Correspondence
II II I I Correspondence Ill I The crisis deepens Washington, D.C. To the Editors: Lisa Sowle Cahill uses the word "crisis" many times in her essay ["Morality: The Deepening Crisis,"...
...68r three times...
...Feminists of this more traditional stance tend to have a deep belief in the tightness of God's plan for the world...
...paid, is a new companion to Raissa's Journal, 400 pages, also $13.89...
...But for the sake of mathematical idiots like myself, I wish he would...
...As for those of ascetic bent, anyone following St...
...Christian feminism," by contrast, at 17 January 1986:27least threatens to become a new syncretistic religion, as distant from traditional Christianity as traditional Christianity is from Judaism...
...Write: Sister Miriam Ward...
...Finally, in his review of Common Ground [November 1], Maurice deG...
...Paul...
...I am a feminist, that is, I am in the movement for the full social, political, moral, and religious equality for all women and men...
...the Christian [" 'Feminism' and 'Church,' " October 4...
...p. 17, photo, Pantheon Books...
...Mary's College, Moraga, CA 94575, June 16-20...
...JAMES L. NASH The author replies: Mr...
...To create a so-called feminism that is Christian and a feminism that is secular is to create a lie...
...Even more importantly, she anticipates the "Thy will be done" of the "Our Father" -- our most fundamental prayer and response to God the Father...
...Do I hear someone remark that Christians very often, indeed, fail to honor these tenets...
...So has it always been...
...It's worth reading again...
...Candidates should include a vita, a statement of interest in the position as it relates to their background, and the names, addresses, and telephone nos...
...This tends to be a transcendent God who hands down rules of morality...
...If the church (however defined) is unwilling or unable to repel challenges to its most central traditions, it would seem that its defeat in the lists of history is not only inevitable but deserved...
...Although historically related to the United Church of Christ, Carleton has been for many years a non-sectarian and religiously diverse liberal arts college...
...she believes timely signs should be the point of departure for ethics, rather than "an objective and stable moral order which transcends the relativities of time, place, and culture...
...Women-Church, of which WOC is a part, is working and living out a new ,program, and if it is anything, it is diverse...
...A women's pro-life group was invited to have a display table...
...Son, behold thy mother...
...When the church has spoken out against the arms race and economic inequality, it has not been in terms of the "mortal sins" of individuals, or of absolute moral norms...
...I hope that this will come to be the case more frequently in discussions of sexual ethics and the roles of women in the church...
...My point was rather that Vatican II's commitment to "the Gospel" and "reading the signs of the times" might lead us to envision natural law and the moral order in different ways...
...At the Women's Ordination Conference meeting in October, the sponsorship of Catholics for a Free Choice was welcomed along with Priests for Equality and numerous religious orders and individuals...
...He knows, then, that he is to contemn not the earth but the pursuit of earthly goods as ends in Commonweal: 26themselves...
...It has been in the context of encouraging mutual trust, respect, and cooperation, and with a view to collaboration in the discovery of practical avenues to moral ideals...
...A physicist himself, Herbert gives a lively, comprehensible account of the theoretical and experimental developments which lead to the quantum "facts," including the very disconcerting Bell's Theorem (which supposes signals faster than the speed of light...
...Only marginally does Herbert get into the complexities of "grand unification" theory...
...The rest of us pay more attention to the needs of our children...
...Vatican II, in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), concludes with a section on Mary and her role in the church...
...In addition to conducting its own programs, the office of chaplain works closely with college counseling services, student religious groups, off-campus denominations and programs, and local and national student service projects...
...Anchor/ Doubleday, $16.95, 268 pp...
...or equivalent) and active tie to an historic community of faith...
...She says, "Let it be done to me according to your word...
...Francises among us see the limits of their lordship in the goodness of all God's creatures...
...Open dialogue cannot harm...
...He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty...
...Catholic feminists no other choice than to throw a tea party in Boston Harbor...
...Classified payable with order...
...And he is wholly unlikely to own shares in factories that belch smoke and spew forth effluents in order to manufacture tempting baubles encased enticingly in non-biodegradable plastic bubbles to make the kind of money that will allow him to destroy the habitats of countless birdies and beasties in order to build the shopping mall that will finance his hand of cars, brace of yachts, and covey of snowmobiles...
