Yesterday, some people on the Catholic blogosphere commented on a statement given by Rev Jose Gabriel Funes saying that alien life could exist. The one thing I didn’t see in the news report, and the one thing which should have been reported, is that this is a long-standing tradition and viewpoint (not doctrinal nor dogmatic, but a valid theological opinion) which existed in the Church before the Reformation. One can find this view, for example, in the works of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401 - 1464). We can see this in the following quote which pre-supposes their existence: Read the rest of this entry »
Thursday is finally back, and he is considering supernaturalism, tradition, and the law. He raises an interesting point: why do the religious tend to fall back on religious arguments? There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but the point of argument is to inform and persuade. This often means adapting to audience, even as there is refusal to compromise on principle. How often do we fail to consider how our interactions appear? How little do we attempt empathy outside of ourselves?
I found this exchange between Jonathan Alter and Mickey Kaus fascinating. According to Alter, unions have largely been venal, short-sided, and generally bad for society. Yet he thinks we ought to expand their power and influence in the hope that they will behave in a more enlightened manner. Alter’s concern (in his words, “unskilled workers are getting the shaft”) is of course legitimate, but so far as I can tell his line of reasoning is pretty much the “politician’s logic” from Yes, Prime Minister: Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.
But perhaps even Alter is insufficiently appreciative of the value of unions. I know that for a lot of people (including a lot of Catholics), that unions are beneficial to workers and to society as a whole is less a question of fact than an article of faith. My apartment is across the street from the headquarters of a union local, and in front of the building they have erected a giant digital billboard, across which constantly scroll slogans about how if it wasn’t for unions we would all be living in conditions of squalor and near slavery. The actual evidence on the point, however, is not nearly so stark. Read the rest of this entry »
I live in earthquake territory. So when I read the news about a major earthquake and that cities the size of my city are reduced to rubble in China, I feel like their city could so easily be my city.
Right now, China needs our prayers for:
*Roadways to be cleared of debris so help can reach those currently cut off.
*Help for those buried and still alive under rubble.
Dear Mary, we ask for your powerful intercessory prayers in this terrible situation. Amen.
The truth of Christian life is like manna: it is not possible to hoard it for it is fresh today and spoiled tomorrow. A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power. The vessel that holds it — for example, the language, the world of images and concepts –becomes dusty, rusts, crumbles away; that which is old remains young only when it is drawn, with all the strength of youth, into relation with that which is still older, with that in time which is perpetual: the present-day revelation of God. No Holy Communion is like another, although it is the same Christ who gives himself. In the same way, no sermon and no word of doctrine, indeed no Christian word at all and no Christian thought can be the same as any other, although each is a vessel and a form of the one, eternal Word among us. To honor the tradition does not excuse one from the beginning each time, not with Augustine or Thomas or Newman, but with Christ. And the greatest figures of Christian salvation history are honored only by the one who does today what they did then, or what they would have done if they had lived today. The cross-check is quickly done, and it is shows the tremendous impoverishment, not only in spirit and life, but also quite existentially: in thoughts and points of view, themes and ideas, where people are content to understand tradition as the handing-on of ready-made results. Boredom manifests itself at once, and the neatest systematics fails to convince, remains of little consequence. The little groups of those who have come to an understanding with one another and cultivate what they take to be the tradition become more and more esoteric, foreign to the world, and more and more misunderstood, although they do not condescend to take notice of their alienation. And one day the storm that blows the dried-up branch away can no longer be delayed, and this collapse will not be great, because what collapses had been a hollow shell for a very long time.
–Hans Urs von Balthasar, Razing the Bastions. trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 33 - 35.
“The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington,” McCain said in remarks he planned to give at the Vestas Wind Technology plant.
“Good stewardship, prudence, and simple common sense demand that we act to meet the challenge, and act quickly,” he added.
“I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges,” he added.
Heck, if I thought it seriously within the power of the Democratic Party to reduce abortion by 50% in ten years, I’d pretty seriously consider voting for them.
While the Dem’s 95-10 plan has been DOA for years (here is Obama supporter Doug Kmiec arguing that his candidate should support the plan, though he currently does not), let me offer a counter-proposal: “The Trillion Dollar Plan“
The plan devotes one trillion dollars over ten years to the reduction of “lawful” abortion (100 billion a year). Five hundred billion could be devoted to educating youngsters about the sacredness of sexuality, the profanity of promiscuity, and the horror of abortion (that’s about $2500 per child per year). The other half of The Trillion Dollar Plan could support maternity homes (i.e., free housing, free food, free counseling), adoption centers, and subsidized health care (that’s about $25,000 per crisis pregnancy per year).
