THE PENDULUM AND THE PITS

by Rupert J. Ederer

<You have plunged me into the bottom of the pit, into the dark 
abyss.>

-Psalm 88:7

The order is reversed in my title, since I have no wish at all to 
plagiarize Edgar Allan Poe. What is more, unlike the poor poet, who 
placed the pit at the center of his inquisitorial dungeon, I see pits 
at each end of the pendulum's arc. Besides, the alternatives involved 
are of historic dimensions, and for that reason more momentous than 
the grim ones posed by the hallucinatory scribe. We are dealing here 
with the manifest tendency in mankind to react to one unhappy 
predicament by fleeing to an opposite plight, equally bad or worse. 
Thus the horrors of a dismal pit lie at each end of the swinging 
pendulum's arc. Human nature in its fallen state appears to avoid at 
all costs the happy medium, that state of rest between vicious 
extremes, shunning the age-old wisdom: In <medio stat virtus>.

A most recent pendulum swing-an egregious one-is taking place now 
before our eyes. Incredibly, the Communist Party of Russia was the 
big winner in the Russian elections of December 1995. It won 22% of 
the votes which, while far from a majority, was twice the percentage 
won by any other party. The second greatest number went to the 
Liberal Democratic Party headed by Russia's madman, Vladimir 
Zhirinovsky who is a cross between Rasputin and Adolf Hitler.

Even more disconcerting is the situation in predominantly Catholic 
Lithuania where the Communists have been returned to power! But 
perhaps the most disappointing development of all was the electoral 
defeat in Poland of Lech Walesa by the ax-Communist Kwasniewski. The 
underappreciated Cold War hero has been reduced to begging for his 
old job as an electrician at the shipyard in Gdansk. It was from 
there that he ventured out, protected only by a thin badge portraying 
Our Lady of Czestochowa, to slay the heavily armored Soviet Goliath. 
Perhaps he will end up leading his fellow workers out of the gates of 
the shipyard once again to rescue Poles from their own folly. 
Meanwhile the Palm Sunday crowd in his beloved country has rejected 
him in favor of a sorry band of Communists and ex-Communists, in 
apparent reaction against uncertainty brought on by an ill-advised 
swing toward so-called free markets.

The advisors included experts from our own prestigious universities 
and "think tanks," who scurried posthaste to spread the gospel of the 
Scrooge and Marley economy across Eastern Europe as soon as the Iron 
Curtain rusted through to allow entry. The ensuing inflation, 
economic chaos and insecurity were too much for the Poles who, oddly, 
have in common with their Prussian neighbors a craving for order. So, 
at least for the moment, they have decided fatuously to ride the 
swinging pendulum back to the opposite pit where Big Brother State 
lurks.

Wild fides aboard history's swinging pendulum are no novelty during 
the centuries since Western society was bereft of the sound, 
stabilizing, social principles which are a part of the bedrock of 
Christian culture. In the 18th century the French moved from the 
absolute monarchy of the Bourbons to revolutionary chaos, and from 
there back to military dictatorship under Napoleon. During the 1 9th 
century, Karl Marx's mad-hatter scheme appeared credible to 
increasing numbers of people, workers and intellectuals alike, who 
lost their faith in salvation as promised by freemarketeering 
capitalism That happened even though the broad outlines of a 
salvific, centrist position were presented in 1891 by Leo XIII. 
Liberal capitalism had, in turn, already been a response to the 
frenzied attempts to regulate economic life in its minutes" details 
during the preceding era, which economic historians call the Age of 
Mercantilism.

Early in the present century the German nation rode the swinging 
pendulum from the political and economic chaos of the Weimar 
democracy for which Germany was ill-prepared, to the opposite dark 
pit of Nazism. It's a pity that the Germans did not work harder to 
apply the proposals drafted for the Catholic Center Party in 1922 by 
the Jesuit, Heinrich Pesch, whose economic principles were 
subsequently included in <Quadragesimo Anno> in 1931. If that 
suggestion seems ingenuous, we need to take a moment to reflect on 
the horrendous devastation which such a centrist course could have 
spared Germany and the world!

