*This series is the result of an adaptation of a paper presented as part of a seminar on "Theories and Research in International Relations" at Hebrew University, July 2012. Commentaries are welcome to daniel.wajner@mail.huji.ac.il Click here to read Part II of the series In the first article of this series we have introduced the debates on the ontology of power, while in the second one we have presented the main epistemological approaches of the different paradigms. In this third and final article we will deal with methodological schemes for Power Analysis in IR, while indicating areas for possible innovation using the "Arab Spring" cases as illustrations. Power, Outcomes, and what brings them togetherAs we have seen in the last part, the contribution made by Barnett and Duvall with his taxonomy of four dimensions of power is very helpful as theoretical framework; nevertheless, it is still weak to implement as a methodological tool - it is very difficult to distinguish in a real case what is originated through the structure or the actor, as well as to measure if the specificity is direct or diffuse.But the same could be expressed about the majority of the mentioned schemes. In fact, Dahl itself warned about the difficulties of combining variables to compare power relations and argued that it depends on the requirements of the research.1 This complexity is even larger when normative factors are included; for example, despite the proposal of Nye of measuring soft power through polls and focus groups, he also cautioned about the limits of the intangible variables.2 Hurt addresses certain ways of skipping the difficulties in measuring the power of legitimacy, such as examining: the rates of compliance, the reasons given for compliance and for non-compliance, the support given by the centers of Power and the need for legitimacy argument (akin to a counterfactual technique).3 But, once again, no combined power relations framework is presented.In addition, Lukes argues that power depends on the "significance" of the outcomes, namely, in the capacity of affecting the interests of the agents. He refers to two methods: by changing incentives structures (indoctrination) and by influencing interests (subject freedom). However, Lukes confesses that the main question remains open: how to use certain power to shape certain preferences?4In conclusion, in these approaches no power relation mechanism explains, in a measurable way, how material and normative resources are combined to shape power and influence decisions. Therefore, I would like to subsequently suggest a very simple framework that may allow us to implement the knowledge mentioned hitherto to study specific cases in IR.In line with the majority of the authors, in order to make power measurable I consider that we have to divide it in two variables: material power (or simply Power) and legitimation power (or legitimacy). In international politics, the power of an actor is expressed by its military (backed-by-economical) resources, and for the scheme it would receive "high" or "low" values. The legitimacy of the actors, which is based on their capacity to be perceived as norms-compliers and to build consensus around them5, would receive also "high" or "low" values.A power analysis based on the combination of those two variables, as it is shown below in illustration I, leads us to the taxonomy of four types of cases, each one ascribed to an "outcome". It is important to clarify that, for this paper, the outcomes would reflect the domestic situation of the main agent (the State) given an international system; it is a sort of outside-in analysis if we take into account Gourevitch´s second image reversed.6 Further work has to be done to adapt this scheme so as to explain the conduct of the State vis-à-vis other States as well as to include the domestic sphere of legitimacy.The first actor, which has high power and high legitimacy, could describe his situation as "stable"; that means, the actor would overcome the domestic and external challenges without internal changes and high international costs.The second actor, having high power but low legitimacy, is considered to be in a "changeable" situation. Although this actor is capable of overcoming internal and external challenges, due to the fact that it lacks of support from the other actors he could suffer from high international costs and possibly domestic changes.Illustration I – Taxonomy of Power-Legitimacy outcomesPOWERLEGITIMACYHigh PowerLow Power High Legitimacy "STABLE" "PROTECTABLE" Low Legitimacy "CHANGEABLE" "REVOLUTIONABLE" To the third actor, which has low power but high legitimacy, his situation is defined as "protectable". Due to his incapacity to overcome alone the internal and external challenges, this actor may count on the support of other actors to reduce the possibility of domestic changes; otherwise he will suffer from it.The fourth actor, with low power and low legitimacy, is placed in a "revolutionable" situation; that means, this actor is candidate to suffer from internal changes and high international costs at the time he would face challenges.Testing the Power Analysis framework with the "Arab Spring"The phenomenon known as the "Arab Spring", composed of dozens of countries in which massive protests were held, constitutes an outstanding test for the theory. A large quantity of those cases happened in a very short range of time, with all the variety of domestic conditions, reactions from the regime and from the world, as well as different outcomes. This makes those events ideal for the present examination; even though it is just a "sample" of a more deeply study.7Although no State of those that suffered uprisings is considered in a "stable" situation at all, Saudi Arabia and Jordan could be mentioned as good examples of Arab countries that combined high power (relatively, of course) and high legitimacy. Their regimes faced the uprisings from the beginning (mid-January 2011), but were capable of overcoming the internal challenges through a combination of repression and reforms, without suffering changes in their regime and being supported by the international community.Egypt is probably the best representation of a country whose regime kept high power at the moment of facing domestic challenges but received low legitimacy from the world; this "changeable" situation caused drastic changes at the top of the leadership (including the president, ministers, etc), albeit not of the whole regime (still leaded by the Military Council). Syria seems to be in a similar situation; while the power of the regime is still high, the legitimacy is not low enough to bring to major changes due to the sustained support of Russia, China and Iran. As a result, Syria constitutes today an excellent test for the power of legitimacy (and norms) in international politics.Between those countries that experienced a combination of low power and high legitimacy, experiencing a "protectable" situation, it is possible to mention Bahrain. Despite its regime was not capable of overcoming the internal revolts alone, it counted with the support of most of the Arab countries in the repression, and the Western approval of the "regional intervention" leaded by Gulf countries around the GCC. Yemen was in a comparable position, but at the end of 2011 the legitimacy of its regime was reduced when the region and the world understood the necessity to remove the President to maintain the remaining, in what was denominated later "the Yemenite option".Finally, Libya constitutes the case in which the regime was in a "revolutionable" situation, owing to its low Power to contain the rapid domestic rebellion and its low legitimacy after the first days of tremendous repression. The international costs were so high that included a military intervention leaded by NATO (with the endorsement of the Arab League), that led to the total collapse of the regime. It is possible to say that Tunisia was in an analogous situation while it did not need for a civil war and an external intervention to consummate finally a revolution (i.e., the complete removal of the existing regime).ConclusionsThroughout the paper we were able to observe that the ontological, epistemological and methodological discussions about the complex concept of Power maintain their relevance in the main schools of IR, and in some cases even constitute an essential part of their latest developments.At the same time, the inter-paradigmatic efforts of the last decades are demanding new power analysis approaches; that means, theoretical schemes that would embed a combination of the different factors at stake (material and non-material, resources and interactions, agents and structures) to specific cases of study.Deeper examinations of the "Arab Spring" cases need to be implemented so as to confirm the presented findings, as it was previously said. However, these small samples could possibly reveal that the implementation of a framework that combines both material and non-material resources is possible and, even more, desirable, to a better understanding of the devices of power in IR. 1 Robert A. Dahl, "The concept of Power", p.2142 Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power- The Means to Success in World Politics. p.63 Ian Hurt, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics". International Organization 53 No2 (Spring 1999), 390-3914 Stephen Lukes, "Power and the Battle for Hearts and Minds", p.4925 This short definition is based on concepts presented in Ian Clark, "Legitimacy in International Society" (London: Oxford University Press, 2005). It includes components both from the structure and the agent.6 Peter Gourevitch, "The second image reversed – the international sources of domestic politics" International Organization 32 No4, (Autumn 1978), 881-911.7 An investigation is "under construction", called "The Arab League and its legitimation role in the Arab Spring". It focuses on the power of the Arab League to yield legitimacy (or not) in six different cases. Bibliography Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S. "Two Faces of Power". The American Political Science Review 56 No4, (December 1962), 947-952 Baldwin, David A. Paradoxes of Power (NYC: Basil Blackwell, 1989). Barnett, Michael and Duvall, Raymond. "Power in International Politics", International Organization 59, No1 (Winter 2005), 39-75 Berenskoetter, Felix and Williams, Michael J. Power in World Politics. (NYC: Routledge, 2007) Bourdieu, Pierre. Language & Symbolic Power (NYC : Polity Press, 2001) Carr, Edward H., The Twenty Years' Crisis,1919-1939 (NYC: Harper Torchbooks, 1964) Clark, Ian. "Legitimacy in International Society" (NYC: Oxford University Press, 2005) Claude, Inis L., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962). Dahl, Robert A. "The concept of Power", Behavioral Science 2 No3, (July 1957), 201-215 Haas, Ernst B. When Knowledge is Power (University of California Press, 1990). Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), 887-917. Foucalt, Michael. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77 (Brighton: Havester, 1980) Franck, Thomas M., "The Power of Legitimacy and the Legitimacy of Power: International Law in an Age of Power Disequilibrium." American Journal International 88 (2006), 88-106 Gourevitch, Peter. "The second image reversed – the international sources of domestic politics" International Organization 32 No4, (Autumn 1978), 881-911. Guzzini, Stefano, "The Concept of Power: A Constructivist Analysis" Millennium 33 No3, 2005, 495-521. Guzzini, Stefano, "Structural power: the limits of neorealist power analysis", International Organization 47, No3 (Summer 1993), 443-478. Hurt, Ian, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics". International Organization 53 No2 (Spring 1999), 379-408 Ikenberry, John and Kupchan, Charles A. "Socialization and hegemonic power", International Organization 44, No3 (Summer 1990), 283-315. Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence, 2nd edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1989) Krasner, Stephen D. "Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables", International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), 497-510 Lukes, Stephen. "Power and the Battle for Hearts and Minds", Millennium 33 No3, (2005), 477-493 Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of Great power Politics (NYC: Norton, 2001) Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics among Nations, 4th edition (NYC: Knopf, 1967). Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power- The Means to Success in World Politics (NYC: PublicAffairs, 2004) Putnam, Robert. "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games," International Organization 42, No3, (1988), 427-460 Risse, Thomas. "Let's Argue! Communicative Action in World Politics," International Organization 54 No1 (Winter 2000), 1-40. Schmidt, Brian C. "Competing Realist Conceptions of Power", Millennium 33 No3, 523-549 Walt, Stephen. The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987) Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. (NYC: McGraw-Hill, 1979) Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. (California: University of Berkeley, 1978. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich). Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46 (1992), 391-425. Wendt, Alexander. "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory", International Organization 41/3 (1987), 335-370. Fabian Daniel Wajner is a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Department of International Relations) and a Fellow of the Liweranth Center for Latin America Studies.
En el trabajo se analizó la cuestión de la inadecuación temporal de los procesos sea en el ámbito administrativo o judicial, que es un tema amplio y referido, aunque no sea una preocupación reciente, su estudio no trajo conclusiones definitivas, de modo que el tema continúa en construcción, mientras que los ordenamientos jurídicos, a su vez, no logran delimitar satisfactoriamente el alcance de ello. De hecho, esta garantía abstracta reclama aplicación práctica, cuya importancia se eleva en la medida en que es evidente el crecimiento de las expectativas jurídicas del ciudadano, que no se conforma con el mero derecho a la protección jurídica en el marco de las garantías tradicionales, sino también reclama acceso a una justicia eficiente bajo el aspecto práctico, es decir, en la consecución eficaz de sus fines sustantivos como de la protección integral de los derechos de los justiciables. Por otro lado, es notorio el considerable incremento ¿ cualitativo y cuantitativo ¿ de las demandas a ser atendidas por la administración de justicia, circunstancias que agravan la progresiva demora en la resolución de los procesos judiciales. Está claro que los Estados no han sabido ofertar una respuesta adecuada y ágil a la nueva configuración de los conflictos, en una sociedad velozmente transformada por la incorporación de tecnologías innovadoras y en evolución continua. Esto provocó la crisis de una administración de justicia que no consigue abarcar todos los casos de que se ocupa el sistema sin mencionar aquellos que no lo son ¿ y, menos aún, resolverlos en plazo razonable. Al traer este problema para el campo tributario hay un aspecto agravante, aunque el Estado ejerza (en posibilidad) una triple función en relación fiscal, pues produce la ley obligacional, ejecuta sus comandos ¿ en cuanto sujeto activo de la relación de crédito ¿ y en condición de acreedor, ejecuta (o recibe) el titulo por él constituido, al juzgar los litigios en los cuales figura como parte (en los casos litigiosos), es considerado, en Brasil (diferentemente de España), el lado débil de la relación, reclamando una tutela protectora diferenciada, rodeada de privilegios. Sin embargo lo que hay, realmente, desde luego, es una fragilidad del contribuyente en relación a la Hacienda Pública que lo vuelve vulnerable. Las cuestiones presentadas, objeto de la investigación, fueron discutidas, preferentemente, de forma amplia, con las necesarias referencias específicas del ordenamiento jurídico brasileño y español. La elección de una metodología comparatista - en dos planos normativos diversos ¿ Español-Brasileño deriva, en principio, de mis condiciones personales, con formación y nacionalidad brasileñas, conjugada al hecho del trabajo estar desarrollado y presentado en España. De otra banda me movió la necesidad de comprender y estudiar un derecho fundamental poco desarrollado en Brasil y en América Latina en un contexto específico, cual sea: el tributario, a la luz de una perspectiva europea. Antes de introducirse al plano Brasil-España, el trabajo presenta, también, un estudio América-Europa, pues creemos ser posible buscar en la victoriosa experiencia europea de protección de derechos fundamentales ¿ en particular en el derecho a la razonable duración del proceso (que la constitución española trata en su artículo 24 con la expresión ¿derecho al proceso sin dilaciones indebidas¿) ¿ subsidios para el desarrollo de los sistemas de protección de América Latina, claramente en el incipiente sistema continental. Esto porque la moderna comprensión de los derechos fundamentales está a exigir que estos sean apreciados no sólo bajo una reductora perspectiva nacional, pero atento a los continuos estímulos que las experiencias internacionales ¿ supranacionales y de derecho extranjero ¿ propicia. De otra manera, en un análisis más específico, se puede concluir que estamos prestes a ver la ¿mundialización¿ del derecho constitucional-tributario, fruto de una consagración internacional de los principios rectores de esas ciencias. Contenido de la Investigación La primera parte del trabajo está dedicada al derecho a un proceso en tiempo razonable o derecho a un proceso sin dilaciones indebidas (expresiones sinónimas), bajo la óptica jurídico-constitucional, siendo cierto que los valores contenidos en los textos constitucionales e internacionales, en regla, se aplican indistintamente a las varias disciplinas en que se divide el derecho procesal, inclusive el tributario. En una segunda etapa, con el traspase al específico campo tributario, se buscó demostrar, desde luego, que la noción corriente, en Brasil, de debilidad de Hacienda Pública hay que ser revisada considerando los parámetros actuales de su relación con el contribuyente. Luego, se articuló elementos demostradores de la vulnerabilidad del contribuyente en los campos material, formal y procesal, con la percepción de la medida en que esta vulnerabilidad se exacerba al tratarse del aspecto particular del derecho al proceso en tiempo razonable. Conclusión Compendiando las ideas del trabajo, en secuencia lógica, es posible decir que: El análisis práctico abarcado por este estudio en los modelos judiciales español y brasileño, observó que la crónica morosidad de los procesos judiciales se presenta como una característica común a los dos modelos. En efecto, la morosidad de los procesos vulnera el derecho a la seguridad jurídica: por un lado, se extiende la inseguridad jurídica que la pendencia de los procesos judiciales ocasiona, siendo cierto que, también, hace dubio (o hace dudosa) la interpretación que prevalece acerca de una determinada ley. En el campo procesal tributario, abordando, específicamente los litigios que envuelven los contribuyentes y la Hacienda Pública, constatase que la concesión de plazos indiscriminados al Poder Público, en el proceso brasileño, vulnera el derecho fundamental al proceso en tiempo razonable, impidiendo su concretización en los hechos en que se litiga en contra al Estado. La doctrina contemporánea reconoce la importancia del fenómeno procesal y su influencia en el campo de la relación jurídica tributaria, admitiéndose el derecho tributario formal como el complemento indispensable del derecho tributario material, puesto que contienen las normas que la administración fiscal utiliza para comprobar si compite a cierta persona el pago de determinado tributo y a cuanto corresponderá esa obligación. No se puede olvidar que el Derecho Tributario rige una de las relaciones más peculiares del derecho, puesto que mientras en las relaciones contractuales o patrimoniales entre particulares se registra, como regla, el elemento volitivo, o sea, la manifestación de la voluntad con relación a las condiciones pactadas, en la relación tributaria, diversamente, esta expresión volitiva se opera, de modo relativo e indirecto, a través de sus representantes legislativos. Si por un lado, hay que reconocerse la necesidad de que el Estado reciba apropiado instrumental para su actuación, de modo que, al funcionar como aglutinador de la suma de los intereses individuales, disponga en el contexto del Estado de Derecho, de instrumental jurídico material diferenciado de aquel puesto a la disposición de los particulares (predominancia del interés público sobre el privado). De otra parte, no se puede quitar al administrado la búsqueda de la anulación del acto administrativo (de la Hacienda Pública) por medio de la tutela jurisdiccional efectiva y en tiempo razonable (las potestades y privilegios de la Administración deben conyugarse con las garantías fundamentales del contribuyente). Considerando que la relación jurídica tributaria es dotada de carácter peculiar, así también necesariamente se dará con la demanda tributaria y, por tanto, con el proceso destinado a su solución. El Derecho Procesal Tributario, entonces, pasa a ser diseñado con contornos propios, particulares, tornándose un proceso diferenciado. Así, al percibirse la peculiaridad de la relación tributaria pronto nos deparamos con la diferenciación de la demanda nascida en el recorrido dinámico de esta relación. La comprensión de la tributación en cuanto fenómeno socioeconómico permanece, a veces, atada a antiguos conceptos, entre los cuales, el axioma de la debilidad de la Hacienda Pública que se firmó, en Brasil, a lo largo del recorrido histórico de construcción del Derecho Tributario. Sin embargo, desde la tributación de las primeras décadas del siglo XX para la tributación actual importantes cambios culturales y tecnológicos repercutieron profundamente en la fisionomía de la relación fiscal. Sociedad, economía, Estado y tecnología ya no son los mismos. La informatización afecta decisivamente las relaciones entre Estado y ciudadano particularmente en el ámbito fiscal. En la sociedad contemporánea, el antiguo dogma brasileño de la fragilidad del Estado hacía el contribuyente debe que ser revisado, considerando la frecuencia de su utilización por la doctrina y jurisprudencia, no se puede concebir que el sistema procesal, a propósito de garantizar la protección del interés público venga a subvertir derechos individuales fundamentales basándose en la necesidad de corregir una vulnerabilidad estatal no demostrada ni en el aspecto jurídico ni fático. En análisis comparativo se observo que España trata el tema de forma distinta ya que el Tribunal Constitucional ha establecido el carácter de potentior persona de la administración tributaria, pues la Constitución española al configurar el deber tributario como deber constitucional, está autorizando al legislador para que, dentro de un sistema tributario justo, adopte las medidas que sean eficaces y atribuya a la Administración las potestades que sean necesarias para exigir y lograr el exacto cumplimiento de sus obligaciones fiscales por parte de los contribuyentes, potestades que por esencia sitúan a la Administración en una situación de superioridad sobre los contribuyentes. El Tribunal ha declarado la constitucionalidad de diversas prerrogativas o de situaciones de superioridad, en general, a las Administraciones Públicas, pero siempre a partir de la existencia de algún bien o principio constitucional cuya preservación justificara su reconocimiento. Así, respecto de la auto-tutela, con fundamento en el principio de eficacia (SSTC 22/1984, 148/1993 y 78/1996), o de los intereses a favor de la Hacienda por el impago de los tributos, para evitar riesgos en el funcionamiento del sistema tributario (STC 76/1990); del mismo modo, ha atendido a la demora inercial o institucional de la Hacienda para justificar una menor cuantía de los intereses procesales que ha de satisfacer (STC 206/1993). Por tanto, solo se admite, en España, el trato privilegiado de la Hacienda cuando exista un bien o principio constitucional cuya protección exige este trato. Al fin, se propone la urgente desmitificación del axioma brasileño de debilidad de la Hacienda Pública en la relación tributaria reconociéndose, como en España, el carácter potentior persona de la Hacienda Pública en las relaciones tributarias, buscándose la disminución de la desigualdad de fuerzas. Considerando que la función jurisdiccional del Estado, a pesar de ser uno de los más valiosos instrumentos de defensa del contribuyente, es capaz de generar susceptibilidad, siendo la vulnerabilidad procesal de este palpable y cotidianamente sentida en los distintos tribunales, hay que establecerse procedimientos céleres, con carácter especial, a los procesos tributarios, bajo la concepción que los efectos del tiempo en el proceso están directamente relacionados con la condición de específica vulnerabilidad del contribuyente en el proceso tributario, y sus consecuencias jurídicas pueden ser verificadas tanto en las situaciones de demora excesiva del proceso como en aquellas circunstancias en que se da la reducción abrupta de las fases procesales o mismo la extinción prematura del proceso. Debe que reconocerse que la garantía del proceso tributario en tiempo razonable es destinada, sobretodo, al individuo en cuanto parte y no al Estado, que, aún siendo parte en algunas situaciones, también es el responsable por la actividad juzgadora. En virtud de la característica de la relatividad del tiempo en razón de la persona es que los daños del proceso de duración no razonable deben ser evaluados distintamente, cuando se trate del Estado o del individuo. Bibliografía más relevante ALBARIÑO, J.: Los pactos internacionales de las Naciones Unidas de 16 de Diciembre de 1966. In: CASADEVANTE ROMANI, C. F. (org.). Derecho Internacional de los derechos humanos. Madrid: Dilex, 2000. ALEXY, Robert.: Teoría de los Derechos Fundamentales. (Trad. Ernesto Garzón Valdés). 1 ed. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2002. ÁLVAREZ SACRISTÁN, Isidoro.: La justicia y su eficacia ¿ De la constitución al proceso. Madrid: Editorial Colex, 1999. ANDOLINA, Italo.: ¿Cognizione¿ ed ¿esecuzione forzata¿ nel sistema della tutela giurisdizionale. Milano: Guiufrè, 1983. ANDRADE MARCONI, Marina: Metodologia científica para o curso de Direito. São Paulo; Atlas, 2000. ASIS ROIG, R. de; ANSAUTEGUI ROIG, F.J.: Los Derechos Humanos en las colonias de Norteamérica. In: PECES-BARBA MARTÍNEZ, G.; FERNÁNDEZ, E. (dir.) Historia de los derechos fundamentales. Madrid: Dykinson, 1998. T. 1. BANDRES SANCHEZ-CRUZAT, José Manuel.: Derecho fundamental al proceso debido y el Tribunal Constitucional. Cizur Menor (Navarra): Aranzadi. 1992. BASTIDA FREIJEDO, Francisco J.; VILLAVERDE MENÉNDEZ, Ignacio; REQUEJO RODRIGUEZ, Paloma; PRESNO LINERA, Miguel Ángel; ALÁEZ CORRAL, Benito; FERNÁNDÉZ SARASOLA, Ignacio.: Teoría general de los derechos fundamentales en la constitución española de 1978. Madrid: Tecnos, 2004. BECCARIA, C.: De los delitos y de las penas. (Trad. Juan Antonio de las Casas). Madrid: Alianza, 1980. BECK, U.: La Sociedad del Riesgo. Barcelona: Paidós, 1998. BELLOCH JULBE, J.A.: Las dilaciones indebidas. In Madrid: Jueces para la Democracia, num. 07. 1989. BELTRÁN, Jorge Ruben.: El principio constitucional de adecuada tutela jurisdiccional en materia tributaria, estudios de derecho constitucional tributaria ¿ en homenaje al Prof. Juan Carlos Luqui (Coordinación Horacio A. García Belsunce). Buenos Aires: Depalma, 1994. BERLIRI, Antonio.: Principios de Derecho Tributario. Prólogo ao volumen III, Madrid: Ed. Derecho Financiero, 1964. BETTINI, R.; PELLEGRNI, F.: Circolo vizioso giudizirio o circolo legislativo? La durata del procedimenti giudiziari in Italia. In: Rivista Trim. di Diritto Procedura Civile, n. 1, anno 54, mar-2000. BOBBIO, N.: El tiempo de los derechos. Madrid: Editoral Sistema, 1991. CABRAL BARRETO, I.: Convenção Europeia dos Direitos do Homem. Lisboa: Editorial Notícias, 1995. CABRAL BARRETO, Irineu.: Jurisprudência do novo Tribunal Europeu de Direitos Humanos. 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Several members of Congress have created a caucus to support the Mojahedin-e Khalq, an exiled Iranian faction that once fought for Saddam Hussein and was formerly listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The lawmakers' move comes as the MeK, long accused of cult-like abuses and shadowy foreign ties, faces legal problems in Albania over its Ashraf-3 compound.The MeK announced the creation of the Congressional ASHRAF Protection and Rights Advocacy Caucus in late December, calling it a "bipartisan" group that will be led by Democratic and Republican co-chairs. The current caucus chairman Lance Gooden (R–Texas), and the three other members who have signed on so far are Rep. Paul Gosar (R–Az.), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R–N.Y.) and Hispanic Caucus chairman Raul Ruiz (D–Calif.).Gooden's legislative director Claire Alden stated that the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, a pro-MeK group, was lobbying Democratic offices to join the caucus. "OIAC is waiting to hear back from several Democrat[ic] members as I understand it," Alden wrote in an email to Responsible Statecraft on January 9.Gooden had sent out a letter on January 8, obtained by Responsible Statecraft, seeking other members of Congress willing "to support the humanitarian and democratic rights of Iranian dissidents living in Ashraf-3, Albania, and worldwide, fighting for regime change and freedom in Iran." It called the MeK "an opposition movement fighting for Iran's liberation from one of the most evil dictatorships of the contemporary era."The creation of a caucus "immediately gives you allies on [Capitol] Hill," says Ben Freeman, director of the Quincy Institute's Democratizing Foreign Policy Program and an expert on foreign lobbying. "They know they've got a receptive ear in Congress. They know that if they email [a caucus member's] office and have a request, at the very least, someone's going to pick up the phone"In addition to the members of Congress, two Trump cabinet officials — former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — have also recently thrown their weight behind the MeK.Last year, Saudi Arabia had reportedly agreed to cut its support for the MeK. A few months later, Albanian police raided Ashraf-3, the MeK's sprawling headquarters in Albania. The Albanian authorities accused the MeK of cybercrimes and other provocative activities in violation of the agreement allowing the exiles to stay in the country. The exiles accused Albanian police of killing an elderly man with tear gas during the raid.At the time, the U.S. State Department affirmed Albania's "right to investigate any potential illegal activities within its territory," and stated that the MeK is not "a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people." Gooden, Malliotakis, Gosar, and Ruiz seem to disagree.Gosar's support for the MeK stands out as particularly unusual, given his other foreign policy stances. The congressman, an outspoken "America Firster," has previously denounced "proxy wars in the Middle East" and vowed to stop Washington's "nation-building, foreign aid giveaways, and bloody regime-change wars.""Congressman Gosar supports freedom in Iran. The Ashraf Caucus shares that goal," said Gosar's communications director Anthony Foti in an email to Responsible Statecraft. "The expectation is for peaceful change organically coming from the people of Iran. At no point has Congressman Gosar supported U.S. military intervention in Iran nor would he." The MeK is a left-wing faction that participated in Iran's 1979 revolution and was pushed out by its Islamist rivals. The group soon began promoting itself as an Iranian government-in-exile, and appealed to the Soviet Union for support. After the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, the MeK's leadership relocated to Iraq and fought for Saddam Hussein's government. In retaliation, the Iranian government executed thousands of leftist prisoners in 1988, one of the most infamous massacres in Iran's history.During their collaboration with the Iraqi government, MeK fighters allegedly participated in the genocidal campaign against Iraqi Kurds. MeK leader Maryam Rajavi was said to have ordered her fighters to crush "the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards." The MeK now denies having any involvement in the anti-Kurdish campaign, and often cites a 1999 letter by a Kurdish fighter absolving Rajavi.Saudi Arabia, another rival of Iran, also allegedly began funding the MeK at the time. MeK defector Massoud Khodabandeh told Jordanian media in 2018 that a Saudi prince had given the group suitcases full of luxury goods and trucks of gold worth $200 million in 1989. Former Saudi intelligence chief Turki bin Faisal al-Saud has spoken at MeK conferences. The group denies receiving Saudi funds, claiming that it is "an independent movement, standing on its own feet both politically and financially."After the war, the Iraqi government kept the MeK in bases known as Camp Ashraf and Ashraf-2, considered by critics to be cult compounds. A report by Human Rights Watch in 2005 and a sweeping expose by The Intercept in 2020 confirmed rumors of the abuses that went on inside the camps. Defectors accused the MeK leadership of imprisoning, torturing, and even sterilizing its own members. The MeK again denied the allegations and denounced the "hit piece" against them.Other factions of the Iranian opposition, who often clash fiercely with each other, are unanimous in their rejection of the MeK. Anti-hijab activist Masih Alinejad has labeled the group a "cult." Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaian, who was held hostage in prison on trumped-up charges by the Iranian government for over a year, has insisted that the MeK's brand is "toxic." Former crown prince Reza Pahlavi called the MeK "terroristic" in a Belgian parliament hearing last year."The fact that a documented cult-like organization with a history of terrorism, human rights abuses, and committing atrocities alongside Saddam Hussein can get endorsed by lawmakers in Washington is a testament to how much money and power is behind the pro-war with Iran infrastructure here," says Jamal Abdi, head of the National Iranian American Council.The National Union for Democracy in Iran and Iranian-Americans for Liberty, two pro-regime-change organizations that are often at odds with NIAC, have also publicly argued that most Iranians reject the MeK. Neither group responded to a request for comment about the caucus.For decades, the United States officially considered the MeK a terrorist organization due to its past attacks on American targets. The MeK had killed at least three U.S. Army officers and three American contractors in Iran before the 1979 revolution. When Iranian revolutionaries released their American hostages in 1981, the MeK complained that refusing to prosecute and execute the U.S. Embassy staff would "embolden and encourage the imperialists."After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the MeK's relationship with the West changed dramatically. In the 2000s, the MeK became an early source of information on Iran's nuclear program, which was allegedly fed to the group by Israeli intelligence services. Israel also reportedly teamed up with the MeK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.At the same time, the MeK embarked on a high-profile lobbying campaign to remove itself from the terrorist list. MeK supporters courted American officials from both sides of the aisle, and sympathetic politicians were offered speaking fees of up to $50,000 to appear at pro-MeK rallies. The MeK prevailed; the Obama administration lifted terrorism sanctions on the group in 2011, and spent $20 million resettling MeK members in a new Albanian sanctuary known as Ashraf-3.The resettlement deal came after Iraqi forces, some of them loyal to Tehran, launched deadly attacks on the original Ashraf camps. Daniel Benjamin, the U.S. State Department counterterrorism official who oversaw the delisting, later insisted that he wanted to get MeK members out of Iraq in a humane way, not to whitewash the MeK's "terrorist past."But "what that allowed them to do was to hire lobbying and PR firms," says Freeman, because the terrorist list is one of the few restraints on foreign lobbying under U.S. law. The MeK has several officially-registered lobbyists, and has continued to make large payments to American politicians. Pence, for example, took $430,000 from the group.Gooden, Malliotakis, Gosar, and Ruiz have all spoken at MeK rallies or conferences since the terrorism designation was lifted.Responsible Statecraft asked the four members, via their offices, if they have taken money from the MeK or MeK front groups. Foti said that Gosar has never been "paid for giving a speech" during his "congressional career." Gooden "has never been paid for any appearance," according to Micah Bock, his communications director. Neither answered the broader question of MeK funding. The other two offices have not answered as of press time.
