Suchergebnisse

For the first time in twelve years, Venezuela sees real prospects for political change with the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for 28 July. Although the electoral process has been plagued by numerous and serious irregularities, the political opposition led by María Corina Machado and the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, a former diplomat who has been allowed by the government to participate, has a clear chance of winning. In fact, more than 80 per cent of the Venezuelan population expects a change of government, according to the latest polls.[1]The background: Economic collapse and human rights violations
In its eleven years of government, Nicolás Maduro has led Venezuela to the worst crisis in its history, which is why popular discontent is so widespread. The economy has suffered a 74 per cent contraction between 2013-2023[2] and a protracted hyperinflationary process, exceeding 500 per cent annually between 2016-2021.[3] The country's minimum wage fell to 3.5 US dollars a month in 2024,[4] causing poverty levels to reach 80 per cent in 2023,[5] and 7.7 million Venezuelans left the country between 2016-2024.[6] Meanwhile oil production – the country's main source of income – has fallen from 3 million barrels a day in 2013[7] to 800,000 barrels in 2024,[8] signalling a collapse of the country's production capacities.[9] In parallel, under the "Anti-Blockade Law" of 2020,[10] the government enshrined secrecy as a rule for the public administration, transferring countless state businesses and companies to businessmen and operators among its political allies,[11] to the detriment of the national economy.[12] Maduro has arguably acted as Boris Yeltsin's government did in Russia between 1991-1999, creating a class of 'oligarchs' who support him in power. Therefore, the US sanctions imposed on the country in 2019[13] have only further aggravated Venezuela's economic predicament; but they are not the origin of the country's crisis.
In parallel, the violation of human rights has further complicated the political situation in the country. Both the Office of the UN High Commissioner[14] and the UN Human Rights Council[15] have denounced the perpetration of serious human rights violations in Venezuela as a state policy,[16] with the justice system – the Attorney General's Office and the judicial power – acting as an instrument of political persecution.[17] Against this backdrop, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has initiated an investigation for crimes against humanity that directly involve President Maduro and senior government officials.[18]The government's manipulation of the electoral process
Amidst this profound political and economic crisis, the government is obliged by the Constitution to hold a presidential election, in which the oppositions have decided to participate united.[19]
Since this scenario is politically risky for the government, measures to control the electoral process and outcome have been introduced. In August 2017, after the election of the Constituent Assembly, Smartmatic, the company in charge of Venezuela's automated electoral system, denounced that the National Electoral Council (CNE) issued different results from those in the company's system;[20] subsequently, the government cancelled Smartmatic's contract and awarded responsibility for the system to an unknown company without experience. Furthermore, between 2015-2023, through the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), the government judicially intervened against the different opposition parties, including left-wing parties.[21] In 2023, the government forced the resignation of the Directors of the CNE[22] to nominate a well-known political ally at its head – the same individual who, acting as a Comptroller General, had issued more than 150 political disqualifications between 2019 and August 2023.[23] Finally, in January 2024, the Maduro administration dismissed the President of the TSJ and appointed another ally to head it.[24]
These new officers, both in the TSJ and the CNE, ratified the political disqualifications issued since 2019 against political leaders who aspired to compete in the 2024 election, whether they were Chavistas, such as myself,[25] or members of the traditional opposition.[26]
To further manipulate the process, the government moved forward the date of the election, which was originally supposed to be held in December (to fulfil the constitutional period of six years), and scheduled it for 28 July (the birthday of the late President Chávez), thereby seeking to gain the support of pro-Chávez voters. More importantly, this change in dates has prevented the different opposition forces from preparing properly for the electoral campaign. Finally, the Permanent Electoral Registry (REP) was allowed to register new voters only for a few days,[27] also obstructing the registration and change of address of those who live abroad. The latter is a fundamental aspect, since, due to the mass migration outside the country in recent years, it is estimated that there are at least 3 million expatriate voters – for which only 508 new voters and 6,000 address changes were registered, using all kinds of absurd obstacles and requirements.[28]The violation of the Barbados Agreement and its consequences
Through the most recent manipulation measures, the government of Nicolás Maduro violated the terms of the negotiations and agreements undertaken with the US Administration, which had also been endorsed by the Venezuelan opposition (PUD), known as the "Barbados Agreement".[29] The Agreement, signed on 17 October 2023, entailed a commitment by the government to allow free and fair elections and not to disqualify opposition candidates.
As part of the Agreement, prisoners were exchanged and the sanctions against Venezuela were lifted. The US released Colombian businessman Álex Saab,[30] closely linked to Nicolás Maduro, while the government of Venezuela freed twelve US prisoners.[31] On 18 October, the Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lifted the US sanctions[32] imposed on the oil and financial sector of Venezuela in 2019.[33]
However, following the subsequent ratification of political disqualifications and the new wave of repression and political arrests by the Maduro government,[34] the US government warned that, if previous agreements were not fulfilled, it would restore sanctions on Venezuela.[35] The Maduro government responded defiantly. Finally, on 13 February, Juan González, special assistant to the White House responsible for negotiations with the Venezuelan government, announced his "resignation", because of the failure of the Biden Administration's strategy towards the Maduro government.[36]
Finally, two months later, on 17 April, the White House re-imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector[37] that became effective as of 31 May, issuing OFAC License 44A.[38] The decision dealt a severe blow to Maduro's aspirations to "normalize" relations with the United States, internationally legitimize his government and attempt to relaunch the country's derelict oil industry.
The immediate effect of the re-imposition of sanctions will translate into the inability to increase Venezuela's oil production and exports. This will deprive the government of resources from oil revenues, which are essential to stabilise, at least temporarily, the economy and show some comfort to the population in the run-up to the election. But the greatest impact will be on the international players in the oil market, discouraging their participation or investments in the sector. Notably, this is due not only to the risk of being subject to sanctions, but also to the lack of transparency in the legal framework: after the approval of the "Anti-Blockade Law" and the disapplication of the Organic Law of Hydrocarbons, international companies, such as French Total, Norwegian Equinor, Japanese INPEX and even Russian Rosneft, stopped oil operations in Venezuela between 2020 and 2021.[39]A campaign of its own kind
Even though strong doubts remain that the government will really hand over power as a result of an unfavourable outcome in the election, the voting intention is quite high among Venezuelan citizens, currently at over 70 per cent, and popular participation in the electoral mobilizations organized by the oppositions have exceeded all expectations.
Nicolás Maduro, at a political event on 4 February, after having denounced another alleged conspiracy against him – which caused a new wave of political arrests[40] – declared that he "will win by hook or by crook" the upcoming election.[41] In a similar vein, other officials of the Venezuelan government, such as the Minister of Defence Vladimir Padrino López[42] and Diosdado Cabello,[43] Deputy Head of the ruling PSUV party, hinted at the fact that they will not accept an election victory by the opposition.
These very serious statements, which add up to the aforementioned irregularities and the lack of impartiality of TSJ and CNE, cast disturbing doubts on the possibility of free and transparent elections being really held; and, even worse, on whether the government is truly willing to hand over power in case of an electoral defeat, as all polls suggest.
Meanwhile, the leadership of María Corina Machado, a radical exponent of the right-wing opposition, has been greatly strengthened in the country. Although she was not authorised to enter the election, she is organizing rallies all over the country, gathering thousands of people, campaigning for the unitary opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
For his part, Maduro does not expose himself to being in open spaces, due to the widespread rejection and low support he generates among the population. Indeed, he always appears in controlled spaces surrounded by security and is depicted in close shots and images. The campaign and the mobilisation of the electoral apparatus supporting the government are primarily led by other political actors of Madurismo, and are able to gather only limited crowds compared with those of Maria Corina Machado's rallies. Overall, it is a strange campaign, in which the presidential candidates do not participate directly.
Through the campaign, what prevails among the population is boredom, fatigue and rejection of the incumbent government. Overall Venezuelan people seem to be willing to vote for whomever is able to remove Maduro from power.Looking beyond 28 July
The short-term scenarios are far from clear. The polls and mass opposition mobilisations suggest that Maduro will be defeated electorally.
The government, if it feels cornered, may still try to prevent Edmundo González's candidacy from materialising by means of political disqualification, using the CNE or the TSJ; it may also try to suspend the electoral process using a military provocation with Guyana as an excuse, over which it has hardened its rhetoric in recent months.[44]
In the event that the election is really held and there is majority support for the opposition, the government can still resort to electoral fraud, as it controls the entire process, and Maduro can proclaim himself the winner. This is especially important because the electoral process is not under international electoral monitoring: the CNE rejected the observation mission of the European Union, and other countries such as Brazil and Colombia stated that, due to lack of time, they will not be able organise their own missions, while the UN is still evaluating whether to send an electoral mission to Venezuela. Today more than ever, international support is essential to accompany the upcoming election and the country's political process.
Should vote rigging occur, there could be a massive popular mobilisation against it, as María Corina Machado has called to go "all the way in", suggesting that she is not willing to accept frauds. In this scenario, the role of the armed forces – whether they would support Maduro or not – would be crucial, as well as that of the international community in preventing political turmoil.
Should Maduro, and those who have surrounded him in these eleven years of government, accept their defeat and hand over power to the opposition, there are still six months to wait until the new government takes office, as according to the Constitution this must take place in January 2025. In other words, the country will face a period of tremendous uncertainty and likely destabilisation.
If a new government is installed, presided over by González Urrutia, but under the strong influence of María Corina Machado, with a right-wing shock programme, it remains to be seen whether the "transition" will be possible and whether such an administration will be able to govern the country, avoiding violence and destabilisation, and perhaps even a coup d'état.
In any possible scenario, the big questions will be about the role of the military, which until now has been fundamental in supporting Maduro's government, and the capacity of the different political forces of the opposition to reach an inclusive national agreement with the participation of those broad sectors of real Chavismo that are opposed to Maduro. A political agreement will be essential to return to the true spirit of the Constitution, re-establish the rule of law and address the immense needs of the population.Rafael Ramírez is former Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister (2014) and UN Ambassador (2014-2017); Venezuelan Oil Minister and CEO of PDVSA (2002-2014).[1] Meganalisis, Encuesta CATI Meganálisis. Verdad Venezuela abril 2024, May 2024, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tSReQeVZHrfA8aaYCP77026nz2x2WoDi/view?usp=drive_link.[2] Statista, Venezuela: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Current Prices from 1985 to 2025, April 2024, https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876.[3] Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), "República Bolivariana de Venezuela", in Estudio Económico de América Latina y el Caribe 2023, November 2023, https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/18052be0-dcaf-448b-b02e-5244cd422b66/content.[4] AFP, "Maduro Keeps Venezuela Minimum Wage Frozen but Raises Bonuses", in Barron's, 2 May 2024, https://www.barrons.com/news/maduro-keeps-venezuela-minimum-wage-frozen-but-raises-bonuses-97bc6ae3.[5] Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Encovi 2023 | Encuesta nacional de condiciones de vida 2023, March 2024, https://assets.website-files.com/5d14c6a5c4ad42a4e794d0f7/65f8aa0a4054c8b7a93fe274_Presentacio%CC%81n%20ENCOVI%202023%20integrada%20prensa%20v1303%20(1).pdf.[6] Regional Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants of Venezuela (R4V), Refugees and Migrants in the Region, May 2024, 3 June 2024, https://www.r4v.info/en/node/91585.[7] Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), Estados financieros consolidados, 31 de diciembre de 2013, 2012 y 2011, con el Informe de los contadores públicos independientes, 2013, p. 96, http://www.pdvsa.com/images/pdf/RELACION%20CON%20INVERSIONISTAS/Estados%20Financieros/2013/Estados%20Financieros%20Consolidados%20al%2031%20de%20diciembre%20de%202013%202012%202011.PDF.[8] Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Monthly Oil Market Report, 11 June 2024, https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/publications/338.htm.[9] Rafael Ramírez, "El colapso de la industria petrolera", in RafaelRamirez.net, 22 September 2020, https://www.rafaelramirez.net/?p=5602.[10] Venezuela, "Ley constitucional antibloqueo para el desarrollo nacional y la garantía de los derechos humanos", in Gaceta Oficial de la Républica Bolivariana de Venezuela, No. 6,583 (12 October 2020), http://spgoin.imprentanacional.gob.ve/cgi-win/be_alex.cgi?Documento=T028700033940/0&Nombrebd=spgoin&CodAsocDoc=2307&Sesion=2023551607.[11] Regina García Cano and Joshua Goodman, "Shadowy Brokers Walk Off with Billions in Venezuelan Oil", in AP News, 31 March 2023, https://apnews.com/article/e4bb5d055f16eae94c9bcec6c7a6dbf5; "Las empresas de Alex Saab y Álvaro Pulido se habrían quedado con 1.500 millones de dólares de PDVSA", in Semana, 15 April 2023, https://www.semana.com/mundo/articulo/la-huella-de-alex-saab-en-el-millonario-desfalco-a-pdvsa-la-petrolera-estatal-venezolana/202323.[12] Marianna Parraga, "Exclusive: Middlemen Have Left Venezuela's PDVSA with $21.2 Billion in Unpaid Bills", in Reuters, 21 March 2023, http://reut.rs/3yZF03r.[13] White House, Executive Order 13857: Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency with Respect to Venezuela, 25 January 2019, https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-order/13857.[14] UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), Situation of Human Rights in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (A/HRC/50/59), 12 August 2022, https://undocs.org/A/HRC/50/59.[15] UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (A/HRC/54/57), 11 December 2023, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/54/57.[16] OHCHR, Human Rights in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (A/HRC/41/18), 9 October 2019, https://undocs.org/A/HRC/41/18.[17] OHCHR, Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (A/HRC/48/69), 28 December 2021, https://undocs.org/A/HRC/48/69.[18] Human Rights Watch, Venezuela: ICC Investigation Opens, 3 November 2021, https://www.hrw.org/node/378814.[19] On 3 May 2018, the alliance of traditional opposition parties (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD) called to abstain in the presidential election of 20 May; "Alianza opositora llama a la abstención en presidenciales venezolanas", in France 24, 3 May 2018, https://www.france24.com/es/20180503-alianza-opositora-llama-la-abstencion-en-presidenciales-venezolanas.[20] Smartmatic, Smartmatic Announces Cease of Operations in Venezuela, 6 March 2018, https://www.smartmatic.com/us/media/smartmatic-announces-cease-of-operations-in-venezuela.[21] People's Electoral Movement, 15 May 2014; Min-Unit, 6 August 2015; COPEI, 30 June 2016; Venezuelan Ecological Movement, 4 July 2018; Democratic Action, 15 June 2020; First Justice, 17 June 2020; Popular Will, 7 July 2020; Motion Republican, 23 July 2020; Tupamaro, 19 August 2020; Homeland for All, 21 August 2020; New Vision of my Country, 22 August 2020; Country Commitment, 25 August 2020; Communist Party of Venezuela, 11 August 2023.[22] "Renuncia el último rector principal de ente electoral de Venezuela cercano a la oposición", in Deutsche Welle, 20 June 2023, https://www.dw.com/es/a-65982882.[23] Elvis Amoroso was a deputy to the National Assembly for the ruling party in 2006. In October 2018, he was appointed Comptroller of the Republic.[24] On 26 April 2022, Caryslia Rodríguez was appointed magistrate of TSJ and president of the Electoral Chamber. On 17 January 2024, as the new president of the TSJ, she ratified the disqualification of Machado.[25] Venezuela National Assembly, AN recibe al Contralor General de la República, 4 March 2021, https://www.asambleanacional.gob.ve/noticias/an-recibe-al-contralor-general-de-la-republica; EFE, "La Contraloría venezolana inhabilitó a 150 funcionarios entre 2019 y 2020", in Swissinfo, 4 March 2021, https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/la-contraloría-venezolana-inhabilitó-a-150-funcionarios-entre-2019-y-2020.[26] In October 2023, the Supreme Court of Justice disqualified opponents Henrique Capriles and María Corina Machado.[27] "Cierra el plazo para la inscripción de votantes en Venezuela", in EFE, 17 April 2024, https://wp.me/pdaKzp-4lXw.[28] Transparencia Electoral, Rumbo a las elecciones presidenciales de Venezuela: ¿Qué pasó esta semana? (29 de abril al 03 de mayo 2024), 3 May 2024, https://transparenciaelectoral.org/?p=10427.[29] "El Gobierno de Venezuela y la oposición firman un acuerdo de garantías para las presidenciales de 2024", in EFE, 17 October 2023, https://wp.me/pdaKzp-2XMb.[30] "Alex Saab: Cabo Verde entrega a Estados Unidos al empresario vinculado al gobierno de Nicolás Maduro y acusado de corrupción", in BBC News, 16 October 2021, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-58942596.[31] "Estados Unidos acuerda liberar a Álex Saab a cambio de 36 presos en Venezuela", in France 24, 20 December 2023, https://www.france24.com/es/américa-latina/20231220-estados-unidos-acuerda-liberar-a-Álex-saab-a-cambio-de-36-presos-en-venezuela.[32] "EE.UU. levanta sanciones sobre petróleo y gas a Venezuela", in Deutsche Welle, 19 October 2023, https://www.dw.com/es/a-67144136.[33] US Department of the Treasury, Issuance of Venezuela-related General Licenses and Associated Frequently Asked Questions, 18 October 2023, https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20231018_44.[34] Ibis León, "Detenciones a dirigentes políticos en Venezuela: así es el patrón represivo", in Efecto Cocuyo, 17 December 2023, https://wp.me/p6JdTn-2olw.[35] US Department of State, Venezuelan Supreme Court Rulings and the Barbados Agreement, 27 January 2024, https://www.state.gov/venezuelan-supreme-court-rulings-and-the-barbados-agreement.[36] Eric Martin and Patricia Laya, "Biden's Top Latin America Adviser Juan Gonzalez to Step Down", in Bloomberg, 13 February 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/biden-top-latin-america-adviser-juan-gonzalez-planning-to-depart.[37] Jennifer Hansler and Osmary Hernandez, "US to Reimpose Sanctions on Venezuela's Oil and Gas Sector", in CNN, 17 April 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/17/politics/us-reimpose-oil-sanctions-venezuela/index.html.[38] US Department of the Treasury, Issuance of Venezuela-related General License and Associated Frequently Asked Questions, 17 April 2024, https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20240417.[39] Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Olesya Astakhova, "Rosneft Sells Venezuelan Assets to Russia after U.S. Sanctions Ramp Up", in Reuters, 29 March 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21G02O; Mariela Nava, Marianna Parraga and Deisy Buitrago, "Focus: Venezuela's Oil Partners Head for the Exit, Forgoing Unpaid Debt", in Reuters, 27 October 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuelas-oil-partners-head-exit-forgoing-unpaid-debt-2022-10-27.[40] Between January and April 2024, arrest warrants were issued against civilians and members of the military accused of "conspiring" against Nicolás Maduro. Alicia Hernández, "La ola de detenciones a activistas y a críticos del gobierno de Venezuela que recrudece el conflicto político", in BBC News, 13 February 2024, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cy6ey29200no; "Venezuela Arrests Activist for Alleged Links to Maduro Assassination Attempt", in Reuters, 16 April 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-arrests-activist-alleged-links-maduro-assassination-attempt-2024-04-16.[41] "'Vamos a ganar por las buenas o por las malas', dice Maduro", in Deutsche Welle, 4 February 2024, https://www.dw.com/es/a-68170506.[42] Vladimir Padrino (@vladimirpadrino), "La Ley Orgánica para la Defensa de la Guayana Esequiba establece en su artículo 25 que quienes hayan tenido conductas que de manera 'directa o indirecta' apoyaran la posición de Guyana en la controversia territorial, no podrán optar a cargos de elección popular", X post, 26 April 2024, https://x.com/vladimirpadrino/status/1783867416205795330.[43] "'Si quieren calle, vamos a la calle': Diosdado Cabello insiste en que el chavismo no saldrá del poder", in El Nacional, 14 June 2023, https://www.elnacional.com/venezuela/ni-por-las-buenas-ni-por-las-malas-diosdado-cabello-reitera-que-la-oposicion-no-gobernara-el-pais.[44] Rafael Ramírez, "Venezuela-Guyana Dispute over Essequibo", in IAI Commentaries, No. 24|07 (February 2024), https://www.iai.it/en/node/18122.

