Correspondence
Correspondence ! I Breaking stereotypes Philadelphia, Pa. To the Editors: Many, many thanks to you and to Sidney and Daniel Callahan for "Breaking Through the Stereotypes," [ October 5]....
...Durkin chides me for ignoring the book's "discussion of women, sexuality, and marriage," and mischievously indulges in speculation as to the etiology of such supposed "lack of interest.'" In point of fact, the review, when enumerating the book's concerns, mentioned "the sacramentality of sexuality" and "the appreciation of woman as analog of God...
...She is also a public figure...
...We had an interesting visit with the elderly bishop [of Cork], but I'm afraid that as a woman, a liberal, and an American Catholic, my views and those of the bishop are very, very far apart...
...This will be her diary, not the ambassador's...
...Imbelli belittles Greeley and Durkin's suggestions for positive action...
...Priesthood Desire Priesthood...
...Part of the problem reappears in Ms...
...I am, however, put in mind of those folk who find the poems of Joyce Kilmer religiously uplifting...
...24, 33...
...This thoughtful commentary by a dispassionate observer provides enlightening background for the contemporary debate over the role of religion in American life...
...but, if he means that we do not recognize the tragic possibilities of human existence, then he has misunderstood what we are about...
...Because we have not used the accepted liberation theology critique of culture, this does not mean that we ignore the flaws of the culture...
...Besides the park's free-wandering deer, the Shannons' only neighbors are the papal nuncio and the president of Ireland...
...Our task was to explore the storytelling trajectory...
...or call collect (301) 484-2250...
...Greeley and Durkin have managed to transform Rahner's theological insights into a program for action based on the sacramental nature of the Catholic experience...
...Imbelli mentions it only within the context of judging the entire work unworthy of a $16.95 expenditure...
...63r six times...
...Shannon to be either bland or uninvolved...
...Rahner's God operafes in and through daily life, allowing us to attain full personhood and wholeness through, not despite, the world...
...1-800-633-2252, Father Nigro, Gonzaga University, Spokane 99258...
...However, we explicitly stated our support of the doctrines of the church and of the centrality of Christ as the sacrament of God and of the church as the sacrament of Christ (pp...
...Andrew M. Greeley and Mary G. Durkin are Irish Americans...
...Completed B.A...
...Over 30...
...I, however, can manage only one lover...
...We should respect their right to understand the Catholic experience from their own perspective...
...I will have fun...
...Box 5719, Baltimore, MD 21208...
...or call, Days: 919-8210350 - - Evenings: 919-851-7949...
...The charge of "Rotarian optimism" is a fit counterpart to Sheehan's simpleminded village-atheist agnosticism which I hope and pray does not constitute the true description of the state of the question...
...if he has companionship as our friend, we would consider ourselves fortunate...
...Founded to ransom slaves, our small community of men have grounded our lives and our work of liberation in fraternity, prayer, and the Bible for over 800 years...
...F l u t e s Bamboo flutes, recordings...
...The mother of three growing sons who enliven these pages, she is an ardent feminist...
...Bernardin considers the topic a "critically important subject...
...p. 690, Lupus, Stage, 1935...
...Somehow, Father Imbelli manages to make nostalgia and aspiration seem dirty words, without realizing that hope-fullness and faith-fullness coupled with thoughtful respect for tradition are among the most essential characteristics of Catholic Christianity...
...The author r e p l i e s Princeton, N.J...
...And, lest Mayor Washington take umbrage, I am a veritable celebrant of the nation's second city...
...Deerfield, the ambassador's residence, is a white Monticello arising in Dublin's great Phoenix Park...
...I appreciate the basic spirit of hope which pervades the work...
...Shannon and her book...
...Please contact Rev...
...In addition, methodological criticisms should, at least, present an accurate account of the book's premise...
...Secondly, since our work is a work on imagination, we maintain that the story which has been paradigmatic for forming a Catholic sensibility has been the Christmas story which, as we spell out, includes within it the realization of the cross and of the triumph of the resurrection (pp...
