The Mice That Roared

Call to Action, otherwise known as the U.S. Bishops Conference on Liberty and Justice for All, met in the devastated city of Detroit from October 20 to 23, with some 1,300 delegates attending. My wife was a delegate from the diocese of Grand Rapids; and I, wearing a press badge, went along to shelter her from the sturdy beggars and masterless men of the Cass Corridor, which howling slum marches with the convention center on the Detroit River.

What happened at Cobo Hall during those four days will cause sound and fury within the Catholic Church of this country for some years. In name, this convention of clergy and laity was the grand Bicentennial event of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. But how much the majority of delegates actually intended to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the Republic may be gathered from this passage in one of the resolution documents adopted by the assembly: “While we affirm with gratitude all the positive elements in our heritage, we are conscious of our complicity in the many injustices committed at home and abroad through our uncritical acceptance of the social, economic, and political system in which we participate. We hear the cries of our oppressed brothers and sisters.”

RK

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Russell Kirk

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Call to Action, otherwise known as the U.S. Bishops Conference on Liberty and Justice for All, met in the devastated city of Detroit from October 20 to 23, with some 1,300 delegates attending. My wife was a delegate from the diocese of Grand Rapids; and I, wearing a press badge, went along to shelter her from the sturdy beggars and masterless men of the Cass Corridor, which howling slum marches with the convention center on the Detroit River.

What happened at Cobo Hall during those four days will cause sound and fury within the Catholic Church of this country for some years. In name, this convention of clergy and laity was the grand Bicentennial event of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. But how much the majority of delegates actually intended to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the Republic may be gathered from this passage in one of the resolution documents adopted by the assembly: “While we affirm with gratitude all the positive elements in our heritage, we are conscious of our complicity in the many injustices committed at home and abroad through our uncritical acceptance of the social, economic, and political system in which we participate. We hear the cries of our oppressed brothers and sisters.”