...On the question of specific moral issues, I agree with Mr...
...Mary arose and "went with haste" to visit her cousin Elizabetfi...
...Without a stable moral order which transcends the relativities of time and place we are at the mercy of expedience: the "expert" technocrats in all fields, from birth control to world hunger...
...Both of these points of view are within the Christian feminist movement...
...One meaning of the word "crisis" is the condition of instability leading to decisive change...
...She has the courage and poise to ask an intelligent and crucial question: "How can this be done, since I know not man...
...paymm must accomptmy cedcr...
...The issues are now in the public, in the press...
...PHILIP E. DEVINE Women's ways Washington, D.C...
...experience of a campus ministry...
...Yet she closes with an appeal to the authorities that...
...I _1 Correspondence I I (Continued from page 2) woman also knows her place in the universe, even if it doesn't fit with contemporary feminist rhetoric: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord...
...Mm4twln Notebooks, Jacques Madtain, 312 pages, $13.89 post...
...When I grocery shop for my family am I a secular mother in the store or am I a Christian buying food...
...On the one hand she sees a conflict between the natural law and the Vatican II - Gaudium et Spes approach...
...what makes a feminist and what does not...
...Either stance is ecologically sound...
...She permits herself to use the vulgar sexist word "macho" to describe the Beirut terrorists, and claims that militarism results from sexual role stereotypes...
...Editors, being divine, are paid to catch this sort of thing...
...COMMONWEAL, 232 Madison Ave., NYC 10016...
...Ford's review of Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas [November 1 ]. Your reviewer said he felt "a little like Milton coming upon Chapman's Homer" and that he read and reread the book "and walked away each time with an even deeper amaze...
...Mary is our model, young and old, men and women, for among the following reasons: Even as a teenager, Mary is not overwhelmed by the presence of an angel of GOd...
...ILLUSTRATIONS: Cover, mortar & pestle from The Handbook of Pictorial Symbols...
...Thus, though he is not too likely to think in terms of Brother Snaildarter and Brother Peregrine Falcon, he is much more likely than most of the rest of us to elect a diet of millet seasoned with dry locusts, and enlivened of a Sunday with wild honey, over a regimen of roast beef and butter-drenched quail under glass...
...Secular feminism is concerned with the position of women in this world...
...LISA SOWLE CAHILL Sinners & saints Waltham, Mass...
...Women's ways of communicating with each other are different from the patriarchy's method of orders from above...
...Faculty: Donald Senior, Carolyn Osiek, Roland Murphy, Bruce Metzger, Reginald Fuller, Joseph Cunneen...
...But Jesus had a special concern for his mother...
...Maybe Maurice deG...
...p. 7, Reay, pp...
...The St...
...Cadeton College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer...
...I am not secular at one moment and Christian at another...
...Do you think deG...
...Twin Circle sent a check to help with scholarships...
...This last claim seems rather farfetched, although it is a popular way to link bourgeois feminism with wider social concerns...
...Commonweal: 2In brief QUANTUM REALITY: BEYOND THE NEW PHYSICS, by Nick Herbert...
...THOMAS M. CURRAN The editors reply: Writers, who are only human, are allowed to err...
...The issues are tough ones today...
...For those who enjoyed (or missed) Fritjof Capra's The Tad of Physics (1975 ) or Gary Zukav' s The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979), and want a nononsense update on the world of quantum physics without entanglements with Eastern metaphysics, I recommend Herbert's book...
...Years ago I knew a sensitive pastor who found himself caught between having to exercise an authoritarian arm as ordered by his bishop and trusting the experience that children should receive communion first and confession later...
...We women prefer to be in a dialogical relationship about such things...
...Ford found himself reading and rereading like Keats confronting Chapman's Homer, not Milton, who was so much a scholar of Greek that he would have eschewed even so elegant a trot...
...the central emphasis in moral teaching at the 1985 extraordinary synod be "exhortation and support" rather than the condemnation of abuses...
...So Galileo got condemned for heresy by the Inquisition...
