Signs along the Methodist trail

Sex, sex, sex. That seemed to be the only thing United Methodists were talking about the year that the Rev. James V. Heidinger II took command at Good News, a national movement for his church's evangelicals. That was in 1981.

"Every time we turned around we were arguing about sex, and homosexuality in particular," said Heidinger, who retired last week. "Frankly, I was already weary of it and that was a long, long time ago. We wanted to get on to more positive things, like missions and church growth. ... Yet here we are years later, still arguing about sex."

Two events defined that era. Colorado Bishop Melvin Wheatley, Jr., defied his colleagues in 1980 by rejecting a church policy stating that homosexual acts were "incompatible with Christian teaching." Then, in 1982, he appointed an openly gay pastor in Denver. When challenged, Wheatley said: "Homosexuality is a mysterious gift of God's grace. I clearly do not believe homosexuality is a sin."

The most important word in that statement was "sin," explained Heidinger. The fundamental issue at stake was whether United Methodists could find unity on basic doctrines -- like whether sex outside of marriage was "sin." This, of course, raised another issue: What does "marriage" mean?

Liberals kept quoting a statement added to the church's Book of Discipline in the 1970s affirming "theological pluralism" as an essential element of United Methodist life. Then conservatives managed to have "theological pluralism" removed in 1988, and language affirming the "primacy of scripture" added.

"That started a lively debate about the role of doctrine," said Heidinger. "Until then, it seemed like you could believe anything you wanted to believe and still be a Methodist. ... Want to say the resurrection of Jesus is a myth? That was fine, because of 'theological pluralism.' "

Meanwhile, United Methodists were learning other complex and painful truths about their church, long been known as the quintessential Middle American flock.

In the mid-19th century, 34 percent of all believers in the country were Methodists. Then in 1968, the Methodists joined with the Evangelical United Brethren to create the United Methodist Church -- with 11 million members. But by 2006, membership had fallen to 7.9 million, with staff cutbacks, gray hair and shuttered churches becoming the norm in many regions.

After decades of "thrashing around in denial mode, trying to find somebody to blame," United Methodist leaders finally admitted "that our house was on fire," said Bishop William Willimon of northern Alabama.

It was also painful to admit that United Methodists were worshipping in churches that disagreed on key matters of doctrine and church law, said Willimon, co-author of a mid-1980s study, "The Seven Churches of Methodism." The bottom line: It was hard to find the ties that could bind the declining flocks in the "Yankee Church," "Industrial Northeast Church," "Western Church" and "Midwest Church" with those in the "Church South" and the "Southwest Church."

Talking about the future is hard, when discussions of the recent past are painful.

"It's a tribute to Jim Heidinger and other people like him that, when they first came on the scene, they were just the old-fashioned guys who wanted to hang on to church doctrines and traditions," said Willimon. "But somewhere in the last few decades, the evangelicals turned into the people who were talking about wild ideas about how to change where the church was going. They're the ones finding out what the growing churches across the nation are doing."

Nevertheless, wars about doctrine and sexuality are far from over.

Progressives wield great clout in the seminaries, boards and agencies, stressed Heidinger. Yet in recent years, more than a third of the church's clergy have studied at the certified, but not officially United Methodist, Asbury Theological Seminary. The other two-thirds are spread among 12 official seminaries. An alternative, evangelical Mission Society for United Methodists sends roughly the same number of fulltime missionaries overseas as the official General Board of Global Ministries.

But, for conservatives, the most important trends are global. Thus, 25 percent of the delegates at the 2008 United Methodist General Conference came from overseas. That may hit 40 percent in 2012, said Heidinger.

"When you ask United Methodists overseas -- like in Africa -- about the big issues, they don't mind telling you what they believe," he said. "That's where the future is. That's where the growth is, right there."

