Morality

The meeting of young Roman Catholics with Pope John Paul II this week in Denver promises to test tensions between the religious leader's vision of his church and widely accepted standards of American morality.For example, Maryland teen-agers Debbie Moody and Jamie Berry share a strong Catholic faith as well as their excited anticipation of the pope's pilgrimage to Colorado, which is expected to attract 170,000 other young Catholics from around the country and around the world.But Ms. Moody of Middletown in Frederick County and Mr. Berry of northeast Baltimore, both 17, also share a belief that the 73-year-old pope is too rigid on at least one moral issue -- birth control.

Not long ago, Harvard University professor Marc Hauser dropped in on his daughter Sofia's kindergarten class and presented the children with a moral dilemma. You must all keep your eyes closed for 30 seconds, he told them. If none of you raises your hand during that time, you will each get a sheet of stickers when it's over. But if one of you raises your hand, only that child will get all the stickers. The task brought immediate cries of protest, Hauser recalled. "But that's not fair!"

One of the cleverest bits of staging in director Kasi Campbell's production of The Return to Morality (a political fable) by Baltimore native Jamie Pachino is the way actors are whooshed off the stage while seated in wheeled desk chairs. It's a simple but telling device in a play about a man who allows the direction of his life to be manipulated by others, then refuses to take responsibility for the consequences. It's also a rare subtle touch in a satire that, despite its timeliness, loses much of its impact due to a combination of heavy-handedness and a protagonist who defies credibility.

The General Assembly voted to repeal the death penalty Friday, calling for an end to Maryland's 375-year history of capital punishment and joining a growing number of states outlawing the practice. After nearly two hours of impassioned debate, the House of Delegates approved Gov. Martin O'Malley's repeal legislation, 82-56, sending the measure to the governor for his signature. The state Senate voted 27-20 for repeal last week. "We're a better state for ending it," said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Democrat from Baltimore who has long pushed for repeal.

The Sun's editors are the only people I know who can speak of homosexuality and morality in the same breath ("Scout's honor," Feb. 6) when, in fact, they are totally opposite. The scriptures make it plain that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Men performing indecent acts with other men is shameful. Women performing indecent acts with women is shameful. The only sexual relationship that God ordains is the relationship between a man and a woman within the confines of marriage.

Indonesia is ready for change, regardless of whether Suharto is.Those attorneys general who are getting tough with Microsoft had better think about what their own computers are going to do at a second past midnight on 1 Jan. 2000.@2India's holier-than-thou morality is a blast.Be patriotic. Blow the family's college and retirement savings on the Preakness.Pub Date: 5/15/98

Good news. The recession's existence is confirmed, so it must be ending. Don't look now but the chief state sponsor of international terrorism never was Iraq. It is Iran. Cloned politicians debate the morality of cloned embryos. A state that cannot even run a juvenile jail has no business taking over any school. Avoid the life of a snitch. Commit no crime to begin with.

The two cardinal sins of pride and gluttony have never been manifested more blatantly and arrogantly than by the immoral spectacle currently playing itself out on the campus of Penn State University in "Happy Valley" Pennsylvania. This institution has dedicated itself to the financial exploitation of a sport that has become an absolute obsession with millions of Americans. In Happy Valley, one man, Joseph Paterno - husband, father, and co-author, with his wife, Sue, of a children's book ("We Are Penn State")

"The De-Moralization of Society, From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values," by Gertrude Himmelfarb. Knopf. 314 pages. $24.With language and clarity that belies Dr. Himmelfarb's well-earned reputation as one of America's premier intellectual historians, she presents a profile of Victoran dynamics and values that humiliates most modern images of that era. If you are seriously concerned about the apparent decay of ethics, morality and conventions of social responsibility in modern America, this book will send you to the nearest soapbox, preaching eloquently to the yet-to-be-saved.

Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Rep. Christopher Lee will forever be linked as both New York congressmen used social media to cheat on their wives and send embarrassing photographs. Rep. Weiner, a prominent Democrat, and Rep. Lee, a second-term Republican congressman, are both presumably guilty of adultery in one sense or another. But while the extent and number of Mr. Weiner's offenses made Mr. Lee's crime seem marginal, it was Mr. Lee who felt he deserved a far greater punishment. Their recent scandals provide a stark contrast of the ethics, morality and respect for public office among Democrats and Republicans in Washington.