Correspondence
HOGAN, BEN & STRAULMAN, ANN & WILGRESS, JANE & Gans, Herbert J. & Higgins, Thomas & WALSH, PETER & WILLIAMS, JOAN B. & JR., DAVID R. CARLIN & PENDERGAST, WILLIAM B. & SAYERS, PAULA & WARNER, MICHAEL & CHANDLER, GAIL & MURRAY, PETER & Byrnes, Timothy A.
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Bob Lax, friend I was delighted to come upon the April 19 issue and all that it contained about my old pal Bob Lax. Compliments to James Uebbing. Bob Lax and I have...
...The reviewer replies: For the record, I neither said, nor even implied, that Mr...
...Neither, we are assured, was Mr...
...Warner had reviewed Mr...
...While we are discussing objectivity, Mr...
...The article shows what I have long wanted to see but often despaired of finding in contemporary writing by those sincerely concerned with the feminist agenda and/or with challenges to our church and community...
...Byrnes's next book...
...nevethe-less, on it depends our future and thus we have a duty to be mindful of so central a psychic truth...
...Why in the world do you quote Meilaender...
...Perhaps he missed that issue too...
...Or is it possible that the Holy Spirit could in this as well as so many other ways be calling us to move beyond categories of our own making and to embrace all those who choose love...
...Eighty percent of the Democrats in the Senate and 60 percent of House Democrats voted against the bill banning such abortions...
...Meantime, she has provided much food for thought and for a widening of the discussion into a pastorally fruitful, desperately needed dialogue...
...But who aside from Catholics would accept such a "norm...
...Nor do the procreators have a "status" that needs protection...
...Warner's argument in Changing Witness is that over the past three decades or so the bishops have aban-(Continued on page 28) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) doned traditional Catholic social analysis in favor of an approach to public policy dominated by left-wing economics and pacifism...
...It's not news Sadly enough, journalists like to go after sociologists, and vice versa, even though they should really be cooperating, since they both study society...
...Or am I missing the point...
...BEN HOGAN, O.CARM...
...Byrnes could have read, for instance, of the National Council of Catholic Bishops' reaction to Roe v. Wade, of the United States Catholic Conference secretariat's protest against then-Archbishop Bernardin's 1976 "endorsement" of President Gerald Ford, and of the NCCB's leaders' subsequent reluctance to press the issue in the late 1970s...
...Francis J. Maniscalco said in his letter [Correspondence, June 1] about my Commonweal column of May 17.1 do disagree, however, with (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2) one thing: his notion that he is disagreeing with something I wrote...
...Warner's book is as insinuating as his letter, we can hardly wait to read it...
...It is untrue to say, as he does, that the MLA has a "stranglehold on the hiring process," or that it is "the only and I mean the only organization of literature professors in the United States...
...Marriage as a social form is first a procreative bond," you say...
...He has examined the bishops as political actors...
...they're much wittier than anything I could think up...
...Do you have any idea what all this would sound like to couples who adopt children...
...It reflected the kind of tortured, legalistic thinking that drives gay people out of the church in droves...
...The main work will be done at home...
...New York, N.Y...
...Francis J. Maniscalco takes satisfaction [Correspondence, June 1] from what he calls "strong bipartisan support" in the Congress for banning partial-birth abortions...
...Is your concern simply with this country at this time i.e., a question of expediency...
...On another facet of McConnell's column, it is all too easy to make snide remarks about the prose styles displayed in the MLA's journal, but in doing so he would be well advised to cull from his own prose such clunkers as his depiction of the professoriate as "a psychic resort colony for imagination failures...
...I am sure the editors of Commonweal will give me another chance to voice my comments when they ask me to review Mr...
...So it was in 1969, when I was "a winged thing at a crossroads," out of a job, returned from Korea, where I labored for a few years, but then, in Miami, thankful that I was jobless and able to be at the bedside of my comatose brother...
...How giving of her now to entrust us with this mother lode of memories, the unconscious matrix, as it were, from which sprang such lines as the father's telling the daughter, "I love you more than God does," and such incidents as the lover marking pages in a book with hairs from his nose...
