Tag: Justice and Peace

Judging Rightly

In his sermon On Pastors, St. Augustine said:
   For what person can judge rightly concerning another? Our whole daily life is filled with rash judgements. The one of whom we had despaired is converted suddenly and becomes very good. The one from whom we had anticipated a great deal suddenly fails and becomes very bad. Neither fear nor hope is certain.
   What any one is today, that one scarcely knows. Still in some way that person does know what he/she is today. What that person will be tomorrow, however, he/she does not know.
   Remember in the account of the crucifixion of Jesus what he said to the “good thief”, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
   He wasn’t talking to a “good” guy who was being misjudged according to the criminal justice systems of his day; he was talking to a convicted criminal—but a convicted criminal who had a last-minute change of heart when he saw and heard and somehow glimpsed something of who Jesus was at the end of both their lives!
   Somehow, this sort of goes against the grain when it comes to our relationships with others, especially difficult others.
   Maybe our memories are too good so that we hold on to a long list of offenses and dishonesties of another, never forgetting and never forgiving.
   Maybe we fear being taken in and being judged naïve or stupid, if some unexpected and hard-to-believe show of repentance is displayed by a presumably incorrigible relative, friend, acquaintance, or enemy, and we pardon them.
   St. Peter wrestled with that. Remember his asking Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18: 21-22)

   Jesus wasn’t setting a sort of new limiting goal when he said, “seventy-seven times.” He basically was saying you should keep forgiving ridiculously more times than anyone would imagine. Forgiveness should have no limits!
   Dumb! Stupid! Being a sucker! Being taken advantage of! Naïve!
   Sure, that’s often what people may say, judging you, if you try to live up to the high standard Jesus sets. But whose judgement counts the most? Other people’s or God’s?
   Don’t be afraid of forgiving or forgetting too much. Remember, Jesus also said,
   “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)
   “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.
   “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:9-12)
   Better to forgive too much than too little!
   “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” [A quote from a sailor, not from the Bible]


30 October 2022

Forming a More Perfect Union

The opening words of the constitution of the United States of America are:
   We the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.
   Notice that the first of the six stated purposes of the constitution is “to form a more perfect union”.
   Since the goal was to form a more perfect union, presumably what union that then existed was less than perfect. And, in spite of all of our efforts over all the years to form a more perfect union (since the constitution was ratified in 1788), the union now existing is still less than perfect.
   The United States—like most great enterprises—is still a work in progress. In that sense a country is just like you and me and every other human person. We are all works in progress.
   We are still striving to form a more perfect union, and we shouldn’t be so surprised that we haven’t achieved it yet.
   All our goals and ideals are, so to speak, carrots on the stick in front of us. We must never neglect striving to attain them and never despair that we haven’t yet fully attained them.
   This applies to each of our lives, plans, projects, and institutions.
   We’re good Americans if we defend and follow our agreed upon constitution, laws, and customs—even if we personally don’t entirely agree with every detail and aspect of them. And, we have the right to argue in favor of what we think is right and against what we think is wrong.
   We’re all engaged in the never-ending struggle to form a more perfect union.

   The struggle to form a more perfect union applies to many things besides the political organization of the United States.
   Presumably it applies to all countries and governments in one way or another—as well as to all organizations and corporations, all common human enterprises, religions, associations, and families. It’s part of the human condition, of your life, my life, and that of each and every one of us.
   A familiar and vitally important technique and tool for forming a more perfect union is to compromise—to settle differences and disagreements by mutual concessions, to reach agreements by adjusting and modifying conflicting claims and demands.
   When you compromise, it doesn’t mean you’ve changed your mind or abandoned what you have been struggling to achieve. It means you’re striving to reach some common agreement, to achieve what is possible, even though it may be less than what you want, or what you aspire to, or what you believe is right.
   Politics is sometimes referred to as the art of the possible. In that sense, we are all challenged to be “good politicians”. A fanatical attachment to the impossible may, at first blush, appear to be exemplary, but it really isn’t.
   We are all engaged, ever engaged, with a persistent, ongoing struggle to form a more perfect union.
   We all need to constantly examine the ideals and beliefs that motivate us and the behaviors that characterize us, accommodating them to the real situation.
   Paradoxically, we need to keep struggling to achieve the “impossible dream” and trying to be politically correct in the process!


