Correspondence:
GERNER, GEORGE W. & CONNELL, ROSEMARY & PEATMAN, BILL & HUETHER, CHARLES P. & RIGA, PETER J. & SCHOENHERR, RICHARD A. & CLERICUS & GIBLIN, G. A. & KLEINHENZ, JOHN & FRISBIE, RICHARD & KAHN, ERIC
CORRESPONDENCE Death penally obscene Arlington Heights, I11. To the Editors: Most of the discussion I have read of the death penalty seems to be carried on by theorists who have never witnessed an...
...Let him find a bishop who will stand up and be counted" to help the victims of AIDS, let him join former President Jimmy Carter in helping to build housing for the poor...
...The multiple sounds arrive at different times for different listeners, since each speaker is a different distance from every listener...
...Not enough commitment...
...I don't think practicing will help enliven the spiritual lives of priests and turn them into what they are supposed to be-spiritual leaders who are the first in the community to struggle to put Jesus' teaching into practice, and who are the first to interpret their experience in the shattering light of the gospel...
...Senator Robb's office cited his vote in favor of the Helms-Lott Amendment (No...
...But after reading Rev...
...Reed to exchange thoughts and ideas with a representative group of Catholics...
...Giblin's letter and my article than meets the eye...
...To the Editors: In response to George W. Gerner's article on "Catholics & the Religious Right" [May 5], which makes mention of my own role as officer in charge of Catholic Outreach at the Washington office of the Christian Coalition, I wish to offer some clarifications and comments...
...As far as I can see, Catholic priests can't preach because they have nothing to say...
...ERIC KAHN, O.F.M...
...I'd seen the episode before, but it was still funny, touching, and even a little insightful...
...Here come the prison guards, dragging in the prisoner to be killed...
...The differences may be small, but they all add up to confusion and difficulty in listening...
...Save to protect the innocent when there is no other way, to kill the icon is sacrilege...
...Gerry Giblin, described in your article as a Catholic working as a volunteer for the Coalition, I would urge him to find something to do to help the poor and the downtrodden...
...The diocese's campaign involvement by free publication and distribution of a "voter guide" sponsored by the Coalition and the local League of Catholic Voters was as documented in my article with information supplied by Mr...
...So instead of honestly engaging the Scriptures, they read the bulletin...
...Or they twist each week's Gospel into an anthem for their personal pet causes (prolife, pro-celibacy, whatever...
...On the other hand, his suggestion that the June meeting of Arlington clergy (and others) with Ralph Reed was totally apolitical is disingenuous...
...Let us not kill...
...Choral directors know that they must set the tempo of their music to the acoustics of the space where the music is to be heard...
...Give us richer food...
...To the Editors: Most of the discussion I have read of the death penalty seems to be carried on by theorists who have never witnessed an execution...
...They know that the "bounce" time has to be judged so that they will not be competing with the returning echo of whatever was just sung...
...Nor was there any connection with Frank Nassetta and the League of Catholic Voters...
...they are with God...
...At the time of the luncheon, I did not even know Mr...
...The more modern methods of gas chamber or lethal injection soften the spectacle but do not lessen the obscenity of a cold-blooded killing...
...Seminarians in these dioceses are sent to orthodox seminaries...
...To the Editors: On first reading Dennis Burke's tepid assessment of Catholic preaching [April 7], I thought, "Well, maybe more preparation would help...
...their fate has been sealed...
...But please don't criticize the things that successfully appeal to our imagination, passion, and desire for community...
...One could easily assume from the article that there was some master plan to enlist the clergy of the Arlington diocese in the Oliver North campaign...
...I submit that it is ultimately because of the example of Christ, the innocent one, the one who put death to death, and who did not ask retribution for his judicial murder...
...Reading your article on "Catholics and the 'Religious Right'" got me seething all over again...
...We lay people may be malnourished from a diet of television and talk radio, but don't blame the starving for their hunger...
...Preachers and other speakers must do the same...
...Give us something we long to be involved in as much as watching sports with friends...
...Baumann never asked why every other democracy in the Western world (except South Africa) has eliminated capital punishment...
...RICHARD FRISBIE Jesus & the death penalty Republic, Mo...
...Has Mr...
...By looking at the fine print at the bottom, I confirmed my guess: the leaflet came from the Christian Coalition...
...The editorial in the same issue has it right: The death penalty is wrong...
...GEORGE W. GERNER Unwelcome guidance Rockford, I11...
...The notion that we Catholics needed to be educated by the likes of Pat Robertson, in light of the scathing remarks that have flowed from his lips over the years and his defamatory attacks on Bill Clinton during the campaign, left me seething...
