Correspondence
Buckley, Francis J. & APPLESEED, JOHN & CARLIN, WARREN R. & ESTABROOK, C. G. & AUSPERK, MICHAEL D. & CLEARY, WILLIAM & HOWARD, WES
CORRESPONDENCE Dismantling Eucharist Brussels, Belgium To the Editors: Thank you for publishing Gabe Huck's observations ["Why Settle for Communion?" January 27], about Communion services in...
...Myers writes in his study that, "To pray is to learn to believe in a transformation of self and world...
...yes,believe...that faith and reason serve each other well...
...The miracle of American Catholic education has been that, while it began with the emphasis on "Catholic," as an attempt to safeguard young Catholics from the contamination of secularism and thus prepare them for survival in the cruel melting pot where their parents and grandparents were looked on as foreign freaks, the "education" component was really given a thorough grounding...
...Theologian Wright could admit to a little more bewilderment...
...How can we tap the limitless, creative power of God to make the basileia, the reign of God, a reality in our world...
...He may even be right that "the best essays in the book are the three long meditations [on] Holy Week"-essays that are thoroughly theological and not simply "devotional,"-but I think he has neglected a most important theme in the book...
...At a time when many are embarrassed that Jesus taught the Our Father-which they inter-'pret as a form of magic or manipulation- it is comforting to see that systematic theology can provide depth and direction to prayer...
...Wright still assumes (as several others do) God's maleness...
...To the Editors: Your editorial on the Vatican document on Catholic education ["Loading the Blunderbuss," January 27] should be reprinted across the nation...
...C. G. ESTABROOK Getting the Vatican's ear Cleveland, Ohio forte Ed/tors.Thoughlappreciatethehumor expressed in your cartoon ["The Cologne Declaration," February 24] about the Vatican getting an 800 number, there might be some wisdom there...
...To these points, I personally find helpful the reflections of Ched Myers in his recent, brilliant analysis of Mark's Gospel, Binding the Strong Man (Orbis, 1989...
...MICHAEL D. AUSPERK Thanks to God Shelburne, Vt...
...To the Editors: Thanks for the helpful prayer essays ["Prayer: When...
...It is so (Continued on page 221) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 194) unfortunately rare to see those two currents worked out in detail that McCabe's book should be celebrated...
...Cunningham is correct in saying that "What [McCabe] does very well is draw on the tradition in new and innovative ways...
...You are right in saying that Catholic educators "owe it to themselves" to make their positions known to church authorities...
...FRANCIS J. BUCKLEY, S.J...
...We receive in proportion to our need and our asking...
...In seeing the disciples' despair at being unable to cast out the demons that have held a child bound "since childhood," Jesus affirms that this kind can only be cast out "with prayer" [Mk 9:14-29...
...But then again, they may not be considered as "Catholic" as those who can afford it...
...That is McCabe's contention, set out in detail in the long essay, "The Class Struggle and Christian Love," that Christianity and capitalism are incompatible...
...It has been a long personal struggle, but I havecome to believe...
...San Francisco, Calif...
...We ask, and we receive...
...I am a layman working for the Jesuits' center for peace and justice in the Northwest...
...This might be less true today than it was ten years ago, but it still holds sway...
...With hardly a whimper our church leadership has surrendered to the quick-fix solution of a superficial Western pragmatism...
...To the Editors: Thank you for the February 10 issue on prayer...
...This is, after all, the nub of the matter between liberation/political theologies on one side and the Cardinal Ratzingers of this world on the other...
...As an educator myself, I can assure you that it has become axiomatic among college profs that a student from Catholic grade school and high school knows more about grammar and spelling and neatness (all essentials in the process of writing) than any ten of his or her counterparts from the public system...
...WILLIAM CLEARY What is petition...
...In particular, I found John Wright's ivory tower analysis wholly dis-incarnate...
...Terry Eagleton (who dedicated his last book to McCabe) has recently written that "the Roman Catholic church contains two major currents...: a lineage of rigorous doctrinal thought, and a tradition of ethical and social concern...
...Prayer in our age Seattle, Wash...
...While noisy campaigns-well-financed, not surprisingly-defend the alliance between capitalists and some Christians in the name of "tradition," those who are truly attentive to the Catholic tradition, such as McCabe and many liberationists, get less of a hearing...
...February 10], but found them largely disconnected from what seem to me the main issues about prayer in our age...
...Maybe...those who cannot "afford" to be heard in Rome could use the toll-free line to be heard and counted as Catholics...
...What a grim irony that it should be the Vatican which undermines that belief...
...Is not prayer the intensely personal struggle within each disciple, and among us collectively, to resist the despair and distractions that cause us to practice unbelief, to abandon the way of Jesus...
...JOHN APPLESEED Reprint it widely Joliet, 111...
...The questions I must face in my daily faith life are much more of the nature of: How can we hope for a hearing from God given the sinful structures of our lives, both personal and social...
...We need, and so we ask...
...January 27], about Communion services in place of Sunday Eucharist...
...WARREN R. CARLIN The missing theme Champaign, 111...
...WES HOWARD...
...And doesn 't God need comforting...
...The title is, by my count, a triple pun...
...To the Editors: I appreciate your articles on the relevance of prayer to modern life ["Prayer When...
...At the best, they can blend to incline those brought up within them to the political left...
...It is regrettable, for instance, that this book has not found an American publisher-it is available only in an expensive British edition-and that the editing is so badly done that the exclusivist language of the earlier essays is retained...
...No one mentioned that...
...Also, I feel that we children of God must eventually learn not to say "please,"just "thank you...
...He clearly points to a tragic development in the post-Vatican II church...
...Has not the Holocaust taught us that there are circumstances in which God seems to be powerless...
...Irony of ironies, the Roman Catholic tradition which for centuries struggled to maintain the reality, identity, and value of the eucharistic celebration has now begun systematically to dismantle the practice and ignore its own most solemn teachings...
...I only wish that Wright had added that petition is an act of humility, an acknowledgment of total and continual dependence on the One who gives life and breath and being at every moment...
...February 10...
...WES HOWARDto abandon the way of Jesus...
...And if the Catholic hierarchy can tell us what "education" means, who's to tell us finally what "Catholic" means...
...Catholic education in our country is at a point that history will probably call a critical "watershed...
...To the Editors: Lawrence S. Cunningham was right, I think, to begin his "Religious Booknotes" in your Contemporary Theology Issue [January 27] with some remarks about what I take to be one of the best works of theology published in years: God Matters, by Herbert McCabe...
...If the Vatican persists in trying to incarnate the worst stereotype of Catholic block-headed intransigence, Catholic educators are going to be forced to choose between "Catholic" and "educated," two terms which should be complementary (if not synonymous), but which the Vatican would make, will-nilly, antithetical...
...For those who think that "Catholic education" is an oxymoron like "military intelligence," etc., I would offer not only the evidence of Aquinas, Augustine, and Bonaventure, and the history of the Jesuits and Christian Brothers, but also the evidence of what Catholic education has done in this country and is still doing...
...Does a parent like to hear a fervent "please" or "have mercy" when one is already doing infinitely more than the child could dream or ask and is already acting out of endless mercy...
...It has announced to the world a new Roman Catholic teaching: that clerical celibacy is a religious value superior to Eucharist...
...John H. Wright's article, "When we Pray," was a particularly helpful analysis of what is really going on in prayer of petition...
Vol. 116 • April 1989 • No. 7
