Correspondence
To the Editors God isn't Santa Claus Thank you for publishing John Gar-vey's excellent column on Judgment Day [October 10]. It is exactly for such articles that I, though not a Catholic and on a...
...ALIDA MACOR Martinsville, N.J...
...One doesn't deny that there are priests who harbor the same doubts as the rest of us, but I am convinced that is not true of most, nor is it the picture that a serious religious program should promote...
...McCarraher identifies the source of the all-pervading spirit in American Catholicism which threatens the very integrity of the Catholic faith: the imposition of a managerial-therapeutic model on the church by a laity trained not in the doctrines of Christianity but rather in the managed phoniness of corporate America...
...PAUL A. LOCKREY, ESQ...
...Save that show I really appreciated your recent editorial [October 24] on "Nothing Sacred...
...ANN MEYERS Rochester, Ind...
...If so, John Garvey's thesis could well be a cornerstone...
...According to Numbers [11:24-29], Joshua wanted Moses to stop the two elders, Eldad and Medad, from prophesying in the camp, for they had been absent when the Lord bestowed some of the spirit that was on Moses on some of the other elders...
...appeared on your cover [September 26] referring to Paul Saunders's article "The Vatican, the Academy, the Bishops"-only two days before the twenty-sixth Sunday in ordinary time...
...Somebody should explain this to the publishers, who sent us camera-ready copy for the ad...
...It seems the League and some other groups are responding to the show as they would to a new pastor: How Catholic...
...I have called all my friends and demanded that they read the article, because it draws together what have seemed to be disparate signs of a deep malaise that afflicts the church in America...
...Many recognized that American involvement in Vietnam was a colossal mistake, as McNamara and others refused to acknowledge until recently, and as some still do not...
...Supporting my suspicion is the thought that despite a million-dol-lars-per-year budget and a force of hundreds at work, from at least three major investigative agencies, the only information that had been developed prior to the meeting, other than (probably) analyses of postal data and explosive residues, was the textual analysis of the Unabomber's manifesto...
...I have often spoken against what I call Brady Bunch Catholicism in the radically horizontal, feel-good, sacro-pop Masses...
...Others took bolder stances by active resistance...
...The show must be doing something right...
...others took different paths in those years...
...I am not a regular reader of Commonweal but after the September 12 issue, I must seriously think of becoming one...
...But again, it's not tee vee...
...tures easily leads to a kind of phari-saic Pelagianism...
...designed to entertain, and, as Frank McConnell noted, to sell the sponsors' products...
...Neither, in our view, are the less-than-edifying aspects of the program singled out in this letter...
...Unlike lemmings or sheep who follow the herd, or the Judas goat, people always have choices...
...The Feds, especially the AFT [Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco Bureaul], love to do raids...
...I would suspect, however, that most serious Catholics find the series morally objectionable in some parts, often inaccurate in detail, and too disparately focused to teach even one solid lesson...
...There was no justification at all that I could see for the development of the investigators' profile...
...Good News becomes Good Advice...
...What was the FBI after...
...It is exactly for such articles that I, though not a Catholic and on a very small pension, subscribe to Commonweal...
...RICHARD G. CIPOLLA Fairfield, Conn From the editors: Additional comments on the McCarraher article, along with a response by the author, will appear in the issue of November 21...
...In my opinion it is a dismal drama about three confused, unhappy priests...
...Different Marthaler...
...This show has all the earmarks of entertainment and nothing more...
...From the editors: Good catch: It's Berard...
...that is, to exorcise the spirit of ignorance in the name of Jesus, or merely by the light of human reason...
...By the way, what purpose does the atheistic accountant serve...
...It is one of the tragedies of the twentieth, soon to be twenty-first century, that God turned into Santa Claus...
...EDMUND F. KAL, M.D...
...So: If Rome wants to have a say in the appointment of specialized faculty awarding "pontifical" degrees, let it have that say...
...But for theology courses in general, even more so for nontheological courses, let the colleges decide for themselves whether they want to consider themselves "Catholic...
...Philadelphia, Pa...
...An 'n' slipped in Just a note: In the ad for the New Catholic Encyclopedia in the issue of September 26 [page 25], isn't Marthaler's first name Berard rather than Bernard...
...One wonders how "Father Ray" ever made it through seminary and was ordained...
...GEORGE AUGER, C.S.V...
...The New Jerome Biblical Commentary remarks: "The acknowledgment of Eldad and Modad's prophetic charism by Moses, against the objections of Joshua, serves to protect the independence of the prophetic office from those who would subject it to institutional control...
...To anchor one's life almost exclusively on the moral vi"Experimenting with tradition since 1898...
...Dismal drama I would like to disagree with Frank McConnell's review of ABC's "Nothing Sacred" ["Faith and Doubt on the Tube," October 10...
...For, daunting as the dilemma may be, between preserving academic freedom and acknowledging Rome's felt need to guard orthodoxy, the solution seems to have been found two, or even three, millennia ago-at least if we believe the Scripture readings for that Sunday...
...It is unchristian and cruel to preach morality without rooting morality in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity...
...Jesus replied: "Do not prevent him;...whoever is not against us is for us...
...I foresee the show's going off the air for many reasons, but I do hate that the antagonism toward the program seems to be based on one character, without consideration that this is a program, not an individual...
...Has discernment gone out the window...
...Some, including myself, feebly "protested" while safely in college by supporting the candidacies of Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy...
...If their consciences need cleansing, they ought to grant an opportunity for repentance to Robert McNamara and others like him...
...It establishes a bad precedent for other difficult choices we still need to make in our nation's political and moral life...
...joe tonos Jackson, Miss...
