Correspondence Critical minds at work on many targets
FAULHABER, CLARA WILL & KOLISS, JOAN A. & PIEPER, JEANNE & STRAULMAN, ANN & GLENDON, MARY ANN & SCHULTZ, KATHERINE & ZMUDZINSKI, EDWIN S. & BRAY, BOB & SULLIVAN, ROSE & McMENAMIN, ELIZABETH & RIGA, PETER J.
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Claws exposed Commonweal, claws exposed and teeth bared, has taken its annual lazy and tiresome leap at Catholics for a Free Choice [editorial, March 14]. One...
...I think it should be the former...
...Bray picked up is a case in point...
...Dehumanizing...
...Children in church Elizabeth Cahill's "Green Eggs & Ham & God" [February 14] reminds me of my sister's response when I was indignant that no children had been invited to a wedding Mass I attended...
...Glendon and her smug women students need to be reminded that forty years ago few if any of them would have been at Harvard Law School (except as secretaries...
...A crucial question: Who should make the decision whether or not to have an abortion-the woman (and her conscience), along with her doctor and her clergy person, or rather politicians and judges...
...She is also as misleading in her letter to the editors as she routinely is in her presentation of the church's position on abortion...
...Her women students, we are told, feel much the same about Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan...
...Cahill's middle-aged couple or the woman with the "bony, unsmiling knees...
...Petulance...
...I enjoy the magazine (as well as America), but I'm being priced out of the market by both publications...
...In brief: Yes, the veto was seriously wrong, even if based more on poor information than on sheer indifference to the evil of abortion...
...and (2) that Mr...
...Of course, even while we were there, and certainly when we returned to our "real lives," we feared that what we witnessed was a bare beginning, and we have to struggle daily against giving up the struggle for a better world...
...PETER J. RIGA Houston, Tex...
...True, conditions at the NGO Forum were such that many U.S...
...The writer is president of CFFC...
...Those opportunities are attributable to many causes, not least of which was a profound economic and social transformation that lifted many Americans to unprecedented prosperity, while condemning others (especially divorced and unwed mothers) to an ever more difficult struggle for subsistence...
...We Americans came in every color and ethnicity and spoke many languages...
...What in the world could there possibly be in Dole's record which would be worse than Clinton's veto of the bill seeking to stop the infanticide now going on legally...
...It would appear that, to the contrary, Commonweal's enthusiasm for finding common ground is parsimoniously dispensed...
...A glaring example of what I object to appears in your "Et Cetera" comment on an article by Bishop James McHugh about the 1996 election...
...That doesn't give any of us the right to feel superior to the people who made it all possible, or to take for granted what they achieved and what may so easily be lost...
...Few young mothers are willing or able to add community activism to their already too-full platter, overflowing with at least three full-time jobs (home and husband, children, outside employment...
...But there were equally conscientious Catholics who, examining Dole's record, felt they had no choice but to vote for Clinton, as the lesser of two evils...
...In our pluralistic society, the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade was and remains a prudent one...
...how could he be...
...Why not regard the ability to express one's views succinctly and to be heard as a gift, not a curse...
...EDWIN S. ZMUDZINSKI Fairfax, Va...
...But the book reviews...
...The author replies: Like Jeanne Pieper, I am still corresponding with many extraordinary women whom I met at Beijing...
...Yes, women, African-Americans, Jews, and (need I remind anyone...
...Clinton's decision was so horrendous that it provided sufficient reason in itself to persuade a conscientious voter to vote against him by choosing Senator Dole instead...
...Readers can help...
...Our letters are long and intimate, concerning everything from family life and relationships to how democracies work in the United States and in their countries...
...DiStefano is also mistaken...
...The most impressive aspect of the forum was that these 39,000 women from all over the world were all doing something concrete to try to improve life in their home towns and countries...
...The choice of books is fine, but for whom are the reviewers writing...
...The magazine seems to make the passage of laws (or a Constitutional amendment...
...once in a while (say, every third Sunday), ask your pastor or parish council to find out from us how our bulk sales plan works...