18 September 2022

Social-Sin Distancing

The September 2020 issue of Commonweal magazine has an challenging article by Rita Ferrone, “Will Anything Change This Time?”.
Amid recent public protests about racism and injustice, she reminded us of and suggested revisiting John Paul II’s teaching on social sin in his 1983 post-synodal exhortation, “Reconciliation and Penance”.
Her article called attention to the need expressed by the synod bishops to talk about “social sin, structures of sin, and systematic forms of oppression that magnify and perpetuate sinful situations”.
The Pope’s exhortation was concerned not only about personal reconciliation and penance, but also about communal responsibility and the ways personal sins contribute to social sin.
The Pope called attention to the various meanings of “social sin”.
– “. . . by virtue of human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual’s sin in some way affects others . . . every sin has repercussions on . . . the whole human family.
– “. . . the term social applies to every sin against justice in interpersonal relationships . . . against the rights of the human person . . . against others’ freedom . . . against the dignity and honor of one’s neighbor . . . against the common good . . . and its exigencies in relation to the whole broad spectrum of the rights and duties of citizens.
– “The third meaning of social sin refers to the relationships between the various human communities . . . class struggle . . . is a social evil. Likewise obstinate confrontation between blocs of nations, between one nation and another, between different groups within the same nation . . .”.
Many religious people shy away from this kind of talk. They feel that we shouldn’t mix up religion with politics—that what’s in the church is the church’s business, and what’s outside isn’t.

But, if we are open to what John Paul taught, we have some new areas and kinds of sin, social sins, to add to our examination of conscience and to the amending of our lives. The main ones he describes are:
– to cause evil;
– to support evil;
– to exploit evil;
– to be in a position to avoid, eliminate or at least limit certain social evils but fail to do so out of laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence, secret complicity or indifference;
– to take refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world;
– to sidestep the effort and sacrifice required, producing specious reasons of higher order.
As Rita Ferrone observed, “An awareness of social sin, for John Paul II, summons each of us to invest personally in the work of dismantling structures of sin in order to build a civilization of love.”
You know, there’s a strange kind of uneasy comfort in regularly acknowledging, confessing, and repenting of a modest collection of familiar, almost habitual, imperfections, weaknesses, misdeeds, and failures.
We closely review our solitary thoughts, words, and deeds—sometimes painfully remembering and repenting of those involving another—but rarely does it occur to us that we share responsibility for communal or social prejudices, policies, procedures, and “structures of sin”.
As we view this world where we live, where evil is ever pandemic, and which we pray daily will become the kingdom of God, let’s try to remember to advance its coming a little by our “social-sin distancing”!


11 October 2020

Equal Justice under Law

As you walk up the steps of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, you can’t avoid noticing a bold inscription carved in great letters over the entrance, “Equal Justice Under Law”.
It is a fundamental principal and ideal at the heart of the American judicial system, and part of the very Constitution of the United States—Amendment XIV [about civil rights], Section 1 states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Like many common words, “justice”, and the words related to it, are so familiar that they hardly need definition—but they do! Here’s my dictionary’s definition:

Justice [< Latin  justitia < justus, lawful, rightful, proper < jus right, law.]
1. the quality of being righteous; rectitude
2. impartiality; fairness
3. the quality of being right or correct
4. sound reason; rightfulness; validity
5. reward or penalty as deserved; just deserts
6. a) the use of authority and power to uphold what is right, just, or lawful
    b) the personification of this, usually a blindfolded goddess holding scales and a sword
7. the administration of law; procedure of a law court.

“Justice” is found all through the Bible—for instance:
Ex 23:2 – You shall not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When testifying in a lawsuit, you shall not follow the crowd in perverting justice.
Deut 1:16 – I charged your judges at that time, “Listen to complaints among your relatives, and administer true justice to both parties even if one of them is a resident alien”.
1 Sam 8:15 – David was king over all Israel; he dispensed justice and right to all his people.
Ps 72:2 – O God, give your judgment to the king; your justice to the king’s son; that he may govern your people with justice, your oppressed with right judgment.
Ps 85:12 – Truth will spring from the earth; justice will look down from heaven.
Ps 103:6 – The Lord does righteous deeds, brings justice to all the oppressed.
Prov 14:34 – Justice exalts a nation, but sin is a people’s disgrace.
Prov 19:28 – An unprincipled witness scoffs at justice, and the mouth of the wicked pours out iniquity.
Is 30:18 – Truly, the Lord is waiting to be gracious to you, truly, he shall rise to show you mercy; For the Lord is a God of justice: happy are all who wait for him.
Micah 6:8 – You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
It’s important to remember that we strive to “do justice” not only because the United States constitution or other laws require it but especially because it’s the will of God!


27 September 2020

Is Peace Possible?

