Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Unbalanced view Upper Darby, Pa. To the Editors: Once again Commonweal addresses the issue of homosexuality [issue of January 28], and once again, as was the case with your...
...Is celibacy a metaphysical dead-end in the same way that I suggest nonprocreative homosexual acts may be...
...Nevertheless, since the Andrew Sullivan interview that Mr...
...Our annual index does not include book reviews by topic...
...The "international educational work of CFFC" does not escape the notice of the media because CFFC is, at least in part, a creature of the media...
...That Christ was born of a woman is a sign, I think, of Christ's full humanity and discloses something quite important about natality for all human beings...
...And as long as we are on the subject of the Incarnation, what are we to say of Jesus Christ?—who was born of a woman, all right, but not by a heterosexually procreative act...
...That is the crux...
...To respond (briefly) to Mr...
...But what about your own role...
...To the Editors: In "On the Air, No Room for Dialogue" [January 28], James L. Nash demonstrates his sincere, if frustrated, desire to engage in a constructive dialogue with lesbians and gay men...
...Steinfels writes with odd nostalgia, "Catholics knew when they crossed the line because they could have been burned at the stake...
...I don't see how it could be since it is not, strictly speaking, a sexual act at all...
...In pointing to the consummation of all things in Christ, celibacy challenges the biblical procreative sexual norm, but it does not abolish the good order manifest in God'S creation...
...Scripture is an exposition of the beliefs of the primitive church...
...It's worth noting that there has been no real discussion of gun control in your pages over the past two years—not, at least, according to your annual indexes...
...Christ's "new creation" makes all things new, not all new things...
...I agree that in hallowing and concretizing the biological we must be careful not to absolutize it...
...The CFFC's well-oiled publicity machine is expertly attuned to take advantage of this fact: witness Anna Quindlen's half-baked attack on the bishops and' her ardent defense of CFFC...
...To the Editors: In your editorial discussing President Bill Clinton's first year in office ["A Needed Conversation," January 14], you discern in the signing into law of the Brady Bill an indication of his effectiveness and some hope for the future...
...To the Editors: Wow, what a wonderful new idea...
...Homosexuals are psychologically and physiologically different from heterosexuals...
...The renunciation of and abstention from sexual acts honors rather than contradicts the meaning of sexual love...
...In ages past," Ms...
...Neither do I see what warrant CFFC has in speaking for the sensus fidelium or even for dissident Catholics as a group...
...So it will not do to reduce the significance of human sexuality, whether straight or gay, to the physical act itself...
...Paul Baumann waxes romantic concerning the sexes, and even presumes that the afterlife in some way continues sexual differentiation...
...It is reassuring to know that in your view President Clinton deserves credit for supporting and signing the Brady Bill, but your own position on realistic and effective legislation remains vague...
...Not that they cannot buttress one another...
...Now they are more apt to be rushed into print or taped for the evening news...
...Steinfels, it seems, would prefer that only the bishops and those among the theologians and laity who see things her way be heard...
...The letter writers now raise for me a further question: Why does the CFFC invest so much in insisting upon the Catholic identity and authenticity of an organization that their letter admits dissents from the church's teaching on a variety of reproductive issues...
...PAUL BAUMANN From the editors: More letters on these matters will appear in our next issue...
...When Baumann pushes the incarnational argument as he does, he only proves to me that we can be fundamentalistic about almost anything, even so beautiful a truth as the Incarnation...
...JOSEPH A. FERNANDEZ This is dialogue...
...In saying no to sex and children, early Christians offered eschatological witness to the "new creation" revealed in Christ's death and resurrection...
...As we watch the marketplace and competitive pressure erode our leisure, it is good to remember that ancient Greek and Roman societies did not provide our forebears with a weekly day of rest...
...The difference between the Sabbath and the Lord's Day is important...
...we encounter the transcendent in and through the things of this world...
...CFFC acknowledges, with solid grounding in theology and history, that church authorities can err and that "dissenting in and for the church" often serves the discernment of truth...
...But that "new creation,'' at least until the parousia, takes place within the continuum of creation, not outside it...
...Steinfels criticizes Anna Quindlen's critique of the bishops' statement on CFFC, with much nastiness directed at CFFC and Ms...
...Since I voted for Bill Clinton and felt very relieved when he was elected, I hope you are right about his political resiliency and capacity to persuade and lead...
...EUGENE LaVERDIERE, S.S.S...
...My main disappointment is that orientation studies receive no mention...
...The media do not want to hear all sides on the abortion issue (the four credentials show a charming naivete on this point...
