Correspondence
Hear Blackie preach Tampa, Fla. To the Editors: No doubt Father Brown and Father Blackie are very different ["Chesterton's Brown and Greeley's Blackie," August 14]. But any reading of Father...
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...I do not expect an apology...
...For example, in context the metaphor of God as a storyteller emphasizes not the power of God but her impotency in the face of human freedom...
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...But any reading of Father Blackie that omits reference to his sermons misses the point of the character—and therefore the authentic achievement of Father Greeley's religious art...
...I note that the latter are not cited by Sipe and Lamb (a comment on their scholarly integrity) and that they are never published by Commonweal...
...and, therefore, that the sentence Greeley cites from our article was not a lie...
...With Cardinal John O'Connor sitting nearby, President George Bush speaks to the Knights of Columbus on his prolife stance and how he will not waver from that...
...I have never defended those criteria and I do not believe in them...
...Perhaps lawsuits demanding free job training and free day care on demand are next...
...He now writes: "I have never defended these criteria and I do not believe in them...
...RUTH ANN WEIDNER The reviewer replies: In addressing the suffering of America's homeless poor, ideological approaches to "rights" versus "responsibilities" miss the point...
...Sipe and B.C...
...Canada, $66...
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...The other allegations in Greeley's letter are, to use his term, "gratuitious assertions" to which no reply is needed or possible...
...A New American Compact" should in30:25 September 1992 Commonweal elude broader protection for life so that it would be much harder for political leaders to wage war, starve the poor, and kill those in prison...
...Hayes has the solution for substance abuse, too...
...Sipe & Lamb lie' Chicago, 111...
...It is agreed that provision of survival resources should not be a contested issue in an enlightened society...
...LAMB "Slay away from his left...
...ANDREW greeley The authors reply: The sentence in our article that Father Greeley calls a lie reads as follows: "Greeley argues in his autobiography and elsewhere {Publishers Weekly, April 10,1987) that he must be doing something right to be selling so many books and making so much money...
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...203...
...Moreover, Sipe and Lamb cite as proof of my advocacy of these criteria an article I wrote in Publishers Weekly on April 10,1987...
...Suggestions of black magic and white witchcraft swirl together...
...Their slippery dishonesty in this matter is characteristic of their whole article which is a pastiche of fabrications, distortions, gratuitous assertions, snide innuendos and twistings out of context, an inkblot into which they can project their own emotional needs...
...In our own view the number of copies a book sells says nothing definitive about its quality...
...reviewers write "for themselves and friends, to impress others with their superior taste, to pos(Continued on page 30) 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...
...One cannot ask of Commonweal the obsessive checking for facts that one expects from the New Yorker...
...The sermons indeed reveal, through the medium of the story, that truly "sacred," deeply "meaningful" message that defines Sipe and Lamb's entirely proper criteria...
...Hayes once was famous for saying that the solution to homelessness was simple and could be stated in three words: "housing, housing, housing...
...Let's go to the tape...
...In his autobiography, Confessions of a Parish Priest (Simon & Schuster Pocketbooks, 1986), Father Greeley responds to critics who question the value of his work by making explicit reference to the approval "of millions of lay people" (p...
...JACOB NEUSNER The writer is distinguished research professor of religious studies at the University of South Florida...
...p. 23, Jean Chariot...
...Rather, the crux of the poem is the notion of agency: one person can help restore another's balance...
...PETER D. WALZER, M.D...
...Hayes loo simplistic Durham, N.C...
...213), to his own "best seller" status (p...
...To the Editors: Given Commonweal's emphasis on responsibilities as well as rights, I was surprised by the choice of Robert M. Hayes to review [May 22] Martha Burt's Over the Edge: The Growth of Homelessness in the 1980s...
...I agree for the most part that we need to protect the unborn, but if we follow President Bush's lead that is where our respect for life ends...
...But I do hope that you will print this letter the way I wrote it...
