More than that, I believe it is the language required to convey his own understanding of history’s drama. In short, such civic religion—if that is the right term for it—is both risky and inevitable. It is not, however, just my theological scrupulosity that makes me wish he had said, “This the darkness will not overcome it.” It is a small but hope, too, is a light that shines in the darkness. And important difference. That being said, it is a refreshing thing to have a President who gives firm and graceful expression to the truth that we are a nation under God—meaning, first of all, under judgment—and that, as Lincoln insisted, the Almighty has His purposes that we must humbly strive to discern and obey, resting our final confidence not in our certainty but in His mercy.

· Popular columnist Bob Greene is out at the Chicago Tribune. It was discovered that he had a sexual contact with an eighteen-year-old woman eleven years ago. Radio host Dennis Prager and Greene had worked together in defense of a four-year-old boy, Danny Warburton, whom the Illinois Supreme Court took away from his family and gave to his birth father, who later abandoned the boy again. Prager writes: “I believe that every man and woman has a moral bank account. Our good deeds are deposits into that account, our bad deeds are withdrawals. It is our task as human beings to try to judge others’ accounts fairly, since every one of us has withdrawals—and if our deposits are ignored, we are all doomed to be judged worthless by others. When assessing people, what is therefore called for is perspective. We need it when judging anyone: strangers, friends, spouses, employees. In the overall context of a person’s life, is there a large amount in the person’s moral account? Then, while not denying the person’s sins—the withdrawals from his or her moral bank account—we must acknowledge the large balance that remains. Despite this particular withdrawal, Bob Greene’s moral bank account remains quite large. I have never personally met Bob Greene. During the Danny Warburton crisis, we spoke by phone almost every day, and only occasionally since. So this is not a brief on behalf of a friend. This is a brief on behalf of a good man who sinned. There are many children in Illinois and elsewhere who lead better lives, who are more loved, because of Bob Greene’s work on their behalf. Bob’s own children need to know that and never to forget it. Their dad strayed morally, and he has acknowledged it. But their dad is a good man. They should know that a lot of us know that. And always will. Not least, the Warburton and Prager families. Whatever sins he has committed pale alongside the good he has done, just as whatever good the five Illinois justices [in the Warburton case] did pales alongside the bad they did. When I realize that the five justices who ruined lives are still honored citizens in Illinois and that Bob Greene, who helped so many, is in disgrace, I recall the ancient Jewish proverb that the good get their punishments in this world and the bad in the next.” Others will no doubt point out that, given the storm over miscreant priests, and the example of the bishops at Dallas, the Tribune had to do what it did.

· A bishop publicly released the names of priests who, over many years, had been accused of sexually abusing minors. With a few exceptions, the alleged offenses occurred from the late sixties to the early eighties. It appears that some admitted their guilt, while others claimed to be innocent. In explaining why he released the names, the bishop indicated that the public had a right to know how many and which priests had been accused, adding, “Telling the truth cannot be wrong.” Well, not quite. If someone tells me that you are beating your wife, and I, regardless of the truth of the matter, tell someone else that I was told you are beating your wife, I am telling the truth, but it is very wrong to do so. “Transparency,” the virtue du jour in the wake of the scandals, can be achieved at too high a price. What is formally “telling the truth” is not always truthful; nor is it fair to those whose reputation and life’s work may be destroyed.

· Chilling developments are brought to our attention by Eric Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Brave New China,” appearing in the Weekly Standard, describes the ways in which that country is rushing pell mell into the strange new worlds of biotechnology. A “stem cell engineering institute” being constructed near Tianjin plans to fill its vaults with a half million embryonic stem cells, and Chinese scientists have been creating cloned human embryos and letting them grow for the purposes of conducting experiments and harvesting spare parts. Although much of Maoism has been debunked and many Chinese subscribe to the motto “to get rich is glorious,” Brown points out that the dominant doctrine among Chinese intellectuals and planners is still Marxist. “The Marxist shares none of our concern over technological alienation from nature or human nature, but rather is concerned entirely with how to deal with the problem of capitalist exploitation. One need only consider the human catastrophe of earlier Marxist revolutions (or even the devastation of nature in China or the former Soviet Union) to know where such frenzied technological hubris likely leads. The power to remake man genetically presupposes the willingness to treat human life as a genetic project. It distorts every aspect of our humanity into a material problem with a potential material solution. Given the suppression of intellectual and religious freedom in China today, there is at present little effective moral or political opposition to the idea that genetic engineering is destiny. Moreover, one can only expect that our own biotechnical innovations, once in Chinese hands, will be used to further the totalitarian project, regardless of the libertarian or humanitarian motives that might have inspired their creation here.” In addition to the one-child-per-couple policy of population control, the Chinese government is increasingly explicit about its embrace of eugenics, resulting in abortion or infanticide for “defectives,” and the sterilization of hundreds of thousands of women. All this in the name of a revolution aimed at “the new man in the new society”—a revolution that could end up making the human ravages of Mao’s cultural revolution look benign by comparison.

