Correspondence:
KAHN, ERIC & WARREN, MICHAEL & KENDALL, WALTER J. III & YOUKEY, BILL
CORRESPONDENCE The burden of guilt Republic, Mo. To the Editors: In "The Epidemic of Forgiveness" [March 24], Gordon Marino claims that forgiving one's self is not as honest as it looks. From a...
...our country are likewise working very nicely for them...
...Presenters include: Anscar Chupungco, Mary Collins, Archbishop James Hayes, Theresa Koernke, J. Michael McMahon, Nathan Mitchell, James Moudry, Richard Moudry, J-Glenn Murray, Thomas O'Meara, Julia Upton, Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy, Box 81, Notre Dame, IN 46556...
...One generation later, some maintain the renewal is over...
...WALTER J. KENDALL HI The writer is a professor of law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago...
...bill youkey Conference PASTORAL LITURGY CONFERENCE June 19-22: "See, I Am Making All Things New...
...He hopes Islam is not "a religion of bloodthirsty curiosity seekers" sustained by "the religious police" and subject to the "total" authority of the king...
...At issue is how one perceives God, and how one accepts or does not accept oneself as an ordinary human being quite capable of even dreadful sin...
...For the young widow with young children...
...The author replies: Professor Kendall's letter is both insightful and inciteful...
...And the low taxes of the very rich in...
...Continued on page 28)CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) 'Them' vs...
...The source of that kind of forgiveness is not one's self but God...
...Youkey sees Saudis as "frenzied," a "raucous rabble" filled with a "frightening...
...Warren's Volkswagen, it needs fixing...
...But Bill Youkey' s report [February 10] on an execution during his three years in Saudi Arabia (years that "seemed like a lifetime") cannot pass without comment...
...I ask two questions about this assumption...
...Welfare defended Jamaica, N.Y...
...us' Chicago, I11...
...For the single young man who was attacked and stabbed and will not be able to work for many months...
...Our apologies...
...It can only be described as a breathtaking illustration of what Edward Said calls "Orientalism"-discourse that divides the world's people into a "them" and an "us," where "they" are ultimately inferior...
...To the Editors: I do not want to be misunderstood: Capital punishment is barbaric...
...It was an excerpt from the book, and was meant to be printed as a box quote accompanying the review...
...At least, so sinful as they see it...
...219/631-5435 • FAX 219/631-6968.219/631-5435 • FAX 219/631-6968...
...In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia it results in a "them" and an "us," and nothing Bill Youkey can say will change that...
...We think it has only begun...
...On that, everyone agrees...
...I am relatively certain that there are countless other confessors and spiritual counselors who still regularly meet the kind of clients who, in addition to accepting God's merciful forgiveness and the forgiveness of fellow human beings, need to forgive themselves in the sense I have described...
...First: For whom is it not working...
...It would take another article to describe the desperate situation of TCNs in Riyadh...
...From a strictly moral-theological perspective, he's right...
...They are treated like rabble, worse than nineteenth-century Southern slaves, and they respond accordingly...
...Thus, to me, it makes great good sense to encourage another so burdened to close the matter by forgiving her/himself for having behaved so sinfully, or so crudely, or so cruelly...
...But it sure looks like that to him...
...For the woman who has run from an abusive relationship in the hope of protecting herself and her child...
...I believe welfare works as a safety net for many people in desperate need but isn't working flawlessly...
...In my ministry as confessor and retreat director, I have encountered far too many folks who have indeed been theologically and morally absolved from their real guilt, but who carry the burden of false guilt in their hearts, sometimes for years, because they cannot accept it that they have allowed themselves to be so sinful...
...How will we ever progress toward understanding our common humanity if a Catholic magazine perpetuates such views...
...It is important to understand this distinction, for it shows two forms of Islam...
...We say it is working but needs to be fixed...
...ERIC KAHN, O.F.M...
...I believe (and I am not alone in this belief) that we will, in fact, never "progress toward understanding our common humanity" because of customs like beheadings, like stoning a drowning woman as punishment, like not allowing women to drive, to work, or to show their faces in public, and like not allowing men and women to hold hands in public or to be together in the same car...
...Ultimately, he doubts the sincerity of the believers' faith, referring to the "truly pious or overly curious"-he's not sure which-as cowering "at the feet of their Saudi masters...
...What God sees, I prefer to suspect, is an entirely different matter...
...MICHAEL WARREN From the editors: We wholly agree that "working" can be an ambiguous word, but we think that in this instance the context (everything in the editorial after the first sentence) makes its meaning clear: The welfare system is absolutely necessary, but, like Mr...
...Working" can be ambiguous in some contexts...
...When our 1980 Volkswagen makes unearthly sounds because it needs a mechanic's attention, we don't say it CORRECTION Owing to an editorial error, the last paragraph of Mary Ann Glendon's March 24 review of Philip K. Howard's The Death of Common Sense should not have appeared in the review proper...
...Apparently the multiple forms of corporate welfare described recently in the New York Times [March 7, 1995, page Dl] are working very well for the corporations involved but not so well for the common good of our country...
...I used "frenzied" to describe the third country national (TCN) population, not the Saudis...
...On that, not all agree...
...zeal...
...isn't working...
...Although Professor Kendall grasps the substance of my words, he misrepresents the spirit of my feelings...
...Further, when we humans forgive others who have injured us, our ability to do so also derives from God...
...To the Editors: Your 'Tough Love" editorial [March 24] starts right out with an apparent truism: "Welfare isn't working...
...My basic point: We won't get far in our search for economic justice if we begin by saying welfare isn't "working...
...But there is another perspective, the spiritual-psychological...
...Renewal of the liturgy and of the church was embraced by Vatican Council II as the work of the Spirit...
...He captures the essence of what I was conveying, that the Saudi culture (more than that of any other Sunni Muslim people) is oxymoronical to anything we Westerners have ever known...
...My other question: Which welfare isn't working...
Vol. 122 • April 1995 • No. 8
