By Harold Henderson
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“It seemed like every time you turned around in ’95 somebody was dropping to their knees and offering a public and (apparently) heartfelt apology or confession for their sins,” writes Patrick McCormick in the Chicago-based U.S. Catholic (January)–Robert McNamara, the Southern Baptist Convention, the pope, Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, Robert Packwood, Albert Speer, and others. But so what? “For Catholics the acid test of a true confession has always been the penitent’s ‘firm purpose of amendment.’ Genuine repentance demands both a realistic intention to change one’s ways and a commitment to make up for harms inflicted on others….The Southern Baptists can hardly do anything now about slavery or their failure to support the civil-rights movement…but there’s nothing to stop them from supporting affirmative action or funding the NAACP or the United Negro College Fund through the next millennium. And the Vatican? The pope doesn’t name names or events in his apology, so it’s hard to know what sins of sexism the church is apologizing for. But certainly his purpose of amendment could include appointing several women to lead major Vatican congregations, appointing a Vatican commission to study the harms of sexism in the church, or inviting women theologians and scholars to participate in reviewing Catholic sexual ethics.”
Rational suggestions Republicans will never implement. University of Illinois economist J. Fred Giertz argues in Illinois Issues (December) that “efforts to maintain adequate services in response to federal cutbacks are likely to be more productive than attempts to stop the changes at the federal level.” His case: “If federal taxes were increased to maintain in 2002 the current federal aid programs to all state and local governments in the country, Illinois’ share of the taxes would amount to approximately $5 billion. This tax increase would forestall federal aid reductions of $3.8 billion to the state and local governments in Illinois….Viewed in this way, it appears that Illinois would be better off to accept the federal aid cuts and to increase state and local taxes by $3.8 billion to make up for the federal cuts.”
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