Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Striking Fox Issaquah, Wash. To the Editors: Were you testing your readers when you published John Gar-vey's little throwaway piece on Matthew Fox in the November 18 issue? I admit...
...3) FDIC: It still enjoys "a surplus of funds" as you say, but it is more than committed by the contingent liabilities it has taken on to defray losses suffered by the operators with whom it has made deals...
...for their courageous stand...
...As an American Catholic of Irish de-scent I applaud and support the efforts of this growing group of rabbis, attorneys, and Jewish professors at over a hundred universities throughout the U.S...
...The goal of all this software is to get at the Mystery of Being, each in its own limited way...
...We simp-ly trust in their ability to evaluate the necessarily brief and occasionally pointed observations of our columnists...
...Commercial banks won't permit a merger between the FDIC and the FSLIC...
...We cannot believe that Mr...
...The higher interest rates go...
...To reassure Mr...
...Could he not summon rever-ence for the possibility that somewhere, out of reach now of all our softwares, there may be a meeting point, a recon-ciliation of Must one religion be "right" and the other "wrong...
...But a chap like myself, who likes to play with the software-well, I can run around, but 1 probably will never have an experience comparable to that of a saint.'' I find this software metaphor helpful in my struggle to hold to my Catholic faith and at the same time be open to the truths of other religions...
...ELIOT JANEWAY Israel's disgrace Winston-Salem, N.C...
...Unregulated banking has always and will always precipitate financial crises...
...In the case of one Texas bank takeover, it did take the precaution of bludgeoning an ad-vance opinion letter from the IRS sanc-tioning the deal it had already made...
...Garvey almost says that himself when he asserts, "Truth finally cannot be said completely, and words point beyond themselves...
...Meanwhile, even at the risk of being lumped "with Ratzinger and his ilk," we reject any suggestion that we must auto-matically praise or exempt from criticism every theologian whom the cardinal cen-sures...
...In one of his more playful moments, Joseph Campbell used the metaphor of computer software to de-scribe the functions of individual reli-gions...
...It does appear that the valuable theological correctives he offers are not unmixed with many troubling and trendy claims...
...they're simply sheltering earnings collected from elsewhere...
...Religious wars, raging even today, would bear out the sad truth of Garvey's statements...
...To the Editors: The Robert Johnson piece, "This Man Has Expired," [Janu-ary 13] is extraordinary...
...aid of a million dollars a day), our country should not be a blind and con-tributory partner in their disgraceful (and eventually futile) pursuit...
...ANNE M. STORZ Extraordinary Johnson Los Angeles, Calif...
...Your indiscretion in publishing Gar-vey's scornful, unsubstantiated attack, so out of character with Commonweal's style, undoubtedly happened because of ignorance of Fox's widely taught, life-time work...
...I've been reading and taking delight in Commonweal for thirty-four years and 1 don't remember a dilemma quite like this...
...To the Editors: Your editorial ["Thrifts on the Slide," January 13] is certainly aimed at the right target-effectively enough to suggest several points: (1) Bailouts: The FSLIC has been cynical and blatant in selling tax shelters without benefit of legislation...
...My compli-ments to Johnson and to you...
...They retain their freedom to dump their new acquisitions back on the doorstep of the in whatever shape they may be when they have used up their tax shelter...
...the less able surviving S&Ls will be to pay for depositsespecially as junk bonds go bad...
...Apart from the issue of silencing, the editors have as yet no fixed collective opinion on the merit of Fox's work...
...To the Editors: In J. Bryan Hehir's article entitled "Zero-Plus Game" [January 27] he asks, ' 'Where then are the voices of a positive-sum conception of the Middle East...
...How, with the Holo-caust still vivid in our minds, can we assist Israel in its frantic efforts to destroy the Palestinians...
...Surely we will suffer for it...
...It admits the possibility of other systems working for other people...
...CARROLL C. ESTES...
...If your silence continues in regard to Fox's work, I will have to con-clude you prefer lying in bed with Ratzin-ger and his ilk...
...JACK MILES Thrifts in crisis New York, N.Y...
...I was hoping that he would elabo-rate on that statement by specifically mentioning the efforts of the Jewish Committee on the Middle East which, for the past year, has been spearheading a group of prominent Jewish Americans who have come together to publicly ex-press their strong desire to see the U.S...
...4) Conversions of Thrifts to Commercial Banks: That was one of the ways they got into trouble...
...take meaningful steps to dissociate our country from the policies of Israel and to support mutual recognition between Israel and the new state of Palestine...
...Rather than dismiss Campbell as "smug" and "condescending," Garvey might well examine his own emphasis and his own need to be "right...
...Quite the contrary, the big bank chains that are earning feel an irresistible incentive to keep the FSLIC busted...
...THE EDITORS Respectful Campbell Hamden, Conn...
...Jancoski, we do not believe that Matthew Fox should be si-lenced, a point John Garvey made...
...But, he cautions, "If a per-son is really involved in a religion, he better stay with the software he has got...
...We also do riot believe that John Garvey should be silenced...
...If Israel has learned nothing but to repeat the practices in+ flirted upon Jews, to pursue its hideous practices of genocidal destruction (with U.S...
...The least we can do is to share the courage and fore-sight of organizations such as the Jewish Committee on the Middle East...
...It suggests that the Mystery we all seek may just be bigger than all of us...
...GERARD JANCOSKI The editors reply: We were not testing our readers, mock-ing them, or-distance permitting- even kicking them in the shins...
...We hope that John Garvey's will not be the last word on this matter...
...But he insists upon the ex-istence of' 'irreconcilable differences be-tween some of the great religious tradi-tions," and asserts that "our differences matter greatly, perhaps even more than our similarities...
...This software metaphor is also humbling...
...and when the junk bonds into which high-cost deposits were invested were considerably safer...
...2) Interest Rates: This consideration is the wildcard in the S&L crisis...
...To the Editors: I am writing in regard to John Garvey's "Faithful Conflict: Re-jecting Campbell's Soup" [December 16, 1988...
...I also find Campbell's caution about "running around" to be deeply respectful of the power of com-mitment to one system...
...and states, "One place is within sectors of the American Jewish commun-ity...
...Each religion, he said, could be likened to a distinct software, with its own set of signals that "work" for the user...
...How can we continue to aid and abet Israel in its barbaric, ille-gal, and immoral conduct...
...Jan-coski has been delighting in Common-weal for thirty-four years without notic-ing that its stubborn independence ex-tends in more than one direction...
...Onethird already broken went under when interest rates were significantly higher than they are now...
...But the operators putting up dimes on the tax shelter dollar in these takeovers don't know or care about the real estate busi-ness in general or mortgage banking in particular...
...I admit the piece was strikingly written, and I laughed at its cleverness, but it is not wise to mock your subscribers, to kick your friends in the shins...
...5) Bank Deregulation: If the checkered history of banking in this country proves anything, it's that banking is too important a responsibility to be left to the bankers...
...The appropriate thing for you to have done is send it back to Garvey and say: "You must want to send this on to the Wanderer...
...Could he ridt allow for a Jewish software and a Bud-dhist software, each with its own signals, each reading the Mystery somewhat dif-ferently...
...They want to buy tax shelters on the cheap too...
Vol. 116 • March 1989 • No. 5