· I doubt if it should be at the top of anybody’s list of crises needing attention, but there is this ongoing argument about whether the Creed in the Liturgy should begin with “I believe” or “We believe.” It was changed to the latter some three decades ago, and now Rome wants it changed back. Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, has been for years a major player in what is termed liturgical renewal, and he recently gave a major speech decrying in somewhat alarmist tones what he views as Rome’s efforts to slow down, or even reverse, all the good things that have happened. He said, “The official Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states why we proclaim we believe. ‘I believe (Apostles’ Creed) is the faith of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during baptism. But we believe (Nicene Creed) is the faith of the Church confessed by the liturgical assembly of believers.’ (§167).” He adds that for Rome “to void this principle is a liturgical setback for community participation in the eucharist—it is a regression in the understanding of the community dimension of eucharist.” The Catechism, however, does not quite say what he says it says. It says, “‘We believe’ is the faith of the Church confessed by bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers.” It then concludes, “‘I believe’ is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both ‘I believe and ‘We believe.'” Yet more interesting is the reason Bishop Trautman objects to Rome’s proposal. “Are we to tell our people now that the bishops’ approval of these texts some thirty-five years ago and Rome’s confirmation of that approval was flawed? Has the English-speaking world been praying with inaccurate texts confirmed by the Holy See?” I suppose the answer to both questions is yes. Liberals are generally insistent that Rome should admit that it makes mistakes. Apparently it’s a bit dicier when the suggestion is that bishops should admit that bishops make mistakes. Although in this speech and many others Bishop Trautman insists that liturgical renewal means perpetual change, and it is hard to know why something should be changed if it is not flawed. As for the English texts, it is true, as I think almost all scholars acknowledge, that many of them are inaccurate translations. At least as big a problem is that the English translations are so banal and vulgar. Recall Father George Rutler’s answer when asked if there is anything he misses since leaving the Anglican communion: “Oh yes, the liturgy in English.” So what are we to make of Bishop Trautman’s complaint? With respect, he is an unhappy defender of the old guard of a liturgical establishment that over more than three decades has done a lot of things that many Catholics, and now Rome, think are deeply flawed. Why should that be so hard to accept, especially if one is devoted, as Bishop Trautman so manifestly is, to open-ended criticism and change? Why should the professional establishment of liturgists be exempt from such criticism and change? I believe these are valid questions, and more and more people seem to agree. The day may come when, with the exception of a few dissenters who have a steep stake in continuing to do what was done before, one will be able to say that we believe that.

· Here comes not quite everybody wanting to help me keep my “Here Comes Everybody” title for the Catholic Church in play, despite Jody Bottum’s cavils.
It is pointed out that the Catholic columnist Tim Unsworth titled his memoir Here Comes Everybody, attributing it to James Joyce. And Anthony Burgess’ introduction to Joyce is titled “Here Comes Everybody,” with apparent reference to the Church. Thanks for the efforts, but now if somebody could come up with evidence that Joyce actually said the Church is “Here Comes Everybody.”

· The informed estimate of Alexander N. Yakovlev is that under Lenin, Stalin, and their successors sixty million citizens were killed, mostly by political murder, and millions more died of starvation, mostly by regime-induced famines. Yakovlev should know. He reached the heights of the Politburo and Central Committee and, under Gorbachev, promoted the perestroika that presaged the end of the evil empire. Now repentant for his role in the terror, Yakovlev heads a committee working for what he admits is the hopeless task of providing restitution for the victims, but in A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia (Yale University Press) he draws on hitherto secret documents to at least clarify the record. Despite the author’s frequently disjointed writing style, this is a gripping story that, among other things, decisively debunks the myth that Stalin was an aberration who distorted the more benign intentions of Lenin. In agreement with scholars such as Richard Pipes, Yakovlev demonstrates that the murderous theories, passions, and policies were thoroughly Leninist. His chapter on the intelligentsia is a devastating account of the ways in which intellectuals, artists, and writers eagerly collaborated with the regime in doing one another in. He shows how, by way of sharpest contrast, churchmen offered courageous resistance, producing many thousands of martyrs. Stalin attempted to create an alternative “Red church”—in a way similar to Hitler’s Deutsche Christen among German Protestants—but was soon forced to give up for the lack of willing collaborators. He then decided on the more successful course of infiltrating the Russian Orthodox Church by appointing KGB agents and other puppets to high ecclesiastical positions. For many of today’s young people, all this is ancient history from which we have long since “moved on.” That is a great pity. Remembering the martyrs is a solemn duty. Remembering the consequences when the rule of God is displaced by the ideology of militant secularism—whether explicitly or just “functionally” atheistic—is necessary to preventing a repeat of history’s horrors, from which, it is to be feared, many Americans have not learned what must be learned if the foundations of freedom are to be secured.

