Correspondence
Basketball & eternal life Timothy P. Schilling's "Hoop Dreams" [Last Word, June 5] must have revived memories deep in the RAM of basketball lovers across the country. His piece was "money" (as...
...1 8 The Truman Show The X-Files Richard Alleva BOOKS The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen Carl L. Bankston III Checking under the hood...
...All of us have problems with certain beliefs...
...religious congregations...
...CLAUDETTE KANE Austin, Tex...
...When he tells Susanna's maid that the devil is tempting her, it is no wonder that she seems to see--as should the audience---Satan at his shoulder...
...What John Paul II's apostolic letters "To Defend the Faith" and "The Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences" mean and why they will be counterproductive...
...that may deserve a millennial celebration and send-off of its own...
...She can truthfully give the piece of evidence which would serve to convict a man and woman she knows to be good, though in truth such testimony would only distort reality and lend support to a tale told by a man she knows to be a liar, a layabout, and a lecherous boor (an aspect of the case that Wren ignores...
...But when your church tells you that you are living in sin, that you must dissolve even a successful long-term second marriage, then you join the scoffers, and your "problem beliefs" become sufficient cause to divorce yourself from the institution that makes such demands...
...NETWORK is particularly vulnerable since it was founded and gets its chief support from U.S...
...Students at the University of Michigan make up 80 percent of the members of my parish, Saint Mary's student chapel...
...Commonweal is now an oasis, where right, left, and center receive a hearing in important controversies, as exemplified in your recent symposium on prayer [June 5...
...Without the benefit of incredibly good luck a woman as complex as Susanna will have difficulty satisfying all her loves...
...In a recent issue you allowed a convicted child molester to publish a woe-is-me piece deploring his prison conditions...
...His piece was "money" (as those who "got game" say today), but only as far as the individual side of hoops goes...
...All five of the children born to my wife and me are now grown and married...
...She follows her passion for healing when it leads her to marry the healer whom she respects and loves and whose vocation provides room for her own talents to flourish...
...Thank you, your Airness...
...There is the truth that fact can perhaps reveal but which it can also distort...
...Long W O R D 2 0 2 2 2 4 2 6 2 8 IO 31 Commonweal _9 475 Riverside Drive, Rm...
...The Red Hat by Ralph McInerny John Christie Portrait o f D r . Gachet by Cynthia Saltzman Donna Gustafson O f f i c i a l Negligence by Lou Cannon Ann Chih Lin P O E T R Y Meeting Diane Beaty THE L A S T Virtual Catholicism J.V...
...The fifth- and sixth-graders I coach today run to the scorer's table right after the traditional post-game "handshake of peace" to check their point totals...
...Three of the marriages are deemed valid but two are not, though both partners in the "invalid" marriages are Catholics...
...Nonetheless, it was disheartening to find Commonweal's critic among the doomers [June 5...
...Well-made 'Herbal Bed' When my husband and I saw The Herbal Bed we enjoyed its intelligence but recognized that its subtleties doomed it to a very short run...
...And I've read a lot in my seventy-six years...
...Why won't the hierarchy turn over jurisdiction in these matters to local pastors...
...BOB ZYSKOWSKI Saint Paul, Minn...
...Their apparent illiteracy with respect to advocacy efforts toward fashioning a society more in keeping with consistent church teaching bemuses me considerably...
...MY DINNERS WITH ISAIAH Ned O'Gorman A poet and educator remembers Isaiah Berlin's gift for friendship...
...It's like unto that wonderful "swish" as the ball brushes the net...
...For shame I am canceling my subscription...
...Illiterate on justice Among the very good materials in the issue of July 17, I was especially interested in the article on young adult Catholics ("A Faith Loosely Held," by William Dinges et al...
...To grant a convicted pedophile a hearing in a magazine devoted to religious discussion is unfathomable...
...But she is passionate in other ways as well, and it is Rafe who could satisfy that less intellectual passion as her husband cannot...
...That this calmer love is as real as her love for Rafe is made touchingly clear as husband and wife exchange glances during her trial before the vicar...
...Ridicule reigns Peter Steinfels's article, "A Tarnished 'Republic'" [June 19], voices a journalistic ideal that seems to have died out in the United States over the past thirty years...
...There are eleven grandchildren--all baptized after I went hat in hand and groveled before various pastors...
...But we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, and, in view of our faith these "problem" beliefs are filed away in some drawer...
...My now-grown daughter led her high school team in steals and assists even though she wasn't a starter...
...I am proud to be a member of the Catholic League and am equally proud to be a former subscriber to Commomoeat...
...And what an apt department for its conscience-piercing appearance---The Last Word...
...From the editors: Showing concern for people in prison is a corporal work of mercy recommended by Jesus Christ (see, Matt...
