Correspondence
Fleet, Robert & BEARY, THOMAS J. & VINCENT, PAUL D. & TUROWICZ, JERZY & SZPAK, ALINA & BRODERICK, W. A. & GEBHARDT, JOHN C. & KIERNAN, MICHAEL & STOVEL, FRED & PHILIPPART, DAVID & Garvey, John
CORRESPONDENCE Punchy pix Plaudits to whoever is responsible for selecting and placing the cartoons that appear in Commonweal. At their best, they resemble The Pick of Punch. THOMAS J....
...Carroll makes a case, supported by Pope Leo about fifty-six years after the supposed papal heresy, that Honorius didn't proclaim monothelitism to be true but rather neglected to deal with it by asking both sides not to use certain phrases...
...ROBERT FLEET AND ALINA SZPAK It wasn't government Whether or not one agrees or sympathizes with John C. Gebhardt, the subject of affirmative action is not well served by his article ['The Real Birth of Affirmative Action/' February 9...
...Inclement winter weather caused scheduling delays at our fulfillment house and affected the start of new orders...
...Rather than easing racial tensions, the discussion probably increased them...
...Turowicz disagrees with the major substance of our article, though we differ on interpretation...
...It simply isn't so...
...223-4 and 250-4, Dr...
...To a remarkable extent," they write, "it was the Communists who gave Poland its freedom, not Solidarity...
...I am personally impressed by the overall record of consistency on the part of Peter's successors...
...The writer argued that Catholics opposed to the death penalty are heretics who do not believe in life after death, for, if they did so believe, they wouldn't think that putting a criminal to death was all that bad...
...The families of many in that room-full of students are among the most affluent in the nation...
...that existed in Levittown and many other communities cannot be blamed on any government- or court-enforced covenants, or attributed to some faceless right-wing conspiracy...
...While these covenants remained in effect, they most assuredly resulted in segregrated communities...
...It doesn't begin or end with Honorius...
...Marxism was dead in Poland long before the collapse of the Communist party...
...he does not question that the CIA gave help...
...We refer American readers to Victory, by Peter Schweizer (Grove/ Atlantic...
...One comment by Mr...
...As a practical matter, then, there was no such covenant in effect in Levittown in 1952, even though it may have continued to appear on title commitments, extracts, and policies...
...I agree that for the most part the early popes were remarkable for their fidelity to orthodoxy...
...Nowhere in my article did I suggest the existence of a "faceless right-wing conspiracy...
...Gebhardt's version is that enforcement of restrictive covenants ended several years prior to his purchase...
...W. A. BRODERICK Willowbrook, III The author replies: I thank Mr...
...It is true that many party members were Catholics (given that 95 percent of Poles are Catholics), but it is not true of Kwasniewski and the party leadership, even if they were baptized as children...
...Many areas had covenants forbidding the owner to convey the land to a non-Caucasian...
...Poland: who did what It was with real amazement that I read the report you published ["Is Poland Going Communist...
...Perhaps this statement is what Mr...
...The students complained that affirmative action was being used to fill quotas and that as a result people like themselves were "getting the shaft...
...In the struggle for power in the late '70s within Polish government circles, both the Soviet clique and the pro-Western faction dubbed themselves Marxist...
...My answer: No...
...2, pp...
...Poland's newly elected president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, made much the same point in Party circles as he and others on the government side of the "Round Table" brought that system to a crashing halt in the late '80s-peacefully...
...Now, if Richard McCormick will tell us what "condign penance" is [Correspondence, February 23], and if not he, then Joseph Komonchak, since he is so willing to accept "condign penance" for but half-reading The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, then those of us who have not "hit the box" since the 1960s will know whether or not to chance a return...
...Broderick for pointing out what I had not been aware of: the 1948 Supreme Court decision barring enforcement of restrictive covenants by governmental agencies...
...FRED STOVEL Warner Robins, Ga...
...It goes without saying that those who have been through the Catholic-college drill of yore know what "condign merit" is...
...Vincent...
...If God turns the horrific evil of state execution to good (in the film, Matthew Poncelet's repentance and salvation), God does not therefore excuse that evil...
...This is dangerous, romantic philosophizing...
...To achieve their potential, these students need a little extra assistance...