...Call me when it's out of tune," the jazzman offers...
...The rigidity and arrogance of the hierarchy, coupled with its obsession with matters of sex, gender role, and authority, have alienated large segments of the church and undermined its teaching about more substantive issues such as peace and social justice...
...I take seriously as criteria the reactions of readers and of academic scholars, the large majority of both of which react favorably...
...Regrettably, in Ed Koch's New York of the 1980s, and in the Reagan-Bush era extending into the 1990s, there often is no other route...
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...I do not even expect that you will tell your readers that there is no justification for Sipe and Lamb's accusation in the 1987 article...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Why did you not check the reference to the Publishers Weekly article to see if it supported their charge against me...
...the reviewer is often "a copy editor for the paper, or a reporter or a 'freelance journalist' or a 'novelist' (of whose books you've never heard...
...ROBERT M. HAYES Incomplete 'compact' Cambridge, Mass...
...The constant refrain of the advocates is that government is at fault for not providing this service, and that service, and yet another service to the homeless population...
...that he has defended this criterion not only spiritedly but with a certain venom...
...In contrast, film reviewers such as Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel wield "enormous influence," partly because they are "recognized authorities," partly because "they like films and they like people," and "do not look down long, snobbish noses at popular films or at the people who make them popular...
...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...
...And while, as Hayes asserts, the costs of dealing with homelessness may not be "infinite," they certainly aren't cheap—and having the courts dictate solutions is by no means cost-effective, nor in my opinion is it good public policy...
...to its last sentence, it is an attempt to show that book sales are a more important gauge of a book's importance than are the judgments of its journalistic reviewers...
...foreign, $72...
...Although this alternative is obviously not for everyone, it may be helpful for people who are turned off by the institutionalized Catholic church...
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...I recall that a couple of years ago he sued the city demanding free drug treatment for all comers...
...But the citations above demonstrate, we believe: that Greeley sees the size of his audience as at least one index of the worth of his books...
...Everybody needs a little of the supernatural once in a while...
...they deal with important issues in our everyday lives and also remind us of our societal obligations...
...I repeat: Sipe and Lamb lie...
...486), and to the "size of the marketplace in which [his] novels are gobbled up" (p...
...They lie...
...We are all church ministers, seeking to find God's plan for us in our lives...
...The shamanistic piano-tuner is Stan the jazzman, and his craft works well against the melancholy that has seized the poet's daughter...
...11,30, Ross, Rothco...
...Obviously the editors know, but readers outside New York City likely do not (I used to live in Brooklyn), that Hayes is one of the leading practitioners of "rights talk" and use of the courts when it comes to the homeless...
...To an advocate, or indeed to a citizen, the point is to secure life-preserving results...
...Moreover, Greeley writes, many book reviews are "mean-spirited...
...However, when someone is accused of a patently stupid position, surely your editors should check the reference to see whether he really holds that position...
...GENE "TITO" ROMAN Fine tuning Wickliffe, Ohio To the Editors: In his hauntingly beautiful poem "The Tuning" [July 17], Peter E. Murphy hints that a kind of exorcism takes place in his household, carried out through the ritual of piano tuning...
...WILLIAM E. DAUENHAUER A way out Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editors: I read with interest the interview with Anna Quindlen [February 14] and the many subsequent letters supporting the views she expressed about the Catholic church...
...I think the statement lacks a prolife perspective on the issues of war and capital punishment...
...With Father Blackie, Greeley realizes his "vocation as storyteller" in the "sacred and sacramental" setting...
...There is almost no correlation," Greeley writes in PW, "between the reviews a book receives and its market success...
...I know he believes the city's efforts are not nearly enough, but that doesn't give him the right to misstate what has actually occurred...
...Even though I'm pretty sure that some of the signers are prolife across the political spectrum, a statement like this too easily plays into the restrictions of political ideology, in this instance the vindictiveness of the Republican Right...
...p. 5, Baloo, Rothco...