...The vicar is of another stripe a Puritan so sure of his own rectitude that he sees it as his mission to separate the tares from the wheat before the harvest, to do what the humbler Christian leaves to God, to root out evil, and he does so with such ruthlessness that he seems to rejoice in how much good must also be destroyed in the course of such "purification...
...Susanna's husband and her lover are Puritans who seek to avoid evil, to walk humbly before their God, and to do good...
...It's the precision of the pick and roll, where those setting the block give themselves up so that others can score...
...The last word was 'No' The Last Word essay by Kathleen Dean Moore ["Do I Kill My Father," June 19] was one of the best things I've ever read anywhere...
...I currently sit on the board of NETCommonweal 2 August 14, 1998 WORK a Catholic social justice lobby, and am learning just how fragile such organizations can be...
...With the judicious use of a judicial act of forgiveness and reconcilia(Continued on page 4) August 14, 1998 / Volume CXXV, Number 14 Correspondence Editorial Tests of faith r 0 L U M Dying t o vote Abigail McCarthy N I S T 2 5 7 S H O R T T A K E S Affordable housing Jim Wayne 8 Making schools equal Susanne Washburn When it comes to taxes and public schools, nothing is simple...
...Also, a recent editorial deriding William Donahue and the Catholic League smacked of liberal bias against any voice that does not embrace the multicultural vision that is slowly eroding this country's greatness...
...The deepest satisfaction in the workplace comes not from individual achievements but from successful team projects, ideas brought to fruition by the melding of the talents of several of God's children...
...A skillful writer can execute a hatchet job or build the simulacrum of a case with unrepresentative or out-of-context quotes and anecdotes...
...9 S C R E E N PUNISHING DISSENT Richard A. McCormick I 2 James A. Coriden I 3 Robert P. Imbelli 1 4 The canons roar...
...Realizing that no one column can say all things, I'd call this one "broke"----or, better, an unfinished masterpiece--because it missed the communal side of basketball, the side I've come to cherish more now that age has moved me from guard to strong (and slow) forward...
...Only circumstances prevent her from expressing that passion, but when she must choose which passion to honor, she chooses her husband and the productive life they have forged together...
...But it's a love that's getting harder to teach...
...It's a love I've found can be taught...
...Most telling of all, there is more than one kind of Puritan...
...ANNE LAURANCE Ann Arbor, Mich...
...405, New York, NY 10115 _9 (212) 662-4200 _9 http://www.commonwealmagazine.org (Continued from page 2) tion at a local level, we could increase our active membership by 40 percent...
...There is more than one truth, as a play with Shakespeare in its moral background must acknowledge...
...There is the truth of metaphor...
...JOSEPH G. SHARKEY Toms River, N.J...
...I wonder: Was it...
...If present trends continue, the drastic decline in numbers of women religious may bring its doom...
...He is assuming as his what belongs to God...
...There is more than one kind of feminism, and the kind that Susanna acts upon preceded not only Betty Friedan but the suffragettes as well: How does anyone--woman or man--succeed in realizing talents in spite of social constraint...
...Some publications don't even bother to be subtle...
...It isn't so much the shot that counts to me now, it's the pass...
...MRS...
...There is the truth of fact...
...BILL MCNAMARA New Bedford, Mass...
...Young adults & the church I believe that in their interpretation of the poll of young adult Catholics they had commissioned, the authors of "A Faith Loosely Held" [July 17] missed an important factor helping to explain their subjects" seeming disaffection from the institutional church...
...Still, the organization will celebrate a thirtieth anniversary in the year 2000...
...and some people better duck...
...But what is her choice...
...There's something of the Resurrection--dying and rising--in the selflessness of team play, becoming a servant to others to gain eternal happiness for one's self and one's friends...
...It doesn't help that NETWORK, despite the quality of its work and its fidelity to church teaching, has had little attention from the leaders of the ecclesiastical establishment...
...I 5 ISAIAH BERLIN: UNDERSTANDING, NOT MASTERY David McCabe 1 6 CONTAINING THE WILD THINGS Caroline Nesbitt Don't fence me out, said the moose...
...What he so aptly says of the New Republic is becoming common: "It did not take [Stephen] Glass's blatant fabrications to undermine the credibility of the New Republic's articles...
...25:34-36...
...JEAN-M[CHAEL AKEY Bronx, N.Y...
...The devil is indeed (Continued on page 29) Commonweal 4 August 14, 1998...
...On agreeing/disagreeing with William Donohue, the Scriptures are silent...
...The play is a dramatization of the ambiguities encountered in almost any attempt to act ethically and judge others accurately...
...It's the screening away from the ball...
...But there may be something in the revised Code of Canon Law about canceling a subscription without your pastor's permission...
...Sarcasm and ridicule for other points of view have become acceptable...
...There can be a transfer from the court to "real life...
...So, yes, as Celia Wren says, she does commit formal perjury...
...And there is more than one kind of love...
Vol. 125 • August 1998 • No. 14