Now, during the post-World War II era, in apparent reaction to the 
appalling consequences brought on by collectivistic socialism, both 
Communist and Nazi, significant numbers have demonstrated their 
willingness to fide the pendulum back to the same individualistic 
capitalism which provided the pretext for Marx and his tribe in the 
first place. No one needs to take my word for that. The causal link 
between liberalism and socialism was identified in 1871 by the 
pioneer of Catholic social teaching, Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von 
Ketteler. In his essay, "Liberalism, Socialism, and Christianity," 
the Bishop of Mainz wrote that socialism was "the unruly offspring" 
of liberalism, pointing out that, "if liberalism were correct in its 
premises, then socialism's conclusions would be valid." Sixty years 
later, Pius XI used essentially the same metaphor in <Quadragesimo 
Anno>, where he stated that "the parent of cultural socialism was 
liberalism, and that its offspring will be 'bolshevism.'" (Q. A. 
122).

Since the word liberalism as used in social teachings poses a problem 
for some, it may be useful to note what the same Pope said elsewhere 
in that encyclical:

Therefore there is a double danger to be avoided. On the one hand, if 
the social and public aspect of ownership be denied or minimized, the 
logical consequence is "individualism," as it is called; on the other 
hand, the rejection or diminution of its private and individual 
character necessarily leads to some form of "collectivism." (Q.A.46.)

That the "double danger" to which he referred still lingers 65 years 
after those words were written is clear now before our noses. Always 
a few prophetic beats ahead of those who orchestrate social policy, 
our Mother and Teacher pointed out that we seem determined to revert 
again to the mistakes of the past. In his Apostolic Letter, 
<Octogesima Adveniens> (1971), Paul VI, after warning about the "kind 
of totalitarian and violent society" to which Marxism leads, stated:

On another side, we are witnessing a renewal of the liberal ideology. 
This current asserts itself both in the name of economic efficiency, 
and for the defense of the individual against the increasingly 
overwhelming hold of organizations, and as a reaction against the 
totalitarian tendencies of political power.... But do not Christians 
who take this path tend to idealize liberalism in their turn, making 
it a proclamation in favor of freedom? They would like a new model, 
more adapted to present-day conditions, while easily forgetting that 
at the very root of philosophical liberalism is an erroneous 
affirmation of the autonomy of the individual in his activity, his 
motivation and the exercise of his liberty. (para. 35).

In the United States, this neo-liberal swing captivated the 
imagination of the three successive administrations of Carter, Reagan 
and Bush, thus transcending traditional party lines. Large numbers of 
Americans, like latter day converts to Kropotkin-style anarchism, 
have become convinced that "government is the enemy,- specifically 
Washington which grew like Topsy since the New Deal. The New Deal, 
however' was already a wild ride on the pendulum as it swung back 
from the pit dug during the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover tenures and their 
<laissez-faire> capitalism, with its inevitable consequences. The 
ongoing Gingrich initiative appears to be simply a last-ditch effort 
to convince hapless Americans that the pit into which our economy has 
fallen after 12 years of "voodoo economics," is nevertheless the best 
of all possible pits. And so, if one may be permitted to switch 
metaphors for a moment, we risk being sucked into the whirlpool of 
Charybdis on the one side while trying desperately to avoid rocky 
Scylla on the other, as we vacillate, unguided by sound social 
principles, or in pursuit of depraved ones.

Unfortunately, among our fellow citizens who have been privy to the 
social teachings of the Catholic Church for an entire century, many 
are taken in by that latest pendulum swing back toward the dark hole 
of liberal capitalism. Either they disclaim those teachings entirely 
in a frantic desire to swim in their American mainstream, or they 
appeal lamely to the principle of subsidiarily. That principle, for 
those who have not seen it lately, or ever, states:

Nevertheless, it is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, 
fixed and unchangeable, that one would not withdraw from individuals 
and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own 
enterprise and industry.. So too, it is an injustice and at the same 
time a grave evil and a disturbance of fight order, to transfer to 
the larger and higher collectivity functions which can be performed 
and provided for by lesser and subordinate bodies (Q. A. 79).

A corollary statement follows directly:

The State authorities should leave to other bodies the care and 
expediting of business and activities of lesser moment, which 
otherwise become for it a source of great distraction. It then will 
perform with greater freedom, vigor and effectiveness, the tasks 
belonging properly to it, and which it alone can accomplish 
directing, supervising, encouraging, restraining as circumstances 
suggest or necessity demands. (Q. A. 80).

A hint at how "fundamental," "fixed," and "unchangeable" that 
principle is may be found in an astoundingly similar statement made 
many years before by Abraham Lincoln in 1854, long before there were 
papal social encyclicals.

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of 
people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or 
cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and individual 
capacities. In all that people can individually do as well for 
themselves, government ought not to interfere.