Walking in St. Tikhon's footsteps

It didn't take long for controversy to spread about the photograph taken after the consecration rites in 1900 for a new bishop in Wisconsin. Low-church Episcopalians called it the "Fond du Lac Circus" because of all the ornate vestments. Not only was Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton, who presided, wearing a cope and mitre, but so were the other bishops. Then there were was the exotic visitor on the edge of the photograph -- Bishop Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Imagine the outrage if Tikhon had, as discussed beforehand, decided to take part in the laying on of hands at the moment of consecration. After years of service in America, the missionary later hailed as St. Tikhon of Moscow returned home and became patriarch, dying in 1925 after years of tensions with the new Communist regime.

St. Tikhon had "a vision, a vision of unity," said Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, during recent events marking the birth of an alternative, conservative Anglican province in America. Early in the 20th century, some Orthodox leaders were willing to accept the "validity of Anglican orders," meaning they believed that Anglican clergy were truly priests and bishops in the ancient, traditional meanings of those words.

"It fell apart. It fell apart on the Anglican side, with the affirmation more of a Protestant identity than a Catholic identity," said Jonah, at the inaugural assembly of the Anglican Church in North America, held in Bedford, Texas.

"We need to pick up where they left off. The question has been: Does that Anglican church, which came so close to being declared by the other Orthodox churches a fellow Orthodox church, does that still exist?"

A voice in the crowd shouted, "It does!"

"Here, it does," agreed Metropolitan Jonah, stressing the word "here."

Thus, the Orthodox leader announced that he is willing to walk in St. Tikhon's footsteps by opening an ecumenical dialogue with this new body of conservative Anglicans, years after similar talks collapsed after the decision by Episcopalians to ordain women as priests and then as bishops.

The Orthodox and modern Episcopalians disagree on many other issues, from the authority of scripture to the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals as priests and bishops. These are the same issues that caused the creation of the conservative Anglican Church in North America, which has been recognized by many Anglican traditionalists in the Third World, but not by the hierarchy of the Church of England.

However, Jonah also focused attention on doctrinal issues that continue to cause tensions among the very conservatives he faced in Texas.

"I'm afraid my talk will have something to offend just about everybody," said the former Episcopalian, who was raised in an Anglo-Catholic parish before converting to Orthodoxy.

For example, "Calvinism is a condemned heresy," he said, and there are "other heresies that came in through the Reformation which have to be rejected" -- words that strike at the heart of the vital, growing Protestant wing of global Anglicanism. Jonah also stressed that, "For a full restoration and intercommunion of the Anglican Church with the Orthodox Church, the issue of ordination of women has to be resolved." The Anglican Church in North America has agreed to allow its dioceses to reach their own conclusions on this issue.

The tension in the room was real, but so was the appreciation for this gesture by the man who, literally, is the successor of St. Tikhon, said the Rev. George Conger, a Calvinist Anglican and correspondent for The Church of England Newspaper.

"What made much of what Metropolitan Jonah said palatable to the ACNA convocation was his transparent good will, and wry sense of humor," said Conger. "The phrase 'hard words said in love' is often trite, but Jonah's remarks ... were given and heard in this vein."

One the other side of this dialogue, Orthodox leaders are more than aware of the obstacles created by decades of tumultuous change in the Anglican Communion, said Father Alexander Golubov, academic dean of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, Pa.

"Metropolitan Jonah will be trying to walk a thin line, but it is the same line that St. Tikhon tried to walk long ago," said Golubov. "Some of the issues he will face are the same. But there are issues he will face today that I do not believe anyone could have ever anticipated. We live in strange times."

McChurch history 101

In the beginning, revival preachers used their dynamic voices and dramatic sermons -- framed with entertaining gospel music -- to attract large crowds and to pull sinners into the Kingdom of God. This formula worked in weeklong revivals and, when tried, it started working in regular Sunday services. Big preachers drew big crowds and created bigger and bigger churches. Then along came the big media, which helped create a youth culture that exploded out of the 1950s and into the cultural apocalypse that followed. Church leaders tagged along.

"In the '60s and '70s, we started drinking deep at the well of pop culture and we've been doing it ever since," said church historian John Mark Yeats of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Tex. "The goal was to use all of that to reach the young. Evangelicals ended up with own youth subculture."

Big churches created bigger stand-alone youth programs and then children's programs wired to please these media-trained consumers. Youth programs developed their own music, education and preaching, all driven by the style and content of entertainment culture.