"Mi sia concesso di cominciare con una confessione piuttosto imbarazzante: per tutta la mia vita nessuno mi ha dato piacere più grande di David Bowie. Certo, forse questo la dice lunga sulla qualità, della mia vita. Non fraintendetemi. Ci sono stati momenti belli, talvolta persino insieme ad altre persone. Ma per ciò che riguarda una gioia costante e prolungata attraverso i decenni, nulla si avvicina al piacere che mi ha dato Bowie." (Simon Critchley, Bowie) Quelli che non conoscono l'opera di Bowie, temo, avranno provato un po' d'irritazione per la quantità di cose dette e scritte dopo la sua morte nel gennaio scorso. O perlomeno stupore, viste le innumerevoli sfaccettature per cui è stato ricordato. Come ha scritto giustamente Francesco Adinolfi su Il manifesto del 12 gennaio, "non c'è un solo Bowie, e ognuno ha il suo Bowie da piangere". C'è ovviamente il Bowie che tra la fine dei '60 e i primi anni '70 porta in scena la libertà contro la soffocante pubblica morale, mescolando generi ed identità sessuali in canzoni e concerti, ostentando i suoi personaggi scandalosi per sbatterli in faccia a family day di ogni sorta. Lo scrittore Hanif Kureishi, per esempio, ricorda la canzone "Rebel rebel" (1974) come una spinta che lo porta a desiderare di andarsene dal monotono perbenismo del sud di Londra. Il filosofo Simon Critchley descrive l'impatto di "Rock'n'roll suicide" (1972), dove l'urlo "You're not alone!" ("Non sei solo"!) diventa detonatore emotivo per una generazione di giovani a disagio con se stessi e con il mondo, spingendoli a cercare di diventare qualcos'altro – "qualcosa di più libero, più queer (traducibile con 'eccentrico', e anche 'omosessuale'), più sincero, più aperto, e più eccitante." Ma questo Bowie, l'icona del gender bending, è stracitato. Molto meno noto è il Bowie dall'animo irriducibilmente politico. Intendiamoci, anche dal punto di vista politico Bowie è stato molte cose. Nel 1975 rilascia alcune dichiarazioni di simpatia verso il nazismo, che saranno poi rettificate e (molto parzialmente) giustificate con la sua pericolosa dipendenza dalle droghe di quel periodo. Il clamore è amplificato da una fotografia in cui sembra fare il saluto romano a una folla di fan che lo attende a Victoria Station (ma osservando il filmato dell'evento su Internet, pare che il fotografo abbia preso lo scatto proprio nel momento in cui il braccio si tende in un normalissimo saluto). Si tratta di un aspetto delicato ancora da chiarire completamente, in cui anche critici raffinati come Critchley non si avventurano troppo. E che comunque ha finito per offuscare, secondo me, la figura di Bowie cantore degli ultimi e dei margini. Il nodo cruciale di questo suo aspetto è l'album Scary Monsters (1980), alla fine di un decennio segnato da una serie di album memorabili, dal glam rock alle sperimentazioni berlinesi – storicamente, la fine delle utopie e l'inizio del cosiddetto riflusso. Nel brano "Ashes to ashes" Bowie riprende il personaggio che l'aveva portato al successo, il Maggiore Tom, astronauta che in "Space oddity" (1969) celebrava l'allunaggio ma al contempo si perdeva stranamente a galleggiare nello spazio. Seguendo una parabola analoga agli ideali bruciati di quel periodo, nel 1980 Major Tom ricompare travolto dalle droghe pesanti, schiavo dei mostri che lo perseguitano nello spazio: I want an axe to break the ice, I want to come down right now Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Tom's a junkie strung out in heaven's high hitting an all-time low Voglio un'ascia per rompere il ghiaccio, voglio venir giù subito Cenere alla cenere, funk al funky Lo sappiamo che Major Tom è un tossico sperso nell'alto dei cieli caduto in una depressione storica Ma anche la realtà in cui Major Tom desidera tornare non promette nulla di buono. In Scary Monsters si manifesta uno dei punti più alti della critica socio-politica nei testi di Bowie, che assume toni quasi profetici. Mi riferisco alla canzone che apre l'album, "It's no game (no. 1)": Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution No more free steps to heaven and it's no game (…) Documentaries on refugees couples 'gainst the target (…) Draw the blinds on yesterday and it's all so much scarier Put a bullet in my brain and it makes all the papers Profili e ombre guardano la rivoluzione Niente più passi facili verso il paradiso e non è un gioco (…) Documentari su rifugiati coppie nel mirino (…) Chiudi la finestra sul passato ed è tutto più spaventoso Sparami un colpo in testa e ne parleranno tutti i giornali Qui Bowie sembra svelare quella che sarà la faccia oscura degli anni '80 e oltre: la questione dei rifugiati e delle vittime civili dei conflitti (come suonano profetici quei due versi…), l'oblio degli ideali del passato, lo sguardo onnipresente ma banalizzante dei mass media. E' importante ascoltare "It's no game (no. 1)" anche perché Bowie canta questa canzone a squarciagola, a voce quasi stridula, come se lo stessero torturando; l'insieme è reso più complesso dall'alternanza con una voce femminile che canta in giapponese una traduzione del testo, in tono aggressivo. Secondo Critchley, "il genio di Bowie risiede nell'armonizzare minuziosamente parole e musica attraverso il mezzo della voce". I versi finali della canzone introducono poi un riferimento più esplicitamente politico, forse riferendosi alla polemica menzionata sopra: So where's the moral? People have their fingers broken To be insulted by these fascists – it's so degrading And it's no game E allora dov'è la morale? La gente ha le dita spezzate Venir insultati da 'sti fascisti – è così degradante E non è un gioco La voce di Bowie si contorce soprattutto quando pronuncia il titolo della canzone, "non è un gioco": il dramma della 'fine delle ideologie' sta nel poter non prendere più nulla sul serio, neanche le grandi tragedie. C'è una coincidenza curiosa, a questo proposito. L'anno seguente Giorgio Gaber mette in scena il recital Anni affollati, e nel pezzo parlato "Il presente" offre (ovviamente con Sandro Luporini) una caustica riflessione sul nuovo clima dei primi anni '80, dove i più bravi e geniali riescono a togliersi di dosso la pesantezza di qualcosa che ingombra per dedicarsi allo 'smitizzante'. Perché di fronte all'idiozia dei vecchi moralisti, preferisco vedere l'uomo di cultura che si fa fotografare nudo su un divano a fiori. Eh sì, per questa sua capacità di saper vivere il gioco. Sto parlando insomma di quelli veramente colti, che con sottile ironia hanno riscoperto… l'effimero. Ecco che cos'è il presente: l'effimero. E devo dire che per della gente come noi, che non crede più a niente, questo è perfetto. (…) La cosa più intelligente da fare è quella di giocare d'astuzia con i segnali del tempo. Ma attenzione, perché tra l'avere la sensazione che il mondo sia una cosa poco seria, e il muovercisi dentro perfettamente a proprio agio, esiste la stessa differenza che c'è tra l'avere il senso del comico ed essere ridicoli… La canzone di Bowie non finisce qui, perché Scary Monsters ha una struttura circolare e si chiude con "It's no game (no. 2)" ("Non è un gioco, parte seconda"), dove viene riproposto lo stesso motivo – o quasi. Questa versione accentua la critica sociale (e la visionarietà profetica) aggiungendo una strofa finale sullo sfruttamento del lavoro minorile: Children 'round the world put camel shit on the walls Making carpets on treadmills, or garbage sorting And it's no game Bambini in tutto il mondo mettono cacca di cammello sui muri Fanno tappeti su macchinari, o frugano in discariche E non è un gioco Ma soprattutto, i versi di questa "parte seconda" sono cantati in modo radicalmente diverso, con voce lenta, calda, modulata, quasi da crooner in stile Frank Sinatra, quasi a voler dire: guardate che anche i miei pezzi apparentemente più commerciali possono essere qualcosa di più di semplici canzoni orecchiabili. E' una caratteristica dei suoi testi che viene colta anche dalla genialità sregolata di Lars Von Trier, il cui durissimo film Dogville (2003), sulla brutalità del sogno americano, si conclude con la scena del massacro di un intero villaggio e uno stacco improvviso sui titoli di coda: una sequenza di immagini di povertà e degrado statunitense con in sottofondo il pezzo "Young Americans" (1975), dal ritmo allegro ma con un sottotesto che accenna alla sterilizzante massificazione degli individui: We live for just these twenty years, do we have to die for the fifty more? Viviamo solo per questi vent'anni, dobbiamo morire per altri cinquanta? Questa ambivalenza è riscontrabile soprattutto nei dischi immediatamente successivi a Scary Monsters, quelli segnati da un disimpegno che per la prima volta fanno diventare Bowie un fenomeno commerciale mainstream, e che molti fan ancora rifiutano. Mi riferisco innanzi tutto a Let's Dance (1983), ovviamente, ricordando il videoclip della canzone omonima che mette in primo piano la condizione degli aborigeni australiani; come scrive Nicholas Pegg nel suo enciclopedico The Complete David Bowie, "prendendo spunto solo marginalmente dal testo della canzone per sposare la causa dei diritti degli aborigeni, il video costituisce il primo (sic) sostanziale esempio del ruolo da militante sociopolitico che Bowie cominciava a ritagliarsi negli anni '80." Sempre in Let's Dance, il brano "Ricochet" ("Pallottola di rimbalzo") è pervaso da un senso di totale sacrificabilità delle vite umane; come in "It's no game", i versi sembrano già descrivere il lato oscuro della globalizzazione neoliberista: Like weeds on a rock face waiting for the scythe (…) These are the prisons, these are the crimes teaching life in a violent new way (…) Early, before the sun, they struggle off to the gates in their secret fearful places, they see their lives unraveling before them (…) But when they get home, damp-eyed and weary, they smile and crush their children to their heaving chests, making unfullfillable promises. For who can bear to be forgotten? Come erbacce sulla roccia in attesa della falce (…) Queste sono le prigioni, questi i crimini che insegnano la vita con nuova violenza (…) Presto, prima del sole, sgomitano verso i cancelli nei loro spaventosi luoghi segreti, vedono la propria vita che gli si dipana di fronte (…) Ma quando arrivano a casa, stanchi e con occhi umidi, sorridono e si stringono i figli al petto ansante, facendo promesse inesaudibili. Perché chi può sopportare di venir dimenticato? Buona parte di questi versi sono parlati con voce metallica, come da un megafono, rimarcando così l'idea di omologazione oppressiva della società contemporanea. Su questi temi Bowie ritorna periodicamente anche nei dischi incisi dopo Let's Dance, dalla fine degli anni '80 fino a pochi anni fa – album quasi sempre di gran qualità, che le commemorazioni dello scorso gennaio hanno praticamente ignorato. Va menzionato, dall'album Tin Machine (1989) il brano "I can't read" ("Non so leggere"), che tratta di deprivazione culturale in un mondo dove "money goes to money heaven / bodies go to body hell" (" i soldi finiscono nel paradiso dei soldi / i corpi nell'inferno dei corpi"). Lo stesso LP contiene una cover di "Working class hero" ("Eroe della classe operaia") di John Lennon (1970), inno anti-sistema cantato da Bowie con voce carica di rabbia: When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years then they expect you to pick a career when you can't really function you're so full of fear (…) Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV and you think you're so clever and classless and free but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see (…) There's room at the top they're telling you still but first you must learn how to smile as you kill Dopo che ti hanno torturato e terrorizzato per una ventina d'anni poi si aspettano che tu ti scelga una carriera mentre non riesci neanche a pensare tanto sei pieno di paura (…) Ti drogano di religione, sesso e TV e ti credi d'essere così furbo e oltre le classi e libero ma sei ancora un cazzo di bifolco, mi sembra (…) C'è ancora posto là in cima, ti continuano a dire Ma prima, mentre uccidi, devi imparare a sorridere Una diffusa alienazione sociale emerge anche in "Dead man walking" ("Morto che cammina", 1997), un pezzo contaminato da sonorità drum'n'bass che martellano immagini come questa: an alien nation in therapy sliding naked, anew like a bad-tempered child on the rain-slicked streets una nazione aliena in terapia che scivola nuda, di nuovo come un bambino intrattabile per strade viscide di pioggia Due anni dopo, in "Seven", riprende la figura del fratello maggiore Terry, sofferente di schizofrenia e suicida nel 1985, tornando così ad un altro tema per lui ricorrente, quello dei meccanismi sociali che riproducono la malattia mentale: I forgot what my brother said I forgot what he said I don't regret anything at all I remember how he wept On a bridge of violent people I was small enough to cry I've got seven days to live my life or seven ways to die Ho scordato cosa diceva mio fratello ho scordato che diceva Non rimpiango davvero nulla mi ricordo come piangeva Sopra un ponte di gente violenta ero abbastanza piccolo da strillare Ho sette giorni per vivere la mia vita o sette giorni per morire L'attenzione di Bowie verso le vittime della Storia si può ritrovare, comunque, già prima del 1980. Quando ancora cantava ballate alla Bob Dylan, il pezzo "Little bombardier" ("Il piccolo artigliere", 1967) narra di un reduce solo, spaesato e affamato di affetti: War made him a soldier, little Frankie Mear. Peace made him a loser, a little bombardier La Guerra lo fece un soldato piccolo Frankie Mear La pace lo fece un perdente, un piccolo artigliere Per sua grande gioia, diventa amico di due bambine, ma si farà cacciare perché sospettato di pedofilia: Leave them alone or we'll get sore. We've had blokes like you in the station before Lasciale stare o cominceremo a seccarci. Ne abbiamo già avuti come te alla stazione di polizia. Pur puntando esplicitamente il dito contro l'autorità costituita, questa storia malinconica è musicata, scrive Pegg, con un "nostalgico valzer da fiera di paese (…) uno dei pochissimi brani di Bowie scritti in 3/4". Il testo è ispirato al racconto "Uncle Ernest" (1959) di Alan Sillitoe, uno dei più felici narratori del nuovo realismo proletario nel secondo dopoguerra. In quanto a temi socio-politici, Bowie tocca spesso anche l'imperialismo statunitense e la natura repressiva delle religioni istituzionali (si veda ad esempio lo 'scandaloso' videoclip di "The next day", 2013). Ma il Bowie che ho voluto ricordare qui è l'artista che non ha mai chiuso gli occhi di fronte alle ingiustizie, alla sofferenza degli ultimi. Potrà suonare paradossale, ma mi viene da pensare ad un altro grande cantore dei margini come Enzo Jannacci. Bowie torna spesso su ciò che in "Under pressure" ("Sotto pressione", 1981) definisce "the terror of knowing what this world is about" ("il terrore di sapere di cosa è fatto questo mondo"), mentre Love dares you to care for the people in the streets the people on the edge of the night L'amore ti sfida a prenderti cura della gente per le strade la gente al margine della notte Certo, è difficile accostare i maglioni sudati di Jannacci al Bowie che ha creato e curato la propria immagine, cui il prestigioso Victoria and Albert Museum di Londra ha dedicato una mostra di grande successo nel 2013. E la voce di Jannacci, sempre apparentemente sul punto di esaurire il fiato, condivide poco con le virtuosità bowiane. Dietro ad entrambi vedo però una sensibilità comune, e un simile atteggiamento di insofferenza verso ogni inquadramento, ogni norma imposta dall'alto. Per me, i testi di Bowie hanno rappresentato l'inizio di una passione per la letteratura in lingua inglese, e per la natura indecifrabile, sfuggente e mai omologabile che è propria della poesia. Critchley nota che, a partire dal periodo berlinese, i suoi versi diventano meno intellegibili e narrativi, e che "colpiscono maggiormente quando sono più indiretti. Siamo noi a doverli completare con la nostra immaginazione, col nostro desiderio." Continuo a citare Critchley anche perché mi ritrovo profondamente nel percorso del suo libro, purtroppo non ancora tradotto in italiano. Il volumetto si conclude con una frase che sottoscrivo, e che rappresenta il motivo per cui non ho ancora trovato il coraggio di ascoltare Blackstar, l'ultimo album uscito solo due giorni prima della morte: "Non voglio che Bowie finisca. Ma lo farà. E anche io."