Not Available ; The land resource inventory of Naregallu-1 microwatershed was conducted using village cadastral maps and IRS satellite imagery on 1:7920 scale. The false colour composites of IRS imagery were interpreted for physiography and these physiographic delineations were used as base for mapping soils. The soils were studied in several transects and a soil map was prepared with phases of soil series as mapping units. Random checks were made all over the area outside the transects to confirm and validate the soil map unit boundaries. The soil map shows the geographic distribution and extent, characteristics, classification, behavior and use potentials of the soils in the microwatershed. The present study covers an area of 869 ha in Koppal taluk and district, Karnataka. The climate is semiarid and categorized as drought - prone with an average annual rainfall of 662 mm, of which about 424 mm is received during south–west monsoon, 161 mm during north-east and the remaining 77 mm during the rest of the year. An area of 89 per cent is covered by soils and 11 per cent is by habitation and settlements. The salient findings from the land resource inventory are summarized briefly below.  The soils belong to 16 soil series and 29 soil phases (management units) and 5 Land Management Units.  The length of crop growing period is 150 cm).  About 7 per cent area in the microwatershed has loamy soils and 82 per cent clayey soils at the surface.  About 70 per cent area has non-gravelly (200 mm/m) in available water capacity.  About 19 per cent area of the microwatershed has nearly level (0-1% slope) lands and 70 per cent area of the microwatershed has very gently sloping (1-3% slope) lands.  An area of about 31 per cent area is moderately (e2) eroded and about 58 per cent area is slightly (e1) eroded.  An area of about 77 per cent soil are moderately alkaline to strongly alkaline (pH 7.8-9.0) and an area of about 12 per cent soil are very strongly alkaline (pH >9.0) in soil reaction.  The Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the soils in the entire cultivated area of the microwatershed is dominantly 0.75%) in 11 per cent area.  An area of about 81 per cent is medium (23-57 kg/ha) and 8 per cent is low (>23 kg/ha) in available phosphorus.  An area of about 37 per cent is medium (145-337 kg/ha) and 52 per cent is high (>337 kg/ha) in available potassium.  Available sulphur is low (20 ppm) in 7 per cent area of the microwatershed.  An area of about 46 per cent is low (4.5 ppm) and 39 per cent is deficient (1.0 ppm) in available manganese content.  Entire cultivated area of the microwatershed is sufficient (>0.2 ppm) in available copper content.  An area of about 53 per cent is deficient (0.6 ppm) in available zinc content.  The land suitability for 31 major crops grown in the microwatershed was assessed and the areas that are highly suitable (S1) and moderately suitable (S2) are given below. It is however to be noted that a given soil may be suitable for various crops but what specific crop to be grown may be decided by the farmer looking to his capacity to invest on various inputs, marketing infrastructure, market price and finally the demand and supply position. Land suitability for various crops in the microwatershed Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Highly suitable (S1) Moderately suitable (S2) Highly suitable (S1) Moderately suitable (S2) Sorghum 225(26) 540(62) Sapota 116(13) 18(2) Maize 80(9) 648(75) Pomegranate 116(13) 506(58) Bajra 116(13) 622(72) Guava 116(13) 18(2) Groundnut 61(7) 129(15) Jackfruit 116(13) 18(2) Sunflower 187(22) 434(50) Jamun 61(7) 473(54) Cotton 173(20) 592(68) Musambi 187(22) 434(50) Red gram 116(13) 463(53) Lime 187(22) 434(50) Bengalgram 162(19) 603(69) Cashew 133(15) - Chilli 116(13) 128(15) Custard apple 270(31) 496(57) Tomato 116(13) 112(13) Amla 133(15) 632(73) Brinjal 97(11) 610(70) Tamarind 61(7) 474(54) Onion 97(11) 36(4) Marigold 116(13) 649(75) Bhendi 97(11) 573(66) Chrysanthemum 116(13) 649(75) Drumstick 133(15) 488(56) Jasmine 116(13) 199(23) Mulberry 133(15) 286(33) Crossandra 116(13) 249(29) Mango 61(7) 75(9)  Apart from the individual crop suitability, a proposed crop plan has been prepared for the 5 identified LMUs by considering only the highly and moderately suitable lands for different crops and cropping systems with food, fodder, fibre and other horticulture crops.  Maintaining soil-health is vital for crop production and conserve soil and land resource base for maintaining ecological balance and to mitigate climate change. For this, several ameliorative measures have been suggested for these problematic soils like saline/alkali, highly eroded, sandy soils etc.,  Soil and water conservation treatment plan has been prepared that would help in identifying the sites to be treated and also the type of structures required.  As part of the greening programme, several tree species have been suggested to be planted in marginal and submarginal lands, field bunds and also in the hillocks, mounds and ridges. That would help in supplementing the farm income, provide fodder and fuel, and generate lot of biomass which in turn would help in maintaining the ecological balance and contribute to mitigating the climate change. SALIENT FEATURES OF THE SURVEY  The results indicated that 35 farmers were sampled in Naregallu-1 micro watershed among them 11 (31.43%) were marginal farmers, 9 (25.71 %) were small and semi medium farmers, 4 (11.43 %) were medium farmers and 2 (5.71 %) large farmers.  The data indicated that there were 181 population households were there in the studied micro watershed. Among them 111 (61.33 %) men and 70 (38.67 %) were women. The average family size of marginal, small farmers and semi medium farmers were 5, medium farmer was 6 and large farmer was 7.  The data indicated that 23 (12.71%) people were in 0-15 years of age, 88 (48.62 %) were in 16-35 years of age, 50 (27.62 %) were in 36-60 years of age and 20 (11.05 %) were above 61 years of age. The results indicated that, 97.14 per cent of household's heads were practicing agriculture and 2.86 per cent of the household heads were agricultural labour.  The results indicated that the Naregallu-1had 28.18 per cent illiterates, 29.83 per cent of them had primary school education, 1.10 per cent of them had middle school, 25.41 per cent them had high school education, 6.08 per cent of them had PUC education, 0.55 per cent them had diploma education, 7.73 per cent of them had degree education and 1.10 per cent of the household members had other education.  The results indicated that agriculture was the occupation for 23.76 per cent of the household members, 59.67 per cent were agricultural labourers, 14.36 per them were students and 1.10 per cent of them were children and housewives respectively. In case of marginal farmers 26 per cent were agriculturist, 60 percent was in agricultural labour and 12 per cent of them were students. In case of small farmers 22 per cent of them were agriculturist, 60 per cent of them were agricultural labour and 16 per cent of them were students. In case of semi medium farmers 23.81 per cent of the family members were agriculturist, 54.76 per cent of them were agricultural labour and 19.05 per cent of them were students. In case of medium farmers 25 per cent of the family members were agriculturist, 62.50 per cent of them were in agricultural labour and 12.50 per cent of them were students. In case of large farmers 20 per cent of the family members were agriculturist, 66.67 per cent of them were in agricultural labour and 6.67 per cent of them were students.  The results showed that 100 per cent of them have not participated in any local institutions.  The results indicated that 97.14 per cent of the households possess Katcha house and 2.86 per cent of the households possess Pucca house.  The results showed that, 91.43 per cent of the households possess TV, 5.71 per cent of the households possess DVD player, 74.29 per cent of the households possess Mixer grinder, 11.43 per cent of the households possess refrigerator, 11.43 per cent of the households possess bicycle, 85.71 per cent of the households possess motor 2 cycle, 2.86 per cent of the households possess Car, 2.86 per cent of the households possess landline phone, 85.71 per cent of the households possess mobile phones and 2.86 per cent of the households possess computer/laptop.  The results showed that the average value, television was Rs.23281, DVD/VCD Player was Rs. 1600, mixer grinder was Rs.1903, refrigerator was Rs.11000, bicycle was Rs.1050, motor cycle was Rs.32882, Car was Rs. 300000, landline phone was Rs. 500, mobile phone was Rs.1507 and computer/laptop was Rs. 12500.  The results showed that, about 8.57 per cent of the households possess bullock cart, 22.86 per cent of them possess plough, 2.86 per cent of the households equally possess seed/fertilizer drill, power tiller, tractor, thresher, groundnut decorticator, chaff cutter and earth remover/duster, 11.43 per cent of the households possess irrigation pump, 14.29 per cent of the households possess sprayer, 5.71 per cent of the households possess sprinkler, 51.43 per cent of the households possess weeder and 20 per cent of the households possess harvester.  The results showed that the average value of bullock cart was Rs.26666; the average value of plough was Rs. 2200, the average value of seed/fertilizer drill was Rs.3500, the average value of irrigation pump was Rs. 273250, the average value of power tiller was Rs. 150000, the average value of tractor was Rs. 300000, the average value of sprayer was Rs. 2600, the average value of sprinkler was Rs. 3000, the average value of weeder was Rs. 42, the average value of harvester was Rs. 74, the average value of thresher was Rs. 25, the average value of groundnut decorticator was Rs. 18000, the average value of chaff cutter was Rs. 2100 and the average value of Earth remover/Duster was Rs. 20000.  The results indicated that, 14.29 per cent of the households possess bullocks, 8.57 per cent of the households possess local cow, 14.29 per cent of the households possess crossbred cow and 5.71 per cent of the households possess buffalo.  In case of marginal farmers, 9.09 per cent of the households possess both bullock and local cow respectively and 18.18 per cent of the households possess crossbred cow. In case of small farmers, 22.22 per cent of households possess equally bullock and buffalo and 11.11 per cent possess local cow. In case of semi medium farmers, 11.11per cent of the households possess bullock and 22.22 per cent of the households possess crossbred cow. In medium farmers, 25 per cent of the households possess local cow. 50 per cent of the large farmers possess bullock and crossbred cow respectively.  The data regarding the average labour availability in Naregallu-1 micro watershed is presented in Table 14. The results indicated that, average own labour men available in the micro watershed was 1.91, average own labour (women) available was 1.18, average hired labour (men) available was 17.86 and average hired labour (women) available was 19.37. 3  In case of marginal farmers, average own labour men available was 2.09, average own labour (women) was also 1.18, average hired labour (men) was 9.18 and average hired labour (women) available was 11.18. In case of small farmers, average own labour men available was 2.22, average own labour (women) was 1.22, average hired labour (men) was 15.22 and average hired labour (women) available was 15.89. In case of semi medium farmers, average own labour men available was 1.44, average own labour (women) was 1.11, average hired labour (men) was 22.22 and average hired labour (women) available was also 22.22. In medium farmers average own labour men available was 1.75, average own labour (women) was 1.50, average hired labour (men) was 29.25 and average hired labour (women) available was 33. In large farmers average own labour men available was 2, average own labour (women) was 0, average hired labour (men) was 35 and average hired labour (women) available was 40.  The results indicated that, 5.71 per cent of the household opined that hired labour was adequate and 94.29 per cent of the household opined that hired labour was inadequate.  The results indicated that, households of the Naregallu-1 micro watershed possess 1.80 ha (3.75 %) of dry land and 46.27 ha (96.25 %) of irrigated land. Marginal farmers possess 1.80 ha (36.95 %) of dry land and 3.08 ha (63.05%) of irrigated land. Small farmers possess 7.17 ha (100 %) of irrigated land. Semi medium farmers possess 12.87 ha (100 %) of irrigated land. Medium farmers possess 10.07 ha (100%) of irrigated land and large farmers possess 13.07 ha (100%) of irrigated land.  The results indicated that, the average value of dry land was Rs. 443049.32 and average value of irrigated was Rs. 490456.62. In case of marginal famers, the average land value was Rs. 443049.32 for dry land and Rs. 1655321.93 for irrigated land. In case of small famers, the average land value was Rs. 1004178.43 for irrigated land. In case of semi medium famers, the average land value was Rs. 473656.08 for irrigated land. In case of medium famers, the average land value was Rs. 297709.93 for irrigated land. In large farmers the average land value was Rs. 99411.77 for irrigated land.  The results indicated that, there were 23 functioning and 3 de-functioning bore wells in the micro watershed.  The results indicated that, bore well was the major irrigation source for 65.71 per cent of the farmers and 5.71 per cent of the farmers were using canal for irrigation.  The results indicated that on an average the depth of the bore well was 68.88 meters.  The results indicated that, in case of marginal farmers there was 3.08 ha of irrigated land, in case of small farmers there was 7.17 ha of irrigated land, semi medium farmers were having 12.88 ha of irrigated land, medium farmers were having 10.06 4 ha of irrigated land and large farmers having 13.08 ha irrigated land. On an average there were 46.26 ha of irrigated land.  The results indicated that, farmers have grown coriander (0.40 ha), cotton (1.21 ha), cowpea (0.88 ha), groundnut (0.50ha), Sorghum (1.24 ha), maize (38.21 ha), paddy (0.81 ha), bajra (0.81 ha), red gram (1.62ha) and sunflower (2.98 ha) in kharif season. Also grown 2.27 ha of cowpea and 3.33 ha sunflower in Rabi season. Marginal farmers have grown coriander, groundnut, Maize, Bajra, cowpea and sunflower. Small farmers have grown cowpea and maize. Semi medium farmers have grown sorghum, maize, paddy, cowpea and sunflower. Medium farmers have grown cotton, maize and red gram. Large farmers have grown only maize.  The results indicated that, the cropping intensity in Naregallu-1 micro watershed was found to be 85.70 per cent. In case of marginal farmers it was 100 per cent, in small farmers it was 88.19, in semi medium farmers it was 87.80, in medium farmers it was 64.04 per cent and in large farmers it was 100 per cent.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for bajra was Rs. 36122.49. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 46683. The net income from bajra cultivation was Rs. 10560.51, thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.29.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for maize was Rs. 41582.91. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 62427.57. The net income from maize cultivation was Rs. 20844.65. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.5.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for paddy was Rs. 42196.36. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 42237.00. The net income from paddy cultivation was Rs. 40.64. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.0.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for Cowpea was Rs. 33136.50. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 22466.85. The net income from Cowpea cultivation was Rs. -10669.65. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:0.68.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for groundnut was Rs. 54187.89. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 96239.63. The net income from groundnut cultivation was Rs. 42051.74. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.78.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for Sunflower was Rs. 32861.40. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 51830.19. The net income from Sunflower cultivation was Rs. 18968.79. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.58.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for Sorghum was Rs. 20210.43. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 31377.85. The net income from Sorghum cultivation was Rs. 11167.42. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.55. 5  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for cotton was Rs. 60504.72. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 23053.33. The net income from cotton cultivation was Rs. -37451.39. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:0.38.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for coriander was Rs. 71385.06. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 111150. The net income from coriander cultivation was Rs. 39764.94. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.56.  The results indicated that, the total cost of cultivation for Red gram was Rs. 24308.69. The gross income realized by the farmers was Rs. 46312.50. The net income from Red gram cultivation was Rs. 22003.81. Thus the benefit cost ratio was found to be 1:1.91.  The results indicated that, 83 tons of dry fodder was available for 44 days and 46 tons of green fodder was available for 26 days in studied micro watershed.  The results indicated that, 2.86 per cent of the households opined that dry fodder was adequate and 22.86 per cent of the households opined that dry fodder was inadequate. Similarly 22.86 per cent of the households opined that green fodder was adequate and 2.86 per cent of the households opined that green fodder was inadequate.  The table indicated that the average income from service/salary was Rs. 72,685.71, business Rs. 2,857.14, wage Rs. 285.71, agriculture Rs. 102,091.43, non farm income Rs. 428.57 and dairy farm Rs.857.14.  The results indicated that the average expenditure from service/salary was Rs. 2,428.57, business Rs. 1,714.29, agriculture Rs. 33,114.29 and dairy farm Rs. 171.43. On an average the expenditure was Rs. 11,005.24.  The results indicated that, sampled households have grown 13 coconut trees in their field.  The results indicated that, households have planted 25 Neem trees, 8 tamarind tress, 2 banyan trees and 2 peeple trees in their field and also grown 2 Neem trees in the backyard.  The results indicated that, bajra, coriander, cotton, cowpea, sorghum, paddy, Red gram and sunflower crops were sold to the extent of 100 per cent and maize was sold to the extent of 56.32 per cent.  The results indicated that, 5.71 percent of the households have sold their produce to local/village merchant, 85.71 percent of the households have sold their produce to regulated market, 34.29 percent of the households have sold their produce to cooperative marketing society and 5.71 percent of the households sold their produce in contract marketing arrangement. 6  The results indicated that, 2.86 per cent of them have used cart, 128.57 per cent of the households used tractor and 2.86 per cent have used truck as a mode of transport.  The results indicated that, 65.71 percent used fire wood as a source of fuel and 34.29 percent of the households used LPG as a source of fuel.  The results indicated that, piped supply was the source of drinking water for 11.43 per cent of the households and 88.57 per cent of them were using bore well for drinking water.  The results indicated that, electricity was the major source of light for 100 per cent of the households.  The results indicated that, 37.14 per cent of the households possess sanitary toilet i.e. 27.27 per cent of marginal, 55.56 per cent of small, 22.22 per cent of semi medium, 25 per cent of medium and 100 per cent of large farmers had sanitary toilet facility.  The results indicated that, 25.71 per cent of the sampled household's possessed APL card, 60 per cent of the sampled households possessed BPL card and 14.29 per cent of the sampled households have not possessed BPL card.  The results indicated that, 57.14 per cent of the households participated in NREGA programme which included 36.36 percent of the marginal, 100 per cent of the small, 55.56 per cent of the semi medium, 25 percent of the medium farmers and 50 per cent of the large farmers.  The results indicated that, cereals, pulses and milk were adequate for 100 per cent, 11.43 per cent and 22.86 respectively. Oilseed, vegetables and fruits were adequate for 2.86 per cent of the households correspondingly.  The results indicated that, pulses, oilseed, vegetables, fruits, milk and egg were inadequate for 88.57 per cent, 11.43 per cent, 8.57 per cent, 11.43 per cent, 57.14 per cent and 54.29 per cent of the household.  The results indicated that, Lower fertility status of the soil was the constraint experienced by 8.57 per cent of the households, wild animal menace on farm field (31.43%), frequent incidence of pest and diseases (65.71%), inadequacy of irrigation water (8.57%), high cost of Fertilizers and plant protection chemicals (51.43%), high rate of interest on credit (2.86%), low price for the agricultural commodities (5.71%), lack of marketing facilities in the area (20%), lack of transport for safe transport of the agricultural produce to the market (25.71%), less rain fall (100%) and source of agri. Technology information (Newspaper/TV/Mobile) (85.71%). ; Watershed Development Department, Government of Karnataka (World Bank Funded) Sujala –III Project