· For the record: Several readers have pointed out that I misspoke when I said my friend James Finn and I “launched” Worldview magazine in the early seventies. They are right. Worldview was a publication of the Council on Religion and International Affairs begun many years earlier with William Clancy as its editor. Clancy went on to become a priest, and Jim succeeded him as Editor in 1961. It is more accurate to say that Worldview was re-launched in the early seventies in a very different format and with great ambitions, some of which were realized. I stand by my statement that Worldview “was in important ways the forerunner to FIRST THINGS.”

· Kenneth Woodward wrote in the last issue about the New York Times‘ obsessing over Catholic sex scandals, indicating how, in the absence of anything new, front-page stories rehash three or four times earlier front-page stories. The obsession has its amusing aspects. The Times has a feature called “World Briefing,” with short squibs of a few hundred words by correspondents around the world writing on events that do not warrant, or at least do not get, fuller treatment. The feature is divided into sections: Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In today’s paper, as usual, Europe gets most attention, with five stories treating right-wing politics in Austria, Ireland’s problems with the EU, the Greek rejection of Nazi-era claims for compensation, etc. For Africa, our attention is drawn to Mugabe’s repression in Zimbabwe, opposition politics in Kenya, and Christian-Muslim fighting in Nigeria, while the Asia coverage deals with human rights violations in China and Vietnam. Then we come to the “Americas” section. Americas, which excludes the U.S., takes in big countries such as Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, along with perpetual crisis spots of Central America, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Think of all the newsworthy things that must be happening in this huge area that includes hundreds of millions of people: earthquakes, economic turmoil, rebel insurgencies, assassinations, murders, trade agreements and disagreements, something new in literature or the arts, elections, and on and on. Surveying that large part of the globe from the heights of 43rd Street, an editor decides that from the Americas one item, and one item only, must be brought to the attention of the readers of the Times: a priest in Mexico City is accused of sexually abusing minors. Our newspaper of record comes through once again. (To the protest from the peanut gallery: no, I’m not obsessing over the Times. The item just happened to catch my eye as I was giving the Times its fifteen minutes of attention over early morning coffee. I thought it mildly amusing, as the Times, in its ideologically driven earnestness, increasingly is.)

· Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, is almost always worth listening to. (I don’t know why I slipped that “almost” in there. I suppose it’s from the habit of writing about lesser thinkers.) The Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center had Huntington in for an extended conversation with journalists in the course of which he expounded, as he does in his book, on the new centrality of culture rather than ideology in international conflicts, and the attendant reemergence of religion as a critical factor in human affairs. One of his themes was that globalization does not necessarily mean Westernization, never mind Americanization.
American executives of world companies, he notes, insist that “Globalization means localization,” and Huntington describes some of the ways in which companies such as McDonald’s make themselves indigenous to the countries where they operate. Yet many are offended by America’s “cultural imperialism,” and Huntington is asked how we might restrain the offensive aspects of our world hegemony. Huntington’s answer, I think, lifts up a dimension of globalization seldom discussed: “I’m an unrestrained enthusiast for restraint. I would hope we could act in a more cautious, moderate way. But I think in our culture there is the assumption of universalism, the assumption that everyone else in the world is basically like us in terms of culture and values. If they are not like us, they want to become like us. And if they don’t want to become like us, then there is something wrong with them. They don’t understand their true interests, and we have to persuade them to want to become like us. That’s a most unfortunate set of assumptions on our part, and it underlies a lot of what we do. We’re going to have to get used to living in a world where there are different cultures, different civilizations, different values and priorities. There may be some sort of convergence, but only over a very long period of time. I argue in my book that when countries begin to modernize, modernization and Westernization seem very closely linked, and the modernizing countries think they have to import all these things from the West in order to develop. In Japan, back in the 1870s, there was a big discussion of whether they should adopt English as a national language in order to modernize and develop. They decided not to, and they developed very nicely without having the benefits of the English language. But there’s this sort of assumption that the two have to go together. As the process goes on, however, modernization and Westernization become separate. As countries modernize, they tend to find new virtues in their traditional values and culture, and they attribute to those traditional values their success at modernization.”

