Notebook
Jordan, Patrick
Note book THE CARDINAL RULE 'VILLAGE VOICE' MEETS TOWN CRIER I really don't have anything against the Village Voice. Like Woody Allen or West Forty-second Street, it's just there, an undeniable...
...I rarely have, except when a visitor was coming to town and needed to know about off-off-Broadway, or a friend was looking for an apartment...
...And to demonstrate just how uninterested and unfeeling some of these prelates were, I was made to say that "there are some bishops who would not be concerned with cutting off benefits to unwed mothers...
...The cardinal looked like Drosselmeier from The Nutcracker ballet, his hands aflutter, his mouth contorted in what might be a Bronx cheer...
...I also faxed him Commonweal's editorials and several strong statements by the bishops and Catholic Charities on the welfare reform...
...When it comes to belittling such beliefs, never a lick amiss...
...In fact, just the opposite is true...
...Now I felt I was in a Feiffer cartoon...
...When asked why I thought the Catholic bishops weren't speaking out more on welfare reform, I told him I wasn't an expert on what the bishops were thinking or doing-half the time I'm not sure what I'm thinking or doing- and that he ought to call the National Conference of Catholic Bishops...
...Note book THE CARDINAL RULE 'VILLAGE VOICE' MEETS TOWN CRIER I really don't have anything against the Village Voice...
...So with modest brilliance (or was it abiding naivete...
...and couldn't imagine a bishop saying it...
...When the quotes attributed to me appeared in the Voice's February 28 media column, they were used to bludgeon the bishops, particularly New York's Cardinal John O'Connor, for their tepid defense of the poor, especially unmarried women with children...
...The Voice will have to take full credit...
...This Jordan never made the statement in question, period...
...Someone at the Times had to search hard to find that one on the proof sheets...
...After that conversation, I understood a little better how I had been misquoted...
...So how could he retract what he said I said, if I said what I said in the notes...
...And, of course, there is always Jules Feiffer...
...It seemed the Voice had been on a fishing expedition to get the cardinal...
...But Goldstein is still not very clear...
...Jordan made his statements in an interview with the Voice" Goldstein wrote...
...I was soon on phone and fax, telling my brother journalist at the Voice that I had never said such a thing, in any voice...
...Two issues later (March 14), the Voice did print my letter criticizing its faulty reporting, and followed it up with a reply from Richard Goldstein, author of the original column...
...1. The Voice columnist genuinely wanted the bishops to speak out more forthrightly on behalf of the poor (although he seemed unaware that they had been doing so for years...
...Besides, I'm in favor of people reading...
...I talked with the reporter...
...Patrick Jordan...
...I will admit that the Voice's ad pages are a bit much for me: all that flesh...
...Even in opinion pieces, there is a cardinal rule in reporting: Get it right...
...never thought it...
...I am glad to have them clarified...
...In New York, it happens all the time...
...perhaps the Voice had't covered it...
...he said...
...But think again...
...So when the Voice called Commonweal recently and wanted some information about our position on welfare reform, I wasn't adverse to talking with a brother journalist...
...But there are two other possible answers for why what I said was misconstrued, and I think the second has such a commanding valence that in this case it easily intertwined with and overtook the first...
...But it's the only reason for a reporter to be out there every day in the first place...
...Since one of the "spiritual works of mercy" is to instruct the ignorant, why not try...
...I gave him the name of someone in the know...
...Like Woody Allen or West Forty-second Street, it's just there, an undeniable part of New York City life...
...On March 18, the Times published a photograph of this year's Saint Patrick's Day Parade grand marshal, none other than Cardinal O'Connor...
...It was not a photo that would turn you green with envy...
...But I suppose Thomas Aquinas would argue there's a place for such things, given it's a fallen world...
...2. Even though the church may be one's best ally on a given issue-such as the one in question-its hierarchy is always fair game for criticism because of the church's teachings on sexuality...
...It's a Sisyphean task in a fallen world, to be sure...
...And you don't have to buy it...
...I didn't think what I had said could be gotten so very wrong...
...Who knows, maybe someday they'll pick up Commonweal...
...The article she wrote was first-rate, and so was the photograph that accompanied it...
...But that's what our notes say you said," the reporter reported in Orwellian parlance...
...And I recall meeting Vivian Gornick when she came to the Catholic Worker to interview Dorothy Day...
...Patrick Jordane...
...In response to further queries, I made some theoretical observations-a bad decision, it turns out-on why the bishops might not be taking on the Contract with America, point by point...
...I do remember some good reports on the antiwar movement, the farm workers, and, more recently, the homeless in New York...
...Commonweal had just completed its special February 24 issue on "Religion & the Media," where it was pointed out-among many other things-that there is a lot of ignorance among members of the media...
Vol. 122 • April 1995 • No. 7