...Commonweal has also given space to another set of views...
...Both are married...
...Has it occurred to you to look to the magazine racks of parish churches as a way of increasing circulation and easing your monetary problems...
...That is no excuse for mere prolixity or obscurity, and we try hard to avoid such occasions of sin...
...But, as a participant in the September 1995 NGO Forum in Beijing, China, I am compelled to offer my different view of that event...
...Many couples choose to hire a sitter, or leave the children with a relative, or attend separate Masses and leave the little ones at home...
...I should note that I consider myself mid-range in comprehension: a college graduate, read or reread Merton, Chesterton, Belloc, Newman, Andrew Greeley, America, the Register, etc...
...the left hand does not know what the right hand is up to...
...The high cost of neglect The cover graphic advertising Dennis O'Brien's "The High Cost of College (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2) by reference to past injustices on both sides...
...Later, at another wedding, I was seriously distracted by the antics of a toddler in front of me...
...KATHERINE SCHULTZ Cincinnati, Ohio From the editors: It can be and has been argued: (1) that there is nothing in Senator Dole's record as ill-judged as President Clinton's decision to veto the partial-birth abortion bill...
...See Boston Globe column by Ellen Goodman, October 3,1996.]) Why the derisive conclusion that media crassly and ig-norantly turn to the CFFC "quotation factory...
...But there were women in attendance who were in their twenties and thirties, even teens, and they made sure their ideas were heard and taken seriously...
...Why the constant assumption of bad motives, manipulative behavior, and "hardline" positions...
...Since September 1995, the earth seems smaller, and my personal world far larger...
...one might be distracted by a thoughtless couple whose tot keeps plummeting into the pew ahead...
...Bray may be onto something...
...Instead of displaying petulance and, dare I say it, jealousy, regarding CFFC's success in capturing the imagination of popular media and winning increasing acceptance and respect among Catholic colleagues and friends, when will Commonweal look for that which is best in CFFC, that which is worthy, that which attracts others rather than what repulses Commonweal...
...JEANNE PIEI'ER Los Angeles, Calif...
...2) Like most other publications large and small, we offer introductory subscriptions to new subscribers at a sharp discount in the hope that once they know the magazine they will renew at a price that will cover our costs...
...Even if the Catholic church is absolutely right that abortion is always and in all circumstances evil and sinful, what right does the church have to force its belief, by law, on many Protestants, Jews, agnostics, and some Catholics and others who do not share that belief...
...MARY ANN GLENDON Too liberal Some time ago I replied negatively to a Commonweal renewal notice, commenting that "You're too liberal for me...
...3) Yes, the cost of a Commonweal subscription is high, a lot higher than we'd like, but it's not high enough to keep us in business without the help of gifts from the Commonweal Associates, and if it were lower we'd be in trouble even with those gifts...
...I think the $44 rate is outrageous...
...Glendon writes that she and her generation ("baby boomers...
...Not Ms...
...It is appalling that we are unable to imagine ways of molding our society so that we lead more balanced lives...
...Were they trying to impress their colleagues in the intelligentsia...
...women found them a cross between Girl Scout camp and Outward Bound, but many third-world women found them wonderful...
...I was lost before I got their point...
...They are said only to "seem" grateful (my italics) to the women's movement for "the opportunities they now enjoy...
...Most African-Americans appear grateful for the struggles of their predecessors...
...to prohibit abortion the paramount issue of our time and the litmus test of Catholicism...
...There are some Catholics out there in the trenches who can appreciate Commonweal...
...And the energy for much of the conference came from third-world women, whom we met not only as equals, but as teachers...
...Catholics have come a long way in the past few decades...
...But if one takes into account the entire records and programs of the two candidates and their parties, a voter could decide in good conscience that Mr...
...we do find sloppy thinking and implausible rationalizations in its frequent public statements...
...But whenever I find myself losing hope, all I need do is look at my list of names and addresses of real women from all over the world whom I met in Beijing, women who care passionately about a cause (and sometimes, but not often, even opposing causes) to realize that I am not alone...