Issue 42.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1983. ; Revlt!w i:or RELIGIOUS {ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. Re\'lt~w vor REI.IGIOIJS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1983 by REVIEW FOR REI,IGIOIJS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years, Other countries: add $2.00 per year {postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: R~:vtr:w ].on Rl.:l.l(;IOtlS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Nov./Dec., 1983 Volume 42 Number 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to R~-:vlt:w t-on Rt.:tA(;toOs; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to ,Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from Rt-:\'t~.:w t-'ou Rt.:l.~;tous; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. °'Oul of print" issues and articles nol published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Religious Life: The Mystery and the Challenge John R. Quinn This is the address delivered by Archbishop Quinn (of San Francisco) at the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Religious Women in~ Baltimore on August 16, 1983. I~ast spring, Archbishop Quinn was named to head the pontifical commission established to facilitate the p~istoral contribution of bishops to religious life in the United States. ' ~" You have honored me by asking that i speak With you. For the Church recognizes in your lives as religious the continuation of the poverty, the chastity, and the obedience of Christ. What is more: in and through your lead.ership, thousands of your sisters are in this rbom with~us this morning, present through the care you have for the consistency and holiness of their unique form of Christian living, and present because of their choice that you should bear the profoundly sacred responsibility of leadership amon~ the~m. It is no light burden that you carry. The future and the integrity of American religious life lies greatly under the influence of your own liyes: your own union with God, your own humility and integrity, your courage and vision will tell historically upon your communities. The mystery of your lives is inextricably bound up with the mystery of the lives of the sisters whom you love and whom you serve in this ministry. I.t is finally one mystery: a form of life in which Christ is followed with such intensity and at such a level of renunciation that to follow becomes to imitate him concretely and historically in his chastity, his poverty, and his obedience even to the death of the cross. The gravity and the demands of this leadership of communities towards a life of holiness would be hard to exaggerate. That is why you honor .me by asking me to speak with you about it. I know that you have asked me to b~ with you today because the pope has appointed me Pontifical Delegate to head a special commission of three 801 11119 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 bishops whbse task ist9 foster the pastoral service bishops are to offer Ameri-can religious. In a lengthy interview that many of you have read, I have already commented upon'this appeal of the Holy Father to the bishops and on the constitution of a joint group of bishops and religious. Rather than repeat those remarks I should like to extend them, but only in the context of the mystery of religious life'andthe history of American religious over the past twenty years. ~ You know that I am n.o expert in these matters, but what I think, I put before you as an i~nvitation to youi~ own reflections. I hope ,that these remarks will ~mplify several important subjects touched upon in the interview. My reflections then, fall into four parts: --The vision which the Church possesses of religious life --The Paschal MYStery as religious have experienced it in the past twenty years --The papal appeal to the bishbps of the United States --The papal charge to this Episcopal Commission with its Committee of Religious. The Vision, Which the Church Possesses of Religious Life ~, I make n'~ apologies for beginning with the call that the Church recognizes as yours. It alone provides the context or the horizon in which an, y other aspect of religious life can be evaluated or discussed. It is not that religious alone are called to holiness. You know that all Christians are called to holiness. But religious are called to that holiness which consists in a total consecration to God expressed in the unique continuation and embodiment of his life of poverty, chastity and~obedience: not to copy it, but to imitate it--that is to transpose it into the situation of the twentieth .century--so that this form of life would not die within the ChurCh, that it would be a continual reminder to the entire Church, in as public a witness as possible, of the holiness to which every Christian ig ~alled. Not every Christianis called to leave father and mother, husband and wife, children and relatives, to abandon personal property and private career, arid to follow Christ in the direction of one's life as that voice is concretized in the Church and in this given community of disciples. But every ~Christian is called to that detachment and love which give an.absoluie priority to Christ as the communication of God, and the public vows~of religious are. a constant, sacramental reminder of this absolute claim that Christ makes upon us all. Religious life is essentially sac~:amental in the sense that it is an explicit, historical and tangible manifestation of the victorious grace of God emerging to its completion in human signs and actions. And we can never really under-stand it except as sacramehtal. It'is classically true that every human being has to struggle for her integrity, not simply in the sense that a commitment to the truth is' alwayg costly, but in the more basic sense of keeping some consistency, some focus in her life that gives unity to everything else, that makes sense out of'diversity. What is true for the individual is also true of a religious community or a way of life. The Religious Life: The Mystery and the Challenge / 1103 demands~upon your time, the conflicting claims for your attention, are infinite and sometimes irreconcilable. Not that~anyone of them is illegitimate, but that all of them together constitute an impossibility. The expectations in which a religious community lives can be multiple, endless and even mutually contra-dictory. One can feel surrounded and fragmented by their press, wondering at the end of a busy day what was actually accomplished, seemingly more react-ing ~to incessant demands that peacefully moving through them with a cumulative sense of purpose, even beginning to wonder in her darker moments if this way of living has any value or has kept its meaning. A religious or even an entire community can feel eroded, burnt out, because one cannot meet all the demands, and what slips away almost imperceptibly is the vision that makes sense even of the frustration. It is simply imperative for a religious--as ~for any human being with a serious Christian vocation--to have a fundamen-tal focus for her way of life, one that is not negotiable, one in terms of which everything else is negotiated. So the Church over and over again reminds religious what they are for" the whole Church, the vision and the call that is theirs:~you are those consecrated by the call of God to follow C.hrist in the mystery of the Church by continuing his chastity, his poverty, and his obe-dience for the sake of the kingdom of God. It is an enormous gift that is yours, and it is a gift for the whole Church. The P~schal Mystery as Religious Have Experienced It in the Past Twenty Years Sisters, 1 know that these have been hard and demanding years since the Vatican Council. The opportunities have been glorious and the achievements of your communities have been obvious and remarkable--but at what an enormous cost! Let me speak a bit about the history of the past twenty years. One of the staggering parts of this cost over these years has been the, numi~rical diminishment of the congregations of American sisters. Following the direction of .the Council and in obedience to subsequent papal documents such as Ecclesiae Sanctae, enormous efforts were brought to.bear in a sincere and seriously considered move to renew and adapt religious life in light of worldwide cultural transformation and in,the spirit of the Church. Yet .this tremendous enterprise was followed by striking numerical disintegration. Where no~,itiate classes had been thirty, now there were three--if any at all. Convents and institutions were closing all over the nation. The average age of the sisters was going up steadily. Some of the elderly began to fear that there would be no one around to take care of them, while tens of thousands were either leaving or had already left for possibilities and for a future which seemed to them more secure and more promising. You and many other religious may have lived with a sinking sense of :loss as close friends with whom you shared this form of life left. At the same time American sisters were exposed to an unprecedented level of misrepresentation and. attack from both the right and the left. Sisters who had for so long lived as the object of an almost uncritical 1104 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 awe within ~he Church, now were exposed to two implacable critics:~ shrill accusations that their catechetics were destroying the Church, that their every change was a betrayal of their heritage, that they had become worldly, com-promised women who deserve their own~decline; or from the left came the arched suggestions that religious life could only attract the sexually stunted, the sociall3~ and economically insecure, an unenlightened and declining rem-nant from a dated Church. There are the recent plays-on Broadway that dismiss them as unsophisticated fanatics and some "Catholic~' publications make a practice of continual harping criticism exaggerating every conflict out of all ~proportion. There are circles in which to be a woman religious today is to walk into an atmosphere of the joke half-told, of suspicion or unconscious arrogance, sometimes on the part of clerics, bf the question t.hat waits for no answer, of the unrelenting and constant demand for justification. ~ As in every, o~fier group, priests or lay people, so among religious there arr, no'doubt, some who give foundation for justifiable criticism and concern. But, Sisters,--you who are present here today, and otliers who are not with us at this meeting--you hav~ sustained the cost of these years and nothing you have accomplished, no matter how great and obvious, matches what you hay6 accomplished in living in fidelity to your vocation through these difficult years of tensions from outside sources as well as from internal divisions, misunder-standings, and polarizations. Indeed, many faithful American women reli-gious, and not the least those in positions of responsibility, truly passed through a profound experience of the Paschal Mystery. 1 suspect that this experience has yet to register in all its valence within the reflection of American religious. You will find any number of works that counsel religious to count their gifts and number the aptitudes they bring to the Church. This 'is certainly sound advice. But there is very little written about the collective experience of entering into the rejection and humiliations and loss that configured many of you with the Passion--and even less about how profound a fulfillment this experience is of the vocation that is yours, the public witness to the whole Church of the life and de~tiny of Christ.' . When Victor Frankl reflected upon the horror of hi~ experience "of Auschwitz and Dachau, he summarized his own survival with a single line from Nietzsche, that those who have purpose and vision can bear with alrriost any manner of existence: "The person whohas a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.''2 There is a clear and profound sense~of identity in many American religious born of prayer, faith, and a~deep love for the Church, which has enabled them to live through these years of deflated expectations and even searing personal disappoinment. And that identity lies with their configuration to Christ. The great Saint Mechtild of Magdeburg, speaking of a single person, wrote what hasobeen the history of a number of religious con-gregations during thesepast twenty years: ~God leads his chosen children on extraordinary paths. This is an extraordinary path Religious Ltfe: The Mystery and the Challenge A noble road And a sacred way. Go~d himself has trod it.-~ And so it is true that these years, difficult though they have been, have been rich in their accomplishments and productive as religious community after religious community, responding to the challenge of the Council, moved into structures that were more lifesgiving and into more mature forms of commu-nity. In many ways over these years, American women religious found them-selves coming of age, an experience of resurrection. Many American women religious have deepened their lives of prayer, their social compassion for suffer-ing and exploitation, their sense of the international mission of' the Church. Granted that all this is true, still the question must be asked: What is the soui'ce of this new depth if it is not both the Church from which the challenge cam~, and what American women religious have endured and suffered during these twenty years? Our experience of the Resurrection emerges from the experience of the Passion. The life of authentic Christians has always combined them: ". that 1 might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that~if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead" (Ph 3:10-11). That is why l, believe it is excessive to see in the present, as some do, "the cluster of the signs of breakdown in virtually all communities." It is my conviction that. we must keep clearly before our minds the great and moving words of Pope John XXHI'~at the opening of the Council: In the daily exercise of our pastorai office, we sometimes have tO listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but~, prevarication and ruin. They Say that our era, in co.mparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is. nonetheless, the teacher of life. They behave as though ~t the time of former Councils everything was a full triumpl~ for the Christian idea and life and for proper, religious liberty. We feel we must disagree with those l~rophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In the present order of thi,ngs, Divine Providence" is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by humanity's own'efforts and even beyond their very expecta-tions, aredirected toward the fulfillment of God's,superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church.4 Certainly, then, the "numerous defections and decreasing n~mber of new members" cannot be denied.5 But if you understand religious life as this pro-found imitation of Christ and share the ma'rvelous vision~of faith articulated by Pope John; then rejection or abandonment or crisis or pain or threat a?e just a breakdown, but also for those who live by faith a more profound entering into the meaning and identity of religious life. Juliana of Norwich put it very simply: "So was our'Lord Jesus afflicted for us; and we all stand in this way of suffering with him, and shall' till we come to his bliss.''6 This is really the second' point I want to make. If religious life is a pi~rsi.stent 1106 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 and public reminder to the Church of the life of Christ, then the drastic numerical decline and threatened extinction of some religious communities is not something completely outside of that witness but within it. Yes, "history is the teacher of life." Each time religious life has entered into this night that can be so dark--the Reformation and the French Revolution come to mind--it has risen from suppression, persecution and virtual extinction with a deeper ecclesial sense and stronger and more effective than before. For example, when Mother St. John emerged from the prison of St. Didier in 1794,.she rebuilt with new resilience from the Terror of the French Revolution the Sisters of St. Joseph. BuLdoes anyone think that her years of suffering in prison had nothing to do with forming this "strong-souled woman to whom the commu-nity owed its regeneration?" Mary Ward, foundress of the Institute of Mary, i~ndured the" condemnation of her community and even imprisonment in Munich,,but her religious genius and her deep faith finally prevailed and continues to influence the formation of communities even through our time. In her last letter to Antonio Filicchi, the dying Elizabeth Ann Seton wrote: "Could you but know what. has happened in consequence of the little, dirty grain of mustard seed you planted by God's hand in America!"7 For the seed to grow, it had to pass into the death that ffas the end of her marriage, the violence which followed her conversion, the endless and seemingly hopeless contradictions, the betrayal of friends, the death of those very dear to her and the shameless indifference of her son, William. All of these lived by faith and had an unshakable fidelity to the Church. In their story each religious com-munity could trace a similar history from its own tradition. You and I both know that the religious accomplishments of the two previous centuries devel-oped from beginnings that were desperate in their poverty or persecution, ridden with the forebodings of some, but fostered by a few religious women of profound, courage, integrit~ and endurance. The successes were not in spite of the suffering any more than we are saved in spite of the Cross. In the myste-rious working of providence, one actua!!y leads ~nto the other.8 This, then, is my keyto understandingmiach that religious have undergone over these years of renewal. Constitutions, chapters, serious analysis, arduous discernment, regrouping of forces, creative efforts at experiment--a!l of these had done what they could. But that they would have.their effect, God gifted them with the cross, brought them into communion with the passion of the Lord. I am obviously not saying that the past twenty years have been absolved from mistakes and eLrors. That would be tO parody my remarks. It would be Sheer fantas.y to imagine that !.n times so complex such far-reaching efforts at a renewal of such magnitude could go forward without some mis't~kes and perhaps some of serious proporti0~ns here an,d there. But What I am saying is that thrgugl~ it all, you have sought to be faithful to the call of the Lord and. you want to love him and serve him in his Church fo.r.~t, he gl0rY of the Fath.er. It isin the Paschal Mystery, in fidelity in the face of Religious Ltfe: The Mystery and the Challenge / 807' suffering, that all human efforts are purified and all human faults and .failings are healed and all things that are ours are gathered by their resurrection into God. The renewal of all religious realities is only through the passion. This is how I see the mystery of your religious life and it is the light in which I read the past twenty years. It provides the religious context in which ! see the task to.which the Holy Father has called the American bishops: "To render special Tpastoral service to the religious of yoiar dioceses and your country., to assist them in every way possible to open wide the doors of their heart to .the Redeemer." The Papal Appeal to the Bishops of the United States So now let me pass to the papal response both to what you are and what you have undergone. To understand the action of the Holy Father, we must attend to an event which has been given great significance in Rome but not yet grasped suffi-ciently everywhere: the anniversary of our redemption. In the mystic symbol-isms and approximations by which we number the centuries, one thousand nine' hundred and fifty, years ago the great Paschal Mystery of Christ took place, the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus by which the world is justified, sanctified 'and saved. To underline this moment as we move toward the third millennium, the pope proclaimed the extraordinary Holy Year, the Jubilee of our Redemption. This action of the pope was profoundly and religiously~serious. Christ as Redeemer hhs been a theme of his preaching and his pontificate, and it formed the subject of his first encyclical. Through this Year of Jubilee, he is calling the whole Church to live more intensely",the central, human-divine event which gives it meaning. It would be impossible to understand many papal initiatives this year unless the centrality and urgency Of the Redemption is grasped. ~ It is within that context that he calls religious especially to renewal. Not just religious. The call is to the whole Church. But especially religious. And why? Because of this eyent,, the redemption of the entire human race by'the action of God in Jesus Christ, they are both witness :and intermediary. They are both signs to the wdrld of what Jesus Christ has done in human life--as they continu6 in a.following of him that becomes a profound configuration-- and they are means, instruments, by which this redemption of Christ reaches into this Holy Year and into this nation. What the pope is saying is simply staggering in its implications: That the .redemption which Christ offers will have its presence in our'times and its efficacy determined in great part .by th'e quality of holiness, of union with God, in the lives of religious. The religious either augments~or limits the effective mercy of God ,within her culture. .~ This is not an abstract statement of speculative theology; it is a concrete reading of what religious have become for the Church. Look at your own personal histories. For many persons whose religious gifts developed at an early age, the most influential persons in their lives,were those women religious I~'01~ / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 whose insightful goodness and care touched their lives more formatively than either was aware of. Look at contemporary Catholic challenges to the social structures of our nation or at the repeated efforts to ref6rm catechetics or at the person who is often among the most resourceful in parish ministry or at the person from whom people spontaneouslyexpect a quality of sympathy and understanding unavailable elsewhere--and you will very often find the Ameri-can sister. In general,'the ,history of our Church in the United States shows religious women to have lived lives of f.rugality and prayer, or persistent service to others even at enormous pers6nal cost and of providing support for those . who needed that support whether this was in education, in medical care or in social works. To cite the papal letter, "Woi'king towards th~ establishment of justice, love, arid peace, they helped to build a. social order rooted in the Gospel. striving to bring generation after generation to the maturity of Christ." To read our historv is to find the American nun at its center, both as a sign and as the~channel ot~ the Redemption. The contemporary reflection upon religious life is just beginning to assimi-late what has been the actual place of religious in the Church for centuries, certainly the Church in the United States. It has been.a theological common-place to say of the bishop or of the priest who" assists him agit in persona ecclesiae, that he acts in the name of the Church, that he represents the Church. Now increasingly~ this is being said of the religious, that the religious represents the Church. But this is just theology catching up with what the average Ameri-can Catholic has always known. The bishop represents the Churchzin its unity, its unity of doctrine, of communion, and of sacramental life. To see the bishop is tobe reminded of this unity whose source is the Spirit of God and which is made real by communion with the Successor of Peter. But the religious repre-sents the Churchqn its evangelical holiness. The Church is not only realized in their lives, but witnessed by these lives. What Teresa of Avila said of herself, "1 die a daughter of the Church." was extended by the great Elizabeth Seton to her daughters in almost her last words to them: "I am thankful, Sisters, for your kindness to be present in this trial. Be children of the Church, be children of the Church."9 It is not that Teresa of Avila 0r~the S~sters of Charity are the only daughters of the Church. All religious by the public witness of their lives are a reminder of that ecclesial discipleship to which we are all called. The religious is not.the only one who represents ~n public witnessthe holiness of the Church, but she is the one who does in this unique way through the open, countercul/ural profession of~the evangelical poverty, chastity, and humble o6edience of Christ. When the Church talks about the public,witness of religious life. this is what she is talking about: not that presentat.ion or witness proper to, the Church,in its hierarchy, but the visible manifestation of the Church,,in its holiness. Just as the unity of the Church is not simply for the bishops but for all the disciples of Christ. so the holiness of the Church is hot just for religious but for all of the disciples of Christ. But it is crucial for the Church that both its unity and its holiness be strongly represented to all, and Religious Life: The Mystery and the Challenge that is why we have both a hierarchy and religious life. Another way of putting thee same point is the pa.pal statement: "By their very vocation, religious are intimately linked to the Redemption. By their consecration to Jesus Christ, ,they are a sign of the redemption that he accomplished. In the sacramental economy of the Church, they are instruments for bringing, this redemption to the People of God." What, then, has the pope asked of the bishops? He has called upon all the ,bishops of the United .States to place themselves at the pastoral service of 0the religious ~ftheir diocese. Let me be more specific. You know, far better than I, that since Perfectae Caritatis and Ecclesiae Sanctae, the religious in the Ufiited States have engaged in an intensive period of renewal. General chapters have been held which took this as their principal object. Constitutions have been revised, and these general laws of religious institutes submitted to the Holy See for confirmation. National unions of the major superiors of men"and women have been formed or have been strengthened .and now flourish. New forms of rdeulcigedio iunst oa naldm aocsatd eevmeriyc afopromstaotliioc°n raenldig oiof ums icnois,ntegrrieagl atrtiaoinni.n Tgh heasve ec.hbaeneng eisn thraov-e exacted great expenditures of energy and time, i~nd have found their fulfill-ment many times in a deepening,of prayer, apostolic creativity, and the sharing of life that characterizes re_ligiotis communities. The question that religious have had to deal with, the central one according to the distinguished Jesuit theologian, Father Thomas E. Clarke, S.J., has been this issue: "How are we to disengage Christian faith from the time-bound cultural expressions and vehicles of the past without a loss of integrity? This is indeed the question at the heart of the anguish, tensions, and polarizations, cha.racteristic of a period . which has turned out to be as much a new Passion as a new Pentecost. No group in the Church, has had to deal with the question with greater seriousness than members of religious communities, and particularly of .American com-munities of religious women.''~0 Father Clarke wrote those lines some ten years ago, and without attempting a defense or an evaluation of each one of them, I think it would be fair to say that these last ten years have continued this experience: the effort to articulate a form of life.that is evangelical in its public ecclesial consecration yet American in the inculturation of this consecration. As this period of "special' ,experimentation" comes to its.close--the period, that is, in which new constitutions wer.e drafted, the Holy Father has asked the Ameiican bishops to enter int~ this process in order to support and to second the genuinely heroic efforts of the religious to strengthen and renew their communities. How are the bishops to do this?' The pope speaks generically of aiding religious in every way possible and lists seven particular ways in which this generic support can be realized~ If I had to summarize all seven, 1 would do it with a~ single word: communication. The bishops are to communicate to the whole Church, by preaching and catechesis, on the nature of religious life and, more particularly, on the link between a religious vocation and the love of God I~10 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 for each and every religious. The bishops are to communicate sacramentally and liturgically with religious; they are-to extend and support the invitations to renewal, in solidarity with the bishops and the faithful; "in th'ose cases, tob,' where individuals or groups, for whatever reason, have departed from the indispensable norms of religious life,~or have even, to the scandal of the faithful, adopted positions at variance with the Church's teaching;~" they are "to proclaim once again the Church's universal call to conversibn, spiritual renewal and holiness." The bishops are to communicate with religious in a mutual, program of work to be established by the Episcopal Com~nission of which I have been appointed Papal Delegate'and which has been strengthened ~by an appointment of a Committee of Religious to act in concert with them. Finally, the bishops are to communicate thrir findings to the Holy Father on the occasion of their ad limina visits this year. It is only in this context that we can ask ourselves the genuinely hard questions which bear upon the future of religious life in the United States. One question which the pope singles out as of immense concern: Why this drastic numerical decline? And under ~his question, perhaps the most important issue: Why are so very few American" wom~n and men interested in becoming reli-gious today? What does that say about our national character, about our Church, and about religio~as life itself?, ls tl~ere any truth in the diagnosis of religious life made by the authors of Shaping the Coming Age of Religious L,fe that the "crises set in from within religious life due to the loss of identity and the inroads of the secularizing process"?.~1 Finally,"it must be asked whether we bishops and priests have been of sufficient sensitivity to the issues which contextualize religious life in the United States. All of these and other important issues can be addressed fruitfully if they are asked by bishops hnd religious together, and asked in such peace and mutual trust that they admit of answers rather than with the kind of accusatory rage that inhibits any ability to answer anything~ These are profound issues on which We must communicate. They touch on~a problem that is common to us all yet larger than any of us, and we expect to be mutually challenged by them. For it isTnot only the problem that is common to us all, but the process as well. It is one we can only address together. Why this insistence~upon communication? Because there has been too little of it. Historically, any proces~ of renewal and any prrcess of inculturation has been opento misrepresentation, misunderstandings, and mistakes. I could take examples from the history of dogma, from the history of rites and ritual, but let me take them from the history of religious life itself. For decades the mendicant orders lay under the suspicion that their form of life was not canonically religious because they were not confined to a monastery. The foundation of the Society of Jesus was opposed ~ because this order did not engage in the choral office and admitted some members whose vows were not solemn. There was enormous opposition tO the original p~ovisions of Angela Merici despite the solemn approval.of Paul HI and these provisions eventually Religious Life: The Mystery and the Challenge gave way" to conventual life and monastic enclosure. The original plans of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal that the Visitation Would be a congregation in which only simple vows would be pron.ounced and~visiting the sick would be the special work of its members also yielded to solemn vows and enclosure. ~But eventually the indulturatiori of active orders of women religious did occur, and they dominated, the extraordinary evolution of reli-gious life in the' nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Iriculturation is an' e~i-gency of the incarnation. It is an indispensable condition for the developmefit and vitality of the Church, and it is inevitably attended by its Share of divisions and struggles and even by mistakes;~2 But if these inevitable struggles are exacerbated by arrogance or impatiencei by the attribution of false motivation or by party interests, then disintegration or alienation result. Attempts at inculturation die only when .communication is stilled, and that is why I wel-come the efforts of the Holy Father to foster commu.nication in all of its forms. For over'the past twenty years as you moved throu~,h this period of experimentation, your partners in dialogue have been the members of your own congregation and other congregations. Now what the Holy See is asking for, is an extension .of this dialogue to a larger group, to the bishops and to the Church as a wh61e. For there is much incomprehension here, either about what the religious "have accomplished or why they have gone in the directions they have chosen, as well as some confusion about what the Church has been asking of religious since the Council. Through the bishops, the religious orders can engage all of the Church in this renewal of religious life: those whom they serve, those with whom they serve, and the bishops in union with the pope whose ministry it is to confirm and validate this service. There is no question.that inculturation carrieso its own dangers. For instance, the adoption.of Stoic and Neo-Platonic terminology during the patristic period, terms.with such .far-reaching implications and ambiguity as apatheia as used by Clement and Origen,-or the eons, nous and the five fundamental gnoses of Evagrius Ponticus, all these seriously endangered the entire monasticmovement.13 1 doubt further if anyone would care to resurrect the secular military ac{ivity of the Templars as an appropriate work for reli-gious: So also today. There is always a danger of having religious life become coopted as just another version of the American way of life,and the challenge given both by the traditions of the order and by the judgments of the Holy See are necessary and critically important if religious are to embody the essentials of religious'life in an American setting effectively'and authentically. This question has been with us since John Ca~ rroll; and, it is not surprising that it continues to be with us now. It is inevitable inca Church so ~universai and with" cultures and perspectives that are so divergent, That is why this extension of the dialogue is so critical, both to explain the achievements of the past twenty years but also to receive serious, supportive, and critical challenge. For there is a healthy and continual dialectic which is always at work within the Church: between the Gospel and its cultural expression, between 1t19 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 authority and prophecy, between the unity of the Church and its manifold cul-tural forms.,And the life of the Church can never be won by suppressing one or another of these moments or by an impatienl destruction of the very pro-cess. All organic foi'ms ofqife consist in a sustained balance between various and seemingly contradictory elements. Yet if they are seen by faith and in their historic interactions, they do not contradict one another but at a deeper level support one another. Thus Freud maintains that the desire to live without ten-sions the desiie to live in unchallenged comfort--is actually a disguised form of the death wish. The tension of balanced contradictions is essential to life. Bul tension does not necessarily make for life. it can also be a destructive disinteg~:ation of life. The difference lies with living faith and wiih communica-tion. Does this moment of tension open to a deeper communication or to the closing of all communication? Th'e Papal Char~g~e to This Episcopal Commission with Its Committee of Refigious , And this brings me to the fourth point ! wish to regmter~. Forethis is the reason that the Holy Father has ~not only sent a letter to the~American bishops, but has established an Fpiscopal Commission to aid'thd bishops in their service of religious and to analyze the reason for the decline in religious voca-tions. For each of these tasks. ,the Holy Father has challenged the Commission to ~work in close collaboration with American religious, to profit fromtheir experience and to assimilate their insights. To facilitate this,communication, I have appointed a Committee of Religious who will work with the Commission of Bishops in a collaborative effort to foster and to encourage religious life in any way that is open for us. We will also be ,consulting experts in various disciplines not'represented on our committee such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and history. Eurther. I have sent a letter to the Presidents of the ICWR. CMSM. and NCCB asking for any suggestions these groups might have to further this work. All of us have something to learn from one another, and the~papal initiative provides an occasion for this mutual ministry. It would be unrealistic to expect of this renewed ef~'ort at communication that.~all disagreements would cease and all misunderstandings be erased. There are too many differences in cultural background, in religious life-history, and even in the critical perspectives on contemporary issues. However, what we can achieve and what owe.must be seeking is reverence and respect for one another, a compassion for'mutual suffering, the building of a sense of trust, and the comprehension, of an underlying common mission in the Church. and from the ~Church. and for the Church as portrayed in all its doctrinal richness in Lumen Gentium. What wi~ can pray for is that we may all.find a continually greater degree of freedom from harsh judgments and stereotyping, irrespecuve of what misunderstandings remain to be,eliminated But how very difficult this will be, Sisters. to.touch the skelsticism.and the anxiety, the suspicions and the misunderstandings that have woven themselves into the fabric of~our,histories Religious Ltfe:, The MysterZ and,the Challenge over the~se years. Whatever their causes, they have become part of its texture and seem indistinguishable from our expectations and hopes. They inhibit communication and they inspire the most pejorative reading of motives while the m~mories of past wrongs rise periodically to reinforce their presence. But what is stronger, please God, is what we share together. For if members of the Church cannot work together to reconcile our histories and our differences, how could we possibly preach forgiveness and reconciliation to a world whose checkered histories and whose differences beggar those in the Church by, comparison. It is patient and loving work that we are about to do together, but your president has wisely written: "Reconciliation is the patient and loving'weaving of threads of tension into a peaceful background in which the Spirit is free to irfiprint the design."14 May this Spirit then be, ~with us in our work. In hope for this new phase of our history we pray with the Psalmist: You will guide me with your counsel and afterwards you will receive me into glory. Who have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire in comparison with you. My flesh and my heart may fail But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps 73:24-26). And so, To him whose power no~ at work in us can do more than we ask or imagine--to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever. Amen (Ep 3:20-21), NOTES ~For the understanding of religious life which pervades this address', see the recent document of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Seculaf Institutes, Essential Eleme'nts in the Church's Teaching on Religious Ltfe as Applied To Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate, May 31, 1983. This document is itself a "clarification and restatement" of the Church's teaching on the essential elements of religious life. This prior teaching has been articulated in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, especially Lumen Gentium, Perfectae Caritatis, and Ad Genres, in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelica Testificatio of.Pope Paul VI, in the address of Pope John Paul II. and in the documents of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, especially, Mutuae Relationes, Religious and Human,~'Promotion, and The Contemplative Dimension of Religious l_Jfe, and in the new Code of Canon Law. Essential Elements is the latest attempt 9f the Holy See to fulfill the mandate enunciated by Lumen Gentium: "Church authority ha,s ,the duty, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, of interpreting these evangelical counsels. of regulating their practice, and finally of establishing stable forms of living according to them~ (n. 42). ~Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, translated by llse Lasch (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1962), pp. xi, 76, and 104. 3See H. A. Reinhold (ed.), The Soul Afire: Revelation of the Mystics (New York: Pantheon 814/ Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 Books, Inc., 1951), p. 206. 4Walter A~bbott, S.J., and J. Gallagher, The Documents of l/atican II. An Angelus Book (Guild Press, 1966), pp. 712 and 713. 5~awrence Cada, S.M., et ai, Shaping the Coming A~e of Religious Ltjre.~A Crossroad Book (NewWork: The Seabury Press, 1979),opp. 49 and 43. 6Juliana of Norwich, Showings. translated from the critical text with an introduction by Edmund Colledge, O,S.A., and James Walsh. S.J./he Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978),~Cha~pter I.~8, p. 21 I. ~ , . 7Joseph I. Dii'vin, C.MI, Mrs. Seton: Foundress of the American Sisters of Charity (New Yo,~rk: Farrar,-Straus, and Cudahy, 1962), p. 448. aSee Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.,L, "The'Wreck of the Deutschland," #24, 7he Poems of Gerard Manley Hbpkins, edited by W. H. Gardner and~N. H. MacKenzie. Fourth Edi,tion (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 59. o. 9William Thomas Walsh, Saint Teresa of Avila (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1943), p. 579: Dirvin, op cir. p. 453. ~°Thomas E. Clarke, S.J., New Pentecrst or New PassiOn? The Direction of Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist Press, 1973), p. I. ~Cada et al, op. cir. p. 43. ~For the development of the Church's teaching on inculturation, see Lumen Gentium #13 and #17, Ad Gentes #16-18, #22, #26, Gaudium et Spes #53-58, Populorum Progessio #65, and Evangelii Numiandi passim. tJSee Louis Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers (New York: Desclee Company, 1960), pp. 260-302, 369-394. Despite Father Bouyer's sympathetic treatment of Evagrius Ponticus, he finds himself forced to conclude: "Whatever precise meaning his own mysticism may have had for Evagrius, it would be difficul[ to deny that his expressions intro-duced a lasting threat into the Christian mystical tradition: the fatal attraction of pure abstrac-tion. A neglect of Scripture, of dogma, in favor of a 'contemplation' that runs the risk of being no more than a state of psychological vacuity is not, as experience has abundantly shown, for minds nourished on the tradition which we can now call'Evagrian, a merely chimerical danger" ibid., p. 393. For the division of monasticism into two camps, see ibid., p. 380. ~4Sister Helen Flahcrty, S.C., The Presidents Reflect--After Two ]~ears. in Women: Weavers of Peace. Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Conference Report, 1982-1983, p. 6. The Religious as Witness All persons consecrated to the Lord enter the category of living witnesses to the existence of this ~'Other," of a Reality so "different" from the reality verifiable by,the senses;;and their whole lives, individual and community, are committed to the final aim of recalling mankind~ distracted by the temptations of material goods, tol thd reality Of the supreme Good, tb,the attraction of values whichare not visible, but~are true'and much higher: ; Therefore, when the documents of the Council and the subsequent directives of the,' Church insist upon the need for the renewal of religious life, they-intend above all to ".~emphasize the need for a renewal of an "interior" nature to be realized in such a way'~ that by eliminating the shadows of useless thingff or superstructures it may more easily become the transparency of God before the eyes of today's men.--John Paul IL To the Women Religious in Albano, 19 September. 1982. L'Osservatore Romano, I1 October 1982. p. 5. Why They Leave: . Reflections of a Religious AnthropologiSt Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M. Father Arbuckle, asocial anthropologist, is an Assistant General for his congregation: The article ~s the resultgf both contacts and form~! stud~ies he has made with religiou~s in America and Asia. He now resides at the generalate of his cong~regation: Padri Maristi; Via Alessandro Poerio,~63; 00152 Rofiaa, Italy. The recent call by John Paul II for a review 6f the reasons behind the'sharp drop in the number.,of religious within the' United States is timely. But, if this review is to realize ~its aims, those concerned in the study must seek insights from many disciplines, e;g. history, psychology, cultural anthro-pology. In this paper, I offer some insights from cultural anthropology. I believe~that -,~ " -many religious, individually,or as communities, following the combined:~ impact of the social'RevoiUtioh of Expressive Disorder of the 1960s;and early 1970s and of Vatic.an II; went into a~state of cultural malaise, anomie, or what is~popularly called culture shock; . .: : ". . ~ -the cultural and historical~situation in which religious ~life now finds itself today in, the United States is ripe for deep interior.revitalization, provided the opportunities are vigorously grasped. ¯ ~ I will explain these staiements. But, first we must clarify a much confused word-Zculture. Paul VI touched the heart of the meaning of culture when, in Evangelii Nuntiandi, he referred to the signs and 'symbols of a people) Anthropologist G. Geertz takes the same approach, though he concentrates on symbols, when he defines culture to be "an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in 815 816 / Review for Religious, Nov.-De~., 1983 symbolic forms by means oLwhich men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towardqife."2 In this sei~se, cul-ture is something living, something giving .meaning, ~direction, identity to people in ways that touch not just the intellect, but especially the ~heart. One cannot define symbol without reference to feelings, to the heart. A symbol is any reality that by its very dynamism or power leads to (i.e., makes one think about, or imagine, or get into contact with or reach out to) another deeper (and often mysterious)~.reality through a sharing in the dynamism that the symbol itself offers (and not by merely verbal or additional explanations). So a symbol is not merely a sign, for signs only point to the signifie~t. Symbols represent the signified, they carry, meaning in themselves, "which allows them to articulate the signified, rather than merely announcing it.''3 New symbols do not take root in the hearts of the people overnight as substitutes for other symbols. Time, experience are necessary for new meanings to develop, new identities tO emerge. Hence, if a people's way of living or culture is dramatically undermined for whatever reason, the effects ~an be traumatic. A feeling of malaise, anomie or normlessness, will emer[ge. The sense of identity and security is lost. ~It has been said that the American Catholic Church was "the best organ-ized and most powerful of the nation's subcultures--a source of both aliena-~ ti0n and enrichment "for those born within it and an object of bafflement or un~a~iness for others.TM In other words, while Catholics shared certain symbols in common with other Americans, many key or pivotal symbols tl~at gave meaning, id~.ntityand security to their lives came from their adherence to the Church. But, as a result, of the combined impact of the Revolution of Expre~s-sive Disorder and Vatican II, the stability a~nd the extraordinary security and cohesiveness of the Church's subcultural way of life in America were shattered in ways that are only now becoming better understood. The more cohesive and itefensive a subculture, th~ more dramatic and traumatic the breakup once key or pivotal symbols are effectively attacked. Vatican II asked that the Church open itself to the world. Cultures of people were to be:understood and evangelized. The Council., therefore, sought to counter~Caih01ic "ghettoism," something that had hampered the missionary thrust of the Church for centuries. But the world to which Catholics had to turn was a world in bxtraordinary turmoil. Secondly, the~e were aspects of mainstream American culture that were (and remain) particularly challenging to ~'vangelization.Many Cathblicslwere just not. prepared to face the situation. One American commentator perceptively noted that "in the beginning, around 1964, the turmoil that was to shake the Church was like a cloud on the horizon. Within two or three years storm clouds filled the sky. And by the mid-1970s, the U.S. Catholic Church was a tempest-tossed.institution in total~ d~sarray, o,L~kew~se,~Peter Berger said that Catholics. back in 1961, were, unlike~thei~ Protestant brothers, still sitting pretty on their Rock of Peter, secure in their numbers, in the allegiance of the faithful. Within five years, he,. Why They Leave / 817 says, the Catholics suffered the same fate as the rest; they were rushing to find "plausible lifeboats with the rest of us.TM I will first.explain what is meant by the Revolution of Expressive Disorder and then indicate various mainstream American values or symbols that partic-ularly challenge evangelization. It will then be seen that once Catholics left their neat and tight subculture and were thrown unprepared into a world in cultural turmoil and into an American cultural system they had effectively resisted, for decades, the consequences were understandable. Understanding the Revolution of Cultural Disorder It is impossible to summarize with any marked degree of accuracy just what happened in the 1960s and'early 1970s. Sociologist Robert Bellah describes the cultural revolution in the western world as "an upwelling of mystical religiosity";7 Gerald Howard considered the period as "a spirited~ wildly inventive era--a decade of great social and political upheaval when ideas and customs collidedqn every corner of American° society."8 Not only America, but the entire western world underwent a transformation in the assumptions and accepted practices which form the cultural foundations of the daily lives of ordinary people. The transformation, one of the swiftest and most dramatic in recorded history, began as a form of cultural~rev01ution among a small group of campaigning radicals, and ended by changing some of the most profound habits and assumptions.9 What was considered shocking in 1967 or 1968 is so commonplace today as not to be noticed. The most common characteristic of the 1960s' Revolution of Expressive Disorder was the symbolism of anti-struciure, anti-order, anti-predictability. It was essentially an attack on boundaries, limits, certainties, taboos, roles, sys-tems,, style, predictabilities, form, ritual. It was an attempt to make ambiguity and uncertainty, not a mere passing feature of~ life, but a way of living in itself. But the revolutidn had its major contradiction in this--on the one hand there was the push towards structureless iiadividualism with its burning zeal for self-fulfillment, but on the other hand there was also the push towards the collectivity in which the individual became smothered by the collectivity. Sociologist Bernice Martin points" out that in the field of the arts, for example, the~boundaries most severely attacked were those between the public and private spheres, male and female, uncertainty over certainty.~° In the case of Andy Warhol, for example~ the sexual identities of his portraits are often left uncertain or are inverted; he makes Marilyn Monroe look like a transves-tite. Educational institutions and teachers took, a severe pounding. The radi~ cals' demands for instant and total intimacy in human relationships, instant "turning on" and .entertainment, played havoc with teacher security, identity, well-being. Given the stress on the immediate and on the functional, it was inevitable that anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism helped undermine educa-tional programs and institutes.11 In the field of religion, new or revived cult movements fitted neatly into the search for either extreme individualism or Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 collectivity, e.g., Moonies, Krishna Consciousness, communes. Even the estab-lished churches did not remain untouched by the drive for anti-structure, for instant community experience, horizontalism, subjectivity in liturgical life. If the liturgy does not give a "peak feeling experience" then, it was argued, it cannot be an authentic ritual. At this point, it would be helpful to use the models of cultures or societies that anth~opoligist Victor Turner evolved.~Z He would distinguish two types of cultures. First, there is societas, a type in which there is role differentiation, structure, segmentation, and a hierarc~hical system of institutionalized posi-tions. Most people live most of their lives in cultures that come close to ttiis model. The second type is called.communitas or liminal, that is a type of culture that is undifferentiated, homogeneous, in which individuals meet each other integrally and not as segmentalized into statuses and roles. He argues that life is a process whereby individuals or groups of people pass from societas through communitas .to societas. Commanitas comes alive in situatiohs whereby structures have been removed or reducedto a minimum; it :becomes tangible in times of transition: e.g., religious novitiates, charismatic,prayer meetings, among crowds at a thrilling baseball game, in moments of crises. In all these instances, people lose their outstanding social differences or statuses. Let us assume, by way of practical example, that after a shipwreck, the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, the President of the United States, .the Queen of Eng-land, a stoker from the s.unken ship, and two passengers who work for a living as ship stew~irds, find themselves in the sole-surviving lifeboat. Confronted with the dangers of, the sea, the' survivors experience a period of communitas, the experience of belonging to common humanity. Titles become unimpor5 tant--survival becomes the value. But communitas can never be sustained-- and has never been sustained--simply because the normal society ultimately ¯ demands some form of structur.e, some form of predictability. For~example, once the lifeboat reaches the safety of a harbor, it is inevitable that titles and statuses become once more'important. People tiave a need to know differences and to act accordingly. But some form of' communitas remains.essential for the survival of all societies; some form of withdrawal--secular or religious--is required as a prerequisite to a new level of involvement in structure. People need to experience for periods of time basic common human values, like brotherhood, the common Fatherhood of God, nationhood, in order to keep their lives balanced. According to 'Turner, therefore, life is a process whereby persons pass from structured "ordinary" living to communitas experiences and back once more .to "ordinary," living. The process is constantly repeated if the particular society is to be maintained and if individuals are to achieve ,human satisfaction and stability. In the communitas periods many of the symbols of relationships, values,~norms, which prevail~ in the° domain of the daily pragmatic structures are reversed, suspended~ reinterpreted, or replaced by a wholly _other set of symbols and ways of acting. The period in which Why They Leave / 819 comrnunitas occurs is called liminality.13 There are periods in history when whole nations, in varying ways or in parts, seek to go through either in an almost spontaneous or planned way communitas or liminal periods. It may take the form of a widespread burst of nationalism, for .example as took place in Britain during and after the Falklands' crisis. But when the models are applied to the 1960s, it is evident that the emphasis in politics, education, arts, religion, was on the evoking of the communitas. The liminality was marked by anti-structure, unpredictabil-ity, taboo-breaking--all that we have described above. Many sought to live liminality not jus.t for part of their daily lives or for short periods, but for life. In the case of religion, the emphasis, as in the rest of the counterculture movements, was on the fraternity of man rather than on the Transcendence, on experience and emotional interaction rather than on abstraction and quiet-ness. In communitas experiences, especially of the spontaneous type such as marked the 1960s, intellectual interaction or argumentation have little or no effect. Euphoria must run its course, in other words. As noted, there are benefits from liminalperiods for the well-being of societies and individuals, but excesses can become counterproductive. As the poet W. H. Auden put it: "The Road of Excess leads more often than not to The Slough of Despond."14 By the early 1970s, the cultural liminal revolution was drawing to a close. As Berger notes "the idea of 'permanent' revolution is anthropologically an absurd fantasy . There are fairly narrow limits to the toleration of disorder in any human society."15 In this, he was agreeing with the analysis of Victor Turner. Margins, structures, boundaries--all returned, though rarely as before, across the whole spectrum of human activity, e.g.- politics, economics, education. Despite the enormity of the upheaval there were some very positive effects of the cultural revolution, such as a sharpening concern for human rights, a heightened awareness that institutions must be constantly checked for impersona!ism and injustices, and.that religion relates one not just to God but also to people . Some Key Symbols in American 'Cultural Life The anthropologist tries to find the key symbols that together bind~people within the one cultural stream. United States is so vast a country that there is'a realodanger of being simplistic in any gffort to find key symbols~ However, even given this caution, I still feel it is possible to point to relevant key symbols that emerge either in advertising or in everyday literature. The following are symbols that to me are important,~if we are to consider religious life and its relevance within the contemporary .United States. These symbols existed prior to the Revolution of Expressive Disorder. In some instances they were severely questioned by the counterculture, but they nonetheless continue to be evi-dently present. In some cases, in fact, the symbols became, reinforced by the revolution, e:g. individualism, the search for self-fulfillment. 1120 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 The Symbols of Personal Freedom/Individualism, Achievement, Self-Fulfillment Evoke Increasing Loneliness and Alienation Within Society That sharp observer, de Tocqueville, noted decades ago--as something already emerging--the problems of growing individualism, loneliness and alienation: "Selfishness blights the germ of all virtues; iridividualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life; butqn the long run it attacks and destroys all 'others and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness.''~6 Recently, social-economist Amitai. Etzione built his critical revirw of American life and future on the same insight,t7 Historian David Potter, noted earlier, that "Americans, having demanded a higher degree of freedom, have paid a higher price for it in the degree of their psychological isolation." He.then pointed out that as a consequence of this isolation a sense of personal inadequacy and insecurity inspired by a relentlessly competitive system has produced some of the most Characteristic forms of mental illness in America.18 The more individualism is pushed the more the bonds binding people to the group and the common good are weakened. Hence, Bellah could conclude, with deepening sorrow, that as the result of the overstress on individualism "marriage, friendship, job .church are dispensable, if these don't meet my needs" [my italics].19 ~ymbols o.f Youth and Good Health Downgrade the Positive Qualitites of Aging and Suffering Christopher Lasch writes that American society "defines productivity in ways that automatically exclude 'senior citizens'."2° J. Tetlow recently observed that the American value system not only demands that one be healthy, but that one feel healthy. He comments that "experienced religious when they enter what the: Church has known as the 'dark night' for centuries, think they probably need psychiatric therapy.TM Given these attitudes to the key symbols of youth and good health, it is understandable if the agonies of death and dying fit uneasily into the American folkways. The dead must "look peaceful and fresh',; there must be no sign of suffering having taken place?~ Symbols of Material Consumerism Demand that PleaSure and Satisfaction Be Immediate ~ The ease with which goods can be discarded and replaced by "better ones" reinforces the feeling that one should not tolerate problems for too long~ The tolerance threshold becomes increasingly lower?3 One can include within the symbols of material consumerism, the symbols also of pragmatism and noise. A guiding force isthe assumption that what is useful for satisfaction is good; it generates all kinds of experiments, some good, ~some not good, Inevitably the drive for experimentation, for personal satisfaction and fulfillment, can be inirhical to the~peace essential for deep reflection and contemplation. But the world of mass media,advertising does not help the situation. It intrudes, as though by right, at so many points of one's daily life and so often in a noisy Why They Leave / 821 way. Daniel Bell blames the 1960s for an intensification of the pressure for more and more noise.24 1 doubt if the situation has changed. Vatican II and the Cultural Revolution Collide The dramatic opening paragraph of Gaudium et Spes of Vatican II pin-pointed a vital thrust desired by the fathers, a thrust founded in the Gospel imperative to go. out to all with the saving and consoling news of salvation: "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of men of this age, especially those who are poor.or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the.griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ." Committed Cath-olics held within a ghettosubcult'ure could no longer consider their evangeliza-tion obligations to be coterminous with that subculture. Liturgies were to be adapted to local cultures, having in mind also the community orientation of the Church. Catholics had now to.enter loving and listening dialogue with the once "suspect" Protestants. As regards religious, "the manner of living,, praying and working should be suitably adapted to the physical and psychological conditions of today's religious and also., to the needs of the apostolate, the requirements of a given cul(ure" [my italics].2~ Quitg independent of the cultural upheaval hitting the western world at t~his point, the above new theological and pastoral emphases were sufficient in themselves to make many question the validity of the contemporary under-standing# of the pivotal symbols~ within the Catholic subctilture of America. Recall the point made earlier: the more cohesive and integrated a subculture is, the more violent and traumatic will be the consequences--once pivotal symbols are shaken ~r undermined. We cannot abstractin fact from the reality that the movement to shake Catholics into becoming pastorally aware of the world beyond their ghetto als0 coincided with a world in "unnatural" turmoil, a world of intense countercultural liminality: The combined effects of the theological and cultural changes of Vatican II and the cultural revolution left Catholics breathless, lost in what seemed to be an. ever-increasing malaise, loss of direction. People felt stunned, rootless, never sure what was to happen next within the Church that for centuries s~emed unchanging. They became exposed to movements, pressures they could not understand. The mass of intricate cultural supports that had protected the ghetto Church for over a hundred ybars within the United States were suddenly removed. One can only agree with Avery Dulles' assessment of the period after the Council: "In most countries the decade since the Council has been one of internal conflict, confu-sion, disarray. The Church seems, for the first time in centuries, to be an uncertain trumpe~."26 Let us look a little closer at some of the ways in which the confusion or disarray evolved with such speed. We will then be in a better position to understand why the numbers of religious have so dramatically dropped. Within the.Catholic subculture, prior to Vatican II, it was inevitable that Church authority, as represented by bishops, priests and even religious, held 822 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 . generally a socially and pastorally honored position. Their roles and the expec-tations of the people were clearly defined~ and supported by what ,was thought to be an unchanging theology. Vatican II returned to important emphases as regards liturgy, the role of ecclesial aut.hority within the community of the faithful, the role of laity in the apostolate. These emphases, in themselves would have been sufficient to shake and question the status of priests and religious wiLhin the subculture. But I~would agree with~sociologist George A. Kelly that th.e.~dramatic undermi~ning of pivotal symbols of authority~ priesthood, reli-gious life (according to the meanings then given them) was caused in no small way by the inse.nsitive attacks on the symbols by Catholics themselves. Armed with ,the anti-structure symbols of the cultural revolution, the attackers some-. times~used a most remarkable viciousness: One well-known~civil rights leader p~ublicly referred to the Church as "a0iwhore"!27 Priests and religious even seemed to seek out publicity when they left their vocational commitment. Little wonder if,~the faithful had their confidence~in the symbols undermined. The confidence of many priests and religious was also not infrequently threatened. But the confusion and disarray was.helped along even by sympathetic people holding important positions within the subculture. Let me explain. An anthropologist, in studying a particular culture, will seek out the authority structures and symbols of the people. He .will seek to find out how the credibil-ity of the symbols is maintained.But of similar importance is the study of ritual, whether ii be~ civj.'l, secular or religio~us. Ritual is vital to the maintenance of a group's life. One may disturb a people's identity by effectively attacking their ritual. The speed with which .liturgical changes took place following Vatican II, not the changes themselves, left concerned anthropologists aghast.~ Ritual consists primarily of symbols, not signs. As we noted, signs can be substituted for other signs with no problem at all. But not symbols, for they relate to the.hearts old, people. Any change must be done with extraordinary sensitivity and, with full involvement of the people themselves. Victor Turner and Mary Douglas, both leading anthropologists in the study of ritual, both Catholics, have commented~on what happened. At .one point,t; in hisqengthy analysis, Turner notes that '~one cause of the large-scale.withdrawal of many Catholics from the institutional life of the Church who still think of themselves as Christians (and sorrow as widows do for the death of someone~beloved) is the comprehensive transformation of ritual forms under the influence of theoreticians drawn from the positivist and materialist camps . ,,2s It was not a questign of ~topping change. But it was rather a question of how that change was to take place. Mary Douglas is equally strong in her analysis.29 ~Inevitably, religious shared the "blame" in the minds o~f the faithful for disruptive and insensitive,speed with which so many changes took place. Their credibili(y and prestige .as educators was undermined. As their status within the subculture became confused owing to the breakup of the subculture itself, religious often did not develop a more community-oriented, esteemed status as sensitive educators. For this reason they became not particularly attractive Why They Leave / 823 leaders to follow, 'thus contributing to the falloff in vocation recruitment. Religious and Culture Shock One contemporary commentator,~i). Callahan, incisively and sympatheti-cally noted that "it is nbw"trivial to say that W~stern culture is undergoing a crisis, but it is not trivial to live it." In order to situate what happened to many priests and religious, it is relevant to quote his next poii~t: "To live it and not just talk about it means that one takes upon one's shoulders, willingly or unwillingly, all the burdens of confusion, uncertainty and a clouded vision."3° Priests and religious were key symbols within the American Catholic subcul-ture. Suddenly, in.ways never before expected, the prestige and~acceptance of these symbols was undermined. Many priests and religious, trying to live with ~the challenge, struggled to shoulder all the burdens, confusion in roles, uncer-tainty of pastoral and vocatignal goals that resulted from the cbmbined impa~t of Vatican-Ii and the cultur'~Frevolution. Little wonder that many went ifito a state which we call, culture sh~ck---"culture" because the subculture that had defined in n.o ~small ~way their identity and security had now collapsed. Louis Luzbetak defines culture shock as "a reaction that is blind and unreasoffed, a reaction that is but a subconscious flight or escape from a culturally disagree-able environment."3t I believe four types of escape on the part of religious from a culturally disagreeable environment can be detected: 1. Vocational Withdrawal ,o Vei'y few religious prior to Vatican II were trained either to understand empirically the nature of culture, Culture change, or even to appreciate that theology is open to progressive deepening and therefore change. Just one insight will help to appreciate the situation. Prior to Vatican II the word "sociology" was most generally synonymous with "social ethics." It was a most rare seminary or formation house that included any serious teaching in empiri-cal social sciences; given the stress on the a priori method, recourse to the empirical social sciences was not seen as useful or important. It is scarcely surprising therefore if many religious became utterly confused about what was happening as a consequence of Vatican II cultural and theological changes and of the impact of the cultural revolution of the 1960s--so confused, in fact, that they withdrew from religious life as their only method of coping. The missiolo-gist, Walbert Bfihlmann, recently cited a speaker's comment at a Rome meet-ing. The speaker noted .that "if some 40,000 priests and religious have 'given up' in the last ten years it is not least of all because they had not been prepared for the cultural, sociological, and theological °changes that called everything into question. This is why they could not cope with the changes."32 2. Reverse Nativism By "reverse nativism" I mean that religious struggled to escape the frustrating challenge of change by going back to the symbols of predictability 1~24 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 and certainty of the former Catholic subculture. And they sought to remain in the security and identity of the past. This is not an .uncommon type of reaction on the part of adjustment to dominant cultures or rapid change. The Lefebvre movement is an example of this type ~of'reaction within the Church. History shows that while this t.ype bf turning away from reality gives security and identity, it can only be a temporary situation. Reality must at some time or other be faced up to': : 3. Cultural Romanticism A person who suffers from "cultural romanticism" is one who, in order to cope with culture ocon.flict, believes the culture he is .noW faced with is the culture. D~ramatically. discarding the ~past,.he avidly turns to the new way of living, new values, with a most uncritical approacO. He is just blinded by what he assumes to be the beauty of all around him. ~In.~the case of religious faced with the 1960s crises, many, having lost direction; capitulated to the counter-culture movement. Hence, they sought the '~instant" community, as much spontaneity as possible without structures in religious communities. Eventually a tiredness emerged, 9 hollowness, for as we have seen ther~ is a htiman limit to constant change, constant spontaneity. Not only did this overstress on self-fulfillment and feeling, have tragic effects on religious communities, but it also led to unnecessary crises within formation programs and seminaries. Formation programs and seminary systems generally collapsed since they were based~ on a model of service that fitted the old Catholic subculture, but not the new pastgral stress inherent in the community model of the Church. Formators were at a loss to know what to do. Many gave way to the pressures of the counterculture and dispensed with structures. The consequence of this is well described~by Henri J. M. Nouwen in an article published i.n 1969. He claimed that all formation has "as its primary task to offer a meaningful structure which allows for a creative use of the student's energies." When such meaningful structure is lacking, then the student becomes excessiv.e, ly dependent on endless self-scrutiny, affir-mation by superiors and others. The final result of this process is individual .,and group depressionP3 I am sure that as a consequence of the confusion into which formation programs fell, many young religious students left, as well as formation staff since they were being subjected to criticism from all sides--from students, from major superiors, from fellow religious (there are a~ many experts on formation as there are members of a province!). Other interesting signs of romanticism could be seen. Religious were asked ' by Vatican II to adapt to the local culture. Many took this literally, claiming that the only way to get close to the people was to be "one with them." Hence, life-styles changed in an effort to achieve this identification; in the process, of course, religious beqame so identified with middle-class styles that they.were indistinguishable from this class~and lost all credibility in consequence. So Why They Leave / 825 some religious were forced to face the fact that for them religious life no longer held any purpose. Sometimes, crises occur'red when religious overstressed the self-fulfillment "craze" of the counterculture. The more individualistic :they became,.the weaker their ties with the community. As Robert°Bellah noted (as quoted above), such people are apt to opt out of service to the community once they are placed under any pressure from the common good. Not infrequently, religious, having moved out of traditional apostolates, found themselves as social workers, civil rights' leaders, development workers. In .these new roles they sought to give meaning to theirs, lives as religious. But the more they tried to obtain identity from their work of service, the more elusive it became. For religious life has meaning first and foremost from the radical commitment to Jesus Christ in faith, When this reality was overlooked, religious eventually found themselves out of religious life. 4. Cargo Cultism ~ Thomas Merton, in the'Very year of his death, felt that many in the Church (and therefore in religious life) had adopted what is called a "cargo cult" approach tO ,renewal. Anthropologists, particularly those who work in Melanesia, South Pacific, have long documented such cults. People destroy buildings, gardens, and then build new structures, e~g. primitive airstrips or boat jetties. Then, with the .old structures'gone and the new ones established, the people' would sit and wait for the ancestors to fly. in with the goods of the western world. If the ancestors did not arrive, then they recognized that they had chosen the wrong structures or used the wrong magical words.~-Merton rightly recognized that this is something that pertains not only to so-called primitive Melanesia. He felt ttlat the same cargo approach was alive and well ih the ChurchP5 Once chapters of renewal had b~en held, fine documents written, beautiful words spoken, new structures of government introduced, then religious expected that by sitting and waiting the renewal would take place in consequence. But, as in the case 6f the cults in Melanesia, nothing of the kind happened, unless the religious concerned tackled renewal and conver-sion. within the h'eart. Only this radical.conversion to the Lord would ulti-mately make structures or documents effect their aims. The more this was not recognized, the more religious became disillusioned and angry, their anger often being directed at structures and superiors, which, sometimes resulted in the withdrawal from religiou~ life. The structural changes, e.g. in government, were often done with consider-able zeal and hope, under.standably legitimizing these changes as the response to the call to adapt to the local culture. Some provinces of religious congrega-tions, for example, opted to govern according to the American system of "checks and balances." One senses at times that this was done without suffi-cient critical analysis. It was felt that this civil system would check any further abuse by authorities. The aspiration was somewhat cargo cultish, since other problems have emerged that have on occasions exacerbated the situation and 1126 / Review for Religibus, Nov.-Dec., 1983 made government even more difficult to operate within the religious provinces. Arthur Schlesinger asserts that "theFounding Fathers, who saw conflict as the guarantee of freedom, grandly defied the inherited wisdom [in the Constitu-tion] . . . [which] thus institutionalized conflict in the very heart of the American polity."36 Conflict is part and parcel of being~human,.~but its institu- ¯ tionalization within a religious congregation's government may not be quite what is needed if religious life values are to predominate. Secondly, David Potter pointed 'out that the "pervasive repugnance for any sort of personal authority has lain close to the heart of the American idea of freedom. It has colored Americans" distrust of power, has encouraged them to diffuse power when they could, and has caused them to shrink from admitting its existence when they could not prevent it from being concentrated."37 There has been a "cargo cultish" assumption that the civil system of government would solve so many problems, but I belibve in uncritically open-ing themselves to this system, religious have ~pted for a form ofigovernment which can be so fearful of moving without what might be called an-"orgy of consultation" that a paralysis sets in, At a time of decline in vocations and challenging new pastoral needs, no government should be so subject to paraly-sis. Governments in religious life today must consult widely; for this~to take place there must be trust on the part of all concerned. If not, lit~le~wonder if major superiors resign, and well~-suited potential leaders refuse to assume office for fear of being paralyzed by so many checks and~balances and the fear of built-in conflict. I .suspect this is a-significant factor behindi the burnout of superiors and the not infrequent .departure.from religious life. I also believe that religious who have assumed a "cargo cultish" approach to religious life structural changes are merely delaying,the moment of truth for themselves and their congregations. .~.~ I suspect that when the civil system of.government was adopted uncriti-cally, provincial chapter participants did not ask the right questions, e.g., "What is religious life government for?" "Did the founder insist on :a form of government that he considered integrally.~related to the realization of the congregation's aims?" David J. O'Brie.n, commentingin 197-2 on the uncritical Americanizing drive in adaptation noted a degree of disillusionment emerging: "The notion of Americanizing the church now appears to many as unworthy, even immoral."32 Simplistic "cargo cultish:' attitudes about government struc-tures may be waning. I am°inclined to think so. Revitalization of Religious Life: Anthropol~ogical ~sights Today religious life remains in the state of the liminality, of uncertainty, of co~fusion, that has mar.ked the period since Vatican II. Now one hears the near-despair question: How is it possible to survive? Religious life will survive, even if a significant number of congregations are expected to die in the years to come)9 There will always be people in the Church who will want to extend and~ radicalize their baptismal commitment. These will try to express the life Why They Leave / 827 and holiness of the Church in all its radicalness. ~And they will want to do this in groups in order to be supported in ~their~eff.orts. I believe, however, even though malaise and confusion are still affecting religious life that we'a~'e on the verge of an in-depth revitalization. The Church is in a cultural and historical stage that parallels the vital points of:growth in the Church, namely the post-Reformation and the post-French Revolution ¯ periods. Both periods had been preceded by extraordinary social, political, cultural and religious upheaval. The affect of the French Revolution and its associated forces in Europe on religious life was traumatic. It is estimated that on the "eve of the French Revolution, worldwide membership in all the men's religious orders stood at approximately 300,000; by the time the Revolution and the secularizations which followed had run their course in France and the rest of Europe, fewer than 70,000 remained.''4° The Church wffs stunned'by what seemed a calamity. Yet in fact eventually an extraordi-nary number and variety of new congregations emerged fro~m tliis liminal period of shock and confusion. Similarly, after the Reformation, there was.a period in which people placed hopes in new ecclesiastical laws, structures, to bring them through the crisis. But, their approach asked of legislation and new structures what they could never do alone; their .approach was "cargo cultish." Eventually the truth came home to the sincere--the way of renewal is.born out ~ of the near-despair 'question asked in faith--how is it possible to survive? Ultimately, only by a committed return to prayer, faith, union with Christ, the original charism of the particular founder and the prayerful discernment of the ,needs of the ~world, As one historian put it, the Council of Trent, despite its ' tortuous length, really.effected nothing in depth until, under "the reforming influences of men like St. Ignatius Loyola, the stress turned to personal prayer and abnegation, and a renewed commitment to sacramental life. [which] demanded continuous heroic effort.TM ~ What will characterize religious life in its revitalized form? A major insight comes from~Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975. He challenged the Church ib recognize that "what matters is to evangelize man's culture and cultures. in a vital wa, y and fight to'their very roots",(n. 20). If we take this challenge and relate it to the mission of religibus life in the United States (and elsewhere), 1 ,believe John Kavanaugh's statement is correct: "One powerful and often over-looked possibility is in the rediscovery of the religious life as countercultural force."42 This means that we must go 1sack and look closely at the symbols within our culture that urgently need challenging'with Gospel values. This challenging can be effectively done not in words alone but ultimately through a life-style that witnesses to values, attitudes, that are Gospel in origin. As wit-nesses they will be living symbols of what the Gospel really means. The spiritu-ality of future religious life will be, as Karl Rahner observes, "a spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount and of the evangelical counsels, continually involved ~ in renewing its protest against the idols of wealth, pleasure and power."43 To be more explicit, religious life in the United States will enter a new 1~91~ / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 spring, if religious themselves recognize that for the culture to be evangelized in depth "in a vital way and ,~r!ght to [its] very roots," they must themselves become - radically committed living witnesses to the Incarnation and Transcen-dence in orderto counter the symbols of secularism and selfishness. - living witnesses to vibrant community life, to counter the symbols of excessive individualism and alienation insociety~ . - living witnesses to a love of prayer, contemplation, to counter the sym-bols of chronic pragmatism and materialism; ~ - living witnesses through their life-style and attitudes to God's mercy, Jesus Christ, ifi concern for~ the alienated,0the oppressed--nationally and internationally; - living witnesses of respect for older people and their accumulated wis- ,. dora, to counter the symbol of excessive stress on the cult' of youth in a productivity-oriented culture; ¯ - living witnesses to the radical demands of asceticism in opposition to the symbols of consumerism, instant spirituality; - living witnesses, to the virtue of. hope, to cbunter ~symbols that seek to negate any redemptive and ~schatological power of suffering. American~mainstream ctilture is steeped in a rich mythology of mission to greatness, a mythology--once deeply Christian in its orientation--with sym-bols of journeying to build a society befitting the dignity of men and women. In recent decades, this mythology of journeying has been used opolitically, in ways never intended by the early dreamers, poets, prophets and builders of the nation. Religious, when they respond to the call to radicalness, effectively have the chance to draw from this mythology, purifying it of its subsequent aberra-tions. In the process they will touch the hearts of Americans.who are genuinely sehrching for how to journey to real greatness. The pope requeSted the review of religious life in the United States not only because religious life needs this critical reflection within the country, but also because of the influence American religious have had "on religious life +throughout the world.TM Anthropologists, who happen to be Catholic, and who work in ,various parts of the world come into contact with the influrnce of American-b~rn religious. Hence, they recognize the importance of the pope's singling out of American re!igious life. If the review has the effect of deepening commitment and reVital-ization in American religious congregations, this will have a flow effect throughout the world. The mythology of mission to greatness would then be international ir~ its implications It has been Said that the anthropologist's trade lies in unearthing what is hidden and articulating wha~ is latent. In this brief article, I have tried ,to illustrate through the use of anthropological techniques of analysis what has happened.to religious life in the post-Vatican II United States. Many of the insights have been spoken of before. But here /hey are:articulated within various anthropological frames or parameters in an effort to put them into a Why They Leave / 829 better context and :be more objectively understood. Many other disciplines will expertly highlight points not raised here. But, it is argued, the anthropologist's particular expertise is to be found in the interpretation of culture. Religious in America prior to Vatican II belonged ,to a :highly organized and structured subculture of American~life. The anthropologist has specialized insights into the position of religious within such a subculture, but he has also insights into what happened to religious~ life once this subculture broke down with such ~apidity and trau'ma. This paper attempts to offer some of thrse insights. A second aspect of the paper~related to the future of religious life in the United States. As evangelizers are called on to eVangelize culture in depth, the anthro-pologist is surely in a key position to unearth.hidden, but powerful, symbols that must be evangelized if Gospel values are to take root. Herice, the last part of the article is concerned with What religious life should symbolize if it is to become something not lived in some ~r~'refieda~mosphere, .but rather a power-fully radical vehicle through which the Gospel can take root within the hearts and ~minds of American people: Then the people will come to see conversion as a journeying "into a place 6i" promise anff hope"'(Preface of Thanksgiving). ¯ NOTES ~No. 63. 2The Interpretation of Cultures"(N.Y.: Basic; Books¯ 1973), p:89. ~Louis Dupre, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning ofi Religious Attitudes (N.Y.: The Seabury Press, 1979), p. 105. 4J0hn iCogley, Catholic America (N.Y.: Image, 1974)¯ p. 135. .sCharles A. Fracchia, Second Spring: The Coming of Age of U.S. Catholicism (San Francisco: Harper & Ro,w, 1980), p. 83. ~Facing up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics and Religion (Manchester: Penguin, 1979), p. 228. 7"Religion and Power in America Today" in Commonweal, 3 December 1982, p: 655. 8 The Sixties: The Art~ Attitudes, Politics and Media of Our Most Explosive Decade, ed. Gerald Howard (N.Y,: Washington Square Press, 1982), p.,4: 0See explanation by Bernice Martin. A Sociology of Contemporary Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981)¯ p. 1 and passim. ~Olbid. p. 112. '~See Ralph W. Larkin, Suburban Youth. in Cultural Crisis (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 171. ~2For a summary of his approach see Victor and Edith Turner, Image and Hlgrimage in Chris-tian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (Oxford: Basil Bl~ckwell, 1978), pp. 243-255. ~See,Gerald A. Arbuckle, "Evangelization and Cultures: Complexities and Challenges" in The Australasian Catholic Record, Vol. LVI, 1979¯ pp. 254-257: ~4"Contra Blake" in Collected Poems, ed. E. Mendelson (London: Faber & Faber, 1976), p. 540. ~50p. cit., p. 17. ~rDemocracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, ed. P. Bradley (N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), II, p. 98. I!~!0 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 ~TRebuilding America Before the21st Century: An Immodest Agendd~(N.Y2~McGraw-Hill, 1983). , ~ ~SFreedom and Its Limitations in Americt~n;Life, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher (~;tanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 22, 29. ~90p. cir., p. 652. ~°The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Di~ninishing Expectatiohs (N.Y.: Warner Books, 1979), p. 354. 2~"American Catholic Spirituality" in New Catholic World, July/August, 1982, p. 154. 22See Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf, Celebrations~of Death: The Anthropology of " Mortuary Ritual (N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 184-211. 2~See Marvin Harris, America Now: The Anthropology of a Changing Culture (N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1981) p. 28ff. 24 The Cultural Contradictions~ 8f Capitalism (N.Y.: Basic Books, !976), p. 122. 2~ Perfectae Caritatis, no. 3. 26 The Resilient Church: The Necessity and Limit~ of Adaptation, (N.Y.: DoubledaY, 1981), p., I i. 27Cited by Qeorge A. k.elly, The~Battlefor the American Church (N.~.: Doubleday, 1981), p. 8. ~s',Passages, Margins and Povert~,~',Religious. Symbols~and Co~nmunitas" in Worship, Vol. 46, 197Z. p. 390f. , . ~ ~ 29See Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (N:Y.:. Pantheot~ Books, 1970), passim. ~°The Tyranny of Surviva~l (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1973), p. 23. 3~ The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the" Religious Worker (Techny: Divine Word, 1970), p. 97. 32The Chosen Peoples (Midd!egreen: St. Paul Publications, 1982), p. 273. 3~lntimacy: Essays in Pastoral Psychology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 79-105. ~For an introductory overview of such cults see Kenelm Burridge, New .Heaven New Earth (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), passim. ~Cargo Cults in the South Pacific," in America, 3 S~ptember 1977, p. 96. 36The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. vii. ~70p. cit., p. I If. ~The Renewal of American Catholicism (N.Y.: Paulist Press, 1972), p. 208f. 39See predictions by Raymond Fitz and lawrence Cada, ~The Recovery of Religious Life" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 34, 1975/5, p. 706. ~°lawrence Cada, Raymond Fitz; Gertrude Foley, Thomas Giardino and Carol Lichtenberg, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious L~fe (N.Y.: The Seabury Press, 1979), p. 38. 4~ L. Evenett, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 4If. ~2 Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1982), p. 136. 43Concernfor the Church, trans. E. Quinn (N~Y.: Crossroads, 1981), p. 145. **Cited by Kenneth A. Briggs, ~Pope Orders Study'of Drop in ReligiOus Orders in U.S." in The New York 7~mes, 24 June 1983,.p. All. Sentire cum Ecclesia I"incent T. O'Keefe, S.J. Father O'Keefe has been General Assistant and General Counselor in the governance of the Society of Jesus with special charge for the fields of education and social communication; he has also been Director of the Office of Public Relations. . This artic~e ~rigina~y appeared in C~S~ the quarter~y pub~icati~n ~f the Centrum ~gnatianum Spiritualitatis, located in the order's genemlate in Rome. Re ders are familiar with that: element in the 'ch~rism of St. Ignatius which has become~known in a kind of'spiritual shorthand as sentire cum Ecclesia from the "Rtiles for Thinking with the Church" placed by St. Ignatius as an appendix ,at the end of his Spiritual Exercises. After a series of conferences in Rome by Jesuit specialists in May of" 1979, the Ignatian Center of Spirituality published them :in a:booklet.~ This provides an excellent treatment of the different aspec(s of sentire curn Ecclesia and a good bibliogr~aphy? The purpose of this paper is quite different. It is to consider this important part of Jesuit life and spirituality as presented by Pope John Paul II as one of his tirincipal concerns and desires and expectations with regard to the Society of Jesus today. It is'clear that we must 10ok to the past in orde~ tO understand the background of John Paul lI's presentation, but the main thrust is just as clearly in terms of the present and future apostolic work of the Society. Background: Recent History I. John Paul H to Jesuit Provincials: February 27, 1982 From February 23 to March 3, 1982 the Jesuit provincials from around the world met with Father Paolo Dezza, S.J., Delegate of the Holy Father, and Father Giuseppe Pittau, S.J., Coadjutor of~Father Dezza, in order to respond to the concerns, desires and expectations of the Holy Father. In his well-known address to the group on February 27, John Paul II spoke of these 831 1132 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 matters and laid specia! emphasis on sentire cum Ecclesia. His intention was to indicate how the Society coiald best serve the Church today, and how this was to be done in accord with the charism of St. Ignatius and with the tradition of the Society down through the four and a half centuries of its history. The words of the pope are at once a call, an appeal, and a challenge to the whole body of the Society to help the Roman Pontiff and the Apostolic College to serve the People of God, and to do this by living to the full one of the centerpieces of Ignatian spirituality, sentire cum Ecclesia, by being of one mind and heart with the Church. In his address John Paul II refers to the meeting of the provincials which was then at the midway point: "In such a climate of serene ffelcoming of God's will, you are reflecting in meditation and prayer during these days on the best way to respond to the expectations of the pope and of the Pe#ople of God in a period of polarizations and contradictions which mark contemporary society. The object of your reflections, inspired by Ignatian "discernment," are the fundamental problems of the ide~ntity and of the ecclesial ~f.unction of the Society . " And the first such important element noted by the pope'is the sentire cum Ecclesia. The Holy Father situates his remarks within an historical context: ". :. it'is opportune to reflect on your order's past in order to grasp the fundamental marks of this process [the implementation of the Council of Trent] and the richest and most positive aspects of the way in which the Society contributed to it. They will be like guiding lights or beacons to indicate what the Society of today, impelled by the dynamism typical of its Founder's charism, but genuinely faithful to it, can and must do to foster what the Spirit of God has brought about in the Church through the Second Vatican Council. The Society of Jesus, ever imbued with the spiri~ of true renewal, will I~e ready .to play its, part ,fully today as in the past and always: to be able to help the pope and the Apostolic College to advance the whole Church along the great road marked out by the Council . " This help that John Paul II asks of thE'Society in the Ignatian spirit of sentire cum Ecclesia is to assist "in a notable way the Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of their supreme magisterium . The Roman Pontiff to whom you are linked by ~i special vow is, in the words of the Second Vatican Counc.il, 'the Supreme Pastor of the Church' (Christus Dominus, 5). As such he has a particular ministry of service to exercise for the good of the universal Church, and in which he willingly accepts your loving, devoted and time, tested collaboration." John Paul II calls on the Soc!ety to aid him in his service to the whole Church, in helping the People of God to understand and implement the Second Vatican Council,, and to do this particularly bY traditional Jesuit loyalty to the magisterium in doctrine and practice. There are reminders to avoid defects of the past, but this is in order to render the Society's service to the pope and to the Church as effective as possible. Sentire cum Ecclesia 2. In Continuity with Paul VI In issuing this call, the Holy Father indicates clearly that he is following his predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul I: As m~, venerated predecessor, Pope Paul VI, already told you, the Church today wants the Society to implement effectively the Second Vatican Council, as, in the time of St. Ignatius and afterwards, it spared no effort to make known and apply the Council of Trent, assisting in a notable waythe Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of their supreme magisterium . Together with solidity of virtue, your Constitutions insist on a solidity and sourdfiess of doctrine, su~:h as is essential for an efficacious apostolate. Conse-quently, "The Jesuits were universally considered to be a support for the doctrine and discipline of the whole Church. Bishops, priests and lay people used to look upon the Society as an authentic nourishment for the interior life" (Letter of Cardinal Villot to Father General, 2 July 1973). The same should remain true in the future by means, of that loyal fidelity to the magisterium of the Church, and in particular of the Roman Pontiff, to which you are in duty bound. After the letter mentioned above by John Paul 1I, which Cardinal Villot had sentln the name of Paul VI, the latter pope wrote to Father Grneral on September 15, 1973 with regard to General Congregation XXXII which had just been cbnvoked for Decembei" 1974. Paul VI referred in a very special manner to "the fidelity ~o the Holy See, whether in the area of stodies and education of young scholastics, who are the hope of your order, oor of the students attending the great number of schools and universities entrusted to the Society, or in the production and pu~blication of writing,,s aimed at a wide circle of readers, or in the exercise of tl'ie direct'apostolate. 3 A year later on Deceml~er 3, 1974, Paul Vi addressed the members of i3eneral Congregation XXXII and continued.along the line of thought of his letter of September 15, 1973. He specified the works of the Society where the spirit of sentire cum Ecclesia has been evident: ¯. we see displayed all the wonderful richness and adaptability which has characterized the Society during the centuries as.~the Society of those "sent~ by the Church. Hence tl~re have come theological research and teaching, h,ence the apostolate of preaching, of spiritual assistance, of publications and writings, of the direction of groups, and of formation by means of the Word of God and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in accordance with the special and characteristic duty, committed to you by your holy Founder. Hence there have come the social apostolate and intellectual and cultural activity which extend from schools for the solid and complete education of youth all the wa~, to the levels of advanced university studies and ~cholarly research . Then in a s~ries of questions which Paul VI says that Jesuits themselves are asking "as a conscientious verification and as a reassuring confirmation," the Holy Father asks: "What is the state of Catholic faith and moral teaching as set forth by the ecclesiastical magisterium?TM Paul VI spoke in a similar way in his letter of February I5, 1975 to Father General,5 and, in an audience granted to him during General Congregation XXXII on February 20, 1975, the Holy Father expressed his fear lest the ¯ General Congregation "give insufficient care to correcting certain lamentable deviations in doctrinal and disciplinary matters which had in recent years often ~834 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 been manifested with respect to the mag]sterium and hierarchy.TM On March 7, 1975, the last.day of the Congregation, Paul VI received Father General and the General Assistants. In a brief address the Holy Father noted: We were not a little pleased by the fact that the members of the General Congregation favorably understood the force and meaning of our recommendations and showed that the~, received them with a willingnes~s to carry them out . We exhort all the companions" of Ignatius to continue with renewed zeal to carry out all the works and ~ endeavors upon which they have so eagerly embarked in the service of the' Church . You should be aware of the fact that not only the eyes of c.ontemporary men in general but also and especially those of so many members of other religious orders and congre-gations and even those of the universal Church are turned upon you . 7 General Congregation XXXII replied to the concerns and expectations of Paul VI particularly in its first and third decrees. In the first .decree, the "Introductory Decree," the Society humbly acknowledged the failings pointed out by the Holy Fatlier, and sought, with God's grhce, a more radical renewal and closer unity with the Holy Father.8 Even more specifically, the third decree treated "Fidelity of the Society to the Magisterium and the Supreme Pontiff." It stressed the Society's obligati6n of reverence and loyalty, and its responsibil-ity towards the Church. While reaffirming the Society's long tradition of service fO the Church in the explanation, propagation and defense of the faith, it deplo'red the shortcomings in this matter in recent years, and recommended to Society superiors a fatherly but firm vigilance so that cases might be avoided or corrected which tarnish the Socieiy',s fidelity to the magisterium and to the service of the faith and of the Church.9 " The reaction of Paul VI was expressed in a letter of Cardinal Villot-to Father General on May 2, 1975: "It is mos( opportune that the GenEral Congregation has confirmed the traditional fidelity of the Society to the magis-terium and the Holy Father: HoweVer, the expression [in the text of decree 3], 'Freedom Should be intelligently encouraged,' should not be allowed to pro-vide gro~nds for disregarding thb rules for 'Thinking with the Church,' which are proper to the Society."~0 3. The Address Prepared by John Paul 1 During"his all too brief pontificate, Pope John Paul I had pre.pared an address which he intended~to give to (he members of the Society's Con-gregation of Procurators on September.30, 1978. When the Holy Father's sudden death prevented him from giving the address, Father'General appealed to the Vatican Secretariate of State for a copy of it. This was accomplished through the good offices of Cardinal Villot who menti6ned in his accompany-ing letter that John Paul 11 subscribed to and made his own~what John Paul I had written.~ 1 In his address, John Paul I proposed some points for the consideration of thememb~rs of the Congregation of Procurators. Not only does senti~'e cure E~clesia have a central part here, but John Paul I provides a clear and full Sentire cum Ecclesia : report of what activities and what attitudes it refers to: In your apostolic labors you should always keep in view the proper end of'the Society "founded chiefly ,for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine" (Formula of the Institute) . For this evangelizing action, St. Ignatius demands of his sons a solid doctrine acquired through a prolonged and careful preparation. It has been a characteristic of the Society to be careful to present in preaching and spiritual direciion, teaching ~nd publication of books and reviews, a solid and sound doctrine, fully conformed to the teaching of the Church; because of this the monogram of:the Society was for the Christian people a guarantee [of solid doctrine] and won for you the special trust of the episcopate. Strive to maintain intact this praiseworthy characteristic; let it not happen that the teachings and p~blica-tio~ is of Jesuits contain anything to cause confusion and disorientation among the faithful; ever keep in mind that the mission entrusted to you by the Vicar of Christ is to announce--in a way adapted to the mentality of today, certainly, but in its integrity and .purity--the Christian message contained in th, e deposit of revelation, of which the authentic interpreter is the magisterium of the Church. This na!urally implies that in the institutes and faculties where young Jeslzits are formed,'sure and solid doctrine is taught in conformity with the directives ~:ontained in the conciliar decrees and in the successive documents of the Holy See concerning:'~t.he, doctrinal formation of those aspiring for priesthood~ And this is all the more necessary since your institutes are open to numer-ous seminarists, religious, and lay persons wh6 frequent them precisely for the sure and~' solid doctrine that they expect to receive there . Be therefore faithful to the wise norms contained in your Institute: and be at the same time faithful to the prescriptions of the Church concerning religious life, priestly ministry, liturgical celebrations, giving an example of that loving docility to "our Holy Mother the hierarchical Church"---as St. Ignatius recalls in the "Ruleg for Thinking witff the Church"--because she is the "true spouse of Christ our Lord" (see Spiritual Exercises, n. 353). This attitude of St. Ignatius towards the Church should be typical also of his sons.~2 " 4. John Paul H to Presidents of Jesuit Conferences (September 1979) and Father" General's Follow-up A year later, John Paul II addressed Father General and the Presidents of, the Conferences of Provincials on September 21,197,9. The Holy Father noted that he did not have e~nough time to consider sufficiently either the good initiatives t6 be developed or the deficiencies to be remedied, and stated: I shall limit myself to recalling some recommendations offered from the heart by my immediate predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul I, out of the great love they bore.th'e Society. Their recommendations 1 make completely my own . Be faithful to the'rules of your Institute, as requested b.y Paul Vi and mpre recently byoJohn Paul I in the allocution prepared for your Congregation of Procurators shortly before his death. They both stressed . sound doctrine in complete fidelity to the supreme magisterium of the Church and the Roman Pontiff so fervently desired by St. Ignatius, as everyone knows . In addition to the great good accomplished by many Jesuits through the example of their lives, their apostolic zeal, and unconditioned fidelity to the Roman Pontiff, John Paul I1 noted "that the crisis which in recent times has troubled religious life and is still troubling it, has not spared your Society, causing confusion among the Christian people and concern tO the Church, to 8~16 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 the hierarchy and also personally to the Pope who is speaking with you."~3 The Presidents of the Conferences of Provincials had been meeting in Rome for their fourth Consultation with Father General (September 17-21), and the theme of their meeting was° the Society,'s service to the Church. The basis of discussion was a series of recent documents including.the "Directives for the Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious in the Church" {a joint document of the Congregation for Religious and the Congregation for Bishops), and, with special attention, the address of John Paul 1 referred to above. ~4 On October 19: 1979. Father General wrote to all major superiors.of the Society witliregard"to the address of John' Paul It on Septe, mber 21, 197'9", and stated that it "calls for a profound and serious reflection by us as superiors who hold the chief responsibility for the government of the Society.''15 With regard to the shortcomings mentioned by the Pope. Father General notes that: they" are practically the same deficiencies widish had already been pointed out to us by Paul VI and John Paul 1. and which we have (ecognized sincerely and have been trying to correct. But without doubt, we have not coped with the problem to th~ degree and with the effectiveness expected of us. This s~tuation focuses the desirers of the Holy Father on a matter that pertains mainly to us who bear responsibility for the govern-ment of the Society and to our way of governing. Accordingly. now is the momen! to ask ourselves seriously how we can bring a greater effectiveness to lhe government of the Society and to the execution of whal the last General Congregations have laid down with regard to the very points mentioned~ by the Holy Father)6 Practical steps were then decreed by Father General. "You, the Major Superiors with your consultors, in special n~eetings for this purpose, should examine the state of the province, of its ~embers, communities and works in the light of the points already mentioned, and should take any decisions needled in order to meet the expectations of the Holy Father . At the conclu- ~sion bf these c6nsultations, 1 want you to write to me individually at the b~gin-ning of 1980, dealing with these items that have been the subject of special discussion and of the decisions taken on them . Your counsultors also in their official annual letters should deal specifically with this material . Similar measures were set down for local superiors, their co~nsultors and communities, and for directors of apostolic works. Each local superior was to ensure "that each member of the community examines himself about his personal attit6des, words and actions in the light of the desires expressed by the Holy Father. We'must ~iot ~llow ourselves to interpret his words in such a qualified way as would fail to make us look into ourselves and bring about the changers he wants. No one can evade his own personal responsibility with the pretext that his allocution is~'for su~pefiors.'''1~ 5. The Societ~y's Prepration for a Future GC(" Father Dezza's Letter (March 25, 1982) In the correspondence and discussions with Fat~her General that began in 1980 with regard to a future General Congregation, John Paul It stressed the Sentire cum Ecclesia need for a deeper preparation of the Society for this General Congregation. After the tragic attempt on the Pope's life and after the stroke suffered by Father Arrupe, the Holy Father continued these discussions with Father l)ezza, his personal Delegate for the Society. It was in the light of this histori-cal background that John Paul I1 addressed the provincials on February 27, 1982, and spoke of fidelity to the magisterium of the Church as the focal point of the ecclesial function of the Society. In this address he has the time and the occasion for setting forth the initiatives to be developed to meet the needs of the Church and the world, something he:did not have enough time to accom-plish in his address of September 21, 1979. This same background also helps to understand why Father Dezza took up sentire cure Ecclesia as the first major point to be discussed with the provincials during their meeting from February 23 to March 3, 1982. After the meeting~ he wrote to the whole Society on March 25, 1982 in order to share with all Jesuits as he had done Witfi the provincials the concerns,~desires and expectations 6f the Holy Father. In treating sentire cum Ecclesia, there is a concentration in the letter on fidelity to the magisterium in doctrine and practice. After recalling the previous statements of John Paul 11 and his pi~ede-cessors, Paul VI and John Paul 1, which have been noted above, and after pertinent references to the Constitutions and to General Congregations, Father Dezza sets out some normS for the fidelity of Jbsuits, first to the magisterium, and then to the laws of the Church. With regard to the magisteriUm, when it is question of the infallible magis-terium, the necessity of assent on the part of all Catholics is clear. The way in which the truth is presented may Vary according to different times and cul-tures, but the truth itself may not be altered. In the words of Vatican I1: "Furthermore, theologians are now being asked, within the methods a.nd limits ~ofthe science of theology, to seek out more efficient ways--providing the meaning and understanding of them is safeguarded--of presenting their teach-ing to modern man: for the d~posit and~the truths of faith are one thing, the manner of expressing them is quite another.''19 ' When it is question of the a~uthentic but non-infallible magisterium, Vati-can II once again sets out theguiding principles: B~i~shops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected bY all i~s witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept and adhere to it with a religious assent of soul. This religious submission of will and of mind must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex Cathedra. That is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in thi: matter may be known chiefly either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.~° From this Father Dezza enunciates the operative principle: "Therefore when there is question of a doctrine clearly and repeatedly taught in solemn I1~111 / Review for Religious; Nov.-Dec., 1983 documents such as encyclicals, it is the, duty of ministers of the Church, in teaching and preaching, to communicate the doctrine authentically taught to the faithful and help them to live it, with trust in the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to the Church and to its visible head, the Roman Pontiff, in his universal ministry of guiding men to eternal salvation." When it is question of the teaching given in our Centers of Studies, it should, says the letter,. be in conformity with the magisterium (see Sapibntia Christiana, Introd., III and Art. 39 and 70) so that our scholastics may acquire, especially in the basic institutional courses, a clear, solid and organic understanding of Catholic teaching. They should be ~taught conscientiously to distinguish in the different doctrines taught betwe.en affirma-tions "that must be held, those, which are left to free discussion and those which cannot be accepted. In the matter of public~ations, the norm isstied by Father General on February 16, 1~76, in his "Ordinatio" on publisfiing works must not be forgot-ten: "that it is fully conformed t0~teaching on faith and morals, as it is pro- ~posed by the ecclesiastical magisterium,~.taking account of the freedom of investigation in relation 30 writings or reviews whose matter, by ~ts very nature, is destined only for experts.TM In addition =to fidelity in doctrine, Father Dezza notes that Jesuits are obliged to fidelity to the Church in matters of discipline and specifically~ the liturgical norms. Once again, the principle is set down in Vatican II: "Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church [the Holy See, Bishops' Conferences, the Bishops]. Therefore absolutely no other persons, not even a .priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."22 It may be said, therefore, in summary fashion that the main concern and expectation of the Holy Father in this matter is that the Society, in its teaching and preaching, its counseling and writings, and its actions .show and guarantee sureness of doctrine and fidelity to the magisterium. John Paul 1I, like his predecessors, Paul Vl and John Paul I, emphasizes the influence exerted by the Society on the whole Church, and stresses the increased sense of responsi-bility this calls for'on the part of~all Jesuits. There are attitudes and actions to avoid, but in a positive sen~,se there is a call to the Society, and there is the expectation that it will exert its best efforts in helping the Holy Father and the Apostolic Coll.ege to se~:ve the whole Church. Reflections in the Light of Ignatian Spirituality 1. ~he~ Thrust of the lgnatian Sefitire cum Ecclesia It is clear that what the Holy Father is asking of the Society requires no new laws or rules or extraordinary procedures. As Father Dezza indicates in his letter,~it is in accord with our Institute and tradition, and the reminders addressed to the Society by the pope are to be understood in the context of the Sentire cum Ecclesia whole of the Society's Institute, spirituality and mission. These latter points are not developed at any length in the letter since its finality followed that of the meeting of the provincials: to expla.in the concerns and desires and expecta-tions of John Paul II. At the very heart and center of the charism of St. Ignatius are the words of °the Formula of the Institute: "To serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth . "Thus the life and activity of the Society is centered in service to the Church. As a priestly order committed to the defense and propagation of the faith under obedience to the Holy Father, the Society not only shares in the ministry of.the Church, but also has a special responsibility for servi~:e to the Church in her apostolic task of preserving and confirming the communion of faith in the Church. This fiaeans, that, individually and corporately, Jesuits are to develop within them-selves and communicate to those they serve attitudes which will strengthen, unify and energize the Church in its function as an instrument of the kingdom of God~in the world. They should also eliminate attitudes and actions which can weaken, fragment and paralyze the Church.23 These were the concerns of St. Ignatius when he wrote the "Rules for Thinking with the Church." As we: know, these "Rules~' are placed as an appendix at the end of the SpiritualExercises, which helps us to situate them in their proper context. They are not meant for anyone at all. They are intended for those who have been formed and nurtured by the Exercises, who are moved by a strong, personal love for Christ, and are dedicated to the est~iblishment of his ~kingdo~ in r.e, sponse to his call.24 The origin of the Society is'to be found in the ~experienre. of St. Ignatius and his companions of the Spiritual.Exercises. St. Ignatius "founded the Society as an organization which would continually, renew itself in the Church through the inner vigor of the Exercises and under the vitalizing impulse of the Spirit."25 "The Spiritual .Exercises, in which as Jesuits we especially experience Christ~and respr'nd to his call, lie at the heart of our Je~su!t vocation."26 In this context, it is easier to understand the first of ¯ the "Rules," which is a fundamental principle: "We ought to keep our minds disposed and ready, with all judgment of our own put aside, to be obedient in everything to the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our Holy Mother the hierarchical Church.":7 The "~Rules" cannot be truly understood or applied except in the framework of, the Spiritual Exercises, For St. Ignatius, sentire cum Ecclesia applies to Jesuits who live the spirit of the Spiritual Exercises. Without, a lived relationship to the living Christ, the right combination of fidelity and renewal implied in sentire cum Ecclesia can scarcely~be achieved. It is clear that ,the Church for St. Ignatius is not the glorified Church, nor some abstract and idealized one that never existed. It is the Church in the concrete, with its deficiencies and weaknesses, the hierarchical, pilgrim Church which stands "ever in need of purification.''28 The best way to achieve this purification is not by ppblic criticism and controversy: A truly filial love of the Church will suggest the most suitable ways. Father Dezza's letter recalls the 1~40 / Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec., 1983 telling point made by Father Arrupe: "A model of this way of acting was St. Ignatiu~ himself. Few have toiled with such effectiveness for Catholic reform 'in head and members'; and yet one would seek in vain in his voluminous. correspondence for a word of criticism of his superiors."29 St. Ignatius did not assume the role of judge or accuser, but looked rather to an internal renewal in his conviction that the Church had within herself the means and capacity to'- renew herself.3° .,. Sentire cum Ecclesia is not to be identified with something that is occa-sional, something called into play on the occasion of a,Church teaching, pronouncement or declaration.~.lt~ is rather an interior disposition and attitude of love of the Church, an habitual outlook, a framework of reference, which inspires a way of thinking; feeling and acting. The objective of sentire cum Ecclesia goes beyond a careful attention to orthodoxy and looks to union and unity in faith and communign. It is to oppose disintegrating forces in the Church and reinforce trends that build community. Only the person who looks on the Church with love as his Mother and the' Spouse of Christ can grasp and interiorize the spirit of sentire cure Ecclesia. It involves a faith attitude, and as already noted, has its roots in a personal relationship with Christ which has grown during the Spiritual Exercises. Our attitude towards the Church follow~ from our attitude toward the person of Jesus Christ. In his letter Father Dezza states: "It is therefore important to promote ever more in Ours that attitude towards the magisterium that is characteristic of~a Jesuit who, moved by the spirit of faith, is therefore favorable and sympathetic, and is led to consider the offici~,l documents of the magisterium fully and objecti,~ely