Then these young people became adults and began to build and operate their own churches, argue Yeats and his seminary colleague Thomas White, in their sobering book, "Franchising McChurch." For churches that want to grow, the evolving approach to faith that White and Yeats call "theotainment" seems like the only game in town.

"Think of countless children's ministries across the United States. … Most children's Sunday schools quit reading and studying the Bible long ago. Instead, children view cartoon adaptations of the text along with numerous activities that keep them entertained while Mom and Dad worship without distraction," argue White and Yeats, who have worked in local churches, as well as classrooms.

This strategy is cranked up another notch in youth ministries. In many communities, the "religiously oriented youth, savvy shoppers that they are, simply attend the church that has the greatest concentration of entertaining events. … If they buy into Christianity through entertainment, the show must go on to keep them engaged."

This has been going on for decades, noted Yeats. The "Jesus rock" of the '70s moved out of music festivals and into Sunday services. This created a "Contemporary Christian Music" industry that helped churches hip-hop from one cultural style to the next, while striving to find their stylistic niches -- like stations on an FM radio dial. Sanctuaries turned into auditoriums and, finally, into theaters with semi-professional sound systems and the video screens preachers needed to display all of those DVD clips that connected with modern audiences.

That was the '90s. Today's megachurches offer members new options.

Grandmother may attend a service with hymns or -- as Baby Boomers turn 60something -- folk music or soft rock. Pre-teens will bop to Hanna-Montana-esque praise songs in their services, while the young people get harder rock. Over in the "video cafe," evangelical Moms and Dads can sip their lattes while musicians build the right mood until its time for the sermon. That's when the super-skilled preacher's face appears on video monitors in all of the niche services at the same time.

This trend -- multiple, niche services on one campus -- requires changing the traditional meaning of words such as "worship," "church" and "pastor."

But it is one thing for a single megachurch to offer its members a "have it your way" approach to church life at one location, said Yeats. The next step is for the "McChurch" model to evolve into "McDenomination," with the birth of national and even global chains of church franchises united, not by centuries of history and doctrine, but by the voice, face, beliefs and talents of a single preacher, backed by a team of multimedia professionals.

This trend is "very free market" and "also very American," he said.

"In these franchise operations, you don't say you're a Southern Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or whatever," Yeats explained. "No, you say you attend the local branch of so-and-so's church. The whole thing is held together by one man. That's the brand name, right there. ...

"If your church joins one of these operations you get the video feed, you get the media, you get the music and, ultimately, you get to listen to the dynamic man himself, instead of your own sub-standard preacher. It's a whole new way of doing church."

Angels, demons & good Catholics

Near the end of Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons," the beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra clashes with a Vatican official who insists that the day researchers prove how God acted in creation is "the day people stop needing faith." "You mean the day they stop needing the church," she shouts, weaving together the novel's main themes. "But the church is not the only enlightened soul on the planet! We all seek God in different ways. ...

"God is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!"

This long speech is not in the movie based on Brown's first novel about the dashing Harvard professor Robert Langdon, who uses his encyclopedic knowledge of art, religion, history, literature, architecture and archeology to crack through layers of ancient conspiracies that bedevil modern humanity.

This is, however, a speech that -- as a sermon by the author -- offers insights into the worldview behind "Angels & Demons" and the novel that followed it.

That, of course, was "The Da Vinci Code," which ignited a global firestorm because of its depiction of Jesus as a brilliant, charismatic and ultimately misunderstood mortal man who married the brilliant, charismatic and misunderstood Mary Magdalene and had a child with her before his untimely death. This power couple's goal was to create an inclusive, dogma-free, sexually enlightened faith. But, alas, the power-hungry patriarchs who created Christianity -- especially the Roman Catholic Church -- conspired to wreck and bury their work.

Director Ron Howard, who also directed "The Da Vinci Code" movie, admits that large parts of "Angels & Demons" were scrapped and rewritten while turning the prequel into a sequel. Brown gave his blessing since the book's major themes remained intact.

