Viime vuosiin asti kansalaisten osallistumisen on uskottu toteutuvan kahta tietä: joko edustuksellisen demokratian kautta tai ihmisten konkreettisella toiminnalla oman ja lähiyhteisön terveyden vaalimisessa. Suomessa ei kuitenkaan ole tutkittu riittävästi yhteisön ja kansalaisten osallistumista ja terveyteen liittyvien prosessien käytännön hallintaa. Ei tiedetä miten ihmisten ja yhteisöjen osallistuminen terveyttä koskevaan päätöksentekoon toteutuu paikallistasolla ja miten sitä voidaan edistää. Myös Suomen Terveyttä kaikille vuoteen 2000-yhteistyöohjelmassa kansalaisten osallistumista terveyden edistämiseen pidettiin 1990-luvun haasteena. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli paikallisten kokeiluhankkeiden avulla selvittää miten ihmiset ja yhteisöt voidaan saada itse aktiivisemmin mukaan terveyden edistämiseen ja miten yhteisölähestymistapa voidaan ottaa siinä paremmin huomioon. Tutkimuksen teoreettisessa osassa tarkastellaan kansalaisten, ammattiauttajien ja kunta/valtiohallinnon suhteiden kehitystä 1900-luvulla. Tutkimus pyrkii kuvaamaan ja ymmärtämään kehitystä vuorovaikutuksessa, jossa päämääränä on yhteisön kansalaishallinta terveysasioissa. Tutkimus analysoi miten osallistumisen ja terveyden kansalaishallinnan käsitteet ja lähestymistavat ovat kehittyneet sekä kansainvälisesti että kansallisesti. Terveyden kansalaishallinnalla (empowerment) tässä tutkimuksessa tarkoitetaan prosessia, jossa vahvistetaan ihmisten mahdollisuutta tehokkaasti osallistua ja vaikuttaa sellaisten rakenteiden synnyttämiseen ja terveyspolitiikan ja -ohjelmien kehittämiseen, joiden päämääränä on yhteisön itsensä määrittelemien tarpeiden tyydyttäminen. Ihmiset osallistuvat tähän kehittämisprosessiin ja jakavat siitä saavutetut hyödyt. Tutkimuksen empiirisessä osassa analysoidaan kansalaisten osallistumista ja terveyden kansalaishallinnan kehittymistä vuosina 1992-1996 toimintatutkimus -tyyppisesti toteutetuissa Terve Somero- ja Terve Järvenpää -hankkeissa tutkimuksen teoreettisessa osassa kehitetyillä indikaattoreilla ja menetelmillä. Tutkimusaineistona olivat vuosina 1992, 1994 ja 1996 toteutetut kyselyt hankkeeseen osallistuneille ja teemahaastattelut vuodelta 1996, osallistuvasta havainnoinnista syntyneet päiväkirjamerkinnät ja muistiot sekä kuntalaisten omat toimintasuunnitelmat ja -kertomukset. Analyysimenetelminä olivat kvalitatiivinen evaluaatio ja sisällönanalyysi. Somero-Järvenpää -hankkeiden tarkoituksena oli määräajoin toistuvien koulutustilaisuuksien, konsultaation ja muun tuen keinoin vahvistaa terveyttä edistäviä verkostoja, yhteistyötä ja terveyden kansalaishallintaa. Alkuvaiheessa keskityttiin vahvistamaan yhteisöllisyyttä ja sitouttamaan osallistujat pitkäjänteiseen kehittämistyöhön, jossa kuntalaiset itse selvittivät oman kuntansa terveystilannetta haastattelemalla asukkaita ja terveyden ammattilaisia sekä tekemällä tilasto- ym. selvityksiä. Hankkeen ulkopuoliset kouluttajat eivät antaneet vastauksia kysymyksiin, vaan tukivat yhteistyötä ja asukkaiden omien toimintasuositusten valmistelua. Hankkeseen osallistuneet virittivät käytännön toimintaa ja kävivät vuoropuhelua terveysasioista kaupungin päättäjien kanssa. Tutkimus osoitti että ihmiset ovat kiinnostuneita terveyden edistämisestä ja haluavat vaikuttaa kuntansa terveyttä koskevissa asioissa. Kokeiluohjelmat Somerolla ja Järvenpäässä onnistuivat hankkeeseen osallistuneiden terveyden kansalaishallinnan tunteen ja valmiuksien sekä yhteisöllisyyden synnyttämisessä. Kumpaankin kuntaan muodostui noin parinkymmen hengen ydinryhmä, joka osallistui ja toimi aktiivisesti koko kehittämishankkeen ajan. Vuoteen 1996 mennessä Terve Somero hankkeesta muotoutui kansalaisten toimintafoorumi, jonka päätarkoituksena oli uusien ideoiden ja projektien synnyttäminen. Järvenpäässä hankkeesta muotoutui kansalaisjärjestöjen ja viranomaisten yhteistyö- ja suunnitteluryhmä. Tutkimus osoitti, että kummassakin kunnassa oli hyvät edellytykset yhteisön kansalaishallinnan kehittymiselle ja että osallistumiseen perustuva terveyden edistäminen kuntatasolla on mahdollista, mutta että tällaisen toiminnan vakiinnuttamiseksi tarvitaan suunnitelmallista ja monivuotista yhteistyötä sekä ulkoista tukea, kouluttajia ja muutoksia vallitsevissa organisaatiokulttureissa. Mikäli tuki ja koulutus lopetetaan liian aikaisessa vaiheessa on seurauksena toiminnan hiipuminen. Tutkimuksessa käytetty osallistumisen ja terveyden kansalaishallinnan malli antaa käytännön osviittoja siitä miten tällaista toimintaa voidaan ylipäätään saada aikaan ja ylläpitää kunnissa. Lisäksi tukimus tarjoaa tietoa siitä miten terveyden edistämiseen tähtääviä projekteja voidaan arvioida laadullisilla menetelmillä. ; At the beginning of the 1990's the move towards a greater autonomy at the local level in Finland required that citizens assume an increasing activity in managing their own affairs. However, when the Finnish Health for All 2000 programme (launched in 1986) was evaluated in 1991 by WHO, a low degree of citizen participation in planning and implementing the programme was pointed out. Starting form this critical comment the Finnish Centre for Health Promotion (FCHP= Terveyden edistämisen keskus ry., a national non-governmental organization representing ca. 100 other non-governmental bodies) initiated community action programmes in two towns, Somero (agricultural small town with 10 000 inhabitants) and Järvenpää (small urban town near the capital with 30 000 inhabitants) in 1992. The goal of the Somero-Järvenpää Programme was to enhance control over health of the community (community competence) through citizens' active participation in health policy formulation, evaluation and implementation. The Programme was implemented during 1992- 1996. Regular education occasions and consultation meetings using critical consciousness raising education strategies introduced by Freire (1970), were the main means. Formulation of theme groups was the first step of the intervention. The theme groups consisted of members of local non-governmental organizations, authorities and other citizens, who then selected the health promotion themes they wanted to work with. The purpose of the theme groups was to act as the first "structure" for action and to strengthen the sense of community, which have been discovered as essential elements in building up collaboration, and in making the people commit themselves to the process. The Programme was continuously assessed during its life in order to give feedback to the project organization and to the oarticipants. The study in hand was believed to produce understanding, concepts, and theoretical considerations applicable in the Finnish practice of health promotion and furthermore in developing empowerment and control over health. The principal objective of the present study was to develop instruments to assess empowerment both at individual and community levels, and furthermore, through using these tools in the analysis of empirical data to elaborate a model for empowerment practice, and finally to develop the theory of empowerment. The theoretical part of the study consisted of a literature review on the development of the concepts of citizen participation, empowerment in health, and community organisation, and an elaboration of the empowerment approach and evaluation instruments used in this study. The literature review revealed that the empowerment process of the 90s and beyond is not only a politital question, but also a methodological question. Empowermet approach requires action-orientation (the philosophical basis of which rises from critical theory) and qualitative research methods favouring theme interviews, observation and participstory methods. Citizen participation (Zimmerman and Rappaport 1988), sense of community (Chavis and Wandersman 1990) and empowerment (e.g. Zimmerman and Rappaport 1988, Wallerstein 1992) were selected as the main focus of the evaluation of the Healthy Somero and Järvenpää Programme. Empirical data was collected during the life of the Somero-Järvenpää Programme (observation notes, surveys [n=lOO in 1992, n=75 in 1994 and n=73 in 1996) and theme interviews of participants [n=36 in 1996), and various written documents). The overall method was triangulation - combination of several theories and approaches including both quantitative and qualitative measures. Qualitative programme evaluation, content analysis, hermeneutic understanding and grounded theory were used in the analysis. The main focus was on the development of community empowerment. The results revealed that about a "core group" of about 20-30 people participated as actors all the time during the first three years, planning and implementing different activities within the programme. In Somero the majority of the participants represented NGOs, whereas in Järvenpää a little less than a half of the participants represented authorities and the second half others. The Programmes were successful in strengthening psychological empowerment, sense of community and decision making skills of the participants. In summer 1996 the Healthy Somero was characterized as a publit health movement, the most important role of which was to initiate new projects and team groups at the local level. It had recruited in some extent more people into health promotive action. The main meaning of the existence of the programme was to function as an arena of social relations and social action. The role of health services remained minor. The Healthy Järvenpää Programme had taken the shape of a joint planning and co-operation arena of authorities and NGO's by the summer of 1994. Tasks and duties were shared and coordinated between the counterparts. The role of health services in the process had been major until the year 1994. However, the core croup shrank to about 10 people by the year 1996, and no new people entered the Programme. In the beginning the interest of the local population towards the Programme was greater than expected and there were good prerequisites for proceeding to the community level of empowerment in 1994. However, the strategy of decreasing the consultation and education support by the organizers of the Programme in 1994 followed by an almost total withdrawal in 1995 leaving the communities to manage on their own, showed to lead to a collapse of the development of empowerment. The conclusion was that the period of 1992-1996 was too short for generating community empowerment. The process of empowerment proved to need continuous training and practice in which new roles and ways of action, as well as working as a group can be exercised for several years. Furthermore, to be sustainable empowerment must be built up step by step, strengthening the psychological level of empowerment long enough before proceeding to the next stage. Consultancy and project leaders are necessary for guiding and assessing the development process. The programme indicated that health promotion based on participation of people is possible in general, but generating community empowerment calls for long lasting external supportive mechanisms, as well as changes in the prevailing organisation structures. The results of the study led to a theory labelled as a "Model of Reasoned Empowerment Action". The theory comprises a typology of four different roles, which are hypothesised to be existing and necessary elements in the empowerment process and, which characterize those supposed to be empowered and engaged as actors in the process.
AIMS: To examine cross-national patterns of 12-month substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and minimally adequate treatment (MAT), and associations with mental disorder comorbidity. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, representative household surveys. SETTING: Twenty-seven surveys from 25 countries of the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initiative. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 2446 people with past-year DSM-IV SUD diagnoses (alcohol or illicit drug abuse and dependence). MEASUREMENTS: Outcomes were SUD treatment, defined as having either received professional treatment or attended a self-help group for substance-related problems in the past 12 months, and MAT, defined as having either four or more SUD treatment visits to a health-care professional, six or more visits to a non-health-care professional or being in ongoing treatment at the time of interview. Covariates were mental disorder comorbidity and several socio-economic characteristics. Pooled estimates reflect country sample sizes rather than population sizes. FINDINGS: Of respondents with past-year SUD, 11.0% [standard error (SE) = 0.8] received past 12-month SUD treatment. SUD treatment was more common among people with comorbid mental disorders than with pure SUDs (18.1%, SE = 1.6 versus 6.8%, SE = 0.7), as was MAT (84.0%, SE = 2.5 versus 68.3%, SE = 3.8) and treatment by health-care professionals (88.9%, SE = 1.9 versus 78.8%, SE = 3.0) among treated SUD cases. Adjusting for socio-economic characteristics, mental disorder comorbidity doubled the odds of SUD treatment [odds ratio (OR) = 2.34; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.71-3.20], MAT among SUD cases (OR = 2.75; 95% CI = 1.90-3.97) and MAT among treated cases (OR = 2.48; 95% CI = 1.23-5.02). Patterns were similar within country income groups, although the proportions receiving SUD treatment and MAT were higher in high- than low-/middle-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Few people with past-year substance use disorders receive adequate 12-month substance use disorder treatment, even when comorbid with a mental disorder. This is largely due to the low proportion of people receiving any substance use disorder treatment, as the proportion of patients whose treatment is at least minimally adequate is high. ; The World Health Organization World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative is supported by the United States National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; R01 MH070884), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the United States Public Health Service (R13‐MH066849, R01‐MH069864 and R01 DA016558), the Fogarty International Center (FIRCA R03‐TW006481), the Pan American Health Organization, Eli Lilly and Company, Ortho‐McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, and Bristol‐Myers Squibb. We thank the staff of the WMH Data Collection and Data Analysis Coordination Centres for assistance with instrumentation, fieldwork and consultation on data analysis. None of the funders had any role in the design, analysis, interpretation of results, or preparation of this paper. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the views of the World Health Organization, other sponsoring organizations, agencies, or governments , and do not necessarily represent the views, official policy or position of the US Department of Health and Human Services or any of its affiliated institutions or agencies. M.D.G.'s role in this study is through his involvement as a Science Officer on U01‐MH60220. He had no involvement in the other cited grants. The 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The Argentina survey—Estudio Argentino de Epidemiología en Salud Mental (EASM)—was supported by a grant from the Argentinian Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud de la Nación). The São Paulo Megacity Mental Health Survey is supported by the State of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Thematic Project Grant 03/00204–3. The Bulgarian Epidemiological Study of common mental disorders EPIBUL is supported by the Ministry of Health and the National Center for Public Health Protection. The Chinese World Mental Health Survey Initiative is supported by the Pfizer Foundation. The Colombian National Study of Mental Health (NSMH) is supported by the Ministry of Social Protection. The Mental Health Study Medellín—Colombia was carried out and supported jointly by the Center for Excellence on Research in Mental Health (CES University) and the Secretary of Health of Medellín. The ESEMeD project is funded by the European Commission [Contracts QLG5–1999‐01042; SANCO 2004123, and EAHC 20081308) (the Piedmont Region (Italy)], Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (FIS 00/0028), Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Spain (SAF 2000–158‐CE), Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR 452; 2014 SGR 748), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (CIBER CB06/02/0046, RETICS RD06/0011 REM‐TAP) and other local agencies and by an unrestricted educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline. Implementation of the Iraq Mental Health Survey (IMHS) and data entry were carried out by the staff of the Iraqi MOH and MOP with direct support from the Iraqi IMHS team with funding from both the Japanese and European Funds through the United Nations Development Group Iraq Trust Fund (UNDG ITF). The Israel National Health Survey is funded by the Ministry of Health with support from the Israel National Institute for Health Policy and Health Services Research and the National Insurance Institute of Israel. The World Mental Health Japan (WMHJ) Survey is supported by the Grant for Research on Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases and Mental Health (H13‐SHOGAI‐023, H14‐TOKUBETSU‐026, H16‐KOKORO‐013, H25‐SEISHIN‐IPPAN‐006) from the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The Lebanese Evaluation of the Burden of Ailments and Needs Of the Nation (L.E.B.A.N.O.N.) is supported by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, the WHO (Lebanon), National Institute of Health/Fogarty International Center (R03 TW006481–01), anonymous private donations to IDRAAC, Lebanon and unrestricted grants from Algorithm, AstraZeneca, Benta, Bella Pharma, Eli Lilly, Glaxo Smith Kline, Lundbeck, Novartis, OmniPharma, Pfizer, Phenicia, Servier and UPO. The Mexican National Comorbidity Survey (MNCS) is supported by The National Institute of Psychiatry Ramon de la Fuente (INPRFMDIES 4280) and by the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACyT‐G30544‐ H), with supplemental support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Te Rau Hinengaro: the New Zealand Mental Health Survey (NZMHS) is supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, Alcohol Advisory Council, and the Health Research Council. The Nigerian Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHW) is supported by the WHO (Geneva), the WHO (Nigeria) and the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, Nigeria. The Northern Ireland Study of Mental Health was funded by the Health and Social Care Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency. The Peruvian World Mental Health Study was funded by the National Institute of Health of the Ministry of Health of Peru. The Polish project Epidemiology of Mental Health and Access to Care—EZOP Project (PL 0256) was supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through funding from the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. The EZOP project was co‐financed by the Polish Ministry of Health. The Portuguese Mental Health Study was carried out by the Department of Mental Health, Faculty of Medical Sciences, NOVA University of Lisbon, with the collaboration of the Portuguese Catholic University, and was funded by Champalimaud Foundation, Gulbenkian Foundation, Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and Ministry of Health. The Romania WMH study projects 'Policies in Mental Health Area' and 'National Study regarding Mental Health and Services Use' were carried out by National School of Public Health and Health Services Management (former National Institute for Research and Development in Health), with technical support from Metro Media Transilvania, the National Institute of Statistics–National Centre for Training in Statistics, SC, Cheyenne Services SRL, Statistics Netherlands and were funded by Ministry of Public Health (former Ministry of Health) with supplemental support of Eli Lilly Romania SRL. The Psychiatric Enquiry to General Population in Southeast Spain—Murcia (PEGASUS–Murcia) Project has been financed by the Regional Health Authorities of Murcia (Servicio Murciano de Salud and Consejería de Sanidad y Política Social) and Fundación para la Formación e Investigación Sanitarias (FFIS) of Murcia. The US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS‐R) is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; U01‐MH60220) with supplemental support from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF; Grant 044708) and the John W. Alden Trust. J.M. is supported by NHMRC Project grants (APP 1007677, APP 1099709) and a John Cade Fellowship (APP1056929). J.M. was supported by a Niels Bohr Professorship from the Danish National Research Foundation. L.D. is supported by an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship (no. 1135991) and NIDA NIH grant R01 DA044170‐02. L.D. and C.B. are supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant (no. 1081984). NDARC is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health under the Drug and Alcohol Program. A complete list of all within‐country and cross‐national WMH publications can be found at http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/wmh/.
Researchers often only have access to aggregated statistics about people and businesses rather than individual data. This means that research into the relationships between labour market outcomes for geographic areas and demographic characteristics often has to rely on the analysis of statistics for areas rather than for individuals. This presents a problem as the results of the analysis of aggregated, areal data often lead to different results depending on the geographic scale of aggregation. When areal statistics are available for different geographic scales then researchers building statistical models have to choose which geographic scales to include in their models. When areal statistics are not available for different geographic scales then researchers have to consider whether the results of their research would have been different if areal statistics had been available for a different geographic scale to the one that they were forced to use. That different geographic scales can give rise to different results is important if the results are to be used to inform policies (to improve labour market outcomes for example). That researchers and those using their research are aware that different geographic scales in statistical models can give rise to different results is important as it may focus attention on the importance of choosing which scales to use. It may also help explain differences between different results from similar research projects. The specific aim of this project was to assess which geographic scales are the most appropriate and useful to include in the statistical modelling of selected UK labour market statistics and which geographic scales provide unhelpful or misleading information. The wider aim of this project was to develop an approach built using one set of labour market statistics that could subsequently be applied to other labour market statistics or other business or socioeconomic statistics in order to provide guidance to researchers on the effects of using different geographic scales for the analysis of areal data. The intention was to create transferable guidance on levels and methods of analysis rather than solely to analyse a single data set. This project contributes to knowledge by providing some original information about which geographic scales to include in models of various labour market outcomes. Moreover, it contributes to professional practice by describing the different stages used in choosing the geographic scales to include in the modelling of labour market outcomes. The research described in this report was conducted using multilevel modelling. The R statistical programming environment, R Cran Project (2019), was used to build the models and produce all the figures in the final report. Earlier model building was carried out using both MLwiN software and R. Whilst MLwiN produces user-friendly output which helps in understanding multilevel models, R was chosen for the main modelling as it allowed model building and the creation of charts in one language which could be documented and replicated easily in the form of R scripts, examples of which are included in the Annex to the report. The scripts did not contain functions written as part of the research. Instead, they contained sections of code that built models using parameters named 'Output_variable' and 'Predictor_variable' which could be set to each of the variables required for the models using an earlier section of the script. The data used by the R scripts were read in from csv files stored separately to the scripts rather than being contained in packages. The use of scripts rather than packages simply evolved as the code was written and was sufficient to produce and run the models required for the research. If the work were developed further, then the writing of packages containing code and data to make it easier for other researchers to run the models could be considered. The data used in the research were all downloaded from official UK government statistics websites. The dataset used for the main section of model building described in chapters 4 and 5 of this thesis consists of outcome variables at local authority level for the 326 English local authority districts and unitary authorities in existence up until early 2019 together with predictor variables mainly at local authority level. The research presented in chapter 5 of this thesis consisted of three stages, investigating the geographic scale of variation in the outcome variables, choosing the geographic scale to use for predictor variables, and choosing the geographic scales to include as levels in multilevel models. Many of the multilevel models contained one or more of The Europewide 'Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics' (NUTS) geographic scales (Eurostat, 2018) as model level(s). This nomenclature provides a set of hierarchical areas for the collection and analysis of statistics. In the UK, the NUTS 1 areas are Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the nine former government office regions in England. NUTS 2 areas in the UK generally consist of one or more counties depending on county population sizes. Single NUTS 3 areas in the UK can be either a single unitary authority, a group of local authorities or a single county depending on local population sizes, or a single London borough. The amount of variation at different geographic scales is important as it helps to show how similar units within the same areas are to each other and how different units in different areas tend to be from each other. The geographic scale at which units within areas are similar to each other and units in different areas are different to each other is important in finding which geographic scales it is helpful to have in multilevel models. The main conclusions from investigating the geographic scale of variation in the outcome variables were that: • for local authority unemployment rates there were higher proportions of variance at NUTS 1 and NUTS 3 areas levels than at NUTS 2 area levels; • for local authority employment rates and workplace earnings there were broadly similar proportions of variance at NUTS 1, NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 area levels; • for local authority mean hours and median hours variables there were negligible amounts of variance at NUTS 3 areas level; • for job density there was a negligible amount of variation at NUTS 1; • for the median residents' earnings variable there were equal proportions of variance at NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 areas levels and twice that proportion at NUTS 1 areas level. The main finding from the investigation into the geographic scale to use for predictor variables in models of local authority level outcomes was that it was usually better to use local authority level predictor variables rather than predictors calculated at higher geographic scales and that it was unnecessary to use predictors calculated at multiple geographic scales. For that reason, the main modelling part of the project was devoted to multilevel models of local authority level outcomes using only local authority level predictors. The research consisted of building a large number of models for each outcome variable using different predictor variables all measured or calculated at local authority level but within multilevel models that grouped the local authorities at different geographic levels. The models were then analysed to see which ones fitted the data better by comparing the AIC values for groups of the models that used the same outcome and predictor variables in different ways. This found the following models to be among the best for the various outcome variables: • four-level random intercept models for models of unemployment rates, residents' earnings and workplace earnings; • two-level random intercept models with grouping by NUTS 2 areas for models of mean hours worked and models of job density; • a variety of models for employment rates depending on the predictor variable used. An overall finding from the results was that there was often a choice to be made between complex, i.e. random coefficient, models with just two levels and simpler, i.e. random intercept, models with four levels. Given that this choice may have to be made, it was suggested that consideration should be given to what sort of information is sought from the model in order to help choose which geographic levels to include. To learn about influences coming from different geographic scales a random intercept model with many different levels is likely to be appropriate. However, to learn about different strengths of effects in different parts of a study area a random coefficient multilevel model with just two levels or a four-level model with random coefficients at just one level may be more useful. The recommendations of this project include guidance to researchers on how to choose which geographic scales to include in models. The guidance is presented in the form of a set of steps. The steps cover choosing outcome variables that have distributions suitable for linear modelling, dealing with outliers, building null models to investigate the proportion of variance of the outcome variables that occurs at different geographic scales, considering the intended purpose of the model to determine whether a random coefficient model would be helpful and being aware that the geographic scales to use for random coefficient models may be different to those to use for null or random intercept models, comparing the AIC values of models that include different geographic scale levels to assess which fit the data better, and where appropriate checking for any spatial patterns in the random coefficients estimated by a model.