...I hope that in a future article, she will deal with that...
...Or perhaps Mr.Byrnes just dislikes my approach, which naturally differs somewhat from his own...
...Neither Mr...
...Just social climbers...
...It may mean the difference between self-sufficiency and dependence on welfare...
...Whose norm...
...Byrnes might find the answers to some of his rhetorical questions if he would consult my critical but polite review [Crisis, July 1992] of his useful 1991 book Catholic Bishops in American Politics...
...A breach of the "norm...
...And frankly I still find utterly preposterous the notion that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has grown "reluctant to fight the abortion battle...
...No more than debate concerning women priests is necessary for those who know the "true ends" of priesthood...
...As for the differences between Mr...
...Yes, indeed—but why express this in the past tense...
...My question, repeated here, is how he squares this claim with the political history of those decades, which shows those same Catholic bishops repeatedly and consistently emphasizing the moral and political primacy of abortion...
...Byrnes...
...But then you make the leap: "Sexual differentiation is marriage's defining boundary...
...By contrast, I was grateful for Sidney Callahan's column [April 22, 1994] on the same subject...
...PETER WALSH New York, N.Y...
...I could swear I had mentioned the bishops' opposition to abortion, and I certainly did not remember placing "the controversy surrounding the place of abortion on the church's agenda outside the parameters" of my history...
...Great collaborations have been based on less...
...I think he was responding not to my argument but to the column's headline, "Face It, We've Lost...
...The MLA may be the only group that cuts across periods and languages, but McConnell ignores a number of organizations that focus upon periods, individual authors, or the literature of a specific country or region, groups whose meetings are excellent occasions for meeting prospective employers or mentors in a smaller, more congenial setting than that of the MLA convention...
...PAULA SAYERS Germantown, Md...
...Is this the attitude you would find more prevalent among those who have in fact "reproduced...
...WILLIAM B. PENDERGAST McLean, Va...
...Our way out of this confusion will be found only secondarily through laws and politics...
...But your point is well taken: "We are all the offspring of a man and a woman, and marriage is the necessary moral and social response to that natural human condition...
...And I'll bet that Neal Dolan is a great teacher, too...
...michael warner Wheaton, Md...
...Warner writes "as though abortion has not been a major focus of the bishops' attention recently," and by that judgment I most definitely stand...
...You state that "historically, marriage forged a powerful connection between sexual love, procreation, and the care of children...
...In fact I said exactly the opposite, that we should recognize how hostile the dominant culture is and begin to fight...
...Your readers can judge whether this voting pattern justifies the judgment that the bill (which the president vetoed) drew "strong bipartisan support" in the Congress...
...Is this the spirit of Jesus' teaching...
...Warner's approach and my own, a closer look might convince him that we have more in common than he imagines...
...What do you think of Muslim polygamy...
...Where did that come from...
...The minimum wage may not be our most important economic issue, but to downplay its effect by saying it would affect only the "tiniest portion" (2.5 percent of the workforce) is to miss its importance altogether...
...I'm afraid his comment on the distinction between the bishops as political actors and as political thinkers is not persuasive...
...perhaps he missed these earlier pages...
...The point is this: We are given the sacraments to help us fulfill the plan of redemption...
...He seems to imagine I said Catholics should give up the fight...
...As Catholics, I am surprised that your editorial avoids all reference to the sacramentality of marriage...
...PETER MURRAY, S.J...
...Our society has allowed this connection, basic to civilization, to become severely strained...
...Denying the sacrament of marriage to gay couples, because they are gay, is a grave injustice and, I believe, sinful...
...An ardent reader of Dubus, I hope many readers will discover his greatness...
...As for job losses occasioned by a higher minimum wage, the greater good would benefit even though a few may temporarily be unemployed...
...JOAN B. WILLIAMS Milwaukee, Wis...
...Kelly also overlooks the impact that raising the minimum wage will have on other wages, which can be expected to rise as employers attempt to recruit and retain more skilled workers...
