Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Koller article tops Collingswood, N.J. To the Editors: Re: "The Myth of No Limits: All Health Care Is Temporary," by Christopher Koller [March 27]: As a senior administrator of...
...Because of my job and inclination, I read a great deal on health-care public policy...
...Does he have another answer...
...MARIE D. HOFF 30: 24 April 1992 Commonweal...
...It was a reflection on the too common occurrence in New York, and elsewhere, of young blacks being shot, crushed, burned, etc., carelessly and unnecessarily...
...To the Editors: Re: "The Myth of No Limits: All Health Care Is Temporary," by Christopher Koller [March 27]: As a senior administrator of an urban, tertiary, and teaching hospital, and a new enrollee in a heart transplant program, I found this article politically prophetic, socially courageous, and morally correct...
...Hence the abortion issue might be seen as having added importance...
...Does Mr...
...Then, in a rearrangement of the concluding Stations, he inserted "Jesus on the cross, with his mother and Saint John at the foot of the cross...
...It also strongly argues against the credibility of her reluctance to "raise issues" with blacks...
...Measures to prevent easy access to firearms by teen-agers might have prevented the tragic outcome...
...Mohammed Mandour in Egypt ["Torture for a Healer," February 141...
...From newspaper accounts of the incident, it was largely the result of a student feud and the assailant's decision to use a concealed weapon at the school...
...To the Editors: "In Twenty-Seven Short Years: The Enlightenment of Maura-San O'Halloran" [February 28] was for me a sad and disturbing story...
...Or perhaps it's that the political process itself has become so much a matter of image over substance that a candidate's character doesn't really matter...
...KAY SIEMSSEN BATTS Rogues Catholic Fresno, Calif...
...Eliminated too by him were the old meditations for Station VI, "Veronica wipes the face of Jesus," and Stations VII and IX, the second and third falls of Jesus...
...it includes excerpts from a speech of his that gave due credit to AI and other human rights organizations that helped end his ordeal...
...Louis, Mo...
...I answered: "Adult fear and confusion about rules and responsibility have taken their toll at City College and elsewhere...
...There was no meeting of "Jesus and his blessed mother" on the way to Calvary, as stated for Station IV—at least none that the Scriptures speak of...
...As is so often the case, Commonweal is anything but common...
...A "nagging suspicion" about "the politics of race" appears two paragraphs later as an assertion that "Harleston's policy translated down the administrative ladder clearly led school officials to ignore rules, to suspend judgment, and at times to take leave of their common sense...
...The mayor's visit to Commonweal 24 April 1992: 29 the school was planned long before the shooting, and certainly was intended to boost the students' morale...
...This longtime black reader considers it highly regrettable that Commonweal's editor has chosen to promote controversy rather than provoke thought with "Why They Died...
...Why...
...If a person announces that he/she intends to commit a crime, the state may properly prohibit that person from doing so, even by the use of injunctions restricting the person's freedom of action...
...namely, "The agony in the garden," "Jesus, betrayed by Judas, is arrested," "Jesus is denied by Peter," and "Jesus promises redemption to the good thief...
...The unborn child is a person, even if his/her father committed a crime, and it is properly illegal to kill him/her if the state is doing its job of protecting human rights...
...To the Editors: Franklin McMahon's art is impressive, as always, but Irene McMahon's text accompanying his Holy Land sketches ["Via Crucis," March 27] involves Commonweal in the perpetuation of a myth...
...When people kill people, it is the state's business, and not just a matter of moral views...
...Later I saw a follow-up report about him from Amnesty International...
...Determining which way the herd's running and hurrying to get out in front of it may be the best definition of current political leadership...
...ROLAND LAIRD The author replies: I don't see the illogic or the "mental gymnastics" Mr...
...Many state political leaders, including many of those mentioned in the column, are the proud products of parochial school education and even of Catholic higher education at Providence College...
...In their stead, the pope substituted scripturally documented happenings...
...At that point her writing becomes illogical...
...She carefully gives background for the City College incident and the facts about it unearthed by investigations...