Last week brought us the news that Dr. Craig Steven Wright, an eccentric Australian who has long claimed to be Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, was bench-slapped by the High Court, where Mr. Justice Mellor ruled at the conclusion of the proceedings that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, not the author of the Bitcoin white paper, not the author of its software and, by extension, not the creator of Bitcoin.This bench ruling comes after years of litigation and weeks of hearings around the question of the provenance of the Bitcoin white paper and software. Full details of the court's findings on these points will be provided in a written judgment at a later date so I refrain from offering my own conclusions on the evidence, or an assessment of correctness of the ruling, here.As is public knowledge, I was one of the first lawyers – if not the first lawyer – to represent a client on the business end of Wright's years-long litigation campaign, when, in 2019, a Twitter user I know was the first crypto community member to receive legal threats from Wright's lawyers for claiming that Wright was not Satoshi, the very conclusion Mr. Justice Mellor also reached today. A short time later, an acquaintance of mine, Peter McCormack, dared to say the same thing. Peter was promptly sued by Wright in England. Wright won his case against Peter, albeit winning only nominal damages of £1 due to certain deficiencies in Wright's case.In my view, Wright's legal team chose to bring these claims in England for one reason, and one reason only: England is, and long has been, the easiest place in the English-speaking world to win a defamation action, because in England, the playing field is tilted so to the advantage of a claimant that even weak claims can win.This is not a new problem, and its roots go deep. Defamation is an ancient tort with its origins in the landed aristocracy seeking to protect their names and reputations from lesser men. The Anglo-Saxon tort of scandalum magnatum, a "fake news" tort for defaming great men of the realm (and thus not a tort capable of being inflicted on lesser men), was used as early as the 13th century. In later years, various other torts like seditious libel were used to punish political dissent – even where that dissent should be substantially true – and the imposition of these ancient rules in the Thirteen Colonies, most famously in the John Peter Zenger trial of 1735, served as focal points around which a new, young nation, the United States of America, began to develop its fledgling judicial system which led, eventually, to its free speech doctrine embodied today by First Amendment jurisprudence.In the modern formulation, defamation is the publication of a statement of fact to a third party, which is false, which is likely to cause serious harm to their reputation. In this respect it differs little from the tort in the United States. However, in England, the history of the tort – protecting the powerful from the powerless – has never been fully written out of its bones, because the burden of proof in a defamation action rests not with the claimant but with the defense. Not with the Saxon noble with the ear of the King, but with the humble pamphleteer who dared to speak out about his abuses. Not with the Member of Parliament accused of some lecherous or disreputable conduct, but the journalist who reported on it. Not with a person claiming to be Bitcoin's creator, offering nothing approaching definitive proof that he or she is (being a transaction or message signed with one of Satoshi's private keys), and armed with institutional financial backing, but the humble Twitter user who simply observed what appeared to be true, based on a cold assessment of the facts, and dared to repeat what he thought was true in writing. Put simply, at any time, in any defamation claim, the deck is always stacked against speakers and favors those who are most likely to be spoken about.On a practical level, this means that it is conceivable that a future plaintiff in England seeking to conceal certain truths or propound certain falsehoods, but with knowledge of the totality of the circumstances concerning that conduct, confidence that he or she can control those variables, and possessing the resources to reasonably predict that he or she will be able to use lawfare to intimidate others from discussing it, can stifle freedom of speech by using the threat of defamation litigation and, in some cases, being less than forthright with the courts. We need not look back to the Saxons to find a proven example of this: see, e.g., Jeffrey Archer, Baron Archer and former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, who famously won a defamation case against the Star newspaper over a visit to a prostitute whose life was ruined by the case in the late 1980s, only to be sent to prison a decade and a half later, when his testimony was discovered to have been false.The point is not that Archer lied, or that he was punished for a lie. The point is that his initial case was so weak that he should never have won a civil action in the first place, or assumed that victory was possible, but the structure of English defamation law made a victory possible if not inevitable, thus incentivizing Archer to bring it anyway. Requiring a defendant to prove the truth of his statement, particularly where seeking to prove a negative, can be nearly impossible. It is far fairer and in the interests of justice to require a claimant, who starts the dispute, seeks the remedy, possesses direct knowledge of all of relevant facts about his past conduct, and is the party asking the state to intercede on his or her behalf with the full might of its power, to prove the truth under these circumstances.I offer no view on the truth or falsity of Wright's statements or evidence in this case. That is a matter for the High Court to address in its fuller ruling. What I do know is that the question of the truth of his claims should have been addressed years ago in Wright v. McCormack, but it was not dealt with because the burden of proof was on the defense and the cost of going through the exercise COPA - a coalition of very well-funded corporations - just went through was likely too much for an individual defendant like Peter to bear. In future, it is possible to make England a fairer place for speakers and help the English marketplace of ideas be a home for the truth. Ask claimants in a defamation action to bear the burden of proving their case. It's a simple change. Parliament should make it.

