NEWS & VIEWS:
Deedy, John
NEWS & VIEWS
Craig's Crust
Craig Claiborne's incredible New York Times article on his $4,000, nine-wine, 31-dish diner-parlayed out of a $300 dinner-for-two bid in a local TV station's fundrais-ing...
...The Revenue then intimated that it was not prepared to accept this decision and was determined to change the existing interpretation of the law, so as to levy higher taxes on the foundation and on other taxpayers...
...The thought is provoked by a letter in the Nov...
...NEWS & VIEWS Craig's Crust Craig Claiborne's incredible New York Times article on his $4,000, nine-wine, 31-dish diner-parlayed out of a $300 dinner-for-two bid in a local TV station's fundrais-ing auction-brought an avalanche of negative mail down upon the Times...
...Claiborne's indelicacy was supreme, but rivaled nevertheless by that of the Times' editors, who moved Clair-borne for the occasion from his usually obscure corner on the culinary, page to page one, under a three-column head...
...Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged Ottenweller to circulate his proposal among the bishops for study and possible action...
...Parish priests are finding it extremely difficult if not impossible to bring the directives on Vatican II to life in their parishes (especially large parishes) as those parishes are now constituted...
...250 letters by an early count, with more arriving...
...Pope Paul has warned of electronic buggings during the elections of future popes...
...Updating Marie Antoinette, he added that he did not think the dinner represented contempt for world hunger any more than if he had settled for a Mercedes-Benz...
...The Squeeze on Peace Why is it that peace organizations forever have such a difficult time in qualifying for tax exemption, or maintaining this exemption once having been granted it...
...Will future historians use this dinner as a symbol of the moral decay and debasement to be found in the United States shortly before its fall...
...The Revenue is seeking to charge the foundation Corporation Tax amounting to over £35,000 on royalties from my husband's Autobiography which he donated as long ago as 1966...
...In the past dozen years it has accomplished some quiet successes and prompted some controversy...
...She wrote: "My late husband, Ber-trand Russell, established the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in 1963...
...21 Times Literary Supplement from Edith Russell...
...Well, it seems such parochialism isn't exactly unique to the Catholic press...
...Russell added that a large number of Parliament members are watching the case, as it raises vital questions for other organizations engaged in public work...
...At a hearing before the Revenue's Special Commissioners in February 1973, the foundation contended that under existing law it was chargeable with only a much smaller sum (for which it had made provision...
...Apastoral Parishes Auxiliary Bishop Albert Ottenweller of Toledo, telling it like it is at the General Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington: Catholic parishes are "very heavy" on institutionalism, "very light" on community...
...The commissioners upheld this contention...
...The Pope instructed cardinals "to maintain careful vigilance" to ensure secrecy and decreed that two technicians be present in the Sistine Chapel to locate any hidden recording devices...
...Medical Tribune recently carried a headline: SAINTHOOD BESTOWED UPON MOTHER SETON, DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR...
...Britain's situation is not the United States', of course...
...The educators of our youth who used to come to see us with book in hand to ask us what we thought of it have been replaced by an anonymous supermarket of culture . . .From 'desacral-ization' we have passed to 'deculturization.'" Gordon Wakefield, British Methodist official, writing on John Wesley and post-Reformation spirituality in The Month: 'The corner shop has been demolished to make room for the supermarket, and Methodism, like all Churches, is at a loss in days when the world and its lusts cannot be kept out of our sitting rooms and spiritual values do not seem real in the concrete jungle...
...Odds and Ends -There used to be a standing gag about the narrowness of the pre-Vatican II Catholic press that was typified by a legendary headline: TORNADO IN OKLAHOMA.' NO CATHOLICS KILLED...
...Which thus makes Mrs...
...JOHN DEEDY...
...A reader from Jersey City asked: "How can anyone reconcile this smugly decadent story and almost daily reports of worldwide hunger and starvation...
...At, least one letter wished Claiborne a severe case of indigestion, but he remained serene, remarking that he doubted anyone could "seriously believe that as a result of that evening I have deprived one human being of one mouthful of food...
...John Wesley would hardly recognize any part of our world, and yet for our salvation we still point men to old categories enshrined in ancient texts...
...Mrs...
...Bishop Ottenweller's point: The "primary structure of the parish is faulty," and current structure should be studied by the bishops "to find a model more adaptable to our times and to the vision of the Council...
...And they said Watergate hadn't rippled towards the Vatican...
...A social revolution has taken place...
...But the bureaucratic mentality isn't so different...
...Variations on a Theme Jean-Marie Domenach, director of Esprit, French intellectual monthly, speaking on the cultural and moral situation in Western Europe to the Third Symposium of European bishops: "For the first time we have a generation which no longer makes any reference to values...
...In their "frustration," many priests are avoiding parish ministry or having breakdowns or "just waiting around for retirement...
...A Pennsylvania reader commented: "We have long heard of extravagence, the dissoluteness, and the decadence that preceded the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the French Revolution...
...Prolonged applause...
...Now the entire future of the foundation is imperiled by the Inland Revenue, which later this year is bringing a case in the High Court against it...
...Russell's protest as valid here as there: "Public work of this nature, which involves its supporters in considerable sacrifices, should not be treated as normal commercial enterprises...
...Many people have reason to be grateful for its activities...
Vol. 102 • December 1975 • No. 20
