Correspondence
BARNARD, SYLVANIA & KIWOR, (BRO.) STAN & HALPIN, EDWARD & O'DONOVAN, (REV.) LEO J. & NORMAN, ANN & Piehl, Mel & Burris, Keith C.
Correspondence Efforts of their own Albany, N.Y. To the Editors: I would like to comment on Jean Elshtain's review of Elizabeth Janeway's Cross Sections [June 3]. Elsh-tain and Janeway both miss...
...It is getting to be embarrassing being an American Catholic...
...After the pope, Springsteen is the person I'd most like to meet...
...Her original program in Toronto, founded in June, 1934, was actually called Catholic Worker House, with Friendship House as the "local" name...
...We are quite willing to lift our eyes, as Ms...
...His music expresses the many broken hopes and dreams of working-class people...
...I hope he reads this...
...Ambiguity is strength Park Ridge, 111...
...It surely will be if his songs continue to be written with the (Continued on page 508) Correspondence (Continued from page 482) truth and sincerity that they have so far expressed...
...Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...The Toronto House closed in 1936 because of opposition, and when de Hueck re-established the work in Harlem in 1938 the Catholic Worker connection was broken...
...To the Editors: Thank you for the timely and sensitive essay on Yves Congar by Joseph A. Komonchak [July 15...
...The point is that not all women are "cared for," and very few women are "cared for" throughout the seventy-odd years of an American woman's life...
...The imagery of his song "Factory" captures the pain in the so-called American dream...
...Percy's book does not "dismiss" the "human enterprise," but envisions its reconstitution and regeneration...
...I was struck by the stark contrast in cover stories: The Pope in 77V/?, Sister Mary Mansour in Commonweal...
...The most renowned journal of American Catholic opinion seems to think so...
...Why don't you run a symposium on Congar's / Believe in the Holy Spirit...
...Although perhaps not generally known, even by adherents of the two movements, it is a fact that de Hueck's efforts began as part of the Catholic Worker...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Sorry...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...He speculated that if the U.S.A...
...Giving retreats to young people I've come to see that Springsteen does articulate for many a search for (religious) meaning and identity - seeking a father, trying to find roots in this sad, but hope-filled "promised land...
...Our current national policy is based on the assumption that superior nuclear power not only deters physical attack but deters political aggression...
...Copyright © 1983 Commonweal Publishing Co...
...Surely it deserves serious attention culturally as "well as theologically...
...And if Germany did resist with inferior conventional arms, would they not pay a horrible price in many thousands of civilian and military deaths, in the destruction of cities, and in the ride of the four horsemen...
...It's one of those "did we read the same book" instances, but I'm so amazed at the gap between my own reading of Percy and Clecak's, that I feel I must offer your readers a second opinion...
...Thanks to Bruce, rock-and-roll Heaven is being purified...
...but before she gets any more embarrassed about being an American Catholic, perhaps she should focus her own...
...REV...
...But I had not yet read the book...
...knew that Japan had possessed an atomic bomb and the means to deliver it we would not have bombed Hiroshima...
...An hour's study, however, will pull a "B + " up to an "A" in history class anytime...
...p. 487, Dennis Renault, Sacramento Bee...
...If any rock and roll musician is specifically "Catholic," Springsteen is...
...There's humor in Springsteen's music too, I think...
...TNR, a secular journal, in an issue dated just one day later, sees something else: In the pope's "visitation" to Poland, "the centuries since 1789 seemed suddenly restored to the centuries before it...
...Many of his songs express a deep religious searching, a restless yearning for God...
...His roots are there...
...Ninety-nine percent of the letter is concerned with means, the end being the avoidance of nuclear war...
...I wonder if he knows that his journey in the "darkness" is itself a path to Light...
...One cannot protect one's children from emotional pain, but one wants to assure them that their own efforts will bring them personal comfort and an opportunity to help and nurture others, whether they are loved or "cared for" in a family situation or not...
...MEL PIEHL Valparaiso University Catholic rock...
...Shelter Island, N.Y...
...SYLVANIA BARNARD CW offshoot Valparaiso, Ind...
...I guess driving down the Jersey Turnpike can be a road toward salvation...
...The principle which all Catholics can accept is that nuclear war is immoral and unacceptable under any circumstances...
...Where TNR finds poetry and an historical sea-change, Commonweal is mired in legalisms and banality...
...His is an incarnational spirituality...
...But she may be a little too quick in projecting her frustration onto others...
...Perception is reality...
...The New Jersey Turnpike is infrequently considered to have cosmic dimensions...
...Does it really matter, in the real world, just who is the Social Services Director of the State of Michigan...
...Let us suppose that Russia, with overwhelming conventional military supremacy, attempts to blackmail Germany, by threatening to invade if they do not assent to blackmail...
...The music of Bruce Springsteen is serious and far from superficial...
...John Garvey's views to the contrary, the ambiguity is a strength for it leaves room for rational disagreement and discussion...
...This is my father's song, I imagine Springsteen's father's too...
...Would they persist if Germany threatened nuclear retaliation if invaded...
...48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Micro-Photo Division, Old Mansfield Road, Wooster Ohio 44691...
...And I think he hopes for little from politics...
...This premise is valid only if one assumes that under certain provocative circumstances the superiority will be used as a threat...
...Norman is not alone in having been pained by Catholics whose interest in intra-church conflicts makes them lose all perspective on the church's role in the world...
