[Peace-discuss] Inspirational story for the day

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Andre' Malraux (1901-76) -- novelist of Chinese revolution,
self-promoter, and minister of culture under De Gaulle -- tells the
following story in his *Anti-me'moires* (1967).  There's no reason to
believe it's true, but the priest's observations occurred to me as I read
the news today, oh boy.  --CGE]


In 1940 I escaped with the future chaplain of the Vercors [mountainous
area of southeastern France, one of the principal strongholds of the
French Resistance].  We met again shortly afterward in the little town in
the Drome where he was parish priest and where he used to hand out
baptismal certificates wholesale to Jews -- on condition, however, that
they let him baptize them: "Some of it may stick, after all..."  He had
never been to Paris, having completed his studies at the seminary in
Lyons.  We talked far into the night, as friends do when they meet again,
amid the homely village smells.

"How long have you been hearing confessions?"

"About fifteen years."

"What has confession taught you about people?"

"Oh, confession teaches nothing, you know, because when a priest goes into
the confessional he becomes another person -- grace and all that.  And yet
... first of all, people are much more unhappy than one thinks ... and
then..."

He raised his brawny lumberman's arms in the starlit night: "And then, the
fundamental fact is that there are no grown-ups..."


  ==============
  Carl Estabrook
  Green Party Candidate for
  US House of Representatives
  15th Illinois Congressional District
  "A Choice for A Change"
  24 East Green Street - Suite 14
  Champaign IL 61820
  217.355.7313
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
  =========================
  "Instead of the comforting rationale 
  that merit breeds success 
  and that the successful have merit, 
  a more rational approach would be
  to speculate that in our society 
  wealth and power tend to accrue 
  to those who are ruthless, cunning, 
  avaricious, self-seeking, 
  lacking in sympathy and compassion,
  subservient to authority and willing 
  to abandon principle for material gain..."
  --Noam Chomsky
  =========================