From a philosophical standpoint, this article analyses the historical formation of the concept of the «Basque Working People» in the Basque armed organization ETA (Basque Country and Freedom, for its acronym in Basque). To accomplish this, we will study the imaginaries of the Basque Nationalists Youths during the 1940s and the official ideology of ETA in the 1960s. We have used primarily the ideological periodicals (journals such as Beti Gazte, Zabaldu, Kemen or Zutik) of these collectives as well as other relevant books (for example Federico Krutwig´s Vasconia) and documents which helped in the formation of ETA's imaginary. Considering this historical formation of the concept of the «Basque Working People», we have reinterpreted the strategic approach of the organization since 1959. Tentatively, we have affirmed that ETA adopted a very specific use of violent methods, which were specifically oriented not to reach the goal of an independent and socialist Basque Country, but in the idea of making visible the concept of the «Basque Working People» in social reality. Thus, we have described this use of political violence as constative (and not performative). The non-violent strategic approaches of ETA were precisely focused on social spreading and implementation of its alternative imaginary: the achievement of independent and socialist Basque Country. ; Las siguientes páginas estudian a partir de un enfoque interpretativo la formación histórica del concepto del Pueblo Trabajador Vasco en la organización ETA. Para ello desarrollamos un análisis que va desde el estudio de los imaginarios de las primeras juventudes nacionalistas vascas durante los años 40 a la ideología oficial de este colectivo armado en la década de los 60. Las fuentes utilizadas han sido fundamentalmente las publicaciones periódicas de estas agrupaciones (boletines como Beti Gazte!, Zabaldu, Kemen o Zutik) así como distintas obras ajenas a ellas, pero relevantes para la formación de su corpus doctrinal (por ejemplo, el libro de Federico Krutwig, Vasconia). A partir del análisis de la historia formativa del concepto de Pueblo Trabajador Vasco como sujeto al que apelaba ETA, hemos conseguido realizar una relectura de la estrategia desarrollada por este grupo desde su nacimiento y hasta el desarrollo de su Quinta Asamblea entre los años 1966-1967. De modo tentativo, hemos descrito el uso de la violencia por parte de ETA como una estrategia constatativa. Es decir, su uso se orientaba a hacer visible el concepto subjetivo concebido por el colectivo armado como el reverso de todo lo afirmado en el régimen franquista. De forma paralela, las secciones no armadas de la organización se determinaron por realizar el proyecto político de ETA, la independencia y el socialismo del País Vasco, tratando de extender esa alternativa política entre la población. ; Les pages suivantes étudient, à partir d'une approche interprétative, la formation historique du concept de peuple basque travailleur dans l'organisation ETA. Pour ce faire, nous développons une analyse qui va de l'étude des imaginaires des premiers jeunes nationalistes basques dans les années 1940 à l'idéologie officielle de ce groupe armé dans les années 1960. Les sources utilisées ont été principalement les publications périodiques de ces groupes (bulletins tels que Beti Gazte !, Zabaldu, Kemen ou Zutik) ainsi que différents ouvrages extérieurs à ceux-ci, mais pertinents pour la formation de leur corpus doctrinal (par exemple, le livre de Federico Krutwig, Vasconia). A partir de l'analyse de l'histoire formative du concept de Peuple Ouvrier Basque comme sujet auquel l'ETA a fait appel, nous avons réussi à relire la stratégie développée par ce groupe depuis sa naissance jusqu'au développement de sa Cinquième Assemblée entre 1966-1967. Nous avons provisoirement décrit l'utilisation de la violence par l'ETA comme une stratégie de constatation. C'est-à-dire que son utilisation visait à rendre visible le concept subjectif conçu par le collectif armé comme l'inverse de tout ce qui était affirmé dans le régime franquiste. Dans le même temps, les sections non armées de l'organisation étaient déterminées à réaliser le projet politique de l'ETA, l'indépendance et le socialisme du Pays basque, en essayant de diffuser cette alternative politique parmi la population. ; Le pagine seguenti studiano da un approccio interpretativo la formazione storica del concetto di Popolo Lavoratore Basco nell'organizzazione dell'ETA. Per farlo, sviluppiamo un'analisi che va dallo studio degli immaginari dei primi giovani nazionalisti baschi durante gli anni 40 fino all'ideologia ufficiale di questo gruppo armato negli anni 60. Le fonti utilizzate sono state principalmente le pubblicazioni periodiche di questi gruppi (bollettini come Beti Gazte!, Zabaldu, Kemen o Zutik) così come diverse opere esterne ad essi, ma rilevanti per la formazione del loro corpus dottrinale (per esempio, il libro di Federico Krutwig, Vasconia). Dall'analisi della storia formativa del concetto di Popolo Lavoratore Basco come soggetto a cui ETA si appellava, siamo riusciti a rileggere la strategia sviluppata da questo gruppo dalla sua nascita fino allo sviluppo della sua V Assemblea tra il 1966-1967. Tentativamente, abbiamo descritto l'uso della violenza da parte dell'ETA come una strategia costitutiva. Cioè, il suo uso era volto a rendere visibile il concetto soggettivo concepito dal collettivo armato come il contrario di tutto ciò che si affermava nel regime franchista. Allo stesso tempo, le sezioni non armate dell'organizzazione erano determinate a portare avanti il progetto politico dell'ETA, l'indipendenza e il socialismo dei Paesi Baschi, cercando di diffondere questa alternativa politica tra la popolazione. ; As páginas seguintes estudam a partir de uma abordagem interpretativa a formação histórica do conceito do povo trabalhador basco na organização da ETA. Para o fazer, desenvolvemos uma análise que vai desde o estudo dos imaginários dos primeiros jovens nacionalistas bascos durante os anos 40 até à ideologia oficial deste grupo armado nos anos 60. As fontes utilizadas foram principalmente as publicações periódicas destes grupos (boletins como Beti Gazte!, Zabaldu, Kemen ou Zutik) bem como diferentes obras fora deles, mas relevantes para a formação do seu corpus doutrinário (por exemplo, o livro de Federico Krutwig, Vasconia). A partir da análise da história formativa do conceito do Povo Trabalhador Basco como um tema ao qual a ETA apelou, conseguimos reler a estratégia desenvolvida por este grupo desde o seu nascimento até ao desenvolvimento da sua Quinta Assembleia entre 1966-1967. Tentativamente, descrevemos o uso da violência pela ETA como uma estratégia constatativa. Ou seja, a sua utilização visava tornar visível o conceito subjectivo concebido pelo colectivo armado como o inverso de tudo o que se afirmava no regime franquista. Ao mesmo tempo, as secções não armadas da organização estavam determinadas a realizar o projecto político da ETA, a independência e o socialismo do País Basco, tentando difundir esta alternativa política entre a população. ; As páginas seguintes estudam a partir de uma abordagem interpretativa a formação histórica do conceito do povo trabalhador basco na organização da ETA. Para o fazer, desenvolvemos uma análise que vai desde o estudo dos imaginários dos primeiros jovens nacionalistas bascos durante os anos 40 até à ideologia oficial deste grupo armado nos anos 60. As fontes utilizadas foram principalmente as publicações periódicas destes grupos (boletins como Beti Gazte!, Zabaldu, Kemen ou Zutik) bem como diferentes obras fora deles, mas relevantes para a formação do seu corpus doutrinário (por exemplo, o livro de Federico Krutwig, Vasconia). A partir da análise da história formativa do conceito do Povo Trabalhador Basco como um tema ao qual a ETA apelou, conseguimos reler a estratégia desenvolvida por este grupo desde o seu nascimento até ao desenvolvimento da sua Quinta Assembleia entre 1966-1967. Tentativamente, descrevemos o uso da violência pela ETA como uma estratégia constatativa. Ou seja, a sua utilização visava tornar visível o conceito subjectivo concebido pelo colectivo armado como o inverso de tudo o que se afirmava no regime franquista. Ao mesmo tempo, as secções não armadas da organização estavam determinadas a realizar o projecto político da ETA, a independência e o socialismo do País Basco, tentando difundir esta alternativa política entre a população.
Earlier this month, Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of "bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering." The accusations revolve around a set of deals in which Cuellar allegedly accepted money from a state-owned Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank in exchange for an agreement to push U.S. foreign policy in their favor.As concerning as this may be, it's not even the first such indictment against a sitting member of Congress this year. In March, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) received a superseding indictment which expands further upon earlier accusations that the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman took bribes to advocate on behalf of the Egyptian and Qatari governments. These cases make it clear that foreign bribery, in which representatives of one country pay money to manipulate the representatives of another, is still a serious problem in the United States. As the world's most powerful and interventionist nation, no other government has more influence over the rest of the world's affairs — influence which can be bought. The recent charges against Rep. Cuellar and Sen. Mendendez show how significant of a problem bribery and undue influence has been for the U.S. congress, while also drawing attention to the ongoing efforts to prevent this corruption from continuing.Bribes offered in exchange for political favors are nothing new in Congress. The first congressional bribery investigation on record took place in 1854, when a lobbyist attempted to bribe members of Congress into extending the patent for the Colt revolver handgun. The question of bribery across borders, however, did not receive much attention in Congress until fairly recently. Concerns about foreign bribery emerged most forcefully in the mid-1970s as a result of the Watergate investigation and the Church Committee, which investigated abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies. These investigations identified slush funds run by large companies that could be used for illegal political donations and undisclosed foreign payments, including several U.S.-based corporations with overseas operations. In the words of then-committee chairman Sen. Frank Church (D-Ida.), the Church Committee was "concerned with the foreign policy consequences of these payments by U.S.-based multinational corporations… It is no longer sufficient to simply sigh and say that is the way business is done. It is time to treat the issue for what it is: a serious foreign policy problem."There are two types of foreign bribery: attempts by foreign figures to bribe U.S. officials, and attempts by U.S. figures to bribe foreign officials. The Church Committee began by looking into the latter, focusing on political contributions that U.S.-based oil and defense companies had made abroad. What they found was shocking: oil companies were funding politicians in South Korea and Italy; Northrop was paying off a Saudi general; and Lockheed spent millions on bribes to foreign officials in Japan, the Netherlands, Indonesia, and more. Lockheed even sought to claim tax deductions for its bribes, a practice which was legal until 1975.These and other revelations caused major scandals abroad. Congress was rattled by the way that some countries reacted to the corruption, including the Peruvian government's expropriation of assets belonging to a corrupt U.S. oil company. Combined with the American public's disgust towards the corruption of the Watergate scandal, conditions were ripe for serious reform. In 1977, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) was signed into law, making it illegal for U.S. citizens to bribe foreign officials. Until this rule was turned into a treaty 20 years later, the U.S. was alone in the world in adopting this form of anti-corruption policy.For much of the U.S.'s history, political corruption was both common and partially normalized, explained away as a necessity to achieve political and business goals. When a corrupt middleman helping U.S. weapons companies make deals in Saudi Arabia explained his role to Pentagon officials in 1973, one official present described the activities as "an inexpensive economic aid program." It was the fallout from Watergate and the Church Committee that turned bribery into a proper taboo. This sharp cultural change caught some off guard: one key Lockheed executive who was ejected from the company due to the bribery scandal complained that "all of a sudden, there's a different set of standards… I looked at these payments as necessary to sell a product. I never felt I was doing anything wrong." The public's attention next turned to the flip side of foreign bribery: foreign representatives paying off U.S. officials. While the FCPA criminalized foreign bribery committed by U.S. citizens, it did not fully criminalize foreign bribery aimed at U.S. citizens. New investigations into bribes directed at members of the U.S. congress helped to demonstrate the scale of this issue.In the "Koreagate" scandal of the late 1970s, a well-connected South Korean businessman offered bribes to U.S. members of Congress in exchange for favorable treatment of the nation's dictatorship. Many lawmakers were implicated, and one was sent to jail. Congress launched investigations into alleged bribery campaigns by Iranian and South African officials in 1979 and 1980, respectively, but ultimately found "no evidence of intentional misconduct." Little did they know that something much larger was brewing beneath the surface.In 1980, NBC News revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had conducted a large-scale sting operation against corrupt politicians. "Abscam," short for "Arab scam," involved FBI agents posing as the agents of a wealthy Middle Eastern sheikh and offering bribes to seven members of Congress, all of whom were eventually convicted. This investigation, controversial for the use of tactics which many might consider entrapment, formed the basis of the 2013 comedy film "American Hustle."Abscam was the last major entry in this burst of investigations, but new scandals continued to emerge over the years. After congressman Jay Kim (R-Cal.) narrowly won his 1992 reelection campaign, it was revealed that more than a third of his campaign contributions were illegal, including money with its origins in South Korea and Taiwan. Five years later, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) pressured Turkemenistan's ambassador to the U.S. on behalf of a Florida-based company seeking a natural gas deal with the country; the same company had previously paid for her trips overseas. She also was accused of accepting a car from a Malian businessman as a gift for her daughter.The next large scandal came in the form of congressman William J. Jefferson (D-La.), who was convicted of a litany of crimes in 2009. Jefferson accepted large bribes from U.S. companies in exchange for promoting their business interests across western Africa. He was finally caught after accepting a $100,000 cash bribe from a woman who instructed him to pass it on to the vice president of Nigeria. What he didn't know was that the woman was an FBI asset wearing a wire; the Bureau raided his Capitol Hill apartment days later.These issues have continued into the 2020s, even before the bombshell indictments of Rep. Cuellar and Sen. Menendez. In 2022, congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) was convicted of lying to the FBI about illegal campaign money which originated from a Nigerian billionaire. His conviction was later reversed on technical grounds, but new charges were filed against him earlier this month.Recent efforts have helped to strengthen U.S. laws against foreign bribery. President Biden signed the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act into law late last year, making it illegal for foreign officials to demand or accept bribes from U.S. citizens. This reform directly addresses the "demand side" of the bribery issue which the FCPA left untouched. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its enforcement of the FCPA ever since creating a "specialized unit" to enforce the law in 2010. However, there is more that can be done to strengthen the law. For example, Congress could repeal the 1988 amendment to the law which creates an exception for "facilitating or expediting payments."Other reforms can help in fighting corruption. Congressional ethics committees need to be strengthened in order to identify and address ethics violations more quickly. Stronger enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act could make it harder for middlemen acting as agents of foreign governments to hide in the shadows.Members of Congress must also have a zero tolerance policy for their colleagues who are caught engaging in foreign bribery. Senator Menendez has already faced calls for resignation from the majority of senators from his own party; although he gave up his leadership role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he continues to cling to office. Rep. Cuellar, on the other hand, has faced little opposition from his Democratic colleagues so far.Finally, these scandals should lead Washington to reconsider U.S. foreign policy more generally. The United States frequently intervenes in the affairs of other nations, even in contexts where it makes little sense. Members of Congress can use this global reach to line their own pockets; simultaneously, this same power makes them prime targets for foreign interests who wish to manipulate the way that the United States interacts with the rest of the world. A foreign policy that turns away from coercive interventionism while still encouraging international cooperation would provide fewer opportunities for foreign bribery to occur in the first place.U.S. foreign policy should be dictated by the interests of the American people, not the personal financial interests of politicians, wealthy businessmen, and foreign governments. The cases of Rep. Cuellar and Sen. Menendez are only the most recent in a substantial history of such behavior. To fix U.S. foreign policy, we need to clean up Congress and put an end to foreign bribery.
La tesis doctoral El buen vivir en Ecuador. Dimensiones políticas de un nuevo enfoque de Economía Política del Desarrollo, elaborada como compendio de publicaciones está conformada por siete artículos, que se centran en el impacto del concepto del buen vivir (sumak kawsay) sobre el ámbito académico de la Economía Política del Desarrollo, en especial desde que éste fue incluido en las Constituciones de Ecuador y Bolivia. A partir de aquí ha surgido una Economía Política del Buen Vivir, como propuesta alternativa al desarrollo surgida desde el pensamiento de los pueblos andino- amazónicos. Nuestro objeto de estudio es la Economía Política del Buen Vivir, delimitado en cada una de las publicaciones. Así, nuestros objetos delimitados de estudio fueron: los debates abiertos sobre el sumak kawsay desde 2008 en América Latina, y especialmente en Ecuador y Bolivia; las corrientes de pensamiento sobre el buen vivir que desde el 2000 existen en América Latina, y especialmente en Ecuador y Bolivia; el origen del sumak kawsay como fenómeno social alternativo al desarrollo; el trans- desarrollo, que incluiría el decrecimiento y el buen vivir, como manifestación de la trans-modernidad en diferentes países del mundo desde principios del siglo XXI; los fundamentos teórico-normativos que deben servir de base para una posible construcción del buen vivir en América Latina; la deconstrucción de! concepto de buen vivir y la genealogía de sus diversos manantiales intelectuales en América Latina ; y la genealogía de los discursos ecuatorianos del buen vivir desde 1992 hasta 2016. Para documentar los mismos se ha realizado una intensa labor de arqueo bibliográfico, aplicando la técnica de la bibliografía recursiva y filtrando los resultados por medio de la técnica de las referencias cruzadas. Además, una vez localizados los principales referentes intelectuales sobre este tema, se han revisado sus principales contribuciones. Dicha recopilación de información ha sido complementada con la realización de entrevistas sem¡estructuradas grabadas a diez intelectuales especialistas en el buen vivir. Esta información ha sido analizada por medio de técnicas de investigación cualitativa (algunas de ellas de corte post-racionalista), tales como la agrupación de conceptos en categorías analíticas, los mapas cognitivos, el análisis de contenido de bibliografía gris, la identificación de marcos epistemológicos, el análisis sintético de contenidos, la construcción de propuestas normativas, la deconstrucción de conceptos y la qenealoqía de conceptos.Las conclusiones de estas publicaciones pueden concretarse en siete. La primera es que la corriente de pensamiento y el marco cultural determinan el posicionamiento de cada autor respecto de los seis debates abiertos sobre el buen vivir (significado; traducción; origen; cosmovisión; relación con el desarrollo; y futuro). La segunda es que las corrientes dé pensamiento sobre el buen vivir se corresponden con tres marcos epistemológicos diferentes, la cosmovisión andina, la modernidad y la post-modernidad. La tercera es que el sumdk kawsay es un fenómeno social existente en las comunidades indígenas amazónicas ecuatorianas {kichwa, achuar y shuar), más allá de otras existencias y que su difusión llevó dicho concepto hasta las Constituciones de Ecuador y Bolivia. La cuarta es que en el siglo XXI coexisten cuatro cosmovisiones (pre-modernidad; modernidad; post¬modernidad; y trans-modernidad), cada una de ellas con su propio paradigma de bienestar (subsistencia; desarrollo; post-desarrollo; y trans-desarrollo), y que dentro del trans-desarrollo existen dos grandes grupos de aportaciones trans-modernas a los Estudios del Desarrollo (decrecimiento y buen vivir). La quinta es que el buen vivir latinoamericano, definido de manera sintética como forma de vida en armonía con uno mismo (identidad), con la sociedad (equidad) y con la naturaleza (sustentabilidad), puede entenderse como una propuesta de transformación de los sistemas socioeconómicos latinoamericanos para construir una sociedad pluri-naciona!, post-capitalista y sociedad bio-céntrica. La sexta es que el buen vivir tiene diversas influencias intelectuales, entre las que se pueden destacar el socialismo del siglo XXI, la economía social y solidaria, la economía comunitaria, el post-extractivismo, el decrecimiento, la ecología profunda, súmale kawsay - suma qamaña - allin kawsay, la cosmovisión andina, el post-desarrollo y la colonialidad, entre otras. Y la séptima es que el buen vivir fue interpretado en Ecuador de manera impostada por el movimiento indígena, el gobierno y Alianza PAÍS y ios movimientos sociales desde 2007 hasta 2016. ; The doctoral dissertation, titled Good living in Ecuador. Politicaf dimensions of a new approach to Political Economy of Development and written as compendium of papers, consists of seven articles. Their topic is the impact of the concept of good living {sumak kawsay) at the academic field of Political Economy of Development, especially since it was included in the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. Then Political Economy of Good Living has emerged as an alternative proposal to the development, as a proposal arisen from the thought of the Andean-Amazonian peoples. Our subject is the Political Economy of Good Living, delimited in each of the papers. Moreover, our delimited subjects are seven. The first are open debates on sumak kawsay s\nce 2008 in Latin America and especially in Ecuador and Bolivia. The second are thought schools about the good living since 2000 in Latin America and especially in Ecuador and Bolivia. The third is origin of sumak kawsay as social phenomenon alternative to development. The fourth is trans-development, included degrowth y good living, as manifestation of trans-modernity in different countries since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The fifth are theoretical-normative foundations of a possible construction of good living in Latin America. The sixth are deconstruction of good living's concept and its genealogy in Latin America. And, the seventh is genealogy of the Ecuadorian discourses of good living from 1992 to 2016. To document these subjects, we have done an intense bibliographic search, applying recursive bibliography technique and filtering the results through cross references technique. In addition, once we have located the main intellectual referents on this topic, we have reviewed their main contributions. We have supplemented this collection of information by semi-structured interviews to ten specialists in good living. We have analyzed this information through qualitative research techniques (some post-rationalist); we have grouped concepts into analytical categories; we have builds cognitive maps; we have done analysis of gray literature content; we have identified epistemological frameworks; we have done synthetic analysis of contents; we have make normative proposals; we have deconstructed concepts; and we have done genealogy of concepts. We can summary these papers of in seven conclusions. The first is that thought school and cultural framework establishes the position of each author regarding the six open debates on good living (meaning, translation, origin, worldview, relationship with development, and future). The second is that thought schools about good living correspond to three different epistemological frameworks, the Andean worldview, modernity and post-modernity. The third is that sumak kawsay is a social phenomenon existing in the Ecuadorian Amazonian indigenous communities (Kichwa\ Achuar and Shuar), beyond other existences and that its diffusion brought the concept to the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. The fourth is tnat four worldviews coexist in the twenty-first century (pre-modernity, modernity, post-modernity, and trans-modernity), each with its own paradigm of well-being (subsistence, development, post-development, and trans-development), and that within trans-development there are two large groups of trans-modern contributions to Development Studies (degrowth and good living). The fifth is that we can understand Latin American good living, synthetically defined as a way of life in harmony with oneself (identity), with society (equity) and with nature (sustainability), as a proposal for the transformation of Latin American systems to create a pluri-national, post-capitalist and bio-centric society. The sixth is that good living has many different intellectual influences, among which we can highlight socialism of the 21st century, social and solidarity economy, community economy, post-extractivism, degrowth, deep ecology, sumak kawsay - suma qamana - allin kawsay, Andean worldview, post-development and coloniality, amoncj others. In addition, the seventh is that the indigenous movement, the government and Alianza PAIS, and other alternative social movements of have interpreted good living in a fake way in Ecuador from 2007 to 2016.