· Get in line to list yours as “the fastest growing religion in America.” Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and now Wicca all make the claim. It helps if you start out with a really small number. Wicca claims fifty thousand, although it seems nobody has, or could, take a count. Wicca started with an English eccentric, Gerald Gardner, who in the late 1930s pasted together sundry rituals and customs, including nudity, from a local coven of witches, Indian folklore, and the far-out British sex practitioner Aleister Crowley. Wicca, the Anglo-Saxon word for wizard, he mistranslated as “wise one.” Catherine Sanders reviews a recent Wicca book, Witchcrafting: A Spiritual Guide to Making Magic, by Phyllis Curott. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Sanders says, “The sexual theme appears in her chapter on Sabbats, the Wiccan holidays. Curott instructs readers to not only dance ‘skyclad,’ but to ‘make love with someone you love’ after returning from the maypole celebration celebrated the first day of May. “And don’t forget to practice safe sex!’ she cheerily adds. You’d think that the ‘spirituality’ of Wicca would be vitiated by the fact that even its practitioners admit that they’ve made it all up. But the problem here is finally not that this is all silly and incoherent. It’s rather that those who practice it do so because they like toying with an evil they don’t actually believe exists, which gives them the frisson of doing something wicked while promising they’ll be safe doing it.” Of course it’s easy to dismiss all this as a silliness indulged by people with neuroses to spare, but that it is silly doesn’t mean it’s harmless, says Sanders. “After most Wiccan rituals, women are encouraged to turn to one another and inculcate self-worship by saying, “Thou Art Goddess.’ History suggests that beliefs rooted in narcissism and hedonism tend to issue in nasty consequences. Don’t go dancing naked around the maypole with these women. It starts silly, and it ends cruel.”

· As everyone knows, America is a hothouse of religious pluralism. If anyone doubts that, just refer him to Diane Eck’s The New Religious America, discussed in these pages in the October 2001 issue. In response to our society’s maddeningly churning diversity, the Veteran Affairs Department has changed its rules. Until 1979, grave headstones that the department provides for deceased veterans included only the Latin Cross, Star of David, and Wheel of Righteousness, representing Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist faiths. Now veterans or their families may choose from among no less than thirty-one emblems of belief, including Eckankar, Konko-Kyo, Hindu, and Atheist. There were 306,909 burials last year, and 98.96 percent of the emblems chosen were Christian (including Mormon and Unitarian), while 99.83 percent were Christian or Jewish. All the other emblems combined account for a grand total of 00.17 percent of those chosen. And you still persist in thinking that this country is, even in some minimal sociological sense, Christian America?

· The plot thickens. In the Weekly Standard, Mary Eberstadt published two articles, “Pedophilia Chic,” and a couple of years later, “Pedophilia Chic, Reconsidered.” Her point was that, as sure as deeper night follows night, the legitimation of pedophilia—or intergenerational sex, as it is politely called-is the next big breakthrough in sexual liberation. She cited as evidence the argument of Hanna Rosin in the New Republic that our laws reflect our hang-ups about childhood sexuality, as though Freud had never exploded the myth of the erotic innocence of children. Now Judith Levine has published Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, put out by the University of Minnesota Press, with a foreword by Joycelyn Elders, the former Surgeon General. Among Dr. Elders’ contributions to the public good, it may be recalled, was pointing out that many children suffer from inadequate skills in masturbating, and the schools should do something about that. Well, now Hanna Rosin reviews the Levine book, which gives her a chance to revisit the question of sex with children. Speaking of her New Republic piece, she writes, “In retrospect my tone was a bit too glib for the topic, and certain of my smug little asides make me cringe, especially now that I have a child.” In her book Levine writes, “Sex with children does not a pedophile make,” a sentence much pilloried by critics. Rosin says that Levine is simply guilty of sloppy grammar, that she really means no more than to say that someone who, maybe just once, has sex with a child does not necessarily fit the clinical profile of a pedophile. Rosin writes, “Grammar aside, Levine seems far too invested in vindicating pedophiles.” Just how invested should one be in vindicating pedophiles? Grammar aside, Rosin is now fairly sensible about the matter, suggesting that schools should butt out of the sex education business, lest they end up “robbing my children of their own chance for discovery, and dulling the mystery around the whole thing.” Levine, responding to Rosin’s criticism, defends both her argument and her grammar. Age of consent laws are arbitrary, she says, and not based on “any evidence of psychological harm.” Moreover, “statutory rape prosecutions often do a lot of harm to the putative victim.” Levine adds, lest there be any misunderstanding, “That doesn’t mean I condone all sex between adults and minors.” Somehow I do not think Mary Eberstadt will be reassured.