The statement of the principle of subsidiarily as presented in 
<Quadragesimo Anno> merits careful study, since it was presented 
there in definitive form for the first time. That is all the more 
important now that use of the expression has gone beyond the narrow 
enclave of those who cherish the social encyclicals. E. F. Schumacher 
quoted it verbatim in his best-selling <Small is Beautiful>; and more 
recently it was the subject of a full-page essay in <Time> (Jan. 16, 
1995). The principle of subsidiarily should not be exploited simply 
to bolster one's own preferred ideology. Note that government, 
including the central government, is nowhere condemned as "bad." 
Indeed, the last sentence reserves a significant role to it. There is 
nowhere a call for Manchester liberalism's "night watchman state," 
where the poor are left at the mercy of the economic royalists, who 
are uniquely situated to exploit free markets, free trade, and free 
competition in their own interests.

What the encyclical does not say, and what I now venture to state as 
my own opinion, is that this principle can be violated by omission as 
well as by commission. The latter occurs when overly aggressive State 
authorities, captives of some warped ideology like Communism or 
Nazism, simply arrogate to themselves functions which individuals and 
lower social bodies, businesses, labor unions, etc., are perfectly 
capable of taking on by themselves. In a federal system such as 
exists in the United States, due allowance must also be made for 
state and local governments to fulfill their proper roles without 
being elbowed aside by our federal government.

We are all painfully aware of such outcomes and their consequences, 
and enough has been written about "Big Brother" to dramatize the 
excesses in recent history. On the other hand, we tend to lose sight 
of the manifold sins of omission by the "little brothers" who fail to 
do what they themselves could do better if they chose to do so. Such 
lapses can give rise to warped ideologies; and in less ideology-prone 
cultures like our own, they have generated pragmatic drifting toward 
initiatives like the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society, and 
on the other side, the Contract with America.

In our federalist structure, it is especially incumbent on state 
governments and their local political subdivisions to see to their 
own proper responsibilities. Unfortunately, the hallowed competitive 
ethos has been at work also at that level. Too often states have 
competed in laxity to foster their own imagined advantage over 
neighbor states. This applied in the area of regulation, as in labor 
legislation and in laws governing transportation, banking, and the 
chartering of corporations-the real reason why Delaware became the 
preferred habitat for corporate headquarters. It also affected the 
way states exercised or affected the way states exercised or failed 
to exercise more positive functions that were left to them, like 
welfare and unemployment insurance.

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887-recently abolished-was first 
passed, not merely because railroads crossed state lines, but because 
the states did a poor job of regulating the carriers during the era 
of the "robber barons." The National Banking Act and its succeeding 
Federal Reserve Act were passed because state banking laws competed 
in laxity leading to the era of "wildcat banking." The Wagner Act and 
other federal labor laws were passed and bolstered by "liberal" court 
interpretations simply because state labor laws were either 
inadequate or lacking entirely. State legislation governing wage and 
hours, child labor, or the lack of such, was designed all too often 
to entice industries away from neighboring states with more stringent 
laws and controls.

In fairness to Ronald Reagan, the man may have displayed a certain, 
vague deference to the principle of subsidiarily (as stated by the 
founder of his own Party), when he promised to get an outsized 
federal government off the backs of the American people. 
Unfortunately, state and local governments failed to pick up the 
slack that his administration provided for them. Functions 
traditionally entrusted to state and local governments, e.g., in the 
areas of education, police protection, health and welfare, highway 
construction and maintenance, and patronage of the arts, were left to 
languish.

Accordingly, when the federal government began cutting funds to the 
states, instead of raising the taxes needed to pick up the slack, 
these in turn reduced funds to counties, towns and municipalities. 
Inevitably local services began to deteriorate; or else some, like 
welfare, were maintained at the expense of others. Partially at fault 
were the generally regressive tax structures in place at the state 
and local levels of government, along with the unwillingness and in 
some cases the inability to compensate for the federal tax cuts. 
Politicians there were even less anxious than "Read-my-lips" George 
Bush to commit political suicide by raising taxes to finance 
functions transferred back to them from Washington. Again, at this 
point the traditional competitiveness among the states cut in as they 
eagerly sought to attract industry, tourists, retirees, etc. from 
other states.