It's that time of year, and despite all the budgetary drama unfolding on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have already finished most of their holiday shopping for their favorite children: Pentagon contractors. Through cryptic "program increases" to the defense budget appropriations for fiscal year 2024, most with no listed author and little to no justification, Congress has added more than $25 billion to the Pentagon's procurement and research accounts for fiscal year 2024. Based on the continuing resolution that Congress passed in November, Congress has until February 2 to either pass another stopgap measure, or pass a final Pentagon spending bill, at which point we should be able to see which program increases make the cut. If history is any indication, almost all of them will be in the final bill.In the meantime, a new database created by Taxpayers for Common Sense reveals each of these program increases, whether they fund projects that weren't funded at all in the Pentagon's budget request, and whether they fund projects requested in Unfunded Priorities Lists (UPLs), extra-budgetary wish lists that Congress requires military service branch and combatant command leaders to submit to Congress each year.The numbersLawmakers on the House Appropriations Committees got to work early, adding 479 program increases for a combined $9.5 billion. When their Senate counterparts got to work, they included 636 program increases in their bill worth nearly $15 billion — so all in all 1,115 program increases. Broken down by bill section, there were 172 increases for procurement between the House and Senate at a cost of $14 billion, and 943 for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) at a cost of $10.5 billion. When the House version of the Defense Appropriations bill came to the floor, lawmakers added 11 more program increases for procurement, and another 90 for RDT&E, for a combined $1.1 billion.While these kinds of adds are nothing new, their numbers do seem to be growing, particularly in the RDT&E category. In fact, the number of RDT&E top-ups has grown by 72% in the past four years, from 600 for FY2021, to 776 for FY2022, to 996 for FY2023, up to 1,033 for FY2024. More troubling still is that 1,010 of the total 1,216 increases, or $14.5 billion of the $25.7 billion lawmakers have added to these accounts, are for projects the Pentagon didn't fund at all in its budget request.Are they earmarks?According to Congress, these increases aren't earmarks, but in practice, they often serve the same purpose and are not subject to transparency reforms traditional earmarks have faced since 2007.Traditional earmarks, rebranded by Congress as "congressionally directed funding" or "community project funding," support projects that fund a specific entity for a specific purpose in a specific place. This made them a favored tool for lawmakers to funnel taxpayer dollars into their district or state. But these earmarks come with rules, requiring members to put their names on them, and in the House's case, requiring members to list their earmarks on their websites. Program increases are not bound by these rules. They have no name attached (apart from amendments, which list their sponsors) and generally lack any accompanying justification. In the Senate Appropriations Committee report on the Pentagon spending bill, a section on "funding increases" stipulates that "funding increases shall be competitively awarded, or provided to programs that have received competitive awards in the past." So Congress seems to differentiate these increases from earmarks on the basis that they're competitively awarded, unlike traditional earmarks. In practice, that rationale breaks down.Next-gen earmarksOne program increase allocates $2 million for "urban subterranean mapping technology," a fancy name for tunnel detection. This increase has appeared in every Pentagon spending bill since FY2020, for a total of $17 million over five years, but there's almost no publicly available information about this project. That is other than Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) regular celebrations of funding for West Virginia-based Marshall University to research urban subterranean mapping technology in press release after press release after press release after press release, all of which were published before the funds they celebrate were formally awarded.Some adds are even more blatantly noncompetitive. In the House, someone added $7 million for "Omniblast water sensor technology." If that sounds weirdly specific, it's because it is. The Omniblast water sensor is a trademarked product, owned by a company called Advanced Materials and Devices (AMAD), Inc. It goes without saying that program increases for patented products can only be fulfilled by the patent owners, so AMAD Inc. is more than a shoe-in for any "competitive" award process. And while AMAD Inc. was awarded a contract for "a wearable underwater blast sensor" in 2022, it was the only bidder, suggesting a not so competitive process in the past.As to whether this funding, like an earmark, is meant to serve the political interests of a specific lawmaker, we can't know for sure without knowing the author. But AMAD Inc. is based in Reno, Nevada, in the district of Rep. Mark Amodei's (R-Nev.), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee. While AMAD Inc. hasn't made any political contributions to Rep. Amodei's campaigns, it did spend $150,000 on lobbying in 2022, and $120,000 on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2023, expenses paid to a lobbying firm called Cornerstone Government Affairs. Cornerstone donated $3,000 to Rep. Amodei so far in the 2024 election cycle, its first time contributing to any of his campaigns.Unjustified adds, unjustifiable secrecyAsked about these program increases, a Senate Appropriations Committee staffer pointed to the unfunded priorities they fund as a justification. But there are two problems with that argument. One is that Unfunded Priorities Lists (UPLs) are just that: unfunded, meaning the Pentagon didn't find them important enough to include in its $826 billion request. Almost by definition, items on these UPLs are non-priorities for the Pentagon. The second problem is that UPLs only accounted for about $1.9 billion of the $25.7 billion lawmakers added to the Pentagon's request for procurement and RDT&E. The staffer also argued that the Pentagon sometimes "relies upon congressional increases to keep production lines open or to sustain readiness of the military." This tack obfuscates the fact that for a lot of the funds Congress adds, it subtracts funds from elsewhere in the Pentagon budget. While the offsets for the committee adds are as opaque as their authors, the offsets listed in amendments overwhelmingly raid the Pentagon's Operations and Maintenance account. That's Congress' prerogative, but lawmakers can't raid O&M to pay for procurement and research adds and then say with a straight face that those adds are about supporting military readiness.All this isn't to say that none of these projects are worth funding. There's more than 1,200 of them, so surely some are. But with the lack of transparency for who requests and approves them, whether the funds are competitively awarded, and whether they align with any cogent national security strategy, who's to say? If lawmakers think cramming another $25 billion for procurement and research into a $826 billion budget of an agency that just failed its sixth audit is worthwhile, they should at least let us know who's adding what and to what end.