Why support the The Trillion Dollar Plan?
For Republicans: How much do you want to stop the slaughter of our unborn? Badly enough to risk our nation’s wealth? Put your money where your mouth is.
For Democrats: Do you want the Catholic vote? Do you want to win the White House? Then listen carefully: end your party of death.
It has been my hope that through this dialogue the Governor would come to understand her obligation: 1) to take the difficult political step, but necessary moral step of repudiating her past actions in support of legalized abortion and 2) in the future would use her exceptional leadership abilities to develop public policies extending the maximum legal protection possible to the unborn children of Kansas.
Having made every effort to inform and to persuade Governor Sebelius and after consultation with Bishop Ron Gilmore (Dodge City), Bishop Paul Coakley (Salina) and Bishop Michael Jackels (Wichita), Read the rest of this entry »
Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, tells us that it is an open question. While it is always and in every case immoral to directly kill a human zygote or embryo, the moral status of this action is not based upon the certainty that a human zygote is a person or has a soul. The moment of “ensoulment” has been a debate in Catholic theology for a millennium and a half, and even occupied St. Thomas Aquinas (who held that ensoulment occurred at time after conception). Fr. Pacholczyk attempts to maneuver the moral landscape in his essay, arguing from teleological and eschatological standpoints with respect to the human embryo’s development. His main points are:
Sometimes is seems like every day the line between parody and reality gets a little harder to draw. To wit.:
A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.” No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,” is enough to short circuit the brain.
A “clear majority” of the panel adopted what it called a “biocentric” moral view, meaning that “living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive.” Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim “absolute ownership” over plants and, moreover, that “individual plants have an inherent worth.” This means that “we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.” Read the rest of this entry »
“We say that it is time for civilization to draw inspiration from a concept other than that of strife, of violence, of war, of oppression, to set the world on the way to true justice for all. We say that Peace is not cowardice, is not faint-hearted weakness. Peace must gradually, immediately if possible, substitute moral strength for brute force; it must substitute reason, speech and moral greatness for the fatal, and too often fallacious efficacy of arms, of violent means, and of material and economic power. Peace is Man, who has ceased to be a wolf to his fellow man, Man in his invincible moral power. This it is that must today prevail in the world.”
If you’re a married woman living in the New York City area, there’s a better than 50 percent chance that you don’t work, according to a recent analysis of Census data by economists affiliated with the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.
More specifically, only 49 percent of white high school-educated married women in their prime working ages were holding down jobs in the New York area as of the 2000 Census. To put that in perspective, there are roughly 2 million woman over 15-years-old who are married in the New York area.
The national average for this particular demographic is 67 percent. At the other end of the spectrum is Minneapolis where almost 80 percent of these married women are employed — that’s larger than the percentage of working men aged 25 and older in the U.S.
What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to donate money to Planned Parenthood and drastically shorten the time someone spends as a mother! That’s what actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner say by their actions. Nothing prevents an infant from getting to Meet the Parents like A Perfect Murder.
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, `Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37 - 39).
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Act 2: 1 - 4)
Pentecost is one of those great events which we Christians know and experience, and yet we cannot quite understand or explain it. The glory of Pentecost is the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The history of the Church is the history of Pentecost, the history of the Spirit in the world. But that is the problem - we receive the Spirit because of the glorification of Christ; we experience the eschaton in all of its glory, and yet find ourselves still of the world, living in and through world history. The end of all things is fulfilled in Christ and experienced by us in our participation in Christ, and yet the world has not ended. The glory of God is over all the earth and yet that glory appears as if it is hidden. What are we to make of this?
One of the most common criticisms of Wal-Mart is that it drives small “Mom and Pop” businesses out of business, because they can’t afford to compete with the larger store’s prices and selection. If true, this would be a mark against the company (though whether this downside would be more than compensated by, say, the store’s lower prices and wider selection is a different matter). But is it true?
According to a recent article in Regulation by West Virginia University profs Andrea Dean and Russell Sobel, the answer is: not really. Dean and Sobel compared the number of small businesses in operation to the number of Wal-Marts both by state and over time. What they found was that while the presence of Wal-Mart in a community did affect the types of small businesses likely to be present in that community, it didn’t reduce the number of small businesses in the community overall. In other words, communities with a Wal-Mart tended to have fewer small businesses that were direct competitors with Wal-Mart (for obvious reasons), but they also tended to have more small businesses that weren’t direct competitors.