Issue 48.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1989. ; R~,vw:w voR R~:I,~cIous (ISSN 0034-639X) is published hi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Eduealional Inslilule of the Society of Jesus; Editorial Office; 3601 Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid al St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add U.S. $5.00 per year; for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Ri~v~i~w t:oR R~:,ucous; P.O. Box 6070; Dululh, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:v~:w voR R~:,.~(aot;s; P.O. Box 6070; Dululh, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard .A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors JulylAugust 1989 Volume 48 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rv:v~:w voa R~:u{:lot~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:v,v:w vo~ R~:uctous; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service fl~r the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society fl~r the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . Religious life in no way merits the descriptive word dull. Currently conferences, workshops, and books deal with the theme of "refounding religious life." Another approach looks more towards a "creating of re-ligious life," often with the addition of "for the 21st century." Along with the recent publication of Pope John Paul II's letter to the United States bishops responding to the findings of the 1983 papal commission study of religious life in this country, we find ourselves confronted with various challenges which indicate that religious life remains a valuable concern not only for those who are dedicated to this special form of Chris-tian living, but also for those who support it and are the collaborators and recipients of its service. Religious life takes on its many different forms as a response by those people to God's call to point the way in bridging anew the gap be-tween the lived values of Gospel and culture. Any particular grouping of religious challenge the rest of the Church peoples (including other re-ligious) to a continuing conversion call in one or other aspect of their Christian living. Religious frequently make uncomfortable the govern-ing and teaching authority as well as their own benefactors and friends by their witness and service in those very areas where the Church may b~ slipping into more secular values and ways of acting than gospel val-ues and gospel acting. It is not surprising that religious have been in the forefront of the liberation theology and base-community movement in Latin America. The charism or grac~ which identifies the special call to a particular religious grouping often attracts some kind of participation by both di-ocesan priests and laity. The Third Orders of some of the older religious institutes and the sodalities of some of the more modern apostolic oiders are examples of a long-standing tradition of affiliation. Today there are many more questions about various ways of belonging within the relig-ious grouping--often referred to as "memberships" in the religious fam-ily. Sister Maryanne Stevens, R.S.M., raises some of these issues in her article, "The Shifting Order of Religious Life in Our Church." We are still in the early stages of this new focusing of collaboration in life and in ministry, and there are difficulties and obscurities still to be resolved. We will continue to find it necessary to clarify the identity and responsi-bilities for members dedicated in a specially graced form of life from 481 41~2 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 other parties with different vocations and yet somehow drawn by grace to a similar model of discipleship. As part of the special spiritual legacy which monastic life, particu-larly in its more contemplative form, has been to the Church, this spe-cial form of religious life may have its own contribution to offer in terms of ecumenical efforts. Fr. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., opens up some possible ways of considering this question in his article, "Monasticism: A Place of Deeper Unity~" The AIDS crisis predictably draws forth a religious life response since it presents a special need calling for a gospel ministry. Robert Sirico, C.S.P., calls us to reflect upon our own reactions of fear and stigma concerning those with AIDS .within our own religio.us groupings as well as those AIDS patients whom we intend to serve. The issue of confidentiality is a particularly sensitive point both in our religious com-munity life and in our ministry. His article, "An Improbable Fiction?: Religious Life Confronts the AIDS Crisis," was originally printed in the October 1988 In-formation, the bulletin of the Religious Formation Con-ference. Re!igious life, with all its graced attempts to respon~l to gaps between the Gospel and culture, today finds itself, along with the wider Church and with the contemporary world, caught in the gap itself. As a result, the questions and issues will necessarily have only tentative and at-tempted responses while the Church and our world remain in this in-between time. Reflecting this kind of ongoing response, in FORUM we publish two recent letters from Father Stephen Tutas, S.Mo, president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, to its members. All of us continue to need prisms through which we might more quickly catch the movements and fleeting images of God's grace alive in our everyday religious life world. Each time we come to see a new aspect or see in new ways, we face the personal challenge of reinte-grating the truth of our lives, our relationships, and our work. May some of our writers in the articles in this issue be those prisms for us. David L. Fleming, S.J. Reproducing the Pattern of His Death John McKinnon, S.T.D. Father John McKinnon is a priest of the Diocese of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia where he is currently the Vicar for Religious. He works extensively with the various Ministry to Priests Programs and has played a pioneering role in the development of lay spirituality in Australia. His address is the Center for Human Development; 24 Custance St.; Farrer, A.C.T. 2607; Australia. ]n speaking about spirituality, I think that we Often tend to focus immedi-ately on the various ways by which we may seek to foster it--prayer, reflective ministry, and so forth--rather than on what it is we are seek-ing. Spirituality to me speaks of the way we look at life and respond to it. It is the assessment and response that we draw from the level of our own spirit, from that inner point of our self, that is closest to God. It is made up of the values, beliefs, convictions, insights, and so forth, ab-sorbed and developed over the years, which enable us to give meaning and pattern to the myriad experiences of life, and on which we base our deliberate choices. Basic Attitudes for Christian Spirituality For us as Christians these values, beliefs, convictions, and so forth are powerfully affected by our faith in tl~e person of Jesus and our'con-tact with him. This faith in Jesus and contact with him need to be per-sonalized and deepened through time spent intimately with him in prayer. The truth of any person is leai'nt most deeply only by opening to that per-son in love. Friendship is built on time spent together; it is expressed and nourished in devoted action. And it seems to me that both are equally indispensable. In his Epistle to the Philippians, in a very intimate and personally revealing passage, Paul writes about himself: 483 tlS~l / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. In this way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead (Ph 3:10- ~). In writing this he was merely outlining his own response to the invi-tation of Jesus, recorded in Mark's gospel: "If anyone wants to be a fol-lower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and fol-low me" (Mk 8:34). Paul wanted to follow Jesus into the triumph of his resurrection, but he clearly realized that following Jesus meant firstly shar-ing his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. The motivation for Paul's choice to follow Jesus was based on his knowledge of Jesus. Knowledge. in the Hebrew mind was not an aca-demic "knowledge about," but an enfleshed knowledge made possible only by love. I would think that only in this "love-knowledge" rela-tionship could any of us find the inspiration to face life as Jesus faced death, and to run the risk of "losing our life in order to find it," sus-tained only by trust in Jesus and the subtle intuition that in that way we might in fact find our life and live it to the full. Paul's comment in Philippians 3:10-11 seems to sum up for me the essential features of any disciple's looking at life and responding to it. It sums up the authentic Christian spirituality. Indeed, the pattern of Je-sus' death reveals the deepest dimensions of Jesus' own spirituality. I presume that Paul was not a masochist, and that Jesus was not in-viting his disciples to suicide. Jesus loved life. There is a sense in which we can say that in his moments of dying Jesus was never more truly alive and, indeed, living life to the full, at a depth and with an intensity that he had never had to muster before. The conclusion drawn by the centu-rion in Mark's gospel, who had known Jesus only in his dying moments, is also very revealing. Mark writes: The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, 'In truth this man was a son of God'(Mk 15:39). In wanting to reproduce the pattern of Jesus' death, Paul was paradoxi-cally expressing his own desire to live life to the full. The Source of Salvation The Epistle to the Hebrews (5:9) says that Jesus "became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation." We open ourselves to salvation as we in turn obey Jesus, as we attune our hearts to his, and through his to the Father's. It becomes ours, therefore, as we plumb the Reproducing the Pattern of His Death truth, as we accept the dignity and worth of every other human person, and as we commit ourselves to that dignity totally. That is why St. Paul dan write in his Epistle to the Philippians that he wants "to reproduce the pattern of Jesus' death." He sees that sim-ply as the way to become fully alive, and eventually "to take his place (with Jesus) in the resurrection from the dead." To obey Jesus and to find salvation mean to reproduce the pattern of his death, or, as the gos-pels put it, to take up our cross and to'follow him. What does this involve, then, for us? It means that we commit ourselves, too, to the vision and the priori-ties of Jesus; that, like Jesus, we let life touch us; that we respond to these temptations in the same way that Jesus responded to his. Our spiri-tuality is to be modeled on the spirituality of Jesus, on his values, be-liefs, and resources. Sharing His Sufferings No one can,be protected from the vicissitudes .of life. We do, how-ever, have some control over the nature of the inner suffering consequent upon these vicissitudes. In the face of the evil of the world we can choose our response. W.e can choose the inner suffering of absurdity and despair, of the sterile meaninglessness of a world without God, of the superficial and unsatisfying logic of the short-term, of the poisoning and paralyzing choice of bitterness and the refusal to forgive. We can face life with no hope and look on everyone as beyond redemption and on the world as condemned to an unchanging sameness. The other alternative is to taste the suffering involved in living the consequences of our own integrity with its seeming powerlessness; the feelings of irrelevance and nonserise involved in trusting a God who, we believe, makes sense of the meaningless sometimes only in the long-term; the dying-to-self ,involved in forgiving and the price of the perse-verance involved in pouring oneself out for others, trusting against hope that they may one day change and be converted. When St. Paul prayed to share the sufferings of Jesus, he was pray-ing that his sufferings would be those involved in the second alternative. Those were the sufferings of the dying Jesus. Those sufferings were the way to life. Context of Commitment It is the context of our life that gives flesh to the living out of our spirituality. I would like briefly to allude to a few consequences of this 4~16 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 spirituality of Christ as it touches the lives of all involved in active min-istry, priests, religious and laity. To some extent we can shield ourselves from the difficulties of life by choosing not to love. That, however, would be to betray our call to discipleship. The source of Jesus' experience of failure was his commit-ment to love. Luke makes this point quite clearly in his final prelude to the public life of Jesus, the meeting at Nazareth of Jesus and his fellow townspeople. There Jesus declared his manifesto in the words of Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord has been giv~en to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favor (Lk 4:18); and it was there that he was violently rejected by the former companions of his childhood. The starting point of our imitation of Christ is a~commitment to depth in ourselves and to share with others the wonderful good news of God's love for all, and consequently to allow our own liberation to grow, to share in the liberation of others, and to work together for justice and free-dom for them. The Call 1. Being Authentic The choice to be authentic means firstly that, like Jesus, we accept and respect both the wonderful dignity of our human nature and at the same time its limitations. It means that we accept the' fact that to be human is to grow. To re-fuse to grqw is to be untrue to the thirst for life and fullness imprinted on our nature by our creating Father. But growth is painful. It is some-times easier to refuse to grow and to change, to opt instead for the fa-miliar and the unchallenging, even to obstruct and to attack change both in ourselves and in the institutions that we make up. Integrity means that we make peace with gradualness and that we re-spect the laws of sequential growth in ourselves and in others. It means that we accept the need for performance and ambition in the establish-ing of our own sense of identity, and it equally means that we be pre-pared to relinquish in time our reliance on performance in order to sur- Reproducing the Pattern of His Death / 487 render to the risk of intimacy, of forgiveness, and of grace. Eventually it means that we move to the even broader task of universal love and of generativity. Each of these transitions can be painful, and the tempta-tions to stay as we are, to secure our own comfort and peace, are strong. We do so, however, at the price of our integrity and the call of our cre-ating and redeeming God who sent. Jesus that we might live life to the full. Being authentically human means that we need to make peace even with our weakness. We have some strengths, but we do not have them all. What we admire in others is often beyond our own reach, and vice versa. We cannot do everything. None of us is "superman." We live, for example, in a day that has only twenty-four hours and not twenty-eight. We are not called to do whatever is good, but to discern what God is asking of us, to do no more than that, and to surrender the rest. Jesus had to choose between consolidating where he was, or going "to the neighboring country towns, so that I can preach there, too" (Mk 1:38)-- he could not do both. With time the very process of aging brings us in touch With new weakness and limitation. Eventually we have to make peace even with our sin. At the price of our sense of self-reliance we have to surrender to the need for forgive-ness and of mercy. In doing so we find our true dignity, and learn to re-spect ourselves because we are loved by God. A further consequence of the choice for discipleship is that we com-mit ourselves to follow our own duly informed and educated conscience. Jesus allowed himself to be led by the Spirit. It is so easy to avoid fac-ing truth and its .consequences and to persuade ourselves that what we are really doing from fear of the opinion of others or from a concern for our own comfort is being done for the sake of pastoral flexibility or main-taining peace or some other equally inadequate.excuse. And yet, at the same time, we also have to recognize that often we are not sure what our conscience is asking of us, and we have to live in uncertainty. Basically the commitment we make to ministry is a commitment to love. We know that love is the only kind of power that can ultimately give life and bring freedom. The commitment to love immediately rules out the possibility of using other kinds of power, all other kinds of power, even ostensibly for the good of people. It applies across'the board, within the Church as well as in the broader world outside. It pre-cludes manipulation, coercion, persuasion. It is notoriously ineffective. It raises whole issues of the interrelationship of institution and individ-ual person, because institutions made up of imperfectly converted and 41~1~ / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 motivated people necessarily require some kind ofsanctions. It requires clear perceptions of priorities; and the constant readiness to change and to repent, because our ongoing experience and reflection reveal that we do not consistently discernpriorities clearly and choose appropriately. The commitment to love also involves a commitment to non-violence (which is not the same as non-resistance to evil). It is the un-willingness to counter violence with violence; it is the choice to over-whelm evil with love, rather, than to double it by retaliating. Non-violent resistance sometimes calls for total self-sacrifice; more often it means apparent ineffectiveness. There are plenty of champions of jus-tice who are prepared to seek it~with violence. That was not Jesus' way. His non-violence made him unpopular, no. doubt, to the Zealots, the "ur-ban guerillas" of his day; it makes his followers equally unpopular in our day. It is~also ineffective. It ensured the inevitability of Jesus' arrest when he was apprehended in Gethsemane, but also elicited his strict cen-sure there of the violent response of one of his followers (Mt 26:52-54). It makes sense only in a world where God is the basis of meaning. It means that we may have to leave free, to go their own way, even to walk into disaster, those whom we love or for whom we have respon-sibility. That was the experience of Jesus. He had to let his ow.n special friends, hi's own diSciples, walk unheedingly into unfaith. He could not, and would not ev.en if he could, live their lives for them. He could not, would not, make their decisions for them. He had to let them_, grow up. Handing them over into the loving hands of his Father did not help all that much. He had learnt the requirements of love precisely from that same Father. As far as the Gospels are concerned, Judas did not come back. On the other hand, the Peter whom he had to leave to walk into utter perplexity and loss of faith did grow up and was a wiser and greater man. We follow the same paths as Jesus. The choice to love makes us notoriously vulnerable. Where our way of life is one that involves our working closely with others, an option for love may mean at times all the pain and frustration of working for consensus. The democratic vote can sometimes simply mean the coercive imposition on the minority of the will of the major-ity. At times it may be appropriate. Often it is not. An honest commit-ment to consensus will mean for many the readiness to devote the time and effort needed to develop the necessary skills of listening, assertion, and negotiation. We need to face the temptation to ineffectiveness, at times even to irrelevance, the jibes of naivete and so forth, and, like Jesus, explore the Reproducing the Pattern of His Death depth of our own authenticity, listen to his heart and to the heart of our creating Father. We need to listen to our own hearts, and somehow trust that integrity, truth, and love make sense, the only sense, and that our God is a God of the long-term, and not of efficient and immediate re-sults. 2. Forgiving We are familiar with the temptations to bitterness and to unforgi-veness. Not only is our world polarized; in some ways, too, our Church is also. Forgiveness is a decision. It is a decision that has consequences. When we decide to forgive, we surrender our right to use the memory of the wrongs again, either for our own self-pity or to store up and accu-mulate them in order to attack again whoever has hurt us. In a situation of ongoing disagreement or.difference, forgiveness in-volves a commitment to seek whatever common ground there is and to work for reconciliation and even at times for consensus. It involves the need to move beyond the words or the positions we may have adopted to listen to our own hearts and to the hearts of those with whom we dis-agree. It is a consequence of choosing the spirituality of Jesus. It leads to life and to peace, but it has its price. ~Forgiveness can seem like the surrender of our own dignity and self-respect, or of our loyalty to our friends and respect for them. 3. Committed . Perhaps our greatest temptation is to lose hope in people. We get hurt through life. We lose o~ur enthusiasm, even our courage. We try some things and our efforts are rejected. We know the temptation to cut our losses: we do our job; we do what is expected of us. But we lose our com-mitment, and we do little or no more than seems necessary. It is difficult to keep pouring out our lives, to keep working enthusi-astically or to try to introduce innovations only to be met with little or no response. It is easier to settle down, to look after ourselves, to make life comfortable to lose hope. But to lose hope is tochoose against life. Jesus faced blankness, in-difference, rejection, mockery, and blasphemy. In the face of that he chose to pour out his life "for the many." He knew the temptation, but he also listened to his own depths and to the heart of his Father. He died still hoping against hope in people. And for many his hope and his com-mitment bore fruit. There is in the depths of every human person an open-ing towards truth and a connaturality with love. Jesus believed that. He saw it in himself. He wanted to set it free in everyone. He would never 490/Review for Religious, July-August 1989 give up hope in people's changing and being converted; he would go to death for the sake of that hope. A truly Christ-based spirituality calls for a commitment in 'hope to people. The Outcome Our active ministry and lifestyle, therefore, whether we be priests, religious or laity, present us with infinitely nuanced temptations tO,work other than in love--to compi:omise and to find our way around our con-sciences, to choose :power in one or other of its many forms, to lose pa-tience with the apparent ineffectiveness of non-violence and love, to avoid the risk of intimacy and to settle instead for subst.itutes. We lose confidence in our God who gives meaning, sometimes too late and only beyond the grave, to our striving, for integrity and authenticity, and we prefer more tangible results and accountable successes, even at the price of what we know we are really called to be. We know we can give lip- ~service to forgiveness but not have the energy.to follow up its conse-quences. We feel the enticing attraction to settle down, to make life com-fortable, to. be "realistic." It is by facing these temptations, recognizing them and naming them, and then by choosing instead to be authentic, to trust, to forgive, and to hope that we work out our salvation and come to savor that life in abun-dance that Jesus wishes to share with us. As we respond to life as Jesus did, we know his peace and his joy, and we get in touch with the "blessedness" he spoke about in the be-atitudes. There is ai~ irrepressible quality to these experiences. We do not have to force 6urseives to find them. They come of themselves. They do not depend on circumstances beyond our control, and require no "fly-ing- carpet" ride through life. Like Jesus who could thank his Father even on the night he was betrayed, like Paul who could write: ". as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so, through Christ, does our conso-lation overflow" (2 Co 1:5), we, too, find the unexpected presence and power of peace and joy within us. Even in the very moments of our "re-producing the pattern of his death," we "know Christ and the power of his resurrection" (Ph 3: 10). It might seem to be paradox, but our ex-perience knows it to be truth. The victory that Jesus has won over evil, and in Which we share, is not a victory in which everything has been done already for us. The vic-tory won for us by Jesus means that we now have within us the resources to face whatever comes and to. triumph in love. It is a victory in which we actively participate, and through-which, precisely by our own par- Reproducing the Pattern of His Death / 491 ticipation, we ourselves become more fully alive and more authentically human. No one can do that for us, not even Jesus. But he does do it with us as we allow his Spirit scope to breathe within us. Mission to the World A~ccording tO John's gospel, on the night of his resurrection Jesus ap-peared,~ to his disciples and commissioned them to do what he had done: As the Father sent me, so I am sending you (Jn 20:21). Jesus had been sent to engage with evil and to overwhelm it with truth ~r~ love. He showed the way to us. The Epistle to the Hebrews writes: As it was his purpose to bring a great many of his sons into glory, it was appropriate that God . . . should make perfect, through suffering, the leader who would take them to their salvation (Heb 2: 10). The same Epistle consequently recommends: Let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it t6 perf6ction (Heb 12:2i. We follow the path that Jesus has trodden. He has commissioned us to show the same way, to others. That is our mission: we show the way, and we show it by living it ourselves. We cannot live the lives of others for them, any more than Jesus could live ours. But we can show them and, by our love, we can empower them, as Jesus has done with us. Though we might all feel embarrassed to say so, really our mission to others must be summed up in the words of St. Paul, "My brothers, be united in following my rule of life" (Ph 3:i7), or, more succinctly, "Take me for your model, as I take Christ" (1 Co I1:1). Like Peter we would all like to follow in the footsteps of a popularly acclaimed and universally accepted Christ. But there is no such Christ. Like the two sons of Zebedee, we would like to share in a victory where struggle is not necessary. But there is no such victory. Jesus has won the victory, but it was won on the wood of the cross. We share in his vic-tory, but we do it as we drink his cup and are baptized with his baptism (see Mk 10:35-40). As with the mission of Jesus, so, too, then, with our own: the suc-cess of our ministry will be counted not by the numbers of those who may listen to us or cooperated in our projects but in the ones who are encouraged by our example and empowered by our love to engage with the evil in their own breasts and meet it in love. It will be found in those 492 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 who allow the failures of their lives and of their relationships and the .fail-ure of their projects to touch them, and who feel the consequences of those failures, but choose, whether wearily or resolutely, to continue to reach out lovingly in trust, in forgiveness, and in hope. Jesus' message really is one of love, of peace, ofjgy, and of happi-ness- but not as the world understands and gives them. His message is one of victory, but of victory through the Cross, even for his followers. They have to engage with life and they have to let life touch them. It will hurt, not because God wants it that way, but because of the sin of the world and the mutual destructiveness in which it takes shape. This sin of the world can be overwhelmed. Jesus has made it possible. But where it touches people, there people have to engage with it. Conclusion A truly Christian spirituality is one that responds to life as Jesus did. That is the only Christian spirituality. "All I want is to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and to share his suffering by repro-ducing the pattern of his death. In this way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead." As we treasure our experience and pon-der it in our hearts, as Mary did, I believe that our pondering can fruit-fully be done only by relating it to the pattern of his death. Other values and~insights will modify many forms of this basic Chris-tian spirituality; various lifestyles will determine the concrete shapes that it takes; and wisdom and experience will dictatehow best to ponder and to get in touch with those spiritual depths of Jesus. But all must be based firmly on him or they will fall short of salvation. And he wants so much that we share hig experience of life and taste that life "to the full!" Work and Leisure: Our Judeo- Christian Foundations Melannie. Svoboda, S.N.D. Sister Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D., is currently dividing her time between teaching and writing. She recently completed six years as novice director. Her address is Notre Dame Academy; Route one, Box 197; Middleburg, Virginia 22117. Recently I was asked to give a workshop on leisure and spirituality. As part of my research, I looked in the Reader's Guide to Catholic Periodi-cals to see what already had been written on the topic within the past few years. When I looked up the word leisure I was surprised to find very few articles listed under it, but I noticed, there were many articles under Lent. I looked up the word play and found even fewer articles under play, but there were many under Plato, and planned parenthood. Next I tried the word celebration. I found several articles under celebration but many more under celibacy, cemeteries, and censorship. Finally, I looked up the word fun. I found no :articles under fun, but plenty under fund raising, fundamentalism,, and funerals. This experience made me realize how little has been written on the topic of leisure and other related topics which, I feel, are fundamental to our Christian faith. This article will discuss the Judeo-Christian un-derstanding of leisure. It will begin with an exploration of the biblical understanding of the nature of work. Then it will look at the tradition of the Sabbath, the great 'leisure day,' and show how a balancing of work and leisure is essential to a healthy Christian spirituality. Let us turn first to the book of Genesis. What does Genesis tell us about work? It tells us many things. First, it says something extremely significant: God works. This concept of, a working God was something of an oddity among the peoples of that time period. Many other civiliza- 493 494 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 tions envisioned their gods as beings who did not work. Their gods lei-surely romped around on mountain tops or lay around sleeping all day. But the Hebrews, based on their unique experience of God, saw their God differently. At the beginning of Genesis they posted a large orange sign with big black letters on it: Go~)AT WORK. But Genesis tells us something even more revelatory than the fact that God works. It tells us why God works. He works not because he has to work; he works because he wants to work. His work, creation, is not for his sake; his work is for others' sake, for humankind's sake, for our sake. In Genesis, God chooses to work because he chooses to share some-thing of himself with someone else. So already in the opening pages of Scripture, work is seen as being intimately associated with the act of self-giving-- a self-giving for the benefit of others. A third thing we notice in the creation narrative is how God works. He seems to enjoy it! God is not portrayed as someone who hates his job or finds it mere drudgery. We do not see God complaining, for exam-ple, at the beginning of the fourth day, "Darn it! Today l've got to make those stupid birds! I'll never get them to fly--I just know it!" On the con-trary, God takes delight in the work process, pronouncing creation, the product of his labors, as "good" at the end of each day. In Genesis, we also notice that leisure or rest is an integral part of the work process. God rests not merely on the last day; he rests, he takes "time off," between each day of creation. The ending of each day brings closure to that particular day's activity. The seventh day, the Sab-bath, is just a longer rest period--an entire day of complete rest. But throughout his work, God has been taking other rests--"mini-Sab-baths"-- all along, Rest or leisure is part and parcel of the work proc-ess. Leisure, like work, must be good if God himself does it. In the creation account, Adam, like God, works. "The Lord then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it" (Gn 2:15). Work is not a punishment for Adam's sin. It is one of the ways Adam is made in the image of God, A working God means a working Adam. Adam's work is a sharing in the creative activity of God. Adam's work, like God's work, consists primarily in cultivation and care. But something happens to work after the Fal!: Adam sweats and Eve had labor pains. Genesis 'seems to be saying that after their act of dis-obedience, Adam and Eve suffered some serious consequences. All work--whether bringing forth new I.ife through farming or giving birth-- would now necessarily involve fatigue, frustration, and pain. Work and Leisure / 495 In summary, then, Genesis presents some fundamental attitudes to-ward work. Work is .good--even God works. Work is an act of self-giving directed toward the good of others. It consists primarily in culti-vation and care, in the bringing forth of new life. Work should basically be a joyful activity even though it often entails fatigue and pain. Rest or leisure is good, too. It is somehow integral to the work process. Altfiough Genesis beautifully describes work and leisure, it is in Exo-dus and Deuteronomy that we learn more precisely where leisure comes from and, more importantly, what leisure is for. For the Israelites, the concept of leisure is identified with the tradi-tion of the Sabbath. This tradition is expressed explicitly in the fourth commandment: "Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day" (Ex 20:8). The key phrase in that commandment is "keep hol~,." What exactly does "keep holy" mean? The remainder of that commandment explains what it means: "Six days you may labor and do all your work,, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God" (Ex 20:9-10). The implication is that to "keep holy" means "not t.o work." But wl~y were the Israelites directed not to work on the Sabbath? The reason is found in Deuteronomy's version of the fourth command-ment. This version adds the following: Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and out-stretched arm; because of this, the Lord God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath (Dt 5:15). The reason for not working is found in the words "because of this." What does the "this" refer to? It refers to the exodus--the great work of Yahweh. In other words, the Israelites were directed not to work on the Sabbath in order to take time to remember their deliverance from bond-age in Egypt by a powerful yet loving God. In his book, Confessions of a Workaholic, Wayne Oates says that the chief motive for keeping the Sabbath was gratitude to God. It is not fear of God, nor the need to hew the line of ritualistic practice. Rather it is the motive of gratitude for deliverance from slavery, grati-tude for the gift ~f freedom. ~ But the Israelites were to do more than to set aside a day on which to thank God for their freedom--as important as that is. They were to express their gratitude to God by the way they used their precious gift of freedom during all the days of the week. Just as God had used his free-dom to free the Israelites from slavery, so, too, were they to use their 496 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 freedom to free others from slavery--the slavery of ignorance, poverty, hunger, ill health, fear, old age or whatever form that slavery took. In his book, Flowers in the Desert, Demetrius Dumm, O.S.B., has written a beautiful section on the Ten Commandments. His treatment of the fourth commandment is especially relevant here. He sees the fourth commandment as a "transitional commandment"--one that comes af-ter the three commandments that are concerned with the Israelites' rela-tionship with God and one that comes before those six which govern the Israelites' relationship~with each other. The first three commandments called the Israelites to affirm the mystery of God, writes Dumm. They called the Israelites to trust in God's basic goodness, to see him not only .as powerful but as loving. The last six commandments direct the Israel-ites to affirm that same divine mystery present in every human being by the fact that he or she is created by God. Durum writes: Every creature deserves, therefore, to be respected because of its share of divine mystery. One of the most powerful tendencies of man is to eliminate mystery in his life because it cannot be controlled and thus seems threatening to him. The most natural way for man to control the mystery in :creation is through his labor. The Sabbath commandment or-ders the Israelite to interrupt his labor every seventh day as a reminder that that labor is intended by God to release the mystery in life and not crush it.2 What does all of this have to do with me personally and with my Christian faith? Maybe we can answer that question by taking a few "lei-sure moments" to reflect on these questions. What is my. attitude toward my work? Do I see it as a way of self-giving for the benefit of others, or do I view it as a drudgery or, worse yet, asia punishment? Is my work a way of earning God's love, or is it an expression of gratitude for God who loves me already? Is my work a way of serving others, or has it become my sole means of earning the esteem and respect of others? How is my work helping to free others from slavery--no matter what form that slavery might be? In my work, do I respect the divine mystery in creation and people, or is my work an attempt to control or manipulate creation and people? Have I become a slave to my work, or am I free to let go of it at times? Can I, for example, freely walk away from my work when lei-sure calls me to praye~, to relaxation, or to sleep? Have I learned the art of bringing each day.to a close, entrusting the fruits of my labor to the Lord? Do I set aside regular.time for leisure--for "mini-Sabbaths" and for longer ones? Do I use this "wasted time" to remember God's deliv- Work and Leisure / 497 erance.of me from sin, to reflect on his goodness to me, and to thank and praise him for his power and love? Can I just be with God or must I always be doing for him? Do I find the Lord both in my work and in my leisure? Do I take time to be with others, to enjoy their company, to play with them, to appreci-ate the divine mystery present in them? Or is the only time I am with others when I am working with them or for them? In conclusion, then, we have seen how a healthy balancing of work and leisure is essential for our Christian faith. In his article, "The Spiri-tual Value of Leisure," Leonard Doohan explains how work and leisure manifest our faith in God. Unlike those who profess some religions, we claim to believe that God is near to us, in us, in others, in the wonders of the world. Only in lei-sure dowe prove this belief by giving time to developing attitudes nec-essary to meet him. We also believe we can experience God personally and in community, but does our faith show this to others in the life we live? Are we "working" tourists who look at everything and see noth-ing, or do we pause, appreciate, wonder, and praise God who, we be-lieve, reveals himself in creation? It is not by work that we earn salva-tion, but in leisure that we appreciate that it is gift. Leisure is the cor-rective that puts work in perspective and shows forth our faith.3 NOTES ~ Wayne E. Oates, .Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts about Work Addiction (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971), p. 35. 2 Demetrius Dumm, O.S.B., Flowers in the Desert: A Spirituality of the Bible (New York: Paulist, 1987), pp. 14-15. 3 Leonard Do6han, "The Spiritual Value of Leisure," Spirituality Today, 31 (June 1979), p. 164, Positive Wellness: Horizon for Religious Experience Jerome A. Cusumano, S.J. Father Jerry Cusumano, S.J., is a member of the Japanese Province of the Society of Jesus. He is currently engaged in studies at Arizona State University. His address is B:'ophy College Prep; 4701 N. Central: Phoenix, Arizona 85012. In this article I show how the integrated approach to health as exemplified in the holistic health movement can serve as a vehicle for opening a per-son's consciousness to the religious dimension of life. Since the goal of holistic health is "positive wellness," it is meant for those in good health who wish to achieve even better health, those who, in other words, are no longer focused on the negative problems of health such as giving up smoking, controlling drinking, losing weight, and so on. Holistic health encompasses at least the following four dimeffsions: nu-trition, exercise, awareness, and lifestyle. Since numerous self-help books as well as much scholarly research have more than adequately ex-plicated what is essential to each particular dimension, I do not intend to repeat here what has been better said elsewhere. However, I will briefly summarize what seems to be generally accepted in each area in order to establish a basis for the reflections which follow. 1 will treat the four basic factors in ascending order of importance. Nutrition Quantitatively, one should systematically "under-eat" in such a way as to maintain his body weight at the level it was when physical growth was completed, usually about the age of twenty. Qualitatively, one's diet should be based primarily on whole grains, raw vegetables, and fresh fruit. The diet should be, in yogic terms, sattvic, that is, nei- 498 Positive Wellness / 499 ther making the body sluggish nor stimulating it, but rather leaving it en-ergized and calm at the same time. Since one needs energy for exercise and calmness for awareness, a sattvic diet disposes the body properly for the next two dimensions of holistic health. Exercise Good food will not be adequately assimilated if the blood and oxy-gen circulation of the body are poor; conversely, a body kept in good condition will be healthy even on a poorer diet. Thus exercise is more important than nutrition for positive wellness. One needs to do some form of stretching exercises every day in order to maintain flexibility and alignment in the musculo-skeletal frame. What is gained during exercise times should be maintained at other times by sitting and standing in pos-tures which keep the shoulders and pelvis in line and the back straight. One also needs some form of daily aerobic exercise done for at least twenty minutes a session in order to revitalize and refresh the cardiovas-cular and respiratory systems by increasing the oxygen supply in the blood. The amount of time one devotes to exercise serves as a good gauge of one's desire for positive wellness. Nevertheless, even exercise is of less importance for positive wellness than the next dimension, aware-heSS. Awareness A period of at least twenty minutes a day should be devoted to some method of systematic awareness in the form of relaxation or meditation. The possibilities range over the spectrum from Feldenkrais's body aware-ness exercises or Jacobson's progressive relaxation method done in the prone, position, through the measured movements of Tai Chi done stand, ing and walking, to the one-pointed focusing of zazen or yoga done in the more demanding postures such as the full lotus. ~ Turning one's con-scious powers in on oneself while in slow m6vement and/or remaining still for a good length of time not only revitalizes the conscious mind and relaxes the body, but also provides a place where unconscious material, such as negative emotions, can .surface and be disposed of through aware-ness. While aerobic exercise refreshes one through an expenditure of en-ergy, in awareness one gathers his energy, concentrates it, and so re-charges himself. Furthermore, while it is possible to both eat well and exercise enough, and yet still lead a harried life, this is not possible for one who wishes to practice awareness regularly. The daily period set aside for purposefully quieting both body and mind through awareness presupposes a lifestyle conducive to such an activity. Thus awareness is 500 I Review for Religious, July-August 1989 both the support of and the fruit of an ordered lifestyle which is the fourth and most important dimension for positive wellness. Lifestyle In proportion as a stressful lifestyle has deleterious effects on the physical and psychical organism, so also a relaxed lifestyle is the single most important factor in promoting positive wellness. Such a lifestyle in-cludes a job ohe feels satisfied with and sees as worthwhile, as well as a personal life that has sufficient rest, satisfying human relationships, and some absorbing interests. Requisite to such a lifestyle, however, is a I . clear conception of the purpose of one's life, which serves as an implicit criterion by which one can judge which activities are to be undertaken and which relationsh.ips fostered. With a relaxed lifestyle and a clear pur-pose in life a man may reach a state of positive wellness even though he does not scrupulously follow all the directives with regard to nutri-tion, exercise, and awareness. Actually, a clear grasp of the purpose of one's life gives a meaning to striving for positive wellness. "Maintain-ing good physical and mental health is like preserving two fine instru-ments which can be used to carry out the purpose of life . Thus it is clear that the basis of holistic health lies in one's understanding the purpose of his life and learning how to achieve that purpose."2 Religious Experience The state of positive wellness, achieved and maintained by the inte-grated approach of the holistic health movement as summarized above, can dispose one to be more receptive to the transcendental and religious dimension of life. One becomes accustomed to an habitual state of vigor, energy, and wellness which hecan no longer do without. To use Glas-ser's term, one has developed a positive addiction to health itself. This addiction to positive wellness has its source in the good feelings gener-ated through the "spiritualization" of one's body by the increased vi-tality attained through conscious effort and the "physicalization" of one's mind by the greater calmness achieved through attention to bodily processes. At peak moments this dual action issues into a harmony which Glasser call the PA (positive addiction) state. "In the PA state the mind flows with the body. The two cease completely to be antagonistic to each other and blend into one. The state of positive addiction to health is experienced as a drive from within oneself, but not an instinctual drive such as that for sex, nor as a drive stemming from the force of one's will. One feels that he has tapped into another force which is now pulling him to higher levels of Positive Wellness health. Yoga terminology calls this force the Self as opposed to the self. However, it might just as well be conceived in terms of health itself. The healthier one becomes, the more he makes contact with the body's own innate drive to good health and experiences the power of that drive. He gradually opens his consciousness to the life force within him and allows it to work of itself. The healthier one becomes, the more he can tap into this life force. Paradoxically, this means that one becomes a "spiritual" person not by ignoring the body in the pursuit of higher interest, but rather by infusing the body with spirit, that is, by directing one's consciousness to the health of the body in such a way as to energize it as fully as possible. As a result one becomes a more suitable vehicle to channel the energy of life within himself and to others. "As you continue to develop your channels of energy, you will notice differences in your entire being, and these will likewise be observed by those around you, who also benefit from the increase in energy flow."4 Energizing the body through sustained, systematic daily care of one's health puts one into contact with a Life greater than one's own. It is this Life, more than individual will power, which makes possible the main-tenance of a sane lifestyle and consistent attention to nutrition, exercise, and awareness demanded for positive wellness. For some this may be the first step to recognition of transcendent being. For others it may be a preparation through a new experience of satisfaction from taking respon-sibility for one's life. As Bloomfield says, "There is joy in taking full responsibility for your health and happiness.''5 Children at play, fully alive and vibrant, exemplify the joy he speaks of. Theirs is a joy spring-ing from the flexibility and agility of their bodies as well as from the care-free state of mind in which they live. Paradoxically, Ardell notes, it is only as one grows older that he can fully enjoy youth.6 Conclusion If pursued within the holistic health framework the current quest of many for youthfulness and positive wellness can become the occasion for opening oneself to transcendent and religious experience. For positive wellness makes one aware of the source of Life itself. NOTES ~ M. Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement, (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), E. Jacobson, You Must Relax, (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1980). 2 S. Rama, A Practical Guide to Holistic Health, (Honesdale, Pennsylvania: The 50~. / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 Himalayan Publishers, 1980), p. 13. 3 W. Glasser, Positive Addiction, (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 56. '~ R. Shames, The Gift of Health, (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), p. 140. 5 H. Bloomfield, The Holistic Way to Health and Happiness, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 274. 6 D. Ardell, High Level Wellness, (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p. 67. Full Circle Morning did come! Rise with the full-day Sun! Work begun. Thy Will be done! Day half-spent, Rest in the noonday Sun! Renewed, refre~shed--run! Day-work, toil done. Daystar, noon, setting Sun. Rest! Be still! Tomorrows come . . . maybe? Glory be! Walter Bunofsky, S.V.D. 1446 E. Warne Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63107 Striving for Spiritual Maturity: Ideals as Obstacles Wilkie Au, S.J. Father Wilkie Au, S.J., has been working in psychological counseling and spiritual direction. He served for six years as novice director for the Jesuit California Prov-ince. He may be addressed at Loyola Marymount College; Jesuit Community; P.O. Box 45041; Los Angeles, California 90045-0041. The metaphor of a journey captures well what most adults come sooner or later to realize about spiritual and psychological growth: it is a never-ending series of changes and struggles. In a word, it is a hard road to travel. It is tied to the ways we respond to the crises of human life. These crises are both predictable and unpredictable. The predictable ones have been outlined in the literature of deve!opmental psychology, which de-picts the pattern of adult growth, not as an undisturbed straight line, but as a zigzag process often full of setbacks and frustrations. The unpre-dictable crises are easily recognized: sudden illnesses, career disappoint-ments, interpersonal misunderstandings, the loneliness of ruptured rela-tionships, the separation of death or divorce. When faced with the strug-gles that are the inescapable conditions of growth, people frequently ask themselves: "Why go on? Why keep trying, if there is no chance of suc-cess? What difference does it make any way?" The frustrations of seem-ingly endless change--new jobs, new residences, new relationships-- force many to question whether it is worth all the effort. These are nei-ther theoretical nor abstract questions. They emerge from the concrete experience of striving to grow in holiness and wholeness. These quan-daries frame the struggle to love as Jesus commanded. An effective spirituality today must strengthen the individual's com-mitment to the ongoing process of sanctification and maturation. It must 503 ~i04/Review for Religious, July-August 1989 do this by reminding us that God is always close by with divine love and power to help us in our struggles. As followers of the risen Christ, we are called to believe that "the power.by which life is sustained and in-vited toward wholeness is no human creation and abides and remains steadfast even in a world where death does have dominion over every individual." ~ As in other human journeys, we reach the destination of our spiri-tual pilgrimage only gradually. However, there is a paradoxical nature to the spiritual sojourn. While alive, we will never fully reach our goal of union with God and others. Yet, being on the spiritual path is already a way of attaining that end. God is to be enjoyed not only at the end of the search, .but all along the way. The Christmas story of the magi illus-trates this truth. God was present to them not only when they joyfully arrived at the cave in Bethlehem, but also in the original stirrings that sent them off in search of the promised Messiah. God's presence was also experienced in a guiding star that directed them through dark nights and in a dream that warned them of Herod's threat. They experienced God's support, too, in the encouragement they gave each other through-out an uncharted search that took them miles from home. God is more present to us than we think. Our search for union with God is life-long, often a strenuous trek punctuated by dark passages. If we are to persevere, we must take cour-age in God's abiding presence all along the way. Even as we are travel-ing towards God as destiny, Emmanuel is already with us in manifold ways. The disciples of Jesus were once given a dramatic lesson about how Christ is ever-present. One day they were crossing the Lake of Gali-lee when a fierce storm enveloped their little boat. Frightened by vio-lent winds, the apostles were stricken with panic. Suddenly, Jesus ap-peared to them walking on the water. He told them, "It is I. Do not be afraid" (Jn 6:21). Jesus then calmed the storm, and the boat quickly came to shore. The significance of Jesus' words is clear when we look at the original text. The Greek has Jesus saying "ego eimi" which liter-ally means "I am." In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the phrase "ego eimi" is used as a surrogate for the divine name (Ex 3:14). It is Yahweh's response to Moses' question, "Who shall I say sent me?" In placing these words in Jesus' mouth, John ex-p~' esses the early Church's belief in the divinity of Christ. The good news affirmed in this Johannine passage is identical to that contained in Mat-thew's story of the magi: God is always with us in our journeys through life. This truth must permeate our consciousness, especially when our Striving for Spiritual Maturity / 505 fragile boat is rocked by waves of worry and troublesome torrents. In our fear and confusion, we need to recognize the presence of the risen Jesus drawing near to us to still the storm. Calm will descend on us when we hear Jesus say, "Do not be afraid. It is I." Letting Go of Flawless Images ~The journey metaphor most accurately reflects reality when it is seen as a zigzag pattern i'ather than as an uninterrupted straight line. Human growth is not a process that moves relentlessly ahead in a single direc-tion. It, rather, is a mixture of progressions and regressions. At times, we experience forward movements; on other occasions, slips indicate re-gress; and sometimes, no matter how much effort we expend, we find ourselves at a standstill, seemingly stuck at a developmental plateau. Is this wrong? To the contrary. Accepting the jerky aspect of growth and relinquishing the illusion of a forever smooth-flowing journey is not only necessary but will bring serenity to our striving for maturity. Failures should not produce despair; temporary plateaus need not trigger paraly-sis. The expectation of a flawless journey is counterproductive because it misrepresents the process of developmenta~l growth. It also distorts the truth of what it means to be a human being. A view of the human person which does not acknowledge that sinfulness casts a shadow on every person is unrealistic. Such a notion can also have harmful effects. Our sinful condition renders us radically weak. In an iron'ic way, not to admit to our weakened capacity leads us to a sense of perversity and guilt rather than worthiness and self-acceptance. The refusal "to recognize the persistent ambiguity and the final impotence of our lives tantalizes us with an optimistic promise of self-evolved be-coming," concli~des theologian LeRoy Aden. It also "stands in danger of giving us a sense of failure and despair to the extent that we do not achieve it. ,.,2 Thus, failure to acknowledge the shadow aspect of human personality, diminishes, not enhances, self-esteem. Aden elaborates on the harmful effects of a naively optimistic view of human development in the context of a critique of Carl Rogers, the father of client-centered therapy and a major influence in the field of pas-toral counseling. Aden objects to a basic hypothesis of client-centered therapy: the belief that persons have within themselves the ongoing ca-pacity to reorganize their lives in the direction of maturity and fulfill-ment if the proper psychological climate is present. Concretely,. this hy-pothesis presupposes that if the counselor communicates empathy, warmth, acceptance, and genuineness, a client wil~ naturally begin to manifest behavior that enhances the true self. According to Aden, "Ro- 506 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 gers' faith in the individual's ability to choose the good is absolute. He entertains no qualifications. He allows no doubts.In fact, therapists who begin to question the hypothesis and who shift to another mode of inter-action only confuse the client and defeat their own purpose."3 Roger~ clung tenaciously to his belief in the individual's absolute ca-pacity for constructive and enhancing behavior. Aden recounts an inci-dent in Rogers' life in which he nearly destroyed his own psychic health by maintaining at all cost this article of faith. Rogers once dealt with a very disturbed woman who continually demanded more of him--more time, more warmth, more realness. Although he began to doubt his own adequacy and to lose the boundaries between himself and the client, Ro-gers was very reluctant to let go. Finally, when he realized that he was on the edge of a personal breakdown,he swiftly referred the client to a psychiatric colleague and left town for an extended period. He eventu-ally sought therapy to overcome feelings of complete inadequacy as a therapist and deep worthlessness as a person. According to Aden, this "event shows that Rogers would doubt him-self as a therapist and as a person before he would question his basic faith in the individual.''4 Rogers had provided his disturbed client ~,ith un-derstanding and acceptance over an extended period of time. Neverthe-less, she got progressively more dependent and sicker, bordering on psy-chosis. Her behavior explicitly challenged the very foundation of his the-ory. Thus, it was easier for him to doubt his own worth as a clinician than to reexamine the linchpin of his therapeutic creed. Belief in the in-dividual's indomitable capacity for ongoing growth and actualization had to be maintained at all cost. Forgiveness: The End Point of Life Carl Rogers has made many contributions to pastoral counseling, but his trust in the absolute ability of individuals to grow continually toward fulfillment is a harmful assumption for Christians. It contradicts Christi-anity's deepest insight into the human person as radically good, yet bur-dened by sinfulness. This sinful condition impedes our struggle for growth in holiness and maturity~ It often leads to imperfect fulfillment. Unlike the contemporary tendency to absolutize fulfillment as the basic truth and the final goal of human existence, Christian faith reiterates the good news proclaimed by Christ: forgiveness is the endpoint of human life. Thus faulty fulfillment and incomplete development need not worry those who trust in the forgiving love of God. In thelend, we will fully enjoy the unconditional acceptance of God, not because we are flawless, Striving for Spiritual Maturity / 507 but in spite of our imperfections. Our merciful God's gift of forgiveness means that we "cannot and need not measure up to any conditions of worth."5 When forgiveness, and not fulfillment, is seen as the endpoint of our lives, we can live with greater acceptance of our weaknesses and with greater hope in God's power to complete what grace has started. No longer will the ambiguity of our fulfillment judge us, nor the impo-tence of our efforts condemn us. With St. Paul, we are "quite certain that the One who began this good work" in us "will see that it is fin-ished when the Day of Christ Jesus comes" (Ph 1:6). As Aden states beau-tifully., the promise of ultimate forgiveness "allows us to be incomplete and yet complete, estranged and yet related, distorted and yet fulfilled." When our journey reaches its termination, we will be wrapped in God's merciful arms, like the prodigal son. Because "you are forgiven" will be the final words we will hear, we are freed from the compulsive need to actualize perfectly our human potential and are released from the guilt that accompanies falling short of that goal. "Success and failure are accidental," writes one spiritual writer. "The'joy of the Christian is never based on . . . success but on the knowledge that (one's) Redeemer lives."6 Thus, the author encour-ages us to learn to li~,e peacefully to the end of our life with a certain imperfecti6n: The Lord will never ask how successful we were in overcoming a par-ticular vice, sin, or imperfection. He will ask us, "Did you humbly and patiently accept this mystery of iniquity in your life? How did you deal with it? Did you learn from it to be patient and humble? Did it teach you to trust not your own ability but my love? Did it enable you to under-stand better the mystery of iniquity in the lives of others?' ,7 Our lack of perfection will never separate us from God because the Lord's forgiveness is always perfect and total. What to Do Until the Messiah Comes Until that day of Christ Jesus, when we will receive "the perfec-tion that comes through faith in Christ and is from God," we are called to strive for the goal without ceasing (Ph 3: 9-10). We are to imitate St. Paul in his deep yearning "to have Christ and be given a place in him" (Ph 3:9). We have not yet won, but are still running, trying to capture the prize for which Jesus captured us. We too must forget the past and strain ahead for what is still to come. We must, in Paul's words, race "for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upward to receive in Christ Jesus" (Ph 3: 14). Review for Religious, July-August 1989 Paul's expression of the Christian goal is beautifully poetic. We must look to a contemporary spirituality, however, to translate it into real-life terms. As a guide to Christian living, a spirituality' must spell out the prac-tical dimensions of that vision. It should keep the Gospel ideals eve~r be-fore the Christian sojourner. These ideals are meant to help Christians finish the spiritu~.l race and to receive a place in Christ. They can be use-ful in our spiritual odyssey. Like the stars, they may never be reached; but they are useful to steer our lives by. Ideals can hinder us, however, and discourage us from trying when the fear of performing poorly para-lyzes us. The French saying, "The best is the enemy of the good," il-lustrates this attitude of fearfulness. Ideals impede our spiritual progress when we use them as an excuse for mediocrity, thinking to ourselves: "Christian holiness is something for saintly people, not ordinary folks like us. ". Furthermore, ideals are injurious when they lure us into think-ing that we can earn God's approval by doing everything perfectJy. Paul refers to this as seeking a perfection that comes from the Law rather than from faithin Jesus (Ph 3:9). When striving for holine~ ss deceives us int6 thinking that we can stand in pharisaical judgment over others, we have been seduced by pride. Finally, ideals are harmful when they lead to cyni-cism and disillusionment. That no one fully lives up to espoused values should not undermine the importance of having high aspirations. The fail-ure of sincere efforts should not disillusion us, but the apathy of not try-ing should appall us. Dreaming is not the same as doing. Ideals should inspire us to act, not merely to dream. Thoughts of what could be tomorrow should lead us to do what we can today. When lofty aspirations lead to romantic pre-occupation rather than realistic pursuits, they retard our spiritual devel-opment. In a letter to a friend, C. S. Lewis makes this point nicely: We read of spiritual efforts, and our imagination makes us believe that, because we enjoy the idea of doing them, we have done them. I am ap-palled to see how much of the change which I thought I had undergone lately was on!y imaginary. The real workseems still to be done. It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation of the spiritual life with the life itself--to dream that you have waked, washed, and dressed and then to find yourself still in bed.8 No matter how grand our ideals, they can only be achieved through small but steady steps. As the Chinese sage Lao Tze stated centuries ago, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." We must bear this wise saying in mind as we let the star of idealism lead us, as with the magi, incompanionship to the Messiah. Striving for Spiritual Maturity / 509 Activity and Passivity in Spiritual Striving Striving for spiritual maturity is paradoxical. It requires us to be si-multaneously active and passive. We are called to exert our efforts and use our God-given talents to develop ourselves. And, at the same time, we must remember that our efforts alone can never bring us to holiness and wholeness; only God's grace can effect our transformation into Christ. While we ultimately cannot save ourselves, we must neverthe-less cooperate with divine grace. We must dispose ourselves to be re-ceptive to the sanctifying action of God's touch. In our spiritual journey we have to negotiate a delicate passage between the Scylla of presump-tion and the Charybdis of despair. Presumption, according.to St. Tho-mas Aquinas, is "an unwarranted dependence upofi God."9 It is the at-titude that God will do it all and that our efforts are not important. Fos-tering irresponsible inaction, it keeps us from doing our part. Despair, on the other hand, is losing hope in God's saving power. It stems from an exclusive reliance on our efforts, without any trust in God's power to make up for Qur human limitations. It results from thinking that eve-rything depends on us alone. Only ongoing discernment can help us main-tain the right balance in our spirituality between personal effort and trust-ing reliance on God. Both dynamics are encouraged by Scripture. Many New. Testament passages attest to the need to rely on God's power in order to bear spiritual fruit in our lives. A beautiful expression of this is the Johannine image of God as the vinedresser. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The Father prunes us so that we might bear fruit (Jn 15: I-2). Spiritual growth is passive in the sense that purification and progress are the direct results of God's action upon us. The evangelist Mark reinforces the centrality of God's action in his parable about the seed growing by itself. This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land pro-duces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time; he starts to reap because the harvest has come (Mk 4:26-29). Notice that the farmer's work is described with a minimum of words. The emphasis falls on the mysterious process of growth. Just as the earth produces fruit spontaneously, so God's reign comes by divine power alone. Once the seed is planted, the result is as sure, as dependable, and as silent as the forces of nature. Stage by stage--first the green shoot, then the spike of corn, and then the full grain in the ear--the seed of S10 /Review for Religious, July-August 1989 God's reign grows to harvest in a way that the farmer does not under-stand. This parable reminds us that nature (God's creation) contains a power which humans do not make or~direct. Similarly, God's grace will bring about conversion and growth in us in ways we may not understand. In human lives, the Spirit of Jesus is the divine power that brings God's kingdom from seed to harvest. When we remember that God's 'work-ing in us,.can do more than we can ask or imagine' (Ep 3:20), we will be protected from the pride and anxiety that stem from the myth of total self-sufficiency. But Scripture also stresses the importance of human effort. Luke's gospel strongly urges followers of Christ to translate words into action. "Why do you call me Lord, Lord," asks Jesus, "and not do what I say?" (Lk 6:46). Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and acts on them ¯ . . is like the man who when he built his house dug, and dug deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man who built his house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it col-lapsed; and what a ruin that house became! (Lk 6:47-49). Jesus not only challenges us to practice his teachings, but also warns that our very hearing of his word must be done with care. In the parable of the sower and the seed, he describes the fragility ofthe seed of God's word. If it is not received by the right soil, it will not take root and grow. Grains that fall on the edge of the path represent people who have heard the word of God, but have it stolen from their hearts by the forces of evil. Seeds that fall on rock are like people who receive the word in a superfi-cial way, and give up in time of trial. Those that fall in the midst of thorns are Christians who let worries, riches, and pleasures of life choke their growth, preventing it from reaching maturity. Grains that fall in the rich soil signify those of generous hearts who have let the word take deep roots in themselves and have yielded a harvest through their persever-anc. e (Lk 8:11-15). Emphasizing the importance of human effort in dis-posing the soil of the inner self for receiving the word, Jesus concludes with a warning: "So take care how you hear" (Lk 8: 18). While Mark's parable of the seed growing by itself stresses the power of God actively bringing about growth, Luke's parable emphasizes the necessity of en-ergetic human cooperation. Another Lukan parable about a fruitless fig tree highlights the im-portance of personal effort. When its owner realized that his tree had Striving for Spiritual Maturity been barren for three years, he ordered his gardener to remove it. In-stead, the caretaker pleaded, "Sir, leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down" (Lk 13:8-9). We too are called to actively tend the seed of God's word so that it can take deep roots in our souls and can bear fruit for the world. A classical biblical text used to illustrate the need for docility to God's formative action in our lives is Jeremiah's visit to the potter. Watch-ing the artisan working at his wheel, the prophet noticed that he contin-ued to shape and reshape the clay until he created what he was envision-ing. Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah as follows: "House of Israel, can I not do to you what this potter does?. Yes, like clay in the potter's hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel" (Jr 18:1-6). While the image of the human person as clay being shaped by the divine Potter testifies beautifully to God's active involvement in our spiritual development, it should not be used to justify excessive passivity or in-fantile irresponsibility. While trying to be malleable to the fashioning in-fluence of God, Christians are called to take adult responsibility for their growth. This means taking active means to deepen one's love for God and neighbor. Activity and passivity must coexist in dynamic tension, if we are to remain.spir!tually healthy. In describing her Jeremiah-like visit to a pot-ter at work in Provincetown, situated at the tip of Cape Cod, a recent writer shed light on the active-passive dimension of spiritual formation. The observer discovered that the artist,, a woman-of more than seventy years, was a wise person as well as a potter. After conveying her belief in the direct relationship between the pliability of the clay and its strength, the artisan added, almost as an aside, "If you can't bend a lit-tle and give some, life will eventually break you. It's just the way it is, you know." ~0 The visitor noticed that the potter worked with both hands: one placed inside, applying pressure on the clay; the other on the out-side of the gradually forming pot,. Too much pressure from the outside would cause the pot to collapse, while too much pressure from the in-side would make the pot bulge outward. The old potter spoke wisely about life: Life, like the pot I am turning, is shaped by two sets of opposing forces ¯ . . Sadness and death and misfortune and the love of friends and all the things that happened to m~ that I didn't even choose. All of that in-fluenced my life. But there are things I believe in about myself, my faith in God, and the love of some friends that worked on the insides of me. ~ 512 / Review for Religious,. July-August 1989 Like Jeremiah, this modern day potter sheds light on the Lord's ways of dealing with us. The Lord who calls us to be holy is also the One who forms us into the image of Jesus, the living icon, of God. This divine Art-ist works on us with two hands: one shaping us from the inside and an-other molding us from the outside. Like the clay pot, we need to be mal- . leable. And, paradoxically, our pliability will give us strength to per-severe ac~tively in the process. Knowing how to bend a little will keep us from breaking. Experience as Manure in the Spiritual Field In the spiritual project of transformation into Christ, effort is what counts, not unremitting success. Acclaiming the value of practice in spiri-tual growth, the Eastern guru Chogyam Trungpa speaks of the "manure of experience and the field of bohdi." ~-~ Bohdi represents the search for enlightenment. If we are skilled and p~tient enough to sift through our experiences and study them thoroughly, we can use them to aid our en-lightenment. Our experiences, 'our mistakes, and even our failures func-tion like fertilizer. According to Trungpa, to deny or cover up our errors is a waste of experience. When we do not scrutinize our failures for the lessons they contain, we miss an opportunity. What appears to be use-less trash contains potential .nutrients for life. But, to convert our defi-ciencies into positive value, we need to pile them on a compost heap, not sweep them behind a bush. Hiding failure is to store it like rubbish. "And if you store it like that," the guru remarks, "you would not have enough manure to raise a crop from the wonderful field of bodhi.''~3 In a parallel way, experience can be said to be manure in the field of Christian development. Like manure, past experiences must be plowed into the ground to enrich the inner soil of the self, making it more re-ceptive to. the see.d of God's word. Then, we will reap an abundant har-vest base~l on our perseverance. Mistakes need not ruin our spiritual jour-ney, if we learn from them. Even saints like Augustine of Hippo and Ig-natius of Loyola learned how not to make mistakes by making many. The Lord who desires our holiness can bring good out of everything, can work in any and all of our experiences to transform us. In our fragmen-tation, we rejoice in the power of God to bring wholeness. If we bring our weakness before the Lord, humbly asking for the help of enabling grace, we can then trust that the Lord will produce an abundant harvest. Spiritual Growth Through Trial and Error The ideals of Christian spirituality cannot be achieved without im-mersing ourselves in the messiness of nitty-gritty experience. Learning Striving for Spiritual Maturity how to love God and others in an integrated way comes only through daily practice. The way of trial and error, not book learning alone, will teach us how to fashion a dynamic and balanced life in which there is room for solitude and community, ministry and leisure, autonomy and intimacy, personal transformation and social reform, prayer and play. Striking the right balance is a highly personal matter. No one can attain it for us; we must discover it ourselves through personal experience. As theologian John Dunne states, "Only one who has tried the extremes can find this personal mean., on the other hand, trying the extremes will not necessarily lead to finding the mean. Only the [person] who perceives the shortcomings of.the extremes will find it. 14 Blessings for the Journey Achieving wholeness and holiness requires traversing the difficult ter-rain of real life with all its challenges and crises. Even at the end of a lifetime of effort, we will still need to be completed by the finishin~g touch of the divine Artist. God will .then bring to completion in us the eternal design of persons destined to love wholeheartedly. While await-ing that unifying touch of divine grace, we pilgrims are called to follow the way of Jesus. And the Lord who walks with us assures that we will always be blessed. The blessings sent our way may not always be enjoy-able, but they will always nudge us forward in our efforts to love as God i'ntended. °~ A rabbi was once asked, "What is a blessing?" He prefaced his an-swer with a riddle involving the creation account in chapter one of Gene-sis. The riddle went this way: After finishing his work on each of the first five days, the Bible states, "God saw that it was good." But God is not reported to have commented on the goodness of what was created on the sixth day when the human person was fashioned. "What conclu-sion can you draw from tha~?" asked the rabbi. Someone volunteered, "We can conclude that the human person ~s not good." "Possibly," the rabbi nodded, "but that's not a likely explanation." He then went on to explain that the Hebrew word translated as "good" in Genesis is the word "tov," which is better translated as "complete." That is why, the rabbi contended, God did not declare the human person to be "toy." Human beings are created incomplete. It is our life's vocation to collabo-rate with our Creator in fulfilling the Christ-potential in each of us. As the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart suggested, Christ longs to be born and developed into fullness in each of us.~5 A blessing is anything that enters into the center of our lives and expands our capacity to be filled with Christ's love. Therefore, a blessing may not always be painless, but Review for Religious, July-August 1989 it will always bring spiritual growth. Being blessed does not mean being perfect, but being completed. To be blessed is not to get out of life what we think we want. Rather, itis the assurance that God's purifying grace is active in us, so that our "hidden self (may) grow strong" and "Christ may live in (our) hearts through faith." In this way, we will with all the saints be "filled with the utter fullness of God" (Ep 3:16-19). NOTES I Sam Keen, "Manifesto for a Dionysian Theology," in New Theology No. 7, eds. Martin E. M~irty and Dean G. Peerman (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 97. 2 LeRoy Aden, "On Carl Rogers" Becoming,"Theology Today XXXVI:4 (Jan. 1980), p. 558. 3 lbid, p. 557. 4 Ibid. 5 lbid, p. 558. 6 Adrian van Kaam, Religion and Personality (Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1980), p. 15. 7 lbid, p. 15. 8 C.S. Lewis, The3, Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963), ed. Walter Hooper (New York: The Macmillan Co., Inc. 1979), p. 361. 9 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin Text and English Translation, Introductions, Notes, Appendices, and GIossaries,~Vol. 33 (Blackfriars, with New York: McGraw-Hill and London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966), II-II, Q 21, a I, ad 1. ~0 Paula Ripple, Growing Strong at Broken Places (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Ma-ria Press, 1986), p. 68. ~ Ibid, p. 69. ~z Chogyam Trungpa, Meditation in Action (Boston: Shambhala, 1985), p. 26. ~3 Ibid. ~4 John Dunne, The Way of All the Earth (New York: MacMillan Company, 1972), pp. 37-38. ~5 Meister Eckhart once said: "What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hund'r~ed years ago and I do not also give birth to the son of God in my time and in my culture?" As quoted in Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear & Company, 1983), p. 221. The Shifting Order of Religious Life in our Church Maryanne Stevens, R.S.M. Sister Maryanne Stevens, R.S.M., is currently Assistant Professor of Theology at Creighton University. She had served as formation director for the Sisters of Mercy, Province of Omaha from 1977-1982. Her address is Department of Theology; Creighton University; California at 24th Street; Omaha, Nebraska 68178. The difficulty of thinking thorough questions about religious life today should not be underestimated. Such reflection is often complicated by the fact that those straining to see and articulate what the shifts in relig-ious orders mean for their future in our Church are often themselves mem-bers Of religious congregations. Thus, the efforts to make sense of vowed living can be blindedoby both self-interests and past~ ways of understand-ing. Th6 blindness feels to me like the fuzzy sight of Mark's blind man who could see people "but they look like trees, walking" (Mk 8:24). It was only after the man "looked intently" that he was able to see ev-erything clearly. This ~article is more an attempt to describe the "tree walking" than to asser(any.de~finitive conclusions. Two circumstances in particular have sparked my own reflections on the changing order of religious life. First, we continue to have members "leaving." They do not leave in the dark of night as they did in the 1950s; rather many stand before us in assembly or community saying that their integrity prevents them from +ontinuing to live the vowed life, but they wish always to remain ""sister" or "brother" to us. Many are not immediately interested in a different lifestructure, for example, marriage, personal wealth, and so forth; rather, they are no longer able to connect celibacy, poverty, and obedience to any understanding of their life. Secondly, those within religious communities primarily vested with 515 516 / Review for Religious~ July-August 1989 the role of discerning vocations and incorporating new members are no longer called the "formation-vocation" team. They are now referred to as the "membership team." Some of these new membership teams are made up of non-vowed associates of the community~ as well as vowed members. The job description of these teams is unclear even though it includes the discernment of vocation and the incorporation of new mem-bers because vocation and membership have taken on new meanings. Vo-cation is not necessary to the "vowed" life and membership does not necessitate professing the vows. The new terminology and the alteration in the constitution of the teams are profound symbols of a "changing order." These two realities--members continuing to remain attached to con-gregations even though they "leave" and the development of "mem-bership teams"--can allow for i~ew insight into how, with decreasing numbers,,religious orders will continue the legacy of their foun~lresses or founders, women and men whose gifts have been confirmed as a vivi-fying influence in the Church and the world.2 These gifts or charisms are the animating characteristics for the style of life, witness, and apostolic action within the congregations. Membership within a congregation has meant at its most basic level that a person'believes he or she is called to re-offer the charis~m of the founder to the contemporary world. This offering is buttressed by the belief that the gifts of the founder or foun-dress are not time-bound and will continueto contribute to a further ap-proximation of the reign of God in history. Thus the Sisters of Merc~y (the "order" to which I belong) present the foundation for their exis-tence as the desire to continue the story of a nineteenth-century Irish woman, Catherine McAuley, in theChurch and in the world. This par-ticular goal is expressed by tfieir fourtti vow of gervice and through the wording of their present Constituiions which point to the ideals of their congregation as well as the way they presently understand their congre-gation and words the way they presently understand th6ir mission as a community within the Church. By the vow of service we commit ourselves to exercise the spiritual and corporal works of mercy revealed to us through~ t~,h.e life of Jesus. En-riched by his love, healed by his mercy and0taught by his word we serve the poor, sick, and ignorant. To celebrate our corporate word in a discordant society requires the courage of a deep'faith and interior joy. We believe that God is faithful and that our struggle to follow Christ will extend God's reign of love over human hearts. We rejoice in the continued invitation to seek jus- The Shifting Order of Religious Life tice, to be compassionate, and to reflect mercy to the world.3 The thesis of this article is simply that the clues for how to continue the legacy of a particular founder or foundress will be found by looking intently at how the tradition of the founder or foundress continues to be lived, seeking to confirm all those ~'ho focus their discipleship of Christ through the prism of his or her life and legacy. In order to amplify this thesis, I will discuss eight understandings that result from an attempt to "look intently," and then present several ideas intended to help the "re-ordering" of religious communities. But, first, one caveat is necessary. No matter how blind men and women religious feel as they grope toward an understanding of their .lives, they must trust that they faithfully embody the tradition of the par-ticular foundress.or founder. When I was in formation work in the 1970s, I was fond of telling the newer .members that the Sisters of Mercy were made up of the names in the current directory and the names on the tomb-stones in our cemeteries. This was the most concrete way of describing what they were getting into~companionship with persons who were char-acterized by a variety of shapes, sizes, quirks, personalities, sickness, gifts, skills, weaknesses, ideas, and so forth--but with one thing in com-mon: they all believed they were called to focus their discipleship through the story of Catherine McAuley. It seemed essential that each member act toward the other with the belief that each sister was a part of this tradition and that all were searching for what was necessitated by the call to appropriately renew the story (or tradition) in the light of the sources of Christian life, the original inspiration behind the community and the changed condition of the times.'* At that time I was pointing the novices toward the vowed members of the group, the Sisters. Now the names in our directory include asso-ciate, that is non-vowed, members who have made a contract with us in which we promise our support for their attempts to live the tradition of Catherine McAuley and they promise specific ways in which they will contribute to the offering of Catherine's gifts to the Body of Christ. There-fore, wl~ether we be Sister JaneSmith, R.S.M. or Jane Smith, Associ-ate of the Sisters of Mercy, we must believe in and support one another as we seek to embody the tradition of our foundress. Each of us brings only a part of the story, thus each person who focuses his or her disci-pleship through the same tradition helps focus the present and the future "order" of one's specific congregation. Part I The following are my understandings of religious life today: I ) Men and women in religious orders are disciples of Jesus. We be- 511~ / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 long to a pilgrim people searching for the reign of God. We are blinded by sin and limitation as we seek to discover the ways of our God as re-vealed through Jesus. We learn how to follow Jesus in our times and in our circumstances. The primary mode of ou'r learning is experiential. It is complex and it calls us to struggle with our daily realities to see anew w,hat patterns in 6ur lives need conversion. The greatest threat to our dis-cipleship is to think that we have learned enough or to reduce the reign of God to the glimpses of glory which we see in our own time. Liberation theology is probably the clearest indication to today's Church that it is still on pilgrimage. Begun with Moses' vision of a God who had heard the crying out of the Israelite slaves, reiterated in Han-nah's canticle that praises God as one who will raise up the lowly, and reborn in the 1970s through the efforts of those struggling to see God and understand God's ways from the experience of twentieth-century op-pression, this theology reminds us as a Church that we are still learning not only how, but where to find Jesus.5 2) Members of religious orders are those who are disciples of a par-ticular charismatic leader recognized by our Church. Recognizing that our stories do not belong to the time and culture of the founder or foun-dress, the charisms of these characters and their companions are a way of expressing discipleship in Christ. To be members ofa religious con-gregation~ is to take one way of interpreting discipleship of Jesus, namely the life of a founder or foundress, as a way to focus discipleship. Again, congregational members are disciples of this way of focusing, that is, there is no profession, ministry, office, or role, no direct service or in-stitutionalized ,ministry, that exempts members frorri continually learn-ing what it means to pattern their lives or focus their discipleship of Je-sus through the prism of this great man or woman. All of our lives are mystery, not in the sense that they defy explana-tion, but in Gabriel Marcel's sense that the more we are involved in them, the more inseparable we become from their depth.6 Our Church has confirmed the legacy of some men and women as mysterious, that is, there is within these persons a depth of discipleship that calls and be-comes involving for others. Nano Nagle, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Elizabeth Seton, Angela Merici, and Catherine McAuley are some of these people. Their gift to the Church is mysterious to us, and that is why they can properly have disciples. The more their lives, their stories are considered, the more insight we gain into what it might mean to be a disciple of Christ in our time. Thus, many religious congregations acknowledged with Vatican II The Shifting Order of Religious Life that reflection on what it meant to follow Christ and to plead the radical nature of the Gospel through the focus on their particular founder or foun-dress meant that they must be learners of new ways. The call for renewal necessitated a refounding and a reordering of these congregations that con-tinues into the present.7 This challenge reminds many in a very profound way that they are indeed learners. 3) We are co-dikciples. There can be no doubt about this. Baptism incorporates us into a community of disciples. As members of religious communities, we are co-disciples, learners with the other clergy and la-ity. Appropriating Gospel values and finding patterns of life that typify holiness are calls received by all within the Christian community, whether they be married, single, or vowed. The sixth-century understand-ing of Pseudo-Dionysius who envisioned the grace of God as descend-ing through three hierarchical angelic choirs into two earthly hierarchies of clergy and laity respectively was normative until Lumen Gentium's statement that "in the Church, everyone . . . is called to holi-ness . ,,8 No longer do lay folk stand below those ~who profess the evangelical counsels nor do the latter stand below those who are ordained to the priesthood in the Church. Paul VI reiterated the Vatican Council's hierarchy-shattering words when he said that the whole Church received the mission of Jesus--"the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of love. ,,9 The consideration of volunteers, partners, and associates who claim the life and charism of a founder or foundress of a religious order in our Church as their way of focusing discipleship reminds us that we are co-disciples. These new relationships can intimidate as well as inspire and so we must continually remind ourselves of John Paul ll's challenge to the whole Church to embrace mercy. In Dives in Misericordia, he de-fined Christian mercy as "the most perfect incarnation of "equality" between people., love and mercy bring it about that people meet one another in that value which is the human person., thus mercy becomes an indispensable element for shaping mutual relationships between peo-ple, in a spirit of deepest respect for what is human . ,,~0 4) As members of apostolic congregations, ministry is our reason for existence. A common life and the vows have constituted the order of re-ligious life, but the purpose of this order for apostolic communities has always been service. Many founders and foundresses wrote words simi-lar to those of Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, when describing the qualifications for an aspirant to apostolic groups. Catherine stre'ssed "an ardent desire to be united to God and to serve 520 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 the poor" and a "particular interest" in helping the sick and dying. ~ The rereading of the history of apostolic orders, which was occasioned by the cali of Vatican II to renew, led many congregational members to realize that "order" or common patterns in the style and structure of the lives of men and women who focused their discipleship through the charism of a particular founder, is negotiable, but the reason for the or-der is not. This should help women and men religious to open themselves and their ownership of the legacy of their founder or foundress to those who do not "order" their lives in the same way. If the purpose of the order is service,or ministry, then should those who do not profess the evangelical counsels be excluded? This can be a very challenging ques-tion, because throughout history the only way to claim concretely many of these charisms or legacies was to order one's life through the evan-gelical counsels of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. But, as Dorothy noted in the Wizard of Oz, "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." Men and wom'en who do not profess these vows are desiring both to minister after the fashion of these great men and women and to receive the sup-port of congregations dedicated to these legacies without maintaining a common living style or divesting themselves of marriage possibilities or ownership of property. 5) It is not order, but mission that describes our lives. John O'Mal-ley, S.J. claims that the history of apostolic religious orders might more properly belong to the history of ministry than to the history of institu-tionalized asceti~cism. ~2 Groups that banded together for the sake of serv-ice presented a whole new trajectory within our Church, as they were a break from the ascetical tradition. However, the Church in its concern to regulate these groups modeled their "order" on the flight of Anthony into the desert in 275 A.D. Many of the great women foundresses, in par-ticular, found their desire to gather others for the sake of service to a par-ticular need frustrated by an order of enclosure, profession of vows, and obedience to an ecclesiastical superior. ~3 For example, the Sisters of Mercy often reflect on the history of Cath-erine McAuley whose companionship with other women grew around their mutual attention to the poor in early nineteenth-century Dublin. In-dependently wealthy, she commissioned the building of a "House of Mercy'r in which women could gather to devote themselves to the relief of suffering and the instruction of the ignorant. She resisted and ex-pressed discomfort about the "order" of the lives of those in congrega-tions of nuns, to the point of abhorring the thought of spending time in the Presentation novitiate to learn the ways of an established canonical The Shifting Order of Religious Life / 591 institute into the Church. However she submitted to the "ordering" be-cause without it her mission would have failed. ~4 The time in which she lived demanded that women engaged in companionship for the salve of service be organized as vowed religious women. Among many active congregations of religious in the United States, especially congregati.ons of women, the question of whether or not to re5 main canonical has arisen. This question is motivated primarily by the difficulty involved in gaining the Congregation for Religious and Secu-lar Institute's (CRIS) approbation for Constitutions and the reordering of "religious" life so that it more properly aids in fulfilling the particular mission of the group. ~5 The question, however, is not whether religious congregations will choose to remain canonical, that is, of some standard within our Church; the question is how their "order" will be specified within the Church,-that is, how will they organize themselves as women arid men embodying the charisms of great founders or foundresses within the Church. Ignoring for a moment the enormous difficulties of dealing with a bureaucratic power structure that often seems less than open to anything irregular, let us look at the question before us. Can we, as disciples of the great founders and foundresses in our Church, make a distinction be-tween vocation to a particular lifestyle or life structure (that is, marriage vows/the choice of single life/vows of poverty, celibacy, obedience) and the vocation to a particular charism and mission within the Church (a deep identity with the spirit and gifts of a particular person who focuses our discipleship of Jesus)? I think that the movements of associate membership, volunteers, part-nership (all of which imply non-vowed varying degrees of membership in religious "orders"), mighi be a tremendously important break within the history of what have come to be called "active orders" in our Church, but these movements will further our ability as a Church to do ministry as baptized disciples of Jesus. 6) One of the most pressing questions for: religious congregations is what life structure or "order of life"facilitates discipleship of Jesus focused through the mission of their founder or foundress. The current documentation abou( the life structure of those called to follow a foun-der or foundress organizes it around the three vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Both the Vatican II document on religious life and the 1983 Essentials of Religious Life promulgated by the Vatican Congrega-tion for Religious and for Secular Institutes present the evangelical coun-sels as not only "essential," but also as the basis for the organization 522/Review for Religious, July-August 1989 of life for those in religious congregations. However, both Sandra Sch-neiders and John Lozano, show effectively in their recent and widely read treatments of religious life that the vows cannot be taken as impor-tant in themselves. 16 The vows, if taken at all, need to be placed in the context'of a statement of desire to,pursue the mission of the community, how we promise to accept the responsibilities of this mission in our lives, and how others dedicated to this mission accept us within their group. Furthermore there is more and more recognition (fueled by the relatively new science of psychology) t.hat intimate, committed relationships to per-sons, ownership, and autonomy do not make one less holy. Along with this, New Testament scholars have shown that these counsels do not flow from the gospels as such, but were constructs of our Church at a later time. And, even without Vatican ll's assertion of.the universal call to holiness, experience tells most of those who are presently members of religious congregations that they are no more holy than thos6 who choose to marry and have children, own property, and center their autonomy dif-ferently. Indeed, if men and women are going to structure their lives by pro-fessing the evangelical coufisels, (thus sacrificing the gifts of sex, own-ership, and autonomy), then these must only be given up for the sake of mission. Johannes Metz is perhaps the most clear and the most chal-lenging on this point. In his Followers o.fChrist: Perspectives on Relig-ious Life, he argues that the vows are both mystical and political. Thus, poverty demands not only a protest against the tyranny of having, pos-sessing, and pure self-assertion; it also impels those practicing it into a practical and situational solidarity with those poor whose poverty is their condition of life and the situation exacted of them by society, rather than a matter of virtue. Celibacy, as a state of being radically seized by a long-ing for the reign of God, impels one toward those unmarried people whose not having anyone is not a virtue but their social destiny, and to-wards those who are shut up in lack of expectation and in resignation. And finally, obedience is the radical and uncalculated surrender to God and it impels one to situate oneself .among those for whom obedience is nota matter of virtue but the sign of oppression and placement in tute-lage.~ 7 It is only in this way that these counsels can ever be real signs of eschatological witness. Metz has called vowed communities "shock therapy instituted by the Holy Spirit for the Church as a whole.''~8 Us-ing Metz's ideas, if I read him right, many more of us might call our-selves "associate members" of religious congregations than already do out of integrity. There may be many who want to focus their discipleship The Shifting Order of Religious Life / 593 of Jesus through the legacy of a great founder or foundress, but their ac-commodations to the culture would indicate not that they are lesser dis-c! ples, but rather that the functions they perform and the gifts they bring to the reign of God are not th6se that necessitate or call them to the vowed life. That is, "association" may be more appropriate for those who draw support from the tradition or story of a great founder or foundress and find the mission of that congregation an animating principle for their dis-cipleship. Whereas formal vowed commitment to one another, relinquish-ing of goods and full authoring over one's choice of service might be re-served for those whose discipleship leads them to more radical under-takings. The question here concerns the life-structure (or "order") that has traditionally been associated with claiming followership of a specific mission in our Church. Are there ways to embody the tradition of minis-try defined, by a great founder or foundress in our Church as one group in which some are vowed to poverty, celibacy, and obedience and oth-ers are not? Those who are vowed in the traditional way choose a life-structure which more clearly binds them to the ~reedom to move around and respond to unmet needs among the poor, alone, and oppressed. 19 Those who do not profess the vows but do center their discipleship on the founding charism might be called to a,life-structure which points to-ward a certain stability within a local Church community. One could as-sert that there must be ways to accommodate this diversity because even using the traditional ordering of religious life, which included the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience as part of the package, I would sub-mit that there are some within religious congregations who have the free-dom to live the vows as Metz proscribes and others whose lives point toward and demand a different modi~ of discipleship. That is, the vows may not be absolutely constitutive of focusing one's discipleship through the charism of a great founder or foundress.2° 7) There is a need for enabling ministers who are not constrained by local church boundaries. According to O'Malley, one of the most re-markable characteristics of the development of active orders is that it in effect created a "church order (or several church orders) within the great church order and itdid this for the reality to which ~:hurch order primar-ily looks--ministry."z~ That is, pontifically erected religious orders en-joy a warrant and exemption from the bishop of Rome to act publicly on behalf of the Christian community wherever the needs to which their charism responds arise. This has, throughout history, caused some ju-ridical as well as cultural complications. However, despite difficulties, 524 / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 needs have been' attended to that would never have been served if it was necessary to rely only on the personnel within local boundaries. As the order of religious life shifts, this is a very important compo-nent of our history that should not be lost. This "pontifical warrant" for the sake of ministry has allowed for tremendous creativity in meet-ing the needs of the people of God. Glimpses of the reign of God are seen in the histqry Of religious orders who have brought literacy, heal-ing, and economic stability to the uneducated, sick, ahd poor around the world. 