Is it possible to have peace in the Holy Land — and, for that matter, throughout the Middle East?
Of course.
But, is it possible to have peace in the Holy Land now, not some day in the remote future?
Of course.
Then, why don’t we have peace in that part of the world?
Because there is no will to have peace.
Oh, there’s much talk about peace, interminable talking about peace — and much lamenting the lack of it. But there is no will to make peace.
If all parties concerned were truly determined to make peace, it could be accomplished tomorrow — or at least the day after. Alas, there is no real determination to do so.
In the Middle East, bargaining is almost an art form. Everyone practices it. A shopkeeper always offers his goods at double the price he hopes to receive; a buyer always offers a purchase price half what he expects to pay. Then the bargaining begins.
Should peace-making be any different?
Of course not.
For example, Hamas may say, “We will never recognize the state of Israel.” The Israeli — or the U.S. — government may say, “We will never negotiate with a terrorist organization.”
As openers, these are fine. But, remember the art of bargaining. Color the process with all the righteous indignation you may want, but proceed to negotiate and arrive at a mutually acceptable price to pay for peace.
Why is there no will to make peace? Is it because of ignorance, prejudice, fear, distrust? Is it due to cowardice, egoism, greed, or hatred?

Most people want peace. The man in the street wants peace. Merchants want peace. Educators want peace. Farmers want peace. Health care professionals want peace.
Politicians say they want peace — but often place, position, and power come first.
Meanwhile, during the interminable prolonging of a state of hostilities, a great human price is being paid.
Lives are lost. Men are imprisoned. People live in fear. Children’s education is distorted. Security becomes nonexistent. Unemployment grows. Lands are rendered useless. Families become homeless. Emigration grows. Traditional cultures and values wither.
Do those responsible for this grim situation suffer the price as well?
A pretext for inaction often is, “How can you make peace with ‘them’?” The adversary, my enemy, is not a “Satan” — pure evil. He or she is a fellow human being.
In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock protest to his tormentors, “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
Substitute any combination of “Jew,” “Christian,” and “Muslim” — the message is the same.
The good Jews, Christians, and Muslims of the Holy Land seek healing. Everyone gives them a diagnosis. Who will provide a cure?


(Published in
one, 33:6, November 2007)

Red Riders

When [the Lamb] broke open the second seal, I heard the second living creature cry out, “Come forward.” Another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take peace away from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And he was given a huge sword. (Revelation 6:3-4)

ISTANBUL — A bomb exploded in a crowded, downtown neighborhood during the afternoon rush hour today, killing eight people and injuring more than forty others. Victims included three teenagers returning from Quranic classes at a nearby mosque.

MARJEYOUN — Unexploded cluster bombs continue to be a major hazard in southern Lebanon. Since the cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, fourteen persons have died accidentally in the Marjeyoun area, mostly farmers working their fields.

ARBIL — The violence of the recent explosion in this northern Iraqi town shocked people who felt themselves safe in the Kurdish-controlled area. The Chaldean patriarchal seminary had been temporarily relocated there because of the dangerous situation in Baghdad.

TEL AVIV— A Palestinian suicide-bomber blew himself up in a crowded shopping center on Friday afternoon. Preliminary estimates are that at least twenty-five people were killed and five shops were totally destroyed.

ZERQA — Jordanian authorities apprehended six young men, members of a cell of militant extremists who were planning an armed attack on tourists in Queen Alia Airport near Amman.

BAGHDAD — U.S.-led coalition forces swept through a densely populated Shiite neighborhood. Crossfire between Americans and insurgents killed several bystanders, including two children.

GAZA — The Israeli army continued its air strikes against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, hitting at least eight different locations and taking aim at a rocket-launching cell.

TEHRAN — The Iranian government ignored the threat of a major expansion of international sanctions as it continues its program for the enrichment of uranium.

SDEROT — A rocket landed in the yard of a house in the Israeli border town of Sderot, wounding three civilians, while another hit a nearby factory. The Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for these attacks.

FALLUJA — The growing confrontation between tribal leaders and Al Qaeda took a violent turn today when a suicide bomber drove into a crowd gathering for a funeral procession, killing at least twenty-seven people and wounding dozens of others.