Meanwhile, the federal government itself shifted to massive increases 
in defense spending in an all-out effort to win the Cold War. The 
result was a serious deterioration in the close-to-home, relevant 
government services in favor of nuclear submarines, rehabilititated 
battleships, and surrealistic space ventures. All of these mean 
little to people directly as contrasted with their schools, their 
libraries, and their highways. To finance its chosen extravaganzas, 
Washington remarkably embarked on a tax-cutting program. It also 
emulated the states by returning the federal government to an 
economically enervating, regressive tax structure, which led directly 
to the largest deficit-spending spree in our history and perhaps in 
the history of the world. This tax-cutting policy was launched 
despite the fact that the United States ranks below its main 
industrial competitors, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, and Britain 
in the marginal tax rates it imposes on the personal income of 
persons in the top income bracket. (We are higher only than Great 
Britain in our marginal tax rates levied on corporations). The whole 
enterprise was remarkably Keynesian also inasmuch as the tax cuts are 
supposed to stimulate the investment function and thereby assure 
economic growth and full employment. John Maynard, were you watching 
this episode? It calls for someone with Jonathan Swift's talents to 
do an adequate caricature!

Getting from macroeconomics down to the microeconomic level, aside 
from a drastic correction in the way state and local governments act 
and conduct their tax policies, sound non-governmental structures 
also need to be in place for the principle of subsidiarily to work 
properly. This precludes, first of all, "the structures of sin," 
about which Pope John Paul II speaks repeatedly. In the late Middle 
Ages, craft and merchant guilds- non-governmental social organs-
relieved city governments of many of the functions which overworked 
commissars and bureaucrats perform in socialist societies. Those 
included the determination of wages and prices, as well as quality 
control and the regulation of competitive practices. After the guilds 
atrophied and were gradually dismantled, hyperactive government 
commissioners installed by absolute monarchs moved in to fill the 
vacuum.

Subsequently, after the Mercantilistic structure gave way to liberal 
capitalism, which imposed a new serfdom on the working class spun off 
by the Industrial Revolution, the employers were more than happy to 
rely on the "free markets" to govern economic life and make things 
come out right (for themselves!). As the treatment of the workers 
became more and more outrageous, militant and defensive trade unions 
gradually emerged. Unlike the guilds, these did not include both the 
employers and the employees in the same trade or industry, only the 
latter. Their objective was to co-determine the conditions of 
employment-a journey which was not without great difficulty and many 
setbacks. In the United States the labor movement never achieved the 
levels of membership that it did in the older industrial countries of 
Europe, at least in terms of sheer percentages of their work forces. 
Nevertheless, the aspect of their performance in our society that is 
often overlooked is that, like their predecessor guilds, labor unions 
can play a significant role in a salubrious functioning of the 
principle of subsidiarily.

In the typical collective-bargaining agreement the parties involved 
established wage rates, wage increments, hours of work-all matters 
which are resolved by assiduous government bureaucrats in socialistic 
societies. In addition, the more progressive labor contracts 
typically provided significant welfare measures like pensions and 
health insurance. One can only imagine how our extensive and 
expensive government welfare apparatus could have been reduced if all 
or most workers had been covered by such agreements, instead of a 
scant 25 percent of them at the peak of union power in our country, 
or the paltry, intimidated 1 percent at present. Then the government 
could have been left free to provide for the small percentage of 
desperate cases, like young widowed mothers of small children, 
unemployables, etc., who are not covered by labor contracts. In such 
a context, the principle of subsidiarily would have a fighting chance 
to work as it is supposed to.

Beyond such substantive provisions, each labor contract also included 
a formal grievance procedure up to the level of arbitration by 
neutral outsiders. That enabled the parties themselves, without 
government intervention, to resolve disputes arising under the 
agreements. Governments at the state and federal levels provided 
standby-if-needed mediators in accordance with proper application of 
the principle of subsidiarily. Bad press notwithstanding, the 
preponderant majority of such disputes were resolved by the parties 
themselves. In fact, even the negotiation or renegotiation of the 
contracts themselves was in most cases concluded successfully by the 
parties, usually without government intervention, at least up to the 
level where deadlocks gravely impacted on the overall public 
interest.

As a one-time research director for a small national railroad union, 
I was able to observe firsthand how the failure of "little brother" 
leads to the invasion by "Big Brother." I witnessed how the all too 
frequent unwillingness of the parties themselves to engage in good-
faith contract negotiations and grievance handling led to the process 
being virtually federalized in our once great railway industry. I am 
not referring to the actual federal government takeover and operation 
of the railroads during World War I, although that was already 
symptomatic of the failures of the "little brothers" of the Railroad 
Brotherhoods to do what they could have done. Indeed, many insiders 
within the industry suspect that episode as having spoiled the 
industry beyond repair for sound grassroots labor relations. In any 
case, repeated breakdowns in on-site negotiations. along with the 
prospect of nationwide tie-ups, led to inevitable intervention by the 
federal government through national mediators, presidential emergency 
boards, etc. That closed the vicious circle, because the very 
availability of recourse to federal boards in bargaining breakdowns 
often undermined the will of the parties themselves to get down to 
serious collective bargaining. Perhaps the ultimate example of "Big 
Brother" having to step in when the "little brothers" fail to act as 
they ought occurred in a railroad strike during World War II. The 
inimitable Harry Truman threatened to draft the locomotive engineers 
into the Army if they did not go back to work promptly. They did!

