Mr. L., a divorced father,  says: “I love my children. I just don’t understand them. And I really don’t  know  what’s their problem. It really used to bother me an awful lot that I wasn’t closer to them, and I’ve tried. I really did.  .  . But then I had to come to grips with it, that that’s what it’s gonna be.”

This quotation comes from a study entitled “Older Stepfamilies: Views from the Parental Generation,” done by Barbara Vinick, a veteran researcher affiliated with Boston University.

Dr. Vinick recently told me about her findings and shared much fascinating information. “We sat down and talked with husbands and wives who had been remarried an average of twenty years,” she said. “We asked them to look back on the course of their relationships with their children and their stepchildren.”

Almost half of the older divorced fathers described their relationship with their “ex-children” as “not close.” One-third of these alienated fathers had not had any contact with these children. Another third saw them from time to time, while a final third enjoyed routine contact with them.

Vinick says that the alienated fathers found it sad to have lost contact. She was surprised how much pain and regret they expressed. More of them than she expected were ready to blame themselves for this unhappy situation (whereas younger men, it seems, are more likely to blame their former wives.)

This greater readiness to accept responsibility can be seen as a sign of growing liberation in later life, Vinick believes. “The passage of the years has given them a chance to look back and have some perspective on things, to let go of a lot of their anger.”

She goes further: “As men get older, they are willing to give up some of this macho stance and tap into their nurturing, affiliative self.” These men, aged 57 to 84, often found it too late to do anything about the broken relationships but many would have liked to.

Dynamics are very different for the biological mothers. “For the most part,” Vinick reports, “they maintained very close relationships with their kids.” Only four out of the seventeen women interviewed did not fit this pattern.

Surprisingly often, relationships between mothers and sons were so close as to interfere with the bond between the wife and her second husband. Vinick calls these “triangles” and reports that often the husbands felt left out. “The husbands and sons found themselves pitted against one another with the mother in the middle.”

Because stepmothers are so supportive of their husbands getting back in touch with their children, Vinick calls these women “family carpenters.” Three-fourths of them said they had taken action to bring their husbands closer to the kids.

In some stepmothers this provoked anxiety. One woman told of going to her stepdaughter’s wedding but not before smoking, something she had not done in twenty years. “Some of these situations were very complicated,” says Barbara Vinick.

Not surprisingly, it is easier for children to enter into relationships with stepparents when the kids are already grown up. Teenagers in particular often have a hard time.

The researcher was struck by the difference between men and women in their appraisal of change within the extended family. Women often termed changes “positive” whereas men were more likely to see negative elements.

About possible interventions, Vinick judges that efforts to help men realize that their kids need them would be highly desirable. “There are wonderful models out there for male behavior in the family but they are not the majority. When men are engaged in negative interaction with the family, they tend just to withdraw.”

Men should be encouraged to express their feelings of regret. It’s never too late to reestablish relationships. The older a guy is, the more likely he will be able to express feelings.

At Dr. Vinick’s suggestion, I contacted Bob Chellis and Sandy Adams, who took part in the study. This couple, resident in Wellesley, stressed that things were different, and perhaps easier, for them because their biological children from previous marriages were not close in age and thus never lived under the same roof at the same time.

Nor, despite some difficulties in his relationship with his son, was Bob Chellis ever alienated from his own two children, the way so many other fathers in the study were.

However, during a time of crisis between him and his teenage son, Sandy did exercise the role of family carpenter. Says Bob of this experience, “Sandy was able to pull things together, to be a bridge.”

Pressed to say what she did, Sandy answers “I felt Bob’s son really needed someone to take a stand.” She and Bob took that stand when the son demanded his own way and Sandy ultimately succeeded in winning him over. Nowadays, Bob says, “my son asks his stepmother’s advice and shows affection for her.”

No wonder Barbara Vinick concludes that “stepmothers deserve more credit than they generally receive.”

Richard Griffin

A weekend visit to Chicago brought me into contact with an old man whose life is marked by disorder. He’s a lush, grossly overweight, broke, and a self-deluded lover of young women. Drinking and carousing seem to be his main activities, as well as scheming how to get money by romancing other men’s wives.

The man’s name is Falstaff, as in Sir John Falstaff, the central figure in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera of the same name. That is the work I was privileged to see last week in the Chicago Lyric Opera’s lively production. The spectacle and, especially, the musical themes bid fair to remain in my head for weeks to come.