...A Bruce Springsteen concert is always a celebration of promises and disappointments, the struggles and joys of our journey...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...In other words, it is not dogmatic...
...Norman had been less careless in her reading and less hasty in her judgment, she might have noticed that the July 15 issue of Commonweal, like the parallel issue of The New Republic, featured a cover story and a lead editorial on the pope's visit to Poland...
...Parenting is certainly one such activity, but you cannot apply for a job as a parent in the New York Times employment columns or assert your right to be "cared for," because you have a 3.8 cum laude when you get your B.A...
...To the Editors: Unlike John Garvey ["The Ambiguous Pastoral," May 6], I am not one of "those who will be disappointed in the watered-down draft of the pastoral letter...
...If one adopts the bishops' position and informs the enemy that under no circumstances will we initiate nuclear war we are inviting brinkmanship...
...Newport Beach, Cal...
...Makletzoff is quite right that Day and De Hueck were each strong individuals with an independent social vision, but it is historically accurate to say that Friendship House began as a branch or offshoot of the Catholic Worker...
...ANN NORMAN The editors reply: Ms...
...The song many people have sung...
...Whatever the importance of the Mansour story - and we persist in believing it important - the fact remains that this story appeared in the June 17 issue of Commonweal...
...It is angry...
...It would aid the discussion if we could all agree on the premise and debate the means as a matter of judgment...
...it gave me great pleasure...
...Bruce Springsteen (and his music) shares a little light with us...
...If we can talk of "Catholic rock and roll" this is the closest we've come...
...Illustrations: Cover, pp...
...In fact, I wish I had written it, being a Springsteen fan for many years...
...Lift your eyes, Commonweal...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mi...
...495,497, Fritz Eichen-berg, with permission...
...Would Russia be encouraged if they believed German leadership was committed to the principle of not initiating nuclear war under any circumstances...
...It is thought-provoking and difficult and experimental...
...STAN KIWOR, C.P...
...A second opinion Washington, Pa...
...Cosmos is not mean-spirited or supercilious...
...It is ironic, if not comic, that at the very moment of highest Catholic impact upon the imagination of twentieth century man, the Catholics don't seem to notice...
...Like getting good grades and participating in worthwhile extra-curricular activities...
...middle age, one realizes this more keenly...
...She and her friends have already discovered that all the tricks in Seventeen will not get a particular boy to call at a particular time...
...And judgment is contingent on experience as well as moral rectitude...
...Lost in the Cosmos is a splendid book...
...To the Editors: When I read Peter Clecak's review of Lost in the Cosmos [June 17], it seemed to me odd...
...But it also seems clear that it is precisely by people and through religion that he does see redemption or the possibility of it...
...Having acknowledged the validity of the principle, we can debate the strategy of how best to achieve the goal...
...And here we get into the area of strategy, and therefore judgment...
...I have now read it, and re-read Clecak's review...
...p. 491, Bas., Tachydromos, Greece...
...Elsh-tain and Janeway both miss the point in their opposite responses to the woman who wants "not to be equal, but to be cared for...
...What Elshtain calls "the male world of competition and achievement" is actually an easier world in which to get at least reasonable rewards than the intensely competitive world of seeking sexual and marital prizes...
...In short, it was printed and mailed to subscribers before the pope even left for Poland...
...As one reaches Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...To the Editors: In a letter to the editors Ann Harrigan Makletzoff objects to the statements in my book Breaking Bread that Catherine de Hueck's Friendship House movement was an offshoot of the Catholic Worker [July 15...
...To the Editors: Coincidentally, I happened upon the July 17th issue of Commonweal immediately after reading the July 18th issue of The New Republic...
...EDWARD HALPIN Debt to Congar Cambridge, Mass...
...Letters of not more than 250 or 300 words naturally have a better chance of being published...
...When I look at my fourteen-year-old daughter, I know that I have no way to assure her being "cared for" for the next sixty years, despite all her friends and dates...
...It seems to me manifestly obtuse to say that "Percy finds no redeeming value in people, politics, culture, or for the most part, religion...
...To the Editors: I was delighted to read Frank McConnell's article, "A Rock Poet-From Fitzgerald to Springsteen," [Aug...
...The Equal Rights Act means to me that my daughter would be able to feel assured of a comfortable and productive life as a result of doing things within her own control...
...When I tell her to do her Latin or geometry, it is with the hope that this will lead to one or another good college and that when she finishes, she will have an opportunity to use her education in some productive way...
...It matters not that we would not initiate nuclear war, it is the uncertainty in the minds of the enemy that is a bargaining chip...
...No songwriter portrays a sense of American Catholicism, the feelings of its young people, as Springsteen does...
...KEITH C. BURRIS Lift up your eyes...
...The case of Sister Mansour, however interesting, is hardly of earth-shaking importance...
...BRO...
...Bishop O'Connor, a practical leader, made a shrewd observation...
...If Ms...
...LEO J. O'DONOVAN, S.J...
...De Hueck at that time considered herself part of Day's movement, and wrote the New York CW for support in establishing her venture...
...Indeed, we all owe Father Congar more than we can say, and to forget our debt would be as unfortunate as to overlook his most recent writing...
...Charles de Gaulle maintained that a nation needed only sufficient nuclear power to inflict devastating retaliation to be able to deter aggression...
...I also thought of writing an article but thought no Catholic periodical would take a rock singer seriously...
...Norman advises...
...He certainly is raging against much in contemporary culture...
Vol. 110 • September 1983 • No. 16