Canada has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis in its relationship to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its offshoot, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP (comprising Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam). Initially a disinterested and disengaged observer of the developing TPP process back in 2006–09, by 2011–12 Canada underwent a conversion to become a determined, almost desperate suitor seeking to gain entry to the TPP club. It finally succeeded, but a change of government in 2015 led to a re-evaluation of the decision to accede to the TPP, under pressure from anti-globalization forces. Effectively, Canada sat on its hands for over a year until the U.S. had determined its final position. Then, after the TPP's impending collapse, when the United States under then president Donald Trump announced its withdrawal, Canada changed tack once again and decided to work with Japan and others to rescue the agreement. However, during the negotiations to adapt the original TPP into the TPP-11 agreement (which became known as the CPTPP), Canada earned a reputation as a difficult and demanding partner, pushing its "progressive trade agenda" and slowing down the process. Indeed, Canada is often seen as trying to impose very progressive values on a region with little receptivity for such views. The cultural-exemption and auto-trade issues were of principal concern to Canada. Through its policy positions and negotiation style, Canada under the Trudeau government almost scuttled the CPTPP process and risked finding itself locked out once again. Quick action was taken to stem the damage and Canada became not only a signatory, but one of the first six countries to ratify the CPTPP, bringing it into force on December 30, 2018. Today, Canada has fully embraced the CPTPP, situating it as an important leg in its developing Indo-Pacific strategy, and is open to considering expansion to new members who are able and willing to meet the CPTPP's high standards.




Deborah Elms, in her essay "The Origins and Evolutions of TPP Trade Negotiations"(Elms, 2016, 29-49), sketches out the history of how the TPP came into being, starting with the "P4 agreement" (between Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei) in June 2005. That agreement, technically called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, came into effect "with very little attention" (Elms, 2016, 30) and was incomplete. It did not cover investment or financial services, which were to be left for later negotiation. When the parties finally got around to discussing the two missing chapters in February 2008, the United States joined the discussions. In September 2008, a couple of months prior to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Lima, Peru in November, the U.S. announced that it would seek to join the agreement in its entirety. This set the stage for announcements at that meeting of other countries joining the talks, namely Australia, Peru and Vietnam. Now there were eight.
What about Canada? At the Lima summit, attended by then prime minister Stephen Harper and then international trade minister Stockwell Day, Canada expressed no interest in getting on board, much to the frustration of accompanying officials (Stephens, Conversation). Elms states (2016, 40) that Canada had expressed interest in joining earlier but had been rebuffed over concerns regarding the supply management system that it maintains for dairy, poultry and eggs. Dairy is a particular concern for both the United States and New Zealand. However, senior Canadian officials closely involved with APEC and trade policy at the time told the author that Canada had been invited to join the P4 agreement in the early days, by New Zealand, but had refused (Sloan; Plunkett). The assessment was that Canada had little to gain, as it already had an agreement with Chile, at the time was negotiating one with Singapore (which was never completed) and had little to gain from an agreement with New Zealand, given the political need to defend the dairy industry.
There are various explanations for Canada's lack of interest in 2008–09. Part of the reasoning was domestic. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper was in a minority situation and would remain so until Harper won his first majority in 2011 (after two minority governments in which he was prime minister). Despite the Conservatives' support for trade liberalization, it was a hot-button issue and anti-globalization sentiments were vocal, in Canada and in other countries. The Harper government was dealing with the 2008 financial crisis and was focused very much on the U.S. market and NAFTA. The initial coolness toward the P4 continued to apply, and from the perspective of trade negotiating resources, Canada was already fully engaged in negotiations with South Korea and the EU. There was concern that if Canada entered the TPP negotiations, it would have to make additional market concessions beyond those already conceded in NAFTA, but with little likelihood of getting additional concessions from the U.S. Yet, in the end, it was probably NAFTA that changed the position of Harper vis-à-vis the TPP.
Both Canada and Mexico had preferential access to the U.S. market through NAFTA.There was growing concern in both countries that the TPP could be a back door to the U.S. market, undermining the value of NAFTA concessions. Autos were a particular concern. Canada and Mexico concluded therefore that they needed to be at the negotiating table.In essence, Canada decided to try to enter the TPP tent for defensive reasons, although the possibility of Japan eventually joining was an additional factor, given Canada's longstanding desire to improve its access to the Japanese market and the limited prospect that a bilateral agreement would be concluded in the foreseeable future (Ciuriak 2018).




That realization kicked off a series of meetings with officials from TPP-negotiating states, since admittance of new negotiating partners required a unanimous decision of the existing members. But, as in many things, the United States played an outsized role. The U.S. initially was not helpful, especially at the officials level. It is not fully clear why, but anecdotally
the author was told by U.S. trade officials that the addition of Canada would "complicate" matters. Canada's unhelpful position on trade in dairy products was certainly a factor. Canada pushed its advocacy to the political level and Canadian participation in the TPP was a major topic of discussion between Harper and then president Barack Obama at
the 2011 Honolulu APEC summit. At that meeting, Obama "welcomed" Harper's expression of interest in seeking to join the TPP talks and initiating consultations toward that goal (White House 2011).

Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Estatística e Investigación Operativa. 555V01 ; [Abstract] This doctoral thesis is dedicated to functional regression for scalar response. In particular, we focus on functional semiparametric models, which combine the practical advantages of parametric and nonparametric approaches, surpassing both methodologies. Accordingly, several semiparametric models involving a functional singleindex component were studied from a theoretical and practical perspective. First, for the functional single-index model (FSIM) and the semi-functional partial linear single-index model (SFPLSIM), we provide uniform consistency results (over all parameters involved) for kernel- and k-Nearest-Neighbours-based statistics related to the estimation of the semiparametric component. Second, for the sparse semifunctional partial linear single-index model (SSFPLSIM), we develop a variable selection procedure in the linear component based on penalized least squares (PLS). The good behaviour of this method is theoretically assured (rates of convergence of the estimators are obtained, as well as asymptotic behaviour of the variable selection procedure). Third, the SSFPLSIM is adapted to the case in which covariates with linear e ect come from the discretization of a curve. For this new model, the multi-functional partial linear single-index model (MFPLSIM), the variable selection problem was also studied. Consequently, two new algorithms were proposed (providing theoretical results that ensure their good performance) to solve the ine ciency of the PLS method when it is directly applied to the MFPLSIM. For all the models and procedures mentioned above, theoretical results are accompanied by both simulation studies and real data applications which illustrate the good performance of the proposed methodology in practice. ; [Resumo] Esta tese está adicada ao estudo da regresión funcional con variable resposta escalar. En particular, centrámonos en modelos funcionais semi-paramétricos, os cales combinan as vantaxes prácticas dos enfoques paramétrico e non-paramétrico, superando a ambas metodoloxías. Desta maneira, estudáronse, tanto dende o punto de vista te orico como dende a perspectiva pr actica, varios modelos semi-param etricos que involucran unha compoñente funcional single-index. En primeiro lugar, para o functional single-index model (FSIM) e para o semi-functional partial linear single-index model (SFPLSIM) establecemos resultados de consistencia uniforme (sobre todos os parámetros involucrados) para os estatísticos de tipo núcleo e tipo k-veciños-máis-próximos relacionados coa estimación da compoñente semi-paramétrica do modelo. En segundo lugar, para o sparse semi-functional partial linear single-index model (SSFPLSIM) desenvolvemos un procedemento de selección de variables na compoñente linear baseado en mínimos cadrados penalizados (PLS, iniciais de penalized least squares). O bo comportamento deste método asegurouse dende o punto de vista teórico (obtendo taxas de converxencia dos estimadores, así como o comportamento asintótico do procedemento de selección de variables). En terceiro lugar, o SSFPLSIM adaptouse ao escenario no cal as covariables con efecto linear proveñen da discretización dunha curva. Para este novo modelo, o multi-functional partial linear single-index model (MFPLSIM), estudouse tamén o problema da selección de variables e propuxéronse dous novos algoritmos (dos que aseguramos teoricamente o seu bo comportamento) para resolver a inefi cacia do método PLS cando se aplica directamente ao MFPLSIM. Para todos os modelos e procedementos citados, os resultados teóricos acompañáronse de estudos de simulación e aplicacións a datos reais que ilustran o bo comportamento na práctica da metodoloxía presentada. ; [Resumen] Esta tesis está dedicada al estudio de la regresión funcional con variable respuesta escalar. En particular, nos centramos en modelos funcionales semi-paramétricos, los cuales combinan las ventajas prácticas de los enfoques paramétrico y no-paramétrico, superando a ambas metodologías. De esta forma, se estudiaron, tanto desde el punto de vista teórico como desde la perspectiva práctica, varios modelos semi-paramétricos que involucran una componente funcional single-index. En primer lugar, para el functional single-index model (FSIM) y para el semi-functional partial linear single-index model (SFPLSIM) establecemos resultados de consistencia uniforme (sobre todos los parámetros involucrados) para los estadísticos de tipo núcleo y de tipo k-vecinos-más-próximos relacionados con la estimación de la componente semi-paramétrica del modelo. En segundo lugar, para el sparse semi-functional partial linear single-index model (SSFPLSIM) desarrollamos un procedimiento de selección de variables en la componente linear basado en mínimos cuadrados penalizados (PLS, iniciales de penalized least squares). El buen comportamiento de este método se ha asegurado desde el punto de vista teórico (obteniendo tasas de convergencia de los estimadores, así como el comportamiento asintótico del procedimiento de selección de variables). En tercer lugar, el SSFPLSIM se ha adaptado al escenario en el cual las covariables con efecto linear provienen de la discretización de una curva. Para este nuevo modelo, el multi-functional partial linear single-index model (MFPLSIM), se ha estudiado también el problema de selección de variables y se propusieron dos nuevos algoritmos (de los que aseguramos teóricamente su buen comportamiento) para resolver la ine ficiencia del método PLS cuando se aplica directamente al MFPLSIM. Para todos los modelos y procedimientos citados, los resultados teóricos se acompañaron de estudios de simulación y aplicaciones a datos reales que ilustran el buen comportamiento en la práctica de la metodología presentada. ; Xunta de Galicia; ED481A-2018/191 ; Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01 2016-2019 ; Xunta de Galicia; ED431G2019/01 ; Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-015 ; Xunta de Galicia; ED431C2020-014 ; This research has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) under Grants MTM2014-52876-R and MTM2017-82724-R, by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) under Grant PID2020-113578RB-I00, by the Xunta de Galicia through Centro Singular de Investigación de Galicia accreditation under Grants ED431G/01 2016-2019 and ED431G 2019/01 and through the Grupos de Referencia Competitiva under Grants ED431C 2016-015 and ED431C2020-014 and in part by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund-ERDF). The author particularly thanks the contracts financed by the research group MODES (from May 1, 2017 to August 31, 2017) and by the CITIC (from September 1, 2017 to May 30, 2018) and the PhD contract financed by the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF), the reference of which is ED481A-2018/191 (from May 31, 2018). Some results of this thesis have been obtained during a stay of the author at the Universit ́e Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (from March 13, 2019 to June 12, 2019), financed by the Xunta de Galicia, with reference ED481A-2018/191