...From the editors: We have a condign penance for Mr...
...My best guess is that most young buyers in the 1950s, not having read the fine print in their deeds, were unaware of the Levitt policy...
...Gebhardt, and we were happy that our property values were not compromised...
...In point of fact, Pope Honorius was condemned by the sixth ecumenical council: "There shall be expelled from the holy church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what he wrote to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrine...
...To say that Solidarity received funds from Mossad and the KGB is simply false...
...Marxism was a major tool of the intellectual founders of Solidarity, headed by Jacek Kuron and KOR, which shielded dissident critics who invoked Marxist principles in their call for government reform...
...JOHN C. GEBHARDT Who gets the shaft...
...The publisher is Crossroad...
...The author replies: The area of history during which the Christological controversies raged isn't all that dimly documented...
...Restrictive covenants were burdens on real estate, similar to zoning and easements, which limited the rights of a purchaser in the use and eventual resale of the land...
...From the editors: The identity of our cartoon curator is classified information, but (hint) her name appears in fourth place on the masthead...
...On May 3,1948, the Supreme Court ruled unananimously (Shelley v. Kramer) that any attempt to enforce a restrictive covenant involved state action in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and was thus unconstitutional...
...It is hard to hold them responsible for it...
...From talking with minority students, it's clear to me that many come from backgrounds that in the usual course of things would not grant them the kinds of opportunities that have come to me because of the town I come from and the schools I've attended...
...It's my view that affirmative action only helps those who need it, rather than hindering those who don't...
...adequate," as in "condign censure...
...Your authors say that most party members, including Aleksander Kwasniewski, were Roman Catholics...
...No, we took our profit and ran to a secure condo, remaining one step ahead of the problem...
...jerzy turowicz Krakow, Poland The writer is editor-in-chief of the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny...
...Honorius defended In his column on "Gender and the Priesthood" [January 26], John Garvey refers to Lord Acton's conclusion that Pope Honorius, speaking from the chair of Peter, proclaimed that monothelitism [the doctrine that Christ had a single divine nature] was true...
...However, Pope Boniface VIIFs bull Unam sanctum (1302), with its teaching that only those in visible, obvious communion with the Roman See can be saved-something declared by a pope, as pope, in a matter of faith and morals-upholds the later rejected doctrine of the excommunicated Father Feeney...
...We deceive ourselves if we think that in perpetuating violence by killing the violent, we are somehow doing God's will, helping God make things right, or doing the victim some good...
...Thus, the segregation Correction ** Lawrence S. Cunningham's religion booknotes [February 23,1996] misidentified the publisher of Paul Mommaers and Jan Van Bragt's Mysticism: Buddhism and Christian...
...Stripped of its perverse Soviet mutations, Marxism does not automatically exclude the concepts of social justice, democracy, and human rights...
...JOHN GARVEY No good from evil Richard Alleva ends his thoughtful review of Dead Man Walking [February 23] with a question: "Can the killing contraptions of the state be, in some cases, the gateway to salvation...
...As distasteful as execution may seem, we ought to bear up and do our duty, send this villain to the judgment seat of God, and trust in divine mercy...
...Stovel has in mind...
...Let it be clear, first, that we have no love of hardline Communists...
...December 15,1995] on the political situation in Poland following the presidential elections...
...Broderick startled me...
...Also, five Hail Marys...
...On the point of Kwasniewski's legitimacy as a Cath-olic: Until he publicly renounces his faith, that is an issue between him and God...
...We looked the other way, Mr...
...We did not petititon for an end to the practice, we did not boycott the banks that red-lined, and we surely did not tell our neighbors that we really wanted to sell to a black family, did we...
...the Greek is more moderate, saying, "having yielded" rather than "consented," which would conform to a letter in which Honorius was blamed for "not extinguishing the flame of heretical dogma from its conception, as was the duty of apostolic authority, but fostering it by his negligence" [my emphasis...
...DAVID PHILIPPART Chicago, III...
...Such diverse funding represents the panopticum of Solidarity's original strength as a political movement, reflecting its leaders' remarkable ability to persuade so many of the big guns in the cold war to support it...
...Gebhardt suggests that he benefited from the "affirmative action" of allegedly government-approved racial segregation in post-World War II housing, on the premise that the Levittown where he purchased a home in 1952 enforced restrictive covenants that effectively excluded non whites...