8) Finally, men and women in religious orders need to realize the gifts they can sh~are with the Church. The emergence of the laity is very new to our Church, and the long history that religious orders have of do-in~ ministry leaves many' within them unskilled at enabling and serving with others. But vowed men and women need to recognize that one of the gifts they may have is 6ffering those who have taken to heart the mes-sagegf the gospel and the spirit of Vatican II both some encouragement and some means for realizing their call. Many who~desire a more intense following of Christ may find that the sp, iritual, intellectual, and apostolic life in their parishes does not encourage these needs and aspirations. Thus, they only feel frustration in their call to maturity and co-responsibility in the Church. Religious orders ha~,e a wealth of experi-ence in thinking through methods for spiritual development and encour-aging other adults in gro~vth. Many find in religious life rich resources of the heritage of the Church not avail~.ble in local parishes. They find a focus and discipline for spiritual growth, a unifiedvision of the pur-pose of discipleship, .and a structured identity with a family in a living tradition of the Church. The challenge is to share these gifts, without thinking people have to become "mini-religious'"l~o acquire them. An extension of our charisms beyond those in the vowed ranks might mean that many more can become effective ministers in the parish and the Church at large. Part II We should not be surprised that a "new ordering" is difficult for us to think about and may even create controversy, dissention, and fear when we attempt to talk about it with one another. Anything new always brings a death to something within the present. Many of us love our way of ordering our .lives. We have lived the vows and known ourselves and our companions to grow through the experiences they have presented to us. We want to share our-lives, extend them, and see the "ordering" that has facilitated our growth be embraced by others. Yet this "order" The Shifting Order of Religious Life / 525 may have to die so that discipleship focused on the great charismatic lead-ers in our Church might continue. We are challenged to refound our con-gregations. This challenge implies the freedom to consider reordering our lives for the sake of mission. From the above understanding flow the following ideas that may help religious congregations to reorder their membership and to reorder the perception of religious life in the Church. I) We, as those who vowed ourselves to the legacy of great founders and foundresses within the order specified by the Church, must continue to think about what that means. Imitating her tongue-in-cheek, I quote the twentieth-century Jewish philosopher, Hannah Arendt, "what I pro-pose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing." The thinking, although allegedly simple, is.indeed quite com-plex and we of.ten try to escape it, precisely because we did it once be-fore during the 60s and the 70s. Even though new life was born in our midst, many of us remember the struggle and some among us have not quite recovered. Thifiking usually means that we risk conversation of sub-stance. And conversation of substance usually implies the same kind of controversy as that depicted in the Gospel account of Jesus asking Peter a question of substance. "Who do people say .that I am?" is the query of the man who had just multiplied loaves and then cured a blind one. Peter knew who Jesus was. "You are the Christ." But Peter did not like the implications of the insight. "Get behind me, Satan" is the rebuke heard when Peter tried to squirm out of the new order specified not only for Jesus but also for his own discipleship. Insights gleaned from thinking and from conversation of substance can be threatening. But we must remember that even more threatening is the possibility that some valuable offerings to the further approxima-tion of the reign of God will be lost if we are unwilling to gain and ex-press the insights of our experiences. If our experience is that the vows do not make meaning in our lives, but the charism of our founder does, then perhaps we must search for other ways to order our lives so as to offer more fully the charism of our. community to the Church. And, if our experience is that others who are not vowed can claim the legacy of our founders, (and more importantly if their experience confirms this), then they must be allowed to do so in an equal fashion. 2) We must effect reconciliation and a spirit of interdependence within our Church, especially with persons and groups claiming the same charism. As stated earlier, a tradition specifying that God's grace flowed toward the non-vowed and non-ordained last was reinforced in 596 / Review foUr Religious, July-August 1989 popular piety until the Second Vatican Council. This distanced many re-ligious from other laity and created a perception ihat vows or ordination meant that one was more graced and clos+r to God'. Men and women in religious; congregations must actively pursue reconciliation with other la-ity because, intentionally or non-intentionally, some disunity has been effected within .our Church. We can take a cue from Paul, ambassador of reconciliation, who was .furious with his community at Galatia when they entertained the idea ofclassifying and categorizing the early Chris-tians. In Christ, there is neithe~ Jew nor Greek, slave nor free person, male nor female, women religious nor lay women, Dominican from Mercy, associate member from more traditionally ordered mem-bers . Often former members of religious orders continue to claim the charism of the order as a way of focusing their discipleship. We must reach out to these people and ask them if,. even though they found the "order" of our lives restrictive, they still find themselves drawn to the charism asa focus. We need to confirm the existence and continuance of the charism in these people, and perhaps just as importantly, let them confirm the continuance of the charism in us. A more concrete way of symbolizing our reconciliation and interdependence on one another is a very simple, yet awkward thing. We need to re-form our vocabulary so that "sisters" and "brothers" does not refer to a closed group of vowed women or men. Just as many have committed themselves to the use of gender inclusive language, we need to change the language specific to our communities, so that "sisters and brothers" becomes a way to refer to all, vowed and non-vowed, who find themselves bound to the same charism. 3) Within our working places, we must announce what inspires us. We must claim our founder or foundress as inspirations, as stories that aid our belief in and discipleship of the Christ. Many people look for a way to focus and sustain their belief, and there appear to be few heroes of a depth able to sustain followers in our contemporary life. Since many of us have been inspired by and nurtured in the founding spirit of a great man or woman disciple of Christ, we must share the gift. We must let others know what moves us, inspires us, and keeps us going as disciples in a world where the odds against the fullness of God's reign dawning seem to be mounting. Perhaps we need ways to be again inspired and again encouraged in our own focus before we will feel enthusiastic enough to inspire others. In many cases, our associates are formally rethinking and reaffirming The Shifting Order of Religious Life / 527 their commitments each year. They renew their covenant with the leg-acy of the community, and they reconsider and recommit themselves to their association with others who share the same focus. Might we not learn from them something about animating our own commitments by using this model? Let us not merely resurrect the passivity of receiving an appointment card with our job and the provincial's name on it, even though there was important symbolism there. Let us every year rework and represent our covenant with the legacy of our founder or foundress. Let us reconsider and recommit ourselves to the implications of disci-pleship and association with others who share the same mission. These understandings and recommendation are initial forays into a very difficult, yet timely, topic. They are intended to spark further thought and discussion. Although I doubt there is danger of them being considered a "last word," let me close with a few lines from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. They reflect, 1 think, what it means to see trees walking, to be fuzzy in our sight, and what it means to face this period of time as religious men and women in our Church. These are only hints and guesses Hints, followed by guesses, and the rest Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action. The hint half guessed, the gift half understood is Incarnation. Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual, Here the past and future Are conquered, and reconciled . -~-~ NOTES ~ An associate member is defined for the purposes of this article as one who wants to share in the life and apostolate of a religious institute and to become a member to a certain extent. "They are members associated and not incorporated by profes-sion. For a discussion of the variety of such groups and their notation in the new code of Canon Law, see Elio Gambari, Religious Life According to Vatican II and the New Code of Canon Law, (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1986), pp. 625-635. Also, David F. O'Connor, "Lay Associate Programs: Some Canonical and Practi-cal Considerations," REview For~ REt.~;~ous 44, 2(March-April, 1985), pp. 256-267. 2 How to continue the legacy of the founder or foundress or how to continue the mis-sion of the congregation is understood to be the underlying concern of those who e.xpress dismay of the declining numbers in religious congregations. 3 Sisters of Mercy of the Union, Constitutions (Silver Spring, Maryland, 1986), nos. 29-30. Most active congregations use wording similar to this to describe their mis-sion. 521~ / Review for Religious, July-August 1989 4 This describes the call to religious men and women from the Second Vatican Coun-cil, See Perfectae Caritatis, the "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Relig-ious Life," no. 2 in Walter Abbott (ed.), The Documents~ of Vatican !I (The Amer-ica Press, 1966)." " 5 For a concise description of liberation theology by two of its most challenging pro-ponents, see Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology (Ma-ryknoll: Orbis Press, 1987). 6 See his Being and Having, (New York: Harper Torchbook edition, 1965), p. I 17, 145. 7 For some initial strategies presented to and used widely in the early 1980s by men and wom,en religious struggling with the call to '~refound," see Lawrence Cada et al, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life, (New York: Seabury Press, 1979). s "The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church," in Abbott, no. 39. 9 Evangelii Nuntiandi, "On Evangelization in the Modern World (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1976). no. 15. ~0 "Rich in Mercy," (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference,. 1981), no. 14. ~ 1836 letter to a parish priest in Nass, Ireland, Quoted in Kathleen O'Brien's Jour-neys: A Preamalgamation History of the Sisters of Mercy, Omaha, Province (Omaha, Nebraska: Sisters of Mercy,1987), 6. ~20'Malley conceives of "active orders" as a '~critically important phenomenon in the history of ministry claiming "apostolic" inspiration," rather than as the insti-tutional embodiment of an ascetical tradition traced back to Pachomius. See -Priest-hood, Ministry, and Religious Life: Some Historical and Historiographical Consid-erations," in Theological Studies, 49 (1988), p. 227. ~3 The sweeping 1298 decree of Boniface VIII (repeated by Pius V in 1566) com-manded that "all nuns, collectively and individually, present and to come, of what-soever order of religion, in whatever part of the world they may be, shall henceforth remain in their monasteries in perpetual enclosure." Insight into the unfortunate ef-fect of this decree throughout the centuries following on women's attempts to or-gaoize associations for ministry can be gleaned from reading histories of women foun-dresses, such as Angela Merici, Nano Nagle, Mary Ward, and Louise de Marillac. ~'~ For more information about Catherine McAuley, see Sr. M. lgnatia Neumann, R.S.M., ed., Letters of Catherine McAuley (Baltimore: Helicon Press Inc., 1969) and M. Joanna Regan, R.S.M., Tender Courage: A Reflection on the Life and Spirit of Catherine M~Auley, First Sister of Mert3, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1988). ~5 Note the history of the Glenmary Sisters of Cincinnati or the Los Angeles I.H.M.'s in addition to the more recent stories of Agnes Mary Monsour, Arlene Violet, and Elizabeth Morancy, all Sisters of Mercy unable to continue their ministries as vowed women ifi religious congregations. Consider also the present renewal attempts of the Association of Contemplative Sisters. For brief surveys of these cases, see "Inside- Outsiders" chapter three of Mary Jo Weaver's New Catholic Women: A Contempo-rary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) . ~6 See Sandra M. Schneiders, New Wineskins: Re-imaging Religious Lift, Today (New York: Paulist, 1986) and John M. Lozano, Discipleship: Towards An Understand-ing of Religious Life (Chicago: Claret Center tk)r Spiritual Resources, 1980). Also see O'Malley, "Priesthood," p. 249 tbr the same point from a different perspec- The Shifting Order of Religious Life / 599 tive. ~7 J.B. Metz, Followers of Christ: Perspectives on the Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), chapter 3. ~8 lbid, p. 12. 19 Being "bound to freedom" appears at first sight to be an oxymoron, however the phrase is an attempt to reflect the demands made by the vows. ~0 Of interest in this regard is that even though various documentation from our church and the recent writings on religious life avert to the vows as important, if not essential, the Fifth Interamerican Conference on Religious Life, inclusive of leader-ship from men and women religious of North and South America, did not name the vows as essential. In a preparatory paper, the Leadership Conference of Women Re-ligious named mission, community, freedom, ministry, participative government, pub-lic witness, apostolic spirituality, spirituality of the founder, and ecclesial character as characteristics of religious life. None of the descriptions of the above included the vows. See The Role of Apostolic Religious Life in the Context of the Contempo-rary Chu'rch and World: Fifth Interamerican Conference on Religious Life (Ottawa: Canadian Religious Conference, 1986). 2~ O'Malley, p. 236. 22 T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets (London: Faber and Faber, 1960), lines 212-219. Monasticism: A Place of Deeper Unity M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., well-known for his many publications on prayer and the contemplative life, may be addressed at Assumption Abbey; Route 5; Ava, Missouri 65608. In 1976 for six months I had the privilege of living among the Orthodox monks on Mount Athos, the semi-autonomous monastic republic in north-ern Greece. There the Gospels are the law of the land and day-to-day liv-ing is governed by the writings of the great spiritual fathers of the past, most notably those of Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea, named the Great. I noted the remarkable affinity between the life lived on the Moun-tain and that lived by the monks of Saint Joseph's Abbey in the United States, from whence I came. The one great difference that struck me was the way lay visitors were incorporated into the life and worship of the monks. It was evident that there was no gulf between the life and wor-ship of the monks and that of the ordinary devout member of the Ortho-dox church. Orthodox monasticism is at the heart of the Church and all the rest of Church life is deeply influenced by it. In Western Christianity, monasticism is further removed from the life of the ordinary church member. Yet the historical influence of the monas-tics can not be denied, even among those Christian Churches which have largely disowned monasticism. Catholics generally revere monasticism, especially the more contemplative variety, and hold it in reverence as something vital to the life of the Church. The Second Vatican Council affirmed this strongly. Quite generally Catholics frequent monastic guest houses and retreats and find there something that speaks deeply to them. Protestant Christians from such contacts are beginning to reclaim this part of the common Christian heritage. The Anglican or Episcopal church 530 Monasticism and Unity/531 has been in the forefront in this. But the most notable Protestant monas-tery is one within the reform tradition--the monastery of Taize which is found in a part of France filled with monastic resonances: Citeaux, Cluny, Molesme. Most re~:ently the General Conference of the United Methodist Church has authorized the exploration of the possibility of es-tablishing an ecumenical monastic community in the United States. ,Monasticism is, then, a widespread phenomenon within the Chris-tian community and is becoming ever more present. It would be difficult to exaggerate the role of monasticism within some of the other world religions. Tibet, before the recent Communist take over, could have been called, like Mount Athos, a monastic coun-try, more a theocracy than a republic. In many Buddhist countries it has been the expected thing that every male would spend sometime within a,.monastery as part of his preparation for life. Although secularization is having an increasing effect within the Buddhist world, the monastic influenc
Dans la perspective d'une éventuelle Septième réforme de l'État belge, le Parlement de la Communauté germanophone a souhaité qu'une étude soit menée sur une réforme du système de financement de ladite Communauté, en concentrant l'attention sur les deux volets suivants : le premier, dans une perspective juridique, est consacré à l'analyse des possibilités existantes ou à créer, en droit, pour que la Communauté germanophone exerce les compétences fiscales de la Région wallonne et de la Province de Liège ; le second, d'ordre budgétaire, doit permettre d'identifier et de décrire les aspects méthodologiques dont il faut tenir compte pour réaliser et alimenter un simulateur qui partirait de l'hypothèse d'une intégration de la Communauté germanophone, dotée de toutes les compétences régionales et provinciales, dans les mécanismes de financement des Communautés et des Régions prévus dans la loi spéciale du 16 janvier 1989 (ci-après « LSF »). L'étude part de l'hypothèse selon laquelle la Communauté germanophone assumerait «toutes les compétences qui ont été transférées aux entités fédérées belges dans le passé ou leur seront transférées à l'avenir dans le cadre de la réforme de l'État». Pour cette raison, sont exclues du champ de notre étude les pistes tracées par les articles 139 de la Constitution et 10 de la loi spéciale du 8 août 1980 de réformes institutionnelles («LSRI»). D'emblée, précisons que le présent rapport retient un unique scénario, qui repose sur la création d'une quatrième Région (une « Région germanophone »), qui s'ajouterait –sans la remplacer –à la Communauté germanophone. Pour l'heure, la Communauté germanophone est pourvue d'une seule compétence fiscale –qu'elle n'a encore jamais mise en œuvre –, à savoir celle d'établir des taxes propres consacrée à l'article 170, § 2, alinéa 1er, de la Constitution. Pour sa part, la Région wallonne dispose non seulement du pouvoir de lever des taxes propres sur la base de la même disposition constitutionnelle, mais est aussi compétente pour les impôts régionaux repris à l'article 3 de la LSF ainsi que pour les centimes additionnels «élargis» à l'IPP visés aux articles 5/1 à 5/8 de la même loi. Quant à la Province de Liège, outre l'habilitation d'instaurer à son tour des prélèvements fiscaux propres en vertu de l'article 170, §3, alinéa 1er, de la Constitution, elle jouit encore de la prérogative de fixer des centimes additionnels «classiques» au précompte immobilier, conformément à l'article 464/1,1°, du CIR/92. Dans la mesure où la Constitution belge règle la répartition des compétences entre les différentes autorités de Belgique, sa révision serait nécessaire pour que la Communauté germanophone soit autorisée à exercer l'ensemble des compétences fiscales régionales et provinciales ainsi rappelées. Pour ce faire, plutôt que de proposer l'instauration d'une entité fédérée unique pour la région de langue allemande – ce qui pourrait faire l'objet d'une nouvelle étude à l'avenir –, notre rapport retient un scénario reposant d'abord sur la création d'une Région germanophone dont l'assise territoriale serait identique à celle de la Communauté homonyme, dont l'existence serait par ailleurs maintenue. De cette manière, toute compétence de la Région wallonne et de la Province de Liège serait exclue en région de langue allemande. Un autre avantage de ce scénario est qu'il limiterait considérablement une potentielle révision de la Constitution – le lecteur peut trouver en annexe au présent rapport plusieurs tableaux reprenant les dispositions constitutionnelles dont la révision paraît indispensable, seulement recommandable ou éventuellement accessoire à la mise en œuvre du modèle « Communauté et Région germanophones » que nous avons retenu. Encore, une telle situation serait propice, selon nous, à l'intégration de la Communauté germanophone dans des lois spéciales telles que la LSRI et la LSF. Afin que la Communauté germanophone puisse exercer les compétences régionales, nous suggérons une modification de l'article 137 de la Constitution afin d'étendre le mécanisme de transfert applicable à la Communauté et à la Région flamandes à la relation entre la Communauté et la Région germanophones. Ainsi, l'article 139 de la Constitution serait abrogé et les organes de la Communauté germanophone pourraient exercer exclusivement, en principe, l'intégralité des compétences régionales, en plus des compétences communautaires, sur le territoire de la région de langue allemande. En outre, il en résulterait une union du budget de ladite Communauté avec celui de la nouvelle Région germanophone. De la sorte, il serait possible au Parlement germanophone d'autoriser le financement de l'exercice des compétences communautaires au moyen de recettes régionales et inversement. Si cela était jugé nécessaire, un mécanisme inédit de transfert, par la Région germanophone, de l'exercice de certaines compétences régionales à la Région wallonne pourrait être inséré dans la Constitution, à condition d'accompagner ce mécanisme de garanties démocratiques. En tous les cas, les autorités fédérées germanophones pourraient coopérer avec la Région wallonne dans le canevas d'accords de coopération ou de décrets conjoints dans l'optique d'un exercice conjoint de certaines compétences régionales. Pour ce qui concerne les compétences provinciales, nous pensons que l'article 163 de la Constitution pourrait être révisé pour que, de même qu'en région bilingue de Bruxelles-Capitale, toute forme d'organisation provinciale soit supprimée en région de langue allemande. Une telle situation offrirait à la Communauté germanophone l'occasion de reprendre les compétences en question, à l'exception de la réglementation des questions d'intérêt provincial qui, pour sa part, ne se justifierait plus dans ladite région linguistique. Il en résulterait, notamment, la transformation de la nature des anciennes normes provinciales –les prélèvements fiscaux inclus –en normes fédérées, avec toutes les conséquences que cela implique. Dans l'hypothèse où la Communauté germanophone ne saurait reprendre les compétences provinciales faute de réaliser le modèle « Communauté et Régions germanophones », la suppression des institutions de la Province de Liège et leur remplacement, notamment, par deux collectivités supracommunales, dont l'une serait propre à la région de langue allemande, pourraient servir de pis-aller. En effet, en s'inspirant de l'article 166 de la Constitution qui autorise la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale à exercer l'intégralité des compétences de l'Agglomération bruxelloise, l'on pourrait adéquatement réviser la Constitution – par exemple, en adoptant un article 166bis – afin que la Communauté germanophone exerce les compétences d'une hypothétique collectivité supracommunale germanophone. Toutefois, l'inconvénient majeur d'un tel scénario serait qu'il présume le maintien de la compétence de la Région wallonne en région de langue allemande et s'opposerait, en conséquence, à l'exercice, par la Communauté germanophone, des compétences régionales en dehors de la mise en œuvre de l'article 139 de la Constitution. Considérant l'alignement du financement de la Communauté germanophone sur celui des autres autorités communautaires, le présent rapport révèle des similitudes et des divergences. D'une part, il apparaît que les montants de base des dotations fédérales octroyées à la Communauté germanophone ainsi que les clés de répartition appliquées à celles-ci ont été calculés de manière équivalente aux deux autres Communautés. D'autre part, la méthode d'estimation des montants de base des parts attribuées des recettes de TVA et d'IPP est différente pour la Communauté germanophone en comparaison avec celle des autres Communautés. Une autre étude s'avère donc nécessaire pour résoudre les questions techniques liées aux clés de répartition ainsi qu'aux montants de base des parts attribuées des recettes d'IPP et de TVA. Au sujet de l'alignement du financement de la Région germanophone sur celui des autres Régions, nous avons identifié les compétences dont l'exercice a déjà été transféré par la Région wallonne et celles qui demeurent (encore) dans son giron. Dans le cadre d'un éventuel transfert de ces dernières, nous avons tenté de déterminer la part que le budget wallon leur octroie. En ce qui concerne spécifiquement les mécanismes de financement des Régions, nous avons soulevé les aspects méthodologiques qui permettraient aux autorités fédérées germanophones d'exercer effectivement une autonomie fiscale propre. Ces aspects méthodologiques consisteraient: -à établir, sur la base des compétences à transférer, les besoins de la Région germanophone; -à intégrer la Région germanophone dans les mécanismes de financement des autres Régions; -et à comparer les moyens et les besoins, de manière à déterminer si la différence constatée devrait être corrigée par un mécanisme fondé sur une quelconque dotation spécifique. Néanmoins, une analyse plus approfondie devrait être réalisée sur la détermination précise des montants des compétences dont la Région wallonne pourrait encore se départir à l'égard de la nouvelle Région germanophone. Pour ce faire, il importerait d'identifier d'abord les moyens financiers exactement alloués à chaque compétence à partir du budget wallon. L'étape suivante consisterait alors à identifier les ressources financières revenant à la Région germanophone (taxes propres, impôts régionaux, IPP régional, parts attribuées des recettes d'IPP, etc.). À partir de ces informations, nous serions en mesure de déterminer les moyens financiers dont les autorités fédérées germanophones auraient besoin afin de prendre en charge les anciennes compétences de la Région wallonne sur leur territoire. Pour le reste, bien que le présent rapport postule et recommande de tendre à la neutralité budgétaire à l'issue de l'éventuelle réalisation du scénario «Région germanophone» exposé plus haut, nous ne sommes pas en mesure de confirmer, à ce stade, que les autorités fédérées germanophones recevraient les moyens correspondants à leurs besoins. Il en irait particulièrement ainsi sous l'angle des incidences, sur le rendement de l'IPP, des flux de navetteurs observables aujourd'hui en région de langue allemande, toutes autres choses restant égales. À supposer que ces flux engendreraient effectivement un déséquilibre budgétaire, les mécanismes de compensation qui nous semblent les plus efficaces reposeraient sur le recours à des dotations. Enfin, nous n'apercevons rien dans la LSF qui s'opposerait à une éventuelle extension du mécanisme vertical de solidarité nationale, applicable aux trois Régions existantes, à une hypothétique Région germanophone.
Authors' introductionWe present an overview of research about racial residential segregation. The first part of the article reviews major debates and findings drawn primarily from the sociological literature. The second part of the article identifies new areas of research that in some cases cross into other disciplines such as geography and urban studies. We show the enduring persistence of racial residential segregation as well as its causes and consequences. We also highlight the ways in which residential segregation can be better understood by including discussions about the varied social and spatial expressions of, and responses to, segregation. The social scientific examination of the patterns and everyday experiences of racial residential segregation remains prolific.Authors recommendKrysan, Maria 2002. 'Community Undesirability in Black and White: Examining Racial Residential Preferences through Community Perceptions.'Social Problems 49: 521–43.The author presents an empirical critique of research which examines the role that residential preferences play in perpetuating racially segregated residential settlement patterns. The data are drawn from the Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality. The author analyzes black and white participants' responses to open‐ended questions about community undesirability in 23 communities spread across four US metropolitan areas. Rather than examine residential preferences in relation to hypothetical communities of varying relative racial compositions, the author uses respondents' subjective perceptions of actual communities, and the reasons they give for their perceptions, as measures of residential preference. The major finding of the article is that preferences are mediated by class‐ and race‐based considerations, such as perceived community crime rates or a community's reputation as a hotbed of racial animosity and hostility.Logan, John R., Brian J. Stults, and Reynolds Farley 2004. 'Segregation of Minorities in the Metropolis: Two Decades of Change.'Demography 41: 1–22.The authors report on national‐ and metropolitan‐level residential segregation trends for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian groups using a cross‐sectional analysis of 2000 Census data. They also present findings from a longitudinal analysis of changing residential segregation trends for the period 1980 to 2000. During this time black–white segregation levels, measured by the Index of Dissimilarity, steadily declined nationally and in most major metropolitan areas. However, Hispanic–white and Asian–white segregation levels increased slightly at both the national and metropolitan levels since 1980. The authors estimate regression models to test prevailing hypotheses that seek to account for these changes. Notably, they conclude that black–white segregation remains high especially in older manufacturing centers in the Northeast and Midwest. Levels of Hispanic–white and Asian–white segregation meanwhile are increasing in regions where these minority groups are most heavily concentrated and where they continue to grow due to high levels of foreign‐born in‐migration.Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.This book is a seminal contribution to the scholarly debate about the causes and consequences of black urban poverty in the US. The authors argue that racial residential segregation is the key social process which explains the conditions under which a black urban underclass forms and is maintained. Segregation creates a 'structural niche' of concentrated black socioeconomic deprivation wherein, for instance, conditions of welfare dependency become normative and oppositional cultures emerge in reaction to the contradictory values of dominant groups. Massey and Denton claim that segregation is perpetuated by, but also compounds, the effects of institutional racism and white prejudice. To support their claim the authors point to historical trends in levels of racial residential segregation they attribute to public policy as well as private decision‐making. The book makes a methodological statement as well in relation to the conceptualization and measurement of residential segregation.Williams, Richard, Reynold Nesiba, and Eileen Diaz McConnell 2005. 'The Changing Face of Inequality in Home Mortgage Lending.'Social Problems 52: 181–208.The authors develop a theoretical framework to account for an emerging 'new inequality' in home mortgage lending and home‐ownership that has contributed to contemporary patterns of residential segregation. The 'old inequality', which was characterized by individual‐ and neighborhood‐level race‐ and class‐based discrimination, gave way in the early 1990s to a new form of inequality based on access to high‐cost loans and exposure to predatory lending practices. The authors rely on descriptive metropolitan‐level data on home mortgage lending to document rising rates of home‐ownership and loan origination among African American and low‐income borrowers, and within minority neighborhoods, since the early 1990s. Their interpretation of these data, however, leads them to conclude that despite these gains, the residential segregation generated by the old inequality creates the conditions for the emergence of the new inequality and similar patterns of residential segregation.Wyly, Elvin K., and Daniel J. Hammel 2004. 'Gentrification, Segregation, and Discrimination in the American Urban System.'Environment and Planning A 36: 1215–41.This article is a nice companion to the article by Williams et al. (2005) (see above). The authors examine racial and economic inequalities, such as residential segregation and racial discrimination, related to mortgage reinvestment and gentrification in major US central cities since the early 1990s. Using regression models to analyze home mortgage lending data and credit market characteristics across 30 US cities, the authors find that both early‐ ('peripheral') and late‐stage ('core') gentrification reproduce familiar patterns of race‐ and class‐based segregation, and are associated with more intensified forms of racial discrimination by property developers, realtors, and lenders.Online materials
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) –Home Mortgage Disclosure Act http://www.ffiec.gov/hmda/ This website provides access to publicly reported loan data under the provisions of the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The site allows users to view descriptive information on consumer lending institutions as well as borrower and loan characteristics that can be geocoded by census tract. The site is fairly user‐friendly yet provides access to powerful aggregate loan data. Researchers have used these publicly available data to compile profiles of consumer finance and investment trends across metropolitan areas or to begin to document patterns of disinvestment, redlining, and subprime lending. Racial Residential Segregation Measurement Project (Reynolds Farley, University of Michigan) http://enceladus.isr.umich.edu/race/racestart.aspQuoted from the website:This website provides you with indexes of racial residential segregation for all states, for all counties, for all metropolitan areas and for all cities of 100,000 or more using information from the Census of 2000. Indexes of dissimilarity, exposure indexes and interracial contact measures are available for five single races and for the three most frequently reported combinations of two races. Segregation measures are provided using three different levels of local area geography: census tracts, block groups, and blocks. The links on this page provide you with access to the calculation of measures, descriptions of their meaning, information about the census data and the measures as well as to a bibliography of major studies of the extent, causes, and consequences of racial residential segregation in the United States. Windows on Urban Poverty (Paul Jargowsky) http://www.urbanpoverty.net/ This website provides interactive features that examine the 'spatial context' of urban poverty; that is, the ways in which poor and segregated neighborhoods shape the life chances of impoverished individuals and families. The site has links to reports and policy briefs as well as a mapping tool which allows users to view the spatial expression of concentrated poverty neighborhoods and related demographic information. Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research (University at Albany, State University of New York) http://www.albany.edu/mumford/ The site allows users to access a wide range of social and economic indicators that document conditions of racial residential segregation across the US. The Mumford Center is a leader in reporting on national‐ and metropolitan‐level demographic trends compiled from publicly available US Census data. The U.S. Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/ This is the official US government website where users can access US Census data. The site includes a range of interactive mapping tools that can be used to generate profiles of key demographic, social, and economic indicators at varying geographic scales, such as the neighborhood and metropolitan levels. The site also links users to relevant census‐based government reports, news releases, and even multimedia content (e.g., video, radio, photography).