· There is no end of books and essays on the topic “Why I am still a Catholic,” the implication being that the authors are doing the Church a favor. In this respect, radical feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, who prefers to call herself a radical ecofeminist, provides a modicum of refreshment. Her purpose is to revolutionize the Catholic Church and, through it, the world. Many years ago, in response to the question why she remains a Catholic, she answered that that is where the mimeograph machines are. I suppose that today her answer would be technologically updated, but the substantive point is that the Church can be used for the revolution. Upon her retirement from twenty-five years of teaching at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, a Methodist school, Ruether said in an interview with U.S. Catholic magazine, “Frankly, if I hadn’t been born into the Catholic Church I doubt I would have joined it.” But she continues to be committed to the project of changing the Church and, she observes, “To do that, I need to continue to identify as a Catholic, although I also function ecumenically and interreligiously, so it’s not a limitation for me.” It is a position that has the merit, albeit very limited merit, of being frank.

· It’s time for the annual survey of names being given babies, something we do each time the government data is released. This year there is also a book on the subject, A Matter of Taste, by Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson. Lisa, Mary, Karen, Susan, and Kimberley are out. Emily, Madison, Hannah, Ashley, and Alexis are in. The latter were the most popular names for girls born in 2001. Emily and Hannah? Imagine that. They are names I associate with aunts and great-aunts born at the beginning of the last century. Madison, Ashley, and Alexis are, although most parents probably don’t know it, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century names for boys. The pattern holds that the cute and the novel prevail in naming girls. In the 1960s, Michael, David, John, James, and Robert were the top five for boys. Now it’s Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Joshua, and Christopher. The favorite names for boys continue to be biblical or religious in nature. Does this suggest that greater gravity comes into play in naming boys? That would seem to be the case. One way to put it is that boys are taken more seriously. Or it may be that the arrival of a baby girl evokes a greater mood of delight and whimsy. The story on the Lieberson book in the New York Times puts a modernizing spin on the matter: “Whether in names or clothes, fashion reflects the primacy of individual taste over inherited custom. The freer people feel to choose names they like, rather than names of relatives or saints, the faster names go through cycles. Boys’ names, which tend to be more influenced by custom, change slower.” But the writer does not ask why boys’ names change more slowly. One might suggest that there are few things more reflective of “inherited custom,” or perhaps even of human nature, than the intuition of parents that there really is a difference between boys and girls. The new thing, dominant in the slice of the culture to which the Times caters, is that that elementary intuition is viewed as deeply suspect.

· It was not until 1975 that the Times Literary Supplement adopted the policy of running signed reviews. Reviewing a book on the centenary of the TLS, David Lodge writes: “T. S. Eliot believed that anonymity was a beneficial discipline, especially for the young critic, when practiced under the eye of a scrupulous editor like Bruce Richmond. In a tribute to the latter on his ninetieth birthday, Eliot said: I learned to moderate my dislikes and crotchets, to write in a temperate and impartial way; I learned that some things are permissible when they appear over one’s name, which become tasteless eccentricity or unseemly violence when unsigned.” One may take liberties when writing in one’s own name. It’s not as though the august editorial board of a publication had resolved that John Doe’s argument is really dumb. It’s simply Whatshisname’s opinion of John Doe’s argument. At least I feel free to take such liberties in this space, although never, I hope, descending to the tasteless, eccentric, unseemly, or violent. Lodge refers to “the increasingly personalized, media-dominated cultural climate,” and I’ve been thinking about that in connection with the “blogger” phenomenon. Many readers are no doubt familiar with the rapidly multiplying number of personalized weblogs (hence “bloggers”) on the Internet. Andrew Sullivan is one of the phenomenon’s notable perpetrators and celebrants and he has remarked, half jokingly I assume, that this space is the original instance of blogging. This space is, I admit, largely composed of running and mostly random reflections and reactions occasioned by events, arguments, and sundry curiosities loosely related to the mix of religion, culture, and public life. And it is unabashedly personal. Yet I would prefer not to be classed with the bloggers. Not out of snobbery, mind you. There are some important differences. For one thing, there are other editors involved, and it is by no means rare that they persuade me that I really don’t want to say something that I said. Most important, there is a very big difference between the bloggers’ daily or five-times-per-day postings and a journal that appears ten times a year. We have a lead time of weeks between going to press and the journal’s hitting the mails, which makes the “use by” date an important consideration. Especially in commenting on unfolding developments, one must ask, “How will this read a month from now?” And, given our readers’ propensity for saving issues, copying items for classroom use, and citing them in articles and books, one asks, “How will this read a year or two from now?” That is somewhat short of the wisdom induced by writing sub specie aeternitatis, but it does provide a measure of perspective. It lends itself to more considered reflection than, for instance, blogger Mark Shea’s clever riposte to Kathryn Jean Lopez’s point posted fifteen minutes ago. Don’t get me wrong; I rather like the blogger insurgency. I quickly learned it can be addictive; going from link to link, you discover that you’ve wasted an hour or more on mildly entertaining ephemera. So I have a rule of giving the bloggers no more than fifteen minutes per day, which has the happy effect of cutting about the same amount of time from reading the Times, which in recent months, under the drearily leftist editorship of Howell Raines, has become less and less interesting, not to mention less and less reliable. Well, as you may have surmised, this little item rather perfectly illustrates the point, doesn’t it? Whether it will be of interest by the time you read this, I have no idea. But it is provoked by the estimable T. S. Eliot’s observation about personalized writing, and may therefore stand the test, if not of the ages, at least of a few weeks.