Unfortunately, employer-worker relations in our present labor-
management structure were seen, with rare exceptions, in the 
unhealthy context of an adversarial relationship. It reflected the 
antagonism between classes that became a hallmark of liberal 
capitalism. In the United States it also took on the pragmatic 
coloration typical of our society. Union leaders at times became 
intoxicated with their power and exercised the kind of muscle that 
they developed in dealing with pragmatic capitalist employers. 
Concern about right-or-wrong and the general welfare took a back 
seat. Here too, therefore, the pendulum has now swung back to the 
labor-baiting, union-busting 1920s. And that brings us to our final 
consideration.

Unless one wishes to march under the black flag of anarchy, 
governments are indispensable. Nor are they a necessary evil; they 
are a necessary good. Nevertheless, social organs below the level of 
government are also desirable, if not inevitable, to make the 
principle of subsidiarily operate properly. The "functional groups" 
proposed in <Quadragesimo Anno>, as successors to the guilds are, in 
the words of that encyclical's author: "if not essential to civil 
society, at least a natural accompaniment thereof"(Q.A. 83).

In the final analysis, however, underlying the sound operation of all 
such organs of society and also governments, are social attitudes. 
Pius XI expressed this delicately using the word, "manners." 
(<mores>). "However, all that we have taught about reconstructing and 
perfecting the social order will be of no avail without a reform of 
manners." (Q.A. 97) If these are orderly, i.e., virtuous, then 
governments can function properly; and the various subsidiary organs 
of society can perform better the many tasks that affect them 
immediately, precisely because they are closer to them. On the other 
hand, if the social attitudes-"manners"-are not orderly, then neither 
governments nor subsidiary organs of society, whether they be guilds, 
or modern labor unions, or the vocational orders proposed in Catholic 
social teachings as successors to guilds and unions, can perform 
satisfactorily.

The latter state of affairs identifies the plight of our world since 
it has vacillated back and forth between too much centralized control 
and the economic anarchy that best describes liberal capitalism. 
Clearly, the "manners" which Pius XI had in mind were precisely the 
social virtues: justice and charity. He invited those who seek "to 
reform society according to the mind of the Church" to do so on "a 
firm basis of social justice and social charity. " (Q. A. 126.). But 
here's the catch, and perhaps this explains why the world, a century 
after Leo XIII pointed out the problem and its solution, still moves 
from one sorry extreme to the other. Pius XI indicated that ". . . 
this longed-for social reconstruction must be preceded by a profound 
renewal of the Christian spirit. . . ." (Q. A. 127 ). To emphasize 
that, he repeated the words of Leo XIII in <Rerum Novarum> "And if 
society is to be cured now, in no other way can it be cured but by a 
return to the Christian life and Christian institutions." (R.N. 22). 
Those are hard sayings in a world which has seen its Christian 
culture regress ever since the house of Christianity, i.e., 
Christendom, was divided nearly five centuries ago.

Now, in the post-Christian wreckage roundabout us, it should be clear 
why the pendulum of recent history swings from left to right, without 
coming to rest in the center. In <medio stat virtue>. The social 
virtues-especially social justice and social charity-are scarcely 
understood and therefore not in widespread practice. The former was 
first defined for us by Pius XI as the virtue whose very essence 
demands from each individual "all that is necessary for the common 
good" (<Divini Redemptoris> 41). Unfortunately the concept, social 
justice, was bowdlerized in various ways, so that it eventually came 
to mean many things, even strange things, for different persons. 
Social charity, on the other hand was largely ignored and forgotten, 
even though Pius XI clearly intended it to be the twin social virtue 
with social justice. (Q. A. 88 & 126). Now happily Pope John Paul II 
has equated social charity with solidarity (<Centesimus Annus> 10) 
which he explained in painstaking detail and termed "undoubtedly a 
Christian virtue" (<Sollicitudo Rei Socialis> 38-40).