As with "The Da Vinci Code," Howard is convinced that he has not created an anti-Catholic film. His goal, he said, was to raise questions about the nature of faith.

"I believe in God, yes, I do. I'm not a member of a church at the moment," he told reporters, before "Angels & Demons" reached theaters. "There is no personal struggle, for me, between my beliefs and religion. Basically, in a nutshell, I believe that our intelligence, and our curiosity, and our drive to know more are a part of the plan. … But I haven't worked to directly sort of inject my personal spirituality and belief system into the story."

The goal, while spinning another conspiracy-theory thriller, was to focus on "the threat that some in the Vatican may feel about what science represents, what it proposes to say about the origins of the universe and the origins of man," he said.

The plot begins with the sudden death of a "progressive and beloved pope." Then, all hell breaks loose as someone claiming to represent a secret society of freethinkers called the "Illuminati" kidnaps what the book describes as the four "liberal," reform-minded cardinals who were the top candidates to become pope and begins murdering them in public rituals.

As the coup de grace, this mysterious killer has arranged to steal a container of antimatter produced at the CERN Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border. Langdon and Vetra have to rush around -- call it "24" meets a papal conclave -- and find this missing "God particle" stuff before it explodes and vaporizes Vatican City.

By the time it's all over, Langdon and company have solved a papal-murder mystery, saved the enlightened cardinal who ultimately becomes pope and, literally, saved the throne of St. Peter from being captured a madman who is, of course, the story's most articulate conservative Catholic.

This villain "feels that the church is going down the wrong path" as it pursues peace with science and modernity, noted actor Ewan McGregor. "He thinks that the church is becoming watered down and is becoming weaker and weaker. … He's trying to put it back on course."

The key is that "Angels & Demons" offers a Vatican that contains good Catholics and bad Catholics. By the end of the film, said Howard, Langdon has gained a "more complex view of the church."

In the end, there are good Catholics and bad Catholics and Brown and Howard get to determine who is who.

Again: Killing abortionists is sin

After days of angry headlines about the murder of an abortionist, one of America's most articulate defenders of life knew it was time for candor. "If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me," said the late Cardinal John O'Connor, preaching to his New York City flock in 1994. "It's madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It's madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing."

The cardinal's famous soundbite was part of a larger debate during the mid-1990s, as pro-life leaders articulated precise reasons why frustrated activists on the fringe of their movement should reject violence. This debate remains tragically relevant, after the killing of late-term abortionist George Tiller while he was serving as an usher at Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan.

The alleged gunman Scott Roeder has expressed sympathies for the views of activists who -- as in this "Defensive Action Statement" at ArmyofGod.com -- argue that this kind of violence is morally justified.

"We ... declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary, including the use of force, to defend innocent human life (born and unborn). We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child."

This is precisely the argument that O'Connor and others fervently opposed 15 years ago. Quoting the Catholic Catechism, Pope John Paul II, Gandhi and other sources, he attacked the ancient consequentialist argument that good ends justify any means.

"Where does this spiral end? How is it limited? Surely, we are all as tired of abortion as we are tired of murder. But we must fight murder without conforming to it or condoning it," wrote the cardinal, as part of "Killing Abortionists: A Symposium" in the journal First Things.

"Let us attend to God's revelation: 'Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good' (Romans 12: 21). ... No Christian, however well-intentioned, has the moral right to declare himself the sole detective, district attorney, judge, jury and supreme court in our democratic society and on his own authority set aside the natural law and the Ten Commandments, allegedly to advance the fifth of those Ten Commandments."

While frustrated by new political defeats, mainstream abortion opponents have continued to embrace this viewpoint. The list of organizations strongly condemning Tiller's death includes the National Right to Life Committee, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Americans United for Life, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Care Net, the Susan B. Anthony List, Priests for Life and many others.

"Murdering someone is a grotesque and bizarre way to emphasize one's commitment to the sanctity of human life," noted Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "People who truly believe in the sanctity of human life believe in the sanctity of the lives of abortion providers as well as the unborn babies who are aborted."