The reform of Child foster care system has recently been one of the priority areas of Lithuanian Social Policy. This process began in our country more than ten years ago following the adoption of the relevant legislation and was largely influenced by the Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1993) and by country's membership in the European Union (since 2004). However, this process is found to be too inefficient and slow. In spite of some positive developments in the area, each year a large number of children - more than two thousand - are still deprived of parental care, and at the end of the year there are almost ten thousand of them in such situation (which amounts to 2 percent of all children living in Lithuania). Almost half of these children are provided with institutional care, other children are fostered in families (the vast majority of whom are relatives) and only a small part – in family communities.Researchers, social policy experts and representatives of institutions have been expressing criticism towards institutional care for several years.Although international and national laws state that institutional care may only be established for a child as a last resort after all possibilities to accommodate the child in a foster family have been exhausted, statistics show that in many cases because of the underdeveloped system of family foster care and lack of alternative forms of help, the accommodation of a child in a boarding institution is the first and unique means (according to the statistics, in 2014 40% of children were housed in institutions). It is known that the majority of Lithuanian children's boarding institutions are not suitable for positive child socialisation, not because of material conditions (a large part of the institutions have been restructured), but mainly due to the fact that these structures cannot provide a close family environment, nor they are able to meet the needs of a child in fulfilling relationships with adults. Recent studies have demonstrated that the intellectual and psychical development of children living in boarding institutions slowed down not insomuch due to congenital factors or central nervous system damage, but to the quality of relations and the lack of efficient interaction with adults. The accommodation, supervision and certain security are ensured for the children but they are not protected from mental deprivation that continues in other forms. The researchers point out that attachment disorders and conditions of care at home can cause a variety of children's health, cognitive, emotional, moral sphere issues (Browne, 2009, Wheten, Osterman 2014).Although a lot of attention in Lithuania is drawn to a child foster care, the amount of research on this topic is not numerous, especially regarding the topic of de-institutionalisation process. Most scientists explored the institutional child care characteristics and the impact on child development and socialisation. Žalimienė (2007) conducted institutional child care quality research, Zbarauskaitė (2012), Lesinkienė and Karalienė (2008) et al. conducted studies on children living in residential institutions in the light of the attachment theory. These revealed the negative impact of institutions on child's psychosocial development, possible behavioural and emotional problems. Snieškienė and Tamutienė (2014) did the comparative analysis of different forms of childcare from the point of view of human rights – they compared children living in the institutions and in foster families. The study reported that the implementation of indicators of children's rights are more favourable in the case of family foster care, besides, children experience fewer socialisation problems and are more likely to positively evaluate their living environment and relationships with adults than those living in boarding institutions. Vitkauskas (2010) also examined the child fostering problems from the child protection perspective. Poviliūnas (2014) who has investigated enforcement of child's welfare policy in Lithuania, argues that it is necessary to speed up the process of de-institutionalisation, and to ensure individualisation of each step, taking into consideration specific interests, needs of each child and other circumstances. Bobinienė and Voitechovič (2012) described possible prevention and intervention measures of child care de-institutionalisation and emphasised the importance of social work with social risk families. Preventive work with families is also highlighted by Pūras (2012) and other authors.This paper analyses current situation of de-institutionalisation of children's boarding institutions that has started a few years ago in Lithuania, as well as the position, preparation and participation of social workers of those institutions in this process; an example of those who already work in new circumstances is presented as a good practice. The following methods of research have been used: the analysis of the literature, the analysis of legislation, interviews with experts.The purpose of empirical research (interview) was to identify the position of social workers working in children's boarding institutions, their preparation for de-institutionalisation and participation in the process. To this end, narrative interviews with seven experts from four different children's boarding institutions were conducted, namely: two institutions in big cities that are similar in the number of accommodated children and in principles of work organisation, one institution in a small town, and one children's boarding institution where the de-institutionalisation had already started. The interviews and analysis were carried out according to the Grounded theory methodology – Strauss, Corbin version (2008). Several experiences and insights expressed by the interviewees are summarised in this paper and, despite the limitations of the study, results reflect certain trends significant to this process. Of course, a more detailed examination of the situation requires further research.The analysis of academic literature, research, and legislation revealed that de-institutionalisation of children's boarding institutions is a complex and gradual process that involves not only the shutdown of stationary institutions, but also requires the establishment of alternative help services, development of preventive work with families in order to reduce the number of children getting into the foster care system. Therefore, incompetent and unprepared actions may bring risks to the children in question: they can be forcibly sent back to live in their own problematic families or held up with them, mechanically transferred to other places of residence, regardless of their actual situation, needs and best interests. On the other hand, it is observed that in Lithuania the de-institutionalisation process is too slow and inefficient. Although the reform process was initiated more than ten years ago, there are still some problematic points: no adequate legal framework, lack of clear and unified "Action Plan" to be implemented in different regions, there is no clear financial mechanism. Moreover, the plan to reduce young children's accommodation in institutions and to decrease the number of social risk families and their children failed; there is still shortage of social services for families, there is no legal regulation of help for a family in a situation of crisis (currently only families included in the Social Risk Record can receive help), etc.The expert interviews showed that professionals lack information and discussions on the topic of de-institutionalisation within boarding institutions, with external experts as well as representatives of responsible authorities. On the other hand, no initiatives from the informants themselves were observed. Ignorance increases anxiety among workers: they raise questions and doubts about the reform process, they remember unsuccessful projects, worry about their jobs or changes in duties. For this reason, it seems that social workers are skeptical about the de-institutionalisation and even oppose it. Hence, all the informants have confirmed that this reform is necessary because the institutions are not equal to family environment and do not correspond to the needs of children. Furthermore, we have seen that those, who have a strong motivation to work with children, are willing to continue their work under new conditions, and those who have weak motivation have more doubts and are not sure that they will conform to the new system.The research highlighted most important factors that could lead to a successful implementation of the reform: dissemination of information, adequate professional training/retraining of specialists, increasing of social workers' salaries and financial resources in general, analysis of foreign experiences, preparation of detailed projects, oriented to the needs of children and promotion of a coherent preventive work with families.To sum up, it can be said that attempts to reform the child foster care system in Lithuania have indeed been considerable. However, programs, regulations, concepts, strategies have so far been viewed as recommendations and up to now there have been relatively few real steps to reform the existing arrangements.According to the analysed material, it can be deduced that the de-institutionalisation process lacks political will and the unitary participation of all subjects involved and finally that of the entire society. That is why one gets the impression that, like in the fable of S. Krylov, the "carriage" does not start moving. Hopefully representatives of the academic community will get more and more involved in this process with research and scientific insights, recommendations, texts and curricula of the teaching programs, etc. ; Straipsnyje nagrinėjama vaikų globos namų deinstitucionalizacijos problema Lietuvoje, pateikiamos kai kurių globos namų socialinių darbuotojų įžvalgos ir patirtys šiuo pereinamuoju laikotarpiu. Institucinė vaiko globa pastaraisiais metais kritikuojama kaip ydinga vaiko visapusiškam vystymuisi ir ugdymui, tačiau pastebima, kad prasidėjusi sistemos pertvarka yra sudėtingas procesas, pastaraisiais metais daugiausia stringantis dėl politinės valios stokos, dalyvaujančių subjektų (valdžios institucijų, globos namų, bendruomenių, mokslininkų) aktyvaus ir darnaus veikimo bei bendradarbiavimo trūkumo. Kartu akivaizdu, kad vaikų globos namų deinstitualizacija yra nacionalinio lygmens problema ir šis procesas neįmanomas be didesnio visos visuomenės įsitraukimo ir žmonių sąmoningumo pokyčių.
El mitoSiempre que hablemos de secularismo (o secularización) o laicidad, no es posible escribir sobre la cuestión sin hacer referencia a la crítica recurrente que alimenta el debate; a saber, que la neutralidad entre las esferas pública y privada (y particularmente en el caso de la laicidad) tan sólo sería oficial, pero que en la práctica esta neutralidad no sería más que una ficción ya que el Estado privilegiaría la religión históricamente dominante o, como hemos discutido previamente, favorecería los valores morales seculares por sobre los valores religiosos.En referencia a los Estados Unidos, país que reconoce su voluntad secular en la primera enmienda de su Constitución1, Bader (1999: 603) relata la particularidad del secularismo estadounidense "The legal prohibition of the establishment of a national church had little effect on the political, social, and cultural or symbolic power of de facto establish Protestant Christianity" y un poco más lejos (1999: 605): "Strict neutrality reproduces impossible fictions and ignores the patterns of co-operation between church and state created by our history of civic piety and the expanding regulatory role of the welfare state". La separación secular no podría entonces ignorar el desarrollo conjunto de los vínculos históricos tejidos entre la Iglesia y las instituciones públicas. Al mismo tiempo, la cuestión es saber cuál es el límite en el apoyo a la religión mayoritaria o dominante y en qué medida el reconocimiento de esta diferencia no se transforma en discriminatorio hacia las religiones minoritarias. Para Bader, un sistema justo sería el de rechazar las nociones de separación total y de confinamiento al ámbito privado de los argumentos religiosos, ya que esto no haría más que acentuar las diferencias de trato entre las minorías y la religión dominante (visto que ésta se encuentra intrínsecamente incorporada en los valores sociales y en el sistema político y jurídico). La solución, compleja, obligaría a tomar en cuenta las desigualdades entre la religión mayoritaria y las minoritarias y a desarrollar e implementar políticas destinadas a colmatar esas desigualdades estructurales. Pero, en este aspecto, parece claro que ya no estamos hablando de secularismo, y aún menos de laicidad. El reconocimiento de las desigualdades y la acción pública pueden producir un efecto perverso, donde, en lugar de asegurar la igualdad o la neutralidad, la multiplicación de excepciones religiosas conduciría a reposicionar la religión y lo sagrado en el centro de la acción pública. La ventaja de la laicidad constitucional es que tiene el cometido de evitar este rompecabezas identitario.No obstante lo antes expuesto, el poder político a menudo padece las peores dificultades para asegurar los principios de laicidad, siendo presa por momentos de agendas políticas particulares. Por ejemplo, cuando el presidente de la República Francesa Nicolas Sarkozy subraya y reafirma públicamente las raíces cristianas de Francia (de manera similar a lo que acontece en el discurso político en los Estados Unidos), con un trasfondo de debate sobre el Islam y de identidad nacional, ataca abiertamente los principios republicanos y laicos. Independientemente de la concepción de laicidad que se adopte, de neutralidad, de autonomía o de comunidad, ninguna sale ilesa de un tal ataque. La neutralidad del Estado no sería ya por lo tanto asegurada si éste reconoce abiertamente los vínculos indivisibles que unen al país y a la nación con una religión particular (la católica en el caso francés o uruguayo hasta la Constitución de 1918). La obligación de asegurar la autonomía y el libre albedrío individual sufriría si se favorece una concepción del mundo basada en valores cristianos con respecto a otros valores, sean estos religiosos o no. En definitiva, el vínculo comunitario supremo, definido como la pertenencia a la república, se resquebrajaría si se reconoce una lealtad alternativa hacia los valores de la iglesia católica. Asimismo, esto abriría las puertas a todos los particularismos, a todas las religiones y creencias minoritarias basándose en la exigencia (justificada) del tratamiento igualitario (aunque este tratamiento igualitario quedaría lógicamente invalidado de facto por el abandono de la laicidad de Estado al promover abiertamente un vínculo histórico, religioso y cultural, primigenio). Si el principio cardinal sigue siendo el respeto de los valores republicanos para asegurar la igualdad ante la ley, entonces comentarios de esta índole anuncian un retroceso histórico en la construcción republicana -y laica- de un estado como Francia. Otra lectura de este asunto consistiría en reconocer que esta polémica ejemplifica las dificultades inherentes de cohabitación e integración de las sociedades multiculturales.Si consideramos que la laicización fue un proceso que históricamente se llevó adelante en sociedades relativamente homogéneas, la afluencia de nuevas poblaciones sobre una estructura socio-cultural y política ya establecida no podía más que provocar tensiones. Si Francia conoció dos grandes olas de laicización (de combate y de Estado), una en 1880 y una a partir de 1905, podríamos pensar que se encuentra actualmente en una tercera ola de laicización en respuesta a la inmigración masiva africana a partir de los años 60. Esto implica que la laicización, a diferencia del secularismo, obliga al Estado y a las instituciones públicas a realizar un esfuerzo permanente de educación y transmisión de estos valores. El secularismo, si debemos creer lo que dice Kucuradi (1998), al estipular lo que está permitido, mas no lo que está prohibido, está más abierto al pluralismo en la esfera pública.En referencia a esta relación entre Iglesia y Estado, en particular en los Estados seculares donde existe una iglesia oficial o de Estado, principalmente en Europa del norte (donde por ejemplo los obispos son designados por el jede de Estado), Ferrari (2005: 12) presenta una explicación para esta fusión de géneros: "In these countries the autonomy of religious denominations is also increasingly considered a necessary consequence of the principle of collective religious freedom and therefore a limit exists before which the authority of the state has to stop". El Estado reconocería entonces, en estas sociedades seculares, los límites impuestos a su alcance debido a la necesidad de asegurar la libertad de culto y la autonomía de las instituciones religiosas.DiscusiónPor lo antes expuesto, es posible afirmar que ni el secularismo ni la laicidad se imponen como conceptos fácilmente abordables y claramente diferenciados. Lo que es aún más importante es que ambos son blanco de críticas y de crecientes ataques, dogmáticos o racionales, por parte de aquellos que defienden sociedades multiculturales y pluralistas. Esto es aún más evidente en el caso de la laicidad "a la francesa", a menudo percibida (de manera incorrecta a mi entender) como un esfuerzo político de uniformización y sofocamiento de las diferencias culturales. Conviene por lo tanto, en esta última sección, discutir algunas de las críticas dirigidas a estos dos conceptos e incorporar una última noción en un intento de síntesis: el pluralismo.Una crítica importante concierne directamente a la tesis de la secularización y el rol de la religión en las sociedades modernas. Según esta contra-tesis, denominada de transformación "religion has not so much vanished as rather evolved and adapted itself in novel ways to the requirements of post-industrial society" (Dallmayr , 1999:719). El vínculo causal y mecánico entre modernización y secularización no estaría tan fuertemente correlacionado como argumentan los defensores de la tesis de la secularización. Esta idea es ahora defendida por Peter Berger, quien se retractó en parte de su defensa inicial de la tesis de la secularización: "…by the late 70s or early 80, most, but not all sociologist of religion came to agree that the original secularization thesis was untenable in its basic form…today you cannot plausibly maintain that modernity necessarily leads to secularization : it may. And it does in certain parts of the world among certain groups of people, but not necessarily"2El "resurgimiento" de la religión en el plano nacional e internacional parece haber sido producto del fin de la guerra fría, cuando nuevas formas de pertenencia y de autodeterminación eran más que nunca necesarias, aunque no fuese más que para poder diferenciar entre lo propio y lo ajeno, entre lo nacional y lo extranjero, entre nosotros y ellos. Bajo esta perspectiva, el secularismo y las fuerzas laicas sufren los ataques de los movimientos que defienden el regreso de lo religioso al centro del debate público, político y social, mientras que el fenómeno contrario, a saber: la secularización de sociedades religiosas, en particular en el mundo musulmán, no parece imponerse ni como una evidencia ni como un modelo de gestión político ni de integración cultural exitoso. Los resultados de la "Primavera árabe" así lo demuestran, con un movimiento que se inició desde una perspectiva de contestación liberal y terminó con un violento "retour de flamme" reaccionario, identitario, intolerante y antidemocrático. Y es precisamente para evitar estas derivas peligrosas y reaccionarias y garantizar la tolerancia y la libertad de culto que un Estado secular (si no laico) es necesario. Como lo expone An Na´im (2008: 23): "It is precisely because notions of self and the other, as well as the meanings of values and construction of cultural memories, are all open to contestation and reformulation that I emphasize the critical importance of safeguarding the space in which that process can take place. The fact that proponents of the dominant interpretations of the presumed or perceived aspects of cultural or religious identity would represent them as the only authentic or legitimate positions of the culture on a given issue simply emphasizes the importance of ensuring every possibility for dissent and freedom to assert alternative views or practices". De acuerdo a esta visión, si quisiéramos aceptar las diferencias culturales e históricas, entonces sería necesario reflexionar en términos de una sociedad pluralista.En su cambio de opinión, Berger reconoce que la modernidad conduciría finalmente al pluralismo (y no al secularismo), definiendo el pluralismo como: "…the coexistence in the society of different worldviews and value systems under conditions of civic peace and under conditions where people interact with each other"3. Es innegable que esto introduce un cambio radical, ya que la multiplicidad de culturas y religiones puede conducir a opciones no seculares, sino religiosas, como las motivadas por los movimientos fundamentalistas. Vemos entonces que las sociedades pluralistas no cohabitan particularmente bien con el secularismo y peor aún con la laicidad constitucional. Estas fuerzas pueden conducir, si no se encuentran subordinas a un orden normativo común (jurídico y social), a la implosión y a la fragmentación social. Para evitar esto, Bader (2003: 206) delimita una serie de principios destinados a incorporar la religión, de manera práctica y no-conflictiva, ya que, considera el autor, la religión no está en retroceso en las democracias occidentales, a pesar de su defensa de los principios seculares, ni totalmente limitada a la esfera privada.El primer principio es el de prioridad a la democracia, que estipula que los principios constitucionales y la moralidad pública deben primar y excluir todas las prácticas culturales incompatibles con los principios democráticos. El segundo principio, de neutralidad relacional, se inscribe como crítica a la neutralidad estricta y formal, que ignoraría las realidades sociales, legales o económicas. En lo que concierne a la diversidad cultural y religiosa, Bader sostiene que la neutralidad absoluta del Estado no sólo es imposible, sino que también es indeseable. La eliminación de las referencias culturales e ideológicas del debate público no contribuirá a reducir los conflictos y las tensiones religiosas o ideológicas. Sería necesario, en lugar de negar el debate, aceptar, de manera justa, los diferentes particularismos y las diversas dimensiones culturales y religiosas. En relación a esta idea de justicia, Carens (1997: 818) propone que la justicia no reside en el trato igualitario, sino el trato equitativo: "Now being fair does not mean that every cultural claim…will be given equal weight, but rather that each will be given appropriate weight under the circumstances and given a commitment to equal respect for all". Las preguntas fundamentales a hacernos entonces son ¿quién será responsable de realizar esa valoración, de realizar ese ajuste entre lo que es justo y lo que es equitativo? ¿Quién será el encargado de valorar de manera justa lo que es equitativo? ¿Quién asegurará la construcción de ese orden moral y religioso, donde cada cultura y religión tendrá el lugar (¿qué lugar?) que le otorga el derecho (¿qué derecho?)? ¿Cómo prevenir que las fuerzas que se beneficiarán de tal poder de justicia no sucumbirán a la tentación de establecer o favorecer sus propias preferencias, bajo el impulso de una agenda privada o bajo la presión de grupos de interés?El debate no se limita, es cierto, a una visión maniquea que opondría posturas filosóficas u ontológicas diferentes, a una lucha entre de un lado las fuerzas seculares o laicas y del otro las construcciones pluralistas que militarían a favor de la inclusión y reconocimiento de las diversas particularidades culturales y religiosas. Sería incorrecto, y peligroso, pensar que el secularismo o la laicidad no reconocen la existencia de una sociedad plural. Pero, la primer diferencia, en particular en el secularismo, es que el Estado no se otorga el derecho de elegir y determinar los valores y la razón de ser de estos diferentes particularismos, sino que no hace más que asegurar la libertad de culto, sin favorecer una religión sobre otra. Aceptar las diferencias y, aún más importante, categorizar dichas diferencias, implica introducir una parte de arbitrariedad y parcialidad en toda elección. Es el riesgo de introducir una visión sesgada, ya sea por razones históricas, sociológicas, económicas o sencillamente por la ignorancia del otro y su cultura.Para concluir, en todo debate sobre el secularismo, la laicidad o el pluralismo, no debe olvidarse que la tolerancia es una virtud, pero también un límite, ya que reconoce la diferencia y fija los límites de lo que es aceptable (tolerable) y lo que no lo es. Como bien explica Habermas: "…toleration must circumscribe the range of behavior everybody must accept, thereby drawing a line for what cannot be tolerated…And as long as this line is drawn in an authoritarian manner, that is, unilaterally, the stigma of arbitrary exclusion remains inscribed in toleration" , y sobre la relación entre tolerante y tolerado: "the act of tolerance retains an element of an act of mercy or of doing a favor. One party allows the other a certain amount of deviation from normality under one condition: that the tolerated minority does not overstep the threshold of tolerance" (en Thomassen, 2006: 440). El problema de reconocer la diferencia, es que siempre hay uno que reconoce y otro que es reconocido. Al menos la laicidad republicana, a pesar de todas sus críticas, evita ese problema, ya que por principio somos todos iguales antes de ser diferentes. 1- 1era enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances".2- An Interview with Peter Berger, por Charles T. Mathewes. Disponible en : http://iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/AfterSecularization/8.12PBerger.pdf.3- An Interview with Peter Berger. Pág. 2. *Este artículo fue presentado en la 5° sesión el Seminario Interno de Discusión Teórica 2014, organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad ORT Uruguay.*Germán Clulow es Licenciado en Estudios Internacionales por la Universidad ORT –Uruguay, Master en Ciencia Política por la Université de Genève – Suiza, y Master en Estudios de Desarrollo por el Instituto de Altos Estudios Internacionales y de Desarrollo (IHEID-The Graduate Institute) Ginebra, Suiza
Issue 49.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1990. ; R[ vl~ w ~-OR R~-t ~G~OUS (ISSN 0034-639X) ~,, pubhshed b~-monthly at St Louis Unlver,,~ty by the M~s-soun Prov~nce Educational Institute ol the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office; 3601 Lmdell Blvd. Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for one year; $28.00 for two years. Other countries: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail. US $35.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address. write: R~vtEw FOR R~-:~.w, ous: P.O. Box 6070: Duluth. MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes tu R~:vw~:w vor Rv:~.~aot~s; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. ~1990 Rv:vt~.:w vor Rl.:Li~;~ot~s. David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. September/October 1990 Volume 49 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rv:\'~:w v'o~ Rv:w.uaot~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. I~mis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Eliza-beth McDonough, O.P.; 5001 Eastern Avenue; P.O. Box 29260; Washington, D.C. 20017. Back issues and reprints should be urdered from Rr:\'~:w roa Rr:~.~;m~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. IA~uis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion uf each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Suciety for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York. NY 10010. PRISMS. At the May meeting of the Advisory Board for REvIEw FOR RELIGtOUS, the members became engrossed in a discussion of the heritages-- Benedictine, Dominican, Salesian, and many others--that consecrated life fosters and should foster in the Church. Sometimes women and men religious forget their special call to be channels of their own spiritual tra-dition and practice. Religious life, signalized in Vatican II documents as belonging to the charismatic structure of the Church, continues to give birth anew to its members by the overshadowing of the Spirit. The particular spiritual in-sights and practices which establish each religious community become permanent gifts not only to the vowed members but also to the whole Church. The Church's recognition and approval is based on this prem-ise. Religious life plays a critical role in carrying forward the Christian spiritual-life traditions in the Church community. The Church expects in-dividual religious and religious families to give witness to their spiritual traditions. It is no surprise, then, that books and journals dealing with the spiritual life (such as REv=Ew FOR REUCtOUS) are so often the product of people living in this consecrated lifeform. In our times we are being made far more aware of the tradition of the Pauline Body of Christ, with the differing gifts of its members. One of the gifts specially present in religious life is its responsibility to hand on the spiritual-life traditions within the Christian community. Obviously God's gifts are never merely self-enhancing, and so religious life was never meant to be a caste apart or its own separate church. The gift of religious life within the Church only heightens the ways that Christians feel called to live out their following of Jesus in their own day--not only the members with a particular religious calling,.but also friends, cowork-ers, students, parishioners---in a word, all who are touched in some way by members of a religious community. This journal's very title could seem to restrict its reading audience to people following a certain consecrated lifeform recognized in the Church. But, as a matter of fact, from its beginnings almost fifty years ago, REvmw FOR REL~CIOUS has invited diocesan priests, bishops, and lay people to find in its pages the roots of our Christian spiritual heritage which nourish us all. The number of subscribers other than religious was small in the beginning, but has grown steadily, especially with the bur- 641 642 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 geoning of ministries and prayer groups in the Church after Vatican II. Articles in REvmw FOR RELm~OtJS will continue to focus on various Christian heritages which religious life helps keep alive in the Church. We hope thereby to provide for all our readers access to roots as well as to budding developments in the living of the Christ-life. The authors in this issue again are representative of our reading audi-ence. For example, Barbara Dent, well-known for her spiritual writings, continues her own experiential reflections on a prayer tradition deep in the Carmelite religious family. Father Richard Lamoureux, a.a., takes an "American" approach to an age-old Augustinian tradition of prayer. The diocesan priest Father Clyde Bonar uses the experiences of St. Fran-cis of Assisi to suffuse with faith the human experience of shame. Dr. James Magee, professor of gerontology, in his article "Planning an In-tercommunity Skilled Nursing Facility," tries to facilitate the working together of religious groups coming from various religious traditions. Perhaps at this time in history we especially need to grow in our ap-preciation of religious life as the purveyor of the Christian spirituality heritage. If we do grow in this way, the Church worldwide will become all the richer in its own life and mission. David L. Fleming, S.J. Moral Issues in Spiritual Direction Shaun McCarty, S.T. Father Shaun McCarty, S.T., teaches in the Washington Theological Union and is a staff member of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. His address is Holy Trinity Mission Seminary; 9001 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Spring, Maryland 20903. My gracefully aging mother has acquired a certain Wisdom from the ex-perience of her years, yet she still seeks confirmation from her clerical eldest in matters of faith and morals! Vatican II suited her just fine be-cause, she says, "It said a lot of things I always thought!" On my weekly visits, she will often begin with, "Now tell me if I'm to think this way, but . " And then she will go on to comment on some issue she has been thinking about in the quiet of her "digs" in a condomin-ium for the elderly (which she sometimes thinks may be the only heaven she will get to!). On the issue of Church: "I go to church because I like to, not because I have to. But I can't see running in and out all the time. Especially when people need you. What good is it to go to church if it does not help you be a better person outside?" On prayer: "God's not just in church. He is (she is not fully feminist yet!) in my apartment too. And I do not think ! have to say a lot of prayers; God and I just have these talks when I say what is on my mind and he talks to me." On sev-eral occasions she has raised this moral issue: "Now tell me if I am wrong to think this way, but I think a lot of these rules that come from the Church are not God's. Most are man-made. Now I think God gave us heads to think ourselves. Not just run off and ask the priest what is right or wrong or wait for the Pope to tell us what to do or not do. If you ask me, I just think the reason people do that is because they are too damn lazy to think for themselves! Now is it wrong for me to be think-ing this way?" I ask her: "Now, Morn, don't you think the Church has 643 644 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 anything to say about what is right or wrong?" She answers: "Of course, but I'm choosy about whom I listen to!" I just smile, shake my head and assure her that she will probably escape ecclesiastical censure! Actually, she gives new meaning, life, and hope for the terms spiritual and moral life! 