After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb . . . These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress . . . God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7:9a, 14b, 17b)


(Published in
one, 33:4, July 2007)

Through the Looking Glass

The only way to have a healthy Holy Land is for political leaders to address the root of the problem, not just the symptoms.
The root of the problem is the continued Palestinian occupation of the Israeli territories.
Ever since the armed might of the State of Palestine overran Judea and Samaria in 1967, the explicit policy of the Palestinian government has been to settle as many Palestinians as possible in the territories.
The original intent of this settlement policy was to create “facts on the ground” so that there would never be an Israeli state. Inspired by the dream of a historical Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, the strategy so far is working.
In spite of repeated condemnations by the U.S. government, Palestine’s strongest — and sole — ally, settlements continue.
Meanwhile, although there was a period of limited Israeli autonomy after Oslo, for all practical purposes Palestinian military occupation of Israeli lands has returned.
Only the European governments speak out for the Israelis — they have a painful recollection of the attempt to exterminate European Judaism during World War II.
U.S. policy is widely criticized as imbalanced. For example, President Bush has met repeatedly with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yet not even once with the Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
The U.S. Congress is overwhelmingly in support of Palestine. One reason is APPAC (the American Palestinian Public Affairs Committee), America’s Pro-Palestinian, and strongest, lobby. It has long since effectively mobilized Palestinian- and other Arab-Americans for Palestine and against the Israelis.

The situation in the Holy Land has deteriorated badly during the past two years. Whether or not the second Israeli uprising was triggered by the visit of Arafat to the Western Wall, it has become the greatest threat to the existence of the State of Palestine since its founding in 1949.
Israeli suicide bombers — wantonly killing innocent men, women, and children — cannot be tolerated by the Palestinians. If Sharon’s Israeli Authority is ineffective in controlling Israeli terrorism and terrorist organizations, the Palestinians have no other recourse than to intervene.
Yet, the Palestinian policy of massive retaliation and the disproportionate use of force has led to an intolerable situation for the beleaguered Israelis. With the repeated Palestinian incursions into the Israeli territories, the destruction of homes, and the continual curfews, normal life is almost impossible for the average Israeli.
Checkpoints with daily humiliations and control of movement are bad enough, but the latest Palestinian tactic of digging ditches around Israeli towns and building barbed-wire fences, so reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto, is morally repugnant.
Wait! Aren’t things really just the reverse? Of course, but maybe looking through the looking glass at this mirror image of violence and injustice may suggest new approaches to softening hearts, exorcising hatred, and showing all God’s children the way to justice and peace.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 28:5, September 2002)

Sons and Daughters

God spared my mother until she was 90 years old. Even during her dying days, she found time to marvel that she had become the mother of a priest. Somehow this had exceeded her fondest imaginings.
After she died, I found a little “baby book” she had filled out about me while I was an infant. How many hopes and dreams she and my father had for me and my sister, their only children. How much they sacrificed for us, that we would have opportunities denied to them.
It was only after both my parents were gone that I realized how much we, their children, were the real fulfillment and lasting achievement of their lives.
Imagine the parents of a little six-year-old girl in Baghdad. As a new born infant, her sparkling black eyes were the joy of their young lives. What dreams they had for her—how she would grow into a comely young woman, the handsome young man she would wed, the grandchildren she would give them.
What indescribable anguish and pain for her parents to watch her stunted growth, because they could not find the food she needed. What an indescribable loss for them, to see her die of a curable childhood illness because no vaccine could be found for her.
In the lowlands of Eritrea, rural life goes on as centuries before. Simple farmers and herders live in their straw and mud cottages, scattered across the African savanna.
Maybe their hopes for their children are simple too, but still great expectations for their simple world. What satisfaction to see a son grow up straight, tall, strong and agile.

What pride to see him learn the work skills for survival, master the intricate songs and dances of their culture, and gain the respect of peers and elders.
What a crushing blow one day to have someone from the “government” come to induct him into its army and send him to fight a meaningless battle in a meaningless war from which he never returns.
Put yourself in the place of a Jewish youth who fled Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and who almost miraculously escaped the destruction that befell all his family.
Israel offered him new hope and new life. There he wed and, full of great expectations, raised children of his own. What pride mixed with dread must have been in his heart to see his sons and daughters drafted into the endless conflicts that are the lot of his new land.
“Killed in southern Lebanon” is the message that tells of his daughter’s death. What a brutal awakening from so many wondrous, hope-filled dreams.
See the tears streaming down the face of a Palestinian mother, as she tenderly washes the dead body of her young son. No soldier he, no daring youth, just a school boy who happened to be too near a place where stones and bullets were flying. Dead in an instant was his young life and the meaning of hers.
O Mary, remember all of us, you whose hopes, dreams, and great expectations—all the bright promise of Bethlehem—died with Him that day on Golgotha.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 25:1, January 1999)

The Insanity of War

Insanity [from the Latin insanus, from the Latin in, not, + sanus, whole] 1. The state of being insane; mental derangement or unsoundness; lunacy; madness; dementia. 2. A defect or weakness of mind that makes a person incapable of understanding the nature of particular acts or legal actions. 3. Extreme folly