Land noted that another important document emerged from the 1994 debates, produced by a circle of Southern Baptist theologians. A major theme in this "Nashville Declaration of Conscience" is that Americans continue to have many legitimate ways to challenge their government's abortion laws, short of violent revolution.

Ultimately, this document concluded, it is the "people of the United States, acting through legitimate governmental institutions, who are responsible and ultimately accountable for immoral laws permitting and protecting the taking of unborn human lives. ... Legalized abortion on demand is the single gravest failure of American democracy in our generation. But we recognize it as a failure of a legitimate democracy rather than as the imposition or decree of an illegitimate regime."

Abortion continues to stretch the "American body politic near the breaking point" because the issue pivots on fundamental moral questions, noted ethicist David Gushee of Mercer University, who drafted the Nashville document early in his academic career. In terms of history, only debates over slavery cut this deep.

But it's wrong to blame abortionists, politicians, talk-radio hosts or any other single group of people for this conflict, he said. All Americans need to look in a mirror.

"In a vast, diverse, squabbling, pluralistic democracy, even on matters of the gravest and most heartfelt significance we face sometimes irreconcilable differences," said Gushee. "If that democracy is to survive, we must learn to deal with them without killing each other."

Religion ghosts in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Merely saying the forest's name -- Bykivnya -- can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians.

This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev. President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine's Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.

"Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none," he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.

The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.

"Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important," said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences. "But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.

"So the priests are there. It is part ... of a civil religion."

This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.

Media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap, because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.

It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) -- with direct ties to Moscow -- had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.

But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?

A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down (almost anything Soviet) or which statues are erected (such as one of Ivan Mazepa, labeled a traitor by Russia after his 18th century efforts to boost Ukrainian independence).

But it's hard for Ukrainian journalists to ask these kinds of questions and print what they learn when people answer them, according to a circle of journalists -- secular and religious -- at a Kiev forum last week focusing on trends in religion news in their nation. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague from the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.

As in America, Ukrainian journalists often assume that politics is the only faith that matters in life. The journalists in Kiev also said that they struggle to escape unwritten Soviet-era rules stating that religion was bad, irrelevant or, at best, merely private. Many journalists lack historical knowledge required to do accurate coverage of religion, while others simply do not care, because they shun organized religion.

"Many would say that, if we do not play the violin, we really should not attempt to comment on how others play the violin," said Yuri Makarov, editor in chief of Ukrainian Week, speaking through a translator.

This blind spot is unfortunate, because Ukrainian journalists may have missed a crucial piece of the Bykivnya story, said Yelensky. It's hard to understand the soul of Ukraine without grasping the power of religion.

"For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...

"This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes."

That other Notre Dame speech

It was hard to ignore the papal bull condemning the slave trade, which was read to American Catholic leaders gathered in Baltimore in 1839. Pope Gregory XVI proclaimed that "no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favor to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold and devoted sometimes to the hardest labor."

Nevertheless, the first bishop of Charleston, S.C., attempted to soften the blow. Quoting scripture and Catholic doctrine, Bishop John England wrote a series of letters arguing that the pope didn't mean to attack those -- including Catholics -- who already owned slaves.

"Bishop England was not a bad man. He was not personally in favor of slavery, nor was he a racist," noted Father John Raphael of New Orleans, at a rally organized as an alternative to the University of Notre Dame's graduation rites.

"In fact, Bishop England exercised a cherished and personal ministry to black Catholics," he added. "But in the face of strong, anti-Catholic sentiment and prejudice, he simply wanted to show his fellow antebellum Southerners that Catholics could be just as American as everybody else and that tolerance of their cherished institution -- slavery -- was not in any way opposed by the Catholic church."

It was wrong for Catholics of that era to seek any compromise on slavery, stressed Raphael, who serves as principal of St. Augustine High School, one of Louisiana's most prominent African-American institutions. It is just as wrong, today, for Catholic leaders to compromise on abortion. At least the slaves were allowed to live, to be baptized and to receive the sacraments, he said.

The symbolism was obvious, since the priest is a prominent African-American graduate of Notre Dame.

