CORRESPONDENCE

...So now we know why the priest who formerly ranted about the good ole days and the "shacking up" of today's wayward youths is strangely silent in the pulpit when the rich or famous are discovered to be no better-this is the type of illusion that must be preserved-"it is enough if a man is powerful, talented, and well-liked Catholic...

...In that context I would like to express the personal opinion that the upheaval in the Catholic church, rising crime, our national crisis of inflation, energy, etc...

...bill mctaggart Overland Park, Kan...

...Whatever the "meaning of medicine" may be, it does not deserve priority over concern for human life itself, even "post-personal" or "post-medical" life...

...Quin-lan herself would have the right to answer...

...As Pierre Salinger and others have noted, the threat of the possible candidacy of Ted Kennedy was undoubtedly the motivating force behind this sopho-moric bit of mudslinging...

...Letters, Feb...

...stems from the fact that the powerful and wealthy were the real foundation of the Church and nation and when they failed to give even a small percent, spiritually and materially, back to humanity, the neglected (people or institutions) weighed too heavily and the crumbling process began...

...Gordon c. zahnt to an end...

...A January 21st Washington Post report, datelined Sao Paulo, about a steel-worker's killing under interrogation suggests that the restoration of human rights has once more taken a tragic route between promise and reality...

...What should govern cases like these is the principle of triage, properly applied...

...Thus, if the equipment now being used to maintain Karen Quintan's vestigial life is needed by some other patient with a more promising prognosis, then it would be possible to argue that the plug should be pulled...

...At the same time I am not prepared to say a family or the state authority is wrong if the choice is made to preserve even these vestigial manifestations of human life...

...It obviously contradicted the gist of my argument as it certainly did the original Brazilian text I was working from, which referred to "Herzog's putative murder and almost certain torture...

...To the Editors: The assertion in my "Brazil: The Struggle for Human Rights" [December 19, 1975] that the late journalist, Vladimir Herzog, was "an almost certain suicide" was a grievous and inadvertent error on my part...

...But persisting, widespread disbelief throughout Brazil has partially encouraged the victim's widow to file suit this month to make all findings public...

...When the arguments for termination of life are couched in monetary terms, which is all too often the case, the case for "pulling the plug" assumes more than a hint of danger not only in the context of Judeo-Christian values but traditional humanistic values as well...

...Let me hasten to say that I agree with Maguire's central position that there is no obligation to resort to extraordinary means to sustain life in such clearly hopeless cases...

...Gordon c. zahnn...

...Both terms suggest a circularity of reasoning, but my real objection lies in the notion that any human life, however maintained, can be dismissed as "post-personal...

...Even the expense argument could take on validity if it can be shown that the cost of apparently hopeless efforts would drain a family's resources to the point of endangering the right of other members to that "life worth living...

...30], establishes the author as a front-runner in the Bad Taste Sweepstakes of this Bicentennial year...

...We all have to have someone to look up to and JFK was a type of God to many...

...Her initiative may not be entirely unwelcome to President-General Ernesto Geisel: almost simultaneously, he relieved of command Sao Paulo's two top-ranking Second Army officers, held responsible by popular opinion for Herzog's death...

...And weird as it may sound many of the nondescript would like it that way too...

...The glossy, multi-page spreads he mentions depicting the beautiful Kennedy story in our national magazines had religious connotations too...

...Once again, I do not agree with those who would insist that such extraordinary measures must be continued...

...Expectedly, the promised and recently published military inquiry into the case concluded that Herzog had taken his own life...

...ALBERTA I. FREESE Death to Brazil New York, N.Y...

...At the same time I am troubled by the whole school of thought which suggests that there is no justification for doing so...

...Later it was revealed that "this couple" wasn't really happily married, or "an actress" hadn't been to confession or communion in years etc.-which was nobody's business but theirs-but, they were projected as Catholic examples high above the common herd...

...Unfortunately he moves from that to place the problem in what I consider to be a clearly less important dimension of the issue...

...One editor of a small secular newspaper lambasted the newsmen who reported The Kennedy Affairs" calling them sneaks and gossip mongers, etc...

...Leave die practice of the old-fashioned virtues up to the nondescript...

...The theme was almost always what a privilege it was to have these beautiful, cultured, educated, famous (and supposedly holy) individuals in the Catholic Church...

...Only those who yearn for the old Confidential style of journalism . . . to use the term loosely . . . or hard core Kennedy haters could have taken seriously the insinuations and generalities of the Time article, which was a cheap shot at best...

...Before I grew to the stage of at least trying to absorb the intellectual content of magazines like Commonweal I was a faithful reader of Catholic literature geared toward the average or even mediocre...

...Usually this is the point where the "life not worth living" argument enters in, an approach which rests upon a basic shift of concern from the incapacitated person (who, we are told, is totally unaware of her state or anything else) to those others around her whose sensibilities or sentiments are strained by the mere observation of her state...

...Surely such a decision is to be preferred to the vehemence of some (not including Daniel Maguire, let me add) who would argue the reverse and demand that someone else's life which does not meet their standards of a "life worth living" be brought to an end...

...As Steinfels says, "it is risky to write about something on which one cannot claim to have reached a firm opinion...

...Stupidly (I suppose) I wondered why, we who were pinching pennies to send our children to Catholic schools were warned that we were in danger of hell-fire if we ceased the struggle and took them out, while the Kennedys who could well afford it attended secular schools...

...He stated that "those who are involved in the world of theatre and politics live in different worlds and judge and are judged by their peers in a different context, as far as sexual standards are concerned, than you and I. Putting it in the news media only serves to further weaken our belief in our fellow man...

...Do these events support the emerging view that Geisel moderates-adroitly turning the Herzog tragedy to their ad-advantage-have finally chosen to purge hardliners from their midst and get on with the promised return to civil liberties...

...ralph della cava Hard Choices Boston, Mass...

...But apparently this demands more political sophistication than Steinfels can muster...

...To the Editors: Peter Steinfels made a brave try at analyzing people's reactions to the "Kennedy Affairs" [Jan...

...With respect to the Karen Quintan case he correctly dismisses the "life worth living" question as the wrong question, though I would have welcomed some indication on his part that even if it were the right question it would be one that no one-parents, doctors, judges, or even theologians-other than Ms...

...By the time the Kennedy worship cult made its appearance I felt a bit guilty because I couldn't equate JFK (Continued on page 254) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 227) with Christ as many liberals tended to do, or strut the fact that "we" Catholics finally had a President from a large ideal Catholic family, as the more conservative liked to brag...

...To the Editors: Daniel Maguire and I are too much in agreement on most issues for me to let even a partial disagreement pass unnoticed...