· There’s that old gibe about a nuclear bomb dropped on New York and eliciting the Washington Post headline, “Nuclear Attack on New York: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.” In an instance of life aspiring to parody, the Post headline about a mad sniper who drove around the D.C. area killing people at apparent random reads, “Arbitrary Victims, Identical Fate: County’s Growing Diversity Reflected in Those Gunned Down.” There’s a bright side to everything.

· There has been a striking increase in the number of high school seniors, male and female, who say they are virgins. Researchers attribute that to the rampant spread of venereal diseases, plus the effect of abstinence programs. We may hope that a moral awakening may be a contributing factor. Also, a national study by the University of California, Berkeley, finds that there are significantly different views on abortion between Americans aged fifteen to twenty-two and those aged twenty-seven to fifty-nine. Forty-four percent of the young people-compared to 34 percent of the adults-support various restrictions on abortion. Planned Parenthood and its allies say this is because young people do not remember when abortions were illegal, and there is no doubt something to that. People who think there are too many abortions and favor more protective laws for the unborn, but also want to keep abortion as a fall-back option in emergencies, have not yet experienced a moral awakening. On the other hand, more protective laws would save lives. Perhaps with the consequence that people would no longer think there are “too many” abortions. So the news from the Berkeley study is mixed. Much like life itself.

· For years Hadley Arkes of Amherst pressed and pushed and argued and countered counterarguments, until he was at risk of making a pest of himself. Would it not be a good idea, he relentlessly queried, to at least take a very small step and establish in law that it is not allowed to kill babies who are already born? You might have thought that was already the law, but it was not. The pro-abortion position is that even a born baby is to have its existence defined exclusively by the mother. If she has an abortion, for the obvious reason that she does not want a baby, then a baby born alive is, in the eyes of the law, not a baby and could be killed. Or, as one judge put it, “the woman has a right to a dead fetus.” It sounds as grotesque as it is, but that was the state of the law. Until Professor Arkes finally prevailed and all his erudite peskiness paid off with the passage of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. Now it is established that a born baby is not an entity defined by human will but is a baby, and is not to be killed. Planned Parenthood and its allies fought the measure every step of the way, saying it was a small but crucial move in the direction of overturning Roev. Wade Let us hope they are right. Just between us, I think that is what my friend Hadley Arkes had in mind all along. Now the irrepressible fellow comes back with a list of possible measures President Bush might initiate, such as Justice Department inquiries into abortion-related practices in hospitals and other facilities receiving federal funds. They might not have any immediate legal or other practical effect, but they might put the pro-abortionists further on the defensive. Arkes writes: “And yet, just by posing these questions, or mulling over, in public, the possibility of executive orders, the administration could set off tremors among its adversaries. Perhaps President Bush could even ponder a problem aloud, as Ronald Reagan often did, in his remarks on the State of the Union. Mr. Bush could say, ‘We came together as Republicans and Democrats to protect the child who survived an abortion. But what does that mean? Does the child have an intrinsic dignity that commands our respect and protection? And if so, what follows from that? How does that understanding bear on the way we treat other children, born or unborn? I am not offering answers tonight; I just pose the question.’ The President may not wish to remind some of his followers that his position on abortion is one they find uncomfortable. Still, they are not likely to be offended by a simple, disarming posing of questions. There is little to be lost in this gentle public teaching, and yet it may set off movements that cause wonder to us all.” Hadley Arkes, it should be added, knows about gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) measures that set off changes that cause wonder to us all. If there are pro-life organizations out there that are bestowing awards in the near future, Prof. Arkes can be reached at Amherst College, Department of Political Science, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002.

