CORRESPONDENCE

...The Catholic hierarchy is convinced, especially since the Supreme Court decision, that control over the rank and file is no longer easily attainable...

...He recognized the declining U.S...

...Father Carney's perceptive analysis of America's plans during the 1960s to draw the emerging African nations into the capitalist-economic orbit of the West, is matched by his observation that this attempt was frustrated by the completely unexpected transformation of the Portuguese body-politic from imperialist-capitalist to brotherly-socialist...

...REV...

...9], and to Commonweal for publishing it...

...When, at eighteen, I went to work on the weekly newspaper in the little town where I was born, I felt that I had been admitted to the adult world...

...Hence, we pick endlessly over the particulars of human conduct...

...Virtue there was a matter of conscious choice, not the result of the imposition of convention...

...EDWARD H. LAYLIN Abigail McCarthy (Cont...

...Alternatively, we can encourage popularist movements and recognize that our economic history is not for export...

...I will insist on the right, or even the duty, of the bishops (some of whom are my dear friends) to try to persuade Catholics and others not to have abortions...

...As such they will continue to coalesce into a massive anti-American bloc if the U.S...

...But I also insist that a campaign to compel everybody in the country to be forced into their concept of morality is not only stupid but, in the long run, must fail...

...Moreover, they cannot indefinitely be subdued by 'trickle down' effects engineered by Western technology applied through expatriate corporations in alliance with local capitalist elites...

...We cannot have it both ways...

...PATRICK BASCIO Notre Dame, Ind...

...To the Editors: Father Joseph Carney ("Angola: A Bicentennial Reflection," Apr...

...27 came pretty close to opposing the "Right to Life" amendment to the Constitution...

...Admission to the adult world was admission to the realm of "everybody knows" and what everybody knew was the evidences in that town of the ills and weaknesses the flesh is heir to, that even the most respected are capable of villainies, and that the unwary can well find themselves victimized-in short, everyone knew the myriad possibilities of the results of original sin...

...9) has called for a thorough re-examination of U.S...

...continues to support their oppressors...

...I sincerely hope that, ultimately, the Catholic hierarchy will see the similarity, cease their advocacy of the "Right to Life" amendment, and double or redouble their efforts of persuasion, towards their constituency and towards everyone else...

...He also saw current policies as the tragic betrayal of America's best hopes through a cold war stance: a search for regional stability which denied popularist hopes, support for anti-Communist regimes, and the bolstering of elites prepared to maintain the arena for American corporate interests...

...although these powers fish in troubled waters...

...What I can't understand is why our free-wheeling contemporaries find this kind of gossip so titillating...

...efforts feed the unquenchable appetite for gossip...

...I suspect there is a latent issue in this analysis which needs to be made explicit as it has far-reaching implications for our foreign policy around the globe...

...Someone has written that the tiresome and stereotyping psychologizing of our age is a substitute for intuition and insight when we are confronted by other human beings...

...As a Methodist, I am aware of the dangers inherent in an effort to impose upon everyone a standard of behavior which the proponents cannot persuade their own constituency to adopt voluntarily...

...influence with black Africa and the dangers of being trapped into supporting the white regimes...

...The results, which I shan't belabor, are well known...

...And, yet, we were left able to believe in the possibilities of goodness as great, even greater, than evil...

...Although socialist, they are not the results of a Soviet or Chinese plot...

...So, like the frustrated Methodist powers, the Catholic powers, again using various sorts of pressures and emotional appeals, are trying to compel everybody, Catholic or not, to be bound by their concept of the ethical principles involved...

...Such a radical change in foreign policy implies the gradual but determined confining of American capitalism to America, and the freeing of U.S...

...corporate interests are being challenged by nationalist movements throughout the third world...

...You will note that I neither advocate nor oppose "abortion on demand...

...For some time, the hierarchy of our church was convinced that the ingestion of alcohol was a sin, but the rank and file paid little attention...

...I hope that things will develop so that you may feel able to make that opposition explicit...

...foreign policy for the support of popularist forces abroad...

...Let us restructure our economic system in such a manner that exploiters will not have the opportunity to exploit...

...PETER WALSHE Director, African Studies University of Notre Dame "Right-to-Life" Columbus, Ohio To the Editors: Your lead editorial in the issue of Feb...

...These popularist movements have strong socialist orientations, seeking growth and the redistribution of resources as opposed to the current reality of polarizing class interests...

...We seem to be living in some pre-literate age before the birth of epic or tragedy, unable to cope with hubris, to summon compassion, see pathos, or experience catharsis...

...political process develops the muscle to restrain the corporate giants in the interests of democracy and egalitarian hopes both here and abroad...

...We can continue to export capitalism and give up on democracy...

...There is an ordering possible even to gossip...

...The information was exchanged, yes, but it was not news- to anyone...

...The average American is a good person and certainly dedicated to the survival of freedom in the world, but so long as our own economic system is so structured as to allow economic exploitation, both at home and abroad, there will always be men in our midst who will do the exploiting...

...In such a context the U.S...

...We examine each life brought to our attention by fame or celebrity as if that life shared in no common human nature...

...So, by various sorts of pressures, the country was persuaded to adopt the 18th Amendment to the Constitution...

...River towns are notoriously tolerant towns with long memories, and ours was no exception...

...This is the latent issue in Southern Africa, and it will not be faced until the U.S...

...Neither do they, I suppose-otherwise they wouldn't go to such lengths to find other names for it...

...However, I do not agree with Father Carney that the solution to the problem of Afro-American relations lies in a rededication of our government and people to the American ideal of freedom reflected in the Bicentennial Year celebrations...

...policy in Southern Africa...

...Perhaps the most important result of the great American experience will be that we shall discover how to accomplish this task, while at the same time preserving our freedoms...

...The parallel between "Prohibition" and "Right to Life" is too pat to be ignored...

...Rather, these movements arise as the consequence of egalitarian hopes encountering harsh injustices...

...In an age in which we are all "com-munalized" in age groups and socio-economic groups, we are unused to, and unable to cope imaginatively with, the variety and the manifold expressions of the universals in human nature...

...must abandon its latent and frustrated egalitarianism, and continue to support class elites, as in Southern Africa, or prepare to trade with more or less socialist economic orders within which western corporations can supply investment and technology on a contractual basis of limited duration...

...May I suggest that, if adopted, "Right to Life" would have the same sordid outcome as "Prohibition" had...