Theology

THE BRONX, N.Y. -- Fordham University, a Jesuit institution, looks appropriately gothic in a December gloaming, and especially so as a backdrop for its most eminent teacher, all of whose 6-foot-2-inch frame beneath his black beret is clothed in black against the night chill.Avery Dulles, 81, distinguished son of a famous father, remembers the letter he sent to his parents 59 years ago, announcing his first steps on the Catholic path of service to the faith whose founder's birth is celebrated this season.

Say the word "depression" to a conservative and he'll probably think you're talking about the big "D," and launch into an interminable tirade about FDR and the evils of the social welfare state. When the smoke clears and you tell him that you're talking about mental illness, he'll proceed, without missing a beat, to launch into another tirade about Tipper Gore and the evils of the social welfare state. Because, as everyone knows, conservatives don't get depressed. Or if they do, they don't admit it, they don't take mind-altering drugs for it, and they certainly don't raise insurance premiums to treat it. They keep the Sabbath holy or go to confession instead.

SAVAGE UNITED Methodist Church has a new pastor. Galen Menne has been appointed to the position by Bishop Felton May.Menne has been a Methodist pastor for 35 years, having served in Prince George's County for the last 18.Former Pastor Cliff Webner has been assigned to found a new congregation in Kings Contrivance.Since April, when the decision was made to appoint him, Menne has been getting acquainted with his congregation.He's seen our town at its liveliest, having spent the entire day at last month's Savage Fest and Strawberry Festival -- which just about everyone in Savage attends.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- The Rev. Ernesto Cardenal still gets huffy when he's asked about that famous image: Pope John Paul II wagging a finger at Cardenal as the priest knelt before him."Meaningless," Cardenal snapped, though that scene from 16 years ago came to symbolize the bitter fight between the pontiff and Roman Catholic theologians who advocated "a preferential option for the poor.""I am still a revolutionary who defends the poor. And liberation theology is in crisis. Capitalism won. Period.

Atlanta's parks and recreation director will become head of the Columbia Association (CA), the planned community's quasi-government, officials are expected to announce today.Deborah O. McCarty, 45, has a long political history in Atlanta where she served on the City Council for 15 years, was appointed commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs in 1993, resigned last year to run unsuccessfully for president of the City Council, and was reappointed to the parks post this year.She was awaiting a politically charged confirmation by the City Council when she decided to take the $120,000-a-year Columbia post.

TOWSON -- Community groups from older, lower-income neighborhoods that need money to make physical improvements can get up to $10,000 through the county's Community Conservation Action Grant program by applying before July 20.Groups are required to match 25 percent of the grants -- at least half in cash -- for projects such as community tree maintenance, welcoming signs, renovations to a community center building or other physical projects.The county has up to $200,000 annually for the program, half of which is supplied by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

In 1994, Loyola College theologian Charles Marsh left Baltimore to return to his childhood home in Mississippi. It was a trip made, at least initially, as a scholarly enterprise.Marsh was journeying back to the Deep South to write a book about different images of God that once battled beneath the surface of the civil rights movement. His focus was 1964, the year the first Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of Ku Klux Klan was crowned and the civil rights movement saw one of its deadliest summers.

Kathleen Feeley enters the classroom smiling. And why not? It's a new term at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Sister Kathleen is about to spend the next 14 weeks immersed in a melange of three abiding passions: theology, literature and teaching.She walks into Room 18 in the Fine Arts building smiling, and smiles through much of the 75-minute honors English class, through questions and responses and group readings. At 69, after a two-year stint as Baltimore City special-education administrator, the former college president has returned to the work that called her to the School Sisters of Notre Dame 52 years ago."

CALL ELAINE Wilburt and her performing company "fools for Christ" and they won't be offended, they'll be pleased. After all, this troupe practices a special type of ministry.They're clowns for God.Sharing the Gospel with a whimsical touch, complete with makeup and costumes, the clowns perform in silence, conveying their message through a narrator, signs and music. Beginning tonight and continuing from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through February, Wilburt and company will offer instruction in this clown liturgy through a four-part workshop at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 7434 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd.

Among the God-starved in Cuba, Pope John Paul II is likely to bask this week in days of large crowds and appreciative worshipers. Cuba's somewhat underground church, denied full expression of free faith for nearly 40 years, will become an above-ground church this week when public Masses and papal sermons push aside state-enforced secularism.Despite ideological and theological differences, John Paul and Cuban President Fidel Castro are hardly blood enemies. In late 1996, the Marxist dictator visited the pope in the Vatican to invite him to Cuba and its flock of 500,000 practicing Roman Catholics out of a population of 11 million.