Bryn Terfel, the much acclaimed Welsh baritone, scored a smashing success in the role, the first time he has sung it. His paunch-led maneuverings as he walked and rolled around the stage provided us, the audience, with constant amusement. As a Hollywood puff might have put it, Terfel was Falstaff.

Inventor of the original Falstaff was, of course, Shakespeare. The playwright placed him in three works – The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry the Fourth, Part One and Part Two –  creating one of the greatest comic characters in world literature.

This is the character that Verdi chose for the centerpiece of his last opera. The great Italian composer and hero of his country’s risorgimento was approaching eighty years of age when he completed the work. For decades he had been hoping to write a comic opera but did not find an appropriate subject until his librettist, Arrigo Boito, gave him a clever script built around the famous Shakespearean character.

In this last work, Verdi displayed a genius of invention that had developed with the advance of years. Falstaff, the opera, shows a style radically different from that of his earlier works, and even from the famous operas of his middle period – La Traviata, Rigoletto, and Il Trovatore. The music of his last opera flows seamlessly all through the piece, without the set arias so characteristic of the earlier Verdi.

The plot revolves around Sir John’s efforts to seduce Alice Ford and Meg Page, the charming wives resident in Windsor, and the revenge that these merry women take on the hapless knight. Their first revenge comes when they manage to get the fat man hidden in a basket of laundry and then have their servants empty him out of the basket into the River Thames.

The second retaliation comes in the last act when the Windsor wives terrorize Falstaff in a forest that they have peopled with their many friends disguised as evil spirits of the night. Sir John is tricked out his wits and becomes scared for his life.

Falstaff, though constantly presented as old, hardly serves as a all-purpose model for old age. Over and over he succeeds in making a fool of himself. His plans to take advantage of other people for his own advantage blow up in his face. Rollicking always, he manages to amuse us but always at his own expense.

One quality he does have, however, is resilience. He falls down often, both literally and figuratively, but just as often he pulls himself up. Yes, he is a buffoon but ultimately a loveable buffoon. Even when he indulges in that unloveliest of emotions, self-pity, he shows forth a humanity that is endearing. Spirit keeps triumphing even over that great mound of flesh that is old Jack.

Old age, most of us have discovered on entering upon it, is not neat. Like Sir John, we can be tricked more or less easily. Despite our alleged growth in wisdom, we can find ourselves acting like fools. At times, we may even have to live with a nagging sense of things falling apart.

Why are our lives so often untractable? Should they not by this point have become more ordered, harmonious, consistent, and peaceful? Perhaps the young man Shakespeare knew better; almost surely the old man Verdi knew the awful truth.

The older we get, the more we can remain a puzzle to ourselves. Yes, on occasion we seem to achieve growth in self-knowledge, yet our hold on it stays slippery. There remains an element of the tragic in our lives that can get us all down. Inevitably, life in our dark moments sometimes seems not worth the effort.

But the comic side of it all also counts. If we miss seeing this, we miss much of the meaning of being human. At the opera’s end, Falstaff joins his playful tormentors and sings “Tutto nel mondo è burla”  (Everything in the world’s a jest). As one commentator says, “If you picture old Giuseppe Verdi slipping on the costume of Falstaff – belly, red nose, and all – you will comprehend the composer’s view at the end of his years of what life really means.”

Richard Griffin

Ida Davidoff remembers showing up as a college freshman seventy-nine years ago. That was at Simmons College in Boston where President Henry Lefavour gave a talk to the entering students on the subject of sex. The dominant image that stays in Dr, Davidoff’s memory is “the girls that had fainted and were carried out.”

But her focus does not remain fixed on the past, however hilarious. Instead she says “I am the wave of the future.” By this she means to indicate the range of her activities. She sees clients as a therapist, gives talks, receives awards, and works on a book to be entitled Youth – a Gift of Nature, Aging – a Work of Art.

Among other enterprises, Dr. Davidoff works out with her personal trainer, takes singing lessons (recently she serenaded a friend with “Happy Birthday” sung over the telephone), and gives expression to her philosophy of life.

That philosophy features several points that fit nicely with my own. First is an acceptance of change as a condition for vibrant life. Connected with that is an acceptance of losses with a spirit of liberation freeing us to seek substitutes. And, finally, a new balance between dependence and interdependence that allows us to accept help from others while continuing to do what we can do for ourselves.

After two difficult years filled with health problems, Ida Davidoff has grown accustomed to dealing with her physical self as it misfunctions. She has developed a familiarity that allows her to speak both sternly and sympathetically.

