Correspondence
Ladies in red? Your comment [March 27] that "the College of Cardinals still has no coeds" triggered these reflections: _9 After African Bishop Ernest Combo publicly suggested that women...
...9 It isn't likely that we will ever see an apostolic letter claiming that the church does not consider herself authorized to confer the cardinalate on women...
...Most people who live here know there is no other country like America for freedom and opportunity...
...LARRY N. LORENZONI, S.D.B...
...The council blessed religious freedom, primacy of conscience, ecumenical dialogue, social justice, and political democracy--actions that continue to inspire liberal Catholics today, giving them hope for an open reexamination of many issues...
...I do not believe that U.S...
...In the twenty years I've lived in Houston, I've seen the Houston school district go from majority white to majority Hispanic, and the neighboring school district go from majority white to a nearly equal split among whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians...
...My interpretation of the past may be more "negative" than hers, but perhaps she would agree that any "history of the American people," whether critical or celebratory, is shameful if it excludes the vast majority of Americans...
...To say that "simply Catholicism" is the future of the church is to say once again that the faith is a matter of truth, not simply a matter of opinion...
...Surely the dogmas defined by the councils and the infallible teachings of Peter's successors...
...that abortion is gravely sinful and wholly acceptable) is not a community of believers...
...This emphasis does not recognize the sacrifices of earlier generations to make America a better place, or the great men who gave us the best political system in the world...
...There were mistakes and tragedies in American history, but books that focus on these negative victim/villain images are doing us and our children a disservice...
...Black is not white Like Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, I was present when Cardinal Francis George pronounced the death of "liberal Catholicism" as an "exhausted project" and predicted that the future of the church lies in "simply Catholicism...
...For her part, Steinfels might further the conversation by explaining more hilly what she means by "liberal Catholicism...
...The dream to make a good life for oneself and one's family is a lure to all, from those with manual laboring skills to those with technical, professional, and entrepreneurial skills...
...But what criteria determine the content of "simply Catholicism," distinguishing revealed truth from heretical opinion...
...In all of this, liberal Catholics experience no contradiction between their views and Cardinal George's ideal of a life-giving, joyful faith which unites us with the church of the past...
...But an even deeper critique is needed...
...He has made me realize how often we take our freedom of speech for granted...
...Perhaps Paul Johnson's A History of the American People is flawed, but I can't be sure, because what is most obvious in the review is Appy's desire to see public admissions of guilt and apologies--for the A-bomb, slavery, capitalism, the treatment of Native Americans and women, etc...
...When I talked recently with my coworker, a Vietnamese, about President Bill Clinton's troubles, he pointed out how in this country we can laugh about our president...
...Teachings are not static...
...Is it unreasonable to wish that some day there might be women to represent over half of humankind in the pope's council--even to help elect the pope of all...
...Nor does Johnson teach us anything about the history of Grfffith's African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern neighbors...
...2:1-20...
...Ha~ng contended that liberal Catholicism proposed new understandings of the human person and human freedom, conscience, church and state relations, she might wish to clarify the relationship between these constituents of liberal Catholicism and the truth of the faith...
...I am aware, however, of what has been proposed as the Conservative Manifesto: "Nothing must ever be done for the first time...
...DANA GREENE Alexandria, Va...
...Simply Catholicism" is not, however, simply static...
...WILLIAM V. D'ANTONIO Washington, D.C...
...The church cannot be a democracy of thought because all thoughts do not equally reflect the truth...
...Cardinal George says that his own ideal, "simply Catholicism," is "able to distinguish between what fits into the tradition" and "what is a false start or distorting thesis...
...It does not inspire self-sacrifice or foster greatness but only creates resentments and division...
...The unity of the church is the unity of faith, of many believers sharing the same beliefs...
...I agree that history should teach us about "the sacrifices of earlier generations to make America a better place," but we don't learn much about these from a man who makes the Great Depression seem like a market correction...
...The church has changed its teachings on usury, slavery, marriage, and freedom of conscience---to name but a few...
...it cannot be squared with the true apostolic teaching that Jesus was truly God and truly man...
...Steinfels's comments quite properly raised that question, to which it is hoped that Cardinal George will provide some answer...
...Thus, in George's words, "simply Catholicism" is "a church which knows her Lord and knows her own identity, a church able to distinguish between what fits into the tradition that unites her to Christ and what is a false start or a distorting thesis...
...I've worked with, my sons have played sports with, or had for neighbors people from Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, India, Mexico, and Central and South America...
...neither did Ephesus, Chalcedon, Florence, Trent, or Vatican II...
...It sustains those who articulate a "faithful dissent" on such questions as contraception, married clergy, the ordination of women, and divorce and remarriage...
...If the worst aspect of Paul Johnson's book is that he celebrates the greatness of America, that is surely not something to be ashamed of...