This isn’t terribly surprising. If people can buy there food and clothing at Wal-Mart using a smaller percentage of their income than they could buying from other stores, doing so will free up money that can be spent on other things, creating business opportunities that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »
The citizens of Bolivia will vote by referendum on whether their president, Evo Morales, should stay in office. The confidence vote, which is actually Morales’ idea, has recently been embraced by the Bolivian Senate, which has long resisted his moves for reform. According to the BBC, the confidence vote will take place within 90 days.
Michael Iafrate previously blogged about Bolivia’s choice to end its association with the School of the Americas.
As I have noted, the politics of Latin America have been leaning left in recent years, a trend perhaps aptly illustrated by the recent election of Fernando Lugo Méndez to Paraguay’s presidency. Nevertheless, I get the sense that we may be witnesses the end of Morales’ brief tenure of leadership. If roughly 54% of the Bolivian population votes against Morales, a new general election will be held. This is just the sort of scenario that motivates the opposition. Stay tuned.
That is the central theme behind David Mamet’s intriguing new movie, Redbelt. Don’t let the fact that the central character, Mike Terry (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), is a fight instructor make you think that this is your typical martial arts film. Yes, martial arts, specifically Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, are central to the story. But it’s helps form the basis by which the drama can be played. The movie is about Mike Terry and his desire to be true to himself and his ideals, even when it pushes him, his friends, and his family to the breaking point. He is used and abused by many around him; indeed, one could say his life is in shambles, and yet… there is an escape. There is a way out.
Thank you to myCatholic.com for including Vox Nova in their “Commentary and Opinion” section! I just recently adapted my own myCatholic page to my home and work computer. I am very impressed with the concept and execution, and I recommend it to all our readers as a nice internet touchstone for Catholicism and news on the web.
As a product of, and a dean at, a Catholic school, I laud and appreciate President Bush’s praise of religious-affiliated schools. Bush hosted the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools at the end of last month, where he described religious schools as a glorious part of the history of the United States. The National Catholic Education Associate website has some candid photos of the event.
As Katerina noted last week, Senators Clinton and McCain favor a temporary suspension of the federal gasoline tax, as a means of lowering voters pain at the pump. Senator Obama, by contrast, is opposed to such a measure, favoring instead a “windfall profits” tax for oil companies (Clinton favors a windfall profits tax in addition to the gas tax holiday, while McCain is opposed).
To say that economists aren’t supportive of Clinton and McCain’s gas tax holiday idea would be an understatement. Indeed, there wasn’t a single economist who appeared ready to defend the idea. Until now, that is. Yesterday’s New York Times contains an op-ed by Bryan Caplan, an econ professor at George Mason, arguing that considering the alternatives, the gas tax holiday is a pretty good deal:
[T]he tax holiday is a relatively cheap symbolic gesture that makes truly bad policies less likely. The main causes of high gas prices are probably factors beyond our control, like rapid growth in China and India and low real interest rates. But voters don’t want to hear this; they want politicians to “do something!”
During our last big energy crisis, in the 1970s, “something” turned out to be a salad of populist nonsense: price controls, rationing, windfall profits taxes, arcane loopholes and lots of lawsuits. That political response turned an inconvenience into a disaster. Read the rest of this entry »
68% of Brazilians agree with their nation’s laws that restrict abortion only to cases of rape or the endangered life of the mother. Only 11% of Brazilians think abortion should be decriminalized. Well, a health committee in Brazilian parliament hearkened unto their call on Wednesday, rejecting a proposal that would legalize abortion. Thank God for the moral clarity of our brethren in Brazil!
Fellow Vox Nova contributor, Soutenus, wrote a post on her blog about her experience with Adoration and her son.
I have been feeling the urge lately to add adoration into my life. Something about just having silence and quiet and being in Christ’s presence that pulls me.
I am interested to know, do you have Adoration stories to tell? How has Adoration changed your life? Your family’s life?
From what we have examined, we could get a very strange picture of Theophilus. On the one hand, we have a very educated leader. Even before becoming Patriarch, he was known for his sharp mind. He had been a secretary for St Athanasius. Since he had distinguished himself with such great skill in that role, he became a popular choice for the Patriarchate.[i]It was from this erudition that he first stated his opposition to an anthropomorphic theology. Clearly he was influenced by the same strains of thought as the Origenists he was to condemn. Because of this, many have viewed his actions as purely political.[ii]Indeed, with the evidence we have, Theophilus could easily be seen to be like a politician who acted upon an opinion poll. But to view him like this would be wrong; he was not simply motivated by the shifting political tide. Rather, it is better to look at Theophilus and how he acted based upon the position he held: that of pastor.