...So what...
...Mrs...
...If this be considered romantic and foolish, so be it...
...And she does have fun...
...rather we recognized the challenge to bring the "storytelling (experience) trajectory and theological trajectory back together" as they undoubtedly were in the times when the Catholic sensibility flourished (p...
...How Ms...
...wife of the American ambassador...
...For over a thousand years the official church has allowed Neo-Platonic, Gnostic, and Manichean wodd and flesh negation to obscure the message of life and world affirmation contained in the Christian understanding of Christ as homoousios, fully God and fully human...
...As for the third, marriage, I can only say that I took for granted the author's wholehearted commitment to this sacrament of the church she is eager to save...
...There is a touch of Masterpiece Theatre here...
...ROBERT IMBELLI i ~ - I ! ! 1 ~ ! ~ l l - I l l GOD IN AMERICA Religion and Politics in t h e United States Furio Colombo...
...66r three times...
...Who could fault someone whose last ambassadorial act was to plant a tree, a copper beech at that...
...It seems little more than a barely disguised hatchet job and a glaring example of the unfortunate habit of Catholic reviewers to allow namecalling and mode of questioning to simulate genuine criticism...
...Our claim has nothing to do with accepting or rejecting the cross/resurrection as the identitydefining narrative of the Christian faith...
...The Catholic emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity demands, as we point out, that microstructures be reformed, not destroyed (pp...
...She opens her heart and her house not only to the glittering, but to itinerants, the handicapped, the elderly...
...COMMONWEAL, 232 Madison Ave., NYC 10016...
...I hope that it will live and thrive and grow and watch over this house and these gardens...
...JOHN M. SCOTT Imagination & story Park Ridge, I11...
...Also, we did not canonize experience...
...In conclusion, Father Imbelli's tasteless and chauvinistic remark about the book's dedication set the tone for what was undoubtedly meant to be an insulting review...
...I am an admirer of the Irish-American experience...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...After she appeared on Irish television's "Late, Late Show," Elizabeth Shannon, the wife of William V. Shannon, President Carter's ambassador to Ireland, noted in her diary: "My appearance was noncontroversial and bland...
...This lack of interest is not untypical of many of the church's celibate clergy, which has led to a goodly number of the problems we refer to in the book...
...While the article reveals that the values each side of the abortion issue holds are lifeaffirming, morally responsible, and reflective of deep concerns for the unprotected and for the freedom of moral choice in a pluralistic society, no program or legislation emerges that will do justice to all the concerns...
...I do not begrudge Ms...
...a costliness of which the book gives little indication and thus lends itself to H. Richard Niebuhr's classic indictment of liberal story-telling: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross...
...While Easter has been the elite Catholic feast (one which appeals to those who have been most concerned with the theological trajectory), Christmas has had the most popular appeal because the imaginations of the young (and of those who are young at heart) are stirred more easily by the birth of a child (with which they are familiar) than by a resurrection...
...To the Editors: I do not disagree with a book reviewer's right to have a negative opinion regarding a book (even when I am co-author of the book), but I do think that his/her criticism should be factually correct...
...My own background is Austrian, surely far removed from the Greeleys' Chicago experience...
...208 pp,, $18,00 Send check or money order to Dept...
...Durkin's letter when she protests that "our book deals with imagination and story, not with theology and certainly not with christology...
...She has nightmares over "the violence...
...PATRICK JORDAN Correspondence (Continued from page 674) message, transforming and being transformed in the process, without losing sight of a basic unity underlying the apparent multiplicity and variety...
...The article is so powerful in helping both sides understand one another and what is at stake that I hope it and the Callahans' book reach many persons...
...And again, Imbelli refuses to take them seriously...
...Box 273 Mountainview, HI 96771...
...She notes an Irishman's manner of proposal: "Will ye be buried with my folks...
...Interested in learning more about becoming a priest in the Missionary Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina...
