Correspondence
Thanks & blessings Lahore, Pakistan To the Editors: I would like to record my gratitude and appreciation for the copies of Commonweal that you have been sending me for several years. I enjoy...
...Katz's analysis and recommendations reflect a small vision and a dated understanding of the political and economic dynamics of America's most extraordinary metropolis...
...If our common baptism is taken seriously, the parish should be seen as potentially having 10,000 ministers, with each member possessing a Spirit-given gift for some special ministry...
...These changes were supposed to indicate that we had grown up...
...tant, a city of neighborhoods...
...Oh, happy day...
...They are still locked into the old lay mentality, expecting all such parish functions to be performed by the clergy and vowed religious...
...Bishop Edward Kmiec' s reaction proved Fr...
...MARTIN J. HAGAN Stay with tradition Pittsburgh, Pa...
...If you go through with your plan to drop the column, please cancel my subscription...
...Especially pertinent is his reference to the duty of those with apostolic authority "to provide and keep open the sacerdotal channels through which God's grace can flow...
...Unfortunately, because our bishops (with a few notable exceptions) constantly curry favor with Rome, as Fr...
...Being Catholic meant obedience to church laws (meatless Fridays, Lenten fasts, Sunday Mass...
...PETER J. RIGA Seeing in symbols Hiroshima, Japan To the Editors: I'd like to comment on the relevance of religious symbols to Catholic identity discussed by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels ["The Laity and the Leadership Crisis," September 10, 1993...
...To the Editors: Thank you for publishing the text of Fr...
...One can, of course, offer rational and cultural reasons for retaining the ban on all doctor-assisted suicide and doctor-induced death: the menace to the image of the medical profession...
...During the past decade, New Yorkers have carried out the nation's largest and most successful urban rebuilding program, fueled by investment of over $10 billion in affordable housing and economic development in neighborhoods outside central Manhattan...
...the danger to the old, the feeble, the unwanted...
...Joseph Breen addresses an intelligent letter to the American Catholic bishops and his own parishioners, asking them to reconsider the question of celibacy in the priesthood, and he is forthwith reprimanded and silenced by his own ordinary, Bishop Edward Kmiec of Nashville...
...It should have read: "But he still lives, walking bent through the night, coming into the yard and going out again, requesting little, offered nothing, tramping that long 'V in the snow...
...Religious symbols represent a reality that goes beyond what is verifiable...
...The real problem I have found in parish life is not so much the lack of ordained priests as that many parishioners have not yet felt the need to accept responsibility for their own gifts as ministers of the Good News, whether it be in outreach to the disadvantaged, marriage preparation and enrichment, adult education, or youth ministry...
...Along with making the city governable, is it possible Mayor Giuliani might make it clean again...
...Through Commonweal, we are much in touch...
...Breen got it right Deal, N.J...
...To the Editors: It is unfortunate that the issue of allowing priests to marry has been identified with a "liberal" agenda...
...A literal interpretation of the Trinity is embarrassing...
...In the final analysis, however, even after we have placed a dying person in a humane hospice, even after we have managed pain and anxiety by means of drugs and counseling, there remain those cases of intractable pain and despair in which all we can do, humanly speaking, is to watch the person die in agony...
...THOMAS F. MADER 45...
...Where have they gone...
...Yet celibacy has not become a disvalue in the Eastern church: even today, though by and large the parish clergy in the Eastern church are married, there are men and women who freely choose to live a celibate life, most of them in the context of a monastic community...
...What will it take for them to see what is happening...
...JOHN G. KUHN The writer is professor of English and theater at Rosemont College...
...I have come to believe, however, that allowing a married clergy at this time would not be the wisest course for the church...
...Vatican II should have made that connection clear...
...We can talk about programs until we are blue in the face...
...Only if we view death and suffering in a supernatural light, after the example of Jesus, does any of this suffering make sense...
...It will make Christians reexamine their own attitudes and choose not only whether to live as a Christian but also whether to die as a Christian...
...To the Editors: In this my first letter to Commonweal, I want to thank you for the very great enjoyment, stimulation, interest, and communication evoked with each issue...
...Breen's point: "The refusal of the bishops even to discuss these problems breeds cynicism...
...To the Editors: My heart goes out to Fr...
...Mandatory celibacy is not the root of the problem, but it contributes to it significantly...
...in the December 17, 1993, issue was printed incorrectly...
...For one thing, we have learned to build successful partnerships among local government, grassroots community organizations, and business and corporate leadership, both local and global...