...Nonetheless, I cannot resist telling Kathleen Carlin that the lesson she wants to teach sociologists, "You Become What You Wear" [Last Word, June 1]—i.e., that we force the poor to stigmatize themselves—can already be found in any good introductory sociology or social problems course...
...Gordon's gift I'm unhappy with the review of Mary Gordon's memoir, The Shadow Man, in the issue of May 17...
...It's been roughly twenty years since Gordon published her wonderful Final Payments...
...Bravo, Professor Douglas...
...But if the letter in question is a reliable indicator, this time the title may have been misleading, david r. carlin, jr...
...And when those so affected find new jobs, at least they will be better able to support their families...
...On Seeing (For Peter Walsh) How to nail down for the future generations the absolute craziness of a bird-track in the snow is, more or less, if I may state it baldly (and I must) my problem...
...No doubt some will find she is asking too little and conceding too much to those who want to keep women evermore in a mode of quiet ecclesiastical submission...
...Well...
...how firm and delicate at once...
...Of course we were not aware that Mr...
...Her main thesis—that the hierarchical model need not be given up as the church moves toward a radical new sensitivity toward women— strikes me as cogent...
...Normally I love the titles you put on my columns...
...Msgr...
...HERBERT J. GANS New York, N.Y...
...Where he sees individual bishops active in the fight against abortion (an obvious fact that Changing Witness never questioned), I see the published statements of the bishops' conference that indeed demonstrate the NCCB's reluctance to fight the abortion battle "unless forced to do so in the context of some other issue...
...Huh...
...MLA isn't alone Though I come late to Frank McCon-nell's attack on the Modern Language Association [April 5] and to the responses in Correspondence [May 3], I believe there is more to be said about the MLA's struggle to provide a job market for aspiring scholar/teachers...
...Is the recognition of committed love between two people of the same sex really such a threat to those who are able to choose the more common relationship...
...you are saying, rather, that copulation—"a union of the sexes," my dictionary tells me—is the core of marriage, and while we may and do commit other sexual acts, the copulatory is the sacramental: a truth the church has always held here in the West, and a prevalent concept in most societies...
...Eighty-five percent of Senate Republicans and 93 percent of House Republicans voted for the bill...
...Doing right by Dubus A good review of a good book is a gift...
...the precondition of marriage's true ends...
...No time to surrender I find I agree with almost everything Msgr...
...Rather than parsing "a dizzying array of studies" on the issue, we should ask families trying to survive on the current minimum wage whether they can afford to pay the rent, provide three meals a day, purchase clothing, and take themselves or their children to a doctor when they get sick...
...I also wrote quite a bit on the debates surrounding the Consistent Ethic of Life in the early 1980s, on the bishops' comments on the Webster and Casey decisions, and on the NCCB's opposition to abortion coverage in President Clinton's proposed health-care reforms...
...Yet, reading between the lines, I find her a worthy successor of all who have spoken in favor of expanding women's rights within the church, but without splitting it apart: a real danger...
...timothy a. byrnes The sacramental core Grateful thanks to Commonweal for the lucid editorial "Marriage's True Ends" [May 17...
...Reasonable people might disagree...
...And a thought occurred: Perhaps, after publication of "The Poet Who Fell off the Map," "On Seeing" might appeal to readers of Commonweal, and delight them...
...Gay marriage" is thus a wrenching contradiction which has become in our time most tragically and confusingly politicized...
...But then I actually thumbed through the book and found the issue mentioned on page after page...
...The writer is Robert S. Lynd professor of sociology at Columbia University...
...Byrnes's approach nor mine is "ideologically driven," despite the divergence of our conclusions...
...Niagara Falls, Ont...
...The problem with the MLA job market is that the large number of applicants and the small number of tenure-track positions have created a formless monster, which the MLA attempts (without great success) to shape into a coherent process...
...What a reviewer missed Timothy A. Byrnes rather startled me with his review [June 1] of my book Changing Witness: Catholic Bishops and Public Policy, 1917-1994...
