Editorials
CORRESPONDENCE Homosexuality New York, N.Y. To the Editors: Did I cause a big fuss when Michael Novak supported the Vietnam war, wrote the novel Naked 1 Came, ripped off Bernard...
...Not after Novak suggested the Church has had "occasional homosexual popes" without offering a shred of evidence [Oct...
...by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Single copies S0c 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 "NO" ON ROCKr.Fr.T.L .R When President Gerald R. Ford designated Nelson A. Rockefeller as his choice for Vice President we knew the arguments against him--his money, his pandering to the right wing, his silence on Watergate and Vietnam, his responsibility for the Attica slaughter, his remoteness from the problems of the common man--but we accepted him and said his nomination should be confirmed [September 8...
...22, the fourth Synod of Bishops had been the most uneventful of the series...
...Jack Lindeman 215 MEDIA: Wilbur Mills and Leaay Rruee: Michael Murray 213 THE SCREEN: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...Former Republican State Chairman L. Judson Morehouse ($86,000 and a pardon from a bribery jail sentence) helped make Rockefeller governor...
...One expression which often recurred at the Synod was "signs of the times," and it was used in the same optimistic sense as in Pope John's opening speech at the Vatican Council...
...It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Rockefeller bought loyalty--and maybe even silence...
...Financing the anti-Goldberg book would not, in itself, merit much attention if the Rockefellers had not laundered the money four times and dissimulated before taking responsibility...
...They do want a man they can look up to as Vice President...
...Since when is true friendship best sealed by satchels of cash...
...One could perhaps detect some ingenuousness in the Synod's interpretation of some of these signs, such as the "modern trend towards contemplation" and "youth's search for Jesus," but on the whole the bishops were refreshingly open to a world which was no longer regarded as the enemy...
...It seemed that to fight the nomination would only prolong the trouble of shifting Administrations...
...All these years I've kept my peace as Novak made a general nuisance of himself...
...They can do better...
...During the coffee-break there were more animated discussions than there had ever been during the preceding weeks, and it soon turned out that a large number of bishops considered the document totally inadequate as a basis for further discussion...
...But it is the gifts to personal friends--one as high as half a million Commonweal: 203 dollars--that have, in an unexpected way, revealed the special nature of the Rockefeller problem...
...I challenge Novak to name them...
...Copyright ~ 1974 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc...
...US and Canada...
...At first, the bishops were only surprised to find that they were supposed to vote on a 41-page declaration...
...Through inherited wealth, foundations, his Critical Choices Committee, and the interlocking directorates of corporations like Chase Manhattan Bank, Standard Oil, Exxon, several airlines, and IBEC (the International Basic Economy Corporation, the largest food business in Latin America, which also dominates investment banking in Brazil and has other businesses in Chile), his family may already be the most powerful in history...
...They do not ask for moral heroism...
...Which popes...
...For example, Henry Kissinger ($50,000) as Secretary encouraged CIA subversion in Chile...
...But now we know more about Rockefeller...
...But slowly some central questions emerged, and after being discussed in the 29 November 1974:204...
...Michael Novak 20G THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: Nicholas R. Clifford 207 DOWNSTREAM FROM WATERGATE: Frank Getlein 211 VERSE...
...They contradicted the pessimistic tone of Pope Paul's recent speeches and also of the preparatory paper for the Synod, with its insistence on impediments and obstacles...
...My heterosexuality cannot be the basis of describing my moral character...
...Printed in the USA and published weekly, except biweekly Chrlstmas-New Year's and June to mid-September...
...The real results of the Synod must therefore be sought elsewhere, and especially in the communications on the work of evangelization as it is carried out in different parts of the world...
...The latest disclosures concerning his campaign financing, his gifts to public officials, and his secret sponsorship of the hatchet-job biography of his 1970 gubernatorial opponent Arthur Goldberg--coupled with his apparent moral insensitivity to the impropriety of these actions--have refocused our perspective on the man and the paramount issues: that kind of personal and economic power and the Vice Presidency of the United States (much less the Presidency) must not be combined in one man...
...But the most pathetic aspect of RoekefeUer's situation is that he and his defenders do not seem to understand what people are disturbed about...
...10016 MUrray Hill 3-2042...
...So exactly who are these papal pansies, Mr...
...then, as the text was read to them by the relatores, they grew angry and excited...
...and, by comparison, they suddenly realized how much more vital and important had been their own discussions during the preceding weeks...
...Americans are used to the idea that their leaders are not saints...
...A homosexual is also a product of (Continued on page 222) NEWS & VIEWS: 202 CORRESPONDENCE: 203 EDITORIAI~: 203 THE SYNOD SAYS NO: Henry ten Kortenaar 204 SHOULD W'OMEN DE PRIESTS...