The article investigates the approaches to the genesis and evolution of institutionalism theory. The aim of the study is a retrospective analysis of the institutional approach in political science and tracing the evolution of the institutional paradigm. The author proceeds from the fact that in the institutional tradition there are several theoretical blocks, such as: French legal institutionalism, institutional issues of sociological and political thought of the XIX - first half of the twentieth century, and American economic institutionalism of the same period. It was found out that the institutional approach as a holistic methodological program for studying the social order was first developed within the sociological direction of Western European jurisprudence. It is determined that the basis of institutional theory in French jurisprudence is the idea of equilibrium, according to which social development is regarded as a spontaneous equilibrium process, and the order that emerges in the process of such development is not predetermined by nature or sovereign. It is revealed that the researchers of the XIX - first half of the XX century interpret institutions mainly as fundamental collective social structures, the normative and legitimating power of which lies in the sphere of values, while their attention is concentrated around formal institutions. Im addition, the article highlights the significant contribution to the development of the institutional paradigm of the representatives of the economic theory of American institutionalism. It has been found that within the tradition of American institutionalism, the nature of institutions is explained as a set of informal and derived formal norms of thought and behavior that determine human interaction with the environment, as well as human relationships. The temporality of the variability of institutions occurs as a result of conscious and unconscious choice of people. It is substantiated that «classical» institutionalism considered politics as a normative system free from individual interests. A characteristic feature of this tradition was legalism, which involves the interpretation of politics in terms of constitution and law. At the same time, the idealization of institutions led to the idealization of the public interests they reflected, which acquired the character of an independent entity, not related to the interests of specific individuals. That is why holistic methodology is a key feature of the old institutionalism. The author concludes that the objectivist approach remains fundamental to traditional institutionalism. This narrows the scope for exploring the role of the subjective factor in political processes. In addition to objectivism, a specific feature of this approach is the institutional-structural determinism in the understanding of political reality. Political reality in this regard is viewed as completely dependent on the formatting and functioning of political institutions. ; У статті досліджено підходи до генезису та еволюції теорії інституціоналізму. Метою дослідження є ретроспективний аналіз інституціонального підходу в політичній науці та прослідковування еволюції інституціональної парадигми. Автор виходить з того, що в інституціональній традиції є кілька теоретичних блоків, як-то: французький правовий інституціоналізм, інституціональна проблематика представників соціологічної та політологічної думки ХІХ – першої половини ХХ століття, а також американський економічний інституціоналізм цього ж періоду. З'ясовано, що інституціональний підхід як цілісна методологічна програма вивчення соціального порядку вперше був розроблений в межах соціологічного напрямку західноєвропейського правознавства. Визначено, що основою інституціональної теорії у французькому правознавстві є ідея рівноваги, за якою суспільний розвиток відбувається як спонтанний рівноважний процес, а порядок, який постає в процесі такого розвитку, не є наперед встановленим ні природою, ні сувереном. Розкрито, що дослідники ХІХ – першої половини ХХ ст. трактують інститути переважно як фундаментальні колективні структури суспільства, нормативна і легітимаційна сила яких міститься у сфері цінностей, однак їх увага сконцентрована довкола формальних інститутів. Виокремлено суттєвий внесок у розвиток інституціональної парадигми представників економічної теорії американського інституціоналізму. З'ясовано, що в межах традиції американського інституціоналізму природа інститутів пояснюється як сукупність неформальних і похідних від них формальних норм мислення та поведінки, що визначають взаємодію людини з навколишнім середовищем, а також відносини між людьми. Темпоральність змінюваності інститутів відбувається у результаті свідомого та несвідомого вибору людей. Обґрунтовано, що «класичний» інституціалізм розглядав політику як незалежну від індивідуальних інтересів нормативну систему. Характерною прикметою відповідної традиції був легалізм, який передбачає інтерпретацію політики в термінах конституції і права. Водночас ідеалізація інститутів зумовлювала ідеалізацію відображуваних ними суспільних інтересів, що набували характеру самостійної сутності, не пов'язаної з інтересами конкретних індивідів. Тому саме холістська методологія є ключовою ознакою старого інституціоналізму. Автор доходить висновку, що об'єктивістський підхід залишається базовим для традиційного інституціоналізму. При цьому відбувається звуження можливостей дослідження ролі суб'єктивного чинника в політичних процесах. Крім об'єктивізму, специфічною прикметою вказаного підходу є інституціонально-структурний детермінізм у розумінні політичної реальності. Політична реальність у цьому плані розглядається як повністю залежна від форматування і функціонування політичних інститутів. ; У статті досліджено підходи до генезису та еволюції теорії інституціоналізму. Метою дослідження є ретроспективний аналіз інституціонального підходу в політичній науці та прослідковування еволюції інституціональної парадигми. Автор виходить з того, що в інституціональній традиції є кілька теоретичних блоків, як-то: французький правовий інституціоналізм, інституціональна проблематика представників соціологічної та політологічної думки ХІХ – першої половини ХХ століття, а також американський економічний інституціоналізм цього ж періоду. З'ясовано, що інституціональний підхід як цілісна методологічна програма вивчення соціального порядку вперше був розроблений в межах соціологічного напрямку західноєвропейського правознавства. Визначено, що основою інституціональної теорії у французькому правознавстві є ідея рівноваги, за якою суспільний розвиток відбувається як спонтанний рівноважний процес, а порядок, який постає в процесі такого розвитку, не є наперед встановленим ні природою, ні сувереном. Розкрито, що дослідники ХІХ – першої половини ХХ ст. трактують інститути переважно як фундаментальні колективні структури суспільства, нормативна і легітимаційна сила яких міститься у сфері цінностей, однак їх увага сконцентрована довкола формальних інститутів. Виокремлено суттєвий внесок у розвиток інституціональної парадигми представників економічної теорії американського інституціоналізму. З'ясовано, що в межах традиції американського інституціоналізму природа інститутів пояснюється як сукупність неформальних і похідних від них формальних норм мислення та поведінки, що визначають взаємодію людини з навколишнім середовищем, а також відносини між людьми. Темпоральність змінюваності інститутів відбувається у результаті свідомого та несвідомого вибору людей. Обґрунтовано, що «класичний» інституціалізм розглядав політику як незалежну від індивідуальних інтересів нормативну систему. Характерною прикметою відповідної традиції був легалізм, який передбачає інтерпретацію політики в термінах конституції і права. Водночас ідеалізація інститутів зумовлювала ідеалізацію відображуваних ними суспільних інтересів, що набували характеру самостійної сутності, не пов'язаної з інтересами конкретних індивідів. Тому саме холістська методологія є ключовою ознакою старого інституціоналізму. Автор доходить висновку, що об'єктивістський підхід залишається базовим для традиційного інституціоналізму. При цьому відбувається звуження можливостей дослідження ролі суб'єктивного чинника в політичних процесах. Крім об'єктивізму, специфічною прикметою вказаного підходу є інституціонально-структурний детермінізм у розумінні політичної реальності. Політична реальність у цьому плані розглядається як повністю залежна від форматування і функціонування політичних інститутів.

The Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Experimental Methods has a history of 9 years, promoting a space for research, exchange and dissemination so necessary these days for economic sciences. Although its specificity lies in experimental methods and interdisciplinary studies, it can be observed in this issue that the lens is broadened towards other types of research that favor the enrichment of various theories typical of our discipline.In the first place, colleagues Yanely Castillo Texis and Bertina Romero Sánchez present a work on the implementation of the control system in the inventory area, in a particular area of Mexico, specifically the state of Tlaxcala, based on the diagnosis of a company from the place. It is interesting to appreciate the applied methodology, since it is divided into phases to achieve a better diagnosis and demonstrate the need to be responsible in the inventory control process, a model that can be replicated in other types of companies.The second article, by Claudio Gamero Enríquez, also addresses problems related to production, this time regarding the application of a logistics control system from the input of materials to the output of finished products. The author has collected information from three companies and applied a novel northwest corner method, followed by a stone-to-stone jump method in order to optimize the most efficient route.Third, an article by Graciela Sturm is presented, in which various economic theories are approached from three perspectives: freedom of personal and educational choice, the potential for economic well-being and ethics as a political value, and virtue as a value. With that purpose, the author makes a historical journey that interrelates the approaches, from her most significant contributions, also contributing her own perspective on the matter.The fourth article, presented by Sergio Lagunas Puls and Carmen Lilia Cervantes Bello, proposes the purpose of applying hyperbolas as representations of international trade. This method consists of applying the tool to exports from Mexico to the United States, specifically in the iron and steel-based manufacturing industry, highlighting these trajectories in geometric form. It should be noted how interesting the results obtained, which can influence both organizational policies, as well as in the field of public policies.Finally, a quasi-experimental type of work is presented, developed by Beatriz C. Cavazos Rodríguez, Natalia R. Córdova Cisneros, Ricardo J. Hinojosa Fano and Matías Bahena Sánchez, in which the determinants of satisfaction with life in Mexico are analyzed , from the division between treatment and control groups. The method applied is Propensity Score Matching, from which it is sought to inquire about the sociodemographic determinants of life satisfaction in that country. The results discussed show us the way in which psychological and sociological factors influence the degree of satisfaction with ways of life.Finally, as is our custom, we deeply thank the authors who have enhanced their contributions. Also to the evaluators and collaborators, whose work we highlight and have contributed with their experience to the result of this issue. All of the above is essential to maintain the level of academic quality characteristic of the University of Buenos Aires and of our Journal. We invite anyone who wants to participate to get in touch with our team, in order to continue contributing to the discipline with research papers and academic productions that highlight interdisciplinarity and experimental methods. Prof. Emerita Dr. María Teresa CasparriDirector of the IADCOM Institute ; La Revista de Investigación Interdisciplinaria en Métodos Experimentales cuenta con una trayectoria de 9 años, impulsando un espacio de investigación, intercambio y difusión tan necesario por estos días para las ciencias económicas. Si bien su especificidad radica en los métodos experimentales y los estudios interdisciplinarios, podrá observarse en el presente número que se amplía el lente hacia otro tipo de investigaciones que favorecen al enriquecimiento de diversas teorías propias de nuestra disciplina.En primer lugar, las colegas Yanely Castillo Texis y Bertina Romero Sánchez exponen un trabajo sobre la implementación del sistema de control en el área de inventarios, en una zona particular de México, específicamente el estado de Tlaxcala, a partir del diagnóstico de una empresa del lugar. Es interesante apreciar la metodología aplicada, ya que se divide en fases para alcanzar un mejor diagnóstico y demostrar la necesidad de ser responsables en el proceso de control de inventario, modelo que puede ser replicable en otro tipo de empresas.El segundo artículo, de Claudio Gamero Enríquez, aborda también problemáticas vinculadas a la producción, en esta oportunidad respecto a la aplicación de un sistema de control logístico desde las entradas de materiales hasta la salida de productos terminado. El autor ha relevado información de tres empresas y aplicado un novedoso método de esquina noroeste, seguido por un método de salto de piedra en piedra con el fin de optimizar la ruta más eficiente.En tercer lugar, se presenta un artículo de Graciela Sturm, en el cual se abordan diversas teorías económicas desde tres perspectivas: la libertad de elección personal y educacional, la potencialidad del bienestar económico y la ética como valor político, y la virtud como valor. Con ese propósito, la autora realiza un recorrido histórico que interrelaciona los abordajes, desde sus aportes más significativos, aportando también su propia mirada al respecto.El cuarto artículo, presentado por Sergio Lagunas Puls y Carmen Lilia Cervantes Bello plantea como propósito aplicar hipérbolas como representaciones de comercio internacional. Este método consiste en aplicar la herramienta a las exportaciones desde México a Estados Unidos, específicamente en la industria de manufacturas basadas en hierro y acero, destacando dichas trayectorias en forma geométrica. Cabe destacar lo interesante de los resultados obtenidos, que pueden influir tanto en las políticas de índole organizacional, así como también en el ámbito de las políticas públicas.Por último, se expone un trabajo de tipo cuasi experimental, desarrollado por Beatriz C. Cavazos Rodríguez, Natalia R. Córdova Cisneros, Ricardo J. Hinojosa Fano y Matías Bahena Sánchez, en el cual se analizan los determinantes de satisfacción con la vida en México, a partir de la división entre grupos de tratamiento y de control. El método aplicado es el de Pareamiento por Puntaje de Propensión, a partir del cual se busca indagar sobre los determinantes sociodemográficos en la satisfacción respecto de la vida en dicho país. Los resultados abordados nos muestran la forma en que los factores psicológicos y sociológicos influyen en el grado de satisfacción respecto de los modos de vida.Para finalizar, como es nuestra costumbre, agradecemos profundamente a los/as autores/as que han realzado sus aportes. También a los/as evaluadores/as y colaboradores/as, cuya labor destacamos y han contribuido con su experiencia al resultado del presente número. Todo lo expuesto es fundamental para mantener el nivel de calidad académica característico de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y de nuestra Revista. Invitamos a toda persona que quiera participar que se ponga en contacto con nuestro equipo, con el fin de seguir aportando a la disciplina con trabajos de investigación y producciones académicas que destaquen la interdisciplinariedad y los métodos experimentales. Prof. Emérita Dra. María Teresa CasparriDirectora del Instituto IADCOM

In the context of research into the relationship between secularism and multiculturalism in contemporary India, this paper points to their specific interrelatedness and the distinctive Indian approach to secularism through the idea of a principled distance as a way to adjust to religious pluralism that has a close affinity with multiculturalism. Contrary to opinions that secularism is alien to the Indian civilisation, by a selection of instances through Indian history, the paper illustrates the broader meaning of "Indian" religious and secular thinking and also points to the significance of interaction among various religious cultures and subcultures, particularly between Hinduism and Islam/Sufism. However, the paper focuses on the analysis of Indian constitutional secularism and legally warranted multiculturalism. Debates on multiculturalism follow two distinct directions: the first examines multiculturalism as a state policy in the form of federalisation of its political system, whereas the second is concerned with the meaning of multiculturalism and its implications for the issues of individual and group rights, culture, religion, and secularism. It also touches upon the influence of the British colonial rule on the shaping of interreligious relations in independent India. The last section questions the ascendancy of Hindu nationalism, particularly in view of the rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, its appropriation of the new "idea" of India, especially the Hindu nationalist narrative, which endangers India's official ideology of secularism, as well as the position of the minorities, in particular of the Muslim minority. The article is divided into seven sections. The Introduction outlines, in general, the main distinction between secularism and multiculturalism and their relationship, referring to the two principal approaches to secularism: (1) neutrality between different religions, and (2) prohibition of religious associations in state activities. Indian secularism tends to emphasise neutrality in particular rather than prohibition in general. The second section, Traces of the Indian Secular Thought through History, examines the view, particularly pervasive among Hindutva supporters, that secularism is alien to the Indian civilisation from the perspectives of history and philosophy, which both provide evidence that "the constituents of secularism which make up the concept are not alien to Indian thought" (Thapar, 2013: 4). In this context, the most evoked name in connection with religious tolerance is that of Ashoka Maurya, who in his edicts called not only for the co-existence of all religious sects but also for equal respect for those who represented them. Many centuries later, Moghul Emperor Akbar supported dialogue across adherents of different religions, including atheists. He laid the formal foundations of a secular legal structure and religious neutrality of the state. The paper here also points to the significance of interaction among various religious cultures and subcultures, the more so between Hinduism and Islam/Sufism. It focuses on extending the meaning of "Indian" religion in the sense that it includes multiple religions, such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism, Bhakti, Shakta, Islam/ Sufism, Guru-Pir tradition, which, but for Brahmanism, challenge orthodoxy by giving greater weight to social ethics rather than to prescriptive religious texts. The third section, Multiculturalism in Indian Context, refers to the Indian legally warranted multiculturalism and relating debates followed by two distinct directions. The first examines multiculturalism as a state policy in the form of federalisation of its political system; a process which involves the political accommodation of ethnic identities, which remains the most effective method of management and resolution of conflicts. The second direction is concerned with the meaning of multiculturalism and its implications for the issues of individual and group rights, culture, religion, secularism. According to Rajeev Bhargava (1999: 35, 2007), cultural particularity might undermine the "common foundation for a viable society", and might also lessen individual freedom, thus invalidating the values of liberal democracy. From there follows the question of constitutional protection of personal laws of religious communities, which is, in a way, in collision with the primary secular identity, that of a citizen (Thapar, 2010, 2013). The fourth section, Characteristics of Indian Secularism, analyses in some detail the Articles of the Indian Constitution concerned with the basic understanding of secularism, i.e., that religion must be separated from the state "for the sake of religious liberty and equality of citizenship." The analysis indicates that, while some Articles (Indian Constitution, Articles 25–26) depart from the mainstream western secularism, others are close to the Western liberal leanings, like those stipulating that the state will have no official religion (constitutional amendment 42) or that no religious instruction will be allowed in educational institutions maintained wholly out of state funds, as well as that no person attending any educational institution receiving financial aid from state funds shall be required to take part in compulsory attendance at religious instruction or worship (Articles 27–28/1/). But, more specifically, the idea of a principled distance from religious pluralism points to India's highly contextual, thus distinctively Indian, version of secularism. The fifth section, The Question of Indian Identity, argues that, with the inauguration of democracy in India, multiculturalism was adopted as a policy of recognising and respecting diversity, guaranteeing the protection and rights of minorities and positive discrimination for the historically marginalised, and emphasising intergroup equality, while leaving the issue of intragroup equality somewhat aside. In the last section, Challenges of Hindu Nationalistic Ideology, the author points to some manifestations of the current ascendency of Hindu nationalism, particularly resulting from the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power in 2014, such as the increasing identification of state leaders with Hindu cultural symbols and, at the same time, decreasing official support for the public festivals of minorities, Mus lims and Christians in the first place. According to Hindu nationalists, most Muslims and Christians are converts from Hinduism and should therefore recognise the precedence of the Hindu culture in India. Anti-Muslim prejudice in India stems not from the ideas of their racial or cultural differences but, above all, from questioning their loyalty to India. Here emerges the question of the "secular nationalism" of the Congress Party as opposed to the "Hindu nationalism" of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which insists on Hinduism as the essential token of the Indian national identity, implying cultural and political pre-eminence of Hindus in India. The Conclusion summarises some of the main points regarding the relationship between secularism and multiculturalism in the Indian context, indicating that despite the present challenges that Hindu nationalism poses to both, "…the Indian experience suggests that some form of moderate secularism will continue to remain necessary as a state framework to check the advance of religious majoritarianism" (Bajpai, 2017: 224). The author assumes that the article offers some constructive avenues for future studies on secularism and multiculturalism, which should not only provide further insights into the Indian case but also enhance the understanding of the varieties of secular trajectories worldwide, as well as their implications for democracy.

Tourism, as the third largest export sector in the world, is of great importance to global communities (UNWTO, 2018). Global Wellness Institute (2018) until 2022 predicted for the medical tourism industry an average of ≈8% of annual growth; however, with one of the highest risks, i.e. disease risk (in this case COVID-19), since April 6 2020, 96% of the world's countries have travel restrictions: About 43 percent of states have closed all or part of their borders. About 21 percent of states have introduced travel bans for passengers from certain countries affected by COVID-19. About 27 percent of states have suspended all or part of their international flights to their The remaining 9% of states have applied the following travel restrictions: (i) the requirement to immediately dissociate or quarantine, normally within 14 days since the arrival at destination; (ii) annulment or revocation of the visa upon arrival; (iii) travel bans for passengers arriving from certain regions (UNWTO, 2020). As a result, the tourism industry, alongside with medical tourism, is experiencing a major recession and the GWI (2018) forecast for 2022 loses its meaning. As a new form of tourism, medical tourism has become one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry. Medical tourism can be defined as a "purposeful trip abroad to receive medical care" (Keckley and Underwood, 2008). Medical tourism can be viewed from two perspectives (Plianbangchang, 2018): Reactive means medical care that pays special attention to the treatment or elimination of existing diseases; Rehabilitation of the disabled is a conventional medicine that is sometimes called the sickness Proactive approach to health ensures/preserves the well-being, these services are focused on health promotion and disease Heung et al. (2011), Ganguli and Ebrahim (2017), Tham (2018), Nilashia et al. (2019) found that the development of medical tourism in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore is mainly influenced by the following factors: competence/human capital, infrastructure andsuperstructure, government approach/policy/regulation, the range of developed services, communication between different market segments, investment opportunities, lack of strategic planning, underdeveloped public-private partnerships and international cooperation, shortcomings in marketing and branding strategies, lack of a unified accreditation and certification system. However, the authors did not single out and assess one of the most important phenomena hindering development – the consequences caused by risk factors. Lithuanian researchers studied the risk in various aspects: patient safety, adverse event management, risk factor management and assessment (Kaleininkaitė and Trumpaitė, 2007; Buškevičiūtė and Leškevičiūtė, 2008; Kanapeckienė and Jurkuvėnas, 2009; Staliūnienė, 2009; Mekšriūnaitė and Rudaitis, 2013; Paškevičius, 2014; Stasytytė and Aleksienė, 2016; Jankauskienė and Kostereva, 2019; Babinskas and Kanapeckienė, 2019, etc.), however, the management of tourism risk factors has not been sufficiently studied yet. The following authors have examined the risk management of medical tourism in foreign literature: Wybo, 2004; Camillo, 2015; Mutalib et al., 2016; Winsena et al., 2016; Hasan et al., 2017; Plianbangchang, 2018; Ravulakollu et al., 2018; Nilashia et al., 2019; Lubowiecki-Vikuk and Dryglas, 2019; Hyder et al., 2019. The problem of the research is how to effectivelymanage the risk factors of medical tourism. The aim of the research is to develop a management model after analysing the risk factors of medical tourism. Objectives of the study: (1) to define medical tourism risk factors; (2) to analyse risk managementalgorithms. Research methods: comparative logical analysis ofscientific literature, modelling, generalization. Medical tourism organizations can be called complex socio-technical organizations that operate in a complex dynamic environment. As a result, these organizations are exposed to external and internal risk factors that need to be identified, analysed, assessed, prioritized, and managed. In this work, the author solved the problem: how to effectively manage the risk factors of medical tourism. During the analysis of the performed scientific literature, it was found that we can ensure a successful risk cleaning process by keeping with the following consistency: risk analysis, anticipation of possible accidents/factors, strategic planning, ensuring control and feedback, risk profiling, during which all possible risk factors are classified and prioritized. The risk of medical tourism involves two stages: first, when patients are abroad and second, when patients leave the hospital and return to their place of residence. Lack of information and insufficient communication between the doctor abroad and in the home country is another negative effect of medical tourism as the continuity of patient care is interrupted. Health information is not transferred from foreign hospitals to the home country, which can lead to several consequences, such as the inability to identify potential complications in a timely manner and the toxicity caused by the drugs used (Carrera and Lunt, 2010). Cammillo (2015) has attributed the emergence of medical tourism risk to the lack or scarcity of strategic managementskillsatthedestination.Strategicmanagement is a dynamic process in which the current situation is constantly assessed and each step is planned/forecasted. This requires a strong understanding of the organization as well as an understanding of the global environment in which the organization operates. This includes situation analysis SWOT. In this context, strategic management is forced to include risk assessment, risk management, crisis management and prevention strategies, and effective interdepartmental communication. The above-mentioned author singles out the following risk factors that have to be assessed during strategic risk management:1. Human error; 2. Office error; 3. Trust in the wrong person; 4. Unauthorized procedures; 5. Unlimited access to electronic data; 6. Unrestricted access for third parties; 7. Improper maintenance; 8. Insufficient control; 9. Misuse of confidential information; 10. Errors of court; 11. Improper standard operating procedures. Conclusions After examining the risk factors of medical tourism, they can be divided into two categories: external and internal risk Based on the research of tourism risk aspects conducted by researchers in recent years, tourist/patient risk perceptions are often summarized from five to seven aspects. Five aspects of risk covered financial/economic risk, psychological risk, operational risk, equipment or technical risk, health risk, accident/physical risk and social risk. In addition to these dimensions, six dimensions of risk included one more risk, i.e. time risk, and seven aspects of risk included loss of opportunity. After analysing risk management systems/algorithms/ models, it was determined that the most significant preconditions for a successful medical tourism risk management process are the following: risk analysis/ forecasting; identification of accidents/factors; strategic planning; ensuring control and feedback; risk profiling, during which all possible risk factors are classified and ; Medicinos turizmo organizacijas galima vadinti kompleksinėmis sociotechninėmis organizacijomis, kurios veikia sudėtingoje dinaminėje aplinkoje. Todėl šios organizacijos yra veikiamos išorinių ir vidinių rizikos veiksnių, kuriuos reikia identifikuoti / analizuoti / vertinti / prioretizuoti ir valdyti. Šiame straipsnyje autorius sprendė problemą – kaip veiksmingai valdyti medicinos turizmo rizikos veiksnius. Analizuodamas mokslinę literatūrą autorius nustatė, kad užtikrinti sėkmingą rizikos valdymo procesą galima laikantis šio nuoseklumo: rizikos analizė; galimų nelaimingų įvykių / veiksnių numatymas; strateginis planavimas; kontrolės ir grįžtamojo ryšio užtikrinimas; rizikos profilio sudarymas, kurio metu visi galimi rizikos veiksniai yra klasifikuojami ir prioretizuojami.