Neither liberal capitalism, which its enthusiasts have been working 
hard to restore in the years since World War II, nor socialism in its 
various forms, embodies these principles in the social system That is 
precisely why we swing helplessly back and forth between the two pits 
at the end of the pendulum's precarious arc. Virtue stands in the 
middle: in this case the twin social virtues of social justice and 
social charity (solidarity). Our purblind society will not arrive at 
a state of rest, i.e., social order, until it seeks out and adapts 
them into a social system therefore in harmony with Christian 
principles.

If there is any puzzlement about the latest pendulum swing back 
towards perhaps collectivist socialism in Eastern Europe, and liberal 
capitalism in our own country, the words of both Leo XIII and Pius XI 
calling for "a profound renewal of the Christian spirit," should make 
the reason abundantly clear. When the golden hour struck in the lands 
formerly behind the Iron Curtain, what were needed were missionaries 
of the stature of Benedict, Patrick, Cyril and Methodius, Boniface, 
and Leo the Great. A latter-day Leo the Great we have! And he has 
provided a splendid trilogy of encyclicals for restoring social 
order.

Instead, the jaded Western nations have sent out architects of 19th-
century economics. It sent them into Russia, into Poland, and 
wherever else poor, relieved victims of decades of Communist 
oppression were receptive after drawing their first deep breaths of 
freedom. The results of this dismal economics were predictably 
dismal! They leave in their wake a Weimar-like chaos. Perhaps Poland, 
after giving us our great missionary Pope and our leading Cold War 
hero, deserved better. Or perhaps there too, as in post-Christian 
America, what is needed first is that "reform of manners" which Pius 
XI called for back in 1931 in a world that was even then reverting to 
barbarism.

SOFTER THAN STEEL

O harp and altar of the fury fused, 
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!) 
from <To Brooklyn Bridge>, Hart Crane.

God's body is not built of stainless steel 
Bridging exotic clouds and sterling earth, 
Yet we have seen a spirit in the cross 
Of gleaming girders, history to shore, 
Erecting dreams to bell San Salvador.

New York across the prairies, patriot's dream 
As far as the Pacific high-rise stripes 
Red, white, and blue-Maria, sing!-this man 
Columbus, insightful search life-long: 
Silence is more like God than any song.

Golden seeds and dragons' teeth all sown
Broadcast to bloom the green delightful farms
With health, while concaine cities knife and blot
Alabaster bodies black and blood-
Silent and screaming, infantile, a flood

Washing the face of amniotic life with filth 
Contrary to apple-cheeks, this last home run 
Ends at the clinic, arms and legs cut off 
Team play. Time-out, America! to kneel: 
Bodies unbridged by doctor's stainles steel.

ii

Time tests the tensile strength of cables fling 
Across our credence. A six-lane open road 
Now legislates a host of towering spires 
To plant most high a white-starred flag or heaven; 
The future nation's toxin, smoke, or leaven.

Fields of flowers falling from the skies 
Inseminate tomorrow, child-incarnate words, 
Cooing with grace, star-spangled round the courts 
Supreme where judges smash the Sinai stones 
And trash the bridges built on Moses' bones.

Vison of cities, playgrounds, factory fumes, 
Babylon of girders, cemetery flowers 
Structures that strive person to span to person, 
The boiling river underneath-its song- 
Pollutes the children, Wait, you wanted strong.

Night falls on Nazareth, the logos boy 
Shines tall, connects the farthest reach of flesh 
With shores above. O Christ, eternal link to life, 
Accept our bent-steel offering past sin: 
Reweld us, broken, cross the space again!

Charles M. Campbell

Rupert J. Ederer is professor emeritius of economics from SUNY 
Buffalo and a frequent contributor to "Fidelity". His latest book is 
"Economics as if God Mattered" (Fidelity Press, 1995).

Taken from the April 1996 issue of "Fidelity" Magazine, 206 Marquette 
Avenue, South Bend, IN 46617.  Subscription price is $25.00 per year. 
Letters to the editor may be sent by fax, 219-289-1461, or by 
electronic mail to CompuServe 71554,445.

Copyright (c) 1996 EWTN

-------------------------------------------------------

   Provided courtesy of:

        Eternal Word Television Network
        PO Box 3610
        Manassas, VA 22110
        Voice: 703-791-2576
        Fax: 703-791-4250
        Data: 703-791-4336
        Web: http://www.ewtn.com
        FTP: ewtn.com
        Telnet: ewtn.com
        Email address: sysop@ ewtn.com

   EWTN provides a Catholic online 
   information and service system.

-------------------------------------------------------

.