Here’s the line she has developed for addressing this issue: “Now, Body, I hate to be so angry at you, but I have to let you know how I feel about this. From now on I forgive you.”

She also shows skill at asking herself vital questions and then answering them. “What do you do when you are feeling anxious?” asked this perceptive 96-year-old. “I try to help someone, I read big-print books to a neighbor.”

Dr. Davidoff was one of many speakers at a recent conference sponsored by the Simmons College Graduate School of Health Studies. Participants were urged in advance by Dean Harriet Tolpin to bring with them someone from a generation older or younger than theirs, as many in the audience in fact did. A show of hands revealed that members of every decade from the twenties through the nineties were present.

Dean Tolpin stated the purpose of  the gathering – to promote dialogue about successful aging. And she assigned everyone this post-conference task: when you go home,  “you must talk about one thing you learned with a family member or friend.”

She also termed appropriate the conference’s sponsorship by a women’s college. After all, she observed, in age-related crises “women are the primary decision-makers . . . not only for themselves but for other family members and even their friends.”

Such decisions, she stated, should be shared decisions. They should also be taken before crises actually occur.

Keynote speaker was Margery Silver, associate director of Harvard Medical School’s study of 100-year-olds. Among her slides was a photo of the oldest American currently alive, surrounded by members of her six-generation family. This Philadelphia-area woman is 118, her daughter 96,  and her granddaughter 50 – perhaps an image of the way more families will be age-shaped in the future.

Dr. Silver pointed out characteristics shared by the centenarians she has studied. She herself was surprised to discover how many of them live in three-deckers, usually on the second floor with relatives on at least one of the other levels.

Many of these oldest people have a lively sense of humor, notably the person who was asked what is the greatest advantage of outliving most of your contemporaries.  The answer always gets a rise from an audience:  “No peer pressure.”

Contrary to popular opinion, these survivors are not isolated and alone. Their personal relationships remain strong. In general, they like to learn new things. On a scale that measures neuroticism, they score low and they deal with stress better than other people. It’s not that they are stress-free, it’s just that they know how to handle it. Their secret weapon may be their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Others probably did not notice another trait of centenarians that caught my attention: they avoided exposure to the sun. It confirms me in my view of sunbathing as a practice that makes one’s skin age faster.

Late in the conference I interviewed several of the graduate students present. One, Quincy Eagler, when asked what he thinks about old age, answered  “I think it’s great, I think it’s kind of what you make of it. If you just kind of know now and prepare for it and change your life style, I think it’s as fun as any time in your life. It’s not something you look at negatively.”

Richard Griffin

“What was the greatest surprise of your life,” a Harvard student asked Billy Graham three weeks ago. His answer took just two words: “Its brevity.”

Not surprisingly, this famous evangelist has found the passage of years swift. When you move around the world as often as he does, and have an appointment calendar as crowded as his, it must be hard to keep track of the years.

He has certainly come a long way from his boyhood, when he worked on his father’s dairy farm in North Carolina. He looks back on those days fondly, with two incidents in particular standing out.

When he was sixteen years old, he recalls, the first of two significant visitors came by. It was Babe Ruth and Billy got to shake hands with him.

Later, however, a second  person arrived who was to have a incomparably more powerful impact on the young man. This visitor was a preacher who “spoke with tremendous conviction and urgency.”

At a meeting of some four thousand people, the preacher asked for anyone who felt moved to step forth and be born again. “I got up out of my seat,” Billy Graham recalls, “and stood in the front.” It was the moment when the direction of his whole life would be set.

“I had gone through a revolution, and become a new person,” he says of the experience. When he woke up the next day everything seemed different.

These are the vibrant recollections of a man now eighty years old. He has entered a new era when many things have become hard. Pain has become a constant companion. Of his Parkinson’s disease, Rev. Graham says, “It doesn’t kill people, it just makes them wish they were dead.”

Three years ago he fell and broke his back. Since then, he has again fallen eighteen or twenty times. To make matters worse, his wife has been hospitalized for several weeks. So Billy Graham knows at first hand the travails frequently associated with old age.

His spirit, however, remains clear and strong. As retired senator Alan Simpson said in introducing him, “He is a man of great passion and wisdom.”

I found it fascinating to watch him perform in a setting, the Kennedy School of Government, not famous for its compelling interest in religion. He delivered his formal speech there with unabashed advocacy for God and conviction that Jesus is the answer to basic human problems.

