TH E 2 9 J a n u a r y 1977 T h e in te rn a t io n a l C a th o lic w eek ly 2 5 p
TABLET The music of the spheres: John E X . H a r r io t t
French Catholics today: Charles Wackenheim EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEM ENT: More memories of a Catholic ch i ld h o o d . F in d in g your b o o k s . Comprehensive salvation
President C a r te r ’s cre ed Jimmy Carter’s inauguration address last week marked, in his own words, “a new beginning, a new dedication within our government, a new spirit among us all.” It also sounded a new note in statesmanship which we hope will not be missed by other national leaders, if they have ears to hear. We are all accustomed, of course, to the ritual idealistic orations of successive American presidents, and must be specially sceptical about them since Richard Nixon so tragically betrayed his own speech by subsequent actions.
But Mr Carter is a different case altogether. What he said was consistent with his character and religious views which have become known throughout countless reports and interviews during his campaign. He poses new questions and predicaments, not only for his fellow countrymen but for the world, where the USA has a dominant influence. We now have a man at the peak of worldly power who has stated simply that whilst he was baptised at the age of eleven he had no sense of intimacy with Christ for another ten or twelve years, but that from then onwards his outlook dramatically changed. Quoting the prophet Micah in his inaugural speech Mr Carter revealed once more the religious origin of his values: mercy, love and humility. It is in accordance with these that his first official act has been to pardon all those who refused to report for military service for Vietnam between 4 August 1964 and 28 March 1973. Several hundred thousand young men were either living in exile or had gone into hiding at home. So reconciliation is already at work.
Mr Carter reminded the world that America was “the first society to be willing to define itself both in terms of spirituality and human liberty.” That unique self-definition gave the United States an exceptional appeal, he said, but it also imposed a special obligation to take on “those moral duties which, when assumed, seemed invariably to be in our own best interests.” This call to idealism, blended with an almost cynical self-knowledge, is an expression of th e ’ earthy evangelical ethic which lies at the root of the American dream. That dream, he said, has led Americans to a high degree of personal liberty. . . our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved. The powerful must not persecute the weak, human dignity must be enhanced.” Turning to the international scene he pledged “perseverance and wisdom in our efforts to limit the world’s armaments to those for each nation’s domestic safety. We move this year a step forward towards our ultimate goal—the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this earth.” That sentence by itself should put new heart into every Christian, who by definition is a peace-maker.
The speech provoked predictable reactions from the right and left in his own country and elsewhere. The right argued that to become President through a democratic process today required such toughness and ruthless ambition that all this Franciscan humility was plainly humbug. Critics on the left see the new President as a tool of the party machine, filling his cabinet with old pros and hacks from the Kennedy-Johnson era—a view which is also very far from the truth.
These entrenched positions of bigotry make no allowance for grace or for personal conviction or moral fibre, what we would call the mobility of a moral character. This last is what Jimmy Carter seems to possess to an exceptional degree. There are of course inherent risks in such a position; a moral approach, particularly in the international field, easily leads to friction with any state whose strategy is based solely on material considerations. Stalin, at Yalta, was asked how the Catholic world would regard some of his more outrageous