Sample syllabusCourse outline and reading assignments Section 1: Segregation Trends and Patterns Residential Segregation in Black and White 'Census 2000 Basics' (http://www.census.gov/mso/www/c2000basics/00Basics.pdf)For an updated and extended discussion of measurement issues see: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/housing_patterns/housing_patterns.htmlMassey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Chapter 1: 'The Missing Link'; Chapter 2: 'The Construction of the Ghetto'; Chapter 3: 'The Persistence of the Ghetto'Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1988. 'The Dimensions of Residential Segregation.'Social Forces 67: 281–315.Adelman, Robert M., and James Clarke Gocker. 2007. 'Racial Residential Segregation in Urban America.'Sociology Compass 1: 404–23. Moving Beyond the Black/White Dichotomy Logan, John R., Brian J. Stults, and Reynolds Farley. 2004. 'Segregation of Minorities in the Metropolis: Two Decades of Change.'Demography 41: 1–22.Fischer, Claude S., Gretchen Stockmayer, Jon Stiles, and Michael Hout. 2004. 'Distinguishing the Geographic Levels and Social Dimensions of U.S. Metropolitan Segregation, 1960–2000.'Demography 41: 37–59.White, Michael J., Eric Fong, and Qian Cai. 2003. 'The Segregation of Asian‐origin Groups in the United States and Canada.'Social Science Research 32: 148–67.Crowder, Kyle D. 1999. 'Residential Segregation of West Indians in the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Area: The Roles of Race and Ethnicity.'International Migration Review 33: 79–113. Section 2: Causes of Residential Segregation Institutions and Actors Charles, Camille Zubrinsky. 2003. 'The Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation.'Annual Review of Sociology 29: 167–207.Briggs, Xavier de Souza. 2005. Chapter 1 ('Introduction') and Chapter 2 ('More Pluribus, Less Unum? The Changing Geography of Race and Opportunity').Tegeler, Phillip. 2005. Chapter 9 (Briggs): 'The Persistence of Segregation in Government Housing Programs'.Jackson, Kenneth.1985. Crabgrass Frontier. Chapter 11: 'Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Housing Market'. Group Differences in Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood Preferences Logan, John R., Richard D. Alba, Thomas McNulty, and Brian Fischer. 1996. 'Making a Place in the Metropolis: Locational Attainment in Cities and Suburbs.'Demography 33: 443–53.Alba, Richard D., John R. Logan, Brian J. Stults, Gilbert Marzan, and Wenquan Zhang. 1999. 'Immigrant Groups in the Suburbs: A Reexamination of Suburbanization and Spatial Assimilation.'American Sociological Review 64: 446–60.Harris, David R. 2001. 'Why are Whites and Blacks Averse to Black Neighbors?'Social Science Research 30: 100–16.Krysan, Maria, and Reynolds Farley. 2002. 'The Residential Preferences of Blacks: Do they Explain Persistent Segregation?'Social Forces 80: 937–80.Emerson, Michael O., George Yancey, and Karen J. Chai. 2001. 'Does Race Matter in Residential Segregation? Exploring the Preferences of White Americans.'American Sociological Review 66: 922–35. Mortgage Lending Discrimination Yinger, John. 1995. Closed Doors, Opportunities Lost: The Continuing Costs of Housing Discrimination. Chapter 2 ('The Housing Discrimination Study'); Chapter 3 ('Discrimination in Housing'); Chapter 7 ('The Impact of Housing Discrimination on Housing Quality, Racial Segregation, and Neighborhood Change').Ross, Stephen L., and Margery Austin Turner. 2005. 'Housing Discrimination in Metropolitan America: Explaining Changes between 1989 and 2000.'Social Problems 52: 152–80.Williams, Richard, Reynold Nesiba, and Eileen Diaz McConnell. 2005. 'The Changing Face of Inequality in Home Mortgage Lending.'Social Problems 52: 181–208.Freidman, Samantha, and Gregory D. Squires. 2005. 'Does the Community Reinvestment Act Help Minorities Access Traditionally Inaccessible Neighborhoods?'Social Problems 52: 209–31. The Search for Housing Turner, Margery, and Stephen Ross. 2005. Chapter 4 (Briggs): 'How Racial Discrimination Affects the Search for Housing.'Farley, Reynolds. 1996. 'Racial Differences in the Search for Housing: Do Whites and Blacks Use the Same Techniques to Find Housing?'Housing Policy Debate 7: 367–85.Massey, Douglas S., and Garvey Lundy. 2001. 'Use of Black English and Racial Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets: New Methods and Findings.'Urban Affairs Review 36: 452–69.Feagin, Joe. 1994. Living with Racism: The Black Middle‐Class Experience. Chapter 6: 'Seeking a Good Home and Neighborhood.' Section 3: Consequences of Residential Segregation Poverty Concentration and Hypersegregation Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. Chapter 5: 'The Creation of Underclass Communities'; Chapter 6: 'The Perpetuation of the Underclass'.Jargowsky, Paul A. 1997. Poverty and Place: Ghettos, Barrios, and the American City. Chapter 5: 'Theory and Evidence on Inner‐City Poverty.'Wilkes, Rima, and John Iceland. 2004. 'Hypersegregation in the Twenty‐First Century: An Update and Analysis.'Demography 41: 23–36.Roy, Kevin. 2004. 'Three‐Block Fathers: Spatial Perceptions and Kin‐Work in Low‐Income African American Neighborhoods.'Social Problems 51: 528–48. Neighborhood Effects Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Thomas Gannon‐Rowley. 2002. 'Assessing "Neighborhood Effects": Social Processes and New Directions in Research.'Annual Review of Sociology 28: 443–78.LaVeist, Thomas A. 1993. 'Segregation, Poverty, and Empowerment: Health Consequences for African Americans.'The Milbank Quarterly 71: 41–64.Rosenbaum, Emily, and Laura E. Harris. 2001. 'Low‐Income Families in Their New Neighborhoods: The Short‐Term Effects of Moving from Chicago's Public Housing.'Journal of Family Issues 22: 183–210.Wagmiller, Robert L. 2007. 'Race and the Spatial Segregation of Jobless Men in Urban America.'Demography 44: 539–62. Crime and Neighborhoods Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. Preface, Introduction ('Down Germantown Avenue') and Chapter 1 ('Decent and Street Families').Pattillo‐McCoy, Mary. 1999. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class. Chapter 4: 'Neighborhood Networks and Crime'.Massey, Douglas S. 2001. 'Segregation and Violent Crime in Urban America.' Pp. 317–44 in Problem of the Century: Racial Stratification in the United States edited by Elijah Anderson and Douglas S. Massey.Logan, John R., and Brian J. Stults. 1999. 'Racial Differences in Exposure to Crime: The City and Suburbs of Cleveland in 1990.'Criminology 37: 251–76. Section 4: Mobility, Class, and Public Policy Residential Mobility Lee, Barrett A., R.S. Oropesa, and James W. Kanan. 1994. 'Neighborhood Context and Residential Mobility.'Demography 31: 249–70.South, Scott J., and Kyle D. Crowder. 1998. 'Leaving the 'Hood: Residential Mobility between Black, White, and Integrated Neighborhoods.'American Sociological Review 63: 17–26.Crowder, Kyle D., Scott J. South, and Erick Chavez. 2006. 'Wealth, Race, and Inter‐Neighborhood Migration.'American Sociological Review 71: 72–94.Pattillo‐McCoy, Mary. 2000. 'The Limits of Out‐Migration for the Black Middle Class.'Journal of Urban Affairs 22: 225–41. Intersection of Race and Class: The Black Middle Class Pattillo, Mary. 2005. 'Black Middle‐Class Neighborhoods.'Annual Review of Sociology 31: 305–29.Cashin, Sheryll D. 2001. 'Middle‐Class Black Suburbs and the State of Integration: A Post‐Integrationist Vision for Metropolitan America.'Cornell Law Review 86: 729–76.Adelman, Robert M. 2004. 'Neighborhood Opportunities, Race, and Class: The Black Middle Class and Residential Segregation.'City and Community 3: 43–63.Lacy, Karyn. 2004. 'Black Spaces, Black Places: Strategic Assimilation and Identity Construction in Middle‐Class Suburbia.'Ethnic and Racial Studies 27: 908–30. Public Policy and Politics Rubinowitz, Leonard S., and James E. Rosenbaum. 2000. Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia.Briggs, Xavier de Souza. 2005. Chapter 14: 'Politics and Policy: Changing the Geography of Opportunity'.Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. Chapter 8: 'The Future of the Ghetto'.Project ideas US Census Data Assignment (Adapted from an assignment developed by Nancy Denton, University at Albany, State University of New York)Your task for this assignment is to compare one US metropolitan area to another one. Your focus of the comparison should be on key sociodemographic variables including, but not limited to, the overall population size of the areas, the racial and ethnic composition of the areas, the socioeconomic standing of the areas, the housing quality, what types of occupational opportunities exist, the level of immigration in the areas, the level of residential segregation between groups in the areas, among others.You can choose any two metropolitan areas but they must be defined as such by the Census Bureau (i.e., make sure you obtain information at the metropolitan level). There should be some component of change; that is, identify how these variables have changed over time (an ideal strategy would be to focus on 1980 to 2000 changes, but there could be other strategies). In the end, you want a five‐page report comparing the two places. Which one would be better to live in? Why? From whose perspective?Potential data sources include:
The US Census: go to http://www.census.gov and click on 'American Factfinder' or another census tool The Lewis Mumford Center: go to http://www.albany.edu/mumford and click on 'Census 2000' and use one of the tools to obtain data
Urban Ethnography Assignment (Adapted from an assignment developed by Charles Gallagher, Georgia State University)Write a short ethnography about an urban, public space. Your task is to choose a public space (broadly defined) and examine who uses the space, how the space is used, and the interactions that occur between people in that space. Pay close attention to issues like (but others too) the racial and ethnic background of the people using the space, the socioeconomic reasons which explain the location of the site (e.g., exchange versus use values; urban development), and the extent to which the space is actually 'public' (i.e., are there restrictions to the space like bars separating benches in half?).You can observe any public space. For example, the extent to which a park is actually public is continually and consistently contested and negotiated. What about transportation nodes? Malls? Restaurants? Comparative Urban Assignment Your task for this assignment is to review three scholarly articles about a city outside of the US. Your focus can be on any aspect of the city but you should include some general information about the area including, but not limited to, the geographic and demographic size of the area, the socioeconomic standing of the area, the residential segregation of groups in the area, among other issues.You can choose any city or metropolitan area as long as it is outside of the US. In the end, you want a five‐page report reviewing the three articles with a brief introduction about the city (this information could be gleaned from one of the articles).The main international urban journal, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, will be very useful for this assignment, but you can obtain articles from any peer‐reviewed journal. Make sure to use only scholarly journals rather than popular magazines, newspaper articles, or the internet. Rely on the social science literature.
Collected data and research material presented in the monograph are a result of financing of the Polish science budget in the years 2011−14; the research project was financed by the National Science Centre according to decision no. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. The project that resulted in this monograph was financed from public funds for education for 2011 − 2014, the National Science Center under Contract No. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. ; Value-Based Working Capital Management analyzes the causes and effects of improper cash flow management between entrepreneurial organizations with varying levels of risk. This work looks at the motives and criteria for decision-making by entrepreneurs in their efforts to protect the financial security of their businesses and manage financial liquidity. Michalski argues that businesses exposed to greater risk need a different approach to managing liquidity levels. The scientific aim of this monograph is to present the essence of financial liquidity management under specific conditions faced by enterprises with risk and uncertainty. Enterprises differ from one another in risk sensitivity. This difference affects the area of taking decisions by the managers of those enterprises. The result of interactions between levels of liquidity and sensitivity to risk affects the managers of such enterprises (Altman 1984; Tobin 1958; Back 2001; Tobin 1969). In this monograph the research hypothesis is the claim that enterprises with a higher sensitivity to risk are very different from enterprises with a lower sensitivity to risk, resulting in a different approach to managing their working capital. Enterprise managing teams react to risk, and this reaction is adjusted by an enterprise's sensitivity to risk. Because of its subject area, the book will address the issues of corporate finance. The monograph discusses the behavior of enterprises and the relationships between them and other factors in the market occurring in the management process under the conditions of limited resources. As a result of these interactions with the market and the environment in which individuals who manage enterprises operate, there is an interaction between money and real processes that in the end are the cornerstone of wealth building. This chapter discusses the objectives and nature of enterprises in the context of their risk sensitivity, as well as the relationships between the objectives of enterprises and the characteristic features of their businesses. Enterprises operate in various business environments, but generally speaking, they all have one main aim: wealth creation for their owners. The realization of that aim depends on an idea of business in which the enterprise is an instrument to collect money from clients of the enterprise's services and products. Business environment is crucial not only for future enterprise cash inflows from the market but also for risk and uncertainty (Asch, and Kaye 1997; Copeland, and Weston 1988; Fazzari, and Petersen 1993). According to the author, it is necessary to include an understanding of that risk and uncertainty of future in the rate that reduces the net size of free cash flows for the enterprise owners, beneficiaries, or more generally stakeholders. Enterprise value creation is the main financial aim of the firm in relation to working capital components (Graber 1948; Jensen, and Meckling 1976; Lazaridis, and Trifonidis 2006). Working capital management is a part of a general enterprise strategy to its value maximization (Laffer 1970; Kieschnick, Laplante, and Moussawi 2009; Lyland, and Pyle 1977). This chapter presents a definition of financial liquidity and liquidity-level measurements. This chapter contains four subchapters that address the specific role of short-term financial decisions, a classification of definitions of financial liquidity, sources of information about liquidity level, and liquidity-level measurements (Lazaridis and Tryfonidis 2006; Long, Malitz, and Ravid 1993; Kieschnick, Laplante, and Moussawi 2009). Financial liquidity definition and liquidity-level measurements Here we have an opportunity to present the author's opinion on what assets should be financed with short-term funds and what the level of liquidity is in an enterprise (Michalski 2012a). The discussion also pertains to the issue of the dividing line between long-term and short-term decisions, with greater emphasis on the durability of their effects, rather than the decision-making speed. This section also attempts to answer the question: What are the short-term effects of operations under conditions of uncertainty and risk? The reason for the considerations in this section is the need to characterize the decisions that affect the level of enterprise liquidity. The research hypothesis of this monograph assumes that differences between more risk sensitive and less risk sensitive enterprises are seen in liquidity management. Simply because the enterprises, during financial liquidity management, take into account the differences in their risk sensitivity. This chapter discusses the relationship between firm value and business risk sensitivity. The chapter starts with a presentation of intrinsic liquidity value and firm reactions to market liquidity value. This is the basis for target liquidity level in the enterprise. Liquid assets are the main part of working capital assets, so the next part of the chapter focuses on working capital investment strategies and strategies of financing such investments in working capital in the context of firm value creation. The chapter concludes that, from a firm-value-creation point of view, more risk-sensitive entities should use flexible-conservative strategies, while less risk-sensitive entities have the freedom to use restrictive-aggressive strategies. In the context of a crisis, this is the clear answer and explanation for higher levels of working capital investments observed empirically during and after a crisis. The determinants of intrinsic value of liquidity are attributed to liquidity by enterprise management. Enterprises in which financial liquidity has a high internal value will have a tendency to maintain reasonable liquid resource assets at a higher level. The levels of stocks of funds maintained by enterprises are also the result of the relationship between the liquidity market value and the intrinsic value of liquidity. It demonstrates how to approach the estimation of liquidity and presents the market value of liquidity. Having connected this information with the knowledge of manifestations of the internal liquidity, we can offer an explanation as to why the target (and also probably the optimal) level of liquidity for enterprises with higher-than-average risk sensitivity is at a higher level than the corresponding target (optimal) level for enterprises with a lower level of risk sensitivity. Working capital value-based management models In this part of the monograph we discuss the items contained within the cost of maintaining inventory. Using this approach, a model of managing inventories is presented. Theoretically, the value-maximizing optimal level of inventory is determined to be the modified EOQ model, presented as VBEOQ model. We also present an outline of issues associated with the risk of inventory management and its impact on the value of the enterprise for its owner. We also discuss the principle of the optimal batch production model and how the size of the production batch affects the value of the enterprise for its owner. Here also is demonstrated a modification of the POQ model: VBPOQ. The proposed modification takes into account the rate of the cost of capital financing and the measures involved in inventory when determining the optimal batch production. When managing the commitment of the inventory, it is crucial to take into account the impact of such decisions on the long-term effectiveness of the enterprise. This chapter also discusses the relationships between the management of accounts receivables and the value of a business. A modified (considering the value of a business) model of incremental analysis of receivables is presented, as is a discussion of the importance of capacity utilization by an enterprise for making management decisions pertaining to accounts receivables. Issues related to the management of working capital and enterprise liquidity are and will be an area of research. The analysis in this study focused primarily on working capital and liquidity management; understanding its specifics will facilitate the management of liquidity in any type of organization. Working capital as a specific buffer against risk has its special role during a crisis and can serve as a good forecasting indicator about future economic problems in the economy if a whole business environment notices higher levels of working capital and its components, like cash, inventories, and accounts receivables. The scientific value of the issues discussed in the book is associated with the issue of working capital and liquidity management in enterprises. It is also a result of the exploration and definition of the main financial objective of businesses and the relationship between the objective and the management of working capital and enterprise liquidity. The choice of topic and the contents of research resulted also from empirical observation. Empirical data on enterprises that operate in countries touched by the last crisis document higher-than-average levels of working capital before, during, and after the crisis in these enterprises. These conditions provided the means for a "natural experiment" of sorts. From that point, working capital management theory faced a necessity of even wider development. ; Collected data and research material presented in the monograph are a result of financing of the Polish science budget in the years 2011−14; the research project was financed by the National Science Centre according to decision no. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. The project that resulted in this monograph was financed from public funds for education for 2011 − 2014, the National Science Center under Contract No. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/04744. ; How to Cite this Book Harvard Grzegorz Michalski . (April 2014). Value-Based Working Capital Management . [Online] Available at: http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834. (Accessed: 28 May 2014). APA Grzegorz Michalski . (April 2014). Value-Based Working Capital Management . Retrieved from http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834 MLA Grzegorz Michalski . Value-Based Working Capital Management . (April 2014) Palgrave Macmillan. 28 May 2014. Vancouver Grzegorz Michalski . Value-Based Working Capital Management [internet]. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; April 2014. [cited 2014 May 28]. Available from: http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137391834 OSCOLA Grzegorz Michalski , Value-Based Working Capital Management , Palgrave Macmillan April 2014 ; Author Biography Grzegorz Michalski is Assistant Professor of Corporate Finance at the Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland. His main areas of research are Business Finance and Financial Liquidity Management. He is currently studying the liquidity decisions made by organizations. He is the author or co-author of over 80 papers and 10 books, and sits on the editorial board of international conferences and journals. Reviews 'Due to the recent financial crisis, interest in the topic of working capital has grown significantly to both theory and practice. The research results presented by Grzegorz Michalski contribute to the development of a comprehensive theory of liquidity management and the creation of an integrated working capital and liquidity for different types of business model. The job is processed on a high quality level." -Marek Panfil, Ph.D, Director of Business Valuation Department Warsaw School of Economics 'The book of Grzegorz Michalski is a very good publication that has found the right balance between theory and practical aspects of financial liquidity management. 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Striking, overtime bans and refusing to carry out certain tasks[1] are collective forms of actions that can arise from workplace disputes. These industrial actions are of fundamental importance: the temporary halt in work production leverages a demand to enforce workers' rights. Despite this, the UK does not recognise the legal right to withdraw labour. Instead, the UK's "right to strike" is said to depend on a complex statutory scheme[2]. This article will analyse a variety of sources, "statutes such as TULRCA 1992, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law[3]", to determine whether the UK's "right to strike" "is a classic instance of a 'legislated' right[4]" or if it is merely a "slogan/legal metaphor[5]". [1] Hugh Collins, Aileen McColgan and Keith D Ewing,Labour Law(2nd edn, Cambridge University press 2019) pg.706. [2] Alan Bogg and Ruth Dukes, 'Statutory Interpretation and The Limits of a Human Rights Approach: Royal Mail Group Ltd V Communication Workers Union' (2020) 49(3) Industrial Law Journal pg.478. [3] Ibid, pg.478. [4] Ibid, pg.478. [5] Metrobus v UNITE [2009] EWCA Civ 829 (Maurice Kay LJ). - 'In truth, the "right to strike" in the UK depends for its realisation on a complex statutory scheme. Even in jurisdictions where the right to strike is specified textually in a constitutional document, such a complex right must be operationalised through labour statutes. It is a classic instance of a "legislated" right. Since the enactment of the Human Rights Act, and the evolving jurisprudence of the ECtHR, UK law may now be described as protecting a right to strike albeit one that is pieced together from a variety of sources: statutes such as TULRCA, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law.'[1] Does this statement accurately encapsulate the UK law on the 'right to strike'? How do the different sources of law interact and what factors determine the correct balance to be reached between competing interests in regulating industrial action? Use case law, statute, legal commentary and social science material in your answer and provide illustrations to support your analysis. In line with socialism and Professor Beverly Silver's assertions, capitalism is established upon 'two contradictory tendencies': 'crises of profitability and crises of social legitimacy'.[2] This 'inherent labour-capital'[3] struggle is reflected within the UK's hostile regulation of industrial action. The courts' and legislature's ideological approaches towards the collective right to withdraw labour unanimously and substantially favours economic growth above social welfare.[4] Striking, overtime bans, and refusing to carry out certain tasks are collective forms of actions that can arise from workplace disputes.[5] These disputes typically occur because employers are unwilling to negotiate with employees and workers about their working terms or conditions. Undeniably, the duration – and the aftermath – of the collective action results in financial losses to the business and affect innocent third parties (i.e. the general public).[6] Therefore, in order to appease and 'bring the labour under control', the capital would 'have to make concessions [i.e. comply with the strikers' new terms], which provoke crises of profitability'.[7] However, the loss suffered by a business[8] during and after industrial action is justified on two persuasive grounds. The first ground identified by Gwyneth Pitt is the human right aspect.[9] To restrict the right to strike would be akin to the horrific period of slavery,[10] where man had no power to withdraw his labour. This justification is recognising the inequalities in bargaining power between employer and employee.[11] This inequality has been further escalated by the growth of the modern-day unstable gig economy; one in nine UK workers are in precarious work.[12] This form of work has limited protection and much lower salaries.[13] Hence, a subsequent ground for the justification of withdrawal of labour is the equilibrium argument. The power of the employer and their actions can only be matched and questioned by a 'concerted stoppage of work'.[14] Essentially, the right to strike is more than the withdrawal of labour: it is also the encompassing 'right to free expression, association, assembly and power'.[15] Yet there is 'no positive legal right to strike in the UK'.[16] Instead, 'the "right to strike" in the UK depends for its realisation on a complex statutory scheme'.[17] In contrast to its neighbouring European countries' (Spain and Italy) jurisdictions 'where the right to strike is specified textually in a constitutional document', the UK law 'protects a right to strike … from a variety of sources: statutes such as TULRCA, the common law, Convention rights, and relevant case law'.[18] The accuracy of Bogg and Dukes' encapsulation of the UK law on the 'right to strike' and how the different sources of law interact will be subsequently discussed. Common Law Judiciary While Spain[19] and Italy[20] protect the right to strike by suspending the contract of employment during industrial action, this contract is broken under English law.[21] This is because the English common law does not confer a right to strike,[22] hence 'the rigour of the common law applies in the form of a breach of contract on part of the strikers and economic torts … [for] the organisers and their union'.[23] It is tortious and indefensible[24] to induce an individual to breach their contract of employment.[25] This principle was established in Lumley v Gye,[26] and this liability extends to trade unions in the context of industrial action.[27] Additionally, there are two further economic torts trade unions can be held liable for: liability for conspiracy to injure (Quinn v Leathem)[28] and causing loss by unlawful means. UntilOBG Ltd v Allan, Douglas, and others v Hello! Ltd,[29] the 'tort of procuring a breach of contract had been ["blurred"[30] and] extended [to be a wider] tort of unlawful interference with contractual relations'.[31] These torts were later distinguished and separated in the House of Lord's (HoL) judgment of OBG v Allan. While it is not often, the courts are encouraged to distinguish and introduce new torts. The HoL in OBG v Allan subsequently outlined the distinguishing elements between unlawful means and the tort of procuring a breach of contract. The tort of procuring a breach of contract is an accessory liability. Whilst the tort of unlawful means is a 'primary liability that is not dependent on the third party having committed a wrong against the claimant'.[32] Yet, despite the tort differences, the HoL confirmed that the same act could give rise to liability under both unlawful interference and procuring a breach of contract.[33] This clarification and the development of unlawful interferences as a separate liability has notably accommodated employers in holding trade unions liable for more than one tort. The OBG v Allan judgment is significant for discussing industrial action for two notable reasons. The first is that it confirms the judiciary's 'uncontrolled power'[34] in developing and 'defining torts boundaries on a case-to-case basis.[35] This power is 'ensur[ing] that trade unions cannot provide a lawful excuse or justification for their actions'[36]; trade unions are ultimately 'stood naked and unprotected at the altar of the common law'.[37] The insufficiency of protection for trade unions under the common law exhibits the judiciary's biased and hostile ideology towards industrial action.[38] This subsequently aligns with the following observation: the courts favour economic profits. This is discerned by the extent to which the contemporary judiciary extends protection for commercial bodies.[39] The primary function of English tort law was to protect physical integrity and property rights; tort law was never concerned with the protection of economic interests.[40] Nor had the common law ever been historically exercised to 'legitimately control aspects of the economy'[41] and yet OBG v Allan demonstrates the extent to which this has now changed. The judiciary has extensively and needlessly stretched the common law and its torts[42] to protect 'already powerful organisations'.[43] Hence, from the perspective of trade unions and their members, the common law's (inadequate) protection for the 'right to strike' has been, undeniably, very disappointing. Statutes Legislature One of the major problems facing trade unions was the 'exposure of their funds to legal action by employers'[44]; in 1901, Taff Vale Railway Co successfully sued the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants union for £42,000.[45] This sum is equivalent to £5,196,328.39 today. This verdict, in effect, eliminated 'the strike as a weapon of organized labour'.[46] Naturally, workers turned to political parties for redress. The concern and advocacy for trade union reform accounted for 59% of the winning Liberal party's election manifesto.