Speaking to the question “Is God relevant to the 21st Century?,” Rev. Graham dealt with three issues. First, human evil and the self-destructive habits that we cannot break. Graham’s answer?: The Bible says that the problem lies within the human heart and God alone can help us.

Billy Graham told his listeners that each one of them, whether they know it or not, yearns for God. He recalled Raisa Gorbachev  once telling him, “You know I’m an atheist, but I cannot help but feel there is more out there.”

The second issue for Graham is human suffering. “I’ve never met a person in the whole world,” he said, “who didn’t have a problem.” But King David in the Bible suffered more than most people, yet he could ultimately say “The Lord is my shepherd.”

And, finally, comes death. Of his own, this confident evangelist says, “Right now, if I died, I know where I would go.”

Graham recommends this prayer of repentance: “God, I’ve broken your laws, by faith I give myself to you.” In response, he says that “God will come into your life and change it.”

The question period drew from students and others fervent expressions of esteem for the man. A divinity school student told him: “I love you, man of God.” Another person said, “Billy Graham is the most popular person in the eyes of man and God.”

A graduate student asked a challenging question: “Did your ministry avoid the big public issues?” Graham offered a disarming response saying “We cannot judge a man’s life until it’s completed. So many things I now wish I had done differently.”

The same divinity school student mentioned above asked a question that also challenged the Christian evangelist. “How does one make the call for Jesus Christ in an inter-faith environment?” To this Graham did not have much to say beyond “It’s the life you live.”

Pushing the same theme further another student asked, “Will God forget all who do not believe in Jesus Christ?” Graham replied that “God is a God of love and mercy, forgiveness and judgment.” He then added that the question itself can only be answered by God.

The session concluded with further praise for the world-famous evangelist, the friend and counselor to nine United States presidents. Said Alan Simpson: “I’d rather see a sermon any day instead of hearing one.”

Richard Griffin

Jane Goodall, famous the world over for her work with the chimpanzees of Africa, is an altogether extraordinary woman. Now 65 years old, she continues her career of passionate interest in and concern for animals. She also cares deeply about the world of nature and constantly recruits others to help rescue that world from the injuries inflicted upon it by human beings.

I had the opportunity to watch Dr. Goodall  speak last week  to a wildly enthusiastic audience that filled a large auditorium at the Harvard School of Education. Some three hundred others, disappointed at the door, listened in another building. The size of the crowd suggests that many people know about the speaker’s magnetic personality and compelling message.

Jane Goodall began by greeting us with loud and prolonged “woohs,” echoing  the sounds made by chimps when they hail one another. This made a unique start in a lecture filled with fascinating anecdotes and heartfelt accounts of a life loaded with adventure. She gives more detailed segments of that life in her just-published autobiography entitled Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey.

In the lecture she spoke of her childhood, of falling in love with Tarzan when she was nine years old. The other Jane, Tarzan’s companion, she dismissed as “wimpy.”  When, as a twenty-three-year-old she went off to live in Africa for the first time, everyone laughed at her, except her mother Vanne. In fact, her mother came with her, “two crazy Englishwomen,” as they were regarded forty years ago.

It was the beginning of “an amazing adventure that hasn’t ended yet.”  Jane’s purpose was to learn about the closest animal relatives of human beings so as better to understand us humans. Many of her practices were sternly disapproved by scientists of the time. Not only did she befriend animals and give them names but she also ascribed personalities to them. What she calls her  “worst anthropomorphic sin” was attributing to them both mind and emotions. By now, scientific attitudes have changed: Jane thanks the chimps for helping blur the formerly hard line drawn between animals and us.

Partly as a result of her work, people now recognize how “we are, after all, part of the natural world, much closer to the animals than we used to think.”  However, many human beings, she says,  still “are terrified to acknowledge our likeness to animals.”

Like us, chimpanzees have a long childhood needed for them to learn adult behavior. They also value close long-lasting relationships with one another. In captivity, they can live up to 64 years of age, while in the wild they tend not to last beyond 50. Studies show them capable of abstract thought; their emotional life, however, has proven more difficult to fathom.

Even their champion, Jane Goodall, admits that chimps have a dark side. She has seen evidence of aggression toward neighboring chimps marked by extraordinarily brutal behavior. But they also show that compassion and love are deeply rooted within them.

Goodall decries the human violence, the waste, and the pollution that are endangering the survival of chimps and other animals throughout the world. The crime and violence worked by humans on one another also troubles her deeply. And the rise in the numbers of humans and their need for food present other serious problems.

