The Oldest Shall be First

Ken; basically just saying hello and seeing "what's up." Not much doing here, Jeremy's
full time basketball it seems and I am having great leisure time. We'll travel around later but I
don't know where or when just yet. I do have a reading note however, regarding a guy I
heard speak at an ecumenical get together and was impressed enough to buy two of his books.
Now I'm more impressed.

I just finished a powerful and moving story. Not fiction. Rather a personal and family memoir by
James Carroll entitled An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us.
Carroll is a novelist (Mortal Friends, et.al.) and former (and decidedly liberal) priest.
His father was General James Carroll: FBI man, favorite of J. Edgar Hoover, intimate of
Kennedy, Johnson, & McNamara and, with his wife, a devout and decidedly traditional
Catholic. He was also head of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and helped pick
bombing targets in Vietnam. The writer begins as a dutiful and somewhat awestruck son
and then a priest who, in the 60's & 70's comes, via Pope John XXIII, M. L. King, Jr., Father
Berrigan, et al. (and on his own), to question all he'd been brought up to believe about the
church, his society, his government, his father and his God. This is the story of the turmoil all that
caused. I don't think you must yourself have broken with a powerful and much admired father
over his most deeply held beliefs to be enraptured by this book. But it helps. It won a National
Book Award, after all, so it's appeal must be broad.

What got me to read this book was Mr. Carroll's most recent book, the controversial
Constantine's Sword, which I also very highly recommend. It details the deplorable
history of Christian, particularly the Catholic Church's, persecution and murder of Jews
from earliest times to those of the Nazis. Given this history, the wonder is that there were
any Jews left for Hitler to murder! Even more powerfully, this ex-Paulist priest examines
what it is in the heart of Christian belief that has made this record -- and present
anti-Semitism -- not only possible but virtually inevitable. He does write of what could
have been, might have been, if other voices had been heeded, such as Peter Abelard
(of Abelard & Heloise), and what must change: not just in action but in the foundational beliefs
of Christianity for a genuine relationship of real respect to exist between Christians and Jews
(and other religions)

Whew! Back to mysteries for a while. Dan

Whew! is right. I think when I get a bit
farther away from the Sturm and Drang
of teaching every day, I may be able to
take on books like these. But right now it
seems too daunting. I am really glad to
know that there are good, thoughtful people
out there thinking, writing, and reading
about these things. Now, is there some way
to get these ideas into broader public debate?