CORRESPONDENCE

...The full report should be available soon from the Liturgical Press at St...

...End of touch...

...To the Editors: For quite some time, Commonweal has shown an alarming trendiness in its editorial thinking...

...it should not be sacrificed for other political and economic goals...

...That the Abbey translation might be better than the official version...

...These are people with experience, savvy, professionalism and tried spirituality-and time...

...is conscious of it and knows how to preserve it himself .. . The protection of human existence from excesses by the state would be incomplete if it did not also embrace the preliminary stage of 'finished life,' unborn life . . . Human life . . . represents a maximum value within the constitutional order...

...is to be explained primarily as a reaction to the destruction of life that is not worthy of living,' to the 'final solution' and to 'liquidations' carried out by the National Socialist {Nazi] regime as government measures . . . The right to life is attributed to everyone who 'lives...

...Home masses and other gatherings have disappeared in some parishes after initial response, because too few lay people accepted involvement...

...Available from Sheed & Ward/ Universal Press, Inc., Mission, Kansas...

...If not enough, it is still reason for encouragement...

...why he ignores one of the great untapped resources in the Church: the elderly and retired...

...The idea that lay parishioners have innate powers of ministry according to their talents, powers which the church needs for its future development, not just because of priest shortage, is too far out for many persons who learned their lessons well in an earlier tradition...

...The bishops said, according to Anderson, that economic policy should not be left to market forces, and that, quoting the bishops' statement, "Full employment is the foundation of a just economic policy...

...But how would we expect most bishops, many of whom have never been in a parish for any length of time, to know that...

...They were not prepared and unfortunately could not move deeper into such a learning experience...

...We may belong to a generation in which unofficial realities are more important than official ones in many aspects of religious and secular operation...

...Given the circumstances and the men, the flight of the bishops is understandable...

...Perhaps, as in its Rockefeller about-face, Commonweal will repudiate its attack on supporters of the right to life and a human life amendment, and come to realize which side in the abortion debate really represents the reactionary right-wing position...

...They do want a voice in deciding "the fortune and future of the Church...

...The purpose of that report was to document the changing attitudes toward the liturgy...

...The people find themselves alienated from their own self-determination, from a genuinely viable way of having their hurts listened to and understood, from the opportunity of reaching out and confronting their bishops, from even knowing them as actual and caring human beings...

...Despite limitations, from all reports these meetings did open a marvelous opportunity for bishops to learn about their pastorage and to make touch with struggling, articulate, believing, sometimes achieving, living people...

...Then "another recent NORC survey" is the only survey we have done in this area, and is the source of both the FDLC data and the general data on the state of American Catholicism...

...That too many people, including lay persons, might read it...

...And if "there" is less than wholesome, less than community, they have no recourse, no way to ait their griefs nor speak to their bishop as a child does to his father...

...The people cannot understand why the bishop is so remote...

...Equally irresponsible is Common-wears contention that the seeking of an "anti-abortion" amendment to the Constitution is a right-wing issue...

...Ecumenical worship including the Eucharist is freely given and taken by members of different churches, to a degree way beyond the protocols of official statements...

...That the sacrament of "reconciliation," the newly introduced name for penance, need not be mere "cosmetic tinkering" has been shown in communal services of some parishes, in parish study groups, and in seated, private confession-by-request, less visible, in some ways more potent than the burdened waiting fines of old...

...However, I suggest that the alienation goes wider and deeper than the birth control and divorce issues...

...John's in Collegeville, Minnesota...

...The express inclusion of the right to life in the Constitution...

...2nd issue, Com-monwears editors claim that "the anti-abortion amendment is a right-wing issue," and that the Catholic bishops are about to become tools "of conservative so-called 'pro-Hfe' (and perhaps anti-busing, anti-'welfare-chiselers,' pro-arms race, pro-CIA) candidates in the 1976 elections...

...The people cannot fathom why they must suffer with well known difficult pastors, why their children should be subject to early outrageous impressions of the Church because of them, why any public denial of the Trinity will bring swift reprimand, but the daily, grueling outrage, scandal and indifference of their pastors go untouched...

...They-the people-really don't care about the high level comings and goings of popes and synods...

...Like Father Greeley they wonder if anyone up at the top is going to recognize the crisis in their hearts, in their parishes...

...while abortion support on the other hand, mainly originates from an overwhelmingly white, middle, and upper-class, upper-income elite...

...subsequent clumsy retraction of that position, is but one recent embarrassing example of this unfortunate attempt to ibe "with it" Again, in the Jan...

...This is evident in individual churches and religious centers throughout the country and might be the biggest breaking down of barriers between Christians since Vatican II...

...Their diocesan pastoral councils wither from inaction...

...They and their children receive their first indelible impressions of the Church there...

...On the contrary, the only national constitution which contains a specific right-to-life provision is that of West Germany, written after the collapse of the Third Reich as a legal safeguard against further right-wing excesses...

...Thirdly, the only "church money" that has ever gone into either the 1963 study or the 1974 study came from the FDLC...

...WILLIAM C. MCCREADY Senior Study Director National Opinion Research Center Saxton's River, Vt...

...sentiments, and it is well-known (apparently by almost everyone but Commonweal's editors) that right to life support comes from a highly diversified population mixture-ideologically, socially, and politically...

...The people are getting tired of all this...

...But there must be better ways of providing anonymity when needed than the perch in stuffy cupboards, so uncomfortable for confessor and penitent...

...When the 1974 meetings were no less voluble and no more narrow in scope, the regional meetings were canceled out...

...Their parish councils are square democratic pegs in round hierarchical holes...

