Books, Arts & Manners: The Right Books

In 1980, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter on Marxist Communism versus the Catholic faith, in which they made the discovery that, although the distance between the two (as between the Western democracies and the Communist regimes) was real, it was nevertheless incumbent upon North America to cooperate with Marxist governments in order to promote “maintenance of world peace and eradication of global poverty.” Gratified and encouraged by applause from the right quarters, they proceeded to produce a second pastoral, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, which, when it was finally released in May 1983, shocked the laity but further consolidated the bishops’ growing reputation as concerned publicpolicy analysts. Currently they are gestating a third pastoral (expected to be released next year), a draft of which appeared last November under the title Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy and promptly became something of a scandal within the American Catholic community. Challenge and Response: Critiques of the Catholic Bishops’ Draft Letter on the U.S. Economy (Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1030 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005; $4), edited by Robert Royal and consisting of spirited and, in some cases, nearly incredulous, remarks by Peter L. Berger, Michael Novak, Robert J. Samuelson, Andrew M. Greeley, George F. Will, Charles Krauthammer, Philip F. Lawler, and the Lay Commission of the American Catholic Committee, suggests exactly how much of a scandal it is, and should be. “Traditionally,” Lawler remarks, “a pastoral letter is read aloud to the Catholic faithful at Sunday Mass. The new brand of political pastoral aims for an entirely different audience.”

As is well known by now, the pastoral draft represents the bishops’ belated discovery of every left-of-center indictment hurled at American capitalism over the past 25 years, as well as of every exploded solution to every item in that indictment. Here it all comes again, set forth in the ghostly tones of a hollow morality fit only to drape the resurrected, but unliving, corpses of a generation of infirm ideas whose time is firmly past: the need for a bill of “economic rights,” for a commitment by the state to full employment, for “welfare reform” (meaning more of what we’ve got), for a “North-South Dialogue” (meaning a greater share of the Northern Hemisphere’s supposedly ill-gotten wealth for the under-developed countries), and for “Global Affirmative Action.”

In 1980, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter on Marxist Communism versus the Catholic faith, in which they made the discovery that, although the distance between the two (as between the Western democracies and the Communist regimes) was real, it was nevertheless incumbent upon North America to cooperate with Marxist governments in order to promote “maintenance of world peace and eradication of global poverty.” Gratified and encouraged by applause from the right quarters, they proceeded to produce a second pastoral, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, which, when it was finally released in May 1983, shocked the laity but further consolidated the bishops’ growing reputation as concerned publicpolicy analysts. Currently they are gestating a third pastoral (expected to be released next year), a draft of which appeared last November under the title Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy and promptly became something of a scandal within the American Catholic community. Challenge and Response: Critiques of the Catholic Bishops’ Draft Letter on the U.S. Economy (Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1030 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005; $4), edited by Robert Royal and consisting of spirited and, in some cases, nearly incredulous, remarks by Peter L. Berger, Michael Novak, Robert J. Samuelson, Andrew M. Greeley, George F. Will, Charles Krauthammer, Philip F. Lawler, and the Lay Commission of the American Catholic Committee, suggests exactly how much of a scandal it is, and should be. “Traditionally,” Lawler remarks, “a pastoral letter is read aloud to the Catholic faithful at Sunday Mass. The new brand of political pastoral aims for an entirely different audience.”

As is well known by now, the pastoral draft represents the bishops’ belated discovery of every left-of-center indictment hurled at American capitalism over the past 25 years, as well as of every exploded solution to every item in that indictment. Here it all comes again, set forth in the ghostly tones of a hollow morality fit only to drape the resurrected, but unliving, corpses of a generation of infirm ideas whose time is firmly past: the need for a bill of “economic rights,” for a commitment by the state to full employment, for “welfare reform” (meaning more of what we’ve got), for a “North-South Dialogue” (meaning a greater share of the Northern Hemisphere’s supposedly ill-gotten wealth for the under-developed countries), and for “Global Affirmative Action.”