In keeping with her book title, however, Jane Goodall still finds hope in the face of huge challenges to the world’s survival. She places this hope in the following realities:

1. the human brain that is powerful and inventive enough to reverse the negative factors at work in the world;
2. the resilience of nature that with human help, as in the instance of the Thames River in her native London, can come back from the brink of extinction;
3. the energy and commitment of young people; and
4. the indomitable human spirit as shown, for instance, in the recovery of South Africa from apartheid.

Dr. Goodall believes that human beings working together can make a decisive difference. To judge by the long lines of her listeners who waited to buy her book and to sign up for her “Roots and Shoots” environmental and humanitarian program, many others agree.

I talked briefly to a young Reading public school teacher, Samantha Genier, who told me, “She made me want to be something and to get involved; she made it seem real, you’re like in the jungle with her.”

Then I buttonholed an older woman, Mary Tonougar, who was also much impressed with Jane Goodall. “I’ve been following her since she was a young woman, on the PBS specials and things like that.”

“Do you share her hope for the world?,”  I asked. “I would like to say yes, but I don’t know, the way things are going now,” Mary replied regretfully. “There’s nothing wrong with her reasons for hope but there’s something wrong with our society today.”

Richard Griffin

My maternal grandfather, Richard Barry, arrived in this country as an immigrant from Ireland in 1871. The ship’s log  recorded his name and lists him as “laborer,” though he was only twelve years old.

Besides the rich genetic inheritance passed on to me, he also gave me two of his names. I treasure his achievements in establishing himself as a successful leather worker and ultimately a factory owner. Even more do I appreciate the way he and my grand-mother founded a family that handed down to me a strong tradition of community service and spiritual values.

From this one part of my family tradition, you can understand why the immigration of other people to America stirs sympathy in me. My strong instinct is to welcome those who have come from other countries to ours. Especially as I enter into later years, I  feel happy about the stimulation that has come with the growing diversity of our national life.

I also admire people who work on behalf of immigrants’ rights. Among them is Miriam Stein, a reader of this column in Arlington, who suggested that I write about an event scheduled for this week. Miriam works at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refu-gee Advocacy Coalition, the agency that is coordinating this event.

On Friday, September 17th a delegation of 80 Massachusetts immigrants and their advocates will travel from Boston to Washington in order to visit the offices of Representatives and Senators. They will be joined there by some one thousand newcomers from the other states.

The date chosen was designated Citizenship Day (formerly called “Constitution Day” ) in 1952, a time appointed for honoring the American Constitution for the freedoms it guarantees us and for recognizing the people who have become citizens here.

On this occasion, the visitors to the capital intend to speak with members of Congress about softening some provisions of three 1996 laws connected with welfare reform. These changes went beyond the intent of many members of Congress and have adversely affected non-citizens, some of whom have lived in the United States for a long time.

The advocates in Washington will ask legislators to fix repressive features of the 1996 laws. The first of the proposed “Fix 96” bills would restore benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) to immigrants who have lost these supports.

They include children, victims of domestic violence, elders, and people with dis-abilities. Though Massachusetts has replaced these cuts with a program of its own, the Commonwealth is the only state to do so.

A second bill would allow immigrants who are eligible for permanent resident visas to stay here until their applications are processed. Without this provision, many breadwinners have been expelled and forced to wait elsewhere as long as ten years for permanent residency, thus reducing members of their families (many of them citizens) to poverty.

Thirdly, another bill would provide relief and equal treatment to many Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Haitians living in the United States. Many immigrants from Cuba and Nicaragua were allowed to get green cards; this would give parity to the four groups named above.

Finally, the Family Reunification Act of 1999, legislation sponsored by Representative Barney Frank, would stop automatic deportation of long-term legal residents for relatively minor transgressions committed many years ago. Though it may sound like a good idea to bar such people from citizenship, the matter is more complicated than that. Some young people, for instance, may have been falsely accused and yet convicted.

I talked to a woman named Raquel Matthews, an immigrant from Colombia now living in Lynn. Her nephew has been deported to Colombia after having completed a ten-year prison term for possession of cocaine. A U. S. Army veteran, the man has two tee-nage daughters who live in Florida and whom he is not allowed to see.

Of her nephew she says,  “I’m not taking away from what he did, but his whole family is hurt.  It’s not fair, he paid his dues.”

