Correspondence
Correspondence Oops indeed Seattle, Wash. To the Editors: Thanks very much to Commentary, oops, I mean Commonweal, for your correction in the issue of May 7. GEORGE S. WEIGEL, JR. World Without...
...if so, they were certainly outside the mainstream of the teaching of the classical manualists whose writings were the foundational formation of the overwhelming majority of priests...
...BRANNEN, S.J...
...But the fact is that we are all, men and women alike, both relational and fully human at one and the same time...
...we all exist in relation to each other, to the created world, and to our Creator...
...Without straddling the doctrinal fence (I personally stand completely with the teaching of the church), I must nevertheless note that respect and honesty have been lacking by at least a significant number of both defenders and attackers of the teaching of the church or of her theologians of the past and present...
...Unfortunately, love of God and neighbor seems at times to have been or to be somewhat wanting where Byzantine Rite Catholic priests (such as the Ukrainians) in union with the pope of Rome, do pastoral work in the same or neighboring areas as do Latin rite priests...
...I would like to offer a further proposal...
...These are but four of more than a dozen other major authors who could be cited...
...That Ms...
...but since it's so vague and unexplored and unclarified...
...I appreciate that fact...
...To the Editors: Abigail McCarthy's column "The Bee in My Bonnet" [Apr...
...McCauley writes in a brisk authoritarian journalese...
...What is even more insidious, however, is that often what is being defended or attacked is not really the doctrine of the church or of theologians truly in communion with that doctrine...
...Paul, Minn...
...The pill acts as an abortifacient in some women in some cycles...
...Canovan missed this entirely either means she is ignorant of a whole range of concerns that have most deeply engaged this century's most important thinkers or, more likely, that she doesn't understand what is at stake in these vital matters...
...The experience of these seminaries is valuable...
...It does reflect the dismal position priests often found themselves in: given the sad nature of so many marriages, something had to be done to make sense of what was often a mess...
...This distorts two aspects of NFP...
...Of the second-year members I am sixty...
...But it is misleading to allow the impression, as Garvey does, that such an instance was or is in any way representative of moral teaching widely used in the church...
...Garvey can name even one manual which holds the rigoristic doctrine he cited, I would appreciate knowing it...
...Finally, it should be noted also that the Irish bishops, in November, 1980 issued guidelines which included these sentences: "It sometimes happens that the use of contraceptives does not have the real meaning of a contraceptive act...
...Implied in this remark is an unnecessary division...
...He also dismisses natural family planning as a less effective method of preventing conception...
...It must also not be forgotten that Rome at times permits married clergymen who convert from non-Catholic churches to be eventually ordained priests of the Latin rite...
...I venture to guess that few if any such courses exist in seminaries now and hope that her proposal will be considered and acted on in seminaries and theological schools throughout the United States...
...Approximately 80 percent of the dioceses with newspapers have parish coverage plans...
...What disquiets me, however, is that in this context marriage might be looked upon not as a vocation, but as a refuge for those who give human weakness priority over God's love...
...Like Alfred Priori [Verse, May 21], I haven't read The Angels and Us, either...
...now 128 diocesan parish coverage plans in the United States...
...That is nothing new...
...Quod etiam valet in ebrio...
...12], we feel that a number of important points deserve some comment...
...There is only one problem...
...Means are always of vital concern, especially where human life is concerned...
...We refer you to The Art of Natural Family Planning by John and Sheila Kippley...
...BILL AND KATHY SIDDONS The Couple to Couple League Outside the mainstream St...
...To the Editors: I was somewhat puzzled by some statements that John Garvey makes in his article "Catholics and Sex" [Mar...
...The husband usually petitions the debt expressly, while the wife does so implicitly, e.g., by showing signs of affection...
...C.J...
...Communication increases...
...12], in particular his assertion that "there were manuals of moral theology . . . which said that a woman had a duty to submit sexually to a drunken husband...
...two are in their fifties...
...Vatican H's Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests states that celibacy is "not, indeed, demanded by the very nature of the priesthood," (Ch...
...But while I agree with her goal, I must strongly disagree with Ms...
