BishopAccountability.org
In the Spirit: Ex-Priest's Take on Matters of Faith

By Doug Erickson
Wisconsin State Journal
October 23, 2011

http://host.madison.com/wsj/lifestyles/faith-and-values/religion/article_c42389c0-fc08-11e0-a4db-001cc4c03286.html

While in town last week for a series of events as a visiting fellow of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions at UW-Madison, Carroll took part in a wide-ranging Q&A Monday at a gathering of campus faculty and area clergy members.

James Carroll was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, then gave

up the priesthood a short five years later.

Those were turbulent years — for Carroll and for the country.

As a chaplain at Boston University, he was a self-described

"radical priest" and anti-war activist, opposing U.S. involvement

in Vietnam. His 1996 memoir, "An American Requiem: God, My Father,

and the War that Came Between Us," covers that difficult journey

and won the National Book Award.

Carroll, 68, a columnist for The Boston Globe, was in Madison last

week for a series of events as a visiting fellow of the Lubar

Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions at UW-Madison. While

the institute's invitation was due largely to his recent writings

on interfaith dialogue, Carroll took part in a wide-ranging Q&A

Monday at a gathering of campus faculty and area clergy members.

Some excerpts:

On the value of interfaith dialogue among Jews,

Christians and Muslims:
"We don't gather to politely

affirm each other. Ideally, we reckon with the failures of our own

tradition in the presence of the other, learning from the other

what those failures are and have meant. That's the power of it for

me."

On atheists' claims after 9/11 that only religion could

lead human beings to do something so horrific:
"On the

face of it, the simple affirmation that something that monstrous

could only have been done by someone acting on religion is, of

course, denied by history. However you regard the neo-paganism of

the Nazi movement, which was not a religious movement, or however

you regard the staunch atheism of the Stalinist regime, the truth

is the shock of 9/11 was world-historic, perhaps, but on the scale

of violence, it was child's play compared to any number of other

acts of violence — some of the most, if not the most, of which have

been committed by self-avowed atheists.

On mixing church and state: "The great

temptation for Christians and Muslims both has been the use of

state power to advance religious purpose. When it has been done,

bad things have happened — to the religion as well as to the people

on whom the power was exercised. The Catholic Church in particular,

but the Protestant tradition as well, has had a hard time coming

into modernity with an important affirmation of the importance of

the separation of church and state."

On being called a "Catholic hater" for his criticism

of the Catholic hierarchy:
"If I'm a Catholic basher, what

are the bishops who have been protecting pedophile priests? They're

the real Catholic bashers. Those of us who defend the theology and

practices of the Second Vatican Council are, to certain

conservatives, always going to be Catholic bashers, but it's not

true."

Contact: derickson@madison.com


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