· The “Jewish lobby” has America in its hip pocket. So says Philip Weiss, a leftist columnist of the New York Observer. It’s not polite to mention the Jewish lobby, he says, but it is the power that is calling the plays. He calls “moronic” a talk show on the difference between European and American attitudes toward the Middle East. The show ignored the obvious: “Jews are empowered in American society in a way that they are not in Europe. Indeed, Jewish money may be the most important segment of Democrat Party fund-raising.” In this year’s primaries, Jewish money bankrolled the defeat of Congressmen who dared to speak a brave word for Palestinian rights, Weiss complains. But liberal Jews don’t want to talk about the nefarious workings of the Zionist lobby. A liberal journalist friend told Weiss, “Well, we know where that conversation ends up: in the ovens of Auschwitz.” So afraid are Jews of stirring an anti-Semitic backlash. Liberal Jews pretend to be shocked when Arabs speak about the Jewish influence in the American media. The Arabs are simply stating the obvious, says Weiss. “It’s only understandable that these theories have taken root. Jews represent an American elite. They have money, they have power, and Ariel Sharon has explicitly called upon them to use their influence over the American political process.” As a result, liberal Jews are holding hands with “right-wing Republicans” and other unsavory types. “The [William] Kristols, [Charles] Krauthammers, and [William] Safires have brought in their crowd—neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals.” That these men, all Jews, command the constituency of evangelical Christians is a fresh insight into the curious workings of American politics. Philip Weiss has a point, however unoriginal, about the influence of Jews in our country and its policy toward the Middle East. Whether one wants to call it “the Jewish lobby” is, I suppose, a matter of taste, at least in part. Most Jews are strongly pro-Israel, having reason to believe that some of the nations surrounding it just may mean what they say when they declare their intention to drive the Jewish state into the sea. As for evangelical Christians, they are hardly the puppets of Jewish neocons (or of the libertarian Safire). They have their own reasons-sometimes wildly apocalyptic, more often soberly biblical-for believing that there is a providentially intended connection between Jews, Christians, and the land they call holy. So why is Philip Weiss flirting with language about Jewish conspiracies that is reminiscent of old-fashioned anti-Semites? Because, I expect, he, like many extremists on both the right and the left, has a hard time accepting that people who disagree with him have, they think, good and entirely respectable reasons for doing so.

· Militant Islam Reaches America by Daniel Pipes (Norton) makes some important points, Judith Miller allows in the New York Times Book Review. But his description of the threat posed by militant Islam, or Islamism, has a sometimes “intemperate tone” and, more important, lacks balance. “His prescriptions for what he calls the world’s most dangerous movement,” Ms. Miller writes, “barely mention the need to defend America’s secularism or the extent to which secular laws, values, and traditions are under attack not only by militant Muslims but also by the Bush administration and its allies on the Christian right.” But of course. Islamists fly passenger planes into skyscrapers, execute homosexuals and political dissenters, forbid women to show their faces in public, and threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction. But how about the religious fanatics at the Family Research Council who encourage family stability, urge the protection of unborn children, and support parental choice in education? She got you there, Dan Pipes.

· In Toronto, 800,000 young people hung on his every word. Then he was off to Mexico where he was greeted by what was probably the largest gathering in human history. Then, in quick succession, to Poland where millions turned out to listen, to pray, and to cheer. Each step of the way was accompanied, as usual, by media commentary on his fragility, and speculation that he would now retire. As twenty years ago his youthful athleticism carried the message of vibrant joy in discipleship, so now his physical weakness proclaims the mystery of participation in redemptive suffering. In response to questions about his resigning, he has repeatedly said, “Christ did not come down from the cross.” Uwe Simon-Netto, religion correspondent for UPI and a Lutheran, writes of such press speculation: “Did they really believe that this man who has stood up to the Nazis, the Communists, and a potential assassin had suddenly turned into a petit bourgeois, who says, ‘Ah, it’s so cozy at home. I’ll stay. Let others worry now about evangelizing the world.’ Misreading this Pope is of course a quintessentially postmodern malady. We live in a time when it’s fashionable to abandon one’s responsibilities. Husbands and wives run away from each other at the flimsiest excuses. Parents abandon their children or just have them killed before birth when it seems inconvenient to carry a pregnancy to term. … Let’s face it, those Pope watchers, who keep cooking up rumors about their man shuffling about a Polish park in felt slippers soon, like some retired postal clerk, are simply caught up in their postmodern narcissism. This is why they fail to grasp the essence of this remarkable man.”