'Moral is one of those words laden for many with negative undertones ~uch as repressive, punishing, puritan, pharisaical, and the like. Spiri-tual often connotes an a_nemic and pious evasion of down,t0-earth~ d~ ~o-day living. Until we encounter both embodi_e_d_and~i0tegr_~t_ed_i_n~--~l ,rpeople like Mom ,hose lives and choices validate t~]~ch~i'~hg0i~nd prayer! rYOften, too, moral life and spiritual life are separated: the former re- .ferring to what is right and wrong; the latter, to what is good and beetler. 19 the ministry of spiritual direction, which aims primarily-at-'spiri~ual ~rowth, moral issues frequently arise and discrepancies become appa~ ~.nt either within the value system of the dii'ectee, between the dire~tee an~ Church teaching, or between the value systems of the d~rector and the~ dtrectee. What follows wall be an attempt to provide a frame.w~o_rk m which spiritual gu~des~can-tleal'w~th~moral-~ssues'and'grapple with such ~liscrepancies. ~I will first explore the meaning and relationships of some key terms ip.cluding moral and spiritual life, conscience and discernment. Then, I will consider the role of Church as teacher and the role of the spiritual director as guide in the formation of conscience, including some specific ~reas in which the director can be helpful. Finally, I will raise some dif-ficulties that can occur in dealing with moral issues in the ministry of s~iritual direction. ~Moral and Spiritual Life I.n the context of this article, spiritual life means graced growth in the~spirit, that is, in that dimension of human existence by which we are ~.open t~___.transcendent_ rove and drawn by the Spirit into intimate union ~.with God and communion with each other through, with, and in Christ. ~lokalli~ refers t0-th-~t ~i~e~ct of life that has to~do with. human C~h~0~ic~-s ~fi~eely~made~and~lowngl6ehav~ors~freely:embraced~that;-:under:grace, en- ~able one to pursue good, avoid evil, and~ herice, grow hurria-~ly. ,~ As moral theologians point out, unfortunately in the past, there tii~S ~.been and continues to be a split between moral and spiritual theology. Respected Redemptorist theologian, Bernard Haring says: Moral theology for the use of confessors and penitents was almost un- Moral Issues / 645 avoidably guided by the knowledge of dominion and control. Since such a theology, written mostly for controllers, could threaten the freedom of believers in the realm of things solicited by grace, it seemed best to leave out or bypass spirituality . ~ This resulted in a dual track for Christians: one for an elite who wanted to strive for maximum ideals in "seeking perfection" and the other for those who were satisfied to meet minimum expectations in "sav-ing their souls." Beatitudes were for the former; commandments for the latter. Not only was there a split between classes of Christians, but indi-vidual conscience also was divided into two compartments: one for moral norms, the other for "works of supererogation" (those above and be-yond the call of duty!). ~e dichotomies_are unfortunate. Moral and spiritual life are warp and w~i'~?oi;~ameTf:~l~i-U.~'~'~]i~fiaor~a~:~on focuses on an~ai-ea key to human, and therefore, spiritual growth--namely, that of choices that define a person more-thah anything else and behaviors that promot~ ~0~ih~. ;there is a universal call to holiness. To love God with all our hearts and to love others as Christ loves us is a normative ideal for every Christian. The choice is not between a "spiritual" life or a "moral" life. Whether intentional or not, every Christian is on a spiritual journey and summoned to be challenged by the beatitudes as well as by the com-mandments. Again, B. Haring: It is detrimental to the very fundamental norms of Christian ethics, but especially to the formation of a distinctively Christian consciousness, if the law of growth and the criteria for a deeper understanding of Chris-tian love are relegated to another discipline . But it should be equally clear that a distinctively Christian formation of conscience does not belong to those who specialize in "knowledge of control"! For it is at the very heart of salvation.2 The bottom line is that love is the highest common denominator of every moral act as well as the source and goal of all spiritual growth. ~Con~_s_cience ~I~n general, as a faculty of moral lif~-,-~ohscience is concerned with .~ ~ . ~.-:~ ~. . - ~ . .~- ,h~urfian cbOic6s of good or ewl. An ~nformed conscience is the final ar-biter of moral choice. It refers to that element in the experience of free-dom that makes one aware of responsibility and accountability for one's decisions and actions. The biblical term for conscience is "heart" in which God's will is written (Rm 2:15). Theologically speaking, it is "self-consciousness passing moral judgment.' ,3 In speaking of the dig- 646 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 nity of moral conscience, the Fathers of Vatican II described conscience as ". the most secret core and sanctuary of a man (sic). There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths."4 Conscience may be said to operate at three levels: ~(1) Fundamental level: This refers to th~ hiJFria--ff-~apacity freely t6 ~hoose a life-orientation towards God (the Choi~ce); _tp. p~_rsue .good(the Wight) and to avoid evil (the Darkness) with an awareness of respp.n__s_i~ ~ility and accountabilii'~At this level, one may be said to have a ge~n- ~ral sense of value.' A fundamental choice for the Light assumes that to be human is to have basic freedom and to have a radical openness to the mystery of God which, again, defines a person more than anything else. To take this option is to experience metanoia (change of heart) which af-fects the whole person (body, mind, and spirit). It is an invitation to turn over all of one's energies to God, to put one's life at the disposal of God, to be a disciple in loving service of others as Christ did and to live under the guidance of the Spirit in subsequent day-to-day decisions. It is in the light of this fundamental level of conscience that important life-decisions such as marriage, priesthood, and vowed life should be made. (2) Reflection/assessment level (individual choices): This level con-cerns day-to-_day choices of varying degrees of importance requiring a process of moral reasoning related to concrete situations.~It calls for re-flection, discussion, and analysis. I think it is what my mother means I~y "using the head that God gave us." Here one is concerned with spe-cific perception of value. At this level, there is room for difference, dis-agreement, error, blindness, distortion, rationalization, confusion, and cultural blindness. Consequently, it is primarily at this level that a per-son needs assistance from more objective sources including Sacred Scrip-ture, one's faith community, friends, confessor, and spiritual director. It is precisely at this level that conscience needs continually to be formed and informed. For that to happen effectively, a person needs humility so that conscience can "kneel at the altar of truth" to which conscience is always subject. It is at this level that the teaching Church as reposi-tory of the values of a faith-community, has an important but limited role as moral teacher and one distinct from that of spiritual director. More about this later. ~,~.(3)~Action level: This refers.to.the_moral judgment or choice of wh~t one believes to be right that brings with it a moral imperative to act. At C~his lev~e_l, a person exercises responsibility and accountability for actions ~and for the consequences of actions that conscience commands. A sign of responsible moral choice is growth in willing, compassionate concern/ Moral Issues / 647 action as opposed to willful, selfish action/inaction. In other words, genu-ine moral judgments and decisions find their completion and become enfleshed in moral deeds. pis:ernn~en~t i Discernment refers to the prayerful sorting out of interior movements ~expenenCe~d ~n-theprocess of tnakmg judgments and deos~ons to deter-m~ ne'wh~ch are of the Spent consequently resonant w~th the fundamen-taVl level-of c-~fiscie0.~e.-It presupposes a quest Of interior freedom as w~ll ~.ffs-careful attent~0n to the concrete particulars of a situation taking into i~onsideration subjective feelings as well as objective facts. It is possible to speak also of levels of discernment that bear some correlation with the levels of conscience occurring at: (1) the fundamen-tal (or core) level of faith, where a person becomes aware of God-experience in light of which one perceives that way of life where she or he can best express and pursue a fundamental choice of God and the good; (2) the reflection/assessment level of day-to-day choices of vary-ing degrees of significance and permanence made with a sufficient de-gree of interior freedom and in resonance with one's fundamental expe-rience of God; (3) the action level whereby a discerned judgment or de-cision is brought to completion by translating it into a concrete behavior that, if it is truly discerned, will bear the fruits of the Spirit. Relationship of DiScernment and Conscience Discernment is critical in the process of what lawyer-priest, R.P. Stake, calls the "evangelization of conscience" which entails the power of the Gospel to reveal to an individual the fact and the seriousness of one's sins.5 What discernment brings to the evangelization of conscience in:~ cludes: (l) a sharper focus on the subjective and unique factors at work,] for this person in this .situation (especially important at a time of accel-erating moral complexity and waning adequacy of objective moral norms and extrinsic moral authority); (2) a situating of decision-making within ff ~?a biblical tradition of both Old and New Testaments, especially in the letters of John and Paul;~(3) a rooting and contextualizing of the decision-r~ aklng process in a person's prayer and experience of Go~l; (4) a more ihtentional attempt to examine motivations to see from where they are ~commg and to where they are 'l~ading so as to create the conditions for greater interior freedom in making choices;~(-5) a nuancing of choicest-- not just of the good over the bad, the genuinely good over the supposed good, but also choices among goods; ~(6) in contrast to an excessive de- 6411 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 pendence on laws and authority as sources of moral judgment, discern-ment is conducive to ~clearEr focusing of responsibility four,the decision ~. 3. -- a~nd its cons~equ_e_n-ces on_ the pers_on making the de_.c~!s~on; (~7) ~n contrast to an individualistic and isolated process, a situating of the decision~ making process within the context of a person's faith commUfiity; (,8)~ contrast to a more exclusively rational and deductive approach (~s is often the case in the exercise of prudence ), ] serious~consideration of human affectivit~ as an important locus of grace~in human choice. , In testing the spirits oy measunng them against one s tunoamen-tal God-experience, moral judgments are more likely to be integrated with conscience as well as reinforcing of conscience at the level of one's fundamental choice¯ In short, discernment makes for a more prayerful, thorough, personalized, interiorized, and human process of conscience formation¯ Hopefully the discussion thus far makes clear that discernment is not dispensation from moral law, but rather an invaluable help in observing it. Rather than an "occasional exercise," discernment presupposes the cultivation of a "prayerful mode" and commitment to contemplative practice that can clarify one's vision and solidify one's dedication to truth¯ It is interesting to note that moral theologians today are showing a marked interest in a discernment approach to moral choice.6 ~,Role of the Church in Formation of Conscience ~The Church (understood as the e~n~ir'~Z~P~'o~le~f~G~d)~ qt preserves and hands down a faith-community's values, is an impor-tant, but limited agent in the evangelization of conscience¯ The teaching ~'Church is not a substitute for conscience; nor is its proper role one o~ ~Grand Inquisitor"; nor yet is it the ultimate arbiter of morality¯ Con-science is. But the Church is a privileged moral teacher and recognized ~leader that plays a significant role in thg~ilJp_mination of conscience. It d~es not create morality. Rather it helps people to discover God's de-sires for humankind which are written on the "fleshy tablets" of the hu- ~man heart¯ Not only does the Church embrace historically and cross-culturally an experience far wider than that of a single individual or cul-ture, but believers hold that the Church has special guidance from the Holy Spirit. Though the Church cannot be expected to address all the val-ues in every moral situation, it can provide norms against which people can measure their own moral judgment. Such norms protect values. Val-ues may be protected in different ways in different eras and/or cultures. Above all, the Church is eminently equipped to help form mature Chris-tian consciences that will enable people to accept responsibility for "us- Moral Issues / 6t19 ing the heads God gave them" in arriving at sound moral decisions. ~Role of-Sp~tual Director in Formation of Conscience ¯ ,Since:mOraVand~spiritual~life:should not'be d~vided~ the~d~rector ob7- ~o~s.~y ~ concerned w~th the moral choices of the directee. In the pro-cess of disce~ment, choices should be consonant with a fundamental choice of the Light and with the person's value system. Though neithe~ ~a represeatative 6fthe-teaching Church as such nor a moral judge of oth- .ers -Consc~ence~ ~n the role of spiritual dire&or, nevertheless ihe-dir~' t~r dbe~ have a responsibility to assist in the ongoing evangelization of conscience by way of enabling individuals to find their own way.- The director also needs to pay attention to his or her own blocks, biases, and unfreedoms that can arise from conflicts between the director's value sys-tem and that of the directee. The director's moral code is not normative ,for the directee. ~ spiritual director acts best as moral guide by being a witness to ~,(trut~hd pers0ndleXample Of integrity~- In addition, the director can help form consciences by appropriate interventions, pat~'e nt wa~t~ng," " compas-sionate understanding, and by maintaining a non-judgmental attitude, -~hde at the same t~me offering honest challenge. The most helpful in-tervention is attentive listening. All spiritual growth, including the evangelization of conscience, happens incrementally. This calls for pa-tience and attentiveness to the readiness of the directee in a~iving at her or his own judgments. It should be noted that self-denigration is one of the most basic moral issues with which many in direction need to deal~ Real or supposed moral lapse especially can deepen it, and this calls for compassionate understanding. Yet, good people are prone to subtle ways of rationalizing and, at times, need honest challenge. It is one thing to experience ambiguity in moral issues; it is another to refuse to wrestle with it] It is comfo~ing to remember that when difficulties arise, the same Holy Spirit who illumines discerning hea~s is also leading persons to moral integrity~ What specifically can a spiritual guide do to enable the formation of conscience? At the fundamental level of conscience, it can be assumed that the person coming for direction has made a fundamental choice of God and the pursuit of good. It would be important in making discerned moral choices that persons continue to refer back to the deepest level of their God-experience. In reference to a major life-decision affecting a per-son's deepest commitments (for example, to enter or to leave marriage, priesthood, vowed life), a director might ask: Has the directee spent shf-ficient time in serious prayer? Made a careful examen of motives? Asked 650 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 others for feedback? It is at the reflection/assessment level of conscience that most guid-ance is sought. :S~6'~ " a "ec o be ~i~fulz ~ (1 ) In assessing moral maturity: What is the quality of the moral rea-soning process of the directee in reference to this choice? Does the per-son have a sufficiently informed conscience? Where are the blind spots? To what extent is the directee open to outside input? Is she or he making efforts to inform conscience by some reference to moral norms? (for ex-ample, Scripture, norms of his or her faith community?) Has the directee already made up his or her mind and now is unwilling to be "confused with the facts"? Does the directee rely on authority and law for some directives she or he likes, but on a subjective process of "discernment" for others she or he does not? Who will be affected and how by this moral choice? (2) In clarifying values: What values seem important to the directee (as they become visible in choices acted upon as well as spoken of!) and in what priority are they held? Does the person have sufficient clarity con-cerning these priorities? What values does the directee perceive in refer-ence to the specific moral issue with which she or he is now struggling? Is there any struggle? In "grey" areas is the directee willing to strug-gle? Has the director grappled with the same issue and know where she or he stands at present? Is the director clear about his or her own value system? What unfreedoms in the director might significantly hinder fa-cilitating the directee's discernment? (3) In establishing a prayerful mode: Is the directee bringing the is-sue to prayer/discernment: sufficiently in touch with her or his experi-ence of God? seeking inner freedom? gathering sufficient data? attentive to affective responses as options are explored and data gathered? In re-flecting on and in assessing options, does the directee feel any incongru-ence or resistance within towards one or the other option? In deciding on the action level of conscience: Does the directee trans-late moral judgments into deeds? Is she or he open to accountability? Will-ing to take responsibility for his or her actions? What are the conse-quences of the directee's moral decision for others? For self? ~Difficulties Facing Directors in Dealing with Conscience ,Since consciences differ as people do, it .is tO be expe~.cot_eod_~that diffi- ~'ulties can arise indealing with moral issues. These include: ~(1) Difference in moral conviction: When there is a difference of moral conviction on an issue with a directee (for example, divorce, Moral Issues / 651 greed, tax fraud, contraception, sexual activity, and so forth), what is the moral responsibility of the spiritual director? Although a guide in the process of moral choice rather than a teacher of morality, a spiritual di-rector must make a judgment as to whether she or he feels so strongly about an issue as to be unable to help the person deal with it. The direc-tor might pose the question: Will my own strong conviction constitute a major interference in the direction process? What would be appropri-ate to share with the directees at this time concerning my difference of conviction? (For example, a director might be absolutely unwilling to help a person "discern" an abortion.) ~(2) Inadequate social moral consciousness of the directee: What can a director do to help a person broaden the horizons of a conscience lack-ing in social consciousness or with little sense of social sin? On the one hand, the director needs to respect the value system of the directee and to respect readiness for change. On the other hand, the working alliance between the two should also have provided for appropriate challenge as a help to growth. If social consciousness seems to need broadening, a director might: (a) suggest readings to provoke thought; (b) be attentive to possible points of entry for discussion arising from life experience re-ported by a directee that can be occasions of broadening social aware-ness-- for example, a chance brush with a beggar or a personal experi-ence of discrimination; (c) suggest firsthand exposure to situations of so-cial concern--for example, volunteering time at a shelter for the home-less; (d) at times of periodic assessment (for which a good working alli-ance will also make provision), an honest and direct, yet gentle challenge may be in order. ~)(3) Distress after moral lapse: Without unduly mitigating a healthy sense of guilt that helps a person to recognize culpability and move to repentance, a compassionate director can help minimize the debilitating preoccupation that often accompanies guilt. If a person is overly dis-traught over a moral lapse, a director can help by getting the directee to contextualize it, that is, to see it in relationship to his other fundamental option and to the rest of his or her moral life. Does it reverse the funda-mental optioh? Erode it? Not substantially affect it? In addition to sin, where has grace been experienced? How might the experience of moral lapse and its aftermath (for example, a lessening of spiritual pride) been an occasion of grace? Conclusion In dealing with moral issues in spiritual direction, we have explored the meaning and relationship of moral and spiritual life and seen that the 652 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 two should not be divided. Moral life has as one of its concerns a key aspect of spiritual life--namely, decision-making and its relationship to character formation. Discernment is not an alternative to, but an enrich-ment of moral decision-making. Both Church as moral teacher and spiri-tual director as moral guide play significant, but different and limited roles in the formation of conscience--the final arbiter of moral judgment which, in turn, must always remain open to ongoing formation. Finally, we considered some ways for a spiritual director to deal with difficulties that arise in dealing with moral issues. Hvopefully, both Church and spiritual director will provide teachi~g~ find guidance that will enable folks, as-Mom says, "to use the heads God !~ga,~ethem to think for themselves!" That might give both the terms moral and spiritual life better press! You know, as I think of it, my mother was and continues to be my first (and probably my best!) profes-sor of moral and spiritual theology! Exercise Can you think of a situation in which your moral judgment differed from that of a directee? One in which the directee's was in conflict with Church teaching? What did you judge as your own moral responsibility towards the di-rectee? How did this affect your ability to discern as spiritual director? How did you try to discern what you should share with the directee? What aided your discernment? NOTES ~ See B. Haring, Free and Faithful in Christ, Vol. I (New York: Seabury, 1978), pp. 2-3. 2 Ibid, p. 253. 3 K. Rahner & H. Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary (Herder & Herder, 1968), p. 95. 4 "Gaudium et spes," (n. 16) The Documents of Vatican II, W.M. Abbott, ed. (New York: Guild Press), p. 213. 5 R.P. Stake, "Grounding the 'Priest-Penitent Privilege' in American Law," Con-fidentiality in the United States (Washington, D.C.: CLSA, 1988), p. 151. 6 For example, see Tracing the Spirit, J.E. Hug, ed. (New York: Paul ist, 1983), pp. 379ff. Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? Timothy Brown, S.J. and Harriet A. Learson Father Timothy Brown, S.J., is assistant professor of law in the Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Harriet Lear-son, M.B.A., M.A., is a senior management consultant, Right Associates, in Phila-delphia, Pennsylvania, and is a practicing spiritual director. Correspondence may be addressed to Loyola College; 4501 North Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21210- 2699. In today's service-oriented society, one can hardly avoid the media's al-most daily reports about the issue of malpractice. Doctors, lawyers, psy-chologists, psychiatrists, and human service professionals are becoming increasingly liable and vulnerable to public scrutiny regarding their prac-tices, philosophies, and ethics. In an editorial in the Jesuit publication Human Development Father James Gill, S.J., a Jesuit psychiatrist, raised the question of licensing spiritual directors. He comments: Haven't we reached a point in the Church's history when a group of well-trained and experienced spiritual directors can come together and deter-mine what type and amount of preparation would entitle a candidate to be licensed as a spiritual director? For the self-confidence of the direc-tors, no less than the well-being of their directees, a board of examiners and a certifying process comparable to those maintained by clinical psy-chologists, nurses, and physicians should be created. These profession-als have, in conscience, set high standards for their performance for the sake of their clients. We who are given access to the deepest recesses of souls should hardly be less conscientious. I There has been an outpouring of lawsuits against Churches and clergy as a result of alleged malpractice in recent years. The term that 653 654 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 has been coined is clergy malpractice which covers a wide variety of torts and crimes including child abuse, paternity suits, and intentional inflic-tion of emotional distress. The constitutional questions, under both state and federal Constitutions, oftentimes deny a cause of action because of the First Amendment issue of separation of Church and State. A number of cases have come to the attention of the media in the area of clergy mal-practice. One of the most noteworthy comes from California, Nally vs. Grace Community Church.2 In this case, parents whose son committed suicide brought an action against a church and church-related counselors, alleging negligent coun-seling and outrageous conduct which ultimately led to the death of their son.3 I. Constitutional Issues in Nally Vs. Grace Community Church Kenneth Nally committed suicide after having become part of a re-ligious organization that his parents alleged suggested to his son that, if you kill yourself, you will go to heaven. His parents brought suit against the Grace Community Church of the Valley, a fundamentalist sect, lo-cated in Southern California. The parents sued the church and four pas-tors for malpractice, negligence, and outrageous conduct. They con-tended that the church's evangelical fundamentalist teachings "in-culcated in their son the belief that he had betrayed Christ's love and trust, and otherwise exacerbated Ken's preexisting feelings of guilt, anxi-ety, and deep depression with the knowledge that these acts would in~ crease the tendencies of Ken to attempt to take his own life."4 The church countered that the young man had been examined by five physi-cians and a psychiatrist after an earlier suicide attempt and that the coun-selors had arranged or encouraged many of these visits. A trial judge dis-missed the case after the close of the plaintiff's case, 5 and the case was appealed. The appellate court reversed the trial court's nonsuit of the negli-gence and outrageous conduct allegations against the Grace Community Church and several of its pastoral counselors. They held that the Church's counselors negligently failed to refer this suicidal youth to those authorized and best suited to prevent his death.6 Associate Justice Johnson writing for the majority began the opinion by clearing up the confusion regarding the issue of clergy malpractice: The court., does not view the causes of action discussed in our opin-ion to involve 'clergy malpractice.' Instead, we see them more accu-rately characterized as 'negligent failure to prevent suicide,' and 'inten- Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? tional or reckless infliction of emotional injury causing suicide'- which negligence and intentional or reckless acts happens to have been committed by church-affiliated counselors. In our view this case has lit-tle or nothing to say about the liability of clergymen for the negligent performance of their ordinary ministerial duties or even their counsel-ing duties except when they enter into a counseling relationship with sui-cidal individuals.7 The church appealed the ruling by the California Court of Appeals for the Second District. After eight years of litigation after the suicide of Kenneth Nally, the Supreme Court of California in a 5-2 opinion held that the "legal duty of care" imposed by the State on licensed praction-ers did not apply to the clergy.8 Chief Justice Lucas writes: "Neither the legislature nor the courts have ever imposed a legal ob-ligation on persons to take affirmative steps to prevent the suicide of one who is not under the care of a physician in a hospital. Imposing such a duty on nontherapist counselors could have a deleterious effect on coun-seling in general and deter those most in need of help from seeking treat-ment out of fear that the private disclosures could subject them to invol-untary commitment to psychiatric facilities."9 The California court notes the California legislature's recognition that "access to the clergy for coun-seling should be free from state imposed counseling standards." to Two other Justices agreed that the case should be dismissed but said the defendants did have a legal duty of care but that the evidence showed the pastors never breached it or contributed to the man's death. The Court unanimously dismissed the case. II. Spiritual DirectionmA Definition Whether spiritual directors should be licensed to prevent the kind of tragedy described in the Nally case is a question that is presently being debated by many in the field. Spiritual direction has a very broad con-notation. It can be defined as an interpersonal situation in which one per-son assists another person to growth in the spirit, in the life of faith (prayer), hope (difficulties), sufferings (trials), and love (the person's life in the Christian community). 