...There are, I think, certain tensions within her essay which betray an ideological, rather than a concrete, approach to moral matters...
...I agree that "self-identified Christian feminists, and a whole range of Christian women have varying degrees of sympathy" and solidarity on issues of importance to women's lives...
...The abortion discussion is an example of diversity of opinion within the Christian feminist movement...
...He resigned rather than go against his own conscience and convictions...
...prior experience and responsibility in active ministry...
...Pheme Perkins: The Social and Moral World of St...
...Will the deafness of the Vatican hierarchy leave U.S...
...But this poised and courageous young (Continued on page 26) I 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, there is an inconsistency in...
...Box 2057, Ventnor...
...To the Editors: Lisa Sowle Cahill in "Morality: The Deepening Crisis," [September 20] says some modern women prefer the model of Mary Magdalene "repentant sinner" to Mary, the virgin-mother of God, a model "impossible for most of us to fulfill...
...She has faith...
...She quotes approvingly harsh papal statements condemning the arms race and its relationship to world hunger, with a passing complaint that these statements have been consistent, but "ineffective...
...I am sick unto death of hearing that Christianity is to blame for all our ills from housemaid's knee to acid rain...
...To attack the symbol of God as Father is to propose major surgery on the Christian tradition, surgery the tradition is unlikely to survive...
...While almost all the apostles abandoned Jesus, Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, and the other women shared the agony of the crucifixion...
...I do not agree that there are two camps of feminism: Christian and secular...
...There are some Christian feminists who have a world view that urges them to believe that the Supreme Being is the moral center of life...
...It is anticipated that the Chaplain will assume his or her duties on or about July 1, 1986...
...They burned Joan...
...Jesus tells us the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor...
...These rules could have been handed from a Great Stone Carver in the sky directly to Moses...
...Together with official records of graduate and theological education, they should be sent to: Robert H. Edwards, President, Carleton College, One North College St., Northfield, MN 55057...
...He focuses in on the eight (yes, eight) major interpretations of what kind of "reality" -- if any -- stands behind all the fuss...
...My spirituality includes every dimension of my life...
...Ford [November 1] was really thinking of Keats's famous poem "On First Looking into Milton's Lake Comus...
...her vision of church authority...
...To the Editors: Lisa Sowle Cahill uses the word "crisis" many times in her essay ["Morality: The Deepening Crisis," September 20...
...The older, more intellectualist and less historically-conscious understandings have not been fully reconciled, in the teaching of the church, with the impetus of Vatican II...
...it has been a search for such conmlon gnmd as might be discovered ~ Evansdicals and Roman ~ as U~-y each try to be more faithful in their ~xdiet~ to mission...
...LARRY GRADY Either/or New York, N.Y...
...evidence of intellectual vitality and interest in men and women of college age...
...I wish that I read more about both sides of this crisis in Commonweal...
...drawing, Bas., Tachydromos, Greece...
...12208...
...The word, and indeed her essay, betrays an approach to moral questions which seems more interested in the establishment of an ideological position than in the balanced quest for truth and consistency...
...I do not think this has been accomplished...
...Remember the man who refused to look into Galileo's telescope because he feared new knowledge would change the world as he then knew it...
...Microfilm from Voi...
...p. 14, Rothco...
...As a Catholic feminist, I do want "to build solidarity with women everywhere...
...Anyone who does the will God, that person is my brother, and sister, and mother...
...Copyright 9 1986 Commonweal Foundation...
...Such a man is ecologically a paragon...
...I am a human being who experiences life from the perspective of a female human being...
...The patriarchy had better lay down its stones and walk away from this attack...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-330...
...Did "stout Cortez" come upon the Pacific...
...As to your legitimate fear that Rome may dictate...
...33 Buckingham Dr...
...Pmicilmm imlude: I-luvie r'.~m ~ IXqaney Oamao C.~m P.~re I~plW O~i-Memah Jotge Mejia Savage Pinto Ro~o R. S~tt Thomas E Slransky ~tmlN...
...Both the Gospel and prudence suggest the opposite course...
...But, again, she reminds us of the reason for her greatness: "He has regarde d the low estate of his handmaiden . . . . He who is mighty has done great things for me...