...When the meeting was resumed, the chairman, Cardinal Koenig, announced that "some difficulties had arisen," which made an immediate vote advisable...
...The recipients are instruments of his power...
...Novak seems to display compassion for persons whose orientation differs from his own, and he shows an acceptance of sinners that I find quite Christlike...
...214 FACING UP TO THE |NESCAPABLE: Victor Ferkiss 216 ROOKS: Claire Hahn, Michael F. McCauley, Jean Bethke Elshtain 217 ILLUSTRATIONS: Front cover: Liberation News Service JAMES O'GARA: Editor JOHN DEEDY: Managing Editor RAYMOND A. SCHROTH: Associate Editor ANNE ROBERTSON: Editorial Assistant COLIN L. WESTEREECK, JR.: Movies JOHN FANDEL: Poetry BRYAN WICKER: Great Britain ALAIN WOODROW: Paris HENRY TEN KORTENAAR: Rome JOHN COONEY: Dublin EDWARD S, SKILLIN: Publisher JOHN 8RUBAKER: Advertising Manager COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Public Affairs, Literature and the Arts, Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...After three weeks of quiet speeches, which had shown a substantial agreement on some important topics (human liberation, local churches, "indigenization," small communities, etc...
...But I will be silent no longer...
...The totality of the article seems to concern our traditional understanding of the overt, sinful, homosexual act that the Church denounces...
...To the Editors: Did I cause a big fuss when Michael Novak supported the Vietnam war, wrote the novel Naked 1 Came, ripped off Bernard Lonergan's thought, elevated the Slavs to the Chosen People, conferred a plenary indulgence on Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, etc...
...Rockefeller is not--like the Roosevelts, Harriman or the Kennedys-just another rich man in public life...
...How is democracy served by promoting a man whose life witnesses not to equality of opportunity but to the aristocracy of money and power...
...He calls the Goldberg book a "mistake" while others see it as a key to his character--a willingness to play dirty to get what he wants...
...Congress should reject the Rockefeller nomination...
...Nor can we accept him as an object of sympathy, a victim of the so-called "post-Watergate" standard of morality--as if public demand to know the full story on the man who might be President is a novel, and therefore unfair, request...
...Especially to men who are already high-salaried government employees...
...PHILIP NOBILE Detroit, Michigan To the Editors: I found a bit confusing Michael Novak's article Brother McNaught, Brother O'Rourke [Oct...
...Obviously, the bishops did not recognize themselves in the string of pious platitudes they had just heard...
...One of the major difficulties of the Synod was the vastness of its subject: since "evangelization" is what the Church is all about, and the "modern world" is not too easily circumscribed either, the first interventions roamed far and wide, from Sacred Heart devotions to the redemption of prostitutes...
...the bishops were ready to leave, after the usual hasty votes on the final document...
...This time, however, the race against time was expected to be less desperate than on former occasions, for it had been announced that the Synod would not issue a document, but rather a series of "propositiones," concrete statements or recommendations...
...Until he does, no Holy Father in history is safe from his libel...
...15 a year, Foreign $17...
...He is a "big" man, perhaps one of the most experienced and, from one point of view, most successful public men in America--so unlike the mediocrities who surrounded Richard Nixon...
...May I ask, though, what is a "sin" or where is the "failing" in the mere fact of being a homosexual...
...What I do with this gift of heterosexuality and my reasons for doing what I do will determine my moral character...
...He has defended these gifts as generous tokens of love...
...William A. Ronan (.$625,000), former Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Chairman of the Port Authority, makes decisions affecting the Rockefellerbacked World Trade Center...
...My heterosexuality is a product of my genes, my psychic input, and my social and cultural experiences...
...This would partially explain the air of general satisfaction at the end of the Synod, four days later, though the bishops had so little to show for their work: a short "message to the people of God" and an even shorter note to Pope Paul which read like the table of contents of the original working paper...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 REPORT FROM ROME THE SYNOD SH u NO Until Tuesday, Oct...
...Senator Jacob Javits ($15,000) will have to vote on Rockefeller's confirmation...
...How are the nation and world served by multiplying the international power of a man who already controls an independent empire of his own...
...but I am concerned when-in the first section of his article--he equates homosexuality with "failing" and with "sin...
...he determines policy that concerns Rockefeller interests in Latin America...
...The family has poured $14 million into his political campaigns...
...The result is known: three chapters out of four were rejected by a large majority...
...Here is evidence that wealth and security do not free the mighty from the temptation to play dirty but rather delude them into playing by their own rules...
Vol. 101 • November 1974 • No. 8