...Music's healing power is not the sole subject here...
...Danielle Steele, Judith Krantz, and the Spiderman comics are best sellers, but so were Dickens, Tolstoy, and Twain in their day (and still now...
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...Hence his initial effort to solve the homeless problem in New York City—sue the city to provide free housing, on demand...
...Disaffected Catholics seem to have either dropped out of the church or adopted an a la carte approach to their faith...
...In any event, it would have been interesting to read a review of Over the Edge written by a less "rights-oriented" person, one more willing to discuss, yes, the complexity of the homeless problem...
...In Greeley's view, because "book reviews are usually written with the contemptuous assumption that if a lot of people like a book it must be worthless...
...My answer at this point would be a respectful No...
...I asked myself, "Would I put my name to a statement like this if asked...
...Hayes knows that New York City has progressed well past the demonstration phase...
...It is heartening to see that Hayes's analysis has grown a bit more complex: he now grants that mental illness and substance abuse also contribute to homelessness...
...Why...
...p. 26, courtesy of The Bettmann Archives...
...It is not a matter of opinion but of fact whether I said in that article that I "was doing something right" with my books because of sales and income...
...Sunday book sections are "self-important, pompous, and supercilious...
...In this area, we are better off paying attention to the witness of the Berrigan brothers, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King, Jr...
...3) There is a much greater sense of equality and partnership among clergy and laity, along with an acceptance of people's views and experiences...
...2:25 September 1992 Commonweal CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) ture their literary sensibilities...
...Many lack credentials for passing judgment on books...
...cover cartoon, Shiong, Rothco...
...In consequence, book review sections "will remain an institution of charity for unread writers who have a chance to see their names in print...
...Lamb assert that I argue to the worth of my books by the "criteria" of sales and money...
...I enclose a copy of that article to prove that I say no such thing...
...Here, in so many words, is Father Greeley's message through his church to the world...
...The same criteria appear again in the Publishers Weekly article we cited...
...My question to you pertains not to the integrity and honesty of Sipe and Lamb but to the integrity and honesty of Commonweal...
...A.W.R.SIPE& B.C...
...I also feel compelled to comment on Hayes's snide dismissal of New York City's homeless programs...
...If resort to the courts to enforce rights created by state legislatures is necessary, so be it...
...In fact, I do not mention my books at all...
...I have explored mainline Protestant (Episcopalian, Presbyterian) denominations and offer the following observations: (1) Contrary to the fear instilled in me Commonweal as a child in the days of the Baltimore Catechism, I have not been smitten by archangels for my activities...
...Illustrations: Cover design, Emil Antonucci...
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...To the Editors: In their attack on celibacy and my celibacy, A.W.R...
...That is why, when Sipe and Lamb take up Father Blackie's sermons, they are likely to join millions of contemporary readers in according genuine appreciation for Father Greeley's spiritual achievement in telling the story of his faith...
...To judge by his review, you'd think the city was doing only small, "demonstration" programs for the homeless...
...This is an outrageous misrepresentation of the millions of local taxpayer dollars spent on housing and services for the homeless, far more than any other community in the U.S...
...Very rarely (never on Hayes's part, that I can recall) is there any talk of reciprocal responsibility on the part of those who receive the services...
...From its title—"Who Reads Book Reviews Anyway...
...To the Editors: I read the advertisement titled "A New American Compact" [August 14] with great interest...
...2) I have been much more impressed by the similarities than by the differences between the Catholic and Protestant liturgies, with these exceptions: the music in the Protestant services is richer and more sophisticated, and the sermons are more scholarly and thought-provoking...
...At the end of each story, in a liturgical setting, Father Blackie translates story into proposition, in universally affecting language at that...
...As he wrote in his review, he believes that the fundamental cause of homelessness is that "people cannot afford housing...
...I would like to propose a third alternative which has rarely been discussed in this publication: consider joining another Christian community...
Vol. 119 • September 1992 • No. 16