I first visited Eritrea in 1989 during its 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia. At that time I could visit only the Eritrean capitol of Asmara. The Ethiopians held the city, and it wasn’t possible to go outside it into the rebel-held areas.
The long civil war ended in 1991 with the overthrow of the Ethiopian Marxist dictatorship by joint revolutionary forces in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Two years later Eritrea received its independence.
This May, I finally was able to see more of Eritrea than the city of Asmara. We traveled by jeep down from the cool highlands, first northwest to Keren, then southwest to Agordat and Barentu, and finally south to the hot and dusty lowland town of Dukambia.
Most of the few narrow and bumpy paved roads date from the Italian colonial period. Only part of our journey was on asphalt; most of the trip was over rough, washboard-surfaced dirt roads or tracks in the countryside.
Some areas are remote from the capitol not only in space but in time. Many of these rural folk live and work as their ancestors did centuries ago.
How strange it was to see poor farmers scratching a living from their dusty, semi-arid land alongside rusting hulks of tanks, heavy trucks and field weapons, wrecked and abandoned along the margins of the road.

What madness to have deployed these massive and expensive instruments of war among simple people whose lives were so remote from the issues of the conflict.
Thanks be to God, I thought, at last there is peace, reconstruction, and development in this shattered, weakened land.
A few days after we crossed into Ethiopia, however, the border was closed and a new war broke out.
Unbelievable! Until then the leaders of the two governments seemed to have had a cordial relationship. What were the reasons for renewing war? Ostensibly an old dispute about the exact position of the frontier. Actually, nobody knows.
Within days bombs were falling in both countries, sometimes seemingly at random. Small children died at school in Mekele a few weeks after our visit there.
What an insane game is sometimes played by the wielders of political power. They move their powerful and deadly toys across the board of life, casually wiping out living, breathing human pieces like the pawns they have become.
How long and hard we work to build lives child by child, family by family. How easily and quickly they are destroyed.
From the insanity, lunacy, madness, and folly of war, deliver us, O Lord!


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 24:4, July 1998)

Intercultural Communication

Forty years ago, Francis Cardinal Spellman, then Archbishop of New York, responded to the great influx of Puerto Ricans into his diocese. He made a radical decision — to send half of his newly ordained priests to Puerto Rico for the summer, to prepare them better for ministry at home.
They studied conversational Spanish all day for eight weeks. Weekends, they were sent to help out in parishes and practice what they had learned.
The most important lessons they learned were about the nature of culture and cultural differences.
Every culture has it own customs, rules, and sense of what is right and wrong. The challenge for these young priests was not only to speak the Spanish language, but also to be sensitive to the cultural differences between Americans and Puerto Ricans.
They had to learn how to communicate, in the fullest sense of the word, across the barrier of cultural difference. Only to speak the language was not enough.
For example, here’s a typical scene in a city like New York:
The teacher, Mrs. Jones, may be reprimanding little Juan. “Did you do it?,” she says. “Look me in the eye and tell me the truth.” Juan hangs his head and looks at the ground. “Aha,” thinks Mrs. Jones, “he’s guilty for sure.”
Not at all! For Juan, to look a superior in the eyes is disrespectful. Proper behavior for him is to look down to the ground out of respect for the teacher.
You may speak the person’s language very well, but if you don’t know the nuances of his or her culture, you may well misunderstand what is being said or done.

Perhaps inadequate intercultural communication has a lot to do with the stymied peace process in the Holy Land.
For example, when speaking with a Palestinian Arab it is important to be respectful as he understands it. In the Arab culture, a polite person speaks with elaborate courtesy and indirection. Although there is a word for “no” in Arabic, “no” is usually communicated by how weakly one says “God willing”.
Ordinary greetings are very expressive. An Arab man normally greets another Arab man by embracing him and kissing him on both cheeks. A recent photo of Yasser Arafat embracing a Hamas leader doesn’t mean friendship or endorsement of his position. It’s mere politeness — it doesn’t mean anything more than a handshake does for many people in the West.
Israeli Jews are usually far more informal than Arabs. Those who come from Europe and North America are used to speaking very bluntly and openly. To speak strongly and sometimes aggressively is normal for them — for one speaker to interrupt another is not considered bad form or necessarily impolite.
Often what is esteemed in one culture — e.g., blunt speech — can be offensive in another.
In Israel and Palestine, there are many people who are bilingual, speaking both Hebrew and Arabic. Unfortunately, they may be using the right words, but really not communicating effectively at all.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 23:6, November 1997)