...In addition, throughout the book we implicitly refer to a christological basis for our work (see for example the reference to Jesus and the womanliness of God, and Jesus and women in Chapter 8...
...This analogical imagination has perversely continued to delight in happy endings, understanding with intuitive wisdom that the essence of Christianity (in keeping with its Hebraic roots) consists in recognizing God as passionately and implacably loving, lurking anywhere and everywhere, disclosing Himself/Herself through the people, objects, and events of the world...
...Bill Axe, The Trinitarian Friars, P.O...
...Copyright O 1984 Commonweal Foundation...
...Shannon's reflections touch all the bases of Irish social problems - - women, work, welfare, wine...
...Under the circumstances, I kept my views tO myself and praised the tea...
...Commonweal: 674 narrative flaws, wooden characters, and lack of eloquence that would prevent Prince of Peace from becoming a best seller...
...Again Greeley and his "theological sibling" touch a raw nerve of vital concern to the Commonweal: 696 well-being of twentieth-century Catholicism...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...As an old Swiss Calvinist once told me, upon being apprised of my desire to become a Catholic priest: "Chacun (or une) d son goat...
...Translated by Kristin Jarrat...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...Jack Durkin is friend to both of us and lover of one of us...
...Her book has such a reach...
...48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster Ohio 44691...
...Shafer the good news she claims to have gleaned from the Greeley-Durkin joint venture...
...Illustrations: Cover, John Hume & British troops, early 1970s...
...JN at the address below, including $2.00 per order for postage and handling...
...The appreciation of women as analog of God, while firmly grounded in New Testament (and some Old Testament) evidence and kept alive in much of our mystical and artistic tradition, has been far too long overshadowed by the Augustinian distrust of femininity...
...Thus I explicitly refer to two of the three topics supposedly anathema to "many of the church's celibate clergy...
...John A. Wall, Vocations Director, 300 Cardinal Gibbons Dr., Raleigh, North Carolina 27606...
...Shannon sets down some rules for her tenure: " I will not leave Ireland known merely as 'the American ambassador's wife.' I will not complain about the weather...
...How to Save the Catholic Church makes a convincing case for developing positive models of the sacramentality and asceticism of sexuality, a position supported by Cardinal Bemardin in his introductory remarks to Mary G. Durkin's Feast of Love: Pope John Paul H on Human Intimacy and Marital Intimacy: A Catholic Perspective...
...cover, Bus., Tachydromos...
...abortion, and the morality of nuclear arms are all highly visible--and highly volatile--priorities on our national agenda, In God in America, Furio Colombo asks: will the fine line between church and state survive this new era of religious involvement in moral judgement and political affairs...
...rather we hold that at the level of imagination the hopefulness of the Christmas story has been a uniquely Catholic perspective (Chapter 5...
...First of all, our book deals with imagination and story, not with theology and certainly not with christology...
...In her diary, the restraints are more removed...
...That we are "stirred more easily by the birth of a child" than by cross/ resurrection (cross and resurrection being the inseparable climax of the Christian story), only indicates that the Catholic Christian people are made not born and must undergo a transforming rebirth if we are to retell our foundational story faithfully...
...INGRID H. SHAFER, Ph.D...
...p. 679, John & Pat Hume, photos by Willie Carson, Derry...
...Thus, while I was not disturbed by Father Robert Imbelli's negative advice on whether or not to buy How to Save the Catholic Church [October 19], I find it important to correct several of his misrepresentations of our position (whether this was done intentionally or the result of careless reading, I cannot say, but that they are misrepresentations should be obvious to any reader of the book...
...It saddens me to see a book, that might have made a contribution to a crucial discussion and discernment, so marred both in style and in theological substance...
...214-224...
...Yet, significantly, it is also amazingly close...
...The review, in speaking of the books under consideration (yes, there was a second), said: "both books breathe the same bracing air of the Chicago Irish Catholic subculture . . . . "Now my dictionary defines " b r a c i n g " as "strengthening...