...So what else is new...
...Henceforth all generations will call me blessed...
...I think it is a poor word to use in this context, and not just because it has become a rather vulgar journalistic clicht...
...Theology Workshop 22nd Theology Workshop, St...
...Rome is the one forcing litmus tests on church members, not the feminists...
...We did not need Pope John to remind us that men are neither so good nor so evil as their ideologies, though it was nice of him to do so...
...To the Editors: Before the church examines any "excesses of radical secular feminism,"[' 'Feminism & Church," October 4] it should first examine itself for excesses of radical clerical machismo...
...There are other Christian feminists who believe that God has given human beings reason and the ability to control reproduetion and that it is immoral not to do so, especially when these activities will diminish human pain...
...Dualisms & deafness South Laguna, Calif...
...The subtitle, "Beyond the New Physics," is publisher's hype...
...Bibllecd Institute 21 st Biblical Institute, Trinity College, Burlington, VT 05401, June 15-20, 1986...
...Closing down the discussions will...
...Send lmyn-~t with coulmm to: INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MI~IONARY RESK~CH P.O...
...She told Jesus, "They have no wine...
...Commonweal: 28...
...Magi Books, Inc...
...At this particular moment, I do not want to hear any more pronouncements from celibate male authority figures as to how I am to think and feel and believe...
...If loyal dissent is not permitted, and the Vatican hardens its stance, the women will still be there announcing the Good News like they were when the men fled in fear...
...She is sensitive to others' needs...
...Cahill complains about the demand for confortuity which comes from the center, yet her article at times seems to imply that she herself is tired of the dissonance within the church...
...To the Editors: I was distracted while reading Maurice deG...
...26 [3 3 yrs...
...Required qualifications: formal theological education (M.Div...
...b) As Homer wrote, even worthy Horace sometimes nods...
...Jesus "is set for the fall and rise of many.., a sign that is spoken against...
...That is a concern I share...
...Though no more immune to folly than any other human group, secular feminists are unlikely to lay profane hands upon the altar, if only because the altar and what it represents are not important to them...
...Nash's apparent impression that I reject the concept of "natural law" and the traditional Catholic commitment to an objective moral order...
...She also believes that the arms race and international economic injustice -- as opposed to sexual ethics -- are the most serious moral issues facing the world, and thus the church...
...Certainly no good feminist women will tolerate being stoned one minute and showered with praise the next...
...Or, how many Christian angels can dance on the end of a secular pin...
...What is all this talk in your editorial about the secular vs...
...We are still debating various lines of defense: (a) We were just trying to see if you were paying attention...
...Surely the remedy is not less Christianity, but more...
...It is certainly true that the church is very divided on many moral issues...
...The domination of women by patriarchical, hierarchical structures oppresses and is death-dealing to women who are on the bottom absorbing all the excess weight of an outdated, sinful structure...
...There is no false humility in Mary...
...It says the faithful "turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth in the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues...
...I yr...
...Did Milton come upon Chapman's Homer...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, Ohio 44691...
...S14 [] 2 yrs...
...If Rome can dialogue with descendants of Martin Luther and Henry VIII, why not its own descendants of Mary...
...To the Editors: Is a dualistic mind-set sneaking up on us again...
...I regret Mr...
...Mary highlights the Lord's preferential option for the poor...
...MARIAN BURKHART Deja vu Rockville Centre, N.Y...
...John's Lord, that 'same Lord who made the world and saw it to be good...
...To the Editors: James McCue' s review of The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Promise of Christian Theology by A. Paul Santmire [October 4] recalled one item in the quite large file of letters that I never got around to writing to the New York Times which editorialized upon the subject some years ago...
...c) Who's Keats to complain...
...John is serving St...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...NJ 0941~ USA Encl~d is my check for new s ~ m and free ~ on "'Evangelical-Roman Czholic I ~ o . Mission...
...This sounds like an appeal to be accommodating to those in the church -Cahill's friends -- but unyielding to those who appear to be outside -Cahill's enemies...
...Reproductive choice needs to be discussed...