The symbolism was more than obvious, since he was speaking at a rally protesting Notre Dame's decision to grant President Barack Obama an honorary doctor of laws degree, clashing with a U.S. Catholic bishops policy that states: "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

The Mass and rally on Notre Dame's south quad followed hours of prayers in the university's Alumni Hall and famous Marian grotto. These solemn, peaceful events received little media attention, even though they drew several hundred or several thousand participants, depending on who did the counting, as well as 25 Notre Dame faculty members, 26 graduating seniors and Bishop John D’Arcy of the Catholic Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend. A louder standoff between police and 100 off-campus activists -- led by anti-abortion leader Randall Terry -- received most of the news coverage.

During the actual commencement address, a few protesters yelled, "Stop killing our children." Most of the graduates booed the protesters, then chanted, "Yes we can," Obama's campaign slogan, and "We are ND" as they were removed.

Notre Dame President John Jenkins stressed that Obama accepted Notre Dame's invitation knowing that "we are fully supportive of church teaching on the sanctity of human life and we oppose his policies on abortion and embryonic stem cell research."

"President Obama is not someone who stops talking to those who differ with him," stressed Father Jenkins. Then he added, "Mr. President, this is a principle we share."

Meanwhile, many of the speakers at the "Notre Dame Rally for Life" openly criticized Obama's policies, but consistently focused their harshest words on the actions of the current Notre Dame administration.

"Faith without works is dead, words without actions are meaningless," said Father Raphael. "If, as we have been told, a dialogue is actually taking place … between the presidents of Notre Dame and the United States, between the university and the nation, then, for the university at least, that dialogue must be shaped by truth and charity, and protecting the sanctity of all human life, as the church understands life, must be its goal. …

Actively building a culture of life at Notre Dame must become central to the university's witness and mission to the nation and to the world."

Truth, doubt and Notre Dame

President Dwight Eisenhower's Civil Rights Commission faced high hurdles as it searched for common ground in the tense years after the U.S. Supreme Court began attacking the walls of segregation inside America's schools. After several years of struggle, Father Theodore Hesburgh discovered a bond between his commission colleagues that transcended race and regional differences, noted President Barack Obama, in his historic commencement address at the University of Notre Dame.

All of them liked to fish. Thus, the president of America's most famous Catholic institution -- he served for 35 years -- arranged for a twilight cruise on the lake at Notre Dame's retreat center at Land O'Lakes, Wis.

"They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history," said Obama.

Hesburgh mastered this kind of graceful strategy, as did another hero of Catholic progressives -- the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. The president challenged the graduates to learn from their examples while supporting "movements for change both large and small."

"Remember that each of us," he said, "endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family, the same fulfillment of a life well lived. Remember that in the end, in some way we are all fishermen."

Notre Dame's president, Father John Jenkins, then underlined this link to the civil rights era by giving Obama a photograph of Hesburgh clasping hands in solidarity with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whoever prepared Obama for this triumphant visit did a fine job, noted George Weigel, at National Review Online. The president "hit for the cycle" at Notre Dame, "mentioning 'common ground'; tolerance and reconciliation amid diversity; Father Hesburgh; … problem-solving over ideology; Father Hesburgh; saving God's creation from climate change; pulling together; Father Hesburgh; open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words; Father Hesburgh."

But the speech also offered a provocative statement about Catholic faith and the public square, noted Richard Garrett, a Notre Dame law professor whose areas of research include Catholic social thought and church-state relations.

The president urged the students to have "confidence in the values with which you've been raised. … Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake." But he also stressed that the "ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt."

"It's beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what he asks of us. And those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own," said Obama. This should "humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness. … Within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles."

It was hard not to connect this pronouncement with the renewed abortion debates that followed Notre Dame's decision to grant Obama an honorary doctor of laws degree. In the end, 80-plus bishops publicly criticized this action, arguing that it violated a 2004 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops policy that stated: "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

The problem with the Obama's logic, explained Garnett, is that traditional Catholics argue that the sanctity of human life -- from conception to natural death -- is based on universal, rational principles of human rights, dignity and equality, not narrow, uniquely "Catholic" beliefs.

The bottom line: The church defended the same principles in the civil rights era.