...This, according to Jaroslav Pelikan (The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, Chicago 1974, p. 152...
...PAUL D. VINCENT Rockport, Mass...
...It reminded me of a meeting in our dormitory concerning cultural diversity...
...I am saddened that this account was published in so prestigious a Catholic journal, since the article demonstrates that its two authors- who are probably very young-do not understand what happened in Poland...
...Alleva's argument showed up in much cruder form in a letter published in the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper...
...There really is something wrong here, and with the mentality behind the idea of papal infallibility...
...Much later, after New York had made discrimination in home sales illegal, some of us in the Levitt area organized to visit black organizations in Queens, trying to persuade renters there to buy houses in Levittown...
...What's to complain about...
...The problem with Mr...
...But Pelikan goes on to say that in the West, as late as the ninth and eleventh centuries, Honorius was listed among the monothelite heretics...
...Since almost all the participants were white males, it was perhaps not surprising that the discussion shifted quickly from ethnic awareness to affirmative action and "reverse discrimination...
...As the result of a class assignment at the University of Notre Dame, I read John C. Gebhardt's article on the benefits conferred on white people by a form of affirmative action...
...Solidarity's longing for independence and democracy, for social justice and respect for human rights, was simply Christian, not Marxist...
...We apologize to those who may have been waiting anxiously for their subscriptions to start...
...It seems risky to base an argument on one event in a slimly documented period of history...
...My point was rather that for years racism permeated all areas of American society-that whites like me benefited from a kind of "affirmative action," and that therefore as a matter of simple fairness we should support efforts to right the balance...
...Carroll, but Leo did list the founders of monothelitism and went on to say: "And along with them Honorius of Rome, who consented to the pollution of the unpolluted rule of the apostolic tradition which he received from his predecessors...
...On the contrary: Under pressure from Solidarity and democratic opposition, facing economic catastrophe, the Communists were forced to capitulate...
...If its promise is ever to be realized, affirmative action needs understanding of the original intent, actual accomplishments, and remaining agenda...
...I do not know which statement of Pope Leo II is referred to by Dr...
...Alina's parents spent years in a Soviet prison...
...THOMAS J. BEARY Burlington, Vt...
...Despite his vehemence, it does not appear to us that Mr...
...the students are attending one of the country's most respected universities...
...If the shoe fits...
...It is true that Mr...
...MICHAEL KIERNAN Notre Dame, Ind...
...I wonder what your columnist would say about the opinion of another Catholic historian, Warren H. Carroll...
...Thank you for your patience, and welcome aboard...
...The "Round Table" negotiations led to the collapse and self-dissolution of the Communist party...
...That same decision, however, made clear that private, nongovernmental parties (such as the Levitt organization) still had the right to include racially discriminatory provisions in their sales policies and documents...
...Such thinking is as hollow here as it is when children are told by parents before a spanking, "This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you...
...In his The Building of Christendom, vol...
...Hell, we're actually doing the poor soul a favor...
...In the case of the death penalty, it is dead wrong...
...Delusional scapegoating dilutes the energies of those who would, if well-informed, contribute to a realistic program and a better future...
...Turowicz says it is untrue that Solidarity received funds from Mossad and the KGB...
...For many and complex reasons, we were not very successful...
...it existed by reason of the silent will and tacit approval of the residents...
...That simply is not true...
...Your writers say that Solidarity was more Marxist than the government...
...Welcome Commonweal extends a special welcome to the hundreds of new readers who are starting their subscriptions with this issue...
...He is to look at page 306 of the American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition, where he will learn, without benefit of clergy, that "condign" means "deserved...
...Kwasniewski won the presidential election last November, and that today in Poland the two "post-Communist" formations are in power, but your authors do not seem to understand why it happened that way...
...In 1985 we hired blacklisted Solidarity technicians for a movie we shot in Poland...
...Solidarity's funding has been thoroughly documented in the Polish press...
...The authors reply: Oh, to be just young again, let alone very young...
...Pelikan goes on to say that this is in the Latin rescension...
...We agree that Polish communism was a bureaucracy-laden dying dog of a system...
Vol. 123 • March 1996 • No. 6