Метою статті є дослідження проблемних аспектів відповідальності роботодавця за незаконне звільнення, зокрема щодо пришвидшення порядку відшкодування шкоди незаконно звільненому працівнику, вдосконалення механізму адміністративної відповідальності роботодавця за незаконне звільнення, посилення гарантій працівників при масовому звільненні, внесення змін до кримінального законодавства щодо грубого по- рушення законодавства про працю, вчиненого в умовах пандемії коронавірусу SARSCoV- 2. Для досягнення мети зазначеної наукової статті застосовано комплекс загальнонаукових та спеціальних методів. Зокрема, завдяки діалектичному методу пізнання встановлено базовий підхід до вивчення проблем, які виникають під час вирішення питання про відповідальність роботодавця за незаконне звільнення працівників; герменевтичному – здійснено тлумачення законодавчих актів у зазначеній сфері. Також у статті широко використані загальнонаукові методи, такі як індукція, дедукція, аналіз, синтез, узагальнення. Спеціально-наукові методи, зокрема, формально-юридичний (догматичний) використано при розробленні пропозицій щодо внесення змін до чинного законодавства України. В науковій статті сформульовано основні причини, що сприяють порушенню трудового законодавства з боку роботодавців. За результатами аналізу чинних законодавчих норм встановлено, що на теперішній час відсутні норми, які би забороняли, виправдовували або давали право роботодавцям звільняти працівників у зв'язку із запровадженням в країні карантинних заходів. Враховуючи це, роботодавці намагаються приховати дійсні обставини та підстави звільнення під законними підставами, передбаченими КЗпП України, кількість незаконних звільнень у період карантину невпинно зростає, про що свідчать статистичні дані, надані Державною службою зайнятості. З огляду на це, автором запропоновано ряд змін до чинного законодавства України, зокрема: 1) до ст. 235 Кодексу законів про працю щодо виплати працівнику грошової компенсації у зв'язку з його незаконним звільненням за рахунок державного бюджету України у разі фактичної ліквідації підприємства до моменту прийняття судом рішення про стягнення з роботодавця середнього заробітку за час вимушеного прогулу; 2) до Кодексу законів про працю – з метою запровадження позитивного досвіду Франції в частині складання на підприємствах соціальних планів для пом'якшення негативних наслідків масового скорочення персоналу з економічних причин; 3) доповнення ст. 41 Кодексу України про адміністративні правопорушення положенням щодо відповідальності роботодавця за незаконне звільнення або відмову у прийнятті на роботу у випадках, що виключають його кримінальну відповідальність. Також, автором підтримано наукову позицію щодо необхідності внесення змін до ст. 172 Кримінального кодексу України щодо виключення поняття «грубе порушення законодавства про працю» і перетворення складу злочину, передбаченого цією статтею, на матеріальний. ; Целью статьи является исследование проблемных аспектов ответственности работодателя за незаконное увольнение, в частности относительно ускорения порядка возмещения вреда незаконно уволенному работнику, совершенствование механизма административной ответственности работодателя за незаконное увольнение, усиления гарантий работников при массовом увольнении, внесение изменений в уголовное законодательство относительно грубого нарушения законодательства о труде, совершенного в условиях пандемии коронавируса SARS-CoV-2. Для достижения цели указанной научной статьи применен комплекс общенаучных и специальных методов. В частности, благодаря диалектическому методу познания установлено базовый подход к изучению проблем, возникающих при решении вопроса об ответственности работодателя за незаконное увольнение работников; герменевтическому – осуществлено толкование законодательных актов в указанной сфере. Также в статье широко использованы общенаучные методы, такие как индукция, дедукция, анализ, синтез, обобщение. Специально научные методы, в частности, формально-юридический (догматический) использовано при разработке предложений по внесению изменений в действующее законодательство Украины. В научной статье сформулированы основные причины, способствующие наруше- нию трудового законодательства со стороны работодателей. По результатам анализа действующих законодательных норм установлено, что в настоящее время отсутствуют нормы, которые бы запрещали, оправдывали или давали право работодателям увольнять работников в связи с введением в стране карантинных мероприятий. Учитывая это, работодатели пытаются скрыть истинные обстоятельства и основания освобождения под законными основаниями, предусмотренными КЗоТ Украины, количество незаконных увольнений в период карантина постоянно растет, о чем свидетельствуют статистиче- ские данные, предоставленные Государственной службой занятости. Учитывая это, автором предложен ряд изменений в действующее законодательство Украины, в частности: 1) в ст. 235 Кодекса законов о труде по выплате работнику денежной компенсации в связи с его незаконным увольнением за счет государственного бюджета Украины в случае фактической ликвидации предприятия до момента принятия судом решения о взыскании с работодателя среднего заработка за время вынужденно- го прогула; 2) в Кодекс законов о труде – с целью внедрения положительного опыта Франции в части составления на предприятиях социальных планов для смягчения негативных последствий массового сокращения персонала по экономическим причинам; 3) дополнение ст. 41 Кодекса Украины об административных правонарушениях положением об ответственности работодателя за незаконное увольнение или отказ в приеме на работу в случаях, исключающих его уголовную ответственность. Также, автором поддержано научную позицию о необходимости внесения изменений в ст. 172 Уголовного кодекса Украины относительно исключения понятия «грубое нарушение законодательства о труде» и превращение состава преступления, предусмотренного этой статьей, на материальный. ; The purpose of the article is to study the problematic aspects of the employer's liability for illegal dismissal, in particular, regarding the acceleration of the procedure for compensation for harm to an unlawfully dismissed employee, improving the mechanism of employer's administrative liability for illegal dismissal, strengthening workers' guarantees in case of mass dismissal, and amending criminal legislation regarding gross violations of labor legislation committed in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic. To achieve the goal of this scientific article, a complex of general scientific and special methods was applied. In particular, thanks to the dialectical method of cognition, a basic approach to the study of problems arising when deciding the issue of the employer's responsibility for the illegal dismissal of employees has been established; hermeneutic – the interpretation of legislative acts in this area has been carried out. Also, the article widely uses general scientific methods such as induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, generalization. Specially, scientific methods, in particular, formal-legal (dogmatic) were used in the development of proposals for amendments to the current legislation of Ukraine. The scientific article formulates the main reasons for the violation of labor legislation by employers. Based on the results of the analysis of the current legislative norms, it was established that at present there are no norms that would prohibit, justify, or give employers the right to fire workers in connection with the introduction of quarantine measures in the country. Given this, employers are trying to hide the true circumstances and grounds for release under legal grounds provided for by the Labor Code of Ukraine, the number of illegal dismissals during the quarantine period is constantly growing, as evidenced by statistics provided by the State Employment Service. Taking this into account, the author proposed a number of changes to the current legislation of Ukraine, in particular: 1) in Art. 235 of the Labor Code on the payment of monetary compensation to an employee in connection with his illegal dismissal at the expense of the state budget of Ukraine in the event of the actual liquidation of the enterprise before the court decides to recover average earnings from the employer during the forced absence; 2) in the Code of Labor Laws – with the aim of introducing the positive experience of France in terms of drawing up social plans at enterprises to mitigate the negative consequences of mass layoffs for economic reasons; 3) addition to Art. 41 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses by the provision on the responsibility of the employer for illegal dismissal or refusal to hire in cases excluding his criminal liability. Also, the author supported the scientific position on the need to amend Art. 172 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine regarding the exclusion of the concept of "gross violation of labor legislation" and the transformation of the corpus delicti provided for by this article into a material one.

Метою статті є дослідження проблеми реалізації та ефективності юридичних гарантій у галузі соціально-трудових правовідносин, які надаються науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи. Стаття присвячена проблемам реалізації та ефективності юридичних гарантій, які надаються науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи. Автор обґрунтовує та аналізує ефективність пільг та переваг, що надаються науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи при виникненні, зміні та припиненні трудових та соціально-правових відносин. Хоча в науковій літературі і містяться публікації, щодо правового захисту внутрішньо-переміщених осіб, на даний час існує досить невелика кількість досліджень в площині трудового права і права соціального захисту, які б комплексно охоплювали проблему повноти та ефективності юридичних гарантій, що надаються науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають правовий статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи. Вирішення поставлених завдань здійснювалось за допомогою використання таких методів, як аналіз та узагальнення наукової, науково-популярної літератури та нормативно-правових актів які надають пільги та переваги науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи. Автор пропонує внести певні зміни та доповнення в чинне законодавство, яке регулює правовідносини в галузі надання соціально-трудових гарантій науково- педагогічним працівникам, що мають статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи. Абзац 1 пункту 6 Постанови Кабінету Міністрів № 505 від 01.10.2014 р. викласти у наступній редакції: «Грошова допомога не призначається у разі, коли будь-хто із членів сім'ї має у власності житлове приміщення (частину житлового приміщення), яке, за своєю площею, придатне для проживання (з розрахунку 13,65 квадратних метрів на одну особу), що розташоване в інших регіонах, ніж тимчасово окуповані території. Доповнити ст. 42-1 КЗпП частиною другою наступного змісту: «Працівник який вимушений був звільнитися з місця роботи у результаті або з метою уникнення негатив- них наслідків збройного конфлікту чи техногенного характеру і має статус внутрішньо переміщеної особи, має переважне право на укладення трудового договору у разі поворотного прийняття на роботу при поновленні Україною контролю над територією де знаходиться місце роботи такого працівника». Практична цінність статті полягає в обґрунтуванні і аналізі соціально-правових гарантій, що надаються внутрішньо переміщеним особам, які працюють у закладах вищої освіти, а також внесення пропозицій щодо удосконалення соціального і правового захисту внутрішньо переміщених осіб. ; Целью статьи является исследование проблемы реализации и эффективности юридических гарантий в области социально-трудовых отношений, предоставляемых научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющим статус внутренне перемещенного лица. Статья посвящена проблемам реализации и эффективности юридических гарантий, предоставляемых научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющим статус внутренне перемещенного лица. Автор обосновывает и анализирует эффективность льгот и преимуществ, предоставляемых научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющим статус внутренне перемещенного лица при возникновении, изменении и прекращении трудовых и социально-правовых отношений. Хотя в научной литературе и содержатся публикации, по правовой защите внутренне перемещенных лиц, в настоящее время существует достаточно небольшое количество исследований в плоскости трудового права и права социальной защиты, которые комплексно охватывали проблему полноты и эффективности юридических гарантий, предоставляемых научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющих правовой статус вну- тренне перемещенного лица. Решение поставленных задач осуществлялось с помощью использования таких методов, как анализ и обобщение научной, научно-популярной литературы и нормативно-правовых актов предоставляющих льготы и преимущества научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющим статус внутренне перемещенного лица. Автор предлагает внести определенные изменения и дополнения в действующее законодательство, регулирующее правоотношения в сфере предоставления социально-трудовых гарантий научно-педагогическим работникам, имеющим статус внутренне перемещенного лица. Абзац 1 пункта 6 Постановления Кабинета Министров № 505 от 01.10.2014 г. изложить в следующей редакции: «Пособие не назначается в случае, когда кто-либо из членов семьи имеет в собственности жилое помещение (часть жилого поме- щения), которое, по своей площади, пригодное для проживания (из расчета 13,65 квадратных метров на одного человека), расположенного в других регионах, чем временно оккупированных территориях. Дополнить ст. 42-1 КЗоТ частью второй следующего содержания: «Работник который вынужден был уволиться с места работы в результате или во избежание негативных последствий вооруженного конфликта или техногенного характера и имеет статус внутренне перемещенного лица, имеет преимущественное право на заключение трудо- вого договора при возвратном приеме на работу при возобновлении Украиной контроля над территорией где находится место работы такого работника ». Практическая ценность статьи состоит в обосновании и анализе социальнопра- вовых гарантий, предоставляемых внутренне перемещенным лицам, работающим в учреждениях высшего образования, а также внесение предложений по совершенствованию социальной и правовой защиты внутренне перемещенных лиц. ; The purpose of the article is investigation of the problem of implementation and effectiveness of legal guarantees in the field of social and labor relations, which are granted to scientific and pedagogical workers who have the status of internally displaced persons. The article is devoted to the problems of implementation and effectiveness of legal guarantees, which are provided to scientific and pedagogical workers who have the status of internally displaced persons. The author substantiates and analyzes the effectiveness of privileges and benefits provided to scientific and pedagogical workers who have the status of an internally displaced person in the occurrence, change and termination of labor and socio-legal relations. Although the scientific literature contains publications on the legal protection of internally displaced persons, there is currently a relatively small number of studies in the field of labor law and social protection law, which would comprehensively cover the problem of completeness and effectiveness of legal guarantees provided to research and teaching staff. having the legal status of an internally displaced person. The decision of the tasks was carried out by means of the use of such methods as analysis and generalization of scientific, popular scientific literature and normative legal acts which grant privileges and benefits to the scientific and pedagogical workers who have the status of an internally displaced person. The author proposes to make certain changes and additions to the current legislation, which regulates the legal relationship in the field of providing social work guarantees to scientific and pedagogical workers who have the status of internally displaced persons. Paragraph 1 of clause 6 of the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 505 dated 10/01/2014 should read as follows: "There is no monetary benefit in the event that any of the family members owns a living space (part of the living space), which, in its area, suitable for living (at the rate of 13.65 square meters per person) located in other regions than temporarily occupied territories. Supplement art. 42-1 of the Labor Code, part two of the following sentence: "An employee who was compelled to resign from work as a result, or in order to avoid the negative consequences of an armed conflict or an anthropogenic nature and has the status of an internally displaced person, has a pre-emptive right to conclude an employment contract in the event of a return decision work on the restoration of Ukraine control over the territory where the place of work of such an employee is located». The practical value of the article is to substantiate and analyze the social and legal guarantees provided to internally displaced persons working in higher education institutions, as well as to make proposals to improve the social and legal protection of internally displaced persons.

Full author list: R. Morgan, M. Soares-Santos, J. Annis, K. Herner, A. Garcia, A. Palmese, A. Drlica-Wagner, R. Kessler, J. García-Bellido, T. G. Bachmann, N. Sherman, S. Allam, K. Bechtol, C. R. Bom, D. Brout, R. E. Butler, M. Butner, R. Cartier, H. Chen, C. Conselice, E. Cook, T. M. Davis, Z. Doctor, B. Farr, A. L. Figueiredo, D. A. Finley, R. J. Foley, J. Y. Galarza, M. S. S. Gill, R. A. Gruendl, D. E. Holz, N. Kuropatkin, C. Lidman, H. Lin, U. Malik, A. W. Mann, J. Marriner, J. L. Marshall, C. E. Martínez-Vázquez N. Meza, E. Neilsen, C. Nicolaou, F. Olivares E., F. Paz-Chinchón, S. Points, J. Quirola-Vásquez, O. Rodriguez, M. Sako, D. Scolnic, M. Smith, F. Sobreira, D. L. Tucker, A. K. Vivas, M. Wiesner, M. L. Wood, B. Yanny, A. Zenteno, T. M. C. Abbott, M. Aguena, S. Avila, E. Bertin, S. Bhargava, D. Brooks, D. L. Burke, A. Carnero Rosell, M. Carrasco Kind, J. Carretero, L. N. da Costa, M. Costanzi, J. De Vicente, S. Desai, H. T. Diehl, P. Doel, T. F. Eifler, S. Everett, B. Flaugher, J. Frieman, E. Gaztanaga, D. W. Gerdes, D. Gruen, J. Gschwend, G. Gutierrez, W. G. Hartley, S. R. Hinton, D. L. Hollowood, K. Honscheid, D. J. James, K. Kuehn, O. Lahav, M. Lima, M. A. G. Maia, M. March, R. Miquel, R. L. C. Ogando, A. A. Plazas, A. Roodman, E. Sanchez, V. Scarpine, M. Schubnell, S. Serrano, I. Sevilla-Noarbe, E. Suchyta, and G. Tarle ; On 2019 August 14, the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations detected gravitational waves from a black hole and a 2.6 solar mass compact object, possibly the first neutron star-black hole merger. In search of an optical counterpart, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) obtained deep imaging of the entire 90% confidence level localization area with Blanco/DECam 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, and 16 nights after the merger. Objects with varying brightness were detected by the DES Pipeline, and we systematically reduced the candidate counterparts through catalog matching, light-curve properties, host-galaxy photometric redshifts, Southern Astrophysical Research spectroscopic follow-up observations, and machine-learning-based photometric classification. All candidates were rejected as counterparts to the merger. To quantify the sensitivity of our search, we applied our selection criteria to full light-curve simulations of supernovae and kilonovae as they would appear in the DECam observations. Because the source class of the merger was uncertain, we utilized an agnostic, three-component kilonova model based on tidally disrupted neutron star (NS) ejecta properties to quantify our detection efficiency of a counterpart if the merger included an NS. We find that, if a kilonova occurred during this merger, configurations where the ejected matter is greater than 0.07 solar masses, has lanthanide abundance less than 10-8.56, and has a velocity between 0.18c and 0.21c are disfavored at the 2σ level. Furthermore, we estimate that our background reduction methods are capable of associating gravitational wave signals with a detected electromagnetic counterpart at the 4σ level in 95% of future follow-up observations. ; R. Morgan thanks the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, which is funded by LSSTC, NSF Cybertraining Grant #1829740, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation; his participation in the program has benefited this work. F. O.E. acknowledges support from the FONDECYT grant No. 1201223. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant No. 1744555. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics at The Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, the Institut de Ciències de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de Física d'Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, NFS's NOIRLab, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. The UCSC team is supported in part by NASA grant NNG17PX03C, NSF grant AST-1815935, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and by fellowships from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to R.J.F. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory at NSF's NOIRLab (NOIRLab Prop. ID 2012B-0001; PI: J. Frieman), which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Based on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Comunicações (MCTIC) da República Federativa do Brasil, the U.S. NSF's NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant Nos. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MICINN under grants ESP2017-89838, PGC2018-094773, PGC2018-102021, SEV2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007- 2013), including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This paper has gone through internal review by the DES collaboration. This manuscript has been authored by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02- 07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics.

Ethno-political leadership is an important indicator of the social and political representation of minority groups in a multicultural social environment. The most effective form of its implementation provides for the representation of the ethnic community at the level of the highest legislative body of the state. A number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe have developed their own models of such representation over the last past decades. They are implemented through guaranteed reservation of seats for representatives of ethnic communities, lower numerical thresholds for representation in parliament, inclusion of ethno-political leaders in the lists of national parties, single-member districts may provide sufficient minority representation as well. The relevance of the study of the ethno-political leadership in the context of parliamentary representation of ethnic minorities is objectively determined by the multi-ethnicity of Ukrainian society, declaration of Ukraine's integration into the EU structures and implementation of European democratic principles of governance.The subject of the research are public and political leaders, mostly heads of national-cultural societies, foundations, ethnopolitical parties. The author applies the method of electoral statistic analysis for parliamentary elections of 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2014 and 2019. Synthetically generalized of minority representation in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of all nine convocations. Emphasis is made on the political participation of representatives of the multi-ethnic regions in Ukraine (Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, Northern Azov, Southern Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia).Adequate representationof people's deputies of Russian and Jewish ethnic origin has considered in the article. Among the ethnopolitical leaders of Jewish ethnicity, the figure of Kharkiv resident Olexander Feldman stands out, who since 2002 has invariably been a people's deputy of Ukraine. Vadim Rabinovych, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress is represented in parliament for only the last two terms. The most constant (since 1998 as a people's deputate) is the position of the Crimean Tatar leader, national democrat Mustafa Dzhemilev. A similar ideological orientation is taken by the head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Refat Chubarov. The co-founder of the «Our Land» Party Anton Kisse is a stable ethno-political leader of the Bulgarians in Ukraine. The unbalanced position of the ethno-political leadership of the Romanian (Ivan Popescu) and the Hungarian (Ishtvan Haidosh, Vasyl Brenzovich) representatives is also has considered. It is indicated about the first steps at the parliamentary representation of the Azov Greeks in the person of Dmytro Lubinets.The author concludes about the low efficiency of parliamentary representation of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, which is caused by permanent changes in electoral legislation, negative electoral and engineering practice of gerrymandering and neglecting of European good practices of including minority ethnic groups in politics, which are defined in international documents. ; Этнополитическое лидерство является важным индикатором общественно-политической репрезентации миноритарных групп в условиях поликультурной социальной среды. Наиболее эффективная форма его реализации предусматривает представительство этнической общины на уровне высшего законодательного органа государства. Ряд стран Центрально-Восточной Европы в течение последних десятилетий выработали собственные модели подобной репрезентации. Они реализуются через гарантированное резервирование мест для представителей этнических общин, снижение процентного барьера для прохождения в парламент, включение этнополитических лидеров в списки общенациональных партий, создание одномандатных округов для этнических меньшинств, проживающих компактно. Актуальность исследования проблематики этнополитического лидерства в контексте парламентского представительства этнических меньшинств объективно обусловлено полиэтничностью украинского общества, декларированием интеграции Украины в структуры ЕС и внедрением европейских демократических принципов управления.Предметом исследования являются общественные и политические лидеры, как правило руководители национально-культурных обществ, фондов, этнополитических партий. Автор применяет методику анализа электоральной статистики парламентских выборов 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2014 и 2019. Синтетически обобщенно репрезентацию миноритарной этничности в Верховной Раде Украины всех девяти созывов. Сделан акцент на политическом участии представителей полиэтнических регионов Украины (Крым, Восточная Украина, Северное Приазовье, Южная Бессарабия, Буковина, Закарпатье).В статье прослежены достаточно значительный уровень репрезентации народных депутатов российского и еврейского происхождения. Среди этнополитических лидеров еврейской этничности выделяется фигура харьковчанина Александра Фельдмана, который с 2002 года неизменно является народным депутатом Украины. Лидер Всеукраинского еврейского конгресса Вадим Рабинович представлен в парламенте лишь последних двух каденций.Наиболее постоянной (с 1998 года в качестве народного детутата) является позиция крымскотатарского лидера, национал-демократа Мустафы Джемилева. Подобную идеологическую позицию занимает глава Меджлиса крымскотатарского народа Рефат Чубаров. Стабильным этнополитическим лидером болгар Украины выступает соучредитель партии «Наш край» Антон Киссе. Рассматривается также несбалансированная позиция этнополитического лидерства представителей румынской (Иван Попеску) и венгерской (Иштван Гайдош, Василий Брензович) общин Украины. Указанно о первых шагах парламентской репрезентации приазовских греков в лице Дмитрия Лубинця.Автор делает вывод о низкой эффективности парламентского представительства этнических меньшинств Украины, которая обусловленаперманентным изменением избирательного законодательства, отрицательной избирательно-инженерийной практикой джерримендеринга и пренебрежением европейскими положительными практиками включения миноритарных этнических групп в политику, которые определены в международных документах. ; Етнополітичне лідерство є важливим індикатором громадсько-політичної репрезентації міноритарних груп у полікультурному соціальному середовищі. Найбільш ефективна форма його реалізації передбачає представництво етнічної громади на рівні вищого законодавчого органу держави. Ряд країн Центрально-Східної Європи впродовж останніх десятиліть виробили власні моделі такої репрезентації. Вони реалізуються через гарантоване резервування місць для представників етнічних громад, зниження відсоткового бар'єру для проходження в парламент, включення етнополітичних лідерів у списки загальнонаціональних партій, створення одномандатних округів для етнічних меншин, які проживають компактно. Актуальність дослідження проблематики етнополітичного лідерства в контексті парламентського представництва етнічних меншин об'єктивно зумовлене поліетнічністю українського суспільства, декларуванням інтеграції України до структур ЄС і впровадженням європейських демократичних принципів урядування.Предметом студії виступають громадські та політичні лідери, як правило очільники національно-культурних товариств, фондів, етнополітичних партій. Автор застосовує методику аналізу електоральної статистики парламентських виборів 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2014 та 2019 років. Відтак синтетично узагальнено репрезентацію міноритарної етнічності у Верховній Раді України всіх дев'яти скликань. Зроблено акцент на політичній участі та представництві в українському парламенті політиків із поліетнічних регіонів України (Крим, Східна Україна, Північне Приазов'я, Одещина, Чернівеччина, Закарпаття).У статті прослідковано досить значний рівень репрезентації народних депутатів російського та єврейського походження. Серед етнополітичних лідерів єврейської етнічності виділяється постать харків'янина Олександра Фельдмана, який з 2002 року незмінно є народним депутатом України. Лідер Всеукраїнського єврейського конгресу Вадим Рабинович представлений у парламенті лише останніх двох каденцій.Найбільш сталою (з 1998 року в якості народного детутата) є позиція кримськотатарського лідера Мустафи Джемілєва. Подібну до нього націонал-демократичну позицію займає очільник Меджлісу кримськотатарського народу Рефат Чубаров. Стабільним етнополітичним лідером болгар України виступає співзасновник партії «Наш край» Антон Кіссе. Розглядається також незбалансована позиція етнополітичного лідерства представників румунської (Іван Попеску) та угорської (Іштван Гайдош, Василь Брензович) громад України. Окреслено перші кроки в парламентській репрезентації приазовських греків Дмитра Лубінця.Автор робить висновок про низьку ефективність парламентського представництва етнічних меншин України, яка зумовлена перманентною зміною виборчого законодавства, негативною виборчо-інженерійною практикою джеррімендерингу та нехтуванням європейськими позитивними практиками включення міноритарних етнічних груп у політику, що визначені в міжнародних документах.