...I believe that Ferkiss and the handful of others the Feds entertained in San Francisco in 1995 were the targets of that investigation, not consultants...
...The rich young man of the Gospels was respectable, but that was not enough...
...McCarraher hurrah...
...Was it coincidence that your question, "Can Rome Run Catholic Colleges...
...These authors weren't trying to subvert Christian values, nor to depict a sinless churchthat-never-was...
...Who's in charge here...
...But correcting that imbalance still seems to require holding antiwar protesters to a patriotism test: President Bill Clinton, a feeble protester like myself, or Dan Quayle, or that continuing target of veterans' groups, Jane Fonda...
...HOOK Milton, Del...
...Italics in the original.] So: Let's walk the talk...
...From the editors: Our correspondent has one thing right: Yes, "Nothing Sacred" is (was...
...Eugene McCarraher's article, "Smile, When You Say 'Laity,'" is not only brilliant but is vitally important for understanding the contemporary state of the Catholic church in the United States...
...Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all...
...Having paid a heavy price for our government's policies, these veterans still await a full redress of their grievances...
...The textual analysis itself would have suggested that an egghead type, like the founder of the Shining Path-not a Bell Telephone repairman who may have found a copy of The Future of Technological Civilization in the local library-was involved...
...DAVID J. NORRIS Hilmar, Calif...
...Should one of the major objectives for the Jubilaeum be returning Christianity to a true image of the awesome Jahweh...
...And, if Ted Kaczinski's brother had not been perceptive and courageous enough to turn his brother in, raids on some academics' offices would probably have followed...
...REV...
...Down with everything I was interested in the Catholic League's reaction to the program "Nothing Sacred...
...That makes any rationale for religion, especially Judaism or Christianity, hard to support...
...The blame game A. J. Bacevich's "On Not Forgiving Robert S. McNamara" [September 12] brought to mind several thoughts having to do not only with "War and Remembrance" but also what might be called "War and Selective Forgetting...
...D.D...
...REV...
...it is seen as especially insensitive to Vietnam veterans as they returned, wounded in body and soul, from McNamara's (or Johnson's, Kennedy's, Eisenhower's) war...
...The majority of human behaviors are not warm and fuzzy, and neither is God's judgment of them...
...This judgment does not question the skill of his writing nor does it mean that he is wrong about all aspects of the series...
...But that in itself is not grounds for condemnation...
...is unfashionable these days...
...One hopes the ratings will pick up (miracles do happen) and we can continue with life in Saint Thomas's Parish...
...Moses said: "Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets...
...Arlington Heights, III...
...How on earth is his belated personal struggle going to help his less-informed and -educated flock, not to speak of the television audi-(Continued on page 43) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) ence...
...Diluting the gospel John Garvey's column, "Judgment Day" [October 10], echoes a theme I have often pondered...
...It was right on target-just as the show is...
...blaming leaders alone for the errors of our ways is not only scapegoating but escapism, especially in a democracy...
...It may be only a trial lawyer's skepticism of police investigations, but I read Victor Ferkiss's story about the search for the Unabomber ["The FBI Comes Calling," September 26] in quite a different way than with the humorous spin he gives it...
...Is that what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is all about...
...It is preaching the law without the power to observe the law...
...demands that we reexamine certain excessively rigid schemata-for example, the distinction between the teaching church and the learning church must take into consideration the fact that each of the baptized participates, albeit at his own level, in the prophetic..mission of Christ....[W]e are talking not only about changing concepts but also of renewing attitudes...
...I also wish the Catholic League could have used its influence to help the bishops last year in their protests against partial-birth abortion, or even now in supporting boycotts against firms that use unfair labor practices in their production lines...
...Bacevich served in Vietnam...
...One advantage they had over today's TV producers: they didn't have to be funny...
...But McCarraher correctly situates the current state of the liturgy in the all-encompassing state of contemporary religious culture: a "Starbucks Catholicism embodied in a Church Mellow...
...REV...
...This gets yet more compelling if one considers the words of the very same pope in whose name all these edicts are coming down, in his first American best seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope: "Faith...
...Reduced to morality, Christianity becomes respectability...
...CATHY STEPANEK Minnetrista, Minn...
...I think the profile was a diversion...
...And how does an atypical-looking nun undergird the Catholic faith by spouting bits of "inclusive God language" and prayers to Buddha...
...About a thousand years later, according to Mark [9:38-41], John, one of the Twelve, wanted to prohibit an exorcist from driving out demons in Jesus' name, because he was not one of the disciples...
...My own interest is the liturgy...
...My fear is that something as well-written, directed, and acted as this program may not survive on commercial television...
...DAVID J. NORRIS Hilmar, Calif.ake in our nation's political and moral life...
...Lonely Frank In his enthusiasm for "Nothing Sacred," Frank McConnell is almost as alone as the Maytag man...
...Meantime we selectively forget that others chose to follow the "Judas goat" into the rice fields of Southeast Asia-or, at least, did not take evasive action or engage in outright protest...
...Just For information about the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement and their Associates, contact: Vocation Director Graymoor PO Box 300 Garrison, NY 10524-0300 914 424 3671 like the church...
...Saying "I told you so...
...REV...
...Without suggesting that "Nothing Sacred" is in the same league with The Power and the Glory, The Diary of a Country Priest, or the works of Flan-nery O'Connor, one might inquire why Graham Greene's priest-protagonist is a hard-core alcoholic, why Georges Bernanos depicted a pastor struggling with despair, why O'Connor's profoundly religious characters are such weirdos...
...rev...
...Fresno, Calif...
...LOVISA KAMENOFF Brockton, Mass...
Vol. 124 • November 1997 • No. 19