...Perhaps there were such manuals, but...
...Neither is the fear of a miscarriage or stillbirth, which the wife knows from experience will follow conception...
...EDWARD J. BAYER The author replies I agree with Father Bayer's point: the dialogue ought to be conducted with respect and honesty...
...Finally, it is odd to be demeaned for being a good mother, as if this were some sort of taint one must live down...
...The existing plan at that time called for 50 percent and the plan instituted by Archbishop Cody some sixteen years ago called for 100 percent...
...Not so with the new board...
...My treatment of the history of Western political thought, which Canovan dismisses is nasty in this sense...
...This is nonsense...
...In an era when the public arena is largely a world of Hegel's 'civil society,' a world in which narcissism is touted as liberation and self-interest is construed as that for which politics exists, social critics with a conscience must challenge the terms of public life even as they involve themselves in it...
...Merkel-bach (with some reason considered among the more conservative)lists, for example: adultery, immoderate frequency of demand on the part of the husband, danger of death from pregnancy or any other truly grave hardship on the part of the wife...
...She laments that my book does not live up to its promise to be "nasty...
...we must realize that while we are unique individual human beings, we are also all bound together in a complex network of interrelationships...
...The "moribund" ACP organized a very successful program on young priests' concerns last year...
...properly taught, understood, and practiced, is as effective as any other method of family planning...
...It needs to be noticed, reflected on and shared with other United States seminaries as well as with priestly formation programs in other countries...
...wall Editor, The Chicago Catholic 'Mean-spirited' Princeton, N.J...
...Our chairman is ordained three years...
...some are in their twenties...
...To the Editors: Although John Garvey raises some interesting and valid points in his article "Catholics and Sex" [Mar...
...In general one should rather call women's attention to the gravity of their obligation and remind husbands to be moderate...
...But I drew the term from a letter by Wittgenstein...
...Her suggestion that seminarians' imaginations be educated by required courses in women's experience taught by qualified women is a valuable first step...
...and from whom the most influential moralist for centuries, Alphonsus Liguori, largely took his inspiration: "The wife is not obliged to render the conjugal debt...
...His is wrong...
...She states that...
...Louis...
...One question of further interest: What if a wife rightly refuses the conjugal act but has copulation forced upon her by an abusive husband...
...Spiritual growth is a process of becoming aware of our interdependence and choosing to assume the responsibilities for the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of others as if they were ourselves...
...Perhaps it's counterproductive to focus on this statement excessively...
...Paul tells us that love does not demand its rights, and moral theology spells out exactly what those rights are...
...It could, indeed, well be that one or another manualist took this strange position...
...Whatever Liguori and others of the best moral theologians might have said, their thoughts were summarized by other theologians, taught in seminaries, and then disseminated to people who remained faithful anyway...
...Lesser reasons than these justified a wife's putting off conjugal relations, if not out and out refusing them...
...Besides our concern for an ailing man we also regretted and resented the "yellow journalism" of the Sun-Times which I would have thought beneath a former active Protestant clergyman, Roy Larson...
...that being so, two or more angels may occupy the same space at the same time...
...He writes [May 7] that "Cody recently irritated Chicago pastors when he demanded out of the blue that all parishes in the archdiocese meet a subscription quota for the official weekly newspaper, (The) Chicago Catholic...
...It doesn't surprise me at all to learn that they are strong defenders of Humanae Vitae...
...The board labored hard to get new young members for the coming year...
...To the Editors: Michael McCauley (May 7) refers to the "moribund Association of Chicago Priests...
...Couple to Couple League International, P.O...
...I am afraid that Jone's approach to the problem was interpreted to mean that ordinary drunkenness, total lack of affection, and even abuse were not sufficient reasons to refrain from sexual intercourse...
...but, twenty-five years ago, I used the question considered above as an exercise in definition in programs I gave for various banks and industrial corporations...
...We're hoping for a little more clarity accuracy, and consistency in future articles on sexuality...
