Correspondence
Ferkiss, Victor & Cunningham, Lawrence S. & KIRCHNER, LOUIS D. & LONERGAN, SISTER ANNE & Chapin, Jim
CORRESPONDENCE
Stolen phrases
New York, N.Y.
To the Editors: John Garvey ["Creeping Dimness," October 21] unwittingly illustrated his own point when he attributed to Mort Sahl the observation that...
...Second...
...May its letters to the editors be a little more pugnacious...
...And should not one also abandon the Republican party because its principal leader, Ronald Reagan, became one of the first government officials to sign a bill permitting abortion: as governor of California...
...This also suggests that Garvey may have the wrong villain...
...The right to take life belongs to God whether it be the life of the unborn or the life of the sinner...
...Finally, I did not call Berry "sanguine" or talk about "a dawning ecological age...
...I find it incredi-(Continued on page 696) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 674) ble-after the Brundtland Report, the World Conference on the changing atmosphere (Toronto...
...Berry is not sanguine...
...In point of fact...
...There are other points that might be added to his balanced thinking...
...June 1988) attended by 350 scientists in remarkable agreement, the discoveries about the ozone layer and the fragility of the oceans-to call the Club of Rome appeals "apocalyptic" in this dismissive way...
...He attributes the decline to the effects of TV, but since Adams saw the same process in operation more than a century ago, Garvey surely cannot be entirely correct...
...Commonweal articles are well-balanced...
...Cunningham calls Berry "sanguine" about a dawning ecological age...
...VICTOR FERKISS Dismissing Berry...
...However, there are two points of clarification 1 think are important...
...he is concerned about the long-term survival of the human species, as anyone who has been reading this year's news might well be...
...Our country under its present Republican administration defends the death penalty for sinners, even when they are fifteen-year-old juveniles...
...and dismisses "some of the more apocalyptic pronunciamentos like those of the Club of Rome reports (cited with approval by Berry...
...LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM...
...Ironically, the very same day the news came that Catholics United for the Faith (CUF)- through its errand-boy Cardinal Ratzin-ger-had silenced theologian Matthew Fox...
...Berry notes strengths and weaknesses in many movements and causes, as well as Teilhard's anti-ecological bias...
...Our government sells arms to terrorists in Iran and then uses the profits to send military supplies to mercenaries who blow up and murder civilians in Nicaragua, including especially priests and lay Catholic leaders, teachers, and health workers...
...I am gratified by Lawrence Cunningham's review of Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology [October 21...
...CORRESPONDENCE Stolen phrases New York, N.Y...
...To the Editors: It was with great interest that I read Lawrence Cunningham's review of Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology [October 21], especially his remark that unlike Chardin, Berry had nothing to fear from censorship...
...If one leaves the Democratic party because its platform includes freedom of reproductive choice, perhaps one must also give up citizenship in a country where the Supreme Court legalizes abortion...
...Berry has always kept a lower profile...
...Should all of us Catholics who believe that abortion is homicide of the unborn be forced to surrender our right and neglect our duty to vote...
...Simple...
...If anything, Berry is a bit further from the traditional theological mainstream than Fox...
...SISTER ANNE LONERGAN The author replies: If Sister Lonergan reads me as describing Berry as a "hopeless romantic," she misread me...
...Port Burwell...
...Actually both Fox and Berry are saying the same thing, something which needs to be said, i.e., our concentration on redemption has led us to downgrade interest in creation, which is a major reason the world is on the verge of ecological catastrophe...
...The review could be read as implying that Berry is a "hopeless romantic" about New Age movements, especially the "Greens...
...Should we vote for those who support drug dealers like Noriega who either directly or indirectly are taking innocent lives...
...LOUIS D. KIRCHNER Creation & catastrophe Chevy Chase, Md...
...Why take after Fox first...
...In these circumstances it is increasingly difficult to deny the argument of both Fox and Berry, that the church seems determined to become increasingly irrelevant to the most pressing problems of the human race...
...JIM CHAPIN Force of logic Stamford, Conn...
...Ontario To the Editors: As any editor would be...
...To the Editors: John Garvey ["Creeping Dimness," October 21] unwittingly illustrated his own point when he attributed to Mort Sahl the observation that the history of the American presidency is a disproof of the theory of evolution...
...Sahl "stole" the line from Henry Adams: "'The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant, was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin" (The Education of Henry Adams...
...Lighten up...
...If she thinks that the urgent concerns of scientists can be called apocalyptic or that their findings sound like the language of the Club of Rome then we simply read the news with different spectacles...
...To the Editors: A vote of thanks must go to Commonweal for bringing us David R. Carlin, Jr.'s mature and intelligent analysis of the problems facing Catholics in the world of politics or at the voting booth regarding the abortion issue ["It's My Party," October 7...
...Who can doubt that sometime in the relatively near future Berry will be silenced as were Chardin and Fox...
...Should we continue in power a political party that mines harbors of countries with which it is not at war and that writes and prints booklets on the arts of torture...
...I liked the book...
Vol. 115 • December 1988 • No. 22