...JOSEPH A. PACERA Stations crossed out Rockport, Mass...
...So what should pastors do, tear the old Stations out and install new ones...
...without their solidarity one is tempted to despair when reading of such monstrous human behavior...
...Instead she writes, "the awful truth is that no one, black or white, will 'mess' with young blacks, especially young black males...
...Rather than finding Maura to have been a Buddhist saint, I find her to have been a rather lost, searching young woman who embraced a cult and permitted herself to be led by a powerfully compelling cult leader...
...Self-induced frost-bitten feet, selfinduced sleep deprivation, and a determination "to become one with mu [nothingness]" are not characteristic of a healthy, reasonably normal young adult...
...To the Editors: "Why They Died," Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's column [March 13] on nine deaths by asphyxiation at the City College gym on December 28 and the fatal February 26 shooting at Thomas Jefferson High School of two stu(Continued on page 29) 2: 24 April 1992 Commonweal CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) dents by another student, seeks to clarify the causes of those two tragedies...
...Which means, I guess, that there's always room in our church for a bit of pious mythology...
...I did point to what seems to me undeniable: "no one, black or white, will 'mess' with young blacks, especially young black males...
...To the Editors: Why do you seem dismayed that "prolife forces in Ireland are willing to go very far indeed...in using civil law to compel compliance with their moral views" [—Roe' redux," March 131...
...Not to worry, said a Vatican spokesman last year...
...Steinfels proceeds to apply further illogical thinking to the shooting at Thomas Jefferson High School...
...Could it be that volatile issues are easier to politicize for personal gain...
...Of course the details vary as does the responsibility in any case I did not "splash the blood" on President Harleston or Mayor Dinkins...
...MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS Protecting life Elkhart, Ind...
...Given those facts, one might wonder why Catholic teaching would not be applied across the board to ethical issues of honesty, justice, and public/private morality in the political realm...
...ROGER BLAINE Resisting torture St...
...Seems none of them was mentioned either by the Scriptures...
...REV...
...JOHN DEEDY Maura-San no model Diablo, Calif...
...And the students followed their lead" [emphasis added...
...Carlin is that his small state is overwhelmingly Catholic (63 percent, the last I heard...
...I, however, would never hold up Maura-San O'Halloran as a role model...
...The stark emotionalism of that last quotation entirely dispenses with sober analysis...
...His litany of shenanigans and crimes in the state, to which many more civil and ecclesiastical ones could be added, shows why the state might still be called "Rogues' Island," as it was designated by colonial wags...
...To the Editors: I spent a sleepless night contemplating the mystery of both human evil and human courage after reading Jennifer Reidy's report on the torture of Dr...
...I urge Commonweal readers to join one of these groups...
...Laird disagree...
...To the Editors: As a former Rhode Islander, I noted with amusement and chagrin David Carlin's announcement of his congressional candidacy ["A Choice in Rhode Island," March 13...
...Steinfels, his words at the school were moving but meaningless because the mayor has so far "managed social conflict by avoiding confrontation...
...DAVID J. NORRIS Mental gymnastics Hollis, N.Y...
...Ruth L. O'Halloran obviously wishes to view her daughter's life favorably...
...This is the finest article I have ever read, anywhere...
...Since such measures are the business of legislation and enforcement, and since powerful lobbying has consistently blocked weapons legislation, it is unfair to, as it were, splash the blood from the incident on Mayor Dinkins...
...It is interesting, however, that the moral degradation he outlines doesn't seem to generate the same heat in the electoral process...
...Which is why Pope John Paul II eliminated the meditation from the Stations of the Cross he led at 1991's Good Friday devotions at the Coliseum...
...There is no attempt at balance in her criticism, although she finds it "painful and difficult to raise issues of responsibility and accountability" with black leaders because of the unjust ways blacks have been historically treated...
...Laird detects in my Notebook item...
...the old Stations remain "fully valid and may be taken up again in the future...
...But, according to Ms...
...Quite the contrary...
...That is an impressive example of mental gymnastics...
...One element not mentioned by Mr...
Vol. 119 • April 1992 • No. 8
