EDITORIALS
CORRESPONDENCE Critic's Choice Rock Hill, S. C. To the Editors: I was delighted to see John Heidenry's "prize" to A.O.J. Cockshut's Truth to Life as the best book he's read in 1974, and I concur;...
...The Catholic Church is CAUSING ABORTIONS by their refusal to allow birth control to be available to the people of the world as clarified at the recent World Population and World Food Conferences...
...We had hoped that between Friday and Tuesday, the projected offer of a priest and the existence of a national organization for Free Choice would influence the two "charitable" parish priests in Marlboro to reconsider and baptize themselves...
...I placed the call Aug...
...If one in fact believes that Frei represented a viable option, the criticism of American assistance might well be that, aside from electoral politics, it was insufficient...
...All this is, of course, hypothetical...
...I stated at the press conference that Father Keane was unacceptable to all since he had publicly condemned "Free Choice...
...20, Oct...
...CFFC supports "Free Choice" and protects Catholic laypersons and clergy from oppression by the hierarchy...
...13th...
...in other words never "de fide...
...Chilean Options Sydney, Cape Breton To the Editors: Abigail McCarthy's comments [Dec...
...From the 12th to 19th century, the Church changed its position four times allowing abortion up to 40 days for the male and 80 days for the female...
...On Aug...
...it's certainly the best example of belles lettres to have made an appearance in quite some time...
...a prime consideration was that it be a time when relatives and friends of the Morrealle family would be able to attend...
...but the refusal of the use of the church was incomparable cruelty...
...Catholic teaching on abortion has never been clear and has changed back and forth throughout the centuries...
...This is my Rock (the parish) and I must preserve it," so stated Msgr...
...It was never explained just how they could know the difference between a female and a male fetus...
...Richard Gott of the Guardian wrote sometime about the (Continued on page 342)CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 315) middle of Frei's term as President that the kind of American aid needed to make Frei's program work was denied even before his election in 1964, and that by 1964 U.S...
...The Catholic Church IS the Catholic people...
...6] on recent Chilean history are painted with a fairly wide brush, particularly as regards to the assumption that Frei may have represented a "middle way" between opponents of the right and left, aided by "powerful international forces...
...The event was to prove almost, but not quite, as crude...
...WILLIAM WELLS, CO...
...JOAN HARRIMAN President Catholics for a Free Choice Corrections The first line was inadvertently dropped from the screen column of Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr., in our issue of Jan...
...Heidenry would be, as well-to see Commonweal start off a discreet Cock-shut Claque...
...The Chilean left has in any event a long and authentically indigenous history...
...It is fully in accordance with the teachings of Vatican II which established the right of the individual to make decisions according to their own conscience...
...Many Catholics still associate the "celebration" of Baptism with a priest, a church setting and a family gathering...
...I reminded him that "the Rock" belonged, not to him, but to the people of his parish, whose needs he was not serving...
...Given the divisions in the DC itself, Tomic may have represented for many Americans an even less palatable "mal menor" than Frei in 1964...
...The action taken vis-a-vis the Allende government is a matter of record...
...How much help the left actually got (or needed) may be questioned, although in the whole picture this may be irrelevant...
...The refusal to baptize at that point was realistically a "save-face" measure...
...I am shocked at such insensitive terms such as "abortion freak" used by Dan Berrigan in his recent article in your pages [Oct...
...And what about all the dead babies," Father Roussin hysterically screamed at us as we left the parish house...
...12 and he returned it Aug...
...The last sentence of the same column should have read: "What more than that can we ask of any artist...
...In the name of Catholics for a Free Choice, as president, I called Rev...
...He is a ranking expert on the 19th century and its thinkers and movements, a prose stylist of considerable parts, and a writer far too little known in this country...
...The right of the individual to control their own fertility is a most basic civil liberty and a right of privacy...
...Jordan bishop Footnote on O'Rourke New York, N. Y. To the Editors: I will clarify some facts surrounding the Baptism in Marlboro, Mass...
...O'Rourke and I met with him and Father Roussin a half-hour before the Baptism when we asked them to reconsider their "unchristian" act of a refusal of a sacrament...
...The issue of "Free Choice" must be upheld visibly and vocally by the Catholic people of the world and so, the Baptism...
...Since the position has been so recent, it cannot be considered "traditional" church teaching...
...BRO...
...Anyone who objects to abortion should work to abolish the social evils which make abortion necessary in certain cases...
...Electoral support (to keep Allende out) is not necessarily the same as an effective aid program...
...Joseph O'Rourke who is on our Board of Directors and asked him to baptize the Morrealle baby...
...This was argued seriously by a number of Latin Americans at the time...
...Indeed, there are many Catholics who do not know that anyone can baptize under certain circumstances and interpretation of those "circumstances" varies in each parish...
...policy had definitely swung from support of the "democratic left" to the non-democratic right...
...There was a clear-cut issue of reproductive freedom that was made public before Catholics for a Free Choice was ever involved...
...As for the right, one might suggest that the powerful international forces aiding it represent the same power base as the international forces aiding Frei himself...
...And in 1964 many Chileans were influenced by propaganda to the effect that the election of Allende would have been followed by an American invasion of Chile...
...Sept...
...Only since 1869 has the Church forbade abortions and it has never been an official Church doctrine...
...Some of your readers might be glad to know about his other work, such as Anthony Trollope, Anglican Attitudes, The Unbelievers, and The Imagination of Charles Dickens...
...3. The column should have opened as follows: "Last time I was discussing the ways that Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage is a movie about talk-a movie about a woman who learns to speak for herself, and thereby liberates herself from her husband...
...In conscience, concerned Catholics must deem reproductive decisions to be a person's most basic civil liberty and a right of privacy...
...One can only surmise whether a Tomic government might have been given as short shrift as Allende, but it is highly unlikely that really effective aid would have been provided for Tomic, in so far as he may have been committed to radical change...
...Meeghan, the pastor of Immaculate Conception in Marlboro...
...I'd be happy-and perhaps Mr...
...Gott's thesis was, it is true, denied as soon as it was published by Ralph Dungan, Lyndon Johnson's Ambassador to Chile...
...It is the duty of parish priests to administer baptism to the children...
...Public political action is necessary for social change...
...G.I.13) (Introduction to the Baptism of Children) Withholding sacraments is not serving the needs of the Catholic people...
...O'Rourke would perform the Baptism...
...Dec...
...I can still recall a comment made by an ordinary American liberal after Frei's election in 1964: "Kinda leftist, ain't he...
...16th I went to Boston for the press conference to announce that Rev...
...The date for the baptism was set after the press conference...
Vol. 101 • January 1975 • No. 12