...9 The last unordained cardinal was Giacomo Cardinal Antonelli (18061876), secretary of state to Pius IX...
...9 The requirement (since John xxIII) that every cardinal be a bishop need not be a hindrance...
...The First Council of Constantinople surely marked a development in Christian doctrine, a change from the teaching of the First Council of Nicea...
...but what beyond this...
...In the immediate absence of a reply from him, let me hazard a response in his stead...
...To do so would destroy the very life, joy, and connection to the past that Cardinal George values...
...history is "simply a series of cruelties and tragedies...
...Well said...
...A group whose diverse members believe such diverse things (that Jesus was divine and that he was only human...
...To cite examples (not employed by the cardinal), Hans Kfing's theory that Jesus showed the way to salvation but only as a human ambassador for the divine, not as God himself, is an opinion which all faithful Catholics must reject...
...JOHN M. BREEN Chicago, I11...
...In 1489 Giovanni de Medici (the future Leo X) was made a cardinal at the age of thirteen...
...CHI~S APPY Simplified Catholicism...
...The faith has surely evolved over time, but this process of development takes place according to a principle of noncontradicfion...
...Put another way, "simply Catholicism" is the idea that there are such things as orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and that Scripture and tradition enable us to distinguish between them...
...I've seen a new "Chinatown" develop...
...Your comment [March 27] that "the College of Cardinals still has no coeds" triggered these reflections: _9 After African Bishop Ernest Combo publicly suggested that women might some day be named "lay cardinals," Pope John Paul II reportedly observed that "Bishop Combo's proposal was not so farfetched as to be unbelievable...
...No one "disappears," no one's family is punished...
...Yes, change is a messy process, but what better evangelism is there today than the believer who thinks...
...they (Continued on page 4) Commonweal 2 June 5,1998 (Continued from page 2) have changed and evolved...
...San Francisco, Calif...
...As Steinfels wrote, there is diversity within the church, and, indeed, "it is hard to imagine a Catholic church without some degree of diversity and pluriformity...
...the same church that makes the rule can make the exception, as occurred, for instance, with deLubac in 1983 and Pavan in 1985...
...Writing on "Development of Moral Doctrine" in Theological Studies in 1993, John Noonan made the case for evolving theological thinking: "All will be judged by the demands of the day in which they live....In new conditions, with new insight, an old rule need not be preserved in order to honor a past discipline...
...While liberal Catholics claim no monopoly on critical thinking, they see it as a core element in addressing the social and theological issues that occupy us in a particular time and place...
...In the first decades of Christianity, Paul had to correct Peter so that the gospel might be brought to Gentiles as well as Jews (Gal...
...This inerrancy is of course the gift of the Holy Spirit...
...The cardinalate is not an evangelical category...
...the church can make of it whatever she wishes---and she has...
...Again, Frances Kissling's opinion that abortion can be a morally licit, even laudable act consistent with the teaching of the gospel cannot command religious assent...
...The vast majority of our people came here, and are still coming here, because they see America the dream...
...Still, it cannot be this diversity and pluriformity that make the one out of many...
...I too look forward to hearing some clarification of this provocative thesis from Cardinal George...
...CHRISTINE GRII*H IH Houston, Tex...
...We deserve better...
...Commenting on a homily by Cardinal Francis George in which he described "liberal" Catholicism as an exhausted critique and a parasite on something that no longer exists, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels responds that Catholicism is big enough for a diversity of views, and that liberal Catholicism has made a major contribution to the contemporary church [Notebook, April 10...
...Casti connubii (Pius XI, 1930) and Humanae vitae (Paul VI, 1968) in our own time present dramatically different teachings on marital sexuality and responsible parenthood...
...A liberal Catholic response might be: Precisely what is the tradition...
...My chief objection to Paul Johnson's book is that it claims to honor the American "passion for justice" without examining any injustices or the efforts of so many diverse and anonymous people to right them...
...These changes reflect the critical thinking of Catholics through the ages...
...But Constantinople did not contradict Nicea...
...Immigrants come here because this is the land of opportunity...
...The reviewer replies: Thanks to Christine Griffith for taking the time to criticize my review...
...It is in this vein that George concludes that the church "here and now" is "always one with the church throughout the ages and with the saints in heaven...
...It does not "fit into the tradition" that unites the people of God to Christ...
...Liberal Catholicism today rises organically from the teachings of Vatican II, which recognized the church as the "people of god" in whom unerring belief rests...
...Our history isn't that dark Chris Appy has written a review that reveals more about himself than about the book he reviewed...
...Commonweal 4' June 5, 1998...
...They refuse to cede the church to those who understand critique as a form of disloyalty...
...Teachers and writers who view American history as simply a series of cruelties and tragedies, victims and villains, miss the central fact about America...
...it is contrary both to Scripture and to the constant teaching of the church...
Vol. 125 • June 1998 • No. 11