"There's a powerful move at the end of the president's speech to suggest that the Catholic stance on the right to life -- the stance of Notre Dame -- is a matter of mere faith, and not a reasoned stance at all. … 'Parochial' is a very loaded word to use," noted Garnett.

"So it appears that Obama agrees with what Father Hesburgh believed in the 1960s, but does not agree with what Pope Benedict believes today, which implies that one set of convictions is based on reason and one is not. But from the Catholic perspective, both of these stances are rooted in the very same universal truth."

Finding God on the jagged edge

Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas knows all about strange plot twists and he is convinced that God often sends big messages in the final acts of people's lives. Once a scandalous Hollywood insider, the author of twisted thrillers such as "Basic Instinct" and "Jagged Edge" can quote chapter and verse about life and death in Tinseltown. Consider the ruthless movie mogul who died during a beach vacation when a metal bar fell from a construction crane and pieced his heart. Or how about the Casanova actor whose reputation made his testicular cancer a bit too ironic?

Eszterhas will name names, when confessing his own sins.

The screenwriter's egomaniacal tantrums were the stuff of legends, along with his appetite for alcohol, cocaine and first-person research for the lap-dancing scenes in "Showgirls." Then there was his foul, blasphemous mouth.

It was tempting to connect the dots when he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2001, said Eszterhas, during his blunt and mildly profane testimony at Biola University's annual conference on faith and the entertainment industry. The resulting surgery claimed 80 percent of his larynx.

"Was it possible," he mused, in his one-foot-in-the-grave voice, "that God had to cut my throat?" Then he heard the harsh commandments for his new life.

"I adored my wife and children, so I tried," Eszterhas told the audience at CBS Studio Center. "I stopped smoking. I stopped drinking. I was trying my best to stay alive. I was trying my best not to die, but I knew that I couldn't do it."

Thus begins the wild conversion story he has shared many times, reading from his book, "Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith." The turning point arrives with a weeping sinner on his knees, his heart skipping beats, his hands shaking, his voice moaning through his tracheotomy tube. Then Eszterhas hears his own voice mumbling strange words.

"I didn't know why I had said it. I had never said it before," he said. "Then I listened to myself say it again and again and again. 'Please God, help me.' 'Please God, help me.' 'Please God, help me' ... I thought to myself, 'Me, asking God, begging God? Me, praying?' "

Then his pain was gone and he was staring into a bright light. He decided that, with God's help, "I could defeat myself and win, if I fought very hard and if I prayed. ... God saved me from me."

Condensed into the punchy talking points that sell screenplays, Eszterhas said his life has gone from "Malibu to Ohio, from booze to diet Sprite, from Spago to McDonald's, from Sharon Stone to Jesus." Now he walks five miles and prays for an hour every day. With his second wife and their four sons, he worships at Holy Angels Catholic Church in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where he volunteers to carry the cross in Sunday Mass.

"The twisted little man" who wrote his scripts still lives in his head, he said, but is no longer in charge. The big question was whether Eszterhas could write without the tobacco, alcohol and deadly darkness that fueled his 16 screenplays, which became movies that grossed more than $1 billion.

Eszterhas said he sat frozen at his old typewriter, feeling "like Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining.' " He faced a complete mental block until he pounded out: "This is how I found God or how God found me." The memoir had to come first.

Since then, Eszterhas has written two scripts, including a "narco-terrorism" thriller he thinks would fit Nicholson. He also wants to write a small-budget movie about Our Lady of Guadalupe. In an age in which Hollywood keeps remaking old blockbusters, he wonders why no one has produced spectacular, digital versions of "The Silver Chalice," "The Robe" or "Quo Vadis."

While he wants to keep working, what Eszterhas can't imagine is writing the kinds of scripts that made him rich and famous.

"My head's not really in that place. I mean, the thing that I would like to do very much, in the time that I have left, in terms of my own screenwriting, is to … write some things that reflect my faith," he said. The goal would be to put "the same kind of energy, ... into doing faith-based films that I think can really be commercially viable, that I put into other films of a different sort that became commercially successful."