[47] The Liberal government, led by Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman, provided unions with wide immunity against any tortious liability arising from trade disputes under The Trade Disputes Act (TDA) 1906. Although this Act did not introduce a 'legislated right' for industrial action,[48] this statute effectively recognised the vulnerability of unions under the common law by 'secur[ing] a [statutory] freedom' instead. [49] The TDA is one of the 'mostimportantpieces oflabour legislationever passed by a British Parliament'[50]; it effectively 'kept the courts at a minimum'[51] and neutralised the most obvious adverse effects of the Taff Vale judgment. The 'sympathetic politicians' were 'periodically reconstructing' the role of the 'class-conscious', profit-favouring judiciary.[52] The outcome of the 1906 general election 'served the unions' interests well'[53] and it continued to for 65 years. The 'long enjoyed'[54] immunity of trade unions for liability in tort was reduced to partial immunity under the Thatcher government (1979-90). There is a 'scale of government ideology' which ranges from 'fully participative' to 'fully authoritative',[55] and the Thatcher government was the undoubtable latter. The Conservative ideology and economists, such as FA Hayek, viewed trade unions as an obstacle to economic growth.[56] This perception was heightened by the Winter of Discontent (1978-79): a period characterised by widespread of strikes in response to the Labour government's wage cap (to maintain falling inflation).[57] Subsequently, Thatcher's government further justified the re-introduction of liability for trade unions upon the succeeding Green Papers: the 1981 Trade Union Immunities[58] and the 1989 Trade Unions and their Members.[59] Both papers outlined concerns regarding democracy, rights, and freedom of trade union members; 'too often in recent years it has seemed that employees have been called out on strike by their unions without proper consultation and sometimes against their express wishes'.[60] Accordingly, the Thatcher government introduced legislation that prior Conservative governments were afeard of passing: the Employment Act 1980, Trade Union Act 1984, and Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993. These re-introduced vulnerability and high costs for unions. Under the Employment Rights Act 1980, 'trade-dispute' was re-defined, statutory liabilities were introduced and unions were exposed to injunctions and claims for damages. However, upon complying with the stringent balloting requirements (from secret ballot to the requirement for all ballots to be postal) in the 1984 and 1993 Acts, the dispute would be deemed lawful.[61] It is expensive for unions to comply and evidence the fulfilled balloting requirements, but if lawful union members are statutorily protected from unfair dismissals and injunctions.[62] While this is a brief summary of the Acts, these restrictive measures offer an insight into the Thatcher government's success in exercising its agenda of restricting the lawfulness of industrial action by limiting its previously protected scope and purposes. Subsequently, the process of placing further controls on trade unions continued into the 21st century.[63] The 2015 Conservative government introduced the 'draconian'[64] Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA) – the most significant union legislation since the Employment Act 1980. The TUA introduced a minimum threshold of eligible members to vote in the ballot (at least 50% turnout and 50% voting in favour).[65] Moreover, in the instance the members are engaged in 'important public services',[66] 40% of all members entitled to vote must have voted in support of the industrial action. These stringent procedural requirements have to be strictly followed for a strike to be lawful.[67] Oddly, there was no pressing need to introduce these restrictive measures.[68] There were no significant problems in industrial relations at the time (ie, Winter of Discontent) nor any significant 'pressure from business for further laws on strikes',[69] but the Conservative government justified these 2016 measures through the findings of Bruce Carr QC and Ed Holmes.[70] The Government submitted the Carr Review to indicate a consistent pattern of union bullying workers, and yet Carr himself 'did not contend his findings to be a sufficient basis' for influencing the TUA.[71] Instead, the true motivations behind the government's 2016 legislative programme are observed by the 'striking resemblance'[72] to Ed Holmes Modernising Industrial Relations (MIR) paper.[73] The policy paper daringly questioned the necessity of protecting industrial action by reflecting on the development of employment tribunals and discussing the economic consequences of strikes. The same 'free-market economic theory' that underpinned the MIR's recommendations 'drove' the pragmatically restrictive and economically influenced 2016 statute developments.[74] The substance of today's statute in protecting trade unions 'is far removed and much weaker than the position established in 1906'.[75] Since the Henry Campbell-Bannerman leadership, trade union membership has declined by more than half due to the 'three successive Conservative governments [who] have enacted labour legislation opposed by unions'.[76] It appears the deep-rooted ideology of the political party in power influences the legislative steps for protecting trade unions.[77] Therefore, the extent of the Conservative government's 'authoritarian, class-biased and oppressive'[78] industrial action policies will be exemplified and 'more evident than they are today when a Labour government is elected again'.[79] Judiciary While the likes of Maurice Kay LJ and Lord Neuberger MR 'characterised the statutory immunities as limited exceptions to the common law' to justify interpreting the statute provisions 'strictly against the trade union', the court's overall response to industrial action 'has been more mixed'.[80] The court in Merkur Island Shipping v Laughton[81] developed a three-part test to examine the legality of industrial action. This test encapsulates the substantive and procedural requirements for a lawful strike whilst observing the intertwined and 'uneasy' relationship between the common law and statute.[82] If the industrial action is unlawful at common law, the judiciary asks whether there is a 'prime facie statutory immunity' for the commission of torts.[83] This substantive question considers whether the action was 'in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute'[84] before questioning whether the immunity had been procedurally lost by one of the three specified statutory reasons in TULRCA 1992.[85] The union's partial immunity could be lost for minor 'inconsequential breaches of the statutory rules'[86]; there is a series of High Court instances of injunctions being granted to 'ever more powerful and well-resourced employers'[87] owing to invalid strike ballots.[88] The readily available labour injunctions continued to be the "key piece[89]" of suppressing collective action until the minor development in 2011. In RMTv Serco Ltd;ASLEFv London and Birmingham Railway Limited (RMT and ASLEF),[90] the Court of Appeal approved and applied Millett LJ's 1996 observation in London Underground Limited v National Union of Railwaymen, Maritime and Transport Staff:[91] 'the democratic requirement of a secret ballot is not to make life more difficult for trade unions … but for the protection of the Union's own members'.[92] Owing to this proposed democratic aim, the court in RMT and ASLEF confirmed it was 'to interpret the statutory provisions somewhat less stringently'.[93] This interpretation is a stark contrast to Maurice Kay LJ's understanding of parliament's intentions. The court furthered Millett LJ's aim by recommending a neutral, 'without presumptions one way or the other',[94] interpretation of TULRCA. Upon the fact TULRCA is premised on the existing common law framework, the court's 'judicial creativity' could have easily 'outflank[ed] the intentions of Parliament'.[95] Instead of a 'neutral' approach, the courts have the power to mitigate unions disproportionate vulnerability against injunctions, damages, and unfair dismissals by encouraging and favouring social legitimacy. Although, the RMT and ASLEF court 'only indicated a change in emphasis rather than substance'[96] (since unions are still burdened with the challenges of exercising a 'lawful' strike),[97] this judgment enhanced union's ability to resist injunction applications (as observed by Balfour BeattyEngineering Services Limitedv Unitethe Union).[98] The unbiased interpretation encouraged in RMT and ASLEF continues to be the leading approach to interpreting domestic statutes regarding industrial action. ECHR Judiciary Admittedly, the scope of Maurice Kay LJ's strict interpretation was narrowly limited by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).[99] The ECtHR confirmed, in Enerji Yapi-Yol Sen v Turkey,[100] that Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights included protection of the right to strike. This Article, and Article 6 of the European Social Charter[101] bestow the right to strike for their member states members and due to the UK Human Rights Act 1998, 'British workers are understood to enjoy a right to strike'.[102] This, unlike the mere domestic statutory immunities, is the only instance of a 'legislated' right to strike in the UK.[103] Under section 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998, 'statutory provisions must be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with the Conventionrights'[104] – 'the opportunity to test this line of argument'[105] in the English courts arose in Metrobus Ltd v Unite the Union (Metrobus).[106] The Court of Appeal rejected the Enerji arguments; the Court denied the authority's relevance for the interpretation of UK statutory provisions. This judgment continues to be the leading precedent on the UK's provisions of Article 11,[107] despite the RMT and ASLEF judgment. In RMT and ASLEF, the UK courts acknowledged the 'clearly protected'[108] right to strike under ECHR Article 11. However, the court emphasised the importance of a 'fair balance to be struck between the competing interests of the individual and the community as a whole'.[109] The emphasised interests of the 'community' motivated the court's justification for the ban on secondary action owing to its 'potential to … cause broad disruption within the economy and to affect the delivery of services to the public'.[110] Subsequently, the court confirmed that this ban aligns with Article 11(2) 'on the basis of a wide margin of appreciation accorded to the State'.[111] While the court is correct to recognise their bestowed margin of appreciation, the court rationalised the granting of the injunction, 'which itself cost the union a substantial sum',[112] upon economic factors. This factor is not only 'wholly irrelevant to the specific facts of the application' but it disregarded and postponed 'the exercise of what was acknowledged to be a convention protected right'.[113] The court effectively and 'successfully prevented industrial action on the basis of legal' human rights provisions 'which are intended to benefit workers'.[114] In short, there 'is no point creating rights' or passing human rights legislation if the 'court is not prepared to defend them'.[115] There will continue to be an erosion of human rights protection until there is greater coordination between the domestic courts and the ECtHR. It is credible to conclude that the UK judiciary is more concerned with profitability, self-preservation of UK powers, and 'in appeasing political forces'[116] above the interests of the individuals it and the Convention Rights was established to serve. Legislature The RMT and ASLEF court's 'blessing of a wide margin of appreciation' in the 'encompassment' of Article 11 offered a 'green light for further restrictive legislation on industrial action' by the 'only too happy Government'.[117] Here, Boggs and Ewing detect 'the crude politics of power'.[118] Upon observing the Court of Appeal's reluctance to exercise EU conventions, and the UK courts' developments that continue to be 'very much in line with the political approach of the Conservative government',[119] it materialises that the court and government are not 'looking to open a third (ECtHR) front'.[120] The Government has recently launched an 'independent review' of the Human Rights Act.[121] The review aims to evaluate 'the duty to take into account' ECtHR case law and assess 'whether dialogue between our domestic courts and the ECtHR works effectively and if there is room for improvement'.[122] It is worth highlighting that this 'independent' review will be led by former Court of Appeal Judge, Sir Peter Gross – the same judge who remarked that 'the more that controversial areas are "outsourced" … the greater the challenge for … judicial leadership'.[123] The former judge is a notable advocate for greater domestic judicial leadership.[124] This advocacy hints the likelihood of the review condemning the relevance and precedence of the ECtHR (and Human Rights Act 1998) in 'controversial' matters such as industrial action. This review has the powerful ability to eliminate the only instance of a legislated right to strike in the UK.[125] Ultimately 'The notion of lawful industrial action is restrictive', the procedural requirements are 'onerous' and the consequences of unions liability for unlawful strikes are 'serious'.[126] Nearly two decades after the European Social Charter's review,[127] the UK still does not guarantee the right to strike. The precedent in Metrobus still stands. There continues to be a 'poorly reasoned and barely consistent' series of judgments 'by what looks like a weak, timid'[128] and politically influenced[129] judiciary. The enactment of the 'Human Rights Act and the evolving jurisprudence of the ECtHR'[130] will not prescribe a right to strike in the UK until the Supreme Court or ECtHR rule UK's current provisions as incompatible with Article 11. In truth, 'the right to strike [in the UK] has never been much more than a slogan or a legal metaphor'.[131] This 'slogan' is a regime of immunities that are purposely designed upon an overly complex and expensive statutory system.[132] These immunities are not adequately or proportionately protecting workers, unions, and one in nine vulnerable, precarious workers against the 'pitfalls'[133] of damages, injunctions, and unfair dismissals.[134] This system was successfully underlined with the political agenda of deterring trade disputes; the UK's worker strike total has fallen to its 'lowest level since 1893'.[135] The 'unanimous and hostile'[136] approach of the legislature and the judiciary towards industrial action exhibits the UK's covert 'culture of routinely disregarding'[137] social legitimacy in favour of profits. [1] Alan Bogg and Ruth Dukes, 'Statutory Interpretation and The Limits of a Human Rights Approach: Royal Mail Group Ltd v Communication Workers Union' (2020) 49 ILJ 477, 478. [2] Nicholas Pohl,'Political and Economic Factors Influencing Strike Activity During the Recent Economic Crisis: A Study of The Spanish Case Between 2002 And 2013' (2018) 9 Global Labour Journal 19, 21. [3] ibid, 21. [4] Harry Smith, 'How Far Does UK Labour Law Provide for The Effective Exercise of a Right to Strike?' (2014) 6 The Student Journal of Law accessed 15 December 2020. [5] Hugh Collins, Aileen McColgan and Keith D Ewing,Labour Law(2nd edn, CUP 2019) 706. [6] Gwyneth Pitt,Cases and Materials on Employment Law(1st edn, Pearson Education Limited 2008) 570. [7] Pohl (n 2), 21. [8] Beverly J Silver,Forces of Labor Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870(CUP 2003) 17. [9] Pitt (n 6), 570. [10] Manfred Davidmann, 'The Right to Strike' (Solhaam, 1996) accessed 15 December 2020. [11] Adam Smith,An Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations(Cofide 1776). [12] Bethan Staton, 'The Upstart Unions Taking on The Gig Economy and Outsourcing' (Financial Times, 20 January 2020) accessed 16 December 2020 [13] Employment Rights Act 1996,s212. [14] Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA)1992, s246. [15] Brian Smart, 'The Right to Strike and The Right to Work' (1985) 2 Journal of Applied Philosophy 31. [16] 'Industrial Action' (UNISON National) accessed 7 December 2020 [17] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [18] ibid, 478. [19] Article 18 of the Spanish Constitution and regulated by Royal Decree-Law 17/1977 of 4 March on Labour Relations ('RDLLR') and Article 4.1.e) of the Spanish Workers' Statute. [20] Article 40 of theItalianRepublic Constitution of 1948. [21] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [22] RMT v Serco; ASLEF v London and Birmingham Railway [2011] EWCA Civ 226, [2011] ICR 848 [2]. [23] Metrobus Ltd v Unite the Union [2009] EWCA Civ 829, [2010] ICR 173 [118]. [24] South Wales Miners' Federation v Glamorgan Coal Co [1905] AC 239. [25] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [26] (1853) 118 ER 749. [27] Taff Vale Railway Co vAmalgamated Society ofRailwayServants [1901] AC 426. [28] [1901] AC 495. [29] [2007] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 AC 1. [30] 'House of Lords Overhaul Economic Torts' (Herbert Smith Freehills, 17 May 2007) accessed 9 December 2020 [31] ibid. [32] OBG v Allan (n 29). [33] ibid, [37]. [34] Hazel Carty, 'The Economic Torts and English Law: An Uncertain Future' (2007) 95 Kentucky LJ 849. [35] Lonrho v Fayed [1990] 2 QB 479, 492-93. [36] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 714. [37] ibid, 714. [38] ibid, 849. [39] ibid, 848. [40] ibid, 847. [41] ibid, 847. [42] Cartey (n 34), 847. [43] ibid, 849. [44] Richard Kidner, 'Lessons in Trade Union Law Reform: The Origins and Passage of The Trade Disputes Act 1906' (2018) 2 Legal Studies 37. [45] Taff Vale (n 27). [46] Merriam-Webster,Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia(Merriam-Webster 2000) 1157. [47] Kidner (n 44), 47. [48] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [49] RMT and ASLEF (n 22) [2]. [50] Keith Ewing, 'The Right to Strike: From the Trade Disputes Act 1906 To A Trade Union Freedom Bill 2006' (Institute of Employment Rights, March 2013) accessed 11 December 2020. [51] The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 'Trade Disputes Act' (Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 July 1998) accessed 11 December 2020. [52] Ewing (n 50). [53] Encyclopedia Britannica (n 51). [54] FA Hayek, 'Trade Union Immunity Under the Law' The Times (London, 21 July 1977) 15 accessed 11 December 2020 [55] Davidmann (n 10). [56] Hayek (n 54). [57] Alex Kitson, '1978-1979: Winter of Discontent' (Libcom.org, 24 January 2007) accessed 11 December 2020. [58] Cmd, 8128, 1981. [59] Cmd 821, 1989. [60] Trade Union Immunities (n 58), para 247. [61] Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993, s238A. [62] TULRCA 1992, ss237-38. [63] Michael Ford and Tonia Novitz, 'Legislating for Control: The Trade Union Act 2016' (2020) 45 ILJ 227. [64] Bart Cammaerts, 'The Efforts to Restrict the Freedom to Strike and To Deny A Right to Strike Should Be Resisted Fiercely' (LSE Blogs, 14 September 2015) accessed 11 December 2020. [65] TUA 2016, s226(2)(a) (ii). [66] ibid, s226(2)(e). [67] ibid, s238A. [68] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 291. [69] ibid, 291. [70] ibid, 291. [71] ibid, 291. [72] ibid, 279. [73] Modernising Industrial Relations n.7. [74] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 279. [75] Ewing (n 50). [76] Brian Towers, 'Running the Gauntlet: British Trade Unions Under Thatcher, 1979-1988' (1989) 42 ILR Rev 163. [77] Gareth Thomas and Ian K Smith,Smith & Thomas' Employment Law(9th edn, OUP 2007), 737. [78] Davidmann (n 10). [79] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 492. [80] Ruth Dukes, 'The Right to Strike Under UK Law: Not Much More Than A Slogan? NURMT v SERCO, ASLEF v London & Birmingham Railway Ltd' (2011) 40 ILJ 302, 309. [81] [1983] ICR 490. [82] Collins, McColgan, and Ewing (n 5), 847. [83] TULRCA 1992, s219. [84] ibid. [85] ibid, ss222, 224, and 226. [86] Dukes (n 80), 309. [87] Kalina Arabadjieva, 'Royal Mail Group Ltd v Communication Workers Union (CWU): Injunctions Preventing Industrial Action and The Right to Strike' (UK Labour Law, 6 March 2020) accessed 12 December 2020. [88] TULRCA 1992, s226. [89] Arabadjieva (n 87). [90] n 22. [91] [1996] ICR 170. [92] ibid, [180]-[182]. [93] Dukes (n 82), 309. [94] RMT and ASLEF (n 22), [2]. [95] Smith (n 4). [96] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 281. [97] Arabadjieva (n 87). [98] [2012] EWHC 267 (QB). [99] Keith Ewing and Alan Bogg, 'The Implications of The RMT Case' (2014) 40 ILJ 221, 222. [100] [2009] ECHR 2251. [101] 'The right to bargain collectively.' [102] Keith Ewing and John Hendy, 'The Dramatic Implications of Demir and Baykara' (2010) 39 ILJ 2. [103] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [104] ibid. [105] Dukes (n 82), 303. [106] n 23. [107] Dukes (n 82), 310. [108] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 221. [109] RMT and ASLEF (n 22), [77]. [110] ibid, [82]. [111] ECHR Art 11 (2). [112] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 251. [113] ibid, 221. [114] Arabadjieva (n 87). [115] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [116] ibid, 251. [117] Ford and Novitz (n 63), 282. [118] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [119] Thomas and Smith (n 77), 737. [120] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 223. [121] Ministry of Justice, 'Government Launches Independent Review of the Human Rights Act' (Gov.uk, 7 December 2020) accessed 15 December 2020. [122] ibid. [123] Jamie Susskind, 'Jamie Susskind Comments on Sir Peter Gross' Lecture on Judicial Leadership' (Littleton Chambers) accessed 15 December 2020. [124] ibid. [125] ECHR Art 11. [126] Ruth Dukes, The Right to Strike Under UK Law: Something More Than A Slogan? Metrobus v Unite The Union [2009] EWCA Civ 829' (2010) 39 ILJ 1, 7. [127] ESC, Report of the Committee of Experts 2002. [128] Ewing and Bogg (n 99), 251. [129] Thomas and Smith (n 77), 737. [130] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [131] Metrobus (n 23) (Maurice Kay LJ). [132] Bogg and Dukes (n 1), 478. [133] Dukes (n 125), 9. [134] ibid, 7. [135] Richard Partington, 'UK Worker Strike Total Falls to Lowest Level Since 1893' (The Guardian, 30 May 2018) accessed 15 December 2020 [136] Smith (n 4). [137] ibid.
1. L'enjeu de la recherche Le but principal de la thèse est l'analyse de l'apport du De regno de Synésios de Cyrène à la transmission de l'idéologie politique antique aux Ve et VIe siècles de l'époque byzantine. Il s'agit, avant tout, de définir l'idéologie politique de Synésios, dans le cadre de sa paideia alexandrine néoplatonicienne et chrétienne ; puis, de déterminer l'apport de son ouvrage à la formation de l'idéologie impériale et de la rhétorique politique du Ve siècle et de l'âge de Justinien. Afin de déterminer le rôle du De regno de Synésios dans la transmission de ces topoi, on veut analyser les rapports entre cet ouvrage et les œuvres les plus représentatives de la littérature politique des Ve-VIe siècles : le Panégyrique pour l'empereur Anastase de Procope de Gaza , la Scheda Regia d'Agapetus le Diacre , l'anonyme dialogue philosophique Sur la Science politique dédié à Justinien et le traité Des magistratures de l'Etat romain de Jean le Lydien . 2. L'état de la recherche 2.1. Le débat sur la valeur historique et la chronologie de l'œuvre Les premières notes chronologiques au De regno, dans le cadre d'une reconstruction générale de la chronologie des opuscula de Synésios, sont dues à Otto Seeck (op. cit.), qui datait le De regno des années 399-402. L'intérêt pour les aspects historiques et politiques de l'œuvre est dominant dans la critique italienne des années 1920-1940, à cause de l'utilisation idéologique de la figure de Synésios pendant la colonisation italienne de la Libye. La première monographie sur l'activité politique de Synésios remonte à 1938, de claire inspiration fasciste, rédigée par Giulio Bettini ; en 1944 est publiée l' édition critique du De regno, par Nicola Terzaghi . Cette édition constitue la base pour les études suivantes. Pendant la deuxième partie du XXe siècle, l'approche historique est encore prévalente, comme on peut le voir dans les pages consacrées au De regno dans la monographie de 1951 de Christian Lacombrade et dans son introduction à l'édition du De regno datant de la même année. On doit attendre les années 1970 pour relever un renouvellement de l'intérêt pour l'œuvre. En 1973, Antonio Garzya publie une traduction italienne du De regno, intégrée dans son édition des opera omnia de Synésios de 1989, avec quelques notes de commentaire. Dans les années 1980 la critique recommence à interroger spécifiquement cet ouvrage du Cyrénéen, encore selon une perspective chronologique. On débat de la question de la datation du De regno. La querelle oppose ceux qui le datent des années 399-402 (Denis Roques , suivi par Antonio Garzya ) et ceux qui proposent une datation plus haute, dans les années 397-400 . Le débat se développe sur la base d'une différente interprétation des témoignages autobiographiques sur l'ambassade à Constantinople que l'on trouve dans le corpus même de Synésios : (Syn., De regn. 3 Terzaghi) l'occasion du don de l'aurum coronarium ; (Syn., Ep. 61 Garzya-Roques) un tremblement de terre cause la fin du séjour constantinopolitain de Synésios ; (Syn., Hymn. I 428 – 433 Terzaghi ; De insomn. 14 Terzaghi) : le séjour de Synésios à Constantinople dure trois années. En plus de l'intérêt purement chronologique, pendant les mêmes années, se développe la recherche sur la valeur plus généralement historique et idéologique du De regno dans ses rapports avec le contexte de la semi-barbare cour constantinopolitaine et de la Cyrénaïque tardive . Dans ces contributions ne manquent pas quelques sporadiques références aux aspects littéraires du De regno. Beaucoup d'importance est, par contre, donnée à la forme rhétorique du discours dans l'introduction à la dernière édition critique du De regno (pp. 26-35), publiée par Jacques Lamoureux et Noël Aujoulat en 2008 . 3. L'idéologie impériale de Synésios de Cyrène dans le Discours sur la Royauté Le De regno s'inscrit dans la tradition de la littérature antique sur la royauté, qui a fleuri dans les milieux académiques et stoïciens, que nous connaissons par des auteurs comme Plutarque, Dion Chrysostome, Thémistios, mais qu'illustraient aussi des auteurs perdus comme Ecphante, Diotogène et Sthenidas. Son auteur avait également une connaissance approfondie des théories monarchiques judaïques, transmises en particulier par Philon. Le Cyrénaïque ne semble pas non plus étranger aux polémiques théologiques dont il a sans doute été le contemporain : la connaissance directe de Jean Chrysostome et le voisinage des patriarches d'Alexandrie ont dû contribuer à la formation d'un néoplatonisme chrétien singulier, qui s'épanouira dans les années de la maturité et de l'épiscopat. Synésios dérive de la philosophie politique d'Eusèbe, nourrie de topoi issus de Dion Chrysostome et Thémistios, une conception de l'Empire comme don de la divinité au βασιλεύς. Celui-ci est tenu de préserver ce don à travers l'ἄσκησις continue de sa propre vertu. Une autre pierre angulaire de l'idéologie impériale sinésienne est la supériorité du νόμος sur la manière dont le βασιλεύς conduit sa propre vie. La vie de l'Empereur, qui a valeur exemplaire pour ses sujets, est elle-même le reflet de l'Idée d'une loi transcendante, respectueuse de l'ordre cosmique et providentiel. L'idée de l'Empereur comme νόμος ἔμψυχος n'est formulée qu'implicitement par Synésios, alors que l'idée du souverain μιμητὴς τοῦ θεοῦ, sur laquelle la première se fonde, est tout à fait explicite. Imitateur de Dieu, le souverain est son homonyme. Il partage ses attributs, mais pas sa nature. Les vertus que le souverain doit démontrer, φρόνησις e ῥώμη, sont tout à fait classiques, de même que les attributs de la royauté, à savoir bonté, piété et autarcie, dont la possession est garantie au souverain par la relation d'homonymie qui le relie à la divinité. Ces vertus ont une valeur universelle mais pas absolue, dans la mesure où elles existent seulement selon une relation de cause à effet entre la divinité et l'objet qui en expérimente les qualités. Sur cette justification du principe de l'ὁμοίωσις τοῦ θεοῦ, l'influence de la métaphysique aristotélicienne est évidente avec l'ontologie du premier principe, auquel Synésios fait une allusion efficace et directe, tout en la conjuguant avec l'idée néoplatonicienne de la divinité surabondante et dispensatrice de bienfaits. Dans le De regno, le thème de l'autarcie du souverain est investi d'une force particulière grâce à la théorie platonicienne de l'âme complexe. L'autarcie constitue le fondement du bon gouvernement, dans la mesure où le roi est celui qui parvient à réunir sous l'égide de la raison le peuple agité, esclave de ses propres passions (De regn. 10). L'esthétique de la royauté joue un rôle paradigmatique et fonctionnel dans la transmission de l'eusychia divine au monde. L'exemplarité de la vie du souverain exige qu'il communie avec l'ensemble de la vie sociale, que ce soit avec les fonctionnaires qu'il a choisis, à travers la φιλία comme vertu, ou avec l'armée, par le biais de l'ἔρος que fait naître au sein des troupes la vision du souverain comme membre d'une seule et même famille. Un autre aspect important de la théorie politique sinésienne est la conception unitaire de l'Empire, dont témoigne le recours fréquent à l'adresse conjointe à Arcadius et à son frère Honorius, expression unique d'une institution universelle dont la division entre la partie orientale et la partie occidentale est seulement administrative. Chargé de faire la paix comme la guerre, conformément aux topoi du genre du logos basilikòs, le souverain aura pour tâche primordiale de maintenir sa vertu philanthropique, l'amour du genre humain. La valeur de psychagogie que revêt la philanthropie impériale, et dont dépend le salut de l'État, est elle-même un dérivé de la philosophie comme vertu suprême, et traditionnellement attachée à la royautén (Syn., De regn. 29). La définition de l'Empereur comme philosophe drapé dans la pourpre, formulée par Thémistios, n'est pas reprise dans la royauté sinésienne en raison d'une opposition vigoureuse au luxe d'inspiration cynique que l'on trouve chez Synésios. En revanche, l'amour de la philosophie et du cursus de la paideia classique devient chez lui la cause et la fin de la royauté. 4. L'influence du De regno de Synésios sur l'idéologie impériale byzantine des Ve et VIe siècles L'analyse des rapports entre le De regno de Synésios et le Panégyrique pour l'Empereur Anastase de Procope de Gaza, la Scheda Regia d'Agapet le Diacre, l'anonyme dialogue Sur la Science politique et le traité Sur les magistratures de l'état romain de Jean le Lydien nous a permis de tracer des pistes de l'influence de la théorie politique de Synésios sur le developpement de l'idéologie politique suivante, sourtout pour ce qui concerne les topoi du roi loi vivante et imitateur de Dieu. L'examen approfondi que nous avons réalisé au sujet du De regno de Synésios nous permet de considérer que cette œuvre occupe une place centrale dans l'histoire des idées politiques byzantines, et qu'elle marque le passage d'une idéologie de la royauté comprise et représentée selon les topoi de facture classique et hellénistique à une théorie politique qui enrichit ces topoi d'arguments métaphysiques et ontologiques néo-platoniciens d'un côté, de l'autre d'éléments moraux, universalistes et eschatologiques de plus en plus chrétiens. Sur le genre de discours auquel il appartient, le De regno de Synésios semble avoir exercé une influence importante, y compris sur la définition de la finalité de la littérature Περὶ βασιλείας : la pluralité des formes rhétoriques analysées (le panégyrique, le speculum principis en forme d'acrostiche, le dialogue philosophique, le traité) traduit la recherche d'une forme d'expression qui puisse véhiculer un contenu philosophique et instituer un rapport de type pédagogique entre l'auteur et son destinataire. Il est difficile de dire avec certitude dans quels milieux culturels et géographiques le De regno a circulé entre le Ve et VIe siècles. Il est toutefois certain que les auteurs qui se réfèreront au De regno ont tous été en lien avec le courant du néo-platonisme chrétien. Alexandrie, Gaza, Constantinople, Antioche ou Beyrouth deviennent à cette époque des centres de propagation d'une nouvelle culture réunissant dans de nombreuses créations les apports de l'hellénisme, de la tradition politique romaine et de la morale chrétienne. Le De regno de Synésios constitue un apport remarquable à cette nouvelle culture et constitue l'une des œuvres les plus représentatives de la Spätantike.