...I agree...
...The clergy have been blaming the laity for the pathetic state of parish life for decades...
...We may wonder, further, about the bias he imputes to God, whose grace is limited to those dioceses that embody Mr...
...As a society we do have an obligation to the living: to keep this murderer from murdering again...
...and other media, I was actually enraged enough to set down my wine glass, press the mute button, and respond (I waited for the commercials...
...They need conversion...
...As for Mr...
...Clearly, that evaluation is not universally shared...
...To the Editors: The problem with Richard Schoenherr's "Numbers Don't Lie" [April 7] is not with the numbers themselves, but with the analysis...
...The study was sponsored by the United States Catholic Conference and the data from each diocese were checked by local officials...
...It's time for Catholic finance committees to engage in ecumenical dialogue with other churches to dispel the "money myth" being used to discredit the notion of a married priesthood...
...Probably not, though," had another glass of wine, and watched a rerun of "Seinfeld...
...ROSEMARY CONNELL Seinfeld interruptus Napa, Calif...
...Michael Kerper' s appalling letter [May 19] suggesting that the laity are to blame for poor preaching because we have numbed ourselves with television, movies, the Internet (imagine...
...To the Editors: I am genuinely puzzled by the arguments put forth in Paul Baumann's editorial dissent on capital punishment...
...Did they really promote the candidacy of Oliver North for the United States Senate, thereby holding this man up as an example of a good Christian...
...My efforts and his were entirely separate and independent...
...The Christian ethic and the human ethic are not irreconcilable, and the first has incrementally influenced the second through (Continued on page 28) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) the ages, for the better...
...But we will not resolve the mystery of evil by further killing...
...we're not doing any better in ours...
...Maybe, as John Kippley has noted in the Catholic World Report, God provides the grace of vocations only if his message is not censored, as it is in many other diocesan programs...
...Okay, the commercials are over...
...JOHN KLEINHENZ The author replies: Our data are based on a random sample of eighty-nine dioceses, representing 68 percent of U.S...
...These voter guides reflect the candidates' positions on all prolife and pro-family issues, and it is easy to understand why many candidates do not wish to have their record so noted...
...In the final report [Full Pews and Empty Altars, Richard A. Schoenherr and Lawrence A. Young, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993], we document that the number of priests is growing in about 10 percent of the dioceses...
...Readers may decide whether our sample or John Kleinhenz's is incomplete, and whether the data verified by church officials are biased by my personal convictions, as he implies...
...The voice of a speaker using a PA system comes from as many directions as there are loudspeakers...
...Giblin defends the Coalition's single-phrase "voter guides" by simply reasserting that they are factual...
...1382) to S115O/HR8O1, which supports school prayer...
...The death of death Houston, Tex...
...As someone who has covered an electrocution, I can tell you that the act is evil in itself, no matter how heinous the crimes of the prisoner, no matter how proper the judicial process...
...Men care only about football on Sundays...
...The purpose of the meeting was to enable Mr...
...The sacredness of human life remains even in the murderer, who remains the icon and image of God...
...When Cain slew Abel, God did not exact vengeance but gave Cain a mark to protect him from those who would kill him in retribution...
...that is, they must speak slowly enough so that the "echo" effect will not make their words unintelligible...
...Often "supports/opposes" positions attributed to Senator Charles Robb by the Coalition's voter guide as published by the Arlington diocese, Senator Robb's office states that six were "false...
...GIBLIN The author replies: There is less disagreement between Mr...
...With regard to the voter guides, they were factual representations of how candidates had voted or stood on the issues...
...That is why we have arrived at last at the point of asking abolition of the death penalty...
...Why was it not noted that vocations are doing just fine in the dioceses of Peoria, Lincoln, and Arlington...
...To the Editors: Paul Baumann's editorial dissent favoring the death penalty, though cogently presented, still leaves us confronted with Jesus' ethic...
...Giblin writes that Senator Robb's vote on (against) voluntary school prayer, for example, is "well known," but gives no citation...
...CLERICUS Coalition defended Washington, D.C...
...Obviously, they are not growing fast enough to offset the national trend, which shows a strong overall decline...
...The incompleteness of the investigation suggests to me that the answers were postulated in the researcher's mind before the data were collected and analysis completed...
...Henry Foster from becoming surgeon general than from the main focus groups of their own church...
...Just do it better...
...Give us something better...
...The society that spares the guilty one is simply better than the society that kills...
...Nassetta, the League's founder...
...Politics were not on the agenda...
...Gerner neglected to mention that the meeting I set up for Ralph Reed [executive director of the Christian Coalition] was also attended by priests from the Washington archdiocese, several priests from religious orders, and lay persons...