...Here Jone is worth quoting in full: "Such a danger would be given in the case of gravely infectious diseases, of a very weak heart, etc.-The ordinary hardships of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and care of children, such as intense but brief pains, prolonged but mild headaches, etc., are not a sufficient excuse...
...First...
...That sort of language either strikes you as indecent or it does not...
...ACP has done more, but why go on...
...In seminaries here and there these relationships have begun to occur...
...Secondly, it distorts what NFP does for a marriage...
...Married priests St...
...First, he claims that since prevention of conception is the aim whether artificial or natural means are used, the means used are of no consequence...
...Perceptions are changed by real human relationships as well as by vicarious education...
...McCarthy's assertion that "a theological perception of women as simply relational to the dominant male effectively denies woman's existence as an integral full human being of equal worth to men in the sight of the Creator...
...What worries me too, is that speaking of the church's requirement of priestly celibacy may hurt the feelings of the married clergy in the Eastern rites of the same Roman Catholic church...
...If Father Bayer's point is that there has been some humanity in Catholic moral theology, I did not deny that in any way...
...Where would priests and religious ordinarily come from but from parents united in the sacrament of holy matrimony...
...This role itself wasn't questioned enough...
...It sounds bad...
...Should they be looked upon as less Catholic and as having given human weakness priority over God's love...
...I too hope that some day men and women will be able to "share a full humanity...
...It may or may not be significant, but wife abuse is not one of Jone's reasons for refusal...
...Jone's only exemptions from this wonderfully named "marriage debt" are offered in circumstances which involve adultery on the part of one's spouse, non-support of wife and children (but here the possibility that another child would cause great hardship to the family is not considered sufficient reason for refusing sex), lack of the use of reason on the part of the "petitioner" (and here drunkenness wobbles in, but it is qualified...
...the master moralist who wrote in 1650...
...It takes up language, a central concern with women...
...FRANZ H. MUELLER Professor Emeritus of Economics College of St...
...To be human is to be relational...
...The response to those men who insist upon defining women as relational should be a reminder that so also are they relational beings...
...To combat this all too human tendency, we should remind ourselves and each other of the biblical injunction to "love your neighbor as yourself...
...To the Editors: An angel being an immortal spiritual entity, it is non-temporal and nonmaterial and hence not subject to space-time...
...there arc at least as many with the mentality which finds contraception simply an evil...
...The manual which I was able to locate- it is, happy to report, hard to find these days -was Jone's Moral Theology (Newman, 1962...
...Board Member Parish plans Chicago, 111...
...Although Noldin-Schmidt somewhat limited his opinion in its scope of application, other authors including Visser, Peeters, Zalba, Derrick, and De Margerie recognized the right of the woman to use any means, short of abortifacient ones, in such a predicament...
...The problem of viewing others as only relational and not at the same time integral is essentially a consequence of seeing other people as objects rather than as subjects...
...Affirming and learning from the United States experience will contribute to the building up of the Body of the whole Christ...
...we are asked to believe that we are either relational or fully human...
...only the completely intoxicated husband may be refused), unreasonable demand (which involves "such frequent intercourse that the constitution of the other suffers greatly"), and great danger to health and life...
...Chicago Catholics are much too sophisticated to attend events in those numbers when conducted by a "moribund" group...
...There are...
...In these circumstances recourse to contraceptives by the wife would not appear to be an act of contraception in the moral sense since this presupposes that intercourse is free, i.e., possesses the minimum degree of freedom necessary for a human act...
...As we would not treat ourselves as objects neither should we treat others so...
...In that sense my book is not nasty - she is right...
...There are 39 plans calling for 100 percent coverage...
...Or, to put it more succinctly, we must strive to follow Christ's commandment to "love one another, just as I have loved you...
...but I doubt that this cold parceling out of duties and obligations helped much...
...16) and refers specifically to the tradition of the Eastern churches in which there are "married priests of outstanding merit...
...But Ms...
...That Canovan contemptuously dismisses the sphere of particular ethical relations which alone provide the foundation upon which more abstract and impersonal moral standards are erected says rather more about her, and the politics of aristocratic disdain, than it does about Public Man, Private Woman...
...As the visitation progresses we can hope that the latter will be the course chosen...