...Commonweal's editors and writers should do all they can to reduce the hysteria and fanaticism surrounding this issue...
...many readers look to us for a fairly sophisticated treatment of works by the likes of von Balthasar, Blondel, Paul Wilkes, etc., and in that issue we try to oblige them...
...Have they bothered to learn that CFFC was the first to dub the debate about "partial birth" abortions a discussion characterized by "partial truth...
...It seems your subscription and promotion departments aren't operating on the same wavelength...
...ROSE SULLIVAN Morgantown, W. Va...
...Kissling finds it improper that this magazine criticizes her organization while its editor participates in the Common Ground Initiative...
...CFFC is wrong in its evaluation of the moral principles that decisions concerning abortion entail, and irresponsible in promoting the idea that Catholics are "free" to conclude that abortion is generally permissible...
...Very much enjoyed the column by Abigail McCarthy, the fine interview with Mary Robinson, the article by Brian Lennon, and others...
...I've just finished reading your issue of March 14, cover to cover...
...Callahan...
...But nothing about the Common Ground Initiative requires our editor to suspend her powers of critical reasoning...
...It seems odd that those who support abortion on demand in an absolutist fashion are regarded as progressive and open-minded, while those who have grave reservations about the killing of 1.5 million unborn children each year are labeled fundamentalists prone to fanaticism...
...TONY DISTEFANO Alexandria, Va...
...the other is a journalist from Ghana (who got my Beijing-purchased rain slicker...
...Not only did the feminists of the 1970s not "make it all possible," but they failed to go to bat for women who want to give priority, at least for a time, to child-rearing...
...ANN STRAULMAN Kansas City, Mo...
...Clinton and the Democrats were more likely to perceive the needs and defend the rights of needy Americans, avoid dangerously nationalistic policies in foreign affairs, improve the quality of schools, reduce the deficit without punishing the most vulnerable, and even-as a side effect of social and tax policies-help reduce the incidence of abortion: A pregnant girl or woman who hates the thought of abortion but is also desperately poor, jobless, and alone, may decide she has no other option...
...maybe I'll pass it on to America...
...Elitistweall BOB BRAY Carmel, Calif...
...That suggestion is free...
...Both arguments have been made in these pages, and not only by Ms...
...4) Some parishes do stock Commonweal on their magazine racks, and we work in season and out of season to increase their number...
...From the editors: (1) Our subscription and promotion departments, being pretty much the same person, occupy a single solitary wavelength...
...Why not consider that CFFC has something valuable to say that resonates with many...
...It is interesting that Commonweal continues its historical approach toward an organization with which it disagrees when its editor is central to the Catholic Common Ground Initiative-an enterprise that must count on wide dialogue to understand differences among Catholics...
...one wonders how Saint Paul and the other Apostles coped with it...
...Too costly I had already received two notices asking me to renew my Commonweal subscription for a year at $44 when, to my surprise, I received a request to subscribe for the same period for $21...
...Do Abraham Lincoln, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King, Jr., seem "quaint, and a bit strange," or is it just women who age so quickly...
...Needed: some gratitude I found Mary Ann Glendon's article troubling for many reasons, but I will focus on only one...
...Ann Straulman repeats the frequently heard but simplistic assertion that the women's movement of the 1970s deserves the credit for the opportunities that women now enjoy...
...A boost for Beijing Re: Mary Ann Glendon's article on "Feminism and the Family" [February 28]: As both a feminist and a grandmother, I am very concerned about what we as a society have done to our young mothers (and fathers...
...They were in Beijing to share their visions and techniques with one another...
...Who is responsible...
...Yes, there are difficult cases and possible exceptions...
...Jealousy...
...Anyway, I took advantage of the $21 dollar offer...
...Their indifference to the concerns of so many women, plus their cheerleading for divorce law reforms that were detrimental to women and children, explain why the leaders of organized feminism have not earned the sort of gratitude that is justly due to Martin Luther King, Jr., and his associates, nor the respect generally accorded to nineteenth-century suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony...
