Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Time for new thinking Granger, Ind. To the Editors: Once again J. Bryan Hehir's inability to make a clear and unequivocal decision on the Gulf War is appalling. When the war was...
...And I with many others feel confident that, in time and with the help of "the church of the hierarchy," they'll find those forms of expression—some old and some new—which, even "in the whirlwind of modernity," will enable them to celebrate their "loving assent to an extraordinary piece of good news" (Avery Dulles), in word and gesture and work for the poor...
...Sentimentalism...
...No Catholic schools have been closed under Bishop Flavin...
...Alastair Maclntyre says, "Traditions, when vital, embody continuities of conflict...
...But if decision is just whim or will power, there is no deliberation and no choice...
...Bad bishops (assuming there are such) abandon tradition for a timeless set of fully consistent principles which always dictate the right choice...
...Quindlen seems to take off the tradition as easily as her hat and just "makes up her mind...
...I feel we deserve more than ridicule...
...Let Commonweal readers hear other voices...
...Their insights may provide more solid ground for moral decision making...
...one year later, in his article "Just Cause...
...Yet they choose to stay...
...I give thanks every day that I serve in a diocese that sets the pace for all America in vocations to the priesthood and the religious life...
...I doubt it...
...When the war was in progress he could not decide whether it was just...
...Yes" [ February 28] he still could not reach a decision...
...JOSEPH BOEL, Quindlen & tradition Rochester, N.Y...
...This indecision is a reflection not only on Hehir but on the inability of the justwar categories from which he writes to provide an adequate framework for Catholics today to reach a moral decision on issues of war and peace...
...One might label the opposing views: the church of whim and the church of will...
...REV...
...Morality without dilemma plays well only in heaven and on the op-ed page...
...Some of their friends leave the church...
...On April 4 I shall celebrate my golden jubilee as a priest in this diocese...
...There are official and not so official church policies that could drive them away...
...Real choice is the outcome of deliberation within a tradition...
...To the Editors: The emergence of a "church of choice" seems to me far more hopeful than what Paul Baumann's interpretation ["Anna Quindlen's Church," February 28] would have us believe...
...Are these people supposed to be grateful that they do not live in a diocese where the bishop stands beside Pope John Paul II on all matters of faith and morals...
...To the Editors: Paul Baumann is on target with his criticism of Anna Quindlen's version of "Catholicism of Choice...
...Unless you repent, you shall lose the only known subscriber in the Diocese of Lincoln...
...Others live good and honest lives without belonging to organized religion...
...Absolutist moralities whether ecclesiastically generated or products of pure reason develop a certainty of moral judgment (for or against abortion) that precludes conflict, dilemma, and tragedy...
...2: 27 March 1992 Commonweal...
...PATRICIA McNEAL Sarcasm misplaced Beaver Crossing, Neb...
...The trouble with Quindlen's "democratic" church and the hierarchic church she deplores is that "choice" in both cases easily becomes an illusion...
...DENNIS O'BRIEN The writer is president of the University of Rochester...
...MONSIGNOR CHARLES J. KEENAN Choosing to stay Maywood, Ill...
...It's men and women, young and old, who choose to belong, remaining Catholic out of conviction rather than custom...
...Many new schools have been built and others expanded...
...To the Editors: A subscriber since 1937, a contributor to all of your appeals, today I write to protest these words of ridicule in Robert G. Hoyt's column ["The Catholic Conscience," February 14]: "Let them count their blessings: Their parish is not in the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, currently pastored by Bishop Glennon Flavin...
...They may "wear the church like a hairshirt, but believe no less," writes Morris West...
...we always know the-right-thingtodo, we lack the will to do it...
Vol. 119 • March 1992 • No. 6