...EDWARD T. DELANEY (Continued on page 44) 2 CORRESPONDENCE CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) Involve the laity Pittsburgh, Pa...
...Except for the breath of fresh air brought in by John XXIII, the situation remains the same...
...I enjoy reading the magazine myself and pass it on to several of our priests and sisters who also are happy to read its challenging contents...
...Until such time, perhaps the Spirit is deliberately holding back the church from changing the rule of mandatory celibacy...
...In a 1987 report titled "New York Ascendant," Wagner described the need to balance the demands of maintaining New York as a world city and, equally impor44...
...I fear that such a move now would lead to the resurgence of the outmoded hierarchical parish structure, with a dominant clerical class and a passive, marginalized laity...
...HELEN KANE Life, death, the cross Houston, Tex...
...the increased availability of more effective pain control...
...To the Editors: Father Joseph P. Breen's letter [Correspondence, December 3,1993] addressing the crises facing the priesthood today because of the lack of candidates is cogent and to the point...
...I don't know how Catholics are going to recapture their identity, but I do think we need to hear much more from our poets than from our theologians and social scientists...
...My students Correction: Because of a mistake in transcription, the last sentence of John Whitman's "Go Away...
...ARMANDO TRINDADE Cause for anger Rosemont, Pa...
...Rather than accept Katz's cynical approach, we would urge Mayor Giluliani to follow the vision articulated by the late Robert F. Wagner, Jr., a close adviser until his untimely death last November...
...Perhaps a better example is the Blessed Trinity...
...If you decide again, as you did in 1971, to reinstate it, please renew my subscription...
...His analyses are objective, lucid, and richly provocative...
...New York absorbs a larger share of America's poor and receives proportionately less help from the federal government than do other cities...
...thank you for publishing his letter in full...
...the influence of deep but possibly temporary depression...
...We did not see that religious symbols have significance insofar as they represent an art of living, a way of life...
...Breen put it, "indifference to those authorities has set in, and it is abundantly clear that an incalculably large portion of Catholics...are making their moral decisions without reference to what the established representatives of apostolic authority are saying...
...He addresses the underlying assumptions as well as the theatrical effects and cultural significance of plays and playwrights—often with a revealing structural comparison, as he did with Brian Friel and Edward Albee this time, or with The Song of Jacob Zulu and 6221, Prophecy and Tragedy [May 7,1993...
...we can buy lots of advertising time— the challenge won't diminish if we just wait it out...
...In such cases, particularly when the person asks for death as release, human compassion and even logic suggest we should help to grant that wish...
...My siblings and I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, in the shadow of New York City, and our late father often carted us around that magic, glittering, noisy, happy, clattering, clean city...
...JOHN P. MASCOTTE The writer is chairman of the national board of directors of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit organization that provides financial and technical assistance to nonprofit, neighborhood-based community organizations...
...If a married priesthood is on any agenda, it should be a traditionalist one...
...Instead, we wound up discarding the symbols as trivial and superficial demonstrations of Catholic identity...
...Get Gotham clean again Waterford, Conn...
...FRED NIJEM Gotham isn't ordinary New York, N.Y...
...Except for a few, our bishops seem unconcerned by the priest shortage, leaving us with a perception that our leaders would rather have "priestless parishes" than married priests...
...Gerald Weales's well-written pieces have been an attractive, valuable jewel in Commonweal for many years...
...This was followed by a new system of censorship aimed at any theologian who might disagree with the pope and his curia, and requiring the clergy to take an oath abjuring any modernist doctrine...
...EILEEN KELLY KEAN Shades of 1907 Chester, Conn...
...Obviously, intelligent and educated men (and some day, perhaps, women) will not be attracted to a life in which any expression of independent thinking is promptly silenced—or, to use a more appropriate word, "muzzled...
...we can write any number of theologically pastoral let" ters...
...REV...
...How, then, has New York remained viable...
...Although the search for the "real" Jesus may provide us with useful psychological insights, the symbolic Jesus will continue to test our faith and to fashion whatever meaning we have as Catholics...
...Is not the theology concerning God's gift of grace to his people and the means for obtaining it intrinsic to Catholicism...
...We are on safer ground if we view the Father-Son-Holy Spirit symbols analogically, and then consider what meaning these symbols have for us, not whether the symbols stand for facts...
...Prior to Vatican II, Catholics took their symbols seriously, but saw those symbols as important in and of themselves...
...To the Editors: Here we go again...
...An example is the New York City Partnership, which Katz singles out for derision...