...In this feudal system, I'm basically a serf...
...And don't unplug my cable, Father Kerper, until you have something better to offer...
...Gotta run...
...The prognosis is not favorable...
...We owe victims nothing...
...This is what Catholics should be about...
...Giblin draws and then denies an inference of intrigue that was not implied, much less asserted...
...richard a. schoenherr No moonlighting needed Utopiaville, Planet Earth To the Editors: James Panella speculates in his letter [Correspondence, May 19] that married priests might have to take second jobs in order to support their families, thereby having even less time to prepare sermons...
...The church's traditional acknowledgment of the death penalty's moral legitimacy has to be placed in context...
...BILL PEATMAN Beware of the bounce Clifton, N.J...
...They tell stories about the Holy Land...
...A wisp of smoke rises from the prisoner's head, where the electrode scorches the flesh...
...Yet the human thirst for vengeance still grows like crabgrass...
...They didn't get it in his day...
...It would seem to me that the approach of any program that is working should be mentioned as a possible corrective...
...Subtract the cost of maintaining a parish rectory and in some cases you can add another minister...
...To the Editors: On a Sunday before the presidential election of 1992, I found in my pew a leaflet indicating how each candidate stood on certain issues...
...we cannot undo their death...
...Senator Charles Robb's votes on voluntary prayer and abortion are public information...
...As Pope John Paul II points out, the lex talionis, the law of retribution, has been superseded...
...Nassetta...
...diocesan priests, or some 36,000 priests, whose demographic events were recorded for nineteen years...
...I got very little out of that Mass...
...The Orthodox church might solve its vocation crisis by ordaining women...
...Kleinhenz's views about church reform...
...Giblin's final paragraph effectively describes why the "religious right" is sometimes the most articulate spokesman for certain moral concerns Catholics share with other Americans...
...We too easily run the risk of succumbing to the same sclerocardiac condition of which Jesus, in a different context, accused some of the Pharisees...
...Here is the politically connected mob of witnesses, elbowing one another for a better view of the victim's body as the muscles tense with the shock of the electricity...
...I would be surprised to learn that Paul Baumann ["An Editorial Dissent," May 19], for example, who argued in your pages against "disproportionate mercy," is an old police reporter...
...I also wonder why, if married priests are the answer to the shortage, the Orthodox Church in America, which allows married priests, will also soon be facing a vocation crisis, as noted by John Garvey in Commonweal [October 8,1993...
...This time it wasn't just the Christian Coalition-it was "Catholic Outreach," functioning in the Arlington, Virginia, diocese with the apparent blessing of Catholic clergy and the hierarchy...
...How ironic it is, in light of the recent and powerful encyclical Evangelium vitae, that Catholics can obtain more help from the Southern Baptist Convention in trying to prevent Dr...
...My Protestant counterparts are able to house themselves well, raise families, serve their people, preach effective sermons, and still have time for golf...
...Some thoughts: Baumann's constant refrain is that we owe the victims justice...
...Catholicism-particularly, but not only, at the hierarchical level-has been more notorious for ignoring Jesus' ethic than for honoring it...
...Even in societies that still condone the death penalty, we no longer torture or crucify or copy the murderer's method of killing...
...Under section 107 of the Internal Revenue Code, clergy are entitled to certain tax allowances for housing expenses...
...When President Bill Clinton replaces a strident anti-Catholic bigot as surgeon general with a man who has served the abortion lobby well by not only performing abortions but serving as a director of Planned Parenthood, and when Catholics look for support and outrage from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference and receive an empty response, is it any surprise that they join and march forward with their Evangelical friends who provide response and a plan of action...
...In disclaiming a Christian Coalition "master plan" to enlist the support of the Arlington diocese for the Oliver North campaign, Mr...
...But please withhold my name...
...The historical record shows that other Christian churches embraced gender inclusivity in the ordained ministry after they had incorporated marital-status inclusivity...
...peter j.riga Numbers can trick Dallas, Oreg...
...There is a cure...
...If so, what is the Catholic church coming to...
...Not enough donations...
...What was said to Jesus' ancestors about not killing, and about preferring nonviolence to demolishing eyes and teeth, echoes through the centuries...
...This hand-wringing and whining has to stop...
...To the Editors: With respect to the perceived quality of preaching, one aspect not yet touched upon by your authors and correspondents is the proper use of a multi-speaker audio amplifier...
...It's not necessarily so...
...They recite dogma...
...Finally, I note in the article that the root cause of the decline is twofold: celibate and male exclusivity...
...CHARLES P. HUETHER...
Vol. 122 • June 1995 • No. 12