I also interviewed two advocates who are flying  to Washington. Patricia Lambert, a Sister of St. Joseph resident in Waltham and a long-time supporter of people in need, explains why she’s going:  “To me it’s really important as a religious woman to join with others when justice issues are being addressed.”

Sister Pat, now 71, identifies with immigrants much the way I do. Comparing  to-day’s immigrants with her Irish ancestors, she says: “This is the same kind of people looking for the same things.”

Victor Do Couto, himself an immigrant from the Azores at age six, currently directs MAPS (Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers). He explains his involve-ment: “In 1996 some unfair, punitive, and blatantly anti-immigrant legislation was passed. In so doing they lumped all immigrants and all aliens together. They also restricted immigrants who are legal and pay taxes. I have a problem with that.”

So do I.

Richard Griffin

The archbishop seemed an unlikely candidate for an honorary degree at Harvard. Yet in June, 1974, this diminutive, 75-year-old, Brazilian churchman, dressed in a simple black soutane with a wooden cross around his neck, showed up in Cambridge at the invi-tation of the university. During  the commencement exercises, Helder Camara, Archbi-shop of Recife, was recognized for his charismatic zeal, exercised on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.

Memories of his visit twenty-five years ago were stirred up in me last week by   reports of his death at age 90. Long since retired from his archdiocese, Dom Helder (as he was commonly called), continued to the end his burning advocacy for people deprived of society’s goods.

In the course of long life, one looks back with thanks for the opportunity to meet great-souled people along the way. That’s how I feel about the time I spent with Dom Helder. Much to my satisfaction, I served as his host during the time he spent in Cam-bridge both in 1974 and earlier when he came at my invitation for three days in 1969.

My main effort, as a Harvard chaplain then, was to put him in touch with students,  faculty members, and others for whom his message could make a difference. Many of those who came to hear Dom Helder speak at our Catholic student center and elsewhere were already aware of his efforts, and that of other South American church leaders, to change the fundamental stance of the Catholic Church.

They wanted to move away from support for the rich and powerful toward the poor and left-out. Emboldened by the Second Vatican Council, these leaders worked to make the church break with centuries of favoring the established forces of society.

This “preferential option for the poor,” of course polarized the church in the coun-tries where it was adopted by the bishops. Even though a majority of Latin American bi-shops had endorsed this radical agenda at a famous conference held in Medellin, Colum-bia in 1968, still the struggle to carry it out met fierce opposition both from secular forces and from those sectors in the church opposed to change.

As I recall Dom Helder’s message at Harvard, it was largely an appeal to us Americans to endorse fundamental change in policies that were causing  misery in Third-World nations. So long as the United States continued to back corrupt governments and to support unjust practices of some large corporations, then the poor would continue to suffer.

The world situation, he said, gave much reason for people to lose hope. But he de-scribed himself as belonging to the “Abrahamic minority”  – – those who continue to hope against hope.

This hard message Dom Helder delivered with great simplicity and in Gospel terms. His was basically a religious, rather than a socio-political message, though his enemies would always accuse him of meddling in matters foreign to his calling.

At one point in his earlier stay, I remember taking Dom Helder to visit Cardinal Cushing, the then Archbishop of Boston. Though Cushing practiced his own forms of austerity, the spacious house in which he lived made a vivid contrast with the simple dwelling where Dom Helder lived in Recife after having refused to move into the archie-piscopal mansion.

With his typical generosity toward third-world bishops, Cushing disappeared ups-tairs at the end of our visit, came down and presented Dom Helder a check for a thou-sand dollars.

Reading the New York Times obituary, I could not help but reflect on the effects of the liberation theology preached by Dom Helder. Though detailing his accomplish-ments, the writer notes the many efforts to reverse his influence.

A friend, Ellen Warwick of Arlington, has called my attention to what she calls “the law of unintended consequences.” One such consequence of liberation theology, in particular, comes loaded with irony. As noted in the Times, many thousands of Catholics in Brazil and other South American countries have abandoned the Catholic Church and have converted to evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

Indeed the tide of Church-led reform seems to have long since peaked. Society in many third-world countries has led a successful counter-attack and returned to the for-tress of the status quo. The heady era of challenge to vested interests in the name of faith would appear to have passed. The president of Brazil can declare three days of official mourning for Dom Helder, but many of his successor bishops have closed the door to ba-sic reform.

Still, I like to think that spiritual greatness makes a lasting difference. I take com-fort in its traces. To me it’s a consolation that a delivery truck of a nutrition program in my city  bears the words of Helder Camara painted large: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.”                                

Richard Griffin