1~ Spiritual direction may better be defined by what it is not, rather than by what it is. Spiritual direction is not pri-marily information even though it may be the occasion for sharing ideas. It is not primarily therapeutic even though there are times when issues of mental and psychological need get discussed. It is not seen as primar-ily advisory although in many situations good advice is imparted. Spiri-tual direction is viewed as primarily the opportunity to get clarification and discernment. How this gets accomplished is by discussing the prayer 656 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 life and spiritual life of the directee so as to shed some light on what is happening in the life of faith, hope, and love in relation to God. In spiritual direction, the directee tries to describe to a spiritual di-rector his or her prayer experiences. The subject matter of that discus-sion constitutes such areas as when prayer happens, how often, how, what actually happens in the prayer period, other daily life issues such as anxiety over family, job, day-to-day depressions, joys, consolations and desolations, issues of tolerance, patience, and possible manipulation of others. The director's role is to help the person to objectify those per-sonal experiences, to assist by asking appropriate questions in order to gain some clarity on the directee's personal issues. The spiritual direc-tor is interested in helping the directee in the life of prayer so that the relationship with God and the men and women with whom they live and work can become strengthened and enhanced. III. Basic Skills Required of a Spiritual Director At the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Wernersville, Pennsylvania a com-petency profile was developed in an effort at concretizing and articulat-ing the requisite personal qualities, knowledge, skills, and graces to do spiritual direction. Here are some of the standards that were established in that study: 1. Personal Characteristics/Qualities A. Living a vital spiritual life B. Being a recipient oneself of spiritual direction C. Docility to the Spirit D. Kindness E. Gentleness F. Psychological Maturity G. Initiative H. Having a broadly lived human experience J. Stability K. Respect for confidentiality L. Sociability M. Detachment N. Productivity 2. Knowledge A. Lived experience in the Christian tradition B. Christian Doctrine/tradition C. Sacred Scripture D. Christian mystical/ascetical traditions E. The Spiritual Exercises Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? / 657 F. Ecclesiology G. Grace H. Christology J. Vatican II K. Justice L. A psychological matrix (theory & language) M. Jungian Psychology 3. Skills/Abilities A. Intrapersonal (affective awareness) B. Discernment C. Listening D. Clarifying E. Diagnosing F. Prescribing G. Judgment H. Common sense J. Interpersonal Skills K. One-on-one L. Group M. Trustworthiness 4. Graces A. Spiritual freedom B. An ongoing call to this work by others C. Called by grace to this work D. Seeing the Gospel happening~2 IV. Ministerial Malpractice Malpractice refers to professional misconduct or the failure of one rendering services in the practice of a profession to exercise the degree of skill and learning normally applied by members of that profession in similar circumstances.~3 The traditional elements necessary to state a cause of action in negligence have beenstated by Prosser as: 1) a duty, or obligation, recognized by the law, requir-ing the actor to conform to a certain standard of conduct for the protection of others against unreasonable risks; 2) a failure on his part to conform to the standard re-quired; 3) a reasonably close causal connection between the con-duct and the resulting injury; and 4) actual loss or damages resulting to the interests of an-other. 14 Review for Religious, September-October 1990 The problem that the courts would face in trying to construe a duty, and then defining that duty in the area of spiritual direction, is in attempt-ing to define what falls within the parameters of the spiritual as opposed to psychological counseling. How would a court make some kind of de-termination as to whether a directee's problem is, in fact, a spiritual or psychological one. The reason that distinction is so necessary is to safe-guard and protect members of the clergy involved in spiritual direction. Father John English, S.J. has written that the distinction between spiri: tual and psychological counseling is oftentimes a fine one. He comments that "although it may be helpful for the director to distinguish between psychological and spiritual counseling, these realities are not distinct within the person being counseled. And the concern is always with the total person." ~5 There are occasions when a director can see that the real need in direction is no longer to facilitate growth in relationship with God but instead to move the person into a psychological counseling setting so that other issues in the directee's life can better be addressed. What are some of the occasions when someone should be referred to therapy? One spiritual director, Mercy Sister Maureen Conroy, R.S.M. regards three situations as clearly signals to refer. They are: 1) when a person experiences serious psychological and emotional disorders, including depression, severe neuro-sis, suicidal tendencies, psychosis; 2) when more time needs to be spent exploring a present life issue, such as a marital problem; and 3) when specific therapeutic skills are needed to explore the conscious and unconscious effects of past life expe-riences, such as sexual abuse or emotional neglect in child-hood. 16 The Supreme Court of California in the Nally case addressed the is-sue of referral of seriously ill directees. Regarding the duty as to "whether the court should impose a duty on defendant and other 'nonth-erapist counselors' (that is, persons other than licensed psychotherapists who counsel others concerning their emotional and spiritual problems) to refer to licensed mental health professionals once suicide becomes a foreseeable risk," the court said no.~7 In determining the existence of a duty of care in any given case, a number of factors were considered, including: "the foreseeability of harm to the injured party, the degree of certainty that he suffered injury, the closeness of the connection be-tween defendants' conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame at-tached to (defendants), the policy of preventing future harm, the extent Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? / 659 of the burden to the defendants and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk in-volved. ' ' 18 The court cautiously noted the inappropriateness of imposing a duty to refer in areas involving spiritual counseling because of the very na-ture of the relationship. So many times those relationships are informal, spur of the moment, and gratuitous. The foreseeability of harm may not always be recognized in a one hour session with a disturbed directee. The court concluded by saying that "imposing a duty on defendants or other nontherapist counselors to. insure their counselees [are also] under the care of psychotherapists, psychiatric facilities, or others authorized and equipped to forestall imminent suicide could have a deleterious ef-fect on counseling in general." 19 The California legislature has exempted the clergy from any kind of licensing requirement applicable to "mar-riage, family, child and domestic counselors, and from the operation of statutes regulating psychologists.' ,20 The court took note that the reason why the legislature has exempted clergy from licensing is in order to ex-plicitly "recognize that access to the clergy for counseling should be free from state imposed counseling standards, and that the secular state is not equipped to ascertain the competence of counseling when performed by those affiliated with religious organizations.''2~ V. The Difficulty of Devising Workable Standards For Determining Negligence Along with the difficulty the court recognized with arriving at some kind of workable standard of competency to be established in religious counseling situations, the Nally court also noted the added problem of identifying to whom the duty of duc care should be applied. It would be an immense task to define what exactly constitutes a spiritual direction relationship. Who qualifies as aspiritual director (only the ordained? mem-bers of religious orders?) as well as trying to resolve the issue of relig-ious diversity demonstrates difficulty in determining in what context the interaction is framed. There are all kinds of First Amendment issues in-volved as well. The court expressed the dilemma writing: "Because of the differing theological views espoused by the myriad of religions in our state, and practiced by Church members, it would certainly be impracti-cal and quite possibly unconstitutional to impose a duty of care on pas-toral counselors. Such a duty would necessarily be intertwined with the religious philosophy of the particular denomination or ecclesiastical teach-ings of the religious entity.' ,22 66{I / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 Establishing some kind of criteria of competency that a court could apply would always involve a state intrusion into the realm of religious doctrine and practice. The state would be put in the position of asking whether a particular religious practice was indeed being employed, a par-ticular teachin~g applied correctly, a particular style of spirituality or dis-cernment used properly. All these determinations entail a great deal of state entanglement in sectarian matters. In 1971 the Supreme Court in Lemon vs. Kurtzman,23 adopted a three prong test to decide whether a government activity violates the Estab-lishment Clause of the First Amendment. The test requires that: 1) The purpose of the action be clearly secular; 2) The primary effect of the action must neither advance nor inhibit religion; and 3) the activity may not result in excessive government en-tanglement with the religion.2a Any kind of judicial enforcement of some kind of standard of com-petency for spiritual directors would fail the Lemon vs. Kurtzman test on all three points. The effect of the government overseeing the practices of spiritual directors would more than likely inhibit some of the freedom required to explore, discern, and clarify issues in spiritual direction. The potential for excessive church-state entanglement in the area of enforce-ment of guidelines for direction is limitless. Any standard of care applied in determining qualified licensed prac-tioners in the field of spiritual direction would involve some sort of check as to whether the practice was in step with the religious criteria set forth in the religious teachings of the sect. At best it could be argued that some minimum standard of.training and competence to protect the public from religious fanatics, charlatans, or frauds might be established, but any full-fledged licensing would stifle First Amendment freedom and inhibit re-ligious practice. VI. Difficulties in Establishing a Standard of Care for Spiritual Di-rectors Looking at the Competency Profile of the Jesuit Spiritual Center, one wonders how a court would be able to determine what constitutes com-petency when the spiritual qualification requirements of directors include such characteristics as: 1) Living a vital spiritual life--a life of charity; 2) Habitual experience of individual prayer; 3) A life of Charity .toward all peop!e coupled with an awareness of the w~der needs of the human family; Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? / 661 4) An evermore intense interior experience; 5) An ever-growing delicacy of conscience; 6) Kindness--having and showing a benevolent readi-ness to intend the good of others; 7) Giftedness--honoring another's perceptions, judg-ments, and person; a non-defensiveness of spirit, pa-tience, and sympathy; 8) Psychological maturity--free from crippling emo-tional, mental, or volitional habits of a neurotic nature; 9) Sociability--the ability to interact with a variety of per-sonalities; 10) Knowledge--lived experience in the Christian tradi-tion; 1 1) Skills and abilities--interpersonal awareness of one's interior mental and emotional states; 12) Discernment--the experiential knowledge of self in the congruence of the object of choice with one's funda-mental religious orientation; 13) Judgment--the ability to form wise opinions, esti-mates, and conclusions from circumstances presented to the director; 14) Graces-spiritual freedom --without undue influence of disordered affections and attachments; 15) An inner suppleness of character.25 Looking over this list of characteristics needed to be a competent spiri-tual director one could see the difficulty that a court of law would have in trying to render a determination of standards which would meet licens-ing requirements. Courts are not in any position to evaluate the content of the prescribed qualifications. Aside from the obvious First Amend-ment problems found in making judgments on what grace, kindness, char-ity, and other criteria operative within the practice of spiritual direction are, licensing could discourage and diminish the gifts of both the direc-tor and directee. It is the view of the authors that licensing, evolving in the current secula¢ context, goes against the very grain of what spiritual direction is all about and could do a real disservice to those who enter into a direction relationship fearing lawsuits. It could also have a chill-ing effect on directees as well. There is something unique, healing, and very human about spiritual direction as a growth process if we view it as art, science, and discipline. 662 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 VII. Some Final Observations In reviewing the current legal opinions regarding malpractice in the area of spiritual and pastoral counseling, the authors present several ob-servations. --Licensing spiritual directors is clearly a prophetic question as pro-posed by Gill and is coming increasingly into its own time. The issues surrounding licensing are complex, profound in their implications, dis-turbing, and hopeful as we look at the work of defining the criteria for training, developing, and evaluating competent directors. --Defining what competencies are needed in a spiritual director in different schools of spirituality, religious groups and sects, and what con-tent needs to be included in their training programs producing such pro-fessionals is a challenge that is only beginning to be publicly addressed, discussed, or attempted. --In light of the current legal findings and opinions, spiritual direc-tors need to demand and seek training that is concerned with addressing issues of competency as defined by the required knowledges, skills/ abilities, and personal characteristics/qualities reflecting their spiritual tra-dition towards achieving competency in the training of spiritual direc-tors. --First steps would be for practitioners in the field to come together in a spirit of open inquiry, genuine unselfish concern, and humble aware-ness of the enormity of the task to be accomplished. Developing semi-nars and forming associations or professional forums could provide prac-titioners the milieu to discuss, study, and outline priorities and action steps towards the establishment of professional criteria and guidelines for training, developing, and evaluating spiritual directors. NOTES Gill, "License Spiritual Directors?" 6 Human Development 2 (Summer, 1985). Nally vs. Grace Community Church, 204 Cal. Rptr. 303 (Cal. App. 3 Dist. 1984). Ibid, at p. 303. 4 Ibid, at p. 303. 5 Ibid, at p. 303. Nally vs. Grace Community Church, 253 Cal. Rptr. 97, 1988. lbid, at p. 219. 8 lbid, at p. 105. 9 Ibid, at p. 105. ¯~o Ibid, at p. 105. Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Competency Profile. ~2 Restatement (Second) of Torts 299A (1977). t3 Ibid. ~4 W. Prosser, Law of Torts (1966). 15 j. English, Spiritual Freedom (1975). 16 M. Conroy, Growth in Love and Freedom (1987). 17 Nally vs. Grace Community Church, 253 Cal. Rptr. 97 at p. 106. Should Spiritual Directors Be Licensed? / 663 18 Ibid, at p. 106. 19 Ibid, at p. 103. 20 Ibid, at p. 108. 21 Ibid, at p. 108. 22 Ibid, at p. 109. 23 Lemon vs. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602. 24Ibid, at p. 60. 25Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Competency. The Risk You take a risk when you invite the Lord Whether to dine or talk the afternoon Away, for always the unexpected soon Turns up: a woman breaks her precious nard, A sinner does the task you should assume, A leper who is cleansed must show his proof: Suddenly you see a hole in your roof And a cripple clutters up your living room. There's no telling what to expect when He Walks in your door. The table set for tea Must often be enlarged and decorum Thrown to the wind. It's His voice that calls them And it's no use to bolt and bar the door: His kingdom knows no bounds-~of roof, or wall, or floor. Marcella M. Holloway, C.S.J. 6321 Clemens Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63130 Prayer as Desire: An American ViewI Richard E. Lamoureux, a.a. Father Richard E. Lamoureux, a.a., has been provincial for the Augustinians of the Assumption. His address is Assumptionist Center; 330 Market Street; Brighton, Mas-sachusetts 02135. The contemporary American artist Andrew Wyeth teaches us a good deal about prayer. Many of his paintings, depicting everyday objects--a bowl of fruit, a cookie jar, a cooling blueberry pie--invite a quiet, simple gaze. But it is not just Wyeth's spare, silent scenes that lead us in the direction of prayer. So many of his portraits are unconventional inas-much as they present the subject turning away from the viewer, appar-ently looking for something in the distance. Forrest Wall, shown in the Man from Maine (1951), turns his back to us and peers out a window partially visible on the right. Elizabeth James, in Chambered Nautilus (1956), does the same from her sick bed. What may be Wyeth's most famous painting depicts Christina Olsen (Christina's WorM, 1948) sit-ting in the field below her home, straining with all her might in the di-rection of the house as if she might return there on the strength of her desire despite the palsied legs that restrict her to the ground. Two of his most beautiful paintings are portraits of Jimmy Lynch. One (The Swinger, 1969) shows him on a porch swing looking off into the dis-tance; the other (Afternoon Flight, 1970) catches him similarly absorbed. What is it on the horizon that draws his gaze?2 This most American artist explores a dimension of our existence that I would consider to be a central ingredient in prayer. In what follows, I want to explain how longing or desire is at the heart of prayer and how desire has fared in our recent American experience. Finally, I will sug-gest a way to address the particular challenge that faces us as American 664 Prayer as Desire / 665 women and men of prayer. No one has explained better than Saint Augustine how desire is re-lated to prayer. Sometime at the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine received a letter from Proba, a Roman woman whose husband had just died.3 Her purpose in writing was to ask a simple question: can you tell me something about prayer that would be helpful? In his response, Augustine writes unexpectedly at great length about widowhood and then tries to explain how it relates to prayer. For example, he says to Proba: What characteristic of widows is singled out if not their poverty and deso-lation? Therefore, insofar as every soul understands that it is poor and desolate in this world, as long as it is absent from the Lord, it surely commends its widowhood, so to speak, to God its defender, with con-tinual and most earnest prayer (p. 400). Augustine very simply reminds Proba that her widowhood, that is, her experience of loss and especially her desire for presence once again, is a precious opportunity to learn about prayer. If you would want to pray, Augustine seems to be saying, begin with the experience of desire or longing. Augustine, then, defines prayer primarily as desire. Words and pi-ous activities, which we normally think of as prayer, are useful only to the extent that they intensify our desire for God. They are necessary, he writes, so that we may be roused and may take note of what we are asking, but we are not to believe that the Lord has need of them . Therefore, when we say "Hallowed be thy name," we rouse ourselves to desire that his name, which is always holy, should be held holy among men and women also . . . (p. 391). Desire then is synonymous with prayer. In relating the two in that way, Augustine teaches us three very important lessons about prayer. First, prayer is really very simple. It is as natural for human beings as desire is. And desire, as we all know, is a universal human experience. It is as natural for a person to pray as it is for a person to desire. And a person who desires is a person who can pray. Second, by defining prayer in terms of desire rather than in terms of methods or formulas or actions, Augustine more clearly situates it as a function of the human heart. There is little that is more personal to us or that we are more hesitant to divulge than our desires. And Augustine would have us understand that it is precisely in that most intimate and personal place that prayer is born and grows. 666 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 Finally, by relating prayer to desire, Augustine helps us to under-stand that we can grow in prayer, for taking our desires seriously is a stimulus to such growth. He develops this idea in his letter to Proba and most especially in the Confessions. To Proba he writes: God wishes our desire to be exercised in prayer that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give (1 Co 2:9) . Therefore, it is said to us: "Be enlarged, bear not the yoke with unbelievers" (2Co 6:13, 14), (p. 389). Desire helps to enlarge the heart. Augustine would claim that by fan-ning the flame of desire, we will become more able to recognize God's gift when it is offered and to appreciate it to the extent that it deserves. In the Confessions Augustine explains even more clearly how tak-ing our desires seriously is a stimulus to growth in prayer and can lead to deeper faith and intimacy with God. These desires are a complex re-ality ["Who can unravel that complex twistedness?" (II, 10)4] But rather than shy away from the complexity, Augustine sets out on a long journey precisely to get to the bottom of those desires. He goes all the way back to his earliest desire for the milk from his mother's breast, then recalls the games of his youth, and also the longing for wisdom when he read Cicero. With anguish, he remembers the burning desires that char-acterized his early relations and the resistance he put up to other desires lurking in his heart. "My soul turned and turned again, on back and sides and belly, and the bed was always hard" (VI,16). Augustine's long journey through the labyrinth of his soul was marked by a painful experience of desires at war with each other, but even more so by a confidence that the battle waged in all honesty and with his friends would lead to a liberation of his deepest desire, one that he came to understand could only be satisfied by God. "Behold thou art close at hand to deliver us from the wretchedness, of error and estab-lish us in thy way, and console us with thy word: 'Run, I shall bear you up and bring you and carry you to the end' " (VI, 16). Augustine took all of his desires seriously, even those that troubled him and brought him to tears, because he believed that all of them were in some way, at times in some distorted ways, a path to the deepest craving of the human heart. He seemed sure of God's love and also confident that deep within his own heart was an enormous love for God: "Thou hast made us for thy-self." (Confessions I, 1). Those are convictions we all find hard to come by, but they are crucial for growth along the way of prayer. To summarize then and to make the point clearly: for Augustine prayer is not more complicated than giving free rein and full expression Prayer as Desire / 66"/ to the sometimes confused desire for God that God has placed in our hearts. As he writes in his commentary' on the first letter of St. John: "Love and do what you will." Or perhaps I can say: "Desire and do what you will." Now, that may sound simple, but there are a few complicating fac-tors, some of which Augustine was aware of. Many of the complicating factors, however, are particular to our own time and culture; they are the shadow side of the cultural qualities we cultivate in the United States. One of the recent most popular movies, Dead Poets Society, is a se-rious indictment of American culture. It tells the story of a private pre-paratory school in the United States in 1959, where faculty and student body alike hold in highest esteem the pursuit of successful careers and high social status. Along comes an eccentric poetry teacher, effectively portrayed by Robin Williams. He succeeds in opening a few sleepy, even blind eyes, urges his students to ("carpe diem") "seize the moment," and awakens them to the excitement of poetry. Dull, distracted boys be-come spirited young men full of powerful desires. They found their own secret society where dead poets--and dead students-~come back to life. The movie was successful, I suppose, because it touched a sensitive chord in our American hearts. Though we are reluctant to admit this, the movie helped us see that we might be dull people, men and women with-out longing, without desire. But you might object: "Doesn't every human being desire some-thing?" As I reflected on the movie, I came to understand that for a va-riety of reasons and in different ways desire has been drained from our hearts. I could see it happening in four or five different ways. At other times and in other contexts, I might present the following items in a much more positive vein, as qualities that are proper to us as Americans. But in the context of this discussion on desire, what might be consid-ered the merits of our particular American way of living and looking at things becomes a liability. 1) In our day, in this country, by hard work, ingenuity, abundant natu-ral resources and a little bit of luck, we have attained a level of material satisfaction that enables us to meet most of our needs. We acknowledge that there are unsatisfied needs in us, but we are also confident that the only kinds of needs we have are needs that we can eventually satisfy our-selves. And if it takes too long to satisfy them, we energetically look for and usually find other remedies; there are many "quick fixes" we can turn to. But then if all the needs are satisfied, what is there left to de-sire? I am not simply condemning American materialism, nor am I re- Review for Religious, September-October 1990 ferring here to the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure and sensual satisfac-tion. Instead, I am suggesting 'that the level of material security we en-joy may be having a subtle, debilitating effect on our capacity to long for less material goods. When the Israelites complained to Jeremiah that it would be preferable to return to Egypt rather than remain in exile, he urged them to stay where they were for Yahweh was with them. Instead, however, they returned to Egypt "where at least they would not hun-ger" (Jr 42:1~4). It is not pleasant to be hungry, but can we live without desire? We can call this sort of person "the comfortable self," and the "comfortable sell'' has few desires. 2) Today especially we seek to be creative and responsible members of the human race. We are inclined to set aside as somewhat irrelevant and escapist distractions those vague interior Iongings that apparently can never be satisfied: there is too much in the world to do and no time to lose. We tend to set aside the simple and less gifted i~mong us and have little patience for wasted time and effort. In Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe would say that our ambition is to be a "Master of the Universe," and we are convinced we just might succeed. The "creative, functional sell''has little time or. need for vague longings and can realize his desires by rolling up his sleeves. 3) Psychology has helped us uncover, identify, and explain many of our desires. But Freud would also have us demystify these desires, re-duce them to understandable drives, and either "manage" them so they do not interfere or banish them completely. The "psychological sell" runs the risk of reducing desires to insignificance by denying them the possibility of any transcendent origin, significance, or purpose. 4) Dead Poets Society points an accusing finger at a society drained of desire and life. But I think the movie suffers from the sickness it is trying to identify. Note the poets that are quoted in the movie: they are almost exclusively what we call the romantic poets. Other sections of the poetry anthology used by the students are ripped out. No mention of Shakespeare or Homer, Milton or Hopkins. Why should we read poetry, according to this movie? For the excitement of it, I gather. The movie seems to say: it does not really matter what you give your life to as long as you feel passionately enough to give your life. I admire the passion, but it is a self-destructive passion, self-preoccupied, narcissistic. Really, in the end, no passion at all. The desires of the "romantic sell'' self-destruct in a beautiful, but tragically brief burst of flame. 5) Finally, a word about the "tolerant sell'' and what that, in its most recent form, has done to desire. In many ways I consider this to Prayer as Desire / 669 be the most serious attack on desire in our day, and I will discuss it at greater length.5 The founders of our country, acutely aware of the reasons for which Europeans came to these shores and the political struggle that led to in-dependence, enshrined the principles of freedom and equality at the heart of our Constitution. They did so in revolt against oppression in the coun-tries they came from, to assure that in this new regime each person would be free to profess and practice the religion of one's choosing or none at all. In order to assure that no one religion would be given ascendancy and that all religions would be considered equally valid. Such liberty and equality imply a prior commitment to tolerance. As Locke had earlier suggested,6 not only does tolerance forestall religious wars and oppression, it would seem to be synonymous with Christian char-ity. We should hesitate to tamper with a doctrine such as that of toler-ance, which has brought us many blessings, but there may be some side effects that need to be taken into account. If tolerance leads us to assert that all religions are equally valid, then it seems inevitable that at some point one will begin to wonder whether it is worth embracing this par-ticular religion rather than another., or any at all. Tolerance as the paradigmatic American virtue in religious matters erodes conviction and desire; it all too often leads to indifference and loss of confidence.7 Let me explain with a non-religious example. For one person, work-ing hard to provide housing for the homeless is an important "value"-- to use that word as we are accustomed to using it today. For another per-son, earning a million dollars a year and dining at a 4-star restaurant five nights a week is a "value" she or he would hold to with as much, per-haps even more vigor. In a society where tolerance is the paramount vir-tue and where there can be no criteria for ranking so-called "values," our social worker has no right to consider his "value" more important than that of the millionaire. I think that is the conclusion we have to draw, and my guess is that our "tolerant" selves would be reluctant to draw any other. In that case, I could easily imagine the social worker, returning home after a frustrating fifteen-hour day, and exclaiming in quiet desperation: "why bother?" If all "values" are equal, our social worker will begin to doubt the real worth of what she or he is doing and be drained of passion or desire for the cause being promoted. Tolerance is a great American virtue. It protects us from oppression and even allows us to be critical of the regime. But the brand of toler-ance practiced today also exacts a high price. It can drain our soul of all 670 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 passion. Without passion or desire, the "tolerant self' will find it very difficult to pray. The comfortable self, the creative self, the psychological self, the ro-mantic self, the tolerant self--so many ways in which desire has been disarmed. It has been disarmed or short-circuited. What keeps desire alive has been eliminated. Etymologically, the word "desire" with its reference to "sidera," the stars, suggests that without an object that tran-scends the self, desire that is not created by the self, or under its con-trol, or in any way dependent upon the self, desire quickly evaporates. I think the social and political consequences of diluted or disarmed de-sire have been considerable, but in the context of this discussion I want to draw attention to the consequences for our faith and our prayer as well. So, how do we recover desire? The question is an old one. It already appears in the Gospel. But, as I have tried to explain above, our American context leads us to pose it in a particularly acute way. It should not come as a surprise that since we Americans are closest to the problem that it is we Americans who have also hit upon a solution. I think that Alcoholics Anonymous and its 12-step program, begun in this country some fifty years ago, may be helping us rediscover desire and could be more helpful to those wanting to pray than any crash course on meditation.8 This may come as a surprising suggestion. But consider some of the more traditional methods used to foster growth in prayer. Among the early desert fathers and mothers, one popular and effective method (known in the Russian Orthodox tradition today as "starchestvo") is a practice whereby the novice reveals to his spiritual master all of his in-terior thoughts and feelings and humbly seeks help in discerning what God calls him to through these apparently confused experiences.9 Augustine himself sought to grow in prayer by telling story after story of how he pursued one way then another in search of happiness and peace. Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century devised a system of spiritual exercises, whereby the one seeking to grow spiritually reveals the promptings of his heart to a spiritual guide who helps him interpret and discern the desires that will lead to growth. Ignatius even urged that his followers, members of his Society, regularly "manifest their con-science" to their superiors, much like the monks in the desert, in order to gain enlightenment. Those are the traditional methods of spiritual growth, but for some reason today for many they are not working, or we are not inclined to take them seriously. But many are taking the 12 steps seriously. One of Prayer as Desire / 671 the insights on which the 12-step method is based is the importance of recounting, at a meeting or to a sponsor, the story of one's desires-- desires for alcohol, for sex, for food, desires that have run out of con-trol, but also a desire, perhaps only a small spark at the outset, but a de-sire for sobriety. It is in the telling and the retelling of the story that the desires are sorted out, that the healthiest sparks are fanned into stronger flames, and that one begins to come to deeper serenity and happiness. Why does the 12-step program work? Because I begin to name desires rather than blindly accede to them, proudly condemn them, or run from them in fear. Because I acknowl-edge that a power greater than I alone guides human affairs, inspires hu-man desires, and fulfills the deepest among these: the desires I can sat-isfy will not bring peace to a restless heart. Because I acknowledge that in addition to that power other people are necessary to test my desires and help me keep the best alive. Because I know that helping others will intensify my own desire at the same time as it helps another. I cannot explain adequately in this context the effectiveness of the 12-step program. I am grateful to those friends and confreres who have given me some understanding of the 12 steps and for their own witness to the program's power. They could better make the point I want to make. Beneath the program is an understanding of life deeply consonant with the Gospel and, I would maintain, profoundly nourishing for one's life of prayer. Remember Augustine's words to Proba: Insofar as every soul understands that it is poor and desolate in this world as long as it is absent from the Lord, it surely commends its wid-owhood, so to speak, to God its defender, with continual and most ear-nest prayer (p. 400). Prayer is impossible if you start from a distorted understanding of the Gospel. As Americans, our comfortable self may be too sated to seek a Savior, our creative self may lead us to think we can save ourselves, our psychological self may convince us that the desire for a Savior is escapism, our romantic self may consider the desire an end in itself, our tolerant self may think open-ness and tolerance are identical with love. The Gospel, the writings of Augustine, and the 12-step program re-flect both more skepticism and more confidence about human nature than any of these false selves. They are not so afraid or angry with their hu-manness that they deny or disregard their desires, but they do not accept 672 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 that responding to the most pressing desires will necessarily lead to the greatest happiness. They are deeply confident that their deepest desires can be satisfied, but have surrendered the illusion that they can or must explain or satisfy those desires on their own. They, like St. Paul, refuse to judge and condemn themselves, and certainly not others, but they cou-rageously and unambiguously name the desire that has led them to dis-aster and they can say: "My name is Richard or John or Dorothy, and I am an alcoholic!" Many are seeking new ways to pray, and a 12-step meeting is hardly an ancient method. But if I were to suggest the practices of sacramental confession or spiritual direction as ways to grow in prayer, many would not take note. Something has happened to our traditional practices or our use of them that has made them seemingly ineffective. What I am sug-gesting is that the 12-step program with its emphasis on confession/ story telling, community, and commitment to service--is a contempo-rary method that I feel convinced can teach us how to pray. I cannot help but believe that God is attentive to the simple prayer of a recovering al-coholic, a wounded person full of desire, who speaks with the words of the psalmist: God, you are my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory, for your love is better than life. My lips will speak your praise, so I will bless you all my life. NOTES ~ A first version of this paper was presented as the keynote address for a Conference at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts, entitled "Prayer--A Psychologi-cal Perspective." I am grateful to the organizers of the Conference, Dr. George Scar-lett and Rev. Edgar Bourque, A.A., for their invitation to address the Conference. 2 These paintings are reproduced in Davis McCord and Frederick A. Sweet, Andrew Wyeth (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1970). 3 Quotations from Augustine's letter are taken from The Fathers of the Church-- Saint Augustine: Letters Vol. II (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc. 1953). 4 Quotations from the Confessions are taken from the translation by Frank J. Sheed in The Confessions of St. Augustine (London: Sheed & Ward, 1984, original edition 1944). 5 Although many have discussed this notion, the most thorough and cogent discus-sion recently is in the book by Allen Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). 6 See John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed, by James H. Tully (Indian- Prayer as Desire / 1573 apolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1983). 7 In J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, (New York: Fox, Duffiealad and Company, 1904, reprinted from the original 1782 edition), pp. 64-65, we read an eighteenth-century account of religion in America. After describ-ing in letter no. 3 the variety of creeds cultivated in the country, the author contin-ues: "Each of these people instruct their children as well as they can, but these in-structions are feeble compared to those which are given to the youth of the poorest class in Europe. Their children will therefore grow up less zealous and more indif-ferent in matters of religion than their parents. The foolish vanity, or rather the fury of making Proselytes, is unknown here; they have no time, the seasons call for all their attention, and thus in a few years, this mixed neighborhood will exhibit a strange religious medley, that will be neither pure Catholicism nor pure Calvinism. A very perceptible indifference even in the first generation will become apparent." 8 A good deal of Alcoholics Anonymous literature deals with prayer and spiritual-ity. The eleventh step explicitly encourages the practice of prayer and meditation ("We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us, and the power to carry that out.") But the program can have even broader implications for the spiritual life. See "Origins of A.A. Spirituality" by Dr. Ernie Kurtz, The Blue Book, Vol. XXXVIII, Proceedings from the 38th Annual Symposium-June 16- 20, 1986 (January, 1987). Catholic writers and lecturers are beginning to discuss the spiritual potential of the program. See, for example, the recently released confer-ences of Father Richard Rohr, "Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps" (Saint Anthony Messenger Press Audiocassettes, 1989). 9 See B, Pennington, O.C.S.O., O Holy Mountain.t (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1984), p. 92. The Emptiness Within Barbara Dent Barbara Dent, mother and grandmother, has been for eighteen years a Secular Carmelite. One of her most recent books has been The Gifts of Lay Ministry (Ave Maria Press, 1989). Her address is Postinia: 7A Cromwell Place; Pukekohe, New Zealand. Ours is an age of space-consciousness and space exploration. These have induced an awareness of a limitless beyond that can be terrifying. We know that in space universe extends beyond universe in an infinitude of expanding galaxies. The immensity is beyond our comprehension. Ours is also an age of inner exploration of our own human psyche. Depth psychology probes level on level of inner awareness, submerged awareness, and non-awareness. These probings link up with that aspect of spirituality which mystically intuits the indwelling of the Trinity, the homeliness of God in us that Jesus spoke of and promised to his faithful followers the night before he died. Just as there is endless mystery in the outer universe, so there is also in the inner one. God dwells in us--if we long for him and prepare our spiritual house to receive him. Not only that, but he permeates our inner being further and further as we open ourselves to receive him. "How rich are the depths of God!" exclaimed St. Paul. And it is these very depths that merge with our own through the divine penetra-tion and the graces it brings. This is by no means always a consoling experience. On the contrary it can seem to hurl us into an abyss of unmeaning which is caused by our incapacity to understand divine meaning and purpose in all their in-finite inclusiveness. Only faith can cope with the apparent absurdity, and too often in this state we experience ourselves as lamentably lacking in faith. 674 The Emptiness Within / 675 In this article I examine and comment on this negative aspect of di-vine and human intermingling by using the concept of "the inner Void." Normally, we human beings fill our days and nights with the busi-ness of living, working, playing, and social interchange. This is the way it has to be if society is to continue and be dynamic. For committed Chris-tians this day-to-day living and doing is permeated with another dimen-sion- that of being-in-Christ. The more fully they relate mundane ac-tivities to loving and serving the Lord, the more Christocentric their lives become. The more they cleave to him, the more the Trinity enters into their inner selves through the purity of their intentions, so that they truly become temples of the Holy Spirit. A pure intention is one that is centered on what Jesus stressed must be our fundamental option--"God's will, not mine, because I love him with my whole being." Strangely, the intensity of such a single-minded love can lead not to a blissful sense of fulfillment, but to its opposite-- an experience of crucifying inner emptiness, a void of unappeasable long-ing crying out for a God who appears not to care or even answer. How much longer will you forget me, Yahweh? Forever? How much longer will you hide your face from me? How much longer must I en-dure grief in my soul, and sorrow in my heart by day and by night? (Ps 13:1-2). The ache for God, disguised as it may be in a multitude of ways, yet seems to be endemic to the human heart. In Christ's followers it can be-come so insistent that it rules their lives. After many years of loving, faith-ful service to this object of their desire, a paradoxical inner state is likely to develop. The searcher for the pearl of great price and the glorious lib-erty of the sons and daughters of God, though consumed with an intol-erable yearning for God, now experiences him as absent just when he is loved and longed for most. This is usually a sign of the call to a much deeper relationship with him, one that has a different quality from any that preceded it. We are drawn by the Spirit into this state of being when all created things have lost their power to compel or fulfill us. We have learned, often in bitterness and pain, that none of them can supply anything but a temporary and partial satisfaction. Behind and through them we have kept glimpsing their Creator, and now he fills our vision and summons us to come closer. We have begun floating in our inner Void, sure at last that only his love can fill it. 676 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 Aware that he is calling and drawing us, we want with all our will to respond, yet we remain thwarted. Yearn and strive as we may, we can neither reach nor receive him. Empty and grieving, we experience him as the absentee God, yet we have never in our lives been more free of sin and fuller of love than we now are. Why has this Void opened at the very time when we are possessed by love-longing for God? To anyone familiar with the inner depth reality of the subconscious and unconscious, the answer will make sense. The roots of our attachments to what God has created, and the causes of our persistence in letting them come between us and him, are still bur-ied deep within us. They fasten us down to where we are so that we are unable to soar in freedom to him. Though we have done all in our power, with the help of grace, to love and serve him, and though deliberate sin of any kind has long been eliminated from our living, the roots of sinful tendencies remain there hidden away, so that we are not even conscious of them. We cannot locate or name them, let alone wrench them out or dissolve them away. In our impotence and humiliation we gradually re-alize only God can do this through his own mighty love and the grace he pours into us through his Spirit. Only his action can gradually dilate our hearts so that they are able to receive more and more of what he offers. Only his grace can pene-trate into our subconscious to reveal what is concealed there. Only it can in various ways impel upwards into consciousness what is hidden. Only his Spirit of Wisdom knows and can reveal to us in ways we can accept what must be made conscious and purified if we are to enter into full un-ion with the Trinity. By invading our depths, the Spirit is not violating our free will, for God knows our longing for him is such that at last we are prepared to let him have his way with us, no matter how much it hurts. "Oh God, my God, for you my heart yearns, like a dry, weary land without water" (Ps 63:1 ). God's answer to our yearnings is to fill our Void with himself. This process is purgatorial. After death we pass outside time and space into eternity and infinity. If at this transition we are not already filled with God, our Void goes with us. No one has returned to tell us how God deals with it then, but traditionally the Church has taught the doctrines of purgatory (a cleansing process through which grace fits us to receive and behold God), and hell, where our Void remains just that forever. All those, known and unknown, who have become saints before they died, The Emptiness Within / 677 have had their Voids filled with God in this life. Some have left records of what their experience was like, and these indicate something at least of what they endured under the Spirit's ruthless but perfectly loving ac-tion. St. John of the Cross's testimony is probably the most authoritative, instructive, and detailed, After stressing that this state of purification is one of darkness and pure faith, he elaborates as below. "The Divine assails the soul in order to renew it and thus to make it Divine; and, stripping it of the habitual affections and attachments of the old man, to which it is very closely united, knit together and con-formed, destroys and consumes its spiritual substance, and absorbs it in deep and profound darkness. As a result of this, the soul feels itself to be perishing and melting away, in the presence and sight of its miseries, in a cruel spiritual death, even as if it had been swallowed by a beast (as Jonas was). (and) in this sepulcher of dark death it must needs abide until the spiritual resurrection which it hopes for. ". But what the sorrowful soul feels most in this condition is its clear perception, as it thinks, that God has abandoned it, and, in his ab-horrence of it, has flung it into darkness. It is a grave and piteous grief for it to believe that God has forsaken it . For indeed when this pur-gative contemplation is most severe, the soul feels very keenly the shadow of death and the lamentations of death and the pains of hell, which consist in its feeling itself to be without God, and chastised and cast out, and unworthy of him; and it feels that he is wroth with it" (Dark Night II, Ch. VI, 1 & 2). The intensity and pain of this inner experience of the Void will vary according to the strength and depths of our sin-roots, the greatness of our love and longing for God, our perseverance and abandonment during the process, the degree of holiness (or wedding garment splendor and soar-ing freedom) God intends for each sufferer. This purpose of his is, of course, hidden in the mystery of his endless love, of which the Void it-self is but one aspect. If the Void is endured until the process of cleansing and freeing is completed, we have been through and emerged from our own personal purgatory. We are united with the Trinity in what has been called "trans-forming union" ("I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me") or "the spiritual marriage." "Alleluia! The reign of the Lord our God the Almighty has begun. Let us be glad and joyful and give praise to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb. His bride is ready, and she has been able Review for Religious, September-October 1990 to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the saints" (Rv 19:7-8). Our Void has been emptied of self and filled with Christ. What are some of the hallmarks of this emptying and filling of the Void, in the here and now? Here is a commentary on a few of the main ones. 1. Helpless Waiting In the Void we have no alternative but to wait. I think of Mary be-tween the annunciation and the birth of Jesus. She knew she had con-ceived and that the Christ of God was growing and developing within her, but the process was and had to remain hidden and secret. What she did not know was exactly what and who the child would prove to be. God was at work in her, and she was co-operating pas-sively, through her fiat, by letting it happen and trusting him about the outcome of his labors. She was "full of grace" and so the whole pro-cess was under the Spirit's complete control. Her personal contribution was to stay still and see what eventuated. Once the Void opens in us, we too, must wait while Christ is formed in us in his fullness. We continue to live and love as Christians, to serve God and neighbor in our work, personal relationships, duties and offer-ings, all aimed at renewing the temporal order and purifying our lives from self-love and self-seeking. We have been doing these things for a long time and had assumed we would be persevering in them in much the same way till death. We do persevere, but not "in the same way." For now the Void is there, and we begin to enter a new dimension and level of being. Gradually grace enlightens us so that we understand something of what still needs to be done in our inner depths to open us to God so he can penetrate further. At the same time we are shown how it is beyond our own capacity and resources to bring about such a self-exposure. A chasm of helplessness and poverty gapes within us. We realize that in our frozen immobility we are still able to act in one specific way. We can let God act, and stay passive ourselves. We can let him do the un-veiling and the choosing, for us and in us in his own way and time. Our role is to surrender and wait. And wait. And wait . Waiting is a difficult art to learn and practice in our frenetically ac-tive and materialistic age. Neither our environment, education nor life aims and circumstances have prepared us for it. Though we try, we go The Emptiness Within on failing, because we cannot help interfering with God in spite of our best intentions. Humbled, we learn that only grace can enable us to learn this painful art. Under its influence, we slowly begin to relax and be still, and our Void gently opens wider in faith, trust, and hope. We realize how im-portant patience is, how lost we are if God does not help us, how he does not and cannot do so unless we deliberately exercise our free will and let him. Here the active and the passive merge. As we go on waiting, our helplessness deepens into a sense of im-potence. We are rather like quadriplegics who must depend on others for most of their needs. If they are not to be consumed with self-pity and rage, they must turn the necessary waiting that forms an indelible part of their lives into an art. We ourselves are not waiting for other people to help us, but for God. "I waited and waited for Yahweh. Now at last he has stooped to me and heard my cry for help" (Ps 40:1). 2. Longing for God Thirst for God consumes us in this state. "As a doe longs for run-ning streams, so longs my soul for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, the God of my life" (Ps 42:1-2). We are like "a dry, weary land without water" (Ps 63:1). When two lovers are parted, they long ardently and painfully for each other's presence. In the Void we experience God as an absentee God, even as one who spurns us. We are hopelessly in love with him-- we would not have been invited by the Spirit into this level of being were it not so--yet he seems to be denying himself to us, to be teasing us cru-elly on purpose. We know he is there, believethis is so, and in some indescribable, formless way even experience him as indeed with us, enfolding us, and yet we never seem to reach or catch sight of him. In his absence we have faith he is present, but this is no comfort. It is like being alone in a completely dark room, yet having an intui-tive awareness of another Presence with us in the same enclosed space. We cannot see or touch him or even hear his breathing. Yet, shiveringly, we are completely certain Someone is with us. Perhaps because of this strange certainty, our longing that is never appeased intensifies until it possesses us. This absentee yet ever-present God and Lover we experience as capricious, so that our longing is a form of bitter suffering, and often we have to struggle against feelings of re- Review for Religious, September-October 1990 sentment and hopelessness. We challenge him, "It is you, God, who are my shelter. Why do you abandon me?" (Ps 43:2). There is no answer, no comfort. The silence is absolute, our hunger unappeased. In the end, we become dumb. Our patience in waiting has deepened as our longing intensified. We understand the time for consum-mation is not. yet, for we are not ready. We see that our longing is a grace, given to us so we will more readily submit to an even more radi-cal emptying out. We have not yet reached that total nakedness o.f un-selfed love which will indicate our readiness to be clothed in Christ. We have yet to long for this for his sake, his honor and glory, the fulfilling of his incarnational aims, instead of for our own self-gratifica-tion, and our pleasure in our own "holiness." At last we understand that our motives need radical purification, for they are laced together every-where by tenuous, yet tough strands of self-love and self-will. All holiness is God's. Of ourselves we have none until we have put on Christ and can glory in his glory, and love with his love. Our longing is being purified till this is what we truly want above all else. 3. Loss of Meaning and Purpose Whether it is a cause or a result of the Void is hard to say, but one of the hallmarks of this state is loss of meaning and purpose on one level, and final regaining of it on another. The loss shows itself in our life situ-ation in doubts and disillusionments about our personal relationships, and our aims, activities, and ambitions to do with worldly matters. What preoccupied us and fed our drive in our work now seems taw-dry and not worth all this effort. We question its reality and its right to absorb so much of our energy, to demand and receive our concentrated attention. Has it the right to fasten us so securely to the daily grind when God's insistent call to another level of being is there in the background all the time, distracting us? Of what use is "getting to the top"? Winning that big increase in salary? Being treated with respect and deference as the one who "has it all at her fingertips," the indispensable manager and organizer? There are times when we ardently want to "throw it all away" be-cause it seems so fatuous. Yet we know we cannot opt out, for we have a spouse to be faithful to, offspring to put through university, the mort-gage to pay off, obligations to associates to fulfill, our own lifelong am-bition to bring to its triumphant peak, a whole life pattern to round off harmoniously. Somehow we have to learn to live with our growing awareness of it all as a mindless treadmill "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The Emptiness Within In the face of the Void, it lacks reality, but, nonetheless, must be at-tended to. The true reality is an indefinable something located in our inner emp-tiness. It is drawing us till we want to let go of everything else and reck-lessly jump into that abyss to meet its embrace. At this point some people have a breakdown so that circumstances force them to take a long rest from their life-in-the world obligations and ambitions. Others keep on mechanically, but their heart is no longer in it, and they feel nothing but relief when someone else replaces them or the time comes for them to retire. This disillusionment and lack of drive registers as a humiliating disaster, yet it may well be a special grace open-ing the way for us to concentrate on "the one thing necessary." Alarmingly, the problem increases, rather than diminishes, once we free ourselves enough for such concentration. It is like a slap in the face to discover that we cannot find "mean-ing" in the things of God either, though we dumbly and idiotically know the meaning is there somewhere, expressed in ancient Babylonian hiero-glyphics no doubt! (And no one taught us at school or in the boardroom how to interpret these!) Faced with the Void and its implications, we find ourselves unable to understand God's meaning and purpose in our own lives or those of others. His actions seem arbitrary and often absurd. In fact, a general senselessness defying the rational mind pervades the whole Void. We slither aimlessly about, till we remember the lesson about staying still and waiting. When we apply this perseveringly, we are able to accept that it is no wonder we cannot understand the divine meaning and purpose when it is infinite and eternal while we ourselves remain time and space im-prisoned. It is also perfect love and omniscient wisdom, while we are full of "lacklove" and distorted vision. During the years spent in the Void we slowly learn to rest in peace in God's incomprehensible will, to trust its apparent irrationality, to have faith in its aim to express his beneficent care of us in and through our life circumstances even when they appear to be nothing but "a tale told by an idiot," to hope doggedly in a future blessed by fulfillment in bliss-ful union with him. Our concept of life's meaning and purpose has changed radically as grace permeated those levels where our basic semi- and unconscious re-bellion and misapplied self-will lay hidden but potent. 4. The Darkness of Entombment Review for Religious, September-October 1990 In the Void we are in the process of dying with Christ and being bur-ied with him so that our life may be his life and we be hidden with him in God, our glory part of his (see Col 2:12, 3:2-4). When Jesus hung upon the cross, he was in a kind of void between earth and heaven: the vacant space left by total immolation for the sake of others; the blank of utmost loneliness and dereliction expressed through his cry of abandonment and desolation; the kenosis of the God- Man brought about by the complete surrender of his awareness of his God-ness, coupled with his immersion in his representative Man-ness--his slav-ery as sin-taker for us when he himself was sinless. In various degrees and ways we, his lovers and beloveds, are invited by him to enter into his crucifixion and kenosis with him so we may even-tually share his resurrection glory. We have to die to self by hanging there with and in him through the sufferings--physical, mental, psycho-logical, emotional, and spiritual that God permits to come to us, and that our own and others' sins and sinfulness bring upon us. After the crucifixion comes the interlude of the entombment before the resurrection can occur. The sense of entombment is an essential as-pect of the Void. If we think of Jesus' corpse lying still,, cold, and alone on the stone slab, we shall understand some of the basic elements of the spiritual state of those called to die with him in order to rise with him. There is the darkness of this stone cavern behind its stone door. No chink of light anywhere. It makes us feel our intellect has been blinded and we shall never understand anything about God again. Though we carry on with our daily lives more or less satisfactorily, we suffer a kind of sense-deprivation of the spirit, (Only those who have experienced this state of being will find meaning in this paradox.) One form of torture of prisoners is to lock them into a pitch dark cell where there is complete sense deprivation so that time ceases to have meaning, as does everything else. Entombed with Jesus, we are in a similar state because all the satis-factions and enjoyments that come to a human being through his senses of hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste no longer have power either to distract or fulfill us. We have become one-purposed in our longing for God, and the senses cannot tempt us away from it with their promise of surface, ephemeral delights. Since we have renounced the lesser good for the greater, the Spirit obliges by paradoxically taking away their irrelevant enticements--in a spiritual sense. To express it otherwise, our senses and our bodies and The Emptiness Within/ all our material being continue to function adequately for the purposes of everyday life. However, in relation to the spiritual life, we have be-come numb and dumb to their joys, attractions and any urge to seek deep meaning and fulfillment through them. We have been brought to that State where we float in the Void of blind faith that none of our senses can affirm as a reality. We gaze upon God without seeing him. We hear his Word without understanding it. We taste his supportive love without any sweetness or consolation--as if our taste buds had been anesthetized. He is weaning us from all such reassurances by imprisoning us in this Void of sense deprivation. He means us to learn how to enter, unencum-bered, into the central mystery of his Being, spirit to Spirit. He has led us into the depths of the Night of Faith. In it, usually for years after painful years, we learn to lie down with the dead Jesus in the tomb. We learn to lie there patiently and wait in our nakedness. We learn what being still really means as we contemplate the Savior's unbreathing body--not with bodily eyes, but with spiritual ones of unquestioning faith and a love stripped of self-seeking. We are seeds fallen into the ground and undergoing the hidden meta-morphosis from which we shall at last emerge, essentially changed per-sons, into spiritual resurrection. 