...That church authorities err is not news...
...In other words, a sexual ethic too eager to "transcend the biological" seems to me to slight the incarnated nature of sexual identity as well as the tradition's valorization of sexual love...
...I'm not interested in sexualizing God or his actions...
...To the Editors: As four credentialed Catholic theologians active on the board of Catholics for a Free Choice, we take issue with many points in Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's "Notebook" column of January 14 ["Drawing Lines: Quindlen, Kissling, & Us...
...The Lord's day is observed in celebration of the Resurrection on the first day of the week when God worked...
...If we have to go down, we should do so fighting...
...The first letter was my own—I included a brief reference to gun control in a comment protesting a column by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels which imputed accountability to Mayor David Dinkins in the fatal shooting of a student in a Brooklyn high school...
...Leisure and holidays are quite defensible on philosophic grounds, apart from biblical considerations regarding holy days...
...MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS 29...
...Stahel's second question comes in several parts...
...But the next line is perhaps the most revealing of why CFFC has hit such a raw nerve...
...I suggest that the starting point for this dialogue is not the important theological issues that Professor Nash raises...
...The bishops do not appreciate this and would prefer that only their own voices be heard...
...Its analysis is careful, and the reading and thoughtfulness that underlie the analysis are, if anything, even more impressive...
...The question is: Can CFFC err...
...But if homosexual acts are human acts, their significance is not restricted to their physical description or physical effects...
...In Christ, God has joined himself to man...
...The central issue in the Steinfels piece is its theologically naive assumption about episcopal authority...
...During this time there have been two cursory refer27 ences to gun control in Commonweal— the first being a sentence in a letter, the second a short letter responding to that sentence...
...Of Catholicism with no distracting interference by Catholics...
...Though it is a normative tradition, it does not appear to be inerrant in this regard...
...Haven't they, in fact, bought into the view of abortion proponents that there is no difference between contraception and abortion...
...So many, in fact, that we necessarily leave much unanswered, but then not every scurrility or inaccuracy deserves a response...
...ANNE pontrelli Transcending biology New York, N.Y...
...and that Catholics seek to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, race or enthnicity, sex, and creed...
...Indeed, where Stahel suspects "fundamentalistic" prejudices, I see sacramental necessities...
...Stahel suggests we move to a more metaphorical understanding of sexual fruitfulness...
...Only by first witnessing to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community that the commitment to Jesus means a commitment to justice for all people—even when Catholic tradition is at odds with their way of life—can we realistically hope to begin a dialogue on the questions that Professor Nash raises...
...Wilmington, Del...
...The word "Catholic" in CFFC' s title perfectly meets the media's need to trump one of the few serious and reasoned opponents of abortion, the Catholic church...
...If homosexuality, as practiced by Christians, could be shown to be procreative in some way that transcends the biological, we might attempt to assign it a teleology fitted to Christian morality...
...Steinfels's words, "deserves at least a careful hearing and a reasoned response...
...Christian celibacy has always presupposed a sexuality ordered toward procreation...
...More and more, we are faced with the same personal responsibility...
...An incarnational ethic does not reduce sexuality to biology, but it necessarily presup(Continued on page 27) 2 CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) poses biology...
...Rest slops New York, N.Y...
...2. Baumann writes: "For incarnational religion the intrinsically nonprocreative nature of homosexual acts is a metaphysical dead-end...
...Nor is it reductionist to place the "physical act itself" at the heart of an incarnational understanding of sexuality...
...Let me suggest a reason...
...In part this is because it is clear that on certain subjects, notably those related to reproductive ethics, the hierarchy is out of sync with both the dominant theological views and the sense of the faithful...
...Baumann cites was a conversation I participated in, I am moved to explain why Baumann's argument leaves me unpersuaded, or at least unsatisfied, at a couple of points: 1. Baumann writes: "Homosexual acts, by definition and in principle, sever the connection between sexuality and procreation...
...That leaves a question: Where does Commonweal stand...
...A discussion of homosexuality with no homosexuals taking part...
...It is true, "the Starship Enterprise has no holy days...
...The press understandably takes note of this and wants to hear from all sides...
...A metaphysical description of the conjugal act, in which we cooperate with God in bringing forth new life but in which God alone creates life, need not be written off as fundamentalistic...
...However, I am concerned about the implications of desexualizing and consequently disembodying Christ...
...Get real...
...In the case of Catholics for a Free Choice, I happen to agree with the bishops: CFFC is not an authentic Catholic organization nor does it speak for the Catholic church...
...There are, after all, many sides to the abortion question, but the media recognize only two, those for and those against, and favors the former...