...Knocking down the confessionals (to follow the altar rails) might be the best way to forget the empty symbols...

...Though statistics show that fewer people attend mass regularly, it seems obvious that those who do so receive the Eucharist more frequently and in greater numbers than was customary a few years ago...

...What else of hope...

...Priests do report that some adults simply do not believe they are shriven without the old impedimenta and that some parents insist on confession for their children before first Eucharist even when the pastor does not require it...

...To the Editors: Editorial lament for what was and what was not with our country's Catholic church in the 1975 Holy Year [Jan...

...They should be complimented for their farsightedness in sponsoring the report on changing attitudes toward the liturgy...

...There is too much ancient and deep tradition-even before the arm-twisting-about the common community celebration of the Paschal Mysteries on every "little Easter" (Sunday...

...At the last Bishops' meeting (which some wag said gave final agreement and permission for confession in the hand) only one bishop stood up with a kind of footnote reference to the parish...

...They cannot understand why he doesn't make his diocese smaller so he can get around and talk to them, why there is not one major headquarters to administer several smaller dioceses so the bishop could work with manageable numbers...

...The bishops' slippery try to launch a "non-denominational" drive for an anti-abortion amendment, which, if successful might have very little to do with creating a pro-life society, even pro-fetal life, is clearly looked at in yours and other commentaries...

...But as a parish priest of twenty years I have to agree with you about the connection between the crisis of Church life and the confidence of the community in its official leadership...

...Noble experiment perhaps...

...A good deal is going on in the living church, beyond the confines of officialdom...

...The pro-life move-meat is in no way connected with anti-busing, pro-arms race, etc...

...To the Editors: I would like to clarify three points in the editorial "The Crisis" [Jan...

...The voluminous explosions in regional meetings of 1973 brought an a priori ruling for 1974 that regional delegates must be "advisory" only and that no resolutions could be taken nor acted upon at the meetings...

...And if no one is listening, they are becoming more determined than ever before to go their own way...

...Or will the editors continue to ignore the lessons of history and side with fee forces of death and repeat the rationalizations of the power structure...

...M. MURPHYal activists.'" Deo gratias...

...Establishment propaganda notwithstanding...

...Was the opportunity too overwhelming to recognize...

...For them Christ is localized at their parish level...

...In another release, Anderson said: "Perhaps the most important but least dramatic 'story1 (of 1975) in the world was the joint Christian-Jewish response to the ongoing world hunger crisis...

...Besides parroting the' crudest epithets and fantasies of radical pro-abortion extremists, such a statement is a lie...

...Compounding the Holy Year preoccupations, it was in 1975 that the regional meetings of bishops with clerical, religious and lay delegates of their regions, preceding the annual bishops' meeting, were discarded after only two years' trial...

...How can we ever expect dialogue between the ordinary Catholic and a bishop separated in distance, remote in place, surrounded by aspiring clerics, protected by ecclesiastical jargon, imprisoned by administration and paperwork and removed from the realities of daily living...

...Another sadness of hierarchial action in '75 was the order by NCCB's executive committee to withhold distribution of the Abbey Press liturgy of the hours, "The Book of Prayer...

...We rejoice for Memphis, Nashville, Pueblo and others, and for auxiliary bishops whose voices at the time seemed altogether alone...

...But the parish is where it's at, where the people are, and far from being the footnote, it should be the whole text...

...WILLIAM J. BAUSCH Birmingham, Mich...

...Included in the ruling were these incisive words: ". . . the [West German] Constitution protects life being developed in the mother's womb as an independent legal entity...

...They are, as far as I know, the only church organization to have the courage to face these data and help support their analysis...

...On February 25, 1975, the West German Federal Constitutional Court handed down a 6-2 decision on the government's continuing duty to protect unborn human life...

...The findings from this ten-year replication of the attitudes of American Catholics will soon be published in Catholic Schools in a Declining Church by Andrew Greeley, William Mc-Cready and Kathleen McCourt...

...In 1975 as in earlier bitter years, the hierarchy has not been without lonely, prophetic voices on social, spiritual and moral issues...

...I was commissioned by the FDLC to write a report and deliver an address to their annual meeting using the data collected from the NORC replication of the 1963 Survey of American Catholics...

...It is not determinative whether the bearer...

...Syndicated religious writer David Anderson commented in early January on the hardly noticed but "almost unanimous call" by NCCB for reform of our nation's economic life, reform based on a policy of full employment...

...M. MURPHYY...

...The magazine's incredible approval of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice-President-and its...

...First, there was no "study commissioned by the FDLC" [Federation of Diocesan liturgical Commissions], in the sense one usually uses for a social study...

...PATRICIA NIXON Chicago, 111...

...If we are in the Slough of Despond, we cannot pull through without knowing and feeling what binds us...

...If written in heartache and anger, so was it read...

...Its importance lies in the fact that it engaged not just theologians and church bureaucrats but the laity- across what has been the increasingly rigid lines of 'evangelicals' and 'social activists.'" Deo gratias...

...How could we expect a Confirmation-visiting prelate to communicate with real people at their level of experience and existence...

...There are also good, scripturally based, contemporary homilies spoken and lively, devout liturgical celebrations, clergy and laity in full participation, albeit too rare, so far...

...2] is as welcome as it is apropos...

...it is the vital basis of human dignity and the presupposition of all other fundamental rights...

...no distinction can be made between stages of developing life or between unborn and born life . . . Where human life exists it possesses human dignity...

...A word seems due about responsibilities of lay people in regard to your suggestions for sacramental celebrations, responsibilities often less than readily taken...

...What in God's name are the bishops afraid of, that they resort to this updated form of book burning...