...To the Editors: Commonwears editorial [" 'Feminism' and 'Church,' " October 4] is guilty of the most common Christian fallacy: assuming that the spiritual is necessarily to be preferred to the fleshy...
...All we have to do is to take note of the limited liberality of liberals and ask exactly what conservatives are out to conserve...
...Unlike her cousin's husband, the priest Zechariah, serving in the great temple in Jerusalem, Mary believes the angel of the Lord...
...As women, we have no female representation in the authority structure of the institution...
...Desired qualifications: although the Chap lain does not hold a faculty appointment, a scholarly degree, MA or Ph.D., would enhance likelihood of part-time teaching in and professional ties to an academic department...
...Setting aside the special issues raised by the problem of abortion, those who think secular feminists wrongheaded can rest secure in the conviction that nature is perfectly capable of taking care of herself...
...That statement and its context signifies a somewhat feminist reading of the Gospels which is short of the mark...
...Later Jesus tells us how we can become close to him like his mother because she does the will of God...
...Away with neo-platonic iconography that places"secular" on the bottom and "spiritual" on the top, right under God...
...But it is not at all certain that the church is now at a turning point, or a crossroads -which is what a "crisis" implies...
...It is the same utilitarian thinking which counsels for divorce and argues that nuclear deterrence is the most "realistic" policy...
...Nash's suggestion that the church should aim for consistency...
...But Mary knows there are times to celebrate, to keep the party going as at the wedding feast at Cana...
...13 & 14, Valerry...
...37 Name,,, Address 7ap cam~ FREE FO~TA(JE W~.DWIDE / OFFER EXP[R~ 4-30.86 temological and, implicitly, ontological: what does the new physics tell us about reality...
...In short, the author's interest is epis1 FREE...
...Cloud, Minn...
...Finally, however, she does argue that sexual ethics and the status of women in the church are connected to the larger social issues...
...Timothy McCarthy...
...We will make our own decisions as to who is feminist and who is not...
...It is true that the opening of Genesis makes human beings lords of creation, but our lordship is limited by the context and the terms in which it is given...
...Write...
...We are lords subject to and answerable to the Lord himself, who looked at the world he had made and called it good...
...There is a deeper "crisis" in her argument, if crisis is used iTa the literary sense of the point at which hostile elements are most tensely opposed...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...Just kidding...
...College Chaplain Wanted Carleton College seeks as Chaplain a man or woman who is committed to a ministry in higher education...
...Furthermore, we hold our estate, not in fee simple, but in trust for our children and our children's children...
...We are not marching in lock-step to anyone's orders, but trying to reflect upon our own experiences from which to discern the call of God, and to celebrate that...
...JAMES G. MURRAY Rotuns to the source Auburn, Ala...
...RUTH McDONOUGH FITZPATRICK Women's Ordination Conference I Classified II RATES: 75r a word, one time...
...They will not be easily answered by dogmas from Rome...
...It is the interconnection between sexual moral norms and social justice which shows that there can be no conflict between the natural law and reading the signs of the times...
...EILEEN O'BRIEN MERCHANT Feminist folly St...
...Ford could pass on his source so that I can add it to my Keats file...
...Nash's criticisms of my article represent his genuine concern for the welfare of the church and the integrity of theology...
...Women are a multi-cultural people.Women acknowledge a great diversity of viewpoints among themselves...
...From the beginning, Mary knew there would be a sign of contradiction in following her child...
...For centuries, we women have talked with each other about birth control, sterilization, and abortion by our hearths, around our kitchen tables, and in later ages, at our coffee breaks...
...64r six times...
...For this spocial ~fer...
...Nominations and applications should be received by January 31...
...D.T...
...A sword will pierce through your own soul...
...of three references...
...1~_ "_~_1 Report: noman Catholk over a mi(d of ~ven ym~s, 1977-19~1, ut Venice, Camlmktge, and Lan~mar~e, Fr~ee...
...I didn't know Milton felt that way...
...The author's own critically realist bias is forthright, but the other verdicts are given fair and accurate hearing...
...The Chaplain reports to the President and to a Committee on Religious Affairs composed of faculty, student, and administrative members...
...Albany, N.Y...
Vol. 113 • January 1986 • No. 1