...But if we are to sustain the sacramental tension between spirit and matter, we must at some point tether our dialectic to nature, not just to the idealized self...
...My point—one of several missed or misread by the four credentialed theologians—is that the bishops' criticisms deserve a careful hearing and a reasoned response...
...Laird's question: As might be inferred from our reference to the Brady Bill, Commonweal favors gun control, including measures much more comprehensive and stringent than that legislation...
...Steinfels seems to assume that bishops are always right when they define a person or group as having "crossed the line" and as "not authentically Catholic...
...A discussion of feminism without feminists...
...A response from a Florida correspondent gave the impression that, in his view, gun control is an exercise in futility...
...The author replies: In response to Thomas Stahel: My argument does not "reduce the significance of human sexuality...to the physical act itself," but it does insist that in a sacramental system sexual morality be anchored in embodiment and therefore in sexual acts...
...A sacramental system turns us toward the material or biological as both real and symbolic...
...To the Editors: Once again Commonweal addresses the issue of homosexuality [issue of January 28], and once again, as was the case with your previous symposium [November 22, 1991], the presentation lacks balance...
...When it comes to human sexuality, I think it most coherent to tether our metaphysical understanding to procreation...
...In this case, our correspondent is mainly in the right about our past coverage, though he did miss one treatment, a review appearing in the issue of June 5, 1992, of a book by Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America...
...But that is no reason to capitulate...
...What's next...
...That doesn't mean that procreative sex and childbearing are divine activities, but it clearly suggests that the incarnation sanctifies the biological in ways that permit us to see in sexual love a natural sign of God's action...
...THOMAS H. STAHEL, S J. The writer is managing editor of America magazine...
...This discussion, in 28...
...As Vacek indicated, the Lord's Day is not just a Christian Sabbath...
...As Peter Brown has written, sexual renunciation was a selfconscious act of biological and social discontinuity—a way of symbolically announcing the end time by withholding human cooperation in bringing about the future...
...Is it reductionist to require real eating and real bread and wine for the Eucharist...
...But as soon as we achieve it, we fill it with work, even if of the nonservile kind...
...To the Editors: Re: Paul Baumann's essay on homosexuality...
...Reticent on gun control Hollis, N.Y...
...Would if we could...
...To wit, the four credentials write that they join with those who "carefully make the case for the possibility of considered moral choices for birth control and abortion," blithely running together two issues that occupy very different places on the Catholic moral spectrum...
...Rather it should begin with the pledge that Catholics, enlivened by the radical love commandment of Jesus, will work for a community in which lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are free from the threat of physical and economic violence...
...that Catholics condemn violence done to gay and bisexual people in their homes and in the streets...
...A chastening walk through history would show her that church authorities acting in concert have often erred robustly and have had to be corrected gradually by theologians and by the sensusfidelium, which involves the prayerful discernments and critical experiences of the laity...
...Quindlen herself, creating a model we do not wish to emulate...
...To the Editors: I very much appreciated Edward Vacek's essay defending the value of leisure ["Never on Sundays," February 11], We talk about leisure and work very hard to achieve it...
...Sabbath rest is observed on the seventh day of the week when God rested...
...JOHN RYAN First step to dialogue Brooklyn, N.Y...
...MARY E. HUNT DANIEL C. MAGUIRE GILES MILHAVEN ROSEMARY RADFORD RUETHER The author replies: Bishops are not always right, no more than theologians or editors...
...Dissent & truth Silver Spring, Md...
...As to the question about Jesus Christ's birth: Of course God cannot be the product of a human procreative act...
...Catholics think not...
...The concept of sexual orientation was unknown until relatively recently, and the latest studies indicate a possible genetic component to the phenomenon...
...We join those who carefully make the case for the possibility of considered moral choices for birth control and abortion...
...ROLAND LAIRD From the editors: No claim is made in these quarters that Commonweal covers all significant issues...
...Can't...
...Early Christians had to find a way to secure it and enjoy it in the Lord...
...Nothing is a more compelling sign of that mystery than the Virgin Birth...
...The fact is that the international educational work of CFFC has not escaped the notice of the media...
...It does not even have holidays...
...The procreative dimension lacking in same-sex relationships does not preclude the possibility that these relationships may witness to lifeaffirming, mutually enhancing, and, dare I say it, Christian values...
...Well, then, what about the intrinsically nonprocreative nature of my vowed chastity, my clerical celibacy...
...I want to resist the drift away from sacrament toward metaphor...
Vol. 121 • March 1994 • No. 5