...Canovan goes beyond misreading to enter the sphere of mean-spirited cant...
...I don't know whether to laugh or cry when informed that certain moral theologians, as early as 1940, reversed the pattern of centuries and decided that it was all right for women who might be raped by their husbands to use contraception...
...The same thing holds for a husband who is drunk...
...Coming in contact on a regular basis with qualified competent women of faith at every level of the seminary process can indeed be direct and challenging re-education of the imagination...
...Seven hundred attended our Mardi Gras fund-raising party in late February...
...For it is not only the speculative dimension of the priests which is at stake, it is their pastoral practice...
...Just as women are mothers, wives, and daughters, men are fathers, sons, and husbands...
...We conducted a very successful afternoon reflection on nuclear armaments for three hundred people in March...
...III, No...
...To the Editors: According to the NC News Service, the pope, in a Holy Thursday message to priests, suggested that any relaxation of the church's celibacy rule would be giving human weakness priority over God's love...
...JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN Institute for Advanced Study (Continued on next page) Women in seminaries Washington, D.C...
...May she use contraceptive means to avoid impregnation...
...So much speaks of the obligations of women to suffer and, less frequently, men are asked to be a little less demanding sexually...
...mary irving, ssnd Spiritual Director, Saint Paul's College Poor relations Newton, Mass...
...JOHN GARVEY The pin's head Philadelphia, Pa...
...REV...
...LeROY SMITH, JR...
...the majority are under forty...
...A last objection was to the statement, "There are problems with the contraceptive mentality...
...If that were all that was involved in Margaret Canovan's review of Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought [May 7], I would let matters be and consider it my misfortune that my book and Commonweal's reviewer were such a mismatch...
...A.C.P...
...In other words, she demands that one strip off the particular if one wishes to ascend to the (Continued on page 411) Correspondence (Continued from page 386) universal...
...Box 11084, Cincinnati, OH 45211 for accurate and thought-provoking comments and facts regarding natural family planning...
...To agree to this is to capitulate to the most destructive features of the public/private split as I criticize it rather than to question, as I do, the language within which the realms of "public" and "private" are defined and evaluated...
...It can be seen as a first step in a conversion process from what is culturally a sexist position, but from Christianity's viewpoint a sinful attitude contrary to the Gospel...
...it is so meaningless...
...To the Editors: It is the author's fate to be misunderstood...
...Women are present as co-students, faculty members, supervisors of field education, on formation teams and as spiritual directors...
...In order to relate with half their congregations as equal in God's sight, priests need such direct experience...
...if the husband is insane because in such a case . . . the man does not seek the conjugal act with rationality (cum ratione) and in a human way (humano modo...
...The Vatican visitation of United States seminaries, currently in its preparatory stages, has as its purpose, said Pope John Paul II, not to destroy but "to build up the Body of Christ in the authentic faith of the Church...
...Apparently by "nasty" she understands "spiteful," a term her review perfectly exemplifies...
...and, that being so, an infinite number of angels may dance on the head (or, properly, the point) of a pin, or, for that matter, a mathematical point, which exists no more than they in the space-time continuum...
...These facts make the question of means more than a question of "hydraulics" as Mr...
...REV...
...Garvey puts it...
...If we are to ever bridge the gap that exists between men and women, we must begin to think more holistically...
...One could quote from Herman Busenbaum...
...It is to be noted that most of these authors are of the much maligned "Roman school," and all have been strong defenders of the church's teaching on contraception as found in Humanae Vitae...
...To the Editors: Michael F. McCauley uses a phrase that might unintentionally confuse readers...
...It behooves all of us in the church to let go of what our partisan fantasies tell us "the other side" holds in these days of debilitating divisions and to get back to respectful and honest dialogue with each other and with ourselves...
...Ms, Canovan implies that one cannot keep one's mothering as a central focus as one engages in public discourse...
...Moralists of this century beginning with Noldin-Schmidt in 1940 raised this question again, and, reversing most opinions expressed on this point in the seventeenth century answered resoundingly: Yes, she may use even artificial means to defend herself against a pregnancy unjustly imposed upon her...
