CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE Tiresome Cliches Brooklyn, N.Y. To the Editors: I would like to thank Abigail McCarthy for her article "A Dissenting Vote" in the June 18 issue of Commonweal. In it Ms. McCarthy...
...RITA MALONEY Soviet Myths Baltimore, Md...
...Can any empire arbitrarily seize lands and not have problems of defense...
...Hearing him answer "Lord, you know that I do" I believe that Jesus would say "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep" without putting him through a series of psychological testings to prove his capabilities...
...The study of modern psychology is, no doubt, one of the great advances in our civilization...
...However, similar to the study of nuclear physics, the knowledge which we gain can be used for the betterment or the destruction of society...
...To the Editors: Concerning Dennis O'Brien's review of my Binding With Briars: Sex and Sin in the Catholic Church [June 4]: Surely Dr...
...To the Editors: The article "The Myth of Soviet Aggression" by Leo Friedman and Stephen P. Kramer [June 4] can best be characterized as "quite trite...
...The merciless destruction of Ukrainian Catholics stands as a reminder for all time of the lack of human feelings by the sycophants of the Kremlin...
...Binding with Briars is tasteless enough without the quoted terms and I am disinclined to engage him in a name-culling contest, dennis o'brien...
...richard ginder REPLY: Bad arguments are bad arguments whether wrapped in scholarly obfuscation or popular froth...
...The statement about Benedict XI is a clear case of ad hominem and I am quite prepared -though skeptically inclined-to think he might well have written brilliant theology or published prudent decrees despite an erring sweet tooth...
...O'Brien must have appreciated the fact that the book was not intended as a scholarly treatise...
...That institutions in the USSR have as their main function social control appears true enough (p...
...However, the use of psychological cliches without insight or intuition can be harmful...
...When the files of the KGV become available to the academic community of the world the myth of Soviet softness will evaporate...
...When an individual is able to combine his understanding of himself with the good news of scripture this can become a prayerful act (whether this is done through psychological counseling or the wisdom of experience...
...I cannot deny that this process is often unconscious and normal to some degree...
...It is the unexpected datum that impresses such a reader and gains the writer his point...
...He says this three times...
...It has been one of the great themes of the Judeo-Christian tradition that God has worked through the weak...
...As soon as we can place a person in one particular category-Negro or white, Jew or Christian, middle-class or low-class, liberal or conservative-then we begin to relate to these people on different levels...
...rev...
...But not one of those words occurs in my book...
...McCarthy writes of "the tiresome and stereotyping psychologizing of our age (as) a substitute for intuition and insight when we are confronted with other human beings...
...Jesus would be more concerned with wholeness rather than analysis...
...Why then today, with the use of psychological cliches, do we pretend that there is such a thing as emotional perfection...
...That Soviet institutions exercise control in face of great failures and only small successes cannot be ascertained thru a review of the mountains of bodies and rivers of blood shed against the Ukrainian Catholic Church...
...I suspect however that his real meaning is "disagreeable" or perhaps "tiresome," but certainly not "tasteless," unless in the sense that Voltaire found Bellarmine tasteless, and Newman Renan...
...The seizure of Carpatho-Ukraine in 1944-45 immediately saw the institution of the Russian Orthodox Church in a land never before under Russian domination...
...It is the process of seeing ourselves or others simply in psychological terms which can rob human nature of its sense of mystery, so important to a people of faith...
...The very labels we use draw out our own prejudices and can limit greatly the relationships we have with one another...
...The greater question is: When are the Soviets going to return Karelia, Sakhalin, Car-patho-Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, et al...
...So why does he imply my use of them...
...paul fenchak Chairman, Ukrainian Education Association of Maryland Sticks & Stones Pittsburgh, Pa...
...The myopic article portrays Hitler's game/ excuse all over again...
...Briars is accordingly pure causerie...
...He would not say: "Peter, I realize that you do not have a very good self-image and that (Continued on page 511) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 483) you probably have some emotional problems, perhaps stemming from your past relationship with your parents...
...I am comforted to think that if Jesus were alive today he would not use psychological cliches...
...If the 14-year-old Pope Benedict XI thought the Archdiocese of Paris worth no more than a bowl of marzipan, then how much authority is one to accord his decrees and apostolic constitutions...
...But, when carried to an extreme or when it is done "en masse" bigotry is the result...
...I have made a career of explaining Catholic beliefs and usages in popular language, writing in a general way for the likes of my beloved Aunt Belle, a 5th-grade dropout who died last year at the age of 97...
...Oddly, while the secular press-including Kirkus, Library Monthly, Publishers Weekly-liked the book, found it enjoyable and beautifully written, and recommended it, not one Catholic critic has been kind to it or had anything good to say about it...
...It takes a stretch of the implying capacity to reach the conclusion in Father Ginder's final paragraph from my review...
...Do religious convictions affect one's aesthetic standards...
...I would like to expand on that notion in terms of our Christian obligation to one another...
...to rightful ownership...
...362...
...Thus, I believe that even today, knowing well Peter's failings and weaknesses as well as his strengths, Jesus would simply ask "Do you love me, Peter...
...Typically, Dennis O'Brien found it "tasteless...
...O'Brien alleges that I use "gutsy" sexual language, listing as examples: chicks, birds, fillys, bitches, babes, dolls, ass, and piece...
Vol. 103 • July 1976 • No. 16