· “We pray for the victims today. May they rest in peace,” said John Paul II a year after September 11. “And may God show mercy and forgiveness for the authors of this horrible terror attack.” The reaction of Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist, is representative of several I’ve read. Jacoby makes clear that he’s a great admirer of the Pope, but then goes on to say, “Nonetheless, his prayer is an affront,” and explains why. Forgiveness must be earned, he says, and offering forgiveness without repentance by the offenders is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant by “cheap grace.” The claim that we are to love and forgive unrepentant evildoers “is worse than theologically unsound; it eats away at the very foundation of civilization,” and so forth. So who is responsible for leading the good Pope astray in this instance? I suppose we could blame Jesus who said that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Sometimes, as in Luke 17, he speaks of forgiving the brother who repents, but at other times there is no condition, and nowhere does he speak of forgiveness as being earned. Jacoby defends the Jewish understanding of these matters and that’s fair enough. “In the moral universe as in the physical universe,” he writes, “there is an order to things. Repentance comes before forgiveness, not the other way around. Those who forgive unrepentant evildoers make the world not a better place, but a worse one.” Well, yes and no. On the question of love and forgiveness there may be, as many claim, a substantive difference between Judaism and Christianity. In any event, it’s worth noting that the Pope did not forgive the terrorists; he prayed that God might show them mercy and forgiveness. We hear people say, “God may forgive them, but I can’t.” That’s understandable, if it is understood as a confession of our spiritual weakness. But we know we are called to forgive. If I say I forgive the terrorists, it is not—as in sacramental absolution—a statement that affects their standing before the judgment of God. It is certainly not to be confused with excusing what they did. If what they did was excusable, there would be no occasion for forgiving them. To say I forgive them is a statement of my disposition toward them. In full awareness of the evil they did, and never forgetting it, I pray them well; I pray they may find the mercy and forgiveness of God: I refuse to hate them. Others who would do such things must be stopped, if necessary by force, for the good of those whom they would harm and also for their own good. In sum, and just as He told us to, I love my enemies. I confess that I’m not always very good at this, but I’m working on it, in the keen awareness that, if I do not forgive them, I jeopardize my hold on the sheer gift, all unearned, of being forgiven.

· A third or more of our subscribers teach in colleges or universities, and we’ve been thinking about how to turn that to the journal’s advantage, and to the advantage of younger thinkers who should be reading FT. So here is what we came up with. If you teach at a college or university and have two or three students who graduated this past year who you think would benefit from reading FT and might become long-term subscribers, please send us their names and addresses and we will send them a one-year subscription absolutely free. In the hope, of course, that they will renew on their own. And, with your permission, we will tell them that the subscription is given on your recommendation. But please, no more than three or it will bust our budget. Send names and addresses to FIRST THINGS, 156 Fifth Avenue, Suite 400, New York, New York 10010. Thank you.

Sources: Gordon Marino on business ethics, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2002. Usurpations of politics in New Jersey, New Jersey Law Journal, September 30, 2002. On the Confiteor, personal correspondence. Gilbert Meilaender on medical progress, Weekly Standard, August 26 and September 2, 2002. Peter Singer on world government, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 2002. Denis Donoghue on Garry Wills, New York Review of Books, October 24, 2002. Eric Brown on “brave new China,” Weekly Standard, September 23, 2002. Bishop Donald Trautman on translation of the Creed, Origins, September 19, 2002. What’s newsworthy in the Americas, New York Times, September 19, 2002. Catherine Sanders on Wicca, Weekly Standard, November 26, 2001. Christian America and the Veterans Administration, Washington Post, May 27, 2002. Pedophilia chic revisited, Slate, June 4, 2002. Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Catholicism, Christian Century, May 22 and 29, 2002. Baby names, New York Times, May 23, 2002. On blogging, New York Review of Books, May 23, 2002. Diversity in death, Washington Post, October 3, 2002. Virginity and abortion in high school, Pro-Life Infonet, September 25, 2002. The irrepressible Hadley Arkes, World, August 24, 2002. Philip Weiss on the Jewish lobby, New York Observer, September 23, 2002. Judith Miller on Islamism, New York Times Book Review, September 29, 2002. Uwe Siemon-Netto on John Paul II, UPI, August 19, 2002.
Jeff Jacoby on forgiveness, Boston Globe, September 15, 2002.