Death Penalty Opposition Grows

National Catholic Reporter

Friday January 11, 2008

Jonathan Hoffman, convicted in a shooting death in North Carolina in 1995, earned a new trial in 2004 and then had all charges against him dropped in December 2007 when prosecutors ruled they didn't have enough evidence against him. That decision was made, in part, when the prosecution's former star witness recanted his testimony and admitted that he had lied to retaliate against the defendant. Hoffman is the latest of 126 death row inmates since 1973 who have been released from death row because new evidence, or a lack of it, was discovered. Such cases are beginning to significantly alter the death penalty conversation. Read more:

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2008a/011108/011108zf.htm

Erasing women from history

National Catholic Reporter EDITORIAL June 22, 2007

The title of biblical scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s 1984 book In Memory of Her gave tribute -- as Jesus himself did -- to the woman who interrupted an all-male dinner in Bethany to anoint the feet of Jesus with costly perfume and then let down her long tresses to dry them (Mark 14:3-9). "Let her be," Jesus said to the disciples at table who were bemoaning this lavish, insightful expression of love. "Wherever the Gospel is proclaimed in all the world," he said, "what she has done will be told in memory of her." Read more: http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007b/062207/062207v.htm

Honor you Father and Mother

US CATHOLIC, January, 2008

The US CATHOLIC editors interview Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J.

Stale images of God aren’t working for today’s seekers, says feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. New ones are emerging from the experiences of all God’s people—male and female.

When you whispered a prayer this morning while sipping your coffee and eating your toast, to whom exactly did you pray? An old man with a beard somewhere beyond the clouds? Sophia, otherwise known as Holy Wisdom? The Holy Spirit? Jesus?

Elizabeth Johnson wants to know. In her new book, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007), she examines how Christians the world over have experienced the presence of God in new ways since the last half of the 20th century. Theologians agree, she says, that we’re in a “golden age of discovery.”

Even before her groundbreaking 1992 book, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (Crossroad), Johnson has been fascinated by how believers view God. “This might sound a little archaic,” she told Fordham Online, “but I take my cue from Thomas Aquinas—the study of God and all things in the light of God. That articulates for me what theology is about.”

A sister in the Congregation of St. Joseph who hails from Brooklyn, Johnson has been president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. Winner of the U.S. Catholic Award in 1994, she served as a member of the national Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, a consultant to the Catholic bishops’ Committee on Women in Church and Society, a theologian on the Vatican-sponsored dialogue between science and religion, and on the Vatican-sponsored study of Christ and the world religions.

We’re hearing a lot from atheists today who want to persuade us that God doesn’t exist. What do you as a theologian think about that?

Atheists are rejecting the old images of God that don’t really work that well even for Christians anymore.....

Read the whole article at: http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2page=NewsArticle&id=13014&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_&JServSessionIdr012=6n9uisp2b1.app46a

Gordon Zahn, Prophet of Peace

Gordon Zahn, Prophet of Peace

BY THOMAS A. SHANNON, America magazine

When Gordon Zahn (1918-2007) began his own journey to pacifism, he was convinced of two things: first, that had he been educated in the traditional Catholic schools of his time, he would never have heard of pacifism; second—and he was given rather strong encouragement to think this way—that he was on the lunatic fringe of the church.

But he was also convinced that the path of the early church was the correct one and that pacifism was the normative Christian position and that the just war theory was at best an attempt to justify what Realpolitik had already decided was necessary. ...Gordon, who despised meetings to the depth of his being, continued to show up whenever asked, attended meeting after meeting and was eventually successful in efforts with others to resurrect Pax Christi USA, establishing it as a premier American peace organization.

.....Gordon discovered the story of Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian peasant who refused to serve in Hitler’s army in any capacity because he was convinced of the immorality of the war....

Read the whole story: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10525