I came upon the interesting and encouraging group Catholic Democrats this morning. This organization looks to be very promising in terms of understanding the interplay and interchange of Catholic social teaching and public life. I most certainly will be a regular reader of its articles and statements.
Here’s a description of the organization from the Catholic Democrats site:
Catholic Democrats is a national non-profit organization of concerned Catholics, based in Boston. We present the weekly scriptures on this page because our organization is grounded in the Gospels, and faithful to the social teachings of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. We have brought together people across the country who share an aversion to the current abuses of US military power, the exploitation of social issues to advance the economic interests of a few, and the misuse of our Catholic faith for political gain.
As we approach the general election, the term “evangelicals” will once again be understood as a homogeneous group of individuals who are mostly associated with the Republican Party. The term will be used by the media in terms of this group’s political leanings and will be completely divorced from the context of faith. Although it is not completely the media’s fault that the representation of “evangelicals” may be rather unfair given how vocal many pastors and churches have been in regard to their one-sided political positions, it is also not fair to isolate the term from its Christian faith.I know personally many friends who may fall under the category of “evangelicals” and, yes, they only watch Fox News, have a “W” sticker right by an NRA one in the back of their cars and literally despise any of the “unchurched” as they have made it known to me.On the other hand, I know friends who are also “evangelicals” and are deeply in love with God and go from one church to another seeking to fulfill their longing for community.Although I am a Catholic and they know it, a few of my friends from the latter group of “evangelical” friends have come to me with very deep concerns about their pastor’s political leanings and how they cannot reconcile them with what they read in the Bible day in and day out. I have to say that I have been deeply moved with how heart-wrenching these issues are to my friends: “Do I leave the church and the community that I love just because of my pastor’s political views?”
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced Monday it would expand its discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women’s medications at a discount. It also said it would lower the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.
The move marks the third phase of a company program that began in 2006 to provide a 30-day supply of generic prescription drugs for $4. The Bentonville-based company said the program has saved customers more than $1 billion.
With the expansion, the company began filling prescriptions Monday for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies in the U.S. Almost all the prescription generics in the company’s $4 program were included in the expanded $10 offer, said Wal-Mart senior vice president John Agwunobi.
In addition, the company will add several women’s medications to its list of prescriptions available for $9, including drugs to treat breast cancer and hormone deficiency.
In a delightful piece, Michael Novak provides us with the “structural propositions” of the neo-con creed:
Economic realism, breaking from leftist utopianism, is fundamental; and the dynamic drive of realism in economics flows from mind, creativity, and enterprise. Also, in the real world, incentives help mightily.
Politics is more fundamental than economics, for without the rule of law, limited government, and respect for natural rights economic progress is scarcely possible.
Culture is even more fundamental than politics or economics, for without certain architectonic ideas, certain habits of the heart, a love for argument and evidence and open conversation, and a few other moral and spiritual dispositions, neither a republic respecting rights nor a dynamic capitalist economy can thrive, or even survive.
Dear Jesus, Have Mercy! Officials believe over 100,000 people are dead from the cyclone in Myanmar! For those wanting to help, donating to CRS is a very good way to go.
“CNN is highlighting a story of a Catholic nun in South Bend who were turned away from their polling place today for insufficient ids. My takeaway question: What were any Catholic sisters doing voting for either Clinton or Obama?”
Now, this is highly ironic, especially since Ms. Lopez is on record as defending an intrinsically evil act (waterboarding). Indeed, if we interpret the infamous 2004 “Ratzinger letter” as many partisans would like to interpret it, then Ms. Lopez should be barred from communion for manifest public support for torture. And yet here she is, telling nuns who to vote for. Incredible.
It appears play time is over, and the media is ready to make judgements, regardless of any candidate’s delusions. What we have known since at least Pennsylvania is now being reported as truth: Barack Obama barring a flight of reason from super delegates will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. In other news, John McCain had impressive wins in North Carolina and Indiana last night. Due obviously to a biased media, McCain’s stunning victories have been under reported.
We truly have embraced post-modernism. Reality is only what we choose to recognize. If Senator Clinton believes there is a path to the nomination, then there must be a path to the nomination. If a man and woman living in common with child lack a marriage certificate, then we are to treat them as if there are no familial obligations present. We can create our own reality, and we must be respected in this reality that we have created. Sometimes it is downright comical. For example on the news you may hear a variation of “We have footage of a man allegedly being beaten by police.” There are even times where it is irrational: “Mr. Jones is being held in the alleged death of Mrs. Jones.”