...So little here speaks of love, or of the decency of honest passion, or the goodness of sex...
...All of them give still other reasons than drunkenness why a wife might rightly refuse the conjugal act...
...She deserves the thanks of those engaged in priestly formation for surfacing such a serious question for reflection and for offering a thoughtful constructive proposal...
...If the ACP is "moribund" because it chose not to trample on the cardinal, a man who "was down," at the time of the Sun-Times story, it was because we knew that whatever facts were there were history and that, once established, the Chicago church, "Corporation Sole," and other items of administration could never be the same...
...By "nasty" Wittgenstein meant "that which is difficult to think through" and "that which challenges received views...
...The situation may be one of 'quasi rape,' in which the husband forces intercourse on the wife, thereby contradicting the very meaning of married love...
...To the Editors: As a woman seminary student, I read with interest Abigail McCarthy's article "The Bee in my Bonnet: Relational Woman, Integral Woman" [Apr...
...Early in January Cardinal Cody, then in the hospital, sent a letter to pastors mandating a 40 percent parish coverage plan...
...Here is more of Jone: "Rendering the marriage debt is a grave obligation, especially when the petitioner is in danger of incontinence or would have to make a great sacrifice to overcome temptation...
...Ecumenical efforts would be hurt, particularly with regard to the Anglicans and the Orthodox churches which theologically are quite close to us, if we let it appear that in the Roman Catholic Church married priests do not exist or, at best, are only tolerated...
...Of these 70 are mandatory, 48 voluntary, and the rest difficult to categorize...
...The qualification made one elderly lady comment, "In that case the only problem is what you do with his shoes...
...There is no doubt in my mind that there is a true and noble vocation to celibate priesthood...
...McCarthy's analysis of the problem...
...I offered as an example of a bad sort of Catholic legalism something which I was taught, and which my wife and mother both remembered being taught...
...John 15:12) CONSTANCE BARTON A question of means Manchester, Conn...
...One final point...
...Thus I submit that women have an essential role in priestly formation in just such capacities...
...Hence a response is required...
...The January objections related to what the pastors saw as a failure to consult about the changes, which substituted a mandatory 40 percent plan for a voluntary 50 percent plan...
...one half of the human race perceives the other half as something less than fully human as existing only in relationship to the first half...
...one is in the late sixties...
...Women don't feel the entire responsibility thrust on their shoulders...
...While Jone does not quite command wives to make love to drunks, it does allow only "complete intoxication" as a reason for refusal...
...For a number of years ACP's sprightly journal, Upturn, has delighted the membership, a fact we found out in a poll of members last fall...
...What I wrote was "a drunken or abusive husband...
...If Mr...
...I did mean to say, and I believe that the tone of his citations reinforces the point, that the legalism of our tradition was a bad thing...
...Writers criticize the Catholic teaching on birth control, never bringing up the fact that the IUD is not a contraceptive, but rather an abortifacient...
...I realize that these manuals were written for men who felt that they had to be legislators of a sort, or at least lawyers...
...Her general lack of comprehension is fueled by a petty animus against the " realm of necessity," a scandal my book sets out to challenge...
...Couples begin to take their power of fertility seriously...
...Father Bayer quotes me as saying that there were manuals of moral theology "which said that a woman had a duty to submit sexually to a drunken husband...
...A.E.P...
...World Without War Council Far from moribund Chicago, 111...
...Thus far, however, it seems to be carefully avoiding rather than noticing the presence of women in the seminaries...
...Such avoidance can easily reinforce Ms...
...23] makes a valuable contribution to the discussion of the full personhood of woman, a critical issue just beginning to enter the United States church's consciousness at many levels, including the level of priestly formation...
...This same teaching is found in Liguori himself in the 1750's, in Merkelbach in the 1930's, and in Noldin-Schmidt in the 1940's, the latter probably one of the most influential texts in our century...
...Canovan uncritically celebrates a sphere of publicity without any substantive evaluation of the ends and purposes of that realm...
...Thomas...
Vol. 109 • July 1982 • No. 13