...Breen looks at a large parish he sees only one or two priests ministering to, say, 10,000 Catholics...
...It is truly sad and scary that a legitimate concern cannot be aired or argued among the People of God...
...MOST REV...
...The tradition of a married clergy in the Catholic church predates celibacy by almost a thousand years...
...In 1990 the Vatican made a new attempt to quash open inquiry and dialogue by reinstating a revised Oath of Fidelity and a Profession of Faith required to be taken by recipients of certain appointments...
...I base the question on a national survey figure showing 32 percent of the Catholic population going to church and 68 percent unchurched...
...After reading each issue, he and I get together by phone to discuss its contents...
...His vision embraced the full diversity of New York City and recognized that we are strong enough and caring enought to aspire for something greater than ordinary...
...As parish council president in a large parish, I have seen at first hand the enormous demands that parish priests face today...
...Joseph Breen's letter to the American Catholic bishops...
...Communication...
...As a result, New York has reversed the exodus of middle-class citizens and stemmed the deterioration of residential communities that threatened its viability in the 1970s...
...One need only consult the experience of Eastern Christianity, where celibacy has always been optional, to understand the tradition...
...But this is not all bad...
...If this is not the case, we may as well go back to Luther...
...have come to rely on archival issues of Commonweal for the most dependable reviews of openings and revivals over the past quarter-century...
...To the Editors: Thomas Shannon's interrogator was on the mark when he suggested that Shannon's belief in immortality had everything to do with his attitude toward euthanasia ["How Long Must We Preserve Life?," December 3, 1993...
...and others...
...I would like to add a comment on the Wallace Katz article...
...If there are legitimate arguments for the present clerical system, then Bishop Kmiec and others have nothing to fear by allowing the discussion...
...You can reduce any of our symbols to gibberish if you take the symbols literally...
...These symbols are ambiguous, which is why we need help in determining their meaning and appreciating their relevance to who we are...
...Out of the necessity caused by the lack of priests and religious, this attitude is changing, but it will take more time for parishes to build a strong tradition of lay involvement and leadership...
...Please keep us and all our tasks in your prayers, so that we may strive to give vibrant witness to gospel values in our daily lives in the Islamic milieu in which we live and move and have our being...
...To the Editors: The farewell note ending both Gerald Weales's "Storytelling: 'Tennessee' & 'Fragments'" [December 17,1993] and your regular Stage column by this remarkable and eminent critic filled me and, I suspect, many readers with an angry sadness...
...I assure you of my prayers for you and all who help you in this most vital work...
...This is the price we will have to pay for our freedom and for our faith...
...This organization has been responsible for attracting some $ 1.5 billion in private funds to produce almost 10,000 units of affordable housing in the city's most blighted communities, simultaneously creating thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in business opportunities for low-income and minority residents...
...Because we as a people no longer believe in the value of suffering, the passage of laws to permit doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia is inevitable...
...Joseph Breen...
...We toed the line because it was hell if we didn't, which led us to agonize over how many ounces of bacon eaten on Friday constituted mortal sin...
...it is also the authoritarianism emanating from Rome...
...Friday abstinence is a good example...
...KEN LOVASIK Nurturing cynics Warner Robins, Ga...
...To the Editors: In a commentary billed as a "Report from New York City," Washington, D.C., consultant Wallace Katz advised New York's Mayor-elect Rudolph Giuliani to emulate the rebuilding strategies of "ordinary cities" such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh, rather than capitalize on New York's unique stature as a global capital ["Make Gotham Governable," November 19, 1993...
...I applaud Fr...
...As a scholar and critic, Gerald Weales sings the songs and can himself tell the stories in ways that give pleasure and evoke thought...
...What they really showed was that we didn' t understand the significance of the symbolic...
...City expenditures on community-based housing initiatives have exceeded the combined total spent by the next fifty cities in the nation...
...It is not only the question of celibacy that accounts for the shortage of vocations...
...It is unfortunate that when Fr...
...Only if I can in faith identify with the crucified Lord can I endure and find meaning in my own terminal suffering...
...I remember very well the men in white uniforms with push barrels who kept "Gotham" sparkling clean...
...the possibility (likelihood) of mistaken diagnoses...
...Joe Breen for his honesty, candor, and courage...
...my subscription is a gift from my brother Larry...
...Shades of the encyclical Pascendi issued in 1907 ordering every diocese to establish a committee to guard against the spread of "modernist" ideas condemned in the 1864 Syllabus of Errors...
Vol. 121 • January 1994 • No. 1