Maybe if this prolonged race will have a benefit, it will mark the point where the media is willing to make judgements again. Nonsense has been given too high of a pedestal in our day. It is time for the willingness to use discretion to go further than censoring Holocaust deniers.
One of the things they teach you in law school is the advantage of having a sympathetic plaintiff, a person and situation a judge is going to want to find in favor of apart from any of the legal particulars. It’s not the most important part of winning a case, certainly, but if you are going, say, to be challenging mandatory school attendance laws, you’re better off if you plaintiffs are Amish than if they are abusive deadbeats.
Well, it looks as if the folks behind the recent failed challenge to Indiana’s voter ID law may have found themselves some new clients:
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.
“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
Appalachia was on the radar of participants of the Theology in the Americas conference in Detroit — a gathering of Latin American and North American liberation theologians — in the summer of 1975, just months after the promulgation of the Appalachian pastoral letter This Land is Home to Me, and was included in those discussions as one of many particularized theologies in the U.S. that need to be in dialogue with one another. And while impressive grassroots activity was inspired by the pastoral letter, in recent years the excitement and sense of Appalachian identity has dwindled, and with few exceptions, very little theology has been done from an Appalachian perspective. A theology which takes Appalachia seriously would pose a challenge for theology in the United States, even for U.S. liberation theologians, as well as the Church in general.
Theology in the U.S. largely remains locked in a particular Western mode which is detached from reality.[1] One bit of personal evidence for this is the fact that some fellow theology students were puzzled that I would bother attending a conference like the Appalachian Studies Association conference which met this past month. Much work is left to be done to encourage theologies that are incarnate, that make the “option for reality” in Leonardo Boff’s terms.[2] In particular, attention to Appalachia would challenge conceptions of Catholic social teaching which rely on abstract principles such as the “common good,” which have been used to justify destructive practices like mountaintop removal mining and assumptions about the role of the state as the “keeper of the common good.” William Cavanaugh has critiqued the way Catholics think about the nation-state, arguing that its main function is not the promotion of the common good, but for the benefit of elites.[3] Eve Weinbaum’s ethnographic research on Appalachian politics in the book To Move a Mountain: Fighting the Global Economy in Appalachia confirms this is the case.[4]
In 1945, an American solider, Robert Kapp, found ten undeveloped photographs in a cave outside Hiroshima. Mr. Kapp donated them to the Hoover Institution in 1998, with the proviso that they not be released until 2008. And now they are released, and they portray the most unspeakable barbarity associated with the American nuclear attack.
"In their patriotism and in their fidelity to their civic duties Catholics will feel themselves bound to promote the true common good; they will make the weight of their convictions so influential that as a result civil authority will be justly exercised and laws will accord with moral precepts and the common good."
Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam actuositatem 14
Yesterday, some people on the Catholic blogosphere commented on a statement given by Rev Jose Gabriel Funes saying that alien life could exist. The one thing I didn’t see in the news report, and the one thing which should have been reported, is that this is a long-standing tradition and viewpoint (not doctrinal nor dogmatic, but a valid theological opinion) which existed in the Church before the Reformation. One can find this view, for example, in the works of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401 - 1464). We can see this in the following quote which pre-supposes their existence: Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Henry Karlson
The plan devotes one trillion dollars over ten years to the reduction of “
ics Center
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, `Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
tay in office. The confidence vote, which is actually Morales’ idea, has recently been embraced by the Bolivian Senate, which has long resisted his moves for reform. According to 
Bush’s praise of religious-affiliated schools. Bush hosted the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools at the end of last month, where he described religious schools as a glorious part of the history of the United States. The 
ses of rape or the endangered life of the mother. Only 11% of Brazilians think abortion should be decriminalized. Well, a health committee in Brazilian parliament hearkened unto their call on Wednesday, 
As we approach the general election, the term “evangelicals” will once again be understood as a homogeneous group of individuals who are mostly associated with the Republican Party. The term will be used by the media in terms of this group’s political leanings and will be completely divorced from the context of faith. Although it is not completely the media’s fault that the representation of “evangelicals” may be rather unfair given how vocal many pastors and churches have been in regard to their one-sided political positions, it is also not fair to isolate the term from its Christian faith.
Appalachia was on the radar of participants of the Theology in the Americas conference in Detroit — a gathering of Latin American and North American liberation theologians — in the summer of 1975, just months after the promulgation of the Appalachian pastoral letter 