5. Loneliness The inner Void is a crucifyingly lonely space of nothingness. We shall probably find there is no one who can understand our state, except one who is also in it, or one who has endured it and emerged. The one in it may be able to offer sympathy and sharing. The one emerged can give reassurance, understanding, encouragement, guidance, support, and hope for the future. This is so only if she or he has some understanding of what the lonely one is passing through or has emerged from. Such un-derstanding is rare. The Void can have many guises, including those of mental, emo-tional, or physical breakdown. It is often mingled with factors associ-ated with these. It adapts itself to whatever needs to be purified in the particular sufferer, since it is always under the control of the Spirit. It is not easy, and almost impossible, to discover a fellow sufferer who is enduring the same searching trial in the same ways. A qualified, learned, compassionate spiritual guide who has had both personal experience of the Void and of supporting others immersed in it is a very special blessing from God--one that is seldom given. An es-sential part of learning to live at peace in the Void's faith dimension is Review for Religious, September-October 1990 that of being able to trust oneself blindly to the hidden guidance and con-trol of the Spirit coming directly instead of through an intermediary. The purification process includes enduring it alone with God--and an absen-tee God at that. The only sure and never-failing companion is Jesus in his passion, especially in Gethsemane and in his cry of dereliction on the cross. We can find here, in union with him, the strength and purpose to endure, to hang helpless and in agony in absurdity, giving oneself up out of love for his redemptive work, staying with, and in him gladly, for love of him, sharing his loneliness and comforting his desolation. This is anything but mere sentimentality, as anyone who has really done it knows. It is a genuine, self-obliterating response of "Yes" to his questions, "Will you drink of the cup I must drink of? . . . Will you watch one hour with me? . . . Will you take up your cross and follow ¯ me? . . . Will you give yourself with me for others? . . . Will you love my Father's will wholeheartedly as I do to the end? . . . Will you fol-low me wherever I lead? . . . Will you go down into the darkness and die with me and then wait with me in my tomb till resurrection morning comes? . . . Will you dare Sheol with me? o . ." If we agree to share his loneliness, we shall indeed be lonely, and in that desolation share the essential loneliness of all abandoned, help-less, despised, outcast, comfortless human beings whom he represented on the cross, as well as those lost in the black loneliness of habitual, sev-ering sin, or those immured in purgatory in this life or the next. We may have friends who love and try to comfort us, but this will do little to ease what is a loneliness of our very essence crying out for God. Only if they have been through it themselves will they be able to apply balm. In the ultimate there is only one who can fill the Void of loneliness with genuine fulfillment and it is God himself. He is busy preparing in us a place fit to receive him. All we can do is wait in faith, hope, and love that feel like unbelief, despair, and a numb indifference that will never be able to love again. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!" 6. Awareness of Sin The Void strips away inessentials, leaving the emptiness of nothing to cling to but God--and in.bare, stubborn faith. Because the motes in our own eyes (our absorption in the secondar-ies of created things instead of the one primary necessity of God) have The Emptiness Within now been removed, at least partly, by grace, we see much better. One of the things we see with our new sight and in startling clarity is the re-ality of sin. Not so much actual sins--these are fairly obvious to discern and we have long ago trained ourselves to watch and guard against them in our own lives. No--what we now see with the eyes of our spirit enlightened by the Spirit is innate sinfulness. We become aware of its substratum in ourselves (those tangled "roots" I mentioned earlier), and in other hu-man beings we have to do with. We helplessly observe it issuing from us and them in all kinds of meannesses, envies, prevarications, self-delusions, self-loves, rationalizations. Squirming and humiliated, we face, with the help of grace, that, "This is me . . . that is the person I loved and revered so much . " If we do not take care, this pitiless insight will cause discouragement and fear in ourselves, and a judg-mental, condemnatory, disillusioned attitude towards others--even cyni-cism. The taste of this racial and personal basic sinfulness is bitter indeed. We want to spit it out and rush to grab something, sweet to gourmandize on and hide that vile flavor. We have been living all the time with a des-picable traitor within us, and till now we have never even glimpsed him. His cronies are present in all other members of the human race, and from them emanate the sorrows, sins, evils and disasters of living on this planet that has been tipped off its axis. Some of the penitential psalms now have for us as never before a co-gent, humbling, and intensely personal message. Paraphrasing a little, we cry with St. Paul, "Who will rescue me from this enemy within?" and reply with him, "Nothing else but the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord." We know now that we really do need a personal Savior, that we would be lost without Jesus, that an essential part of our Void experi-ence is acknowledging our personal, basic sinfulness for which the only cure is the grace that Jesus gives. We cry, "Lord, you came to save me-- because I needed you so much. I need you even more now you have shown me the truth about myself. Only show me what you want of me, and I will do it. I will do anything at all for you, my Lord and my Sav-ior, because you have rescued me in my great need." This time we really mean it, because we are so much closer to Truth itself. We have been given the grace of a genuine horror of sin because of what it did to Jesus, and still does to him suffering in his members. We long to help heal the wound of sin in his Body. We offer our per- Review for Religious, September-October 1990 sonal wound of sin to him, humbly pleading for the grace of healing. As never before we understand the cleansing power and action of grace, sac-ramentally and otherwise. We hunger for it, seek it, open ourselves wide to receive it. We become beggars for it. We learn what spiritual poverty really means, and again lie down with Jesus in the tomb, content to be naked, trusting in his Body and Blood to heal us of our grievous wound. We are learning what it means to be dead to self and alive to Christ and his members. In the inner Void the self becomes so tiny in the Allness of God. We do not lose our individuality, but we long for it to be absorbed in Christ, so that we become exactly that aspect of his extended incarnation and continuous passion destined for us by the Father. We pray for deliverance from all evil--for ourselves, and for every other human being. We pray fervently, for at last we have "seen" what naked sin and evil are, and what they bring about--the death of the Loved One. 7. We enter a state of Heroic Abandonment and Endurance. Our Void has opened up enough for us to receive the grace we must have to enable us to lie down in the Lord in a state of advanced inner stillness, trust, and hope. The Void's darkness begins to take on the faint glow of incipient dawn, the intense silence is broken by the first tenta-tive twitterings of birds as something soundlessly rolls away our tomb's stone door. The sense of being stifled eases and we draw deep breaths of sweet, cold, dew-drenched air. There is deep within us an awareness of wounds having been healed, of a terrifying emptiness having been filled with Someone, of Love himself annihilating loneliness forever, of a still, si-lent, crystalline joy, and blessedness welling up from deep, deep down, crying in exultation, "Abba! Alleluia! Amen!" Then we see a Person is walking like a king towards the light grow-ing and glowing every second in the tomb's open doorway. It is as if the light emanates from him, as if he is The Light. Wondering and worship-ping, we rise from our stone slab, gather about us the new white gar-ment we find there and follow the Light into the new day. There is no void of inner emptiness anymore. Christ risen and triumphant fills it with himself. Shame: A Barometer of Faith Clyde A. Bonar Father Clyde A. Bonar is a priest of the diocese of Orlando, Florida. He holds ad-vanced degrees in formative spirituality from Duquesne University and in political science from George Washington University. He has served as parochial vicar and administrator of various parishes. His address is St. Joseph of the Forest Catholic Church; 1764 S.E. 169th Avenue Road; Silver Springs, Florida 32688. Aristotle called shame "a feeling or emotion . a kind of fear of dis-grace."~ Interestingly, what one values and what one distains can pro-vide a source for these feelings of disgrace. This allows shame to become a barometer of faith. For the faithfilled person, lapses in living one's faith, for example, can be causes for shame. Conversely, one who scorns religion may find shameful any personal exhibition of faith in an Eter-nal Being. In this paper I shall examine the generic core of "shame" and re-late the experiences of shame in the life of Francis of Assisi (ca. 1182- 1226). Francis' well-known incidents with the lepers caused that saint feelings of shame. Notably, why Francis felt shame about the lepers dif-fered in the earlier and the later parts of his life. Because of that, Fran-cis becomes illustrative of how shame can be a barometer of one's faith. On Shame The Generic Core The core of the shame experience is a sense of exposure and visibil-ity. 2 First, shame is intimately linked to the need to cover that which might unwantedly be exposed. Experiences of shame involve the expo-sure of the peculiarly sensitive, intimate, and vulnerable aspects of the self.3 Something is to be hidden, dodged, or covered up; even, or per- 687 61~1~ / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 haps especially, from oneself. Feelings of shame included "I am weak" and "I am inadequate." The particularities of what must be covered to prevent exposure may vary widely and are individually determinate. For example, while a physical deformity caused Philip in Of Human Bondage4 to feel shame when his clubfoot was exposed, a deeper shame burned "in secret" as Dimmes-dale in Scarlet Letter saw Hester Prynne bear in public the blame for their joint carnal indiscretion .5 Socrates warns of the disgraceful shame of ap-pearing inept in the presence "of some really wise man.' ,6 Personally, for example, I have felt shame for the way I treated a traveling compan-ion during a three-day trip. Second, there is an intimate connection between shame and visibil-ity. 7 When Yahweh called to Adam after he and Eve had eaten the for-bidden fruit, Adam said: "Because I was naked . . . I hid" (Gn 3:11). In his phenomenology of shame, Jean-Paul Sartre claims that shame arises from the look of the Other. "Shame. is the recognition of the fact that I am indeed that object which the Other is looking at and judg-ing." 8 When another looks at him, Sartre comments: What I apprehend immediately., is that I am vulnerable, that I have a body which can be hurt, that I occupy a place and that I cannot in any case escape from the space in which I am without defense--in short, that I am seen.9 Everyday expressions repeat this connection between visibility and shame. We speak of being "shamefaced" or "hiding my face in shame" when others know our failures, inadequacies, or losses of con-trol. A Happy Blush Two other aspects of shame need to be kept in mind as we proceed: that the feeling of shame comes unexpected. That first and physiologi-cal manifestation of shame, the blush, highlights the involuntary and sud-den characteristic of shame. Helen Lynd is perceptive on this aspect of shame: Shame interrupts any unquestioning, unaware sense of oneself . More than other emotions, shame involves a quality of the unexpected: if in any way we feel it coming we are powerless to avert it . What-ever part voluntary action may have in the experience of shame is swal-lowed up in the sense of something that overwhelms us . We are taken by surprise, caught off guard, or off base, caught unawares, made a fool of. ~0 Shame / 689 In his illustration of the voyeur at the keyhole, Jean-Paul Sartre confirms the "immediate shudder" of being unexpectedly caught: "All of a sud-den I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me!''~ Importantly, this self-consciousness contains a revealing capacity. Again, it is Sartre who captures this: "Shame is by nature recognition. I recognize that I am as the Other sees me." ~2 Shame carries the weight of "I cannot have done this. But I have done it and cannot undo it, be-cause this is 1.''13 The thing that is exposed is what I am. To "recognize" one's self is to be open to reformation, and there is the delight. Adrian van Kaam writes that "reformation implies a re-appraisal of formative and deformative dispositions, judgments, memo-ries, imaginations, and anticipations." ~4 If experiences of shame can be fully faced, if we allow ourselves to realize their import, they can inform the self and become a revelation of one's self. The question is exactly what personal disposition is revealed by the quick reddening of the blush, the sudden feeling of shame, this which involuntarily and unexpectedly just happens. Writing back in 1839 on The Physiology or Mechanism of Blushing, Thomas Burgess reported that the blush reflects "the various internal emotions of the moral feel-ings [so that one could] know whenever we transgressed or violated those rules which should be held sacred." He continued to point out that, given this "spiritual" nature of the "blush," it is "solely a moral stimulus that will excite a true blush.''15 That is~ it is our value system that is re-vealed by shame. For example, if I hold dispositions mostly congenial with the particular individual God designed me to be, a blush will reveal that there are also some uncongenial and not-reformed dispositions. Or, by contrast, if my fundamental orientation is that talk of God is mean-ingless I may blush at some scruples within my disposition constellation that would be more in agreement with faith in an Eternal Being. Among The Lepers The immediate question is what should not be exposed, what should be covered from visibility. Francis' experience with the lepers proves in-structive. In his "Testament" he wrote: The Lord granted to me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: While I was in sin, it seemed very bitter to me to see lepers. And the Lord Himself led me among them and I had mercy upon them. And when I left them that which seemed bitter to me was changed into sweet-ness of soul and body.~6 This too brief statement includes all the elements of experiences of 690 / Review for Religious, September-October 1990 shame. Fallen Nature of Humanity By his words "While I was in sin" Francis refers to his youthful years. In his parents' home he enjoyed the easy life his successful father could provide. He was a most likable lad, clever, charming, smooth-talking, and insanely generous. Francis had a gift for business and seemed born to be a merchant like his father. The son enjoyed dressing with a studied elegance and entertaining at a good inn with the best of everything. Friends flocked around Francis when he appeared and played the troubadour with his Provencal songs. 17 One would say that Francis was reflecting the fallen nature of hu-manity common since the first sin of Adam, living in ignorance of the true transcendent nature of humanity. ~8 Caught in the competitive trade of the cloth merchant, his father taught Francis to live by that competi-tion. Escape in the exigencies and the excitement of being the business-man became a way of life, with questions of transcendence relegated to minor, occasional thoughts. Responsibility for being a faithfilled Chris-tian example for others was evaded, for the other was also typically the customer, who was to be sold something even if that meant a little de-ception and an excess of charm. Immersion in the sensual joys of life was a natural corollary in a society of, according to Pope Innocent III, "obscene songs, dances, and fornications." 19 Still, why was Francis affected by the lepers as he was? Other youths, his peers in cultural refinement and the easy life, would merely hold their noses when they smelled the horrible stench of the lazaretto where the lepers were confined, and unashamedly turn their horses a dif-ferent direction. But for Francis the human misery breathing death right into his face was incredibly disagreeable. And, the young clothier would experience shame when a wretched beggar would intrude.2° A clue to Francis at this early point in his life, while he was still "in sin," lies, I opine, in the phenomenology of shame. As we saw above, shame is an experience of the whole self: in moments of shameful expo-sure it is the self that stands revealed.2~ Existentialists state this force-fully: in the consciousness of shame, there is "a shameful apprehension of something and this something is me. I am ashamed of what I am . Through shame I have discovered an aspect of my being."22 The self that was standing revealed for Francis'was, in the terms of Adrian van Kaam, his foundational life form. The image of God deep within Francis was being exposed. Thomas Burgess, cited above, might say it was the internal moral feelings of Francis which were being ex- posed. As early as twelve years old Francis was struck in some special way by the elevation of the consecrated host during Mass. In the mud-dle of being dominated by his sensual and functional dimensions and his sociohistorical situations, the inchoate thunderbolt of the transcendent was there. But within the flamboyance and egotism of the sensuous and romantic party giver he appeared to be, Francis would feel shame when his more basic faith in God would protrude. His lifestyle hid from visi-bility the transcendent, as he took greater pleasure in identifying him-self as a prince of the world and knight of Assisi. As God's chosen who would become God's anointed, the young Francis would feel shame where others had no such self-consciousness. According to our paradigm of shame, what Francis's apparent life form, or way of being in his environment, sought to cover during these early years of his life was his foundational life form. When his "vul-nerability" or "inadequacy" was exposed, that is, his sensitivity to the sufferings of lepers and beggars, he felt shame at the "flaw," which was his deeper felt love of God, becoming visible through the cover of how he presented himself to others. Attuned to His God Francis was twenty-four when he stood in front of the episcopal pal-ace at Santa Maria Maggiore and stripped off his clothes in hot haste and threw them at his father's feet. God had seized him: the sinner faded to give way to the saint. But watching his second naked birth, the crowd fell silent, for this "erstwhile dandy" was seen to be wearing a hair shirt. "It was a hideous penitential device of horsehair for killing the instinct of sensuality and chastising the flesh day and night."23 The peni-tential hair shirt was a symbol for what had been happening for some time in Francis--the transformation from dissonance to consonance with the Eternal, a change from running away from God to running toward God. For our present emphasis, we might remember the words of Francis: "Bernardone is no longer my father," but Our Father who art in heaven. The words indicated his change. For Francis, shame is no longer from having love of God exposed within a life lived as a merchant, but henceforth the shame was in having any failure to love God exposed within a life of excited faith. Now, when Francis embraced the leper, as we quoted above in the words of Francis, "that which seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of soul." The contrast is sharp between the experiences of shame for Francis before and after his transformation. Upon encountering the so distaste- Review for Religious, September-October 1990 ful leper, "He slipped off his horse and ran to kiss the man . Filled with wonder and joy, he began devoutly to sing God's praises." He be-gan to render humble service to the lepers and "with great compassion kissed their hands and their mouths." Further, the lover of complete humility went to the lepers and lived with them. He washed their feet, bandaged their ulcers, drew the pus from their wounds and washed out the diseased matter; he even kissed their ulcer-ous wounds out of his remarkable devotion.24 Francis took the bold step of overcoming the conventional perception of what is attractive and what is repulsive by reaching out to love what re-pelled him. And the change in the source of shame was seen in other aspects of his life. When his pre-transformation apparent life form had dominated, Francis's selfish pride would tell him to feel deep humiliat
In 1928, Utah Construction Company completed its first project outside of the United States with the 110 mile railroad for Southern Pacific of Mexico. Over the next 30 years, UCC continued to work on projects in Mexico including dams, roads, mining, and canals. The collection contains several booklets and correspondence along with approximately 500 photographs. ; 8.5 x 11 in. paper ; 8 December 1972 Mexico Mr. B. R. Waples, Jr. Vice President and Manager The Ralph M. Parsons Company 617 West Seventh Street Los Angeles, California 90017 Dear Bee: Enjoyed very much visiting with you in Tucson and appreciate the insight you have on Mexican mining investments. The next time you are in San Francisco would appreciate your calling me. In the meantime, would you be good enough to Xerox a copy of Ambassador McBride's speech and send it to me. We have made several attempts to obtain a copy of the speech but it is necessary to know the title of the speech in order to do so. Once again, congratulations on your Vice Presidency with Parsons. With kind regards. Yours sincerely, WB/nam Investments- Mining Mexico E. C. de Moss AMN am WB WB MAIL ADDRESS: P. O. BOX 54802 LOS ANGELES 90054 PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT 20 DEC 1972 MINING DIVISION UTAH INTERNATIONAL INC. The Ralph M. Parsons Company Engineers Constructors 617 WEST SEVENTH STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA December 14, 1972 Mr. Wes Bourret Utah Construction & Mining Co. 550 California Street San Francisco, Ca. 94104 Dear Wes: It was good to have the opportunity to see you again and discuss problems of American companies operating in Mexico. When I returned to Los Angeles, I was able to find an article that refers to some of the topics that I commented about. I believe this article will give you some additional insight, as well as the names of some of the secretaries within the Mexican government that I could not recall at the time of our discussion. I hope that this is of value to you and I look forward to seeing you again. Please do not hesitate to call me whenever you feel I can be of help to you. Very truly yours, THE RALPH M. PARSONS COMPANY By B. R. Waples, Jr Vice President and Manager of Projects, Parsons-Jurden Division BRW/rp Encl. RULES CHANGE FOR INVESTMENT Mexico Cools to Foreign Capital MEXICO CITYAfter almost two years of equivocation, the Mexican government has made it clear that foreign investment is no longer as welcome as it has been. ""Yes, gentlemen,"" a high govern-ment official told a gathering of U.S. and Mexican businessmen the other day, ""we are changing the rules of the game."" The official. Undersecretary of Commerce and Industry Jose Cam-pillo Saenz, said the regulations were being adjusted ""to the needs and aspirations of our day,"" reflect-ing the nationalistic views that have guided President Luis Alvarez Echeverria since his inauguration in December, 1970. Antigringo Tirade His remarks touched off in the lo-cal press what one U.S. businessman long resident here described as ""the most strident antigringo tirade"" since the oil industry was confiscat-ed in 1938. The morning daily ""El Dia,"" which hews to the government line, said it was ""probably too early to say that relations between Mexico and the United States have begun to deteri-orate, but it must be recognized at least that these relations have en-tered a state of tension filled with foreboding."" For months, Mexican and U.S. investors alike had been complaining privately that the Echeverria government had neglected to spell out a clear and coherent economic policy. Finally, U.S. Ambassador Robert H. McBride brought, the complaint into the open. McBride, a retiring, quietly able diplomat who has maintained in Mexico what the State Department BY FRANCIS B. KENT Times Staff Writer calls a low profile, told a business group in Acapulco: ""Let me state quite frankly that I note an attitude not of alarm but of definite concern. Many are unclear as to whether foreign investment is still desired, and whether the rules of the game might be changednot only for new investment but also for established firms."" The ambassador opened his ad-dress by recalling that President Echeverria had spoken to President Nixon and the U.S. Congress ""with frankness and candor"" and had call-ed for establishment of a ""frank, and open dialog."" He would like, the am-bassador said, to speak ""in that same spirit, which I so admire in the pres-ident of Mexico."" He was not long in getting an an-swer. Just 48 hours later the under-secretary of commerce and industry, Campillo Saenz, defined precisely to what extent the rules have been changed. Mexico now looks down a new road, he said, ""that will make our nation more independent and give greater freedom to all Mexicans."" Foreign capital, he added, ""can be a useful complement to accelerate our process of development"" but it must ""conform to the new goals we have set for ourselves."" It. must among other requirements ""associate with Mexican capital, on a minority basis as a general rule."" It must ""give preference to Mexican citizens in the employment of tech-nical experts and administrative personnel."" It must ""provide ad-vanced technology."" It must ""pro-duce export goods that can also be sent to the foreign investors' mar-kets."" ""This does not mean,"" Campillo Saenz added, ""that we will not ac-cept foreign capital to be invested in those fields allowed by our laws. We accept it gladly, but only in a bal-anced relation to our own invest-ment. What we want. is for Mex-icans to be partners, not the em-ploves, of foreign capital, co-partici-pants and friends, not subordinates."" Please Turn to Page 3, Col. 3 The Pickle Population Predicament Is a Dilly BY RON S. HEINZEL, Times Staff Writer Quick, what's the pickle capital of the world? St. Charles, III., of course. Anyone with an interest in sex or international economics should know that. MEXICO Continued from First Page His address, reportedly drafted by President Echeverria himself, ap-parently signals a tough new approach to foreign investment in a country where previous adminis-trations have actively sought to attract capital from abroad. In the past, even much of the Mexican money in so-called joint ventures has been raised quietly in the United States. On the other hand, some U.S. investors here point-ed out that the policy enunciated by Campillo Saenz does not represent a really radical departure except insofar as it may be applied in practice. For example, one busi-ness contact wondered, ""to what degree is this going to affect firms that have been established here for years? Does this mean that existing agreements are now null and void?"" Another questioned se-riously the potential im- pact of the rule requiring foreign capital to produce export goods for competi-tion in the home market. ""Does this mean,"" he asked, ""that the Ford Mo-tor Co., for example, is going to have to produce Fords here that will com-pete in the Chicago mark-et, say, with Fords manu-factured in Detroit? That's absurd."" 'Clear, Positive Statement' A U.S. Embassy spokesman, asked to comment on the Campillo Saenz speech, said he considered it ""a clear, positive state-ment, helpful in clarifying the Mexican government's policy."" Asked whether the am-bassador's remarks, which obviously triggered the Mexican statement, had been prepared in, or cleared with, Washington, the spokesman would say only that McBride is the chief representative in Mexico of the U.S. govern-ment. In his address to the business group, McBride pointed out that in the re-, cent past ""there has been a number of statements critical of the role of foreign investment in Mexico,"" and added: ""We of course recognize that it is the role of the re-ceiving country to decide whether or not foreign in-vestment is desired and under what conditions."" He said that Mexico has been for a number of years ""a major recipient of foreign investment, de-spite intense worldwide competition for the limit-ed amount of investment capital available."" Fills Demand ""Although exact statis-tics are not available,"" he said, ""total foreign invest-ment in Mexico has been estimated at $2.5 billion to $3 billion,"" not including short-term capital or unre-gistered investment, and ""this investment has been attracted to Mexico to fill a demand a demand which exceeds the capaci-ty or availability of domes-tic capital."" While the Campillo Saenz statement repre-sented his government's first concrete stand on foreign investment, it has been no secret that Pres-ident Echeverria has been pursuing an unmistakable policy of economic nation-alism independent of the United States, which buys about 70% of all Mexican exports. The Echeverria govern-ment has sent trade mis-sions to much of Europe and Asia, including the So-viet bloc and mainland China, and in the past 18 months has nationalized a number of firms here that had been owned in lar part by U.S. investors. Among these were a n jor sulphur mining com ny and the National Te phone Co. In every c the government is repo ed to have paid promp on terms described agreeable to the sha holders. Few in the busin community here d o u that there is more to co particularly in light o speech delivered Thursday by Jefus Re Heroles, president of ruling Institutional Re lutionary Party, at its tional assembly. Because heavy fore investment has accuse ""negative and regressi impact on the Mexi economy, Reyes Her said, there must be tended state interventi to eliminate the gap tween the wealthy and the impoveris masses.