...Newport, R.I...
...By millions...
...Such truths can be and are deviated from or evaded, but they cannot be outgrown, since they are eternally larger than our transient individual selves...
...When I checked the index of names at the back of Changing Witness, sure enough, there was no entry for "abortion...
...Aren't you simply defending another status quo dear to the hearts of a group that can be defined in terms of geographical space and historical time...
...I am startled that an editorial ["Marriage'sTrue Ends," May 17] beginning with a call to "fair-minded debate" concludes that there are in fact no grounds for debate—not for those given divine insight into "marriage's true ends...
...Since I as an ordained priest have long favored women's ordination, I started the article with a good deal of skepticism, but Mary Douglas won me over...
...Warner failed completely to mention the bishops' opposition to abortion...
...I don't know how many families would be included in that 2.5 percent, but I'll bet that raising their income is not unimportant to them...
...Not that as a sign this (same bird-track) is in itself inscrutable...
...Historically," marriage has meant many things to many people, including an arranged condition important to maintain a sense of "intergenera-tional attachments...
...Raising the minimum wage is no cure-all, but it's certainly a healthy Start...
...What the fowl wrote was in itself confusion: heel-print of a creature wondering where to turn...
...Yes, our society has devised procreation without copulation and, supposedly, self-fulfillment without willingness to serve the future...
...Bob Lax and I have been fast friends since our days on Jubilee magazine, our later days in France, a friendship now sustained by the postal service...
...True, the question of reform of the clerical priesthood (which is not dealt with by Douglas, at least not here) still lurks...
...gail chandler Wallingford, Conn...
...Yet in the snow and sunlight how resplendent...
...Including gays out Reading your editorial, "Marriage's True Ends" [May 17], was excruciating...
...I have examined them collectively as political thinkers...
...Byrnes's book...
...Bob was aware of the situation, and from his pen emerged "On Seeing," a poem I cherish to this day, rereading it every whipstitch...
...The editors reply: If Mr...
...What I did say, to quote myself, was that Mr...
...Byrnes obviously read the concluding chapter of my book...
...But no matter...
...Is this just another accidental characteristic or, for Catholics, the distinctive meaning and "the norm...
...Rightly, you are not saying that homosexualilty is inhuman (psychology makes it clear that we all have a share of it as a force in our psychic make-up), or that homosexual relationships are not to be respected and valued...
...but that a trace of such importance should be left so casually here on the road-side (where he who runs may read) is at least a step or two closer to the problem...
...Bipartisan...
...Why is it that when corporations downsize, the resulting large-scale loss of jobs is justified on the ground that it maintains corporate financial stability, but when attempts are made to secure financial stability for workers by raising the minimum wage, the main reason for opposition is that it will lead to job loss...
...Procreation is not the norm of marriage just because you say so...
...jane wilgress Pacific Grove, Calif...
...He seems to think it's important to "teach us to discern the equal humanity of the child as one who is not our product" (emphasis added...
...I spoke about a "wake-up call," not a call to abandon ship...
...Editor's note: See box, this page...
...Thanks to Neal Dolan for his excellent job of telling us about Dancing after Hours by Andre Dubus [May 17...
...THOMAS HIGGINS Pasadena, Calif...
...how memorable yet transitory how worthy to be carried (as it will) from age to age, this moment, here recorded of a winged thing at a cross-roads, —Bob Lax Whose ox gets fed...
...For starters, the leadership of the NCCB doesn't believe either of us is right...
...I wish Kevin Kelly hadn't been so ambivalent about his support for the minimum wage ["A Minimal Gesture," June 1...
...Plaudits for Douglas I was intrigued, indeed ultimately inspired by Mary Douglas's essay in your issue of June 14 ["A Modest Proposal...
...Warner's repetition of that claim in his letter serves only to reinforce the argument I made about his book in the first place...
...ann straulman Kansas City, Mo...
...In any event, preservation of one or another social norm is hardly what the gospel is about...
Vol. 123 • July 1996 • No. 13
