VERSE:
D., Sister Maura, S.S.N.
the movement must be measured. I participated in the highly successful re- narrow and confining a designation as agree that the goal of moving the gional gatherings of the...
...Whatever our feelings on this mat- ing instead to make their own rules and ter, 1974-the tenth anniversary of the live according to their own private ACCIDENT founding of the Catholic Peace Fel- standards of "proper" Catholic belowship-is a good year to rededicate havior...
...all...
...They swung off the beltway, MICHAEL TRUE the older people as well) is accurate...
...Thus, if the des- they were loose as mud...
...entirely new attitude" toward war- of "excommunications" even in jest...
...and, as Greeley has shown, increasingly How...
...or alienate those we should be Zahn says, the matter may be worth even the too hesitant search for an trying to reach...
...The car was like this: ourselves to the important work of Mike's description of the situation a crushed corn flake box...
...of undesirable elements, he will have LaFarge, Dorothy Day, Thomas Mer- GORDON C. ZAHN to work within a wider range of possi- ton, and others too numerous to menbilities in membership and probably in tion had cut themselves loose from "the leadership than he has allowed for institutional Church" and its oppressive 000 000 000 thus far...
...a side road, up an embankment but I, for one, am not yet resigned to a situation which equates "Catholic" into the oak...
...ceptance of "new modes of behavior" I've said): "We talk so much and do Such changes we have already wit- which undercut the religious identity so little...
...ploy that will fool no one who has are some who reject even that as too You remember their names, don't you...
...But unless "Bishop" Zahn in- complished if "loyal" Catholics like H. siderations deserve more weight than stitutes some kind of excommunication A. Reinhold, Paul Hanly Furfey, John Mike seems willing to allow...
...lievers who have enough love and re- diate future with which my article was One is conscious always of Dorothy spect for "the Church" to abide by oner- concerned, but I would hope that failDay's words (to mention another per- ous rules and practices even as they ure will not be due to a too hasty acson who wouldn't agree with a word work to effect the necessary changes...
...So drunk Reply with "Minneapolitan...
...I confess that I am traditionalist it may become a suitable vehicle for But I question his using the post- enough to view the structured (or, if the truth it claims to possess (in our World War II era as an historical basis he prefers, "institutionalized") religious special case, to make it an effective for the posture of the Catholic peace community we know as the Roman vehicle for the pacifist message conmovement at the present time...
...peacemaking that Gordon Zahn has today as respects the young people outlined and to carry it on...
...Commonweal: 15...
...an awakened we presumably wish to maintain (else good of the movement, even at the concern for the poor...
...in that Fellowship he organizes every year...
...In the face of that accom- admittedly sensitive issues I raised in values...
...and to ation in the Church and society is dif- vation it has claimed to be throughout recognize a direct and prior obligation ferent now, so different-in part be- its long centuries of existence...
...ignation, Catholic peace movement, is Mike True puts me at a disadvantage at all meaningful, there should be some- So sober they walked out by exaggerating my contributions to thing to distinguish it from the more like the three young men the Catholic peace movement while generalized designation, Christian peace playing down his own, a fine rhetorical movement (not forgetting that there from the fiery furnace...
...filled unless those failings are corrected...
...For me the distinction implies Church is extremely important...
...to war and oppression, this whole dis- through the efforts of individual be- We may not succeed in that immecussion may seem patently irrelevant...
...I agree to "convert" that target audience I cause of the successes of the last decade it has all the failings he lists, and more...
...In his article, he spoke to these con- pitiful beginnings all, perhaps, but still All that is needed-certainly all I incerns with characteristic clarity and di- beginnings) would not have been ac- tended-is the reminder that these conrectness...
...I participated in the highly successful re- narrow and confining a designation as agree that the goal of moving the gional gatherings of the Catholic Peace well...
...But "for the nessed (liturgical reforms...
...obligation to perfect its witness so that is presumptuous, to say the least...
...the public repu- why a Catholic peace movement at price of division and dissension," as diations of racism and anti-Semitism...
...the acceptance of a personal plishment, my speaking on this matter my article...
...The situ- Catholic Church as the vehicle of sal- tained in the Gospel teachings...
...God help us...
...and confining authoritarianism, choos- SISTER MAURA, S.S.N.D...
...at least the following: a professed idenwork, no one has been more successful Still I am pleased that he has responded tification with a particular spiritual and than Gordon Zahn, by his life and to my invitation to discuss some of the sociological entity, its history, and its writings...
...mentioned, our fellow Catholic Chris-as to make the past of little value Certainly its promise will not be ful- tians who are not yet ready to accept as a guide to the future...
...Let there be no talk some consideration, some clarification...
...our interpretations of what "the To anyone deeply involved, day in I insist, however, that those corrections Church" should be and should be doand day out, in non-violent resistance must come principally from within and ing...
Vol. 100 • March 1974 • No. 1