A checklist of world species of Microgastrinae parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is provided. A total of 81 genera and 2,999 extant species are recognized as valid, including 36 nominal species that are currently considered as species inquirendae. Two genera are synonymized under Apanteles. Nine lectotypes are designated. A total of 318 new combinations, three new replacement names, three species name amendments, and seven species status revised are proposed. Additionally, three species names are treated as nomina dubia, and 52 species names are considered as unavailable names (including 14 as nomina nuda). A total of three extinct genera and 12 extinct species are also listed. Unlike in many previous treatments of the subfamily, tribal concepts are judged to be inadequate, so genera are listed alphabetically. Brief diagnoses of all Microgastrinae genera, as understood in this paper, are presented. Illustrations of all extant genera (at least one species per genus, usually more) are included to showcase morphological diversity. Primary types of Microgastrinae are deposited in 108 institutions worldwide, although 76% are concentrated in 17 collections. Localities of primary types, in 138 countries, are reported. Recorded species distributions are listed by biogeographical region and by country. Microgastrine wasps are recorded from all continents except Antarctica; specimens can be found in all major terrestrial ecosystems, from 82°N to 55°S, and from sea level up to at least 4,500 m a.s.l. The Oriental (46) and Neotropical (43) regions have the largest number of genera recorded, whereas the Palaearctic region (28) is the least diverse. Currently, the highest species richness is in the Palearctic region (827), due to more historical study there, followed by the Neotropical (768) and Oriental (752) regions, which are expected to be the most species rich. Based on ratios of Lepidoptera and Microgastrinae species from several areas, the actual world diversity of Microgastrinae is expected to be between 30,000–50,000 species; although these ratios were mostly based on data from temperate areas and thus must be treated with caution, the single tropical area included had a similar ratio to the temperate ones. Almost 45,000 specimens of Microgastrinae from 67 different genera (83% of microgastrine genera) have complete or partial DNA barcode sequences deposited in the Barcode of Life Data System; the DNA barcodes represent 3,545 putative species or Barcode Index Numbers (BINs), as estimated from the molecular data. Information on the number of sequences and BINs per genus are detailed in the checklist. Microgastrinae hosts are here considered to be restricted to Eulepidoptera, i.e., most of the Lepidoptera except for the four most basal superfamilies (Micropterigoidea, Eriocranioidea, Hepialoidea and Nepticuloidea), with all previous literature records of other insect orders and those primitive Lepidoptera lineages being considered incorrect. The following nomenclatural acts are proposed: 1) Two genera are synonymyzed under Apanteles: Cecidobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen, 1910, new synonym and Holcapanteles Cameron, 1905, new synonym; 2) Nine lectotype designations are made for Alphomelon disputabile (Ashmead, 1900), Alphomelon nigriceps (Ashmead, 1900), Cotesia salebrosa (Marshall, 1885), Diolcogaster xanthaspis (Ashmead, 1900), Dolichogenidea ononidis (Marshall, 1889), Glyptapanteles acraeae (Wilkinson, 1932), Glyptapanteles guyanensis (Cameron, 1911), Glyptapanteles militaris (Walsh, 1861), and Pseudapanteles annulicornis Ashmead, 1900; 3) Three new replacement names are a) Diolcogaster aurangabadensis Fernandez-Triana, replacing Diolcogaster indicus (Rao & Chalikwar, 1970) [nec Diolcogaster indicus (Wilkinson, 1927)], b) Dolichogenidea incystatae Fernandez-Triana, replacing Dolichogenidea lobesia Liu & Chen, 2019 [nec Dolichogenidea lobesia Fagan-Jeffries & Austin, 2019], and c) Microplitis vitobiasi Fernandez-Triana, replacing Microplitis variicolor Tobias, 1964 [nec Microplitis varicolor Viereck, 1917]; 4) Three names amended are Apanteles irenecarrilloae Fernandez-Triana, 2014, Cotesia ayerzai (Brèthes, 1920), and Cotesia riverai (Porter, 1916); 5) Seven species have their status revised: Cotesia arctica (Thomson, 1895), Cotesia okamotoi (Watanabe, 1921), Cotesia ukrainica (Tobias, 1986), Dolichogenidea appellator (Telenga, 1949), Dolichogenidea murinanae (Capek & Zwölfer, 1957), Hypomicrogaster acarnas Nixon, 1965, and Nyereria nigricoxis (Wilkinson, 1932); 6) New combinations are given for 318 species: Alloplitis congensis, Alloplitis detractus, Apanteles asphondyliae, Apanteles braziliensis, Apanteles sulciscutis, Choeras aper, Choeras apollion, Choeras daphne, Choeras fomes, Choeras gerontius, Choeras helle, Choeras irates, Choeras libanius, Choeras longiterebrus, Choeras loretta, Choeras recusans, Choeras sordidus, Choeras stenoterga, Choeras superbus, Choeras sylleptae, Choeras vacillatrix, Choeras vacillatropsis, Choeras venilia, Cotesia asavari, Cotesia bactriana, Cotesia bambeytripla, Cotesia berberidis, Cotesia bhairavi, Cotesia biezankoi, Cotesia bifida, Cotesia caligophagus, Cotesia cheesmanae, Cotesia compressithorax, Cotesia delphinensis, Cotesia effrena, Cotesia euphobetri, Cotesia elaeodes, Cotesia endii, Cotesia euthaliae, Cotesia exelastisae, Cotesia hiberniae, Cotesia hyperion, Cotesia hypopygialis, Cotesia hypsipylae, Cotesia jujubae, Cotesia lesbiae, Cotesia levigaster, Cotesia lizeri, Cotesia malevola, Cotesia malshri, Cotesia menezesi, Cotesia muzaffarensis, Cotesia neptisis, Cotesia nycteus, Cotesia oeceticola, Cotesia oppidicola, Cotesia opsiphanis, Cotesia pachkuriae, Cotesia paludicolae, Cotesia parbhanii, Cotesia parvicornis, Cotesia pratapae, Cotesia prozorovi, Cotesia pterophoriphagus, Cotesia radiarytensis, Cotesia rangii, Cotesia riverai, Cotesia ruficoxis, Cotesia senegalensis, Cotesia seyali, Cotesia sphenarchi, Cotesia sphingivora, Cotesia transuta, Cotesia turkestanica, Diolcogaster abengouroui, Diolcogaster agama, Diolcogaster ambositrensis, Diolcogaster anandra, Diolcogaster annulata, Diolcogaster bambeyi, Diolcogaster bicolorina, Diolcogaster cariniger, Diolcogaster cincticornis, Diolcogaster cingulata, Diolcogaster coronata, Diolcogaster coxalis, Diolcogaster dipika, Diolcogaster earina, Diolcogaster epectina, Diolcogaster epectinopsis, Diolcogaster grangeri, Diolcogaster heterocera, Diolcogaster homocera, Diolcogaster indica, Diolcogaster insularis, Diolcogaster kivuana, Diolcogaster mediosulcata, Diolcogaster megaulax, Diolcogaster neglecta, Diolcogaster nigromacula, Diolcogaster palpicolor, Diolcogaster persimilis, Diolcogaster plecopterae, Diolcogaster plutocongoensis, Diolcogaster psilocnema, Diolcogaster rufithorax, Diolcogaster semirufa, Diolcogaster seyrigi, Diolcogaster subtorquata, Diolcogaster sulcata, Diolcogaster torquatiger, Diolcogaster tristiculus, Diolcogaster turneri, Diolcogaster vulcana, Diolcogaster wittei, Distatrix anthedon, Distatrix cerales, Distatrix cuspidalis, Distatrix euproctidis, Distatrix flava, Distatrix geometrivora, Distatrix maia, Distatrix tookei, Distatrix termina, Distatrix simulissima, Dolichogenidea agamedes, Dolichogenidea aluella, Dolichogenidea argiope, Dolichogenidea atreus, Dolichogenidea bakeri, Dolichogenidea basiflava, Dolichogenidea bersa, Dolichogenidea biplagae, Dolichogenidea bisulcata, Dolichogenidea catonix, Dolichogenidea chrysis, Dolichogenidea coffea, Dolichogenidea coretas, Dolichogenidea cyane, Dolichogenidea diaphantus, Dolichogenidea diparopsidis, Dolichogenidea dryas, Dolichogenidea earterus, Dolichogenidea ensiger, Dolichogenidea eros, Dolichogenidea evadne, Dolichogenidea falcator, Dolichogenidea gelechiidivoris, Dolichogenidea gobica, Dolichogenidea hyalinis, Dolichogenidea iriarte, Dolichogenidea lakhaensis, Dolichogenidea lampe, Dolichogenidea laspeyresiella, Dolichogenidea latistigma, Dolichogenidea lebene, Dolichogenidea lucidinervis, Dolichogenidea malacosomae, Dolichogenidea maro, Dolichogenidea mendosae, Dolichogenidea monticola, Dolichogenidea nigra, Dolichogenidea olivierellae, Dolichogenidea parallelis, Dolichogenidea pelopea, Dolichogenidea pelops, Dolichogenidea phaenna, Dolichogenidea pisenor, Dolichogenidea roepkei, Dolichogenidea scabra, Dolichogenidea statius, Dolichogenidea stenotelas, Dolichogenidea striata, Dolichogenidea wittei, Exoryza asotae, Exoryza belippicola, Exoryza hylas, Exoryza megagaster, Exoryza oryzae, Glyptapanteles aggestus, Glyptapanteles agynus, Glyptapanteles aithos, Glyptapanteles amenophis, Glyptapanteles antarctiae, Glyptapanteles anubis, Glyptapanteles arginae, Glyptapanteles argus, Glyptapanteles atylana, Glyptapanteles badgleyi, Glyptapanteles bataviensis, Glyptapanteles bistonis, Glyptapanteles borocerae, Glyptapanteles cacao, Glyptapanteles cadei, Glyptapanteles cinyras, Glyptapanteles eryphanidis, Glyptapanteles euproctisiphagus, Glyptapanteles eutelus, Glyptapanteles fabiae, Glyptapanteles fulvigaster, Glyptapanteles fuscinervis, Glyptapanteles gahinga, Glyptapanteles globatus, Glyptapanteles glyphodes, Glyptapanteles guierae, Glyptapanteles horus, Glyptapanteles intricatus, Glyptapanteles lamprosemae, Glyptapanteles lefevrei, Glyptapanteles leucotretae, Glyptapanteles lissopleurus, Glyptapanteles madecassus, Glyptapanteles marquesi, Glyptapanteles melanotus, Glyptapanteles melissus, Glyptapanteles merope, Glyptapanteles naromae, Glyptapanteles nepitae, Glyptapanteles nigrescens, Glyptapanteles ninus, Glyptapanteles nkuli, Glyptapanteles parasundanus, Glyptapanteles penelope, Glyptapanteles penthocratus, Glyptapanteles philippinensis, Glyptapanteles philocampus, Glyptapanteles phoebe, Glyptapanteles phytometraduplus, Glyptapanteles propylae, Glyptapanteles puera, Glyptapanteles seydeli, Glyptapanteles siderion, Glyptapanteles simus, Glyptapanteles speciosissimus, Glyptapanteles spilosomae, Glyptapanteles subpunctatus, Glyptapanteles thespis, Glyptapanteles thoseae, Glyptapanteles venustus, Glyptapanteles wilkinsoni, Hypomicrogaster samarshalli, Iconella cajani, Iconella detrectans, Iconella jason, Iconella lynceus, Iconella pyrene, Iconella tedanius, Illidops azamgarhensis, Illidops lamprosemae, Illidops trabea, Keylimepie striatus, Microplitis adisurae, Microplitis mexicanus, Neoclarkinella ariadne, Neoclarkinella curvinervus, Neoclarkinella sundana, Nyereria ituriensis, Nyereria nioro, Nyereria proagynus, Nyereria taoi, Nyereria vallatae, Parapanteles aethiopicus, Parapanteles alternatus, Parapanteles aso, Parapanteles atellae, Parapanteles bagicha, Parapanteles cleo, Parapanteles cyclorhaphus, Parapanteles demades, Parapanteles endymion, Parapanteles epiplemicidus, Parapanteles expulsus, Parapanteles fallax, Parapanteles folia, Parapanteles furax, Parapanteles hemitheae, Parapanteles hyposidrae, Parapanteles indicus, Parapanteles javensis, Parapanteles jhaverii, Parapanteles maculipalpis, Parapanteles maynei, Parapanteles neocajani, Parapanteles neohyblaeae, Parapanteles nydia, Parapanteles prosper, Parapanteles prosymna, Parapanteles punctatissimus, Parapanteles regalis, Parapanteles sarpedon, Parapanteles sartamus, Parapanteles scultena, Parapanteles transvaalensis, Parapanteles turri, Parapanteles xanthopholis, Pholetesor acutus, Pholetesor brevivalvatus, Pholetesor extentus, Pholetesor ingenuoides, Pholetesor kuwayamai, Promicrogaster apidanus, Promicrogaster briareus, Promicrogaster conopiae, Promicrogaster emesa, Promicrogaster grandicula, Promicrogaster orsedice, Promicrogaster repleta, Promicrogaster typhon, Sathon bekilyensis, Sathon flavofacialis, Sathon laurae, Sathon mikeno, Sathon ruandanus, Sathon rufotestaceus, Venanides astydamia, Venanides demeter, Venanides parmula, and Venanides symmysta.
A checklist of world species of Microgastrinae parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is provided. A total of 81 genera and 2,999 extant species are recognized as valid, including 36 nominal species that are currently considered as species inquirendae. Two genera are synonymized under Apanteles. Nine lectotypes are designated. A total of 318 new combinations, three new replacement names, three species name amendments, and seven species status revised are proposed. Additionally, three species names are treated as nomina dubia, and 52 species names are considered as unavailable names (including 14 as nomina nuda). A total of three extinct genera and 12 extinct species are also listed. Unlike in many previous treatments of the subfamily, tribal concepts are judged to be inadequate, so genera are listed alphabetically. Brief diagnoses of all Microgastrinae genera, as understood in this paper, are presented. Illustrations of all extant genera (at least one species per genus, usually more) are included to showcase morphological diversity. Primary types of Microgastrinae are deposited in 108 institutions worldwide, although 76% are concentrated in 17 collections. Localities of primary types, in 138 countries, are reported. Recorded species distributions are listed by biogeographical region and by country. Microgastrine wasps are recorded from all continents except Antarctica; specimens can be found in all major terrestrial ecosystems, from 82°N to 55°S, and from sea level up to at least 4,500 m a.s.l. The Oriental (46) and Neotropical (43) regions have the largest number of genera recorded, whereas the Palaearctic region (28) is the least diverse. Currently, the highest species richness is in the Palearctic region (827), due to more historical study there, followed by the Neotropical (768) and Oriental (752) regions, which are expected to be the most species rich. Based on ratios of Lepidoptera and Microgastrinae species from several areas, the actual world diversity of Microgastrinae is expected to be between 30,000–50,000 species; although these ratios were mostly based on data from temperate areas and thus must be treated with caution, the single tropical area included had a similar ratio to the temperate ones. Almost 45,000 specimens of Microgastrinae from 67 different genera (83% of microgastrine genera) have complete or partial DNA barcode sequences deposited in the Barcode of Life Data System; the DNA barcodes represent 3,545 putative species or Barcode Index Numbers (BINs), as estimated from the molecular data. Information on the number of sequences and BINs per genus are detailed in the checklist. Microgastrinae hosts are here considered to be restricted to Eulepidoptera, i.e., most of the Lepidoptera except for the four most basal superfamilies (Micropterigoidea, Eriocranioidea, Hepialoidea and Nepticuloidea), with all previous literature records of other insect orders and those primitive Lepidoptera lineages being considered incorrect. The following nomenclatural acts are proposed: 1) Two genera are synonymyzed under Apanteles: Cecidobracon Kieffer & Jörgensen, 1910, new synonym and Holcapanteles Cameron, 1905, new synonym; 2) Nine lectotype designations are made for Alphomelon disputabile (Ashmead, 1900), Alphomelon nigriceps (Ashmead, 1900), Cotesia salebrosa (Marshall, 1885), Diolcogaster xanthaspis (Ashmead, 1900), Dolichogenidea ononidis (Marshall, 1889), Glyptapanteles acraeae (Wilkinson, 1932), Glyptapanteles guyanensis (Cameron, 1911), Glyptapanteles militaris (Walsh, 1861), and Pseudapanteles annulicornis Ashmead, 1900; 3) Three new replacement names are a) Diolcogaster aurangabadensis Fernandez-Triana, replacing Diolcogaster indicus (Rao & Chalikwar, 1970) [nec Diolcogaster indicus (Wilkinson, 1927)], b) Dolichogenidea incystatae Fernandez-Triana, replacing Dolichogenidea lobesia Liu & Chen, 2019 [nec Dolichogenidea lobesia Fagan-Jeffries & Austin, 2019], and c) Microplitis vitobiasi Fernandez-Triana, replacing Microplitis variicolor Tobias, 1964 [nec Microplitis varicolor Viereck, 1917]; 4) Three names amended are Apanteles irenecarrilloae Fernandez-Triana, 2014, Cotesia ayerzai (Brèthes, 1920), and Cotesia riverai (Porter, 1916); 5) Seven species have their status revised: Cotesia arctica (Thomson, 1895), Cotesia okamotoi (Watanabe, 1921), Cotesia ukrainica (Tobias, 1986), Dolichogenidea appellator (Telenga, 1949), Dolichogenidea murinanae (Capek & Zwölfer, 1957), Hypomicrogaster acarnas Nixon, 1965, and Nyereria nigricoxis (Wilkinson, 1932); 6) New combinations are given for 318 species: Alloplitis congensis, Alloplitis detractus, Apanteles asphondyliae, Apanteles braziliensis, Apanteles sulciscutis, Choeras aper, Choeras apollion, Choeras daphne, Choeras fomes, Choeras gerontius, Choeras helle, Choeras irates, Choeras libanius, Choeras longiterebrus, Choeras loretta, Choeras recusans, Choeras sordidus, Choeras stenoterga, Choeras superbus, Choeras sylleptae, Choeras vacillatrix, Choeras vacillatropsis, Choeras venilia, Cotesia asavari, Cotesia bactriana, Cotesia bambeytripla, Cotesia berberidis, Cotesia bhairavi, Cotesia biezankoi, Cotesia bifida, Cotesia caligophagus, Cotesia cheesmanae, Cotesia compressithorax, Cotesia delphinensis, Cotesia effrena, Cotesia euphobetri, Cotesia elaeodes, Cotesia endii, Cotesia euthaliae, Cotesia exelastisae, Cotesia hiberniae, Cotesia hyperion, Cotesia hypopygialis, Cotesia hypsipylae, Cotesia jujubae, Cotesia lesbiae, Cotesia levigaster, Cotesia lizeri, Cotesia malevola, Cotesia malshri, Cotesia menezesi, Cotesia muzaffarensis, Cotesia neptisis, Cotesia nycteus, Cotesia oeceticola, Cotesia oppidicola, Cotesia opsiphanis, Cotesia pachkuriae, Cotesia paludicolae, Cotesia parbhanii, Cotesia parvicornis, Cotesia pratapae, Cotesia prozorovi, Cotesia pterophoriphagus, Cotesia radiarytensis, Cotesia rangii, Cotesia riverai, Cotesia ruficoxis, Cotesia senegalensis, Cotesia seyali, Cotesia sphenarchi, Cotesia sphingivora, Cotesia transuta, Cotesia turkestanica, Diolcogaster abengouroui, Diolcogaster agama, Diolcogaster ambositrensis, Diolcogaster anandra, Diolcogaster annulata, Diolcogaster bambeyi, Diolcogaster bicolorina, Diolcogaster cariniger, Diolcogaster cincticornis, Diolcogaster cingulata, Diolcogaster coronata, Diolcogaster coxalis, Diolcogaster dipika, Diolcogaster earina, Diolcogaster epectina, Diolcogaster epectinopsis, Diolcogaster grangeri, Diolcogaster heterocera, Diolcogaster homocera, Diolcogaster indica, Diolcogaster insularis, Diolcogaster kivuana, Diolcogaster mediosulcata, Diolcogaster megaulax, Diolcogaster neglecta, Diolcogaster nigromacula, Diolcogaster palpicolor, Diolcogaster persimilis, Diolcogaster plecopterae, Diolcogaster plutocongoensis, Diolcogaster psilocnema, Diolcogaster rufithorax, Diolcogaster semirufa, Diolcogaster seyrigi, Diolcogaster subtorquata, Diolcogaster sulcata, Diolcogaster torquatiger, Diolcogaster tristiculus, Diolcogaster turneri, Diolcogaster vulcana, Diolcogaster wittei, Distatrix anthedon, Distatrix cerales, Distatrix cuspidalis, Distatrix euproctidis, Distatrix flava, Distatrix geometrivora, Distatrix maia, Distatrix tookei, Distatrix termina, Distatrix simulissima, Dolichogenidea agamedes, Dolichogenidea aluella, Dolichogenidea argiope, Dolichogenidea atreus, Dolichogenidea bakeri, Dolichogenidea basiflava, Dolichogenidea bersa, Dolichogenidea biplagae, Dolichogenidea bisulcata, Dolichogenidea catonix, Dolichogenidea chrysis, Dolichogenidea coffea, Dolichogenidea coretas, Dolichogenidea cyane, Dolichogenidea diaphantus, Dolichogenidea diparopsidis, Dolichogenidea dryas, Dolichogenidea earterus, Dolichogenidea ensiger, Dolichogenidea eros, Dolichogenidea evadne, Dolichogenidea falcator, Dolichogenidea gelechiidivoris, Dolichogenidea gobica, Dolichogenidea hyalinis, Dolichogenidea iriarte, Dolichogenidea lakhaensis, Dolichogenidea lampe, Dolichogenidea laspeyresiella, Dolichogenidea latistigma, Dolichogenidea lebene, Dolichogenidea lucidinervis, Dolichogenidea malacosomae, Dolichogenidea maro, Dolichogenidea mendosae, Dolichogenidea monticola, Dolichogenidea nigra, Dolichogenidea olivierellae, Dolichogenidea parallelis, Dolichogenidea pelopea, Dolichogenidea pelops, Dolichogenidea phaenna, Dolichogenidea pisenor, Dolichogenidea roepkei, Dolichogenidea scabra, Dolichogenidea statius, Dolichogenidea stenotelas, Dolichogenidea striata, Dolichogenidea wittei, Exoryza asotae, Exoryza belippicola, Exoryza hylas, Exoryza megagaster, Exoryza oryzae, Glyptapanteles aggestus, Glyptapanteles agynus, Glyptapanteles aithos, Glyptapanteles amenophis, Glyptapanteles antarctiae, Glyptapanteles anubis, Glyptapanteles arginae, Glyptapanteles argus, Glyptapanteles atylana, Glyptapanteles badgleyi, Glyptapanteles bataviensis, Glyptapanteles bistonis, Glyptapanteles borocerae, Glyptapanteles cacao, Glyptapanteles cadei, Glyptapanteles cinyras, Glyptapanteles eryphanidis, Glyptapanteles euproctisiphagus, Glyptapanteles eutelus, Glyptapanteles fabiae, Glyptapanteles fulvigaster, Glyptapanteles fuscinervis, Glyptapanteles gahinga, Glyptapanteles globatus, Glyptapanteles glyphodes, Glyptapanteles guierae, Glyptapanteles horus, Glyptapanteles intricatus, Glyptapanteles lamprosemae, Glyptapanteles lefevrei, Glyptapanteles leucotretae, Glyptapanteles lissopleurus, Glyptapanteles madecassus, Glyptapanteles marquesi, Glyptapanteles melanotus, Glyptapanteles melissus, Glyptapanteles merope, Glyptapanteles naromae, Glyptapanteles nepitae, Glyptapanteles nigrescens, Glyptapanteles ninus, Glyptapanteles nkuli, Glyptapanteles parasundanus, Glyptapanteles penelope, Glyptapanteles penthocratus, Glyptapanteles philippinensis, Glyptapanteles philocampus, Glyptapanteles phoebe, Glyptapanteles phytometraduplus, Glyptapanteles propylae, Glyptapanteles puera, Glyptapanteles seydeli, Glyptapanteles siderion, Glyptapanteles simus, Glyptapanteles speciosissimus, Glyptapanteles spilosomae, Glyptapanteles subpunctatus, Glyptapanteles thespis, Glyptapanteles thoseae, Glyptapanteles venustus, Glyptapanteles wilkinsoni, Hypomicrogaster samarshalli, Iconella cajani, Iconella detrectans, Iconella jason, Iconella lynceus, Iconella pyrene, Iconella tedanius, Illidops azamgarhensis, Illidops lamprosemae, Illidops trabea, Keylimepie striatus, Microplitis adisurae, Microplitis mexicanus, Neoclarkinella ariadne, Neoclarkinella curvinervus, Neoclarkinella sundana, Nyereria ituriensis, Nyereria nioro, Nyereria proagynus, Nyereria taoi, Nyereria vallatae, Parapanteles aethiopicus, Parapanteles alternatus, Parapanteles aso, Parapanteles atellae, Parapanteles bagicha, Parapanteles cleo, Parapanteles cyclorhaphus, Parapanteles demades, Parapanteles endymion, Parapanteles epiplemicidus, Parapanteles expulsus, Parapanteles fallax, Parapanteles folia, Parapanteles furax, Parapanteles hemitheae, Parapanteles hyposidrae, Parapanteles indicus, Parapanteles javensis, Parapanteles jhaverii, Parapanteles maculipalpis, Parapanteles maynei, Parapanteles neocajani, Parapanteles neohyblaeae, Parapanteles nydia, Parapanteles prosper, Parapanteles prosymna, Parapanteles punctatissimus, Parapanteles regalis, Parapanteles sarpedon, Parapanteles sartamus, Parapanteles scultena, Parapanteles transvaalensis, Parapanteles turri, Parapanteles xanthopholis, Pholetesor acutus, Pholetesor brevivalvatus, Pholetesor extentus, Pholetesor ingenuoides, Pholetesor kuwayamai, Promicrogaster apidanus, Promicrogaster briareus, Promicrogaster conopiae, Promicrogaster emesa, Promicrogaster grandicula, Promicrogaster orsedice, Promicrogaster repleta, Promicrogaster typhon, Sathon bekilyensis, Sathon flavofacialis, Sathon laurae, Sathon mikeno, Sathon ruandanus, Sathon rufotestaceus, Venanides astydamia, Venanides demeter, Venanides parmula, and Venanides symmysta.