...Surely not all of us have lost sight of the gospels as "good news" in our fashionable eagerness to embrace Kierkegaardian despair...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mi...
...Shafer's gross misstatement of it...
...To the Editors: In the review to which Mary Durkin and Ingrid Shafer take exception, I wrote, apropos of How to Save the Catholic Church, that it "obviously proceeds from a genuine concern, even passion, for the Catholic enterprise...
...That Father Imbelli ignores our discussion of women, sexuality, and marriage might perhaps reflect his lack of interest in thesetopics...
...I have no problem appreciating their ability to get to the core of things and suspect that even many New Yorkers might agree with me...
...Write Fr...
...I just talked about what it is like to be the Classified RATES: 70r a word, one time...
...Her untenable dichotomy is soon apparent in her reference to "a christological basis for our work...
...My critique of the book, then, was not of its intention, nor of its occasional insights (which I also enumerated), but of its poor execution...
...Classified payable with order...
...Since its beginnings, Catholicism has shown a remarkable capacity for adapting to a variety of cultural environments,, allowing already existing insights to mingle with a radically new (Continued on page 696) 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...
...Finally, Ms...
...Prayer in public schools, capital punishment, the debate over...
...This requirement has little to do, immediately, with the dogmas of Chalcedon, and everything to do with the plot of the stories told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the splendidly catholic imaginings of Paul...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-330...
...My point in the review was that the Catholic imagination and story must, indeed, be guided by a Christo-logic, lest comedy become fairy tale and imagination fantasy...
...Shafer could distort that into making "nostalgia and aspiration seem dirty words" is beyond my fantasy, much less imagination...
...77-78...
...p. 683, Arnold Wiles...
...Surely Imbelli does not mean to imply that only Irish Catholics are sexual beings...
...From her diary, one would question whether it is possible for Mrs...
...Instead of deepening the gulf between largely abstract notions of theological Catholic self-reflection and popular communal self-experience, Greeley and Durkin have built a bridge between the two extremes based on the foundations of the one constant in Catholic tradition: the analogical imagination...
...One cannot help liking this Mrs...
...inviogorating...
...II I In brief I UP IN THE PARK: THE DIARY OF THE WIFE OF THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO IRELAND, 1977-1981, by Elizabeth Shannon, Atheneum, $17.95, 358 pp...
...Nor is the Catholic challenge to a married life of hopeful intimacy seen as either easy or supported by our culture (Chapter 9...
...Finally, I am not sure what Father Imbelli means by "some acute sense of the costliness of grace and its frequently countercultural implications...
...What a shame...
...more likely, it will be its one principal virtue: too much depressing and painful history about the Vietnam war, served up too plainly -- and, in that case alone, all too true...
...Also, our claim that the Catholic sensibility calls us to recognize that sexuality is a means of discovering God is not supported by our culture (Chapter 7...
...However, one egregious insinuation must not pass unchallenged (both for the sake of my personal integrity aad for the reassurance of my ecclesiastical superiors...
...R e l i g i o u s Community Considering Religious Life...
...This is part of what I meant by a "sense of the costliness of grace...
...How to Save the Catholic Church constitutes the practical application of Karl Rahner's insistence on God's universal salvific will...
...MARY G. DURKIN Glaring example Chickasha, Okla...
...To the Editors: I beg to disagree with Robert Imbelli's patronizing and superficial analysis of the Greeley/Durkin collaboration How to Save the Catholic Church [ October 19...
...I can only hope that shallow reviews such as Imbelli's will not succeed in allowing their voices to go unheeded in the wilderness...
...29...
...Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...I, ~]P COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 136 South Broadway, Irvington, NY 10533 e l i _ i R R B B ~ i B ' i i _ I a I 14 December 1984:697...
...an admitted supposition on my part which the concluding confession in her letter now shows to have been abundantly warranted...
...Nothing short of reproduction of the entire review could possibly counter Ms...
Vol. 111 • December 1984 • No. 22