...Why the demonizing and dehumanizing...
...Democratic pluralism is not a justification for narrowing such legal protections...
...That's because big advertisers (the chief source of revenue for the mass media) don't love little magazines...
...found Susan B. Anthony and the suffragettes "quaint, and a bit strange...
...Inclusivity, a concept that can operate at many levels, becomes a...self-contradiction when it impugns any efforts to make distinctions or set defining limits...
...The editors reply: Demonizing...
...How much more enriching that unofficial conference would have been, however, had it not been dominated by well-financed special-interest groups from the United (Continued on page 29) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) States and Europe...
...But CFFC insists on making the exceptions the rule-and the rule of law...
...5) Thanks for asking...
...one is an engineer from Inner Mongolia (to whom I gave my Native-American-made earrings on the conference's last day...
...you should review it or suffer the loss of many subscribers, including me...
...by refusing to consider family life at least as important as workplace duties (including the current welfare "reforms," which have a chance of working only if they cost us more money through job creation, training, etc., than they save us in welfare benefits...
...Over a year-and-a-half later, I am still corresponding regularly with two women in their late twenties whom I met at the conference...
...Editorially, Commonweal, though it has criticized the veto in the strongest terms, has neither condemned nor endorsed either of these overall approaches to the 1996 election...
...But there's a risk in coming childless to Mass...
...I suppose this situation has existed whenever people gathered to worship...
...FRANCES KISSLING Washington, D.C...
...And I have heard at least once from a Tibetan teacher, an Islamic student from Turkey, and a villager from Nigeria (all under thirty-five), and from the head of Chicago's Department of Aging, who is a staunch Republican in her late seventies...
...An usher might be instructed to escort an offending child and its parents to a nursery, but I question whether he or she would accept this particular chore...
...Too wordy I am a new subscriber, enticed by a chance encounter with a delightful book, The Commonweal Reader, edited by Edward S. Skillin [1949...
...We are not here contending that her own conclusion is wrong, but that her argument for it is too simple...
...It does not surprise me at all that she found the NGO (nongovernmental organizations) forum personally rewarding...
...So I applaud Mary Ann Glendon's article, which was right on in many ways...
...The Initiative's guiding statement, "Called to Be Catholic," asserts that "the very idea of boundaries is a necessary premise, without which no identity can exist...
...The Religion Book issue Mr...
...That helped me see how parents can make others uncomfortable by failing to take responsibility for their children's behavior...
...Though probably 25 percent were from the United States (more of us could afford to go), it was definitely not white America that was predominant at the conference...
...Schultz has every right to decide that by giving the time of day to the second approach we have demonstrated that we are too liberal for her...
...Why is it that so many successful women think they alone are responsible for their achievements...
...We do not assume bad motives on the part of CFFC...
...Let me suggest a parallel in the Civil Rights movement...
...Kissling is overwrought...
...One wonders what values lead the editors to praise "British frostiness" over Christian civility and hospitality...
...But by all means, let us reduce the hysteria...
...To see who could write the longest sentences and come up with the most obscure words...
...On the other hand: Though Commonweal is intended for the general reader, we also cover developments in areas such as theology and political philosophy that can make demands on writers and therefore on readers...
...In brief: We do not favor the recriminal-ization of all abortions, but we do think that more restrictive abortion laws would better serve to protect human life and dignity...
...You write: "He favorably cites Sidney Callahan's column in which she declared her vote for Dole to protest Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion bill...
...Fundamentalist on abortion Your publication has a reputation as a "progressive" Catholic magazine, but your editorials dealing with abortion consistently sound fundamentalist...
...In our view, it is precisely the concept of boundaries that is at issue here with Catholics for a Free Choice...
...Certainly there were more women there who were over rather than under forty...
...Not the celebrant...
...From the editors: Mr...
...She pointed out that one unruly child can completely disrupt the service...
Vol. 124 • April 1997 • No. 7
